The Cowboy Steals a Lady

by Anne McAllister

  Shane slipped his hand in the crook of her arm and wondered if she would resist. She stiffened, but she didn't pull away. She just walked. He matched his stride to hers.

  Her coat brushed his as they walked, her arm jostled against his side, her hair blew in his face. A faint scent of springtime assailed him.

  He tried not to notice. He told himself that it was just like walking an old lady across the street, then jeered. When had he ever walked any old ladies across a street? And what old lady wore a soft flowery scent that, even in the midst of a damn blizzard, could drive a man insane.

  It took forever to get to the cabin.

  It didn't take nearly long enough.

  When they got there, Shane let go of her arm and turned to go back.

  "Don't," Poppy said.

  "Got to."

  "Why?"

  "I can't stay here."

  "Why?"

  "You know why."

  They stared at each other.

  Then she shook her head. "I don't. Or," she added after a moment's reflection, "maybe I do." She smiled a little bitterly. "I'm … the wrong girl."

  "You're not," Shane said at once. "Not at all. It's just … I wish…" He shook his head. There was no point. No wish could make it happen. "You're not the wrong girl. I'm just … the wrong man for you."

  * * *

  Six

  « ^ »

  It's what you wanted, after all, wasn't it? Poppy asked herself, her fingers at her lips even as she watched him go.

  He was going to the barn, at least. Not back to the truck.

  "I'll be there if you need me," he'd said over his shoulder, and now she could see that he was almost there.

  It felt like he was still here. She could still feel his mouth on hers … what she'd wanted.

  A kiss from an unsuitable man. A break from routine. A momentary fling. A lark.

  What she'd wanted. Not what she'd got.

  What she got was hunger and desperation and passion and need all rolled into one mind-blowing, earthshaking, emotion-numbing kiss.

  What she got was so far removed from the dutiful pecks that Chad used to give her that she felt as if she'd entered a whole new universe.

  Slowly, still thinking about that, she shut the cabin door and leaned against it. She needed it to shore her up.

  She remembered Milly saying that sometimes when Cash kissed her she completely forgot who she was.

  Poppy had never been able to imagine for one instant forgetting she was Georgia Winthrop Hamilton, daughter of the estimable judge.

  Now she could.

  She'd only thought of the man with his lips on hers. Had thought only of how right it felt, how good, how wonderful.

  And she knew that if Shane hadn't pulled back she would be kissing him still.

  Or doing other things with him, wild, wicked, wonderful things that the daughter of Judge George Hamilton would never do if she remembered who she was!

  It was as well he'd left, Poppy told herself. She needed space, too. And time.

  And an ounce of common sense.

  She would find it. Of course she would find it. She was her father's daughter. And then she would be glad he'd had the sense to put two doors and a blizzard between them.

  But for the rest of the day, even while she was looking for that bit of common sense, she kept wishing he would come back.

  * * *

  It was his punishment, Shane decided.

  It was just retribution for meddling in other people's business, breaking the law, commandeering a woman—even the wrong one, especially the wrong one—a woman he had no right to.

  This time, though, it wasn't his mom or dad or even, heaven help him, Judge Hamilton, dishing out the punishment. It was God telling him he'd overstepped the bounds.

  He shouldn't have been surprised. He couldn't remember ever getting away with anything in his entire life. Why should he expect things to be any different now?

  It was just, in this case, he seemed to be being dealt with by a higher court. The highest court.

  He supposed there was a bright side. God seemed to go a little easier on him than Judge Hamilton or his father ever had.

  He spent most of the day in the barn, figuring all this out, coming to terms with it—with Poppy Hamilton.

  And he accepted it. What else could he do?

  There wasn't a court of appeals in a thing like this. And even if there were, no one and nothing—not even his own hormones—would be on his side.

  He'd just have to tough it out. Resist. Be noble. That had to be the message. Why else would God have stranded him in a cabin with the one woman on earth he didn't dare touch?

  If God had wanted him to make love to Poppy Hamilton, He sure wouldn't have given her a father like the judge!

  "I got the picture," Shane told God—and the owl sitting in the rafters of the barn. "I don't like it, but I'll go along with it."

  He waited. All was silent.

  Was he expecting maybe God to say what a good boy he was? Hell was likely to freeze over first.

  "Try not to make this snow last forever, though, will You?" he added after a moment. "You know better than anyone about me and willpower."

  The owl spread its wings and fluttered on its perch. Then it looked down at him and hooted.

  Swell. God was a ventriloquist.

  * * *

  Something that smelled wonderful was simmering on the stove when he let himself back into the cabin. It was early evening and the snow was still falling, and there would be hours to go before he could sleep alone on his bed of nails that passed for a couch.

  But he was ready. He was prepared to be polite, to help cook supper, to be polite, to read a book or stare at the fire, to make small talk. To be polite.

  Poppy was sitting by the fire reading a book. She looked up when he came in and watched as he shed his jacket and boots. She looked at him warily. She didn't speak.

  He didn't either, for a moment. Then he turned to her and said, "Whatever you cooked smells fantastic."

  She brightened. The worried expression left her face. "You're hungry?"

  "Starved." And the moment he said it, he realized how true it was. The rehydrated eggs had been a long time ago. And it had been hours since he'd eaten the biscuits he'd stowed in his pocket.

  "Come and eat," Poppy suggested, getting up and moving to the stove. She had already set the table. It reminded him of when Mace and Jenny were living here. It looked homey. Comfortable. Inviting.

  More punishment.

  But oddly, it didn't feel like punishment. It felt … right.

  He helped her dish up. She'd made the Stroganoff and served it over rice. She apologized for the lack of fresh vegetables like it was her fault.

  "I think I'll survive," Shane said, smiling slightly. "I'm more of a meat and potatoes man, anyway."

  "No potatoes, either," she said sadly.

  "I like rice." He sat down across from her at the table and picked up his fork.

  For a while they both ate in silence. But the silence didn't seem quite so tension charged this time.

  Then Poppy said, "I wonder how the wedding went."

  "Fine, probably," Shane replied. "What could go wrong?" He gave her a wry smile.

  She smiled back. "I'm glad I wasn't there."

  He looked up, surprised. "Why?"

  She hesitated. "My father was coming, and he was bringing me his idea of my perfect husband."

  Shane gaped. He couldn't imagine. He still had a hard enough time trying to imagine old Hard—old Judge Hamilton being Poppy's father. He really couldn't bend his mind around the notion of the judge on the lookout for a husband.

  "He'd have to be a damn paragon," he muttered now.

  Poppy nodded. "I'm afraid he is."

  "And he expected you to just … marry this guy?" He couldn't quite swallow that, either.

  "My father, as you might guess, has had a lot of expectations for me over the years. Like I was going to go to Y
ale. And I didn't. Like I was going to be a lawyer. And I'm not. Finding me the perfect husband is his latest scheme for getting my life on what he considers the 'right track.' He was going to introduce us. See if we … fit. But yes, ultimately that's what it would amount to."

  "And he thinks he ought to be able to do that?" Shane was outraged. He knew how much he hated Jenny trying to find women who would settle him down. Damn it, he didn't want to settle down! He didn't think anybody ought to be forced.

  "It's just the way he is. And he thinks I need a husband."

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm twenty-five years old and single," she said lightly. "And he wants to be a grandfather."

  Shane rolled his eyes at the thought of the judge as a grandfather. He'd sure as shooting make his grandkids toe the line.

  "It's not just that, though, either," Poppy said. "He really thinks he's helping me. He knows I want one. A husband. And a family, I mean." She looked wistful as she spoke. A little sad.

  "You're still young," Shane said hastily. "Life hasn't exactly passed you by."

  "No." But she didn't sound certain. She poked at her Stroganoff with her fork.

  "And he might have the right one," he went on. "He'd have pretty high standards, I reckon."

  "Oh, yes."

  "So … um, what do you figure he's going to say when he, um … finds out about … this?"

  Poppy looked up, curious. "This?"

  "Your not showing up at the wedding. Your … getting, er … commandeered. I sort of reckon he'll be coming after me with an arrest warrant." Shane joked, but he didn't exactly think it was funny.

  "He might," Poppy said, which didn't help his appetite any. "But I don't plan to tell him."

  Shane stared. "You don't?"

  "Not unless you want me to."

  He shook his head violently. "Not really," he said, trying for as much blasé indifference as he could manage.

  Poppy grinned. "Somehow I got the feeling you wouldn't."

  Shane rubbed a hand against the back of his neck. "Yeah, well, I don't guess he thinks very highly of me. And somehow I don't think my kidnapping his kid would improve his impression."

  "So it's our secret," Poppy said. She slanted him a glance. "Yes?"

  Their eyes met. Shane nodded and breathed just a little easier. "Yes."

  * * *

  Dinner lasted hours. It seemed like minutes. It wasn't the food; though it was far better than Shane expected.

  It was the conversation. The increasingly easy give and take that seemed to be developing between them.

  "I'm not going to lie to him," Poppy said about telling her father. "I'm going to say I went to the mountains with a friend. We are friends, aren't we?"

  Shane nodded slowly. Friends?

  "Yeah," he said. "We're friends."

  Their eyes met, locked. Something strong and elemental arced between them. Friendship?

  Whatever happened to divine punishment? "Tell me more," Poppy said, "about what happened to your thumb."

  So he did. He told her about the accident—the freakish chain of events that had started with him helping out a friend, which had led to him losing his thumb, having the good sense to grab it, and the good fortune to get it sewn back on.

  She was the only person besides his rodeo buddies and his blood-thirsty nephews who listened avidly to the whole grisly story without making a face or covering their ears.

  She didn't say, "If you'd ever once think about the consequences of what you decide to do, you'd be more careful what you got into," which is what Jenny had said to him.

  She didn't say, "Trust you," like Mace had said with a knowing shake of his head.

  She didn't say, "I've heard of accident prone, but you take the cake," which is what Taggart had said.

  Poppy said, "What a terrific friend you are! I don't know many people who'd have had the presence of mind to do what you did, looking for your thumb and picking it up instead of panicking."

  And Shane basked in her approval. And then he told her about the almost clinical detachment he'd felt—as if the accident had happened to somebody else. And that what had happened didn't really hit home until he woke up after the surgery. "By then," he said, "I was flat on my back, and no one noticed I'd passed out. They thought I was sleeping!"

  Poppy giggled delightedly.

  And Shane gave a self-deprecating laugh. "That's me. Capable. Unflappable under duress. Always on the ball."

  "And modest. Don't forget modest." Poppy grinned. She got up and poured them each another cup of coffee.

  Shane grinned, too, unnettled by her gentle teasing. It didn't have the bite that Mace's always had. Instead of flying off the handle or fighting back as he always did with his brother, he more or less basked in hers. He stretched and flexed his shoulders, thought about getting up and decided not to.

  Usually he didn't linger after a meal. Usually he was restless, antsy, glancing at his watch and tapping his feet and raring to go. Not tonight.

  Of course there was nowhere to go—not with three feet of snow outside.

  But it was more than that.

  He didn't want to go anywhere else. He didn't want to be anywhere else. He wanted to be here.

  With Poppy.

  He watched as she added a little milk to his coffee, not much, just as much as she'd seen him add earlier. But he liked that she'd paid attention. Jenny always added too much, and Mace always made a face and said, "What's the matter, kid, can't you drink your coffee straight?"

  Poppy handed him the mug and smiled at him.

  He took it and smiled back. Something dangerously like contentment stole through him, catching him unawares.

  He felt a prickle of worry and promptly dismissed it. There would be time enough to worry about the feelings he was experiencing.

  Right now, he just wanted to experience them. Shane was a man who lived for the moment. He'd long ago realized that it was all there was.

  The past was over. The future was worrisome, but happily vague. This was the best moment he'd had in quite some time. He wasn't about to second-guess it.

  Poppy tipped her head and regarded him through her lashes, "I bet you always wanted to ride bulls. Didn't you? From the first time you saw one ridden, I bet."

  She was right. He didn't know how she knew that, but she did.

  Most people couldn't understand why he rode. They had a hard time fathoming what made a man pit his all against a ton of bovine nastiness when he didn't have to.

  Shane couldn't seem to explain that he did have to, that from the very first time he'd seen a bull ride at the Wilsall rodeo when he was four, he'd had to ride, too.

  What was for others a risk well beyond the normal bounds of reason, was for him an elemental challenge that could not be ignored.

  Maybe it was because, even at that early age, he'd always felt so much unbridled energy himself. He'd needed to direct it at something so big, so ferocious, so untamed, in order to harness it … to find a purpose for it.

  "I did," he said now. "It's who I am."

  And Poppy nodded. "Yes. I understand."

  He supposed she did—she who was a florist instead of a lawyer. She who had grown up fighting every day just to be herself. In fact, he thought she might understand better than anyone he'd ever met.

  "It's the challenge," he told her. "Doing my best. Against the odds. And living with the outcome. Whatever it is."

  "Yes." She nodded. "Yes."

  He told her about Dusty, a particularly nasty one-horned Brangus who seemed to particularly have it in for him. "Every time I rode him, he tried something new, something wicked. It was like he sat up late plannin' his moves!"

  He told her about Sterling Silver, a huge white Brahma, the biggest bull he'd ever ridden. "Like sittin' on a sofa," he said. "One that could toss you to the moon."

  He told her about Skeezix, that mean little sunfishing bull from New Mexico, and Doberman, so called because he didn't just jab you and stomp you and buck you.
"He tried to take a bite out of you, too."

  "You remember them all?"

  "Damn near. Only ones I don't are the ones that concussed me." He sighed and tipped back in his chair, cradling his mug in his good hand. He looked at the cast on his other one. It covered this miracle of modern medicine—a reattached thumb. And he wondered, not for the first time, what would happen if it couldn't face the rigors of his profession.

  "Good as new?" he remembered his doctor saying when Shane had pressed him for a prognosis. "We don't know, do we? We can only hope."

  He thought about how it was hard some days to unbend all the joints and stretch out all the muscles in his entire body. The effects of fourteen years on the bulls was cumulative. He knew that. But he didn't know what to do about it—or instead of it. And now there was his thumb.

  His thumb was the tip of the iceberg that was his fear.

  "I don't know what I'll do," he said, staring down into the mug, "if … when … I can't ride anymore."

  It was the first time he'd spoken the words out loud; the first time he'd articulated the terror of the emptiness he would be facing when bull riding—the one thing that gave his life focus, purpose and meaning—was no longer there.

  Poppy didn't answer.

  She sat quietly, watched him sympathetically over the top of the coffee mug. She didn't offer any glib suggestions. She didn't dismiss his fear or even try to minimize it.

  She held his gaze and shared it as she shared the bleakness in his voice and the sentiment it expressed.

  "What else do you love?" she asked him at last.

  He shook his head. What else did he love?

  "What else makes it worthwhile getting up every morning?"

  He didn't know the answer to that, either. Poppy stirred her coffee and looked away toward the fire in the fireplace. "It's like a death, isn't it?"

  He shot her a quizzical look.

  "When my mother died, I felt lost. Bereft. I knew I was going to lose her. She'd been sick for a couple of years. Inside, I knew the day was going to come when she wouldn't be there anymore. But even so, I wasn't prepared. I was devastated. And sick. And I didn't see how I was going to go on. Everything felt so empty."