Long, Tall Texans: Luke
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Diana Palmer
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5
CHAPTER ONE
Luke Craig was a rancher, and he’d battled all sorts of problems over the years. He’d had to deal with falling beef prices, closed markets, crazy winters and bad fall harvests that required him to buy feed for his livestock over the winter. But the problem that had just cropped up was one he’d never seriously considered. A summer camp for underprivileged city kids had just opened right next door to his ranch, and he was having to come to terms with invaders who made the Mexican Army in 1836 look tame by comparison.
To top it all off, the owner of the camp was a feisty young woman who seemed to have cornered the market on bad temper and stubbornness. Her name was Belinda Jessup. He knew her brother, Ward, slightly, having met him at cattlemen’s association meetings in the past. Ward was more interested in oil wells than cattle, as a rule, but he still kept his membership in various groups that dealt with livestock. Belinda didn’t resemble her brother all that much, but they shared the same hot temper. She wasn’t bad looking, with her dark blond hair and green eyes and outgoing personality. Strange how she rubbed Luke the wrong way.
His sister Elysia liked Belinda. Of course, Elysia had just married Tom Walker, the father of her young daughter Crissy, and right now, in the glow of nuptial bliss, she liked everyone. Luke, living alone for the first time in years, was heartily sick of his own cooking and his own company. Belinda’s project made him even more irritable than he normally was.
It had come as a shock to discover that old man Peterson had sold the river property that adjoined Luke’s to an outsider. It had been sudden, too. The land hadn’t been advertised, not even with a sign on the roadside. One day, old man Peterson owned it. The next, it was being developed as a youth camp, complete with roofed pavilion, small cabins and a pier on the river. Luke’s pasture adjoined the property. It was delineated by a sturdy electrified fence and a steel farm gate with a padlock. The very first morning Ms. Jessup’s city kids came to stay, the padlock was skillfully removed and the gate opened. Neighbors had called the sheriff’s office to complain that Luke’s Hereford steers were roaming the neighborhood—and the highway.
Luke and his men had rounded up the cattle, put them back into the fenced pasture, and the padlock had been replaced by a chain half the size of one that held a ship’s anchor, affixed with eight combination locks.
The next morning, the sheriff’s deputy was back with the same complaint about loose cattle. Luke checked and all eight combination locks were lying on the grass, rusting.
It was inevitable that the rancher would go straight to the source of the problem.
Belinda was working out the next day’s recreation schedule when she heard the sound of a horse’s hooves outside the large cabin that served as her main office. She’d heard about the liberated cattle and she had a cold feeling that retribution was at hand.
She went out to meet trouble head-on. It was trouble, too; a lean, lithe man in denims and wearing an expensive wide-brimmed hat and hand-tooled boots with silver spurs that even her brother would have coveted.
As he came closer, she saw that he was incredibly handsome, with thick blond hair and eyes as blue as a china plate. He had a firm mouth and a square jaw, and an expression on his lean face that could have curdled milk. She didn’t need telling that this was Luke Craig. She’d already heard about him in town, although most people said he was easygoing and friendly. He didn’t seem that way to Belinda.
She held up both hands. “We’re quite willing to pay damages,” she said at once. “I know who the culprit is, and I’ve had words with him. Strong words.”
He put both hands on his narrow hips and glared down at her. It was a long way down, too. She was a little woman. “If those had been my breeding bulls instead of steers, we wouldn’t be having words, Miss Jessup,” he said in a deep, cutting tone. “You’d be locked up in the county jail, alongside your larcenous cohort.”
“My larcenous…!” Her mouth closed with a snap. “You hold it right there, cowboy,” she said shortly, losing patience and diplomacy in one breath. “These kids have never had much. They live in abject poverty with parents who don’t want them. Some of them have been beaten, some have been addicted to alcohol and drugs, some have been in jail. The oldest is barely seventeen, and I’ll leave you to imagine the sort of upbringing they’ve had. I opened this camp to give them a glimpse of life as it could be, as it should be! I brought them here to learn that there’s more to the world than dirty houses and drunk parents and the sound of gunshots every night they live.”
He studied her with open curiosity, his expression giving away nothing of his thoughts. “You’re a one-woman salvation society, I gather.”
“Actually, I’m a poorly paid public defender in Houston,” she replied. “In the summer, I take a few kids camping. This year I decided to buy some land and make it a permanent camp.”
He nodded. “Right next to my largest pasture.”
“This is Texas,” she reminded him. “You’ve got lots of room. I only want this little tiny bit of land, right here, that I bought and paid for.”
“You didn’t pay for the right to let my cattle loose.”
She sighed heavily. “You’re right, I didn’t,” she admitted. “And if I hadn’t insisted on bringing Kells along with me, you wouldn’t have been inconvenienced twice in one week. I’m sorry.”
She’d piqued his curiosity. He’d known several do-gooders, but most of them were all talk and no action. “Kells?”
“The seventeen-year-old,” she continued. “I defended him when he was arrested for shoplifting. Last month I convinced the judge to give him a second chance and asked for him to be remanded into my custody from juvenile hall.” She grimaced. “He’s not your ordinary slum kid. There hasn’t been a lock built that he can’t pick. If they put him in prison, he’ll be a master safecracker by the time he gets out, complete with diploma.”
“Having learned the trade from pros, in the slammer,” he agreed.
“Exactly.” She searched his blue eyes curiously. “Socially conscious, are you?”
“I watch the six o’clock news,” he returned. “And I’m all for prison reform. I just don’t want it next door to me.”
“That’s how everyone feels,” she told him. “It’s the same with any unpleasant thing. Yes, let’s have a new sanitary landfill, but not on land adjoining mine. Yes, let’s have an incinerator, a water treatment plant, a new factory—but not on land adjoining mine.”
“You can’t blame people for guarding their investments,” he pointed out. “And I work as hard for my income as you work for yours, Miss Jessup.”
She smiled. “I know a little about cattle. My brother’s into oil exploration these days, but he still runs a thousand head of Santa Gertrudis on his ranch up in Ravine.”
“He’s from Oklahoma originally, isn’t he?”
“No, but our mother was,” she corrected. “We still have relatives there,” she murmured, without adding that they never had any contact with those relatives, or their scandalous mother, who’d deserted them to run off with a married man.
“I know your brother,” he added unexpectedly. “I go to a few cattlemen’s conventions, when I can manage time. He got married a few years ago, didn’t he?”
“Yes, to one of the few women in the world he actually likes,” she murmured dryly. She looked past him at the big black-spotted white horse he was riding. “Nice mare.”
“She’s four,” he said with a smile. “An Appaloosa. I breed a few of them.”
“My boys would love to ride a horse,” she murmured.
His face hardened. “Would they? There’s a riding stable a mile down the road—Stan’s Bar-K Ranch.”
“I know. I’ve already approached him about riding lessons,” she said with a smug grin at his chagrin. “Spiked your guns, huh, Mr. Craig?”
He looked around at the cabins. Curtains moved in one. He’d have bet money it was the boy she’d mentioned—Kells. He glared toward the spot and the curtain fell together and remained still.
“Nice glare,” she murmured. “How long did it take you to perfect that?”
“All my life.” He pulled the hat farther over his eyes and glared down at her. “No more opened gates. I’m putting a man out here on night duty. A city policeman. He’ll be armed.”
She drew her breath in sharply. “You’d have him shoot a child for trespassing?”
“I would not,” he said coldly. “But I’m trying to make you see the seriousness of the situation. It wasn’t so many years ago that leaving a gate open could get you hung in Texas.”
“So could insulting a lady,” she drawled.
He lifted a blond eyebrow and a corner of his mouth tugged up in a very sarcastic smile.
She actually blushed. Her hands clenched at her sides. “I’ll be sure and tell Kells that your storm trooper is lying in wait for him.”
“Some storm trooper,” he murmured. “A family man with six kids and ten grandkids who can’t make it on what they pay him to risk his life every shift he works.”
She had the grace to feel ashamed. “Sorry.”
“You’ve been standing on the wrong side of the law for a while, haven’t you?” he asked coolly. “Perhaps you should spend a little time with the victims of the people you defend and broaden your view of the world around you.”
Her indrawn breath was audible, even above the brisk wind in the trees around them. “That was uncalled for! You have no idea what I do—”
He cut her right off. “I have every idea! I sat in court and watched an ambitious public defender accuse my mother of asking to be beaten every night of her life by a drunken lunatic who caused her to miscarry two children.” His blue eyes blazed in a face gone taut with horrible memories. His fists clenched at his sides. “To hear him tell it, my father was a victim of his family, not the reverse. Well, sadly for him, there were color photographs of my mother and my sister, very graphic ones, that the jury got to see.” The hatred he felt for the whole legal system was written all over him as he spoke in curt, deep tones laced with bitterness. “They put him away for five years, despite all the legal chicanery and smooth talk, but not in time to save my mother. She’d suffered so much abuse that years were taken off her life. She died right after he was convicted.”
Belinda was shocked that a total stranger would tell her such a thing about his family. She was more shocked that he made her feel dirty with his confession, and vaguely guilty, as well.
“I’m sorry,” she said with genuine sympathy.
“Sorry.” He looked her up and down coldly. His eyes went past her to the cabins. “Yes, you’re sorry for the way the legal system works, Miss Jessup. So sorry in fact that you’ve brought a few future lawbreakers down here to the brush, to coddle and baby them so that they’re even more convinced that society owes them a living for the horribly bad lives they’ve lived.” He glared at her. “I could write you a book on dysfunctional families and physical abuse, but I’ve never picked a lock or stolen a car or shot another person in my life, except during Desert Storm when my army reserve unit was called up.”
She moved back a step. “I’m not trying to defend criminals, Mr. Craig. I’m trying to turn some potential criminals around before they become the real thing.”
“Pamper them, then,” he mused. “And see how long it takes one of them to slit your throat while you sleep.” He leaned forward. “But don’t take my word for it,” he added sardonically. “It’s been my experience that stubborn people have to learn the hard way.”
“You have a very narrow view of life,” she replied.
He looked down his nose at her. He knew he was being harsh, but something about her egged him on. “I’ll bet you were loved and wanted and spoiled, weren’t you?” he asked.
She was unnerved by that blue glitter. “My childhood is none of your business.”
He laughed hollowly. “To hear you tell it, every criminal’s childhood is my business. Poor little murderers and thieves and rapists. They just needed a little more love to be good citizens. And the people they victimized probably deserved it, didn’t they?”
She was shocked. “I never said that!”
“You do-gooders think it. They said my mother asked to be beaten.”
She winced. “Of course she didn’t!”
“Really? The public defender was eloquent about that. He had dozens of reasons why she enjoyed having her face broken time and time again.”
“He was doing his job,” she said. “Even the worst criminal has the right to an attorney.”
“Of course,” he drawled. “And every public defender has the right to build a reputation for setting the guilty free.”
“Was your father set free?” she asked pointedly.
“The public defender convinced the parole board to let him loose early,” he told her. “He’d have come back with blood in his eye and taken his rage out on my sister and me. But he dropped dead in his cell of a heart attack. I suppose God still believes in justice, even if the legal system has forgotten the meaning of the word.” He turned around. “I won’t have the boy shot if he picks that lock again. I will have him arrested and prosecuted.” He paused, glancing back at her. “I’m not a poor country kid at the mercy of the system now. I can afford the legal help of my choosing, and pay for it. If I lose any more cattle, you won’t be taking one of your charges back to the city after summer camp. And that’s the only warning you’ll get.”
He swung back into the saddle, turned the horse and rode back the way he’d come, his back as straight as a board.
Belinda watched him go with more conflicting emotions than she’d felt in her life. He was a bitter man, and they’d made an enemy of him because Kells couldn’t keep his fingers to himself. If she wasn’t careful, if she didn’t keep a close watch on the boy, she’d land him in jail herself, when her whole purpose in coming here was to keep him and his mates out of trouble.
* * *
She worried the thought all through the evening meal of hot dogs and French fries, her green eyes on the lanky dark youth with the curly black hair who sat idly at the table taking a pocket watch apart and putting it back together for amusement.
Kells was hard to reach. He was ultrasensitive about his lack of grace and looks as well as his background. He had five brothers and sisters scattered around the country with various relatives. He’d moved here with his mother and her boyfriend, but the boyfriend didn’t want him and his mother wouldn’t fight for him. He’d stolen a CD player on purpose to get back at her when her boyfriend had beaten him. In his neighborhood, many people had criminal records. But Kells had magic in his fingers and something in his manner that set him apart from his peers. Belinda had recognized the potential in him. She believed in him. She was the only person who did. She’d had to fight his mother and the whole juvenile court system to get him here to summer camp. Now he was seventeen and he could go to jail if he was arrested. She might have taken him out of the frying pan only to land him in a fire.
He noticed her scrutiny and his black eyes came up, hostile and faintly defensive. “I can put it back together,” he muttered when he saw her eyes on the watch.
“I know you can,” she said, and smiled. “You’re very clever with your hands, Kells. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone your age who had the facility you have with mechanical things.”
He averted his eyes and shrugged, but she sensed that the compliment had pleased him. “That cowboy going to arrest me?”
“He’s a rancher. It was his cattle you turned loose, twice.”
“I never turned no cattle loose,” he said with his head down.
“You picked his locks and opened the gate. The cattle turned themselves loose.”
He made a jerky motion with his head. “Never seen cows before,” he mumbled.
“Steers,” she corrected.
His eyes came up and he seemed suddenly alert. “Steers? What’s the difference?”
“Cows are mothers of calves. Heifers are unbred cows. Bulls are stud cattle. Steers are neutered cattle raised for beef. Those were steers. They’re beef cattle.”
His whole face seemed entranced. “Like at the supermarket, ground beef and all.”
She smiled. “Yes, that’s right.”
He lost interest in the watch. “Why does he keep them apart from the others?”
“Bulls won’t tolerate a steer, and mother cows will fight them to protect their calves,” she explained. “Besides that, it’s logistics. It’s easier to have different categories of cattle in a bunch, easier to work them when it comes time to separate them.”
He leaned forward. “Work them?”
She chuckled. “During roundup. You have roundup twice a year on the ranch, once in the spring when the calves come and once in the fall, when you’re rounding them up for sale or culling nonproducers. Calves have to be dehorned, branded, given their vaccinations, castrated if they’re to be beef cattle, and tagged.”
He was really interested. His eyes were more alert than she’d ever seen them. “Do they have names or something?”
“They have numbers, usually on their ear tags, but sometimes they’re tattooed or a computer chip with the individual animal’s history is implanted under the hide to be read with a scanner.”
“You’re kidding!”
“I’m not. We still have rustlers in the cattle industry, even today.”
“Did those steers have computer chips?”
“I don’t know.” She pursed her lips. “We could ask Mr. Craig.”
He grimaced. “Oh, he won’t talk to me,” he said. “I know how people are around here.”
She studied him quietly. “How are they?”
“Prejudiced,” he muttered.
She smiled. “Did you know that a quarter of all the cowboys in the west during the last century were black?”
“They were?”
“African Americans and Hispanic Americans still make up a good portion of the numbers out here on ranches—they certainly do on my brother’s. And I’m sure you’ve heard about the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry—the Buffalo Soldiers—and the Fifty-sixth and Fifty-seventh Infantry units. All African American.”
“You mean, the Buffalo Soldiers were all black?”
She nodded. “They had the highest reenlistment rate and the lowest desertion rate of any group in the army.”
He seemed to grow taller as she spoke. “They didn’t say nothing about that in history class.”
“It’s changing,” she said. “Slowly but surely American history is starting to include contributions by all races, not just the whites.”
His lips tugged into a reluctant smile as his long-fingered hands toyed with the watch. “You’re okay, Miss Jessup.”
“So are you, Kells. Don’t worry about Mr. Craig. Everything’s going to be fine.”
“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “It’s not hard to see that he don’t want us here.”
“Sure he does,” she countered. “He just doesn’t know it yet!”
