Sandra Chastain by Firebrand Page A

Cade couldn’t hold back a smile. That had been his name for the bull.
    “Yep, he ain’t pretty, and he has a strange way of picking his ladies.”
    “Oh, you mean he has to advertise too?” Eugene asked dryly.
    “I mean no such thing. I mean he prefers the wild ones on the range to the champions that Rusty offers him. Just like a man. Don’t know what’s good for him.”
    Pixie finished her cocoa and began to yawn. “Daddy, I feel sleepy.”
    “Of course, you are, little one.” Eugene started to rise. “And I think I’ll join you in taking a nap. I’m a little tuckered out myself. Where’s the bunkhouse, woman?”
    “Eugene, you aren’t taking that child out of this house. She has her own room, right next to her daddy. Come along, darling, Letty will show you.” She gave Eugene a warning frown and took Pixie’s hand. “You, you can find your own bed. The bunkhouse is beyond the barn.”
    “Now, just a minute,” Eugene began.
    “Let it be,” Cade said, and moved back towardthe window again, satisfied that Pixie was not afraid to go with Letty. “I don’t think Letty likes you, Eugene,” he observed.
    “Well, that’s where you’re wrong, Cade,” Eugene retorted with a chuckle. “She and me, we’re going to get along just fine. You wait and see. Think I’ll go see if my trunks made it to the bunkhouse. You going to be okay here without me?”
    “Yes. I’ll be fine.”
    But he wasn’t. There was a gnawing edge of unease in his stomach as the storm worsened. Finally he pulled on a slicker he found hanging by the back door and dashed toward the barn, calling out as he threw open the door, “Doak?”
    But Doak didn’t answer. The ranch hand pitching hay into one of the stalls looked up in surprise. “Can I help you, sir?”
    “How do I get to the hangar, the airfield where Mrs. Wilder will land?”
    “Guess you could take the truck.”
    “Fine. The keys?”
    “Inside it.”
    Cade offered a measured thank-you for the well-traveled road. The snow was beginning to come down now, and in no time it would obscure any landmarks. Suddenly the hangar loomed up before him. Sliding out of the truck, he slammed the door and ran inside.
    Standing at the open end was a worried Doak. “Fool woman. She’d have to be crazy to try to land in all this.”
    “Don’t you have any lights?” Cade demanded.
    “In a cow pasture?”
    “How does she land in weather like this?”
    “Normally she doesn’t. Normally she’d wait over and fly in when the bad weather passes.”
    “Why isn’t she doing that today?”
    “She has some notion that she ought to be here when her … guests arrive. She’s been fidgety as a moth caught in a spider’s web since you left here. Won’t let nobody tell her nothing. Guess she was worried you might not come back. But you did. We’re hoping that you can talk some sense into her.”
    “Me? What makes you think I have any influence?”
    “Well, she’s had on a dress for two nights in a row, and I’ve never known her to wear one unless she was going in to town. We figure she’s practicing for her new man.”
    “Is that what she told you?”
    “Nope, Rusty don’t tell nobody nothing. But she don’t usually go around naming bulls ‘Pretty Boy’ and calves ‘Darkeyes,’ either. I figured she brought you here for a reason, and being a ranch hand ain’t it. Wait a minute. Listen!”
    They heard it, the drone of an engine. It seemed to be skipping every now and then.
    “Something’s wrong,” said Cade.
    “She’s up there,” Doak said. “I’m going to take the Jeep to the runway approach. Maybe she’ll see the lights and follow me in.”
    “I’ll bring the truck too.” Cade climbed in, started the engine, and set off across the field, the lights of the truck making watery beams of light through the mixed snow and rain.
    At the end of the runway Doak directed the Jeep’s lights toward the point at which the plane should drop into view. Cade pulled