Knight in a White Stetson (18 page)

Five minutes later, Pete was rumbling along the road back toward Paradise. Henry walked
to
the edge of the horse pasture and leaned against a fence post. Calla joined him.

“That was fast. What did he say?”

“It wasn’t him.”

“Oh.” She frowned at him.

He put a booted foot on the middle strand of barbed wire and lifted the top wire with his hand. “Come through.”

She slipped through the fence with the ease that came from over twenty years of practice. Henry took her hand and led her toward camp.

“What do we do now?” she inquired.

“We forget about this until Saturday. Pete’s going to work on it for us.”

“Why couldn’t I listen to your top-secret conversation? I assumed that since I’m the one being spied on, I would be invited to sit in on the strategy session.”

Henry stopped and looked at her in surprise. “Are you angry?”

“Yes,
I’m angry. I’m not an idiot, Henry. Nor am I a frightened little girl. I’ve been taking care of grown-up problems for a long time now, and I don’t appreciate being relegated to the horse pasture while you two big studs discuss my life.”

He blinked at her. It was almost fully dark now, and he could just make out her features. They were set in angry lines. “Calla, I have never once made the mistake of thinking you were either an idiot or a child. You are, in fact, one of the smartest, most grown-up people I know. I didn’t include you in my conversation with Pete for a couple reasons.”

“And they are?”

“One, Peter Fish is the horniest lowlife I have ever known, and if he so much as batted his pup-dog eyes at you, I would have had to punch him out.”

She considered that for a minute. “Oh” was all she could come up with.

“And two, I didn’t want him to know you know anything about this. It’s safer for you that way.”

Henry took the hoof pick from her fingers and tossed it on the table. He tugged her shirt free of her Wranglers.

“What are you doing?” She pushed at his quick hands.

“I want a look at your side.”

“It’s … it’s fine,” she managed to tell him. She yanked the tail of her shirt back.

“Just let me look at it.”

“It’s okay. I swear.”

He ignored her and lifted her shirt himself. She stood with her hands in the air while he examined her. He scowled at the bruise underneath the scrape. “Where’s the Neosporin?”

“In the kit. On the table.”

He reached behind her and snagged it, pressing against her for an instant as he did so. She didn’t even want to think about what that did to her.

Henry squeezed out a dab of the gel onto his finger. “Lift your shirt again.”

“I can do it.”

“Just lift your shirt.”

Funny how she’d started taking orders so well, Calla thought. She’d never been very good at it before.

He anchored her with a hand at her hip. “Terrible scab,” he muttered, touching it lightly as he spread the antiseptic over it. “But not deep.”

“No,” she gasped.

His hand stroked a light circle along the outer edge of the wound. Once, twice.

“Does the bruise hurt?”

“No.”

So slowly, like a man gentling a wild animal, he moved to the smooth skin beyond her wound. Calla sucked in a breath, but made no move to stop his wandering hand. It didn’t even occur to her.

“I was afraid yesterday you’d broken a rib,” he whispered.

She could barely form words in her head, much less her mouth. “Um…”

His fingers drifted down to her belly, stroking, moving to her sides
to
cup her waist and back again. He was petting her, kneading softly when he came to each curve or swell or indentation. His fingers stretched out until his hand was splayed wide against her stomach. She quivered under his touch. He didn’t look up when he smiled.

“Umm, Henry?” She didn’t think to drop her shirt back into place.

He turned his hand over and curled his knuckles, letting the feel of her sink into him. He made circles on her flesh with the back of his hand, low, until he felt the shallow impression of her navel. His thumb came to rest there while he raised his head to meet her gaze. “I don’t think it will scar.”

“What? Oh, no, I don’t think…”

He was standing too close. Too close. She forced her eyes
to
stay open, looking
at
him looking at her, though it took every ounce of will not to just let them drift shut, as they did whenever he was too, too close.

And his hands. The one
at
her hip flexed and pressed. And the other one. Oh. It was slow, hard, skillful. She wanted him to dip it beneath the waistband of her jeans and make those little circles lower down. For
at
least an hour.

As though he’d read her thoughts, he unsnapped the button of her fly and slid his hand down, palm out, until he touched the silky top of her panties. He took the elastic between his index and middle finger and tugged. Her head did drop back then.

Soft, flattened hair. His fingertips touched it, and when they did he saw Calla’s lips part, saw her tongue dart out to lick the fuller, lower one. He leaned forward to suck lightly at her collarbone.

“Come lie with me, Calla,” he whispered against her skin.

“Oh … I can’t.” His voice was so soft, and his mouth was cruising up her neck, and she labored valiantly to remember why this couldn’t happen. “I can’t.”

“Calla, I want you so much. Come with me. Forget about everything else. Just for right now. We’ll worry about it all later.”

Well, wonderful, now he was hypnotizing her. She couldn’t think of another, better explanation why her knees went weak and her body softened and her will collapsed at his words.

“Henry … please.”

She couldn’t have said what it was she begged him for. Release or capture.

“Calla. Come with me. Let me touch you.” He sucked lightly again, higher this time. Calla felt the thrill zip right down between her legs. “I want you to touch me.”

“Ah … Henry, please…”

“Say yes, Calla.” He was this close to begging her. He knew it. Didn’t bother him in the least. “Say yes.”

“No, Henry.” She pulled away
at
the last possible second, like a pilot pulling out of a fatal dive. His mouth left her soft throat, his hand left her soft skin. She pleaded with him, silently, with those lovely hazel eyes, to understand. “I can’t.”

He watched her for a long minute, his breath rattling in his chest. Then he turned away, leaving her relieved, and bereft.

“I’ll make dinner,” he said thickly.

Chapter 16

«
^
»

H
enry heard Calla groan. He opened his eyes. It was not yet sunrise. Henry smiled. She was back on schedule. He turned lazily and peeked one eye open at her.

“Good morning,” he said, stretching the familiar, pleasant aches from his body. “It’s
5:27.”

“I didn’t ask.” She was lying on her back, her hands over her face.

“It’s usually your first question. You are certainly not a morning person, are you? What’s wrong
this
morning? I hate to ask.”

“I don’t want to talk to you right now.”

Henry leaned on an elbow.

“Why don’t you want to talk to me?”

She groaned again. “Don’t look at me.” She suspected that her face under the cover of her hands was bright pink. She felt it flame. She’d just had the most amazing dream, was barely recovered from it, still felt a shocking pulse inside her body. If Henry suspected she’d just had her very first erotic dream—about him, about
anyone—
she
wouldn’t get out of this tent with her principles and her plans intact, she was certain of it.

He reached to pluck her hands from her face.

She snatched them back, flopped onto her stomach and buried her face in the saddle pad he’d given her for a pillow. Miscalculation. Her breasts tingled sharply where they met the bottom of her sleeping bag—the nipples that, in her vivid imagination, had been so recently in his mouth, were hard as river pebbles.

Another groan. Henry wondered how she breathed with her face buried like that. He admired her thick, straight hair as it spilled over her shoulders and contrasted with the dark-colored saddle pad. If nothing else, at least he’d got her to stop wearing that damn ponytail every minute of her life. He touched the heavy, silky stuff.

“Aah! Don’t touch me!” she shrieked.

Henry pulled his hand back as if she’d touched a match to it, guilty as a little boy with his hand caught in the cookie jar. It made him furious. He hadn’t even kissed her last night! So, he’d made a suggestion. She was a grown woman; he was allowed! She didn’t want him touching her? Fine with him!

“Fine with me!” he shouted at her prone form, and left the tent.

Calla shook her head against the saddle pad, mashing her nose in the process. The minute her body stopped quaking, she’d go and apologize.

* * *

They loaded salt into the wood-framed packsaddles atop Lucky and Sonny, tied the two horses behind Toke and Buster, and started on the eight-hour round trip to Upper Pyramid Flats—with Henry still fuming and Calla still mortified. She did her best to make amends, without actually telling him it was his fault she was so flustered. Him and his … well, she shouldn’t think about his … his … oh, it had been just magnificent in her dream!

“Want to know why they call it Upper Pyramid Flats?”

“To distinguish it from Lower Pyramid Flats?”

“Very funny,” she said. “There’s a real pyramid there. Made from lava rock.”

“Hmm.”

“You’re pouting.”

He shot her a nasty look. “Yeah, right.”

“You are. Pouter.”

He kept silent. She guessed she couldn’t josh him out of his sulk. She’d just have to apologize, darn it.

“I’m sorry about this morning.”

“Look, if you’re mad about last night…”

“No. No. I was just as involved in that as you were.”

“I doubt it,” he mumbled crossly.

“I had … a bad dream.” No, a very, very good dream. A really excellent dream. One in a million. “It made me wake up grumpy. I’m sorry.”

“You wake up like that every morning. You must have a lot of bad dreams.”

“Not like this one,” she said under her breath.

They rode in silence for a long while, each lost in their own thoughts. They’d have been surprised to know how often those thoughts ran exactly parallel.

“Benny told me the pyramid was there before Great-granddad started coming through these mountains with his sheep on the way to the shipping depot in Station City.”

“Your great-grandfather ran sheep?”

“Four bands. Wool was high then, and he sold lambs in the spring.”

“Why don’t you run sheep anymore?”

“Doesn’t make sense. Wool prices are too low and labor costs are too high, especially during lambing season. You need a man for every band during the summer, and ten men for every band during lambing season. And you can make the same amount on four hundred fall calves as you can on fifteen hundred spring lambs, plus you only have to pay one cowboy. I hate sheep, anyway. The lambs are cute, but fragile as hell. You end up slitting the throats of the sick ones and throwing ‘em to the eagles and the coyotes all winter. I can’t take the gore. Besides, as dumb as cows are, they’re Einsteins next to sheep.”

She turned in her saddle to check the balance of the packsaddle on the horse behind her. Satisfied, she gave Henry a brilliant smile. “I’m impressed. The art of packsaddles is almost as archaic as ditch riding. Where did you learn to do all this stuff, Henry?”

Henry shrugged. “My grandfather had a ranch in central California. It wasn’t as big as this, but he had a few cows and one thousand acres in dairy hay. I used to spend my summers there.”

Calla was delighted. “Your grandfather? Who runs the farm now? Your parents?”

“My father sold the farm when my grandparents died,” he said flatly.

“He sold it? How could he sell it? Was it in financial trouble?”

“No. It was clear.”

“Well—” Calla struggled to understand “—did he need the money?”

Henry snorted. “My father? No. My father has plenty of money.”

“Oh. What does he do for a living?”

“He’s a doctor. An M.D. He’s chief of staff at a hospital in the San Fernando Valley.”

“Wow. That’s a great job.”

Henry looked quizzically
at
her for a second, then chuckled. “I guess so. I’ve never heard it put quite that way, but yes, I suppose it’s a great job.”

“I didn’t mean that to be funny. It’s just that no one in my family ever even graduated from college.”

“They got to stay on the ranch.”

Calla gave him a winning flash of white teeth. “I’ve never heard it put that way before, but yes, I suppose that’s true. They got to stay on the ranch. No one has ever really wanted
to
leave.”

“Lester told me you wanted to leave.”

“Lester’s mouth is as big as a moon on an outhouse.”

“Why did you want to leave?”

Calla thought about that for a minute. “It’s not that I wanted
to
leave,
exactly,” she answered slowly. “I wanted to go to college. Ben and I used to talk about it all the time. He should have gone. He was brilliant, wanted to be an engineer. But we never had the money, and he just sort of forgot about it after a while. After Benny died I forgot about it, too, for a couple years, anyway. Then, about six years ago, without telling my dad or me, my mom took out a loan, using the ranch as collateral, so I could go away to college.”

“Where were you going?”

“Dartmouth.”

Henry hooted. “Give me a break.”

Calla gave him a sharp look. “Dartmouth is an excellent school. I was lucky to get in, especially considering my background.”

“Yes, well, one can hardly fathom why a revered institution like Dartmouth would take a grizzled Idaho farm woman. So, why didn’t you go?”

“I did. I’d been there almost three years when my mom died. I stayed in a dorm my first year, but then I got a job cleaning for a sorority house. I never pledged, of course; it all seemed kind of silly, but they made me a sort of house mother,” she said. “I hadn’t even noticed how she had wasted away until I came back to Idaho for the funeral. She looked like a little doll in her big casket. Dad told me she’d been sick with cancer for over a year, but she didn’t want treatments. Said they made her too sick to enjoy her last months with him.”

“She didn’t tell you she was dying?”

Calla shook her head. “You know, I wonder if she even believed it herself,” she said thoughtfully. “She was a strong woman. Incredibly strong. She did the work of a rancher every day of her life until the last few months. She and Benny and I used to feed before school every morning and you never saw anybody pitch a bale like my mother. I don’t think she really thought the cancer could kill her. But even if she did, she didn’t want me to know it. Especially when I went away. She didn’t think I’d have left the ranch if I’d known.”

“And you wouldn’t have.”

“No.”

“You didn’t go back to school after she died?”

“No. My dad left his job in town. He was the librarian for thirty-four years, but he just couldn’t handle the ranch and the
death of my mom at the same time. Besides, we couldn’t afford to hire anyone to help with the farm.”

“So, you were the knight in shining armor.”

“Hardly. It was my fault we were in trouble in the first place. My college loan was the first debt the ranch had since my mother paid off a cattle note twenty-six years ago.”

“And you feel guilty about that.”

“Shouldn’t I?”

Henry shook his head. Between this and the death of her brother, no wonder the girl carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. No wonder she was going to marry that putz. “How much debt?”

Calla stared at him in disbelief. “I’m not telling you that!”

“Why not?”

“It’s private!”

“Maybe I could help.”

“Not on $850 a month. Besides, Clark has promised to look into it after we’re married.”

“Calla…”

“Don’t, Henry,” she said. “I’m telling you. Don’t even go there.”

* * *

They reached Upper Pyramid at midday. After they unloaded half the salt into a lick box and readjusted the packsaddles, Henry spent twenty minutes examining the Pyramid while Calla unpacked their lunch.

“It’s very intricate.” He’d come back to sit next to her, unwrapping his sandwich thoughtfully.

“The sandwich? Thank you.”

“Not the sandwich, dufus. The pyramid.”

“I know. Yes. The weather doesn’t seem to touch it. We even had an earthquake here in 1985. I don’t think a single stone moved. That’s why no one has ever dismantled it, I guess. It’s almost mystical in design.”

“Basque?”

She nodded. “A marker. The sheepherders leave them everywhere they go.”

“Are there Native American writings around here?”

“The next butte over. I’ll show them to you sometime.” Her insides flipped. No, she wouldn’t show them to him sometime.

“Are they defaced?” He had finished his sandwich and had tucked an arm beneath his shoulder and leaned back into the dirt. His hat tipped over his eyes. Calla smiled down at him. She had become accustomed to his postlunch position. On impulse, she scooched onto her back and rested her head in the crook of his outstretched arm. They were friends now; this was perfectly acceptable, between friends. She could hear his heart thudding solidly against his chest.

“No. Hardly anyone knows where they are, and you can’t get to them unless you’re on foot or horseback. We haven’t yet managed to blacktop everything in like you Californians.” She closed her eyes. The sun beat pleasantly down on her eyelids. Not too hot today, she mused. Wonder what August will be like? Hope that spring on Milner Meadow stays open.

“How’s your—”

“Fine. Stop mothering me.”

“Fine. We’ll talk about something else. When did you meet Dartmouth?”

Calla stiffened. “I told you I don’t want
to
talk about him with you.”

“When you went back East?”

“Henry, look…”

“I’m just curious. Humor me.”

Calla gave an exaggerated sigh. “Yes, my last year at school. Does he seem like the type
to
come
to
Idaho
to
meet a girl?”

“No.” Henry waited for her to go on. Calla couldn’t tell if he waited because he was naturally patient, or because he assumed she’d spill her guts
at
will. “I met Clark when he came by the sorority house with his fraternity brothers
to
welcome the new pledges in the house where I was working.”

“Come on.” He tipped his hat back and dipped his chin, staring
at
the top her head. “You’re kidding me. He graduated, what, ten years ago? What was he doing welcoming pledges?”

“I take it that’s odd?”

“It’s odd for seniors. It’s absolutely sick for someone who left the university years earlier. He was trolling for freshmen, for crying out loud. Eighteen-year-old girls!”

Calla was indignant. Sort
of.