Cowboy For Hire by Alice Duncan

have ignored him. He’s such a … pig.”
    “He is that.” Charlie liked the feel of her
hand on his arm. Unfortunately, she didn’t leave it there.
    “You’re very understanding, Miss Wilkes,”
Martin told her with a smile that looked as if it were nine-tenths
relief. “I’m sure you’re right.”
    “I don’t know about this.” Charlie didn’t
care for the turn the conversation was taking. “It ain’t right for
a fellow to talk to a lady the way Mr. Huxtable talked to Miss
Wilkes.”
    “I know it’s not,” said Martin.
    Amy nodded. “Yes, but you see, I don’t think
there’s any changing Mr. Huxtable. He was a beast at my uncle’s
health spa, and he’s a beast here. I think he’s simply a beast, and
there’s no doing anything with him.”
    “I did something with him,” Charlie pointed
out, beginning to feel slightly peeved.
    “Yes, you did.” Amy beamed up at him, making
him light-headed for a second. “And I truly do appreciate it. But
you really can’t continue to hit him every time he says something
awful, because the only time he isn’t saying awful things is when
he’s asleep. If you hit him all the time, we’ll never get this
picture made.”
    “Exactly!” Martin looked happy with her
sensible attitude.
    “I don’t know. I don’t like it.” Charlie
kicked at the dirt, beginning to get the uncomfortable idea that
he’d done something silly. Only a moment before, he’d been feeling
kind of heroic. Ding-bust-it, females and movies were a purely
baffling combination. He’d enjoyed watching both individually in
the past, but dealing with them in person and together was another
matter entirely.
    “Believe me,” said Amy, “I don’t like it when
he’s rude and awful to me. It’s humiliating to be baited by such a
man. And he deserves to be hit for being such a swine. But the
sooner we get this picture over and done with, the sooner we can
all go home again.”
    “Yes, indeed,” said Martin, again with clear
appreciation of Amy’s good sense. “For the time being, why don’t we
take a break from rehearsal. I’m sure everyone’s nerves need to
settle a bit. I’ll go see how the costumes are coming. They might
be ready for your first fitting, Miss Wilkes.”
    “Thank you, Mr. Tafft.” She gazed at Charlie.
“And thank you , Mr. Fox. It’s nice to know that not all men
are like that … that … awful Mr. Huxtable.”
    “Sure thing, ma’am.”
    Charlie peered down at her, noticing all over
again how pretty she was, how her hair glinted with red and gold
highlights in the sunlight, how big her blue eyes were, how fresh
her complexion, how elegant her figure. She was quite a package.
Some of the boys on the ranch might even call her a dish. Charlie
would never do anything so disrespectful, but he was beginning to
like her better than he had at first. Maybe he’d been a little hard
on her, even. Just because a person had never drunk coffee was no
reason to—
    “Oh, my goodness!”
    At Amy’s sharp cry, he jerked his head up so
fast he all but broke his neck. “What is it? What’s wrong?” He was
ready, whatever it was. He didn’t have a gun, but he could heave a
knife as well as anybody in Arizona Territory. He scanned the
scene, from right to left and back again, searching for whatever it
was that had alarmed her. From the tone of her voice, he expected
to see anything from a rattlesnake to a rabid polecat to Horace
Huxtable with a gun.
    Her voice had sunk to a whisper when she
spoke again, and she’d pressed a palm to a cheek that had suddenly
gone as white as a snowdrift. “Is that woman actually”—she inhaled
a big breath—“ smoking? ”
    Charlie blinked at her, then blinked into the
distance. A young woman stood outside one of the crew tents. And,
yes, she was smoking a cigarette. The way Miss Wilkes had said it,
he’d thought the girl had caught fire, at least.
    “I think so,” he said, not sure what she
expected him to say—or what she