Wide Open Spaces (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Fox, Roz Denny

  “Ha! If those city boys keep pace.”

  “Virgil, shame. You think no one measures up unless they were born and raised in this valley. Have you forgotten Coltrane owned a horse farm, and Tracey spent summers on a wheat ranch? Imagine what we’d do without them.”

  “Colt can probably pass muster. The kid, though, is an East Coast transplant. Lord knows I don’t want to add to your worry, Summer. But I’ll be surprised if he lasts the day.”

  VIRGIL WAS FORCED TO EAT HIS words at dusk when Colt and Tracey scrambled from Colt’s pickup. They were dirtier and wearier than in the morning, but otherwise in good spirits.

  “How far did you boys get with that field?” Virgil asked.

  Colt removed his hat and used his neck scarf to wipe the grime off his face. “We finished cutting, baled the hay and ricked the bales behind the barn. Our first field’s ready to torch. We would’ve lit it, except a breeze came up.”

  “You’re kidding. You men cut and baled that whole field in one day?”

  Trace tapped the tally book peeking from his shirt pocket. “Junior said to tell Mrs. Marsh she got high-grade prices for that new type of wheat she planted last spring.”

  Summer stepped out on the porch in time to hear the end of the conversation. Rory appeared behind her, followed by Lancelot.

  “That’s the best news I’ve had since spring,” she exclaimed. “I’d say it calls for a celebration. Audrey prepared a huge pot of spaghetti and meatballs. Colt, why don’t you and Tracey clean up and join us at the table.”

  Tracey happily accepted the invitation as Colt declined, saying, “I thought we were responsible for fixing our own breakfasts and suppers? Why else did we stop and buy groceries?”

  Tracey jabbed Colt’s ribs. “All of it’s stuff we have to clean or thaw. It’d be a whole lot nicer to shower and sit down to hot grub.”

  Colt didn’t think it would. Summer’s sweet-smelling perfume reached out to him in a disturbing manner. And she’d changed out of her work clothes into a pale-green shirtwaist dress that brought out bewitching mossy flecks in her eyes.

  Rory bounded down the steps to hop up and down in front of Colt. “I told my teacher you raised Morgan horses. She let me take a book out of the school library. It tells how Morgan horses got named. If you eat with us, I can show you the book. Maybe you could read me a chapter?” The child’s expression hovered between hope and fear of having that fragile hope dashed.

  “Rory,” Summer cautioned, glancing worriedly between her needy child and her clearly hesitant ranch hand. “Colt’s tired, and he’ll be starting early again tomorrow.”

  Tracey must have seen a slim crack in Colt’s veneer. “If Colt’s too tired to read to you, kid, I’ll do it,” he said quickly. “That way, Mrs. Marsh, it’ll give you and Colt time to discuss the supplies we’ll need going into roundup.”

  “Trace, I really wish you’d call me Summer. And I appreciate your thoughtful offer. We are short of time. Having a meal together will give us a chance to coordinate a lot of things. How long do you men need to shower? If I tell Audrey to hold supper twenty minutes, will that be sufficient?”

  “You bet.” Tracey was obviously pleased with himself.

  Rory galloped around yelling “Yippee!” Lancelot raced after him, barking wildly.

  Colt dealt Tracey an exasperated look. All the same, he muttered, “Twenty minutes it is,” before he stalked off.

  Tracey chased after him. “What’s gotten into you, Coltrane? If you’re so anxious to eat your own cooking, you must be a whole lot better at it than I am.”

  “It’s more that I’d rather not to get too chummy with folks we’re ultimately going to screw.”

  Trace slowed his steps. “Isn’t she going to lose the Forked Lightning anyway, because of community property laws? Won’t she be happier to see the consortium preserve the integrity of the land?”

  “Do you honestly think that’ll really matter to her? Whatever happens, she’ll be giving up a ranch that’s been in her family for four generations.”

  “You’ve got a thing for her, don’t you, Colt.”

  Colt stopped abruptly outside Trace’s cottage. “Where did you get that idea?”

  “Gee, I wonder? Maybe because you bought the whole family gifts.” He held up a hand. “Don’t deny it. Virgil showed me his knife and told me about the statue thing you gave Mrs. Marsh. And you made me buy her something, too. So why are you biting my head off tonight?”

  “The way you put together circumstantial evidence, Jackson, you ought to go back to college and become a lawyer.” Colt stomped on across the yard and slammed into the house he’d been assigned. Dammit, he’d been trying to rationalize away his growing attraction to Summer Marsh. He didn’t need anyone else, least of all Marley’s nephew, picking up on those feelings. They couldn’t afford to have Trace slip and say something stupid to anyone in Summer’s household. Or even to Marc, who already had suspicions. Marc might deem it a conflict of interest. And if he did, and Marley pulled Colt off the Forked Lightning project, who would protect Summer from Frank Marsh and his cronies?

  Colt deliberately dawdled after showering. He even detoured past Summer’s wildlife sanctuary on the pretext of checking the eagles. The mother had settled down once they’d brought in her young. As Colt watched the birds, he remembered how Summer had called off the sheriff to shield Rory. Somehow, seeing the eagle try to fold her injured wing around her nestlings made Summer’s protectiveness clear to him. Mellower, Colt left the barn to join the family.

  After a genial supper, Trace tramped upstairs to read to Rory.

  “Audrey,” Summer said, “leave the dishes. I’d like Colt to come into my office so I can transfer his wheat figures into my logbook. I’ll load the dishwasher later.”

  He grasped at any straw he could to keep from being alone with Summer. “I’ll load the dishes. I’ll leave Trace’s book with you to work on at your leisure. We’ll pick it up in the morning before we head out.”

  Audrey took her jacket off the rack, handing Virgil his. “That reminds me. I left a message for Coltrane on your office desk, Summer. Dane phoned again this afternoon. He wants to know exactly where Colt found Jim Dandy.” The older couple left, calling out “Good night” as they closed the door.

  “I’m not familiar enough with your range to be able to give the sheriff exact coordinates,” Colt said.

  “I have topography maps in the office. Come on. I’ll point out the route we use to drive our cattle to the rail yard.”

  Colt, knowing when he’d been outflanked, set his plate in the sink and fell in behind Summer. Her flowery perfume drifted back to taunt him. The soft sway of her hips sent a wave of heat sloshing through his veins. Colt was affected enough to heave a loud sigh.

  Summer glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “Tired, huh? I won’t keep you long. I know sitting on a tractor all day looks easy but it really jars every bone in your body.” She shoved open a door at the back of the house and switched on a desk lamp.

  Colt saw oak-paneled walls spring to life in the soft yellow glow. An oversize desk, two leather chairs, several bookcases and a filing cabinet made up the bulk of the furnishings. A landscape oil painting of the ranch shared wall space with black-and-white photos of bulls. It was a man’s office. And it felt like home to Colt.

  “What’s the matter?” Summer noticed his hesitation at entering the room.

  “You haven’t redecorated since Frank left?”

  She laughed. “Longer. My grandfather furnished this room, and no one’s ever changed it. Frank spent more time in here than I did, though. I was happy enough to hand over the bookwork I acquired when Dad took sick. Back then, letting Frank keep the books seemed like a good idea. Now…” She eased out a shallow breath and turned to face a large wall map of the area.

  Colt watched her breath shudder in and out a few times. Aware that it was probably a mistake, he stepped up behind her, and with less hesitation than it took him to cross the
threshold, he curved his hands around her upper arms. Softly, he ran his fingers down to her wrists and up again. Her skin felt warm and soft, and he should stop touching her.

  Shivering deliciously, Summer let her head sink against his chest. She didn’t raise a single objection when Colt turned her around. Gazing into his eyes, Summer grasped his crisply laundered shirt and breathed deeply, enjoying his masculine scent.

  He stared back for what seemed an interminable length of time. Then his head inched downward. Agonizingly slow. Until at last their lips met. Met and consumed.

  Some minutes later, after Colt had let Summer slip from his grasp, he sighed again and ran a finger lightly over her damp lips. Strangling on words that refused to be uttered, he tossed Trace’s tally book on her grandfather’s desk, turned and walked out.

  Summer reflected, to her dismay, that she’d been the one to close the gap. She’d made the final move to kiss him. She’d risen on tiptoes and taken what she’d thought about all day while riding in circles on that boring tractor.

  Once she stopped shaking from her cataclysmic experiment, she was able to consider her actions analytically. With their first kiss out on the range, she’d been shocked. From then on, darn it, she’d wanted to know if those knock-your-socks-off reactions had been a fluke. The truth clamored in her head. Definitely not a fluke.

  On a scale of one to ten, the passion she felt for Frank Marsh throughout their marriage had been a two at best. Twice—twice when her lips made contact with Coltrane Quinn’s mouth—her passion had shot off the chart.

  But if his hasty exit gave any indication, he hadn’t shared her experience.

  Unless he felt the same way but was denying it.

  Summer left the office thinking that might be the case. Oh, yes, Colt Quinn had been as involved in kissing her as she’d been involved in kissing him. Then he’d shoved her away, muttering something inane about her being his boss. Sure sounded like denial to her.

  In the kitchen again, her jumpy nerves began to settle. She waved goodbye to Trace as she loaded the dishwasher. He flew by so fast, she was sure he didn’t notice her self-satisfied smile. Tomorrow, when she returned the tally book to Colt, she’d find a way to tell him that their employee-boss relationship didn’t matter to her at all.

  But in the morning Colt went directly to the field, leaving Tracey to pick up the book.

  “He’s concerned about the overnight drop in temperature,” Trace mumbled after she’d questioned Colt’s early departure. “It dipped ten degrees or so.” As if to underline Colt’s concern, Tracey buttoned his jacket right up to his chin.

  Summer handed him the logbook, then wet a fingertip, held it aloft and turned full circle. “Wind’s still blowing out of the west. Tell Colt not to worry until it shifts to the north. And…tell him… Never mind,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Okay. Gotta dash. Colt’s hell-bent on cutting the field where we parked our equipment, plus two other ones today. Oh, I almost forgot. We’ll be rolling in after dark, he said. So tell Audrey not to include us in her supper plans.”

  “All right. But I’ll run your lunches out between twelve and one.”

  “There’s no need. Colt fixed us a bag full of sandwiches.”

  “I see.” Summer did see, too. Colt was avoiding her. Trace was staring at her oddly, so she mustered a smile. “I like men who don’t have to be prodded into giving a full day’s work for their pay. The sooner we get the wheat cut, the quicker we can get on with roundup.”

  They parted, going in opposite directions. Summer returned to the field she’d left unfinished. When the plowing was complete, she called for Virgil to help her set fire to the stubble in the first field Colt and Trace had cut. The men had already moved across the creek. Shading her eyes, she saw that Tracey was working alone. In the absence of the truck, she figured Colt had made a solitary run to the granary.

  She helped Virgil spray chemical along the edge of the field. He hadn’t torched the row, yet all at once the ground beneath her rumbled and shook. “Whoa!” She steadied Virgil. “An earthquake in the canyon, you think?” she gasped.

  Glancing around, she realized Tracey had shut off the combine and climbed down to check the tires.

  Virgil stiffened suddenly, stabbing a finger toward the main highway. “A grain-dust explosion, Summer. You’ve never experienced one. I remember when the old granary blew. Six men working in the elevator were killed. Good men. Neighbors.”

  Indeed, a fireball had shot into the sky some ten miles away. Only seconds later, sirens from four outlying fire stations began to wail in chorus.

  “My God, Colt’s gone there with a truckload of grain.” Summer clutched feebly at Virgil’s arm.

  Trace vaulted the fence, splashed through the creek and arrived out of breath to join them. “What’s happening? I felt some kind of jolt.”

  Summer, already in motion, ran pell-mell toward her pickup parked a field away. Reaching the vehicle, she jumped inside and soon bumped and jounced back across furrows toward the men. She screeched to a stop before Virgil had finished telling Trace what had happened.

  Diving across the seat, Summer flung open the passenger door. “Trace, come on! Virgil, ask Audrey to please meet Rory’s bus. If things are as bad as that black smoke suggests, I’ll need you or Audrey to bring first-aid supplies, food and coffee for the rescue teams.”

  Virgil nodded. “Take it easy, Summer. No use getting into a wreck driving out there. Either Coltrane’s in the thick of it, or he isn’t.”

  She only looked grimmer.

  Trace barely had time to shut his door before she floored the accelerator and left a trail of spitting clods in her wake.

  “You think Colt’s been hurt?” Trace finally ventured.

  “I hope not. How long ago did he leave with the last load?”

  “I dunno. Half an hour, give or take a few minutes.”

  She laid on her horn to nose her way into a line of farm trucks all streaming in the same direction.

  “Must be bad,” Trace muttered. “Traffic’s bumper to bumper.”

  “Any grain-dust explosion is bad. I barely remember the last one because I was too young. But I’ve heard stories. Damage is similar to what happens in a five-point earthquake.” She stopped speaking as the Life Watch helicopter flew overhead. The whomp-whomp of its rotors drowned out small talk.

  They were within a half mile of the site when traffic shut down. Dust and smoke hung so thick in the air, Summer and Trace were forced to roll up the pickup’s windows and turn on the air conditioner as they crawled an additional quarter mile.

  A few added yards, and they hit a throng of cars and pickups, abandoned where they sat. “Jeez,” Trace exclaimed. “Are these people nuts?”

  “It’s the way things are when disaster strikes. Folks drop whatever they’re doing to help out. I’ll pull off and park here. I’ll go search for Colt. You find someone in charge of rescue. Tell them you work for me. Ask where we’re most needed.”

  “Okay.” Trace jumped down, promptly zigzagging through parked automobiles.

  Summer did the same, except that she jogged into falling black soot. She soon pulled her neckerchief over her mouth and nose, and kept on weaving among the loaded trucks, some of which had sustained damage. Rolling clouds of smoke made it difficult to see the ranch logos painted on the sides of truck cabs.

  As Summer approached the block of ninety silos, she could see that one of them had a great gaping hole blown out its top, and at least two others were severely cracked. The closer she got, the harder her heart pumped. Dozens of men ran past her without talking, and the hiss of orange fire belching high into the sky could be heard above all the other sounds.

  Viewed from this angle, it appeared that all of the eighty-foot silos on this side of the elevator shaft had suffered damage.

  Pockets of rescue workers frantically set up communication radios. Several crackled and barked discouraging reports. Summer grew more desperate at not finding Co
lt. The nearer she got to the actual disaster without seeing him, the more her panic grew, until she thought her chest would explode with dread.

  At last, third from the grain unloader, she identified her black truck emblazoned with its gold lightning bolts. Glass shards dotted the hood. The front window had blown out entirely. Both side windows were broken and the back one clouded with spiderweb cracks.

  Summer grabbed Jesse Cook as he loomed out of the smoke. They’d grown up together. “Jess, have you ever met Coltrane Quinn? He works for me now. I found our truck, but Colt’s nowhere around.”

  Jesse scraped wet, smoke-matted hair out of his eyes. “Seen him before, but we only met today. That dude’s about the luckiest damn fool who ever lived. See that motor?” Jesse pointed to a mangled engine that probably weighed four hundred pounds. It lay half buried in the asphalt to the right of the Kenworth.

  Summer shivered just looking at it. “What happened?”

  “That sucker flew past his front window goin’ about ninety miles an hour. If your truck had been a foot closer, the motor would’ve gone through the side window and killed anybody sitting behind the steering wheel. As it happens, the force of the blast busted your truck windows all to hell. Your man suffered some facial cuts. Maybe he’s still over yonder where the county doc’s cobbled together a first-aid station.”

  “Thanks, Jesse.” Summer squeezed his arm, then ran toward the makeshift tent bearing a red cross above the door. Her knees shook violently as she wove through a line of dazed-looking men to peer inside the tent. Without the burst of adrenaline, she couldn’t have remained standing.

  “Hi, Summer. You here to lend a hand? Mostly we’re washing abrasions and minor burns at the moment. The worst injuries are being helicoptered to town.”

  Summer recognized a neighbor’s wife. “In a minute, Joani. I’m looking for Coltrane Quinn. He had my truck in line to off-load. Jesse said Coltrane’s face was cut in the blast.”

  “Ah. He must be the handsome stranger…. We couldn’t convince him to let a doc sew a jagged slice he had on one cheek. He said they needed every man to help dig out the tunnel. The most he let us do was wash and bandage his bloodiest cuts.”