Perfect Touch

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Who knew?” Sara asked, looking at the land and the sleek black cattle.

  “With lease lands spread all over, and terrain that would make a mountain goat look twice, a helicopter is the best way to check on herds. We can haul feed and mineral licks out to the range cattle if necessary. We can see if a cow is down or if a calf is orphaned. We can herd cattle out of the high country to places that are easier to reach with an ATV or a horse or even a truck.”

  He settled his hat back on with a snap of his wrist. Amble flicked an ear back. He stroked the gelding’s neck with strong sweeps of his hand while his eyes searched the landscape for any movement.

  “So we’re riding herd the old-fashioned way because . . . ?” Sara asked.

  “I love it. It’s a break from bookkeeping and lawyers and pulling wire. I do too much of that and too little of this.” Jay gave her a sideways look. “And it’s a way to take the measure of a certain woman who wants to handle a part of my family history.”

  She wanted to ask how she was doing but didn’t want to be too blunt. “I’m guessing I passed the riding part,” she said.

  “Beautifully.”

  “And I kind of passed the shooting part.”

  “Jury is out on that,” he said. “And I’m hoping it won’t be a problem.”

  “So am I.”

  He whistled a sharp series of notes. The dogs pushed the cattle to the left, urging them closer to a pile of boulders at the edge of a small meadow. Evergreens shaded half of the boulders. When he whistled again, the dogs backed off and let the cattle scatter. Soon the animals were grazing on new grass under the watchful eyes of the border collies.

  “That’s pretty amazing,” Sara said.

  “They’re good dogs, especially for how young they are. I’m planning to buy a quality bitch, train her, breed her with Skunk, and raise more cow dogs.”

  “I was talking about you being amazing. Where did you learn all the whistle commands?”

  “From JD,” Jay said, dismounting. “He learned them from his father, who learned them from his father, and so on. But the dogs answer to standard hand signals, too.”

  She watched Jay reach for the cinch and asked hopefully, “Lunchtime?”

  “Better late than never.” He loosened Amble’s cinch, took off the saddlebags, and led the horse to a spot about twenty feet away. “The ‘facilities’ are behind whichever rock you choose.”

  Sara dismounted and loosened the cinch. “Do we need to hobble the horses?”

  “No. I’ll tie them in the shade of those trees. It will be a quick lunch.”

  With a fast glance around, she oriented herself and headed off to a boulder that was big enough for a football team to crouch behind.

  “We’ve had plenty of warm days at this altitude,” he called after her. “Watch for snakes.”

  “Always,” she said fervently.

  He felt the same way, but it was the two-legged variety of reptile that kept him on the alert.

  He would bet hard money he had heard at least one ATV behind them.

  So what? A lot of ranchers and outdoor types use ATVs. We’re on public land right now.

  Druggies use public lands. They’re like snakes, appearing when the ground warms. It’s prime time for pot up here. The season is short and the crop is kick-ass.

  He really hoped the campesinos and cartel types would stay out of his way. Hunting them on his own was one thing. Hunting men with Sara along was a different thing entirely.

  That was the reason for the rocky picnic. If it all went to hell, the boulders would be good cover.

  I’m being paranoid, he told himself.

  It’s called survival, himself shot back.

  Ignoring both halves of his arguing mind, Jay carried the saddlebags, canteens, and his rifle toward a grassy patch hidden in the boulders. Rocks reflected the warmth of the sunlight, raising the temperature several degrees. With every gust of wind, lacy shade swept across the boulders like a lady’s fan.

  The wind had risen with the temperature. Air blew steadily, though from unpredictable directions, bringing scents and sounds along for the ride. With a last look at the dogs—relaxed, watching the cattle—Jay propped the rifle within reach and pulled out the Glock. He could tell by its weight that the pistol was fully loaded, but he checked the magazine anyway before putting the weapon next to the rifle.

  By the time Sara returned, Jay had laid out sandwiches and fruit, using the saddlebags as a makeshift table. The itching at the back of his neck, caused by primitive nerves telling him that he was being watched, had subsided to an occasional twitch.

  Sunlight filtering through the nearby branches kept Sara half in shadow, but the half in sun was looking at him. He wanted to ask her if she felt watched, but didn’t.

  “Help yourself,” he said. “There’s plenty of everything.”

  “You’re back,” she said.

  He gave her an odd look. “I never went anywhere.”

  She sat cross-legged and reached for the nearest sandwich. “You changed back there when Skunk barked. If I didn’t already know you, I wouldn’t have recognized you. My brother is like that, two men wearing the same skin.”

  “Sorry.” Jay took a drink from the coffee canteen. “Old reflexes and training kicked in real hard.”

  “I figured that. My brother is the same, but he never talks about it. I just observed it. Had to live with it.” She drew a breath, remembering. “It’s like he can’t find the off switch or it’s stuck halfway.”

  “You train so you don’t have to think in a combat situation.” Jay took a big bite of sandwich, then another.

  She waited, hoping he would talk willingly.

  “The feeling of being watched is a basic survival mechanism,” he said after he chewed and swallowed. “Earlier, the back of my neck lit up like a Christmas tree.”

  The words were easy enough, but she saw the weight of Jay’s experience in the tight slash of his mouth.

  “Caught you by surprise this time?” she asked casually.

  “Yes.” He shifted his shoulders, a man readjusting an invisible load. “I don’t get caught off guard much.” Navy blue eyes locked with hers. “But sometimes it’s a pleasant surprise. Like you.”

  She felt herself warm under the open appreciation in his eyes. “But sometimes it puts you on alert, makes you forget you’re at home?”

  “Like your brother?”

  She nodded.

  “Homecoming takes longer for some,” Jay said. “You have to retrain your reflexes.”

  “How about you? Are you really back?”

  He looked at her dark brown eyes, so clear, so aware. “Most times, yes. The wrong kind of people can set me off. And whether I like it or not, there are still plenty of wrong people.”

  “The West is still wild, is that it?”

  “So are cities. Criminals are criminals wherever you find them.”

  A golden eagle’s whistling cry rippled down from the sky.

  “I’d like to have his wings and eyes,” Jay said, his head tilted back, watching the bird’s easy flight. “Then I’d never blindly stumble over a grow operation again. Gunfire sounds the same here as it does in the mountains of Afghanistan. Kills just as dead, too.”

  Her eyes widened. “The pot growers shot at you?”

  He shrugged. “You don’t carry guns unless you’re going to use them.” He finished off the sandwich. “I wasn’t as settled back then. I told Cooke what I’d found and then I went back to the place. Quietly.” He bit into an apple, savoring its crunch.

  “And?” Sara asked, her eyes intent.

  “Like most crooks, they were cowards. They blew out of there before I came back with more ammunition. Left me with a mess—garbage, a diverted stream, chunks of land dug up everywhere.”

  “They’re lucky they ran, aren’t they?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  She looked at Jay and saw the truth. When it came to the ranch, he would do what he
had to—and he had been trained by experts in the art of war.

  “I withdraw my dumb question,” she said. “Do you have to get rid of trespassers like that every year?”

  “Pot and meth are the modern gold. A lot of fools think drugs are easy money.”

  She blew out a breath. “Stuff like that can’t make homecoming any easier.”

  Normally Jay would have changed the subject long ago, but the knowledge that Sara had a younger brother who had gone through the same hell he had made it easier to talk about the past.

  “To get through your time over there,” he said, “you have to change into someone else. Changing back is harder than most want to admit, and you never really do it all the way. You can’t. Knowledge gained in adrenaline and fear goes right to the bone.”

  “I have a few adrenaline-and-fear memories,” she said. “Small-town nights and sneaking off the farm, doing stupid, reckless stuff in cars that makes me wonder how I survived. Two of my friends, Kelly and Jim, didn’t.” Kelly and Jim and his crumpled Camaro that almost made that last curve. Two crosses and plastic flowers and signs handmade by teenagers who had just learned that shit really does happen. She shook her head slowly. “I can’t believe I was ever that young.”

  “You grew up real nice.”

  She smiled almost sadly. “So did you. I’m not going to run screaming just because someone taught you how to defend yourself and your ranch. I tried to get Kelly out of the wreck. I would have given anything to be able to reach her. But I couldn’t. All I could do was touch her arm while she died.” Memories darkened Sara’s eyes and made her mouth turn down. “Sometimes I still dream about the blood and . . .” She shook her head.

  Jay could accept his own nightmares, but seeing Sara’s in her dark eyes ripped him up in ways he couldn’t name.

  “Come here,” he said, gathering her into his arms.

  She didn’t protest. She just settled into his lap and put her arms around him, comforting him as much as he comforted her. Slowly, with small movements of her head, she pushed aside his open collar and breathed deeply of his living heat, grateful that he had survived to be with her now.

  He felt the sweet rush of her breath against his neck and a different kind of tension slid through his blood, kicking up his heartbeat. He tilted her head up and brushed his mouth against hers . . . once, twice, again, savoring the plush warmth of her lips, outlining them with the tip of his tongue. He felt the tremor that went through her and knew he should stop.

  But he didn’t.

  He had waited a lifetime for a woman like her to tremble in his arms.

  With a slow movement he repeated the caress, felt her breath sigh through her parted lips, and sank into her, going deep, coming home in a way he couldn’t explain, only feel.

  King Kobe’s distinctive bawl cut through the quiet.

  Reluctantly Jay lifted his head in time to see Lightfoot harry the bull calf back toward his mama.

  “If he didn’t have prime bloodlines,” Jay said in a husky voice, “I’d be having me some veal real soon.”

  “I’d be eating right alongside you.”

  He looked at her eyes, the elegant line of her nose, the flush along her high cheekbones.

  “Custer was right,” Jay said.

  “About what?”

  “The view up here is the best on the ranch.”

  CHAPTER 11

  JAY HAD A hard time staying focused on the cattle and on searching for whatever had set off the feeling of being watched. Kissing Sara had scrambled his thoughts in a way he wouldn’t have believed was possible. Though she and Lightfoot were currently pressuring an Angus mama to stay with the herd, he swore he could scent the light lavender smell of her hair and savor the shared apple taste of her mouth.

  Heat streaked through his body like lightning.

  JD’s old mantra echoed in his head. Let it go. Be a rock, motionless while life’s troubles flow on by.

  Jay tried to let the sensual moments he and Sara had shared pass through him and vanish. The starkly remembered feel of her mouth opening under his made his groin tighten even more.

  Think about something else, he told himself, shifting to find a more comfortable position in the saddle.

  Lightfoot’s bark brought Jay out of himself.

  The collie was staring up at a small ridge that stood between the herd and Fish Camp an hour ahead. The dog was intent, ears and tail up, black nose sniffing the wind that flowed down from the ridge.

  From the corner of Jay’s eye, he saw Skunk come to a quivering point.

  He pulled the rifle out of its sheath and waited.

  From his vantage point, the land fell away in all directions, forever, shades of green punctuated by granite, patches of snow, and the silver exclamation marks of aspen whose leaves were only a dream. Off to the left, an invisible stream murmured to itself, dreaming of the distant sea. Boundaries disappeared. He was the land and the land was himself, indivisible.

  The dogs shook like they were coming out of water and resumed harrying any laggards.

  Jay took a deep breath and let go of the adrenaline, even though he couldn’t let go of the moment when he had seen the land so vividly.

  And it had seen him.

  It had been the same when he kissed Sara. They had seen each other.

  Then she rode up alongside him and he realized he no longer felt the chill of bloody memories that haunted his silences.

  “How’s your neck?” she asked.

  “Fairly quiet. You?”

  “I’m still trying to lift a nonexistent ruff,” she admitted. “Did you see anything?”

  “You.”

  She tried to say something but could only think what a dark, vivid blue his eyes were. Her lips tingled with the memory of his kiss.

  “Beautiful, beautiful woman,” he said.

  “Sweet liar,” she said, smiling.

  “Pure truth.”

  Eyes dark with memories and desire, she watched his every movement. “I wish I could take this feeling and carry it around in my pocket forever.”

  She looked at his eyes watching her and she saw too much. His experiences, his burdens, his joy at riding across the land.

  With her.

  Then Skunk bolted toward the ridge where evergreens lifted shaggy heads to the sun. The dog was almost belly to the ground when he stopped as suddenly as he had started.

  “There’s a Glock in your right saddlebag,” Jay said. “If you have to use it, pull hard on the trigger the first time. After that it will get easy. And be sure what you’re shooting at.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I’m going to find out.”

  Amble trotted toward the place where Skunk lurked in the grass. With every step his horse took, Jay searched the land in front of the dog. The only movement he could see was the nervous flicking of Amble’s ears. Like Skunk, the gelding had caught a scent he didn’t like.

  Skunk inched forward, tracking something with his nose in the wind. Though his ruff stood up visibly on his neck, the dog didn’t make a sound.

  Without looking away from the direction Skunk was watching, Jay reined Amble at an angle to the dog. Soon man and horse were in the cover of trees.

  Skunk’s nose twitched in the wind and he tilted his head up just a touch.

  Jay studied the ridge where the dog’s attention was focused. The face was steep granite that still wore white patches of snow. Bands and small stands of trees tumbled steeply down to the grass where the dog lay in wait.

  Jay knew the foliage concealed game trails that people occasionally used. The ridge wasn’t Vermilion land, although they had grazing rights and free passage. Parts of the ridge edged onto national parklands, which were open to anyone who enjoyed rough country and had the government’s permission to play.

  Something sure is out there, he thought. Something Skunk doesn’t like. Something that makes my neck itch almost as bad as it did this morning. Different from this morning but still a w
arning.

  His intent eyes searched for the telltale flashes of sunlight reflecting off glass or metal. He saw only the ripple of wind through grass and trees.

  Skunk stood and trotted back to the cattle, which were slowly moving toward Fish Camp. Whatever scent had lured the dog was gone now.

  Sure would like to know what’s shadowing our trail.

  But he knew that if Skunk had given up, there was no point in beating the bushes. With a final sweeping glance, he went back to the herd.

  And Sara.

  “Did you see anything?” she asked as he rode up.

  “Just the mountain,” he said finally. “It felt like we were being scoped out for a moment. But not like earlier.”

  “How was it different?”

  “I can’t explain. It just was.”

  She shaded her eyes against the sun, but their brown was still bright in the shadow of her hand. “I think my jumpiness is catching.”

  “It’s not just you,” he said.

  “The dogs,” she agreed.

  He tilted his hat back and sighed. “I don’t know whether the dogs are picking up cues from me or vice versa. Out here, sometimes your mind plays tricks on you. Like people who have gone deaf often hear sounds in their mind.”

  “You mean you’re populating the empty space out there with your mind?”

  “Close enough.”

  The cows walked slowly on, leaving the people behind. Sara and Jay reined their horses around and followed.

  “The problem,” he said, “is once you go on alert, your mind doesn’t want to stop.”

  She looked at him. He was watching the ridge that the trail was slowly skirting.

  Skunk gave a sharp bark and froze, looking at that same ridge.

  “That’s it,” Jay said flatly, pulling out the rifle. “Skunk is convinced there’s something up on the ridge.” A low whistle sent Lightfoot running along the side of the herd that was closer to the ridge. “Get the Glock and stay with the herd,” he said to her. “Keep an eye on the ridge where the scree slope is. Skunk and I are going hunting.”

  “How long will you—?”

  But Amble was already cantering off, following an eager Skunk along an invisible scent trail on the wind. Sara stared after them for a moment, then reached back and pulled the pistol out of the saddlebag.