The Color of Forever: Book Two: Forever Cowboys Series

by Whitley, Hope

  “The male and female take turns,” Ben explained, “although the female is believed to sit on the eggs about three-fourths of the time. But between the male and the female, the eggs are normally incubated close to 98% of the time. Which is why I’m gratified to catch the nest unoccupied by either parent.”

  He stepped back and slipped the binoculars over his head and held them out to Samantha. “Wanna see?”

  “Sure!” Sam stepped forward enough to see over the lip of the rocky outcropping where they stood, Ben holding her elbow. She held the binoculars up to her eyes and looked down. The nest looked so close! It was the biggest bird’s nest she had ever seen, made mostly from twigs and sticks.

  “Gosh, it’s huge!” she exclaimed. “Do all the other eagles come to help build a nest? Sort of like an old fashioned barn raising?”

  Ben laughed. “No. Eagles habitually return to the same nest every year,” he said. “They mate for life. The nest starts out fairly small in the first year and as the mating pair build on to it year after year, it gets bigger and bigger. The largest known eagle’s nest so far was one in Florida that measured almost ten feet across, twenty feet deep and weighed about three tons.”

  Sam was impressed by this information. Not just by the facts and figures although they were definitely impressive as she would have a lot more respect for eagles now; but also by Ben’s ready command of said facts and figures. He really knew his stuff!

  “How would someone get down there to steal the eggs?” Sam inquired, puzzled. “I mean, it’s almost straight down to that ledge where the nest is.”

  “Mountain climbing gear,” Ben answered. “Remember, I mentioned that a hunter saw someone trying to rappel down to the nest. The hunter watched the person give up and leave. Probably didn’t bring the right equipment. But it’s a safe bet he or she might be back to try again. If they’re determined enough to rob this nest, they’ll probably succeed.”

  Sam found this upsetting. While they were watching, one of the eagle parents flew back and settled onto the eggs in the nest. What a majestic sight! Having seen one in its natural habitat, Sam could better understand why an eagle was chosen to be the emblem of the United States and was outraged that some poacher would steal in and rob the nest of a species that was already in danger of becoming extinct.

  “I hope you catch whoever it is!” she exclaimed hotly. “That’s a horrible thing to do!”

  “I agree and I intend to try to catch the person if they come back and try again.”

  “How?”

  “I can lower a webcam and position it where the poacher can’t get to it or be able to shoot it easily. That might be enough of a deterrent. But,” he said, shrugging his broad shoulders, “the sad truth is that unless I get lucky and spot the poacher in the act or on the way to or from wherever they park their vehicle, there isn’t a hell of a lot I can do.”

  Well, he wasn’t entirely perfect, Sam noted with a smidgen of satisfaction. He cursed. True, it wasn’t much in the way of faults, flaws or imperfections, but it was an indication that he wasn’t the perfect Boy Scout, either.

  The air was frosty but she was bundled up well enough to keep warm and the breeze was brisk but not a bone chilling wind. Up here, so close to the sky and all alone, it seemed like a perfect opportunity for them to get to know each other a little better, Sam decided.

  She edged close to Ben and smiled up at him. “Hey,” she said huskily.

  “Samantha, I’m so sorry,” Ben exclaimed. “I should have realized you’re cold. Come on, we’ll hurry back down to the truck. I brought a thermos of coffee. That’ll warm you up in a hurry.”

  He turned and started back down the winding path. Samantha stared at his retreating figure, then followed, accepting the defeat of her impromptu plan. Ben thought she was huddling close to him for body heat! Oh well, she told herself wryly, there would be plenty of other chances for exchanging a few kisses. She brightened, remembering that he was coming over tomorrow afternoon to give her a riding lesson.

  She could try again then to turn the heat up on their friendship.

  It wasn’t that she wanted to rush things, but since she didn’t know how long she’d be up here she didn’t want to waste a lot of time on the preliminary stuff.

  Cut to the chase. That was her plan for Ben Connors.

  Ben dropped Samantha off after their trip to check out the eagle’s nest and drove home to his own ranch.

  He knew the road by heart, having been driving it since he was twelve. No, he hadn’t been legal to drive at that age but most people up here on these deserted roads with little or no traffic didn’t worry much about underage drivers. Or overage either, for that matter. So he could probably count on driving his own vehicle long into his golden years.

  His thoughts were all on Samantha O’Brien.

  She was beautiful! Ben had seen some good looking females but something about Samantha set her apart and made her stand out from all the rest. It wasn’t just her looks, he mused. Granted, she was drop dead gorgeous but it was something else, something besides physical features that made her special.

  She was so alive. So vibrant. So brilliant … like a bright, shining presence that lit up everything around her. A lot of beautiful women were preoccupied with how they looked and who was going to look at them. But Samantha seemed unaware of how attractive she was or how her looks affected other people, especially men. She had what the French called joie de vivre … a bouyant, exultant enjoyment of life that made her exciting to be around.

  She was exciting, for sure. Ben didn’t think he had ever met anyone quite as exciting as Samantha. From her wavy mane of raven black hair, so shiny it looked polished, all the way down that fantastic body, she was nothing short of glorious.

  She wasn’t stick thin. Ben liked that. He knew the current fashion was for women to be almost anorexic looking, but he found a voluptuous woman to be far more attractive. Samantha had all the right curves in all the right places. She would be a handful for any man, he sensed that much. Fiery natured, she would be passionate and expressive, intense and emotional about the things that mattered to her.

  By contrast, Ben knew that he appeared cool, calm and collected most of the time.

  However, his outward demeanor was no indication of what went on beneath the surface. People occasionally mistook Ben’s reserve and composure for a lack of interest in what went on around him or absence of strong feeling.

  In this they were wrong.

  Ben was capable of very deep feeling and once his feelings were engaged, he was fiercely loyal, a steadfast friend and supporter. He had never been in love. He had had his share of crushes in school, naturally. In the years after getting out of high school he had dated various women and liked a few of them a lot. But his feelings never progressed to annoying he would consider love. Liking and loving were two entirely different things.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t want to fall in love.

  He did. In fact, he had really tried to fall in love with a couple of girls. But it didn’t happen. In his heart of hearts, he would like nothing better than to find the right woman, settle down with her and have a family. Maybe it was old fashioned, but he was basically an old fashioned kind of guy.

  His parents had been married for almost forty years and were still in love. Sure, they had spats and arguments from time to time. But they never stopped loving each other and neither could imagine life without the other. Ben had grown up in a happy home and wanted the same thing for himself. A loving wife, kids, the whole enchilada.

  He frowned. Samantha seemed like a free spirit. She was the epitome of a modern woman in every way. What little he had talked to her, she seemed caught up in her career and seemed to relish not having any ties as far as a romantic relationship. She spoke of New York

  City as being the greatest place in the world to live with its fast pace and never ending excitement.

  Could a woman like that be happy with a man like him?

  Ben had visi
ted big cities. He understood their appeal to a certain extent, but city living held no allure for him. Take New York, for example. He had been there several times and held with the old saying that it was a nice place to visit but he wouldn’t want to live there.

  He loved these mountains and to him this land provided an endless thrill. He had grown up here but that wasn’t all of why he loved it. Quite a few of the people he had gone to school with had been counting the days until they could get away from here and move somewhere else. Somewhere with more people, more cars, more action. Ben found all of the action and excitement he needed right here.

  In fact, sometimes his life was a little too exciting with more action than he really wanted. Sometimes the action and excitement came from animals and other times humans were the ones who caused problems for him. Between the two of them, though, Ben thought he preferred whatever the local wildlife dished out a whole lot better than the human brand of trouble.

  Animals were fairly predictable most of the time, whereas a drunk human with a gun was completely unpredictable as well as dangerous. Like almost all game wardens, Ben had had his share of run-ins with liquored up, belligerent hunters who were a disgrace to the true nature of hunting. At times, the troublemakers didn’t have to be under the influence to be bad news for both other humans and the animals they slaughtered just for sport.

  Ben had an uncomfortable feeling that Samantha O’Brien had the potential of becoming the biggest human-type problem he had ever encountered.

  Because after years of wanting to fall in love … of trying and failing to fall in love with perfectly suitable women who would mesh seamlessly into his life … he felt himself falling head over heels in love with one that was unsuitable for him in every way.

  Samantha was the polar opposite of what he believed would be the type of female to enjoy sharing his life. She made it crystal clear that she wasn’t interested in commitment, at least any time soon. And although she didn’t say anything negative about the wide open spaces up here in the mountains, she seemed distinctly underwhelmed with them. Last but not least, she openly admitted that her idea of excitement was a sale at a favorite boutique, bright lights, nightclubs and big crowds.

  In short, all the things that he didn’t like and a lifestyle that would make him thoroughly miserable.

  He laughed bitterly. Just his luck to finally lose his heart to someone who was so wrong for him but felt so right.

  Back home after her outing with Ben, Samantha made a cup of her favorite rooibos tea and sat in front of the fireplace savoring the herbal brew and watching the flickering flames. A fire was so cozy, she thought. It had a soporific, almost hypnotic effect. She could easily stretch out here on the couch and fall asleep.

  But, she told herself sternly, nap time could wait at least until after she made a stab at the first chapter of her book.

  Marielle had internet service of a sorts via satellite here at the cabin, but the bandwidth usage was capped and Sam didn’t want to use it all up on her writing, preferring to save most of the allotted amount to watch a little television in the evenings. Besides, she had buckled down and done all the research she needed for the book before leaving New York, so the word processor in her Microsoft program would suffice for her writing needs.

  She would get started as soon as she finished her tea. In the meantime, her thoughts drifted to Ben Connors and the time she had spent with him today.

  Lord, he was good looking! He was handsome in a movie star or male model sort of way although his features were rugged and masculine. All in all, Ben’s looks were distinctive and added up to a total package that was extremely appealing. She knew guys back in the city who would kill for Ben’s muscles and physique.

  His almost white blonde hair was cut fairly short, very thick and straight. The contrast between his light hair and dark eyebrows, not to mention those ridiculously long, thick dark eyelashes, was striking. She had already noted the slight hump in his nose that indicated evidence of a break at some point in his life. But instead of detracting from his looks, it enhanced them. His lips were full and had a sensuous shape.

  Sam indulged in a brief daydream of those lips claiming hers in a passionate kiss, telling herself it wouldn’t be long before she experienced Ben’s kisses for real.

  Moving on with her mental assessment of his face and body, she couldn’t overlook the potent attraction of those charming dimples that came into play when he smiled. His chin was firm and he had a strong jaw, always a plus in a man. Last but not least were those amazing eyes!

  Samantha sighed. Oh, those eyes. She had tried to study them surreptitiously this morning during their trip to see the eagle’s nest in an attempt to definitely identify their color. She had decided at one point that they were gray. But then they seemed to change and be a cool shade of pale blue. Then she looked again and thought she saw flecks of gold in them. Or green, maybe.

  She was perplexed, never having encountered a pair of eyes that seemed to change color like Ben’s. He had the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen in another human being and even if she couldn’t pin down their exact color, they were some kind of wonderful!

  Surprisingly, Samantha had enjoyed seeing the eagle’s nest more than she had expected to. That wasn’t her kind of thing and her primary reason for agreeing to go had been to spend time with the sexy game warden/cowboy. Still, she could see how people who were into the whole nature and wildlife scene would find it fascinating.

  A small frown clouded her features as she recalled what Ben had told her about poachers. Honestly, how awful of people to kill those magnificent birds and steal their eggs! Poaching probably wasn’t much of a problem in the city. Did New York City even have a game warden? If she had to hazard a guess, she would say no. She shook her head, reflecting that this sojourn in Wyoming was an eye opener in many ways as well as a learning experience.

  No longer than she had been here, Samantha was already forced to think about things she had never thought about before. Like protecting eagles, for example. She smiled, imagining introducing that topic into the conversation at a cocktail party or club.

  People would think she had lost her mind. The general conversation was usually about light, inconsequential things such as the latest gossip making the rounds about town or which art gallery was showing works of a new and interesting painter and more along those lines. Sometimes the talk turned to music, Broadway plays, movies or restaurants.

  But for the most part Samantha’s friends and acquaintances didn’t delve too deeply, if at all, into the things that Ben dealt with every day in his job. She couldn’t see him fitting into her circle. He was awesome out here in the mountains, no doubt about it. But he would be a fish out of water in her world.

  Still, she told herself, brightening, whether or not he would fit into her world was irrelevant since he wouldn’t need to try and adapt to life in the fast lane. She was in his world for the time being and her game plan was to make the most of the time she spent there.

  It would make a great book title, she told herself, chuckling. The Seduction of Ben Connors. Yeah, that had a nice ring to it. Samantha had never thought of herself as a seductress before since she was ordinarily the one being seduced. But the concept appealed

  to her and she thought she would make a darned good seductress. Who knows? She might practice her seductive wiles and hone her skills on Ben in case she ever ran into some other man she wanted to use them on.

  Samantha prided herself on being a thoroughly modern woman. The time honored concept of men being the pursuers was old hat, in her book. Modern females should feel free to go after a man they liked and desired, just the same as men did and had been doing for centuries. Why wait by the phone for a man to call you or play the demure maiden and wait for him to make the first move toward the bedroom?

  If a 21st century woman wanted to get to know a guy better, she could call him. If she was ready to get physical, she should consider herself at liberty to make her feelings kno
wn to the object of her desire.

  Speaking of desire, in all of her 31 years Samantha didn’t know when she had run across a member of the opposite sex who had the effect on her that Ben Connors did.

  Despite his Mr. Nice Guy demeanor and gentlemanly manners, he had a potent, raw sexual appeal that shifted her raging hormones into overdrive. Everything about him turned her on. Even his voice was sexy! Deep but not gruff, Ben’s voice was mellow and well modulated. He had played his guitar and sung a few songs at Marielle’s and Trey’s wedding, and Samantha recalled now what a beautiful singing voice he had.

  Face it, Sam, she told herself, the man is nearly perfect.

  But she had believed that about men before and been bitterly disappointed every time when she learned that far from being perfect, they either had some serious flaws or simply weren’t into her. She didn’t expect a man to be perfect. Not really. She knew that no human being was 100% perfect, including herself.

  Still, one of the guys she had dated for a while that seemed like a great catch had turned out to have a weird fascination for women’s lingerie. He had bought Samantha several pieces of frou-frou lingerie and sexy panties, which didn’t strike her as particularly bizarre. It was when he showed up with matching frilly babydoll nighties for the two of them that things felt weird. To her, anyway. He had been offended and defensive at her refusal to play dress up with him, saying that his predilection for women’s underwear wasn’t unnatural or strange.

  Sam was pretty broad minded and basically felt that whatever two consenting adults wanted to do in the privacy of the bedroom was fine, provided nobody got hurt. She knew that there were men who liked wearing women’s clothing, including lingerie, and wasn’t judgmental about it. However, she had discovered with that particular boyfriend that when it came to her own intimate relationships, wearing matching undies was a little out of her comfort zone.

  One guy had seemed like the sum total of everything every red blooded female was looking for in a male: handsome, great job, sense of humor, courteous, kind etc. etc.