Cowboy For Hire by Alice Duncan Page B

things?”
    Martin eyed him as if he wondered if Charlie,
too, had taken to drink, and Charlie realized that Martin had only
left Amy and him five minutes before. He broadened his smile to
show that he was in full possession of his senses.
    He wasn’t, though. Staring into Amy Wilkes’s
eyes had done something serious to his senses, although Charlie
wasn’t sure what it was. They were heaving and spluttering like
crazy, though, and making him wonder if he’d taken sick.
    She, too, appeared comforted to have Martin
interrupt what she evidently considered the scene of her
embarrassment. She shot one last glance at the cigarette-smoking
woman over by the crew’s tent. Charlie thought he detected a little
reproach—and a whole lot of bewilderment—in her expression.
    Her smile for Martin Tafft was a winner,
though. Charlie wouldn’t mind her tossing a couple of those smiles
his way. Not that she would, since she thought he was lower than
snake spit—and she thought he thought she was, too. It was tough
maintaining his smile with that notion rattling around in his brain
pan.
    “Miss Wilkes!” Martin called while he was
still several yards off. “The costumes are ready for your first
fitting, and I think they’ll be wonderful.”
    “Thank you. That sounds like a nice—er—thing
to do.”
    What it sounded like to Charlie was that she
was guarding her tongue to within an inch of its life and was
trying like thunder not to allow another spontaneous comment past
her lips. Charlie wished he’d kept his danged mouth shut earlier.
He kind of enjoyed hearing about all the things that perturbed her
and made her ever-so-dainty feelings recoil. A body couldn’t haul
back his spoken words like he could a runaway calf, though. Fine
time to remember that, he thought glumly.
    Martin shook Charlie’s hand when they were
close enough to reach each other. Charlie wasn’t used to shaking
hands every single time he came across a fellow he worked with, but
guessed he could stand it.
    “Let me show you to the fitting tent,” Martin
said to Amy. “It’ll probably be lunchtime when you’re through
there. When the bell rings, why don’t I drop by and walk you to the
chow tent?”
    “Thank you very much, Mr. Tafft.”
    Turning to Charlie, Martin said, “Why don’t
you—ah—study your script or something, Charlie? We’ll have another
rehearsal after lunch, since this morning’s was—er—shortened
unexpectedly.”
    If that wasn’t a polite way of putting it,
Charlie didn’t know what was. He said, “Sure think, Martin. Will
do.”
    And as he watched Martin and Amy walk away,
Charlie noticed that they constraint Amy exhibited when she was in
his own vicinity had slipped away. He frowned. She was cozy as
kittens with Martin Tafft. With Charlie Fox, she was like a frozen
millpond. He figured it was because he’d teased her a wee tiny bit
when they’d first met.
    And maybe he’d hinted that she might be a
drop too fussy.
    Oh, all right, and he supposed he’d treated
her as if he thought she was a stuffy prig.
    Aw, hell, what he’d done was make her feel
like a pile of horse poop. He heard his uncle Bill, clear as a
bell, telling him, “Never miss the chance to keep mum,
Charlie.”
    Uncle Bill, as usual, was right. Charlie
hadn’t kept mum when he’d had the chance, and he’d managed to hurt
Miss Wilkes’s feelings. Shoot.
    As he shoved his hands into his pockets,
hunched up his shoulders, and headed to his tent, another one of
his uncle Bill’s favorite sayings tiptoed into his head. “There’s
two ways to deal with women, Charlie, and don’t neither one of ‘em
work.”
    Charlie could almost hear his Aunt Bess’s
hollered reaction to Bill’s words from the kitchen of their ranch
house.
    He had a feeling Uncle Bill was right. Damn
it.

 
    Five
     
    Amy felt pretty awful by the time she and
Martin arrived at the tent where the costume fittings were to be
done. That wretched Charlie Fox always seemed to make