Read Lone Calder Star for Free Online

object, he relieved her of the sack and shifted it onto his shoulder.
    Strong fingers gripped his arm, checking his swing away from Iter. She threw a quick, wary look in the direction of the feed store, then said in a low voice that wouldn't carry, "Get smart. Dump this grain off at the ranch, then climb back in your car and get the hell out of there."
    "Not a chance."
    She stepped back, something resembling sadness in the look she gave him. "Like l said, you're a fool."
    "Everybody's entitled to an opinion," Quint stated and walked out of the warehouse.
    Dallas lingered a moment, half irritated that she had wasted her breath on him. He had already been warned once. She wasn't sure why she had bothered to do it a second time. He was nothing to her, just a good-looking cowboy new to the area-who had obviously landed on his head a few too many times. But that always seemed to be true of the good-looking ones, she thought wryly.
    But no amount of reasoning could rid her of that heavy feeling she had when she went back into the feed store. When she started toward the computer and the rest of the grain shipment waiting Page 14

    to be added to the inventory, her glance skipped to the dusty windows, catching a glimpse of the cowboy on his way back into the warehouse.
    Her boss Holly Sykes was at his desk, his chair tilted at a precarious angle and the phone pressed to his ear. As loud as the bell in the warehouse was set, Dallas knew she would have heard the ring of any incoming call. Which could only mean Sykes had instigated the phone call. Dallas didn't think she needed three guesses to figure out who that was. It was bound to be either Max Rutledge or his son Boone.
    That old feeling of resentment left a bitter taste in her mouth when she sat down at the computer and reopened the inventory file. Only half of her attention was on the work before her; the rest was tuned to the one-sided phone conversation.
    "He never blinked an eye when I told him the account was closed," Holly Sykes declared. "He just pulled out his wallet and said he'd pay cash for it." There was a lengthy pause while he listened. "No, he didn't give his name, and I had no call to ask for it with him paying cash."
    Another pause followed. "He looked like your ordinary cowboy-tall, dark-haired, on the young side. Didn't talk like he was from around here." The third pause was much shorter. "No problem. I figured you'd want to know about this guy."
    The desk chair screeched noisily as Sykes rocked his considerable bulk forward and hung up the phone. The front door opened and Sykes demanded, "Is there something else you need?"
    Quint paused inside the door. "Do you know of anybody with hay for sale?"
    "Not off the top of my head, but you're welcome to post a notice on the board over there."
    Sykes waved a hand at the bulletin board on the wall by the door. Its surface was already cluttered wIth a mix of posters advertising the stud services of local stalhons and scraps of paper offering to sell anything from vehicles and trailers to dogs and vegetables.
    Quint walked over to the counter. "Do you have some paper for me to use?"
    "Get him some, Dallas," Sykes ordered.
    Feeling oddly reluctant to face the stranger again, Dallas tore a page off the notepad on her desk, walked back to the counter, and handed it to him.
    "Thanks."
    But there was a coolness in his look that stung. Dallas supposed she deserved it after the things she'd said to him. Yet she found herself missing the easy warmth that had been in his gray eyes all the previous times. She waited at the counter while he jotted his message on the paper, telling herself that the sooner he found out there was nobody around here he could trust, the better off he would be.
    Finished, he walked over to the bulletin board, posted his notice on it, and headed out the door.
    In big, block letters, he had written: HAY WANTED. Directly below it, he'd put the name of the ranch and its phone number.
    Beyond the windows, dust