At the same time, he found himself wanting to discover what brought a pretty woman out into some of the most inhospitable country in the world. Surely she hadn't had any idea of what she was letting herself in for.
"Aren't you due in Vale pretty quick?" he said, squinting at the sun's angle. He made his voice harsh and raspy. "Better high-tail it back where you belong, little lady."
He didn't flinch at the hurt in her doe-brown eyes. Not much, anyhow.
A little over an hour later, Genny turned her pickup into the parking lot behind the BLM District Office. She was late again. Everyone else had returned from the field and gone home.
Not that she cared. She'd never admit it to Dan in a million years, but she'd work for free just to be able to explore the wide, desolate expanse of southeastern Oregon. This was truly God's Country.
Peddling her bike the mile and a half across Vale to her apartment, she had to laugh at herself. Just this morning she had been wondering if she hadn't made a mistake, coming west.
Next time she'd remember Dan's--and the cowboy's--advice. Walk the road first. Never commit yourself to an unknown track unless you know there's a turnaround at the end of it.
"Hi, Marmalade," she greeted her roommate as she wrestled the mountain bike through the door. "And how was your day?"
Marmalade spent the next five minutes complaining of neglect and starvation. Used to the cat's conversation, Genny sorted through her mail, set Sophie's letter aside, and tossed the bills into her "to do" basket. She left a trail of dusty work clothes all the way to the bathroom.
Later, smelling less like a draft horse and more like a lady, Genny curled up on the sofa with Marmalade to read what her aunt had to say.
"All right!" she cried a few minutes later. "Marmalade, she's really coming! She says she'll stay for at least a week." Genny's joyful bouncing disturbed the cat, who growled, jumped down, and stalked into the kitchen.
Genny followed. Marmalade was stretching a long paw up to the refrigerator door handle. "Right, m'dear. It is your dinnertime. Just let me get mine started first."
She lifted one edge of the plastic bowl cover. The contents, a tuna-noodle casserole, looked and smelled okay. Genny offered a finger full of the bowl's contents to Marmalade, her official taster. The cat nosed her hand, his growl indicating strong hunger.
"Good enough. I won't have to go to the store until after dinner." Setting aside a portion of the tuna mixture for the cat, she put the bowl into the microwave. "Wait until I tell you what happened to me today, Marmalade. I had a real adventure."
Chapter Two
"Don't count on startin' on the waterhole soon," Rock told his foreman that evening. "I met the Vale District's new archaeologist today."
"One of those, huh?" Brad said, hanging tack up.
"I'd say so. Fresh out of school and full of ideals. A person'd think there were artifacts scattered over the desert like broken glass in a tavern parking lot." With a growl he stripped off his chaps, hung them over a hook behind the door. "I can just hear it now. 'We have to make sure none of our priceless historical resources are lost to indiscriminate development, Mr. McConnell,'" he said, in an affected falsetto. "'Why this little scrap of rock has a tiny fragment of fossilized pine needle on it, and that makes it more important than your cattle any day.'"
Oh, yes, he knew about what could happen when the young and inexperienced ones got a good hold on a man's tender parts. He'd seen how they put a stop to the Succor Creek mining permits, just because some pretty little flowers were particular about where they grew.
Brad chuckled. "I ran into Dan at the cafe, when I was taking those calves in to the sales yard. He told me about her." There was a suspicious twinkle in his eye. "She's not as young or inexperienced as you'd think."
Rock snorted. "Maybe not, but I'd give you odds she's just as sincere." He waved Brad out the door ahead of him. "I'll be goin' down to Jordan Valley tomorrow, so I'll check the pastures. With the rain last week, they should be holding up pretty good."
"That'll give me time to finish up on the baler," Brad agreed. "Night." He waved as he turned toward his pickup.
"G'night." Rock headed for the house, wanting his supper. Damn! If he didn't get that waterhole started this year, they'd have to keep Skeleton Gulch closed off again next summer. He needed that waterhole, or he might as well give up that portion of his grazing preference. And after the impression he'd made on the pretty little blonde archaeologist today, she surely wasn't goin' to be in any hurry to sign off on his permit.
Maybe it was time for him to do some fence mendin'.
* * * *
"Did you have to spring this on me the first thing Monday, Dan? Couldn't you have waited until after my first cup of coffee?"
Her boss gave her a gentle buffet on the upper arm, one that only bruised her without knocking her down. Dan Walters was such a big bear of a man that his lightest love tap was the equivalent of a solid blow from the average man's fist. Genny knew he tried to be gentle with her, and appreciated the acceptance his occasional taps indicated.
"The chopper'll be here at seven-thirty, so I figured I'd better warn you early."
Genny groaned. "I'd rather drive down and hike in." She had never been in a helicopter, and didn't particularly want to start today.
"It'd take you all day just to get in to the head of Skeleton Gulch." He leaned one hip against the counter as Genny filled her heavy stainless vacuum bottle with hot coffee. "Besides, McConnell's going to show you around today, give you a feel for the country thereabouts. He's probably as familiar with it as any of us. And he's saving us the cost of a chopper."
"McConnell? The pilot?"
"Yeah. One of the biggest ranchers on the District. He runs about eight hundred head down around Rockville, on both sides of the state line."
"That's a lot of land." Genny was conscious of a faint twinge of disapproval. Somehow it seemed immoral for one man to control tens of thousands of acres. She had to remind herself it sometimes took fifteen or twenty acres to feed one cow here in Malheur County. The two hundred acres she'd grown up on was unbelievably rich in comparison.
The rhythmic thump-thump of a helicopter became audible. Genny's stomach felt empty, yet fluttery. "I don't think I'm going to like this," she muttered, following Dan toward the parking lot door.
Her suspicion was confirmed when the pilot emerged. She knew that arrogant stride. Those slim hips and long legs had walked through her dreams for the past week.
Levi's and cowboy boots. Since her early teens, when the strange heats of adolescence first crept over her, Genny had dreamed of meeting a tall, lean man dressed in Levi's and cowboy boots. A man who dressed that way because it was right for the way he lived and worked. A man who rode a spotted horse and whose eyes had the narrow squint that showed he gazed far across the bright desert toward snowy peaks in the distance. He would be a quiet man, with a rumbly voice, who drawled his words in a strange dialect. "Down the road a piece" would mean fifty or a hundred miles to him.
Most of all, he would be a man who would understand the inchoate yearnings Genille Enderby Forsythe sometimes felt. He would show her how to translate them into joyous and unfettered emotions.
Her emotions had certainly been unfettered enough since last Tuesday. The carefully hidden part of her--the part that had jumped the traces and led her across the continent to Oregon--had been in control ever since she met this sexy, infuriating man. And now she was going to spend an entire day in his company. She wasn't sure she could stand it. He fit her fantasies far too well.
There was an unmistakable gleam of humor in the slitted blue eyes examining her from booted toes to the top of her billed cap. Examined her with special attention to secondary sexual characteristics. Genny's breasts came alive under his gaze; she hoped the loose flannel shirt she wore against the morning's chill concealed the blossoming of her nipples. Her belly warmed as his eyes briefly halted between her belt buckle and her knees. Why hadn't she chosen her
uniform pants a size larger, so they didn't reveal her womanly curves quite so explicitly.
"Mr. McConnell and I have met," she said in response to Dan's introduction. Her proffered hand was enveloped in a callused grip, one that sent a melting heat up her arm and into her chest.
She wanted to look away, to smile at Dan, to admire the helicopter. Anything but drowning in eyes like a boiling spring, icy blue and burning at the same time.
His wink broke her hypnosis. His words were aimed at Dan. "Miss Forsythe had a rather sudden introduction to range cattle last week. I, ah...I came to her assistance."
Oh, God! Her face was as red as it had been when she left him on the trail.
"No, it was ol' Brindle," he was saying, in response to an unheard question of Dan's. "You know how big she looks, what with her longhorn blood and all."
Genny headed for the helicopter, to load her daypack and map case. If he was going to tell her boss all about her cowardly behavior, she didn't have to listen. She'd get enough ribbing from Dan later.
McConnell was right behind her. As soon as he got in, he exchanged his fancy cowboy hat for a billed cap with the legend, The Way to a Man's Heart is Through His Fly, in bright blue across the silhouette of a fishing rod.
He treated her with impersonal politeness as he made sure she was strapped in, had the earphones and mike correctly seated on her head, and her gear safely stowed. Only after the blades began to whirl did she realize that the minuscule bubble in front of her was all that protected her from the elements--and emptiness. There were no doors on the helicopter!
What was she doing here, sitting in a flying machine with no visible means of support, a technological imitation of the exoskeleton of a strange, metallic insect? Surely this wasn't part of her youthful dreams.
Those dreams had led her to Oregon.
As the youngest of four and the only girl on a New Hampshire farm, Genny's childhood had been peopled with characters from books. She had been fascinated by the history of the American West. The Oregon Trail called to her. Stories of wild and woolly cattle drives triggered daydreams of excitement and adventure waiting for her somewhere beyond the sunset.
She had seen pictures of the rugged Cascades, of the broad Columbia in its black-walled gorge, and of the vast emptiness of sagebrush plains. But vacations, to the Forsythes, meant the Maine Coast or, sometimes, a long weekend in Boston, doing the museums. One did not venture west of the Alleghenies. One never considered crossing the Great Plains, still believed to be inhabited by savages--only now dressed in faded denim and high-heeled boots.
Five minutes into the flight, Rock was wondering just how big a mistake he was making. She was even prettier than he remembered.
He switched to internal communication. "There's Mitchell Butte off to the left. You'll be able to see Owyhee Dam pretty quick now."
He saw her nod out of the corner of his eye.
That wasn't all he saw. The dark green BLM shirt clung to delicious curves. Her uniform pants weren't tight, but somehow they emphasized every line of her round little bottom, her long, lithe legs.
Her fingernails were bright red, today.
Just like Selma's. And she had no more business out here in Owyhee Country than Selma had.
She looked pale, and the hands clutching her binoculars were white with strain. Was she scared?
He lifted the 'copter over a high ridge with more acceleration than necessary. Her throat spasmed and her eyes went unfocused.
"You okay?"
Her voice sounded faint and quavery in his ears. "F-f-fine. Just fine." He saw her chin lift and firm. She had her share of stubborn.
Now she was beside him, all the feelings Rock had been denying for a week were back, clamoring for his attention, demanding recognition.
Visions of her face had come to him in the night, kissable lips smiling invitingly. Soft brown eyes had smiled on him, rousing usually well-controlled instincts and reactions. He'd found himself imagining just how he would go about extracting her from the layers of clothing she wore, unveiling her pale body to his blistering gaze. She would be long and lean, warm and smooth under his big, callused hands. She would...
Damnation! Why had he volunteered to take her in to Skeleton Gulch? If she was worth her salt, she could read a map and Chuck, the BLM pilot, could have found the place.
If he had an ounce of gumption, he'd take her back to Vale and let Chuck do the job he was paid to do.
A flash of white on the ground caught his eye. He nudged her, pointed.
"Oh, wonderful!" she breathed into her mike. Her voice was a siren song in his ears.
The antelope disappeared over a ridge and Rock decided not to pursue them, No need to make her airsick so early in the day. There'd be plenty of rough flying this afternoon, when the temperature went up and the air density down.
He gave her the Grand Tour, down the length of Owyhee Reservoir with its colorful, steep walls enclosing a deep lake of clear, cold water. He had to give her credit. In spite of her evident discomfort, she made all the right responses. Her gasps of astonishment and "ooohs" of wonder were all he could wish for.
All? No, all he could wish for was her in his arms, her slim body against his in a grassy meadow under the hot desert sun. He wanted to taste her sweet mouth and feel her oddly clipped accent with his tongue as she gasped out love words in the throes of her passion.
Right then and there he decided this was one time he'd break his own rules. He'd have her and get her out of his system. Be rid of this churning need so he could concentrate on running his ranch again. He surely hadn't been worth a hoot in hell this past week.
And at the end of the summer, she'd go back to wherever in the East she came from and he could go on with his solitary, uncomplicated life.
Again he stole a look at her. The beads of sweat on her upper lip had dried and her color was less greenish. Good. He turned the 'copter to fly up Leslie Gulch, pointing out the spires of eroded tuff that made its walls look like the ruins of an ancient city.
Half an hour later, he landed up near the head of Skeleton Gulch. "We walk in to the Shinbone from here," he said, before pulling off the headset.
Gulping, she nodded, her eyes on the vertical wall across from their landing spot. Rock noticed she seemed reluctant to release her grasp on the edge of the 'copter's hatch.
The cattle trail into the gulch was deceptively easy walking. You tended to forget it was straight down on one side. Rock saw her swallow hard the first time she looked over the edge.
"You aren't seriously expecting me to believe cattle use this trail?" It was the first spontaneous sentence she had spoken to him that morning.
"All the time. There's a meadow up in the Shinbone that's cow heaven. Trouble is, there's not enough water and it's too far and too rough for them to get to the reservoir."
"So that's why you want to build the waterhole."
"Right. I've had to keep Skeleton Gulch fenced off all summer in the past. Too hard on the calves to get out to the nearest water."
"But where will the water come from? The topo map shows it's about five hundred feet above the reservoir."
She was keeping up, much to his surprise. After her first blanch, she hadn't even seemed to mind the narrowness of the trail. Rock warned himself not to make any allowances. She was doing a man's work; she got treated like a man.
Until later.
"The same seep that subirrigates the meadow will feed it a little. Mostly, though, I figure spring runoff will put enough in there to keep the pool full most of the summer."
She clambered over a rockfall, moving gracefully and with economy. "How will you get the equipment in to build the dam?"
"We'll do it the same way they built the railroads, back in the Nineteenth Century. With shovels, horse-drawn scrapers, and a lot of main strength and awkwardness."
Rock veered into the narrow mouth of the Shinbone, the first of several secondary gulches. "Watch your step here. The talus is pretty loose." H
e led her across a rocky slope where the greenish tuff of the hillside exfoliated every winter.
Again her voice expressed her wonder. "Oh my!"
"Yeah." He had to admit the meadow was a mighty nice place. The pale green rock, the bright green grass, and the streak of black running through the tuff about halfway up the vertical walls made for a right pretty scene. Put a few red cows in the meadow and a waterhole in the middle and it'd be near perfect.
Put a lovely silver-haired woman naked on the grass and it'd be paradise.
He watched Genny Forsythe, gauging his chances. Probably not this afternoon. But soon. Very soon.
"C'mon, let's get to it." He headed up the gulch toward where the east wall bulged out to make a narrow neck.
"This is where I figure to put the dam." He unrolled an engineering drawing. "Some judicious blasting, a little scraping, and we'll have a functional dam about ten feet high, with a ramp up beside the spillway and a broad trail around the west side." He pointed, showing her where he figured to blast.
She was sitting on the boulder next to him, peering over his shoulder. Although she wasn't touching him, her scent, fruity, with musk overtones, beguiled his nostrils.
"I calculate there'll be water here until fall, most years."
Genny leaned against a rock at the edge of the meadow, grateful for the support. This morning had required all the spunk she had. And then some.
The helicopter would have been bad enough without the man piloting it. With Rock McConnell, it had been intolerable. All her defenses were concentrated on resisting his sexual charisma; then they had flown over the first high ridge.
Good grief! No one had told her how a helicopter's motion was completely different from that of a small plane. The forces acting on her fragile body had been calamitous; they had caused her stomach to rebel and her head to spin. She'd come very close to disgracing herself during the first ten minutes in the air. And from the mocking gleam in the cowboy's bright blue eyes, that was just what he'd been waiting for.
Never the Twain Page 2