There, curled up in the long grass just a step away from her discarded length of rope lay a huge gray and yellow diamond-patterned snake. Though decapitated, its body kept coiling and winding, doubling and falling back on itself. Fearing the still-groping tail could some- how find her and wrap itself around her, Carrie stepped back.
Judson holstered his gun. Then he rubbed his raw shin.
“What in the hell’s the matter with you? Are you deaf and blind both?” he demanded, the look in his eyes illuminating his doubts about the new schoolteacher’s mental stability.
“You scared me!” she snapped in her defense.
The woman was a master of understatement. The ter- ror glistening in her eyes reminded Judson of a fawn cornered by a pack of wolves. What had he done to make her come to such unflattering conclusions about his intentions? Bothered by the question, he told himself that it was enough just knowing that the district had entered into a nine-month contract with a crazy woman. One whose innate prejudices conjured up a bad B-movie fantasy based on the old preconceptions of what savage Indians did to white women. His eyes nar- rowed in cold fury.
Limping over to the dead snake, he picked it up by the tail and held it at arm’s length. Reaching into his hip pocket, he pulled out a knife and sliced off its rat- tles—ten to be exact. Stepping toward her, he shook his closed fist next to Carrie’s ear. As innocent as a baby’s rattle, it was indeed the sound of death.
“Whenever you hear this sound, stop and back away slowly. Rattlesnakes, not Indians, are the real threat out here, lady.”
Tossing the snake into the bushes, he added coldly, “One more step and we’d be having this conversation at the hospital.”
Judson’s words clicked inside Carrie’s head like the rattles of that diamond-backed snake lying dead beneath the afternoon sun. She battled the sudden flush that swept over her. It was a sensation that had little to do with the heat of the day and everything to do with the man who stood looking at her as if he should be helping her into a straitjacket. The rustling of aspen leaves seemed quite far away as terror drained from her body and the ground swayed precariously under her feet.
“You’re not going to faint, are you?” he asked, hold- ing out both arms to catch her just in case.
Guilt pressed upon Judson’s heart like a grinding stone. It appeared he’d scared the poor thing to death.
Valiantly trying to insert a hardy tone into her voice, Carrie responded, “I’ve never fainted in my life.” But there’s always a first time for everything…
Struggling to regain her senses was like trying to find her way up from the bottom of a deep mountain lake. No, make that the depths of a pair of blue eyes filled with what appeared to be genuine concern. What was happening to her? A minute ago she was fighting this man with all her might, and now she was leaning against him for support, practically begging him to wrap those strong, sensuous arms around her again.
Putting both hands on his chest, Carrie woozily at- tempted to steady herself against that impenetrable wall and recover a modicum of her dignity.
Judson derived little satisfaction in being right about this rough country being no place for one so fragile. Damn it, shouldn’t being right feel better? Looking into Carrie’s pale, delicate face, he was reminded of his chil- dren. Perfect angels—when sleeping. And like his twins, she evoked in him a fierce possessiveness and the irrational desire to keep her safe forever.
Judson’s body, however, reacted in a manner that was far from fatherly. He was excruciatingly aware of Car- rie’s soft curves against his hard, lean frame. Her nip- ples were taut through soft silk; his arousal just as ob- vious through rough demin. If he didn’t get the hell out of here right now, he might as well hand her the knife to cut out his heart.
Good Lord! Just how many times did a man need to be horsewhipped to learn a lesson? The muscle along his jaw bunched at the memory.
Holding on to her by both elbows, Judson took a step back then let his arms fall loosely at his sides.
Bewildered, Carrie stood in front of him trembling like a butterfly, riveted to this singular spot of the spin- ning globe by the warmth centered deep inside her. This was definitely not the way she had intended to start the school year—in the arms of a blue-eyed Native American who had made it quite clear he didn’t even partic- ularly like her!
What must he think about her now that she had lit- erally thrown herself into his arms? In a community as isolated as Harmony, it couldn’t take much to set tongues wagging.
“Are you gonna be all right?” Judson asked, his voice a sexy, agitated purr that sent her imagination traveling down a road clearly marked Danger—Enter At Your Own Risk!
Swallowing hard, Carrie simply nodded.
Apparently unconvinced, Judson ran a work- roughened fingertip beneath her chin and tilted her face up. Beneath his close inspection, twin roses bloomed upon her cheeks.
Certain the most passionate kiss could not have been more erotic than the tenderness in that one callused fin- ger, Carrie felt her knees grow as weak as a baby’s. She hated herself for blushing again. It was the Raben curse—fair skin that acted as a barometer for every emotion and rendered her absolutely useless in a game of poker.
Seemingly satisfied at last that she wasn’t going to collapse and melt into a puddle of estrogen at his feet, Judson turned abruptly on his heels. Following after him like a scolded pup, Carrie heard the gravel crunch be- neath his feet as he reached his pickup and jerked open the door.
Climbing behind the wheel, he tossed her a gruff di- rective. “By the way, if you don’t have one, you’d bet- ter think about gettin’ yourself a gun.”
“But I don’t believe in guns,” she stated unequivo- cally.
Judging by his reaction, Carrie was certain a kick in the stomach would have had a less negative effect than this particular admission. Judson’s eyes glinted danger- ously, making her feel at once both vulnerable and fool- ish.
“What you don’t seem to understand,” he continued, speaking slowly as if English were not her native tongue, “is that our children need someone not just to teach them but to protect them, as well. There may come a time you’ll need a gun, say, to clear off the front steps of some such unfriendly critter as a rattle- snake or a bear.”
Carrie suppressed a shudder at the thought.
“Look, no one would blame you if you decide that you’re just not cut out for this job.” Pausing a moment to wipe the sweat from beneath the brim of his black Stetson hat, Judson Horn looked unflinchingly into her eyes. “Quite frankly, it would save us all a lot of grief if you’d make that decision right now instead of mid- term when it will be damned near impossible to find a replacement. Out here it’s a matter of survival.”
His words pierced Carrie’s heart like the rows of barbed wire that lined the road to Harmony. He was right, of course. She had come out West naively ex- pecting to leave heartache and urban crime behind only to be greeted by a rattlesnake in her front yard! Still Carrie could not allow herself to be so quickly deterred. What she had left behind had been a different kind of wilderness, and she knew that if she kept running away from her fears she would ultimately destroy herself in the process.
“I’m staying,” she said with sudden resolution.
Whether it was disgust or admiration reflected in Jud- son Horn’s eyes, Carrie wasn’t sure. She knew only that she was done running and that she was determined to make Harmony her home.
“Suit yourself,” Judson said, his expression a studied mask of indifference. Reaching into the glove compartment, he pulled out an envelope with her name typed upon it and handed it to her through the open window.
With that, Judson tipped his hat and threw the pickup into gear.
Something in that simple gesture made Carrie’s heart beat more quickly. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but there was something undefinably sexy about that damned cowboy hat.
As dust rose about the receding vehicle, she noticed that Jud
son Horn didn’t so much as glance back.
She was on her own.
Chapter Three
School was to start in less than a week, and she didn’t know where to begin. First there was enough house cleaning in both buildings to keep her busy for a month. Then there was the fact that she wasn’t sure how to organize one schoolroom to accommodate eighteen children at six different grade levels. Still, those worries would have to be temporarily put aside. Right now food was her most imminent problem. Aware that the half a hamburger she’d eaten in Atlantic City wouldn’t last her long, she realized that somehow she was going to have to get comfortable driving a beat-up, old stick shift— and fast.
Sinking to the front steps of the schoolhouse, Carrie felt the tears spill down her face. The surprising thing was that they weren’t tears of self-pity but rather of unexpected joy. Beneath the never-ending Wyoming sky, she felt spiritually cleansed. The sun filtered through the quaking aspen, splaying exquisite patterns upon the ground. The air she breathed was sweet and clean. The rippling of the river and the rustling of the Jeaves seemed to her the most soothing sounds on earth.
High above two eagles circled, brushing wing tips on clouds before separating and going their own ways. A sharp pain ripped through Carrie as she was reminded of the engagement she had severed back in Chicago. From the very start she had worried about the possible consequences of mixing business with pleasure. Never get involved with the boss, she had told herself, but Scott Ballson insisted that the fact that he was her prin- cipal had nothing to do with their out-of-school rela- tionship. He assured her that their private lives were their own.
Then again, Carrie reminded herself bitterly, he had also told her he’d back her a hundred percent. In truth, Scott had stood behind her only long enough to stab her in the back.
“Just because I changed a student’s grade?” he had sputtered incredulously, staring at the engagement ring she had pressed into his palm. “I can’t believe you’re acting so childishly.”
“It’s a matter of betrayal.”
“It’s a matter of politics,” he had scoffed, alluding to the fact that Cindy Lawton’s father was on the school board and that the failing mark the senior had earned in Carrie’s class not only rendered her ineligible to play in the state basketball tournament but also jeopardized the pretty senior’s graduation, as well. When Carrie had adamantly refused Scott’s request to raise the grade, he exercised the “administrative privilege” of changing it himself—without her consent or knowledge.
“I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, Carrie, but it’s the way of the world. Everyone does it.”
“I don’t,” she had said with conviction.
“Excuse me,” Scott had added maliciously, “I meant to say it’s important to anyone who wants to keep a job in education…And that just happens to be me. Have you ever thought how your obstinacy might endanger my job?”
As usual, Scott was able to twist things around so that she was the one left feeling guilty. He was able to temporarily smooth things over, but Carrie felt uneasy about her decision to reconsider breaking off their en- gagement. Uneasy enough that when she was in the girls’ bathroom one day and accidentally overheard Cindy talking to a friend, she neither plugged her ears nor stepped out from behind the stall to identify herself.
“How did you get that grade changed in Miss Raben’s class? She’s such a stickler about eligibility,” asked a shrill, bubble-popping voice through the metal stall door.
“Easy,” came a laughing reply.
For a moment Carrie feared the girl’s explanation would be drowned out by the gurgle of water splashing in a sink.
“I just gave our horny principal a little of what his goody-two-shoes fiancée’s been holding out on. Can you imagine anyone being a virgin at her age?”
The wind that roared through Carrie’s entire being threatened to blow her spirit away like a dry reed. Her desecration was complete. She didn’t know which was worse—to be so completely duped by a man who would stoop so low as to abuse his position or to be made to feel a freak by a loose teenager willing to demean her- self for so little in return.
After a heartfelt cry that lasted the better part of her planning period, Carrie had marched straight out of the bathroom and into Scott’s office. When confronted, he’d vehemently protested her accusation, but his initial ex- pression belied the truth. Carrie’s resignation followed the next day. As well as the reason why mailed to every member of the school board.
Scott was outraged, dangerously so. And Carrie felt certain he would have made good his threat to do her bodily harm as well as keep her from ever getting an- other teaching job altogether had she not discovered a listing in the placement bulletin indicating Harmony School District was anxious to fill this last minute po- sition. A follow-up call confirmed they were, in fact, desperate.
The experience left her sour on all men. The safest course of action, Carrie decided, was to simply assume they all were creeps until proven otherwise. She cer- tainly didn’t need to be kicked by the same mule twice to know that she would never risk her heart and her pride like that again with any man—let alone one in a position of authority over her. No way, never again.
Watching the pair of eagles seek opposite ends of the horizon, Carrie knew if she could ever truly begin the healing process, it would be beneath this unending blue sky. The exact color of Judson Horn’s eyes, it defied a paintbrush.
Slipping a fingernail beneath an edge of the tear- spattered envelope that he had given her, Carrie slit it open. An invitation for a districtwide ice cream social fell into her lap.
She smiled.
Hope rested gently on her shoulder like a sparrow. All alone in the world for the first time in her life, she was surprised how very much she liked the feeling.
On his way out of Harmony, Jud swerved to miss a gray tabby cat that had darted out in front of his pickup. He chastised himself for almost getting himself killed just because something in that wild cat’s eyes reminded him of the woman he had just left behind. He couldn’t get over the fact that she’d actually fallen for that old chestnut about jackalopes. Telling himself that the silly woman deserved whatever she got, Jud figured that if a good dose of humility hastened her departure, he was, after all, only doing her a favor in the long run. Still, something haunting in the youthful schoolteacher’s na- iveté pulled at his conscience.
Muttering an oath, Judson threw on the brakes and flipped a U-turn in the middle of the road. All the way back up that dusty road, he swore at his own soft heart. Of course, the virtuous thing to do was to go back and tell her the truth about the mythical jackalope before it ended up causing her any real embarrassment. Although he knew she’d be spitting mad to discover he’d been joshing her, for some inexplicable reason Judson pre- ferred she hear it from him rather than from someone else. Assuming that she was probably just now coming to terms with the terrible mistake she’d made and was in need of comforting, he prepared himself to find the new schoolteacher bawling her pretty little eyes out.
But what he found awaiting him in the school yard upon his return was something else entirely. There on the merry-go-round spun a very undignified, uninhibited maiden. Carrie’s jacket, high heels and nylons lay neatly stacked on the hood of the old pickup as she clung tightly to the merry-go-round bar and leaned far back to stare up at the cloudless sky. Her hair swished softly in the breeze as she whirled around and around, oblivious to the fact that she was not alone.
The sight took Judson’s breath away. He was simultaneously filled with pure, unmitigated lust and the de- sire to momentarily abandon his adult responsibilities and join this enchantress astride the merry-go-round.
“Just a kid herself,” he whispered to himself.
Reluctant to honk the horn and make his presence known, Judson was quick to assure himself that there really wasn’t any reason why the truth couldn’t wait another day. Backing silently down the road, he tried to erase from his mind the ima
ge of Carrie Raben playing on a merry-go-round. Unfortunately it proved as indel- ible and stirring as the memory of her lithe body pressed against his.
After indulging in her bit of playground fun, Carrie set about the business of moving in. She attacked the dirt and grime of her new home with the vengeance of a crusader. She was sure she had burned up more energy than in any of her costly aerobic classes. By mid- afternoon, she was ready for a break. Offering silent thanksgiving to her father for insisting she learn how to drive on a stick shift when she turned sixteen, Carrie crawled into the driver’s seat of her old pickup and searched the contents of the glove box for a map. Luck- ily she found one. Although she was rusty, it quickly came back to her, and soon Carrie was bouncing down the washboardy road toward Lander where she pur- chased not only groceries but also a few things at the local department store to make her new home more liv- able.
She found the town as rustic and charming as Har- mony itself. Populated with friendly, unpretentious peo- ple who made her feel right at home, Lander was a pleasant contrast to the fast-paced, impersonal atmo- sphere of the big city she had left behind. Carrie hoped this idyllic hideaway never underwent the crass com- mercialism of Aspen, Vail or Jackson Hole. As far as she was concerned, Carrie thought as she headed out of town, Lander was perfect just as it was.
By the time she had unpacked her supplies, made a plateful of brownies to take to the social and put the finishing touches to her decor, Carrie was exhausted.
Slipping between clean sheets that evening, she sur- veyed the results of her hard work with satisfaction. Elbow grease, new curtains and slipcovers had helped to transform her new home into a cheerful if not elegant spot to spend the next nine months.
She rose late the next morning and decided to start the day by indulging in a languid bubble bath and taking her time to get ready for the ice cream social. This would be her first opportunity before Open House to make a good first impression on her new boss and as- sociates, and she was looking forward to making their acquaintance. Dressing with care, she chose a simple flowered sundress with a short white jacket to cover her bare shoulders.
The Cowboy Who Broke the Mold Page 4