Handful of Sky

by Cates, Tory

He paused and Shallie was sure he wouldn’t go on, but his words, too long dammed up, burst forth. “I know I can still ride. I don’t care about winning another championship buckle. That wouldn’t prove a thing to me. But I know that I’ve still got some rides in me that are better than anything I’ve done. That knowledge just keeps gnawing at me.”

  “I know you’ve got them in you too.” Shallie’s words were a flat statement of fact scrubbed clean of sympathy or pity. Things she knew Hunt didn’t want.

  “Enough of this maudlin horseshit,” he declared abruptly, as if suddenly realizing how much of himself he’d revealed, and embarrassed to find himself so exposed. He drained away his brandy in one gulp and stood up. “If I don’t get in that whirlpool right now, I’m going to seize up like an overheated engine.” He headed down the hallway, stopping only to pull a flimsy garment from the closet. “Here, try this on and come and soak with me.”

  He disappeared down the hall, leaving Shallie holding a skimpy tank suit. From the end of the hall came the sound of rushing water.

  Like a flock of pigeons, all of Shallie’s insecurities and uncertainties came home to roost. Who wore this suit last? she wondered staring at the flimsy bit of Lycra. An overwhelming desire to cut and run swamped her. An equally strong desire, however, held her rooted to the spot. She thought of Pegasus and remembered that they really hadn’t sealed their deal. She needed Hunt’s assurance that the horse would truly be hers.

  So, telling herself that it was for the blue roan, she stepped into the dressing room, choosing to ignore the troubling evidence which indicated that a force stronger even than her desire to carve out a career in rodeo compelled her to stay. After she’d slipped on the suit, she grabbed a thick towel hanging from a rack on the aromatic cedar wall and wrapped herself in it.

  “Come on in,” Hunt called out from the thick fog that shrouded the tiled room. Shallie hesitated at the door she’d cracked open. The suit Hunt had tossed her way seemed to accentuate her body more than cover it. “Don’t worry,” he added, “I’m decent.”

  Shallie stepped inside. Hunt was lounging at the far end of the oval-shaped pool. His chest was half-submerged beneath the burbling water. His arms, strikingly tan against the pale blue of the tile, were flung out on either side following the curve of the pool. Steam had turned his thick, dark hair into a corona of curls. Beneath the surging water, Shallie could make out the tiny black triangle of a man’s bathing suit.

  She closed the door behind her and hung her towel on one of the hooks bored into the tiled walls. When she turned around, Hunt’s eyes were fastened on her, taking in the low scoop of the tank suit’s neckline, the way her breasts were pressed together by the tight stretch material. How they swelled over the neckline, meeting in a deep cleft above it. His gaze trailed to the indentation of her waist, the slim mounds of her narrow hips.

  Shallie put an exploratory toe into the water. A spray of bubbles massaged the sensitive sole. The sensation was too delicious to resist. She stepped down the tiled steps and took a seat. Like a thousand talented masseuses, the pressurized spray of bubbles beat against the tight coil of muscles in her neck. Shallie slid farther down, closing her eyes and letting the relaxing warmth work its magic on her tense body.

  “This is heavenly,” she sighed.

  “Yes.” Hunt’s voice was close. “It is exquisite, isn’t it?”

  She lifted her dark lashes. Hunt was beside her. When their eyes met, Shallie could neither flinch from the desire sharpening Hunt’s gaze nor hide her own. His hand darted through the water to stroke Shallie’s outstretched thigh beside him. She delighted in the feel of his hand against her flesh, glad for the long, lean muscles that years of riding had developed in her legs.

  Shallie followed the scarred hand back up along the forearm with its powerful swell of muscle, source of the strength needed to control a bucking horse. Back to the rounded knolls of his chest. Down to the developed muscles rippling across his taut stomach.

  The pool turned into a bubbling caldron around Shallie as Hunt’s hand slid down her spine and pulled her to him. His lips found a spot in the hollow of her neck, which seemed to be charged with an electricity that raced through her at his touch. She reached out to explore the ribs that had been hidden behind bandages the first time she’d glimpsed them. They seemed too strong, too insulated by muscle to have ever been injured.

  “You’re so tiny. So perfect.” Hunt’s words were an insensate mutter in her ear as he scooped her closer. With one hand he peeled the wet suit from her shoulder, covering the tender whiteness beneath with his hungry lips. When he pulled the strap completely away, Shallie felt her breast bathed by the warmth of the effervescing water. That warmth was intensified by the hot, liquid feel of Hunt’s mouth sliding down to capture the peak of her breast glistening above the water and tempting his tongue.

  Shallie felt she was drowning. That if she slipped even a fraction of an inch more, she would be lost beneath the churning waters, beneath her own churning emotions. She wanted Hunt McIver. She couldn’t deny her response to him. If only he were any other man on earth, in any other profession. The soft slither of his tongue at her breast erased even that hesitation. She wanted him. But there was something she wanted even more. Something she wouldn’t jeopardize for even this achingly intense pleasure.

  “Hunt.” She couldn’t disguise the husky arousal in her voice. He turned his head, slowly, unwilling, toward her. “You won’t tell Jake? About Pegasus, I mean.”

  The cords at the back of Hunt’s neck went rigid. He squinted as if he’d been sliced by a stab of physical pain. “I thought we’d already established that.”

  It was hard for Shallie to believe that such chilly words could come from a mouth she knew to be meltingly warm.

  “Or did you feel that you were ensuring my silence by coming here?”

  “No, no. Of course not,” Shallie stammered, realizing with a sickening lurch that her protests sounded tinnily artificial. “I . . .” She searched for an explanation, but Hunt was already leaving. His back, so firmly pliant, so alive beneath her fingers only moments before, now seemed to be sculpted from unyielding, unforgiving stone. Shallie thumbed the freed strap back up over her shoulder and followed him. A puddle of cooling water pooled at her feet as she stood silently behind Hunt, wishing for a way to erase her ill-timed words. Finally it was he who spoke.

  “I’ve seen too much of what women will do to get what they want. I’m not interested in seeing any more of it. Go on and get dressed and I’ll walk you back to the main house.”

  Shallie swallowed the lump of remorse forming in her throat and answered with all the pride she could muster, “That won’t be necessary. I can find my way by myself.” To herself she added, I’ve been doing just that for two years now.

  “That’s probably better. The guest suite is at the end of the hall to your right as you go in the main entrance.” With that, Hunt McIver left. Damn him, damn him, damn him. The curse beat through Shallie’s brain as she walked the twisting path back to the front of the rambling ranch house. It alternated with another one in which she cursed herself for her colossally ill-timed request. In the end she decided it was for the best. She had too much at stake to risk it for one night of passion. That bit of cold logic, however, did little to warm Shallie as she faced the truth that had been brewing beneath the lid she’d clamped on her emotions—she loved Hunt McIver. As quickly as the revelation flashed across Shallie’s mind, she stamped it down, burying it beneath a mountain of arguments against the folly of caring for a rodeo cowboy.

  Lonely streaks of gray were cracking the night sky before she finally fell into a shallow trough of sleep.

  Chapter 7

  Before the sun was even fully up the next morning, the sound of pickups grinding to a halt out by the arena woke Shallie from her short night of sleep. In the early light she appraised the living quarters she’d been too despondent to notice the previous night. Her bed could have slept a family of five. It
floated on a thick carpet of the lightest apple green, a shade that was complemented by a patterned wallpaper. Antique oval mirrors, airy landscapes, and delicately carved furniture gave the room a light, feminine touch.

  She crossed the downy carpet and pulled back the drape cloaking a window that looked down on the arena. A van with the Circle M brand painted on its side was pulling up beside the bucking chutes. The doors slid open and it disgorged a load of young men all wearing the uniform of the rodeo cowboy—neatly pressed Wrangler jeans, which crumpled slightly where they broke over dusty, scuffed boots. Their conservatively tailored Western shirts always covered an athlete’s lean, hard body. Next to a potbelly, the only other thing never seen on a real rodeo cowboy was a gaudy hat of the urban-cowboy variety, topped with the pheasant feathers and beer-can-tab bands that type favored. The hats Shallie saw that morning were the simple ones she was used to seeing in arenas across the country, embellished only with the plainest of black or brown bands. The one bit of decoration that all the young men wore was the silver buckles that said they’d been the best in some county rodeo or they’d won a high school or college championship. At their feet were piles of spurs, riggings, ropes, gloves, rosin, and liniment. The last item was the one that all of them would be needing after a day at Hunt McIver’s rodeo school.

  As Shallie stared, the gathering of young cowboys jerked to an informal kind of attention. Conversations ceased and all the heads swiveled in the same direction. Hunt McIver strode in. Before Shallie could forbid herself to feel it, a pain pierced the empty spot beneath her heart.

  There was a slight stiffness in Hunt’s loose-limbed walk and a grim set to his expression. The black mood that had descended the night before still hovered about him like a storm cloud. For a moment Shallie thought she saw in Hunt’s features the same disappointment that was weighing her down. She quickly chided herself for her wishful thinking. If there was any disappointment on Hunt McIver’s face, it was merely the kind any rodeo cowboy would wear if he’d been denied another female conquest.

  Half running, half skipping to keep pace with Hunt’s long stride was the cowboy Shallie had seen the night before taking notes on the horses being bucked out.

  Judging from his height (about five foot six) and his physique (powerfully developed shoulders and chest), Shallie guessed that the young cowboy was probably a bull rider. Hunt stopped and faced the young, stocky cowboy. His hand, the same hand that had caressed her with such soft promise only hours ago, cut through the warm, humid air with a series of swift signs. The short cowboy nodded and answered with his own signs.

  He’s deaf, Shallie realized.

  The deaf cowboy pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from his back pocket and handed it to Hunt. Hunt studied the paper, then called out something that did not carry to Shallie’s station at the window. She guessed he was reading off a list of names, because the clump of cowboys began breaking up into smaller groups.

  One group was shorter and stockier than any of the others. Bull riders, Shallie surmised. Her guess was confirmed when they picked up plaited bull ropes hung with large clanging bells and followed a man whom she recognized as a three-time world champion in that event.

  Another contingent, with loops of rope coiled around their chests, broke off to follow a big buckle winner in the calf-roping event. They headed toward a large, fenced-in area with a pen full of calves at one end.

  When a group gathered that included no man under six feet or two hundred pounds, Shallie knew the steer wrestlers were gathering. The iron men of rodeo, their event involved jumping off a horse galloping at thirty miles an hour onto the neck of a charging steer, then wrestling the animal to the ground. This group moved away to a practice ring where the steers Shallie had hauled down from the Double L waited. The thought of the steers reminded her of what Hunt had called her “hooved treasure.”

  Her gaze swung to the corral of auction horses. Pegasus was still there, even more spirited today, as if last night’s ride had been but a glimpse of what his destiny held. The memory of that ride flamed anew as she looked toward Hunt. The mastery he had displayed the previous night showed in his every gesture, in the easy way he commanded the young cowboys’ rapt attention. Shallie stomped down the lump of regret that was beginning to fill the empty space beneath her ribs.

  She scolded herself for the futile emotion. Maybe later there would be time in her life for a man, for love. Perhaps not one like Hunt McIver. Shallie knew from painful experience that there weren’t many of his caliber, but she sternly reined in her thoughts as if she were handling a headstrong horse. This was neither the time nor the place for self-pity. From far down the hall a rasp of a voice echoed.

  “I don’t give a good goddamn what that wimp of a doctor said, I’m not drinking any damned decaffeinated coffee. So get that pot out of my sight.”

  It sounded like Jake McIver was in fine fettle. Good, Shallie thought. She wanted to conduct her business with him and be gone as quickly as possible. The prospect of confronting Hunt again caused a noticeable quiver in Shallie’s pulse. She pulled on a fresh pair of jeans, then pulled them off just as swiftly. If Jake McIver was partial to feminine pulchritude, she reasoned, there was no reason to handicap herself by dressing like a field hand. Instead she chose a tailored pair of slacks of navy gabardine, which slid over her hips, flattering her lean curves and leggy figure. Her top was of an aqua knit cut in a classically simple style, with no frills at its boatneck to detract from the graceful sweep of Shallie’s fine-boned throat and neck.

  As she was fluffing the gentle waves back into her palomino golden hair, she noticed a spot of high color on each cheek. They deepened as she recalled the image of Hunt, dripping wet, wearing nothing but the scantiest triangle of tissue-thin material. She slammed the brush down, angry at herself for dwelling on what could never be. She had to concentrate, to marshal her strength to ensure that she accomplished what had to be—her ownership of Pegasus.

  “Well, good morning, Shalimar Larkin,” Jake McIver called out from the breakfast nook where he and a very sleepy-looking Trish were seated. “I cannot believe my eyes. In the space of one short night you have been transformed from a pretty to a beautiful girl. How on earth did you accomplish that, girl?”

  Shallie pasted a sweet smile on her face in lieu of an answer.

  A white-uniformed cook was muttering in the corner of the kitchen as she plugged in one percolator and dumped the contents of another down the drain. The kitchen was built along the same mammoth proportions as the rest of the house. The breakfast nook extended off one end. It was surrounded by glass on three sides, opening onto a vista either of pasture filled with cantering yearlings or of a wooded area with the Colorado River weaving through it. The view closer in was just as delightful—dozens of hummingbird feeders hung from the eaves, each one patronized by three or four of the minute birds. Their iridescent colors flashed in the morning sunlight.

  “Pretty little things, aren’t they?” Jake asked, as if he were personally responsible for designing each one.

  “They’re lovely,” Shallie said, happy to reflect the pleasure the old man took in his darting treasures. Trish looked sourly from the birds to Shallie.

  “Good morning,” Shallie greeted her.

  Trish’s answer was an indistinguishable grunt, which Shallie didn’t care to decipher. Even in her semicomatose state, however, she was stunning. Looking at her flawless makeup and artfully arranged raven tresses, Shallie was doubly glad she hadn’t opted for the stable-boy look that morning.

  “Sadie,” Jake bawled to the pinch-faced woman in the kitchen, “fetch Miss Larkin a cup of coffee. Real coffee, not that decaffeinated mess you were trying to poison me with.”

  As Shallie joined the couple at the table, she mentally played out a number of possible openings she might use to turn the conversation toward selling Pegasus. She knew she mustn’t appear too anxious or McIver would suspect something.

  “Tell me, Shallie.” McIver leaned back,
folding his arms over his chest. “Just how much do you and old Walter plan on beating me out of for that mangy bunch of steers you brought down?”

  “Mangy!” Shallie echoed in mock alarm, picking up on McIver’s bantering style. “Those are prime beeves, every one of them. Just ask those doggers out there. They’ll tell you how prime they are, unless they’re too wet behind the ears to know a good steer when they jump on its neck.”

  Jake chuckled. “You’re a feisty one, aren’t you, Miss Shalimar Larkin. I love to see that fiery red in your cheeks. Go on ahead and name your price. If you’re Larkin stock, I know it will be a fair one.”

  Shallie hesitated a long moment, guilt pricking at her. In one swoop she pushed it aside and plunged onward. “Two hundred and fifty dollars a head.”

  “Two-fifty a head? Don’t cheat yourself, girl. I’d have given you twice that.”

  You old swindler, Shallie thought, you should have given me three times that price. What she said aloud was, “Plus my pick of those horses you’ve got out in the corral.”

  “Whoa, now. We haven’t bucked out all of those broncs yet. When we do we’ll put the lot of them up for auction and you can have your pick of the litter.”

  “I want my pick before the auction and before you buck out any more horses or the deal’s off, and you can pay regular market price for those steers.”

  McIver’s eyebrows jumped a fraction of an inch. “Now I don’t know about that. We’ve got some prime bucking stock out there.”

  “You’ve got a sorry bunch of plowhorses and you know it.”

  “So why are you so interested in them?” McIver asked, cocking his head slightly to one side as if trying to see around Shallie to catch a glimpse of her motives.

  “If you’d seen what the Double L has been bucking out lately you wouldn’t have to ask that question. We’re desperate for good riding stock.” The humbling admission deflected McIver’s suspicion. He hadn’t seen any of the new stock that Shallie had acquired, but McIver knew of the Double L’s reputation as a company that catered to ropers and neglected the rough stock riders.