by Nora Roberts
Beneath his grizzled mustache his lips quivered. “Always was a smart aleck.” He started the engine and aimed his squint at her. “What about you? You might be skinny, but you ain’t ugly.”
She propped a booted foot on his dash. “I’d rather run my own life,” she said easily. “Men want to tell you what to do and how to do it.”
“Woman ain’t got no business out here on her own,” Gil said stubbornly as he drove out of the ranch yard.
“And men do?” Jillian countered, lazily examining the toe of her boot.
“Men’s different.”
“Better?”
He shifted, knowing he was already getting out of his depth. “Different,” he said again and clamped his lips.
Jillian laughed and settled back. “You old coot,” she said fondly. “Tell me about this blowup at the Murdocks’.”
“Had a few of them. They’re a hardheaded bunch.”
“So I’ve heard. The one that happened before Aaron Murdock went to Billings.”
“Kid had lots of ideas when he come back from college.” He snorted at education in the way of a man who considered the best learning came from doing. “Maybe some of them were right enough,” he conceded. “Always was smart, and knew how to sit a horse.”
“Isn’t that why he went to college?” Jillian probed. “To get ideas?”
Gil grunted. “Seems the old man felt the boy was taking over too quick. Rumor is the boy agreed to work for his father for three years, then he was supposed to take over. Manage the place like.”
Gil stopped at a gate and Jillian climbed out to open it, waiting until he’d driven through before closing and locking it behind her. Another dry day, she thought with a glance at the sky. They’d need some rain soon. A pheasant shot out of the field to her right and wheeled with a flash of color into the sky. She could smell sweet clover.
“So?” she said when she hopped into the truck again.
“So when the three years was up, the old man balked. Wouldn’t give the boy the authority they’d agreed on. Well, they got tempers, those Murdocks.” He grinned, showing off his dentures. “The boy up and quit, said he’d start his own spread.”
“That’s what I’d’ve done,” Jillian muttered. “Murdock had no right to go back on his word.”
“Maybe not. But he talked the boy into going to Billings ’cause there was some trouble there with the books and such. Nobody could much figure why he did it, unless the old man made it worth his while.”
Jillian sneered. Money, she thought derisively. If Aaron had had any guts, he’d’ve thumbed his nose at his father and started his own place. Probably couldn’t handle the idea of starting from the ground up. But she remembered his face, the hard, strong feel of his hand. Something, she thought, puzzled, just didn’t fit.
“What do you think of him, Gil—personally?”
“Who?”
“Aaron Murdock,” she snapped.
“Can’t say much,” Gil began slowly, rubbing a hand over his face to conceal another grin. “Was a bright kid and full of sass, like one or two others I’ve known.” He gave a hoot when Jillian narrowed her eyes at him. “Wasn’t afraid of work neither. By the time he’d grown whiskers, he had the ladies sighing over him too.” Gil put a hand to his heart and gave an exaggerated sigh of his own. Jillian punched him enthusiastically in the arm.
“I’m not interested in his love life, Gil,” she began and then immediately changed gears. “He’s never married?”
“Guess he figured a woman might want to tell him what to do and how to do it,” Gil returned blandly.
Jillian started to swear at him, then laughed instead. “You’re a clever old devil, Gil Haley. Look here!” She put a hand on his arm. “We’ve got calves.”
They got out to walk the pasture together, taking a head count and enjoying one of the first true pleasures of spring: new life.
“These’d be from the new bull.” Jillian watched a calf nurse frantically while its mother half dozed in the sun.
“Yep.” Gil’s squint narrowed further while he skimmed over the grazing herd and the new offspring. “I reckon Joe knows what he’s about,” he murmured and rubbed his chin. “How many younguns you count?”
“Ten and looks like twenty more cows nearly ready to drop.” She frowned over the numbers a moment. “Wasn’t there—” Jillian broke off as a new sound came over the bored mooing and rustling. “Over there,” she said even as Gil started forward.
They found him collapsed and frightened beside his dying mother. A day old, no more than two, Jillian estimated as she gathered up the calf, crooning to him. The cow lay bleeding, barely breathing. The birth had gone wrong. Jillian didn’t need Gil to tell her that. The cow had survived the breech, then had crawled off to die.
If the plane had been up . . . Jillian thought grimly as Gil walked silently back to the pickup. If the plane had been up, someone would’ve spotted her from the air, and . . . She shook her head and nuzzled the calf. This was the price of it, she reminded herself. You couldn’t mourn over every cow or horse you lost in the course of a year. But when she saw Gil returning with his rifle, she gave him a look of helpless grief. Then she turned and walked away.
One shudder rippled through her at the sound of the shot, then she forced herself to push the weakness away. Still carrying the calf, she went back to Gil.
“Going to have to call for some men on the CB,” he told her. “It’s going to take more than you and me to load her up.” He cupped the calf’s head in his hand and studied him. “Hope this one’s got some fight in him or he ain’t going to make it.”
“He’ll make it,” Jillian said simply. “I’m going to see to it.” She went back to the truck, murmuring to soothe the newborn in her arms.
By nine o’clock that evening she was exhausted. Antelope had raced through a hay field and damaged half an acre’s crop. One of her men fractured his arm when his horse was spooked by a snake. They’d found three breaks in the wire along the Murdock boundary and some of her cows had strayed. It had taken the better part of the day to round them up again and repair the fence.
Every spare minute Jillian had been able to scrape together had been dedicated to the orphaned calf. She’d given him a warm, dry stall in the cattle barn and had taken charge of his feeding herself. She ended her day there, with one low light burning and the scent and sound of animals around her.
“Here, now.” She sat cross-legged on the fresh hay and stroked the calf’s small white face. “You’re feeling better.” He let out a high, shaky sound that made her laugh. “Yes, Baby, I’m your momma now.”
To her relief he took the nipple easily. Twice before, she’d had to force-feed him. This time, she had to take a firm hold on the bottle to prevent him from tugging it right out of her hand. He’s catching on, she thought, stroking him as he sucked. It’s a tough life, but the only one we’ve got.
“Pretty Baby,” she murmured, then laughed when he wobbled and sat down hard, back legs spread, without releasing the nipple. “Go ahead and be greedy.” Jillian tilted the bottle higher. “You’re entitled.” His eyes clung to hers as he pulled in his feed. “In a few months you’ll be out in the pasture with the rest of them, eating grass and raising hell. I’ve got a feeling about you, Baby,” she said thoughtfully as she scratched his ears. “You might just be a real success with the ladies.”
When he started to suck air, Jillian pulled the nipple away. The calf immediately began to nibble at her jeans. “Idiot, you’re not a goat.” Jillian gave him a gentle shove so that he rolled over and lay, content to have her stroke him.
“Making a pet out of him?”
She whipped her head around quickly and stared up at Aaron Murdock. While he watched, the laughter died out of her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“One of your favorite questions,” he commented as he stepped inside the stall. “Nice-looking calf.” He crouched beside her.
Sandalwood and leather. Jillian caught
just a whiff of it on him and automatically shifted away. She wanted no scent to creep up and remind her of him when he was gone. “Did you take a wrong turn, Murdock?” she asked dryly. “This is my ranch.”
Slowly, he turned his head until their eyes met. Aaron wasn’t certain just how long he’d stood watching her—he hadn’t intended to watch at all. Maybe it had been the way she’d laughed, that low, smoky sound that had a way of rippling along a man’s skin. Maybe it had been the way her hair had glistened—firelike in the low light. Or maybe it had just been that softness he’d seen in her eyes when she’d murmured to the calf. There’d been something about that look that had had tiny aches rushing to the surface. A man needed a woman to look at him like that—first thing in the morning, last thing at night.
There was no softness in her eyes now, but a challenge, a defiance. That stirred something in him as well, something he recognized with more ease. Desire was so simple to label. He smiled.
“I didn’t take a wrong turn, Jillian. I wanted to talk to you.”
She wouldn’t allow herself the luxury of shifting away from him again, or him the pleasure of knowing how badly she wanted to. She sat where she was and tilted her chin. “About what?”
His gaze skimmed over her face. He was beginning to wish he hadn’t stayed in Billings quite so long. “Horse breeding—for a start.”
Excitement flickered into her eyes and gave her away even though she schooled her voice to casual disinterest. “Horse breeding?”
“Your Delilah.” Casually he wound her hair around his finger. What kind of secret female trick did she use to make it so soft? he wondered. “My Samson. I’m too romantic to let a coincidence like that pass.”
“Romantic, my foot.” Jillian brushed his hand aside only to find her fingers caught in his.
“You’d be surprised,” Aaron said softly. So softly only a well-tuned ear would have heard the steel in it. “I also know a”—his gaze skimmed insolently over her face again—“prime filly when I see one.” He laughed when her eyes flashed at him. “Are you always so ready to wrestle, Jillian?”
“I’m always ready to talk business, Murdock,” she countered. Don’t be too anxious. Jillian remembered her grandfather’s schooling well. Always play your cards close to your chest. “I might be interested in breeding Delilah with your stallion, but I’ll need another look at him first.”
“Fair enough. Come by tomorrow—nine.”
She wanted to jump at it. Five years in Montana and she’d never seen the Murdock spread. And that stallion . . . Still, she’d been taught too well. “If I can manage it. Middle of the morning’s a busy time.” Then she was laughing because the calf, weary of being ignored, was butting against her knee. “Spoiled already.” Obligingly she tickled his belly.
“Acts more like a puppy than a cow,” Aaron stated, but reached over to scratch the calf’s ears. It surprised her how gentle his fingers could be. “How’d he lose his mother?”
“Birthing went wrong.” She grinned when the calf licked the back of Aaron’s hand. “He likes you. Too young to know better.”
Amused, Aaron lifted a brow. “Like I said, it’s a matter of touching the right way.” He slid one lean hand over the calf’s head and massaged its neck. “There’s one technique for soothing babies, another for breaking horses, and another for gentling a woman.”
“Gentling a woman?” Jillian sent him an arch look that held humor rather than annoyance. “That’s a remarkable phrase.”
“An apt one, in certain cases.”
She watched as the calf, satisfied, his belly full, curled up on the hay to sleep. “A typical male animal,” Jillian remarked, still smiling, “Apparently, you’re another.”
There wasn’t any heat in the comment, but an acceptance. “Could be,” he agreed, “though I wouldn’t say you were typical.”
Unconsciously relaxed, Jillian studied him. “I don’t think you meant that as a compliment.”
“No, it was an observation. You’d spit a compliment back in my face.”
Delighted, Jillian threw back her head and laughed. “Whatever else you are, Murdock, you’re not stupid.” Still chuckling, she leaned back against the wall of the stall, bringing up one knee and circling it with her hands. At the moment she didn’t want to question why she was pleased to have his company.
“I have a first name.” A trick of the angle had the light slanting over her eyes, highlighting them and casting her face in shadow. He felt the stir again. “Ever thought of using it?”
“Not really.” But that was a lie, she realized. She already thought of him as Aaron. The real trouble was that she thought of him at all. Yet she smiled again, too comfortable to make an issue of it. “Baby’s asleep,” she murmured.
Aaron glanced over, grinning. Would she still call him Baby when he was a bull weighing several hundred pounds? Probably. “It’s been a long day.”
“Mmmm.” She stretched her arms to the ceiling, feeling her muscles loosen. The exhaustion she dragged into the barn with her had become a rather pleasant fatigue. “They’re never long enough. If I had just ten hours more in a week, I’d catch up.”
With what? he wondered. Herself? “Ever heard of overachievement, Jillian?”
“Ambition,” she corrected. Her eyes met his again and held. “I’m not the one who’s willing to settle for what’s handed to her.”
Temper surged into him so quickly he clenched at the hay under him. It was clear she was referring to his father’s ranch and his own position there. His expression remained completely passive as he battled back the need to strike out where he was struck. “Each of us does what he has to do,” Aaron said mildly and let the hay sift through his hands.
It annoyed her that he didn’t defend himself. She wanted him to give her his excuses, his reasons. It shouldn’t matter, Jillian reminded herself. He shouldn’t matter. He didn’t, she assured herself with something perilously close to panic. Of course he didn’t. Rising, she dusted off her jeans.
“I’ve got paperwork to see to before I turn in.”
He rose too, more slowly, so that it was too late when she realized she was backed into the corner of the stall. “Not even going to offer me a cup of coffee, Jillian?”
There was a band of tension at the back of her neck, a thudding at her ribs. She recognized the temper in his eyes, and though she wondered that she hadn’t noticed it before, it wasn’t his temper that worried her. It was her own shaky pulse. “No,” she said evenly. “I’m not.”
He hooked his thumbs through his belt loops and studied her lazily. “You’ve got a problem with manners.”
Her chin came up. “Manners don’t concern me.”
“No?” He smiled then, in a way that made her brace herself. “Then we’ll drop them.”
In a move too quick for her to evade, he gathered her shirtfront in one hand and yanked her against him. The first shock came from the feel of that long, hard body against hers. “Damn you, Murdock—” The second shock came when his mouth closed over hers.
Oh, no . . . It was that sweet, weak thought that drifted through her mind even as she fought back like a tiger. Oh, no. He shouldn’t feel so good, taste so wonderful. She shouldn’t want it to go on and on and on.
Jillian shoved against him and found herself caught closer so that she couldn’t shove again. She squirmed and only succeeded in driving herself mad at the feel of her body rubbing against his. Stop it! her mind shouted as the fire began to flicker inside her. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—let it happen. She knew how to outwit desire. For five years she’d done so with hardly an effort. But now . . . now something was sprinting inside her too fast, twisting and turning so that she couldn’t grab on and stop it from getting further and further out of her reach.
Her blood began to swim, her hands began to clutch. And her mouth began to answer.
He’d expected her temper. Because his own had peaked, he’d wanted it. He’d known she’d be furious, that she’d fight again
st him for outmaneuvering her and taking something without her permission. His anger demanded that she fight, just as his desire demanded that he take.
He’d expected her mouth to be soft. Why else would he have wanted to taste it so badly that he’d spent two days thinking of little else? He’d known her body would be firm with only hints of the subtle dips and curves of a woman. It fit unerringly to his as though it had been fashioned to do so. She strained away from him, shifting, making his skin tingle at the friction her movements caused.
Then, abruptly, her arms were clasped around him. Her lips parted, not in surrender but with an urgency that rocked him. If her passion had been simmering, she’d concealed it well. It seemed to explode in one blinding white flash of heat that came from nowhere. Shaken, Aaron drew back, trying to judge his own reaction, fighting to keep his own needs in perspective.
Jillian stared up at him, her breath coming in jerks. Her hair streamed behind her back, catching the light while her eyes glinted in the dark. Her mind was reeling and she shook her head as if to clear it. Just as she began to draw her first coherent thought, he swore and crushed his mouth to hers again.
There was no hint of struggle this time, nor any hint of surrender. Passion for passion she met him, matching his need with hers, degree by degree. Sandalwood and leather. Now she drew it in, absorbed the aroma as she absorbed the hard, relentless texture of his lips. She let her tongue toy with his while she drank up all those hot, heady male tastes. There was something unapologetically primitive in the way he held her, kissed her. Jillian reveled in it. If she was to take a man, she neither needed nor wanted any polish or gloss that clouded or chipped away so easily.
She let her body take control. How long had she yearned for this? To have someone hold her, spin her away so that she couldn’t think, couldn’t worry? There were no responsibilities here, and the only demands were of the flesh. Here, with a warm, moist mouth on hers, with a hard body against her, she was finally and ultimately only a woman. Selfishly a woman. She’d forgotten just how glorious it could feel, or perhaps she’d never fully known the sensation before.