Chapter Two
Jordan knew better than to go out on the town with Burke Thurley, but it’d been a long time since he, his brother Trev, and Burke had relived the good old days and when Burke suggested going to the Graff Hotel bar instead of the less reputable Wolf Den, Jordan figured the evening would end with little or no damage to himself or others.
Yeah … that wasn’t working out.
“All I need is a little help,” Burke said as Jordan settled the tab. It was no coincidence that their departure from the Graff Hotel bar coincided with the bartender who Burke had a crush on ending her shift. “Should be easy as hell.”
Jordan caught his brother Trev’s subtle headshake.
“Just help me transfer the cows from one trailer to the other,” Burke said.
“In the hotel parking lot.”
Burke gave him an am-I-stupid? look. “I parked next to the railroad tracks.”
“Maybe we should just replace the tire?” Jordan suggested.
“Don’t have one. That’s why I brought the second trailer.” Burke scowled at Trev and Jordan, obviously wondering why they weren’t on board with this brilliant plan. “And I don’t want to jack up a trailer with cows in it.”
“Maybe an easy jack?” The kind that one drove the dual wheel up onto, thus lifting one side of the trailer.
“I don’t have a tire,” he repeated.
Jordan dropped his chin to his chest. Of course, Burkey had sent his helper to pick up registered cows from a ranch near Yellowstone in a trailer with no spare.
“Does your second trailer have a …” Trev’s voice trailed at the sour look Burke sent his way. “Right.”
“Come on,” Burke pleaded. “It’s still daylight.”
It was at that. The sun had still been well above the horizon when Jordan and his brother had entered the Graff at eight o’clock. It was just past nine now. Plenty of light to do something stupid.
“Let’s take a look,” Jordan said, ignoring Trev’s low groan.
He put his wallet into his pocket, glanced across the bar, and once again found the woman with the long chestnut hair studying him.
He didn’t mind being stared at. Back in his rodeo days, it was a common occurrence, but there was something about the way she was studying him that made him think she wasn’t so much admiring him as plotting against him.
Crazy.
Burke drained the glass he’d carried out of the bar, then set it on the antique lobby desk. “It’ll be easy,” he repeated as he and Trev and Jordan headed toward the main hotel entrance.
Burke led the way through the parking lot that flanked the old hotel to the tracks where a trailer with a shredded tire was parked illegally.
Jordan tilted back his hat. “Where’s your second trailer?”
“Parked on the street over there.”
Trev gave a nod as he considered the situation. “Looks doable.”
“Surprisingly so,” Jordan agreed. There was plenty of maneuvering room.
All they had to do was back the other trailer to the rear door of this one and drive the cows from one trailer to the other with the open doors acting as panels to keep the cows from escaping.
Hell, this might be as easy as Burke insisted it was.
“Better get going. It’ll be dark soon,” Burke said.
The operation commenced with Burke retrieving his trailer, which had four good tires, and expertly backing it up to the other, leaving just enough room to open the door.
“What do you need us for?” Jordan asked when Burke joined them at the rear of the trailers.
“This door is broken.” He pointed to door of the trailer he’d just parked. “Only the slider works.” The slider being the narrower sliding door built into the main door.
“What’s wrong with the big door?”
“I dunno. Someone welded the hinges, so we’ve always just used the slider when loading. Never been a problem.”
Trev blew out a breath, then shrugged. “Shouldn’t be a problem tonight either.”
Burke gave the slider a pounding blow near the top hinges, then pushed it open with a rasp of metal on metal. Jordan and Trev took positions on what would be the open side of the gap between trailers while Burke unlatched the door and swung it open.
The cows hesitated, inched forward, then burst out of the trailer one after the other.
Trev and Jordan waved arms and whistled, and the cows charged along the path of least resistance through the open slider into the second trailer where they came to a jolting halt.
Jordan mounted the bumper to push the slider closed, cursing as it refused to budge.
He tried again and the door moved a few stubborn inches before the milling cows, seeing a chance for yet another escape, plunged toward the slider, forcing the stubborn door back open with brute cow strength as they shouldered through the opening, then popped free one after the other.
Jordan and Trev stumbled backward as the cows emerged, neither of them stupid enough to get between the ladies and their line of escape.
“Oh, shit,” Burke moaned as the Angus galloped across the railroad tracks and into the Graff Hotel parking lot. “Shit, shit, shit.”
*
“I still can’t believe that Jordan Matthews is your new landlord,” Aubrey said as she followed Lil and Meg out the rear entrance of the Graff Hotel into the warm night air.
The smell of wood-fired pizza drifted toward them from the pizzeria across the street from the parking lot. “I would know. Everyone would know.”
But how many men called Jordan Matthews could there be in a small area? Granted, Lil had assumed that her Jordan Matthews was a rich guy from Chicago, but why couldn’t he be a local cowboy? Aubrey had confessed that she had no way of knowing if the man had come into money.
“We’ll find out tomorrow—” She let out an oof as she collided with Meg who’d stopped dead in front of her.
“Do you hear hooves?” Meg asked.
The small gray-haired woman who’d followed them out the exit also stopped, gathering her handbag closer to her body as she cocked her head. “Cows?” she asked no one in particular.
“I think so,” Lil said, exchanging a perplexed look with the woman.
“Gotta be a prank.” Aubrey edged by her and walked around the corner of the building. She let out a sharp gasp and stumbled back. “Not a prank. Real cows, circling the parking lot.”
“Keep them away from the alley, Burke!” a man’s voice boomed from the parking lot, edged with frustration and anger.
“We have to turn them if they come this way,” Meg said, jerking her head toward the people eating at the outside tables near the pizzeria.
“Right.” Lil headed toward the maintenance equipment bin near the back door of the hotel and pulled out the sidewalk broom.
She wasn’t facing a charging cow unarmed. Meg, likeminded, grabbed the only other weapon available, the long-handled dustpan.
“Maybe you should wait here,” she said to the older woman who, in response, dropped the handbag off her shoulder and wrapped the strap around her hand.
“I can handle myself,” she replied in a voice that spoke of years dealing with cattle. “My name is Sara, by the way.”
Before introductions could be completed, another shout went up from the parking lot and Lil took that as her cue to dart down the alley to block the entrance, with Meg close behind her.
“I’ll stay here,” Aubrey called. “You know, in case someone has to call 9-1-1.”
Lil and Meg were halfway to the parking lot entrance, Sara close behind them, when the lead cow recognized the opening to the alley as an escape route from the men who were harassing her.
She charged into the narrow lane with her sisters on her heels, only to be confronted by three determined women, whooping, hollering, and waving pink handbags and cleaning equipment in wild arcs.
The startled cow dodged to the left, jumped the low barrier, and took off across the small park between the hotel and the river, the other cows close behind her. Two men appeared from the direction of the alley, cursing and stumbling as they followed their quarry through the park.
It was now too dark to see who was winning the man versus cow battle, but the receding sound of whoops and hollers followed by the hollow thuds of hooves on asphalt told Lil that the guys responsible for the escaped cows had managed to get them over the bridge and moving toward the corrals at the fairgrounds.
“Marietta is safe,” Meg said propping the dustpan’s handle on her shoulder.
“Let’s hope Aubrey is still with us,” Lil added, her heart pounding from the adrenaline rush. The night was taking some surprising turns. “Who on earth would let cattle out in town?”
“Idiots,” Sara replied tartly.
*
Trev caught up with Jordan on the fairgrounds side of the bridge. “I’m dying.” He gasped.
As well he should be after dodging through parked cars and trucks in a futile effort to turn the cattle.
Jordan shot Trev a look. “Do you have any idea who turned the cows in the alley?”
“Women, judging by the yelling.”
“We owe them a drink.”
“First we have to find them. I might be getting old, but I’m too tired to go looking.”
Jordan laughed. And agreed. He was coming off the adrenaline spike and just wanted to head home. He was getting old. This would have been the start of a good night during their rodeo days.
The cattle stopped running after crossing the bridge, and Burke was already driving them toward the corrals. As far as Jordan could tell, the guy hadn’t broken a sweat.
“Never drinking with Burke again.” Jordan pressed a hand to his side as he walked.
“Drinking wasn’t the problem.”
“No. it wasn’t.” Agreeing to help Burke had been the problem.
Fifteen minutes later, the cows were securely corralled in the slack pen.
Burke wiped his hands down the sides of his pants, then turned to Trev and Jordan, a serious look on his face. “I think I have some WD-40. If we can get that slider—”
Jordan held up a hand.
A lengthy pause followed.
“I understand.” Burke scowled at the ground, then looked up again, scowl erased. “Well, then, maybe we could get a drink at the Wolf Den.” He grinned. “You know. To celebrate.”
Jordan rolled his eyes, then looked at Trev who, after a few seconds of consideration, shrugged.
“You sure?”
“One drink. No fights,” Trev said.