Cowboy Under Cover

by Marilyn Tracy

  She drew a deep breath. “I’ve never been an employer before, except for household help,” she said.

  “Looks like you’re doing just fine,” he said softly, almost as if he exhaled the words. “That was a darn fine dinner, and by the end of it, that thorny kid actually smiled at you.”

  She gave a grimacy smile she hoped he couldn’t discern. The thorny description fit Dulce with uncanny accuracy. Again the contrast between Dulce and Angela flitted across her mind. Angela had never stopped smiling.

  She cleared her throat. “Thanks,” she said, “but the truth is, I don’t know how to go about this. I liked having you—and Pablo, of course—here for dinner. I’d like that to continue, if you don’t mind. Breakfast, too. And I guess we can pack a lunch for you or you can come in for lunch. And I liked how you handled the art gallery. And your stories were—”

  She had no idea how long she might have continued babbling had he not stopped her by placing a hand on her arm. She looked at him in alarm and, she thought fearfully, an almost wistful longing.

  She couldn’t read his face. She could barely see him. But she could feel the heat radiating from his body, defying the cool desert night breeze.

  “I don’t start until tomorrow,” he said, and slid his hand up her arm and gently pulled her closer to him. Her head felt light, her mind numb.

  “I don’t understand,” she murmured, even as she leaned unresistingly into his embrace.

  “Meaning I can’t do this then.” He lowered his lips to hers, and unlike she’d anticipated, unlike she’d known with David, his kiss wasn’t sweet and soft, but demanding and sure. He tasted of wine with a hint of the caramel flan and sheer, raw desire.

  Surprised, she started, but his other hand encircled her, drawing her closer to him. It was only as he pressed her tightly against him that she could feel his increased heart rate and hear his ragged breathing.

  Vaguely understanding that whatever prompted him to kiss her carried nothing idle about it, she moaned softly. When his lips touched hers a second time, she sighed into his mouth and melted into his body.

  If his heartbeat was hurried, racing, hers was chaotic, ragged and thready. Feelings so long buried that she’d thought them gone completely suddenly burst into flame, swelling from the places he touched to engulf her and make her weak with want and ache for more.

  His kiss deepened, and his hands pulled her roughly to him as if trying to pull her inside him. And she went willingly, mindlessly into the kiss, into the passion she’d denied for so very long.

  An eternity seemed to pass before he lifted his head, and then it only seemed that he’d risen for desperate air, clutching her hair in his hands as if she caused him pain of some kind and holding himself as rigid as the pillars supporting her veranda roof.

  She could feel every nuance of his fingers pressed against her skull, felt the tug of her hair through his fingers, felt the swelling of her breasts against his chest.

  She breathed his name aloud, and a dim part of her mind wondered if she wasn’t asking for something she couldn’t even begin to define.

  As if her words slapped him awake, he released her hair, released his hold on her and pulled back slowly, as if reluctant. As he’d done on the streets of Carlsbad that hot morning just days earlier, he held his hands out from her arms for a moment, seemingly expecting her to weave.

  She was more likely to slide to the floor, she thought. But she stayed where she was, a kinetic toy between his magic hands. Finally, she raised a hand to her seared lips, not because they were in any kind of pain, but because she could have sworn she still felt the pressure of his kiss against them.

  “I’ll get your cattle back for you,” he said as if needing to promise her something.

  “Okay,” she murmured through her fingertips. She could still taste him. Feel him against her.

  “I’ll make sure you don’t have any more fires.”

  “Okay,” she said and hated herself for trembling, for wanting more.

  “I’ll even make sure the city and county don’t give you any flack about those kids of yours.”

  And still his hands hovered just beyond her arms. She could feel them magnetically holding her in place. “Okay,” she whispered.

  “But so help me God, if you look at me like that again, I’m going to carry you off in the desert, and damn everything else.”

  Jeannie’s knees threatened to give way. She didn’t—couldn’t—say a word.

  “Tomorrow,” he said, making his words a threat, or perhaps a promise, “it’s all business, and we’ll talk salary then.” He slowly lowered his hands.

  “Oh, dear Lord,” she said, and dazedly wished she knew how to look at him so he’d drag her into the desert and damn everything else.

  “Good night,” he growled and stomped off the veranda with every bit as much clamor as Dulce, but with nothing echoing except male frustration and, she suspected, a want as deep as her own.

  “Good night,” she murmured some four hours later, trying to go to sleep. She raised her fingers to her lips and could still feel him there.

  Chapter 5

  J eannie felt the next few days passed in a blur of activity. In between times spent on the road, traveling to various ranches to pick out horses Chance and Pablo deemed suitable for Rancho Milagro, and watching them tug at the strange set of wires and blocks of wood they called a come-along, the days seemed filled with hard work, laughter and rollicky meals.

  With each passing day, Jeannie believed the ranch was very aptly named Rancho Milagro—Miracle Ranch. Fences seemed magically mended, the drive effortlessly widened, extra fire walls and flash-flood ditches added along the road leading into the place.

  She didn’t have to look far to know who was responsible for all the wonderful changes at Milagro—one easygoing rodeo cowboy named Chance Salazar.

  Studying them at the dinner table, little José giggling and slapping at Pablo’s tickling hand, Dulce leaning forward, her eyes alight with excitement over the prospect of riding a horse the next morning, Chance idly twirling a glass of Merlot, a small smile playing on his lips, Jeannie felt a moment of undiluted contentment. She clasped her hands in her lap, almost as if in prayer, wishing this peace could last forever.

  “Which horse do you think I should ride, Chance?” Dulce asked.

  “Which one do you want to ride?”

  “Oh, man. You’re gonna let me choose? Then it’s Diablo.” The girl all but bounced in her chair.

  “You’ve got a pretty good eye for horses,” Chance said, not looking at her.

  Jeannie suspected there was nothing offhand in his casual stance, that he did it to make Dulce feel more comfortable with him. It was a gift he had, a rather offhand gallantry that made both animal and human seek his company.

  Chance continued, “He’s the best of the lot we hauled in here this afternoon. And I probably wouldn’t have noticed him in the back of the Jacksons’ corral if you hadn’t pointed him out.” He looked at the girl finally. “Good call.” He nodded and smiled at her.

  Dulce ducked her face at the compliment, a happy blush showing through the white powder on her cheeks. “I just thought he was pretty.”

  Chance raised his eyes and met Jeannie’s. Her breath snagged in her throat as if he’d caressed her instead of just raising an eyebrow. “And why are you smiling so wistfully over there, señora?” he asked softly.

  “I’m just so happy Dulce is tickled over riding tomorrow.” She wished she hadn’t blurted her thoughts when she saw Dulce’s face harden and her lower lip jut out in a sulk. What had she said to make the girl unhappy?

  She forced her hands apart and reached for her wine. She held up her glass, ignoring her trembling hand. “Here’s to choosing fine horseflesh and riding Diablo tomorrow.”

  “Oh, get a grip.” Dulce slapped her hand on the table and pushed away from the suddenly silent group. “You probably wish I’d fall off and break my neck, then you wouldn’t have to worry about me
anymore.”

  Before Jeannie could say anything more than, “What on earth—?” the girl had stomped from the room. A few seconds later, they heard Dulce’s bedroom door slam shut.

  So much for prayers, Jeannie thought. She sighed and started to rise, but Chance reached out and laid a hand across one of hers. “Let her go,” he said.

  “But I—”

  “Trust me on this one, Jeannie.”

  She looked at him and remembered that split second of time in the Jeep while parked at the courthouse. Trust me, he’d said. And she remembered another moment, a flash-fire starlit moment on her veranda in which she’d wanted to trust everything about him and he’d been smart enough to walk away.

  “I wish I knew what I’d done,” she said. She felt wobbly-kneed and very confused. And not just because of Dulce. Chance was too close, too there.

  “Let her go,” he repeated, and at the pressure from his hand, she subsided into her chair. “You didn’t do anything. She’s just scared. And now she’s embarrassed, too.”

  “Scared of what? She was excited about riding, so it wasn’t that.”

  Pablo said something in Spanish, and Chance gently translated for him. “He says she’s scared that she’ll like it too much. That she likes everything around here too much.”

  Jeannie looked at Pablo with gratitude. “Do you really think that’s it?”

  “Si, señora. Pobrecita.”

  “He says, ‘Yes, ma’am. Poor little thing.’ So you just stop worrying and sip your wine. She’ll be over it by morning and ready to ride.”

  Jeannie did as he instructed, though the wine that had tasted so crisp a few moments earlier struck her as flat and sour.

  After a couple of seconds, Chance felt it was safe to remove his hand from Jeannie’s arm and deliberately leaned back in his chair as if he hadn’t a care in the world. However, he didn’t take his eyes from Jeannie’s pale silence. Only a few minutes ago, her face had held the softest yearning expression, a wistful little smile lighting her glorious eyes.

  He thought of the many instances in her scattered notebook when she’d written Dulce’s name and followed it with only question marks and seemingly random information about dress sizes and teenage interests.

  It seemed the wounded look was fading as Jeannie watched Pablo engage José in a game of shadow animals on the art gallery wall. Within a few minutes, she managed to swallow the hurt, take it deep inside, and a veil of determined saint had been drawn across her lovely features. But it wasn’t a veil of acceptance or even knowledge of young Dulce.

  Chance wondered if it might benefit the two of them—and everyone else on the place—if he clued Jeannie in on what he’d perceived, that Dulce baited her the most and with the greatest success. It was as if every hurt that reflected on Jeannie’s too-readable face became a personal triumph in Dulce’s skirmishes with her new guardian. The girl collected Jeannie’s frowns of distress like spoils in an unnamed war.

  And he wondered if he could possibly let Jeannie know that she and Dulce were two of a kind. Dulce bristled, jousted and wore her emotions beneath a mask of garish makeup and defensive rejection. Jeannie blinked back tears when Dulce jabbed or pricked and hid behind the mask of being Rancho Milagro’s care-giver.

  They’d each found a safety zone that worked for her, and they clung to their safety desperately. Someone or something had hurt Jeannie every bit as badly as young Dulce had been abused. Abandonment shone clearly from both sets of eyes.

  José giggled over a shadow donkey Pablo made buck across the wall. Jeannie smiled, but Chance could see that the hurt lingered.

  “So are you going to try out one of the horses tomorrow morning?” he asked.

  “Who, me?” Jeannie asked, turning startled eyes in his direction. “I don’t think that would be a very good idea.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t know how to ride.”

  “That’s kinda the point of riding lessons,” Chance said, smiling at her. “Whoever heard of a ranch owner who can’t ride a horse?”

  She opened her mouth as if she was going to argue with him. She closed it and looked thoughtful. “I think Dulce would rather try it out alone.”

  “I think Dulce would feel more comfortable to know she and José aren’t the only people on the planet who don’t know how to ride.”

  “You really do know how make things seem simple, don’t you?” Jeannie asked. When he didn’t say anything, she murmured, almost to herself, “David could never seem to manage that.”

  He’d seen a couple of references to a David in her notepad. “David?”

  Jeannie looked surprised he’d mentioned the name, as if unaware she’d talked about him, and a sharp pain crossed her face. “David was my husband,” she said quietly.

  Chance felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. She’d had a husband? She looked too untouched somehow, as if such an intimate relationship had never passed her way. “Was?”

  “David’s gone.” She looked at the nearly full wine-glass at her fingertips and pushed it away as if shoving away a bad memory.

  “I see,” Chance said, lying. Gone sounded like a sad euphemism for deceased, but it could also be that her husband had left her. Either way, the expression on her face told him it had cost her everything she held dear. He’d never loved anyone so deeply, so completely that it had left him with lost, despairing eyes. And he found himself hating this missing David, and worse, discovered he didn’t like hearing another man’s name on her lips.

  With real effort, he resisted the urge to take her hand in his. Ever since that night on her porch, he’d managed to keep his sanity firmly locked in place, squelching the need to touch her. He’d deliberately left Pablo near the ranch headquarters while he rode the fences, looking for cut wire. He found a thousand tasks that kept him away from the ranch proper, out of range of her blue eyes. The one fire he’d spotted while out riding he’d taken care of himself, making the time away from the ranch that afternoon stretch into hours. During the busy days, it had been easy to avoid her, telling himself that what he felt for her was just a protective thing—a natural extension of his job.

  Until the damnable nightly dinners. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy the evenings—it was that he enjoyed them a little too much. They were too easy, too convivial. It was like stepping into quicksand. The hold didn’t hurt, but it wouldn’t let a man go.

  “And you? Have you been married?” she asked.

  He thought he might be able to listen to her Eastern voice for about two hundred years before tiring of it, even as her vulnerable face and smiling eyes made him itchy to run for the nearest mountainside.

  He liked listening to her talk. It almost didn’t matter what she happened to be saying at the time—though what she said often kept him up late into the night considering her words. But it was her tone that moved him. She always seemed to speak with a slight smile, lending her words an intimate tenor, as if the words were only for him.

  “That bad?” she asked.

  “What? Oh, sorry. I was a million miles away, wasn’t I?” But he was lying. He’d been too close, not too far away. “I was married once, a long time ago,” he said. “It didn’t take.”

  “Sounds like an inoculation,” she said.

  “Oh, it was,” he said and grinned even as he grimaced. When she looked at him with questions in her eyes, he sighed. “She wanted the big parades and the big prizes. I just liked the challenge. The purses didn’t matter. Which is another way of saying we were broke most of the time.”

  She chuckled.

  It was impossible to ignore her at the dinners, her pretty face flushed with heat from the kitchen where she tried to learn the cuisine from the housekeeper, Juanita. He smiled over her struggles with Spanish and her fancy table settings. Every single thing about her made an evening at Rancho Milagro nothing but pure heaven—and not touching her torture.

  The only miracle about the place, as far as he was willing to allow, w
as that he was still alive after countless consecutive sleepless nights and a host of cold showers. For when she laughed, when she frowned, when she moved, spoke, considered something one of the kids had said or just chewed on her damned food, he felt riveted to his chair.

  The fact that every muscle in his body screamed with the unfamiliar aches of fence stretching and riding horseback for hours at a time and his pulse jumped several notches every time she sashayed by him was testament to her power over him.

  He’d told himself that if he could dodge the demand to take her in his arms when she was laughing or smiling—as she seemed to do more and more lately—then he sure as hell could manage to rein it in when her sorrow pulled at his every heartstring. He cleared his throat. “So, are you going to ride in the morning?”

  She raised her beautiful eyes to his, and to his immense relief, they were filled with laughter. “You’re not giving up, are you?”

  “Nope. So, are you?” He grinned at her and realized he’d made a serious error in thinking he was even remotely shielded against her smiles.

  “If you’ll do something for me.”

  Anything, he almost said. “And what would that be?”

  “That would be letting me pay for your pickup to have a tune-up. I’ve never heard anything so noisy in all my life.”

  Chance almost laughed. He’d deliberately bought the beat-up ’72 Dodge three-quarter-ton pickup before rolling into Carlsbad with his cover in place. A has-been rodeo rider wouldn’t have a shiny new Ford F-350 parked in his garage. He’d have an old beater he could haul his gear around in from rodeo to rodeo, and it would have to be noisy enough to let people know he was in town and cadging drinks and rodeo fee money for the next ride.

  “I can pay for it,” he said roughly.

  “So can I.” She smiled. “So is it a deal?”