by S A Monk
He wondered if he could let her go if she decided to leave. He wanted her to stay. He wanted to form this partnership with her, but he didn’t want her involved in this trouble with Brad Caldwell. That was something he would deal with himself because he was the reason the trouble existed at all. The acquisition of their property for the resort was simply an excuse for Brad, a real one, but still an excuse. Caldwell would probably always find ways to cause him trouble. The lifelong acrimony between them had never faded.
On Wednesday, Hawk was in the study working on the computer, when Jenny found him. He looked up from the screen and watched her close the doors behind her, then walk across the room. As usual, she was dressed in her snug western jeans, boots, and this time, some lacy white camisole with a short red cardigan sweater over it. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in fat loose curls. She was so lovely, even in work clothes, she always made his heart catch whenever he saw her. Right now her big brown eyes were sparkling with devilment, and he figured he wasn’t going to get much more work done.
“What are you doing?” she asked as she moved to stand behind the chair he was sitting in.
“Checking the Internet for the best cattle prices. We have stock to sell pretty quick.”
“Umm....” She bent down and looked over his shoulder, at the screen, but that didn’t hold her interest long. After weaving her long fingers into the hair at his shirt collar, she started to message the back of his neck. “You’re way too tight here.”
Her gentle ministrations felt wonderful. Hawk sighed and closed his eyes. “Hmm, not for long.”
Soon, she was blowing in his ear. “You smell good,” she murmured. “Spicy.”
“Do you like spicy?”
“Umm, very much,” she purred, nibbling on his earlobe. “You taste good, too. My favorite flavor.” From behind him, she slid both hands down his chest, then back up again. “You feel good, too.” Giving himself up to her explorations, he felt her slipping the buttons of his shirt free from their holes. Then her hands were inside his shirt, running over warm bare skin. “I think you should take a break, don’t you?”
Before he could answer, she came around to the front of his chair and reached for his hands to pull him up. When he was standing in front of her, she finished unbuttoning his shirt then started on the metal buttons of his jeans.
Hawk let her complete that, then pushed her sweater off her shoulders and down her arms. “You won’t need this to keep you warm any longer.” Backing her up against the desk, he pushed aside the papers on it with a sweep of his hand, then began to unzip her jeans and push them down to her thighs. With the necessary garment loosened and opened, he lifted her onto the big oak desktop.
“Here?” she said breathlessly. “On top of your desk?”
“Oh, yeah,” he responded, then positioned her and entered her with such swift and startling accuracy it ended all further teasing and talking.
The next day’s chores were interrupted pretty much the same way. This time she found him at the back of the barn, in the tack room. When one of their mares was foaling or some other animal needed round the clock attention, whoever was on duty could catch a few hours of sleep on the narrow bed that they kept in the room. Hawk was sitting on it, repairing a saddle, a halter, and a bridle when Jenny came in. It wasn’t too long before she became a major distraction.
He let her tease him for a little while, then got up to lock the door to the room. For a few moments, she pretended she didn’t want anything other than to keep him company. Playing her game and enjoying it as much as she was, he stalked her around the saddle blocks, then caught her, giggling in his arms, and hoisted her over his shoulder to carry her to the bed. She was breathless with laughter and so beautiful, she thoroughly enchanted him. All play aside, he quickly stripped them both and made love to her on the narrow cot, smothering her cries of ecstasy with his kisses.
At the end of the week, on Friday, they went into town for groceries, and since this time Eli didn’t go with them, they detoured on the way home and parked in a thick stand of trees down by the river, where they stopped to make love in the front seat of Hawk’s pickup. With her jeans off and her blouse and bra opened, Hawk seated her on his lap, facing him, opened his own jeans, and pushed himself into her, then kissed her as she rode him to an exquisite explosion. It was more erotic than anything he had ever done in the front seat of a pickup as a teenager.
He slept with her every night in his arms, sometimes in his room, most often in hers, although sleep was not something they got a lot of. For some unfathomable reason, Eli, who was usually always around, gave them unprecedented privacy. It gave them opportunities to make love whenever they wanted, and to cook and eat all their meals alone together. As new lovers, they had precious time to explore one another physically and emotionally. It was probably a bit like a honeymoon, Hawk supposed; a few stolen days together to simply enjoy and discover one another; a brief respite that he sorely needed, he realized.
By the weekend, Hawk could no longer put off attending to the problems and the work. He’d been hoping to sell three hundred and fifty head, mostly calves and yearlings, but with the lost calves, he was contemplating selling a few older head. The hired hands and the bills needed to be paid, and the next loan payments to the bank were due. His working capital was getting dangerously low, but if he sold some of the older cows, he wouldn’t have as many calves birthed next year. Keeping his loss to a minimum this year would only bite into next year’s profits. There were no easy answers.
He had decided to restart his charter flight business and made arrangements to outfit and guide three different hunting parties into the mountains over the next month. He was hoping the additional work would bring in the extra capital he needed to make up the loss of the calves without selling the cows. But he also needed to get a good price on the cattle he did sell. At best, they’d be cutting it razor close this year. At worst, they’d fall disastrously short. Neither of those scenarios would cover emergencies or setbacks of any kind in the months to come.
Damn! The profit and loss statement was going to look dismal this year, hardly worth betting the ranch on, as the saying went. And none of that was going to cover any kind of deal he might have to make with Jenny if she decided not to become a working partner.
As he stared at the ledgers on his computer, he raked all ten fingers through his hair. All this upcoming work meant the ‘honeymoon’ was over, so to speak. He regretted that. The more time he spent with Jenny, the more he wanted. It wasn’t going to be easy leaving her for days at a time.
Not for the first time, he wondered if he was starting to fall in love with her. The thought perplexed him. He’d never really been in love before. His teenage infatuation with Cindy Caldwell hadn’t been love, he had thankfully discovered. He just didn’t know what being in love was supposed to feel like. And he wondered if it was a good idea to get so emotionally involved with a woman who might not remain in his life very long.
Jenny addressed some of his worries on Sunday after breakfast. They were sitting in the dining room, at the table. She had been sipping her coffee, staring out the panel of long glass windows that framed the corner of the room. Tom had done a nice job on this room between the kitchen and the living room. It was not too large. Sunny and bright. Cozy. The rustic wood table was set with plain white porcelain dishes and blue tinted crystal glasses that sparkled in the morning light. There was a vase full of autumn wildflowers that Jenny had picked and placed in the center of the table.
The breathtaking view outside the curve windows had captured her attention for the last five minutes. Amid the cottonwoods and the pine trees, the slender, white-barked aspens were ablaze with color, turning rich autumn red, orange, and gold. The foothills and the high alpine passes were brilliantly spectacular this time of year.
Hawk appreciated the view as well. It was his favorite season. The workload around the ranch slowed down after the cattle drive and market day, and normally, he enjoyed the
hunting trips he outfitted.
Eli hadn’t made an appearance again this morning, leaving Jenny and Hawk to fix breakfast alone.
“I need to fly to L.A. sometime soon.” She set her coffee mug aside and turned to look at him.
He felt the bottom drop out of his stomach as he watched her push her long hair behind her ears, revealing two gold hoop earrings.
“I’ve been asked to draw up some preliminary costume designs for a producer, and Peter has received some special requests for a few dresses.” He didn’t comment, waiting for the rest of the bad news to fall. “I can do the preliminary costume designs here, but I need to fly out to Hollywood for a consultation. I also need to meet with Peter’s new clients.” He took his time refolding the Sunday newspaper on the table in front of him. “I asked Peter not to acquire any new clients. He didn’t listen, as usual,” she added with a sigh of disgust. “He and I really need to settle this business between us.” When he failed to say anything, she took a breath and went on. “I guess I could fly out of Denver into LAX on Friday and be back again by Monday or Tuesday.”
His head came up, and both eyebrows lifted. “You’re coming back?”
“Of course.” Jenny noted his surprise with a smile. “I thought I’d stay a while longer. I’m not ready to go back. Actually, I could probably do a lot of work from right here. While I’m out there, I’m going to make arrangements to have my horse, Dark Shadow, transported out here. Not that I don’t appreciate Aspen, but I miss my horse, and I know he’d love it here.”
“You’re staying?” It was the statement he had focused on; the one he wanted clarified.
“Would you like me to?”
There was a hopeful look on her pretty face.
“Yes, I would.”
His answer was such a relief. Jenny hadn’t realized how much she’d been afraid he might answer otherwise. She’d been holding her breath, and now she released it in a burst of laughter. “Good, because I’ve also decided to form that partnership with you that Dad wanted. I’d like to continue my design work from here. I might have to spend some time in Los Angeles occasionally, but I don’t think I need to be based there. When I go out this weekend, I’m going to discuss this with Peter. He and I need to make some changes. I have a condo on the beach. Come with me. I could show you where I live and work, introduce you to some of my people, some of my friends. It would be fun— just for a few days. I won’t keep you away too long. I promise.”
Hawk shook his head, and the expression on his face dashed all her plans. “I can fly you to the Denver airport on Friday, and then back again when you return, but I can’t come with you, Jenny. I’ve got some extra outside work lined up that’s going to keep me pretty busy the next three or four weeks. Tomorrow, I’m taking a small group of hunters up into the mountains for four days, and next weekend, I’m flying a rancher and his wife to a stock show in Billings, Montana for the weekend. I’ve got a couple days free before I head out on another hunting trip after that, so I should be able to get you to and from Denver okay, but I won’t be home much for a while.”
Jenny was stunned. This was the first she’d heard of him taking on extra work. Where was he going to find the time and energy? He already worked sun-up to sunset.
“Why are you doing this? What about the cattle sales? How will you find the time with all you have to do around here?”
“Hank will help out, and I’ll make the time.” Hawk shook his head ruefully. “We need the money right now.”
“But I’ve just told you I want to be your partner, with the same arrangement you had with Dad, a fifty-fifty split. You don’t need to work so hard to bring in more money. I’m going to invest some capital, whatever you need at the moment. When my mother died years ago, she left me a substantial inheritance, and I’ve made some pretty good investments with it. Now I can invest it in the ranch.”
“No.”
“No? You don’t want me as a partner?”
“Yes, of course I want you as a partner. That’s what Tom wanted, too.”
“Well, then, what are saying ‘no’ to?”
“No investment of your money.”
Jenny was baffled. “But I want to help, and you need my money right now. I’ve seen the books. You haven’t got much working capital left. With the loss of those calves, you aren’t going to get what you need on market day. And besides, the longer you wait to sell, you more feed we’ll use to keep them your target weight.”
“There’s still enough pasture left to keep them a couple of weeks longer. Hank and Steve might have to move them to the Chester Springs pasture.”
“You’ve got a whole lot of accounts due.”
“I have enough to meet payroll and day-to-day business expenses for a month. I can probably talk the bank into allowing me one more month’s partial payment. That gives me a month to earn some extra money. I’ll get the loan and arrears paid off by November first.”
“Brad won’t let them accept another partial payment from you.”
“Tom has done business with that bank for thirty years. They can look at our profit and loss history. It’s always been excellent up until six months ago. That ought to count for something.”
“You know it won’t with Brad. He’ll pressure the bank to start foreclosure proceedings if you can’t make full payments on your loans. Since we’re talking thousands of dollars here, they’ll probably agree with him that they can’t risk it, especially now, with the economy the way it is and money so tight.” She knew she was making sense, but Hawk didn’t look at all pleased with her logic.
“Damn it, Jenny, Tom left you his half of the ranch. You should see some compensation from that, not have to pour money into it immediately.”
“Fine. We’ll see the place profitable again, and then I’ll see some interest on my investment, but for now, let’s just get out of trouble. I can wait for a return on my investment.”
Hawk raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. “And what if you don’t see a return? What if you lose what you invest? How long would it be then before you blamed me; came to resent me?”
Jenny reached across the table, through the empty dishes and glasses, for his hand. “I have confidence in you, Hawk. This isn’t your fault, and we’ll get out of this trouble, together.”
Hawk pushed out of the chair and strode across the room, away from her. At the sink, he turned back to give her an angry look that completely confounded her. “I don’t want you bailing me out! Caldwell is my problem.”
Jenny stared at his silhouette, darkened by the brilliant light shining through the large window over the sink. She couldn’t make out his features, but his body language told her that he was angry and frustrated. “That’s nonsense. He doesn’t have to make your life so miserable. We can put a stop to his interference.”
“I don’t want you at risk,” he argued further, exasperating her.
“What risk? He’s just a rancher and a banker. Of course,” she joked, “he’s also a lawyer. I suppose that makes him hazardous.”
“It’s not funny! He can be dangerous.”
“Are you afraid of him?” she asked quietly.
“Not for myself.”
“Well, I’m not afraid of him,” she tried to reassure him, then added, “although he has made me uneasy a time or two.”
Hawk looked down at her intently, his brows drawn into a frown. “You aren’t a threat now. He thinks he can still influence you, use you. He wants you to think favorably of him. But if he sees you shoring things up financially around here, he’ll realize he’s lost the best hope he has of getting us to sell that land he wants. You’ll become a threat to his plans. He might get desperate if his arrangements with his new business associates are ruined. I don’t want you to be the object of that desperation. I’m going to be gone a lot. Accidents around here have become too damn frequent.”
Jenny rose and stood in front of him. Her finger brushed a fallen lock of hair off his forehead. “Well, we can�
�t let him win just because we could be at risk by trying to save the ranch. And what about you? I don’t want him coming after you, either!”
“I can handle that.” He stroked a thumb across her check, trying to ease her worries. “I’m going to do my damnedest not to let him win.”
“I can assure it,” she argued stubbornly.
“No!” He grabbed her by the shoulders, angry again. “I don’t want you bailing me out. I’ll get us out of this mess, and Brad off our backs.”
Jenny glared at him, just as angry. “Damn it, our partnership is going to be an equal one. Daddy wanted it that way. He would have wanted me to help you out of this mess.”
“Tom wanted you safe. He asked me to look after you; to take care of you.”
“He didn’t expect you to handle everything by yourself, I’m sure.” Her anger was replaced by tenderness, but she wondered if he felt pressure to care for her. “I think he wanted me to be a true partner, a business partner, not just your partner in bed.”
That made him furious. He threw up his hands. “Christ! I knew this sex between us was going to cause problems. I told you at cow camp, I didn’t want to influence your decisions that way.”
“You think I’ve decided to form this partnership with you because we’re having great sex?”
A sudden smile appeared at her choice of words. “Great, huh?”
“Oh, shut up, you egotistic male! You know as well as I do how great it’s been. But I haven’t agreed to this partnership because of it. In fact, I’m a little worried that if we end our affair, we’ll still have to find some way to do business together. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“If we come to it.”
“Well, I’ve wanted to come home for a long time,” she went on, hesitating a moment as she briefly contemplated that if. “I should have done it while Daddy was still alive. I’m having trouble forgiving myself for failing to do that.” She held up her hand to stop his impending interruption. “But I’m here now, and I love it. I’ve always loved this life, this place, as much as Dad did. I’m not my mother’s daughter. I’m my father’s. You were an unexpected surprise.” With the evaporation of her anger, she smiled up at him. “But even if I wasn’t in.... well, attracted to you, I’d still want to stay. So, are we going to form this partnership and get these problems solved or not?”