A COWBOY'S PURSUIT

by Anne McAllister

  Now she looked as if she'd been sculpted! As if some hotshot sculptor had taken her and discovered not just the curves, but the bones within.

  Jace's mouth had flapped while he'd tried to think of something to say. That had been bad. Worse had been knowing she wasn't at all glad to see him.

  He'd been afraid of that. But he'd dared to hope that maybe a little homesickness would have made her look on him as a friendly face.

  Fat chance.

  He felt—along with the whiskey—a hollow, desperate feeling deep in the pit of his stomach. What the hell was he going to do?

  All around him people were having the time of their lives. They were laughing and talking, getting to know each other. They'd just had the first of what promised to be the most incredible bunch of meals he'd ever seen—which everyone else had relished and he'd gagged on.

  "Are you feeling a little seasick?" Mary Lou had asked him sympathetically as he'd pushed lobster around his plate.

  He'd shaken his head. It wasn't the sea that had made him sick.

  "I always feel that way the first night out," Lisa confided. "Getting my sea legs takes me a day or so. You'll feel better tomorrow."

  Jace had nodded and tried to eat. He'd tried to look like he was enjoying himself.

  "I think it's his girlfriend," Deb said.

  He'd been attempting to crack a lobster tail and, not exactly adept, he'd managed to make it skid off his plate.

  Deb had just nodded triumphantly. "I'm right, aren't I?" she'd queried. "She's worrying you."

  "She's not worrying me." Jace debated going after the lobster on the floor and decided he'd look even worse scrabbling around down there.

  "Of course she's not," Mary Lou came to his defense like a mother bear whose cub needed protecting. "She was just surprised. And with her boss looking over her shoulder, I'm sure she had to try to appear indifferent."

  "As long as she wasn't indifferent," Deb said with just a hint of ominousness in her tone.

  "Of course she wasn't indifferent." Mary Lou huffed, looking offended on Jace's behalf. Then she gave him an encouraging smile. "I'd bet she was thrilled down to her toes. Goodness knows, I would have been. Land sakes, it isn't every day a man goes halfway across the world chasing the girl he loves."

  Which made him feel like an even bigger idiot than ever.

  "She'll come around. You'll see," Lisa assured him. "She'll just have to bide her time."

  "Yeah." He hadn't thought about that. Just what he needed—another obstacle.

  "Cheer up," they'd encouraged him. "Come to the show with us. Enjoy. Have a good time."

  "Maybe when you get to your room tonight she'll be waiting for you," Lisa said brightly.

  Maybe she would be.

  But Jace didn't think so. And he was in no hurry to get there and find out. He hadn't gone to the show with Lisa, Mary Lou and Deb. He knew he couldn't sit through anything like that. He'd be too antsy. And when he tried sitting still for any length of time every rodeo injury he'd ever had came back to haunt him. He didn't need an evening full of aches and pains to go with the mess that his brain was already working up to.

  He'd said thanks, but he thought he'd just hang around the sports bar, maybe watch a baseball game. He wondered if they had a pool table. He could pretend he was back at the Dew Drop in Elmer.

  Artie would be rolling his eyes in despair.

  Artie and his great ideas. Huh!

  "How ya gonna know if ya don't even try?" he'd said again and again when Jace had waffled about going on the cruise. "She might just be bowled right over," Artie had said with a happy anticipatory grin. "Might throw her arms right around you."

  Or wrap her fingers right around his neck and squeeze, Jace thought.

  He sighed and signaled to the bartender for another whiskey.

  Celie never called home from the ship.

  From the very start she'd told herself she wouldn't do it. It was a matter of maturity. She was a grown-up, an adult. She didn't need hand holding anymore. She could manage on her own.

  For thirty years she'd depended on her family—on her mother, but mostly on her oldest sister, Polly, to give her moral support, an arm to lean on, a shoulder to cry on. She'd been determined to stop.

  So when Simone had yelled at her, when a passenger got upset with her, when Armand laughed at her and Carlos tried French kissing her and Yiannis's hands had wandered where they definitely should not have been, Celie had solved her own problems. She had coped.

  She wasn't coping with this—not with Jace Tucker on her cruise. Her fingers were shaking as she called Polly. She'd punched in the number three times, having made mistakes because she'd had to look up the number since Polly wasn't in Elmer anymore. She and the kids had moved to Sloan's ranch near Sand Gap as soon as school got out.

  It was possible that Polly might not even know he was here. But then again she might.

  She might even know why he was here.

  Better yet, she might know what Celie should do about him.

  So much for being grown-up. So much for being able to cope.

  "Celie? What's wrong?" Polly demanded the moment she heard her sister's voice on the phone.

  "Nothing," Celie said quickly, trying to assuage the worry in Polly's voice. "Nothing at all."

  "Then why are you calling?"

  "Can't I just call to be sociable?" Celie tried to sound casual, cheerful, the "new improved version of Celie O'Meara."

  But Polly, of course, knew better. "You could, but you haven't, so why start now?"

  Celie sighed. Still, she knew she could hardly blame Polly for her cynicism. She'd always been the one Celie had turned to in moments of disaster. She was the one who had held Celie while she'd wept buckets over Matt. She was the one who'd made the brisk announcement in church that "that skunk Matt Williams" had chickened out. She was also the one who had encouraged Celie to get her cosmetology license and set up her own salon. She was the one who had urged Celie to get on with her life. And when Celie had, years later, finally got up the gumption to do it—and had bid on Sloan—Polly hadn't once said she was in love with him. She'd buried her own desires and had simply cheered Celie on.

  Polly was the kindest, wisest, most wonderful sister in the world. But she, too, had a life these days Celie reminded herself. She didn't need to be bothered with her sister's woes.

  "No, really," she said. "It's not a big deal." Celie tried backpedaling a bit.

  But Polly was having none of it. "What isn't? You might as well tell me."

  And Celie knew that was true. Once alerted to a problem, Polly didn't rest until she'd solved it. Celie sighed. "Jace."

  "Jace? Something happened to Jace?"

  "Nothing's happened to Jace. Yet."

  "But…" Polly's voice died out. But before it did, it had sounded mystified.

  "He's here!"

  "Here? Here where? Where are you? In Elmer?"

  "No! He's here on the boat!"

  There was a moment's astonished silence. Then an intake and a slow exhalation of breath. And when she did speak it was a soft murmur. "Well, I'll be damned."

  "You're not the one who's going to be damned," Celie muttered. "If he says one word about Matt, about Sloan, about the auction, about … anything, I'll kill him!"

  "He won't," Polly said soothingly.

  "How do you know he won't?" Celie was raking one hand through her hair and strangling the telephone with the other. "What did he come for if not to make trouble?"

  Polly started to say something, then hesitated. "Maybe you should ask him."

  "I did ask him!"

  "And what did he say?"

  "He said—" What had he said? Celie tried to remember, but she'd been so aghast at the sight of him it took her a moment to reconstruct the conversation in her mind. And then all she could report was, "He said he'd come to see me!"

  "He didn't say I've come to ruin your life?" Polly asked.

  "He didn't have to say it," Celie grumbl
ed. "What's he doing here?"

  "He came to see you," Polly repeated what Jace had said. "Maybe he missed you."

  Celie snorted. "Because there's no one else in Elmer he enjoys annoying half so much?"

  "Possibly. Maybe he wondered what you were doing."

  "He could have asked Artie."

  "Maybe he did. Maybe he got curious and decided to see for himself."

  "Maybe, maybe, maybe…"

  Polly could go right on spouting maybes forever, Celie thought. They weren't convincing.

  "Never mind," Celie said. "The real question is, what am I going to do about him?"

  "Well, you could throw your arms around him and kiss him," Polly said dryly, "but somehow I suspect you've already rejected that notion."

  Celie shuddered at the very thought. "No way. I want to stay as far away from Jace Tucker as possible."

  Again Polly hesitated. Then she ventured, "Didn't you ever hear the saying about the best defense being a good offense?"

  "I never played football," Celie reminded her. She had not been the tomboy in the family. But even though she hadn't, she suspected she knew what Polly was getting at. "You want me to be nice to him."

  "Well, I should think that would go without saying," Polly said tartly. "I was thinking you might go a little further."

  "Throw my arms around him and kiss him?" Celie could barely get the words out of her mouth.

  "It would definitely give him a shock." Polly laughed.

  But Celie wasn't about to do that. She shouldn't have called Polly, either. Her sister was newly and happily married. She couldn't be expected to come up with ways to deal with a pain in the neck like Jace. "Forget him. Forget I mentioned him," she said firmly. "Tell me about the kids, about Sloan."

  It was a measure of how happy Polly was that she did precisely that. In the old days, after her husband Lew had been killed and before Sloan had appeared in her life, Polly had never just rattled on cheerfully about her life. She was too busy coping to sit back and reflect on it.

  But tonight she did. She told Celie about the kids—about Jack's new puppy and the play that Lizzie was writing and the horse that Sloan was helping Daisy to train. She talked enthusiastically about having Sloan home for another month this summer before he had to go to Mexico to begin making his next film.

  She even seemed philosophical about her oldest daughter, Sara. "She's doing all right," Polly said now. "Coping. Far better than I thought she would."

  Sara, a student at Montana State, had set her sights on medical school at an early age. She'd bought a day planner when she was in sixth grade, and she'd never settled for a B when an A was a possibility. Her life had always been planned out five years into the future. Until last February.

  In February Sara had met Flynn Murray, a reporter who'd come to cover the auction as a bit of weird western local color for the offbeat New York based magazine, Incite. One look at Flynn, and Sara's well-ordered life had gone spinning out of control.

  Just how far out of control no one, not even Sara, realized at the time.

  Four weeks later with the auction long over and Flynn long gone, she did. Goal-oriented, schedule-bound Sara was pregnant with a child who fitted into neither her schedule or her long-term plans.

  It must have devastated her, Celie thought, but she'd never said a word.

  Not until May on the eve of their leaving for Hawaii so Polly could marry Sloan, did she end up having to tell. The stress of the past months had taken their toll and she'd nearly lost the baby. She'd lost weight, lost sleep, begun bleeding.

  That was when Polly had found out.

  It hadn't been an easy time for any of them. Polly had called off the wedding and had taken Sara to the hospital. She'd sat by her daughter's bedside day and night. Sloan had come flying home from Hawaii, worried about Sara but frantic that Polly meant to call the wedding off forever—which she had.

  Polly—ever-capable Polly—had finally reached her limit. She'd raised four kids almost single-handedly for the past six years. She'd salvaged Celie from depression after Matt; she'd helped their other sister, Mary Beth, through her pregnancy with triplets; she'd been the tower of strength for her mother when their dad had died. And she hadn't even known her own daughter was pregnant!

  She had failed. That's what she'd told Celie in the middle of the night as they'd paced together outside Sara's hospital room.

  "No, you haven't!" Celie had argued. "You're always there for everyone. Now it's time to let Sloan be there for you."

  But Polly wouldn't do it. She couldn't, she admitted. She was afraid to.

  In the end it was Sara who'd made her mother see reason. It was Sara, home from the hospital, pregnant and determined to have this baby and see what life brought her, who took her mother to task.

  Polly, her daughter had told her, was the one who had taught them all that life and love were worth taking risks for. That was why she'd loved Flynn, she'd told her mother.

  "As if it were my fault she got pregnant," Polly had muttered later to Celie. But there had been color in her cheeks again. She had looked like Polly again, stubborn and determined, as she'd packed her suitcase to go to Hawaii to face Sloan, to tell him she loved him, that she was ready to take a risk.

  Between Polly and Sara—not to mention her mother who, marrying Walt Blasingame last month, had taken some risks herself—Celie had had plenty of role models. It was because of their influence that she'd dared take this job in the first place.

  And now, as she thought about it, her resolve returned. She stood up straighter. She took a deep breath. "Thanks, Pol'," she said.

  "Thanks? For what?"

  "For everything," Celie said. "For being there."

  "Are you all right, Cel'?" Polly asked worriedly.

  "I'm fine. I'll be fine," Celie assured her. She hung up and squared her shoulders.

  She could deal with Jace Tucker.

  The phone's shrill ring jarred Jace to semiconsciousness. He groaned, eyes closed and yanked the pillow over his head. Artie could answer it.

  It rang again.

  C'mon, Artie.

  And again.

  Annoyed, Jace rolled over and felt as if Noah Tanner had turned out a herd of bucking horses inside his head. "Artie!" He tried yelling, in case the old man didn't hear it, but then he realized the old man wasn't going to hear it—he was a couple of thousand miles away.

  And the phone ringing by his bedside was the cell phone he'd agreed to take along so Artie could call him in case of "emergencies," though what emergency he could possibly do anything about from the deck of a ship miles away, Jace had no idea.

  Hell's bells, had the old man had another heart attack?

  Disregarding the pounding in his head, Jace pried his eyelids open, grimaced at the little light filtering around the heavy drapes into the room, and reached for the phone. "What?"

  "Took ya long enough," Artie said cheerfully. "Does that mean you ain't alone?"

  "Wha-what are you talking about?" Jace tried to sit up, got kicked in the head by all those horses inside and carefully lay back down again. "What's wrong?" he asked, trying not to raise his voice.

  "Nothin'. Here." Pause. "How're things there?"

  "Things are … all right." That was about the best he could say. And it was the truth, if he lay absolutely still and didn't even move his mouth very much. The horses in his head were just trotting now, but they still made even his teeth hurt. Why the hell had he drunk so much whiskey?

  "Seen Celie?"

  Oh, yeah. Jace remembered now why he'd drunk so much whiskey. He didn't answer Artie. "What's the emergency?"

  "Told ya. Ain't none. 'Cept I ain't slept for worryin' about you."

  "Well, stop worrying about me," Jace said through his teeth.

  "Can't," Artie said matter-of-factly. "Lessen you can give me a reason to—like you proposed already an' Celie said yes." There was so much hope in his voice that Jace's teeth came together with a snap.

  His
head very nearly exploded. All the horses bucked at once. And the pain was so fierce it robbed him of breath.

  "Ah, well, I figured it'd be too much to hope for," Artie said in the silence that followed. "But ya did see her." It wasn't a question, but it came close.

  "I saw her," Jace managed at last.

  "She glad to see ya?" Artie asked eagerly.

  "Thrilled. Threw her arms right around me. Gave me a great smackin' kiss," Jace said dryly.

  "Knew it!" Artie chortled happily, then suddenly stopped. "Yer havin' me on," he accused. "What did she do? Really."

  "She looked like she wanted to throw acid in my face. This wasn't a good idea, Artie."

  "Huh." The old man snorted. Then he paused. "Don't be a quitter. It's just gonna take some doin' is all."

  Jace would have rolled his eyes, but he figured it might set the horses to bucking again. "Uh-huh."

  "Don't worry. She's just playin' hard to get."

  "That's one way of describin' it."

  "So you gotta do the same."

  Jace groaned. "Artie, you're nuts. I'm here, for cryin' out loud. I'm stuck on this blinkin' ship for a week. How hard to get can I possibly be?"

  "Well…" Artie considered that.

  Jace regretted once again letting the old man talk him into the cell phone. "Artie, this is not an emergency."

  "Sez you." Artie sighed. "So if you ain't gonna sweep her off her feet, and you don't want to play hard to get, what're you gonna do?"

  "Enjoy the cruise."

  Artie groaned. "You are a quitter."

  "I am not a quitter! I'm just … bidin' my time."

  "Uh-huh." Scepticism dripped from the word.

  "Lettin' her get used to me bein' around."

  "Right."

  "I'm serious. I think she's afraid of me."

  "Yup. Terrifyin', that's you."

  "C'mon, man, gimme some moral support here!" Agitated, Jace started to sit up. The horses kicked him in the head again. He groaned and lay back down.

  There was a long moment's silence. Finally Artie said, "Okay, here's your moral support. I believe you ain't as big an idiot as you're actin'. But goldarnit, Tucker, you're comin' close!"