by Cait London
Roman sat back in his chair. One of Boone’s sons was dead—Kallista’s father—the other on a hefty retainer to stay away from Jasmine. Struggling to finish his life with dignity, and denying drugs that would dull his pain, Boone’s voice had been weak. “We lived all over the world, Sara and I. I left them to their mother while I went off and made my fortune. She didn’t do a good job and I couldn’t change them, but I tried. My sons married women like her—harsh, cruel women—and it’s my sweet grandchildren who are paying the price. You make certain that you do what you can for them, Roman. Try to get them back here, in Jasmine, where my family was once strong and good and the land holds true. You’ll do that for me, won’t you, Roman?”
“I will,” Roman had pledged, and watched the old man slip away, eased by the promise. When Boone was ill for that year, Roman had taken care of the visits from the Llewlyn sons’ wives, protecting the old man and aching for him. Boone’s extensive business interests away from Jasmine provided money to sustain monthly allotments to Boone’s living son and a string of ex-wives, none of them sweet.
“She’s on the move—” The small trail of light leading away from Kallista’s house said she was on the path to the Llewlyn family cemetery. Roman reached for his moccasins, tying them quickly. He found himself smiling. If Kallista wanted to prowl at midnight, so did he. She suited his Apache hunting blood—the restless need to seek out his woman.
Half an hour later the moonlight filtered behind a cloud and Roman watched Kallista tear the rose petals from their stalks. Inside the old elegant wrought-iron fence, Kallista knelt beside Boone’s grave. The bouquet of roses lay across the grave, and one hand reached out to grip his marble stone, as if to jerk him back from death. Her head was bent in mourning; her long hair shielded Kallista’s face, but the gentle stir of air carried her muffled sobs to Roman.
Roman settled back into the shadows, giving her time, and slowly Kallista tore away a rose and, lifting her hand, let the petals drift upon Boone’s grave. With ceremony, she covered the entire grave in petals, and stood slowly. “I know you’re out there, Roman Blaylock. You’re too big not to notice in the moonlight.”
“I’m here.”
Her voice was soft, uneven and drenched with tears. “I loved him desperately. Boone was everything to me.”
“I know. He was proud of what you were, of what you became.”
When she turned to him, the silver sheen of tears and grief washed her pale face. She wrapped her arms around herself. “He talked to you. What did he say?”
He nodded, remembering the old man’s pain and his shame as he passed away. Roman walked toward her. “It’s chilly up here...a draft comes down from the mountains.”
She looked up at the mountains and didn’t seem to notice when Roman smoothed her hair back from her damp face. “He loved the mountains, that old gold mine, the hunting shack. Is it still there?”
“I’ll take you up there, if you want.” He’d take her anywhere, aching for her grief now.
“Boone Llewlyn was the only man I ever trusted. He was always there. I never knew exactly the arrangements that my mother had with Boone, but he always knew when to come get me. My mother would sometimes drop me off with him for months, then she’d be back, tearing me away. I was always glad to see her, but Boone—Boone wasn’t. They weren’t friends. Or lovers. My mother always chose men who—I look like her in a way.”
He wanted to tell her that she had Boone’s fierce look when she was angry, the angle of her jaw, the piercing emerald green of her eyes. Boone had said that Kallista had his mother’s hair, though his was crisp and wavy. But Roman had promised to keep silent—until the time was right. Boone didn’t want his grandchildren to know who he was until they came to love Llewlyn land; he’d been too ashamed of failing them.
Roman knew that the men her mother chose weren’t like Boone—stable, loving, kind, generous. “He’d be glad you’re back.”
“Yes, well. We both know I’m not staying. But I don’t want to fight over his grave.”
“He wanted you to have this...it was his mothers.” Roman took the small box from his pocket, extracted the opal-and-ruby ring. He took Kallista’s hand, pressed his palm against hers, unable to resist the need to fit her against him, then slowly slid the heirloom onto Kallista’s right hand.
She lifted her hand to study the ring, and a silvery tear fell from her lashes to her cheek. “His family should have this.”
Roman smoothed the half-moon earring with his fingertip. “He considered you his family.”
“I know. He was a loving man.”
When she turned her face up to him, pale and griefstricken, Roman could no more have stopped his hands from reaching for her than he could have stopped his blood from coursing through his body. He cradled her face between his hands and slowly brushed away her tears with his thumbs. Her hands flew to his wrists to push him away, and then her fingers stayed, digging in. Her eyes were haunted, shimmering with silvery tears, and Roman slowly lowered his mouth, wanting to ease her, to give her a tender part of himself.
The wind curled around them, taking her hair up and around his shoulders as the kiss trembled and brushed and lingered in gentle play. Kallista sighed unevenly, moving closer, and Roman wrapped his arms around her, holding her carefully. When the kiss—no more than a tasting—was finished, Kallista eased back, wary of him, her expression puzzled. “Who are you, Roman Blaylock?” she asked unevenly, her open hand over his chest.
His answer came from his heart, as true as an arrow. “A man who wants you in his life.”
“That can’t be,” she whispered before she eased away. She turned and began walking slowly to what used to be his home, leaving his arms empty and his heart aching.
The second week of July came hot and dry to the valley, and after another sleepless night, Roman padded down to the kitchen. He had the early hours to the call of the meadowlarks and himself. Then dressed in their Sunday best, Titus and Dusty would stop to pester him about going to church, and then Else would call, worrying about him, and wanting him to come to a family dinner.
He couldn’t bear to place his family pictures around him—Logan with his wife and five children, Else and Joe and their grown brood with grandchildren, James and Bernadette, Jake and Morganna’s two daughters. Roman had deceived them, tried to portray a happy husband, and for the brief times when she had to, Debbie had pretended to be responsive to him.
Roman scrubbed his hands over his face. He’d deceived his family, presenting a married life that was a lie.
Like a fool, he’d gone to Ben Jones’s auction and purchased all that old furniture, the wood running smooth beneath his hand, aching for the layers of varnish to be removed. He’d looked like a hermit, packing his pickup high with that heavy furniture, hoarding it like his dreams. He’d packed it into the barn behind the house he built for his wife. She hadn’t loved him, and all the new houses in the world wouldn’t have made a difference.
Rio flirted with Kallista and she flirted back, and the town had begun to wonder why Roman painted all the dog bowls available at the Bisque Café. Accustomed to making herself comfortable and settling with temporary friends, Kallista could play pool, baby-sit and throw horseshoes. Clearly cosmopolitan, she fascinated both the men and women of Jasmine. Rio had called Roman last night from Mamie’s Café and Tavern. “You’d better learn how to play soon, son,” he’d said in a taunt loaded with laughter.
According to Rio, Kallista knew her “moves” and she was “one fine dancer.” Roman had had one boot on before he decided that if he went to Mamie’s—
Roman closed his eyes as Moby the rooster crowed from the top of a corral post. He didn’t know how to dance—nothing but an old-fashioned waltz and two-step, and he was rusty on that. He’d seen line dancing on television—it was intricate and sometimes a man didn’t hold a woman against him. He wanted to hold Kallista in the old-fashioned way, to feel her body mold and move against his, and to know that she wasn�
�t afraid of him.
He repeated the phrase—she wasn’t afraid of him. Those green eyes shot sparks at him, ripped him apart, and took his heart leaping with excitement he understood too well...but she wasn’t afraid. He wanted all that fine strong supple woman naked in his arms. His feelings ran deeper, down to the real appreciation of her as a truthful, all-out, go for broke woman, who knew how to handle the truth between them. He knew her scarred life, and he appreciated her strength, that quick mind. But the lurch of his body was immediate, hard, and hot when he caught her scent Whatever ran between them could leap into wildfire with one look.
What would he do at Mamie’s? Sit and brood in a corner while Rio danced with his woman?
Roman heard himself groan. There was a big distance between wanting a woman and getting her...especially one who didn’t trust him at her back. Roman groaned again, remembering the feel of her body against his. He glowered at the magazine Titus had slapped on the table that contained ads for country-western dancing lessons at home. With a scowl, the leathery old cowboy had asked, “You’re going to that dance at Mamie’s Café, aren’t you? You’d better hitch up your garters, boy, and make a move. Rio sure ain’t wasting time. He ain’t holed up working on records and papers with a fine-looking unbranded woman prowling the countryside. No siree-Bob.”
Roman held out his big work-rough scarred hands, the palms callused. His ex-wife couldn’t bear for him to touch her and yet just that once, Kallista had sunk into him and turned fiery-hot. “I’m dreaming and I don’t have time for that,” he muttered darkly to himself and began to make coffee.
As he ran water from the faucet, he studied the ranch yard. Dawn was lightening the sky, and on Sunday morning Llewlyn and Blaylock ranches were quiet.
His land, a part of the original Blaylock spread, needed work, but there always seemed more to do on Boone’s.
Then a meadowlark trilled and a rider slowly, quietly moved Loves Dancing into the woods bordering the base of the mountains.
Five
“I’m not a believer in the sanctity of one Roman Blaylock. He’s covering something up,” Kallista muttered as she easily guided Loves Dancing on the mountain trail. She wanted to see the old cabin where Boone had taken her as a child just as much as she wanted Roman Blaylock to ask her to dance.
Last night, only her pride had kept her from going to Boone’s house and calling him out....
There by Boone’s grave, Roman had held her so gently, as if she’d break, his big hands open, yet firm on her body and—Kallista glanced up at a raven soaring through the new pale Sunday sky, the rugged mountain path ahead of her. She glanced at a movement in the shadowy pines and said, “I can take care of myself. You don’t need to come.”
Looking as much a part of the untamed West as his ancestors, Roman eased Massachusetts behind Loves Dancing on the narrow winding trail up the mountain.
Kallista looked over her shoulder to him, her single braid sliding along her black jacket. Dressed in his Western hat and denim jacket and mocassins, Roman looked bred to the West, a reflection of his Apache and Spanish ancestors, and good solid pioneer stock. “You’re prowling early this morning.”
“I want to see if the cabin is still there by Boone’s old gold mine.”
“It’s still there. Just like he left it.”
She shot him a meaningful look, this man who held Boone’s beloved land and home in his fist. “We panned for gold. I know there is some value to the mine.”
“The value was that Boone gave you himself.”
“He gave me magic. I knew then that men had souls and hearts.” Kallista turned swiftly back to the trail and watched a chipmunk scamper up a red-bark tree. She turned back to the man she intended to destroy. “Do you believe in magic, Roman Blaylock?”
“I do now,” he said firmly, locking his gaze with hers. “You’re a woman who causes men to dream.”
“Don’t dream about me, Blaylock,” she managed tightly when she could speak. Images of heat and storms and Roman’s dark, strong body locked to hers, in hers, took her pulse leaping. She knew all about the mechanics of sex, but Roman was a man who would want more, take more.
A rippling snow-fed creek tumbled down the mountain and without speaking, Kallista and Roman watered the horses. She crouched and scooped the icy water into her cupped hands, drinking as Boone had taught her and waiting for her blood to cool—Roman’s words had set a fever simmering in her that terrified her. When she licked her lips, savoring the past and the memories with Boone, Roman’s dark eyes locked to her lips. Nettled by her immediate reaction to him, as if her skin skittered with the jolt of that one dark simmering look, Kallista frowned. “Stop flirting. I’m not in the mood.”
He blinked as if startled, then his scowl shot down at her, his voice indignant. That spear of jet-black hair crossing his forehead quivered. “Me? Flirt?”
“It’s your eyes,” she muttered, wanting to calm that spear of blue-black hair. To others, Roman might appear to be a quiet man, but his storms could lash and prick and ignite. “They say things that aren’t decent.”
“I try to be decent,” Roman said, the low tone of his voice reminding her of a wolf baring his teeth. “But you’ve got an all-woman look that a man appreciates now and then. It isn’t sweet and cuddly, more like wildfire, the thunder and lightning of a high mountain storm.”
She’d thought the same about him—raw, tough, restless and filled with leashed emotions. He could rip her emotions from her hold and she had to defend herself against him.
“You’d know about women, wouldn’t you?” she flung at him, reminding him of Margaret’s visit. Kallista stood and whipped the long braid over her shoulder.
Roman stretched out a hand, claiming the thick braid in his fist and slowly drew her closer. The look beneath his narrowed lashes wasn’t sweet, matching the raw temper smoldering inside her. “You’ve got a nasty cutting side to you, Miss Kallista.”
“And you don’t?” She’d had to learn to defend herself at an early age—cut, cut, jab—and now she took nothing at face value, especially Roman’s troubling sweet words. Beneath her palms, his heart was racing, pounding, as if leaping into her care. Why? “Terrifying you, am I? Why weren’t you at the dance? Afraid?”
“Would you have danced with me?” he pushed, his dark eyes caressing her warm, flushed cheeks, her lips, her throat and lower to her breasts.
In that instant his other hand moved slightly, rested on her waist for a moment and began to rise in a slow, steady path to her breast.
Her emotions leaped into life, the need to lock her arms around Roman and fuse her lips to his. The thought terrified her. She’d never needed anyone but herself...and Boone. Jerking up her walls, Kallista moved away and prepared to mount. She put one foot into her stirrup and... Roman’s hands circled her waist, lifting her easily. When seated, she looked down at him—furious with him, with herself for wanting more of this man, for the jolt his touch sent skittering over her skin. “I can manage by myself. You’ll find out that I do what I have to, and I don’t ask for help.”
He nodded and swung up into his saddle and for the next two hours neither spoke, the only sound that of the birds and the rustle of the forest, the rocks turning beneath the horses’ hooves. Kallista gave herself to the peaceful sense that she was coming home, and doing what Boone might have done, keeping in touch with the land—Llewlyn land. There in the valley below, Llewlyn House looked as safe as it always had, big and blazing white in the sun.
At the cabin, nestled in a clearing, Kallista pushed open the old wooden door, glanced at the cobwebs and rubble and fought tears. She placed the hand with Boone’s mother’s ring on her shoulder and covered it with her cheek as the memories curled around her. She realized she was speaking, her throat dry with emotion. “Boone braided my hair, his big hands clumsy for the task. He said, ‘My mother had hair like this—black as coal, straight. She was a lady, Kallie-honey. You remember that it’s important to have manners and act
like a lady. It’s called dignity and a soul has to have that’ He told me I had magic in me and it would keep me safe, and then he cried. That sweet big man simply crumpled before me and I never knew why.”
The man who drew her from the doorway and into his arms was solid, warm, stroking her head as she burrowed against him. She heard the words leap from her keeping, “I was just a child, old with pain and what I’d seen... Big Boone gave me back an innocence, a shield to hold around my heart, to keep me safe.”
“Hold still, little butterfly,” Roman whispered against her cheek. His lips brushed her temple. “Hold tight and cry.”
Kallista fought the flood of emotions, grief washing over her once more. She wanted to fling herself from Roman’s safety, but instead, her fists knotted in his flannel work shirt. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Some sign that I was weak and that I’d leave you to Boone’s estate. Well, listen, mister...I never cry.”
Furious with her weakness, she slashed at him. “What good does it do? It makes your eyes red and swollen and your makeup spread everywhere—”
Disgusted that her voice trembled and tears dripped from her lashes, Kallista shuddered. He rocked her in his arms; the steady beat of his heart anchored her palm as he said, “When hearts bleed, sometimes tears clean the wound.”
The shocking simplicity of his words came too sweetly, frightening her. Kallista pushed away from Roman, brushed the back of her sleeve across her damp lashes and walked to the creek where Boone had knelt beside her, exclaiming about the size of the nuggets. She crouched by the rippling stream and reached down to scoop up a handful of sand, dotted with bright gold chunks. The wet sand trickled through her fingers like fond memories of Boone. “I know the mine is worthless. This is fool’s gold. There should be a sack of it somewhere at Boone’s. I was only ten, but I was so happy and excited. We roasted marshmallows and talked of sailing ships—I wanted to be a pirate and roam the seas and Boone—”