by BJ James
Bending again, he buried his face in her fragrant neck, wondering what it was about the Benedict women that made so many men fall in love with them. As a faceless count, and Jubal, and Sandy, and Jake had with Camilla. As Lawter, and Jeffie, and Blackhawk, had with Savannah.
And I, he thought as he breathed in the fragrance of her skin. “I,” he murmured, “most of all.” Leaving a trail of open mouthed kisses from her ear to her nape, he ministered most deliberately to the vulnerable spot at her shoulder. “By the way, Mrs. Cody,” he whispered as she shivered beneath the lave of his suckling tongue. “I like your new bob.”
“It isn’t exactly a bob, but thank you, Mr. Cody.” When he moved away, to steady her hand she picked up the brush to finish one hundred strokes.
Watching her, familiar yearnings reborn, he traced a pattern of lace down her arm and back again. “If you weren’t dressed...”
Her eyes met his in the mirror, languid and soft, and her voice was low and bluesy. “Dresses come off.”
Steve groaned and cocked his head to listen. “And babies wake. I suppose one of us should see to her. Since I’ve finished dressing and you haven’t, I surmise it should be me.”
Savannah saved her smile until he was gone, knowing perfectly well that if he hadn’t been dressed, he still would have seen to the baby. He spent every minute he could with his daughter.
She was six months old, her name was Jakie Camilla Cody. And though she’d never seen her first namesake, she never lacked for attention. Camilla and Bonita were regular visitors. Sandy and Jubal fought constantly over who would hold her, when, and how long, and who took unfair advantage of a sneak visit. Jeffie, who had left the Rafter B to work for Steve during Savannah’s pregnancy, proved that he was not only a top hand, but a topnotch baby sitter in a pinch.
“Now,” Savannah whispered as she put the finishing touches on her makeup, “if Jake will just find her as irresistible.”
Snapping shut a gold compact and dropping it in her purse, she went to discover what Steve and Jakie thought was so funny.
“This is it.” Savannah let her gaze range over the house and grounds. She hadn’t seen the Rafter B in over a year, but with the exceptions of certain feminine touches, it had changed little.
“Ready?” Steve held Jakie in one arm and linked the other through Savannah’s.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
Dinner was a stiff and stilted affair, and not exactly a success. Though Camilla was the impeccable hostess, Jake was sullen and quiet, Steve withdrawn, and Savannah simply miserable and heartbroken.
After dinner, coffee and brandy on the veranda proved no better, until Camilla took the situation in hand by asking Bonita to bring the baby to her.
“Look, Jake, isn’t she beautiful?” Camilla offered the child for his inspection.
“A baby’s a baby,” he groused, and refused to look.
“Not this one,” Camilla persisted. “Ask Jubal or Sandy, or Jeffie for that matter.”
Interest tweaked, Jake grumbled, “What the devil would either of those old war horses know about babies?”
“More than you do,” Camilla declared, and before Steve and Savannah’s astonished eyes, she plopped the baby in its grandfather’s lap. “Jake, it’s time you met Jakie.”
For what seemed an eternity, the two of them stared at each other. Jake looking as if he were holding a basket of soap bubbles he mustn’t pop. Jakie puckering to howl like a banshee at any second. By design, or instinct, or perhaps out of mortal fear, Jake bounced his knee and the threat of the banshee howl became a bell-like giggle.
Just for the sake of experiment, Jake tried it again. The baby giggled again. A third time brought a third giggle, and a bouncing demand for more. “Smart little squirt, aren’t you?” he observed. “And bossy, like your gramma.”
As if it had just dawned on him, he lifted his narrowed gaze to Camilla. “What did you say she’s called?”
“Jakie,” she repeated with no little satisfaction. “Jakie Camilla Cody.”
“Jakie.” The stubborn man tried the name on his tongue. “Jakie.” A smile cracked the stern lines of his mouth. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
Something in his voice, or in his manner, struck the infant as comical. Her laughter was infectious, and even Steve and Savannah, who had watched the exchange in wonder, had to smile.
“You think that’s funny do you?” he demanded, and bounced his knee again.
Jakie hiccuped and laughed again until she was limp. When Camilla would have taken her, Jake snatched her from reach. “We don’t need your help. We’re doing fine, aren’t we, Jakie girl?”
“Jakie girl?” Steven muttered in an undertone to Savannah.
“Works for me,” she responded.
“Me, too, I guess.”
“Why did no one tell me?” Jake’s voiced carried like shot over the veranda. “Why am I last to know this girl bears my name?”
Savannah set her coffee cup on the table by her chair and straightened her skirt before she answered. “I suppose because none of us thought you would care.”
“If you thought I wouldn’t care, why did you give her my name?”
Wondering how she could explain, Savannah gathered her thoughts and opted for the truth. “I wanted her to have something of her grandfather. Even if she might never know him, I thought it was important.”
“Important to whom?” Jake demanded.
“Tome,” Savannah replied.
“And to me,” Steve added.
“Why?”
Without hesitation, Savannah answered, “Because I love you.”
For a fleeting instant, Jake had no answer, but in the next he was snapping at Steve. “What about you? Are you going to tell me you love me?”
“No, sir, I’m not.” Laying his hand over Savannah’s, smiling at her as he laced his fingers through hers, he replied without bothering to look back at Jake. “But I love your daughter. If naming our daughter after her own father makes Savannah happy, then I’m happy with it.”
“You are, are you?”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
Tense seconds ticked by, Jake cleared his throat. “You got sand boy. Coming in here pretty as you please, after taking the canyon and then my daughter from me.”
“I didn’t take anything from you,” Steve rebuked mildly. “Neither the canyon nor Savannah were yours to have.”
“You arguing with me?” Jake scowled and dandled the hiccuping baby on his knee.
“It won’t be an argument unless you make it one.”
“Oh, ho. You’re a smart one, aren’t you?” Before Steve could respond, he was rising from his chair and fending Camilla’s helping hand away. “We’re all right, Miss Camilla, my legs will hold us both long enough for Jakie girl and Grandpa to take a little walk and have a little discussion. But don’t worry, we won’t go far, and I sure as hell won’t drop her.”
“Hallelujah,” Camilla said in a tone of awe as Jake moved ou of range. “It’s really true that wonders never cease. She’s got him Hook, line and sinker, she’s got him.”
“What does that mean, Mother?”
“It means, my darling, that it will be a while before he admits it but the war is over.”
“How can you tell?” Steve asked.
Camilla smiled a smile he’d seen too often on Savannah’s face and each time he lost a discussion or an argument. “I have my ways Shh,” she whispered, “here he comes.”
Jakie was laughing again, and had a death grip on a lock of Jake’s hair, but he didn’t seem to mind. No one presumed to know what he might say, but no one expected his comment.
“You’ve cut your hair.”
Savannah’s mind had been too full of worry to remember that her father hadn’t seen her with the new cut. “Yes.” She wondered if he would guess that, because of Steve, she didn’t need reminders that she was a woman. “I have.”
He looked at her as if he were only just seeing the woman she’d
become. The mother of his grandchild. “I like it,” he pronounced after his long study, adding the name no one had ever heard him say. “Savannah.”
“Thank you,” Savannah said when she could.
Their collective shock went unnoticed by Jake. “We’ve had our discussion,” he announced, equally oblivious of the baby’s tugging. “Considering that we’ve lost six months of each other’s company, Jakie girl and I have arrived at the conclusion that the situation should be corrected. After all, she’d got good genes in her, and stubborn ones to boot. She’ll need all of us to guide her. So, we’d best let bygones be bygones.”
He looked to Savannah. He didn’t say he loved her, or that he was proud of her, but it was there in his face.
“That’s what I hoped for.” Her voice shook with pent-up emotion. “That’s why we came.”
Jake nodded abruptly, and swallowed noisily.
“You’re welcome at the Broken Spur anytime.” With that, Steve made his peace.
“I just might take you up on that, son. In fact, Jubal tells me there’s a horse I should see.”
“Yes, sir, there are a lot of horses, but there’s one special one, a colt. The first Cody horse. Without Savannah, I would be a rodeo has-been with nothing to show for it but a pair of broken spurs. And he would still be only a dream.”
“The Cody horse,” Jake mused. “Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it, Jakie girl?”
Jakie girl only hiccuped again.
Camilla smiled and laid a hand on Jake’s shoulder.
Steve Cody drew his wife into his arms, kissed away her tears and whispered four words that would define the rest of their lives.
“I love you, Savannah.”
ISBN : 978-1-4592-7956-8
BROKEN SPURS
Copyright © 1996 by BJ James
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means. now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office. Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
“What kind of woman are you?” Steve murmured.
Letter to Reader
Books by BJ James
About the Author
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Copyright