by S A Monk
Tom may have asked him to form a partnership with Jenny, but now that he’d met her, he found himself wanting to form one with her. She was smart and gutsy, and he suspected she was probably a good businesswoman, too. She had to be pretty sharp. She had a prospering career, and an emerging enterprise on the side she seemed to be handling successfully. But the more he had to tell her how things had fallen apart the last six months, the more it made him angry.
The Bar F/Bar L had made a modest but decent profit for years, despite the fluctuations in cattle prices. He and Tom had always had lots of good, healthy stock to sell. They had a couple of prize bulls they bred out at good stud fees. They grew enough hay and alfalfa for themselves, and usually had plenty of extra to sell. Hawk ran a flight service on the side, and every fall, he usually took two or three groups of hunters into the mountains during deer and elk season. Most of the extra money he made at those endeavors he put back into the ranch.
He worked his butt off, damn it, but he’d been forced, since Tom’s death, to make a partial mortgage payment for the first time ever. The bank had been willing to accept it because of the hardship of Tom’s sudden death, but they’d made it clear one such arrangement was all they’d make with him. As Chairman of the Board, Brad wasn’t going to make any more concessions. If they ended up fifty or more head of cattle short, he wasn’t going to have the money when they were sold to cover his debts and meet his operating expenses for the year.
Tom’s death had left him to handle the crisis alone. He couldn’t pay off Jenny’s interest in Tom’s half of the ranch, now or in ninety days. The only thing he might be able to do was make deferred payments to her over a span of years, and that was based on the ranch even surviving this mess. It would help if she became a whole or limited partner, but he wasn’t going to force her into that arrangement. And he didn’t want her thinking she had to, in order to bail him out. Neither did he want to sell any part of the ranch. He’d never forgive himself if he had to do that to Tom, but he knew that, in the end, if things got worse and he couldn’t stop all this damage from happening, he might have to sell at least part of the land. For now, though, he was hoping he could handle these problems by himself.
CHAPTER 8
After the table was cleared and the dishes stacked in the sink to soak, everyone headed outside and departed in separate directions to resume what they had been doing before the mid-day break.
Hawk and Jenny headed toward a ridge in the distance. When they reached the top, Hawk reined his horse to a halt. Jenny came up beside him and took a moment to look out over the sweeping vista beyond.
“We’ll be looking for strays this afternoon. We’re going to split up for a little bit if that’s okay with you,” he said.
“Sure.”
“I’ll be riding in and out of the trees, along that ridge,” he told her, pointing to the forested bluff on the other side of a long rocky gully. “I’d like you to ride down this wash. There’s a gentle descent about two miles from here. I won’t be too far away, just above you really. If you need me, holler.”
She could see he was a bit concerned. She reassured him with a smile. “No problem.”
Brave words, Jenny was later to reflect. She watched him ride off in the opposite direction, then disappear into the trees. Her mind drifted back to the wake-up kiss he had given her before lunch. The man had a side to him that was incredibly tender, romantic, and sensitive. And he had tasted good, just as she had suspected.
Lost in memories of his kiss, she wasn’t paying as much as attention as she should have when she began her descent down into the gully. Suddenly, Aspen reared up on her hind legs. Jenny barely had a second to register the fact that a hissing rattle snake had spooked her horse before she lost her seat and was thrown off the back end. She landed on her bottom, then immediately started to slide down the hill, unable to stop her momentum as she tumbled head over heels several times. Gravel tore into her back, and all she could do was protect her head.
By the time she hit the bottom, she was stunned and out of breath. For a few moments, she remained flat on her back, staring up at the deep blue sky as she tried to clear her head. Finally she rose onto her elbows, only to hear an ominous hissing at her feet. Peering down the length of her dusty jeans, to her red tooled boot tips, she saw that the snake that had spooked Aspen had also slid down the embankment with her. It was moving into a coil close to her feet. She froze, afraid to even breathe. Her eyes scanned the ridge for Hawk. She didn’t see him, so she screamed his name as loud as she could, hoping to God, he could hear her and that her voice would not spook the snake.
It seemed an eternity before she caught a glimpse of his horse emerging from the trees. The snake was fully coiled, hissing and rattling its tail by the time Hawk rode into the gully. She watched him pull to a stop and jump off his horse several yards away.
“Don’t move, Jenny. Close your eyes.”
Close her eyes? Why, she wondered as he pulled a knife from a sheath on his belt. Holding it by the tip of the long glinting blade, he hurled it at the snake.
At the last minute, she squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself to feel the knife sink into her leg or foot. When she dared to peek, she saw it had actually severed the snake’s head from its body. He’d killed it just as it had sprung at her. Good God! Shaken, she fell backwards and sucked in deep gulps of air.
When she opened her eyes again, Hawk was looming over her, blocking the glare of the sun as he dropped to one knee and slipped an arm around her back to lift her into a sitting position.
She looked into his face. Beneath the shadowed brim of his hat, his features were etched with alarm. “What happened?”
The hand at her back was gentle, but she winced sharply. “I was coming down the slope when the snake spooked Aspen, and she threw me off. I did somersaults down the hill, and so did the snake.” It hurt to glance over her shoulder as she tried to see what had happened to her horse. “I guess Aspen took off.”
Hawk wasn’t concerned about the horse. “Someone will come across her or she’ll wander home.”
He shifted to look at her back, and she sucked in a sharp a breath. The look on his face told her it was probably as bad as it felt. Without comment, he rose and walked back to his horse, then returned with a canteen of water and a small first aid kit.
“You do come prepared, don’t you?”
“Accidents happen.” He sank into a squat behind her.
“Especially to me.” Jenny grimaced in disgust. “Better get a bigger first aid kit.”
He chuckled and put his hand on her shoulder. “Let’s get your shirt off.” She swiveled around to face him, wondering if she had heard him correctly. “I need to clean and treat these cuts.”
She put a hand on his to stop him from opening the first aid kit. “Let’s go back to the line cabin. It’s not too far.”
“Yeah, maybe that would be better. I can clean out all those cuts better.” He put a hand under her elbow and assisted her to her feet.
It was a slow and painful process. At his horse, he lifted her up onto the saddle.
“Do you know this is the third shirt I’ve ruined?” She looked up the hill from where she’d fallen. “And my new hat! It probably got stomped on and ruined.” She saw it lying on the slope. “Damn it!”
“I see it.” He guided Red Phantom up the hill as smoothly as he could. When he reached her hat, he swung down and retrieved it, slapped it against his chaps, then handed it to her. “Aspen didn’t step on it. Good as new.”
Jenny shifted gingerly behind him.
“Put your arms around me,” Hawk directed.
“It hurts,” she grumbled.
“I know. But I don’t want to lose you back there.”
“Yeah, falling off a horse twice in one day would be humiliating.”
With her chest pressed against Hawk’s back, she hung on as tightly as she could and concentrated on ignoring the pain. If she focused on mimicking his every motion, it
eased the sharp ache to a dull throbbing. It did nothing, though, to stem her rising arousal at being pressed so closely and intimately to him. Her breasts rubbed against the hard muscled wall of his back so relentlessly that it didn’t take long for her nipples to harden and remain that way all the way back. She finally gave up wondering if he could feel her embarrassing condition and laid her head on his shoulder blade with a defeated sigh.
Hawk covered the small hands clasped around his waist and smiled to himself at her surrender. She was a fighter.
The line cabin was empty. Hawk helped Jenny inside, sat her on the sofa, then went into the kitchen for water and towels.
“You tore up your back and arms pretty badly,” he said after he sat down beside her and inspected her injuries once more. “We’re going to have to get that shirt off.” Without waiting for her approval, he moved onto the balls of his feet to squat in front of her and unbutton her shirt.
“I can do it.” When she had it unbuttoned, she yanked it off and stared at all the rips and tears in the material. “Yeah, another rag.”
Clad only in her jeans and a lacy white, underwire Victoria Secret bra, she balled up the ruined shirt and tossed it onto the floor. “Do your worst,” she murmured sullenly. “I certainly have.”
Hawk sat down next to her again and lifted her long hair aside, up over one shoulder, then soaked a small towel with water from the bowel on the end table. With gentle dabs, he cleaned the dirt from her cuts.
Jenny hissed at the sting. “Sorry,” he apologized as he gently slid the lacy strap of her bra off her shoulder to clean a cut underneath it. After doing the same to the other strap, he stopped.
He was still for so long, she turned to look over her shoulder at him. “You’re, um... bra,” he tried to explain. “It’s all ripped up.... The hooks— ah, are broken.” He sounded flustered. He face had turned ruddy.
“Well, what’s one more piece of clothing?” she replied contemptuously. “Just unhook it, and I’ll throw it away.” When he did, she held the cups of her bra in both hands to keep it somewhat in place.
Once he finished cleaning and drying all the cuts and scrapes, he gently rubbed an antibiotic cream into each one.
“I wanted so badly to do well today. I haven’t been any help at all to you. Every time I go out, I get hurt. Damn it, all you’ve done is babysit me! I might as well go home and let you get some real work done.” With every self-incriminating complaint, she grew pathetically closer to tears.
Hawk turned her toward him gently, forcing her to look at him. “Ah, Jenny, that’s not true,” he argued as he stared into her eyes and fingered an escaping tear. “You’ve helped me a lot.”
Anger turned her cheeks red. “Oh, that is so not true!”
He smiled at her. “Accidents happen when you’re doing hard physical labor. Ranch work can be dangerous, remember?”
“I fell off my horse, for God’s sake,” she insisted. “A good rider doesn’t lose control like that.”
“Aspen was spooked by a snake. You don’t know each other well enough yet. It could’ve happened to anyone.” His fingers gently brushed away another tear that escaped down her cheek.
“Bullshit! And look at me— I’m always crying!”
“Your emotions are close to the surface right now.”
She looked up at him through a blur of tears. He was so sensitive and understanding, it unleashed more tears.
Hawk pulled her into his arms and held her, and her head instantly fell onto his shoulder. “You’re doing fine, honey,” he reassured her, stroking her long hair from scalp to ends.
Memories of his last kiss returned to flood her senses with sweet anticipation. He lifted her head off his shoulder and stared at her, focusing on her wet mouth. His deep blue eyes reflected hesitation, but she could see that he wanted very much to kiss her.
The hunger won out over the hesitation. A tremor went through her the moment he lowered his lips to hers. Within a heartbeat, the kiss turned from tentative and gentle to wildly passionate and ravenous, so much so that it made her dizzy. Then the blunt edge of hunger faded and his mouth began to gently caress her lips again, coaxing them open so his tongue could sweep inside to savor her taste.
When he fell backwards onto the thickly padded arm of the sofa. She followed without thought, still clutching her unfastened bra.
She couldn’t seem to catch a deep breath. She felt lightheaded and weak all over, but she didn’t care. She was melting against him as his lips slanted against hers in another surge of passion that was pure delight. The alternations from fierce to tender made the kiss incredibly seductive. The spark that had been struck between them ignited into a full blaze.
Pulling his hands out of her hair, he moved them to her lower back and hips. With a throaty masculine groan, he gripped her closer still, his long fingers digging into her bottom until she was pressed tightly up against his groin.
Jenny settled further between his splayed legs. She was notched snuggly against his taut arousal, stretched over him intimately. He shifted his mouth to the ultra-sensitive spot between her neck and shoulder. How did he know she loved to be kissed there? Shivers raced up and down her spine, making her quiver in his arms.
He lingered a long time at her neck, then he was lowering his head to the valley between her breasts. He wedged one hand between hers and pried her fingers loose of her bra. It got stuck somewhere around her waist. His hand inched back up to cup her.
The feel of his rough fingers on her ultra-sensitive flesh was mind-blowing. His thumb stroked her nipple. She whimpered with pleasure. Ah, magic fingers, indeed.
He lifted her a little and his mouth found the naked slope of her breasts. His tongue licked down between them, then climbed one swell slowly, very slowly to the peak.
Oh god, his mouth was at her nipple, his teeth gently nipping, his tongue swirling! Magic mouth. Magic tongue! Another little whimper escaped her throat. It evolved into an involuntary, very needy moan. She arched into him helplessly. He squeezed her buttocks through the heavy denim of her jeans and lifted her higher. She felt a long tremor go through him. She responded with one of her own.
He ground his hips against hers, slowly, deeply, insidiously, moving in a circular motion that left no doubt he wanted to make love to her. The long rigid length of his erection restrained beneath his jeans shattered all her reservations. Desperate to feel his bare skin, she tugged at the back of his shirt, trying to pull it out of his belted jeans. She couldn’t remember ever wanting a man as acutely as she wanted this one. And while she wasn’t a woman of vast experience, she could tell he wanted her just as intensely.
His hands moved to her waist, then upwards along her sides, toward her breasts. Anticipating him touching her there, Jenny wedged her hands between them to unbutton his shirt. The need to feel his bare skin against hers was all-consuming. But to her surprise and disappointment, Hawk deliberately pulled back and slid his hands down to settle at her waist. Jenny nearly groaned aloud when he shifted to sit up.
She immediately grabbed for her bra to recover herself. Her head fell as she tried to rehook it. Finally, she gave up and just held it together in front, too embarrassed to look at him.
Hawk put a finger under her chin and lifted her head.
He was breathing hard and his high cheekbones were flushed. His hat had fallen backwards onto the end table. Jenny stared at the paler skin of his well-shaped forehead. When not hidden behind the low dip of his ever-present Stetsons, his features were even more classically handsome.
Their spontaneous intimacy had definitely disturbed him as much as it had her. This was not a one-sided attraction. She wondered why he had stopped. It was for the best, of course. It would have been too much too fast, and she really wasn’t ready for that, was she?
“I think I got a little carried away there,” he finally said, reaching for his hat, revealing a bit of nervousness and unease. “It was good, real good, in fact.” As he tugged his hat down a notch, he peek
ed at her beneath its dark brim. “But you know, I wanted to ask you out tonight— to dinner, maybe a movie after. Sort of give us some time away from work to get to know each other better.”
Well, hell! Jenny thought. What she had to tell him was sure to spoil what sounded like a really nice idea. He wasn’t going to be too happy with her now. First, though, she needed to get a shirt on. She reached for her torn one, turned away from him, and managed to put it on again, minus one ruined expensive bra. When she had it buttoned, she swiveled around to face him.
Her eyes held his ruefully. “I’d love to go to dinner and a movie with you, but I can’t tonight, unfortunately. Peter made plans for us to have dinner at the Caldwells.” Whatever he was thinking was hidden beneath the downward dip of his hat. She could see that his mouth, though, had tightened into a grim, straight line. “Peter has been pressuring me to go over there with him, and I’ve been putting him off,” she rushed on to explain. “It’s not something I want to do, but Peter’s leaving tomorrow, and—”
He was furious, she could tell. God, the Caldwells of all people! They were his enemies, at least the brother was. What could she say to make him understand? “It’s nothing really; no big deal. We could go out tomorrow night.”
“Forget about the date,” he told her curtly as he pushed to his booted feet. “Tomorrow night there’s a Cattlemen’s meeting in town.”
Jenny rose and reached out. “Hawk, I won’t listen to all their gossip.”
“Right,” he said, his mouth twisting with cruel sarcasm. “But, hey, Mason’s leaving tomorrow.” He gave her a long slow look. “You going with him?”
“No. I’m driving him to Denver to catch his plane, though.” After picking up her hat, she followed him to the door of the line cabin. “I’d like to go to the Cattlemen’s meeting with you, especially if you’re going to bring up the problem of your missing cows. Will they be able to help?”