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There was a burst of applause and shouts of approval a his attention back to the action A sli back to retrieve the rope presently being removed from the neck of a sturdy calf

“Hot damn! Did you see that?” the cowboy on his left exclaimed “I’ll bet she did that in five seconds flat”

When the rider turned in the saddle and Ty saw the snized Jessy Niles He’d only seen her a few ti sheds at South Branch two years ago She hadn’t changed row taller He realized she was even more of a tomboy now

As she rode to the corral gate, he looked at the horse she was riding and his interest quickened The rangy blue-gray buckskin had the un, the stallion that had sired some of the best cow horses on the place Ty was alrulla was Mouse He’d been one of the first riders on that horse’s back Vaguely he recalled it being mentioned that Mouse had been added to the remuda at South Branch

“Jessy,” Ty called to her as she rode through the gate Unhooking his leg, he pushed the toe of his boot into the stirrup and waited while she swung the ray horse around and eased it in beside his horse “Looks like that was the winning time”

“I got lucky” But she earing a proud look that see features and widely drawn mouth She smoothed a hand over the horse’s arched neck “Mouse still doesn’t have this roping business down pat He’s so quick out of the starting gate that most of the time he runs past the calf I had to throw my loop in a hurry and hope the calf ran into it It did”

“I helped break that horse,” Ty said “I wondered whose string he was in”

“He’s inme work him this summer” When she looked at hiht confir

In spite of the large size of the Triple C, news and gossip had a way of traversing the distances in a hurry Everyone took special interest when the topic was a Calder Most of the tiossip about other people’s problenized the position of the Calders in the ranch hierarchy, she wasn’t particularly interested in their cos—until she had met Ty Jessy never attempted to reason out why it was so But Ty was closer to her own age and he was the only member of the Calder faorously denied having a crush on his for one were present, even if she did consider the crushes of her contemporaries silly and stupid

“Why are you leaving here?” Boldly inquisitive and unconscious of it, Jessy questioned him

“I’e”

“I know that,” she retorted with cal a breath, Jessy went on “I know so you hard since you ca, are you, Ty?” Her face looked earnest and a little worried

His sly cast features “No, I’, Jessy,” he reassured her, a

Masking her relief, Jessy adjusted the length of rein in her grip “Well, I just wanted toback,” she replied with a forced air of nonchalance “I gotta be finding et these horses loaded in the trailer” She pulled steadily on the bit to back the ray horse away from the corral fence “See ya”

“See ya,” Ty returned and watched her deftly guide the horse out of the close quarters with a co movements It wasn’t fair to call her ho either