Cowboys Don't Quit

by Anne McAllister

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  DID YOU PURCHASE THIS BOOK WITHOUT A COVER? If you did, you should be aware it is stolen property as it was reported 'unsold and destroyed' by a retailer. Neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this book.

  First Published 1995

  Second Australian Paperback Edition 2004

  ISBN 0-733-55395-8

  COWBOYS DON'T QUIT © 1995 by Anne McAllister

  Philippine Copyright 1995

  Australian Copyright 1995

  New Zealand Copyright 1995

  Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilisation of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher, Harlequin Mills & Boon, Locked Bag 7002, Chatswood D.C. N.S.W., Australia 2067.

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V.

  Published by Harlequin Mills & Boon 3 Gibbes Street CHATSWOOD NSW 2067 AUSTRALIA

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  Printed and bound in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group

  One

  He was dreaming again.

  The same dream. Always the same. They were body-surfing near the pier at Manhattan Beach, he and Keith— laughing, joking, competing as always for the biggest wave, the steepest drop, the longest ride.

  They were showing off for Keith's fans on the pier, all of them watching, waving, smiling.

  He saw Jillian, Keith's fiancee, there, braced against the railing, her long dark hair tangling across her face in the wind as she waved to Keith, then looked out to sea and pointed.

  They both looked back toward where she was indicating. The swell was already noticeable, building now, moving toward them.

  "Wave of the day!" Keith yelled, grinning and moving into position, beginning to stroke toward shore.

  Luke watched Keith go, then he moved too, slower, as he always was in the water, but still in time. He caught the momentum, merging with the force of the wave, rising on its crest to see the water and the foam and the beach spread out before him. He caught a glimpse of Jillian leaning over the railing, watching intently. He spied Keith just ahead, already into the fall.

  And then he fell, too, as the wave crested, curving under, dropping him headlong into the backwater. It pounded down on top of him, pressing him into the ocean floor even as it dragged him along. He felt a thump. His body collided with Keith's. Arms and legs tangled in the power of the wave. They struggled, shifted, separated. He felt Keith's fingers grab for him. They clutched, touched, clung, oddly frantic. And then they slipped away.

  Away...

  He opened his mouth to call. Keith!

  But the water choked him. Gagged him. Pressed down upon him, swirling and pounding, grinding him into the sand, crushing his lungs, burning his throat.... Then for a moment, blessed air. And just as suddenly the wet suffocation was back, choking him, covering his nose....

  Luke jerked awake. Hank, the old herding dog, was licking his face.

  "Damn." He shuddered and pushed her away. "Hell of a way to say good mornin'," he grumbled, but he knew it wasn't Hank's fault. It was the dream.

  Always and, it seemed, forever—the dream. And that wasn't even the way it had happened, for God's sake.

  It—Keith's death.

  Even now, almost two years later, it was hard to think of Keith Mallory as dead. Intense, dynamic, irrepressible Keith—mover and shaker, dreamer and doer, one of America's best-loved actors, not to mention Luke's own best friend—had always had more to live for, more to give than anyone he knew.

  Luke's fists clenched futilely against the lingering feel of Keith's fingers slipping out of his grasp. He drew a ragged breath.

  In reality he'd had no chance to come that close.

  He hadn't even been in the water. He'd been standing high and dry on the riverbank, too far away to help, yet too near not to realize what was happening.

  Luke sat up on his cot now, shivering not so much from the cold as from the memory. He dragged in another breath of the crisp Colorado mountain air and tried to shake off the shivers. But even though it was already July, at close to nine thousand feet it never got very warm until the sun was up, and what memories didn't accomplish, the cool morning temperature did.

  He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, his body trembling in a now-familiar cold sweat. He rubbed a hand across his wet face, tasting salt amid the dog slobber. Tears. He rested his head against his bent knees and tried to steady his breathing.

  Keith. Oh, God, Keith, I'm sorry. It should have been me.

  The dog nudged his shoulder and tried to lick him again. Luke looped an arm around her neck and rubbed his face against her fur. Then he scrubbed a hand across his eyes and hauled himself to his feet. There would be no sleeping now, no point in even trying.

  Not that he wanted to. Not when he dreamed.

  He could tell from the faint light filtering through the window of the rough log cabin that it wasn't quite dawn. The sky to the east was still more dark gray than rose. But there was nothing to be gained by staying in bed; he would just lie there remembering what he would give his soul to forget.

  He picked up the coffeepot, let himself out into the chill mountain air and headed toward the spring. He filled the pot, then carried it back to the cabin, dumped in some coffee and started a fire on the small propane stove.

  He made himself concentrate on each task as he performed it. Whatever part of his mind he didn't keep firmly focused on what he was doing would be on they dream or, worse, on the memories that caused it.

  He rubbed his fingers together. He couldn't feel the clutch of Keith's fingers anymore. Sometimes the sen-sation lasted for hours. Not today, thank God.

  While the coffee was heating, he scrubbed his face with some of the water he'd brought up the night before, then dragged a comb through his shaggy dark hair. He could tell by feel that the next time he went into town he'd better stop by Bernie's and get a haircut. Not that he'd be going anytime soon. Lots of camp men these days came down off the summer range every week or so, but they had friends, family, people to see, mail to pick up, a life to keep in touch with in town.

  Luke didn't. Nor did he want any. He set his hat on his head and tugged down the brim, then went back to the stove.

  The coffee was hot. He poured himself a mugful and stood staring out the small window, making himself think about what he needed to do that day. B
ring cattle up out of the creek bottom—that was a given. They were like magnets, those cows. You barely got them up to the head of the draw and left them, when they drifted right back down again. Or got spooked and ran back. He needed to circle up the mountain and check on the cattle near the national-forest land, making sure the gates were closed. Hikers didn't seem to realize all the work they caused when they didn't leave gates the way they found them. If even one gate had been left open, he'd have his day's work cut out for him.

  In the early morning light he could look down across the meadow and see three of his horses already lurking by the quaky fence, waiting for him to holler them down and grain them. He didn't even need to holler anymore. He'd been doing it for more than a year now—long enough that they knew what to expect.

  He took another swallow of coffee, then set his cup down and got out food for the dogs. There were two others besides Hank—a scruffy-looking catch dog called Muff and another Border collie named Tommy. They brushed against his legs as he poured their food out for them. Hank nudged his hand, her pointy noise wet and cold against his fingers. Luke rubbed her under the chin.

  The panic was gone now. The pressure had eased on his lungs as the dream faded, and sunrise brought light, clarity and color to the mountain meadow he called home.

  Breathing more steadily now, Luke finished his cup of coffee. He made and ate a quick breakfast, then set to work.

  Some days entailed more work than others. Luke liked the work. He sought it, needed it, created it. Today, because of the dream, he made even more than there was.

  He moved twenty head of cattle out of the creek bottom, doctored some foot rot and rode the fence along the national-forest line. The gates were all closed, but someone had cut the wire to get through where there wasn't one.

  He rounded up a dozen cattle and brought them back down, fixed the fence, then circled through a stand on aspen toward the creek. And found one of his young bulls caught in the middle of a willow patch.

  Bulls weren't the easiest critters to deal with at the best of times, and when they'd been stuck as long as this bull had likely been, their tempers weren't exactly sweet. This fellow was no exception.

  Luke was tempted to leave him. Nobody was looking over his shoulder, and it was his bull. But the bull couldn't do his job unless Luke did his. More than that, though, Luke knew a dreamless sleep came only when he was so dead tired he couldn't move.

  He laid a loop over the bull's head, alternately dragging on the rope and urging the animal forward, while Hank and Tommy nipped and prodded. He was doing his whooping and hollering on foot, not on horseback, when the bull finally broke free and rewarded him with a kick at his ribs.

  He missed. But that's when Luke discovered the bull had foot rot.

  "Son of a gun," he muttered, taking off his hat to wipe a hand through sweat dampened hair. "Must be my lucky day."

  He was dirty and sweaty, tired and sore by the time he rode back over the rise that looked down on his camp. The bull might've missed Luke's ribs with that first kick, but he hadn't missed his shin later when Luke was maneuvering his horse in close enough to give the animal an injection.

  Luke figured he'd be hobbling tomorrow. He didn't care. Physical pain wouldn't keep him awake or make him dream.

  Tonight he'd earned his sleep, and he thought he just might get it, too.

  Until he saw someone sitting by his cabin door.

  Nobody he'd invited, that was damn certain. Since he'd moved up the mountain a year ago last spring, Luke hadn't encouraged visitors. Jimmy, his hand, who was renting Luke's ranch house, came up whenever Luke asked him to help move cattle or to bring salt, and now and then he brought Luke provisions or a coffee cake or some cookies his wife, Annette, had made. But Jimmy had just been up three days ago. And Luke's only other visitor was his old schoolmate Linda Gutierrez's son, Paco.

  "You don't want him around, you send him away," Linda had told him from the first.

  But Luke knew Paco's dad had died three years ago, and he remembered all too well how he'd felt when his own dad had died. He'd been older than Paco when it happened—sixteen. Paco was only eight and needier even than he had been.

  Luke hadn't had the heart to send the boy away.

  Besides, talking with Paco was a form of penance. All the kid ever wanted to do was hear about Keith. He probably knew by heart every movie Keith Mallory had made, and he took great joy in asking Luke about the ones he'd worked on.

  Luke wondered when he'd realize that it was his fault the boy's hero was dead.

  He sat up a little straighter in the saddle now, trying to guess his visitor's identity. Whoever it was saw him and got up, beginning to move toward him now.

  It was a woman.

  A tall and slender woman in jeans that hugged curves no cowboy'd ever have. Long brown hair tangled across her face in the evening breeze. Then the breeze lifted the swath of hair and Luke felt as if the bull had kicked him right in the gut.

  God, no! It couldn't be.

  He shut his eyes, begged and pleaded with the Al-mighty. Then he opened them again, still praying.

  To no avail.

  It was Jillian. Jillian Crane.

  Luke wished the earth would open and swallow him up.

  No such luck.

  He slowed his horse, tempted to turn tail and head right back up the mountain, knowing damned well he would have if she hadn't seen him. But she had, so he had no choice but to continue down.

  He didn't know what the hell she was doing here. Couldn't begin to imagine. They hadn't seen each other since the day of Keith's funeral, almost two years ago.

  They hadn't spoken even then.

  They hadn't needed to.

  Jill had said everything there was to say the afternoon Keith died.

  Luke could remember it as clearly as if it had been yesterday. It had haunted him so often that it might as well have been....

  They'd been two weeks into a new movie, a tough-guy, mountain-man script with lots of the action-adventure stuff that was Keith's forte and his stunt-double Luke's bread and butter. It was grueling, strenuous and more than a little dangerous—exactly the sort of thing they both loved.

  They'd been filming for fourteen days straight from a gritty little town on the Salmon River in Idaho, and by the end of the second week in October they were as gritty, earthy and wild looking as the landscape.

  It was still warm during the days, but chilly after the sun went down, and every night after they finished, he and Keith and some of the rest of the crew would warm their insides in the local bar.

  They were a few beers into the wanning process, throwing darts and arguing about which of them was the better shot—and hence the better man—when Luke stepped up to take his toss.

  Suddenly the door opened...and there she was.

  Jillian.

  His dart sailed over the top of the board.

  If anyone noticed, it wasn't Keith.

  "Hey," Keith had shouted, a sudden, broad grin lighting his unshaven face. "My lady's come!" And he knocked over a bar stool in his haste to get to her.

  Luke didn't move. He stood rooted to the spot, watching as Keith wrapped Jill in a bear hug, then turned, grinning, his arm looped over her shoulders, and faced the rest of them.

  "Look who's here," he said unnecessarily.

  "Bring 'er on over," one of the sound men had called out. "Plenty of room, ain't that right, Luke?"

  For a moment, Luke didn't speak. Couldn't. He wasn't prepared. So, get prepared, he commanded himself. He drew a deep, steadying breath, met Keith's grin, then let his eyes settle on Jill. "That's right," he said.

  Keith just shook his head. "Not on your life. Come on, sweetheart." He started to draw Jill with him toward the door, then stopped and kissed her slow and hard, surfacing only long enough to glance over his shoulder at them and say, "Find your own women to keep you warm." Then he dragged her off to his room.

  Their room, Luke corrected himself.

&nbs
p; The one right on the other side of the wall from his.

  Not that he went back to his. He had no intention of lying there in his cold, solitary bed and thinking about Keith making love to Jill at that very moment on the other side of a few inches of plaster.

  Because that's what Keith would be doing.

  It's what Luke would be doing if Jill were his. But she wasn't. Would never be.

  A man didn't poach on his best friend's girl.

  A man got drunk instead.

  He didn't go back to his room until after two the next morning. He stayed out as long as the bars stayed open. But even when he got back, drunk and dead tired, he still didn't sleep.

  He lay there listening for the slightest noise, the softest murmur, the faintest rustling sound from the bed in the next room. He heard nothing. It didn't matter; his imagination was enough. He finished his bottle of whiskey only an hour before his alarm went off in the morning.

  He made it to the set on time, but his bloodshot eyes and haggard face were a dead giveaway.

  "Little too much celebrating?" Keith was in high good humor as he teased Luke about his hangover.

  And why wouldn't he be? Luke thought savagely. He barely grunted a reply.

  "Oughta get yourself a lady like mine," Keith told him cheerfully. "You wouldn't be out runnin' around if you had yourself a Jill."

  For an instant Luke's eyes met Jill's. At once she looked away.

  "Oh, for heaven's sake, Keith. Leave him alone," she said irritably, taking his hand. "Luke doesn't want an old stick-in-the-mud like me."

  "He'd better not. You're mine." Keith grinned at her and punched Luke lightly on the arm. "C'mon. Grab some coffee and let's get this show on the road."

  They were set up to shoot the scene where Keith's character, a renegade cowboy, escaped from a band of Indian pursuers, hurtling down a draw to where he'd left his canoe. Then, under a barrage of arrows, he was supposed to shove off, jump into the canoe and paddle into the roiling river while the white water swept him out of sight.

  "We've got it almost all rigged," Carl Oakes, the stunt coordinator, said to Luke when he and Keith found him on the riverbank. "Plenty of safety lines, so if things look grim, bail out."