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Hadn’t he ever looked at her before?
    She would have been less than honest with herself if she hadn’t admitted that she had watched him with a certain amount of interest. After all, he was a rich, young, rancher’s son, the object of a lot of girls’ fantasies. Even discounting who he was, Chase was roughly good looking in the Calder way.
    Her glance strayed down to the baggy Levi’s she was wearing. She wasn’t always going to wear somebody else’s clothes. She wasn’t going to live the kind of life that her mother had known with her father. She was going to be somebody—the lady her mother had always wanted her to be—someone important. People were going to go out of their way to speak to her on the street and not shake their heads in pity when she went by.
    Her mother. She had been such a gentle woman, so slim and fragile, old before her time. Maggie had been only twelve when she died. The cause of death had officially been attributed to pneumonia, but Maggie knew her mother had literally worked herself to death. She could remember her clearly—always working from the dark of morning to the dark of night, always struggling to maintain a decent home for her family, always defending her husband’s failures, and never complaining. Maggie had grown up protective of her mother, quick to defend her when her father complained that dinner wasn’t on the table the minute he walked in. She didn’t condemn her mother for her self-effacing attitude; rather, she considered hermother had been misguided. There was nothing self-effacing about Maggie.
    Ambition burned in her. Not the dreamy kind her father had. Hers was fierce and consuming, driving her to obtain an education even without regular schooling, and to secret away nickels and dimes she had squeezed out of the slim amount her father gave her to buy their food. Someday she’d have the money saved to leave, and no one was going to stop her.
    Maybe she would come back someday, wearing one of those elegant dresses like the models in the fashion magazines. She’d love to see the looks on people’s faces. She smiled just thinking about it.
    The point where they would ford the river was just ahead on their left. Maggie fell back to the rear of the herd as they angled the cattle toward the bank, bunching them closer together. The river was as high as it was ever going to get. Winter run-offs and spring rains made it chest-deep, except where there were deeper pockets. At the ford, the river ran wide and shallow, from ankle-deep most of the year, to thigh-deep in the spring.
    The clean, clear sight of it winking at her through the cottonwoods on the banks reminded Maggie how grimy and sweaty she was. They’d been without running water in the house for almost two weeks since the pump to the water well broke down. Her father had been tinkering with it—with no success. She’d been hauling what water they needed from the barn, which was supplied by a different well. The prospect of hauling and heating enough water for a bath seemed daunting in light of the chores to be done and the supper still to be prepared when they reached home.
    The riverbank began to slope gently to the water, worn down by years of crossings. They turned the cattle down the slope, bunching them tightly. The leading cows balked at entering the water. Yipping and whistling,they pushed the rear ones forward, forcing the leaders into the water. The crossing was accomplished with little fuss, the sluggish current offering no problems.
    Maggie dropped back to ride beside her father. From this point on, it was an easy mile’s ride to the fence line. Between her father and Culley, they could handle the cattle with no difficulty. Having risen at daybreak to help with the morning chores and working every hour since, Maggie felt entitled to a half-hour or more of respite and the chance to actually immerse herself in water instead of merely