by S A Monk
“Drive slowly between the rows, and I’ll toss the bales into the back,” he directed her as he yanked on his work-stained gloves. “I’ll holler when you need to stop so I can hop in to arrange the bales.”
Jenny stared at him speechlessly. Those bales looked large and heavy; awkward to handle. And he was just going to throw them into the truck bed? He was dressed like she was— in boots and jeans and a long sleeved heavy cambric shirt to protect his arms from the hay chaff. Like her, he wore a t-shirt underneath, only hers was lacy and embroidered. He had a work-worn straw cowboy hat on. Her new one sat on the seat beside her. He looked big and strong and very capable, but didn’t they have machinery that could load these bales? She asked.
He had hopped out of the truck and stood beside the open door of the cab. “It’s busted.”
Since that seemed to be all the explanation she was going to get, she looked over, in horror, at the long stick-shift column on the floor. She had never driven a flatbed, but maybe it was like a tractor, she thought. These gear shifts— there were two for heaven’s sake— looked ancient, though.
“I don’t think I can drive this,” she confessed, embarrassed.
Hawk gave her a reassuring grin as he motioned her behind the driver’s seat. “Sure you can. It’s easy. Let me show you.” He pulled the brim of his hat down more securely on his head, then leaned into the cab, took her right hand, and placed it over the black ball on top of the gear column. “Hold the brake and press the clutch in. Slip it out of neutral,” he instructed as his gloved hand moved hers into the motion of shifting. “Now slip it into first gear.” She felt the gear slip into place and, thank god, stay there. “Now leave it there. You’ll be going slow enough you won’t need to change gears. Just remember to work the clutch, though.” He gave her a broad smile, obviously confident that she could now handle this monster of a truck. “Don’t forget to brake when I holler.”
By the end of the first two rows, his confidence had vanished. Through the rear view mirror, Jenny could see his frustration mount. He needed a slow smooth trek down the rows, so he could lift and toss the bales onto the bed of the truck. What he got was a halting series of stops and lurches forward that broke his rhythm and made the job difficult. And when she had to turn into the next row, the truck’s lack of power steering nearly defeated her meager muscle power.
Gritting her teeth, she strained to make the turn. Her biceps and shoulders grew sore quickly, but she was determined not to let the monster truck defeat her. Two hours later, they had a full load of hay to take back. Jenny guessed the same job would have taken Hawk a lot less time with an experienced hand. She couldn’t help wonder if he wasn’t silently reevaluating exactly how much help she was really going to be.
By the end of the first day, they had half a field cleared, and it was the small one. The rest of the day hadn’t improved her struggle with the truck much. Her braking was horrid, knocking off bundles of hay when she hit them too hard, which she did frequently. She managed to grind the gears too many times to count. She got a tire stuck in a mud puddle on a turn that was so wide, she collided with a bale of hay. And she nearly ran Hawk over when she put the damn gear column into reverse by accident. Through it all, though, he had only cussed at her once, and that had been when she had almost flattened him underneath the rear wheels of the truck.
She was so exhausted by dark that she could barely keep her eyes open at dinner. As soon as she finished eating, she excused herself and went upstairs. In her room, she sat down on the edge of her bed and remained there for a long long time, just resting her aching body so she could get up and walk to the bathroom.
Eventually she stripped out of her dusty work clothes, put on her red kimono and walked toward the bathroom that adjoined her bedroom. She was taking her hair out of its single braid, picking out pieces of hay chaff and groaning at how painful it was to raise her arms, when she noticed the shower was occupied.
“Dammit, Peter, how could you have beat me to the shower again?” she cried in frustration. “Hurry and get out! Tonight, I need some really hot water for once. I am sore, sore, sore, and I need to soak.” Stepping up to the plastic curtain that was drawn closed across the tub, she was just about to peek in when a male voice that was definitely not Peter’s answered her.
“Hand me a towel and it’s all yours.”
Jenny jumped back with a startled shriek. Her butt met the sink. Her heart was pounding hard as a long tanned, lightly haired forearm reached out from around the shower curtain, hand out-stretched, fingers wiggling. Shaken by how close she’d come to looking at Hawk naked, she grabbed a towel and quickly shoved it into his open palm.
“Anxious to get rid of me, huh?” Hawk was laughing as he pulled the curtain aside and stepped out of the tub, clothed only in the towel she’d handed him.
Flustered, turning ten shades of red, she stammered, “No, no, I... Ah, I’ll... come back ... later.”
Before she could make a swift retreat, he stalled her departure with a hand on her forearm. “No, I’m finished.”
The longer she stared at him, the less she wanted to leave. Confronted with his near nudity, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from looking. His white towel was slung low on his narrow hips and tucked into his leanly muscled waist, below his very fascinating male navel.
Most of his bronze skin was still wet. He reached for another towel and began to dry his chest, then his arms, then his dripping hair as if she wasn’t standing less than three feet from him. While his face was buried in the second towel, Jenny gave him a most thorough assessment, her mind running away with itself with visions of what she might have seen had she peeked first and complained later.
He was incredibly, undeniably, profoundly masculine. His chest was devoid of hair, which allowed his muscular upper body clear definition. From waist up, he was so deeply tanned, Jenny knew he must work outside in the warmer weather without a shirt. His wide shoulders and powerful arms were roped with muscle from the physical labor he did every day, as was his lower body, at least what she could see of it. And like a true cowboy who spent most of his life on a horse, his lightly haired legs were bowed just enough to tell her what he did for a living. Even his feet were beautiful— long and narrow and well-shaped, very white and even soft.
In her profession, she’d seen a lot of physically beautiful men, and this man was definitely an eye-catcher. She’d found that really handsome men were usually full of themselves. So far, though, she hadn’t seen any indication of that kind of ego in her father’s partner. Was it really possible someone this good looking could also be a genuinely nice guy?
Lost in speculation, she was caught staring when Hawk lowered the towel from his head. The slow discerning half-grin he gave her told her he was completely aware where her eyes had been wandering.
“The shower is still running,” he reminded her.
Jenny was helplessly enthralled by the teasing sparkle in his electric blue eyes. She couldn’t seem to form a reply, he unnerved her so.
“Better get in while the water is still really hot,” he advised with another of those devastating half grins. “I’m sorry you’re sore, sore, sore tonight. Guess that truck was more of a bear than I thought.”
“Yes.” It was all she could say, and it sounded stupid, but her mind wasn’t working well at the moment— just her senses.
“Well, I’ll leave you to your shower.” Grabbing his clothes off the hook on the back of the door that led to the hallway, he turned and handed her a clean towel from the rack. “Soak well. I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow again.”
Her eyes followed him out the door, lingering as long as they could on the way his tight butt muscles moved beneath the towel he wore. It took a moment to recover after he left. She took a deep breath and decided her father’s partner might end up being a very big distraction.
∞∞∞
In the next four days, she made some progress with the monster truck so that they finally finished clearin
g the two remaining hay fields. Hawk had been right about hard work being a better cure for her heartache than Irish coffee. She was so bone tired by the end of each day that after a hot soak in the shower each night, she fell into an exhausted sleep that wasn’t interrupted by dreams of any kind until the alarm went off in the morning or someone woke her.
By the end of the week, they were ready to repair fence line, and Jenny nearly cried for joy that they would not be using the flatbed truck. She had a wide grin on her face when she met Hawk outside and discovered he was driving his own truck. Besides the usual thermos of coffee and jug of water, he was loading a roll of barbed wire and a wire stretcher, plus a few wood posts and a post hole digger into the bed of his pickup.
The moment he saw her, he gave her a wickedly irresistible grin, one that revealed deep grooves on either side of his chiseled lips. “I see you’re wearing your hat today, not just carrying it. Looks good on you.”
She tipped her head in acknowledgment and opened the door of his silver pick-up. “I’ve decided I don’t need any more sunburned cheeks.”
“Amen to that.” He joined her in the cab of his Dodge. “You’re in a good mood today. Get a good night’s sleep?”
“I did, but the reason for my good mood is the fact that I don’t have to drive that monster truck today.”
His response was a deep rich laugh that rolled over her skin like warm oil. “Better wait to see what I have in store for you.”
For nearly half an hour they followed a rutted firebreak road into the foothills west of the house. It was a sunny morning, and the sky was a deep endless azure blue that was so typical in the Colorado Rockies. In all her travels, the only other place she’d ever seen skies so crystal clear and remarkably blue was in the Alps. A sweetly-scented, warm breeze blew through the open windows of the truck. Because the weather promised such warmth, Jenny wore her flannel shirt unbuttoned over a lace-edged camisole. With her face tilted toward the open window, she drew in a deep lung full of the clean air. No L.A. smog. Just sweet pine and damp earth.
“What a different landscape from L.A.,” she noted wistfully. “I’ve gotten so used to palm trees. You know some of them are as tall as some of these lodge pole and ponderosa pine.”
From beneath the brim of his cowboy hat, Hawk stared at her speculatively. “Do you miss it already?”
“No, not at all.”
She looked surprised by that discovery. He was enormously pleased. She was wearing her long hair loose today, and while she looked cute with it braided, he liked it best tumbling down past her shoulders. With her brown felt hat tipped low onto her forehead, she looked sexy as hell. A dark red lock curled over her collarbone, brushing the lacy edge of her scooped-necked t-shirt. Damn, but it was a pretty t-shirt!
She’d been here for over a week, and they’d been working together for five days, sun-up to sun-down. Except for nearly being run over by the flatbed the first day out, he had thoroughly enjoyed being with her each day. She was a hard worker, and she took his mind off Tom’s death. He hoped he took her mind off her grief and loss, too. He knew she’d been worn out at the end of each day. She barely got through dinner each night without dropping head onto her plate.
She’d been pretty good about getting up at dawn, too, but this morning he’d had to awaken her himself. She’d been sound asleep, halfway beneath the blankets, lying on her stomach, without a stitch of clothing on. Her long smooth bare back and narrow shoulders had made him ache with a sudden need to run his fingertips down the supple stretch of her spine. Her long dark red hair had contrasted sharply against the pristine white of her sheets, spread across her shoulders and pillows like rich silk. It had been a deeply arousing sight, one he hadn’t been able to get out of his head all morning. It didn’t help to look over at her now and wonder about what he hadn’t seen.
A couple of miles from the house, at the edge of a thick stand of aspen trees getting ready to turn their burnt gold autumn colors, Hawk brought the truck to a stop. The wire fence that ran along the tree line was down.
“We use this area for winter pasture,” Hawk explained as he opened his door and swung out. “The cows can’t go in until the fence is fixed.”
Jenny grabbed her new red work gloves, pulled them on, then got out and met Hawk at the rear of the truck to help him unload the materials they’d need to repair the broken fence. He handed her the cutters and the stretcher, then hefted the roll of wire out of the back of the truck and carried it over to the break in the fence line on one shoulder.
She followed him, admiring the way his heavy cotton shirt stretched taunt over his broad shoulders. She’d seen the strength in his long, work-muscled frame. He’d hefted those heavy bales of hay, almost effortlessly slinging them onto the flatbed truck. Now he carried the large roll of wire without as much as a grunt.
After laying that down, he went back for the posts.
Jenny took out the post hole digger. When it was all laid on the ground, they both stared at the damaged section of fence line.
“This was deliberately destroyed.”
Jenny agreed. “It looks like someone cut the wire and smashed the posts.”
Hawk walked over to one of the downed fence posts. It had been pulled up and run over. Splinters of wood were scattered on the ground around the tire tracks. The next post down the line had received the same treatment.
Hawk started to clear the broken fencing out of the way.
“Who would do this? Kids? Vandalism?”
As he threw one of the broken posts away, off to his side, he shot her a look over his shoulder. “Someone working for Brad Caldwell.”
“Mr. Caldwell? Why?”
Hawk frowned at her note of disbelief. “Remember I told you the other night about the three hundred acres in the upper northwest quadrant of the ranch that he wants?” While he worked, he talked, and Jenny followed him to listen. “Tom and I wouldn’t sell it to him, but he won’t take no for an answer. I think he’s trying to force us into selling by having someone vandalize our equipment and property. It costs money to keep replacing and repairing things. We had to get another equipment loan just to buy the baler. It’s beginning to hurt financially.” With all the old fencing cut away from the salvageable part, Hawk picked up the post hole digger.
“How long has this been going on?” Jenny asked as he started to dig.
“Over six months.”
“Can you prove Brad Caldwell is doing these things?”
As he shoved the post hole digger down into the damp ground, anger and frustration were evident in every thrust and pull of the tool. It wasn’t long before sweat broke out on his face and across the back of his cotton shirt. Jenny watched him attack the ground like he wished it was Brad Caldwell who was the recipient of all his ire.
“No, I can’t prove a damn thing,” he told her tersely. “If I could, I’d be filing charges. Brad would never risk doing the damage himself. I have my suspicions about who his hired vandal is, but I haven’t been able to catch him at a thing.”
“Who do you think it is?”
“Steve Walker.”
“My god, the Steve who works here, on the ranch? Why is he still here then?”
“I’m hoping to catch him at something and tie it to Caldwell.”
“But you’re not sure it’s him?”
“I can’t prove anything,” he repeated in aggravation and jammed a new post into the hole he’d just dug.
Jenny held it for him while he filled dirt in around it. “Eli told me a little about your situation with the Caldwells. What was it like living with them as a boy?”
He stopped working, leaned on the post, and stared at her. “I was nearly fourteen when Judge Caldwell sentenced me to his ranch. He used his juvenile court to staff his place. The teenage boys he provided a foster home for worked their tails off for him. His discipline included regularly scheduled fights between the boys to toughen them up, although they were really nothing more than sadistic entertainment for
the judge. One of the older boys was a knife fighter. You got in the ring with him, you learned real quick how to weld a knife, too. I got cut up pretty badly a couple of times, then learned how to hold my own. I met Tom at the Boy’s Club, where I went to learn how to box.”
“Dad knew about these fights?”
“Yeah. He made me tell him what was going on after I came over beat up and cut up a few times.”
“Eli said that he finally got the Judge to stop using his juvenile court and his foster care that way.”
Hawk grinned. “Tom did a little arm twisting of his own with old man Caldwell, and he helped me get away from there finally.”
“How did Brad Caldwell feel about his father bringing all those boys home?”
“He hated it. But he really hated me. The Judge liked using me, in particular, to get his son pissed off enough to fight. George Caldwell was always stirring the pot between Brad and me. It was one of his favorite past times.”
“He sounds like an awful man.”
“He died five years ago,” Hawk informed her coldly. “And he was a sonofabitch. Like father, like son.”
“So that’s the root of your problems with Brad Caldwell, old rivalries. Good thing you met Tom.” Jenny now understood more clearly why the young John Red Hawk Larson had had such a huge chip on his shoulder. When he had first come to the Bar F all those years ago, he had been sullen and silent. He’d barely spoken to her dad, let alone to her.
“Yeah, I may have roomed and boarded at the Caldwells, but the Bar F was home, and Tom was the only man I ever thought of as a father.”
“I remember you coming over to hang out, you know. You had a lot of attitude.”
She smiled at him, and he smiled back, remembering the kid he’d been then. “Yeah, I was pissed off at the world, and headed for the Boy’s Home. Tom saved my ass.”
And what a nice ass it was, she thought wickedly, sneaking a peak, remembering him in a towel. “I was jealous of you for a little while, but Daddy told me you needed a friend. He asked me to share him with you a little.”