Handful of Sky (19 page)

“Indeed it does, mam’selle. Could I negotiate a package deal and get the dress
and
the model inside?”

“Pairhaps somezing can be arranged.” Shallie pouted before bursting into giggles.

Everything seemed such fun with Hunt. She was silly and carefree around him. Shallie couldn’t remember being girlish and giggly like this even when she was a girl. And certainly for the past several years, she’d been far too serious. But around Hunt, she sparkled and effervesced like the headiest of champagnes. It was odd that such a man, so often stern and brooding, should be the one to unloose this side of her. The other effect he had on her—the knee-wobbling surges of physical desire—were much more understandable. He had the same effect on women who only saw his face on those gigantic hat ads. It almost seemed that Shallie needed someone as strong, as confidently masculine as Hunt to free the more delicately feminine side of her nature.

“Most flattering,” the sales attendant, a slimly elegant middle-aged woman, announced.

“You couldn’t be more right,” Hunt agreed. “I love that color.” To Shallie he whispered, “And I love the way it shows off your adorable body.” He chuckled with mock lasciviousness.

“All right then, wrap it up,” he said, handing the sales attendant a credit card. Shallie retreated to the dressing room. Alone, she was able to examine the garment in more detail. She ran her hands over the luxurious fabric,
letting herself begin to feel that it was truly hers; Hunt had chosen it for her.

The dress was an emerald-green silk of classic simplicity. Its magic lay in the deep, shimmering color and the way it was draped over Shallie’s breasts, falling away from their peaks to be gently drawn in at her waist, then swelling again over her derrière. She’d never owned anything like it and had never imagined she could look the way she did in this dress. She slipped it off, regretting that the spell had to be broken.

“What time is it?” Hunt asked as they drove back to the rodeo grounds. Shallie checked her phone and told him.

“Good,” he responded, wheeling the Porsche around. “There’s still time.” Without another word he glided the smoothly powerful car onto the highway. After a few miles they shook loose the tentacles of the city and turned off on a quiet road that cut across a high mesa heading west. Gradually the earth around them turned a rust red. Mountains bordered the expanse of land they traversed. On one side was a range of volcanic cliffs formed of hardened black lava; on the other were the cobalt-blue Sandia Mountains. They drove through the valley between. They passed the Jemez Indian pueblo, each ramshackle house sporting a
horno
, the beehive-shaped adobe oven used for baking, in the backyard. The road began to climb as they reached the Jemez Mountains. They drove through
Jemez Springs, a mountain retreat. A few miles later, Hunt pulled over and got out of the car.

“Feel like a hike?” He didn’t wait for an answer to his question before setting off up the steep mountain. Shallie followed behind, slightly puzzled, but only too glad to accompany Hunt, no matter where he led her. By the time he stopped, she was puffing madly in the high altitude. Once she got her breath, she noticed how still it was in the pine-roofed sanctuary Hunt had led her to. He glanced around, alert as a wild animal.

“Good, there’s no one else here. I didn’t think there would be this early in the summer.” He stripped off his flannel shirt and, leaving Shallie stupefied, ducked behind a thick growth of pine. A minute later she heard a splash and entered the enclosure to find Hunt basking in undisguised bliss in a pool of water. His satisfied grin was half-hidden by the wreath of steam rising from the pool.

“Hot springs,” Shallie said needlessly, feeling slightly foolish that she, the native, had failed to guess Hunt’s destination.

“Come on in. I can’t tell you how good this feels.” Shallie hesitated. The thought of undressing in front of Hunt in broad daylight, on the side of a mountain, made her feel as shy as she had that first evening in Hunt’s whirlpool.

“All right,” Hunt sighed, sinking further into the steaming water, “but you’ll never know how exquisite
it is to be immersed in warmth at the same time you’re looking out onto snowcapped mountains.”

Shallie couldn’t resist the description and hurriedly shrugged off her clothes. Her rushed movements slowed, then froze when she turned to see Hunt watching her, the sleepy look of contentment gone now from his eyes. In its place was a keen, piercing gaze that carved over her exposed curves with an edge of flint.

“My God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered.

Shallie dropped her modesty, seeing it through Hunt’s eyes for the false pretense it had been. What had made her timid wasn’t the thought of Hunt seeing her unclothed in the full light of day, but the fear that what he saw might not please him. Desire had made his words come out in a rasp that underscored his honesty. Shallie finished draping her clothes across a pine limb and started toward him. Her movements were slow, languorous. She knew the pleasure the sight of Hunt’s body afforded her, and now that she was sure of her own, she wanted to share the same pleasure with him. His eyes caressed her, feeding her newfound confidence. For the first time in her life, she felt completely at home within her own flesh. Hunt’s frank admiration of her high, firm breasts, her taut stomach, and long, muscle-striped legs told Shallie of their allure, their power to arouse desire.

The water that burbled up from a geothermal spring
deep under the earth was as warm on her foot as the blood heating her veins. She stepped into it, the mist parting to allow her entrance. The stillness bore down upon her. For a hundred miles the land rolled away in front of her vision, dead-ending only when it came to the Sandias. Above her there were only the pines arching like spires to direct the eye toward the blue infinity above. There was nothing and no one except her and Hunt McIver.

The heated water lapped up around her knees. It licked at her legs, enveloping her in its delicious warmth. She ducked under the water, tasting its mineral tang on her lips and bobbed up again, her hair slicked back in a shining ribbon against her head. Sunlight caught in the droplets of water on her eyelashes, transforming them into sparkling crystals. Liquid gems collected in the tiny hollows of her collarbone and ran in rivulets between her breasts.

She was less than an arm’s length from Hunt and still he had not touched her. Instead he let the water and the heat from his searing examination gently arouse her. And they did. Every inch of Shallie’s moist skin tingled with desire, waiting for his touch. Her breasts ached for the feel of his hard chest against them. She knelt before him. The water swirled between her legs, tantalizing her, making her yearn for the fevered press of his body. Still he did not touch her. Yet his eyes never left her.

Slowly, with just the slightest ripple of water to
betray the movement, Hunt’s hands moved. They cupped Shallie’s breasts from beneath. He held them, the lordly potentate, judging their firmness, their weight. His eyes never broke contact with hers. He watched her face as he trapped her straining nipples between his thumb and forefinger, watched as Shallie’s lips parted and her eyelids fluttered closed. Surges of pleasure, delayed by minutes that had seemed like hours, swept through her at the masterful touch of his fingers.

Then Hunt’s control was gone as completely as Shallie’s. He pulled her to him, their tongues meeting, then entering a feverish duel. The press of his body against hers revealed that he had been as achingly ready as she. Neither one of them could wait a moment longer. He slid her on top of him, her legs straddling his. Shock waves of sensation collided within her as he bent her toward him to take the tip of her breast into his mouth. His hands on her hips raised and lowered her, guiding her expertly into a rhythm that wrought the ultimate in pleasure for them both. The rhythm grew more fierce until it seemed to take control of them, dictating with a relentless need that had to be satisfied. It left them spent and gasping.

“Shallie, my darling.” Hunt’s words were lost in Shallie’s damp curls.

She clung to him, dazed by the ferocity of desire that had risen up and taken her by surprise. Trembling still, she raised her head from the damp mat of Hunt’s chest.
Her eyes found his. He was as awed as she by the intensity of their hunger for one another.

“Shallie.” He said her name as if it were a statement, the summation of all he’d aspired to in his life. His lips were soft on hers, mere echoes of the lust that had screamed through them both as he kissed away the crystals of water hanging from her lashes.

Hunt rolled over, Shallie secure in his arms, and he began to love her again. The water supported them, transforming their coupling into a weightless ballet in which each was freed of the restraint of gravity. Their only thought was to lavish the other with pleasure.

As they descended the mountain, Hunt’s arm wrapped around her shoulders, Shallie felt her legs wobble beneath her like two sticks of licorice. But there was no time for rejuvenation. They both had to be back at the arena.

S
hallie approached the turquoise-colored
coliseum with the first prickles of regret beginning to stab through the dreamy haze she’d been in since leaving the hot springs. It was the last performance of the rodeo. She hated to see it end. The past ten days had been enchanted. She tried to make herself believe that there were more in store, but in a deep corner of herself, she believed that life, or at any rate
her
life, wasn’t like that. It had been too good, too perfect. You didn’t get both the man and the career you dreamed of all in one tidy package.

Once she stepped into the arena, Shallie had no more time for such gloomy ruminations. The next chance she had to pause was during the National Anthem. Throughout it she felt someone’s eyes hot on her neck. She glanced over her shoulder. Hunt, standing on the catwalk above his bronc, was smiling at her. Her own smile came in automatic response. She turned quickly away, afraid
that anyone who’d seen them would be sure to guess the secret they shared. She groped in her pocket for the list Walter had hastily thrust into her hand as she arrived late, and read the first three names:

Hatch Glover—Pegasus

Emile Boulier—Odin

Hunt McIver—Avalanche

Damn,
Shallie muttered—Hunt hadn’t drawn Pegasus. Jesse Southerland was far in the lead, with an average of 87.5 from his two rides, while Hunt was going into his second with a mediocre 79. It would have helped if Hunt had drawn Pegasus and ridden the roan the way Shallie had seen him ride.

The first rider out didn’t even come close to challenging Southerland’s lead. Shallie watched Hatch Glover, a cowboy in his late twenties with a thick, drooping moustache, settle down on Pegasus’s back. She felt a hum of pride. Her horse didn’t even flinch as the man’s weight bore down on him. It was as if he had been trained from birth to be nothing less than the perfect bareback bronc.

“In chute number one, ladies and gentlemen, we have Mr. Hatch Glover from Salinas, California. Hatch is a familiar face to all of you who follow pro rodeo. He’s a consistent runner-up at the National Finals in the bareback riding. He was National College Rodeo champion in this event for three years running.”

Shallie frowned. She hadn’t realized what an impressive reputation the moustachioed cowboy had. Could he best Pegasus? He certainly had the credentials and, from the set of his jaw, it appeared he had the spirit as well. The moustache bobbed down as he nodded for the gate. Pegasus burst out as if blown loose by dynamite. He took two thundering leaps, then seemed to cock his head and decide to change his strategy, almost as if he realized he’d never unloose the strong rider with moon-grazing bucks. So he switched to a snaky, shimmying style of bucking that had Glover running all over his back like spilled pudding. With a jaunty flip of his hindquarters, Pegasus tumbled him into the dust.

There was a burst of scattered applause. Shallie looked behind her to see where it was coming from. The applauders were the handful of true aficionados in the crowd, the ones who actually understood what was happening in the ring. They were clapping for Pegasus! She looked over at the cowboys behind the chute. Every pair of eyes was on her horse.

“Did you see what that damned horse did?” she overheard one stupefied cowboy ask his buddy. “I swear to God that animal changed up his style. I swear he did it on purpose.”

“Damn, wish I’d drawn that, what’s that horse’s name? Pegasus? Wish I’d drawn him. A man could score some points on an animal like that. He must have had all four feet a couple of yards up in the air going out.”

“Horse should be in the Olympic high jump. Damn!”

Shallie smiled. These were the men who voted for the stock that went to the National Finals, and they were undeniably impressed.

“. . . had a couple of bad years.” Shallie’s attention was captured by Slick Bridgers’s announcement.
Damn him,
she thought.
Why does he have to keep
bringing up Hunt’s bad years as if they hadn’t been preceded by four record-breaking ones?
She sought out Hunt’s face. It didn’t betray even the tiniest flicker of response to Slick’s comment. His eyes, so soft and loving that afternoon, now glittered like a frozen chunk of the North Sea. They had an eerie, abandoned look about them, oblivious to the chaos that churned around Hunt. His features were honed as sharp as obsidian. She thought of how pliant and warm they had been and a surge of raw physical desire shot through her.

“Hunt’s going to be riding Avalanche, a bronc who has gone to the National Finals for three years running. There have been rumors that Hunt’s getting some of his old licks back. Well, we’ll see here tonight how far old Hunt will get down the comeback trail. Avalanche has knocked the licks out of more than one cowboy. That is one tough bronc.”

Shallie shut the words out and watched Hunt’s lips carve out the words that called for the gate. Shallie followed his eyes. They were focused on something far outside of the arena. Avalanche thundered out of the chute as if he were paying homage to his namesake. He landed with
a spine-jarring thud. Shallie felt the shock tear through her, but Hunt’s face registered nothing. He could have been riding in a trance. His body, though, was fully alive and tuned in.