A Taste of Heaven (12 page)

“You've got to talk to the boss about that,
Rory,” Joe said, pointing the end of his rein at Tyler. “He's the
one who gets final say around here. You know that.”

Rory looked at Tyler expectantly.

Tyler gave the boy a mock punch in the arm
with his gloved fist. “So you want to go to Miles City with us,
huh? Eat dust and get rained on and stay up on night herd?”

Rory nodded so vigorously, Libby, watching
him through the glass, thought he'd end up with a headache. “Oh,
yessir, I do!”

Tyler rested his chin on his hand and
appeared to give the matter grave consideration. “You'll have to
ride drags with the Coopers, you know, in back of eight or nine
hundred cattle. Charlie and Kansas Bob will be riding point, and
Joe and I will be ahead of them.”

Rory's eyes shone with wonder, as though he
were being offered a grand tour of Europe. “Yeah,” he breathed.

Tyler laughed then and slung an arm around
the back of the boy's neck. His genuine affection for Rory was
obvious to Libby, as real, she thought, as if he were Tyler's own
son. So he did care about someone. She saw it in his eyes when he
turned, and heard it in his voice. And for a moment she felt a
twinge of envy for the sense of belonging all these people had,
with the land, and with one another.

“All right, you can come with us,” he said.
“But I'm guessing that by the time we get back, you'll wonder why
you ever wanted to go.”

Rory let out a whoop similar to the noise Joe
and Charlie had made when they rode in. His entire face seemed to
be consumed with a goofy grin. “Wait'll I tell Charlie!” he
said.

“Tell me what, Sass?” The cowboy in question
approached the group, as mud-covered and travel-weary as anyone
Libby had ever seen. His one hand was tucked inside his slicker,
reminding her of a picture she'd once seen of Napoleon.

“Tyler says I can go to Miles City with the
herd!” Although he was trying to regain a careless nonchalance,
Libby could almost feel his excitement through the glass.

Charlie laughed. “Well, I guess every man's
gotta try it once before he decides to make it a regular job.”

“What's the matter with you, Charlie?” Tyler
interrupted, and indicated his tucked-in hand. “Have you got a
stomachache or something?”

“No, sir, nothin' that a cup of hot coffee
won't cure,” Charlie said, and glanced down at his boots as though
embarrassed.

“You go on and get the coffee, then take Rory
over to the corral to pick out a few horses for the trip.” Tyler
gave Rory another grin.

“Go over and have a look, Sass,” Charlie
said. “I'll meet you there in a minute.”

Rory, losing his nonchalance for good,
whooped again and jumped off the porch. He took off in the
direction of the corral.

Libby moved away from the window and watched
as Charlie came around the side and appeared in the kitchen
doorway, where he lingered. He yanked off his hat, but his other
hand was still inside his slicker.

“’
Afternoon, Miss Libby,
ma'am.”

“Hello, Charlie,” she replied, and went to
the dish rack for a blue enamel cup. “You look like you could use
some hot coffee.”

He took only one step forward, as though he
were an awkward stranger to this kitchen. He smelled like horses,
rain, and hard work. “Well, uh, yes, ma'am.”

“You were right—you did make it back in time
for supper tonight,” she said, prodding the conversation along. Why
was Charlie Ryerson who, up to now, had shown her only confidence
and charming bravado, acting like a twelve-year-old schoolboy?

He smiled a bit sheepishly. “Me and the boys
couldn't wait to get back to the Lodestar and some decent food. In
fact, while we were out on the north range, I saw somethin' I
thought you—well, they were right pretty, and—here.”

He opened his slicker and pulled out a small
bouquet of pale purple wildflowers. They were crushed and a little
wilted from their journey, but at this place and moment in time,
Libby thought they were the loveliest flowers she'd ever seen. He
made a vain attempt to straighten some of the broken stems, then
gave up and held the bouquet out to her.

“Oh, Charlie,” she said, and smiled up into
his scarlet face. “I didn't think any flowers were blooming yet.
Thank you very much.”

He immediately began backing away. “Well,
ma'am I, that is we want you to know that we're— um, glad you're
here. It can be kind of hard out here for a lady sometimes—” He
backed into the doorjamb, and his face turned redder still. Then he
put his hat back on and hurried through the doorway.

She watched hint trot across the yard to the
corral, then she turned to put the cup back on the dish rack.

Charlie's kind gesture lightened Libby's
heart considerably, and as she pumped water into a mason jar for
her bouquet, she couldn't help but smile. If only his boss were as
kind.

She caught sight of her white bandaged
finger, and remembered Tyler's warm, light touch the night before.
Well, actually, he could be kind when he wanted to be. But he was
as stormy and unpredictable as winter on the Great Lakes.

Libby put the flowers on the worktable, where
she could look at them from time to time, and returned to her job
with the potatoes. Outside, she heard the discussion continue
between Tyler and Joe.

On the porch, Tyler squinted up at his
foreman. “How did it go in Heavenly?”

“It's like I told you before, Ty. There's no
one left around here who'd be good for this job.” He nodded toward
the kitchen.

Annoyance, and some other emotion that Tyler
didn't want to examine, washed over him. “Damn it, Joe, it can't be
that hard to find a cook for a bunch of cowboys. How have we done
it before?”

Joe leaned down from his saddle and spoke
directly to him. “Before, outfits weren't closing down right and
left. I'm tellin' you, Ty, the Big Die-Up finished a lot of
ranchers. When there's no place to work, there's no workers.” He
sat up again. “I don't have to tell you that. You already know
it.”

In frustration, Tyler plunged his hands
into his back pockets. Yes, he knew it, but Joe's answer didn't
satisfy him. Joe hadn't sat next to Libby Ross last night,
bandaging her hand and inhaling that sweet fragrance, trying to
ignore the swell of her full breasts under her blouse. Joe hadn't
been the one to peek into the woman's room while she slept, and see
her hair spread out on the pillow, or get that foolish notion about
angels. Joe hadn't fallen off his horse—something that
never
happened to Tyler—in front of
the whole damned crew, just because the woman had distracted him.
He idly kicked at one of the porch uprights, then made his
decision.

“All right, Joe. I'll take care of it when I
go into town tonight.” He turned on his heel and strode away.

Behind him, he heard Joe call after him.
“Now, Tyler, think about what you're doin',” he warned. “We've
already got a cook, and a good one that the crew is happy with.
We're eatin' like kings because she's here, and she told me she'd
be willing to go to Miles City with us. Don't go stirrin' things up
and makin' changes for no good reason.”

Tyler stopped dead and turned. “I'll be
goddamned and gone to hell before I'll take a woman on a trail
drive. And I've got the best reason in the world, Joe. Like you
just told Rory, I'm the boss.”

In the kitchen, Libby Ross finished peeling
the last potato, and slowly wiped her hands on her apron. She
reached out and stroked one of the tender petals in the bouquet
Charlie had brought her while she considered her next course of
action. After she put the potatoes on the stove, she would probably
have enough time to pack while they boiled. Sighing, she pushed
herself away from the table, carried them to the cook pot, then
turned to go upstairs.

“T
y, honey, I'm
about done in,” Callie pouted playfully. The single candle burning
on the nightstand gave her an artificial but handsome radiance. “If
word ever got around that I couldn't please my very favorite
regular gentleman, I'd be out of business for sure.” She flipped a
corner of the linen sheet over his bare hips and reached for a
wrapper so brief and transparent, it seemed nearly
pointless.

Tyler felt a dull flush creep up his neck. In
his life, this had never happened to him. “Don't worry, Callie. I'm
not likely to rush out and tell anyone about it,” he muttered.

She gave him that secret smile and idly
rearranged a coppery sausage curl that rested on her collarbone.
“Of course I know that. You're a better man than to talk about a
lady's imperfections. And since you always put me in mind of an
unbroken stallion, I know this must not be my night.”

Tyler regarded the powdered, naked female
kneeling next to him on her mattress, and couldn't help but smile
back. She knew exactly what to say to soothe a male ego, even if it
did sound a little practiced and overblown.

He suspected that none of Callie's customers
ever felt inadequate in her “boudoir,” as she liked to call it. It
was a luxurious curiosity in this hard-edged town on the western
frontier. Draped in blue velvet and cream-colored lace, it was the
most elegant room in all of Heavenly and for miles around. Nothing
about the rough confines of the saloon downstairs even hinted at
the lavishness at this end of the second floor, and not many men
were invited to visit it. And, unless a fight broke out in the Big
Dipper, the only sound that drifted upstairs was that of the
piano.

For a woman who earned a living with her
body—and he knew that had to be difficult—she seemed remarkably
well kept, if a man didn't look at her too long or too hard.

“It didn't have anything to do with you,” he
said and put one arm under his head. “I've had a lot on my mind
lately.” That was the truth. Between trying to assess the winter
damages and deal with the matter of Lib—the cook, just falling
asleep had become a challenge. The woman had invaded his thoughts
continuously since he first set eyes on her, and every minute he'd
spent with her after that only made things worse. He saw the soft
curve of her cheek, her tiny waist— Why the hell he was thinking
about her here, in a madam's bed, mystified him. There was nothing
about Callie that could be confused with an angel. Angels! he
scoffed to himself. What would he be conjuring up next? Pixies and
stardust?

But scoff though he might, when Libby Ross's
face had risen in his mind his desire for Callie just sputtered
out, despite her most ambitious and creative efforts.

“Isn't that why you come to see me every
Saturday night?” Callie asked, leaning over to purr in his ear and
give him a closer view of her bare alabaster breasts. “So I can
make you forget all your troubles, and ease
your . . . mind?”

“That's exactly why I'm here, Callie,” he
replied, hoping to recover his dignity in this situation.

“And you're leaving again in a few days?”

He reached up and pulled her down to lie
against him. “Yeah, I'll be gone for two or three weeks on the
trail drive. But there's still tonight.”

“Hmm, then I'd better enjoy this while I
can,” she said, and wriggled her hips against him. He looped an arm
around her while she slid her hand under the sheet and ministered
to him with professional skill. Her heavy gardenia perfume lay over
them like a blanket. It was nearly suffocating compared to the
airy, weightless scent of flowers and
vanilla . . . 

Across the inside of his closed eyelids
drifted a confused image of long honey-colored hair and big gray
eyes. She nipped his earlobe, just sharply enough to make him turn
his head and try to cover her lips with his own. Callie immediately
pulled away and sat up, clutching her silly transparent wrap to
herself in a rare show of modesty.

“Now, Ty, you know the rule. I'll pleasure
you any way you like, except for kissing. I don't allow kissing.
You didn't forget?”

He gazed at her and sighed. “No, I didn't
forget.” He considered her in silence for a bit longer. Finally, he
held out his arm. “Just lie down here and sleep with me, then.”

Her sculpted brows rose daintily. "That's all
you want? What about—"

“That's all I want, Callie.”

He thought she looked almost disappointed.
Then she smiled that cat smile, blew out the candle, and did as he
asked. She snuggled up to him, resting her head on his
shoulder.

Tyler stared at the ceiling until long after
the piano downstairs fell silent.

*~*~*

The next morning, Tyler got his horse from
the livery stable and headed back to the Lodestar, tired and
frustrated in more ways than one. Trying to find a new cook, he'd
talked to every sober man he saw in Heavenly who could drag one
foot after the other. Not one was interested. Either they were
already working for one of the surviving spreads, they were headed
elsewhere, or they didn't know a single thing about cooking. As
desperate as Tyler was to replace Libby Ross, he knew he couldn't
bring home someone who was as bad or worse than their last cook.
The crew wouldn't stand for it, and he wasn't much interested in
lousy food himself.

As the bunch grass and sage slipped by,
Tyler wrestled with the problem. What was he going to do now? Those
cattle had to be in Miles City four weeks from now. That was the
deal he'd made with the buyers. But he couldn't take a
woman
on a drive. Women weren't made
for the hardships of the trail. They were delicate and easily
injured. He'd had to think twice before even agreeing to let Rory
go. And he was a strong fifteen-year-old boy, accustomed to working
long hours, and in all kinds of weather.

He couldn't allow Libby Ross to go with them.
Could he? Tyler pondered his alternatives, and kept coming around
to the same truth. He had no alternatives, no choices. To meet the
schedule he'd agreed to, and to feed the crew on the drive, he'd
have to take her with him. Joe had said she was willing to go . .
.