Free Love on the Range: A Looking Glass Lake Prequel by Rebecca Nightsong Page B

thought this was a good idea?
    As a kid, riding the farm horses wasn’t anything like this. She remembered the smell of them, the soft velvety noses, and how she’d wanted to ride all day.
    But she’d been able to climb down when she grew tired of the horses, and find something else to do. Like target-shooting with her cousins.
    Even a kid wouldn’t be excited about a day-long butt-whupping on the broad back of an ornery horse.
    But what alternative did she have? Rattling along on a hard board bench with Crazy Hoss, hoping bears weren’t planning a surprise raid of their food.
    Besides, her gut had been on a steady simmer since Jett’s attitude that morning. She had to prove she could pull her own weight, and so far, she hadn’t proven anything by burning every single meal so far. Even the pancakes at breakfast.
    Fern slowed down ahead of her, and turned in the saddle, a pleasant laugh on her lips.
    Marlee tried to make clutching the saddle horn with both hands look graceful.
    “You ain’t got nothin’ to prove.” Fern squinted at her from under the brim of her tan cowboy hat. “You’re pretty enough to just sit around if you want, and you’d still get that man’s attention.”
    Marlee snorted. Calamity shied to the right at the sound, and Marlee dug her fists into the cantankerous mare’s mane. She wanted to kick the horse for smarting off like that, but that could make Calamity burst into a gallop.
    “I don’t want his attention,” Marlee corrected. “I’m simply trying to be a good trail cook and help the Paycoach family in their time of need.”
    “Then impress him with your food,” Fern said. “You’re just like my Meg.”
    Marlee sighed. She didn’t need to hear more about Meg’s woes over finding a good man. She’d heard enough of that yesterday.
    But even if she wasn’t distracted by Calamity’s meanderings, Marlee still would not have been able to stop Fern’s chatter.
    “Meg is too afraid to use her feminine charms to lasso herself a man,” Fern said.
    Marlee grunted as Calamity trotted around a stand of trees. Uphill. Away from Fern. That was the first time the horse seemed to read Marlee’s mind. Time to get away from talk about getting matched with the grumpy cowboy.
    But Calamity was only interested in checking out a bush, and she headed right back to Fern’s side. Fern waited patiently.
    “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with wanting a man,” Fern said. “It’s how the good Lord made us.”
    Marlee laughed. “What scripture says that?”
    Fern rolled her eyes. “It’s in the very first book,” she said. “Don’t you read your Bible? Says as soon as God was done makin’ Adam, He said, ‘It’s not good for man to be alone.’”
    There wasn’t much Marlee could say to that.
    “It’s the first thing God said that wasn’t good. And I reckon He knows.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN
     
    When Marlee and Fern came to the creek Jett had told them about, they turned and headed up the mountain.
    “You know,” Fern said as they rode. “I think you already got Jett’s attention. Why else would he have you workin’ so close to him?”
    Marlee grunted. She’d never grunted so many times in her life. Maybe Jett’s ways were rubbing off on her. But conversation with Fern didn’t exactly leave her many other options. And besides, Jett was nowhere in sight.
    Not what Marlee would call working close together.
    Jett had said there was a meadow up here where the cattle sometimes liked to hang out and graze. Cold weather should have driven them to lower pastures by now, but he’d said it would be good to check it out anyway.
    And he’d promised he’d be heading back their direction with a few cattle he’d spied over the ridge. If Fern and Marlee found any livestock, Jett would help them drive the cattle to the next campsite where a corral was set up. All Fern and Marlee needed to do was flush them out of the brush and into the meadow before he got there.
    It didn’t sound too hard.
    But