by Nora Roberts
word—with Farley. Excuse me while I get the fire extinguisher. Your pants are smoking.”
“I may have speculated on stupid wording with Farley, but never with any intent to follow through. It’s another inalienable right.” Exasperated, Tansy tossed up her hands. “We both checked out the ass of Greg the Adonis Grad Student when he volunteered for a month last summer. We didn’t jump that fine ass.”
“It was fine,” Lil said, remembering. “Plus he had that whole six-pack ab thing going. And the shoulders.”
“Yeah. Shoulders.”
They both fell into reverent silence for a moment.
“God, I miss sex,” Lil said with a sigh.
“Tell me.”
“Aha! So why aren’t you having it with Farley?”
“You won’t trap me that way, Dr. Chance.”
“Oh, won’t I? You’re not having it with Farley because he’s not just another hot body like Greg the Adonis Grad Student. You’re not having it with Farley because you have feelings involved.”
“I . . .” Tansy opened her mouth, then hissed. “Damn it. Okay. All right, I do have them. I don’t even know how it started. He’d come around to help out sometimes, and sure I’d think, Cute guy. He is a cute guy, and sweet. Cute and sweet and funny, so we’d talk or he’d give me a hand, and somewhere along the line I started feeling this buzz. He’d come around and, whew, lots of buzzing in there. And . . . well, I’m not stupid, but an experienced woman of thirty years.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I caught the way he’d look at me. So I knew he had the buzz going on, too. I didn’t think much of it at first. Just: What do you know, I’ve got the hots for the cute cowboy. But it wouldn’t go away, and it got buzz ier. Then last week, the bad day,” she said, and Lil nodded, “I was feeling sad and sorry, and he sat with me. He kissed me. I kissed him right back before I realized what I was doing. I stopped, and I told him it wasn’t going to happen again. He just kept grinning at me. He says, and I quote, he’s got ‘a powerful yen’ for me. Who talks like that? It’s put me in a mood.”
She dug for another cookie. “I can’t get that damn grin out of my head.”
“Okay. You’re not going to like what I have to say, but . . .” Lil put her index finger against her thumb, and flicked it sharply dead center of Tansy’s forehead.
“Ow!”
“Stupid. You’re taking the path of stupid, so get off of it. A handful of years and a skin color aren’t reasons to turn away from someone you care about, and who cares about you.”
“People who say skin color doesn’t matter are usually white.”
“Well, ow right back at you.”
“I mean it, Lil. Mixed relationships are still difficult in a lot of the world.”
“News flash. Relationships are still difficult in all of the world.”
“Exactly. So why add layers to the difficulty?”
“Because love’s precious. That part’s simple. It’s getting it and keeping it that’s hard. You’ve never been in a serious relationship.”
“Not fair. I was with Thomas for more than a year.”
“You liked, respected, and lusted for each other. You spoke the same language, but you were never serious, Tansy. Not this-is-the-one sort of serious. I know what it’s like to be with a nice guy you’re comfortable with and never think of him as the one. And I know what it’s like to know the one. I had that with Coop, and he broke my heart. Still, I’d rather have my heart broken than never look and know.”
“You say that, but you’re not the only one with theories. Mine is you’ve never gotten over him.”
“No, I never have.”
Tansy lifted her hands. “How can you handle it?”
“I’m still figuring that out. The bad day was, apparently, a day for a shift in status. He brought me chicken and dumplings. And he kissed me. It’s not a buzz with me, Tansy. It’s a flood, that pours in and fills me up.” She laid a hand on her heart, rubbed. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. If I sleep with him again, will it help me tread water until I can finally get to solid ground? Or will it just take me under? I don’t know, but I’m not going to pretend the odds aren’t strong that I’ll be finding out.”
Steadier for having said it out loud, Lil set her mug down, smiled. “I’ve got a powerful yen for him.”
“You’re—what was your word? Unwrapped. You’re unwrapped over the man who walked away from you and broke your heart. And I’m unwrapped over a farmhand with a rubber-band grin.”
“And we’re the smart girls.”
“Yeah. We’re the smart girls,” Tansy agreed. “Even when we’re idiots.”
COOP WORKED WITH the pretty buckskin mare he’d trained over the winter. She had, in his estimation, a sweet heart, a strong back, and a lazy disposition. She’d be happy to snooze in the stall, paddock, or field most of the day. She’d go if you insisted, if she was sure you really meant it.
She didn’t nip, she didn’t kick, and she would eat an apple out of your hand with a polite delicacy that was undeniably female.
He thought she’d do well with children. He named her Little Sis.
Business was slow in these last stubborn weeks of bitter winter. It gave him time—too much of it—to catch up on paperwork, clean the stalls, organize his new home.
And think about Lil.
He knew she had her hands full. Word got back to him through his grandparents—from her parents, from Farley, from Gull.
She’d come by once, he’d heard, to return his grandmother’s dish, and visit awhile. And she’d come by when he’d been in town, doing a stint in the storefront office.
He wondered if that had been accident or design on her part.
He’d given her space, but he was about done with that now. Those loose ends were still dangling. The time was coming to knot them off.
He started to walk Little Sis toward the barn. “You worked good today,” he told her. “We’ll get you brushed down, and maybe there’ll be an apple in it for you.”
He’d have sworn her ears twitched at the word “apple.” Just as he’d have sworn he heard her sigh when he changed direction and steered her toward the house when he saw the county sheriff step out of the back door.
“That’s a pretty girl.”
“She is.”
Standing, legs spread, Willy squinted up at the sky. “The way the weather’s clearing up, you’ll have her and the rest under the tourists and on the trails before long.”
Coop had to smile. “This is one of the few places I know where eighteen inches of snowpack and drifts taller than me would be considered clearing up, weather-wise.”
“Yeah, haven’t gotten anything falling since the last storm. Clearing up. Spare me a minute, Coop?”
“Sure.” Coop dismounted, looped the mare’s reins around the porch rail. Hardly necessary, he thought. She wouldn’t go anywhere she wasn’t told to go.
“I’ve just come from seeing Lil over at the refuge, and figured I owed you a stop-by.”
Coop could see it clearly enough in the man’s face. “To tell me you’re hitting dead ends.”
“To tell you that. Fact is, what we got is a dead cougar, a thirty-two slug, a buncha tracks in the snow, and a vague description of someone you saw in the dark. We’ve been giving it a push, but there’s not much to move along.”
“You got copies of her threat file?”
“Yeah, and we’ve been following up on that. I rode out and spoke personal to a couple of men who went by the refuge a few months back and gave them some trouble. Don’t fit the physical, either of them. One’s got a wife swears he was home that night, and through the morning—and he was at work nine on the dot in Sturgis. That’s verified. The other runs damn near three hundred pounds. I don’t think you’d’ve mistaken him.”
“No.”
“I talked to a couple rangers I know, and they’ll be keeping an eye out at the park, spreading the word. But I’m going to tell you lik
e I had to tell Lil, we’re going to need a serious run of luck to tie this up. I gotta figure whoever it was is gone. Nobody with a lick of sense would’ve stayed up there when that storm came in. We’ll keep doing what we can do, but I wanted to tell her straight. And you, too.”
“There are a lot of places a man could wait out a storm. In the hills and in the valley. If he had some experience, some provisions, or some luck.”
“That’s a fact. We made some calls, checking if somebody who looked like they’d come off the trail moved into one of the motels or hotels around here. We didn’t get anything. Her camera’s been up and running since, and nobody’s seen anybody around the refuge—or the Chance place—who shouldn’t be around.”
“It sounds like you’ve covered everything you could cover.”
“Doesn’t close the book on it, though. Open book keeps my palms itchy.” Willy stood a moment, looking out at the snow, the sky. “Well. Good to see Sam up and around. I hope I’m tough as him when I get his age. If you think of anything I need to know, I’ll be around to hear it.”
“I appreciate you coming by.”
Willy nodded, gave Little Sis a pat on her flank. “Pretty girl. You take care, Coop.”
He would, Coop thought. But what he needed to take care of was at the refuge.
He dealt with the horse, so Little Sis got her rubdown and her apple. He took care of the rest of the chores, ones as routine to him now as dressing every morning. Because there would be coffee hot and fresh, he went into his grandmother’s kitchen.
His grandfather walked in, without his cane. Coop fought down the urge to comment, especially when Sam gave him a quick scowl.
“I’m still going to use it when I go outside, or if my leg gives me trouble. I’m just testing things, that’s all.”
“Stubborn old goat,” Lucy said as she came out of the laundry room with a basket full of whites.
“That makes two of us.” Sam limped over, took the basket, and while Coop held his breath limped away again to set it on a chair. “Now.” His face actually flushed with pleasure as he turned, winked at Coop. “Why don’t you get the menfolks some coffee, woman?”
Lucy folded her lips, but not before the quick smile escaped. “Oh, sit down.”
Sam let out a quiet sigh as he sat. “I smell a chicken roasting.” He scented the air like a wolf. “Heard a rumor about mashed potatoes. You ought to help me eat that, Coop, before this woman fattens me up like a pig before the roast.”
“Actually, I have something to do. But if you hear somebody sneaking around in here later tonight, you’ll know it’s me coming after the leftovers.”
“I can make you up some, put it over next door for you,” Lucy offered.
The bunkhouse had become “next door.”
“Don’t worry about that. I can fend for myself.”
“Well.” She set coffee in front of both of them, then ran her hand along Coop’s shoulder. “It looks nice over there, but I wish you’d take another look up in the attic. I know you could use more furniture.”
“I can only sit in one chair at a time, Grandma. I wanted to tell you the mare—Little Sis—is coming along.”
“I saw you working her.” Lucy poured the water she had simmering in the kettle to make the tea she preferred that time of day. “She’s got a sweet way.”
“I think she’ll be good with kids, especially if they don’t want to get anywhere fast. I was hoping you’d take her out a couple times, Grandma. See how she feels to you.”
“I’ll take her out tomorrow.” She hesitated a moment before turning to her husband. “Why don’t you ride out with me, Sam? We haven’t had a ride in a while.”
“If the boy can spare the pair of us.”
“I think I can manage,” Coop told him. He finished off his coffee and pushed to his feet. “I’m going to get cleaned up. Do you need anything before I go?”
“I think we can manage,” Lucy said with a smile. “You going out?”
“Yeah. I’ve got something to take care of.”
Lucy lifted her eyebrows at Sam when the door closed behind Coop. “I’ll give you two to one that something has big brown eyes.”
“Lucille, I don’t take sucker bets.”
STREAKS AND SMEARS of red shimmered over the western sky, and the light dipped soft into twilight. The world was vast and white, a land caught in the clutched fist of winter.
He’d heard people talking about spring—his grandparents, Gull, people in town, but nothing he saw gave any indication they’d turned a corner toward daffodils and robins. Then again, he thought, as he pulled up to the gates of the refuge, he’d never spent a winter in the Black Hills before this one.
A few days at Christmas didn’t come close to the whole shot, he mused, as he got out to unlock the gate with the copy of the key he’d had made from Joe’s. The wind whistled and skipped along the road and sent the pines whooshing. The scent of pine and snow and horse would forever say winter in the hills to him.
He got back into the truck, drove through the gate. Stopped, got out to close and relock it. And wondered how much an automatic gate with a frigging keypad ran. Plus a couple of security cameras for the entrance.
He’d have to check on what kind of alarm system she had installed.
If he could make a copy of the key, so could half the county. The other half could just hike around, circle back, and stroll onto refuge land on a whim.
Fences and gates didn’t keep people out if they wanted in.
He followed the road back and slowed at the first turn, the turn that brought the cabins into view. Smoke pumped out of Lil’s chimney, and lights glowed against the window glass. Paths leading from the split-log cabin led to the second cabin, to the habitat areas, to the education center and commissary, and around to where he understood they stored equipment, dry feed, supplies.
He assumed she had enough sense to lock her doors, just as he assumed she was smart and aware enough to understand there were countless ways onto the land, to those doors, for anyone who had the skills and patience to travel the hills and trails.
He skirted the small visitors’ parking area and pulled up by her truck.
The animals announced him, but their calls seemed almost casual to his ear. It wasn’t full dark yet, and from what he could see of the habitat most of the inhabitants had chosen their dens.
Casual or not, Lil was at the door before he’d gained the cabin porch. She stood in a black sweater and worn jeans, scarred boots, with her hair pulled back in a thick black waterfall. He wouldn’t have described her stance or her expression as friendly.
“You’re going to have to give my father back his key.”
“I did.” He stepped onto the porch, looked into her very annoyed eyes. “Which should give you a slice of clue on just how much security that gate gives you.”
“It’s served its purpose up till now.”
“Now’s the point. You need a more secure, automatic gate with a code and camera.”
“Oh, really? Well, I’ll get right on that as soon as I have a few thousand extra piled up, and nothing else to do with it but beef up a gate that is essentially a symbol and a deterrent. Unless you’re going to suggest I build a security wall around more than two dozen acres of land while I’m at it. Maybe post sentries.”
“If you’re going to have a deterrent, it might as well deter. Since I’m standing here, yours didn’t do such a good job. Listen, I’ve been outside most of the day, and I’m tired of freezing my ass off.”
He stepped forward, and since she didn’t move out of the doorway simply cupped his hands under her elbows, lifted her up, over. Inside, he plunked her down again and closed the door.
“Jesus, Cooper.” It was hard to form actual words when her jaw kept wanting to drop. “What’s with you?”
“I want a beer.”
“I bet you have some back at your own place. If not, there are several places to buy beer in town. Go there. Do that.”
&n
bsp; “And despite the fact you’re bitchy and unfriendly, I want to talk to you. You’re here, and there’s probably beer.”
He started back to the kitchen. “Why are you here alone?”
“Because this is my house, this is my place, because I wanted to be alone.”