Renegade Man (15 page)

Soren had wanted
to pick her up at Tomahawk Flats, but she had convinced him that it would be
ridiculous for him to make the long round trip. “Besides, it’ll be time to pick
up my mail again. I’ll meet you in town.”

She and Soren
arrived in time for the cookout at Gough Park, which was already crowded with families.
While she saved them a spot beneath a shady sycamore, he filled their plates
with barbecued ribs and red beans. The day was gorgeous, with a cloudless sky
so blue it hurt her eyes. Close by, old men pitched horseshoes, and she thought
how long it had been since she had seen anyone playing the game.

Resting her head
against the tree trunk, she closed her eyes, listening to the laughter of
children nearby. In the distance, she could hear the sounds of a guitar and a
fiddle coming from the flagstone pavilion and, farther away, the popping of
firecrackers.

“Pleasant, isn’t
it?” Soren said as he passed her a plate. Despite his bulk, he dropped down
agilely beside her. “I get so caught up working that I forget to take time to
stop and smell the flowers.”

“Don’t work so
hard, Soren.” She touched his hand and said, “For five years I did that, and
it’s not healthy. You lose all perspective.”

He turned his
hand over and caught her fingers, giving them a gentle squeeze. “I like you,
Rita-lou Randall. A lot. You’re a sassy, classy woman.”

She smiled. “I
liked you, too.” He reminded her a bit of Robert. But what she said was, “You
remind me of the jolly green giant—except with red hair.” Laughter rolled from
his barrel chest, and she relaxed, feeling her restlessness and tension back
away. Soren’s genial nature kept it a bay, for the moment, at least.

The rodeo, held
out at the Sheriffs Posse Rodeo Grounds, was attended by cowboys from all over
the Southwest. While they might not be built like weight lifters, what flesh
they did carry was hard and tough. They had hands thickened from constant use
and the squint that came from years of narrowing their eyes to protect them
against sun glare and wind.

As she watched
the contestants compete in the steer-wrestling and bull-roping events, Rita-lou
couldn’t help but be reminded of Jonah. Like those hell-raising cowboys, he was
a loner, and there was a little bit of outlaw in him. He had the incorrigible
nature of a spirited horse that would never be quite broken, even though it
might eventually accept the bit and saddle.

She glanced at
the men around her in the stands, contrasting them with Jonah. He possessed the
same independent quality, unknown to the average working man, who had mortgage
payments and lived in terror of an IRS audit.

But didn’t that
willingness to face small daily fears for the sake of a loved one take a
special kind of courage? Maybe Jonah was the coward.

And where was
Jonah? When she’d left that morning, he had already taken off somewhere in his
pickup. If he wasn’t with Nelda, there were plenty of other women willing to
try to tame him. Rita-lou detested the way the young coeds with their perfect
figures and unlined complexions had sidled up to him on the Bor der Cowboy
dance floor. His rough good looks and trail-weary attitude had made the college
jocks look like callow youths.

The next event
was the bareback bronc-riding, and the first man out of the shoot was Buck
Dillard, astride an iron-jawed bucking horse named Deep Trouble. “I hope he’s
thrown,” she grumbled softly.

“So do most of
the spectators,” Soren said.

Unhappily for
her, Buck clung to the rampaging horse until after the eight-second buzzer,
when he leaped off, took a roll and got deftly to his feet. Beating the dust
off his chaps with his hat, he swaggered out of the arena.

Disgusted, she
was more than ready to leave when Soren suggested browsing through the bazaar.
Artists displayed their paintings on easels, the women showed off their quilts
spread on wooden frames, and antique dealers put out their stores of old
firearms and knives, frontier chamber pots and brass spittoons.

 She and Soren
pawed through the dusty boxes of cheaply priced rocks set out by amateur
collectors. They shared a love of the earth’s natural treasure. But then, so
did Jonah.

“Old-timers
still remember when free gold could be picked up in the streets after a heavy
rain,” she told Soren, holding up a carbon-crusted rock for him to view. “Gold?
A diamond, maybe?”

“Now what would
you do if we found something valuable in here?” Soren asked.

“Like the star
sapphire that man in Texas found?” she asked, and smiled up at him. She picked
up a lavender-gray stone, saying, “Well, finish putting my son through college,
for one thing. What about you?”

“Oh, I suppose
go into business for myself. But I don’t think I’d let a couple of million
dollars change my lifestyle that much. I’ve seen the better part of two
continents, and I don’t think there’s a better place to put down roots than
right here in Silver City.”

She replaced the
stone in its box and shook her head. Her hair, unbound for a change, swirled
around her shoulders. “Silver City’s not for me, Soren. Too many bittersweet
memories.”

“They don’t have
to stay that way, Rita-lou.” He wrapped his arm around her waist. “Come on, let’s
get something to drink.”

By then the
rodeo was over, and the Border Cowboy was filling to overflowing with thirsty
revelers. After the bright sunlight, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to
the dark interior. “Why does a saloon only smell of stale beer in the day and
not at night?” Soren rumbled near her ear.

Laughing, she
looked over her shoulder at him and saw Jonah. He was in the far corner,
playing pool with a couple of men she didn’t know. He looked good in his faded
jeans, western shirt rolled up at the sleeves, boots and hat. Of course, he
looked good in anything.

She and Soren
strolled over to the group. She asked, “Another one of your sailors’ games,
Jonah?”

He raised his
eyes from the five-ball to focus on her. He stared at her for a moment, then
made a shot that sent the orange ball spinning into a side pocket. When he
straightened, he was grinning cockily at her. “Want to take me on? We could
make the game more interesting by . . .”

“No!” She was
grateful that the dim light didn’t betray her hot blush.

“. . . betting
quarters,” he finished with an innocent smile."

“Well, if it
isn’t Silver City’s resident Girl Scout.”

She turned in
the direction of the taunting voice. Buck was standing at the brass-railed bar,
his elbows braced on the mahogany counter behind him. With him were some Split
P hands.

“This is no city
slicker, guys. She likes to rough it— camps out at Tomahawk Flats. A real
bra-bumer, this one.”

Beside her,
Soren stiffened, but before he could make a move, Jonah leveled his cue in
front of Soren.

 “She’s a big
girl, good buddy,” Jonah told him quietly.

Rita-lou leaned
her hips against the pool table and crossed her arms, regarding C.B.’s foreman
from a distance of twenty years. “From what I heard in high school, Buck, the
only bras you ever saw were the ones in those nudie magazines you kept hidden
in your locker.”

The cowhands at
the bar with Buck snickered. He seemed to go a little pale; his face grew a
little tighter, and resentment entered his eyes. He shifted the wad of tobacco
in his mouth, but he didn’t say a word.

She shot him a
smile of dismissal and started up the stairs. Following behind her, Soren said,
“There’s nothing I’d like better than to sink my fist into his face.”

She smiled up at
the big Swede. “Don’t bother. Buck’s been bounced so often by those broncos
that his brain has turned to guacamole.”

With Buck
effectively put in his place, the rest of the evening went as nicely as the
morning had. Soren was charming, intelligent, attentive, fun to be with. The
only thing wrong with him was that he wasn’t Jonah Jones.

As she and Soren
left the Border Cowboy, a man approached her. Soren stepped out in front
protectively, but then the man identified himself as Deputy Sheriff Galloway.
He tipped his hat to her and thrust an envelope in her hands. “You’ve been
served with a summons, Ms. Randall.”

She stared
dumbly at the envelope.

“Want me to open
it?” Soren asked after the man had left.

She nodded and
watched as he unfolded the paper. “Just like he said—it’s a summons and a complaint
for property damage. The plaintiff is C. B. Kingsley.”

“Just great,”
she muttered.

To top things
off, Jonah didn’t come home that night.

Chapter 10

W
hat she was
feeling for Jonah was a strange and powerful thing, not at all what she wanted
in her ordinary life. So it was with a mixture of frustration and relief that
she watched his pickup spew dust as it bounced down the dirt road toward camp
the next afternoon. He parked beneath the oak and swung down from the cab.

Hands tucked in
the back pockets of her jeans, she waited for him near the picnic bench.
Nothing in the world would get her to admit that she had been worried when he
hadn’t come home last night. She had been afraid that C.B. had found some way
this time to strike out at her through Jonah.

All morning she
had worked furiously at the dig, retroweling the five-by-five squares—and all
the while cursing Jonah Jones. At noon she had stopped to wash and change
clothes, with the intention of going into town after Jonah, though she honestly
didn’t know what she was going to do if she found him.

Now he was here,
striding toward her. She should never have agreed to stay in his camper. But
now that she was ensconced there, why couldn’t she come out and just tell him
that she wanted to go to bed with him? Tell him she agreed with his
no-strings-attached attitude, even if she didn’t. She vowed that she would tell
him when she saw him.

When he was near
enough, her vow evaporated. All she could manage was, “You want lunch?”

He took off his
hat and wiped the back of his sleeve across his forehead. The boiling sunlight
tinted his mustache a golden copper. Beneath it, his mouth was full, with a
suggestion of both the sensuous and the savage. Unleashed male sexuality
emanated from him.

“Not hungry.” He
strode on past her and entered the camper.

Through the
screen she watched him tug off his shirt. A fiery ball of wanting formed deep
inside her. She definitely had to rechannel some of her energy, or else she was
going to go crazy.

“I’m going into
town,” she called. When he didn’t reply, she added, “To see C.B. He’s filed
against me for property damage. I allegedly dug a hole that his prized bull
fell into, breaking its leg.”

She heard the
tab of a beer can pop; then Jonah opened the camper door, leaned lazily against
the jamb and stared down at her. “If you’re hinting that I should go along with
you and champion you in your fight, you’re doomed to disappointment,
sweetheart.”

Fury rattled up
her spine. “I’ve done everything on my own all my life, and I’m not about to
start asking for help now. Pass me my purse. Please!”

He stared down
at her, a cocky grin curving that sexy mouth, and she felt herself doing a slow
burn. At last he reached behind him and came up with her shoulder bag. As he
dangled it toward her, a purely lecherous grin lifted the ends of his mustache.
“Thought you didn’t want my help?”

She snatched the
purse from him and stalked toward her Chevy. On the long drive into town, she
rationed her anger, so that she was still hot by the time she reached the North
Addition. She would need her anger when her courage faltered.

First she went
to the telephone booth opposite the fire station and put in a call to the
archaeological office of the National Park Service, in Santa Fe, asking for its
director, Ben Schotsky. She had communicated with him for several months by
letter and telephone prior to getting the go-ahead on the Renegade Man
excavation.

“Schotsky here,”
he said in a reedy voice that used to grate on her. Actually, in her dealings
with him, she’d found him to be both fair-minded and helpful.

She explained
the problem to him as concisely as she could, ending by saying, “. . . and
C.B.’s responsible for running the cattle out there on Tomahawk Flats. You know
yourself, Ben, that any hole I dug couldn’t have been more than five inches
deep at the most. There are ruts on the roads deeper than that!”

“Calm down,
Rita-lou. He can’t get away with it, and what’s more, he probably knows it.
Call his bluff. This sort of thing goes on all the time. If we have to, we’ll
settle out of court. But I doubt it’ll come to that.”

Feeling somewhat
better, she replaced the receiver. Now for C. B. Kingsley.

Of the remaining
1890s mansions, the three-story Kingsley house was by far the most impressive,
with tiny leaded windows overlooking its neighbors. A middle-aged Hispanic
woman in a black shirt and white blouse admitted Rita-lou to the foyer.
That
woman might have been me if I had stayed on, if I hadn’t given my heart to Chap
.