Sandra Chastain by Firebrand

melt.”
    “What can I do about it?”
    “As I see it, old friend, not a damned thing, except make sure you don’t drown in the thaw.”
    At that moment Rusty and Doak rode back toward the truck. Rusty was red-faced and visibly upset.
    “Something wrong?” Eugene asked curiously, as if he had expected her frustration.
    “Wrong?” Rusty swore, and flicked the reins of the horse against her thigh. “That bull isn’t about to let us drive him anywhere. He’s too—too excited. We’ll just have to wait until he’s … done.”
    Rusty could barely contain her fury. First her emotions had been stroked to the bursting point by McCall’s kisses. Then she’d ridden into a blind canyon for a bull who was aroused beyond anything she’d ever witnessed in all her years of breeding cows. Pretty Boy was awesome. He was ready to do his job, and he had no intention of allowing anybody or anything to separate himfrom the willing cows he’d gathered in the canyon.
    The sheer animal instinct of his purpose had fanned her already volcanic emotions to a near explosion. For ten years she’d ridden out with her men without ever feeling the least bit self-conscious about the breeding of the cattle—until today. She looked at the knowing smile on Cade’s face and cut the horse around, riding away from the men until she could bring her feelings under control.
    “Say Pretty Boy’s hot and bothered?” Eugene slid down from the fender and spit a pool of tobacco on the hard ground.
    Doak nodded. “They get that way, but this old boy’s a real sight. Maybe if he knew us better, we’d get around him. As it is, without a tranquilizer gun I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere.”
    Cade looked up. “Tranquilizer gun? Don’t you have one?”
    “Yep, but Rusty don’t like to use it. It isn’t as reliable as you think. If you get the dosage too heavy, you can kill the animal. If it isn’t heavy enough, you just make him crazy, and then you can’t get the antidote into him to bring him out of it. Of course, you can hit the wrong place and kill him with the dart.”
    “So,” Cade asked, “what do we do?”
    “We could wait until the fool wears himself out, which, from the looks of things could be days.”
    “I don’t want to do that,” Rusty interrupted as she walked her horse slowly back toward the group. “He could injure himself. But at the moment I don’t know what else to do. We’ll make camp and wait.”
    “Suppose it’s dark by then?” Eugene asked witha curious expression on his face. Cade knew that meant Eugene was working on an idea, though Cade couldn’t imagine what kind of moose story would help now.
    “Well, that would make it harder,” Rusty admitted. “He could slip by us and reach the open range.”
    “Do you have an idea, Eugene?” Cade looked at his old friend and waited.
    “Maybe. Can I borrow one of these fellows to go back to the bunkhouse with me?”
    “Certainly. Go with him, Joe,” Rusty said, “but I can’t imagine what you have in mind.”
    “Just a thought, but it might work. Come on, boy.” Eugene crawled back into the truck and sent it in a wild circle.
    “Are you sure he was the camp cook?” Rusty asked suspiciously.
    “Well, ‘cook’ doesn’t quite cover it. Eugene cooked. He also meddled in everybody’s business, made things work when they gave out, and generally considered himself the camp den mother.”
    Rusty made certain she kept Doak between herself and Cade as they waited, but even from a distance she was highly aware of the banked fire in Cade’s eyes. She didn’t know what might have happened on the mountain ridge if shots hadn’t sounded. But she decided that the time had come to make a decision about the preliminary contract before she lost all control of whatever future they might have together.
    The phrase “make love” had taken on an entirely different meaning for her now. Every time she waswithin ten feet of Cade McCall, she became a radio