Rancher's Proposition

by Anne Marie Winston

  There had been no sex in her life since her divorce. Not only because she feared it, but because the mere idea repelled her. But it didn’t repel her when she thought about making love with Cal. He was the first man who’d gotten underneath her guard and he didn’t even know he’d done it.

  The fear was another matter. She hadn’t been afraid of him since her very first days at the ranch, when the mere shadow of a large man had unnerved her. Cal had simply ignored the way she jumped when he came into a room, the way she’d put a piece of furniture or the counter between them, and eventually she’d forgotten why she’d ever thought she needed to be afraid of Cal. But what would happen if he ever…if she succeeded…

  She didn’t fear his touch anymore. She’d been held against him and the feeling had been comforting rather than frightening. Well, maybe comforting wasn’t quite the right word. Her pulse had sped up and her body had felt hot and jittery beneath his big, hard hands. No, comforting wasn’t how it felt to be touched by Cal.

  A grumble of thunder distracted her from the turmoil in her mind and she drifted over to the window. She wouldn’t sleep until the storm passed. Every rancher around dreaded the lightning as much as they welcomed the rain that came with a good storm.

  The window was closed since the air-conditioning was working, but she opened it anyway. A hot breath of air fanned over her and she could hear the rustle of leaves in the trees close to the house. Maybe they’d get some rain out of this storm.

  A flash of lightning sizzled down from the heavens and she held her breath, counting slowly. Fifteen miles away. The storm was coming from the west and as she stood silently waiting, she could see repeated bolts of white light streak toward the dry ground. Flash…six miles away…flash…three miles away…flash…

  And then she saw it.

  One terrific bolt of blinding light zigzagged viciously out of the thunderclouds. It struck a hillock maybe two miles away, on land that was either Cal’s or Wilson’s, and almost immediately she saw the telltale leap of red-gold flame.

  “Cal!” she screamed. “Fire!” Her mind cleared of everything but the need to get to work. She grabbed her socks and jeans and stomped into her boots, forgetting a belt. She’d slept in an oversize T-shirt that had belonged to Cal when he was a younger, smaller man and she didn’t take the time to grab undergarments but simply stuffed the shirt into her jeans as she bolted into the hallway.

  She tore down the stairs and grabbed the phone, called in the fire while Cal charged down the stairs behind her. He was yanking a T-shirt over his head as he grabbed his hat and the truck keys off the hook beside the door. Seconds after the door banged shut behind him she heard the rev of the pickup’s engine. He had a tank full of water by the time she got out the door, and she took a moment to race into the barn and grab a big, dusty bundle of feed sacks before flinging herself into the passenger seat. He blasted the horn as he drove to wake up anyone within earshot.

  Cal didn’t waste time taking the roads. They bumped across the pastures, with Cal stopping long enough for her to jump out and open the gates and swing them wide for the others who would follow. She braided her hair into a single long plait with frantic fingers and wound it on top of her head, jamming her hat over it. Long, loose hair would be a distinct liability in a fire zone. It was their neighbor Wilson’s land, she saw, that had taken the first strike. But she knew that wouldn’t matter if the fire got a good start. It would burn everything in its path.

  Wilson and his hired men were already beating at the edges of the flames with wet gunnysacks when Cal slammed the truck to a stop near the fire. As they soaked their own bags and began the tiresome, dangerous ordeal, she could see lines of lights coming toward them from both the main road and from the Stryker outfit on Cal’s other side. Sirens in the distance heralded the imminent arrival of fire trucks with more volunteers. Cal’s hands roared in moments later with more feed bags and water.

  Lyn grabbed a sack and soaked it with water, then ran to the nearest point where tongues of fire licked along the ground. More and more trucks roared in and more and more ranch folks joined them. The fire trucks came screaming to a halt and the hoses were unrolled and put to good use, soaking areas of ground far faster than could men on foot. Cal was right on her heels and for a while she was aware of him working off to her left side but eventually her concentration narrowed to a tiny point of focus as she forced back the hungry flames. She beat at the fiery opponent for what seemed like hours, returning to the tank to wet her sack again and again until her muscles burned, until her mind switched off and she worked on automatic pilot, steadily encroaching on the wall of flames that roared and shot into the air. When her feet began to feel hot she looked down to see smoke curling from the soles of her boots, and she quickly soaked them to put out any dangerous embers. A young girl behind her chased down and soaked out flaming cow chips, light enough to be gusted into dry territory by the wind the flames generated, where they lit new fires every place they touched.

  It seemed like forever that they fought the flames. Lyn glanced around once, but Cal was gone. As dawn pearled the eastern sky, exhausted firefighters slowed their pace as they won the battle. She walked along the edges of the line, kicking smoldering cow chips back into the burned zone and beating out missed sparks. She was so tired she could barely put one foot in front of the other.

  A woman’s voice calling her name finally penetrated her daze and she turned, then walked toward a person beckoning with an upflung hand from a truck where people had gathered to scarf down sandwiches sent out from town. The people straggling in were an odd-looking bunch. One rancher still wore striped pajama bottoms, another had forgotten a shirt, though Lyn noted with distant, exhausted amusement that neither man had forgotten his hat. Everywhere she looked, faces were black with smoke and soot.

  Silver Stryker greeted her warmly when she drew close, handing her a sandwich and a steaming cup of cowboy coffee strong enough to put hair on her chest.

  “Take a break,” Silver told her. “It’s under control.”

  Lyn nodded dully. “Just a short one.”

  As Silver turned to hand another man something to eat, Lyn wandered off. She glanced at the sandwich and decided she was too tired to eat, so she handed both food and drink to a passing cowboy. Leaning against someone’s pickup, she closed her eyes…just for a moment, she promised herself, and then she had to find Cal.

  Cal strode wearily toward the food trucks, urgency lengthening his steps. He’d gotten separated from Lyn hours ago and worry nagged at his mind. Sure, she was an experienced ranch woman, but fire was unpredictable and she was still recuperating from her ordeal a few months ago. She worked like a Trojan around the ranch, but he knew she still tired easily; he spent half his time and energy trying to keep her from working too hard and the other half trying to keep her from figuring out that he was protecting her from herself.

  He was doing his best to stifle such thoughts when a small form crumpled on the ground beside a pickup caught his eye. He recognized the hair immediately, and fear clutched at his throat as he sprinted to Lyn with a speed he didn’t know he still had.

  Her hat lay on the ground beside her and her hair had come loose from the braid. Curled up in a little ball right there on the ground, she had both hands beneath her cheek and she was sound asleep.

  He squatted beside her. “Lyn.” He tried again. “Lynnie. Come on, baby, time to wake up.” Reaching out with a blackened hand, he traced the curve of her cheek with one finger.

  Her eyes opened. She stared blankly up at him for a moment and he figured if his face was as covered with black as hers was she probably didn’t recognize him. “It’s me. Cal,” he added.

  Her eyes lit instantly and before he could react, she’d launched herself off the ground and thrown her arms around his neck. “You’re safe!”

  Off balance, he fell backward with her sprawled over him. She was as filthy with smoke and soot as he was, but her body was warm and soft and her legs ta
ngled with his felt so damn good that he simply lay there for a moment, enjoying. But when distinct, pleasant stirrings of arousal woke within him despite his exhaustion he fell back on flippancy to cover the moment. “Well, hey. How come you don’t greet me like this at home?”

  She tried to laugh, but a rusty wheeze was all that came out and she immediately started to cough. Alarmed, he rolled over and rose.

  “You overdid it,” he said accusingly as he scooped her into his arms. She felt so light and frail in his arms that he had to grit his teeth and clamp his jaw closed to keep from yelling at her. What in hell had she been thinking of?

  “I did not.” But her voice was as hoarse as his from swallowing too much smoke, and she lay against him like a rag doll. “Everybody worked as hard. We got the fire stopped, didn’t we?”

  “We did.” Her voice was surprisingly argumentative, and his anger faded as he smiled to himself over her head. He barely kept himself from commenting that “everybody” hadn’t been beaten within an inch of their life a few months ago, but decided that would accomplish nothing. Gently, he opened the door of his pickup and set her on the seat.

  As he drew back to examine her face, she exclaimed in dismay. “You’re burned!”

  He could feel the skin stinging across his cheekbones and wondered if hers felt the same, because it looked as raw and angry as his felt. “Stay here,” he ordered.

  A couple of the wives had come from town with sandwich fixings and ointment for burns. He grabbed food, bottles of water and some of the medical supplies and headed back to the truck. “Let me put some of this on you,” he said as he approached.

  Lyn was still sitting where he’d left her, slumped sideways against the back of the seat, but she straightened. “No, you need it worse.”

  He held the tube out of her reach, though, and pushed her back with a hand on her shoulder when she would have gotten down from the truck. Beneath his big hand, her flesh felt soft over the slender bones of her neck and shoulder, and he pulled his hand away before he gave in to the temptation to slide it over the curve of her breast.

  “Nope. Either you sit still and let me put this on you or I’ll hold you down and do it,” he threatened.

  Her eyes flashed green sparks, a funny sight through the soot that darkened her face, then she sat back with quiet dignity. “I don’t know why you’re bothering,” she said in a huffy tone. “What’s one more scar on this face?”

  Cal froze for a second. She was looking at the ground, and when he put his hand against the side of her face, her head jerked up and her eyes met his. He traced the long line of the fading scar that sliced from her jaw into her lower lip with a featherlight touch. “This is barely noticeable,” he told her, forcing her to hold his gaze. “You’re going to be as gorgeous as you were before.”

  Her pupils flared. “I’m not— I was never—”

  “You’re gorgeous,” he said flatly, in no mood for more argument from her. “Now keep quiet and let me put this on your face.”

  Something in the ferocious tone of his voice must have gotten through to her. She gauged his set expression for one more long moment, then sighed and tilted her face to the sky.

  When he’d finished applying the ointment, she took the tube from him and returned the favor. As her delicate hands stroked lightly over his face, soothing the sting from the burns, she let out a quiet sigh. “I was scared to death when I couldn’t find you,” she said softly, resting one small palm against his cheek.

  Her words streaked through him like the lightning from the storm, slowly burning away all rational thought. Her face was close and he stared into her wide green eyes for a long moment until they fluttered closed, his hand coming up to cover hers where it rested on his face. “You gave me a scare, too.” To hell with all the appropriate employer-employee relationships he’d been worrying about. Slipping his free arm around her, he pulled her against his body, bringing his lips to rest against her forehead.

  Although a part of him leaped to life at the feel of soft feminine flesh, he ignored it. Lyn needed sweetness and comfort. Friendship. Family. She needed to be able to give someone a simple hug without it being misconstrued. That was all this was.

  Wasn’t it? She didn’t stiffen or draw away, merely sighed and let herself flow against him until he could feel every long, slim inch of her from neck to knee. Her body was softly angled, and the firm mounds of her breasts pushed at him, testing his resolve. Grimly, he hung onto control, hoping she didn’t feel his rising arousal.

  After a moment of silence, punctuated by the weary shuffle of other firefighters heading for their vehicles, she said, “Let’s go home.” Warm puffs of breath feathered over his throat as she spoke, and a shiver of pure, sexual need clawed its way up his spine.

  He loosened his arm and stepped back a pace. “Good idea. You need rest.”

  At the house, they climbed wearily from the truck and made their way inside. She was weaving on her feet, and he knew she had to be dead tired. He almost reached out to support her but at the last minute drew back his hands. He didn’t trust himself.

  In the kitchen, she went straight to the cupboards and got down two large glasses, then filled them from the ice and water dispenser on the refrigerator door. She offered him the first one and he took it with a grateful word of thanks, draining the whole thing in moments and getting more for himself while she sipped at hers.

  He cleared his throat. “I knew we wouldn’t get away without some fire this year. It’s been too dry.”

  “Still, it could have been worse,” she said.

  “A lot worse.” Standing here making small talk was stupid; they both needed sleep. Still, he was reluctant to let her go entirely. “What woke you? You must have seen it almost right away because your hollering woke me and we got over there pretty darn fast.”

  She shrugged. “I was already awake. Thinking.”

  “Thinking about what?”

  She set her glass on the table, looking away from him. “I had a nightmare and I couldn’t get back to sleep. And then my mind started to wander, and I—” Her gaze found his and her eyes were direct and serious. “I was thinking about sex.”

  He was so shocked and startled he choked on the water and had to cough to clear his throat. Images of hot, sweaty bodies rolling across white sheets flashed through his head. “Sex?”

  She nodded. “And my marriage. A whole lot of ugly things I really, really hope I’ll forget someday.”

  Her voice sounded so hopeless that something inside his chest tightened into a small, aching ball. And it bothered the hell out of him that to her, sex was something ugly. She wasn’t going to think like that if he had anything to do with it. “Your life is completely different now than it was when you were married,” he said forcefully. “You’re different. And even if you never forget, I’m betting that you won’t let it affect the future.”

  She studied him for a long moment as if he’d spoken in a dialect she didn’t quite comprehend. Finally she sighed and sent him the smallest beginning of a smile. “I hope you’re right about that.”

  Four

  The first snow fell the following weekend.

  Typical South Dakota weather, Lyn thought as she struggled into an old fleece-lined jacket and jammed her hat on her head. When she woke at dawn, the world had been a white wonderland, but just hours later it had warmed up to a balmy sixty degrees and already the snow was half melted and making a slick mess of the lane. The only good thing about it was that it brought welcome moisture to reduce the chance of more fires.

  Rushing out the back door, she quickly fed the barn cats and the two dogs that had been at the ranch since Cal had arrived, giving the older dog the anti-inflammatories that kept his arthritis at bay. She’d also taken on the task of nursing sick and injured cattle that Cal had confined in corrals near the house, and she was anxious to get a look at the calf without one hoof she’d been coaxing along.

  The poor little fellow had been a difficult birth from
an older cow who’d died shortly after. In the struggle to get the calf out alive, the man who’d found her had been tugging to free him, and one of the fragile hooves had slipped right off his foreleg. Cal had assigned one of the men the task of feeding the orphan, but when Lyn arrived, the calf looked like it would expire any day. It had been her first project other than housework, and the calf’s survival had come to symbolize her ability to survive, as well.

  Now the little fella came hobbling across the pasture toward her, lurching and slipping in the gumbo that the melting snow and clay combined to create. She watched his slow progress, laughing as he walked up and butted her. She didn’t fool herself that his attentions had anything to do with affection. “You’re a mooch,” she told him. “The only time you’re sweet to me is when you know it’s feeding time.”

  “Don’t get too attached to him.” Cal’s deep voice came from behind her, and she jumped as if she’d been caught stealing cattle.

  “I won’t,” she said. “I grew up on a ranch, remember? I haven’t named him.”

  Cal only grunted. He walked to the fence and took a position beside her, resting his forearms on the top rail, and she noticed he was dressed nicely, as if he was going to town. “I didn’t think he’d make it,” he admitted. “You’ve done a good job with him.”

  Warmth stole through her. “Thank you.”