Must Love Cowboys

by Cheryl Brooks

  My fantasy came alive as I parted my lips and swept my tongue over his skin. Salty with dried sweat and fragrant with oil, his skin covered enticingly firm muscles. Even in the act of pressing my teeth into his flesh, I couldn’t believe I was actually doing it.

  In one swift move, he pivoted in his chair, snaked a hand behind my neck, and pulled me into his lap. With a kiss as forceful as it was abrupt, he instantly melted me into a compliant mass of mushy muscles and jangling nerve endings.

  The slam of a door brought me at least partially to my senses. Leaping to my feet, I staggered toward the shelter of the nearest major appliance, which happened to be the fridge—an appropriate choice, considering how hot I was. Opening the door, I stood facing the shelves, hoping whoever had just walked into the bunkhouse would suspect me of nothing beyond getting out spinach for the salad. An even more desirable side effect would be for the icy air to fade my blush and force the blood back into my brain where it was so desperately needed.

  I stared blankly at the contents of the fridge. I hadn’t been on the Circle Bar K for three full days, and I’d already been kissed by three cowboys.

  Clearly, I should have headed west long ago.

  Chapter 11

  I had just taken the ingredients for the salad from the fridge when Nick blew into the kitchen like a raging tornado. “Wow, Tina! Dinner smells great!”

  Apparently the scent of roasting pork was far more remarkable than Wyatt sitting at the kitchen table without a shirt. On the other hand, the chances of me ever getting used to such a sight was about as likely as my feet touching the Martian landscape.

  “Hopefully it’ll taste as good as it smells.” I dumped the vegetables on the cutting board, then ran a quick eye over Nick’s dusty, disheveled form. “What happened to you?”

  “My horse spooked out from under me.” His eyes lit up as he snatched a handful of cookies from the platter.

  With the apple pie debacle still fresh in my mind, I’d hidden the bulk of the goodies, only leaving out the number I considered expendable—an amount already significantly diminished from having been within Wyatt’s reach.

  “Oh, yum.” After scarfing down one of each flavor in rapid succession, he added, “Landed on my ass and rolled down the hill a ways.”

  With Wyatt’s kiss still sizzling on my lips, I wasn’t about to offer my massage therapy services to anyone—especially a man with a sore behind.

  I stole a peek at Wyatt. Drat the man, he wasn’t even trying to conceal the evidence, but sat idly chewing on a cookie as though he hadn’t just sent the woman responsible for the bite on his neck into oblivion by annihilating her with a kiss.

  Clearing my throat, I aimed my gaze resolutely toward Nick. “I take it you survived the fall.”

  “Of course, I did,” Nick said. “That was nothing. I’ve been hurt lots worse. One time I—”

  I put up a silencing hand. “Please. Spare me the gory details.”

  “Hey, at least I haven’t asked you to rub my butt.” Grinning, he darted a glance at Wyatt. “I see you’ve been working on his shoulder.” His grin shifted from merely wicked to diabolical. “Just like he told us you would.”

  “Is that right?” I drawled. “I didn’t realize I was so predictable—or that easily manipulated.” I aimed what I hoped was a stern glare at Wyatt.

  Wyatt spoke up. Finally. “All I did was ask. You could’ve said no.”

  Although this was true, and I said so, saying no to Wyatt was becoming increasingly difficult.

  “Yeah.” Nick snickered. “You didn’t have to bite him.”

  Oh, great. Now I had a reputation for biting and getting hickeys. “Actually, he asked me to do that too.”

  Wyatt stood and slung his shirt over his shoulder. “Yet another time you could’ve said no.”

  His arched brow made me long to slap him, and I was about to do just that when a tiny grin twitched the corner of his mouth. He was teasing me, of course. But why? First impressions being what they were, I’d gotten the idea that teasing wasn’t in his nature.

  I reminded myself that this was the sort of thing an unmarried woman could expect when she began hanging out with a bunch of equally unattached cowboys. I should simply take it in stride and laugh it off.

  But I wasn’t used to being teased by men. The grandfatherly type, perhaps, but certainly not eligible bachelors. The snappy rejoinder I should have made simply wouldn’t materialize. I directed a pleading glance at Nick.

  A quick nod of comprehension followed his puzzled frown. “Um…if we want dinner, we’d best not be pestering the cook.”

  “Right.” Momentarily emboldened, I flapped a hand at both of them. “Go. Now.”

  “Sure you don’t need any help?” Despite Wyatt’s innocent tone, I could see mischief lurking behind his eyes.

  “You can set the table and pour the tea if you like. Otherwise, if I need help, I’ll ask for it.”

  As I picked up a knife and began chopping cherry tomatoes and olives for the salad, I could almost feel Wyatt’s eyes on me. The hair on the back of my neck prickled in anticipation of an attack from behind.

  The attack never came. Moments later I heard the clatter of plates mixed with the murmur of male voices.

  Were they talking about me? Dean might have wanted to keep our kisses hush-hush, but Wyatt and Nick had made no such promises. And where was Dean, anyway? He should have been there to protect me from Wyatt.

  Nothing serious… Did that mean no staking of claims? No territorial disputes? No protection of property? Clearly, there were pros and cons to both types of relationships.

  Did I really want protection from Wyatt? He unnerved me more than any man ever had—and that kiss had done things to me I didn’t even want to think about—but I couldn’t imagine him ever deliberately hurting me.

  My grip slackened, causing the knife to slip from my fingers. Whether he would hurt me wasn’t what concerned me. Trust and surrender were the issues at stake. I wasn’t ready for either of those things—especially not with Wyatt. I might have trusted Dean, but I didn’t intend to give myself to him, body and soul. Somehow I knew Wyatt wouldn’t be content with anything less than my all.

  Nope. Not ready for that.

  Not now, and possibly not ever.

  A shiver crept up my spine, tightening the skin on my back. My hands trembled to the point I didn’t dare pick up the knife.

  Nick was right. It really didn’t pay to pester the cook.

  * * *

  Although I managed to get my roiling emotions under control enough to finish preparing the salad without losing a finger, my focus remained inward for quite some time. The guys raved over the meal, and I’m certain I accepted their praise graciously enough, but I said very little until Mr. Kincaid brought me out of my reverie.

  “Any news about Calvin?” he asked.

  I nodded, grateful for a neutral topic to divert my troublesome thoughts. “Angela called. She said Calvin was talking some, although he wasn’t making much sense, and she got him to eat a little bit.”

  “Do they think he’ll come out of it?”

  “She said the doctors were optimistic.” I left it at that, not wanting to dilute any hope the men might have.

  “Sounds great,” Joe said. “What about you? Did you find out anything?”

  “I sure hope so,” Dean declared. “I was about to go blind reading those letters.”

  “As a matter of fact, I did,” I replied. “Although I’m not positive it will help.” I gave them a brief account of what I’d discovered, ending with Duane’s attempt to see Calvin. “He said he was a friend of the family, but I can’t help thinking he’s Jeannine’s grandson. From the description the nurses gave Angela, he was about the right age. What really has me bugged is how he knew Calvin was in the hospital.”

  “Seems kinda fishy,” Bul
l said as he shoveled in a forkful of pulled pork.

  “Yeah,” Dean agreed. “Nobody besides us even knew he was sick.”

  Bull swallowed and leaned forward with the air of a master detective about to reveal the solution to the greatest mystery of our time. “Except whoever it was who put him in the hospital to begin with.”

  I stared at him, puzzled. “What? You mean the ambulance crew?”

  “No.” With a dramatic lift of his brow, he glanced at each of us in turn. “I mean whoever it was who tried to kill him.”

  Silence reigned for the space of three heartbeats.

  “Yeah, right,” Sonny snorted. “Who would want to kill Calvin?”

  “And why?” Mr. Kincaid added. “He’s been living on this ranch for years, never harmed a soul, and didn’t have any enemies—at least none that we know of. Why now?”

  “Why, indeed?” Now that Bull had the floor, he obviously intended to milk his moment for as long as possible. He shot a suspicious glare at me. “Maybe she had something to do with it.”

  “Oh, come off it,” Dean snapped. “She’s no murderer.”

  I sat back in my chair, letting the full weight of the implication sink in. Wyatt had said something about the timing of Calvin’s illness being peculiar. Perhaps he was right, but in a different way. “I certainly didn’t kill Calvin, nor did I have any reason to. But what if someone knew I was coming to see him and followed me here? Someone who wanted him dead but didn’t know where to find him?”

  “That makes some sense,” Dean said. “But who knew where you were going?”

  “As far as I know, only my parents,” I replied. “That doesn’t mean someone else couldn’t have found out. Someone who expected me to come here and was simply biding their time.”

  Wyatt cleared his throat. “We’re letting our imaginations run away with us. Calvin wasn’t shot or stabbed. He had a heart attack.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time a murder was made to look like a death from natural causes,” Bull insisted.

  “But what about motive?” Wyatt asked. “Why would anyone want him dead?”

  “No clue.” Dean let out a long sigh. “Guess that means we need to keep reading those damned letters, huh?”

  I nodded, but my mind had already gone sprinting off in a new direction. What were the motives for murder? Money, love, hate, revenge… Who would hate Calvin enough, or blame him enough, to want him dead? Some other soldier he’d known in Vietnam? The family of a comrade who’d died as a result of something Calvin had done?

  It wasn’t until I reminded myself that Calvin had been a cook rather than a foot soldier that I realized how unlikely such a scenario would be. Fatal mistakes and bad judgment during combat weren’t unheard of, but I doubted anyone had died simply from eating the food he’d prepared.

  But there were a number of deaths in his past. His wife and children, along with his niece. From what I’d gathered from the letters, the accident had been just that: an accident. His wife’s family would’ve been very upset, but they certainly couldn’t have blamed Calvin for her death.

  Jeannine was a different story. She and Calvin were already estranged before the accident, and after all the losses she’d suffered—her daughter, her grandson, and ultimately, her husband—her hatred could’ve festered for years before finally coming to a head.

  My own possible involvement, I discounted. No one beyond Grandpa’s lawyer and our immediate family knew what was written in that will, let alone known when I would carry out Grandpa’s wishes. No one except Calvin, and I’d gotten the distinct impression he hadn’t told anyone on the ranch about my upcoming visit. Hence Wyatt’s belligerent attitude when I first arrived.

  Wyatt… His voice of reason had effectively shot down Bull’s murder theory. That and the fact that Calvin wasn’t dead.

  Which only made it attempted murder.

  By giving a man alone in his own bed a heart attack? And if so, how? By stealing his nitroglycerine tablets? Maybe. That empty bottle could be explained a dozen different ways—including the fact that the cap was on it. As dark as the glass was, it might be hard to tell it was empty at a glance. He might not have realized he’d taken the last one until it was too late.

  My thoughts returned to the present, only to discover that while I’d been sitting there staring at my plate, the conversation had gone on without me, ultimately arriving at the same conclusion. Until Calvin could tell us what happened that night, we couldn’t prove anything, sinister or otherwise.

  Which meant that Dean, Wyatt, and I—and anyone else we could recruit—would be reading through more letters that evening.

  Oh, joy…

  * * *

  I now had four cowboys in my bedroom. Sonny, Nick, Wyatt, and Dean were scattered about the room—Sonny and Nick having brought in more chairs while the others resumed their positions from the night before. Bull, Joe, and Dusty were in Calvin’s room reading the letters sent by my grandfather. If I’d had to guess, I would have said there had never been a time when every ranch hand on the Circle Bar K was engaged in reading a letter of any kind, let alone some that were forty years old.

  Mr. Kincaid had opted out of the search, using his increasingly poor eyesight as an excuse, although I could see his inability to join in fretted him a bit. Grandpa had reacted to infirmity in much the same way—although in Grandpa’s case, I would have used the word “angered” rather than “fretted.” No doubt there were plenty of former soldiers who slid gracefully into old age, but most probably went there entirely against their will.

  The guys had all had a pretty tiring day—Nick’s tumble and Wyatt’s sore shoulder thankfully being the worst of it—and their exhaustion was evident after an hour or so of squinting at Calvin’s handwriting. Judging from all the yawns and bleary eyes, I doubted Dean would be awake enough for more than a quick kiss or two after the others had gone.

  I was about to call it a night when a line of text practically jumped off the page and bit me.

  “Holy cow! Listen to this: Jeannine went and married another rich bastard. This time she snagged a Caruthers from Houston. Never ceases to amaze me how she manages to find them, let alone get them to marry her. A rich guy from Houston… How many Jeannine Caruthers could there possibly be in Houston?”

  “At a guess, not very many,” Wyatt said.

  “Rich dude, huh?” Dean said. “Wonder if she stayed married to that one.”

  “Only one way to find out.” Swiveling my chair around to face the desk, I logged on to my computer. “Although if she married into a rich family, she might have forgiven Calvin for his involvement in her daughter’s death—at least enough to not want him dead.”

  Wyatt frowned. “I thought we’d already ruled out Bull’s attempted murder theory.”

  I’d forgotten I’d kept my own thoughts about possible motives to myself. “Maybe. It’s an interesting theory, though. Jeannine lost more than a daughter as a result of that accident. She might’ve been the type to hold a grudge.”

  Nick’s eyes lit up. “And if she married a rich guy, she could afford to hire a hit man.”

  “You’ve been watching too many cop shows,” Sonny scoffed. “Working on a ranch must be real boring for you to come up with that idea.”

  I didn’t know much about Nick’s viewing habits, but he did strike me as the adventurous type. A suggestion like Bull’s could easily have had his imagination working overtime, just as it had done with mine.

  “There was absolutely no evidence of foul play,” Wyatt said firmly. “We all knew he had a bad heart. It was just a matter of time before it caught up with him.”

  “Yeah, but his sister might’ve known that too, you know,” Nick countered. He peered at the envelope in his hand. “We’ve only made it to the mid-nineties in these letters. They might’ve been in contact with each other more recently.”

 
; He had a point. “You guys keep reading while I run a search.” The name Caruthers had an “old money” ring to it. A woman who married someone like that would have undoubtedly been in the news at some point. If nothing else, their marriage records would pop up.

  They did.

  “Bingo! Jeannine D. Anderson and Franklin W. Caruthers were married on September 26, 1995, in Houston, Texas.” I clicked the back link and scrolled down the page. “Lots of newspaper stories listed. We’re talking stinking rich. Maybe not along the lines of the Rockefellers or the Vanderbilts, but plenty well-off.” I opened another file and scanned it quickly. “Apparently Jeannine didn’t settle down to live a quiet life in the country. She’s done a lot of charity work, most of it involving support services for single mothers, which, given her history, isn’t too surprising.”

  Farther down, I found a mention of her husband and brother-in-law. “Looks like Franklin is some sort of oil tycoon, and his brother, Harold, owns a pharmaceutical company called Larosa Biotech.”

  “Ooh,” Nick exclaimed. “Plenty of money for a hit man—and access to all kinds of drugs.”

  I couldn’t help chuckling. “You’re definitely wasted on a ranch, Nick. You should run for sheriff or join the police force or something.”

  “Don’t encourage him,” Sonny advised. “He’s hard enough to live with as it is.”

  Nick’s unabashed grin was even more cocky than usual. “I’d probably make detective in a year.”

  “Sure you would,” Dean drawled. “Solving all sorts of imaginary crimes.”

  Wyatt aimed a withering glance at Nick and Dean before nodding at me. “Don’t stop there, Tina. Keep going.”

  I gaped at him for a long moment as my subconscious mind put a sexual spin on his terse directive. The mere thought of him saying those same words in a more intimate setting made me feel like I’d swallowed an entire bag of cotton balls.

  His piercing gaze somehow erased everyone else from the room, triggering a fantasy so real I could almost feel it. Wyatt lay naked on my bed, kissing me the way he had earlier that afternoon—a kiss I had somehow managed to avoid thinking about during dinner, although how I’d done it was a mystery.