She turned to find Ryder carrying a second block from the storage room. He walked with a decided limp. She wanted to slink away and hide, but she reminded herself that this big, handsome cowboy had killed her baby brother in a fit of rage. Someone had to figure out what was going on here and reveal the truth.
Unfortunately, she was the only someone who could or would.
* * *
Every step hurt, and his two middle toes throbbed incessantly, but Ryder consoled himself with the fact that neither his big toe nor his pinky had been smashed. Either would have made walking far more difficult. He’d soak his foot and tape them, but it would have to wait until they were finished with the southeast section.
Wyatt needed his help before the storm came, and Ryder reasoned that he’d be riding more than walking. Besides, his pride wouldn’t let him limp away to lick his wounds. He’d had worse injuries, much worse. It was probably his own fault, anyway. He’d been distracted by standing so close to her while he handed her that block. Maybe he’d fumbled it, making it harder for her to keep her grip.
While Ryder finished loading the mineral blocks, Jeri went to help Wyatt load the sledges and harnesses in the back of the truck. Then she helped him turn the unsaddled horses out into the corral and walk their saddled mounts to the truck. Jeri held Pearl’s reins while Ryder and Wyatt tied their respective mounts to the end of the trailer.
“Why aren’t we hauling the horses?” she asked.
“Well, we’d normally use Delgado’s truck or Jake’s,” Ryder told her. “But Delgado’s off today, and since Jake opened his mechanic’s shop, his truck is often in use.”
“I have a truck,” Jeri pointed out. “My trailer’s over at the Burns place, but if you have one, I could—”
“We’ll trail ’em,” Wyatt decreed. “It’s not that far. Thanks anyway.”
Trailing the horses meant slow going; not that Ryder would’ve minded if his foot hadn’t ached like a whole mouthful of rotten teeth. Still, he said nothing as Jeri got into the back seat of Wyatt’s truck cab. Wyatt took the driver’s seat and slowly pulled the rig out of the barn, flatbed and horses behind them. Ryder closed the doors and limped over to crawl into the front passenger seat.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Wyatt asked as Ryder wiggled his toes, trying to ease them.
“I’m fine. I don’t think they’re broken.”
“You ought to know,” Wyatt muttered. “You’ve had more than your fair share of broken toes.”
“Comes with the territory,” Ryder said, twisting to smile at Jeri, in case she was feeling bad about dropping that block. She winced slightly and turned her gaze out the side window.
Ryder faced forward and reached for the handle of his door as Wyatt brought the truck to a stop in front of the main gate.
“No, no,” Wyatt said, throwing the transmission into Park. “I’ll get the gate. You stay off that foot while you can.”
An awkward silence filled the truck cab as Wyatt left them to push the heavy gate open.
Ryder twisted around in his seat again, worried that Jeri might be fretting. Or maybe he just wanted to look at her. She’d pulled her hair back into a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck, covering her ears. Those big brown eyes stared at him from beneath the brim of her hat. He’d never seen anything prettier. He felt like he was fifteen again, trying to work up the nerve to speak to the most popular girl in school.
“I hope you won’t be too cold out there,” he finally said. He just couldn’t think of anything else.
“I’ll be all right,” she told him, pulling a long red muffler from a coat pocket and draping it around her neck. She held up her hands, showing him the leather palms of her matching red knit gloves. “See? All toasty.”
He reached behind him and pulled out his own gloves then held up them up to show them off. Made of thick, supple leather with slit cuffs that could be rolled down, they were the best work gloves he’d ever possessed.
“Stark turned us on to this brand. The linings can be removed for washing. Or for summer.”
She nodded but said nothing. So much for putting her at ease with conversation. He pulled on his gloves in silence.
Wyatt opened the door and got in. He slowly guided the rig into the pasture, making sure to clear the horses before putting the transmission into Park again.
Ryder opened his door. He wanted away from Jeri Bogman for a few moments to clear his head. He couldn’t figure out what to make of her. She looked as sweet as cotton candy, but she had a certain coolness about her that he found puzzling. “I’ll close the gate.”
At the same time, she said, “Let me get it.”
She opened her door and bailed out just as he attempted to pass by. They collided. She bounced off him, reeling backward. He caught her before she could hit the truck, his hands clamping onto her upper arms. She looked up, her eyes huge in her sweet face. Something hot and electric flowed between them. Gasping, she jerked back as if he’d burned her.
“S-Sorry!” She made a face as if to say, “I’m such a klutz.” Then she turned toward the gate and trotted away.
Frowning, Ryder got back into the truck.
“That woman is dangerous,” Wyatt muttered.
“You’re telling me,” Ryder said with a chuckle.
She was the most dangerous woman he’d ever come across.
With the gate safely closed behind them, they drove through pasture after pasture, passing big round hay bales. Wyatt stopped the truck and got out to set down mineral blocks, stripping them of their plastic covers and tossing the resulting detritus into the back of the truck for disposal later. They’d put out water troughs at the sites with windmills next to the fenced plots where their late uncle, Dodd, had started growing sod, which had turned out to be a major cash crop for the ranch. As long as the water was pumping, they didn’t have to worry too much about ice forming, but it was safer to lock down the windmills in cold weather like this. Ryder used a ball peen hammer to break up the ice on the surface of the troughs so the cattle could drink.
At every stop, Jeri checked the horses and surveyed the surrounding land with curious eyes. She had lots of questions, which Wyatt answered, succinctly at first and then with growing detail as he responded to her enthusiasm. It was obvious that cultivating grass as a cash crop intrigued her.
“Raising cattle is a risky business,” Wyatt told her. “You have to hedge your bets any way you can. How Dodd came across this idea, I don’t know, but it’s a good one if you’ve got enough land and the right soil compositions.”
Ryder noticed that Jeri became much more relaxed and animated when she was talking about ranching, animals or grass. She warmed to each subject as it arose, engaging happily with Wyatt, but she ignored Ryder pointedly. He didn’t know whether to be glad or sad about that.
When they got to the ravine that would serve as their staging area, they parked the truck and got out to load the hay and remaining mineral blocks onto the sledges, which they lined up side by side. Ryder worked to secure the load on the middle sledge with rubber tie-downs while surreptitiously watching Jeri struggle to do the same on another sledge to his right. She reached across with her left hand to secure the hook at the end of the tie-down in a small metal loop on the sledge, but the loop popped free, allowing the rubber strip to snap back in Jeri’s direction.
Instantly, Ryder lurched to the side, knocking her out of range of the rebounding tie-down and the metal hook attached