He felt her climb back into bed before he gave in to his fantasies.
Starr hadn’t given any thought to the fact that his scent would linger on the shirt. She was positive she wouldn’t sleep a wink. However, before long she dozed off.
It wasn’t nearly so easy for Clay. He could see the night sky through the uncurtained window above his bed. A single star appeared and winked brightly, as if reminding him of the night he and Starr had tumbled in the hay. He recalled hearing Morgan and SeLi outside discussing a Christmas star. Softly he repeated the words he’d heard his nephew chant. “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might...” Clay stumbled over the ending. No way would he get his wish tonight. But what if he wished for something longer term?
He glanced at Starr and suddenly all wishes seemed possible in the stillness of the night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
PULLED FROM a pleasant dream by rays of sunlight dancing across the cabin floor, Starr emerged from her warm cocoon of blankets, more rested than she’d felt in days. And she’d been so certain she wouldn’t sleep at all.
As she stretched and yawned, she took care to not disturb the second bed. But she needn’t have worried. Clay’s blanket and pillow lay neatly folded. She was alone.
And disappointed...
Just then the door opened, and his rugged form filled the space. For no reason at all, Starr felt elated. Tremors shook her suddenly nerveless limbs and sent her burrowing back under the covers.
“So, Sleeping Beauty awakes,” he teased. Drops of water glistened on his ebony hair and two-day beard.
Starr found it less threatening to concentrate on his trail of wet footprints as he approached.
“I hate to rush your beauty routine, but it’s warming up fast. The snow is slushy and getting slick. If we don’t leave soon, it’ll be too dangerous up top.”
“Dangerous?”
“Avalanche.” The single word was muffled by a cupboard door. “How do you feel about having crackers and canned cheese for breakfast?”
“Ugh,” she said without inflection.
“Are you all right? You sound funny.” Clay peered around the cabinet. Actually he didn’t trust himself to go closer. It had taken every ounce of willpower he possessed to leave her asleep in that bed.
“I’m fine. Are you saying you’re jumping with joy over the prospect of eating canned cheese?” Starr screwed up her face, then sighed. “Don’t pay any attention to my foul mood.” She reached out from beneath the blanket and picked up her shirt and jeans. “It may have something to do with not wanting to climb into these dirty clothes again. A pity Paul was so big.”
Clay laughed, but his hands fumbled with the can as a sudden vision of the two of them sharing his big tiled shower at the ranch flashed through his mind.
“Just be thankful the cabin was here.” Clay didn’t mean to sound gruff. He only wanted her out of that damned bed.
Starr rose, wrapped the blanket around her and strolled past him into the bathroom. Talk about bad mood! He was downright grumpy. Sighing again, she stepped into her creased jeans and pulled on her rumpled shirt.
The eyes that stared out at her from the scratched mirror looked dull. No wonder he thought something was wrong. She lamented not having a comb to fix her hair, then decided no one cared how she looked anyway. Certainly not Clay McLeod. He acted as if she was Typhoid Mary.
She joined him moments later. Neither spoke again as they moved mechanically around the cabin, preparing to leave.
After the filling meal, which turned out to be cheese soup and crackers, Starr folded blankets and put them away. Then she carefully restored the kitchen to order while Clay nailed a new board on the door. When Starr joined him outside, he wired it shut.
“Shouldn’t we have called the ranch?” she asked, squinting at the vast expanse of brilliant white. This was the first time she’d ventured outside since Clay had brought her here, and she was shocked to see the snow had drifted as high as the sloped roof of the cabin.
Clay placed a palm at her waist to guide her toward the shed. “I did that earlier while you were snoring away.”
“I don’t snore.”
A smile twitched. “How do you know?”
She stopped in her tracks, frowning.
Since he didn’t say anything else, she added pensively, “I would’ve liked a word with SeLi.”
He shrugged and walked on ahead. “It was early. I talked to Hank. He said the house was still dark. We need to be quick about this side trip to look for the Drixathyon. Might be a new storm brewing. So unless you want to spend Christmas here eating beans and ham...”
A snowball struck the back of his neck. “What in hell?” He turned, hopping on one foot and brushing snow out from under his collar. Then he saw Starr bent double, laughing.
“Wanna play rough, huh?” He scooped up snow, formed a loose ball and advanced on her.
“No, Clay...please! Oh, no...ooh that’s cold. It went down my blouse, darn you.”
“Play with fire and you’re bound to get burned. Or frozen, as the case may be.”
“Truce,” she called as he packed a new snowball. “I just couldn’t resist. You sounded so sanctimonious.”
He dropped the snowball and dusted snow off his gloves. “Well, do you want us getting stuck here over Christmas?”
Striding away in silence, she plowed a hand through her hair to shake out the lingering snow.
“I didn’t think so,” he said. “I just spoke the truth.” Which was more, Clay thought guiltily, than he’d done in saying he’d talked to Hank. His brother had actually had the kids out in the barn looking at kittens. Harrison had mentioned that the nasty woman had called back. Apparently she’d told Vanessa that if Clay didn’t return her call by this morning, she’d take matters into her own hands. Clay wished he knew what that meant. Provided they made it down the mountain before dark, he’d be able to reach the social worker and forestall any mischief she might have planned.
Sometime in the night, during one of those times he lay watching Starr sleep, Clay had made up his mind to drop the issue of SeLi’s parentage. What did it matter, anyway? He’d determined that his time would be better spent convincing Starr and SeLi to add him to their family. Which could only happen after Starr cleared up this mess with Calexco to her satisfaction.
Now that Clay had his brother’s family back on track, he intended to see things stayed that way. If Harrison had inadvertently gotten mixed up in something less than strictly legal, Clay wanted to know now. There was probably still time for his brother to pull back, make reparation, before doing any real damage to his career.
Waiting at the entrance to the shed, Starr saw a range of emotions cross Clay’s face. He looked like a man who’d mulled over important questions and come up with answers. Did any of them concern her?
But he gave her no opportunity to ask. As he brushed past her and went inside, another more immediate situation reared its head.
“You take the gelding today, Starr,” he said as he hoisted the smaller saddle onto the big bay and cinched it tight. “Patches is jittery as hell from being cooped up so long.”
“I can handle her.” Starr sounded defensive and knew it.
“It’s not open for negotiation.” Bent over the second saddle, Clay didn’t see the irritation with which she transferred the dart gun to the gelding.
It was a wonder the arrogant Barclay McLeod trusted her to carry it, she thought waspishly. And just whose project was this, anyway?
The instant the pinto began to buck, almost unseating Clay, Starr hastily revised her snide comment. Instead, she watched with admiration as he rode out the stiff-legged bucking.
“Wow!” She reined in and let the bay fall in behind. “I owe you an apology, Clay. Last time I got bucked off an ornery horse, I spent my entire summer vacation nursing three broken ribs. My Christmas vacation plans don’t include broken bones.”
Clay flashed her a smile, although he kept
a tight rein on the feisty mare. “What do your plans include? Have you given any more thought to you and SeLi spending the holiday at the ranch?”
When she bit her lip and averted her gaze, Clay cursed himself for not being more subtle. “No need to decide now!” he said hastily. “It’s just that the kids wrote all those letters to Santa. I figured SeLi expected the old boy to find her at the ranch.”
“She can write him a fast retraction, and I’ll mail it somewhere on the drive back to San Francisco. I have tickets to take her to see the Nutcracker the night before Christmas Eve. I wanted to surprise her, but if I have to, I’ll tell her early.”
“SeLi at the ballet.” He grinned. “It’s hard to picture.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing to make you come unglued,” he said, shrugging out of his jacket and tucking it in a saddlebag. “I’m just being selfish in wanting you to stay. But you’re right—the ballet will be a treat for her.”
He faced front again, drawing Starr’s gaze to the ripple of muscles that played across his broad back. That man turned her insides to mush. But with luck the pinto was giving him so much grief he hadn’t noticed.
Ahead, though the trail oozed mud and needed his full attention, Clay was far too aware of the woman who trailed him. That last time he’d turned to speak, he’d been laid low by the mere sight of her windblown hair and her cheeks kissed pink by the wind. Clay didn’t trust himself to turn again.
He reminded himself of the avalanche danger and pressed on.
After another ten minutes of hard riding, they arrived in the general vicinity of the stream. Clay untied a shovel he’d borrowed from the ranger’s shed and channeled his restless energy into scraping away the odd mounds of snow Starr pointed out. Some fifteen minutes into the process, he stopped to catch his breath and asked, “What am I looking for?”
Starr had climbed to the top of a pile of large rocks, out of which protruded a ragged red flag. She continued to scan a rocky promontory with her field glasses. “I told you I don’t know. I’m assuming the drilling team left this flag, and that somewhere nearby is their test well. They needed access to water to run a high-speed drill.”
But the mountain clung stubbornly to its secrets. The only thing that differed from her first visit, besides the warmer weather, was the sound of melting snow raining from the many branches, drowning out the stream. Starr shivered, not really wanting to remember its taste.
Clay saw her shiver. “Are you cold?” He laughed, because he’d just stripped to the waist. Digging was hot work.
Starr couldn’t answer. It had more to do with the fine sheen of sweat that coated his chest than with cold. Her gaze seemed to cling to his damp chest a long time before following the natural arrow of dark hair that eventually disappeared below his belt.
Since her fantasies refused to be controlled, Starr sighed and recapped the glasses, deciding she’d help him dig.
“You know,” he said, “I don’t mind reshaping the landscape. But I hate looking for a needle in a haystack.”
“An apt description, since Calexco gave us nothing to go on.”
Starr had just climbed down from her rocky perch when a mass of snow fell from the ridge above and thundered into the ravine.
Clay felt the shudder of the earth as the snow rumbled down the mountain. “We can’t stay much longer,” he cautioned her.
“I understand.” She pointed out two large mounds made bigger by the slide. “Those are the two ewes I found. Is that near the headwater to the stream, do you think?”
He set his shovel down and scrambled up to stand on a fat boulder. “It flows out from under a horseshoe-shaped granite cliff. I remember one time when we came up looking for stray cattle after a big storm, my dad pointed out a distinctive, wind-twisted white fir he said he always used as a landmark.” Clay shaded his eyes. “For all we know, the whole works could be buried in snow.”
Starr clambered up beside him. She shied away from the heat that emanated from his body. It did strange things to her equilibrium. So much so that she got down from the boulder on the pretext of checking the horses, which they’d tethered well away from the stream. Both animals had begun to grow restless.
Suddenly Clay jumped down and grabbed her arm. “Look. Over there. I think that’s the tree. Let’s go see,” he said, slipping his hand down to circle her waist.
Starr bumped against him several times on the walk down the snowy slope, and shocks of awareness wound their way up her body.
“This is it,” he announced triumphantly a moment later, startling her. She’d been so focused on him she’d almost forgotten why they were doing this.
“We got here in a roundabout way,” he said, eyes narrowed. “This is a lot closer to that flag stake than I thought.”
Starr followed his gaze. “You’re right, it is. Clay,” she said urgently, “you dig on one side of the headwater and I’ll do the other.”
“How far do you think you’ll get digging with your hands?”
“I have a small shovel in my kit. Biochemists frequently need to take samples. I’m not the hothouse rose you think I am.”
“Ouch. Can’t prove it by me, sugar. I’m bloody from the thorns.”
“Remember? Don’t call me sugar,” she warned as she marched back to the horses where she dug a small, archaeological shovel out of her saddlebag. It was the type of shovel that needed to be unfolded and screwed together.
Clay wisely let her handle it alone. He set about digging.
In a matter of minutes, they were both turning over snow and then rocky soil. It wasn’t easy work. No talk passed between them. Because Clay turned two shovels to Starr’s one, he was first to uncover a narrow opening. “Looks like a gopher hole,” he muttered.
“Underwater? What do you think it is?” she asked.
“It’s suspicious. Why else would it be banked by rock halfway down?”
Starr raked a curl out of her eyes and slashed a streak of dirt the length of her cheek. “This gopher subscribes to Architectural Digest and moonlights on the side.”
“Very funny, Lederman. Dig.”
Both dug faster. Their shovels struck metal almost in unison.
“Bingo!” Clay tossed his shovel aside, and although they were both grimy with sweat, he clasped Starr to his chest.
“I knew it! I knew it!” Starr hugged him back.
“Let’s see what we got, shall we?” Clay asked as they simultaneously dropped to their knees in the muck. He did his best to stem the flow of water with his shovel; while using hers, Starr exposed an oblong silver cylinder.
“Be careful,” she shouted excitedly. “It’s leaking around the vent.”
Clay eased the muddy object from the hole and handed it to Starr to hold upright as he ran to get the plastic tarp tied behind his saddle. Slipping and sliding back, he quickly secured the leaking lid.
Starr stripped off her gloves and dipped in her forefinger. Their eyes met as she tasted it and almost gagged. “This is it. A whole snootful of Drixathyon,” she said, wiping the taste off her tongue.
“Damn, damn, damn their careless hides.” Clay drove a stake into the ground to mark the spot, then motioned to Starr that he’d carry the cylinder back up the hill.
He propped it against a granite rock while he put on his shirt. “This must be where the stuff came from. You can see where it was connected to something with this coupling—a hose, maybe. Obviously they took the hose. Why in hell would they leave this?”
“I have no idea. What I wonder is how many more animals will die before this stream runs clean again.”
“Fortunately there are other water sources up here. Bear Trap Creek cuts diagonally through the preserve up around nine thousand feet. On the backside of the mountain, down a little lower, is Deer Creek Springs.”
“We’re at eight thousand something here?”
“Yes. Bighorns generally stay above this level unless the snow drives them down in search of food.
We could lose more if that new storm blows in.”
Starr glanced at the sky. The sun was struggling to shine. She noticed, however, that high clouds were moving in. Tahquitz Peak already looked as if it wore a halo. “There’s not much we can do about the weather.”
“No, but something we can do is scoop a couple feet of snow across that stream. You said the stuff eventually dissipates. Maybe melting snow will clean it faster.”
Starr stood on tiptoe and landed a kiss in the vicinity of his ear. “Clay, I swear you’re a genius.”
A little embarrassed and a lot pleased, he stood for a moment with his hand to his cheek, watching as she tore down the hill and began shoveling snow like a madwoman. Then giving himself a mental shake, he went to lend a hand.
“Now,” he said when they’d finished and both were panting, “let’s hightail it out of here.”
“Okay. I don’t want this stuff evaporating or something before I can get it tested.” She touched the well-wrapped container.
“We’ll get it tested even if I have to fly it to the lab myself.”
“You’d do that?” Starr asked, sounding surprised.
“Dammit, Starr, what do you think? I’m betting Harrison will, too, when he sees what we’ve got,” he said firmly, grasping the bay’s head as she mounted.
After her last conversation with the senator, Starr had her doubts. She didn’t voice them, however, preferring, instead, to concentrate on the thud of the horses’ hooves as they pulled against the muddy trail.
Taking the lead, Clay was soon lost in his own thoughts—namely, how he was going to talk Starr into sticking around through Christmas. And beyond. If he did have to fly the cylinder to the lab, maybe he’d take the time to buy an engagement ring.
An opal, he thought, to match Starr’s fire. Surrounded by the icy flash of diamonds. Clay knew his mother would be enchanted with both Starr and SeLi. She’d love to sew frilly things for a granddaughter. Even though SeLi wasn’t exactly the frilly type... His dad would just be glad that his younger son had finally found Ms. Right.
Starr enjoyed the first half of the ride. She was glad the senseless killing of sheep was nearing an end. But anxiety cropped up during the second half, when she realized it also meant she might never see Clay again—except as her landlord. And she couldn’t afford to move until that trust fund kicked in.
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