“I might have half a cup left.” She wanted to ask why she couldn’t ask why he always carried his kit with him. She wanted to ask him how he could talk about mundane things like coffee and look so coolly contained in his shirt, jeans and boots, his hair slicked back, his jaw smooth from shaving, but then her heart went into that slow, well-remembered thud just from looking at him. She wanted to know how he could be the lover one moment and the teasing friend the next. Most of all, she wanted to know how he could look so wide-awake this morning, his brown eyes sparkling with good humor and alertness.
“Well, that’s the end of this romance. I can’t abide a woman who can’t conjure up a full pot of coffee out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Who do you think I am, MacGyver?” She pulled the sleeping bag up over her shoulder.
“He doesn’t make coffee, he makes bombs out of two bra straps and a cigarette. We are just a little testy in the morning, aren’t we?”
“No, we aren’t, just me.”
In a complete change of mood from his teasing mockery, he tapped her lightly on the hip. “Get up, woman. The sun is shining, the earth is rich from the rain, and the birds are singing.”
She groaned, huddled back under the covers and decided she didn’t like this man very much, even if she did love him. “You’re one of those disgusting morning people.”
“Are you one of those disgusting night people? You can’t be. You were out early for branding.”
She couldn’t tell him that she had spent most of the night awake, thinking about him. “I can get up early. I just don’t…revel it like you seem to.”
He turned on his heel and strode out of the cabin. She didn’t know where he was going—maybe after her half of cup of coffee. She didn’t care. She just wanted to be left alone, to drift, to remember….
“Here. Use this to wash your face. You’ll feel better.”
He was back, all long and lean legs and lithe body, tempting even in the morning, with the sun streaming in the door behind him, making a halo behind his hair. But he was no angel. The handkerchief he held dripped wet, cold water on her cheek.
Luke couldn’t have said what was driving him. How many nights had he left Elisa’s arms and felt relieved to seek the privacy of his own huge bedroom? How many times had he met her the next morning at a lavishly laid breakfast table and felt an empty loneliness that only immersion in work could drive away? And now here was Charlotte, staring up at him with the owlish look of a child, her blue eyes still drowsy from sleep and his loving, and he wanted to gather her into his arms and begin all over again.
“I very much doubt if that soggy thing will make me feel better—No, wait. Don’t you dare touch me with that. If I’m to be tortured, I’ll do it myself.”
She held out two fingers and took it from him. He controlled the smile that wanted to lift his lips when she went up on one elbow and stared at the cold cloth without moving. “Take a deep breath first.”
She did. The darn cloth was cold as an ice cube. She gasped and flung it back at him.
“You didn’t tell me you went to the North Pole for it.”
He gathered up the handkerchief without a word of reproach, found the back of an old broken chair to drape it over. “You know that creek’s cold with spring runoff at this time of year. Shall I help you get dressed?” He stood over her, his gaze roving, bright with anticipation. “Not as much fun as undressing you, I know, but—”
She couldn’t respond to that invitation. “Go away. You’re too cheerful. Come back in three hours. I’ll be awake then.”
“As you wish.” He bowed his head, all mock humility and self-contained pride.
Even the thought that she might have hurt him a little was intolerable to Charlotte. She caught his hand to stop him from leaving her. He looked down that imperiously strong nose at her, like a butler in an English comedy. “Does miss wish something else from her serving man?”
He hadn’t known he could playact, be frivolous. Maybe that was Charlotte’s infinite appeal for him. She made him feel like a kid, like the world had infinite possibilities. She looked like a child, her black hair tousled from his loving, her cheeks warm from sleep.
“Yes,” Charlotte murmured. “Miss wishes a kiss.”
She was watching him with eyes that demanded honesty. So he obliged. “Miss should be careful what she wishes for. She may get that kiss…and more.”
For the sake of his sanity and her body, Luke tried to ease his hand away from hers, but she tightened her hold on his fingers. He resisted, but in the brown depths of his eyes, encouragement lurked. She pulled on those lean fingers. With athletic easiness that brought them into full body contact, he sprawled across her, careful not to hurt her.
He stunned her for just a moment, the reality of him, a clean male smelling of toothpaste and sunshine and clean mountain air. The sheer weight and strength of him brought a wonderful feeling to every cell in her body.
“Now that I’m powerless in your hands, will you have your wicked way with me?”
“I might consider it, if you’d let me breathe.”
“Breathe all you like.” His eyes told her he liked feeling the nudge of her breasts against his. And his hands. Oh, his hands roamed under the sleeping bag, familiar now with every curve of her. He knew she liked to be stroked gently just above her breast, and he knew she liked a hand to cup her rear, and he knew she liked his tongue flicking hers, just barely coming in and then out. She leaned into him, letting her hands travel the length of his spine, impatient that there was a cloth barrier between her fingers and his skin.
“Keep on, lady, and you won’t get out of bed for another two hours. Much as I’d like to see to it, there’s work going wanting.”
He loomed above her, so familiar, so well loved, his face almost distorted by his closeness, his chin and nose large, his eyes shining, nearly black with arousal. She said, “Just like a man to think of work at a time like this.”
He brushed back her hair, his fingers light as a breeze on her forehead, but there was a coolness in his eyes.
She knew she had brought back memories of his highpowered life in New York. Instantly ready to make amends, she cupped slender fingers on his cheek. “It’s not a sin to be a workaholic, Luke.”
“Are you sure?”
“I can’t imagine you being any other way. You were always driven to succeed, to be the best. Why would you change when it came to your life’s work?”
“Right. Why would I change? Maybe when I finally realized how damn silly it is to kill yourself to impress somebody else.” His gaze skittered past her head. He might have been watching a dust speck drift on a sunbeam, so remote were his eyes.
Maybe you were trying to impress yourself. “Do you miss…working?”
He hesitated for so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer her. “At first it was like cutting out my heart. Now…it’s hard to remember what all the fuss was about. I only know one thing. I don’t ever want to be that locked in again.”
Her throat ached for him, for what he’d been through, for what he’d lost. Ached for the questions she couldn’t ask him. Where will you go from here? and How can I bear to watch you walk away?
“So.” His attention returned to her, those brown eyes suddenly wiped clean of the seriousness. “Here you are in bed with a thirty-five-year-old societal dropout. Now that I’m thoroughly cured of thinking the world will collapse unless I’m on the job, we have this decision to make. About the day, about our time and how we’ll spend it. I leave it entirely up to you. If you want to stay here for the next hour or two, I’ve no objection.”
Put like that, as a way to spend an hour or two, it chilled her blood. “I suppose we’d better check on the stock.”
He rose with lithe ease. “Right you are, then.” His face cool, his eyes guarded, he strode out of the cabin.
The moment he was gone, she missed him with all her heart. If she was to have a limited time with him, why not take every moment
she could get? But it was too late. That tall, lean man she’d loved as long as she remembered was gone. Nothing to do but get dressed and step out into the world, where the sun was high and her cows grazed on the range.
Yet, outside the cabin door, the lingering glow that loving Luke had given her was suffused with reality. The sky was washed clean and silky blue, the grass glowed with renewed vigor from the rain. Even the cows looked a deeper, cleaner red. The sun was warm on her face with the promise of summer, and Charlotte lifted her arms to the sky and stretched her muscles to full torsion. She felt loved, and loving.
Luke tried not to watch Charlotte as if he were starving for her all over again, but it was impossible. She was dressed in her jeans and blue plaid shirt, but in that moment, when she raised her arms, she was like a young earth goddess, giving homage. He could feel her youth, her vibrancy, her well-being, as if they were his own. In this moment, he realized he’d done something he had no right to do. He had no right to make love to any woman, least of all this one, whom he’d known and cared for since she was tiny.
Damn his soul. She was young and beautiful and she had her life ahead of her. While he…as of this moment, he had nothing of substance. He’d taken her to bed without a prospect. Without a future.
Didn’t slow you down much, did it?
She came toward him slowly, not hesitantly or shyly, but as if she respected his right to return to the world of separateness. In that instant of blazing blue sky and morning warmth and the sweet, sweet smell of a rain-washed earth, he caught a glimpse of the strength of her spirit. What a woman she would be, for a man who had the guts to claim her.
The wind whipped her unfettered hair around her face like black silk. He remembered the way her hair felt sliding over his chest, and instantly he flared with the need to touch.
“Did you find the coffee?”
Mundane things, sensible things. The stuff of life, to hide behind. He shook his head, gesturing toward the horse he’d saddled, feeling the rough reins in his hands. “I didn’t look.”
She turned away, his flat tone dashing her good mood to bits. How could he totally put away the intimacies they had shared?
She walked away from him to search for the thermos. It was easy to find, a bright spot of red next to the stone circle of her tiny, burned-out fire. Another fire had burned out, as well, for him, obviously. But she picked up the thermos, uncapped the lid, and poured out nearly a cupful of luke warm coffee.
A determined smile on her face, she swung toward him. “You’re in luck.”
“You go ahead. You’re the one who needs to wake up.” He didn’t mean it as a rejection, but he saw the color rise in her cheeks, and he cursed himself. He kept forgetting that she knew him too well. There was no hiding his thoughts from her. “Charlotte…”
“Please don’t…say anything.” Her head came up, and her eyes glistened; she had the grace of a queen. “I’d be very grateful if you wouldn’t try to explain or say any of those things people seem compelled to say when they don’t know what else to do. Please, just…have the rest of the coffee. It’s not too bitter.”
He took the cup, but he didn’t drink. “Charlotte, please listen—”
“No, I’d rather not. You don’t have to apologize or…say anything you’d rather not say. As you said, I’m grown up, now. It was…my choice, as well as yours. It may…may have been a wrong choice. Nevertheless, it’s been made.”
A curse rose to his lips, and he drank the coffee to stifle it.
She saddled her horse, quickly and efficiently, with those small, deft hands he remembered lazily drifting over his body with the delicacy of fine lace…. Damn! He was like a teenager, coming to life for her that quickly all over again.
It didn’t help that she was digging in her saddlebag, leaning over just enough to tighten the denim over her hips.
“I have cookies,” she said. Her voice sounded faintly husky, as if she were thinking over other things, just as he was. “Raisin-oatmeal. Would you like one?”
“Sounds good.”
She handed him a cookie without looking at him. Her head was turned to look out at three cows gathered around the salt block. She was shutting him out. Hell, he deserved it.
“These taste just like Athena’s creations. Did she give you the recipe?”
Blue eyes like diamonds flashed over him. “Yes.”
Charlotte told herself she wasn’t lying. Athena had given her the recipe, she just hadn’t used it yet.
“When do you get time to work in the kitchen? Midnight?”
“No.” She remembered then, as she hadn’t before, that there was a world out there that contained Henry Steadman and that she was talking to his son. She wouldn’t betray Athena to the enemy.
“So that’s where the extra tray went.”
“Sometimes Athena comes for tea. And she doesn’t like to come empty-handed.”
“You don’t have to protect Athena from me,” he said coolly. “I’m glad she’s your friend. If she brings you a sweet now and then, it’s none of my business.”
“I just don’t want you to think that she’s stealing them. She pays for a part of the ingredients with her own money….”
“I wouldn’t give a damn if she stole the entire contents of the kitchen and brought it to you.”
He looked and sounded angry, and Charlotte realized she hadn’t seen him like this since he’d come home. He’d always had such control over his emotions that it was a revelation to see him give way to irritation.
“Well, then, I guess we’ve about covered the topics for the day. The only thing we haven’t talked about is how you’re going to face your father. But I guess that isn’t any of my business.”
“No,” he said, sounding as if he were talking through clenched teeth. “It isn’t.”
She snatched up the reins and pulled her horse around to head for the creek. She wanted to be away from him, the sooner the better. Gray Mist would need a drink before he started the day’s work.
Charlotte reached deep inside herself for the blankness of mind she’d sought after her parents died. She needed that numbness again. It was denial, but it was survival, too.
She heard the plodding of Luke’s horse behind her. His mare would have to be watered, too, before he started down the trail back to his father’s ranch.
Three bright-eyed heifers, their coats the color of brick and shiny with the rain, drank at the creek. At Charlotte’s approach through the cottonwoods, their heads bobbed up. Those three pairs of big brown eyes gravely watched her approach.
“Does it taste good?” she asked them.
One heifer shook her head, the way cows did sometimes when they heard a human voice, as if they believed that if they could just rescramble their brain in a different pattern, they would understand.
Charlotte rode her horse into the stream, let Gray Mist’s head drop. While he drank thirstily, Charlotte watched the cows watching her. One heifer bumped the other one, as if claiming territory, and the offended one turned and butted the aggressor, shifting a hip toward Charlotte.
The heifer wore a blotched brand.
Her blood turned cold.
There was a splash. Luke’s horse, right behind her.
She turned toward him. Under his hat, his eyes flickered over her. “What’s the matter?”
Anger and fear and fury at the injustice of it poured through her. She felt betrayed, and a number of other things she couldn’t identify. “I shouldn’t have been with you last night,” her voice low and furious. “I should have been out here watching.”
“What the devil are you—?”
She slid off her horse and splashed down in the creek. “I’m talking about those cows. Your father’s cows. With my brand plastered over them. I’m talking about stupidity, mine and his or whoever is doing this. I’m talking about idiocy and craziness and vindictiveness and—” She reached the cow, slid a hand over the brand. “How in the heck did he do it? I thought with that running bran
d safely in Clarence’s custody, he would give up. I should have known better.” She whirled around to Luke. “I should have known a Steadman never gives up.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about—Oh, forget it. You won’t believe me, anyway.” She moved to lead her horse out of the creek, but Luke dismounted and grabbed her arm before she could escape him.
She looked down at his feet. “You’re ruining your fancy boots.”
“Screw my fancy boots. I want to hear what you have to say.”
“Oh, Luke…Why didn’t you just stay in New York with the criminals and the inside traders? It would have been a lot safer for you there.”
“Why isn’t it safe for me here?”
She wouldn’t want to be on the witness stand, facing him like this. She’d bet he was just the kind to lean into the witness box with that cool, penetrating gaze and that lean body and cajole the witness into thinking this was safe ground, just before he pounced.
Well, he could pounce all he liked. She wouldn’t be intimidated by his courtroom expertise. “It’s…complicated here. I can’t…discuss it with you.”
“I thought after last night you’d be able to discuss almost anything with me.”
The switch was subtle, silky. It invited her to remember the intimacy she’d shared with him, to give in to the temptation to confide. Dangerous, that feeling. If she stayed, she’d tell him everything. She tugged on Gray Mist’s reins. She had to go, before she destroyed his world, and hers along with it. But he held a firm grip on the reins, and his face had that determined look that she knew so well. “Let me go, Luke.”
“Why should I? Why should I let you run away? Why do you want to run away?”
She shook her head, yanked on the reins. Gray Mist shied and would have reared, but Luke held those reins with hard, accomplished hands.
“Let’s talk a little bit about trust, shall we? Let’s talk about why you won’t trust me enough to tell me you think my beloved brother is doing his damnedest to send you to jail.”
Her head flew up, and her eyes locked with his. “What gave you such a cockeyed idea?”
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