By Break of Day (The Night Stalkers)

by M. L. Buchman

  The cabbie snickered and pulled out of the airport and into traffic.

  Justin did know that. She’d found a ticklish spot on him that once and had used it on occasion until he hadn’t been able to breathe right without wincing in remembered pain for a long while afterward. How was a man supposed to maintain any dignity while curled up the fetal position on the cold, hard steel plating of a Navy warship’s deck, trying to protect himself from five-foot-five of naked Italian on a warpath? As far as he’d ever found, Kara Moretti didn’t have a single ticklish spot…though she had several that made her purr like a very happy cat lying in the sun.

  Which put him in mind that maybe this was a stupid idea and they really should be headed back for the hotel, any hotel. He needed to distract her and fast, or the cabbie would be getting more of a show than Justin was comfortable with. New Yorkers might do it in the back of a cab, but he was more of an open prairie kind of guy.

  “So, are you planning on taking Ma up on her offer to go riding? It’ll be a hoot. Sis, a couple aunts, and the ranking women of the American Quarter Horse Association; they’re a formidable group.”

  “And way the heck outta my league. I’m from a cop family in Brooklyn, for crying out loud.”

  “Did you think my mother cares a single whit about that?” That finally seemed to distract Kara.

  “Humph,” was her only response.

  “Trust me, sweetheart. You’d fit right in and they’d love you to death.”

  “And bury my bones out on the wide prairie.”

  And there was the image back at him, burying himself in between her legs out where they’d be the only souls in a half-dozen square miles of grassland.

  Kara was slouched down in her seat until her knees rested up against an ad for some Broadway show about wicked witches that hung on the back of the front seat. Her arms were folded tight across her chest.

  “Ma wouldn’t let them bury you. She’s already half adopted you.”

  “Collects stray puppy dogs too, I bet.”

  “And such a sweet thing you are.” He stroked her hair as if petting a pup.

  She growled deep in her throat and made as if to snap at him.

  The cabbie announced that they were at their destination barely in time to save Justin’s hide.

  “What the—” Kara ducked low to look out his window at the store’s sign. “You gotta be shittin’ me, Cowboy.”

  “Nope! Not for a second. I can’t have you goin’ to Texas lookin’ all citified.”

  “I’m not going to Texas tomorrow.”

  “I’m offering to buy, sweetheart. It will be a treat to buy you your first pair of cowboy boots, to corrupt your New York soul with proper footwear. You’re not gonna be turning me down now, are ya?” To preempt further argument, he clambered out of the taxi, gave the cabbie a couple twenties to wait, and led Kara inside the shop.

  * * *

  The smell was the first thing that hit Kara. The shop door swung open, and the smell of fine leather as thick as the scents of Mama’s red sauce wrapped around her. It was so rich that she didn’t know whether to breathe deeply or try to cough it out.

  Justin stopped at the threshold and took it in deep. His chest expanded, then he let out a long sigh of contentment. “Add in a couple horses and some straw, and that’s the smell of home come to life.”

  Rows and rows of cowboy boots lined the walls. Short ones, tall ones, simple and ornate. A girl came up to them looking all blond and outdoorsy in jeans, a form-hugging tank top, and a well-worn pair of shit kickers.

  “Hi there, folks!” At least it wasn’t Howdy, but the Hi was somewhere between a Ha and a Hey—and certainly had no place within a thousand miles of Paramus, New Jersey. “How y’all doin’?”

  “Jes’ fine,” Justin drawled in reply. “I need to get this lady into some proper footwear. Hoping you can help me with that.”

  “You betcha!” If the girl thought Kara was one bit charmed by her batting eyelids and sassy hand-on-hip pose, she was grossly mistaken.

  But Justin was acting as if she was merely being friendly. For some reason Texas-friendly didn’t look all that different from New York come-on, but Kara was learning to trust that even if the salesgirl didn’t know the difference, Justin did.

  It was a classic Paramus strip mall kind of place. The walls could be covered with discount shoes, kitchen supplies, or pet food, and it would be the same store—except it wasn’t. She’d never seen so much leather in one place since she’d watched West Side Story as a kid.

  Six shelves high of cowboy boots lined the walls. They weren’t just brown and black. There were blues and reds. There were smooth ones and textured ones. Big ones, little ones…it felt as if she’d gotten lost in an adventure of Dr. Seuss does the O.K. Corral.

  There were so many different types that they all started to blur together. If it had been a normal shoe store, she’d have been able to sort it all out: sneakers, slippers, high heels, flats, boots—though none like these. Here she had no way to discern one from the next as they ranged shoulder to shoulder, or rather ankle to ankle, down the walls.

  “Oh, I know that look, darlin’,” the girl cooed at her.

  Kara considered planting a fist to prove that she wasn’t anyone’s darlin’, especially not this girl’s, but she refrained.

  If the girl knew the prior look, she’d certainly missed the latest one that threatened her perky little nose.

  “I can jes’ see that this is gonna be your first Western boot. What I suggest is don’t be thinkin’ too much. I’m gonna let y’all just wander about for a few minutes and kinda get your bearings. Don’t focus on what’s different; just watch for what catches your eye. If a girl knows a fine pair of heels at a glance…”

  Kara wouldn’t know a fine pair of heels from a hole in the wall.

  “…a real woman knows a fine boot. Y’all jes go wander and give a hoot if ya’ got any questions.” She waved them off with a flap of her hands and then went to see to another customer who had wandered unsuspecting into the store’s honey-trap door. “Hey there, y’all.”

  “Is she for real?” Kara looked up at Justin.

  “Kansas, over to the Missouri side.” Justin had kept her hand in his and now led her deeper into the fields of leather. “Sounds almost as good as home when I’m this far afield. Her advice is good; let’s just wander.”

  As they browsed, Kara noticed that one boot or another caught her eye. A few were pretty enough to pick up, but she already had something in her mind’s eye, and none of them were up to that standard.

  “I don’t see anything here as nice as your mother’s boots.”

  “Won’t either,” Justin acknowledged. “Those are custom, handmade Lee Miller’s. The guy is so good, he doesn’t want any new clients. He won’t even take on a friend of a client.”

  “Or a son?” Justin’s boots were good, but they were nothing like his mother’s.

  “Well, he might.” Justin looked down at his own footwear. “But these are just everyday boots, not for going-about-fancy like Ma’s.”

  “If I’m going to get cowboy boots—did I really just say that?—they’re going to be going-about-fancy ones for dang sure, Cowboy. And, remember, you said you were buying.”

  “Fancy ones for my Kara it is.”

  She wasn’t so sure about the my Kara part of that remark. She didn’t belong to any man, even if she’d just broken bread with his mother and was now wandering about a boot shop holding his hand. She took some comfort from the fact that they were still in New Jersey.

  He turned her and led her to a central display that she’d missed earlier.

  When her eyes focused, she could only gasp.

  * * *

  “Pretty!”

  At Kara’s totally girly coo, Justin knew he’d hit a home run. He’d never heard her bubble lik
e that over anything. That cowboy boots had done the trick for his Army gal shouldn’t be a surprise, but it was.

  However, there was no question about the woman’s taste. “Lucchese Classic hand-tooled, they’re about the best boots made short of a custom.”

  “Don’t care. They’re pretty.” She reached out to stroke a hand over the fine leather. He was pleased when she bypassed the exotics like lizard, snake, and crocodile; he’d never been a fan of such. She’d toyed with a buffalo-hide boot stitched in a floral pattern, but that too was soon bypassed.

  He half expected her to go for a high, all-black urban boot. Or short, sassy ankle boots—though he’d have tried to talk her out of those. But that wasn’t his Kara.

  His Kara.

  He couldn’t believe he’d said that aloud. What loco idea had ever made him think that he could possess such a woman? He could have “owned” any number of tall, blond airheads going right back to Francine Freeman, the high school cheerleader. He could have found himself a biddable wife a hundred times over. Even Mariko Hosokawa would have been a fine companion and a gentle lover.

  Kara was elemental. She made her own path—and beware any fool that crossed it. She was the one who’d ride right straight into the fray beside Martha “Calamity Jane” Cannary with a six-gun on her hip and a lever-action Winchester rifle in her saddle scabbard.

  And he was taking his life into his hands by calling her his, as if a man could in any fashion own such a woman. Not that possession was ever his goal, but he wanted her beside him like he’d never imagined he’d want anything in his life.

  “These.” Kara held aloft a pair. “I gotta have these.” She wrapped her arms around them and hugged them to her chest.

  They were neither pure black nor wildly ornate. The base boot was soft black leather. The hand tooling was on the toe, heel, and cuff in a mahogany brown, partly floral and partly soft geometric. Beautiful, intricate work.

  “Let’s see how they look on you, sweetheart.”

  The girl rematerialized with the perfect timing that spoke of long retail experience. “Oh, I just love these. Someday I’ll own a pair of them.” She kept bubbling as she helped Kara find the right size and slip on a pair.

  “I thought they’d be all stiff or something.”

  “Oh no!” The girl sounded horrified. “Not a Lucchese. They’re like bedroom slippers to rule the world with.”

  “I like that.” Kara seemed very pleased by the allusion.

  Justin would just bet she did. Kara saw herself as a quiet, patient sort used to working alone in her quiet coffin. She was also a highly skilled RPA pilot, as good an Air Mission Commander as he had yet to fly with, and a lover who demanded the utmost from both herself and him.

  Then she stood up in the Lucchese boots and stomped the floor a couple of times to settle them in place. She didn’t walk up the store aisle—she strutted. The two inches of boot heel did some really splendid reshaping of her calves and behind. Her long hair flounced off her shoulders as she walked around the shop until she found a mirror.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Justin, these are awesome!” Kara called across the room, startling several of the others in the shop. “How did I not know about these?” She ran back across the shop and threw herself at him.

  He almost took out the salesgirl and the entire Lucchese display behind him before he regained his balance. She wrapped her legs around his waist, hooked her chosen boots behind him, and kissed him hard. He lost himself in the kiss, hard with pressure, soft with lips, and rich with power. It staggered him to the core, that blast of joy bigger than the fire from a five-inch deck gun. He allowed himself to fall into it for a long moment, to just revel in the taste and feel of the woman clutching on to him.

  When he finally released her, it was like a part of him tore away. Probably a chunk of his heart.

  One thing for damn sure, if there’d been any doubt about how much he loved this woman, that was long gone.

  * * *

  “Now where?” Kara was practically bouncing on the cab seat. “I’ve got to take you somewhere special for getting me these boots.” She kept reaching down to brush her hands over them, not sure if she’d ever owned anything so beautiful.

  “I had somewhere in mind.” Justin did one of those way-too-pleased-with-himself guy grins.

  The cab was already in motion.

  She tried to focus on the gift, not the scale of it. Justin hadn’t blinked for a moment as he handed over his credit card. All of Kara’s wardrobe put together cost less than these boots. She’d never have even picked them up if she’d seen the price. Who paid over two thousand dollars for a pair of boots without batting an eye?

  Someone like Justin Roberts. And she had the feeling that if he’d been broke, he’d have hocked a month’s Army pay to get her these boots. With him, the money wasn’t the object. The gift was.

  So she curled up against him in the back of the cab and let him lead where he would. Tucked inside his arm was one of the best places she’d ever been.

  Time flowed strangely there, as if she’d dozed, though she knew she hadn’t. As if she’d been dazed by a blow to the head…or to the heart. Justin kept filling her thoughts in a way that neither Carlo nor any other man ever had.

  Carlo.

  She hadn’t thought of him, asked after him despite Mama’s prompting, or even checked if he was in town.

  It was odd.

  Whenever she was on leave and he was in New York, they always got together. Pizza and too much beer was a tradition that went way back. Massive amounts of flirting, though no action except for the occasional steamy, drunken good-night kiss.

  And she hadn’t even thought of him.

  She thought of Justin though and floated timeless in his embrace…until the cab pulled off the highway.

  First they were on something named Valley Road. Then Mountain Park Road plunged them out of suburbia into dense trees as if Scotty had beamed them out of New Jersey. The next sign said Weaseldrift Road.

  “Where in the hell, Cowboy? What part of the planet are we on.”

  “Don’t rightly know,” he drawled at her. Then he pointed to a small sign set into a stone pillar where the cab was turning in: Garret Mountain Equestrian Center. “But it’s the right sorta place.”

  “Equestrian? Horses? Hell no, Cowboy.”

  “They aren’t real cowboy boots if you haven’t ridden in them.”

  “But I don’t want to muss them up.”

  “They aren’t just for show, Kara. Like the salesgirl said, they’re for using. A couple scuffs gives them character, makes them something a real person wears, not some barhopping, line-dancing cowboy.” He made little quote signs around the last word.

  Hadn’t she thought that’s what he was at first? Showed how much she knew. His boots were well used and his hat worn proudly. The goddamn man radiated who he was—unadulterated Texas male.

  “You trying to reshape me in your image?”

  At least he had the decency to look surprised and then confused.

  “Cowboy boots. Now riding lessons. Next thing you know, it will be a hat like yours—and you can just forget all about any such stupidity.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied with deadpan seriousness. “It would look darned cute on you though.”

  She sent a sharp jab into his ribs, but he’d anticipated her and her fingers bounced off hard muscle.

  * * *

  The horse looked at her—looked down at her—and Kara wasn’t the least bit pleased about the whole idea. Justin had done his sweet-talk thing, and they now had the only two Western saddle-trained horses in the whole place. Her horse, Ivory, was mostly white with gray spots on her rump, dark legs, and a dark mane.

  “Dapple gray,” Justin had informed her.

  Her head was about the size of Kara’s torso. And the beast just knew
that she had beautiful, dark eyelashes and wide, warm hazel-brown eyes.

  “You probably have a stone-cold heart, are known for bucking rookies into blackberry bushes, and will try to bite my ass when I’m not looking.”

  “Aww, don’t hurt her feelings.” Justin brushed his hand over the horse’s nose. “She a total sweetheart; you can see it in her. And on a horse it’s a greenhorn, not a rookie.” Then he waggled a warning finger at the horse. “But if you do any messing with Kara’s behind, I’m gonna get jealous. That’s my turf.”

  The horse looked at him blandly.

  “You know how a dog likes to be rubbed behind the ears?”

  “Sure.” Could she reach Ivory’s ears?

  “Horses like this.” He reached out and scrubbed Ivory’s cheeks hard with his fingertips. The horse leaned into it like a giant puppy. “You try.”

  Kara was surprised at how coarse the fur or hair or whatever was. But again, the massive head leaned into it with as much unconscious strength as Justin had. Kara hadn’t even thought about throwing herself at Justin in the store; she simply had, knowing she’d be caught.

  Where was the cautious Kara she knew so well who gave herself to no man? Had sex with, sure. But around Justin she simply gave without thought, not a familiar place to go.

  “Horses are suckers for treats.” He pulled out a pocketknife and an apple, splitting it into quarters. “Make your palm flat, fingertips together and straight, and keep your thumb tucked safe to the side.” He dropped a quarter apple on her palm and guided it forward. “She won’t bite you on purpose, but she can’t exactly look down at what she’s eating.”

  Ivory snapped it out of her hand with a muzzle just as soft as her cheek had been coarse and crunched happily. Justin gave Kara another piece, checking her hand position.

  Then he moved over to feed his horse, an imposing red—more a brown than a red, but Justin insisted on the designation and she wasn’t about to argue with a cowboy. If Ivory was big, Red was ginormous.

  “Sixteen hands high if he’s an inch,” Justin had said admiringly when they’d first brought out the horse, as if that meant something. He looked noble and lively, and even with her new boots, Kara couldn’t see over his back because he was so tall.