Last Chance Cowboys: The Drifter Read Online Free PDF Page B

couldn’t be more than twenty, if that—to be in charge of the ranch.
    He had to figure out the right way to speak to her so she might offer him a job. From the minute he’d stumbled across the fenced land of the Tipton Brothers Company, he’d begun to have his doubts about working for that outfit. He tended to be a live-and-let-live kind of guy. Judging by all that barbed wire, those who ran Tipton Brothers liked being in control. There would be a lot of rules and probably not much pay. Men who owned big companies like that could be pretty tightfisted when it came to sharing the profits. If he could work at a smaller spread like the Porterfield ranch, it would probably be a better fit.
    Eduardo had come to the barn while Chet was washing up. Chet hadn’t been fooled for one minute when the Mexican babbled on about needing to stay out there for the night. Something about a coyote coming after the chickens. Truth was that he was glad for the company. Eduardo seemed inclined to talk, and that suited Chet just fine. It had been Eduardo who had advised him to wait until morning before trying to talk to “Miss Maria.”
    â€œShe’s been having a pretty hard time of it these last few months. My Juanita says she hasn’t even grieved properly for her papa.”
    Over the course of the evening, he’d learned all about Mr. Porterfield’s tragic death, the fact that the eldest son had taken his inheritance out in cash and headed east, and the details of how the ranch’s foreman had just that morning quit and left with three of the ranch’s most experienced hands. What he hadn’t been able to get Eduardo to talk about was the women of the house—especially the fair-haired beauty the men called Miss Maria in a tone that bordered on reverence. As he rode on, searching for the other missing animals, he realized that as much as he wanted to find out what had happened to those strays, he wanted more than anything to return them to Miss Maria . He wondered if that might even make her smile. She struck him as someone who did not smile nearly enough.
    * * *
    It was late afternoon when Maria saw Roger Turnbull’s mustang gallop into the courtyard. He slid from the saddle and ran toward her as if he had just discovered that the house was on fire and he was needed to rescue its occupants.
    â€œMaria, are you all right? Is everyone all right?”
    It occurred to Maria that there had been a time before her father died that he would never have been so familiar—Miss Maria, yes. Just Maria? Certainly not.
    As she had feared, the rain had come and gone and done about as much good as someone spitting on a patch of dirt and hoping grass would grow. The ground was so hard packed that the rain had simply run off the surface. But at least when she’d gone to wash clothes, she’d been thankful to see that the stream that ran through their property had risen some. She continued to hang clothes on the line that stretched across the yard while she spoke to Roger around a wooden clothespin she held between her teeth—a clothespin that would bear the mark of those teeth. The minute she had seen him galloping up to the gate, she had bitten down hard.
    â€œWe are fine.”
    Roger tipped his hat back and surveyed the area. “How many did we lose?”
    His proprietary tone was her breaking point. “We? We! You left yesterday if you recall, taking three of my men with you. Why do you care how many of the herd I lost?”
    â€œNow, Maria, just calm down. I am here now and…”
    Just then Maria became aware of a ruckus near the corral. “Well, will you look at that?” she heard Bunker bellow, followed by whistles and cheers from the other men.
    â€œWho the devil is that?” Roger growled as he watched the drifter ride up to the corral leading a calf and a steer with another smaller calf draped across the saddle in front of him.
    Maria slowly removed