Fire and Rain (3 page)

 
Look on the bright side. A summer on the Rocking M beats a summer as a gofer for the Department of Archaeology. If I have to check one more reference on one more footnote, I'll do something rash.

 Get used to it. That's what being an archaeologist is all about.

 While learning about vanished cultures and peoples fascinated Carla, she wasn't certain that a career as an archaeologist was what she wanted. She was certain that she was going to find out; she would begin work on her master's degree in the fall. But first she had to get through the summer. And Luke.

 Carla's mind was still seething with silent questions when she drove into the Rocking M's ranch yard, got out slowly and stretched. She was presently just under three and one half hours from the bright lights of Cortez, assuming that the weather continued fair and clear. In bad weather, she was anywhere between six and sixty hours from "civilization."

 The isolation didn't bother her. In fact, it was a positive lure; she had always felt drawn to the wide, wild sweep of the land. After she had turned seventeen, the only serious arguments she and her brother had ever had was over her tendency to go from camp with a canteen, a compass, and a backpack, and leave behind a note and an arrow made of pebbles to indicate the direction of her exploration. The fact that Cash did precisely the same thing didn't lessen his anger at Carla; in Cash's book, what was sauce for the goose was not sauce for the gander. When Carla had gone to Luke looking for sympathy, he had calmly told her that he didn't want her going alone anywhere on the ranch, including the pasture across the road from the big house.

 Carla's mouth turned up slightly at the memory. She had been furious when the two men had ganged up against her. When she had started to point out that Luke was being unreasonable, he had told her that as long as she was on the Rocking M she would obey his orders. Period. End of discussion.

 She hadn't argued. The next time she went into West Fork for supplies, she had started looking for work. That afternoon she got work as the cook and housekeeper for the OK Corral, a small motel-coffee shop at the edge of West Fork. The job included room and board. She had gone back to the Rocking M, unloaded the supplies, and started packing her clothes. When she was ready to leave, she went looking for Ten, Luke's ramrod. Ten had listened to her request, discovered where she was going to be working, and had gone to find Luke. Luke had flatly refused to let her use any of the ranch vehicles for any reason whatsoever, effectively imprisoning her on the Rocking M until Cash returned from his latest round of explorations.

 Remembering the blowup that had followed made Carla's faint smile fade.

 "Such a long face."

 The sound of Luke's voice made Carla jump, for she had thought she was alone. She looked toward the long front porch of the ranch house. Luke was sitting in the shadows watching her. She couldn't help staring as he stood up, stepped off the porch and walked into the bright sunlight. It had been only a day since the card game in which she had lost her summer freedom, but she looked at Luke as though it had been a year since she had seen him.

 Nothing about him had changed. Long-boned, hard, with a muscular grace that had always fascinated her, Luke overshadowed every other man she had ever known. He had haunted her, making boyfriends impossible. She could enjoy other students' company, pal around with them, go to shows or football games; but she simply couldn't take the boys seriously. When they wanted to go from friendship to something more intense, she gently, inevitably, withdrew.

 Carla watched Luke walking toward her and prayed that her half-formed plan would work, that she would be able to get Luke out of her system, to cure herself of her futile longing for a man who didn't want her.

 Not until Luke stood close enough for her to see that the sun had turned his eyes into clear, deep gold did Carla realize the true extent of her wager – and her risk. What if this didn't work? What if being close to Luke only increased her longing? What if this turned out to be as big a mistake as her job in West Fork had been?

 "Already unhappy at being stuck in the sticks for a few months?" Luke continued, watching Carla closely.

 "No. I was thinking about the summer I got a job at the OK Corral."

 Luke's eyes narrowed and his mouth became a thin line. Carla winced.

 "You got off easy," he said flatly. "If you'd been my sister, I would have nailed your backside to the barn for a stunt like that."

 "Cash is brighter than that."

 "Or dumber."

 "Maybe he decided that teaching me wilderness skills was better than having me move out."

 "Not just 'out', schoolgirl. Into a no-tell motel."

 "A what?"

 "The OK Corral is the biggest hot-sheet operation this side of Cortez."

 "Hot sheet?" she asked. Suddenly understanding dawned. "You don't mean…?"

 "I sure as hell do."

 "Oh … my … God."

 Carla's blue-green eyes widened in comprehension. Amused by her own naïveté, she shook her head slowly, making light twist through her sun-streaked chestnut hair. Unable to hold back any longer, she let laughter bubble up. She finally understood why Luke had kept her a virtual prisoner on the ranch until Cash had come in from his geological explorations three days later.

 As Luke watched Carla, his mouth gentled into a smile. Something that was both pain and pleasure expanded through him. It had been so good during the years when he and Cash had shared between them the radiant freshness that was Carla. She had a way of brightening everything she touched. Luke hadn't wanted to let Carla go out into the world any more than Cash had. The world could be brutal to a gentle young girl.

 
So we kept her and then I was the one to teach her how brutal the world can be
.

 The thought made Luke's expression harden. The memory of Carla's tear-streaked, frightened face, the broken sounds she had made as she fled into the night three years before; all of it haunted him.

 "Lord, sunshine," Luke said in a deeper voice. "You were so innocent. No wonder Cash wanted to build a fence around you to keep out the wolves."

 Carla's laughter died as she looked at Luke and knew that he was thinking of the night she had thrown herself at him. She felt herself going pale, then flushing beneath a rising tide of embarrassment. She hated the revealing color but knew there was nothing she could do to avoid or conceal it. So she ignored it, just as she tried to ignore Luke's comment about her innocence, his words like salt on the raw wound of her memories.

 Yet if she were to survive this summer – and Luke – the past had to be put behind her. She was a woman now, not a stupid girl blinded by naive dreams of being loved by a man who was years too experienced for her.

 "Fortunately, innocence is curable," Carla said. "Time works miracles. Where do you want me to put my stuff?"

 For an instant she held her breath, silently willing Luke to accept the change of subject. She really couldn't bear reliving the lowest moment of her life all over again. Not in front of Luke, with his intense glance measuring every bright shade of her humiliation.

 "Sunshine, that night you came and—"

 "My name is Carla," she interrupted tightly, turning away, going to the tiny bed of the pickup truck. "Do you want me to park at the old house?"

 "No. You'll be staying at the big house."

 "But—"

 "But nothing. I'm not having anything as innocent as you running loose after dark. One of my hands is no good around women, and none of them is any better than he has to be. When Cash is here, you can bunk in with him at the old house if you want. Otherwise, you're in the big house with me. It's hard to get men to work on a place as isolated as the Rocking M. I'd hate to have to drive one of my hands to the hospital because he was drinking and saw a light on in the old house and thought he'd try his luck."

 "None of your men would—"

 "Didn't you learn anything three years ago?" Luke cut in. "Men drink to forget, and one of the first things they forget is to keep their hands off an innocent girl like you."

 "I'm not an inno—"

 "Put that suitcase back," Luke said coldly, interrupting Carla again.

 "What?" she asked, stopping in the act of taking a suitcase from the truck's small, open bed.

 "I'm not going to spend the summer arguing with the hired help. If you can't take a simple order you can turn that toy truck around and get the hell off the Rocking M."

 Carla stared in disbelief at Luke. Hurt and anger warred within her.

 "Would you treat me like this if Cash were here?"

 "If Cash were here, I wouldn't have to worry about protecting you from your own foolishness. He'd take care of it for me."

 "I'm twenty-one, legally of age."

 "Schoolgirl, when it comes to men and an isolated ranch like this, you aren't even out of kindergarten. Take your pick – the big house or the road to town."

 Carla turned and began rummaging in the truck bed again. She hoped Luke couldn't see the tiny trembling of her hands at the thought of living in the same house with him, seeing him at all hours of light and darkness, fixing his food, making his bed, washing his clothes, folding them, caring for him. A thousand subtle intimacies, his whiskey-colored eyes watching her, no place to retreat, no place to hide.

 
Well, that's what I came here for, isn't it, to let familiarity breed contempt? And if the thought of that kind of closeness makes my knees turn to water, that's just tough. I'll get over him. I have to.

 With all the coolness Carla could muster, she turned back to Luke. He said something harsh beneath his breath as he saw the pallor of her face and her wide, haunted eyes.

 "Don't worry. I'm not going to jump your bones," he said savagely. "Hell, I wouldn't have touched you three years ago if I hadn't been drinking and you hadn't been offering. Look at you, all pale and trembling every time the subject comes up. You'd think I raped you, for God's sake."

 "No," she said hoarsely. "No."

 "Damn it, I'm not going to have you flinching and hiding every time I get three feet from you. Nothing happened that night!"

 Hearing her declaration of love characterized as "nothing" stiffened Carla's knees. Her head came up and she asked in a low voice, "Do you want a cook and housekeeper for the summer?"

 "Yes, but—"

 She kept right on talking. "Then what happened the summer I graduated from high school is off limits for conversation. It was the most excruciating, humiliating experience of my life. Thinking about it makes me – sick." Abruptly Carla stopped speaking and shook her head, making silky hair fly. "So unless you're trying to drive me off the ranch, you'll stop throwing that night in my face."

 Being told that the memory of his touch sickened her did nothing to improve Luke's temper. He looked at Carla's tight, pale face and swore under his breath.

 "It's too late to be hedging your bet," he said coldly. "I hired you for the summer. If you don't like what I talk about, get back in the truck and drive. You knew what I was like when you made the bet, so don't be trotting out excuses for welshing. And you will welsh, schoolgirl. After three solid weeks of the Rocking M, you'll be champing at the bit to see the bright lights just like the other females who came here."

 "West Fork doesn't have any bright lights worth seeing."

 "You should have hung around the OK Corral a little longer," Luke said sardonically.

 Carla's temper frayed. She hated being reminded of how many times she had made a fool of herself around Luke.

 "Did it ever occur to you it might have been the MacKenzie
men
rather than the Rocking M's isolation, that drove their wives into town?" Carla asked in a sugary voice.

 "Don't bet on it. None of the MacKenzie men ever got any complaints in bed. It was being alone in the daytime that got to the women."

 Carla set her jaw so hard her teeth ached. The thought of Luke in bed literally took away her breath. Part of it was a virgin's fear of the unknown – but most of her breathlessness came from a very female curiosity about what it would be like to be Luke's lover, to feel his big body moving against hers, to hear his breath quicken at her touch and to taste again the warmth of his own breath.

 "Which will it be?" he demanded. "The big house or the road?"

 "The house."

 No sooner were the words out of her mouth than Carla wondered if history were repeating itself and she was making a bad mistake because Luke's presence always muddled what few wits she had.

 Before Carla could take back her words, Luke brushed past her and began unloading the truck.

 "You brought enough stuff for the summer," he said, surprised.

 "
Quelle
shock," Carla muttered."The bet was for the summer, wasn't it?"

 Luke gave her a sideways glance. "I said you could back out anytime. When I give my word, I keep it."

 She took a deep breath and set fire to her last bridge to safety. "And I told you I wouldn't back out as long as I'm treated like any other hand. My word means just as much to me as yours means to you."

 He searched her eyes for a long moment before he nodded. "All right, schoolgirl. I'll show you your room."

~4~

Luke set the last of Carla's baggage just inside the door to the small upstairs suite that would be hers for the summer. Standing on tiptoe, staring over his back, Carla looked at the room and made a small sound of astonishment.

 "What incredible furniture! Where did you get that headboard? And the dresser," she added, looking away from the queen-size bed. Without thinking, she crowded against Luke so that she could touch the satin surface of the wood. "The design is perfect, all curves, like running water or granite smoothed by rain. Where on earth did you find—"

 "Leave your stuff for now," Luke said, all but pushing Carla out of the room and closing the door behind himself. The last thing he wanted to do was to talk about the furniture he had made three years ago in an effort to exorcise or appease the yearning within himself for the life and the girl he could not have. "I'll show you the kitchen next, then I've got to check on one of the mares."