Sweet Wind, Wild Wind

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Now do not worry about me. The bunkhouse cook, he said he would bring me my meals until my sister’s daughter gets here tomorrow. And the hands – they have spent more time walking through my house than watching cows.”

  Lara smiled, knowing that it was true. Ever since Yolanda had sprained her ankle slipping on a throw rug, two things had happened: all throw rugs on the Rocking B had vanished or had been fixed in place, and the men had taken turns watching over Yolanda until her niece arrived from Billings.

  “There is one thing you could do,” Yolanda said slowly, “if you would not mind.”

  “I don’t mind,” Lara said, without waiting to hear what Yolanda needed. “What is it?”

  “Carson, he hates old Mose’s cooking. If you could fix dinner for him, I would not feel so bad.”

  “Of course.”

  Yolanda smiled like a cat curled around a bowl of cream. “Thank you, nina. That is very good. You better hurry. Carson, he is a very big man, very hungry, and the hour, it is getting late.”

  Lara glanced at her watch. “Do I need to run to town for supplies?”

  “No. Everything that a woman needs is already there.” Yolanda closed her eyes and smiled to herself, nodding slowly. “Just everything.”

  Shutting the door softly behind her, Lara crossed the ranch road and hurried toward the big house. It was no trouble for her to cook for Carson. Lately he had eaten more meals at the homestead than he had at the ranch house. In fact, Lara hoped that this evening would provide the perfect opening to ask if she could finally see the documents, photos and other memorabilia that composed the Blackridge archives. She had hinted around the subject several times before. Each time Carson’s expression had subtly changed, telling her that he would just as soon not confront the question of the past and the Rocking B, the Blackridges and the Chandlers. Sometimes Lara thought that it was almost as though having found a way to bring her close without using the Blackridge collection as a lure, Carson regretted having promised her access to it at all.

  After Lara did a quick survey of the kitchen garden and refrigerator, she decided that Yolanda had enough food to feed the Rocking B and the neighboring ranches as well. It was too late to cook a roast, but there were some thick steaks that would be more than enough for dinner. A few minutes in the garden yielded tiny new potatoes, baby carrots and baby peas. Lara remembered that Carson loved raw spinach but wouldn’t touch it cooked so she gathered two handfuls of greens for a salad. Humming quietly, she carried her vegetable loot into the kitchen.

  By the time Lara heard Carson walk into the laundry room just off the kitchen, the whole house was filled with the smells of dinner. She heard the water run as he sluiced off the worst of the sweat and dust, but she didn’t hear him come into the kitchen behind her. As always, he had left his boots in the laundry room. He came in barefoot. There were moccasins set out for him to wear, but he ignored them unless the house was really cold.

  “And here I thought all those good smells meant that I was going to have to apologize to Mose for slandering his cooking all these years,” Carson said, coming up to stand behind Lara as she washed spinach leaves in the sink. His arms slid around her waist as he bent to nuzzle the line of her neck. “You look good enough to eat.” His tongue flicked out over her warm skin. “You taste good enough, too. You’re in trouble, woman. I’m a very hungry man.”

  A spinach leaf appeared beneath Carson’s nose. Growling rather fiercely, he ate the green leaf all the way down to Lara’s fingertips and then began nibbling on them, too. She laughed and turned in Carson’s arms to give him a welcoming kiss. Since they had searched hand in hand for the boundary marker nearly a week before, she had become much less wary of him physically. Despite the hunger that Carson couldn’t conceal, he had kept his word; he kissed Lara often, and passionately, but he didn’t push for any greater intimacy than she had already offered in her previous caresses.

  At the times when Lara felt herself aching for more than kisses, she knew that she would have to be the one to take the lead. Without a word being said, Carson’s actions had assured her that there was no way she would ever be undressed and then rejected again; it was for her to do the undressing and, if she wanted, the rejecting. That reassured her, just as Carson’s passion and restraint reassured her. He was doing everything he could to make their growing relationship risk free for her. The realization that he was perceptive as well as passionate made her feel cherished. These days when Carson touched her, she responded without fear.

  Slowly Carson pulled Lara close, fitting her along the length of his body with a sensuous precision that sent fire racing through both of them. There was no question of giving or taking, pursued or pursuer. The kiss claimed both of them equally, making a shivering heat blossom deep within Lara. She loved the feeling of being pressed along Carson’s powerful body, and she trembled with pleasure to feel the hard rise of his desire and know that she was causing it. Only after the long kiss was over and Lara looked up into Carson’s face did she see the lines of fatigue and the darkness beneath his eyes.

  “Carson,” she whispered, kissing him very gently, “you look so tired. Aren’t you sleeping well? Is something worrying you?”

  His whole body tightened at the question. “I sleep,” he said, nuzzling the corner of Lara’s mouth.

  What he didn’t say was that he lay awake for a long time each night, trying to decide whether it was better to tell Lara the whole truth now and almost certainly lose everything he had ever wanted, or to wait and pray that he would never have to tell her at all. There was no guarantee that shp would ever find out. And even if she did, it might be years and years in the future. By then she might understand. By then she might care enough about the life they had built together to be able to forgive him.

  “Is something wrong with the ranch?” Lara asked hesitantly. “Are the inheritance taxes – “

  “No,” Carson interrupted, his voice almost harsh. “Larry planned for everything. Too damned well!”

  Carson’s arms tightened as he bent down, asking for and taking Lara’s mouth in the same motion. She wondered what Carson had meant by his comment, but as always the heat of his kiss scattered her thoughts. Even as part of her realized that this always happened when the subject of the Rocking B or Carson’s father came up, the rest of Lara responded to the need that lay beneath Carson’s searching kiss, a need that transcended the hard insistence of his sex pressing against her softness. She didn’t know where that greater need came from; she only knew that she ached to answer it, to ease Carson’s mind as well as his body.

  Slowly Carson and Lara separated, sharing many tiny, swift kisses that spoke eloquently of their reluctance to be parted.

  “I’ll shower,” Carson said, his voice husky. “I must smell like a polecat.”

  Lara smiled. “You smell like a man who has worked hard and ridden hard. You smell hot and – wonderful.”

  With a thick sound Carson stepped back quickly. “You keep that up and I’m going to find myself suggesting that you take a shower with me,” he said, smiling and very serious at the same time. Carson turned away before he could see the widening of Lara’s pupils or the sudden intake of her breath as she thought of sharing a shower with him. She waited for fear to come at the thought of being naked with him. All she felt was a flash of uneasiness that was quickly overwhelmed by a rush of desire.

  “How long before dinner is ready?” he asked, not looking back.

  “How long do you want?”

  “Give me fifteen minutes.”

  “Fifteen minutes,” she agreed.

  It seemed like a very long quarter hour to Lara before Carson returned, filling the kitchen with his male presence and deep voice.

  “I’d kiss you again,” he said, “but I don’t trust myself to stop before dinner is as cold as well water.”

  Lara looked at Carson’s damp, freshly combed hair, dark mustache and smilin
g lips and decided she didn’t trust herself, either. She served the dinner with easy, efficient motions, then sat at his right hand and began to eat. Between bites she asked questions about the water and the grass, the calves and the cows, the price of beef and feed. The ebb and flow of the Rocking B’s seasonal work had always fascinated Lara, for it gave her a deep sense of being involved in processes and cycles that went far back in time and would continue far into the future.

  “…vet said that it was nothing but coincidence that I lost those three cows so close together,” finished Carson.

  Lara let out an audible breath of relief. “I was worried that the cattle you bought at the beginning of summer might have been carrying some disease.”

  “That thought occurred to me about once an hour after the third cow died,” Carson agreed wryly. “Just old age, though. It was a hard winter, and raising a calf takes it out of old cows. They dropped strong calves, though. They’re going to make it.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me,” Lara said tartly. “They darned near pulled my arms out of the sockets tugging on the bottle.”

  Carson’s eyes kindled with laughter and pleasure as he remembered the picture she had made with her legs braced and a healthy bull calf nursing hard on the oversize bottle she was holding. Carson had finally moved to stand behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist and anchored her so that the calf didn’t pull her right off her feet. As they struggled to keep the bottle from being yanked free by the eager calf, they had begun laughing so hard that they had ended up falling down in the hay while the calf trailed milk all over both of them.

  And then they had forgotten the calf and the barn and the men working nearby in the other stalls. Carson had pulled Lara into his arms for a kiss that had left him hard, aching, shaking with hunger at the feel of her body so soft and unafraid beneath his.

  “You can hand raise my babies anytime,” Carson said, leaning back in his chair, his voice gritty and his eyes tawny beneath the dining room’s warm lights.

  Something in his clear, intent eyes made Lara breathless, as did the thought of feeding his babies – and not the four-legged variety, either. She realized then how much she would like to feel Carson’s child growing inside her, forever joining their destinies beyond any human ability to sever. The thought exploded softly through her, making her melt in waves of emotion that left her trembling.

  “I’d like that,” Lara whispered, her voice as soft as the sensations shivering through her.

  Carson heard her words, and he knew that Lara wasn’t talking about raising calves.

  “Lara – “ he began, looking at the woman sitting next to him at the table.

  Then his words stopped as he saw Lara’s tongue flick out to pick up a stray crumb from her lip. With a throttled groan he bent and caught her mouth beneath his, turning his head until her lips opened. He kissed her with slow, aching rhythms of his tongue. When he finally lifted his head, he was breathing too fast, and so was she.

  “White lightning,” Carson said hoarsely.

  Once Lara would have blushed or felt uneasy at seeing the raw desire on Carson’s face. Now, seeing his need simply made it more difficult for her to drag air down into her lungs.

  “You make the coffee,” he said, standing abruptly. “I’ll take care of the dishes.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “Honey,” Carson said, his voice almost rough, “if I brush up against you in the kitchen right now, I’ll trip you and beat you to the floor.” He saw the sudden parting of Lara’s love-bruised lips, heard the swift intake of her breath and wanted nothing more than to feel her naked and willing and hot beneath him. “Don’t look at me like that,”

  he warned, but his voice was caressing rather than harsh.

  “Like what?”

  “Like you want to eat me for dessert.”

  Carson’s eyes narrowed into hot gold slits as he realized that Lara had never thought of touching him that way before – and thinking of it now had made the pulse in her throat beat faster. When a shiver of response coursed over her skin, it was all he could do not to grab her. With a small sound Lara tore her eyes away from Carson’s hard, hungry body. “Coffee,” she said faintly.

  Carson didn’t trust himself to say anything at all. He grabbed two handfuls of dishes and went into the kitchen. After a few minutes he heard Lara walk into the kitchen and turn on the fire underneath the old-fashioned drip coffeepot he always used.

  “Carson?” Lara’s voice was hesitant, as though she were unwilling to disturb the increasingly fragile control that both of them had over their emotions.

  “Hmmm?”

  Carson’s vague rumble of encouragement was all Lara needed.

  “Would it be possible for me to look at some of the Blackridge historical papers and photos tonight?” she asked in a rush, as though afraid Carson would somehow manage to change the subject in midquestion as he had so many times in the past.

  It was the request that Carson had been heading off successfully since the day he had held out the family archives as a lure to draw a shy scholarly fox closer to him. He wanted to change the subject, to deflect her, to do anything but agree to let her rummage through the Blackridge papers, raking up a past that belonged to her in a way that it would never belong to him – a past whose cold shadow could extend even into the present and future, destroying the delicate growth of friendship and desire that was bringing Lara closer and closer to him with every breath.

  Yet Carson knew that if he kept refusing to allow Lara into the Blackridge archives she would begin to suspect that his reluctance went much deeper than a simple dislike of the past. She would begin to ask questions. Once that happened, she wouldn’t rest until she found the answers. There would be no hope of deflecting her. He had seen that already, her joy and persistence in uncovering historical facts that was as much a part of Lara as her stunning blue eyes. Once she had found out about the old boundary markers, she had pursued them like a prospector after the mother lode, even though the markers had no immediate relevance to her informal history of the Rocking B. They were simply there, a tangible part of history, and she wanted them.

  It was the same for the Blackridge archives.

  Although Carson had carefully removed any documents dating later than 1960 from the boxes, he still hated turning those records over to Lara. They contained too many hints of what had finally driven Larry Blackridge to draw up his morally crazy but legally unimpeachable will.

  Carson didn’t want Lara’s curious, intelligent mind anywhere near the Rocking B’s recent history. Yet he knew that he had stalled as long as he could without raising Lara’s curiosity. As of tonight, giving the records to her had just become the lesser of two evils. And Carson hated that, too – being forced by the past to choose among evils. But it was not the first time. Nor would it be the last.

  “Take the coffee into the library,” Carson said quietly, “but don’t touch any of the stuff lying around until I get there. Bring some cognac, too. I could use it.”

  Surprised by Carson’s tone and by the implication that she somehow wasn’t to be trusted alone with whatever was in the library, Lara said nothing. She poured coffee into an insulated carafe, found two big mugs, put them on a tray and carried it over to the liquor cabinet. When she opened the polished walnut doors, she spotted an array of glasses as well as liquor. She pulled out a snifter for Carson. After a moment’s hesitation she added another snifter to the tray, deciding that she wouldn’t mind a taste of cognac herself. As always, the subject of Blackridge history had created tension between Carson and her. She wished that he would talk about the problem instead of ignoring it, but so far he had resisted every effort she had made to follow that particular line of conversation.

  “It’s the decanter to the left,” Carson said without looking up from the dishes he was stacking casually in the dishwasher. “The square one.”

  Lara looked at the row of cut
crystal decanters that had been Sharon Blackridge’s pride. They were all filled with liquids of varying colors and potency. Only one of the decanters was perfectly square. It was filled with a liquor the exact shade of Carson’s eyes when he stood at sunset looking over the land he loved.

  The door to the library was ajar. Lara nudged it with her shoulder until she could carry the wide tray through. Cartons were stacked everywhere, floor and coffee table and couch alike, as though every closet in the ranch house had been cleaned out and the contents packed for storage elsewhere. The only place free of boxes was Carson’s desk, which was covered with various papers, breeding books and ranch ledgers. Fortunately, there was enough room for the tray, as well. Lara would not have moved a single box even one inch after what Carson had said to her in the kitchen.

  She set the tray down on the desk and poured coffee and cognac. Scrupulously not looking into the few cartons that were open, she eased down onto the couch in a narrow space between boxes. Cautiously she drank her coffee and occasionally sipped the cognac, inhaling the fragrant, potent fumes. She moved as little as possible so as not to disturb the precariously balanced boxes.

  From what Lara could see, nearly all the cartons were new. Each had been labeled in a general way. The words she could see –

  daguerreotypes, ranch accounts, personal mementos, old photographs

  – were all written in the same strong, blunt hand. Carson’s, she assumed. From what she had heard, Larry Blackridge had been too ill before he died to do anything as strenuous as sorting through generations of accumulated family records.

  Lara didn’t notice Carson standing in the doorway watching her while she looked at all the cartons. He could read the intense curiosity and eagerness on her face as easily as he could read his own handwriting on the boxes. For a moment he wished futilely that Lara had been interested in knights and dragons or shoguns and warring city-states – anything except the history of ranching in general and the Rocking B in particular.