Cowboy PI by Jean Barrett

absence and, no, she would not leave camp for any reason or fail to make certain she remained in the company of the entire outfit.
    Dirty, exhausted, stiff and sore from her long day in the saddle, Samantha would have liked nothing better than to crawl inside her sleeping bag and stay there until morning. But even though she was ready to collapse, she was much too anxious to rest. She kept thinking about Roark and Shep, hoping they were safe, although they had armed themselves before riding away.
    She busied herself helping Ramona put the chuck wagon to bed for the night. Ramona asked no questions, though she had to be aware that the two men had slipped off after supper. Alex brought Samantha a bucket of water from the stream, and she used it to give herself a quick sponge bath behind a blanket strung on a line.
    And all the while she worried about Roark and Shep,wondered about the man on the ridge. Who was he? What did he want?
    Her concern deepened with the twilight. She was fast approaching a state of alarm when, just before full darkness, the two men rode back to camp.
    “Nothing,” Roark reported to her as he dismounted from his horse. “We couldn’t find a sign of him. He’s either well hidden up there, or he’s left the area.”
    “I think he’s gone,” Shep said. “I’m ready to believe we’ve seen the last of him. Is there any coffee left in the pot?”
    Night settled over the camp. Tired though she was, Samantha lay awake in her sleeping bag. Dick Brewster had the first shift watching over the cattle. As he slowly circled the herd on horseback, she could hear him in the tradition of an old-time drover softly serenading his cows to keep them peaceful. The horse wrangler had a good voice.
    “The Red River Valley,” a soothing song. Very effective with the longhorns, but it didn’t work with Samantha. Probably just because it was a cowboy song, and that made her aware of the man who lay next to her in his own sleeping bag. Made her remember how protective of her he was, never wanting her out of his sight, shielding her from any potential threat, forever concerned about her well-being.
    All right, so he was being paid to keep her safe, but he had no need to care about her in any other regard. And yet all day he had been quietly attentive, assisting her whenever she needed help, backing off when she didn’t, and always ready with a word of praise or encouragement. Believing in her.
    Protective and attentive. A potent combination, one almost any woman would be susceptible to, especially when it came packaged in a man with Roark Hawke’s tantalizing assets.
    It was also a treacherous combination when Samantha was unable to forget that Roark was a cowboy. He belonged to this scene in a way that she, although raised to it, never could. Dear Lord, he even walked with the sexy swagger of a cowboy. And there had been moments today when she had detected on him the faint aroma of male sweat mingled with saddle soap. Memories. He brought back memories she didn’t want, couldn’t deal with.
    But how was she to avoid them when the man responsible for them lay so close beside her that she could touch him without effort? Longed to touch him because, even asleep as he was, he tugged at her senses.
    There was one advantage anyway in Roark’s disturbing, late-night nearness. She was so busy resisting it that she forgot about the man on the ridge, prepared by now to believe that Shep was right and that they’d seen the last of him.
     
    Y ESTERDAY WAS A PICNIC , only, I didn’t have the sense to realize it.
    Samantha had every reason to frequently remind herself of those words the following day, most of which she spent being miserable with water dripping from the brim of her hat and smelling the unpleasant odor of wet horses and cattle.
    They had awakened to the sight of clouds piling over the mountains, and by the time they’d finished breakfast, the blue bowl of the sky overhead had disappeared under a heavy