Heartbreaker by Linda Howard

handle it himself,
make certain she didn't get rooked. The cattle business wasn't a good one for
beginners.
    He swung into the saddle again. First he
checked the east pasture, where she had said the fence was down. Whole sections
of it would have to be replaced, and he made mental notes of how much fencing
it would take. The entire ranch was run-down, but fencing was critical; it came
first. Lush green grass covered the east pasture; the cattle should be in it
right now. The south pasture was probably overgrazed, and the cattle would show
it, unless the herd was small enough that the south pasture could provide for
its needs.
    It was a couple of hours before he made it to
the south pasture. He reined in the horse as he topped a small rise that gave
him a good view. The frown snapped into place again, and he thumbed his hat
onto the back of his head. The cattle he could see scattered over the big
pasture didn't constitute a big herd, but made for far more than the small one
he'd envisioned.
    The pasture was badly overgrazed, but
scattered clumps of hay testified to Michelle's efforts to feed her herd.
Slow-rising anger began to churn in him as he thought of her wrestling with
heavy bales of hay; some of them probably weighed more than she did.
    Then he saw her, and in a flash the anger
rose to boiling point. The old truck was parked in a clump of trees, which was
why he hadn't noticed it right off, and she was down there struggling to repair
a section of fencing by herself. Putting up fencing was a two-man job; one
person couldn't hold the barbed wire securely enough, and there was always the
danger of the wire backlashing. The little fool! If the wire got wrapped around
her, she wouldn't be able to get out of it without help, and those barbs could
really rip a person up. The thought of her lying tangled and bleeding in a coil
of barbed wire made him both sick and furious.
    He kept the horse at an easy walk down the
long slope to where she was working, deliberately giving himself time to get
control of his temper. She looked up and saw him, and even from the distance
that still separated them he could see her stiffen. Then she turned back to the
task of hammering a staple into the fence post, her jerky movements betraying
her displeasure at his presence.
    He dismounted with a fluid, easy motion,
never taking his gaze from her as he tied the reins to a low-hanging tree branch.
Without a word he pulled the strand of wire to the next post and held it taut
while Michelle, equally silent, pounded in another staple to hold it. Like him,
she had on short leather work gloves, but her gloves were an old pair of men's
gloves that had been left behind and were far too big for her, making it
difficult for her to pick up the staples, so she had pulled off the left glove.
She could handle the staples then, but the wire had already nicked her
unprotected flesh several times. He saw the angry red scratches; some of which
were deep enough for blood to well, and he wanted to shake her until her teeth
rattled.
    "Don't you have any better sense than to
try to put up fencing on your own?" he rasped, pulling another strand
tight.
    She hammered in the staple, her expression
closed. "It has to be done. I'm doing it."
    "Not anymore, you aren't."
    His flat statement made her straighten, her
hand closing tightly around the hammer. "You want the payment right
away," she said tonelessly, her eyes sliding to the cattle. She was a
little pale, and tension pulled the skin tight across her high cheekbones.
    "If that's what I have to do." He
pried the hammer from her grip, then bent to pick up the sack of staples. He
walked over to the truck, then reached in the open window and dropped them onto
the floorboard. Then he lifted the roll of barbed wire onto the truck bed.
"That'll hold until I can get my men out here to do it right. Let's
go."
    It was a good thing he'd taken the hammer
away from her. Her hands balled into fists. "I don't want your men out
here