“Where’s your comb?” Carson asked, rubbing Lara’s scalp slowly, feeling its warmth seep up through the towel to his fingertips. His hands paused. “Unless you mind?”
Lara opened her eyes slowly, mesmerized by the gentle massage.
“Mind?” She blinked against the bright sunlight and closed her eyes again. The twin black arcs of her eyelashes cast delicate shadows over her cheeks. “Mind what?” she murmured, sighing with pleasure. Carson smiled as he bent and kissed Lara’s hair so lightly that she felt nothing. He glanced around the quilt until he spotted a bright red comb peeking out from beneath Lara’s discarded jeans. Carefully he combed out her long hair until it lay over her back like a polished ebony fan. Then he picked up the brush that had also been underneath Lara’s clothes. With slow, firm movements he brushed her hair until it was dry and silky and clung to his fingers like a lover with each stroke of his hand.
After the first few minutes Lara stopped trying to stifle her appreciative murmurs. Having her hair brushed was a luxury as unexpected as relaxing beneath the sun’s heat had been. Carson absorbed her small sounds of pleasure hungrily, for each one was a separate caress, a separate sign of hope. The brush dropped unnoticed to the quilt as he substituted his palm smoothing over the glistening black strands, stroking her slowly, taking an intense pleasure in the softness of her hair against his skin.
Long, strong fingers eased into Lara’s hair, searching be-neath the silk, finding the warmth of her. Carson massaged her scalp with slow, sure motions until she came unraveled in his hands and leaned against him, letting him support her relaxed body.
“You’re very good at this,” Lara said. Her words were as languid as the motions of her head rubbing against Carson’s hands in return, increasing the pressure of his fingers. She was too relaxed to guard her thoughts and questions. She sighed and asked, “Who taught you?”
And then she bit her lip at the question. It was none of her business who Carson had been with, who he had caressed, who he had seduced.
“Never mind, I – “
“You taught me,” Carson interrupted, leaning down to inhale the sweet fragrance of Lara’s hair. “I’ve never forgotten how good it felt at the end of a long day to have your hands rubbing through my hair, unraveling all the knots of tension and disappointment, leaving me at peace.”
Carson’s words were another kind of caress touching Lara, sliding past her defenses, making her eyes brim with unexpected tears.
“Was it really like that for you?” she whispered, turning to look at him over her shoulder.
“Such beautiful eyes,” Carson said. “They’ve haunted me.” He bent and brushed his lips over Lara’s. “Yes,” he whispered. “It was really like that. And that, too, has haunted me.”
For a long moment Carson looked at the memories and shadows darkening Lara’s eyes. He knew she was remembering how it had ended between them – pain rather than peace. Silently he cursed himself for bringing up the past when the present had been so unexpectedly sweet.
“If you must remember the pain,” Carson asked in a low voice,
“why can’t you at least remember the pleasure, too? I remember, and I wake up hot and shaking. Pleasure, Lara, not pain. I want a chance to make more of those memories so that when we look back years from now, the past won’t be a cold chain wrapped tight around our lives, strangling our future.”
Lara closed her eyes and shivered, and even she didn’t know whether it was from fear or the sudden memory of Carson’s face taut with need and pleasure as his tongue laved the sensitive pink peak of her breast. As though he were caressing her like that again, her nipple tightened, sending currents of pleasure radiating down through the pit of her stomach, making her want to moan. She wanted to see his mouth on her again, to feel his heat and need – and she was afraid to give herself to him again, to share his heat and need.
“What is it that frightens you so?” asked Carson. His voice ached with the effort of being gentle when he wanted to tear the answers from Lara, ending her pain and his own, putting the past behind them once and for all. “Did I ever hurt you physically?”
Silently Lara shook her bowed head, sending a soft black cloud of hair sliding over her shoulders, concealing her breasts.
“Are you afraid that I will?”
Again she shook her head. Despite Carson’s physical strength, she didn’t fear him in that way. Even when he had wanted to use her only for revenge, he had been unfailingly gentle with her.
“Did you like being touched by me?” he asked, his voice both soft and persistent.
This time Lara nodded her head, but she still didn’t look up at him. She didn’t want to meet his eyes, for she knew that too much of her hopes and fears could be read on her face.
“Then what is it, little fox?” Carson asked, tilting Lara’s head up with his hand beneath her chin.
Lara didn’t fight his touch, but she refused to open her eyes. She tried to speak, swallowed and forced out the words. “I’m just afraid to give myself to you again.”
There was a long, taut pause while Carson looked at Lara’s beautiful, troubled face. He smiled suddenly, crookedly, and his thumb touched her lips like a kiss. “Then I’ll just have to give myself to you instead.”
Lara’s eyes flew open. “What?”
“Yeah, I know. It’s a terrible sacrifice,” Carson said gravely, his eyes brilliant with laughter and other emotions that were far stronger, far more complex. He held out his hands to her. “Take me, honey. I’m all yours. You can comb my hair and rub my scalp until I turn to butter and melt in your hands. You can talk to me, ride with me, stand quietly and watch the sun go down with me, dress or undress me, touch me, explore me, do as much or as little as you like. Anything. Everything.”
The laughter faded from Carson’s eyes but not the emotions that turned his eyes to molten gold. “Except run from me,” he said. “No more of that, Lara. That belongs to the past, and the past is dead.”
Carson’s eyes were intent, golden, and the hands he held out to Lara didn’t waver. Slowly she put her hands in his. She expected her fingers to be enveloped in his warmth and strength, but he made no move to hold her more tightly. She realized that he was silently reinforcing his words. He had given himself to her. What she did with that gift was for her to decide.
Chapter Seven
The faded daguerreotype showed a ragged pile of rocks on a windswept ridge. Below the ridge was a wide, fertile valley with a river winding through it. There were no fences, no man-made landmarks, nothing but grass, the river and thickets of willow and alder. Tiny dots scattered across the grass in the picture could have been deer or perhaps even elk.
Lara knew that the dots weren’t cattle, for the first of the Blackridge herd was being driven up from Texas when the photo had been taken more than a century ago. She had found the daguerreotype tucked in among her grandfather’s mementos. It had been Cheyenne’s old-fashioned, formal hand that had written the note glued to the back: The first marker on the Rocking B. Photo probably taken by Carson Blackridge after Civil War and before first herd arrived in 1867. The curved lens of Lara’s magnifying glass glittered in the sunlight as she slowly moved the lens over the length of the photograph. After a moment she looked up, studying the valley below her, searching for landmarks that hadn’t Changed in the past century. Over the past few weeks she had learned to ignore the modern reality of fences and missing trees, the houses that had been built and the bend in the Big Green that had moved subtly south.
Shadow shifted her weight, stamped to discourage a fly and went back to her three-legged doze. The horse’s motions didn’t distract Lara. She had become accustomed to Shadow’s habits in the four weeks that she had been living on the old homestead. A lot of Lara’s time during those weeks had been spent on horseback, talking to the older hands as they rode the land and remembered other rides, other times. Between interviews she had searched for a
nd ultimately found all but one of the Rocking B’s original boundary markers. Even Carson had been drawn into the search for the missing marker after the picnic at Long Pool. Together Lara and Carson had gone through the old deeds and surveys that he had brought out of safety-deposit boxes in town. With his help Lara had compiled a list of boundary markers and their probable locations. She had spent days tracking down the markers and photographing all of them. Except one. The one whose daguerreotype was in her hands right now.
“Dammit,” she muttered. “This has to be the ridge and the right place on that ridge. And it was about this time of year, too. The flowers in the foreground are blooming, and the snow has melted back to the higher peaks. It was about this time of day, as well. The shadows match, and the angle of the sun on the Big Green and even the wind bending the grass so that – “
Abruptly Lara straightened in the saddle. “Of course! The grass!”
She slid off Shadow and began quartering the ridgetop for several hundred feet in all directions. It was hard work. This part of the Rocking B had been withdrawn from grazing for the past three years, allowing the land and the plants to rest. As a result the grass was waist-high in places. Lara waded through it as though it were a living green river. Several times she spotted the pale gleam of stones jutting up through the grass, but each time she was disappointed. The stones were naturally scattered rather than gathered by man and piled to mark the first eastern boundary of the Rocking B.
After a few minutes sweat began to shine on Lara’s cheeks. Though it was barely a week into June, the land was hot and sweet with summer’s bounty. At the moment Lara wished the sun were a wee bit less generous with its presence. A cooler day would have made plowing through the grass more pleasant.
“Lose your watch?”
Lara’s head snapped up at the sound of Carson’s voice. She had been so intent upon her search for the markers that she hadn’t even heard him ride up.
“Carson! Where did you come from?” she asked, her eyes lighting up with pleasure at seeing him so unexpectedly.
The look on her face went through Carson in a shock wave of warmth. Lara had smiled at him like that in the past, when he had appeared without warning in the café, where she had worked. He hadn’t seen that particular smile in years. He hadn’t known just how much he had missed seeing it.
“One of the cows was down along Hat Creek,” Carson said, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb. “I saw you pacing back and forth up here and came to see what was going on.”
“Looking for that darn boundary marker. How’s the cow?”
“Dead,” he grunted, rubbing his neck. “Third one this week. Probably just a coincidence – they were all old cows – but I called the vet, anyway.” Carson sighed, and his hand dropped to the saddle horn.
“So you’re still looking for that pile of rocks. Why? Do you need it that bad for your paper?”
Lara paused, wondering how she could make Carson understand. It wasn’t that she needed the marker for her personal history, it was just that the marker was a lost piece of the past waiting to be discovered. “I guess I just love finding missing pieces,” she said.
“Never give up grubbing around in the past, do you?”
“Nope,” Lara said cheerfully. “It’s too much fun.”
She wiped her forehead on her sleeve and pulled her hat back into place, missing the sudden tightening of Carson’s face as he realized that the longer a piece of the past’s puzzle eluded Lara, the harder she would look to find it And there was one piece of the past that simply had to be left unfound.
All Carson could do was thank God that what had to remain hidden wasn’t part of the time covered by Lara’s history. That part of the past would be exempt from her too-intelligent, too-careful scrutiny.
Lara looked up and saw Carson’s changed expression. “I know, I know,” she said, smiling uncertainly, “you’d just as soon never have to look at any part of the past Well, I’m a historian, and I love grubbing around in the past.”
After a moment Carson smiled almost unwillingly. Despite his fear he enjoyed seeing the light in Lara’s eyes when she was in close pursuit of something she enjoyed.
“Hell, I don’t suppose much harm could come from finding an old pile of rocks.” Carson dismounted and walked over to Lara. “Let’s grub together until suppertime.”
“You’re sure?” she asked hesitantly. “I know you’re not interested in the Rocking B’s history.”
That was putting it tactfully. Lara knew that Carson had a hostility toward the Rocking B’s past that was both deep and, to her, inexplicable. Sometimes she wondered if the hostility might have come from the fact that he had been raised knowing that he didn’t
“belong” to the ranch’s history. Would that be enough to make Carson hate the past?
Although Lara very much wanted an answer to that question, she knew that she wouldn’t bring up the subject directly. She hated to see Carson’s face tighten into harsh lines, and it always did when they talked about the recent past and the Rocking B ranch.
“I’m sure I don’t mind,” Carson said, rubbing his neck again.
“Beats hell out of looking at dead cows.”
“No argument there,” Lara said, making a face.
“So how do we go about this low-budget historical survey?”
Carson asked dryly, kneading his neck one more time before giving up. The headache had started the day he had held Larry Blackridge’s will in his hands; there were nights when Carson wondered if the pain would ever end.
“First you hold my hand,” Lara said.
“Yeah?” Carson’s face softened into a smile as he peeled off his work gloves and stuffed them into his back pocket before offering his hand to her. “Holding hands, huh? Maybe I’ve been wrong about this history stuff all along.”
Lara looked at Carson’s gentle smile and tired eyes. Impulsively she took his hand between both of hers and brought it to her lips. She kissed his palm softly, brushing her lips over the sensitive skin before pressing it to her cheek. She felt his fingers tightening slightly, returning the caress. The restraint of the gesture made her want to cry. He had been so careful to keep his word, not to press her in any way. He had given her so much companionship and laughter – and she had given him nothing in return.
“You’re working too hard, Carson,” Lara whispered. “You look so tired. I don’t want you to wear yourself out over an outdated boundary marker that means nothing to you.”
Carson closed his eyes for an instant, feeling the softness of Lara’s cheek pressed into his hand, savoring it with an intensity that was just short of pain. Since the picnic by Long Pool, Lara had touched him more frequently, been more at ease with him physically, but not nearly as much as he had hoped; and at no time had she suggested that the touching go beyond her hand in his as they walked out across the ranch and watched sunset transform the land into a place of fire. Yet he looked forward to those times with an intensity that made him ache. And now she was looking at him with concern in her beautiful eyes.
“I don’t mind, little fox,” Carson said, his voice deep. “The best part of my day is the time I spend with you.”
Lara didn’t know whether she stepped into Carson’s arms or he stepped into hers. She only knew that she felt as though she had truly come home.
At first they held each other tightly, as though they were afraid that something would happen to separate them. Gradually their arms loosened while Carson rocked Lara slowly against his chest, stroking her hair and back with his big hands, wordlessly telling her how much it pleased him to hold her. It was the same for Lara. Her arms were around his lean waist and her head was resting against his chest as her hands kneaded gently down the muscles of his back, trying to relax the tension that was rooted so deeply in Carson that he had forgotten a time when it hadn’t been there.
When Lara finally tilted back her head to look
at Carson’s face, his eyes were closed and an expression of peace had replaced the lines of strain on his face. The knowledge that she could bring him such ease with something as simple as a hug made her ache with emotion. She should have done this weeks ago. She had wanted to. Every time she saw him at the end of the day, his face weary, his right hand automatically rubbing his neck, she had wanted to hold him and soothe him until he relaxed and smiled down at her as he had done years ago.
“I have a better idea than tramping around up here until it’s too dark to see,” Lara said softly.
Carson rumbled deep in his throat, a sound that was more a bass purr than a word. Lara smiled. Without thinking, she brushed her lips lightly over his shirt. He felt it. She could tell by the subtle tightening of his arms around her. Yet his hand never hesitated in its slow, gentle stroking of her hair.
“It’s Yolanda’s night off, isn’t it?” continued Lara. Carson rumbled again, somehow managing to make the sound both contented and questioning at once. She laughed softly and hugged him close for just an instant “Why don’t I cook dinner for you at the homestead?” Then, quickly, Lara added, “Bring the ranch accounts with you, if you like. I know you’re behind in them. After dinner you can work on them while I go through some of Cheyenne’s mementos. Then I’ll feed you dessert and give you a back rub because you hate doing the accounts so much that it always ties you in knots. How does that sound?”
Carson’s smile radiated through Lara. “Like heaven. We’ll do it right after you show me a little more of your hand-holding history research. I figure you should get something out of this deal, too.”
“You don’t have to plow through all the grass with me.”
“But I want to,” Carson murmured, shifting his weight, subtly easing Lara closer to his warmth. “I like holding hands with you. And I like this so much that – “ A tremor went through him. “Oh, God, Lara, I love holding you.”
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