Handful of Sky

by Cates, Tory

  “You look even better than I dreamed you would,” he whispered huskily in her ear. She watched, mesmerized, as his hands slid down the shimmering material to lightly trace the outline of her breasts, her waist, her thighs. “God, you excite me. I wish we didn’t have to leave, but we’re late as it is.”

  “I don’t have any plans for afterward.” Shallie caught his eye in the mirror. “Do you?”

  “Why, you little wanton!” He laughed. “Have I corrupted you this thoroughly?”

  “Absolutely. You’ve hooked me on your physical charms.” She shot him a playfully sultry glance, knowing even as they both laughed that she had spoken the truth. She was addicted, there was no denying it, but it went much further than mere physical attraction. She wondered how fast and in which direction Hunt McIver would run if he realized just how deeply attached to him she was. Tingles shimmied down her spine. Hunt had taken the brush from her dresser top and was running it with infinite delicacy through her hair.

  “I love the way your hair feels. The color. It’s like a palomino mane woven from silk.” She melted under the caress of the brush.

  “This is getting dangerous. We’d better leave now or we won’t make it.”

  Hunt put down the brush. “You’re right. There will be plenty of time later on. As much time as we need.”

  Shallie tried not to let herself read too much into his words, but it was hard. She could no longer imagine a future for herself that did not include Hunt McIver.

  Chapter 15

  How elegant,” Shallie breathed as Hunt stepped aside and let her enter the door held by the uniformed doorman at the restaurant where the awards banquet was to be held. “A midnight supper. It’s almost like a cast party on Broadway after the last night of a long run.”

  “That’s a fair analogy,” Hunt agreed. “We’re more like theater people than athletes in the fact that our workday often stops at midnight too. Then we’re so keyed up from the evening’s excitement that we don’t sleep until dawn.”

  The entire restaurant had been reserved especially for the awards dinner. One glance around the room told Shallie that rodeo had come of age. She recognized the governor of New Mexico and a couple of state senators. A nationally known Indian artist from Taos was chatting with a famous diva who had flown in from New York for the annual run of the Santa Fe opera. In the corner, Shallie spotted her uncle deep in conversation with the widow of one of the state’s largest landowners. He glanced up and waved her and Hunt over.

  “Miriam,” he said, smiling from the woman at his side to Shallie, “I’d like you to meet my niece, Shallie Larkin, and I’m sure you know, or know of, Hunt McIver. Shallie, Hunt, this is Miriam Prescott.”

  Miriam Prescott met with Shallie’s immediate approval. In her midfifties, she had the ruddy vigor that can’t be purchased at any exclusive spa; it is only imparted by a lifetime of outdoor work and hard physical activity. Her light-gray eyes seemed to take in everything and filter it with a screen of irrepressible good humor. Miriam Prescott seemed to Shallie to have acquired none of the pretensions that so often accompany wealth. Shallie could easily imagine herself sitting down with Miriam and a cup of coffee and completely losing herself in a good conversation.

  Glancing around the room, Shallie observed, “I had no idea rodeo was popular with so many influential and well-known people.”

  “Oh my heavens, yes,” Miriam Prescott countered merrily. “You never know who you’ll meet up in those box seats. Frequently there are visitors from the East, like the diva, Merrilee Sellers, who come for a one-time novelty. Then there are real fans like myself, and I know the governor sees as many performances as he can. As a matter of fact, Hunt, he was rendered positively speechless by your ride tonight. We’ve both seen Avalanche several times before and no one has ever come close to riding him, much less doing as superb a job of it as you did. Don’t you agree, Walter?” Miriam’s eyes, crinkled by sun and laughter, sought out Walter’s, and they laughed like two conspirators.

  Shallie’s gaiety was cut cold when she noticed Trish Stephans smoldering in a far corner. Trish was so intent upon Hunt that she didn’t even notice Shallie staring at her. She reminded Shallie of the way a cat crouches in the long grass, totally motionless except for the twitching of her tail, as she stalked an unsuspecting bird. Jesse was by her side, glowering angrily at the world. A white-jacketed waiter carrying a tray of fluted champagne glasses passed. Jesse lightened his load by two. He stuck one of the glasses in front of Trish. She refused it. Jesse shrugged sullenly, then proceeded to drain both glasses in quick succession. When the waiter passed by again, Jesse swapped the empty glasses for two more full ones. He was not taking his loss well, Shallie thought. No better, certainly, than Trish was taking hers. Of course, Shallie reminded herself, neither defeat was final.

  The dinner, served by a platoon of waiters, was every bit as elegant as the surroundings and the company. The diners were finishing up the raspberry glacé and starting on their after-dinner coffee and brandy when the awards ceremony began. Shallie paid little attention, since most of the awards were honorary ones that the money men behind rodeo presented to one another. The majority of contestants had already packed up and were traveling hard to make the next rodeo. She was savoring the intoxicating smell of her brandy when she felt Hunt rise beside her.

  “There must have been a mistake.” He spoke to the master of ceremonies. Heads swiveled toward him. “I didn’t produce this rodeo. That honor belongs to Shallie and Walter Larkin. They did a super job and are going to be doing a lot more.” Hunt raised his hands above his head and led the applause as the emcee called Shallie and her uncle forward. At the dais, they were presented with a plaque for, said the head committeeman, “an exceptional job of producing one of the smoothest-running rodeos we’ve had in years.”

  Shallie’s pride was enhanced by seeing her uncle bear the award back to his seat, his face shining in the reflected beam from Miriam’s. This has to be the most perfect day of my life, Shallie was thinking again, when she caught a whiff of Old Spice cologne wafting over from the man on the other side of the banquet table.

  Without any warning, she was yanked from the present and hurled back across seven years. It was the third of July. She was seventeen years old. Her riding club was having a father-and-daughter playday. She was sitting astride her horse, Toby. Her father was behind her, his Old Spice aftershave clean in her nostrils. They were lined up beside all the other father-and-daughter teams they’d been competing against all day. She’d been so proud that this handsome man, erect in his clean, white shirt and the best horseman there, was her father. When their names had been called for the first-place team, the same sentiment had held her thoughts—this is the most perfect day of my life. Late that night her father and uncle had driven away into the darkness for the Fourth of July round of rodeos known as the Cowboy’s Christmas. Her father had never come home.

  Shallie felt she’d had to pay for every moment of happiness with one of sadness ten times more intense. She’d learned early that the world does not sustain perfection. If it seems too good to be true, it is. The only happiness that lasts is the kind built on hard work.

  Shallie clung to the brandy snifter in her hands as if it were physical proof that she was no longer a heartbroken girl, I’m a woman now, she screamed to the phantoms that tortured her. In answer, they reminded her of the price she’d paid for caring too much. Lessons learned young are learned well.

  “Shallie, what’s wrong?”

  She looked into Hunt’s face and realized that she’d been staring into her brandy as if it were a crystal ball.

  “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. Are you okay?”

  She nodded, trying to shake the shadow of the past from the present. She finished her brandy and signaled the waiter for another. Its warmth relaxed her and soon she was wrapped in conversation with Miriam Prescott, delighting in all her insider’s tales of New Mexico’s high and mighty.

  “Shall
ie,” her uncle said, “why don’t you keep your hotel room for another night. It’s too late for you to drive back to the ranch alone. I’ll be seeing Miriam home. We can load up the stock tomorrow.”

  Shallie caught a new sparkle in Miriam Prescott’s eyes and, for what might have been the first time in her life, realized what an attractive, virile man her uncle was.

  She glimpsed at the wrist of the man opposite her. “It’s almost three in the morning!” she exclaimed.

  As if he’d been waiting for her cue, Hunt stood. “That’s too late for me. May I take you back to the hotel, Shallie?”

  Shallie smiled, appreciative of his courtliness and formality in front of her uncle. She stood as Hunt pulled the chair out for her. “Yes, it’s been a long ten days.” After a round of good-byes, Hunt whisked her outside. Shallie’s last glimpse of the gathering focused on Trish. Jesse was slumped down in a chair beside her, but Trish was as predatorily alert as ever, her eyes gleaming an unspoken message to Hunt. Was Hunt aware of Trish’s rapacious interest in him? Shallie didn’t dare a direct question, so she probed indirectly.

  “Jesse Southerland didn’t seem too pleased about being beaten,” she observed as Hunt held the car door open for her.

  “I don’t understand why he should be so bothered. He’s still way ahead in the standings and I’m not even ranked yet.”

  “Trish didn’t seem to be having a very good time either,” Shallie ventured.

  “Trish? You can never tell about her.”

  Shallie wished she’d been facing Hunt when he made his cryptic evaluation. Sitting beside him in the dark car, it was impossible to decipher his meaning. She was afraid she detected a hint of admiration in his voice. Was Trish’s jealousy ploy working? Perhaps I’ve made myself too available, Shallie thought with a stab of remorse. She wondered if she shouldn’t leave Hunt with a good-night kiss and a yearning for more. She wished she were more adept at making the kinds of calculations that seemed to come naturally to Trish.

  The car pulled to a stop in front of the hotel and Hunt leaned over. “I’ve been wanting to do this all night,” he confessed, his lips finding hers.

  All thoughts of strategies and pretenses of aloofness flew from Shallie’s mind as her lips returned his kiss with the warmth it had elicited. Hunt would be leaving early the next morning. She had a long list of obligations at other rodeos. It would be weeks, maybe months, before their schedules brought them together again. Hang what Trish would do, Shallie decided. She wanted only to spend every second she could with the man she loved, no matter if they would never spend another together again.

  In the hotel room, Hunt drew off the emerald sheath as if he were unwrapping an exquisite present. He stood back to appraise Shallie, her legs long and slender beneath the short bit of apricot lingerie.

  “You are one sexy woman,” he growled throatily.

  The brandy loosened her tongue enough to reveal, “Only with you, Hunt.”

  “Shallie,” he said, his voice suddenly serious, “it’s not fair for me to say anything right now, because I’ll be leaving in a few hours and I’ll be going down the road so hard and so fast that there won’t be time for anything but phone calls. But when I’m through this year, there will be all the time we’ll ever need. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Shallie was afraid to answer. Afraid that her slightest breath would blow his words away forever. She nodded. His hand brushed her cheek, sliding back to tangle in her hair. He pulled her head to his chest, burying his face in her hair. “Shallie,” he whispered, “you don’t know what you mean to me.” There was an ache in his voice, which was silenced as his mouth fitted itself to the sinuous curve of her neck.

  Her head fell away, exposing the sensitive arch even further. Hunt’s hands slid over the silken material at her waist and rose to caress her breast. He tugged down the shoulder straps. Her hands glided over the snap buttons of his shirt. Impatiently, Hunt shrugged off his clothing and the remainder of hers. His lips pressed her back down onto the bed. He followed.

  Shallie felt herself slip away again to that place she had visited only with Hunt, where all thoughts—past, present, future—had no meaning. Sensation became all that mattered. She was ruled by Hunt’s smell, his taste, the feel of his chest against hers. Worries, doubts, insecurities, all vanished, swept away by the tidal wave of feeling crashing down on her. She gave herself over to it and swam in a black, weightless sea of desire.

  The pounding seemed to come from within her own head, passion’s relentless beating. But it didn’t stop when she willed it to. It continued until Hunt cursed and, pulling a sheet around himself, went to the door.

  “This had better be mighty important,” he growled, letting in a streak of daylight as he opened the door.

  Shallie couldn’t hear the response, but she froze when the pitch of the voice reached her ears. It was Trish and she was crying.

  “Are you sure?” Hunt asked.

  All Shallie could make out was more sniffling and a few muffled words.

  “Dammit to hell,” Hunt cursed. He looked around the room behind him, his gaze ricocheting distractedly from Shallie before he turned back to Trish. “All right. I’ll be down. Wait for me by the pickup. You know which one it is.” Hunt shut the door gently behind her. “I’ve got to get over to the grounds,” he announced, grabbing up clothes off the floor. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Wait here for me.” With that curtly delivered order, he was gone.

  Shallie listened to the muted sound of his departure down the long, carpeted hall, then the slamming of two doors and the spatter of gravel as Hunt’s truck pulled away. Shallie slumped down in the bed. An icy fist plunged down her throat and settled in her stomach. Hunt had gone away with Trish. That one bare fact echoed and reechoed through the empty room. The streaks of sunlight peeking around the corners of the drapes lengthened but did nothing to warm Shallie. When she finally pulled herself out of the stunned numbness engulfing her and glanced at the clock, it was nearly seven. She estimated that Hunt had been gone for well over two hours. She had to help her uncle load up the stock. Dully, she pulled back the covers and forced her legs over the side of the bed. She pulled on the silk dress and slunk to her own room. She was dressed and packed in less than fifteen minutes.

  As she pulled up to the rodeo grounds, she saw Jesse Southerland stagger toward his truck, parked near the stock pens. A trickle of fresh blood ran from his nostril. Moments later, Hunt came out of the coliseum. Trish was clinging to his arm. Hunt’s right eye was nearly swollen shut. The three of them on the deserted parking lot looked like the major characters in some primitive drama. It took Shallie only seconds to know how the script they’d just played out had read: Trish had somehow maneuvered Hunt onto the rodeo grounds. Perhaps she’d fabricated some excuse, perhaps he’d come willingly. Perhaps two factors, deception and Hunt’s own undeniable urge, had combined. It didn’t matter. Once they were alone, Trish had reclaimed Hunt just as Shallie had feared all along that she would. Then Jesse, the recently scorned lover, had stumbled upon them. The fight that followed was as inevitable as Hunt and Trish’s coupling.

  The icy fist in Shallie’s belly wrapped its fingers around her heart. She cursed herself for having been half a dozen kinds of fool but mostly for being the kind stupid enough to care for a rodeo cowboy. She’d known how it would end and had only herself to blame for the dull throb of pain that was already beginning to crack through the shocked numbness.

  Hunt saw her. He shook Trish from his arm and came toward her. With every slap of his boots against the parking lot, his words “Shallie, you don’t know what you mean to me” came back at her like a jeering taunt.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t get back,” he said, as casually as if he’d left her in the middle of a card game or a television program. “We couldn’t find Jesse at first. Trish was afraid he was going to try something really desperate. We finally looked here and found him trying to get Pegasus into the chutes and rigged up. It
took some physical persuasion to convince him that he was in no condition for a ride.”

  Shallie stared at Hunt, amazed to see his eyes sparkling as if she were supposed to enjoy his hastily constructed fiction. Behind him, Trish cocked her head, trying to catch more of their conversation. An amused smirk tilted the corners of her mouth. It was the smirk that snapped the thin leash Shallie was holding on her rage.

  “You liar,” she hissed. “Who do you think I am? Some dumb buckle bunny who’s so thrilled to be with the big rodeo stud that she’ll believe anything he tells her? Well, I’m not.” Anger pumped a rush of blood to her head where it pounded so fiercely in her ears that she could barely hear his feeble lies.

  “Shallie, what are you talking about?”

  His retort rang hollow and false. She couldn’t believe he’d resort to such a cliché.

  “You’re just like your grandfather, aren’t you, Hunt?” Shallie hurled the accusation. “That’s why you stay with him, admire him in spite of the abominable way he treats you. You’re two of a kind, two whoring tomcats—”

  Hunt’s hands clamped around her forearms, as if Shallie were some shrill accordion that he could silence with one decisive gesture. “I love that old man.” His face had gone a deathly white. “And I won’t stand for you or for anyone else—”

  “What?” Shallie challenged. “What won’t you stand for? To hear anyone speak the truth about him? About you? Because you’re cut from the same cloth, Hunt McIver.”

  His hand snapped back and quivered in the air next to her cheek, poised to strike, to slap at both the mouth and the words that issued from it. With one convulsive gesture, he pushed her from him. In a voice of iron calm, he told her, “We’ll be forced together at some rodeos. Don’t come anywhere near the chutes when I’m competing. If you need to know anything about the contracts you’re working, call Jake or have your uncle call me. We won’t speak again. Ever.”