To Love A Cowboy

by Barbara Ankrum

  She swallowed hard. “It doesn’t even have to be an option, Rafe, and you know it. You owe me nothing. And certainly not this.”

  He turned on her, almost fiercely, then bit back whatever he’d been about to say. A calming breath shuddered through him. “Look, you’re not in any position to argue with my offer. It’ll be a good month before you’re healed enough to take care of yourself or Evan. I told the good Miss Blackwell of child services that I’d take care of your son until you were back on your feet. He gave me his vote, and unless you’ve got somebody else, you’re stuck with me. But, you see, I’ve got this ranch to run, and it ain’t gonna run itself from here. So, either both of you come with me, or I take Evan alone.” He paused deliberately. “And I have the feeling you’d rather walk over hot coals than see that happen. Am I wrong?”

  For a long moment, she could only stare at him, fighting. off the bitter sting of his words. “No,” she answered in a small voice. “You’re not wrong.” She started to add, “But not for the reason you think,” but didn’t get the chance.

  “Good,” he cut in with a singular lack of enthusiasm.

  “Then it’s a deal.”

  “A deal is generally mutually beneficial to both parties,” she pointed out. “What do you get out of all this?”

  He shook his head, his hair falling carelessly over his forehead. “Tsk, tsk, Carly. L.A. is showing on you.”

  Her cheeks grew hot. “Tell me, or the deal’s off.”

  His ice-blue eyes flared, vanquishing the flash of pain behind them. “You always were able to cut the chaff from the wheat, weren’t you, Carly?” A cynical smile curled his lip as he gathered up his coat.

  She stared at him, defiant, waiting.

  “So, I tell you,” he said, “and you’ll come, right?”

  It was absolutely unfair to ask that before he answered, and he knew it. But she nodded anyway. What choice did she have? Exactly none. And he knew that, too.

  Her gaze followed him across the room as he retrieved his hat. She felt her stomach give a little tumble at her first full-length view of him. All six-foot-three of him. His stride was deliberate, and her gaze fell inexorably, if inappropriately, to the way his faded jeans hugged the lean, muscled contours of his thighs. He’d matured, changed. But to her dismay, her very physical reaction to him had changed not at all.

  He turned back to her, hat tight in his fist, and approached her bed. “Let’s see. What do I get?” he asked in a voice edged with steel. “Hell, I don’t know, Carly. Maybe this time, I’ll get the chance to say goodbye.”

  Closing her eyes, Carly tried to shut out the accusation in his eyes. “I don’t blame you for hating me.”

  His footsteps approached the bed, and she heard him curse under his breath. “I don’t hate you, Carly. Look, it doesn’t have to be this hard.” He shoved his fingers through his dark hair. “Hell, it can be whatever we make it.”

  She gave a mirthless chuckle. “You know that saying about being between a rock and a hard place?”

  “Yeah. Which am I?” he asked, a grin in his voice. “The rock or the hard place?”

  Her eyes met his in surrender. “You’re both.”

  Chapter 3

  “How much longer till we get to your ranch?” Evan demanded for the hundredth time. He bounced in the jump seat of Rafe’s pickup as the truck navigated yet another cattle-crossing grate across the muddy, unpaved road.

  The wide-open space was a relief from her days in the hospital and from the cramped flight from Reno to Durango. The last vestiges of winter were still gathered here and there against the spindly wire fence line, but most of the final snowfall of the year had melted. The air pouring through the partly opened window smelled wonderful to Carty—sharp and cold and sweet.

  With a nod of his head, Rafe gestured toward the rich scrub pastureland around them, dotted with grazing cattle. “We’ve been on Rocking K property for the last ten minutes.”

  Carly blinked in disbelief at the rolling sweep of grazing land cradled in the lee of the San Juan Mountains. “When you said you owned a little spread outside of Durango, I pictured...well, a little spread.” Her gaze took it in.

  “There’s nothing small about this place.” She turned to stare at Rafe. “This is all yours?”

  “Most of it,” he admitted, glancing her way, his expression unguardedly proud. “What I don’t own outright, I lease privately for graze.” He pointed down the road, to a speck of a structure at the foot of the nearest mountain. “There’s the house.”

  As they emerged from the mountain’s shadow, Carly watched the steady approach of the ranch and its outbuildings. She rubbed sweaty palms along her denim-covered thighs, then toyed with the edges of the split seam that accommodated her cast. For the hundredth time in the past forty-eight hours, she questioned the wisdom of agreeing to this. Not once since their words that first day had Rafe allowed her a glimpse of his bitterness over what had passed between them so many years ago. In fact, he’d made every effort to be pleasant. But an effort was exactly what it seemed. The past loomed between them like a circling vulture, biding its time.

  Loose gravel sprayed the bed of the truck as they pulled into the yard of the sprawling one-story log ranch house, bracketed by a pair of ancient pines. A covered porch, woven with the winter-bare vines of a climbing rose, ran the length of the front of the house. Hanging balefully at one end of the porch, a lone wooden swing rocked gently in the cool afternoon breeze. The house fit Rafe the way his clothes did—rough-hewn, without pretense, and utterly practical.

  “Wow! A log cabin!” Evan exclaimed, his nose pressed against the truck window.

  “Like it?” Rafe asked. “Gus and I built it a couple of years back.”

  “Gus?” Carly repeated.

  As she spoke the name, a grizzled cowhand of about fifty, with a droopy mustache and legs as bowed as barrel staves, rounded the corner of the house, grinning broadly. He raised one hand in greeting.

  “My foreman,” Rafe explained as he threw the truck into park and climbed out.

  The tricolored sheepdog walking beside the older man left his side and raced toward Rafe with happy, openmouthed exuberance. Jumping four feet straight in the air, the dog gave Rafe a wet doggy greeting. Rafe ruffled the fur on its head affectionately, while fending off a full-fledged annointing.

  “Hey, Mack! Did you miss me?”

  The dog woofed in reply, tangling itself between Rafe’s legs. Evan’s eyes went wide at the possibilities. “Mom!” he said in a stage whisper. “He’s got a dog!”

  Carly nodded with a smile. Evan had wanted a dog for as long as he was able to talk. But they’d lived in a condo in L.A. with no space for one. Maybe things would work out here after all, she thought.

  Rafe ducked his head back in the door. For a moment, she thought he’d forgotten what he was about to say. His gaze drifted, feature by feature, over her face until she felt color rise in her cheeks.

  “Don’t move,” he told her, his voice suddenly hoarse. “I’ll be right back to bring you in.”

  Watching him go, Carly lifted a hand to the bruise on her cheek, wondering how he could look at her without grimacing. She knew she must look awful. Yet his gaze had held something far from aversion. It had held, instead, a haunted look that acknowledged the history that stood between them. A look, she thought, that spoke volumes about the things neither of them had yet dared to discuss.

  As he approached his foreman, Carly saw Rafe’s wince of pain, and the way he favored his left leg for a few steps. She swallowed hard. Of course, she’d heard about the accident. It had only been a few years since Rafe was nearly killed by some bull.

  Rafe had always imagined himself indestructible. Carly had always known he was not. For years she’d blamed the rodeo for their breakup, but she knew it had gone much, much deeper than that. Now, it gave her no comfort to know that she’d been right about what the rodeo would do to him. But looking at the ranch he’d carved out of the Colorado high
desert, she suspected she’d also been wrong.

  Rafe met Gus halfway to the truck. If she hadn’t known better, Carly would have sworn he wanted to intercept the older man before he got too close.

  The two talked for less than a minute. She saw Gus thumb a gesture toward the mountains and shake his head.

  She was close enough to see Rafe’s jaw tighten at whatever Gus had told him, but too far away to hear it. At last, Rafe crunched across the gravel drive toward the truck, his expression set and clouded. Gus followed close behind:

  “Is something wrong?” she asked when he leaned in the door on the driver’s side to get his hat.

  He denied it with a quick shake of his head, but she caught a flash of frustration in his eyes.

  “Carly, Evan,” Rafe said, “this is Gus Toleranos. Gus, Carly and Evan Jamison. Oh, and this,” he said holding the dog back from jumping in the cab, “is Mack.”

  Gus touched the brim of his battered hat. “How do, ma’am. Son?”

  “Are you a real cowboy, too?” Evan asked, wide-eyed.

  “Well, now, I reckon I am,” Gus replied, with a grin and a wink at Rafe.

  “Cool,” Evan pronounced, but he wasn’t distracted by that information for long. His excited gaze found the penned horses on the near side of the huge barn at the far end of the lane. “Horses! Oh, Mom, can we go see ’em?”

  “Evan, for heaven’s sake...” Carly scolded. “We haven’t even—”

  “Aw, heck,” Gus said, brushing away her admonishment. “Ain’t every day a city boy gets near real live horses who’ll nibble carrots right outa his hand.”

  “Really?” Evan gasped. “You got any carrots?”

  Carly shook her head. “Evan!”

  “Shore I do,” Gus told him, pulling a limp orange carrot from his pocket. “C’mon, I’ll take ya. That is, if it’s okay with your ma.”

  Evan’s look pleaded with Carly. “Can I, Mom. Can I? Ple-ease?”

  Rafe nodded at her, and she acquiesced. “Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind, Gus.”

  “Sure as ticks on a dog.” Gus reached for Evan’s hand and helped him from the truck. “Why don’t you two go on in and get yerselves settled. The boy and me’ll mosey on over and get him acquainted with a certain red roan colt I know.”

  “Can Macky come?” Evan asked Gus as he tumbled out of the cab without so much as a goodbye.

  “Try and stop him,” Gus said with a grin.

  Evan was off and running to the paddock, with Gus and Mack trailing at his heels.

  A smile crept to Carly’s mouth. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her son so excited...or so happy. Despite her uneasiness about coming here, she suspected this place was exactly what Evan needed. She wished she was as sure about herself.

  “Don’t worry,” Rafe told her from the other side of the truck. “Gus is great with kids. He’s had three of his own.”

  She smiled. “Oh...I wasn’t worried about Gus. I’m just surprised Evan went with him. He’s usually sort of shy with strangers.” Rafe gave her an odd look, and she remembered that Evan hadn’t been shy with him, either. But then, that shouldn’t surprise her. Rafe had always had a way of putting people at ease.

  Until they got too close.

  Rafe came around the truck as she opened the door and lowered herself gingerly to the gravel drive. She felt a twinge of dizziness, but knew it would pass. It always did. She reached for the crutches propped in the front seat.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked with a frown. He stopped in front of her, blocking the sun, his broad shoulders haloed with a light that belied their tension.

  “I’m getting my crutches,” she answered. “What does it look like?”

  “I told you I’d carry you.”

  “That’s not necessary.” Or, for that matter, wise, she reflected. Physical contact with the man looming over her was something she thought it best to avoid altogether. Hanging on to the door for balance, she reached again into the truck cab for her crutches.

  He shook his head with disbelief. “I say it is necessary. It’s been a long day. You should be in bed. You can barely stand up, you’re so tired. And you’re pale as the snow on those mountains.”

  Carly caught her lip between her teeth. Her great-aunt Katherine’s constant admonition rang in her memory: “There’s no one to count on in this life but yourself. Remember that, Cara Lynn. Learn to paddle your own canoe and you’ll be beholden to no one.”

  She wouldn’t be a burden to him. She’d sworn she wouldn’t!

  Planting the crutches on the ground, she shook her head. “I’m fine.” But even as she said it, a sharp pain shot up her sore hand as she braced it on the offending piece of foam-covered metal.

  His eaglelike gaze missed nothing. “Dammit, Carly—”

  “I can do it,” she snapped, angry at herself. “I don’t need—”

  “My help,” he finished for her, his voice laced with sarcasm. “Right. Hey, it’s comforting to know some things never change.” He swept a hand toward the house, then crossed his arms over his chest. “Be my guest.”

  Carly gritted her teeth and planted the crutches ahead of her in the gravel. Without her right leg for balance, she found herself leaning back on the truck for support. Then, hopping on her left leg, she leaned into the crutches. But the second she put pressure on her right hand, her arm buckled in pain and she felt herself pitching forward like a felled tree.

  Rafe swore and caught her by the shoulders, righting her against his chest. Then, pinning her there with one arm, he tore the crutches out of her hands and sent them sailing into the back of the pickup with a resounding thunk!

  Ignoring her gasp of protest, he pushed her back against the truck, then gestured toward the house, a distant thirty feet away.

  “Still gonna try it on your own? C’mon, Carly, I’m sure you can figure out some way to do it, even now, without asking me for help.”

  She swallowed hard, angry at herself for her failure, and at him for taunting her with it.

  His eyebrows went up mockingly. “No? Well, then I guess you’ll just have to accept it.” Reaching down, he scooped her into his arms, held her tight to his chest and started toward the house.

  It didn’t help that he was right, she fumed. He was, blast him! Clinging to the sheepskin coat covering his shoulders, Carly was all too aware of the angry heat their bodies shared and the heavy thud of his heart against her side. She tried to put a fractional amount of space between them, but it was useless. His hands dug into her flesh, inside the worn fabric of her slit-up-the-seam jeans, and beneath the down jacket at her waist.

  Each point of contact was seared by the memory of what it had once been like to be held by this man. To be loved by him. Now there was nothing gentle or kind in the azure eyes that deliberately avoided hers. And only anger and long-buried bitterness remained in his embrace.

  Tightening his hold on Carly, Rafe stalked to the house. The woman was stubborn, willful, and too damned independent for her own good. She’d never needed him all those years ago. Not really. Not the way a man needed to be needed. Not until this very minute. But even now, she couldn’t accept his help without a fight.

  Despite that, his traitorous body tightened with longing as he felt her womanly softness against him, as her hair brushed his neck and the sweet scent of her invaded his brain. Even as she fought his help, he wanted her.

  Hell!

  He wanted her even now.

  Reaching the top of the steps, Rafe kicked at the partially opened door and eased through the entryway with Carly in his arms. With relief, he noted that the room was at least neat. Gus had seen to that. No newspapers lay strewn about, half-read and forgotten. No half-empty bottles of Jack Daniel’s or ringed coffee mugs lay in testament to the sleepless nights of late. The ranch accounts Rafe had pored over night after night and left sprawled across the huge mahogany desk had been cleared out of sight, too.

  Relief needled th
rough him. Carly didn’t need to know he was on the brink of going down in flames one more time. Be it ego or self-preservation, he didn’t think he could take it if she knew and pitied him or, worse, realized she’d been right about him all along.

  Late-afternoon sun poured through the high cathedral-shaped windows that looked out on the San Juans to the north, sending shafts of light across the colorful woven rugs scattered across the waxed pine floor. He carried Carly to the oversize forest-green sectional and deposited her there, where the sunlight played against the fabric. Her voice stopped him as he started toward the dying blaze burning in the fireplace.

  “Rafe?”

  He turned around as she slipped her arms out of her coat and peeled it off. His chest tightened at the sight of her. The sunlight streaked her silvery-blond hair almost white. The simple green T-shirt she wore outlined the womanly curves of her body and sent a sharp, unwanted pang of desire crashing through him. “Yeah?” he snapped.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. “And...thank you.”

  “Well.” He loosed a sharp breath. “That must have been hard to say.”

  “I can admit to being wrong.”

  A doubtful frown pulled at his brow. “Can you?”

  She rubbed her leg just above the plaster that encased it. “I thought I could do it myself. I was wrong, okay? I didn’t mean to make you angry. I just don’t want to be a burden to you.” A choked laugh escaped her. “Pretty dumb, huh? I mean, here I am, planted on your couch.... I can’t even walk by myself.” Her eyes grew bright, and she brushed at her cheek with the back of her braced hand.

  Rafe’s fist tightened at his side. “In a day or so, your hand will be able to take the pressure. But for now... Look, I brought you here to take care of you. You’ve gotta let me help you.”

  She nodded, staring at a colorful loomed pillow beside her. “I know. It’s just...hard for me. It always has been.”

  With a shake of his head, he walked to the rock fireplace that encompassed nearly an entire wall. “That’s old news, Carly. Hell, it wouldn’t even make for a good editorial.”