Edna sniffed. “A sudden burning need to bake?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.” Starr pulled open the fridge and took out three eggs and a cube of butter. “I just know Mr. Hart would love a nice chocolate-layer cake.”
At eight-thirty that evening, as Starr pulled into the yard at the Hart Ranch, the big, red ball of the sun was sinking behind the Bighorn Mountains. She got out and went around for the Tupperware cake carrier, taking it by the handle and marching right up the steps to the front door.
Mr. Hart himself answered her knock. “Well, hello, Starr.”
“Mr. Hart. You’re lookin’ good.”
He leaned a little closer. “Tell that to Althea—and I think you’re about grown up enough to start calling me by my given name.”
“I’ll do that, then. Daniel.” She forced herself not to crane around his looming frame to see if Beau just might be standing behind him in the hall.
“Come on in.” He stepped back so she could get by him.
In the kitchen, that friendly hound she remembered from the other day lay on his rag rug in the corner. He beat his tail on the floor in greeting. Beau was sitting at the table nursing a beer. He stood briefly when she entered.
“Hi, Beau.” She gave him a quick nod, as if his being there were merely incidental to her purpose in coming. She thought she sounded pretty cool and collected, especially considering that fluttery creatures had taken flight in her stomach and her pulse beat faster just at the sight of him. “Where’s Althea?”
“She goes home at six.” Beau’s voice was real casual, but his eyes drank her in. He settled back into his chair, facing out from the table, his long legs in an easy sprawl. “She needs a little rest at home after all day dealing with that one there.” He pointed his beer at Daniel.
Daniel grunted. “She’ll get all the rest she needs soon enough. My days of requiring a nurse are numbered—and what’s inside that Tupperware? Looks to me like that might be a cake.”
She set it on the table, brushing Beau’s denim-clad knee in the process—completely by accident, of course. “Chocolate. Baked it myself.”
“Starr, you have read the mind of this old man. Chocolate’s my favorite.”
“It’s a little lopsided,” she confessed, all modesty. “But the flavor’s the same. And I used dark chocolate. I hear it’s good for your heart.”
“I will enjoy it, I can promise you that.” He gestured at Beau with a flick of his balding head. “I’ll even share it with Althea and this one here—if the two of ’em treat me right, that is.”
Beau raised his beer to Daniel before taking a sip.
“Sit down, sit down,” said Daniel, crossing around behind Beau and pulling out a chair for her.
She looked at Beau, whose eyes seemed to eat her up—at the same time as they warned her to remember their agreement. She cleared her throat. “Uh, no. Really. It’ll be dark soon. I should get home…”
Beau set down his beer. “I’ll walk you out.”
“Why, thank you, Beau.”
On the porch, she hung back. Yeah, okay. She was behaving shamelessly. But with Beau, being shameless was just so much fun. “How ’bout a walk down by that little stream again?”
In the fading daylight, his smile was slow, his gaze watchful. “How ’bout you remember what we agreed?”
She resisted the urge to remind him that it hadn’t been any real kind of agreement. He’d said how it was going to be and refused to give her the slightest chance to persuade him otherwise. “Well,” she said sweetly, “I guess I’ll be going then.”
She slid around him and went on down the steps. When she reached the Suburban, his hand came around her and opened the door. “Why, thank you, Beau,” she said again in the same tone she’d used in the house, all sweetness and light.
“My pleasure.”
She climbed up onto the seat and he shut the door. “See you….”
“’Bye, Starr.”
She felt kind of sad as she drove away—sad and a little let down. She’d wanted more from the visit. But then she looked in her rearview mirror when she was halfway down the driveway, just before the big curve. Beau was still standing there, watching her go.
“Till Friday,” she whispered to the tall, broad-shouldered shape of him against the darkening sky. “Till Friday…”
Chapter Four
Starr turned on the bedside lamp and looked at her alarm clock. “Yes!” she announced with enthusiasm to her empty bedroom.
She shoved back the sheet and grabbed the phone, dialing the number without having to look it up. She had it memorized—no, more than just memorized. It was burned into her brain.
He answered before the second ring. “Hart Ranch.”
“I knew you’d be up.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. She enjoyed the silence, the awareness that he was there, on the other end of the line. “It’s the middle of the night,” he reminded her at last.
“Twelve-o-three,” she announced with glee. “Twelve-o-three on Friday morning, to be specific.”
He grunted. “You know, Daniel might have answered. What would you have said then?”
“‘May I please speak to Beau?”’
“Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?” The warmth in his voice told her she had no reason not to be.
“So.” She heaved a happy sigh. “Where shall we go for our first date tonight?”
“Got it all planned out, huh?”
She flopped back on the pillows and stared dreamily at the ceiling. “Well, not all of it. As I just said, there’s still the question of where we should go….”
“Let me know when you make up your mind.”
She forked her fingers back through her sleep-tangled hair and considered. “How about Arlington’s?” The steak house was one of the three nice dinner houses in Medicine Creek. “Or the Stagecoach Grill—or Carmelita’s.”
“I take it we’re going out to eat?”
“Is that an objection?”
“Starr…” Something in his voice made her clutch the phone a little tighter.
“Yeah?”
“Your dad know you’re on the phone with me in the middle of the night, discussing which restaurant we’ll go to tonight?”
Irritation stabbed at her. “Come on. I’m over twenty-one. My dad knows that. And Beau?”
“What?” he said reluctantly.
“This isn’t six years ago. I’m not telling anyone any lies. I want to go out with you and I’ll say it straight out to anyone who asks.”
“I’d better have a word with him.”
She huffed out a hard breath. “You do not have to ask my dad if you can go out with me.”
“I don’t intend to ask him. I’ll tell him, respectfully. Your dad’s done more for me than I can ever repay. It’s the least I can do to tell him ahead of time that you and me will be spending some time together.”
She hauled herself up against the headboard again. “I have a better idea.” He made a low, sort of doubtful sound. “Don’t knock it till you’ve heard it—how’s Daniel doing?”
“He’s up and about. Taking it easy, though. Yesterday he got up with me and insisted on helping with the horses and the two bum calves we’re keeping out in back of the barn. And today will be Althea’s last day.” He added, wariness creeping in, “Why?”
“Come to dinner, here, tonight. Both you and Daniel. Everyone would be glad to have you. And it can be a kind of celebration, that Daniel’s feeling better. We’ll feed the hands early and eat in the dining room. Edna loves to break out the good tablecloth and the nice china. And during the evening we’ll just mention, real casually, that you and I will be going out tomorrow night.”
A moment passed while he thought that over. “Like I said. Got it all figured out, haven’t you?” His voice was so soft, thrillingly intimate.
She asked, huskiness creeping in, “Do you have a problem with that?”
“What if I do?”
“Then get over it. And be here at six.”
Starr took the silver filigree ring from her napkin and smoothed the napkin on her lap. She caught Beau’s eye across the table and a sweet feeling of anticipation shivered through her.
At the end of the table, her dad bowed his head. Starr bowed hers, too. After a few words of thanks, they began passing the steaming bowls of food and the big platter of perfectly seared Rising Sun T-bones.
“I have to admit, these are just beautiful,” Edna remarked as she forked up a steak and laid it on her plate. When they’d planned the menu, Edna had suggested chicken—lower cholesterol and less fat. But both Starr and Tess had argued that this was a special occasion and Daniel did deserve to have his beef now and then.
Judging by Daniel’s big smile when he saw those steaks, they’d made the right choice. Starr thought the sweet old guy looked pretty good in the light of the tall white candles Edna had placed in heirloom silver candlesticks in the middle of the table. His broad, jowly face, kind of pale that first day he got home, had better color now.
The dinner went well, the talk flowing easily, punctuated with bursts of shared laughter. The men discussed the usual: which cattle should be moved where, what fences needed repair. Jobeth described her latest 4-H project. Ethan ate his meal quietly and for once hardly squirmed at all.
Starr traded endless knowing glances with Beau. Each separate shared look warmed her all the way down to her toes. With all that excitement buzzing inside her, it was hard to act casual.
Too bad that, somehow, the moment to mention their plans for tomorrow just never seemed to come. Maybe, she decided near the end of the meal, announcing it at dinner wasn’t such a great idea, anyway. There’d be all those meaningful looks Tess and Edna would share. And probably a snicker or two from Jobeth. And who could predict how her dad would react?
So really, why go there? Who she dated was her business. If Beau thought he had to say something to her dad, he could just go ahead and do it on his own.
By then, the glances Beau gave her had become questioning ones. Instead of meeting his eyes, she started letting her gaze kind of slide away. She paid a lot of attention to her water glass and to eating the last glazed carrot on her plate.
Finally, during a slight lull in the conversation, Beau spoke up. “So Starr. Did you decide where you want to go to dinner tomorrow night?”
The lull kind of opened up into something that just might have been called a deathly silence. Starr looked up from her carrot and saw the glances go shooting back and forth between Edna and Tess. Jobeth snickered.
And then her dad said, “Arlington’s is good. But I think the Grill is better.”
Beau arrived in the old bench-seat style green pickup at six-thirty the next evening. He had the vehicle shiny clean and ready for a night on the town.
They took her dad’s suggestion and went to the Stagecoach Grill, where the tables had royal-blue cloths on them and a west-facing picture window framed a spectacular view of the Bighorns, the clouds that snagged on the crests turning purple as the day began to fade.
“You talked to my dad ahead of time,” she accused after the waitress had taken their order.
He leaned back in his chair and grinned at her. “I thought it was a bad idea to spring it on the poor guy in the middle of dinner like that. So yeah, I had a word with him earlier in the day.”
“Well, you could have just told me so.”
“You can be a hard woman to get through to sometimes, you know?”
She fiddled with her water glass and kind of screwed up her mouth at him, thinking of how he’d made her wait all last week. “Oh, yeah? Look who’s talking.” He laughed at that, and she found herself laughing with him.
They ate a leisurely meal and then lingered a while, talking easily about day-to-day things. He told her his ideas for improving Daniel’s small herd of Black Angus. And she joked about how Jerry over at the Clarion had finally broken down and bought some new equipment. Now they could do almost everything on computer.
“Jerry offered me a full-time job last week,” she told him. “Not that he hasn’t done that every summer for the past three years.”
“Thinking of changing your plans?” Did he look hopeful—that she might change her mind and decide to stay in town? Or simply curious? She really couldn’t tell.
She shook her head. “The day after Labor Day I’m off to the big city to make my mark. I’ve been planning it for a long time and I’m not turning back now.”
His expression was…what? Kind of admiring, maybe? He nodded. “That’s good. Hold on to that dream until you make it real.”
His hand rested on the table. She couldn’t resist laying hers over it. “I will,” she promised low.
He turned his hand over and clasped hers. For a long, delicious moment, they just sat there, holding hands across the table. She reveled in the feel of his rough, warm palm against hers, in the excitement that seemed to charge the air between them.
She found she was looking at his mouth, recalling those secret long-ago kisses they’d stolen the few times they’d managed to sneak away behind the hay bales in the barn, or in the shadows of the tack room—or once, out in the trees by Crystal Creek, which ran along behind the homesteader’s cabin way out back behind the barn.
A slow heat was moving through her. So incredible to be here, with him, like this. She never would have believed it could happen.
And she couldn’t help thinking, I’m all grown up now. We won’t have to sneak around anymore….
It was barely dark when they got up to go. Way too early to call it a night as far as Starr was concerned. “We could stop in at Mustang Sally’s for a little while,” she suggested.
“Sure. If you’d like that.”
Mustang Sally’s, about five miles out of town on the way to Sheridan, was a bar with a dance floor and pool tables, and rooms in back where the card players gathered. The jukebox was always cranked up too loud. A blue haze of cigarette smoke fogged the air, mingling with the yeasty, sour smell of stale beer.
It was not the Four Seasons, but Starr didn’t care. She was with Beau.
They ordered a couple of longnecks and claimed a corner booth and got up to dance whenever some kind soul bucked the trend and played a slow song. The rest of the time they sat in the shadows and whispered together.
After the third slow, lovely dance, they returned to the table with their arms around each other. When they slid into the booth, he pulled her right up against him.
It was just the most natural, right and perfect thing, to lean even closer, to tip her mouth up….
His mouth descended. Those eyes, blue as the summer sky, rayed in white around the iris if you looked real close, drifted shut. His lips brushed hers—back and forth, as if seeking the right fit.
“Oh, Beau,” she whispered, and pulled on his collar, urging him to deepen the kiss.
He didn’t need a lot of encouragement. His mouth closed over hers and she turned into him, pressing close, sliding her arms up his hard chest to link around his neck.
The kiss went on and on. It seemed like it would never end and that was just fine with her. The smoky room, the loud, jangling country song on the jukebox, the crows of triumph from some guy across the room at the old-time pinball machine—all of it receded.
There was nothing but Beau’s mouth on hers, his breath across her cheek, his arms holding her so close and warm, his hands rubbing her back…
He was the one to stop it, before they started tearing each other’s clothes off right there in the booth. “We’d better go…” His voice was husky with a thrilling combination of need and regret.
“Yeah,” she whispered, breathless. Yearning. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Starr sat tucked against Beau’s side as they drove through the night. He had the radio turned to a retro-rock station. Groups that had been around when her father was a little kid played the classics from the sixties and seventies, the sounds jangling and yet
somehow comforting at the same time.
Neither of them said much. He had his right arm tight around her—though they both knew very well he should have had both hands on the wheel. Once or twice he turned his head to breathe a kiss into her hair.
She leaned all the closer, kissing his neck, rubbing her head against his shirt, even turning her mouth to his chest once or twice, planting a kiss there, through the warm fabric of his shirt. She could hear his heart beating, strong and steady and little bit urgent, against her ear.
She breathed in the smell of him, a fresh, green smell, like clove—and something else, too. Something earthy and all about his being a man.
She shouldn’t have maybe, but she couldn’t resist running a hand over his chest, down to his belt and around to clasp the hard-muscled side of his waist. The temptation was great to be really bad, to let her hand stray lower. But he was trying to drive. She was making him crazy enough as it was. His breathing—and hers too—went past urgent and on through to downright ragged.
They’d left the highway and were bumping along on a side road, drift fences and the shadows of cattle out in the pastures on either side rolling by, when Beau swung the wheel sharply to the right. They turned down another road, a narrower one, and rolled under the deep shadow of a cottonwood tree. He switched off the engine and the song on the radio ended in midnote.
That left the pounding of their two hearts, the sound of the urgent, heavy breathing they were both trying to control—and out the open window, the whisper of the ever-present wind, the sweet cries of night birds….
And something else. Another whispering, rushing sound.
She looked up, tipping her head way back, seeking his eyes from the cradle of his arms. “Crystal Creek?”
His lips touched her forehead, hot with promise. “Yeah.” He put a finger under her chin to lift her mouth up.
And then he kissed her—a deep, claiming kiss. His mouth sucked at hers, drawing her tongue out, taking it in. He swept his tongue around it, the rough-slippery surface sliding up, over and down…
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