Never the Twain Read Free Page A

knew about what could happen when the young and inexperienced ones got a
good hold on a man's tender parts. He'd seen how they put a stop to the Succor Creek mining
permits, just because some pretty little flowers were particular about where they grew.
    Brad chuckled. "I ran into Dan at the cafe, when I was taking those calves in to the sales
yard. He told me about her." There was a suspicious twinkle in his eye. "She's not as young or
inexperienced as you'd think."
    Rock snorted. "Maybe not, but I'd give you odds she's just as sincere." He waved Brad out
the door ahead of him. "I'll be goin' down to Jordan Valley tomorrow, so I'll check the pastures.
With the rain last week, they should be holding up pretty good."
    "That'll give me time to finish up on the baler," Brad agreed. "Night." He waved as he
turned toward his pickup.
    "G'night." Rock headed for the house, wanting his supper. Damn! If he didn't get that
waterhole started this year, they'd have to keep Skeleton Gulch closed off again next summer. He
needed that waterhole, or he might as well give up that portion of his grazing preference. And after
the impression he'd made on the pretty little blonde archaeologist today, she surely wasn't goin' to be
in any hurry to sign off on his permit.
    Maybe it was time for him to do some fence mendin'.
    * * * *
    "Did you have to spring this on me the first thing Monday, Dan? Couldn't you have waited
until after my first cup of coffee?"
    Her boss gave her a gentle buffet on the upper arm, one that only bruised her without
knocking her down. Dan Walters was such a big bear of a man that his lightest love tap was the
equivalent of a solid blow from the average man's fist. Genny knew he tried to be gentle with her,
and appreciated the acceptance his occasional taps indicated.
    "The chopper'll be here at seven-thirty, so I figured I'd better warn you early."
    Genny groaned. "I'd rather drive down and hike in." She had never been in a helicopter,
and didn't particularly want to start today.
    "It'd take you all day just to get in to the head of Skeleton Gulch." He leaned one hip
against the counter as Genny filled her heavy stainless vacuum bottle with hot coffee. "Besides,
McConnell's going to show you around today, give you a feel for the country thereabouts. He's
probably as familiar with it as any of us. And he's saving us the cost of a chopper."
    "McConnell? The pilot?"
    "Yeah. One of the biggest ranchers on the District. He runs about eight hundred head
down around Rockville, on both sides of the state line."
    "That's a lot of land." Genny was conscious of a faint twinge of disapproval. Somehow it
seemed immoral for one man to control tens of thousands of acres. She had to remind herself it
sometimes took fifteen or twenty acres to feed one cow here in Malheur County. The two hundred
acres she'd grown up on was unbelievably rich in comparison.
    The rhythmic thump-thump of a helicopter became audible. Genny's stomach felt empty,
yet fluttery. "I don't think I'm going to like this," she muttered, following Dan toward the parking lot
door.
    Her suspicion was confirmed when the pilot emerged. She knew that arrogant stride.
Those slim hips and long legs had walked through her dreams for the past week.
    Levi's and cowboy boots. Since her early teens, when the strange heats of adolescence first
crept over her, Genny had dreamed of meeting a tall, lean man dressed in Levi's and cowboy boots.
A man who dressed that way because it was right for the way he lived and worked. A man who rode
a spotted horse and whose eyes had the narrow squint that showed he gazed far across the bright
desert toward snowy peaks in the distance. He would be a quiet man, with a rumbly voice, who
drawled his words in a strange dialect. "Down the road a piece" would mean fifty or a hundred miles
to him.
    Most of all, he would be a man who would understand the inchoate yearnings Genille
Enderby Forsythe sometimes felt. He would show her how to translate them into