THE STARDUST COWBOY

by Anne McAllister

  He wasn't kidding, either. Trying to deal with that computer was damned hard work. Harder than anything else he did all day—and not just because of the pain-in-the-neck software program, either. It was that he had to go through his old bedroom—now Dori's—to do it.

  Nothing had changed, he told himself. It was the same old furniture—the same blue walls, the same drab curtains that had always been there. And that was true, as far as it went.

  But somehow he felt like he was invading the quarters of some mysterious harem. He hadn't ever lived around "women stuff." His mother had been the most discreet of women. He didn't ever remember seeing her underclothes lying around.

  But Dori Malone's were.

  Of course—he'd kicked himself when he realized it—she had no place to put them. The dresser was full of his stuff. So he moved it all, jammed some of it in the bottom two drawers of the dresser, threw the rest in a duffel and took it with him out to the bunkhouse.

  He figured that would solve the problem. But it didn't. Next time he ventured in on his way to the alcove, there was a filmy nightgown hung casually over the back of the chair. There was a stack of colored brief panties on top of the dresser. He jerked open the drawer to see why the hell she hadn't put them away, and was confronted by half a dozen wispy lace bras next to a bunch of perfectly prosaic T-shirts.

  She wore underwear like that under her T-shirts?

  He could hardly look at her again without his eyes going straight to her breasts. Then he'd find himself running his tongue over his lips and swallowing hard.

  Somehow he'd thought Tricia was the only woman in the world who ever wore sexy underwear.

  It had bothered him for a long time that she was taking off that underwear for Jeff and not him. But somehow it bothered him just as much that Dori Malone was wearing underwear like that and not taking it off for anyone!

  And then there was her perfume.

  It wasn't like any other perfume he'd ever smelled. It wasn't like flowers or musk or any of those things that other women wore. It wasn't the pale scent of lilacs that he'd always associated with his mother—and it wasn't that hint of roses that he remembered all too well from nuzzling his nose against Tricia's neck.

  No, this was sneakier.

  It crept up on a guy when he wasn't paying attention. It nailed him when he was just walking past her in the kitchen or helping her change the oil in her car. It was—hell, he didn't know what it was. It was sweet, it was spicy. It was purely Dori Malone. And being within four feet of it was driving him nuts.

  "You like puttin' that stuff on by the gallon?" he'd asked her one afternoon when he passed through the kitchen and somehow caught a whiff of it while she was folding laundry.

  "Stuff?" She'd looked at him, baffled. "What stuff?"

  "That perfume."

  "I'm not wearing perfume," she told him. "Maybe it's the fabric softener," she suggested. "I use it to get rid of the static cling."

  And damned if she didn't hold up a pair of his very own snowy white briefs to demonstrate that they weren't clinging!

  Well, that particular pair wasn't. Riley reckoned he might be somewhere close to scarlet. "What the hell are you doin' with my underwear?"

  "Folding it. Don't I fold it the way you want it?"

  He was supposed to have a preference on folding underwear? He snatched them out of her hand. "You don't need to bother."

  "It's no bother," she protested.

  But it was. To him, oh, yes, it was! "Forget the laundry," he said gruffly, grabbing up all of his that he could see, barricading himself behind it as he held it in his arms.

  "I need to do something," she told him. "I said I'd pull my own weight."

  "You are pullin' your weight," he told her. "You cook, you clean."

  "I do laundry," she said archly, "when I'm allowed to."

  He shifted from one foot to the other. He scowled. His arms clutched the laundry close.

  "I'm trying to help," she said patiently, as if he were a not-too-bright child who needed these things explained. Or a not-especially modern man who didn't like strange women pawing his underwear.

  So, maybe he wasn't a modern man! But Dori Malone wasn't his mother, and she sure as hell wasn't his wife—and something in him just knotted all up at the thought of her smoothing her hands over his shorts.

  Now if she'd been Tricia…

  But she wasn't Tricia. There was no hope for Tricia. She was untouchable. A married woman. He had to stop thinking about her.

  It was Dori Malone's fault that he was.

  Before Dori had shown up, he hadn't spent every waking minute missing Tricia. Most days he didn't think about her at all. He got on with his life, with his work, with improving the ranch—trying not to think about the dreams he'd dreamed, the hopes he'd once had.

  But now he thought about them. A lot.

  Because of Dori. Because of Jake.

  They'd been here a week. Jake was still as gung ho as ever. Did that mean they were really going to stay?

  What the hell was he going to do if they stayed?

  What was he going to do if they didn't?

  He'd got used to having Jake as his shadow. He liked having the boy around. Even if he wasn't a son, he was a nephew. That was the next best thing.

  Too bad he came with a mother.

  It was Dori—and all she reminded him of—Riley could have done without.

  Well, happy trails to you, too, Dori thought as she watched Riley striding away from her toward the bunkhouse, a mountain of unfolded laundry in his arms.

  What on earth was that all about?

  Dori couldn't figure him out.

  At first she figured that despite his politeness about their having landed on his doorstep, he was really not happy to have them there. But as the days passed, she'd had to reevaluate that notion. He seemed perfectly happy to have Jake there. He spent every day—all day—with Jake, and seemed to enjoy it.

  It was her he was avoiding.

  So what was he, one of those aw-shucks-ma'am-cowboys like The Virginian, a guy who talked to his horse and had never said three words to a female of the species in his entire life? Or was he a misogynist, a man who didn't like any women at all?

  She debated asking him. Dori was usually straightforward, accustomed to shooting from the hip. But somehow she didn't think that was a good idea with Riley. Not now. Not yet.

  Maybe when she knew him better.

  And when is that going to be? she asked herself. At the rate they were going, they might exchange a thousand words a year.

  "Does he talk to you?" she'd asked Jake one evening when she was tucking him into bed.

  Jake's brow had furrowed. "Talk to me? Who? Uncle Riley? 'Course he talks to me! He tells me about the cattle an' the ranch an' stories about my dad. Why wouldn't he talk to me?"

  "No reason," Dori said. She smiled and gave a quick, dismissive shake of her head. So it wasn't that he didn't ever talk. It was just that he didn't talk to her.

  No, that wasn't true, either. He did talk to her. He told her not to do things.

  "Don't wash my clothes. Don't fold my clothes. Don't go to so much trouble making cookies. Don't leave your, um, clothes on the dresser anymore. I cleaned out some drawers for you."

  Well, that had been nice of him.

  He was nice to her. Polite to her. And he kept his distance from her.

  You wanted him maybe to snuggle up? she asked herself. The question, coming right out of the blue like that, jolted her. Snuggle up? Where on earth had that come from?

  She didn't want any such thing! She wasn't angling for romance from Riley Stratton, for goodness' sake! Talk about complications!

  But the words plagued her, and Dori was self-aware enough to admit they contained a grain of truth. It wasn't romance. It was awareness.

  She wasn't used to being a woman ignored.

  She'd never before thought of herself as requiring attention from members of the opposite sex. But perhaps that was beca
use she'd always had attention from members of the opposite sex.

  Chris certainly hadn't been the first.

  As far back as she could remember, boys had paid attention to her. They'd teased her and talked with her and stood on their heads trying to impress her. They liked her.

  She was cute, her friends told her. She had "personality." She made every boy feel like he was special, Milly told her. Dori didn't know what it was she did. It just came naturally to her. She had just always liked people—all people—and she let them know it.

  She'd had her pick of boys since junior high.

  Chris had been the first one she'd ever been serious about. He was the only one she'd ever slept with, despite having tried to shock her father by making him believe otherwise. But even after Chris, when she'd narrowed her sights considerably and had rarely even chosen to date, it wasn't because guys weren't asking her.

  Lots of guys asked her. All of them liked her. All of them talked to her. All of them had let her cook dinner for them.

  She was willing to bet they'd have even let her fold their laundry.

  Not Riley Stratton.

  Stubborn cuss of a man!

  Well, fine, if that's the way he wanted it, he could do his own laundry. She would find other ways to help out.

  She went into town the next afternoon.

  She hadn't been to town since they'd passed through on their way to the ranch the day they'd arrived. She needed to pick up some groceries. She wanted to stop by the school and register Jake for third grade in the fall. And she was going to buy material to make new curtains for the kitchen and for Jake's bedroom.

  The nearest town was fifteen miles distant. There wasn't a lot to it—one main street and a couple that crossed it. Besides Jeff Cannon's law office, there was a gas station and convenience store, a small grocery, a hardware store-cum-welding shop, two bars, a restaurant, a jail-turned-historical-society-and-museum, a post office and a Laundromat.

  So much for that, Dori thought wryly when she saw it.

  She drove on past and headed toward the small brick school on the edge of town. In summer, of course, there were no classes, but she'd dated a teacher for a while when Jake was small, and she knew that teachers and administrators were often at school when there were no students to be found. If no one was there, she could come back. If someone was, she would introduce herself and maybe find out about any local children Jake's age.

  There had to be some times when Riley would be glad not to have a shadow dogging his every step. He'd been incredibly tolerant so far, but she couldn't expect him not to want some time to himself. And Jake did need to develop friends his own age.

  The building was open, but there was no one in the office when she went in. Still, she could hear talking in the distance, a woman's voice and at least a child or two, so she pressed on.

  At the far end of the hall of classrooms, she found an open door and looked in.

  A slender woman with deep auburn hair was talking to two equally redheaded children. They started to move a bookcase and she looked up, noticed Dori and smiled. "Oh, hi. Have you been there long? Are you lost? Can I help?" She set the bookcase down again and came toward Dori, holding out her hand. "I'm Maggie Tanner. I teach third grade."

  Third grade? Then she might be Jake's teacher. Dori took her hand and returned the smile. "I'm Dori Malone. My son and I have just moved here, and I came to see about registering him for school."

  "You need to see Jeannie to do that," Maggie Tanner told her. "She's the secretary. Or Betsy, the principal. Neither one of them is here today. We just came in to do a little rearranging. These are two of my boys, Seth and Nick. They're in second grade."

  Dori shook hands with each of them, and then said, "Jake, my son, is going into third."

  "Then he'll be mine," Maggie Tanner told her. "I have the only third grade here. I have my own son, Jared, too, next year." She laughed. "That ought to be interesting. He's out helping his father today on our ranch. But I told Robert I needed help, too, and so I commandeered these two."

  "You have three boys?" Dori was pleased to hear that. At least Jake might be able to make friends with them.

  "Yes. And a daughter, Lissa. She's four. Tell me about Jake. I didn't realize anyone new was moving into town. Word tends to travel pretty fast here, as you might imagine."

  Dori smiled. "Jake is out cowboying, too, today. With his uncle. Riley Stratton."

  Maggie stared at her a moment, then she shook her head. "Riley's his uncle? Then he's…"

  "Chris Stratton's son," Dori said, lifting her chin. Maggie Tanner didn't look like the sort of woman who would pull back in disgust, but Dori really didn't know her at all. And this was Chris's hometown. Who knew what people thought of him here?

  But Maggie didn't bat an eyelash. "I was very sorry to hear about Chris," she said gently. "I didn't know him well. I didn't come here until after he'd left. I only met him a couple of times when he came back to visit or to help Riley out during branding or roundup. He seemed very nice. But—" Maggie's gentle smile widened "—we all love Riley. He's the salt of the earth, Riley is. He'd do anything to help—anyone, anytime, anywhere. He'd give you the shirt off his back."

  Not if it was dirty, he wouldn't, Dori thought.

  "Yes," she said aloud. "He's been … very kind."

  "Are you going to be … staying with Riley?" Maggie's tone was speculative.

  "We're staying on the ranch," Dori said. "Jake inherited his father's half."

  At that Maggie's eyes did get large. "Oh," she said. "My," she said. "Well, imagine that," she said. There was a little hint of color in her redhead's complexion. "We never realized … I mean, I'd understood there wasn't a will. We all thought Riley—" She stopped. The color was high in her cheeks now. "I have a big mouth and a small brain," she said. "Forgive me."

  Dori felt quite suddenly as rattled as Maggie Tanner. Chris hadn't had a will? He hadn't left his half of the ranch to Jake?

  She shook her head. "N-no. I mean, yes. Of course. There's nothing to forgive. It's … it's just … we were as … as surprised as you must be," she managed after a moment.

  "Well," Maggie Tanner said briskly, "I, for one, am delighted you're here. I will be thrilled to have Jake in my class, and overjoyed that my three musketeers will have someone new to play with. And I'm especially glad for Riley."

  This last was added with an intensity that brought Dori up short. Maggie Tanner was glad that Riley had, presumably, just given away half of his ranch? She tried to make sense of that. She couldn't.

  She would have to ask Riley—she would damned well ask Riley—when she got back to the ranch.

  "We'll have to have a party," Maggie went on, oblivious to the thoughts reeling through Dori's head. "To welcome you and Jake. To celebrate!"

  "Oh, I don't think—"

  "There aren't a lot of people out here," Maggie went on firmly, "so we all need to know each other and stick together. It's important." She fixed Dori with a steady gaze. "I'll talk to Robert tonight, then call you and Riley and let you know when." Dori suddenly found her hand clasped between both of Maggie's. "This is wonderful news," Maggie said, giving Dori's hand a squeeze, and there was no doubting her sincerity. "We're so very glad you've come."

  She couldn't talk to him in front of Jake.

  She never saw him any other time!

  She needed to talk to him now! At once! Immediately!

  All the way back to the ranch, she fretted. All during the cooking of dinner, she fumed. All the while they were eating, she studied him openly, trying to figure him out. But he didn't glance her way. He studied his plate, his food, his nephew. But he didn't so much as look at her while she carried on wondering, worrying.

  After dinner she tried to ease Jake away from his side long enough to ask him about what Maggie had said. But Jake had a million questions. And Riley had plenty of answers. Answers that took them up until Jake suggested they watch a TV program, and then Riley glanced at his watch
and muttered something about work he needed to do, and promptly vanished out the back door.

  She couldn't go after him. Not then.

  But once Jake was asleep…

  She wouldn't sleep until she'd demanded—and received—an explanation.

  Had he really simply given Jake half the ranch? Had Chris had nothing whatever to do with it at all?

  And, most important, if it was true, why?

  Maybe Maggie was wrong. Maybe there had been a will. Maybe she and Jake weren't there under false pretenses.

  But if Maggie was right, that was very much what it sounded like.

  * * *

  Six

  « ^ »

  The knock on the bunkhouse door startled him.

  "C'mon in," he called. He was lying on the bed in his shorts, reading a Western, and thinking how much easier those nineteenth-century guys had it with only vigilantes, hired guns and the Johnson County War to worry about.

  Now he shoved himself up against his pillow, glad for company, pleased that for once Jake had decided to come visit him instead of urging him to stay up at the house and watch TV with them.

  "Got bored with that ol' TV, did y—" Riley began as the door opened. Then, "What the hell are you doin' here?"

  It wasn't Jake who stood in the doorway.

  Riley took one look at Dori, standing there blinking at him in his undershorts, and scrambled up, scrabbling for his jeans, holding them in front of him.

  "Out!" he said. "Wait out there!"

  "I need to talk to you," she replied, not moving. At least she had the decency to look away, to pretend he wasn't standing there within inches of being naked right in front of her.

  "Fine. We'll talk. Now get outa here. Lemme get dressed!"

  "You said come in."

  "And now I'm sayin' get out. Please," he added.

  She scowled, but at least she left. She went outside and pulled the door shut after her.

  Geez. Riley let out a shudder and yanked his jeans on, then zipped them up. He snatched a clean shirt off a hook on the wall, and dragged it on, then buttoned it and stuffed it into his waistband.