A Taste of Heaven

by Alexis Harrington

  But foremost on her mind, ahead of Rory, or the day-to-day chores, or the end of this journey, was Tyler and the night she had spent with him in the chuck wagon. He didn't try to kiss her again, and she was distressed to realize that her disappointment far outweighed her relief. But she thought that maybe it was on his mind, too, because more often than not, when she looked up from the mules' backs, she'd see him. He rode close to the wagon, pointing out the very vastness of the sky, the heartstopping vistas of land, and its rugged beauty. Once, they even saw a bear on a far hillside. Libby was relieved when the animal showed far less interest in them than they did in it.

  Sometimes Tyler galloped out ahead of her, executing tricky roping maneuvers and breathtaking displays of horsemanship. His skill was both surprising and impressive. She couldn't imagine what he was up to, except that it helped pass the hours from one cow camp to the next.

  She couldn't help but admire his straight back and tall form. He was the most attractive man she'd seen in Montana. In fact, she was beginning to believe that he was the handsomest man she'd ever seen in her life.

  He smiled more often, revealing white teeth that gleamed in the spring sun, and once, to her complete astonishment, he actually winked at her from the back of his horse. She'd laughed with delight and a blush of shyness, and nearly dropped the lines.

  Sometimes, though, he looked at her with a hot, piercing gaze that held such raw, intense need, she felt both frightened and enkindled, as if she needed to respond somehow. At night, when she lay in the wagon waiting for sleep to overtake her, she'd remember the way his lips had felt upon hers, how he'd unbuttoned his shirt and put her hand inside. Nothing she'd experienced with Wesley Brandauer accounted for or made her comfortable about the restless yearning that thoughts of Tyler produced in her.

  But he performed his most amazing deed on the afternoon that he brought her a handful of wildflowers.

  Tyler Hollins wasn't such an ogre after all.

  *~*~*

  Tyler stood outside the rope corral with his pinto's foreleg in his hands, checking the hoof for rocks. About an hour of daylight remained, and on the western horizon the low sun lit the underside of the clouds with vermillion fire. It was one of his favorite times of day, sunset. Sunrise was the other one. Something about the way the sky looked—a ball of fire on one horizon and stars on the opposite side—appealed to his soul and gave him a sense of peace. In good weather, he loved to sit on the porch at the Lodestar, a cup of coffee on his knee—or a drink of whiskey, depending upon the time—and watch the days begin and end. Three weeks had passed since they left the ranch, and Tyler was glad that the drive was almost over. Fairly glad, anyway.

  Now and then he'd look up at the chuck wagon, watching Libby's white-aproned figure as she moved from the chuck box to the fire to the water barrel. She wore her plaid shawl with the ends tucked into her waistband, and looking at it, Tyler thought it was the best six dollars he'd ever spent. Even on clear days like this one, the breeze that blew over the grass was chill and sharp.

  Before he'd gone out of his way to avoid her, now he found himself more preoccupied with her than his job. More than once he'd caught himself acting like a goofy schoolboy around her.

  “Looks like we made it, after all. We should be in Miles City tomorrow afternoon.” Joe ambled up, but Tyler heard his approach before he spoke—he had the noisiest spurs of any of them. “Sometimes I had my doubts.” He crouched next to Tyler and pulled up a blade of spring grass.

  Tyler glanced down at him, surprised. “You? You've never worried about much of anything.”

  Joe ripped the blade into long, thread-fine strips. “I guess what happened to Charlie sort of made me back up and take a look at things.”

  Tyler pulled a hoof pick out of his pocket. “Yeah?”

  “Sure. A man never knows when his time is gonna be up. That's why he has to keep lookin' forward, and not let things from the past drag at him.”

  Tyler sighed and rubbed his nose against the back of his glove. He had the feeling that he knew where this line of conversation was going, but figured he might as well play along. “What's dragging at you?”

  Joe squinted up at him, the late-day sun golden-bright in his face. “Me? Nothin'. I'm not talkin' about me.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I was thinkin' of Rory.”

  Tyler let the pinto's hoof drop, and looked at Joe. This wasn't the response he was expecting. “What's the matter with Rory? I talked to him about Charlie. He was upset but he seems to be doing all right.”

  Joe pointed the grass stem at him. “That's just my point. Think of what that boy has been through. He lost his ma and his sister, he's cut off from his old man. Now, this week, his hero got killed by a lightning strike. But he ain't gonna let it dry him up and turn him into a bitter man.”

  “If you're comparing him to me—he's—how the hell—” Tyler spluttered, then found his voice, “For chrissakes, Rory is only fifteen years old!”

  “Yessir, he is. That's a lot to happen to someone in such a short lifetime. If he was like his pa, he could blame you for Jenna. 'Course, I guess he don't need to—you blame yourself enough to cover everyone.”

  Tyler gave him a hard look and didn't respond.

  A cold, stiff breeze flattened the grass around Joe. “Are you gonna let Libby Ross get on the train in Miles City?”

  He picked up the pinto's hoof again. Even within the confines of his own heart, he wasn't willing to consider how her leaving would change his life. “‘Let’ doesn't have anything to do with it. She wants to go. And she should.”

  “Not accordin' to what I've seen lately. Even the boys have noticed it.” Joe reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a bent cigarette.

  Tyler felt a flush creep up his neck and he kept his face tipped down toward the hoof as though it were the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen. “There's nothing to notice,” he mumbled. He felt the foreman's gaze on him.

  “Ty, some men spend years lookin' for somethin' that'll make them happy, never knowin' it was right under their nose the whole time.”

  “I've got the years to spend,” Tyler snapped, beginning to feel badgered.

  Joe stood and threw the grass stem aside, and started to walk away. As if thinking better of it, he turned and looked at him across the horse's back. Lighting his cigarette with a kitchen match, he held it out and gazed at the flame for a moment. Then he lifted his dark eyes to consider Tyler. A humorless smile spread his big mustache across his lean face.

  “I'll bet Charlie thought the same thing.” He blew out the match with an exhale of cigarette smoke, and went back toward camp.

  Chapter Eleven

  The sky was dark with the threat of rain when the Lodestar crew arrived at the Miles City stockyards early the next afternoon. Tyler climbed onto the wagon seat next to Libby to drive her into town, and she bid farewell to the men there as they saw to the delivery of the cattle. Saying good-bye was much harder than she'd expected.

  She waved to most of them from the chuck wagon while they stayed in their saddles, herding their charges through the gates. Rory stood in his stirrups and waved his hat. Joe, however, rode his horse to her side. He leaned over and kissed her cheek, tickling her face with his huge mustache. His smile held genuine fondness.

  “Miss Libby, ma'am, thanks for lookin' after us old cowhands—we never ate so good till you got here,” he said in his voice of low, rolling thunder. “I hope you find the best of everything back in Chicago. But we're gonna miss you.”

  “Thank you, Joe.” Her throat tight with emotion, it was all she could do to get the words out. “You'll find another good cook.”

  “Maybe. But I doubt it.” He sent Tyler a brief scowl that she didn't understand, then wheeled his horse around to rejoin the others. Next to her, she heard Tyler sigh, then he slapped the reins on the mules' backs and turned the wagon toward town.

  Driving down Main Street, they passed saloons, shops, a bank, the blacksmith
, and all manner of business offices. Libby's eyes and ears were assaulted by the buildings and people and horses. How quickly she'd grown accustomed to the wide-open and the quiet of both the Lodestar and the range. And this was just a small town in eastern Montana. Chicago was a hundred times busier and noisier than this. But she'd get used to it again, she told herself. The traffic and the crowds would become so familiar she wouldn't really notice them after a while.

  Tyler had been pretty quiet sitting next to her, and it reminded her of the day they'd gone to Osmer's and he bought her the plaid shawl she now wore.

  “Will you start back for the Lodestar tomorrow?” she asked, studying the clean lines of his profile.

  “Yeah, in the afternoon. It’ll give the boys a chance to sober up. I imagine they'll get going on a pretty good drunk once they finish at the stockyards and clean up.”

  “I hope not Rory,” she exclaimed. “He's too young to be going into saloons and drinking.”

  “Oh, Joe will buy him a beer or two,” he said, maneuvering the mules around a wagon with a broken wheel. “I don't think sarsaparilla is going to do the trick this time.”

  A gap of silence opened as they both remembered Charlie.

  “Well, maybe not,” she agreed softly.

  “It was good for Rory, having a woman around,” he continued. He kept his eyes straight ahead, but a brief smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “I don't suppose we've taught him much about how to behave around a lady. Or how comforting a woman's heart can be. I meant to thank you for sitting with him after Charlie's funeral. Joe hadn't had the chance to tell me it was Rory who found Charlie's body.”

  She dropped her gaze to her lap. “He just needed someone to talk to.” She'd been good for Rory, she thought. And for Tyler Hollins? She cast a sidelong glance at him. “And are you going to get drunk tonight, too?” They passed a busy saloon and she couldn't help but remember Callie Michaels and the Big Dipper.

  He turned and looked at her. The smile was gone. “No, I've got to find another cook.”

  Not for the first time during the course of the trail drive, Libby caught herself wishing that things had turned out differently. Just a few short weeks ago, she'd smugly believed that her plan to return to Illinois was a good one. She'd wanted to leave Montana, an uncivilized wilderness thinly populated with people whose standards and ideas were completely alien to her. Why, the first time the Lodestar crew had invited her to sit and eat supper with them, she'd been aghast. Mrs. Brandauer would have happily starved before she invited Libby to dine at the same table with the family. But after spending time in the West, she'd begun to value the absence of pointless formality that separated people into such rigid stations.

  Tyler stopped the wagon in front of what passed for a hotel in these parts—another narrow, two-story clapboard structure that reminded her of the buildings in Heavenly. Four rooms and a tiny bath, reached by a staircase on the side, were built over a restaurant downstairs. After he'd paid her, duly subtracting the cost of her saddle coat and gloves as she'd insisted, they stood on the busy sidewalk in front of the restaurant.

  Tyler was dirty and tired, and he smelled like cattle, horses, and hard work. But he remained unforgivably handsome, formed as he was with long bones, and lean, powerful muscles. It ought to be illegal for a man to be that attractive, she thought. With a sense of resignation, she knew that he would look good to her no matter what the state of his appearance. A brief gleam of afternoon sun sparkled on the blond stubble in his one-day auburn beard.

  “Well, Libby, you made it.” He shifted his weight from one long leg to the other, and pushed his hat forward and then back. An awkwardness sprang up between them.

  She laughed nervously. “You didn't think I would, did you?”

  He shrugged, obviously a little embarrassed by the direct question. “I guess not—not at, first. But I was wrong. I knew it as soon as you killed that rattlesnake.” He met her gaze then, and jammed his hands into his tight front pockets. “Oh, hell, I knew it before then.”

  Staring up into his lean, attractive face, Libby felt a catch in her heart. Why? Just because they'd shared a kiss on a stormy Montana night? That had been a stupid, dangerous thing to do. Ever since, she'd wished she could live that night again, to feel his hands and lips on her. Even now she felt a despairing, wistful urge to step into his arms and hide her face against his neck, to hear him ask her to stay.

  But it was best all around to tell him good-bye right now, right here on the sidewalk, and be done with it. He'd helped her, grudgingly, and she'd helped him. Now it was over. He didn't want her here, and she didn't want to be here. At least not very much. She'd come here from Chicago because she'd had no place else to go. Now she was going back for the same reason.

  She gave him a wry smile. “The next time you meet a rattlesnake, you'll have your gun with you. You wouldn't want to have to depend on someone whose aim is as bad as mine.” She broke the connection with his eyes. “Thank you for everything. I guess I'd better see about my room. Well . . . ” She extended her hand.

  Tyler looked at it, then hurriedly pulled off his glove. The moment his hand touched hers, a heated, vital current passed between them. She looked up into his eyes again. There was something in them that drew her, a heat, a yearning—something—that she didn't want to identify. No, she saw nothing, nothing, she agonized. She tried to pull away, but he maintained his grip and steered her to the edge of the sidewalk, out of the path of pedestrians.

  Tyler gazed at the small woman standing in front of him, at the nose that turned up slightly, the silky brows, her clover-honey hair. She wasn't helpless or cowardly, in fact, she was a tough little scrapper. Still, he was beginning to understand what Charlie had felt—it bothered him that she had no one at all to look out for her. But he didn't know what he could do or say. He had nothing to offer except farewells. Besides, she was doing what she wanted to.

  “Listen, I didn't mean to—well—” He glanced at the planking under his boots. “I guess I was a little hard on you at the beginning. You did a damn good job for us.” He raised his voice to be heard over a passing freight wagon. “If you ever need anything . . . ”

  “Chicago is a long way from Montana.” His stomach knotted at the forlorn expression that crept through her smile. “But thank you.”

  A heavy mist began to fall, the kind of soft, soaking drizzle that occurs only in spring. “I guess you'd better get inside before you get wet,” he said. Getting wet under a little rain seemed laughable when he thought about what they'd just come through. He had no talent for good-byes, but he couldn't seem to end this.

  “B-be careful going back to Heavenly,” she said, and started to turn away.

  “Libby, wait—” He gripped her arm. It was the last time he'd ever see her, touch her. Urgently, he pulled her into his embrace and pressed his mouth to hers, brief and hard. She smelled so sweet, despite her travel dirt and fatigue. He felt her stiffen with surprise. It wasn't the kind of kiss he would have wished for. But once more, time and circumstances were working against him.

  Tyler released her suddenly, and Libby stared up at him, flabbergasted. The expression she'd seen once or twice before—open, longing, regretful—flashed over his handsome features. She was vaguely aware that people on the street were looking at them but at this moment, she didn't care. She pulled up the plaid shawl to cover her head.

  “Go on inside now,” he said hoarsely. He turned and leaped up to the wagon seat. With one last look, he urged the mules forward and drove away.

  Pressing a shaking hand to her mouth, she stood in the rain and watched the wagon until it disappeared in the jumble of other horses and vehicles at the far end of the street. With a tight throat and leaden feet, she turned and climbed the outside stairs to her room.

  *~*~*

  “You look like you could do with some fun, cowboy. How about if I sit down here and you buy me a drink?” A saloon girl in a blaze of red satin and black lace dragged Tyler's attentio
n away from his thoughts.

  After a dinner at one of the chophouses, he'd tracked his crew down to the Briar Rose. Full of smoke, cowboys, and card games, it was as loud and rowdy as a cow town saloon could get short of brawling, gunfire, or horses being ridden in. But he didn't feel like joining the fun. He sat at a side table with his feet propped on the chair across from him, considering the untouched glass and whiskey bottle on the table. He'd been considering them for twenty minutes.

  “What's your name?” he asked the girl. Hell, she was just a kid under all the paint she was wearing, probably not much older than Rory. She had the same look that Callie did, as though she never saw the sun. But if he closed one eye and squinted the other, under the harsh kerosene light her hair was almost the same color as Libby's. Her perfume wafted to him, a heavy, oppressive essence.

  She dragged her fingertips along the back of the chair that served as his footstool, and gave him a lazy, practiced smile. “Rebecca.”

  He leaned back in his chair and put his elbow on the arm. “How is it that a girl your age is selling favors in this place, Rebecca?”

  She straightened and gave him a hard look. “Listen, mister, I'm not interested in a lecture—”

  “And I’m not giving you one. I really want to know. Was this the only work you could find?”

  She hesitated a moment, then answered in a much younger voice. “My pa left me in this town two years ago. Sally, the owner here, took me in. I couldn't find anything else to do.”

  “You don't have family somewhere else?”

  “I don't have any family at all. Pa got killed in a card game over in Rosebud, and he was the last of my kin.”

  He looked at the young face that was already aging before its time. She might be telling the truth, or she might be making up a sad story to gain his sympathy. He didn't know, or care. Either way, he doubted that she really wanted to be here. His mind drifted to Libby again, and her sad gray eyes.