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Harmony’s Story
Dorsey Kelley
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER ONE
Heartbreak Ranch
Early Summer 1917
TOPPING THE KNOLL overlooking Heartbreak Ranch, Ben Panau abruptly reined in. The familiar stab of anger and loneliness knifed through him at the sight of the young woman below.
As always, Harmony Heart consumed his senses. Dawn cast morning sunlight over the mountain behind the house, and it seemed to Ben as if the brilliant rays caressed her ripe woman’s body, burnished her hip-length mane to a shining, dark gold.
Oblivious to him, she stood beside her brown and white paint horse in front of the big old barn. He watched as she rinsed out a bandanna in the watering trough and rubbed it over her delicate nape. Ben’s eyes narrowed. The rising sun backlit her slender legs through her split riding skirt. Her slim waist was cinched by a wide leather belt and her breasts thrust against a prim white blouse.
He forced himself to draw a long, slow breath. She had a body fashioned by the devil himself—tempting a man beyond endurance. And Ben Panau was definitely a hot-blooded man. How many times had he imagined those slender limbs clamped around his hips as beneath him she bucked and writhed in ecstasy?
Despite the sexuality Harmony’s lush body exuded, he knew she was untouched. He knew of her many suitors and how she’d rejected them all. Although her body was the work of Lucifer, everything else about her personified all things innocent and good. She symbolized everything he lacked, but everything he craved: purity, privilege, respect...and she was so unattainable.
Harmony was the product of her prosperous parentage: everyone in the valley knew the Heart lineage sank deep roots into the last century. She was descended from a bold mix of exotic foreigners, adventurers, ranchers and even, it was whispered, a Barbary Coast madam. Tales about the madam were so vague and murky, he didn’t give them much credence. Not that it mattered. Ben wouldn’t have cared whether Harmony was delivered of royalty or whelped from a brothel.
With an effort, he turned his head away from the vision below. God, what a fool he was. As if a dirt-poor half-breed who came from a family of drunkards and rustlers would ever have a chance at the daughter of the valley’s most prestigious and powerful cattle rancher.
Unfortunately, though the Kawaiisu Indians were generally peaceful, many were poor. What chances did they get to make themselves better? Precious few.
His hard eyes swept the majestic ranch house with its spacious veranda. A profusion of suncups and poppies embraced the ground-floor walls. William had built the grand home for his wife, Josie, the year Harmony was born. A brand was burned into the front door—a broken-heart brand. The wide porch had been designed for sipping minted iced tea on lazy afternoons while dirty peasants like himself rode rank horses and ate dust-chasing cantankerous cattle.
Carefully tended climbing roses ascended the stately white pillars and invited the admiration of callers. Their vines possessively hugged the wide front steps. Velvety blooms in yellow, crimson and soft coral welcomed those who were accepted into the hallowed doors of Heartbreak Ranch. The pillars rose to hold an equally impressive second story and announce to all that in this dynasty, there was money. Ben’s callused hands fisted on the pommel. Even though when they were children and he’d rescued Harmony from one reckless scrape after another, in all his life he’d never been invited inside the big house.
Along with the anger came a surge of frustration and bitter resentment. How he hated the bigoted whites who for years had sneered at him, who’d casually tossed disparaging taunts about his heritage. How he hated the judgmental, holier-than-thou attitudes of the valley people. It was a trap from which he feared he’d never escape.
Forcing back resentment, he urged his horse forward to pick its way down to the corrals. Clearing the debris from the water hole he’d been sent to had proved a task easily accomplished, but there was more work to be done, six new horses to break. And he knew he wasn’t being entirely charitable to William Heart. A hard but fair man, William had never treated him with disrespect, or behaved as if he didn’t value Ben’s work breaking and training the ranch horses. No, William had treated him well, if impersonally.
But it wasn’t enough. Secretly, Ben hungered for more. Forever lonely, ashamed of his mixed blood when logic told him he shouldn’t be, he was angry and empty inside. He wanted to change the course of his life. At twenty-seven, he was a man, and a man needed a woman—someone to do for, to sit beside in front of a warm fire. He wanted a woman who rode out before dawn so she could let down her long hair and kick her paint pony into a wild headlong gallop over the meadow floor.
He wanted Harmony.
She thought her rides were private. She thought no one knew of her need to escape the strictures of society, escape the restraints she had to accept as the only daughter of William and Josie Heart. He understood what motivated Harmony, what made the blood flow through her veins. In a way, she was as limited by her position as he was by his.
He knew she even thought her private baths at the creek were unseen. She was wrong.
Harmony didn’t notice as he approached her now.
If he let out a screeching war whoop, would she even raise her head? She rarely noticed him, and if she did, it was merely to smile or wave. Ben couldn’t admit to himself that he lived for those brief, casual smiles. That the easy curve of her lips or a stray, tantalizing breath of her sweet fragrance had the power to halt his breathing. But it did, God help him. Things couldn’t go on this way. Not one to let matters lie, he was restless to effect change, to force others to respect him as an equal. He vowed to make Harmony aware of him as a man. For so long he’d been feeling the building pressure inside him to act. He’d make something happen, and soon, to shake up the complaisant rancher’s daughter.
Somehow he’d prove himself.
* * *
HARMONY GATHERED her thick hair and pinned it back into the staid chignon she always wore around ranch headquarters. As an only child, she was acutely aware that she was being groomed to someday take over management of the ranch. There had been no son born to William, and yet she’d never sensed any regret on his part that she was female. In fact, only a single daughter was born to each generation for over fifty years.
All her life Harmony had basked in nothing but William’s encouragement, and she strove to be worthy of that pride.
To go out riding alone, to gallop wildly and heedlessly across the land, bent low over her pony’s neck, letting her hair tangle with her horse’s mane, then, at the end of such an unseemly ride to strip and cool her overheated body in the softly swirling pool that formed at the bend of the creek—it was scandalous.
Yet these secret dawn and dusk rides were what made it possible for her to return, to bind her hair tightly to her head and again assume the manner of a gently reared young lady. Thank God no one knew of her escapes; she didn’t know what she’d do if she were forced to abandon them.
“Miz Harmony?”
The voice behind her made her whirl in surprise.
“I didn’t know anyone was there.” When she saw who it was, she relaxed and her gaze fell away. She’d grown up with Ben and had never taken much heed of him simply because he said so little. He was quiet and intense, but safe.
“You didn’t notice me.” The faint hint of accusation in his tone confused her.
She shrugged. “I was...thinking.”
He secured his horse to the corral fence and stripped the saddle from its back. “About your ride?”
She glanced at him sharply.
He was looking at her with a strange intensity and immediately she wondered if he could know where she went and what she did on her morning treks. She felt the first faint stirrings of alarm.
“Where have you been?” she asked, turning to him. When he merel
y smiled enigmatically, her alarm began to build.
“Don’t worry, Miss Harmony, I won’t tell anybody about your private little rides.”
She went still. “You followed me?”
Dropping the saddle to the ground, he bent and untied a spade and a sharp-toothed saw from the latigo strings behind the seat. Straightening, he held them up. “Today? I had to clear out that spring after the last rain. Wasn’t anywhere near you.”
“But how would you know where I was?” she demanded.
“Today?” he repeated.
“Of course I mean today.” She put her hands on her hips, more concerned by the moment. She’d shrivel up and blow away like a dandelion gone to seed if she thought any man had observed her private ablutions.
Without answering, he lifted the heavy saddle with one hand and headed for the tack room. She followed hard on his heels into the dim interior, which smelled of ancient leather and fresh horse. “Well?”
Lifting the saddle onto a peg alongside dozens of others, he laid an arm across the cantle and tilted back his hat to regard her. “Don’t know exactly where you went today, ma’am,” he drawled. He removed his hat and studied the single feather that decorated the band. “Could be you felt like riding around the rimrock, like you did last Thursday.”
Chagrin tinged her cheeks a hot pink. But more than the mortification, she felt a rising fury. “You—you’ve spied on me.”
He shrugged his large shoulders. “I think of it as seeing you don’t come to any harm, get into trouble.”
“I don’t need a nursemaid,” she stormed. “I’ve grown up on this ranch—just like you. I’m as capable of taking care of myself as you are.”
He moved his shoulders again. “Maybe, maybe not.” Collecting a halter, he strode back into the sunshine and headed for his waiting horse. She chased him out, incensed by his nonchalance. Light glinted off the blue-black highlights in his hair before he resettled his hat.
“Ben Panau, I don’t believe you were watching out for me. I think you were—were following to peep at me. Why, I could have my father horsewhip you off this ranch! How dare you?”
Abruptly he swung around to face her. She stumbled back a step, realizing at that moment how his shoulders stretched the faded old chambray shirt that clung to him. Why, she couldn’t even see past their width to the house. He propped his hand on his hip. Even more alarming, his obsidian eyes glittered down at her. “How dare I take what you offer? You’ve got tubs up in that fancy house your daddy built, don’t you? You don’t have to go down to the creek.”
Never had the almost silent Ben Panau spoken to her so brazenly. What on earth had gotten into him? She drew herself up. “Simply because I occasionally enjoy bathing out of doors doesn’t give you permission to sneak around peeking at me. If you were a gentleman—”
His sudden laughter startled her. “A gentleman?” Throwing back his head, he guffawed heartily, his white teeth flashing against the darkness of his skin.
As his laughter trailed off, he regarded her with scorn. “I am what I am, Miss Harmony. A half-breed. A horse wrangler. A man.” With this last, he appeared to loom closer though she did not see him move.
He reached out a hand then, and at odds with his aggressive manner, did a startling thing—with the tips of his brown fingers, he tenderly touched her cheek. She was so surprised at the abrupt gentleness, she couldn’t move. He’d inherited his father’s handsome features, his height, black hair and bronze skin, while his mother’s white blood softened the sharp facial angles of his Indian legacy. Suddenly he filled the parameters of her vision, and all she could do was stare into the fiery depths of his eyes.
In them she read so many things she’d never seen before—a surfeit of emotion she’d had no idea he’d kept hidden. She saw incisive intelligence, fierce banked anger and desire. She could not ignore it when his gaze swept down her body like a heavy hand.
She shivered and her own fury abated. Powerful feminine awareness shot through her as she took in the deepness of his chest, the power of his muscular arms, the waiting intensity of his expression. A stray current of air brought an elusive wisp of his scent—like horses and clean earth and high mountain breezes. Without thinking she breathed him in. Who was this potent, forceful man? She’d known him all her life, yet how had she ever thought this untamed, dangerous creature safe?
“Harmony!” A deep masculine voice called from behind her.
“Yes, Papa,” she answered with a relief she couldn’t explain, and whirled to face her father as he descended the stairs of the big house. Ben stepped back.
The fiftyish, graying man walked with a regal bearing that befitted his station as owner of the biggest ranch in the valley, as well as pride in his Hawaiian heritage. He wore fine linen trousers, a white shirt and a straw hat with his trademark dried flower hatband. Beneath the brim his expression was solemn.
He took her hands. “Your mother and I have just received news from Hawaii that your grandmother is very sick.”
“Grandma Nani?” Harmony cried, instantly recalling images of a plump Polynesian woman with a soft, comfortable chest and an ever-present smile. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know.” In his hands William crushed a bit of white paper Harmony hadn’t noticed before. “The note was quite terse. Your mother and I must go to her immediately.”
“Of course,” Harmony murmured. Despite William’s startling announcement, she was acutely aware of Ben Panau, still standing behind her. He remained silent, but she could feel his dark eyes scorching her back. He listened to every word; she knew it.
“You know what this means, don’t you, daughter?” William asked, holding her by the shoulders now.
Bewildered, she shook her head. “What, Papa?”
He drew a breath and looked deep into her eyes. “It means you must manage the ranch. You will have full authority. Full control. Since you were a tiny keike, I’ve trained you in these matters. Your mother and I will be gone several months. Do you think you are ready?”
Harmony felt her eyes widen, her heart rate accelerate. All her life she had diligently tried to learn each aspect of ranch life and its management. For this land of her forebears, this rich, producing, beautiful land, she knew a deep abiding connection that infused her very soul. She was a proud woman—perhaps even possessing a touch of arrogance—and she knew it. But she had so much to be prideful of. How could she help it?
And now, though the position would not be permanent, to be temporarily responsible for the property would provide a testing ground.
It was something for which she’d waited years.
Swallowing convulsively, she nodded. “I’ll take care of everything, Papa. Just see to Grandma Nani. You can count on me.”
For a long moment William searched her eyes. Apparently he found what he wanted in them, because he seemed to sigh in acceptance. “Remember one thing—even though your heroine in Washington is trying to get the politicians to give women the vote and property ownership, it isn’t law yet.” He gave her a stern look. “So, at least in public, you’ll have to defer to Old Clay. You understand? And Magdalena will be here, of course.” Magdalena was the grandly corpulent housekeeper, whose warm cookies and warm hugs seemed to solve all problems.
“Yes, Papa,” she said with wildly uncharacteristic meekness. She knew when to keep her mouth shut. William was a forward-thinking man. He respected women’s intelligence, agreed they should have the legal rights so long denied them. But he was still a man.
For the first time William noticed the Kawaiisu still quietly observing them. Surprising Harmony, her father said, “You’ll help her all you can, won’t you, Ben?”
Ben Panau straightened, drew himself up. His gaze strayed to Harmony and his eyes briefly glowed. “Yes, sir. Whatever she asks of me, I’ll do.”
Satisfied, William started back for the house. “Josie is packing now. We leave within the hour. The steamship leaves San Diego harbor in two days. It’ll t
ake five just to sail to Honolulu.”
A slim woman, who wore her blond hair coiled about her head, appeared in the great doorway. Her striking violet eyes, which Harmony had inherited, were darkened with worry. “We’re all packed, William. We can go now.”
“All right, Josie,” William said. “I’ll have a wagon hitched and brought around.”
Josie came down the steps to lay her hand on William’s arm. “No. We’ll ride together.”
William smiled into her eyes.
As Harmony watched, something passed between the two, an exchange she’d witnessed often between her parents. A meeting of minds. An understanding. Great love and communication she’d never seen enjoyed by any other couple.
Although Harmony savored their unconditional love, she also understood that the force of emotion shared by them was an invisible but powerful circle in which she could not be included.
Only in recent years had she begun to long for the same incredible bonding for herself. Was there a man in the world who could engender in her an equal devotion—a love that would bind her to him for life? And did a man exist who could give such love in return?
* * *
“GO, GO!” BOOMED Old Clay Henderson. “Have a good trip. Don’t worry about a thing.” When hired for the position of foreman many years ago, Old Clay had already had a mane of gray hair, stooped posture and tortoise-rough wrinkles furrowing his sun-browned skin. The man was ageless. But he had proved an adept foreman for Heartbreak Ranch, and his loyalty was unquestioned.
He stood beside a nervous Harmony while Ben saddled the horses William and Josie would ride to the railway station in Caliente.
Two geldings were brought out, both hip-marked with the ranch’s signature broken-heart brand, and bags were tied to latigo strings behind the saddles. Ben held the reins while William helped his wife mount. William directed a constant stream of reminders and directions at his daughter.
“And if we’re not back for fall roundup, just go ahead as we always have. Remember to cull those old cows from over at the cow camp. Old Clay will help you. Rely on him.”
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