Chapter 4
The brothers, like Tess and the rest of the staff, were worn to a . frazzle by the time roundup was almost over.
Tess hadn't thought Cag meant it when he'd invited her to ride with him while he gathered strays, but early one morning after breakfast, he sent her to change into jeans and boots. He was waiting for her at the stable when she joined him there.
"Listen, I'm a little rusty," Tess began as she stared dubiously toward two saddled horses, one of whom was a sleek black gelding who pranced in place.
"Don't worry. I wouldn't put you on Black Diamond even if you asked. He's mine. This is Whirlwind," he said, nodding toward a pretty little red mare. "She's a registered quarter horse and smart as a whip. She'll take care of you." He summed her up with a glance, smiling at the blue windbreaker that matched her eyes and the Atlanta Braves baseball cap perched atop her red-gold curls.
"You look about ten," he mused, determined to put an invisible Off Limits sign on her mentally.
“And you look about—'' she began.
He cut her off in midsentence. "Hop aboard and let's get started."
She vaulted easily into the saddle and gathered the reins loosely in her hands, smiling at the pleasure of being on a horse again. She hadn't ridden since her father's death.
He tilted his tan Stetson over his eyes and turned his mount expertly. "We'll go out this way," he directed, taking the lead toward the grassy path that wound toward the line camp in the distance. "Catch up."
She patted the horse's neck gently and whispered to her. She trotted up next to Cag's mount and kept the pace.
“We do most of this with light aircraft, but there are always a few mavericks who aren't intimidated by flying machines. They get into the brush and hide. So we have to go after those on horseback." He glanced at her jean-clad legs and frowned. "I should have dug you out some chaps," he murmured, and she noticed that he was wearing his own—bat-wing chaps with stains and scratches from this sort of work. "Don't ride into the brush like that," he added firmly. "You'll rip your legs open on the thorns."
"Okay," she said easily.
He set the pace and she followed, feeling oddly happy and at peace. It was nice riding with him like this across the wide, flat plain. She felt as if they were the only two people on earth. There was a delicious silence out here, broken only by the wind and the soft snorting of the horses and occasionally a distant sound of a car or airplane.
They worked through several acres of scrubland, flushing cows and calves and steers from their hiding places and herding them toward the distant holding pens. The men had erected several stockades in which to place the separated cattle, and they'd brought in a tilt-tray, so that the calves could be branded and ear-tagged.
The cows, identified with the handheld computer by the computer chips embedded in their tough hides, were either culled and placed in a second corral to be shipped out, or driven toward another pasture. The calves would be shipped to auction. The steers, already under contract, would go to their buyers. Even so far away from the ranch, there was tremendous organization in the operation.
Tess took off her Braves cap and wiped her sweating forehead on her sleeve.
Hardy, one of the older hands, grinned as he fetched up beside her on his own horse. "Still betting on them Braves, are you? They lost the pennant again last fall...that's two years in a row."
"Oh, yeah? Well, they won it once already," she reminded him with a smug grin. "Who needs two?"
He chuckled, shook his head and rode off.
"Baseball fanatic," Cag murmured dryly as he joined her.
"I'll bet you watched the playoffs last fall, too," she accused.
He didn't reply. "Hungry?" he asked. "We can get coffee and some stew over at the chuck wagon."
“I thought only those big outfits up in the Rockies still packed out a chuck wagon."
"If we didn't, we'd all go hungry here," he told her. "This ranch is a lot bigger than it looks."
"I saw it on the map in your office," she replied. "It sure covers a lot of land."
"You should see our spread in Montana," he mused. "It's the biggest of the lot. And the one that kept us all so busy a few weeks ago, trying to get the records on the computer."
She glanced back to where two of the men were working handheld computers. "Do all your cowboys know how to use those things?" she asked.
"Most of them. You'd be amazed how many college boys we get here between exams and new classes. We had an aeronautical engineer last summer and a professor of archaeology the year before that."
"Archaeology!"
He grinned. "He spent more time digging than he spent working cattle, but he taught us how to date projectile points and pottery."
"How interesting." She stretched her aching back. "I guess you've been to college."
"I got my degree in business from Harvard."
She glanced at him warily. "And I barely finished high school."
"You've got years left to go to college, if you want to."
"Slim chance of that," she said carelessly. "I can't work and go to school at the same time."
"You can do what our cowboys do—work a quarter and go to school a quarter." He fingered the reins gently. "In fact, we could arrange it so that you could do that, if you like. Jacobsville has a community college. You could commute."
The breath left her in a rush. "You'd let me?" she asked.
"Sure, if you want to."
"Oh, my goodness." She thought about it with growing delight. She could study botany. She loved to grow things. She might even learn how to cultivate roses and do grafting. Her eyes sparkled.
"Well?"
"I could study botany," she said absently. "I could learn to grow roses."
He frowned. "Horticulture?"
"Yes." She glanced at him. "Isn't that what college teaches you?"
"It does, certainly. But if you want horticulture, the vocational school offers a diploma in it."
Her face became radiant at the thought. "Oh, how wonderful!"
"What an expression," he mused, surprised at the pleasure it gave him. "Is that what you want to do, learn to grow plants?"
"Not just plants," she said. "Roses!"
"We've got dozens of them out back."
"No, not just old-fashioned roses. Tea roses. I want to do grafts. I want to...to create new hybrids."
He shook his head. "That's over my head."
"It's over mine, too. That's why I want to learn it."
"No ambition to be a professional of some sort?" he persisted. "A teacher, a lawyer, a doctor, a journalist?"
She hesitated, frowning as she studied his hard face. “I like flowers," she said slowly. "Is there something wrong with that? I mean, should I want to study something else?"
He didn't know how to answer that. "Most women do, these days."
"Sure, but most women don't want jobs working in a kitchen and keeping house and growing flowers, do they?" She bit her lip. "I don't know that I'd be smart enough to do horticulture..."
"Of course you would, if you want to do it," he said impatiently. His good humor seemed to evaporate as he stared at her. "Do you want to spend your life working in somebody else's kitchen?"
She shifted. "I guess I will," she said. "I don't want to get married, and I don't really see myself teaching kids or practicing medicine. I enjoy cooking and keeping house. And I love growing things." She glanced at him belligerently. "What's wrong with that?"
"Nothing. Not a damned thing."
"Now I've made you mad."
His hand wrapped around the reins. He didn't look at her as he urged his mount ahead, toward the chuck wagon where several cowboys were holding full plates.
He couldn't tell her that it wasn't her lack of ambition that disturbed him. It was the picture he had of her, surrounded by little redheaded kids digging in the rose garden. It upset him, unsettled him. He couldn't start thinking like that. Tess was just a kid, despite her
age, and he'd better keep that in mind. She hadn't even started to live yet. She'd never known intimacy with a man. She was likely to fall headlong in love with the first man who touched her. He thought about that, about being the first, and it rocked him to the soles of his feet. He had to get his mind on something else!
They had a brief lunch with several of the cowboys. Tess let Cag do most of the talking. She ate her stew with a biscuit, drank a cup of coffee and tried not to notice the speculative glances she was getting. She didn't know that it was unusual for Cag to be seen in the company of a woman, even the ranch housekeeper. Certainly he'd never brought anyone female out to a roundup before. It aroused the men's curiosity.
Cag ignored the looks. He knew that having Tess along was innocent, so what did it matter what anyone else thought? It wasn't as if he was planning to drag her off into the brush and make love to her. Even as he thought it, he pictured it. His whole body went hot.
"We'd better get going," he said abruptly, rising to his feet.
Tess thanked the cook for her lunch, and followed Cag back to the horses.
They rode off toward the far pastures without a word being spoken. She wondered what she'd done to make Cag mad, but she didn't want to say anything. It might only make matters worse. She wondered if he was mad because she wanted to go back to school.
They left the camp behind and rode in a tense silence. Her eyes kept going to his tall, powerful body. He seemed part of the horse he rode, so comfortable and careless that he might have been born in the saddle. He had powerful broad shoulders and lean hips, with long legs that were sensuously outlined by the tight-fitting jeans he wore under the chaps. She'd seen plenty of rodeo cowboys in her young life, but none of them would have held a candle to Cag. He looked elegant even in old clothes.
He turned his head and caught her staring, then frowned when she blushed.
"Did you ever go rodeoing?" she asked to cover her confusion.
He shook his head. "Never had much use for it," he said honestly. "I didn't need the money, and I always had enough to do here, or on one of the other ranches in the combine."
"Dad couldn't seem to stay in one place for very long," she murmured thoughtfully. "He loved the rodeo circuit, but he didn't win very often."
"It wasn't much of a life for you, was it?" he asked. "It must have been hard to go to school at all."
She smiled. "My education was hit-and-miss, if that's what you mean. But there were these correspondence courses I took so I could get my high school diploma." She flushed deeper and glanced at him. "I know I'm not very educated."
He reined in at a small stream that crossed the wooded path, in the shade of a big oak tree, and let his horse drink, motioning her to follow suit. "It wasn't a criticism," he said. "Maybe I'm too blunt sometimes, but people always know where they stand with me."
"I noticed."
A corner of his mouth quirked. "You aren't shy about expressing your own opinions," he recalled. "It's refreshing."
"Oh, I learned to fight back early," she murmured. "Rodeo's a tough game, and some of the other kids I met were pretty physical when they got mad. I may not be big, but I can kick like a mule."
"I don't doubt it." He drew one long leg up and hooked it over the pommel while he studied her. "But despite all that male company, you don't know much about men."
This was disturbing territory. She averted her gaze to the bubbling stream at their feet. "So you said, when we went to the store." She remembered suddenly the feel of his hard fingers on her soft skin and her heart began to race.
His black eyes narrowed. "Didn't you ever go out on dates?"
Her lithe body shifted in the saddle. "These days, most girls don't care what they do and they're clued up about how to take care of themselves." She glanced at him and away. "It makes it rough for the few of us who don't think it's decent to behave that way. Men seem to expect a girl to give out on the first date and they get mad when she won't."
He traced a cut on his chaps. "So you stopped going out."
She nodded. "It seemed the best way. Besides," she murmured uncomfortably, "I told you. I don't like...that."
"That?"
He was going to worry the subject to death. "That," she emphasized. "You know, being grabbed and forcibly fondled and having a man try to stick his tongue down your throat!"
He chuckled helplessly.
"Oh, you don't understand!"
"In fact, I do," he replied, and the smile on his lips was full of worldly knowledge and indulgent amusement. "You were lucky that your would-be suitors didn't know any more than you did."
She frowned because she didn't understand.
His black eyes searched her face. "Tess, an experienced man doesn't grab. Ever. He doesn't have to. And French kisses need to be worked up to, very slowly."
Her heart was really going now. It shook the cotton blouse she was wearing. She stared at the chaps where Cag's long fingers were resting, and remembered the feel of his lean, strong hands.
"Embarrassed?" he asked softly.
She hesitated. Then she nodded.
His heart jumped wildly as he stared at her, unblinking. "And curious?" he added in a deep, slow drawl.
After a few seconds, she nodded again, but she couldn't make herself meet his eyes.
His hand clenched on the pommel of his saddle as he fought the hunger he felt to teach her those things, to satisfy her curiosity. His gaze fell to her soft mouth and he wanted it. It was crazy, what he was thinking. He couldn't afford a lapse like that. She was just a kid and she worked for him...
She heard the creak of leather as he swung down out of the saddle. After a minute, she felt his lean hands hard on her waist. He lifted her down from the horse abruptly and left the horses to drink their fill.
The sun filtered down to the ground in patterns through the oak leaves there, in the middle of nowhere, in the shelter of the trees where thick grass grew on the shallow banks of the stream and open pasture beyond the spot. The wind whipped around, but Tess couldn't hear it or the gurgle of the stream above the sound of her own heart.
His hands felt rough against her skin. They felt as if he wasn't quite in control, and when she looked up at him, she realized that he wasn't. His face was like steel. The only thing alive in it was those black Spanish eyes, the legacy of a noble Madrid ancestry.
She felt her knees wobble because of the way he was looking at her, his eyes bold on her body, as if he knew exactly what was under her clothing.
The thought of Callaghan Hart's mouth on her lips made her breath catch in her throat. She'd always been a little afraid of him, not because she thought he might hurt her, but because late at night she lay wondering how it would feel if he kissed her. She'd thought about it a lot lately, to her shame. He was mature, experienced, confident, all the things she wasn't. She knew she couldn't handle an affair with him. She was equally sure that he wouldn't have any amorous interest in a novice like her. She'd been sure, she amended. Because he was looking at her now in a way he'd never looked at her before.
Her cold hands pressed nervously into the soft cotton of his shirt, feeling the warmth and strength of his chest under it.
"Callaghan," she whispered uncertainly.
His hard lips parted. "Nobody else calls me that," he said tersely, dropping his gaze to her mouth. He liked the way she made his name sound, as if it had a sort of magic.
Her fingers spread. She liked the feel of warm muscle under the shirt, and the soft, spongy feel of thick hair behind the buttons. He was hairy there, she suspected.
He wasn't breathing normally. She could feel his heartbeat against
her skin. Her hands pressed gingerly against him, to explore, hesitantly, the hardness of his chest.
He stiffened. His hands on her waist contracted. His breathing changed.
Her hands stilled immediately. She looked up into glittery black eyes. She didn't understand his reactions, never having experienced them before.
"You don't know anything at all, do you?" he asked tersely, and it sounded as if he was talking to himself. He looked down at her short-nailed, capable little hands resting so nervously on top of his shirt. “Why did you stop?''
"You got stiff," she said.
He lifted an eyebrow. "Stiff?"
He looked as if he was trying not to smile, despite the tautness of his face and body.
"You know," she murmured. "Tense. Like you didn't want me to touch you."
He let out a slow breath. His hands moved from her waist to cover her cold fingers and press them closer. They felt warm and cozy, almost comforting. They flattened her hands so that she could feel his body in every cell.
She moved her fingers experimentally where the buttons ran down toward his belt.
"Don't get ambitious," he said, stilling her hands. "I'm not taking off my shirt for you."
"As if I would ever...!" she burst out, embarrassed.
He smiled indulgently, studying her flushed face, her wide, bright eyes. "I don't care whether you would, ever, you're not going to. Lift your face."
"Why?" she expelled on a choked breath.
"You know why."
She bit her lip, hard, studying his face with worried eyes. "You don't like me."
"Liking doesn't have anything to do with this." He let go of her hands and gripped her elbows, lifting her easily within reach of his mouth. His gaze fell to it and his chest rose and fell roughly. "You said you were curious," he murmured at her lips. "I'm going to do something about it."
Her hands gripped his shirt, wrinkling it, as his mouth came closer. She could taste the coffee on his warm breath and she felt as if the whole world had stopped spinning, as if the wind had stopped blowing, while she hung there, waiting.
His hard lips just barely touched hers, brushing lightly over the sensitive flesh to savor it. Her eyes closed and she held herself perfectly still, so that he wouldn't stop.
He lifted his head fractionally. She looked as if she couldn't bear to have him draw back. Whatever she felt, it wasn't fear.
Books By Diana Palmer Page 205
