Perfect Touch

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Okay,” she said to Jezebel. “It’s just you and me and the Glock.”

  The mare flicked her ear and watched the side of the herd where there was no dog to keep the cows in line.

  Sara watched Jay. She wasn’t happy about being left alone with the cattle, but she understood why he had. Until they knew what was following them, they didn’t know how serious it might be.

  I wasn’t on a horse when I was at target practice. Doubt if I can hit anything but the ground this way. But animals are wary of guns—the stink and the sound.

  It will have to be enough.

  She looked at the ridge above the trees, where broken rock cut a gray swath across the land. Light poured out from beneath clouds that had increased in size. They didn’t look dark enough for rain just now, but they were too heavy to ignore entirely. Shadows lay in nooks and crannies and ravines, growing bigger as the sun slid down to the western horizon.

  She felt Jezebel tightening beneath her and grabbed for the saddle horn with her free hand. The mare raced to cut off King Kobe before he reached a succulent patch of spring grass growing at the edge of dense forest. The calf gave an angry bawl, but turned back.

  On the other side of the herd, Lightfoot was working hard. The cattle seemed to know that the herding staff had been cut in half. The calves, in particular, were intent on breaking away just because they could.

  “These are the cows I know and hate,” she said, keeping one hand locked around the saddle horn. “Contrary and stubborn to the bone. I wonder if there is any Holstein hidden in Angus bloodlines.”

  Jezebel didn’t care what breed the cows were. She had her ears up as she danced and pivoted, cutting off any avenues away from the herd, convincing the calves that they were better off with their mamas. On the other side of the herd, Lightfoot fought a losing battle for control. The calves and their mamas seemed intent on heading off in every direction.

  The trail the herd was following came closer and closer to the tree line. All that separated the cattle from the trees were scattered rocks that stuck out of the ground like a kid’s abandoned construction set. The sun was shining on the boulders, picking out sparkly bits of quartz and mica in the granite.

  Before Sara could enjoy the view—much less look for Jay—Jezebel was on King Kobe again.

  Sara hung on and thought how good veal would taste.

  Then she heard a rushing sound, as if a sudden burst of wind was combing over grass and scrub and trees. The herd came to a stop and milled uneasily, disturbed by something she couldn’t see.

  She held Jezebel still and looked toward the source of the sound.

  There. In the tall grass where the forest can’t grow.

  Something was moving quickly, like water rolling downhill, swift and unstoppable. She saw that three calves had managed to confuse Lightfoot and head off for greener pastures away from the herd.

  There was a tawny flash.

  Abruptly she realized what was making the grass bend and ripple. She hadn’t seen any nature shows since she was a kid, but the image of a lioness chasing down a gazelle was imprinted on her memory.

  The distance was too far for a pistol shot. She’d be as likely to hit a calf as anything else. She glanced frantically around, looking for Jay. She saw him maybe sixty feet back, upslope from the herd, rifle at his shoulder, tracking the rippling grass. He was aiming parallel to the herd, but higher up. Unless there was a really bad ricochet, all the stock would be safe.

  The cougar put on a final burst of speed to close the distance between itself and the calf that was farthest from the herd. Tawny shoulders bunched up with muscle, power rippling through its body as it broke into a surprisingly ragged run.

  Jay’s first shot sounded like it was right in Sara’s ear. It was louder than anything she’d ever heard in the movies or on the practice range, where she wore sound protectors. There was a snap in the air as the retort washed over her.

  Just in front of the cat, grass seemed to leap and swirl. The cat ignored the sound and the bullet that had thrown up a stinging burst of grit in its face. The prey calf was close now, and nothing would get in the way of a kill. The cougar bunched up for a leap.

  A second and third shot echoed through the high valley.

  The cat fell like a puppet without strings.

  The cattle tried to break away from the small herd and run wherever their tiny little minds led them. Sara was too busy hanging on to the saddle horn to watch Jay approach the fallen cougar. Jezebel had a job and the mare was going to do it.

  Skunk appeared out of the grass. Between the two dogs and Jezebel, the cattle were finally contained in a restive group. Jay rode slowly up to the herd, not wanting to spook them any more.

  “I’ll take the Glock,” he said. “The cougar is dead.”

  Sara gave him the gun. Instead of putting it in the saddlebag, he pulled out a small holster and clipped it to the back of his belt. The Glock fit it perfectly.

  She started to say something, but settled for, “I thought mountain lions didn’t hunt cattle.”

  “Healthy ones don’t,” he said, watching the herd. “This cat was half starved and partly crippled from some kind of fight. Probably made a try for an elk or a moose calf and the mother took exception. Moose and elk have sharp hooves and the temperament to use them.”

  “Poor cougar. If it hadn’t been for you, the animal would have died slow and hard.”

  He looked at her. “Thought you would be on the cat’s side.”

  “I am. Mother Nature is not only a bitch, she’s hardest of all on the predators. A sick or weak prey animal doesn’t suffer for long in the wild. A predator in the same shape suffers a long, hard death.”

  A lazy wind ruffled the grass with cool fingers.

  “You keep surprising me,” Jay said.

  “Why? I’m as transparent as glass.”

  He smiled slightly. “Whatever you say, sweetheart. Let’s get these cows to Fish Camp.”

  “What about the cougar?”

  “We’re in a national forest. I’ll let one of the rangers know by radio after the cattle settle into the trail again.”

  “Paperwork in the wilderness?”

  “Is the land overseen by a bureaucracy?” Jay retorted.

  She huffed out a breath. “If you need a witness, I saw you fire a warning shot even though it was clear the cat had veal on its mind.”

  “Thanks, but I won’t need a witness. The carcass will tell a ranger all he or she needs to know.” He looked at her closely. “I didn’t think before I left you here alone. Are you all right?”

  She gave him a puzzled look.

  “You and me riding together out here is like you going swimming in a pool,” he said. “You out here alone with an unknown threat is like you swimming way out beyond ocean breakers.”

  She smiled wryly. “Well, I did have an instant of Yikes, what am I doing here? Then Jezebel took off after a calf and I didn’t have time to worry about anything but hanging on while riding with a Glock. Good thing you use roping reins. Otherwise Jezebel would have been stepping on leather.”

  “You held it all together. That’s what counts.”

  Jay whistled to the dogs, and the herd began moving slowly toward Fish Camp once more.

  “You’re really okay?” he asked her.

  “I . . . don’t know how to put it,” she said slowly, sorting through her thoughts. “Part of me was thrilled to be out in a place where I can’t just call up a meal or connect to the entirety of human knowledge on my phone. And part of me thought I was flat-out crazy. Then wind rolled down from the pass and the air smelled like old stone and sweetgrass. I felt so alive and real. I could hear my heartbeat and feel the sun and the wind on my skin. And I wondered when I had stopped listening to my own body.”

  When she was silent, he made an encouraging sound, needing to know more about her.

  “San Francisco is an extraordinary place, both exciting and secure,” she said slowly. “There, I’m pa
rt of a huge, complicated system built by human beings. I’m one piece of a crowd that ignores all the other pieces that make up the whole. There are so many things to do, to see, to try.”

  “And you miss it.”

  She nodded. “And I discovered that out here I’m connected to a different whole that I had all but forgotten. That’s why I ride when I can, to remind me there are many worlds. Different worlds. In my race to get away from my childhood, I forgot that. I forgot the part where I was a girl standing barefoot in tall grass on a bluff looking out over the Pacific Ocean, breathing air that hadn’t touched anything since Japan.”

  Jay watched Sara’s lips while an emotion he couldn’t name twisted through him. “I feel like that, too. Different worlds. I just have to figure out how to live a barefoot child’s life in at least one of them.”

  “What about the adult?”

  “No worries,” he said rather grimly. “The adult knows that each world reaches out and takes its toll in sweat and blood and dreams.”

  Her dark eyes searched his, finding little comfort. “No free lunches,” she said. “Damn. I keep looking for one.”

  “Speaking of lunch,” he said, “I have to call the Solvangs again. They didn’t pick up a few hours ago.”

  While he unbuckled one of the saddlebags, Sara watched the dogs watching the cows. She had learned that the dogs would detect trouble long before she did. And they were fun to see in action.

  Jay pulled out the radio, switched to Fish Camp frequency, and said, “Ivar? Inge? Pick up the radio.”

  He waited for someone to answer.

  “Come on, Ivar,” Jay said. “Even you can’t fish all day. Pick up!”

  He waited.

  And waited.

  “Damn it,” Jay said, switching the radio back to standby mode. “They must still be out fishing or chopping wood or gardening or something. They’re supposed to be within hearing of the radio at all times, but . . .” He shrugged. “They both are the independent kind. That’s why they live at Fish Camp all year.”

  “You think they could be fishing for trout?” Sara asked, not bothering to hide her greed.

  “They’re the best eating we have, unless we get mad enough and grill King Kobe.”

  “Trout, veal, trout, veal. Who could decide?”

  “If young Kobe doesn’t clean up his act, we’ll have both,” Jay promised.

  “How much farther to Fish Camp?”

  “Getting hungry again?”

  “You bet. Riding is a lot more exercise than sitting in a chair.”

  “We’ll be able to see the lake part of Fish Camp from the top of the trail right up ahead,” he said. “From there, it’s about twenty minutes to the cabins.”

  “Trout. Veal. Trout. Veal.”

  He smiled, then whistled at the dogs to pick up the pace. Soon they were up on the crest of the trail, looking down. The cabins were hidden among the trees, but the boathouse showed its weathered wood at the shore of a sapphire lake.

  “You see any boat?” Sara asked, standing in the stirrups as she searched.

  “No.” He tried the radio again.

  No answer.

  With a muttered word, he stowed the radio in the saddlebag.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “You’re looking like your neck itches. A lot.”

  CHAPTER 12

  FOR A FEW minutes Jay concentrated on the dogs and the herd rather than Sara’s question. Then he said, “It’s not like the Solvangs to blow off my calls. One call, sure. Fish Camp is a pretty big place. Three cabins, a fenced pasture, a corral, a small barn, the boathouse, a little storage building Ivar turned into his tool shop and retreat. After winter, there are always lots of repairs to do.”

  “Sounds like a miniature ranch,” she said, “but for fun, not work.”

  “Mom used to call it the play ranch. When she was alive, all of us spent a lot of time up here in the summer. After she died, I spent almost as much time at Fish Camp as I did at the ranch house.”

  “Stepmother problems?”

  “Father problems, too. JD had a hard time adjusting to a son who was nearly as big as he was. Kept trying to treat me like I was in diapers. Ivar always accepted me as I was. And Inge”—he smiled—“Inge was always making cookies and pies and sneaking bits to me when I just couldn’t wait for dinner.” Then he said, “Lightfoot, get that calf!”

  The dog was already on the calf, but it gave Jay a way to vent the tension that kept tightening his neck.

  “If we show up unannounced, is it a problem?” Sara asked.

  “No.”

  If contacting the caretakers didn’t matter, she wanted to ask why he was worried. But she didn’t. He was in an edgy mood and didn’t need her questions picking at him. Instead of talking, she fell into the easy silence they had often shared throughout the long, lazy day riding through the mountains. Usually the sound of hoofbeats on the trail, the clean, shifting wind, and the easy rhythm of riding a good horse relaxed and renewed her.

  But not today. Her mind careened between the starving cougar and the kiss she had shared with Jay, a kiss that kept reverberating through her.

  Beautiful, beautiful woman.

  Sweet liar.

  She had been kissed many times, yet she had never shared a kiss like that, gentle and consuming, a need and an acceptance that seeped into her soul. She knew she should be much more wary of Jay. He was the wrong man for her, and she was the wrong woman for him.

  Yet it had never felt so very right.

  Fine. So be an adult about it. You want him. He wants you. We’re both single. Go for it. Enjoy him. Be enjoyed. Savor it as long as it lasts.

  Then go back to your real life.

  A slow kind of heat filled her at the thought of an adult, no-strings and no-regrets affair with Jay. She watched him from the shadow of her hat brim, admiring his easy male grace as he rode. Sun glanced off the width of his shoulders and flowed down his back in a long caress.

  Beautiful, beautiful man. I can’t have you for long, but I can have some memories to warm up the cold San Francisco fog.

  Lost in her thoughts, Sara didn’t realize that the horses had crested the final ridge until Jezebel stopped and snorted out a long breath. Beside her, Jay had the field glasses out and was scanning the land below. Even without binoculars, she could see the general layout of Fish Camp.

  The small lake was a ragged circle ringed with tall, shaggy evergreens, rocks, and pockets of grass. What she could see of the house and cabins, which were tucked away in the trees, was little more than a patch here and there of weathered wood. The barn appeared to be maybe a quarter the size of the home barn.

  No wonder Jay spent all the time he could here, Sara thought. Gorgeous, barely touched by people, with a lake to play in and a lot of land to roam and imagine all the things boys love to imagine.

  Fish Camp had the air of a Shangri-la where the worries of the outside world couldn’t penetrate.

  Yet Jay didn’t seem like a man looking down at paradise. He was intent, concentrated as he scanned the land below, like the golden eagle looking for its dinner.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked quietly.

  He swept Fish Camp again with his binoculars, looking slowly, thoroughly. “No smoke, no boat, nothing moving but the wind.” He lingered for several long breaths, searching the knee-high grass that grew in small openings between the lake and the house.

  She looked and saw nothing out of the ordinary. The forest turned sunlight into green needles and shadows. Wind moved tree branches and grass. Solar collectors on the main house’s roof flashed in the sun.

  Rustic but not backward, she thought, eyeing the panels.

  “Are we late?” she asked. “Maybe they’re out looking for us.”

  “We could have been here hours earlier,” he admitted, remembering the lazy ride. “But if they were worried, they would have used the radio.”

  What Jay didn’
t say was that he hadn’t been up to Fish Camp much since he had become a freshly minted civilian. There hadn’t been any time for casual visits. There had been too much work to be done at the ranch, where so much necessary upkeep had just been let go. And JD’s illness had eaten away at everything, free time most of all.

  Jay looked hard at the lake, searching for the telltale wake of a motorboat. Then he searched for someone walking on the tree-sheltered path to the boathouse, or the equally sheltered paths between cabins and the small barn.

  Nothing.

  “They could be fishing at First Pond,” he said. “Granddad made a stone dam on the stream coming out of the lake and stocked the pond with native trout. I learned to fish there as a kid.”

  The memory of coming up here with JD and young Barton rippled through Jay. It had been so long ago, but the memories were fresh and sweet.

  JD teaching Barton how to fish, to do something for himself. I used to give him my favorite lures. God, how Barton grinned when he caught a fish bigger than mine. And I grinned right along with him.

  Good times.

  Knowing that those times were gone and would never return was a heaviness Jay carried because he didn’t know how to put it down. He kept thinking that he could have done something better, something that would have helped his little brother make different decisions as an adult.

  You did all you could, Jay told himself.

  It wasn’t enough, was it?

  And that was something that couldn’t be changed, like his mother’s slow death, or the first time he saw one of his soldiers die trying to breathe through a bullet wound in his chest.

  “Hey, you okay?” Sara asked. “You look . . .” Lost.

  But she wasn’t going to say that aloud.

  He lifted his hat and resettled it with a jerk. “Just remembering some things. Wondering where the road changed under my feet.”

  His eyes were bleak beneath the shadow of the hat brim. Though his mouth was in sunlight, it was equally forbidding. He lifted the gelding’s reins and followed the small herd down the back way into Fish Camp. The tension in his body increased with every step closer they came.