Seduction, Cowboy Style

by Anne Marie Winston

  “Get out of here,” he said, his deep voice rumbling through her head where her ear was pressed to his chest. “You’ve done what you wanted to do. Now get off my land.”

  “Silver.” It was Deck’s voice from behind her. “Come with me. We have to talk.”

  She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. Burrowing deeper into her brother’s protective embrace, she shut out the sound of the deep male voice.

  “Get out.” Cal’s voice cracked like a whip. “She’s done with you.”

  She didn’t move during the tense silence that followed, nor when she heard booted footsteps receding. She still didn’t move when a truck engine turned over and shifted into gear. It wasn’t until the last sounds of the truck growling out over the ridge to the road disappeared that she let the tears come.

  Cal supported her with one arm while he opened the door. He helped her into a chair and got her a drink, then perched his bulk on the edge of the long sofa. She took several deep breaths to stave off the hysteria that desperately wanted to break free, then raised her head and stared at her brother.

  “Talk.”

  Cal spread his hands in an uncharacteristic gesture of helplessness. “Deck’s family was my second family when I was growing up. His brother Marty and I were in the same class, Deck and his twin sister Genie two years behind us.” He stopped, as if he’d run out of words.

  “Why does he say you killed his sister?”

  “I did, indirectly.” Cal’s face twisted in a spasm of grief and self-contempt as strong as it must have been years ago. “We’d all gone to a dance in town together. I got into a fight and screwed up my knee. Genie offered to drive me home. On the way—” He paused. “Silver, you don’t know how sorry—”

  “On the way what?” The last thing she wanted to do was dissect the thing that had just happened.

  Cal sighed. “She was driving along bending my ear about some boy from Philip she was hoping would ask her out. It was dark, and there was no moon so it was hard to see. All of a sudden there was a big old steer in the road. We hit him broadside. My window was open and I got thrown out onto the road. Broke a couple of bones and banged my head. Genie—went through the windshield.”

  Dear God. She wanted to comfort him. But even more, she wanted to know. “Did she die right away?” If they’d been traveling anywhere near the legal speed limit of seventy-five, she’d have had next to no chance.

  “God, I wish she had.” Cal rubbed his hand over his face, and there was raw agony in his voice. “Deck and Marty came along as they were loading her into the ambulance. Deck went to the hospital with her. She lived less than a day.” He raised his head and looked directly into her face. “Deck said I killed her. If I hadn’t gotten into that fight and needed a ride home…” He shook his head, and she saw the despair in his features. “He was right. I might not have been behind the wheel, but I am responsible for Genie’s death.”

  His face hardened into a mask of hatred. “But that bastard had no business involving you—”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t see it that way.” She was proud that her voice was so calm. “He figures you hurt his sister, he hurt yours.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t deliberately entice her into driving me home so I could get her killed on the way. He had a choice, dammit!” He glared at her. “Are you defending him?”

  “No,” she said quietly. Her breath hitched, and she stood abruptly, wanting, needing to be alone. “There’s no excuse for using me the way he did.”

  Cal stepped toward her, but she waved him away. His eyes were tortured, his face drawn as he watched her walk slowly to the steps and start up to her room.

  But when she got there, the memories that slapped her in the face were too much. The pillows on her bed still bore the imprint of his head; the sheets, the scent of his body. As tears blinded her, she rushed forward and started stripping the sheets off the bed in a frenzy until she had no strength left, tearing the fabric free piece by piece and throwing it wildly at the wall where it hit with a flat, lifeless swish.

  And then she slid to the floor and sobbed.

  He caught a glimpse of her three days later.

  Though he’d called the McCall house repeatedly, the machine had been the only answer he’d gotten. And no one had returned the messages he’d left, messages in which he’d begged Silver to return his call. He couldn’t bring himself to explain through a machine the forces that had driven him.

  Somehow, he had to talk to her.

  Deck was inside the post office picking up the mail when he saw Cal’s truck pull up in front of the vet’s across the street. When Silver slipped out of the driver’s seat to the ground, he quit breathing for a moment, until his burning lungs reminded him to take another breath. He stayed glued to the window, a futile, desperate longing grabbing at his throat.

  She walked around the back of the truck, her long-limbed stride eating up the ground, and he couldn’t stop watching the movement of her slender body beneath the new dark-blue jeans she wore. Less than two weeks ago he’d seen the full perfection of her body for the first time. Only three nights ago she’d lain in his arms and pressed herself to him; he’d touched her silky skin and buried his nose in the sweet-smelling hollow at the base of her throat and shared her intimate secrets.

  It seemed like a lifetime.

  She dropped the gate on the pickup, and he saw the old yellow dog lying on a blanket in the back. As she leaned in and lifted the dog to the ground, he clenched his fists against the urge to go over there and tell her she had no business lifting a dog that size.

  She wasn’t his to tell anything to anymore. For a few fleeting hours in the middle of the nights they’d shared, he’d felt happier than he had in years. And it was gone. By his own hand, he’d destroyed any chance he’d ever had with her.

  As she vanished with the dog into the vet’s office, he put a hand to the window glass as if to keep her from leaving.

  “Deck Stryker! I’ll skin you if you mark up that glass!”

  Hastily, he removed his hand, scowling. Idell Samms had been the postmistress for at least the last hundred years, everyone swore. She was liable to come out and crack his knuckles with a ruler if he touched her precious glass again.

  He looked across the street again, wishing Silver would come back out. He needed to talk to her, to see her face, to judge for himself how she was doing. Was she okay?

  Okay? You’re an idiot. Of course she’s not okay.

  How could she be, when he’d treated her so cruelly? As if what had passed between them meant nothing. But he’d been completely unprepared for Cal’s intrusion into their idyll.

  He’d been caught flat-footed. Half of him had silently gloated at the success of the vengeance he’d played out, however unwitting it had actually been. For years, years, he’d dreamed of making Cal pay. And he’d finally found his enemy’s Achilles’ heel.

  The other half of him, the half that had a lock on his tongue while Cal hurled his fairly accurate accusations, had been appalled by the pain in Silver’s eyes. He’d stood and watched her faith in him crumble and be swept away by the realization that she’d been nothing but a game piece in his strategy.

  Only she was wrong. He’d watched her turn to her brother for comfort, seen the hatred that burned in Cal McCall’s implacable gaze, and when she’d refused to listen, when she’d turned to her brother for the comfort he longed to give her, he’d been unable to find the words to explain. So he’d walked away.

  He still couldn’t explain it. How did he tell her he’d fully intended to use her from the first time he’d realized who she was? How did he tell her he’d sought her out with revenge in his heart? And how did he tell her revenge had tasted sour and crusty instead of sweet? That he still hated her brother’s guts but he still wanted her so badly he ached at night? That he didn’t know how he felt anymore but that he knew he’d done her a terrible wrong? That he’d do damn near anything if she’d come back to him?

  He opened th
e door of the post office, crossed the wide main street, stopping for Sev’s pickup loaded with feed bags and giving the other man a brief nod before going on to the vet’s. He hesitated beside Cal’s truck, but only for a moment. He had to see her.

  Yanking open the door to the vet’s office, he stepped inside. Every nerve in his body quivered. His gaze swept the room, but she wasn’t anywhere in sight. She must be in the examining room with the doctor.

  The receptionist looked up and smiled. “Hey, Deck. How’s it going?”

  “Fine, Amy Lee. You?” He meandered over to the shelves of medical supplies and pretended to look through them.

  “Good,” Amy Lee answered. She’d been a classmate of his mother’s and she’d worked for Dr. Jim Karnes, the old vet, until his retirement. Now she worked for his son, Dr. Joe. “Can I help you find something?”

  “No, no. I just need to pick up some Bangs vaccine.” Which wasn’t a lie. They did need to vaccinate the new calves. He perused the shelves some more, picking up stray items here and there, reading the labels and setting them down again.

  “Silver Jenssen’s in with the doctor,” Amy Lee said brightly.

  “Ummm.” By now, thanks to Stumpie, he was sure half the damn town knew they’d been seen together. On second thought, half was probably a real modest estimate.

  “She oughta be out any minute,” Amy Lee offered.

  This was ridiculous. He couldn’t talk to Silver here. Abruptly he grabbed the vaccine and headed for Amy Lee. He fished money from his pocket, but as Amy Lee turned to hand him his change, the door of the exam room swung open and Silver stepped into the office area with the yellow dog.

  She stopped dead when she saw him, and in her striking eyes the pupils flared. For an instant he read shock and panic and a deeply wounded spirit. Then a curtain of flat, blank indifference slammed down and he couldn’t read anything in her expression. Her eyes flicked past him as she measured the room for a means of escape but he was standing between her and the exit door and after a moment she squared her shoulders in a tiny resolute gesture. The little motion bothered the hell out of him. Did she see him as some kind of monster to be faced down?

  “Hello, Silver,” he said quietly, ignoring Amy Lee’s avid curiosity and the interested gaze of the vet.

  “Deck.” Her tone was neutral, her nod and expression reasonably pleasant. She turned back to Dr. Joe then, dismissing him as clearly as if he’d made a clumsy, unwanted pass.

  “Thank you, Dr. Karnes.”

  The vet took the hand she held out. “It was a pleasure, believe me. The guy who used to own your brother’s outfit didn’t bring these dogs in for anything. When they got sick, he just shot them and replaced them. I’m glad you’ve taken an interest in this old guy.”

  “I suspect you’ll see me again soon.” Her voice was droll. “There are a couple of other needy souls hanging around the ranch.”

  “I’ll just bet.” The vet laughed as he disappeared again.

  “Your brother’s established an account, Silver,” Amy Lee said. “Shall I just add this to it?”

  She nodded. “Please. And thank you for everything. I’ll give you a call when I get home, and we’ll set up an appointment for the other dog and the cats.”

  Business concluded, Silver urged the dog toward the door. Realizing she intended to go around him without speaking, Deck reached for the door and held it open.

  She murmured, “Thank you,” without looking at him as she ducked past but he followed her right on out the door to her truck.

  “You shouldn’t be lifting him,” he said as she put the tailgate down and prepared to lift the dog into the bed.

  “He’s too stiff to jump.” She still didn’t look at him, simply bent and put her hands beneath the dog’s belly.

  Deck bent, too, and gathered the dog easily into his arms, lifting him into the bed of the truck and ignoring the way she scrambled backward to avoid touching him. “There you go.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice was as stiff as her features. She turned her back and slammed the tailgate shut, then walked toward the driver’s door.

  “Silver, wait.” Hastily he caught up with her, stepping around her in time to open the door for her. “We need to talk.”

  She boosted herself into the driver’s seat. This time she did meet his gaze when she spoke, and pain squeezed a tight fist in his chest at the tears shining in her unique eyes. “You’re wrong. We needed to talk the day you decided to use me to make my brother pay for something he’s agonized about his entire adult life. Now there’s not a single thing we need to say.”

  Her lower lip trembled and she bit down fiercely on it. He reached out a hand, not knowing exactly what he intended but knowing she needed comfort as much as he needed to give it, but she yanked the door handle of the truck closed. He could have opened it again, could have dragged her out of her damn brother’s damn truck right there on Main Street and proved to her that they could communicate just fine without words. But the searing agony in her silver eyes had branded itself indelibly in his head, stunning him into inaction.

  It couldn’t be too late. She had to let him explain, to…to fix it.

  She gunned the truck’s powerful engine then and backed out of the diagonal space without another glance at him. As he stared after the big truck, he was left with the image of her finely molded profile, marred by the bite she still had locked on the fullness of her lower lip.

  A movement at the edge of his field of vision made him turn his head and look across the street. As he did so, the curtain over the window of the post office slipped back into place.

  Great. If Amy Lee didn’t broadcast the fact that Deck Stryker was making a fool of himself over Cal McCall’s sister, Idell Samms would.

  He didn’t even care, as long as he got back in Silver’s good graces. And her bed. He’d never met a woman who’d made him feel the way Silver made him feel. A woman who could make a man as happy as he’d been when he’d been with her had to be a good thing, and he intended to get her back no matter what.

  Seven

  She didn’t go into Kadoka again for more than three weeks.

  Cal made a trip in every other day or so to pick up mail, groceries, feed and other supplies they needed. She’d made appointments with the vet to have the rest of the animals that Cal had acquired checked and vaccinated, but he’d been the one to take them to town.

  She made the drive to Rapid City several times to see Lyn and was encouraged by her physical progress, although the girl still seemed scared of her own shadow.

  The first time she’d gone after Cal came home, Lyn had asked after Deck. It was almost too painful to discuss, but Silver forced herself to talk. She wanted to know everything she could learn about Cal’s accident. After what Deck had done, she felt no compunction about pumping anyone who would talk about the sad memories.

  “Deck won’t be coming with me anymore,” she’d said in response to Lyn’s query.

  Lyn’s green eyes had filled with bewilderment. “Why not?”

  “We’re not, um, seeing each other anymore.” Silver took a deep breath. “Turns out his interest in me was just a way to pay Cal back for Genie Stryker’s death.”

  Lyn looked even more lost. “Why would he use you?”

  She’d forgotten. With different last names, people didn’t know she was Cal’s sister. “Cal McCall is my brother.” She watched Lyn’s reaction carefully, clamping down hard on the lid of the raw pain that tried to escape its cage. Did everyone blame Cal for what had happened?

  Lyn put a hand to her mouth to stifle an involuntary gasp. “He is? Poor Cal. I always felt so badly for him—” She stopped and Silver could see the light dawning. “My God. Everybody knows how Deck feels about that. You mean he…to get back at Cal?” Her expression was horrified.

  Silver knew exactly what Lyn’s small silence implied. She nodded, her throat clogged by the sympathetic warmth in the other girl’s eyes.

  “I’m so sorry.” Lyn p
ut her hand with its slowly healing bruises over Silver’s.

  “I’m not.” She tried to make her voice matter-of-fact. “If Cal hadn’t come home early, I’d still be believing that—that—”

  “Snake?” Lyn suggested helpfully. “Yellow-bellied coyote?”

  Silver had to smile despite her distress. “Pick one,” she said. “They all fit.” Then, to her complete and utter humiliation, she burst into tears. “I’m sorry,” she said through the sobs she hastily tried to control. “It’s just so…awful. I was falling in love and he was carrying out a plan. I’d like to kill him.”

  Lyn nodded soberly. “But are you sure that’s all it was? He seemed so…”

  “I’m sure.” She shook her head firmly. No sense in harboring false hopes.

  As she’d expected, Lyn was too reserved about her own life to pry more deeply into Silver’s. She dutifully recalled everything she’d ever heard about the accident but there was no major information that Silver didn’t already know.

  In the weeks that followed, she kept to herself. She continued to work her way through Cal’s house, painting and wallpapering places that probably had needed sprucing up when his father was alive. Cal solicited her advice on the two-story addition he wanted to put on, a combination mudroom, shower and laundry room that would keep the worst of the dirt out of the kitchen, which currently led directly to the side yard nearest the barns.

  On the second floor, he planned to knock a wall out of the largest bedroom and create a master suite.

  “That will still leave you with three big bedrooms up here,” she pointed out. “You’re going to rattle around this place after I leave.”

  He lifted his head from the plans he’d spread out on the kitchen table. “What makes you think I’m going to be living here alone?”

  She was flabbergasted. “Is there someone you want me to meet?” The thought was strangely unsettling. Stupid as it was, she’d never considered that Cal might get married in the foreseeable future.

  He chuckled at her expression. “I wish you could see your face!”