by Jeanne Allan
The hand on JJ.’s shoulder flinging her around took her by total surprise. Only the heavy-handed grip kept her from sprawling headlong in the snow. From the look on the face of the man who’d waylaid her, she wasn’t the only one surprised.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
Antagonized by his rudeness, J.J. deliberately plucked his hand from her shoulder and stepped away before saying, in an overly polite voice, “I don’t believe I caught your name, either.” Luke needed to teach his cowhands a few manners.
The man stuck his thumbs into the back pockets of his dirty jeans, and rocked back on his heels, his gaze scrutinizing every inch of JJ.’s exposed face. He might have been handsome were it not for pockmarked skin and flat, black eyes. J.J. guessed he was about her age. “Well, well, ol Luke’s gone and found hisself a playmate,” he said in an insolent voice. “If the rest of you’s anything like your sweet mouth, you’re wasted on him.” A slight breeze stirred long greasy black hair hanging below a filthy, battered cowboy hat. “What say you and me head into town and share a beer, sweet mouth?”
Some men ought to be put down like rabid dogs. “No, thank you,” JJ. Said civilly. “I have other plans.” She turned to continue on to the barn.
The man roughly grabbed her arm, swinging her around. “It ain’t polite, sweet mouth, to walk away when a man’s talking.”
J.J. stifled a sigh. Great. A caveman whose brain ran on testosterone. He’d view heated opposition as a challenge to prove his manhood. “You invited me for a beer,” she said evenly. “I politely declined. I don’t believe there’s anything more to discuss.”
“Now, sweet mouth—” his hand tightened on her arm “—don’t be in such a hurry to run off.” He gave her a cocksure smile. “I ain’t through talking with you.” He pulled her closer. “How ’bout a kiss?”
There were. times J.J. regretted she didn’t have the kind of hands one registered as lethal weapons. She longed to smack this creep right in the middle of his leering face. Instead she said, “I hope you’ve had your shots. The doctor said I’m still extremely infectious. I didn’t think that kind of disease could be transmitted just by a kiss, but...” She shrugged.
He took one step back before blustering, “Maybe I like living dangerously.”
“I hope so, Parker, because when you put your filthy hands on my wife, you’re living extremely dangerously.” The sharp edge in Luke’s voice could have cut stone.
J.J. swiveled. Luke stood in the huge, open barn doorway. An enormous light brown horse peered curiously over his shoulder.
“Hey—” the cowhand backed away from J.J., his hands up in a caricature of surrender “—she never told me she belonged to you.”
“I don’t belong to anyone,” J.J. said in annoyance, moving away from the cowhand.
Both men ignored her. “What do you want, Parker?” “My wife. I heard she was hanging around here. Is she?”
“I don’t keep track of other men’s wives.” Luke’s already hard stare fossilized. “But I take good care of my own.”
“It ain’t my fault she didn’t tell me who she is,” the man whined. “I wouldn’t mess with your wife.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Parker, because I’m real particular about who touches her. That being so, you’ll understand why I don’t want you coming around here bothering her again.”
“Whatever you say, man. Ain’t no woman worth hassling over.”
Luke moved to J.J.’s side, and they watched the man get in his truck. The engine revved, the wheels spun momentarily in the snow, and then the truck bounced out of the ranch yard and through the gate. The minute the truck disappeared down the road, J.J. put aside her resentment to ask the question she’d been holding back since Luke appeared. “Is he Birdie’s husband?” At Luke’s grunted assent, she said, “No wonder Birdie left him.”
She shuddered extravagantly. “What a cretin. Why did he think Birdie might be here? Do you think he believed you?” J.J. frowned. “I hope he doesn’t figure out you didn’t exactly deny she was here. He probably won’t. His IQ must be about the same as his shoe size.” It occurred to her she was carrying on this conversation single-handedly. “Why don’t you say something?”
“Just what do you want me to say, O’Brien?”
Luke’s caustic tone rekindled her resentment. “Not a thing. I wouldn’t want you to strain yourself. Polite conversation is obviously beyond your limited capabilities. This valley must breed Neanderthal throwbacks.”
“You want conversation? Okay, how’s this for conversation.” The horse threw up his head and snorted uneasily at Luke’s snarling voice. “Why the hell didn’t you open your mouth and say the three little words that would have kept Parker from bothering you? Here.” Luke thrust leather reins at her.
JJ. automatically took them. “What three little words?” she hollered as Luke disappeared into the barn. “Don’t touch me? You disgust me? I want to throw up? Oh, sorry,” she said sarcastically, “that’s more than three words.”
The crunching of snow under an enormous hoof alerted her to a fact she’d previously neglected to absorb. The reins Luke had tossed at her were attached to the giant horse. A horse that grew in size as he walked toward J.J. “Good horse,” she said nervously, stepping backward. “Listen, Trigger, or whatever your name is, quit following me.” The horse pointed his ears toward J.J. and kept pace with her backward retreat. J.J. opened her mouth to call Luke, then snapped it shut. Luke coming to her rescue twice in one day would be insupportable.
The immense animal plodded after her, blotting out the sun. “Stop, horse. Whoa.” The horse lowered his white-striped head and butted J.J. in the stomach. She backpedaled faster. The horse butted her again, then turned his head slightly to look at her. The huge eye, its pupil an ominous narrow horizontal slit, told J.J. this horse didn’t like her. She speeded up, heading backward toward the wooden corral, planning to climb up out of the monster’s reach.
Her eyes locked on the horse, J.J. failed to see the small bale of hay mounded with snow. The bale caught her behind her knees and she pitched backward into the snow, her legs sticking up in the air. The horse walked around the bale, lowered his head and opened an enormous mouth filled with huge, menacing teeth. From his throat came the most diabolical sound JJ. had ever heard.
CHAPTER FOUR
LUKE took one look at J.J.’s predicament and broke out laughing. Grabbing the reins from her, he shoved the horse to one side and reached out to help J.J. up.
Ignoring his hand, she struggled to her feet and beat snow off her clothes. Snow inside her coat collar fell down the back of her neck, freezing her skin. It did nothing to cool her temper. “If I’d come here before I let you brainwash me into marrying you, I would have known what a sadistic brute you were. Siccing a vicious animal like that on me.” She took off her hat and smacked it against her knee to remove the snow.
“I’m sorry.” Luke choked out the words between gusts of laughter. “It never occurred to me you’d be afraid of horses.”
“I’m not afraid of horses,” JJ. said, backing away as she realized a second horse, a twin of the first, trailed Luke. “That’s not a horse, it’s an elephant. He tried to bite me.”
“Not Johnny. He was trying to tell you he wanted a treat. He’s as gentle as a newborn lamb.” Luke rubbed the horse’s long face. “You haven’t forgotten your old friend Zane, have you, fella? Did you smell him on the coat or were you sniffing for the carrots he brought you?” The horse gave a low nicker and nibbled Luke’s shoulder. The second horse moved up and stuck his nose between them. “Quit begging, you two. Work first, then your treat.” He backed the two horses to a low, flat sled and quickly harnessed them to it. Holding the horses easily in check, he said to J.J., “Hop on.”
Encumbered with heavy clothing, JJ. could hardly hop, but she managed to scramble onto the sled. A huge tractor pulling an empty trailer clattered out the other side of the yard.
“Why didn’t you let
go of the reins?” Luke asked.
The sled took off with a lurch. JJ. clung to the fourfoot-high wooden crossbars in front. “I worried he’d run away.”
Luke gave her an odd look. “You’re something else, O’Brien.”
“I’m a lawyer, not a cow person,” she said hotly.
“The closest I’ve ever been to a horse is that time at the stock show when we met. Don’t sneer at me because you think that behemoth of yours made me a trifle nervous.”
“I wasn’t sneering. I’m impressed you hung on. Most women who’ve never been around Belgian draft horses would have been terrified by Johnny’s rooting around in their clothing while they were wearing it. They would have fled without giving one thought as to whether or not the horse took off.”
“I was not terrified,” J.J. said indignantly, “and that’s a sexist remark. Women are no more or less cowardly or brave than men.” Her earlier grievance still rankled. “And we don’t stand around waiting for men to rescue us from morons like Birdie’s husband. I could have handled him.”
The good humor on Luke’s face evaporated. “We didn’t finish that discussion, did we?” He halted the horses beside a stack of hay bales. Wrapping the reins around an upright board on the sled, he picked up a wicked-looking tool and began hooking bales and stacking them on the other end of the sled.
“What’s to discuss? The three little words I’m supposed to have used against him as some sort of magic incantation?”
“We can start with that.” Luke had been stacking the bales four high and now he slammed a bale down next to J.J.
No wonder he had such nice shoulders, J.J. thought before mentally slapping herself. Admiring Luke’s physique is what got her into trouble in the first place. “Well? What three words?”
“You know damned good and well what three words.” He tossed the last bale into place and rammed the metal implement into the top bale. “‘I’m Luke’s wife.’ If you’d said them, Parker would have left you alone.”
“Oh, those three words.” J.J. stared at the broad equine rumps moving placidly ahead of them. Not once in over a year of marriage had she said those words. At least, not out loud. The harness jingled and the sled’s runners whistled against the snow. The horses puffed vapor from their nostrils, and their huge feet sent up clouds of snow with each step. The hay bales behind J.J. smelled like late-summer Iowa harvests. She changed the subject. “Why don’t you use the tractor?”
“Jeff and Dale are using it to pick up those big hay rolls from the stacks we passed yesterday. They’ll feed the cows down in the lower creek pasture and over in the south pasture.” Luke stopped the horses, secured the reins and jumped down to open a gate. Leaving it ajar, he guided the horses through, then closed the gate behind them. Swinging back up on the sled, he said, “Zane insisted tractor noise is too stressful for the heifers. I thought he just liked to drive the team, and after he died, I considered retiring Hondo and Johnny, but...” He shrugged.
“I’m sure he’s pleased you’ve kept up the tradition.”
Luke grinned. “More’n likely he’d say, ‘Criminy, Sarge, you getting sentimental on me?’ ”
J.J. heard the deep affection for his uncle in Luke’s voice, and she started to ask him about Zane Stirling and why he called Luke “Sarge,” but the cows trotting from every nook and cranny toward the sled captured her complete attention. The cattle mooed loudly, and a couple broke into a run. “Uh, Luke, we’re about to be besieged.”
“They’re hungry.” Luke wrapped the reins loosely around the post on the sled. “Okay, boys, steady now.” Grabbing the hook, he sliced the wire around the bales and threw the hay to the ground. The horses plodded steadily in an elongated circuit of the pasture, totally ignoring the cows.
JJ. had more trouble ignoring the cows as they snatched at the hay on the sled. She hoped they could discriminate between her and their food.
At the far end of the pasture, the team stopped. Luke picked up a stout pole from the sled and tramped over to a line of willow bushes, where he pounded the pole into the ground. Loud, brittle sounds of ice cracking rang through the air as he repeated the process in several spots. “Drink up, ladies.”
He stepped back on the sled, the horses leaned into their harness, and the sled took off with a jerk. Slow to brace herself, J.J. fell backward. At the same instant Luke swung a bale of hay from the sled. The hay bale connected with JJ.’s side, pitchforking her to the ground. JJ. took one look at the advancing cows and struggled to regain her feet.
Strong arms plucked her from the hay-strewn ground and hauled her back onto the sled. “At this rate, I’m never going to finish feeding,” Luke said.
“You’re the one who insisted I come, and it’s not my fault you made me wear all these clothes. I can hardly move.”
“I won’t argue you move a whole lot—” he paused “—better when you’re wearing less.”
J.J. ignored the reference to her earlier nakedness. “Admit it. You insisted I come this morning because you knew I know absolutely nothing about ranching and animals. You expected me to make a fool of myself.”
“If you knew that, why did you come along?”
“Not because you ordered me. Since I’m forced,” she accentuated the word, “to be here, I may as well learn what I can about ranching. It’s still a fairly major industry in Colorado, and a little knowledge might come in handy at the law firm.”
“Nice to know I’m good for something.” Luke guided the team across the pasture, repeated the gate procedure and headed back toward the ranch buildings. “I’m surprised you admit it. As fond as you are of refusing to accept help from a mere male.”
“Let me guess. I said I could have handled myself with Birdie’s husband, so your nose is out of joint. Why can’t men admit a woman can be competent and capable?”
“Why can’t a woman—a person—admit a man might be bigger and stronger than her—or him?” he countered. “When a bully is picking on someone smaller, I react. If Parker had been shoving around a smaller guy, I would have interfered. Is that so hard for you to accept?”
“How would you like me constantly rushing to your rescue? You wouldn’t like it, because you’d think I thought you were weak and incapable of taking care of yourself.”
“Be reasonable, O’Brien. I’m taller, heavier and stronger than you. You wouldn’t stand a chance if I attacked you.”
“Is that right, Mr. Macho Man? I believe brains can win over brawn every time.” If Luke hadn’t laughed, she wouldn’t have been tempted to demonstrate. She gave him a sweet smile. “May I drive the horses?”
“Sure. Doesn’t require much. Hondo and Johnny know the way home. Here. Hold the reins like this,” he placed them in her hands, “and don’t pull tight.”
J.J. moved past the center of the sled so Luke was forced to stand on the edge. “This is fun,” she said disingenuously.
Balancing on his wide-spread feet, not bothering to hold on to the sled, Luke smiled a very patronizing smile. His smile tipped the scales against him. Anyone who smiled that way deserved a lesson in brainpower over muscles.
The sled hit a small bump and lurched slightly. J.J. immediately threw herself off balance, gripping the sled with one hand as she rammed an elbow into Luke’s midriff. He tumbled very satisfactorily from the sled. J.J. slapped the reins against the horses’ rumps. “Giddyup, you two. Home, Hondo, Johnny. Home! Move it!” The horses obligingly broke into a shambling trot.
They didn’t trot fast enough.
J.J. flew from the sled, dropping the reins at the unexpected attack. She’d barely assimilated Luke had grabbed her before she careened into his solid body. They fell into the ditch beside the road, the heavy snow cushioning their landing. The sled and horses disappeared down the road. J.J. wiped snow from her face. “You big oaf, get off me. The horses are running away.”
Luke shifted his body, but an arm and thigh kept her pinned in place. “They’re headed to the barn. They’ll wait there unt
il someone takes care of them. Meanwhile, I think we were discussing brains versus brawn.”
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” J.J. hated losing.
“Good. Neither do I.”
J.J. forgot the cold snow beneath her at the scorching gleam in Luke’s eyes. His slow smile turned her insides to slush. Even icy cold, his lips set her blood on fire. He tasted of morning coffee and toothpaste. Luke wedged his arm under her head. She felt his other arm moving, heard the sound of a glove being removed, and then his hand slid beneath the heavy coat she wore. Warmth penetrated J.J.’s multiple layers of sweaters, from her waist, up her rib cage, to an aching breast. She sighed with pleasure into their kiss. Luke settled a leg between her thighs. Remembering how she’d loved touching Luke’s silken smooth skin and running her fingers along rippling muscles, J.J. wanted to strip off his jacket and warm her hands against his bare back.
Luke raised his head a couple of inches. “You make me crazy,” he said, his breath puffing warmly against her face.
“I make you crazy?” J.J. blinked snow from her lashes. “I’m buried in snow, wearing clothes that don’t belong to me, kissing a man I have nothing in common with, a man I intend to divorce. Not to mention it’s broad daylight, and we’re on a country road where anyone could come along any minute.” She had absolutely no desire to move. “Sensible people don’t do things like this.”
“We bring out the worst in each other.” He lowered his head.
“Absolutely,” J.J. muttered into the mouth closing over her own. His tongue bathed the inside of her mouth with moist heat. His hand, still beneath her coat, warmed her other breast. She’d break off their kiss in a second. In their short time of cohabitation, he’d learned how she liked to be kissed. He demonstrated that knowledge until her whole body quivered. His thumb grazed the hard tip of her breast.
Snow covered the ground. The temperature was probably a hundred below zero. J.J. wanted to remove her clothes and feel Luke pressed against her, bare flesh to bare flesh.
