A Stranger in the Family (Book 1, Bardville, Wyoming Trilogy)

by Patricia McLinn

  “He barreled right ahead and started on this project—”

  “He knew the cabin was going to be torn down. Why shouldn’t he?”

  “He could have asked someone, consulted with someone...”

  “You mean, with you?” Irene asked mildly.

  Cambria grimaced wryly. “Yes, I suppose I do. But it’s more—”

  “What’s worrying you, Cambria?”

  “I just don’t know how this is going to work out with Pete helping him. I’m surprised Boone took him up on the offer.”

  “Why shouldn’t he?”

  “Boone seems to me to be a man who feels totally responsible for anything he’s involved with, and is fiercely determined it will be the best he can make it.”

  “I’d think you would admire that in a man.”

  “I do, but—” Too late, Cambria caught the glint in Irene’s eyes at her admission. “But,” she repeated with emphasis, “it can be taken too far. I’ve seen this guy in action. Look at how he was with that stall door. All I wanted was not to have to kick it to open or close it. But he had to make it perfect, telling Pete to hold it a little higher, and making these fine adjustments. When someone doesn’t do something fast enough or well enough for him, he takes over. If you don’t believe me, ask Wanda at the library. Or Ches at the gas station. Last Thursday when I drove Boone into town and stopped to fill up the four-wheel, Ches was talking away while he wiped the windshield, like he always does, and Boone got out and did it himself because he didn’t think Ches was going fast enough or doing it right. He took the squeegee and rag right out of Ches’s hands.”

  “I don’t imagine Ches Poole minded a bit.”

  Cambria drummed her fingers on the washing machine. “No, he didn’t. But Pete would. You know how Pete is.”

  She met Irene’s eyes, and read there the recognition that Boone’s demanding ways could bruise her brother’s teenage pride and confidence.

  “What can you do about it, Cambria?” Irene asked softly. “You can’t wipe out that Pete offered and Boone said yes, and you can’t change either one of them.”

  “No,” she said slowly. “But I can be damn sure to stick around and try to head off any problems.”

  “Sometimes trying to prevent a problem just creates worse ones.”

  Cambria raised her chin. “Not this time.”

  * * * *

  Boone was left on his own over the weekend. Saturday, Cambria, Pete and Ted all helped a neighbor vaccinate and brand his spring calves. The next day the neighbor and his hired hand returned the favor at the Weston spread.

  Boone had volunteered to help, but Ted had tactfully indicated the job went faster with experienced hands. So Boone continued dismantling the cabin.

  After cleaning up for Sunday supper, Boone crossed the footbridge over the creek to examine the old cabin again. Sometimes coming at it fresh and from a distance showed things you didn’t see otherwise.

  What he saw instead was Pete, shower-wet hair showing under his P.A.W. baseball cap, and wearing clean clothes.

  “Hey, Boone.” From that greeting, Pete started on about how much progress Boone had made on the cabin in two days. But Boone couldn’t concentrate on the words. In this fresh-scrubbed state, Pete looked like an overgrown child, revealing glimpses of the little boy he’d been.

  “So what do you think?”

  Boone blinked back to the present, trying to follow Pete’s question. “About what?”

  “About if seeing Cam’s cabin would help you? Are you interested?”

  Interested? Yes. Help him? Not with what really ailed him.

  Boone tried to recall what Pete had been saying while his mind envisioned a baby, a toddler, a boy he would never know.

  One of the oldest cabins... original logs... real old homestead...

  “Sure. I’m interested.”

  So Boone found himself standing on the porch where he’d kissed Cambria, while Pete knocked and called out her name.

  “What is it, Pete?” She swung open the door, a thin layer of irritation over the affectionate amusement in her voice. “Why’re you pounding down the do–?”

  She stopped when she saw Boone.

  He didn’t feel real talkative himself, perhaps because a swell of something as hot as desire, but more complicated closed off his throat.

  She’d just stepped from the shower. Her hair was slicked back from her face, down her neck, to the top of her shoulders, where it dampened her silky robe. Moisture glistened on her face, her throat, and disappeared into the V of ruby and jade paisley. The robe crossed at her waist under a knotted belt. It reached the top of her knees and past her elbows. And it didn’t matter.

  Boone felt the same punch to his gut and the same tightening somewhat lower he would have experienced if she’d come to the door naked. He knew she had nothing on under that stretch of shimmery cloth. He could imagine her in the shower moments earlier, water streaming over her shoulders and breasts. He could imagine her unbelting the robe, letting it open, letting him inside...

  “C’mon, Boone.”

  Pete’s voice jerked Boone from that fantasy of a welcoming Cambria to the reality of the woman who was trying like the devil to hide her awareness of him.

  If she hadn’t tried so hard, maybe he wouldn’t have brushed against her as he followed Pete into the cabin. Maybe he wouldn’t have brushed the back of his knuckles along the line of her jaw as he passed. Maybe he wouldn’t have met her eyes deliberately, and let her see what was in his.

  For a narrow slice of time her eyes widened, darkened, and he wondered...

  Then she spun away, moving ahead of Pete and stopping him, arms crossed, demanding, “What are you up to, Pete?”

  “I’m gonna show Boone your cabin. He thinks seeing this one might help him with the one he’s taking apart, because it’s so old and hasn’t been changed a whole lot.”

  “Oh, he does?” She glared over Pete’s shoulder at Boone, defying him, defying the heated look of a moment before.

  “It might,” he said mildly. His voice was a little lower than normal, maybe even a shade harsh, but not enough to alert Pete to the fireworks going on around him. “Of course, if you’d rather I didn’t...”

  He saw her eyes flare with acknowledgment of the direct challenge.

  “Perhaps another time—”

  Pete marched over her delicate sidestepping. “It’ll only take a minute, Cam. Get dressed while I show Boone out here. We’ll look at the bedroom when you’re done.”

  Oh, no, she wasn’t going to strip off the protection of that robe, even to draw on more conventional clothes, not with Boone in her cabin. He saw that in her eyes.

  “I’ll wait.” Grimly, she recrossed her arms at her waist.

  “Okay,” Pete accepted easily. “Dad says this is the original cabin, with the bedroom added later...”

  Pete pointed out the features he knew about, and Boone tried to listen, fighting the divisions of his attention and senses. First, taking in the wavy glass of an original window, hand-smoothed surfaces of century-old logs, stone fireplace similar to the one in his cabin. Then, observing the plush comfort of the low-slung couch by the fireplace, the barefoot welcoming of soft rugs and the homey gatherings of books and wooden carvings, bowls and boxes on shelves, tables and window-sills. And finally, noting the angular determination of the woman standing in its center.

  She sported odd patches of sunburn partway up each arm that he figured resulted from the gap between gloves and sleeves. Another pattern of pink showed inside the neckline of her robe, in keeping with a couple of open buttons on a shirt. He had the strongest urge to kiss each reddened area, to glide his lips over the skin, absorbing the heat.

  “The kitchen stuff—” Pete waved to a corner equipped with a small sink, an undercabinet refrigerator, microwave and toaster oven “—and the bathroom got updated when Cam came home, but you can probably get an idea of how it was before, if you think that’ll help.”

  “It
might.”

  On the other hand, Boone thought as he followed Pete into Cambria’s bedroom, it just might be the death of him. If not from the dagger look Cambria sent him, then from the fuel added to his already overheated imagination.

  The room was not much larger than the bedroom in his cabin. A double-size iron bedstead dominated it. The white spread was plain and soft-looking. A quilt of forest greens with splashes of yellow and red was folded at the foot.

  He forced his eyes away, trying to follow Pete’s words, without great success.

  A double-wide bureau stretched along one wall with a framed mirror over one side, a window over the other. The closet and bathroom were tucked into a corner. A low bookcase beside the bed served as a nightstand. One wooden arm and the corner of an upholstered back were all that showed of a chair, the rest of it obscured by layers of clothes. That and three pairs of shoes discarded at various points were the only signs of mess—Cambria Weston was a very controlled slob.

  She was also a woman who surrounded herself with her family and friends. Framed photos peppered the walls, blanketed the bureau top. A brighter-haired Irene holding the hand of a girl as they walked to a school bus at the end of the ranch road. A pigtailed girl on a pony between Irene and Ted, who held a chubby dark-haired baby on horseback. A Christmas tree behind a smiling family group of mother, father, teenage daughter and solid little boy. Cambria in cap and gown with Ted and Irene beaming pride while Pete, a gawky adolescent, accepted a hug. A montage of Washington, D.C., landmarks, with a younger-looking Jessa among those peopling the shots. Some of the same people in wedding poses and some looking slightly incongruous on the ranch. Another of Jessa smiling hesitantly before her shop bearing a Grand Opening sign. And a poster-size shot of Cambria on Snakebit and Pete on Jezebel with yellow-sparked mountains of fall rising behind them, the quality slightly fuzzy from enlarging, but beneath the teasing smiles, the connection and love as clear as Boone had seen so often in person.

  With those photos and that bed before him, Boone knew he shouldn’t have come into her bedroom. Probably shouldn’t have come into her cabin. Maybe not even into her life.

  “Are you two done here?” Cambria demanded from behind him. “I have to get dressed before supper.”

  “I guess, unless Boone...” Pete looked over at Boone, who shook his head. They headed for the door, preceded by Cambria. “Think this’ll help any?”

  “Yeah, I do. I think it helps me see things clearer.”

  Pete looked pleased.

  Cambria, however, gave Boone a sharp look, almost as if she knew it had helped him see more clearly what he’d been telling himself from the start—how impossible his desire for her was. No matter how much stronger it grew.

  * * * *

  For two days Cambria had started work early preparing the cabins for their end-of-the-month opening so she could join Pete when he returned from school and headed for the cabin Boone was rapidly dismantling.

  The first day Boone had straightened from where he’d been prying loose a board and given her a long, considering look. She’d glared in return.

  For a moment she’d thought he might bring up his abrupt shift in mood of the evening before during his impromptu inspection of her cabin.

  His sensual appraisal of her had been so blatant she’d first been stunned, then appalled by the surge of her response. Next, concerned Pete would pick up on it. And finally, determined not to show what she couldn’t convince herself she didn’t feel.

  Then Boone had walked into her bedroom, taken one look around and walked out in a totally different mood. Distant, grim. She hadn’t understood it. She didn’t like things she didn’t understand.

  Which, she’d thought that first day while she’d waited to see if he’d bring up the subject, pretty much summed up her feelings about Boone Dorsey Smith.

  Except that he pressed buttons on her libido she hadn’t known existed.

  But he’d said nothing to her. Not as they’d worked until dinner. Not the next day as they’d repeated the routine.

  He’d talked readily enough to Pete. They’d gone back and forth about baseball until she’d thought she’d scream if she heard ERA one more time.

  Her tolerance dropped another notch on that first night when Ted had brought a straw cowboy hat to the supper table and set it in front of Boone.

  “Best use that instead of the baseball cap you’ve been wearing. It’ll protect the back of your neck better.”

  Boone had reached back automatically. “Thanks, but I don’t—” He’d broken off with a grimace as his fingers encountered sun-tender skin. “Guess my hair’s not long enough or thick enough. Thanks.”

  “It’s too long, if you ask me,” Irene had said as she’d set down a bowl of boiled potatoes with an emphatic thump.

  “The boy didn’t ask you,” Ted interposed mildly.

  “If he had, he wouldn’t still have it so long,” Irene had answered, returning to the refrigerator for sliced tomatoes.

  Cambria, filling the water glasses, had caught Pete’s delighted grin at not being the object of that particular lecture for once, and the man-to-man wink Ted had sent Boone. His gray eyes, oddly softened, had shifted to her.

  She’d looked away.

  This third day since Pete had started helping on the cabin, Cambria noticed that the noise from across the creek seemed muffled. There could have been any number of reasons, none of which mattered to her since Pete hadn’t arrived yet.

  Only because she’d finished early with the day’s chores did she head across the footbridge. The outside of the cabin had the look of a sheared sheep.

  She soon realized why the sound had been muted; Boone was working inside. With the stairs gone, she braced her hands against the doorframe to take the high, single step to the threshold.

  Boone stood on a raised board resting on cement blocks, reaching overhead to take down one of the horizontal crosspieces that tied into the center beam and that had been covered by the long-discarded ceiling material. Nearly a dozen of these long, thick poles already lay in a corner of the room, leaving two others besides the one he battled. With them gone, it opened to the roof rafters.

  From Boone’s muttered discourse on the pole’s parentage and sexual habits, it appeared this crosspiece wouldn’t cooperate.

  “C’mon, now,” he coaxed, at the same time giving a jerk that pulled it loose at the far end. He stretched his right arm to try to balance the pole across his chest and shoulders, but it had too much momentum and was too heavily weighted to his right. It tipped over his right shoulder and scraped along the back of his arm, drawing an oath and bending him backward in a fight for balance on his narrow platform as the wood crashed to the floor.

  Cambria lunged forward, but succeeded only in startling him just when it appeared he might right himself. Instead his back arched, then bowed, then arched again. Then be stumbled off the platform and fell heavily against her.

  Instinctively wrapping their arms around each other gave them enough combined balance to keep from falling to the floor littered with wood and nail-studded boards, certainly an uncomfortable landing place and possibly dangerous. As it was, they took several awkward steps together that might have resembled a waltz—if the dancers were inebriated bears.

  “What in the hell—”

  “Let go of me.”

  He raised his hands in mock surrender as she stepped free.

  “No disrespect intended, ma’am,” he said in an exaggerated drawl. “Just trying to keep myself from being impaled after you came sneaking up on me.”

  “Sneaking up on you, why you ungra— You’re bleeding.”

  She looked from the wet, red swipe across her left palm to the stain seeping down the edge of a gaping tear in his right sleeve.

  “Bleeding? What– Oh, hell.”

  Cambria followed the direction of his gaze to the troublesome pole. A long nail protruded from it, with a scrap of shirt and a red mark decorating its tip.

  “Y
ou idiot.” She ignored the tightening in her stomach. “Sit down.”

  “I’m not going to faint from some blood.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “If you don’t sit down, I’ll knock you down.”

  “Okay, okay.” Despite his peeved tone, the corners of his mouth twitched.

  He sat on the platform while she rooted through the basket Irene had insisted on refurbishing for him each morning and noon. He no doubt had found the water, cookies and fruit, maybe even the paper napkins. But he hadn’t dug to the bottom of it as Cambria did to find the first-aid kit she’d known Irene would include. “Being prepared for life’s storms” Irene called it.

  Opening the plastic box, Cambria straddled the platform to his right.

  “Take your shirt off.”

  He opened his mouth, but apparently thought better of it when he met her look, and satisfied himself with raising his eyebrows. To stop herself from saying anything that might escalate the tension, she pressed her lips tighter. It backfired. The motion drew his gaze immediately to her mouth, where it stayed as his fingers undid his buttons.

  Irritated tension wavered into a shimmering awareness. Her hold on the first-aid kit went slack.

  She caught it before it slid off her lap, looking up quickly to see if he’d noticed her fumble. He was shrugging his right shoulder free of the shirt, drawing his arm out of the torn sleeve, the line of his collarbone standing out and the muscles and sinew of shoulder and arm bunching and easing in a mesmerizing synchronization.

  Almost too late, she realized he’d started to repeat that action with the other shoulder.

  “No.” All she did was touch the tips of her fingers to his shoulder, but he stopped immediately. She wet her lips. “You didn’t manage to get nailed on that side, too, did you?”

  “No.”

  She focused all her attention on the raw gouge down the back of his arm.

  “Turn around so I can take care of this.”

  His eyes rested on her for half a minute before he swung his left leg over the platform so he also straddled it, facing the same direction she did, sitting in front of her.

  “Okay?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder.