by Janet Dailey
“All that digging is probably what disrupted the spring,” Beau guessed. “Remember when we used to fill our canteens from it? That water was always cold and good.”
But Will had a more practical view. “And the cattle didn’t have to walk so far for water when the spring was flowing.”
Flashing him an amused look, Beau remarked, “You are definitely Bull’s son.”
There was a moment of hesitation, as if Will was debating some issue with himself. “Keep this under your hat, brother, but I’m working on a plan to get this canyon back.”
“What?” The question came out, mingled with a near laugh. “Just what makes you think the syndicate would sell it? They sure as hell don’t need the money.”
“It just so happens that the syndicate doesn’t own this particular parcel,” Will informed him. “I did some checking and discovered that, for whatever reason, this land is part of the Prescott family trust. And our fine, upstanding congressman Garn Prescott is the trustee.”
“So Garn would have the power to sell it back, assuming you can talk him into it.” Beau swatted away a pesky horsefly buzzing around his face. “It explains why you asked him to do the eulogy at the funeral. You’re trying to get all palsy with him.”
“I told you before, we need allies, not enemies. And it so happens Prescott’s up for reelection this fall. I’m prepared to make a hefty donation to his campaign in exchange for this worthless little canyon that’s too steep for grazing.”
“And you think he’ll agree to that?”
Will’s horse swung its nose around in an attempt to dislodge the fly that had landed on its neck. Will absently brushed off the fly. “Maybe he will. Maybe not. But there’s more than one way to skin a coyote.”
In his mind’s eye, Beau saw again that scene at the house after the funeral when he’d observed Garn Prescott clearly making a move on Tori. It couldn’t have been more obvious that Prescott wanted to get to know her a lot better.
“I’ll bet Tori could talk him into it.”
“Leave Tori out of this!” Will snapped.
Beau had seen his brother angry before, but not this hot. “Sorry.” He wisely refrained from mentioning the way Garn had been hanging all over her, recognizing jealousy when he saw it. “Maybe I could help,” he suggested instead. “I’ve never known a politician yet who didn’t have his finger in some dirty pie. Ferreting out nasty secrets is part of what I do for a living.”
Will briefly considered the offer, then shook it away with a half-irritated sigh. “As much as I would enjoy bringing that pompous jackass down, I’d rather this be an up-front deal.” He gathered up his horse’s reins. “We’ve got cattle to find. We’d better get to it.”
“I spotted a couple headed up the canyon’s other fork.” Beau swung his horse around and brought it up level with Will’s bay gelding. With curiosity nagging at him, he asked, “Did Prescott have anything to do with you and Tori splitting up?”
“Does it matter?” Will fired back, going all tight-jawed on him. “It happened. And it’s over.”
Beau doubted it was over as far as his brother was concerned. “You two seemed to fit together so well, like you were made for each other. There were times when I’d see you with Tori and would feel a little envious because you clearly had something special going.”
“Funny you should say that,” he countered. “You see, I always thought Natalie was the special one for you.”
Beau recoiled slightly. The mere sound of her name was like being stabbed. It was impossible to think of her without remembering the feel of her in his arms, the warmth of her body quivering beneath him, or the welling of emotion that choked him.
When Beau failed to say anything, Will spoke. “You know Bull was always certain the ranch would pull you back here. I always thought you’d come back for Natalie.”
“After I got back from Afghanistan . . .” Beau paused, searching for the right words. “Let’s just say . . . things changed.”
“But not the way you feel about her. I saw the way you looked at her that night in the barn when the foal was born. You didn’t seem to be aware of anything—or anyone—else.”
Beau didn’t bother to deny it. “You’re forgetting that she’s married.”
“And you’re wishing you could forget it.”
“It so happens that I’ve had the dubious pleasure of meeting her husband.” Unwilling to discuss the subject of Natalie any further, Beau switched the focus back on his brother. “You were never exactly a saint. So, tell me, Will, who’s filling your bed since the divorce? Do you have a mistress tucked away somewhere? Or are there some desperate housewives in town, willing to put out for any man who’ll leave some money on the dresser to help with all their past-due bills?”
But he didn’t get the expected rise from his brother. “I’m glad to hear you’re giving some serious thought to staying here at the ranch.”
Dumbfounded, Beau turned in his saddle to stare at his brother. “What the hell are you talking about? I never suggested any such thing.”
“Of course you did. Why else would you ask about the ready availability of sex in town?” Will countered.
“I wasn’t talking about myself! I was talking about you,” Beau retorted, then added in a mutter, “Blanco Springs is the last place where I’d go looking for it.”
The small town was a place of few secrets. There was too much chance that Natalie would find out if he happened to sleep with a woman she knew.
Before Will could offer a reply, Beau sank spurs into his mount, sending it jumping forward. A young steer burst from a mesquite thicket. And Beau took off in pursuit.
Erin knelt in the straw, stroking the foal. His golden coat was velvety to the touch. His young muscles, growing stronger every day, quivered beneath her palm. In a few weeks he’d be big enough to run and play in the paddock.
“Tesoro.” His ear twitched as she whispered his name. “We’re going to have so much fun together.”
Sky had told her that Tesoro needed to learn his name and get used to the sound of her voice. So Erin talked to the foal the whole time she was with him. When she ran out of things to say, she sang old cowboy songs that Jasper had taught her when she was little. Songs like “Red River Valley” and “Streets of Laredo.” Sometimes she sang the country and pop songs her school friends preferred. But Tesoro seemed to like the old songs best.
His silky muzzle nudged her arm. Sensing what he wanted, she scratched behind his ears. Lupita raised her head, glanced at her baby, then went back to munching hay.
Erin dreaded tomorrow night when her mother would come to drive her back to town for school the next day. Foals grew up so fast. Tesoro would be bigger and more active when she came back next weekend. Would he still remember her?
The barn was quiet except for the soft horse sounds and the muted shovel-scrape of someone cleaning the stalls at the far end of the barn. Jasper sat on a wooden chair with the dog curled in the straw at his feet. The old man’s eyes were closed, but Erin knew it wouldn’t take much to snap him out of his doze. He was alert to everything around him.
As if her thoughts woke him, he opened his eyes and stirred, looking a mite uncomfortable. “Are you okay, Jasper?” she asked him.
He looked mildly embarrassed. “Fine, honey. But my rusty old plumbing’s not what it used to be. I need to find a restroom.”
“Go on. I’ll be fine,” she said.
“No, I promised your dad I wouldn’t leave you alone. Come on out of the stall till I get back.”
“Just let me stay here,” Erin said. “My dad’s an old fussbudget. I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t ask me to break a promise, girl.” Jasper pushed to his feet. “If you want to stay, I’ll find somebody else. Lute,” he called, opening the stall gate and stepping out. “Get on down here for a minute?”
A dark, skinny young fellow in a ragged blue T-shirt sauntered into Erin’s view. “What’s up, old man?”
“Not much. I
need a break and Will doesn’t want this young lady left alone in the stall. Could you spell me for a few minutes?”
“Sure. I could use a rest.” He sank onto the chair as Jasper hobbled toward the barn door. He had sharp, black eyes like a bird’s, and his worn leather gloves looked too big for his thin wrists. “Hi, I’m Lute,” he said.
“I’m Erin.” Her gaze sized him up. He looked old enough to be out of school, but not by much. “Do you work for my dad?”
“That’s what I’m doing here, working.” He spat out the last word as if he’d just bitten into a bad strawberry. “Sky gave me this so-called job. He’s my cousin.”
“Oh.” Erin shifted to face him, interested in learning more. “Sky never talks about his family. I didn’t know he had any.”
“Sky’s mother was my dad’s sister. She died when he was little, and our family raised him. So he’s almost like my big brother.”
“What happened to his father?”
Lute shrugged his bony shoulders. “Who knows? He was just some white jerk who knocked her up. That’s why Sky’s got blue eyes. But he’s mostly Comanche, like me.”
“Oh.” The young man did look something like Sky, Erin thought. But he was darker, his build smaller and more wiry, his features narrower.
His gaze had wandered to Tesoro. “That’s a fine-looking foal,” he said.
“He’s going to be my horse.” Erin laid a possessive hand on her foal’s back. “Sky’s already helping me train him. It’s called imprinting. That’s what I’m doing here.”
“Sky’s an important man on this ranch, isn’t he?”
“My dad says he’s the best horse trainer in Texas. That’s why cow ponies raised on our ranch are worth so much money. And that’s why we’re getting more colts for him to train, so we can sell them.”
Lute raised one jet-black eyebrow. “I hadn’t heard that. Maybe Sky will give me a better job when those colts get here. I’m good with horses, too. When’s it supposed to happen?”
“This spring, after the roundup, we’ll be building extra pens. As soon as that’s done, Sky can bring in the horses he wants and work with them over the summer.”
“He’s going to need some help. Maybe you can put in a good word for me.” He rose, glancing back toward the barn door. “I see our old friend Jasper’s coming back, so I’ll get back to work. Nice talking to you, Miss Erin Tyler. Maybe we can talk again.”
“Maybe so. Thanks for keeping me company, Lute.”
“See you around.” He opened the gate for Jasper and left. As he ambled away, Erin saw him take a cell phone out of his pocket, flip it open, and punch in a number.
CHAPTER 4
Slad Haskell slid out the back door of his red club-cab pickup. While his fingers tossed the condom and stuffed his privates back in his jeans, his eyes scanned the shadowy parking lot behind the Blue Coyote. Not that he was worried. The hour was late, the two remaining cars empty. Nobody was looking. And even if they were, what the hell. Everybody in town knew that Jess was a whore.
As his zipper closed with a satisfying snick, she came around the truck, pulling her little denim skirt down over her thighs. He had her usual payment ready—the small packet of white powder that he slipped out of his pocket and down the neck of her blouse. Whether she meant to resell it or snort it herself didn’t matter, as long as she knew better than to tell anybody where it came from. Stella would likely guess if she saw it. But Stella wouldn’t care as long as the girl kept her mouth shut.
As Jess trailed back into the bar, Slade pulled out of the parking lot, drove onto a side street, and stopped long enough to turn on the dome light and inspect the backseat for evidence. Finding none, he made a U-turn and headed for home.
He’d come back an hour early from a run to Lubbock to arrange a feed-hauling contract. Since Natalie wasn’t expecting him till later, and since he’d told her not to wait up, Slade figured he was covered. With luck, when he walked in from the garage, his wife would be deep in clueless sleep.
Damned good woman, Natalie. Her work paid the household bills and balanced the ups and downs of the trucking business, allowing him to stash what he made on the side in a Lubbock bank. She was a looker, too, and sexy as hell. Slade would castrate any male who so much as breathed on her. But he’d never been a one-woman man, and marriage hadn’t changed that. As long as he came home to his wife at night, what difference did it make?
He was pulling up to the house when he remembered that he hadn’t checked his cell phone messages. Letting the truck idle, he took a moment. There were two voice mails from the Indian kid at the Tylers. The first one let him know they’d be getting extra colts to break over the summer. Maybe some possibilities there, and the kid seemed eager to please. If he proved reliable, it might be worth trying him on bigger things.
The second message triggered a spasm in his gut. Evidently Beau Tyler, who’d promised to be back in Washington by now, was still at the ranch helping with the roundup.
Did Natalie know? Had he contacted her? So help him, if she’d been with that bastard again . . .
Seething, Slade punched the remote and waited for the garage door to open. If Tyler had so much as phoned her, he would punch that smug, too-handsome face of his to a bloody pulp. As for Natalie . . .
The door cranked to a stop. The truck’s headlights shone into an empty garage.
Natalie’s white Toyota was gone.
Natalie turned the country radio station up full blast and willed herself to stay awake for a few more miles. She should have taken the Lindfords up on the thermos of coffee they’d offered to send with her. By the time their mare had delivered twin foals, she was dead on her feet, and the fifteen-mile drive home on back roads seemed more like a hundred.
It was almost 2:00 a.m., later than she’d planned to be gone. She’d thought of calling Slade. But she’d left him a note on the kitchen table. If he was home by now, he’d be asleep. It didn’t make sense to wake him.
A jackrabbit bounded across the two-lane road ahead of her. She tapped the brake, ensuring the animal a clean getaway. Even rabbits deserved a happy life, she mused groggily.
She’d resolved not to think about Beau, but she was too tired to keep her thoughts from wandering. It was even later in Washington, D.C., than it was here in Texas. Was he asleep? Was he alone? She knew little about his life back East, but she couldn’t imagine Beau having any trouble getting women—smart, sophisticated, beautiful women—into his bed. Natalie had no cause to envy them, but, heaven help her, she did. She and Beau had grown up together. They had given each other the gift of their innocence. He belonged to her in a way that he would never belong to anyone else.
The same way she belonged to him.
The memory stole through her like the scent of a pressed rose in a long-forgotten book. They’d been sixteen that summer evening, riding their horses up the canyon to a spot where a spring formed a pool in the rocks. They hadn’t planned on going alone, but Tori had been commandeered to babysit at the last minute, leaving them to go without her. Beau had been herding cows on the ranch all day, and Natalie had been helping her grandfather paint his barn. Both of them were sweaty and tired. The water in the canyon was too cold for a swim, but the idea of a cool evening ride sounded like heaven.
Dressed in faded T-shirts and ragged cutoff jeans, they’d tethered their horses in the trees and climbed the narrow path up the rocks to the waterfall. On a grassy spot by the pool, they’d sprawled on their backs to gaze up at the river of sky above the steep canyon walls. The dying sun had streaked the clouds with violet and indigo and sculpted purple shadows in the recesses of the vermilion cliffs. A single star glimmered in the deepening sky.
On the trail they’d chatted—commonplace, easy talk about school and friends. But now they lay still in the twilight, listening to the splash of water and the faraway call of a coyote. Natalie could hear the sound of his breathing. Her body tingled with sensations she couldn’t even name.
Until
now they’d shared no more than a few playful kisses. But Natalie had loved him for as long as she could remember. At night she lay burning in her bed, daring to touch herself as she imagined his strong, golden body and the forbidden things that body could do. In spite of every well-meant warning she’d ever heard, she’d known that if Beau reached out for her, she would be his in a heartbeat.
That night, with scarcely a word, it had simply happened. They’d been lying a hand’s breadth apart, their awareness of each other deepening to an ache. Natalie had turned on her side to find him looking at her, his eyes wells of raw need.
Lifting her hand, she’d stroked a fingertip down his cheek and along the edge of his lower lip. He’d moaned, taking her finger into his mouth and brushing it with his tongue. The urges that simple contact awakened had been too powerful to resist. Even as his arms reached out to pull her close, she’d understood what was going to happen, and she’d wanted it.
Softening her hips against his pelvis, she’d felt the long bulge of his erection like a solid log through his jeans. He’d been ready for her before she ever touched him, she realized. Knowing that he’d wanted her as much as she wanted him gave her a rush of courage. Taking his hand, she slid it under the hem of her T-shirt.
The day had been too hot for a bra. She’d felt his fingers tremble as they slid up her ribs and over her bare breast. The shimmering wave of pleasure was so intense it made her gasp. She arched her rib cage upward, her body begging for more. He stroked and caressed, growing bolder as he teased her nipples, feeling them shrink and harden at his touch. The low rasp of his breath quickened as his palm glided down her belly to the waistband of her shorts.
Was this his first time, too? She’d wanted it to be, but how could she be sure when there were girls with reputations who’d be more than willing to initiate a handsome boy like Beau?