Real Men Do It Better

by Lora Leigh, Susan Donovan, Lori Wilde, Carrie Alexander

  “Was this before or after you flunked out of the hospitality management program?”

  “Enjoy your soup.”

  With that, he left her in the bedroom to mull it all over. Jorey Matheny was a strange man—about as far as she could get from the L.A. urban pretty boys she was accustomed to. He was too blunt. He was no-frills in his manner and his dress. But she didn’t sense any bitterness in him, especially because no matter what he said, it was accented by that disarming, half-dimpled smile. Jorey seemed relaxed. Peaceful.

  How strange.

  The soup was good, full of flavor and texture, and Kate was surprised how much she enjoyed it, considering it wasn’t even remotely related to the bacon double cheeseburger she craved. As she ate, she flipped through the back copies of Vegetarian Times and Yoga Today, finding some of the articles marginally interesting. Who knew that colonic irrigation could improve your love life?

  She fell asleep again, not having a clue what time it was and not caring. She had a series of strange dreams. She dreamed her nose had swelled to the shape and size of her dearly departed Range Rover, that her brother wanted to borrow her favorite open-toed pumps, and that Jorey was riding naked on a burro, which, as she awoke the next morning, left her slightly disturbed. She chalked up the bizarre dreams to caffeine withdrawal combined with whatever disease she obviously had. Not to mention the excess sleep. She’d probably spent twenty of the last twenty-four hours unconscious.

  Kate blinked a few times and stretched, then swung her legs over the side of the big bed. It was obvious that the sun was out. Bright light slashed through the louvered wooden blinds, and her heart skipped with the hope that now that the rain had stopped, she’d be back to Los Angeles and good coffee by nightfall.

  While in the shower, she decided to take control of the situation. It was so obvious that Jorey was making more of this rainstorm than necessary. If he wouldn’t take her into Santa Fe, she’d get there herself. When had she ever let a man define her limits, anyway? Moments later, Kate rummaged around in the front zipper pocket of her rolling suitcase and found the rain poncho she’d cleverly remembered to pack. A little rain wasn’t going to kill her. The main road couldn’t be more than a mile or so away. And once she got there it would be a cinch to find a ride to Santa Fe.

  She’d be damned if some crazy, middle-aged vegetarian survivalist was going to keep her prisoner—no matter how cute his butt was.

  2

  Archie Apodaca had been kind enough to ride his roan mare through the muck to check on everything up at the lodge, so Jorey offered him a cup of tea and a seat in front of the fire. Jorey knew that as far as neighbors went, he’d lucked out with Archie and his wife, Joan. Their house was about a mile down Route 52 behind a wall of cottonwoods, far enough to keep their distance and close enough to offer a connection to the world beyond Windwalker Lodge. Since their kids left the nest, Archie and Joan had made a living raising chickens and selling woodcrafts to the busloads of tourists who wandered through nearby Sanctuario de Chimayo, seeking the legendary healing powers of the red dirt around the old Catholic church.

  “Hope you hadn’t planned on going into Santa Fe for anything.” Archie handed Jorey a wire basket of brown eggs and eased himself into one of the two wooden rocking chairs by the lobby’s large kiva fireplace. “The center support on your bridge has washed away again. Had to ride down the slope of the east escarpment to get here.”

  Jorey placed a cup of fragrant tea in his neighbor’s work-worn hands and shook his head. The sandy arroyo that cut through his property—like thousands of natural gulches all over the region—was prone to flash flooding. In the five years he’d been up here, raging water had damaged or washed away his simple beam bridge at least eight times. The arroyos were deceptive—bone dry one second and a merciless torrent the next. He’d heard stories of children swept away out of their parents’ arms. He’d seen everything from motorcycles to roosters rushed to their demise.

  “I’ll get to it tomorrow,” he told Archie.

  “Not likely. They say the rain will be back by noon today and it’ll keep up ’til Thursday. But who knows? Nobody can forecast nothing up here. Never could, right?”

  Jorey settled back in his rocking chair and clasped his hands behind his head, smiling. “That’s one of the reasons I like it, Arch. It’s a wild place. Keeps me on my toes.”

  The sun-browned skin of his neighbor’s face crinkled when he grinned. “I don’t see the beauty all the time, you know, unless I have to go into the city for something. Then I’m always glad to get back.”

  Jorey nodded, comfortable in the rhythm of this conversation, one of hundreds just like it he’d had with Archie over the years. The unpredictable weather. The evils of city life. The untamed magnificence all around them.

  “Tell Joan I appreciate the eggs.”

  “Sure will.”

  Jorey remembered how mesmerized he was by the passing of time during the first full year at the lodge. Seattle had its own charms, of course, but after his heart attack and the divorce, he knew he had to change his path. Jorey came to New Mexico to find solitude, and ended up opening his home to people just like him—people who needed to reconnect with the sacred.

  He’d started the pilgrimage business three years ago, and had found the work rewarding, fun, and good for his soul. He led people on hikes to ancient Anasazi ruins and took them to Native American ceremonies on the nearby Tewa Pueblo. He arranged for groups to study with tribal healers, led meditation hikes in the wilderness, taught visitors about the connection between Native American wisdom and the world’s major spiritual traditions. He liked to think he gave people a place to open their minds and hearts to the power of the land and the culture tied to it. In the process, Jorey had been able to keep tofu on the table, keep his hands busy, and keep peace in his own spirit.

  Archie moved closer to the fire and spread his fingers before the warmth. “So the burner you ordered for the furnace didn’t show up before the rains? Nobody delivered it?”

  “Unfortunately, no.”

  “When it does, I’ll come up to help you install it.”

  “That would be much appreciated, Arch.”

  “In the meantime, it’s too bad there ain’t none of those beauty queens around to keep you warm.” Archie laughed at his observation, and Jorey joined him. The fact that Jorey only occasionally had the pleasure of a woman’s company was a running joke with them. When Archie had asked him why, Jorey had explained that he was “discriminating.” Archie assumed that meant a woman would have to be Miss America to catch Jorey’s eye, and had never let it drop.

  Jorey grinned to himself, thinking that if the old guy knew what was sleeping the day away in his bed at that very moment, he’d probably flip backwards in his rocking chair. Jorey stared into the fire, imagining what she looked like in there. She was likely curled up under his covers, a slender, raven-haired, hard-nippled cutie with a real bad attitude, a woman who lived the kind of life he’d happily left behind, a woman he had no business lusting after. He sighed, knowing that Kate Dreyfuss may be trapped in his lodge, but that didn’t give him the right to imagine how good she’d feel trapped between his body and damp, twisted sheets.

  Jorey blinked hard. To hell with the bridge. He’d have to find another way to get that woman on her way to Santa Fe so he could reclaim his balance.

  “Hey, Arch? Do you think I could borrow Joan’s gelding to—”

  “Madre de Dios.”

  Jorey looked up to see Archie staring right past him and out the lobby’s big picture window. He turned to find what fascinated Archie so, and barely made out a small human figure trudging down the road. The figure wore some kind of yellow rain poncho and lugged what looked like a suitcase.

  Archie’s mug of tea landed with a thud on the rocking chair armrest. “You devil,” he said to Jorey when he turned back around. “Here we were worried you weren’t prepared for the rains!”

  “Uh—”

  “I ha
te to bring this up, but it looks like she’s trying to get away from you.”

  Ignoring Archie’s ribbing, Jorey rose from his chair and moved to the window where he could watch Miss America herself, making decent progress down the lane despite the inappropriate footwear, the muck, and her suitcase.

  Jorey peered closely and grinned to himself, appreciating how she’d strapped her large shoulder bag to the suitcase handle. “Now that’s a girl with some serious baggage,” Jorey muttered to himself.

  “At least it’s on wheels,” Archie noted, and they both laughed.

  Jorey put his hand on his neighbor’s shoulder and gave him a friendly pat. “She’s the no-show from last month I was telling you about. Got the dates mixed up. She marched up on my porch two nights ago, demanding to check in, all uppity because I didn’t put out the welcome mat.”

  Archie looked shocked. “Two nights ago? Are you sure?”

  Archie was in rare nonsensical form today, it seemed. “I’m sure, my friend.”

  The old man laughed and shook his head, then returned his gaze to the retreating figure. “She looks kind of cute from here, but I can’t see too much under that poncho.”

  “She is cute.”

  One of Archie’s eyebrows shot high on his forehead. He bit his lip in thought. “You don’t got no rooms right now.”

  “That’s right.”

  Archie was about to continue with the inquisition when he suddenly squinted and cocked his head. “Here comes the rain again, like I said. You better go bring that lady in while I head home to Joan.”

  “I think she’s trying to walk down to Route Fifty-two,” Jorey said with a sigh, grabbing his cowboy hat off the peg near the door and tugging it down on his head.

  “Might take her a couple days at that pace.” Archie’s chuckle faded away once they got out on the porch. The rain was coming hard. “She knows to stay clear of the arroyos though, right?”

  A sharp jolt of fear sliced through Jorey’s gut. His head snapped around and he stared at Archie. “No.”

  “No?” The old man’s forehead crinkled up like an accordion. “Take the horse.”

  Heart pounding, Jorey raced down the steps and onto the dirt plaza, running through the rain to the horse. He unlooped the reins, jumped on, and galloped down into the gully. Briefly, it occurred to him that he was not the most qualified of men to be sent on this mission. Up until five years ago, he’d known close to nothing about horses.

  That concern evaporated the instant he rode up over the rise and saw Kate Dreyfuss standing in the exact spot he’d prayed she wouldn’t be. He’d be rescuing her, all right. There was no option.

  “Kate!” His voice seemed to stop dead in the air, never making it the couple hundred feet to where she stood, heels dug into the dirt, smack in the middle of a wash. She had her back to the mountains, pulling on the handle of her suitcase. The woman had no idea that her little episode of stubbornness had put her in harm’s way.

  Something made Jorey glance to the east. Through the curtain of rain falling off the brim of his hat he could barely make it out: A fresh surge of angry brown water was churning down the path of least resistance and racing right toward Kate. In his estimation, he had ten seconds—tops.

  He turned the horse and pressed his heels into the animal’s sides. “Kate!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, but with the beat of the rain and the cover of her poncho she till didn’t hear. “Kate! Get out of the ditch!”

  Jorey urged the horse on, trying to figure exactly how he was going to do what needed to be done. There was no time for planning and no time for prayer. He was going to have to wing this. So he closed his eyes for an instant, summoned the power and spirit of this place—his place—and made it happen. The horse knew what they were attempting was just plain foolish, and balked, but Jorey forced him on.

  “Kate! Grab my arm!”

  Her head popped up, and her eyes went wide with shock at the sight of him racing toward her like a crazy man, his arm stretched down and out. Kate began to back away, but she must have felt a rumble. She looked to her left, up toward the mountains, and her eyes filled with terror. She let go of the suitcase handle, screamed, and snagged Jorey’s forearm the exact second the horse thundered through the ditch, its hoofs splashing through the first kiss of water.

  Kate leaped into the air just as Jorey pulled, and the saddle girth began to slip sideways from the tug of their combined body weight. With all his might, Jorey pressed his leg down into the opposite stirrup, and for a split second everything was happening at once—Kate was flying, the horse was carrying them up and out of the raging water, the saddle was sliding, and Jorey was once again thinking that he was thoroughly unqualified to be handling this situation.

  But Kate helped tremendously by throwing her leg up and over the horse’s back, causing the saddle to right, just as she landed with a thud tight against Jorey’s back.

  “Oh, my God!” Kate screeched, clutching onto his waist so tight the air whooshed out of his lungs.

  Jorey tried to slow the now-panicking horse. The animal not only realized that water rushed behind them, but the ditch in front of them was swollen as well.

  “Hold on tight!” Jorey screamed through the rain. “The horse is frightened!”

  “No shit!” Kate yelled into his ear. “My suitcase! My suitcase! Everything’s in there—my Blackberry! My Jimmy Choos! My … my … everything!”

  Jorey was marveling at how she could still be attached to material things at a time like this, when he felt her body heave against him. She was sobbing. She continued to sob as the horse bucked and complained, and the rain began to beat down even harder.

  They were alive. They were, at least temporarily, still in the saddle. And the rain would stop, of that he was sure. Jorey knew he needed to stay focused in the moment, the one in which he was living right then. He breathed deep, felt the blood return to his limbs, felt his lungs expand with wet air. He focused on sending his own calm into the animal and the woman connected to his body.

  As the horse continued to buck and whinny, Jorey began to whisper a stanza from one of his favorite Native American prayers, a Zuni night chant:

  “Breathing in—I am alive

  Breathing out—I am alive

  In this precious moment

  In this sacred place

  In the Abundance of Love

  I dwell.”

  He whispered the chant over and over and over, until he felt the horse’s legs quiet and Kate’s shaking sobs lessen and eventually stop. Within minutes, the rain ceased as abruptly as it had started. The sky began to clear. Jorey thought they must look odd—a man and a woman and a horse perched on a bit of dry land no bigger than a throw rug, nature swirling around them. He felt Kate’s cheek press harder into his back, her breath steady. He felt her heat—even through the layers of wet clothing and the plastic rain poncho—he still felt the life force burst from that small female body.

  “Are you all right, Kate?”

  The poncho crinkled as she adjusted her position. “I think so.” Her voice sounded small and far away. “Are you?”

  Jorey needed to touch her, but found his fingers nearly paralyzed around the reins. He pried them free and cupped his palm over the back of Kate’s small hand, still gripped tight around his middle. “I’m okay. We’re all going to be just fine, Princess.”

  She was silent for a moment, then said, “Just because you saved my life doesn’t mean you can call me Princess.” Then she squeezed him tighter still.

  * * *

  Kate could not stop shaking and she could not stop crying. It didn’t matter that six hours had passed since Jorey had saved her and they’d made it back to the lodge with body and soul intact. It didn’t matter that she’d had a long, comforting chat with Jorey’s neighbor, an older lady named Joan. It didn’t matter that she’d taken a hot shower, eaten two servings of Joan’s oven-baked rice pudding, and that she was safe and warm and dry.

  Kate knew that s
omething had thoroughly and finally broken apart inside her that day. It was a dramatic finish to the crumbling that began three months ago, with the Brad fiasco, and just kept going, one mishap after another. For a while now, Kate had sensed that something she’d carefully constructed was coming unglued, and there was no way she’d ever get the pieces to fit together the same way again. Maybe she didn’t want it to. Maybe she was now forced to find another way to be in the world, a way that required less of a fight. But what that would look like—and how she’d get there—was a mystery.

  She sighed, letting her head fall back against the rocker, staring out at the gloomy mountain range. She felt raw in her soul. She felt hollowed out. Strangely disconnected.

  Probably because her Blackberry was somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico by now.

  “You look better in that robe than I ever did.” Jorey closed the sliding glass door to the back porch and walked up behind her. “Feel like some company?”

  Kate nodded, gesturing to the empty rocking chair to her right, a little self-conscious that she was in nothing but Jorey’s blue-and-white striped cotton bathrobe. She fiddled with the sash and made sure the lapels crossed high on her chest.

  “Why, thank you ma’am,” Jorey said, sinking back into the seat and stretching out his long legs, resting his sock-covered feet on the railing. Kate glanced in his direction and noticed immediately that he’d shaved, leaving his face looking serene and younger. He was once again wearing those forest-green lounge pants she loved so much. Thank God he’d been kind enough to wear a white T-shirt. She didn’t think she was strong enough to resist him otherwise.

  Because right that instant, nothing sounded better to Kate than a little skin-to-skin comfort, and there wasn’t anyone in the world she’d rather have it with than Jorey.

  He was quiet. He rocked back and forth with slight presses of his heels against the railing, looking out at the view. Jorey’s entire demeanor seemed peaceful, like nothing out of the ordinary had happened that day.

  Kate cleared her throat. “Is it pretty here when it’s not overcast?”