by Pam Crooks
His head swiveled toward the dark shape of her body beside him, and the blood in his groin stirred. She’d been restless during the night. Tossed and turned. He figured she had just about as much on her mind as he did on his, and the need to hold her, to take away this damned barrier that had come between them—
She’d learn there were some benefits to sharing her bedroll with a man. With him. Pleasures beyond warmth, safety. She’d come to know she could trust him, that he was nothing like the man she believed he was—an unfair picture colored by Kullen and a crooked judge who left more questions than there seemed answers for.
Anger stirred inside TJ yet again from how Kullen conspired against him and cost TJ everything he’d ever known. But he fought the anger down. God knew, he’d experienced enough fury these past months already, and what had that got him but a full load of frustration?
He focused on Callie Mae instead and the explanation he intended to give her. He shifted to his side, raised himself up on one elbow. Already, the night had begun to lift, and he could see her better.
She laid with her back to him, her blanket pulled up to her shoulder. Her braid trailed behind her, loose and haphazard, and dark strands of cinnamon-shaded hair rested against her cheek.
There went that warming in his groin again. A growing lust. He relished the privilege of being with her. Soaking in the sight of her. All he had to do was lower his head to smell her skin, to nuzzle her neck and feel her warmth. What would it be like to wake up next to her every dawn?
“I know what you’re thinking, TJ Grier, but if you so much as touch me, I’ll make sure you never have need of a woman again.”
The fervent warning startled him. Amused him, too, that she read him so easily, and he hadn’t even known she was awake.
His mouth curved. “Guess if you’re knowing what I’m thinking, it means you’re lying there thinking the same thing.”
He reached toward her to brush away the curls from her face so he could see her better, but her blanket lowered, and Kullen’s Colt derringer appeared, aimed right at the heart of TJ’s lust.
Which cooled in a hurry.
“I think I’m thinking something different,” she said smoothly.
He’d yet to touch her. Carefully, he drew back. “What the hell are you doing, Callie Mae?”
“Trying to keep you from adding rape to your crimes, that’s all.”
His patience snapped, and in one sharp movement, he snatched the gun from her grasp. She squeaked and grabbed for it again, but he tossed it into the grass, out of her reach.
Insulted beyond words, he sat up and leveled her with a scathing glance.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Callie Mae, and I’ll not deny I’ve got a healthy appreciation for it, but you can be damned sure if anything should happen between us, you’ll be a happy and willing participant.”
She sat up, too. Sniffed and tossed her head, like a haughty filly. “Nothing will ever happen between us, TJ. I’m almost a married woman, in case you’ve forgotten. I’m going to save myself for Kullen.”
“And isn’t that a shame?”
“Not for him it isn’t.”
TJ eyed her sitting there, looking dignified and righteous and every bit her mother’s daughter. Kullen didn’t deserve her fidelity, however well-meaning she meant it, and how could the fool have kept from bedding her? Branding her as forever his?
Admirable restraint? Virtuous honor?
Or was he in love with her money more?
TJ’s lip curled. “Does he ever lust for you, Callie Mae?”
“What?” She appeared taken aback. “I don’t—that’s none of your business. Why would you ask such a thing?”
“Tell me he can’t keep his hands off you. Convince me that you’re on his mind every minute of every day.”
“I’m not going to try to convince you of anything. He’s a perfect gentleman, TJ, and I don’t want to continue this conversation with you.” She tossed aside the blanket and would’ve bolted to her feet if TJ hadn’t grabbed her wrist first and kept her sitting. Firmly. While trying not to be aware of how slender her bones were against his fingers.
“You can’t convince me because he doesn’t want you,” he grated. “He wants your money and your ranch. He wants the Lockett in you, Callie Mae. Nothing else.”
“Let go of me.” She yanked.
“When this is all said and done, you’ll believe me. You’ll see it.”
“I refuse to stay with you any longer and listen to your constant demeaning of the man I intend to marry. Find your horse by yourself. Kullen needs me.”
“He needs you, all right. But not like you think.”
Her nostrils flared. She clamped her mouth shut.
End of argument.
TJ released her in frustration.
This stubbornness of hers, it was making him crazy.
He reached for his boots, thumped them upside down in case anything had crawled in during the night, and glared at the derringer lying in the grass. That she felt a need to steal it from his saddlebag and keep it with her rankled all over again.
He pulled on one boot and caught her sullen expression. He pulled on the second and wondered if anything he’d said had gotten through to her.
“I need some coffee,” she muttered.
TJ could relate. Some of his frustration eased. “I’ll make some.”
Far as he knew, she’d never made the brew over a campfire. Sourdough, head cook for the C Bar C outfit, was responsible for the job, but TJ could make a fair pot when he had to.
The corners of Callie Mae’s mouth dipped. “Sleeping on the ground might be easy for you, but I was never made for it.”
Knowing that, too, he grunted. Callie Mae tended to favor the softer side of life, a difference between her and her mother. Carina had been born tougher and could hold her own on just about anything involving the harshest aspects of the C Bar C, no matter the circumstances.
But that’s what fascinated TJ about Callie Mae. Her softness. Her being purely female.
“You’ll feel better once you start moving.” He stood, bringing Kullen’s gun with him for safekeeping.
He sensed her watching him while he stoked the fire to boil water, then went for the coffeepot and cups that Stinky Dale sent along. She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, as if determined to keep her distance from him, making him worry she might make good on her threat to leave him and return to Kullen.
“Why does having this horse—Blue—mean so much to you, TJ?” she asked.
He didn’t expect her to try to understand. Why would she, when she’d been handed her legacy on the proverbial silver spoon? By the time she’d grown up to appreciate it, her parents had already sweated years into building a heritage she could be proud of.
“I’ve always admired a fine horse,” he said. “Blue’s finer than most.”
She shook her head, telling him she realized he avoided her question. “There are lots of fine horses in this country. In fact, I could buy you a new one, TJ. Another fine horse to replace Blue.”
TJ narrowed his eyes over her. “You think it’s as easy as all that?”
“Tell me why it isn’t.”
He found a small tin of Arbuckles, opened it, then remembered he still needed water to fill the pot.
“Why Blue?” she persisted. “And don’t tell me it’s because you want to race him. There are plenty of ‘fine’ racehorses in this country, too.”
He gave up on making the coffee but remained hunkered next to the campfire. He rested a forearm on his thigh and locked his gaze on her.
“Because everything I have is in that horse, Callie Mae. I bought him with my last dime. I have nothing left, thanks to that lowlife you plan to marry, but Blue is the one thing I can call mine.”
Tiny furrows formed between her brows, showing she wanted to understand. She’d gotten him off-track in his intent to confess his part in Danny’s death, but her need to know Blue’s place in it was importa
nt, too.
“I’ve never seen a horse with as much spirit.” TJ’s thoughts turned back to the first time he’d laid eyes on the stallion. The decision to travel to Kentucky had been a difficult one, the risks of his plan high. But one look at the sleek, graceful then-two-year-old, and TJ had fallen in love. “He was born to run. He can win any race I put him in.”
“You want him for the money he can make you,” she said.
He ignored her bite of sarcasm. “That’s only part of it.”
“Kullen said Blue is signed up to race in Fort Worth.”
“Yes.” Information gleaned from Emmett Ralston, a conspiracy that still set TJ’s teeth on edge.
“For a lucrative purse?”
“Respectable.” TJ endured her interrogation even as he wondered just what she was leading up to. “Winning Fort Worth won’t make me rich, but it’d be a start.”
“Precisely my point.”
Callie Mae pulled on her boots and rose to her feet with an impatience that had TJ feeling some of the same.
“Which is?” he demanded, rising, too.
“That you have some sort of—of ridiculous notion that racing is going to be your salvation.”
He went still and replayed the conversation in his mind, trying to figure what he said that made her think such a thing.
“You’re wrong,” he said, failing. “It’s not.”
“Excuse me.” Briskly, she strode toward him, and the pot still lying at his feet. “I have a strong need for a cup of coffee, which is not going to get made while we stand here and have this useless conversation on the virtues of an abominable sport.”
Useless?
An abominable sport?
Wasn’t she listening to anything he’d said?
His jaw hardened, and he kicked the pot aside before she could grab it. He grasped her shoulders and forced her to stand in front of him. Her head tilted back, and her stormy gaze clashed with his.
“A man can have plenty in this world, or he can have little, but if he doesn’t have his good name, then he has nothing. You hear me? Nothing.” He loosened his grip. She didn’t move away, and he took heart from it. “That’s what happened when Danny died, Callie Mae. I lost my good name and a whole lot more, besides. And if you’d just let go of that damn Lockett pride of yours, you’d know I’d never have wanted to hurt him.”
The depths of her eyes turned brooding. Troubled. “I don’t think you know how badly I want to believe you wouldn’t.” She stepped back and squared her shoulders, as if she’d revealed too much. “But it’s too late. You already have. You’ve hurt all of us.”
TJ clenched his fists to keep from taking her into his arms and showing her how much he regretted the pain he’d caused.
“Which is why I need to find Blue. To find the truth, Callie Mae,” he said. “To help me prove I’m not the man Kullen made me to be. And I want you with me when I do.”
She turned away, toward the horizon, now bold with pink and orange and gold. The line of her shoulders softened, as if she wearied of the battle she fought. The responsibility she carried. Her need to believe.
“It could take days to find him, TJ,” she said quietly. “He could be anywhere out there.”
“You don’t think that scares me?”
A sound rumbled, then. In the distance. His head lifted in search of it. Callie Mae’s did, too, and they both swung toward the intrusion.
A cloud took shape in the haze of the valley. Dust raised by hordes of pounding hooves. Horses. An entire manada.
And leading them all was Blue.
Chapter Nine
Callie Mae had seen Blue Whistler for only a few moments at Boomer Preston’s, but even in the chaos that ensued, she would never forget the horse’s magnificence.
She saw it again now.
His long mane flying, the stallion led the others like a king led his subjects, and she stood riveted from the sight of his grace. His speed. His mastery over the herd of mustangs.
They raced through the mesquite-covered valley in wild and breathtaking abandon, as if they ran for the pure joy of it. Their hooves threw back clods of dirt and churning dust. The valley rocked with their power and speed.
But TJ only cursed and shoved Callie Mae toward their mounts, tethered at the edge of the camp.
“We have to go after ’em,” he shouted. “Hurry!”
The urgency in his command shot adrenaline through her veins, and she bolted toward the horses. TJ was already there, grabbing saddle blankets from the ground, throwing one on the buckskin, the other at her. The roan pranced, ears pricked, nickering low in his throat. She had all she could do to get the saddle on and cinched tight.
TJ vaulted onto the buckskin’s back.
“Stay with me,” he ordered. His horse pulled at the bit, eager to give chase. “Y’hear? Don’t fall back.”
“I won’t.” She pushed her feet into the stirrups, grabbed for the reins and settled in her seat.
He didn’t have to tell her twice. An untamed horse could turn violent at any threat, and TJ would be a formidable one. The whole bunch could turn lawless.
Apprehensive at what lay ahead—this precarious opportunity to get Blue back—she tore after TJ. She had no time to think of the danger. Of failure or of all that could go wrong. She knew only that she had to help. That suddenly, it became unthinkable to refuse.
His shirt billowing from the chase, TJ rode low over the buckskin’s neck and slapped the reins again and again. The staccato of hooves hammered the earth and filled Callie Mae’s ears. Wind rushed across her face, pulled at her hair. The land rose, dipped, stretched, and still the mustangs raced, with Blue gallantly at their head.
They approached a low ridge, and finally, TJ slowed. He held up a hand for her to do the same, and she drew up next to him.
“Looks like they needed water,” he said, breathing hard.
The manada mingled in a meadow a short distance away from a stream, a runoff from a fork of the Red River. She counted twenty-two horses, a misfit band of assorted colors and breeds and ages. Mares, most of them accompanied by their foals.
“So why aren’t they drinking?” she asked.
“They’re waiting for their leader to test the water first. See him over there?”
TJ pointed toward a pinto stallion, standing off by himself on a small hill. His stance appeared fierce, protective. Dominant.
“The master,” TJ said.
Fascinated, Callie Mae stared. Dirty white with dark patches over his face, neck and chest, the pinto had nothing about him to warrant his position in the herd except for arrogance, a power that kept the rest of the horses humble and waiting.
But Blue Whistler didn’t seem to notice. Or much care.
The midnight-black hide gleamed with sweat beneath the morning sun. Long-legged, his body contoured with muscle, he fed on the gramma grass at his leisure, oblivious to his presence among mongrels—the mares hovering curious around him. Around his sleek neck, he still wore the lead rope from Boomer’s. The length had been bitten off, and it proved a stark reminder of how TJ had lost him.
Regret swirled through Callie Mae from her part in it. TJ would still have his prized horse and neither of them would be out here giving chase, if she hadn’t burst into his life and demanded he give her Tres Pinos Valley.
But Kullen was to blame, too. She forced herself to acknowledge it. He’d whipped out his derringer, a weapon she didn’t even know he carried, and ordered TJ’s jockey, Lodi, to hand the racehorse over to Preston Farm’s shifty-eyed groomer.
Emmett Ralston.
Why? They seemed such an unlikely pair. What could their connection be?
Her troubled glance moved to TJ, studying the manada with his jaw set hard. In his haste to chase after Blue, he’d neglected to grab his Stetson, and sunlight glinted his wind-tossed hair tawny gold. A lock fell over his forehead; more fell over the collar of his shirt. But it was the dark bristle roughening his cheeks that gave him the look
of an outlaw, rugged and dangerous and exciting…
Her blood warmed, deep inside. So deep, it left her shaken. That she could think of him as anything but the man responsible for her young brother’s death was unforgivable.
Even though that’s what she was doing. Thinking of him in ways she shouldn’t.
Thinking which should be of Kullen instead.
But wasn’t.
Never like this.
“I don’t like the way he’s watching Blue,” TJ said, grim.
His low voice chased away her meddlesome thoughts, and she drew in a slow breath, refocusing them on the master stallion.
“Why?” she asked.
“He’s jealous.”
Callie Mae could see it, too. How the pinto appeared tense, unmoving. Biding his time, like a snake in the grass. “He should be jealous. A ruffian like him doesn’t have a thing on Blue.”
“The stallion is smart, and he’s strong. That’s why he’s the leader. He’ll fight dirty to guard the mares and keep them in his band.” TJ squinted an eye and swept a slow glance over the range. “Once he notices us watching him, he’ll feel threatened and run. We might never catch the manada then.”
“What about Blue?” Callie Mae began to feel her own worry build. “Will he run with them if he sees you?”
TJ’s mouth quirked. “I’d like to think he’s been missing me, right along with square meals and a clean stall back at Boomer’s. Truth is, he’s gotten a taste of freedom. A horse with as much spirit as he has—”
He halted. Callie Mae finished what he didn’t say. “Could turn wild, too.”
“Afraid so.”
And all the training TJ had given him, all he’d worked for, the time and money spent, the dreams he’d made to rebuild his life after Danny’s killing… would be lost.
Once, Callie Mae would’ve gloated over his misfortune. She would’ve felt he deserved everything he got.
But now?
She didn’t. At least, not so much.