by Janet Dailey
“You make me sound very boring.” There was a dazzling effect to his slow smile that snatched at her breath. It was recklessly sexy and challenging.
“Not boring,” Tara corrected, trying to match his smile with a provocative look. “Just dangerous.”
An eyebrow lifted in response. “Dangerous how?”
“I don’t know if I can explain it.” She shrugged. “Most of the guys at college, they want an education, but they’re more interested in a good time. The priority is reversed with you. You party and go on beer-drinking sprees with them, but you’re basically not here to have fun. Yet it’s more than that. I guess I have the feeling that you pursue something until you get it.”
“Like you, for instance.” His gaze darkened on her with disturbing intensity.
“I didn’t say that,” Tara demurred as he seemed to come closer even though he hadn’t moved an inch.
“But you know I want you.” It was a calmly issued statement as he inspected her face and form as if he were already taking possession of her.
“People don’t always get what they want,” she countered smoothly.
“What is it that you want, Tara?”
“To have fun and enjoy my life.” It was a stock answer, the properly feminine kind. Deep in her heart, she knew what she truly desired. She was the daughter of E. J. Dyson, so she had grown up surrounded by power. It carried a sense of exhilaration that was addictive. With her beauty, she possessed her own kind of power, and she knew it. At college, she had begun to exercise it and test it on those who weren’t under her father’s influence so she could discover the potential force of it.
“What about a home and family?” he prompted.
“In time.” At the moment, her plans for the future were nebulous. There was a vague dream in her mind to become the ruling matriarch of a powerful family. “But I’m going to finish college first. After that, Daddy has promised me a year in Europe.”
“Are you going?”
“Of course I’m going.” She laughed, a merry, musical sound. “The alternatives are certainly not appealing. I just can’t see myself getting a job and working five days a week. It would get boring very quickly.”
“You could always get married and honeymoon in Europe for a month,” Ty suggested.
“I could.” Her red lips came together in an inviting line. “I have the feeling my daddy is hoping that I’ll make an advantageous marriage someday so there would ultimately be a merger of two important families.”
“Your father doesn’t strike me as being that calculating.” E. J. Dyson had always seemed to be a very indulgent father, willing to give in to her every whim and never pushing her one way or another. Ty had never gotten the impression that E.J., unlike his own father, expected his daughter to fulfill a particular role.
“Every father wants his daughter to make a perfect marriage, and have a husband who is worthy of her. There isn’t anything wrong—or even calculating—in that.” But she knew her father well enough to know it wasn’t that casual with him. He was simply wise enough not to dictate choices to her. She strongly suspected that her father knew her desires would ultimately mesh with his.
All this talk of marriage pushed at him. “You’d make a beautiful bride, Thra,” Ty murmured and reached out with his hand to stroke the dark silk of her hair. “I can see you in a white satin gown, studded with pearls, and a lace veil.”
He lifted her left hand. There was a large topaz birthstone on her ring finger, flanked by diamonds. He covered the ring so he could picture the diamond he would give her. When Ty looked at her, the thoughts of wedding bands immediately brought him images of the wedding night.
“You’re going to be mine, Tara,” he declared rawly. “Sooner or later, you’re going to be mine.”
She started to laugh away his assertion, but he had no intention of allowing her to make light of it. His arms hooked her slender shape to his body white his mouth covered her smile. The driving force of his kiss bent her backwards, arching her spine and molding her small hips to his rigid thighs.
The rawness of wanting and being prevented for so long from taking what he wanted made him indifferent to the resisting push of her hands. There was only the soft sensation of her breasts, their round outline being drawn on his chest. Her warm body excited him, and the honeyed sweetness of her lips made up for the reluctance of the response he forced from her.
Ty knew he was taking her further than she wanted to go, but his confidence was such that he felt he would ultimately convince her she wanted what he did. He set about to do it with his hands coercing and urging a closer intimacy as they felt the roundness of her taut bottom and closed on the uplifting swell of her breasts. He lipped at the lobe of her ear and nibbled on the sensitive skin of her throat and neck. All the while he was conscious of the disturbed, shallow breaths she gasped and the little sounds of protest she made in her throat.
When her hand suddenly cupped his mouth, staying his kisses, Ty reached up impatiently to pull it away. As his fingers closed around her slender wrist and dragged ii down, he looked at her aroused and flushed face tilted up to him. Her eyes glowed darkly with a hard light of determination.
“If you care for me at all, Ty, you’ll stop this right now before it goes any further,” she insisted, taking advantage of that crazy code of honor she had long ago discovered in him. She had no qualms about exploiting what she saw as a weakness.
“Care for you?” His low-pitched voice threw back the puny description of the passionate furies she unleashed in him. “My God, Tara. I love you,” Ty avowed, almost angrily.
She didn’t relent. “I didn’t come with you this afternoon to be seduced in a cemetery.” Her hands pushed at his chest, demanding distance between them.
The reference to the inappropriate surroundings made him feel inept and somehow backwardly uncouth. She always made him feel like a lusting animal soiling her with his baser needs. Immediately Ty was angry with himself for allowing such a thought to occur. He had tried to coerce a willing submission from her, so it was hardly fair to condemn her because she had the strength of will to resist him.
“I’m sorry.” He let her go and turned away to rub the back of his neck. “I had no right.”
Ty. The light touch of her hand was on his arm. The softness of her voice and the fragrance of her hair nearly made him groan aloud. “I’m not angry with you. To tell you the truth”—the lightness of amused self-reproach was in her voice—“I’d probably be hurt if you didn’t want to make love to me. I’d wonder what was wrong with me.”
Turning his head to look at her, Ty was moved once again by her incredible beauty. A longing rushed through him that was pure pain.
“There is nothing wrong with you.” His low voice was half strangled by emotion. “You are perfect in every way. Any man who doesn’t see that has to be blind.” He covered the slim hand that rested on his arm and gripped it tightly. His gaze was earnestly intent. “When I told you I loved you, I meant it, Tara. This summer, will you come to Montana? I want you to meet my parents. I want you to see my home.”
“I’ll try to come,” she promised.
“Don’t try. Just come,” Ty insisted.
But she didn’t.
Four riders closed on the last of the cows being herded through the opened gate. Tall grass waved in the golden-ripe light of late summer. A lagging cow eyed the gate with distrust and stubbornly ignored the riders’ urgings to pass through it.
Ty reined his horse alongside the reluctant animal and reached out to slap it on the rump with his coiled rope. It spied the gap between the riders, created by Ty. With a swing of its head, it bolted for the opening, tail high in defiance. Ty hauled back on the reins and pivoted his horse on its hind legs to give chase.
Another horse and rider were streaking after the fleeing cow, the slim rider snaking low on the grulla’s back. Ty glimpsed the accompanying pursuit out of the corner of his eye, but he had the angle on the animal. With the sound of
hoofbeats hammering the grass-covered sod thundering in his ears, he shook out his loop and raced along a few more strides until his horse was in position for him to make the cast.
As the loop went out straight and true, he sat back in the saddle and checked his horse, preparing for the second when the full weight of the cow hit the end of the rope. A shadow or the hiss of the rope must have warned the cow of its imminent capture. At the last second, it swung its head aside and the loop harmlessly slapped its chunky jaw and neck and slid emptily off its shoulders.
Silently cursing the missed cast, Ty put his spurs into the horse’s side and sent it bounding after the cow again while he gathered in the rope. By then, the mouse-gray horse and its rider had taken a dead aim on the cow and had maneuvered into position to make the throw. The loop shot out with unerring accuracy and settled over the cow’s head in picture-perfect style.
Ty eased up on his horse and let it come down naturally to a snorting trot. There had been few opportunities to demonstrate the improvement in his roping skills during the course of the summer work on the ranch. It irritated him that he’d missed this chance. And it didn’t make it easier that he’d been bested by a girl, no matter how good she was.
His smile was on the grim side when he met the broad grin on Jessy Niles’s face as she led the balky cow to the gate. She was tall and slim as a rail. Wisps of hay-brown hair straggled loose from the rubber band that collected its thick length at the back of her neck. With the shapeless cowboy hat atop her head, she resembled a happy waif. Her sun-browned skin glowed with the healthiness of outdoor living and added to the sunny sparkle in her hazel eyes.
“We got ’er.” Her cheery voice was magnanimous in triumph over the capture of the cow, happily giving credit to
“You got ’er, Jessy,” he corrected. Her expression sobered slightly, some of the exhilaration fading from her smile.
“We make a good team just the same, she said with a vague shrug of her shoulders to indicate it was insignificant which of them had actually roped the animal.
Since she had followed as rus backup, there was some truth in her reply, but Ty was sensitive to the point that he had gone after the cow and Jessy was the one bringing it back in tow. It grated just a little, and he tried not to let it show.
Dropping his horse back, he herded the roped cow after Jessy so it wouldn’t fight being led. Buzz Taylor was afoot by the gate, waiting to close it as soon as the cow was turned loose beyond it and Jessy had ridden back through. Once the gate was shut, Ty secured his coiled rope to the saddle and stepped to the ground.
With the herd shifted to a range with good graze and plenty of water, their work was finished for the day, and the riders paused for a smoke break before heading back to the camp at South Branch. Ty bent his head to touch the end of his unaltered cigarette to the match flame Bill Summers offered.
“That wily ole cow ducked right out of your loop,” Bill observed, commiserating.
“Yeah.” Even though there wasn’t a wind, Ty cupped his hand protectively around the cigarette out of habit so no live embers would be blown into the tinder-dry August grass.
“Ole sure-eye Jessy got ’er, didn’t ya?” Buzz Taylor declared with a hearty grin of teasing approval directed at the girl standing slank-hipped with them.
“Ty hazed him into position for me.” She blew out a quick puff of smoke from her cigarette and turned her head aside to spit the bits of tobacco from her tongue.
“Hell, he just got out of your way, that’s all,” Buzz retorted. He cast a suspicious eye at Jessy. “Does your pa know you’re smoking?”
“Sure. He don’t like it much,” Jessy admitted with an uncaring shrug.
“Stumpy didn’t like her bummin’ cigarettes off the rest of us,” Bill Summers corrected her answer, coming to her defense. “Finally he told her that if she was doin’ a man’s work and drawin’ a man’s pay and smokin’ a man’s cigarettes, she could either start buyin’ her own or stop smokin’.”
Jessy managed a wry grin at the explanation. That’s about the way it had turned out after her father had gotten over his initial prejudice against a young girl smoking at all. Before that, he’d done just about everything but tan her hide to keep her from smoking. Of course, she hadn’t listened to his railing lectures. Everyone around her smoked, so she didn’t see why it was so wrong for her to smoke, too.
“It’s a good thing it’s payday,” Buzz declared and fingered the nearly empty packet of Camels in his pocket. “I’m damned near out of cigarettes myself. I got just about enough to get me into town.”
“What are you going to spend your money on, Jessy?” Bill reached over and pulled the brim of her hat lower on her forehead. “Are you finally gonna let loose of some of that money you been hoardin’ all summer and buy yourself a decent hat?”
“Don’t be insultin’ my hat, Summers. It’s got character,” she insisted with a smile. “And I’ve been savin’ my money to pay for the roping saddle Barnes is makin’ for me.”
“A saddle.” Summers shook his head in mock dismay. “And I thought you’d be buy in’ a party dress for your birthday.”
“I’d rather have a good saddle than a party dress,” Jessy retorted. She already had two good Sunday dresses, so she didn’t see the need for spending her money to buy another, especially one that she’d probably only have occasion to wear once a year. A saddle was something practical, and it would last for years with proper care. It was an investment, something she could take pride in. “Just wait till you boys see it.”
“Barnes is a damned good saddlemaker. I’ve seen some of his work,” Buzz Taylor reinforced her choice. “He’s gettin’ himself quite a reputation. Some cowboys from as far away as Colorado have had him make saddles for them.”
Ty carried the cigarette to his lips and studied the lanky girl, squinting through the curling smoke. Her tomboy mannerisms were vaguely amusing, but he also noticed the smooth coordination of her movements, each action flowing deliberately and easily into the next. There was a kind of natural grace in the relaxed posture of her body, long and slim, yet supple. His glance idled an instant on the flatness of her chest, her young breasts making little more than small bumps under the blouse material.
“When’s your birthday, Jessy?” Ty asked when he lifted his gaze and found her looking directly at him. The steadiness of her eyes made him slightly uncomfortable about the notice he’d taken of her immaturity.
“Next week,” she answered.
“We’re going to throw a bang-up party for you, too,” Buzz winked. “We’re going to invite Sheriff Potter so he’ll quit stoppin’ you for driving without a license.”
“How old will you be?” Ty attempted to do a mental calculation of the intervening years, but she answered him before he had finished his subtraction.
“Sixteen.”
A teasing light entered his eye. “Sweet sixteen and never been kissed?”
“Jessy?” Buzz Taylor hooted with laughter at the idea of the tomboy in their midst ever being kissed. “I’ll bet the only one what ever kissed her was her horse!”
Her eyes went brilliant with anger. She swept off her hat and slapped his shoulder with it. “Buzz Taylor, you shut up!” she raged in a temper, the likes of which Ty had not seen. None of the three had seen her so outraged and defensive, and it struck them all as funny. When they started laughing at her, it just made her all the madder. “I don’t go around kissing my horse!”
“The poor gal ain’t even been kissed by her horse!” Buzz roared with laughter and jabbed a pointing finger at her, all the while ducking the hat being flayed at him as she unleashed her temper on him.
“We can’t have her turn sixteen without being kissed, can we, boys?” Ty challenged with a laughing grin.
For once he was on the attacking side and someone else was the victim of a cowboy’s prank. After being shown up by Jessy, he subconsciously liked the idea of taking her down a notch or two. He pinched the fire of his cigarette
between his gloved thumb and forefinger before dropping the butt under the toe of his boot and grinding it into the hard-baked ground.
When Ty took a step toward her, Jessy whirled around to face him, suddenly realizing it hadn’t been an idle remark he’d made. Dismay and shock flashed across her face, clouding the angry glitter in her eyes. He managed to get an arm around her before she recovered and tried to buck free of his hold.
“Look out, Ty,” Buzz warned with a laugh. “She’s a wild one.”
Her struggling wasn’t the futile, feminine kind. Ty found he had his hands full as her steel-slim arms wedged themselves against his chest, warding him off while she directed some well-aimed kicks at his shins.
“Watch where you’re kicking, Jessy,” Bill Summers advised. “There’d be some explaining if you injured him in the wrong place,”
A sudden high color stained her cheeks as she ended her violent resistance and threw back her head to glare at Ty with daring defiance. Her lips were pressed together in a rigid line. It amused him to see her so helplessly out of her league. He cupped her chin in his hand and held it still while he bent his head to her motionless lips.
Instead of kissing them lightly and letting it go at that as he probably would have done with any other inexperienced girl, he made the pressure more definite and held it for several seconds longer. When he lifted his head, her eyes were tightly shut. There was a tension about her features that was somehow vulnerable.
“Now you can say you’ve been kissed,” Ty declared, struggling against the twinges of regret he was feeling.
As he let her go, she immediately dropped her chin and turned away. A dark flush rose in her face even though she maintained her controlled, tight-lipped expression.
“I’ll be damned,” Buzz murmured under his breath. “Jessy’s blushing.”
She flashed him an angry look as she scooped up the trailing reins of her horse. “Shut up, Buzz.”
Ty felt guilty for having embarrassed her with that kiss. He wasn’t the only one subdued by Jessy’s silence. There was an uneasy shuffling as the other two cowboys moved to their horses. Jessy swung into her saddle and made to rein her horse away from the others. Ty grabbed at the bridle, checking her.