A Man to Call My Own

Chapter 2

IT WAS A SMALL ranch by most standards, but even smaller by Texas standards. Nestled in the fertile plains west of the Brazos, with a quarter mile of an ofrshoot of the river passing through the northeast corner of die spread, the Twisting Barb encompassed some prime land, if not a lot of it. With less than a thousand head of cattle, the ranch had room for more, but its owners had never aspired to be "cattle kings."

There was only one owner now. Red had taken over the running of the ranch after her husband died. She had learned ranching well, could have handled the task with ease, except for one thing—a lack of good cowhands who would listen to her.

At her wits' end, she'd been seriously thinking about selling. All their good cowhands had up and left when her husband died. She'd put out the word in town that she was hiring, but any hand worth his salt sought a job on the Kinkaid spread. The only ones willing to work for her were wet-behind-the-ears teenagers, and young Easterners who'd drifted west for one reason or another but had to be taught every step of the way when it came to ranching.

She was willing to teach. But they weren't willing to learn, at least not from an old gal they viewed as a second mother. Like a passel of youngsters, they'd listen to her, but they didn't hear. Her instructions went in one ear and out the other. She'd been on the verge of giving up and selling out when Chad Kinkaid came along.

She had known Chad for many years. He was the son of her neighbor, Stuart Kinkaid, a rancher who did aspire to be known as a "cattle king." Stuart owned the biggest ranch in the area and was always looking to expand it. He would have been knocking on her door if he'd known Red was thinking of selling. But she didn't really want to sell, she'd just figured she had no choice, as bad as things had gotten after her husband died. But Chad turned her situation around, and she still gave thanks for the storm that had brought him to the Twisting Barb three months ago.

It had been the last bad storm of the winter season. And the only reason Chad happened to be nearby when it broke was that he'd had a falling-out with his father and was leaving home—for good. Red had put him up for the night. Being an astute man, he'd noticed that something was wrong, and over breakfast the next morning, he'd dragged it out of her, the troubles she'd been having.

She hadn't expected his offer to help. But she should have. Stuart Kinkaid might be an ornery cuss, but he'd raised a real fine son in Chad.

If she were twenty years younger, she'd be in love, she was that grateful to him. But she was old enough, or pert near old enough, to be Chad's mother, and the truth was, though no one else knew it, she was in love with his father. Had been since the day she met him twelve years ago when Stuart rode over to welcome her and her new husband to his neighborhood, and gave them one hundred head of cattle to help them get started on their fledgling ranch.

Stuart had been about the most handsome man she'd ever met, and coupled with his kindness that day, he'd gradually wormed his way into a corner of her heart and stayed there. Her husband never knew. Stuart never knew. No one would ever know if she could help it. And even though Stuart's wife had died long before she'd met him, and her husband had died just recendy, she never once thought about doing anything about her feelings for that tall Texan.

Stuart Kinkaid was just too grandiose for her: rich, still handsome, a bigger-than-life personality, a man who could have any woman he wanted if he set his mind to it. While she was a kindhearted redheaded mouse of a woman, who hadn't turned any heads in her youth and certainly didn't now when she was nearing forty.

Chad was like his father in many ways, too handsome for his own good, but she'd never heard of him breaking any hearts along the way, so she didn't think he took advantage of his looks in that regard. He might have been a bit rowdy in his youth, might butt heads with his father quite frequently, but he was dependable. If he said he'd do something, come hell or high water, it would get done. And, of course, he'd been raised to be the best catdeman around. He'd been raised to take over the huge Kinkaid spread.

It didn't take long for Chad to turn the bunch of greenhorns Red was stuck with into a well-oiled outfit. The hands looked up to him, heck, they loved him. He knew how to work men, so even when he had to scold, they didn't feel they were hopeless. They were more than willing to learn from him, and learn they did.

Chad was a cattleman through and through. The logical choice for him would be to start his own ranch somewhere. But doing that would truly cut the ties with his father, and she didn't really think that was his intention. He was making a point in leaving home. He was giving Stuart time to figure out what that point was and to accept it.

Red was realistic though. Three months was long enough to get one's point across. Chad would be leaving soon, either for another state or to go home and settle things with his father. But he'd be leaving her in good hands, she hoped. He seemed to be putting a lot of effort into training her oldest hand, Lonny, to take over when he was gone. Another month or two and Lonny would make a fine foreman. She had no doubt of that. She just never knew from one day to the next whether Chad would stick around for those couple more needed months.

He probably would. She'd sprained her foot last week, and even though it was feeling better already, she hadn't let on that it was. Chad had been worried about her since the accident, and she was reasonably sure that a worried Chad would stick around.