by Pam Crooks
He found several--a slightly swollen left foreleg, a thinning in the curly-haired hide, an oval-shaped white patch over one eye--and memorized them.
Then, with his knife, he carefully made a shallow slit in the hide at their necks. From his hip pocket, he withdrew an equal number of half-dollar coins and inserted them into the openings.
He returned to his horse, mounted, and met Vince’s questioning look.
“Proof,” he said.
Vince nodded agreeably. “Proof. If we need it.”
“When we need it,” Lance said with a growl. They were on Mancuso land. The day Ditson’s pilfered herd showed up at the loading chutes in Cheyenne, they’d be ready for him.
Vince grinned, amused at Lance’s stubbornness. He glanced toward Cookie and Charlie and the dwindling fire they guarded before turning back to Lance.
“Let’s go home, eh?”
* * *
As they drew nearer to the main barn, Stick ran up and took their horses to bed down for the night. Lance and Vince climbed the porch stairs and entered the Big House. A light shone in the parlor, another in the kitchen, but no sound met them.
It was quiet, Lance thought. Too quiet. Sonnie would have heard them enter. She would have been waiting for them.
Vince sighed and removed his gloves and hat. “The ride wore me out, Lance. You said it would, eh?” He glanced around him, appearing more curious than concerned. “Where do you suppose Sonnie is?”
Lance’s heart pumped a little faster. He hid his growing apprehension. “She might be upstairs. It’s time for your medicine. I’ll get it for you.”
“Yes,” Vince murmured tiredly and hung his coat on the wooden rack near the door. “I’ll be in my room. Bring it to me there.”
Lance let Vince find his own way down the hall. Though the medicine sat in a cupboard in the kitchen, Lance pivoted in the opposite direction, then took the stairs in long leaps to the top.
“Sonnie?” he called. The rooms were dark, silent. He reined in his budding imagination, refusing to believe Clay Ditson would venture this close. “Sonnie?”
He entered her bedroom, which was illuminated only by the shining moon peeking in through the gossamer curtains at the window.
His gaze scanned the shadows. Everything appeared to be in its place, neat and tidy as usual. He set his hands on his hips and tried to think of where she might have gone. A late-night ride? The cowboys would never allow it. A visit to the barns? Hardly. Socializing? There were no women nearby.
But there were men.
Lots of men. On a wave of burgeoning disbelief, he strode toward the window and yanked back the curtains.
The bunkhouse sat in plain sight below. Beacons of light shone through the windows. Every cowboy who worked in the Mancuso outfit rose early each morning. The hour was late. They should have ended their day long before now.
But they hadn’t.
Because one beautiful, black-eyed woman was keeping them awake.
* * *
The wine had given Sonnie courage, of course. The Rocking M bunkhouse had been denied to her all her life. Her sisters always warned her never to go near it, because Papa would be livid if he ever found out.
But she was grown-up now. A woman of the world. She knew her way with men, and she knew how to take care of herself. Besides, she was perfectly safe here on her father’s ranch.
Not that he’d even notice she had gone. He was too busy shutting her out of his life to care. Clay Ditson and his rustled cattle meant more to Vince Mancuso than she did. So with the evening long and looming before her, she’d buried the hurt, walked over, knocked on the door, and invited herself in.
Now that she was here, Sonnie couldn’t understand why everyone insisted she stay away. The bunkhouse was certainly nothing fancy with its wooden floor, narrow bunks, and scant furnishings. In fact, the place had a rough, homey appeal. Except for the postcards and calendars depicting ladies of questionable reputation tacked about the walls, the atmosphere beckoned with welcome. A stone fireplace radiated warmth to the far corners of the long rectangular room, and the smell of strong coffee flirted with the scent of tobacco. Moose, his head resting on his paws, slept peacefully near the door.
“Reckon it’s your play, Miss Sonnie. You know what you’re gonna do?”
From his seat across the table from her, Jake McKenna eyed her with insolent amusement. Having just met him, Sonnie couldn’t decide whether she liked him or not, but it had been he who’d ushered her inside and convinced the others there was no harm in letting her stay.
“Take your time, ma’am,” Red Holmes, one of the young cowboys she’d met earlier that afternoon, advised. He lifted a tall bottle of beer to his mouth and swallowed. “Don’t let him rush you.”
“Takes a while to learn the game, too. Got a lot ridin’ on this hand,” Frank Burton, her tutor in this strange game of seven-up, murmured beside her.
Expectant silence fell among the group of men, most of whose names escaped her. They made an avid audience, and Sonnie delighted in having their attention. It seemed they were pleased she’d come, especially since they’d all stopped what they were doing to watch.
Her fingers found her own beer bottle, one of several scattered about the tabletop. Jake hadn’t offered her the courtesy of a separate drinking glass, so she drank the cold brew full-strength and right out of the bottle. She found the menagerie of cards and pennies sprinkled in front of her exciting, but, befuddled by the effects of wine and beer, her concentration lagged. She tried to remember all Frank had told her, and in consternation, heaved an indecisive sigh.
“Now, if I didn’t know better,” Jake purred. “I’d say you were bluffin’ me.”
A sprig of boldness pushed a smile onto Sonnie’s lips. “Why do you say that, Mr. McKenna?”
“That purty little face of yours is a picture of pure innocence. Makes a man think you don’t have a clue as to what you’re doin’.” He sat with his chair tilted on its back legs, one dusty boot propped on the corner of hers, trapping a swatch of her dinner dress beneath the sole. “But then again,” he said, flashing her a big grin resplendent with lazy charm. “Could be you know exactly what you’re doin’ and are just usin’ your feminine wiles to make me believe you don’t.”
Feminine wiles. Sonnie’s smile deepened. She well knew how that little tool could work in this manly environment, and she smoothly took the bait.
“Well, I do declare,” she said, affecting an outrageously seductive drawl livened further from the spirits. “That sounds like a challenge to me.”
“Call it what you want, honey. But I still think you’re bluffin’ me.”
“Do you now?”
“I do.” A cigar rolled across his wind-chapped lips and settled in a corner of his mouth. Several more peeked from his shirt pocket.
“We’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?” She fanned her lashes and drew an appreciative murmur from the men, each gazing at her with nothing short of absolute adoration.
Sonnie gloried in it. The heady feeling of being enjoyed in the coveted circle of her new friends, Vince Mancuso’s men, gave her a sense of power her besotted mind recognized.
Only Jake McKenna seemed oblivious to her allure. He considered her with an arrogance that was both irritating and perplexing, and he seemed confident of his win.
A challenge, most definitely.
With a final glance at the cards in her hand, she laid them facedown and tugged her dress free of his boot. She rose, pausing a discreet moment until her woozy head cleared.
“What’s the matter, Jake?” she taunted softly, glad her words sounded succinct. “Are you so sure you’ll defeat Vince Mancuso’s daughter in a silly ol’ game of seven-up?” She ventured a few steps about the table and let her fingertips trail brazenly along his shoulder blades. “Or”--she came to a stop directly behind him--”do you think that because I’m a woman I’m incapable of defeating you?”
At her touch, the cigar quivere
d against his lower lip. He sat immobile with his chair still tilted back, and Sonnie knew he wasn’t as immune to her presence as she’d thought.
Bolstered by the spirits flowing in her veins, she opened her fingers over the curve of his shoulder and slid her hand along the cotton fabric of his shirt. Her shameless flirting kept him distracted, and without a shred of guilt, she looked at the cards he hastily tried to conceal.
“Well, now, Miss Sonnie, bein’s this is your first time at gamblin’, and bein’s a woman of your gentle persuasion don’t have the, er, cleverness to outplay someone of my experience--.”
“Ah, cleverness, Mr. McKenna.” Her husky laughter tossed his explanation aside. Having seen his hand, she knew which of her own cards would give her the point she needed to win the game. “Perhaps my gender is against me. Would you prefer that I be a man instead?” She snatched one of the cigars from his pocket. Holding it between her teeth, she spoke around the rolled tobacco. “A Mancuso son. Would that be better?”
The hem of her dress flared as she twirled, plucking the hat from Frank’s head and settling it atop her own. Chuckles flowed about the room, stoking her playfulness. She tilted the hat to a jauntier angle over the coiffure she’d taken such care-with before dinner.
“I reckon it don’t make any difference whether you’re male or female, Miss Sonnie,” Jake declared with condescending humor. “Cards are cards. Pennies are pennies. And winnin’s all that matters.”
“You are right, of course.” She removed the cigar from her mouth and tucked it between her fingers. Retaining her new manly role, she swished her skirts aside and propped one foot onto the seat of her chair. The stance gave everyone an unbridled view of her silk-stockinged leg and drew a round of exuberant hoots.
She gave no thought to her actions. It had become imperative to put Jake McKenna in his place, to prove to him and the other cowboys that she could win as easily as any of them.
“My high card,” she said. With a flourish, she laid down a queen of spades. “One point to my six make seven. I win.”
With the taste of victory sweet on her tongue, she lifted her glance to Jake’s.
He appeared unaware of her accomplishment, but stared, instead, at a point somewhere behind her.
A jubilant smile froze on her lips. Through her beer-fuzzed state came the realization that the men’s raucous laughter had quieted to haunting silence, and no one, absolutely no one, had even looked at her winning card. A pitiful, mewling whine from Moose slathered a wave of apprehension down her spine.
Instinctively, her gaze swept past the coats, boots, and hats cluttering the room, past the flagrant pinups on the wall, past the somber group of men standing about, and rested on Lance.
Lance.
With a burst of panic, she searched for her father beside him, but only Lance’s tall, muscular frame filled the doorway. Her gasp of surprise sounded disturbingly, suspiciously, like a hiccup.
His glance raked her from the top of Frank’s hat to the toes of her propped foot. All traces of her inebriation evaporated like a raindrop on a hot skillet. The air fairly sizzled with tension.
“Hey, Boss,” Jake greeted with a tight grin as he carefully righted his chair. “You’re back.”
“Yeah. I am.”
The low, even timbre of his voice betrayed none of the suppressed emotion she sensed in him. Sonnie eased her foot from the chair seat.
He approached the table in a calculated, predatory stroll--a vengeful wolf stalking wary quarry. Her chin lifted, and his glance slammed into hers.
“Don’t mind me, Sonnie,” he taunted with deceptive smoothness. “Go on with your game.”
She refused to let him intimidate her. “They were teaching me how to play seven-up,” she said. In defiance, she reached for the beer bottle and carried it to her lips. “And I won.”
“Really?” His hand snaked out and yanked the bottle from her grasp. “I’m so impressed.”
Tilting his head back, he finished off the contents. The strong, bronzed column of his throat bobbed with every swallow.
Sonnie’s composure faltered from this new side of him. She hadn’t expected his sarcasm, the cold condemnation she was seeing now.
His shadowed gaze ripped over the men. “Who brought in the beer?”
A long, painful minute passed before anyone spoke. Sonnie held her breath. She was unsure of the guilty person, but she understood his reluctance to reveal himself.
Lance moved closer to Jake and dropped the bottle onto the tabletop. The container wobbled and fell on its side. Neither man made an attempt to right it.
“Any ideas, McKenna?”
Jake stood with an abruptness that nearly toppled his chair.
“I did,” he said with a snarl,
Lance’s jaw hardened. “You know the rules. No drinking. No gambling. No fighting.” His imperious glance jerked to Sonnie. “And no women.”
Sonnie’s hackles rose. “I came of my own free will, Lance Harmon. I have every right as my father’s daughter--.”
“Shut up, Sonnie,” he snapped.
She stiffened at his high-handed treatment of her, and an array of stinging retorts sprang to her tongue. But a warning shake of Red Holmes’s crimson-haired head held them in check.
“You’ll be accountable for this in the morning, McKenna,” Lance promised with a low growl. His sharp-eyed gaze pierced every man. “I want the lights out in five minutes. Anyone still up after that hits the road.”
With the exception of Jake, the men nodded in obedience.
Lance turned to Sonnie.
“Go on back to the house,” he said.
“I will not.” She glowered at him from beneath the borrowed hat. “I have five minutes. Just like everyone else.”
“You’ll go now.” His patience seemed at the breaking point.
Sonnie dared to push him to the edge.
“I won’t,” she said.
“Miss Sonnie.” Frank’s pleading tone penetrated the dare. “It’s best to do as he says, what with him bein’ the boss and all.”
“Boss to you, maybe, but not me.” Yet the cowboy’s advice rang in her brain, and her bravado wavered.
She gave up the fight with an ungrateful sigh and a roll of her eyes. She speared Lance with a scathing glare and spun on her heel to leave, but the spirits in her blood bested her,
She swayed and stumbled. From behind her, an iron-thewed arm wrapped about her legs, a rock-hard shoulder hit her belly, and she endured the sensation of being heaved up and over.
Instant nausea rose up from her belly. Frank’s hat dropped from her head onto the floor. Her hair loosened, fell, and dangled from the tousled coiffure. Moose, his nose bare inches from hers, sniffed enthusiastically at the beer on her breath.
With a squeal of repugnance, Sonnie reached out her hand to swat at him. Again she nearly lost the contents of her stomach.
“Put me down, Lance,” she demanded between clenched teeth. “Now, damn you!”
He ignored her and headed for the door. She kicked and squirmed, but the grip about her legs never loosened.
From her upside-down position, she caught a topsy-turvy view of the men they were leaving behind, their sympathetic expressions and wide-eyed stares.
Humiliated beyond words, beyond insults and pleas, beyond anything she had ever experienced from another man before, Sonnie gave up the fight, flung her arms about Lance’s waist, and hung on for dear life.
Chapter 7
He came upon her by accident.
If not for the softly shaded plum fabric of her dress peeking out from the tangled growth of wildflowers, Lance might have missed her. He drew his horse closer. Sonnie lay on a blanket, cocooned within the beaming warmth of the sun, and slept peacefully, with so much innocence a part of his heart swelled from the purity of it.
He stared down at her. Her hair, long ago unfurled from the binds of a ribbon, trailed across her shoulder and past her arm. She reclined partially on her side, one
cheek turned into the blanket, her hand relaxed across her waist. Lashes, crescent-shaped and richly sable, rested against smooth, ivory skin.
He’d been gone a long time. Trailing cattle kept him away from the Rocking M’s main spread for periods that stretched from weeks into months. Glimpses of Vince’s daughters were rare, and those of Sonnie alone were even rarer.
She was growing up.
Breasts not yet flowered into full womanhood rose and fell during her slumber. He dragged his gaze lower to the gentle flare of her hips and downward still farther to slender thighs outlined through the drape of her dress.
Plagued by a strange sense of restlessness, Lance cocked his jaw and looked away. Across the meadow, he caught sight of Vince and his remaining five daughters, all carrying buckets and intent on their pickings from a cluster of crabapple trees and mulberry bushes.
It seemed they’d forgotten their youngest. Lance’s glance drifted over Sonnie yet again, and a fragile bond, an understanding, budded inside him. He, too, knew what it was like to be alone. Loved, accepted, but still alone.
A pesky bumblebee hovered and-dipped about Sonnie’s nose. Her mouth puckered; she shifted and sighed. Lance’s lips softened.
He urged his horse back into the shadow of an aging cottonwood tree and settled more comfortably in the saddle. He would stay, he decided, for a little while. He would watch over her when the others were gone so she wouldn’t be alone.
He would stay. For just a little while.
* * *
The fury burned inside him.
Lance ached to throttle Jake McKenna for breaking Mancuso bunkhouse rules. Red Holmes, Frank Burton, and the other men deserved to be horsewhipped for going along with him. Every damn one of them knew better.
Including Sonnie.
She waltzed in and twisted his men around her perfectly manicured little finger. Good sense left them and typical male weakness with regard to a woman--especially one as beautiful as Sonnie--took over.
The fury raged.
He loped up the porch stairs with little thought to the bounce he gave her. Her muffled complaint slowed his step, but only slightly. She grasped him tighter as he stomped across the porch and flung open the front door.