Page 34 of The Soldier and the Cowboy

By the time everything was over, it was time for supper. “I’m sorry you lost a whole day to this,” Bailey said as she and Cal walked side by side to the house.

“That’s the least of my worries. We took one of theirs. They’re going to try and take one of ours,” he said.

“Maybe.”

“You don’t think?” he asked, his tone hopeful.

“I don’t know, Cal. In traditional rules of war, they would realize and recognize the threat. They would understand we won’t back down and might begin to cut their losses and move on. It’s not worth it to them, really. Eventually it’s going to cut into their business, their profit. But there are other factors involved skewing the results.”

“What other factors?” he asked.

“Machismo, for one. The fact I’m a woman has to be killing them.”

“It’s killing me,” he joked, putting her head in a headlock and kissing her temple before letting her go.

“There’s also Isabel,” Bailey said.

He sucked a breath like she’d socked him. “What does Isabel have to do with this?” They reached the porch and faced each other.

“Sully told me what she’s been up to.” Cal shook his head, trying to protest, unwilling to listen. Bailey rested her hand on his arm. “You need to hear it. Isabel has taken up with the head of the cartel.”

“She wouldn’t,” he protested.

Bailey didn’t argue. Nothing she could say would help him believe, especially since he already knew the truth, however much he might want to deny it. She grasped his biceps, catching and holding his eyes. “I’ve been varying my patrols,mixing it up, keeping it unpredictable. But he was waiting for me. Someone told him I was coming. He was wearing a helmet and Kevlar. Someone let him know I’d be armed, that I’m a lethal shot.”

“How would Isabel know any of that?” he asked.

“She wouldn’t.”

“What are you saying?” he asked.

“I’m saying I think someone on the ranch is working both sides.”

Chapter 14

That night was tense and silent. Bailey had a headache from being bashed in the face. Cal wasn’t quite angry, but neither did he believe her suggestion someone on the ranch was a traitor.

“Everyone who is with me has been with me for years. We’re family. There are no drifters on the crew,” he said.

“Whoever it is is likely on drugs, and drugs change a person. Take Isabel, for example.”

At that point he actually put his hands over his ears and shook his head like an obstinate child. “I’ll stop,” she promised, too tired and sore to continue to argue anyway. “But not before I say one more thing: Not believing something doesn’t make it not true. And that goes for everything.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“You know,” she said, eyeing his ring.

He crossed his arms, tucking his ring under his armpit.

“Stubborn,” she accused.

“A common trait in these parts,” he said.

After that she grabbed an ice pack and went to bed.

The next morning they worked calves, and it was all hands on deck, too busy and exhausting to wonder over the events of the day before. It was Bailey’s first such experience, and alsothe first time she saw Cal physically work the ranch. Most of his day was spent with the business of running the place. But today, wearing a t-shirt, jeans, boots, and a Stetson, he was indiscernible from any other cowboy, except for the fact that he towered above everyone else by a few inches.

The calves had to be separated from their mothers, rounded up, caught, branded, inoculated, and sorted. It was physically exhausting labor on any day, but the thermometer hovered north of ninety, making the work seem harder. Estralita was on hand, along with a couple of hired ladies from town, to dole drinks to the men, an unending job since they became dehydrated so quickly. Bailey stood on a fence and watched. From a distance, they looked like a hive of worker bees, all seeming to know what to do without being told. For someone who enjoyed order and hard work as much as she did, it was a beautiful sight.

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