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bedroom door and walked out to the
gallery and down to the kitchen. Intent on meeting with Joe before
breakfast, he headed down the passageway toward the stairs, his
thoughts on cattle and branding.
    Ranching was a hard life in the best of
times, but this year they really had their work cut out for them,
he thought grimly. After a summer of drought and the worst winter
on record, spring had brought with it one heavy rain after another.
Even now, somewhere on the open range his thin, spent cattle might
be drifting if the crew hadn't rounded them up yet. The ones that
had survived, he added to himself
    On his way out, the smell of perking coffee
tempted him, and he decided to stop for a cup. The boys grumbled
that they couldn't tell the difference between what the cook was
giving them and what he threw to the hogs, but if he got the coffee
going first thing, Tyler saw that as a saving grace. His hand was
on the doorknob to the kitchen when it was yanked out of his grip,
and a woman stepped into his path.
    Libby had a jumbled impression of a tall,
slender man with brown hair just as he crashed into her. He reached
out and gripped her arms to keep her from falling. She was
startled, but he looked shocked. He stared at her as though she'd
dropped in through the roof.
    Even without benefit of introduction, Libby
knew this was Tyler Hollins. He stood glaring at her, his frame
stiff. Obviously caught off guard, he was just as obviously trying
to conceal that fact.
    He broke the physical contact with decisive
speed. Stepping back, he demanded, “Who the hell are you and what
are you doing in my house?”
    After the diligent politeness of Joe Channing
and the other cowboys, she was stunned by his lack of manners, and
by the coldness in his blue eyes. “I-I’m Liberty Ross. Mr. Channing
hired me to cook. You're Mr. Hollins?” It was all she could do to
look him in the face after seeing him naked, carrying his clothes
and boots down the dark hall last night. She felt her cheeks grow
warm again.
    He ignored the question and raised his hand
as if to stop any others. "Wait a minute, what do you mean Mr.
Channing hired you to cook? We already have a cook.”
    His indignation was palpable. She lifted her
hand to rest it at the base of her throat. With that unnerving blue
glare fixed on her, she began to babble. “W-well, you did but your
men ran him off.”
    “What the hell for?”
    “It was food poisoning, they said.”
    For a long moment he said nothing. Then he
swore, once, the single word blunt and baldly stated. He half
turned from her, looking away, his mouth tight.
    Libby flinched at both the word and the low,
fierce intensity with which he said it. How could her presence
provoke such a response? Nothing of the sketchy information she'd
heard about him prepared her for this. “I'm sorry. I’m sure it's a
surprise to find a complete stranger in—”
    “You can't stay.” He started to brush past
her, his tone ending the matter. “I don't know why Joe thought I'd
go along with this.”
    “But I have experience, and letters of
reference from a family in Chicago—”
    “You don't have experience with ranching. The
Lodestar is no place for a woman anyway, and if Joe didn't tell you
that, I'm telling you.”
    Libby stepped back against the wall to avoid
being shouldered out of the way. She felt a bite of anger at the
man's hostility. He was behaving as if he'd caught her trying to
steal the silverware.
    Her gaze followed him, taking in the powerful
stretch of his shoulders. Watching his angry strides carry him to
the front door, she thought of yesterday's optimism when she'd
believed this might be a good place to work.
    She didn't know what to do next. If she was
going to feed the hands this morning, she'd have to start now.
“There's no one to cook breakfast for your men,” she called after
him. “You wouldn't want them to starve, would you?”
    “It's physically impossible for a healthy
human to starve to death because of