A Cowboy Is Forever

by Shirley Larson

  Tex muttered something, but Charlotte shook her head at him. “Mind your manners. Luke Steadman is a guest on our land.” But when those blue eyes turned up to Luke, she said, “There’s no need for you to come back. I’m sure Tex and I can handle things here.”

  “I’d like to come back, just to ease my own mind.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t do that,” said Charlotte.

  He couldn’t move. His eyes captured hers, held them, while he tried to think of a way to convince her that he was right, that she needed help. He couldn’t think of the words. All he could do was let her believe he was leaving peacefully. “I’ll say goodbye, then.” He turned to go.

  “Luke.”

  Arrested by the strange catch in her voice, he swung around. “Yes?”

  “Has your father shown you the…steers?”

  Luke nodded slowly. The silence felt heavy, laden with emotion. “I thought he would.” She stood straight and tall, all defensive pride. “I don’t own a running branding iron, Luke. We haven’t had one on the place for years.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Not much does, it seems,” she said crisply.

  “Only you,” he murmured. Then he tipped his hat to her and ducked his head to walk out of the barn.

  Chapter Five

  Luke’s rear end was numb up to his ears from being in the saddle all day. His head must have been numb, too, making him give in to his urge to see her again, back her into the corner to steal a kiss like a teenager. Nothing like a day on the Montana range to deliver a large dose of sanity, make him realize he’d acted like a fool this morning.

  He tried to stop them. He wanted to stop them. He couldn’t. Pictures of Charlotte played in his mind all day long—the way she’d laughed at him over the back of her pet cow in the bar, the way her hair had swished around her shoulders out in the street and the look on her face when she’d told him of his father’s persecution of her, the way she’d felt in his arms when he kissed her. Most of all, he remembered the way she made him feel. As if he’d stepped into the light after a long, dark winter.

  Stupid thoughts, Steadman. Forget them. Think of a cold shower and a colder glass of beer.

  He knew he shouldn’t go to her ranch tonight. She doesn’t want or need your help. You’re pushing your way in where you don’t belong. There’s a simple solution. Don’t see her. Hard to make love to a woman if you’re not with her.

  So butt out, stay out, get out. What, do you need a picture drawn for you?

  Well, hell, he needed a shower after a hard day’s work, didn’t he? He’d take a shower whether he went over to Charlotte’s or not.

  Later, out riding again under a Montana sky stuffed clear full of stars, Luke knew he’d made the right choice. Though he knew he had no right to ride into Charlotte’s life, he wanted to see her again. At night, when the dark and the stars were close.

  The quiet beauty of the evening seeped through to his soul. He’d forgotten any place on earth could be so still, so full of wildlife, so empty of people. A coyote howled at the half moon, and a tree rustled.

  Perhaps he wouldn’t see her at all. Maybe Charlotte had done the sensible thing and gone to bed, and Luke would end up playing nursemaid with Tex. That would be fun. And maybe just what he deserved. His mouth tilting in a faintly self-mocking smile, Luke rode down the dusty path that led to Charlotte’s barn.

  She was there, all shining dark hair and long denimsheathed legs, rising easily to her feet, looking…stunning.

  “Hello, Luke.” She greeted him as politely as she might a chance-come stranger. Those dark blue eyes were guarded and shielded and told him nothing of her soul.

  “Hello, Charlotte.” He matched her politeness with his urban brand of civility. “How’s the mare?”

  “We’re still waiting.”

  “So I see.” Polite words, saying nothing, revealing nothing. All so formally correct.

  “What’s he doing here?” Tex growled.

  “He came to help,” Charlotte said, not bothering to admonish Tex about courtesy this time, her eyes on Luke.

  Tex made that sound in his throat that Luke was beginning to know and dislike. “This horse don’t need a whole herd of people watching her. I’m gonna go home and go to bed.”

  Luke’s eyes flickered over Charlotte’s face They’d be alone. How did she feel about that?

  If Charlotte wanted to argue with Tex and keep him there, it didn’t show on her face. All he could see was a cool, sophisticated woman keeping her counsel. A match for him. She said, “Go ahead, Tex You get your rest.”

  Muttering that somebody around here had to be sensible, the old cowboy stomped out of the barn.

  Luke’s ears rang with the quiet.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” Charlotte said at last.

  “I said I would.”

  “Are you always such a man of your word?”

  He thought of the love-and-honor words that he’d failed to keep. “I try to be.”

  “That’s something, I guess.”

  He stood there, knowing that whatever he was, whatever he’d done, she was a part of him. And always would be.

  She stood there, gazing back at him, wishing she could see inside the man’s heart as well as she had the boy’s. And, most of all, she wished she could turn the clock back so that he’d never gone away.

  The barn creaked with night wind, full of sheltered shadows in straw-laden corners. The mare groaned deep in her throat as she lay on her side and labored in birth. Her russet coat shone with perspiration. Time stretched, the mare worked—and gave a guttural cry of pain deep in her throat.

  Tearing his eyes away from Charlotte, Luke stripped off his shirt and doused his hands in the bucket of disinfectant and water.

  “She’ll be all right?” Charlotte asked. In her anxiety, she gazed up at him.

  To Luke, it seemed like the first time she’d looked at him openly and honestly. Incredible, the relief he felt. “Shh…She’s doing beautifully. Look.” He knelt in the straw, and so did Charlotte. He could feel her breathing behind him.

  From inside the birth canal, wedged between his front hooves, the foal’s black, wet nose poked out into the world for the very first time.

  “Luke…” Charlotte breathed, and caught his shoulder. “Oh, Luke…”

  Luke reached for one of the small legs, pulled one free, then the other. “Come on, Lady. Give your baby another push. We get those shoulders through and we’re home free.” Lady Luck gave another tremendous push, and the wet, slippery foal tumbled out on the straw.

  “It’s a colt,” Luke said, his own throat feeling oddly full.

  The little guy was dazed by the sudden transition from dark womb to bright world, his bronze coat soaked with birth moisture, his ears plastered to his head, his legs incredibly long for his tiny body. He lay on the straw, a wet, befuddled miniature of his mother.

  Charlotte’s eyes shone. She reached a slender, tentative finger out to touch the foal. “He’s so incredibly…beautiful.”

  “He is that. We did a good job, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, we did.” Charlotte flashed a brilliant smile at Luke. He answered with a slow lift of his lips that rocked her heart. His bare shoulders gleamed in the dim light of the single bulb burning in the ceiling.

  “All right, so my contribution was minimal.” Luke turned his back to her and submerged his hands in the bucket of water. He came up dripping, reached for the towel she handed him and dried his hands briskly and efficiently, the way all ranch men seemed to do. His brown hair tousled, he retrieved the shirt he’d tossed on a hay bale, shrugging into it with a careless ease. He looked so wonderfully solid.

  “I’m glad you came.” No man should look as engaging as he did in dishabille, his jeans riding low on his hips, that flat belly exposed by the open shirt, his dark chest hair ruffled by the shirt edges. Luke’s physical attributes weren’t his only attraction. His personality drew Charlotte like a hummi
ngbird to a rose. He was built of integrity, glossed with honesty. He’d never broken a promise or lied to her in his life. He might be just physically attracted to her, but she liked the look of Luke Steadman’s heart and soul.

  She dropped her lashes over her eyes, but not soon enough. In that dark barn, his pupils went a shade darker, a shade glossier. He’d caught her looking.

  “It must be very late,” she said, acutely aware of the huskiness in her voice. “I’m sure you’d like to go home and get some sleep.’’

  In that silence, Lady Luck stirred. She pushed herself to her feet, leaned her head down, and began cleaning her youngster with long swipes of her rose tongue.

  Unable to speak, her throat full, Charlotte watched the ritual bonding between mother and son and thought, crazily, that she would give her soul to be able to love another so freely.

  She swallowed down the lump in her throat and tried to think rationally. “There’s still coffee in the thermos. Would you like some before you go?”

  Her face glowed with an inner happiness, her dark hair shone a vivid black. She looked incandescent. Coffee was not what Luke needed, but it was an excuse to stay. There hadn’t been many moments in his life as moving as this one. “Sounds good.”

  She offered him the cup first, and he lifted it to his lips, watching her over the rim. Those deep brown eyes were so shadowed in the dark barn that Charlotte had no idea what he was thinking or feeling. He hadn’t made any attempt to touch her. From the first moment he walked into the barn, he’d matched her guarded politeness.

  He finished his drink of coffee and handed it back to her. She took the cup and sipped, but her throat was full and she couldn’t drink it all. She offered the cup back to him, but he shook his head, his eyes still fastened on her face. She tossed the tiny bit of liquid into the straw out in the aisle.

  Let him go. Don’t say anything more. Don’t ask him to stay, don’t encourage him in any way. Above all, don’t ask him into the house…where you might completely lose your head and throw yourself at him….

  “There are ham-and-cheese sandwiches in the refrigerator that aren’t more than a day old, and maybe even a cold hamburger in a stale bun. Are you hungry? You should beyou’ve worked hard, having this baby.” Her lips lifted. She didn’t know where she found the courage to tease him.

  “How can I refuse such tempting morsels as day-old cheese and stale buns?”

  The straw crackled, making them both turn. The colt scrambled to get his legs under him and, with enormous effort, struggled upward to stand on his four splayed, wobbling legs.

  “Our boy’s got spirit,” Luke said.

  Our boy. Deep inside her belly, nerves leaped and tightened. There would never be an “our boy.” “You’re nothing but a puffed-up, prejudiced father. Most foals get on their feet as soon as they can, you know.”

  “Ah, but not with the panache of my offspring.”

  His possessiveness filled her with her own pride. He’d been given so little love in life, and it seemed not to bother him at all. He flashed that wonderful smile at her, then turned back to gaze at the colt. “No doubt about it, our baby is the fastest, smartest, most beautiful colt in the world.”

  Luke’s face shone in the light, wreathed with pride, all chiseled jaw and lean cheeks. He stood utterly absorbed in the new baby, utterly unselfconscious about his blatant partiality. His fingers fondled the colt’s half-dry ears; the youngster cast big eyes up at Luke and promptly fell in love.

  That makes two of us. “Those sandwiches aren’t getting any younger.” Charlotte spoke as lightly as she could manage. “If you could possibly tear yourself away from your pride and joy, we’ll go on up to the house.”

  All that love bubbling up inside her with nowhere to go gave her feet wings. She fled from the barn, putting the tempting sight of Luke behind her, but the velvet night was just as stimulating to the senses. Frogs croaked, crickets sang. A serene, star-laden sky floated above spring-renewed earth. The full moon shone so bright that black mountain silhouettes rose against the stars.

  The lone light in the kitchen window beckoned, a beacon set by Lettie. Tex’s wife would be sleeping in their little house farther up in the hills, Tex beside her, by now.

  Luke’s long legs brought him to Charlotte’s side. In that spring night pulsing with new life and promise, she yearned to reach out and catch his hand. Forbidden.

  She couldn’t have Luke, but she did have a new colt. Charlotte lifted her face to the starshine, her heart bursting with joyous thanksgiving.

  “When a baby is born into this world, everything else seems fresh and new.” Charlotte tilted her head back and spun around, making the constellations Hercules and the Big Dipper orbit crazily above her. “Did you know that?”

  “Not till now.”

  His voice sounded husky. She straightened upright to scan his face, but there were two of him. She said, “Why do you look so dizzy?”

  “It must be all this standing still I’m doing,” he answered. Then he smiled.

  That smile sent her spinning round again, revolving like an earth sprite in a ritual dance.

  Luke hungered to clasp her hand and spin with her. Yet he was afraid to destroy the unearthly innocence of her. When she wobbled to a stop again, he said, “You’re going to get dizzier.”

  “Don’t be the stodgy old voice of reason. I don’t want to listen to the voice of reason. I want to stay up where I am, way up, high on life.” She took another turn.

  “Charlotte—”

  She stopped suddenly, tipsily, put her hands up in front of her as if to ward him off. “No. Don’t remind me of anything. Just feel the world with me.” She tried to catch his hand and missed. “Come on, Luke.”

  He shook his head. “I’d rather watch you.”

  She wouldn’t listen. She caught his hand, tugged him around in a lopsided circle. He let her pull him, his mouth lifted in a tolerant smile. “Be a kid with me, Luke. Let’s pretend we never lost each other.” He gripped her hand to pull her close, but she anticipated his move and slipped away from his grasp. She burst into a sprint. He hustled after her, catching up to her with his long strides.

  In the shadowed doorway, she swung around to him, all big shining eyes, triumphant mouth and flying hair. “Beat you.”

  “You cheated. You had a head start.” He moved his body to trap her against the door, but she slipped away and opened it, bounding inside. He followed at a slower pace, his hands thrust in his pockets.

  She had the refrigerator door open and was leaning down to look in when he came through the archway.

  “Yesterday’s ham-and-cheese, as promised.” Two plastic bags hit the table. “One stale hamburger.” Another bag came flying out and slid to the table’s edge.

  “I’ve decided I’m not hungry. At least, not for food.” He moved like a cougar, all smoothness and ease, ready to pounce. He pushed the refrigerator door shut, and his hands came up to trap her.

  With the grace of a child, she slid under his outstretched arm and laughed at him from the other side of the table. “I can’t understand why, with such gourmet choices on the menu. I’ll bet my day-old hamburger is as good as Sam’s. Did you ever get anything to eat that night?”

  “Yes,” he said, coming around the table toward her, slowly, his eyes intent on her face. It gave him an odd feeling, chasing her like this. She’d been such a child when he knew her last. Yet here she was, this woman who electrified him with wanting her. “You’ve eluded me three times, Charlotte.”

  Quick as a wink, she shot back at him, “But who’s counting?”

  “I am.”

  She couldn’t move. She felt frozen by the purpose in his dark eyes, the magnetism of his superb body. No doubt about it, he was stalking her. But she had invited the stalking.

  She put out a hand and shook her head, her hair flying around her shoulders. “Luke, don’t. I’m in a weakened condition.”

  “Good.”

  Her heart pounded furious
ly at the sound of his voice, soft, husky, darkly intimate.

  “We were children for a moment—but that’s all. We’re all grown up now—”

  “Thank God for that.” He caught her hand, but he didn’t draw her forward. His fingers toyed with hers, carefully, oh, so carefully. And slowly, oh, so slowly, he drew her hand to his mouth and put a kiss in her palm, folding her fingers over it for safekeeping.

  She put her hand on his shoulder, inviting him into her world. He closed his eyes and moved closer, feeling as if she were the warmth he needed for life. He put an arm around her waist, gathering her into his realm. He stood there for a moment, just letting his world and hers merge. Then he gathered her closer, and she was no longer just in his world, she was his entire world.

  “Yes…” he breathed, and brought a hand up to gather her hair into a shining ebony mass that spilled over his fingers. “Oh, yes…”

  “I shouldn’t have gotten high on the stars,” she whispered.

  “How do you feel now?”

  One lean finger traveled the open V of her shirt, just to the bottom and back up again. Under his touch, her skin effervesced.

  “Like I’m one of them, on fire, burning with heat and light.”

  She felt coolness on her back when her shirt lifted, and heat when his palm splayed over her supersensitive skin. He wrapped his arm around her, nearly brushing the side of her unfettered breast.

  Her skin felt like silk. He wanted more. He leaned down to take a taste of her mouth, the lightest brush of a kiss. “You taste like a star, too.”

  His touch brought white heat under her skin, filled her with desire exploding up through her like a fountain’s plume.

  He eased a tiny button loose, touched the valley between her breasts. Another button gave, and he felt the first, sweet roundness of her. Aware as he had never been of the pounding of his own heart, he pushed her shirt aside and looked at her, touched her.

  Coolness and dark need and heat and wanting, and wanting not to want, all careened around inside her. She needed help. She lifted her face to Luke.