by Debra Dixon
“In the fall we—” Bill stopped. “You sure you want to write all this down?”
“Mmm, of course,” Niki lied, concentrating on typing Bill’s descriptions and ignoring the prickly feeling on the back of her neck. Zach was staring again. After today, she had a sixth sense about that. If she looked over there, she knew she’d find him sprawled near the fire with a dog on either side. She could envisage the intensity of his eyes, and the set of his mouth.
Bill paused and leaned over to see if her fingers were keeping up with his words. “The heifers calve during a two- or three-month period in the spring. Once they drop the calves, we work them. That means we brand the calves, dehorn, castrate, and vaccinate. After all that, we trail the herd up to summer pasture near the Medicine Bow National Forest. We got permits for grazing on government land.”
Nodding and hoping she appeared absorbed in his recitation, Niki said, “So all you do in the fall is move the herd down and sort the calves for shipping. Right?”
“No—” Bill yawned and exhaled a tired sigh before he explained about pregnancy testing, pulling the bulls out for special conditioning, and sorting the rest of the herd by feed requirements.
Niki typed in a correction and punched the data-save sequence. “Thanks. Go and get some sleep before you fall down. I forgot you have the midnight watch with Zach.”
“Yeah.” Bill yawned again and then looked at her in confusion. “Zach said you were taking the midnight watch.”
She tried to swallow a gasp and ended up clearing her throat. “Midnight watch?”
“Yeah, I thought so. Didn’t he tell you?”
“Not yet,” she said slowly, resisting the urge to turn and glare at Zach. She didn’t mind taking her stint at watch, but she wasn’t ready to ride night watch with Zach. Not after his constant attention. Not when his attention made breathing difficult and coherent thought all but impossible.
“I can take the watch for you,” Bill offered. “We all know you spend at least a couple of hours making notes or writing on that computer every night.”
“Don’t be silly. Zach’s right. I need to pull my weight around here, and you guys have been letting me slide.”
“No.” Bill shoved his hands in his pockets. “You pull your weight for a solid ten hours every day. Without whining.”
“Careful, Bill,” Niki warned with a grin. “That sounded suspiciously like a compliment.”
“Did it?” He ambled away, nodded to Zach by the fire, and disappeared into his tent.
For a second, Niki wanted to hide rather than join Zach by the fire, but avoiding him hadn’t solved anything. She had to face facts. The man was gorgeous. She was attracted to him in a very basic way. She couldn’t help wanting another kiss, and he’d made it quite clear he was only waiting on a signal from her. Niki’s hormones were screaming, “Yes! Go for it!”
Damn!
Somewhere between wanting and reality there had to be a middle ground. She couldn’t spend the next two days paralyzed in anticipation of when he’d kiss her again, or analyzing every conversation for innuendo and hidden meanings. Instead of putting the computer away, she walked purposefully toward the fire, prepared to do what she should have done long ago—look at Zach calmly and objectively, recognize her attraction to him, but channel that chemistry into her column and bring him to life on the page instead of in her heart.
To get control of the situation, she simply had to remember that he was “research.” Nothing more. Her resolution lasted only long enough for Zach to burn it away with the heat of his gaze.
“Have a seat, Cookie.” His eyes seared her from head to toe before gliding slowly back to her face. His smile was an invitation to trouble.
“Why didn’t you mention night watch?” she asked without sitting down. Standing felt safer.
“I did. To Bill.”
“But not to me. Don’t you think you could have told me?”
“Slipped my mind.”
“Oh, of course.” Niki jerked her head in an imitation of a nod. “Slipped your mind. I forgot how often that happens to Wyoming cowboys.”
“Actually,” Zach said as he shifted his weight and stood up, “until I met you, nothing slipped my mind.” He raked a hand through his hair and planted it on his hip before continuing. “Now I can’t remember what it was like to sleep without the steady whisper of your breathing beside me.”
Niki’s eyes widened in alarm. His confession had been so unexpected, she couldn’t speak. Disbelief struggled with joy and with worry about controlling her emotions. She realized that nothing else Zach could have said would have touched her as much as his simple admission.
He was the quintessential cowboy—tough, rugged, meant to ride through life alone. Cowboys weren’t supposed to have sentimental thoughts. Cowboys weren’t supposed to be vulnerable. Speechless, she continued to stare at him, trying to convince herself he’d been joking. His gaze never wavered from hers. He wasn’t joking, and Niki knew it.
Finally she said, “You haven’t even known me a week yet.”
A smile touched the corners of Zach’s mouth as he watched the play of emotions across her face. “I understand how you feel. I felt the same way myself at first. Those kinds of thoughts kick you right in the gut and make you wonder where you went wrong.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Niki asked with a sinking feeling, knowing she didn’t want to hear the answer and unable to stop herself from asking the question.
“Because I thought it was about time one of us started being honest, and I didn’t think you were going to take the plunge.” Zach walked past her. “You coming to bed? We can get a few hours’ sleep before midnight. Believe me, you’ll need it.”
When she didn’t turn around, he said, “Suit yourself.”
Niki heard the rustle of the tent flap and let out the breath she’d been holding. She didn’t move for a long time after he left her by the fire. To follow him immediately would have meant continuing the conversation, and she couldn’t. Too many hasty comments were poised on the tip of her tongue. Too many nerves were on edge.
I thought it was about time one of us started being honest.
“I don’t want to be honest, Zach. I don’t want to trust you,” Niki whispered to the night. “Why couldn’t you have been a real cowboy? Anything but a politician?”
A few hours’ sleep would have been nice, but all Niki managed to get was a few hours’ tossing and turning before Zach whispered in her ear.
“Let’s go. Try not to make too much noise when you get a cup of coffee. Remember, people are sleeping.”
“Lucky them,” Niki mumbled as she fought her way out of the sleeping bag and pulled her hair out of her face. She slid on boots and decided she was too tired to braid her hair. What did it matter? She was getting up in the middle of the night to babysit a bunch of sleepy cows.
Closing her eyes, she pulled on her jacket and stumbled out of the tent, thankful that the last two nights had been unseasonably warm. The coffeepot might as well have been a homing beacon, because she headed straight for it. After she’d downed a cup, Niki thought she might be awake enough to saddle her horse and was relieved when she didn’t have to fight with Cay in the darkness. Zach had already saddled Cay, and the dogs waited impatiently, looking in the direction of the herd.
“Thanks,” she said softly, and took the reins he held out to her.
Zach shrugged off her thanks, his attention riveted on Niki’s mouth. Her lips were full and slightly parted. In the half-light of the crescent moon, her hair shone darkly, and her eyes glittered. Zach took a step closer as a night breeze swept between them, dancing with the ends of Niki’s unbound hair.
Reaching out, Zach captured a curl and then dropped it before its softness could seduce him. Tonight was for talking. That’s why he’d arranged the watch. He wanted Niki all to himself without interruptions. “Let’s go.”
“Right.” Niki swallowed nervously, trying to shake off the spell of moonlig
ht and desire, and failing miserably. She followed him in silence, hoping she didn’t look as disappointed at not being pulled into his arms as she felt. Fleetingly she wished he hadn’t put on another of those damned flannel shirts.
The herd was settled in a little valley formed by the vee of two sloping hills. Ragged rock outcroppings were visible in several places, but the horses had no trouble negotiating the downward slope. As soon as Niki and Zach arrived, Hank and one of the lawyers working the watch waved and rode off toward camp.
“Is everyone always so eager to get back to camp?” Niki asked, and clamped a hand over her mouth. “Did I scare the cattle?” she whispered.
Zach chuckled. “You can talk, Niki. This herd isn’t quite as spooky as the Texas trail herds of yesteryear. Just keep your voice low and even.”
Looking away, Zach gave Brass and Snicker a hand signal. The dogs crept away, circling the cattle and taking up watch positions. Once they were in place, Zach pulled out the silver whistle and blew a “down” command. Immediately the dogs settled on the ground, but kept their alert eyes on the herd.
“Why are we here?” Niki asked, tilting her head. “We’re obviously not necessary.”
“Brass and Snicker are here to do the work so that you and I can talk.”
Immediately wary, Niki straightened in the saddle and leaned away from Zach. “Talk?”
“Talk.”
Before she could say anything else, the cows started to move, a few at first, and then increasing numbers were up and turning aimlessly in a circle. Niki shot Zach a questioning glance.
“Around midnight, the herd changes position. Ground’s cold and hard. They stretch and settle back down. Usually. If they don’t, the dogs will settle them.”
Niki smiled as she watched the herd make its midnight adjustment. Watching them rise and lie back down was like watching slow-motion choreography. As each cow got up, its movements nudged the next cow into action, until the entire herd had made the shift.
“Amazing.”
“Not nearly as amazing as small-town-girl-makes-it-big-in-New-York.”
“How do you know I’m from a small town?” she asked testily.
“You told me. Right after accusing me of thinking about sending you out for rattlesnake eggs.”
“Oh. I guess I did.” Niki frowned. “My story is not so amazing. Happens all the time.”
“Sure it does, and the moon is blue.” Zach wasn’t about to let her shrug off her accomplishments. “A column as well written as ‘Heartbeat’ happens any time you can find brains, hard work, luck, and talent all in one person.”
“No,” Niki corrected staunchly. “It happens any time Eli Neff wants a disastrously sentimental reporter out of hard news.”
“You did hard news?”
She laughed at the disbelief in his voice. “After I begged and slaved and pleaded for two years.”
“What happened?” Zach motioned for her to dismount and did the same.
“You know the old saying ‘Talent will out’? Mine didn’t. I finally got my big break. The one that had Pulitzer written all over it. I was assigned to cover a terrorist hijacking. It was a couple of years ago.” Niki dropped to the ground and pulled the reins over Cay’s head. “Do you remember the European passenger train seized by the Seventh Hand of Retribution?”
“Sorry, no.” Zach tied their horses to a bush and reached for the blanket tied across Dap’s rump.
“Didn’t think so, but don’t feel badly.” She smiled. “No one else does either. Eli—he wasn’t my editor then—walked into the office of the news editor and saw my copy on his desk. After he got through chewing up the news editor, he asked to see me. A command performance in front of the managing editor of one of New York’s largest papers is never a pleasant experience.”
“I wouldn’t imagine so.” Zach spread out the blanket and tried not to laugh.
“My knees were shaking when I walked into his office. Eli sat behind this monster of a desk, leaning forward on his elbows, and his hands were folded in front of him, his index fingers making a tepee.”
Niki settled on the blanket and drew one knee up to her chest, contemplating the glistening canopy of stars above. Margaret’s comment about making love beneath the stars invaded her mind. Shaking her head to clear the unwanted thought, she said, “Eli stared at me, all the while tapping his index fingers together. Like he wasn’t quite sure how to fire me.”
“How did you talk him out of it?” Zach asked as he joined her on the double-folded blanket.
“I didn’t. He fired me. Asked me if I realized the terrorists were the bad guys. Asked me if I’d ever heard of objective reporting. Asked me to leave the news staff.”
“Sounds like a son of a—”
“No,” Niki interrupted. “He was right. I stink at hard news. Eli’s really very sweet, in a rude sort of way. And his instincts are impeccable. He was more angry with the news editor for sending me on the story than angry with me. He went on and on about a sinful waste of talent, which made no sense to me, considering he’d just gotten through telling me that I had no talent.”
“No talent for hard news.”
Niki tapped her leg in agreement. “Exactly. And that killed me. After all, everybody knows successful journalists—the ones who do hard-hitting exposes and have the contacts to do investigative reporting—cut their teeth on the news beat. I wanted to be a flak-jacket journalist; I’d trained to be a journalist, but this man with the power to end my career told me I had no talent. That I belonged on the ‘heart’ beat. I was ready to slink out of his office and stab myself with the first sharp object I could find.”
Laughing, Zach leaned back on his elbows and stretched his long legs. Momentarily Niki lost her train of thought as she followed the seam of his jeans the length of his legs, then gazed at his flat belly and broad chest. Shaking her head, Niki murmured, “Where was I? Oh, right. Contemplating suicide.”
Zach laughed again.
“It wasn’t funny at the time,” she said with a half smile, meeting his encouraging gaze. “Two years later it’s mildly amusing, but then I felt like my whole future had been snatched away again.”
“Again?” Zach pounced on the word like a big cat who knows he’s caught his prey.
Niki winced at the slip of her tongue. She might as well have sent him a telegram asking him to question her about the past. Smoothly she turned the focus away from herself to Zach. “Why are you so interested in my career? Haven’t you ever been disappointed?”
“Once or twice,” he allowed.
“Ever been married?”
“No. Have you?”
“No. Not even close.” Niki hoped her words sounded matter-of-fact and not bitter or wistful. Keeping men at a distance had been her choice, not a trick of fate or bad timing. Twice in the last six years, she’d gotten as far as keeping an extra toothbrush in the apartment for the man in her life, but she balked at any more permanent arrangement.
Zach looked at her closely and shook his head. “You know, I had you figured for the football captain’s girl, the head cheerleader who got an engagement ring for Christmas her senior year in high school.”
Niki froze, her voice barely above a whisper. “Why would you think that?”
“Because football captains like beautiful girls.” Zach debated with himself for a moment. He pushed up from his reclining position and draped an arm across his upraised knee before he added, “And I’d bet my last dollar that you were the most beautiful young woman at Cutter High.”
Realization slid through Niki like a hot knife. Unconsciously she began to rock her upper body back and forth. He knew. He knew she had lied about being a Devlin from Cutter’s Creek. He knew about her past. In his polite way, he had just called her a liar. “How long have you known?”
“I put it together that first morning in my tent,” Zach answered. “When you were talking about your brothers. I get Bess’s prescriptions filled at Devlin’s Drugstore.”
&nbs
p; “Of course,” Niki said flatly. “Where else? Dad’s the only pharmacist in Cutter’s Creek.” She raised guarded eyes to his. “How stupid of me to believe that no one would notice the resemblance.”
“I didn’t, but I know Jim Devlin has three sons and a daughter who went away to college and never came back. Why is it that he never brags about his famous daughter?”
“Because they respect my privacy, and I asked them not to.”
The stillness of the night surrounded them, and Niki felt the tension gather in the air. She didn’t say anything more. Didn’t trust herself. The brilliant stars, which had been so glorious a moment before, now seemed to be a disapproving audience of a thousand eyes, eyes that judged her and sentenced her for youthful folly. As everyone else had. As Zach had.
Niki pulled her other knee to her chest and stared at the tips of her boots, trying to control her anger. He’d known for days. He’d known who she was when he made that little speech about making choices, about running or stopping. He’d known who she was every second since, as he stared at her, sized her up, and dared her to answer the seduction in his eyes.
As the silence grew, Zach reached out to touch her cheek, wanting her to trust him. No, needing her to trust him, though he wasn’t certain why. “You said you grew up in a small town in Wyoming. Two and two usually makes four around here.”
Niki knocked his hand away and leveled a simmering glare at him. Two and two usually makes four. Zach’s words conjured up the image of hurtful, scribbled messages in the boys’ locker room. Old magic-marker lies shouldn’t haunt her, but they did. Two and two didn’t always make four, but Wyoming cowboys did a peculiar kind of math when it came to judging “fast” Nicolette Devlin.
“Get your hands off me,” she ground out, shaking with the effort to keep her voice low. “Who the hell do you think you are? I made a mistake. That doesn’t mean I sleep with every macho cowboy who’s got a blanket and a little privacy.”
Her furious response was so unexpected, Zach’s mind reeled with the blunt impact of her words. He’d taken a stab in the dark and opened an old wound. The pain was bright and bitter in her words. He felt her anger as it spilled out into the night as sharply as he felt the frustration building inside him. He’d forced this pain to the surface, but he had no idea what to do now. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. He’d simply been looking for honesty. Trying to find his way down a path he had never traveled with a woman before.