A Cowboy Is Forever

by Shirley Larson

  “I want to know what slurpy means, Charlotte. Tell me exactly what happened between you and Nick.”

  She shook her head. “It was nothing.”

  “I thought you said you wanted the truth between us.”

  He sat in the saddle, very straight, his eyes shielded by his hat. His face was cool and emotionless, but she knew she’d hurt him. “Oh, Luke. You must know your brother better than that. He’d parked on the side of the road, and by the time he put the car in neutral, I was braced. He just pulled me over to his side of the car and tried to kiss me. I resisted, and when he wouldn’t stop, I leaned on the car horn. He jumped off that seat sky-high, and I reached across, opened the door and pushed him out. He got to his feet, but when he came toward the car, I just shoved it in gear and drove off. The only possible damage he could have suffered was to his ego. I didn’t tell anyone about it, not even Lettie or Athena. The one person who might have guessed what happened was his father. I didn’t think it was anything, at least not then. What’s new about a Steadman and a Malone having a brawl? It was only afterward, when he looked at me in church or in town, with that—look he has, like he was envisioning me frying in a pot of hot oil and he liked what he saw, that I realized his reaction was rather…strange, more intense than it should have been. I suppose if I had thought about it, I should have known Nick doesn’t suffer insult lightly. It just didn’t occur-to me at the time.”

  Luke lifted his hand, trailed a finger down her cheek. “You’d better be telling me the truth. You’d better not be making this sound like less than it really was to keep me from hurting my brother.”

  She lifted her head, her hair blowing wild and free in the breeze. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Luke.”

  “I know that.”

  He dropped his hand, and Charlotte felt the cooling of her skin where he’d touched her, followed by the longing for more touching racket through her system. She wanted to ask whether she would see him again, but her pride wouldn’t let her.

  Her eyes betrayed her.

  “I’m sorry it’s daylight, too,” he said, and cupped her chin with a firm, warm hand, as if he needed to touch, too. “Unfortunately, there’s something I need to tend to.”

  “What—what are you going to do?”

  “I think I’ll pay a visit to the local constable. While I’m gone, behave yourself, hmmm? Stay on your side of the creek.”

  She struggled to follow the shift of mood with him. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to play the Lone Ranger without my Tonto.”

  He caught her fingers. “Don’t put me off with that good humor of yours. Promise me, Charlotte.” He studied her face. “And no crossed fingers, either.”

  “Promise. With no crossed fingers. Now you promise me something. Promise you’ll come and tell me about your talk with Clarence.” She said the words lightly enough, but her heart was in her throat.

  “Done. I’ll come by later this evening.” He said the words lightly, too, but there was a promise in his eyes.

  She watched him ride away, tall and easy in the saddle, and she knew he was taking all her heart with him.

  “I don’t know how you practiced law in the big city, but we’re real careful here before we accuse anybody of anything without solid proof.” Clarence Daggett pulled a booted foot off his desk, where it had been resting, and let the front legs of his chair drop to the floor.

  “That’s how we practice it in the big city, Clarence. That’s why I want you with me—”

  “As for staking out that mountain country, if you think I can do that single-handed, all I got to say is, you been away too long, old friend. Too damn much territory for one man to cover. Be crazy to try. Besides, it wouldn’t do any good. We both know whoever is doing this is local. If I went out like that, everybody in five counties would know it before I got halfway up that dang mountain.”

  Luke sat with a hip on Clarence’s desk, looking coolly relaxed, but feeling frustrated. He knew there were advantages to keeping the law in a small town, but there were disadvantages, too, dammit. “We’re in a gridlock here, Clarence. The hell of it is, it’s all been done with smoke and mirrors, like magic. Somebody is creating the illusion of theft without actually taking anything.”

  “Hell, I knew that. Why do you think I haven’t hauled Charlotte in?”

  “So what are our alternatives?”

  “Sit. Wait. That’s about all we can do until we get something concrete.” Clarence slanted a look up at Luke, and his chair creaked under his weight. Sitting and waiting was something Clarence did well. It wasn’t Luke’s forte.

  “Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. I keep wondering what’s going to happen when our ersatz thief decides to escalate.” Luke picked up a paperweight from Clarence’s desk, shook it, watched snow scatter over a perpetually smiling kid with a sled and a dog.

  “How would he do that?”

  Luke set the paperweight down carefully. “How do you know it’s a he?”

  “Don’t try your fancy-dance word shufflin’ with me. We both know it’s a he. And we both know who the he is.”

  “Do we? I thought we needed evidence.”

  “I don’t need evidence to know,” Clarence snorted. “I need evidence to arrest. You think he’s going to do something worse?”

  “That’s what bothers me. I don’t know.”

  “Something to hurt Charlotte?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Hell, Luke, I don’t even have a deputy.”

  “You could swear me in.”

  Clarence moved in his chair, looked uncomfortable. “I’d rather not.”

  “Why not?”

  “I know you’re a big-city lawyer and all that, but you’ve been away awhile, Luke. Suppose I deputize you and—”

  “And I turn out to somehow be involved.”

  Clarence turned a little pink around the cheeks, but he held his ground. “Let’s wait a little bit to see how this all shakes out.”

  Luke slid off the desk, gathered up his hat. He didn’t say a word, just headed for the door.

  “Luke!”

  He turned back, waited, silent, watching. Clarence wriggled his rear end, looked disconcerted. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. I’d hate like hell to haul you in.” He looked sheepish. “Mary Lou would give me what-for.”

  Luke remembered Mary Lou; she’d been a pretty girl growing up, a cheerleader. “Give Mary Lou my regards, and tell her she’s married to Montana’s finest.” Luke gave Clarence a salute and sauntered out the door.

  Luke levered himself into his car, his hands gripping the steering wheel. He was damn sure tired of running into brick walls. Funny. He’d lived here all his life, and he couldn’t think of a way to proceed. Maybe the technique for setting up one’s own brother didn’t come easily to anybody, even a man like himself, who had no special love for Nick. Heaven knew he was reluctant to turn his mind to the task. Nick was his brother, for God’s sake. His own flesh and blood. And for just a moment, Luke felt a blinding flash of insight.

  That must be how his father had felt all these years.

  Then, of course, there was that other promise he’d made to himself. He’d decided long ago that he’d never get in an altercation with his nearest and dearest again. Luke rapped the heel of his hand against the steering wheel of the car. Charlotte was right. He should have stayed in New York with the inside traders and the carjackers.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I was looking for you.”

  For Charlotte, the heat in the barn suddenly intensified. At the sound of Luke’s voice, low and controlled, like satin rasping over sandpaper, the colt she held moved restlessly in Charlotte’s arms. “You found me.”

  That wonderfully sensual smile lifted his lips as Luke came toward her in an easy walk. “Not yet, but I will,” he murmured.

  “Behave yourself. I’m working here.” Charlotte ducked her head and returned her attention to the colt, who’d had the misfortune to poke his nose at a po
rcupine, but she was suddenly and acutely aware of the heavy scent of new hay drifting in the air, mingled with the scent of clean man. Fresh from his shower, Luke smelled like the air after rain. His shirt was open at the throat, a beige cotton shirt that looked as if it had gone to the office once but now was old and comfortable from many washings. His jeans still had that new look, but they fit him well. Very well. Her mouth went dry. Her unruly mind would remember what it had been like to be so alone with him that it seemed as if they were the only two people on the planet.

  She hadn’t wanted to fall in love. But it had happened so long ago, she had no defense against Luke’s charm then. She had even less now. The sensitive, savvy little colt felt her tension and shifted restlessly in her grip. “Easy, sweetheart.”

  In a whisper of denim, Luke knelt down, tightening the legs of his jeans over his muscular thighs. “I see our baby poked his nose where it didn’t belong.”

  “He’s too curious for his own good. Like most other babies, I guess.”

  “You can’t possibly be suggesting that our wonderful, unique baby is just like other babies.” His eyes gleamed with amusement.

  “I’m sorry. I lost my head.” Her heart did that little flipflop that it always did when she thought about “our baby.” There would never be an “our baby,” but it was still a heartwrenching idea. Charlotte wrapped careful, gentle fingers around the last quill, to extract it with as little hurt to the colt as possible.

  Without being asked, Luke handed her the unguent in its flat container, his fingers long and lean against the blackand-red cover.

  The colt didn’t like the idea of someone touching his nose with salve. In an instant, Luke was there to lean over the back end of the colt and hold him steady for Charlotte’s ministrations, all the time keeping an eye out for those sharp little hooves that shot out instinctively.

  Funny how just having Luke there sent sensations rocketing through her. Being a smart, loving partner in bed was natural enough for Luke, but she’d forgotten that city life hadn’t taken the country out of him. Working together with the animals for the corporate good of the ranch and family was like being a husband and wife. It was far too evocative of every dream she’d ever had in her life, and as arousing as the memory of those long-fingered hands on her breasts. Working with him in easy concert like this would be painful to remember once he was gone.

  “You put one more swipe of that salve on his nose and he’s going to drown in it.”

  “Oh, right, sorry, I wasn’t thinking—” The trouble was, she had been thinking, but not about the colt.

  He handed her the towel, his eyes warm, questioning. She wouldn’t let him probe for answers. She took the darn towel, wiped her hands, turned her back to those brown eyes that had suddenly gone three shades darker, taking her time draping the towel over the stall. She said, “Thank you for your help.”

  “You’re welcome.” Still watching her as if he had her on the witness stand, he said, “We’re a good team.”

  She shook her head, then turned to leave the stall. Luke caught her arm, his fingers warm on her wrist.

  The colt bobbed his head nervously, whickering low in his throat for his mother. He didn’t want to be alone anymore. And, darn it all, neither did Charlotte.

  Lady Luck responded with an answering whicker, but she couldn’t get to the colt, tied as she was across the aisle in another stall.

  “Want to tell me what’s bothering you?”

  Best to get it over with quickly. “I sold the colt to Carson Dole.”

  Luke didn’t flicker an eyelash. “I would ask why, but the answer is obvious. You need the money.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s yours to do with as you wish, of course.” He looked like a man with a face stripped clean of emotion. It was for the best, Charlotte knew, but it hurt to think that Luke could suspect her even for a moment. Then, as if his mind had ticked over with the answer, he said, “You needed the money for Tex and Lettie.”

  His shoulders relaxed and his face took on a more normal look even before she said yes. She turned away, reached for the lid of the unguent container. For just a moment there, he hadn’t believed in her. But what did it matter? There was no future in his believing in her. “I might have needed the money for a new hay baler, or repairs to the barn roof. Would that make a difference?”

  “Charlotte.” He took the container from her, set it down on a hay bale and reached up to smooth her hair back. Suddenly, all the doubts, the sad emotions, were gone. He was here, and he was touching her. Luke always could do that to her, make her feel as if nothing mattered but this moment with him. “I want to offer to help you financially, but I know if I did you’d throw me right out of this barn.”

  Of course, she smiled. “You’re learning, Mr. Steadman.”

  “I like the teacher.” He leaned forward to brush his lips over hers, once, twice, lightly, so lightly. Just that easily, they progressed beyond being first-time lovers and became, somehow, lovers who were friends. There was choice for her in the touch of his mouth, and yet there was male determination to take more, if she was willing to give. She answered him by going up on tiptoe and wrapping her hands around his shoulders.

  Her scent drifted to his nose, clean and fresh, like June strawberries growing wild in a pasture. He released her, murmuring, “Don’t you know I’d give you the moon if I could?” When it hit him what he’d said, he felt stunned. He’d said those very words to Richard so long ago about this wonderful female, who’d been nothing more than a child then. He hadn’t known he would be the man to worship at her feet. Or maybe, in some deep part of him, he had known.

  The deep hunger clawed at him to bring her close. Luke lifted her to align her breast, hip and thigh to his and lowered his head to taste her mouth once more.

  If he kept holding her as if she were life and breath and air to him, they wouldn’t have a prayer of making it to the house. “I have a whole field of hay to bale this afternoon.”

  He didn’t miss a beat. “There’s real sex talk.”

  “Would you rather I tossed you down in the hay and had my wicked way with you?” She smiled, and her eyes sparkled and caught all the light available in that dark barn, burning into his heart.

  He raised an eyebrow. “It’s been my opinion that rolling around in the hay is a much overrated activity. Hay is dusty and full of sharp ends. I much prefer a bed.”

  “A man after my own heart. Now if—Hey!”

  He dragged her outside the stall and took her down to sit with him on the bale, catching her in his lap, wrapping his arms around her, taking her back with him until his shoulders bumped up against the stall wall, making a lie out of every word he’d just said.

  “What are you doing?” She made a token protest, but it was starting all over again, that high joy.

  “Finding a new position.” His voice was full of humor and sexual arousal, and his mouth was lifted in a seductive smile. Her breasts pressed against him, and she sat half in and half out of his lap, her legs over his, denim rasping against denim. “This one isn’t too bad. With a little improvement, it just might work—”

  “You’re incorrigible.”

  He was also earthy and real—and a liar. He had that look in his eyes that a man gets when he knows the woman he wants is surrendering. He laid his hand above her breast. “And you’re delectable.” He reached up to pluck a hay stem from her hair. “My own little hayseed.”

  The colt had shied away from them when Charlotte cried out, but now he came nuzzling to see what was going on.

  “You’ve come to protect her honor, have you?” Luke asked the colt. “Good fellow.” And, catching Charlotte’s hand, he guided her fingers over the back of the colt’s ear.

  It was so like Luke to put his own needs and interests aside and give the colt what he needed at the moment.

  She watched him, dark and lean and strong, and wondered at the miracle of sitting in his lap, being a part of his world, when for so long she�
��d circled the periphery. “I promised Tex I’d help him this afternoon.”

  Without batting an eye, Luke straightened his legs and dumped her off his lap. She let out a yelp, the colt started backward, bobbing his head, thinking he didn’t understand these unpredictable humans.

  From the floor, she sat staring up at him. “Was it something I said?”

  “You bet.”

  “What-what did I say?”

  “I’d rather get a rattlesnake mad at me than be the cause of Tex’s further disappointment.” His mouth still controlled in that droll expression, he reached for her hand to help her up.

  “Coward.”

  “Yes, ma’am. No doubt about it.”

  She tried to brush at her rear, but was hampered in her efforts by his pulling her close. “I can help you do that.”

  She sheared off, away from him. “Thank you, but no thank you. You’ve proven you can’t be trusted.”

  He cast a shrewd look at her, wondering if she was serious, deciding she wasn’t. “You like being caught off guard. If I were a totally predictable man, you wouldn’t give me the time of day.”

  “What makes you think that?” She wasn’t looking at him, she was very busy brushing her backside and restoring her dignity.

  “The guys you haven’t married. There are quite a few of them around who’d like to be your partner. You haven’t given them a look.”

  She kept her head bent, briskly busy with those capable hands, so damned feminine in her jeans and blue denim shirt and her dark hair falling over her shoulder when she finally straightened and met his eyes. “Maybe I was waiting for you.”

  There was a blast of honesty. Deal with that, Steadman, you of the facile mind and quick mouth. “You really are an optimist,” he said. He tried to pretend her words had no effect on him, tried to shunt aside the curling in his gut that told him no woman had ever loved him the way this woman did, but the fire was there, burning, incessant. Gently he reached for her and wrapped his arms around her, breathing in her scent, hearing that slight intake of breath she made whenever he held her close. She yielded beautifully, all softness and slim pliancy, her wild-strawberry scent making him think of the night stars and laughter and toothpaste and rain. He buried his face in her hair, soaking his soul in her. “How are you today?” he asked softly. He’d been worrying about her, wondering whether she was regretting their night together, wondering if he could be with her tonight, wondering whether he was making things worse for her with his father.