A Cowboy Is Forever

by Shirley Larson

  Blunt. God, she was blunt. He folded his arms, leaned back against the door. That was as far as he’d come into the room, just the one step that brought him inside the door. “Please don’t hold back on my account. Come right out and say what you mean.”

  He tried a half smile, thinking that if she turned around she’d enjoy sharing the amusement at his expense. Her response was to whirl around from the stove, her cheeks rosy with more than the heat from her shower. “Do you want me to say nice conciliatory things like ‘Gee, it was so nice of you to drop by, Mr. Steadman? I wonder why you’re here. Did you stop in to see how a lady-thief-slash-gun-slinger spends her evenings at home?”

  He took a step toward her, his arm reaching out to her. “Charlotte, don’t be a damn fool—”

  Those blue eyes flashed eight thousand warnings at him. “No. Don’t you be a damn fool. Don’t you dare come on my land oozing your practiced Steadman charm and flashing your practiced Steadman smile and…and flinging about your practiced Steadman panache to cast your spell over me…

  “If I had practiced, I hope I’d be more successful at it.”

  “—and sweet-talk me and take me into your arms.”

  “I was three years old the last time I tried to hug a porcupine.” His mouth quirked, inviting her to smile once again.

  He looked so wonderful, so darkly enticing, with those brown eyes gleaming with amusement and that hard, chiseled mouth lifted in a smile that was pure tender beguilement, that she closed her eyes to block out the sight of him. “We’ve been living in a dream world, Luke.” He took a step forward. She heard him, and her eyes flashed open and she pushed up her hands, palms out, warning him away. “No. Excuse me. I’m the one who’s been living in a dream world. I thought we knew each other so well that nothing could come between us, not even your father. Now I’m beginning to think it isn’t the years we’ve been apart that have made us strangers, it’s that we never really knew each other at all.”

  He didn’t like her tone of voice. It was so flat, so solemn. So final. He knew far better than to argue with her about the depth of their old friendship. He was the one who’d just barely remembered her. “We could get reacquainted,” he said, his voice husky and inviting. “I’d very much like to be your new friend.”

  She just looked at him for one silent, long moment.

  “It seems to me you could use a friend right about now,” he said, pressing unwisely, taking a fatal step forward.

  Those blue eyes sparkled with heat. “I’d rather cozy up to the snake.”

  He took the hit without a sign of distress, not even a downward sweep of those long cocoa-brown lashes. “If you wanted to be his compadre, you probably shouldn’t have shot him.” Luke cocked his head to one side, studying her, remembering far too late that Charlotte’s beautiful mother had had red hair and a temper to match. “Actually, I’m feeling a little bit like target practice here myself.”

  “I’m sure I didn’t score any direct or telling hits on the invincible Luke Steadman. You should have plenty of experience in ducking by now.”

  The only sign that her below-the-belt hit had bothered him was in the little movement of the muscle in his cheek. “This may come as a surprise to you, but I do have a couple of vulnerable areas left that I’ve tried to keep protected,” he said dryly. In a very low, even tone, he added, “But you’ve found them.”

  Those dark brown eyes asked for mercy. She could feel herself weakening. She pulled the belt tighter around her waist and straightened her back to come up to her full height, meeting his look head-on. “Then I suggest you do what I did yesterday. Go home and try to forget we ever knew each other.”

  He seemed to mull over her words, and he took his time responding. At last he said, “The going-home part is easy. The forgetting will be considerably more difficult.” Luke replaced his hat, gave her a mocking salute with graceful fingers perpendicular to the brim. “If not impossible. You see, the stars come out every night.” The screen door banged behind him.

  A thousand stars of brilliant fire shimmered and shattered inside her. Then her body quieted, and so did the world. Into that deep silence, her thoughts tumbled, scattering.

  Sit down, be calm, be cool. You haven’t just made the most terrible mistake of your life.

  Are you sure?

  The kitchen chair felt cool and hard underneath her, sharp against the backs of her knees. Her hands were twined together in front of her, fingers icy. He’d never come back now, not after the things she’d said. Good. She didn’t want to see him again. Ever.

  The cat clock swished his tail in silence, ticking away the time and the night. But not the lie.

  The next morning, there was no sun. It was cloudy and cool and bleak and empty in the world. There was work, of course. There was always work. For the next week and a half, she worked, doggedly, determinedly. The shimmering excitement was gone. And so was the possibility of seeing Luke.

  On the 22nd of June, when she hadn’t seen or heard from Luke in nearly two weeks she consoled herself with the thought that she hadn’t heard from the Sheriff either. Maybe Henry had decided to drop his demand for that darn search warrant. Everyday she allowed herself to hope just a little more.

  One afternoon when she had finished her book work and was feeling the need to stretch her cramped muscles she went to the barn. Inside the cool, half-shadowed building, she wrapped her hands around the business end of a shovel and set to work scooping out Lady Luck’s stall, telling herselt she wanted to make sure mother and baby had clean straw before she moved the cattle to the summer pasture. Nice to use work to kid yourself that way. The sight of the chestnut mare nuzzling her baby was evocative of Luke, bringing her memories of him into the barn, as clear as a moving picture—his easy smile, his bare, darkly furred arms, his disheveled hair, his seductive appeal. She would not think of Luke. Dig, toss. She would not think of Luke. Dig, toss…

  “Charlotte, you in there?” Clarence Daggett’s generous body filled the doorway of her barn.

  “Come on back, Clarence.” She thought she sounded normal. But her knees went a little shaky suddenly, and she folded her hands and rested them on top of her shovel, bracing herself. She’d known Henry Steadman was a man of his word.

  The sheriff of Madison County ambled down the aisle, his hat in his hand. He was trying his best to be easy and friendly, but he had about him the look of a man on his way to the dentist. “Looks like you’re working hard.”

  “Or hardly working. I guess you’ve got something for me.” Charlotte put her shovel aside and rubbed her hands down the sides of her jeans.

  Clarence’s eyes met hers, and he gave up the attempt to pretend he wasn’t bothered. “I have to tell you, Charlotte, I hate this worse than when we had to put our old collie to sleep.”

  “Well, thanks. I can’t say as this is high on my list of things to do for a good time, either.” She tried a smile, her heart going out to him for his kindness. He smiled back, but there was reserve in his gray eyes, and she remembered that while he might think he was the law and impartial, at this moment he was an active representative of Henry Steadman. She’d fought Henry for so long that she really didn’t want to make it easy for Clarence to conduct his search, but it wasn’t his fault they were caught in this situation. At least she’d had sense enough to call Tom Hartley and ask him how she should handle it when it happened.

  “I’d like to see the warrant.”

  “That’s your right.” With obvious reluctance, Clarence drew the paper from his pocket and passed it over. She stared at it, remembering how she’d wished a miracle would happen and she wouldn’t have to hold this piece of paper in her hand that gave Clarence the right to tramp all over her property looking for incriminating evidence. There were no miracles; Clarence was here with his warrant. She hadn’t died; she was still breathing.

  This paper was proof that she had no friends in the Steadman camp. And, to be fair, she supposed she had no right to that secret, desperate ho
pe that Luke might find a way to intervene for her.

  No right at all.

  The paper was formal and correct and bore Judge Markham’s signature on the bottom, which was what Tom had told her to look for. “Looks like it’s legal,” she said, handing it back. “Henry surely didn’t waste any time, did he?”

  “No, he didn’t. Pretty darn mean of him, after what you did for him, shooting that snake and saving his life and all—” Clarence Daggett took one look at Charlotte’s face, clapped his mouth shut, shifted his weight from one booted foot to another and looked mighty uncomfortable, for a man with a star on his chest.

  “Who told you about that, Clarence? Not Henry, I bet.”

  His gaze skittered past her shoulder to somewhere out in the pasture. “I just heard it around town, that’s all.”

  “You talked to Luke.” The words came out before she could stop them, mostly because she was so sure they were true.

  Clarence’s face went a deeper shade of pink. “Well, he did drop by last week to explain a couple of things to me.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Like I said, about the snake. And about how he’d hang my hide on a nail if I wasn’t polite to you. He didn’t have to tell me that, no, sir. I wouldn’t say or do anything to hurt you. But I guess he didn’t know that. He’s been gone a while.”

  “He had no business saying that to you.” In more ways than one. Luke must have had that conversation with Clarence the day after you so kindly sent him out of your life.

  “Well, you know Luke. He likes to do things his way. He’s more like his old man than he knows.” Clarence smiled at Charlotte. “So I let him think he was getting what he wanted, as long as that was what I wanted, too.”

  “You’re a smart man, Clarence. No wonder folks keep you around.” Warmth. Heat. It was hard on the heart to expand when it had been closed so tightly. Hard to get used to the idea that she wasn’t quite as alone in her life as she had been before Princess’s Saturday-night visit to the local bar. Hard to think that Luke had the kind of tenacity, understanding and bigheartedness that just might put this feud to rest. “Well, where do you want to start? Here in the barn?”

  “I got an anonymous tip that the iron would be in the machine shed.”

  The warmth fled, her hands turned to ice. Yet her cheeks burned. “What kind of a tip?”

  “The usual. A phone call from a guy disguising his voice.”

  “You knew he was disguising his voice?”

  He shook his head. “You don’t know. You guess. And, sometimes, you hope. You don’t want it to be a guy you know.” Clarence met her eyes clearly and openly.

  “Well, let’s get to that machine shed, then,” she said brightly. “I’ll help you look.”

  Clarence opened his mouth as if he wanted to argue, and Charlotte figured it was pretty unorthodox to let the searched help with the searching, but he didn’t say anything as he walked along beside her.

  The machine shed was really something of an overgrown shop. She kept the tractor at one end of the building. The other end had cabinets and drawers and an old anvil that looked like an iron welder’s nightmare. Inside the darkened building, after they had a short discussion about where to start, Charlotte gave him the neatest side of the room, and she took the other. She made a joke about needing to clean the place out anyway, and began tossing out wire and boards with reckless abandon, unearthing rags, oil cans, a rake with a broken handle, a bicycle pump that didn’t work. She worked like a woman determined to turn over the whole state of Montana in an hour. Clarence let her vent her anxiety, knowing there was little else he could do, and caring for her too much to pull rank. He simply put his energy into slowly and methodically beginning his search through old paint cans, knowing he’d probably have to go through the stuff Charlotte was unearthing, as well. He ducked when she tossed out a rag, stepped aside when she rolled an ancient tire toward the door.

  “Let’s see, there are more boards back here, and here’s an old stamp iron.” She brought it out and held it up high-and felt as if her blood suddenly stopped cold in her veins. In the shadows it had looked like a stamp iron, but held out in the light she could see clearly that it was a running branding iron.

  “Great guns of Navarone. There it is, big as life, and you just put your prints on the damn thing.”

  Charlotte’s bravado and temper collapsed. “I’m sorry, Clarence. I don’t know where this thing came from. It wasn’t here two weeks ago, I swear it wasn’t.”

  “I believe you.”

  “You believe me?”

  “I doubt you’d steal a feather from a chicken.”

  “Because Luke vouched for me?”

  Clarence Daggett got that look on his face that men get when they have to deal with a woman and they don’t have 2 clue about what to do. “Luke’s got nothing to do with what I think.” Clarence took the iron from her and strode past her quickly, moving with amazing speed for his size.

  Outside the shed, in the grayish light of the cloudy day, the world hadn’t suddenly collapsed. It all looked surprisingly the same, trees nearly leafed out, cloudiness still not bringing rain, house still needing a coat of paint.

  But the world had changed. The long single iron Clarence stood stowing into his car was solid evidence that she was a thief. Despite the branded cattle, despite her own hostility, Luke had believed in her before. He wouldn’t now. He was a lawyer trained to put his faith in evidence, not people. This would be the end of his trust.

  Charlotte lifted her head, put on a smile. Clarence had been kind. Her world was falling down around her ears, but she couldn’t break the rules of country hospitality. “It’s almost lunchtime. Would you like to stay? Lettle made barbecued beef yesterday and baked sourdough bread this morning.”

  Clarence Daggett liked his food, and his build was beginning to show it. He patted his stomach, which had begun to protrude just a little over his belt. “Barbecued beef sandwich sounds real good, but I promised Mary Lou I’d come home,” he said.

  “No taking bread with the enemy, right? Luke’s instructions didn’t extend to that.”

  Clarence’s dark gray eyes were full of compassion under that cream-colored Stetson he wore. “Charlotte, I talked to Luke, sure I did. It didn’t cost me anything to listen. But he only told me what I already knew. I liked your daddy. And your mamma was always the first one to anybody’s house with that good beef stew of hers if they had trouble. I still remember how she came and helped Mary Lou after our little daughter was born. You know I’d rather eat ground glass than hurt you, don’t you?”

  “What happens now?”

  He ran a hand around under his collar and looked as uncomfortable as one man could look. “I take the thing in and label it as evidence.”

  “What happens after that? Are you going to—what is the term?—run me in?” She tried to smile, but her stomach churned with nerves. This was a nightmare. It couldn’t be happening.

  “I don’t have a warrant for your arrest. Besides, I don’t figure you’re going anywhere. Are you?”

  “I might go into Columbia Falls for groceries.”

  “That’s allowed.” Clarence hitched at his pants and looked as if he felt awkward. “I’d better get going. Mary Lou gets a little upset if I’m later than I said I’d be.” He looked as if he wanted to go, but he still stood there with his hand on his open car door.

  “What kind of pie is she making you for lunch?”

  “Caramel cream,” he said, and looked a little sheepish because he had the right answer so quickly for her. “Try not to worry. We’ll get this thing straightened out somehow.” He touched his fingers to his hat.

  She made another attempt to smile. It felt better this time. “I sure hope so. And make it soon, okay? Have a good lunch, Clarence.”

  “You take care of yourself, Charlotte. If this branding iron wasn’t here two weeks ago, then somebody is sneaking around on your place who shouldn’t be.” He slid into his car.
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br />   “I wish you hadn’t said that,” Charlotte murmured as he drove away.

  She had just finished eating her supper the next night when the knock came on the door. All kinds of wild thoughts went through her head, things she had to tell Tex and Lettie if she was going to be arrested….

  Athena stood outside under the porch light.

  Charlotte swallowed once, then stepped back and smiled. She realized suddenly that she’d been dealing only with men in the past few days and she was infinitely weary of it. “How did you know I needed you?”

  “I knew.” Dark, deep eyes swept over Charlotte’s face, cataloging every worry line, every moment of sleep lost.

  Charlotte had stood up to the snake, to Clarence, to Luke. Only Athena’s compassion had the ability to make her knees weak. “I’ll make you some tea,”

  Athena shook her head. “I just came to bring you these.” She set her little wicker basket on the table and brought out a towel-covered plate. The delicious smell of raisin-oatmeal cookies filled the room. She must have just baked them.

  Charlotte blinked several times, quickly. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “Yes, I should.”

  “Do you have to go right away?”

  “Not until I’ve hugged you.” And Athena opened her arms.

  Charlotte walked into them and buried her nose in Athena’s neck. “What am I going to do? I’m going to lose everything—everything I care about.”

  “Have faith.” Athena’s arms held her tight.

  “I’m afraid to hope anymore.”

  “Don’t be. Everything will be all right.”

  Charlotte felt Athena’s hand on her hair, smoothing it down. She had to be strong, and she was strong, but it was so nice to be comforted and cosseted, just this once, when everything looked so black.

  “He must despise me,” Charlotte said, holding on tight to Athena’s generous waist. “I must look so guilty to him.”