The Love of a Cowboy

by Anna Jeffrey

  “Cover that wood up,” he said. “You don’t want it exposed to the weather.”

  He was shivering worse than a cold dog. Sinking to one knee in front of the fireplace, he checked the damper and laid a fire. She wasn’t behind him, so he hoped she was outside re-covering the woodpile like he told her. Hearing her footsteps, he turned and looked up at her. “You got a newspaper?”

  “Just a minute.”

  She left the room and came back with a paperback book. He ripped out the pages and stuffed them under the kindling.

  “You got matches?”

  She shook her head.

  Nope, no matches. Having a match to light a fire when the temperature’s freezing would be too simple.

  He sighed and stalked outside to his pickup. He kept a work coat stashed behind the seat. He put it on, then found a book of matches in the jockey box. Back inside, he lit the paperback pages. Fire flared and crackled and he placed a split log on top. Just the smell of burning wood made the room seem warmer. He looked up at her and she wiped one eye with her fingertips. Lord, was she crying?

  “That’ll get going in a minute.” He stood, pulled his handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his hands. He felt mean and was glad of it. As sweet as her body looked in that wine-colored sweater, mean might be the safest way to feel. He still had a wet T-shirt memory floating around in his head. “Being from Texas and all, guess you girls don’t know much about getting along in cold weather. Didn’t anybody tell you it won’t get warm around here ’til July?”

  “July?” Her eyes rounded. Her black lashes looked like little brushes.

  “I’m surprised Tom rented you this place with an empty oil tank. You should’ve made him fill it up. I know him. I’ll call him tomorrow.”

  “You don’t have to. I mean, we can get our—”

  “Nope. I’ll call him. It’s not right he rented you a place with no heat. Stove oil has to come from down the road a ways. Unless it’s an emergency, you’ll be lucky to get a delivery tomorrow. You could go up to the ski lodge and spend the night, but it’s thirty-eight miles and it’s a little late. I expect there’s black ice on the road. Besides, your friend in there”—he tipped his head toward the drunk one’s bedroom—“doesn’t exactly look like she’s game for the trip.”

  She crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “We survived last night, Mr. McRae. Despite how it looks, we aren’t helpless and we aren’t stupid.”

  The sassy comeback amused him. “Then I guess you’ll make it ’til the oil truck shows up.”

  Her lips pursed. He felt like an ass. “Look, I didn’t mean to make you mad, but I need to get home. I could use a cup of coffee if you’ve got some. I’ve had a little too much to drink myself and I’ve got a far piece to drive.”

  Dahlia was too happy he was leaving to be mad. Besides being drunk and highhanded, he was so rude he wouldn’t even let her finish a sentence. If coffee would put him on his way, she would make him a gallon. “As a matter of fact, we do.”

  Before she could move, he strode toward their kitchen, the pounding of his boot heels echoing on the wooden floors in the house’s emptiness. She had no choice but to follow.

  The overhead kitchen light seemed uncommonly bright in the white room. Walls, ceilings, cabinets—all were painted sterile white. Even the kitchen floor was covered with a white-on-white patterned vinyl. The entire house smelled of fresh paint.

  Luke looked around. “Tom must have found a sale on white paint.”

  “At least it’s clean,” Dahlia said, parroting Piggy’s earlier comment. “Sorry I can’t ask you to sit down, but as you can see, we have no chairs.”

  He stood in the kitchen doorway, his gaze scanning the empty living room. “You don’t have any window curtains either.”

  “We intended to buy shades in town today, but there weren’t any. We have to go shopping somewhere.”

  He came back and stood over her while she spooned out coffee, his hands fisted on his hips. A wave of tremors rippled along her nerves. She had never experienced anything as crazy as this unnerving physical attraction and she didn’t like it.

  “You’ll have to go down south, to Boise, to buy house goods. They’ve got some of those big stores down there.” He headed back to the living room. “Let’s don’t waste that fire.”

  Dahlia followed. He squatted and leaned forward on the balls of his feet, added another log to the fire. His coat and vest slid up, showing a plain, leather belt. Wranglers stretched taut across his narrow butt and muscled thighs. He looked up and caught her staring. His lips curved into a slow grin that was almost a smirk. “Like what you see, sugar?”

  Moscow to Winnemucca. Anger sizzled through her. “Don’t flatter yourself. And stop calling me sugar.”

  He stood and warmed his palms in front of the fire, an amused expression playing across his face. “What should I call you? What’s your name again? Della?”

  Della? Peggy? Was he teasing? Did he really not remember their names? “Dahlia,” she said sharply. “Like the flower.”

  Pop! The overhead light went out. She jumped and glared up at the dark light fixture mounted on the ceiling. In an instant, the ambience had changed. The fire glowed orange. A long yellow bar of light spilled from the kitchen doorway. The living room became as intimate as a cocoon, almost cozy. It even felt a few degrees warmer.

  He stared at the ceiling fixture, too. “Guess an extra light bulb would be too much to hope for.”

  She bit down on her lower lip as their gazes connected.

  “Flower, huh?” He offered her his open palm. “Well, pretty flower, I won’t bite. Come on over here and stand beside me so you can warm up.”

  Though her fingers and toes had gone numb, she hesitated. Finally, she sidled up to a place beside him, holding her palms out to the precious warmth. It seeped into her and her tensed muscles began to relax. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold.”

  Their arms were almost touching. She sensed he was waiting for her to look up and she did.

  “There’s better ways than this to get warm,” he said softly.

  Her heart went off on another wild tangent as a too vivid image of twisted bed sheets and muscular arms and legs darted through her mind. For the first time since she and Piggy had arrived in this place, she was glad her bed was a cot. “And I suppose you know all of them.”

  “Not all. But I know a few you might like.”

  With a silly titter, she returned her gaze to the fire, hoping her display of amused indifference didn’t appear to be as bogus it was. “Really, I don’t know what you must think, Mr. McRae, but I’m honestly not interested.”

  He straightened and adjusted his vest, as though his pride might be hurt. Then he turned his back to the fire and crossed his wrists behind himself. She turned, too, mimicking his stance. His vest front slid back, exposing his belt buckle. She couldn’t read what it said, but could make out a bucking horse.

  “Fire feels good,” he said.

  She recognized the call for a truce and smiled without looking at him. “Yeah.” Then, she had to ask, “Do you rodeo?”

  “Me?” He barked a laugh. “No ma’am. Fact is, I don’t much like rodeos.”

  “Oh. I just thought…” Her gaze traveled to the belt buckle. His fly appeared to be bulging. Her heart thumped. Did he. . .? No, of course not. . .“I—I mean, you have a buckle.”

  He grasped the ornate, silver oval with the fingers of one hand, tipped it up slightly and studied it. “It’s old.”

  She sneaked another glance at his fly. It was bulging. She inched away from him. “You, uh, used to rodeo, then?”

  “No ma’am. It’s from high school. Saddle bronc. You know what that is?”

  “I’m from Texas,” she said dryly. “You must have been good at it, one time anyway.”

  “It was a dare.” He flashed a cocky, one-sided grin. “You see, in a way, I hustled it.”

  She waited for more, but he didn’t follow up. “You can�
��t tell just part of a story. How did you hustle it?”

  His shoulders shrugged in a self-deprecating way. “When we were kids, my brother and I used to make a little spending money catching mustangs down in the Owyhee and training ‘em for ranch horses. After a few summers of that, riding a rodeo horse is easy. A mustang’s a wild animal, but a saddle bronc is just a poor, tortured athlete.”

  He paused, stared out the black living room window and added an afterthought. ’Course, when you’re a kid, everything’s easy.”

  His concern for rodeo animals surprised her. That wasn’t the attitude of most cowboys she had known. She wondered what the Owyhee was. This was the second time she had heard someone speak of it. Yet, coupled with distant expression in his eyes, it was his last remark that intrigued her most. “You said that as if you’re ancient.”

  His gaze came back to hers. “Thirty-three. Thirty-four in a couple of weeks. In case you get to where you are interested.”

  His pupils were dilated in the low light and outlined in pale blue, his lips were parted and looked… well, kissable.

  All at once, he cleared his throat and reached for her jacket. “It’d be warmer if you’d take your coat off and let the heat touch your skin.”

  She lifted one shoulder away from his grasp and pulled the jacket tighter about her. “I’m warm enough.”

  He grinned and dropped his hands. “Smells like that coffee’s about ready.” He walked off toward the kitchen. She followed.

  In the kitchen, she took two heavy mugs from the cupboard and set them on the counter. “We may not have chairs or shades, but we do have cups.”

  He picked up a mug and looked at it. “This true?”

  “What?”

  She glanced at the empty cup in his hand. It was Piggy’s favorite, white with a cartoon line drawing of a naked couple engaged in vigorous sex. The skinny, knobby-kneed male wore a cowboy hat and boots. Scrawled underneath, in red cartoon lettering, was COWBOYS DO IT BETTER.

  Dahlia felt her whole body flush. She wasn’t a prude. No one could have a lifetime friendship with Piggy and her wild brothers and be so much as narrow-minded, much less prudish. But after defusing the conversation in front of the fire, this was more than she wanted to hear. “I wouldn’t know. It’s a joke.”

  “I’ve never thought sex was a joke.” He looked pointedly into her eyes. “Pleasing a woman in bed’s serious business. I’d never try it wearing my hat and boots.”

  Damn him! He knew he was making her nervous, maybe doing it on purpose. He probably came on to all women this way. No doubt he had already classified her as being no different from his other groupies. The thought upset her and not knowing why upset her even more. She jerked the mug from his hand and clunked it on the counter top. “You’re pushing your welcome, Mr. McRae.”

  He picked up the mug and read it again. His thick, red-brown brows drew into a V. He poured the mug full of steaming coffee and handed it to her. “Good art,” he said.

  “It’s a crude cartoon and I think you’ve gotten the maximum mileage out of it.”

  He picked up the second cup and poured coffee for himself. He blew on the hot liquid, then sipped, squinting across the cup rim. “A butcher, huh? Guess they grow butchers different in Texas.”

  “My dad owns a small grocery store. He taught me to cut meat when I was a teenager. I’m very good at it, but of course, I do other things, too.” For some reason, she wanted him to know something about her, but she stopped short of telling him her more prodigious accomplishments. In light of what her life had become, they seemed trivial.

  “Nothing wrong with that. A good butcher’s practically a dinosaur.” He gave her another cocky grin. “I’ll bet that’s not all you’re good at, is it darlin’?”

  “Cute. Is that come-on usually effective?”

  “Come-on? If you want to know the truth, I don’t like talking a thing to death. I’d rather get right to the point. How about you?”

  She couldn’t keep from frowning. The Mrs. Baird’s Bakery truck driver was the only man in Loretta who flirted with her and she didn’t flirt back. Trading innuendo with this handsome fool was almost fun. But dangerous. “I prefer talking it to death.”

  “Ain’t that just like a woman? Make a complicated thing out of what Nature made simple.”

  “Mr. McRae—”

  “Call me Luke, darlin’”. He nodded toward her cup. “That coffee’s getting cold.”

  She pulled the mug toward her. “Don’t call me darling.”

  She took a jar of Hazelnut Coffee-mate from the cupboard and dumped three heaping teaspoons into her coffee.

  His mug stopped in mid-air and he gave her a puzzled look.

  “I’m not a serious coffee drinker,” she said.

  “I can see that.” He drained his mug and reached for the carafe. “Mind if I have one more cup? Cold and wet as it is, the road home might be tricky. I don’t want to go to sleep driving.”

  “Do you live in another town?”

  “Nope.”

  “You said you had a long drive.”

  “Not another town. About forty miles north of here. In the high country. Takes an hour or so to get up there. Slow road.”He took another sip, his eyes showing as blue slits.

  “Oh. I thought we were in high country already…Well, you might as well take the rest of this coffee with you. I’ll just have to pour it out. We have some Styrofoam cups.”

  “Okay. If you’re sure you won’t drink it. That’d be real good.”

  She pulled a tall cup out of the cupboard. As she began to fill it, he leaned on his elbows on the counter, watching, and his upper arm brushed hers. A warmth rolled up her arm. Her mind flew back to the restaurant when she had mentally stripped off his shirt and would have let her musing go further if seeing his belt buckle hadn’t stopped her. She missed the cup rim and poured hot coffee on his hand and coat sleeve.

  He swore and jerked back, coffee dripping from his fingertips. A steaming puddle spread on the counter.

  “Oh! OhmiGosh!” She grabbed a sheet of paper towel, wiped his hand and scrubbed at the wet stain on his coat sleeve. “I’m so sorry. Are you hurt? I don’t know why I’m—”

  He stilled her hand with his. “It’s okay. I’m not hurt”

  “But it’s coffee. It’ll stain.”

  “It’s all right.” He reached for more paper towels and mopped up the puddle on the counter. “Looks like your saddle’s slipping a little, darlin’. You tired or something?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He scooted the soaked towels into a wad. “Where’s your trash?”

  She dumped oranges from one of the plastic grocery sacks and thrust it toward him.

  “You never did say. What are you girls doing in Callister?”

  “We’re working on a surveying job for the Forest Service.”

  His eyes narrowed. He tossed the last of the soaked paper towels into the grocery bag. “You work for the Forest Service?”

  “Well, No. Not for them directly. It’s a sub-contract. We’re working for Piggy’s cousin. He’s a surveyor.”

  His fists jammed against his hips. “What’s the government surveying around here?”

  She had no idea where they would be working, but the folksy, drunken cowboy had vanished. In his place was a hard-jawed, scowling man who was definitely less friendly. She gave him a blank stare. “Is—is it important?”

  “Damn right, it’s important. Being an outsider, I doubt if you’d understand. Here, we’re surrounded on three sides by the government. Congress is filled up with feather-headed fools who think the West ought to be preserved for spotted owls and three-toed salamanders. Yes ma’am. Nowadays, everything the Forest Service does is important.”

  “Oh…Well, I—I’ve never been around the Forest Service. What I mean is, I think they may be down at Big Bend. Or they may be over in East Texas, because there’s trees over there. But I live in West Texas which is a long way away from East Texas and Big Bend bot
h and…” She stopped herself. She was babbling like a loon.

  And he was staring at her with a pained expression. He shook his head as if to clear it. “I got to git,” he said, “or I won’t be home before daylight.”

  The abrupt change in him threw her even more off kilter. He moved toward the front door and she followed, though she felt as if she had been following him all evening. He opened the door, paused in the doorway and turned back to her.

  Before he could say anything, she said, “Listen, thanks again for dinner and for helping me. And Piggy. She’s—I suppose I should say… well, you caught us at a bad moment. We aren’t really like this.”

  His laser gaze bored into her eyes and held her. “You are.”

  Her stomach rose and fell. “You forgot your coffee.”

  She left him waiting on the stoop and quick-stepped back to the kitchen. When she returned and handed him the Styrofoam cup filled with coffee, his fingers touched hers.

  “I left enough wood on the hearth to hold you till that oil truck gets here. Be sure to add a log after a bit. That fireplace won’t heat the whole house, but it’ll keep you from freezing.”

  She watched steam curl past his nose as he sipped and she knew. Knew without a shred of doubt that no matter how much Jack Daniel’s he had drunk or if ten feet of snow fell or if a mountain had to be moved, tomorrow they would have a full oil tank. “I will. Listen, thanks again for helping us.”

  His mouth curved into a slow grin. “You bet. I always try to help out damsels in distress.”

  Damsels? I’ll just bet you do, all the way from Moscow to Winnemucca. She smiled.

  “There you go, darlin’. I knew you could smile… Well, guess I’ll be seein’ you.” With a tug at the front of his hat brim, he stepped off the porch and looked back at her. His voice lowered to a deep purr, “If I were you, sugar, I’d be careful about which cowboys I served coffee to in that mug.”

  “It’s a joke, for crying-out-loud.”

  But he couldn’t have heard her. His long legs had already taken him across the yard to his pickup. He didn’t break stride until he stopped to open the door.

  She exhaled a long breath, its trail limned in the feeble glow from the porch light. “Good grief,” she whispered.