Wyoming Fierce

by Diana Palmer

  * * *

  THEY WENT BY THE RANCH and looked at the rancher’s yearling bulls. Cane was impressed. He made arrangements to have two of them trucked back to the ranch, and he held Bodie’s hand the whole time he was talking. Once in a while, he looked down at her with such tenderness in his eyes that she flushed. That amused him. But not in a bad way.

  She was so happy that her heart was overflowing, and she remembered something her mother was fond of saying: after the cut, the kiss. Her grandfather’s death, her traumatic experience with Will, had been the cut. This, Cane paying attention to her, wanting to be with her, that was the kiss. It was mind-shattering.

  When they got home, Cane stopped at the hardware store in Catelow to order supplies for the ranch. It was such a small community that most everybody knew everybody else, and their families had been acquainted for generations. The Kirks were relative newcomers to the community, but Bodie’s people had been in it for over a hundred years.

  “Jack’s grandfather used to sell hardware supplies to my grandfather when he was first married,” Bodie whispered to Cane, indicating the man behind the counter. “Gossip was that they got in a terrible fight over a woman and bruised each other up. Then they became best friends and ignored the woman.” She laughed.

  “Good thing for your grandmother,” Cane teased.

  She nodded. “A very good thing. She loved my grandfather dearly. She was one of the best cooks I ever knew. I’d love to be a good cook,” she remarked with a sigh, “but I’m too busy trying to get an education to learn.”

  She hadn’t thought about school until then. There had been so much going on in her life, so many upsets and a major tragedy. From the time her grandfather was diagnosed with heart failure until now, things had been unsettled and frightening. The episode with her stepfather and his friend had only made things worse.

  “You’re brooding again,” Cane murmured. “You have to stop that. I know all too much about brooding and the results.”

  “In your case,” she remarked with twinkling eyes, “brooding results in broken things.”

  He shrugged. “We all handle stress in our own individual ways.” He leaned down. “At least usually it’s just broken bottles and glasses instead of broken jaws.”

  “Usually.” She laughed.

  He grimaced. “Well, there are times…”

  “Can I help you?” Jack asked, noticing the two people at his counter.

  “Yes. I have a list,” Cane said, handing it to the man. “It’s a little larger than our usual order, but we’re not in a hurry this time. Some of our men will be on vacation for a week, so we won’t be doing as much.”

  “We’ve heard about the benefits at the Rancho Real.” Jack chuckled. “Maybe I should learn to ride a horse and hit you up for a job. Be a cold day in a hot place when I get offered a week off with pay.”

  Cane smiled. “We work our employees hard. We feel they should derive some benefit from their sacrifices.”

  “Two weeks paid vacation a year, retirement, insurance....” Jack ticked them off on his fingers. “I know ranchers who pay half what you do and people who take Christmas day off get a day’s cut in pay.”

  “We’ve been lucky,” Cane commented diplomatically. “A lot of ranchers are hurting in this flat economy. They do what they have to do, to stay in business.”

  “That’s true,” Jack replied, nodding. “Nobody has job security. Not even us. We’re just fortunate that no big-time franchise wants to set up business in such a small community, or all these little shops would go under. I’ve seen it happen elsewhere.”

  “So have I,” Cane said. “It’s a real shame.”

  “Well, we can have most of this by next week,” Jack said, glancing at the list. “These tools are specialized and we’ll have to get them from a supplier back East, so it will take maybe ten days. Unless you want it overnighted,” he added.

  “Not necessary. Just give us a call as it comes in, and we’ll send somebody into town to pick it up.”

  “My pleasure,” Jack said. “And thanks for the business.”

  “We always trade locally when it’s possible,” Cane told him. “We want to keep you open as much as you do.”

  Jack chuckled. “Yes. My wife and kids appreciate it, as well.”

  Cane just smiled.

  * * *

  ON THE WAY BACK TO THE ranch, he was thoughtful.

  “You’re very quiet,” Bodie remarked.

  “I was thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “A family.”

  She blinked.

  He glanced at her and laughed a little self-consciously. “I’ve never thought about settling down. A wife, kids, the responsibility for maintaining a family…it’s pretty extreme.”

  Her heart sank, but she smiled, anyway. “I don’t think it’s a responsibility that people really choose. It sort of chooses you, in the right setting.”

  “In other words, some woman gets her hooks into you and holds out with promises of nightly delight until she gets a wedding ring on her finger.”

  He sounded so bitter that she knew it was a situation he’d dealt with in the past.

  “Well, there are women with ideals,” she began.

  He glanced at her with a world-weary smile. “Ideals are dispensable in the right situation, Bodie. And you know it.”

  She went red. She averted her face and folded her arms over her chest defensively. She’d never forget what she’d been forced to do, trying to save her grandfather. Now she had to live not only with the decision, but the contempt of the one man in the world whose opinion really mattered.

  “I did what I thought I had to do,” she said tightly. “Will was threatening to throw us into the streets, and my grandfather’s heart condition was so dangerous…”

  “Oh, my God!”

  He turned the truck onto the side of the road and cut the engine. “I didn’t mean that,” he bit off, his face taut with anguish. “Bodie, I didn’t mean it like that!”

  She swallowed. She couldn’t look at him. “I did a horrible thing. I did tell them I’d only go so far. I let Larry kiss me…” She closed her eyes. “It was awful. I hated having him touch me, having Will film it…he promised me it was only for private use and nobody would ever know. He’d let us stay in the house if I did it just that one time, and he’d pay my grandfather’s pharmacy bill. I still had the specialist to pay and no money left for anything....” She bit her lip. “I felt like a prostitute!”

  He wanted to drag her into his arms and comfort her. But if he did, while she was dealing with that memory, one he’d helped her make with his bad attitude, it would tarnish what was building between them.

  “Listen,” he said heavily, “I know why you made the decision, and so do you. It was a sacrifice you made for love of your grandfather, not for the sake of money. And it was my fault. Do you think it’s any easier for me to live with what you had to do? I lie awake nights thinking what a fool I was, thinking of the damage I did to you because I classed you with that woman who only wanted money from me. It’s a mistake I keep making,” he groaned.

  She wiped her eyes. “You’ve had your own tragedies to work through,” she conceded.

  “Yes.” He looked out the windshield, his eyes dark and sad. “I’m not dealing with any of it. Not with the accident, not with the loss of my arm, not with…anything.” He leaned his head back against the seat. “I can’t talk about it with anybody. I don’t trust people. The therapists they send me to, they all want me to open up at once and start spilling out my private thoughts to them, like I’m on some social networking page.” His face went taut again. “You can’t imagine how repulsive it is to me, reading the most intimate things about other people on a page that the whole world has access to. What the hell is wrong with people? They can’t tell such things to their families? They have to share sordid stories with the whole world to feel absolution?”

  “Don’t ask me. I don’t do social networking. I
have a private page, for friends only.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “And your friends don’t share what you tell them with their friends?” he asked cynically.

  She stared at him. She felt uneasy. “Well, I don’t know…”

  “And just how much private information do you share with them?”

  She shifted on the seat. “Not much. I mean, I haven’t really done much that anybody would find interesting. It’s mostly stuff about school and news in anthropology, my thoughts on new finds, that sort of thing. Nothing you’d say was really personal or intimate.”

  “Kudos to you,” he said. “I know a guy who posted a rant about his boss. The boss read it and fired him. He’s still out of work.”

  “I see what you mean. About sharing too much information, I mean. I’ll be more careful.”

  “See that you do. Once that information is out there, it’s out there. You can wipe it out, but not without specialized computer services. Someone like our cattle foreman, Red Davis, could do that.” He chuckled. “Even the CIA respects his abilities.”

  “How do you know that?” she asked curiously.

  “Oh, they told us, the night they took him off in handcuffs for hacking their files on Al Qaeda.” He laughed. “They still arrested him, though.”

  “What happened then?” she asked, fascinated.

  “He managed to talk his way out of it, by sharing a little program he’d written. I have no idea what it did, but apparently it was adopted as a new tool of the intelligence gathering trade. They tried to hire him. He said he liked cattle better than offices, and he came home.”

  She laughed. “Good for you, that was.” She sighed. “My friend Beth once posted a photograph of herself in her undies that only her fiancé was supposed to see,” Bodie recalled suddenly. “And it turned up all over the internet. She had to write to about ten sites and beg them to take it down.”

  “Idiocy,” he pronounced.

  She nodded. “Beth’s religious, but she’s really not as staunchly so as I am. Her fiancé, Ted, is.” She laughed. “He was horrified. He won’t even sleep with her until they’re married.”

  “I see.”

  She glowered at him. “Yes, he’s holding out for a wedding ring. See? It’s men, too, sometimes, not just women. People of faith have a different view of the world.”

  “Nothing wrong with a friendly night in some kind stranger’s bed,” he said, just to irritate her.

  She glared at him with pure venom. “Sure. Go right ahead. Share an anonymous encounter, risk STDs and God knows what else then inflict them on some innocent woman who’s never indulged at all. Do all that with a clear conscience and no remorse. And imagine having it show up on a social network one day, and having your family see it.”

  He studied her quietly. “You paint one sad picture.”

  “It is sad. People think free sex is a counterpoint to a life of chastity, devotion to one person, a life together that includes children and security and love.”

  “Some people don’t think that magic formula exists.”

  “Well, it does,” she retorted. “And you don’t find it in bars with strange women.”

  His eyes narrowed coldly. “Point to you,” he returned.

  Her lips made a thin line. “You hit me first.”

  “I never raised a hand to you!”

  “Yes, you did. You said ideals can be sold out for the right reason!”

  He turned his eyes away and started the truck. His mouth was a thin line as he pulled back onto the highway. He didn’t say another word all the way home.

  Morie was on the porch when they drove up. She knew with a look that there had been one hot argument between the two taciturn people getting out of the truck.

  “Something wrong?” she asked gently.

  “I’m not getting married,” Cane said harshly.

  “Nobody asked you to get married!” Bodie shot back.

  “Furthermore, I’ll sleep around if I feel like it, and I won’t have a guilty conscience or catch some social disease!”

  “Fine! Do what you please and see if I care!”

  He turned and stomped off toward the barn.

  Morie started to speak to Bodie, but she thought better of it. The younger woman grimaced, gave her an apologetic look and went quickly up to her room.

  * * *

  IT WAS GRIM AT THE DINNER table. Bodie ate without tasting anything and wouldn’t even look at Cane. He, in turn, pretended she wasn’t in the house. It made things difficult for the rest of the family.

  After dessert, they filed into the living room. But instead of turning on the television, Tank sat down at the piano.

  “I think a little music might have soothing properties,” he remarked, with a pointed glance from a silent Cane to a stiff and unapproachable Bodie. “Calming savage breasts and such.”

  “I thought it was savage beasts,” Mallory murmured, tongue in cheek.

  “Whatever.” Tank began to play Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.” As the powerful music filled the room, Bodie uncrossed her arms and sat, entranced, at the impromptu concert. The beauty of the selection brought tears to her eyes. It did every single time she heard it.

  By the time Tank finished playing, she was openly wiping her eyes. So was Morie.

  “I swear, you get better by the day,” Cane told his brother, and he even smiled. “It’s a gift, to be able to play like that.”

  “Yes,” Mallory said with pursed lips and twinkling dark eyes. “In fact, he’s almost as good as I am. I’ve been practicing for months. He’s slacked off.” He chuckled.

  “Challenge him,” Morie prodded. “Go on. Do it.”

  Mallory made a grimace, but Tank stood up and gave a flourish with his hand, indicating the piano seat.

  “Well, all right,” Mallory said as he moved to sit at the piano. “But if he starts looking around for a sharp object to use on himself, somebody be prepared to stop him. Egos are serious things.”

  Everybody laughed.

  Mallory drew his fingers over the keys, thought for a moment and then launched into the beautiful theme song of the movie August Rush, presenting Mark Mancina’s haunting, exquisite combination of harmony and discord.

  When he finished, he stood up and bowed.

  Tank made a face. “Okay. I surrender. Anybody got a white handkerchief?”

  Morie laughed. “I heard the organ theme played in a theater. It absolutely rocked the seats. It’s one of the finest compositions I’ve ever heard.”

  “What’s your favorite piece, Bodie?” Tank asked.

  She shifted in her chair. “You’ll laugh.”

  “We won’t,” Tank promised and smiled at her. “Come on. Give.”

  “‘The Firebird’ by Igor Stravinsky.”

  “I won’t laugh,” Cane remarked. “That’s one of my favorites, too.”

  Mavie, bringing second cups of coffee in on a tray, smiled as she sat it down. “I’m for Harry-Gregson Williams. The music for the Narnia movies?”

  “Oh, yes,” Bodie enthused. “Beautiful!”

  “Don’t forget ‘Basil Poledouris’—the theme from the original Lonesome Dove television miniseries, and movies like Red October,” Mavie remarked. “He was always one of my favorites.”

  “Jerry Goldsmith, the themes from Patton and The Secret of NIMH and various Star Trek movies,” Tank added.

  “Respighi, ‘Pines of Rome: Pines Near a Catacomb,’” Bodie said with a grin. “I can hear the Roman legions marching when I hear it.”

  “I like Debussy,” Morie added.

  “Nothing wrong with Toby Keith,” Mavie interjected as she started to leave. “Wish I was rich and famous, and I’d call up a boy I used to date and ask him ‘How do you like me now?’” She laughed after alluding to one of Keith’s more famous early songs.

  “I like one of Brad Paisley’s songs about being so much cooler online.” Bodie chuckled. “Great video. There’s another one, where he’s trying to be
a singing star on a TV talent show and William Shatner is the judge. It’s hilarious!”

  “Music moves the world,” Mallory agreed. “I’ve always been fond of James Horner—who did the Don Juan Demarco theme, and Alan Silvestri’s Polar Express.”

  “Howard Shore—The Lord of the Rings trilogy,” Cane inserted.

  “David Arnold, Last of the Dogmen,” Tank countered. “And Trevor Rabin, who did Race to Witch Mountain. ‘The Rock,’ Dwayne Johnson, was in that one. My favorite actor—well, him and Vin Diesel.”

  They all laughed. Tank was a die-hard action film fan, and he watched professional wrestling weekly.

  “Speaking of which,” Mallory remarked, checking the television listing, “they’re rerunning Pitch Black, that sci-fi movie Vin starred in.”

  “See if you can find The Chronicles of Riddick anywhere,” Tank replied. “It’s the sequel to Pitch Black—my favorite movie. It has some incredible special effects, too.”

  Mallory turned on the television and started searching through the paid movie on-demand listings.

  “It’s in there,” Morie said. “I recorded it. Look in that section. It’s one of my favorites, too,” she told Tank.

  Cane got up from his seat and stretched. “I think I’ll go for a drive. I’m too wired to sit down and relax.”

  Bodie didn’t look up. She half hoped he’d ask her to go along and maybe they could make up. But he didn’t even look at her. He just walked out.

  The men sat down in front of the television as the movie started. Morie motioned to Bodie and led her into the study and closed the door.

  “Okay, what’s going on with you and Cane?” she asked gently. “I know you’ve argued.”

  Bodie bit her lip. “It was a stupid thing. He got to talking about marriage and how he’d rather sleep around than settle down, and I shot back at him that some women did still have morals about such things. He threw up what I did to me,” she said finally and with a long, wistful sigh. “I’m never going to live it down, I guess. I was only trying to save my grandfather. I didn’t even accomplish that....”

  “Oh, Bodie, nobody blames you for what happened,” Morie said, hugging her tight. “Listen, no one is so perfect that we can afford to throw stones at anybody else. Life is about forgiveness. You know more than most people about anthropology. Hunter-gatherers lived in groups of less than fifty people, in close proximity. People did have conflicts.”