Cowboys Don't Quit

by Anne McAllister

  "I didn't bring her here!"

  If Noah was surprised at his vehemence, he didn't let it show. "That's what she said. Said she had to track you to the ends of the earth before she found you."

  "She what?" Luke stared at him.

  "Said she'd been all over God's green earth lookin' for you. Paris. London. Hawaii. Said she was always just a little too late. So she just wrote the book without you, then gave it one last shot." He cocked his head. "You didn't know?"

  "Uh-uh." What would he have done if she'd found him while he was still running? What would he have done if he'd opened his hotel room door in Paris or London or Hawaii or any of the other places he'd tried to hide from himself and found Jill standing there?

  Nothing more than he'd done already, he reminded himself savagely. He jerked up the coffeepot and began to pour.

  "She's a looker, that Jill," Noah mused now, folding his hands across his trophy belt buckle and stretching out on the bed.

  Luke got another mug down out of the cupboard. "How you doin' in the standings?"

  "Tenth. Not as good as I'd like. Prob'ly not as bad as I deserve. I've had some lucky breaks, drew some good horses. Reckon I might make it to Vegas if things keep goin' my way. How come you're up here if she's down there?"

  Luke expelled an irritated breath. "Why shouldn't I be? She's writing a book. I'm riding the range. I live up here. She's just staying down there."

  "I don't think so," Noah said.

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Means you're actin' just a little too snuffy, I'd say. Kinda like Tanner was before he reckoned he and Maggie could get hitched into the same harness and pull in the same direction without the world cavin' in."

  "I'm not like Tanner," Luke said shortly. "He had a happy ending."

  "You can, too, if you want one," Noah said. He sat up and leaned toward his brother. "It isn't impossible."

  "You're turnin' into a hell of an optimist."

  "Maybe. But it's true," Noah maintained. "Tanner'll tell you. You gotta go after what you want in life. You want Jill, go after her."

  "I don't want Jill!"

  "No?"

  Luke turned his back and stared out the window. "Leave me alone."

  "Ain't like you to be a quitter, Luke," Noah said quietly.

  "You can't quit what you never started."

  "Didn't you...start something?" Noah's words fell like stones into the silence. Luke wondered exactly how much he knew, how much Jill had told him.

  Damn, had she spilled her guts to his brother? Luke went to stand in the doorway, his spine stiff, his knuckles tight on the door frame.

  "You can't quit," Noah said to his back. "Cowboys don't."

  He came, he flung his words of Western wisdom and, like he always did, Noah left.

  His words, however, pricked at Luke at odd times during the next few days. He fought them off, ignored them.

  There were such things as false starts, he told himself. He and Jill had had one of those. You weren't really quitting if you turned your back on those. You were just showing good sense. It was better this way—for both of them.

  Besides, in time he would forget her. With Jimmy home and Annette getting her energy back, with Cy checking in every day and Clare calling to help out, Jill had probably already packed her bags and left for New York.

  Maybe she'd left when he had, he thought.

  Or maybe she was staying around—thinking about a relationship with Garrett Sutter.

  "Damn it!" He had ridden right into an overhanging branch.

  He shoved it away and rode around the tree, then turned his head as he caught sight of some movement just down the mountain through the trees.

  At first he thought it was a wandering cow, though he hadn't seen one on the way up. Now he saw that it was a horse. One of Jimmy's horses. What the hell...?

  Touching his heels lightly to his own horse, Luke headed down the slope after it. Surely, with a broken leg, Jimmy hadn't been stupid enough to come looking for him and get himself bucked off. Had he?

  Luke caught the horse's reins and started down the mountain, looking.

  He heard her before he saw her. Jill. Which didn't bring the relief that it should have. She was in the pasture where she'd found him when he'd been doctoring the bull, the one where he had the steer now, the one he'd told her to stay out of on foot.

  Obviously she was on foot now.

  But it wouldn't matter with the steer the way it would have with the bull, and she didn't sound as if she'd been hurt, though she must have been tossed off.

  By the time he reached the fence, he could see her clearly. She looked none the worse for wear as she backed toward him, edging over near the pile of quaky branches that he'd cut for the corral. She kept her eyes on the steer, which was still standing on the far side of the pasture in high grass, regarding her curiously.

  "Stay there," she told him. "Just stay right where you are. Don't come any closer."

  Luke sat silently on the horse and watched, his amusement growing as he did so. All too often around Jill, he had felt foolish, even when she hadn't meant to inspire any such feeling. It was comforting, since she clearly wasn't hurt, to have the tables turned for once.

  He dismounted quietly, glad she was making so much noise she hadn't heard him. Then he eased his way over the fence, aiming to come up behind her.

  "I mean it," Jill was saying to the steer, which had taken a step or two in her direction. "Don't come over here."

  The steer, unused to being talked to in anything except four-letter installments dished out by irritated cowboys, looked at her as quizzically as a steer can manage to look.

  Luke moved closer, still not speaking up, wondering what Jill would do if the steer decided to pursue his interest. He imagined her turning and running straight into his arms. He couldn't help it; he grinned.

  She'd reached the pile of quaky branches now, and she picked up one of the short ones, waving it like an oversize baseball bat. "See this?" she said to the steer. "Want it right between the eyes? No, of course you don't. So just don't—"

  But the steer did. He tossed his head and started toward her, first at a walk, then at a slightly faster gait.

  "Don't!" Jill warned.

  Luke, almost behind her left shoulder now, expected her to turn and run. She stood her ground and assumed a batting stance, for all the world as if she were Henry Aaron looking for his sixty-first.

  The steer kept coming.

  "Watch it!" Jill cried, stepping into her swing.

  "For God's sa—"

  She caught Luke on the follow-through—right between the eyes.

  Not that he realized it at the time.

  At the time all he saw was the swing... and stars.

  The first thing he heard was Jill, half-hysterical, crying, "Luke! My God! Are you all right? Luke!"

  He couldn't see her at all. The pain was blinding, but even if it hadn't been, his eyes were swollen shut.

  "Oh God, I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Come on! We've got to get out of here. The bull's—"

  "'S a steer," Luke mumbled.

  "What?"

  "'S not a bull," he managed to say, struggling to sit up with the aid of her arm behind his back. "' S a—"

  "Steer? Why didn't you say so?" Abruptly she pulled her arm out and let him drop back onto the ground.

  He groaned.

  Immediately she was contrite. "I'm sorry. I still shouldn't have hit you. But if I'd known—" Accusation began to creep back into her voice.

  "You made your point," Luke said gruffly. He tried to open one eye. He could barely manage to let a little light in. It hurt like hell.

  "Can you stand up?"

  He did, finally. His head felt as if it were going to come off. He couldn't keep his balance without her holding him up. So much for having the advantage. He groaned again.

  "Let's get you to the horses." She helped him slowly over to the fence. The steer, curious again, was practically breathing dow
n their necks by the time they got there. Luke dreaded having to bend down and climb between the wires, with reason. He almost passed out by the time he got to the other side.

  "Can you ride?" Jill asked.

  "I can ride," he muttered.

  She insisted on holding onto the reins of his horse in case it decided to go somewhere other than the cabin. Luke assured her that it wouldn't, but she was stubborn and he was in no shape to fight with her about it.

  A tentative exploration with his fingers indicated that he had a lump the size of a goose egg between his eyes, and his nose was probably broken.

  "Thanks," he said when they reached the cabin.

  "You need to see a doctor," she said.

  Luke couldn't imagine telling any doc in town what had happened to him. If his almost passing out in the delivery room was memorable, this ought to go down in Bluff Springs history as first-class folklore.

  "No," he said. "I'm stayin' right here."

  "But—"

  "No," he said, and slid off the horse before she could argue further.

  "Damn it, Luke. You need help."

  "I need to be left alone." He could make out the cabin and moved toward it. "Turn out my horse and you'll have done your good deed for the day. Then go away."

  "But—"

  "Go on. You've got things to do, I'm sure." He turned back, not that he could really see her, but he could pretend. "Why'd you come up here, anyway? Something wrong down at the ranch?"

  "No. I came to tell you I was...leaving."

  Still, the news shook him. He took a stumbling step backward, then steadied himself, trying to ignore the sudden hollowness inside.

  She hesitated, but when he didn't say anything, she went on. "Annette and Jimmy are doing all right and I got the book finished. So, well, I figured it was time. I...have an assignment I've been thinking about taking." She sounded casual.

  "Good for you." He stuffed his hands in his pockets. He was glad he couldn't see her now. He wished she couldn't see him. Hell of a way to remember him, looking like he had a pifiata for a head.

  "I...talked to Carl the other night," she said after a moment. "He has a job he thinks you might be interested in." There was an oddly breathless quality to her voice.

  "No."

  "It's a western. Right up your alley. Starts filming in the fall and—"

  "I said no."

  "Luke, you need—"

  "I don't need anything, except to be left alone. No. Thank you." His fingers curled into fists. There was a hammer slamming against an anvil behind his eyes. He turned back toward the cabin, moving carefully, determined not to make a bigger fool of himself by tripping and falling on his face. "Goodbye."

  Hank fussing at the door woke him. The other dogs whined, too. Luke felt like whining himself. It had taken him hours to go to sleep. He hadn't had any ice to put on his face, but he'd got water from the creek and used soaking compresses in an effort to get the swelling down. If it had worked, by the time he went to sleep the effect had been marginal.

  His only consolation was that Jill was really gone. Finally he could begin to try to forget her. As he'd drifted off to sleep, the pain finally giving way to sweet oblivion, he'd allowed himself a sigh of something like relief.

  But relief was short-lived. The dogs were going nuts.

  "What the hell's the matter with you?" he snarled, hauling himself to a sitting position and fumbling to light the kerosene lantern.

  Outside he heard a horse neigh and he cursed vehemently, certain that Jill had left the rungs of the fence down and the horses were off to the four corners of the earth.

  Damn! He struggled to his feet as the dogs barking grew even more frenzied.

  The door opened as he got the lantern lit.

  Jill said, "I'm ba-a-a-ack."

  Eight

  "What the hell—?"

  "You didn't imagine I'd leave you here alone, did you?" Jill asked. She came right up to him and studied his eyes in the golden light. He could barely make her out, even now. He gritted his teeth.

  "I'd hoped," he muttered.

  "Well, I wouldn't. You might have a concussion. You really should see a doctor."

  "Don't start," he warned, "or I swear to God I'll throw you out right now."

  "You and whose army?" And she took his arm and dragged him back toward the bed. "Lie down. I've brought some ice." She looked around. "I'll put it in a plastic bag and wrap it in a dish towel." She glanced about. "Good. You have dish towels."

  "How uncivilized do you think I am?"

  "Don't ask."

  He heard her moving efficiently across the room, heard the clinking of the ice. Then she came over and sat on the bed. He edged away. Gingerly she laid the ice pack across his eyes and the bridge of his nose. He sucked in his breath.

  "Hurts?"

  Like hell. "I've had worse."

  "I suppose you have." He could hear the smile in her voice. "Shh, now. Just try to sleep."

  He couldn't possibly sleep. Not with her right next to him. What did she think, that pain deadened desire? She needed to think again. Still, when she didn't move about, just sat quietly beside him while the ice did its numbing best, he found himself relaxing without trying to.

  "You said you were leaving," he murmured, fighting to stay conscious.

  "I changed things around."

  "What things?" Conversation would help, he decided. It would keep him from feeling quite so cozy.

  "I arranged to keep the rental car, canceled my plane reservations and told Annette not to give someone else my bed." He could tell that she was smiling again.

  He breathed more easily, not at the smile but at the idea that at least she planned to leave, to go back down to the ranch.

  "Not that I expect I'll be using it, really," she went on, just as if she'd heard what he was thinking. "I'm staying with you."

  "No. I told you no."

  "Wanna fight about it?"

  He groaned.

  "I'm truly sorry about this, Luke."

  "For smashing my handsome face?"

  "Yes." And he could tell from her tone of voice that she actually meant it. He reached up a hand and pushed hers away, moving the ice pack off his eyes as he squinted up at her. It was a mistake.

  She looked like an angel, her disheveled dark hair like a nimbus around her face, and all of her lit in the soft golden light of the lantern. It made him want her all over again.

  A ragged sigh slipped from between his lips. Gently Jill replaced the ice pack. He felt something soft brush across his hair once, then again. Her fingers? Probably.

  Her lips?

  God, he had to stop thinking things like that!

  "Go to sleep," she told him. "Don't worry. I'll take care of the horses and the dogs in the morning."

  He should have protested. He should have told her he could manage, but God, it felt so good, despite the pain, just to give in this once.

  Once wouldn't hurt, would it?

  He could regain the ground he was losing tonight when he felt better tomorrow.

  Couldn't he? Couldn't he?

  #

  When tomorrow came she wouldn't let him out of bed.

  If he hadn't used a lot of choice, four-letter words when it came to preserving his modesty, she probably wouldn't have even given in to him on that.

  She hovered all day—except when she was out feeding the horses or checking the cattle. He was glad when she left to do it. But once she had, he worried all the time she was gone.

  What did she know about moving cattle? She might be a farm girl by birth, but, hell, this was the woman who couldn't tell a steer from a bull! She'd kill herself out there.

  He tried not to fret about it. He didn't want her to think he was that worried. But when three hours passed and she hadn't reappeared, he couldn't pretend indifference any longer. He hauled himself out of bed and reached for his jeans.

  The door opened. "What on earth are you doing?"

  "I was, uh—" He
couldn't even come up with a convincing lie. He sank back onto the bed, weak with relief. "Worried," he muttered. "About the cattle. Did everything go all right?"

  She nodded. "Of course, I didn't really do anything spectacular. All the fence was intact, so I didn't even get to pretend I could mend it. I know I was supposed to get the cattle out of the creek bottom, and I tried. But they didn't want to listen, and they were bigger than I was, so I wasn't a huge success as far as that goes. But I did get the horses fed." She shrugged, grinning. "I might be a farmer, but I'll never make a cowboy."

  "Doesn't matter, does it?" Luke said. He laid back on the bed, his head still pounding.

  "Might." Jill's voice was soft.

  He shot her a wary look. "Don't," he warned.

  "Don't what?"

  "Push."

  "Is that what I'm doing?"

  "Aren't you?"

  She flushed and looked away.

  "Uh-uh. So forget it. Forget me."

  "I can't."

  "I'm not worth it, damn it. Besides, once you had me, you wouldn't want me."

  "How do you know?"

  He never should've started this. He'd hoped that by spelling things out, confronting her, he'd get her to turn tail and run. He should've known she'd be like a grizzly when cornered, ready to do battle. Hell.

  "Because," he said, his fingers curling into the bedroll, "I'm not Keith."

  "No," she said. "You're not."

  "I'm not cheerful and eager and a regular damned Boy Scout."

  A hint of a smile touched her lips. "That's for sure."

  The muscles in his jaw tightened. "I don't make the kind of money he did or have the fans he had or anything else."

  "True."

  "So what're you doin' here?" Even he could hear the anguish in his voice.

  She smiled once more and lifted her shoulders in a gentle shrug. "Beats the heck out of me. I must be a glutton for punishment."

  The next morning he awoke to find her lying on the other bed. It was still very early. He didn't need a watch to tell him that. He could see better this morning.

  He wouldn't need Jill to do his work for him. He could send her home.

  He rolled over onto his side and propped his head on his hand and looked at her. She was asleep.