by Cathie Linz
“Here, have some more peas,” she said in a grumbly tone of voice, grabbing the bowl and shoving it in Dylan’s direction.
She also wasn’t happy about this jolt of sexual awareness from something as simple as his fingers brushing hers as he took the bowl from her. But she was a big girl, and she wasn’t about to let something like chemistry control her. She was the one in control now.
Hondo wasn’t as lucky, wrestling as he was with the yellow plastic container of mustard, turning it upside down and squeezing it as if trying to wring the last gasp of life from it. Hondo was the only person Abigail had ever met who put mustard on everything—including tonight’s meal of meat loaf, mashed potatoes and peas.
“Works more expeditiously if you tilt it at an angle,” Shem informed his son.
“Say what?”
“Better,” Raj translated.
Hondo did as his father suggested, and sure enough the mustard finally came spurting out, along with the lid, spattering the tablecloth and poor Shem, who was sitting directly across from Hondo.
Aside from one pricelessly startled look, Shem’s way of handling the situation was to simply keep on eating, as if he didn’t have mustard dripping from his forehead and the bridge of his nose.
For the second time that day, Abigail lost control, laughing so hard tears came to her eyes and Dylan had to pat her on the back.
“I know the Himlicking maneuver if you’re choking,” Randy informed Abigail, which set her off again.
“What’d I say?” Randy asked in bewilderment.
“I need some air,” Abigail gasped in between the tears of mirth.
“Right-oh,” Randy said with a crack of his knuckles. “Step aside there, Dylan, and I’ll give her the Himlicking.”
“No, don’t do that,” Dylan said, somehow managing to keep a straight face. “I’ll take her outside so she can get some air.”
Once they were both outside, the cool night air and the closeness of Dylan by her side brought Abigail to her senses quickly enough.
Although it was nearly seven, the sun was still fairly high in the sky, nowhere near ready to set yet. This far north, sunset didn’t come until after ten in June. Now it was July, and the days continued to be long and lovely. Abigail had always considered it Mother Nature’s way of making up for the often brutal winters.
There was something about this time of year that had always given her a sense of peace, of hope. But that was before Dylan had ridden into her life. Now she felt restless and curious.
So she said, “When you helped me with Wild Thing earlier today, you said something about Gypsy legend-”
“When I saved your life, you mean?” Dylan interrupted her to say.
“Was that just a line?” she asked.
“About saving your life?”
“No, I meant about your having a Gypsy heritage.”
His jaw tightened. “Does that matter?”
She sensed a certain defensiveness in his attitude. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be nosy…”
“Sure you were.”
“Okay, so I was,” she amiably agreed. With a shrug, she added, “I’m a writer. I’m interested in people and their roots. Or aren’t rolling stones like you allowed to have roots?”
“I’ve got roots. Back in Chicago with my family.”
“You’re from Chicago?”
Dylan grinned at the way she said the city’s name, with the same sort of disdain used by most westerners to any city east of Denver. “I left home a long time ago. I’m the wanderer in my family. My dad says it’s due to my Rom blood, Gypsy blood, which I got from him. Both my parents came over from Hungary in the early sixties, before I was born. My dad is Rom, my mom isn’t.”
“Are you an only child?”
“Nope, I’ve got an older brother and sister—Michael and Gaylynn.”
“So you’re the baby in the family. That figures,” she murmured half under her breath.
“What figures?”
“The baby in the family is often spoiled with too much attention.”
“You read that in some book? Or are you speaking from personal experience?”
“I’m an only child.”
“Which means you were definitely spoiled.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Maybe it’s the way you walk around with your nose in the air.”
“I do not!”
“Not that it’s not a cute nose, mind. Just a mite haughty.”
“If this is your awkward attempt to endear yourself to me…”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“It seems to go with the territory,” she muttered darkly.
“And what territory might that be?”
“Cowboy territory.”
“And I suppose you know all about cowboys?”
“I could write the book on them. In fact, I have written several of them. So trust me, I know all about cowboys with itchy feet,” she loftily informed him.
“My feet aren’t what’s itching at the moment,” Dylan lazily assured her. “It’s something much higher up on my…anatomy.”
“I have no wish to discuss your anatomy.”
“You’d rather just look at it.”
“That’s right. I mean, of course not!”
“So you would rather talk about it.”
“I’d rather ignore it.”
“So would I. But that’s hard to do, no pun intended, when I have this fierce ache…”
“I don’t want to hear about it!”
“Right here…” His hand hovered suggestively before landing on his thigh.
“Maybe you should put some horse liniment on it,” she suggested tartly. “I hear it works real well on stubborn mules, as well.”
With that, she turned on her heel and marched back inside, leaving Dylan staring after her.
“First I’m cuter than a moose and now I’m a stubborn mule. I think she likes me,” Dylan informed the orange barn cat curled up on the crooked front-porch swing. “I think she likes me a lot!”
Dylan’s first week at the ranch flew by. Working from dawn until dusk when daylight lasted for over fifteen hours would do that to a man, make time fly by. But working for a woman like Abigail Turner did other things to a man, like turning his head. She’d done that, all right—with her wild curls that she constantly battled to keep out of her eyes, eyes as blue as the big Montana sky.
While standing under a spray of cold water from the shower, Dylan sang the opening lines of a George Strait classic. Cold showers had become a daily ritual for him since meeting up with Abbie. After getting dressed, Dylan grabbed a bottle of juice out of the tiny fridge and drank it straight from the bottle, all the white wondering what Abbie was doing this morning.
Dylan always thought of her as Abbie, even during those times when she stuck her adorable nose in the air and went all haughty on him. He’d never really had to chase after a woman before; usually they seemed to swarm around like bees to honey. Dylan was cynical enough to suspect that the buckle bunnies who followed the rodeo trail had found his championship buckle as appealing as he was. He’d noticed there sure as hell hadn’t been any groupies hanging around the hospital when he’d been released.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he replaced the juice bottle and cooked up a mean Mexican omelet.
Dylan had just finished eating when he heard someone banging on his front door. It was Shem.
“Did you hear that strange noise?” the older man demanded. “It’s stopped now, but it sounded kinda like a cross between a hyena and the howl of a mad dog. Randy claims he heard something that sounded like George Strait lyrics, but I told him no human being could sound like that.”
Dylan wasn’t about to admit that he was the culprit. It wasn’t the first time he’d had this kind of reaction to his singing. Grown men had been known to crumple and beg for mercy when he let loose. Instead, he muttered, “I didn’t hear a thing. Was that why you stopped by?”
“That and mail call. Got a package here for you. Thought I’d drop it off before heading on out.” Without further ado, Shem shoved the package at him and took off.
The cardboard was dented and dinged, as if it had been shunted from pillar to post. Looking at the address label, he realized that indeed the package had made the rounds—starting with down in Arizona and following him three states north at his various forwarding addresses until reaching him here. The return address was almost illegible after all the official-looking postal stamps marked on it, but further study told him that it was from his sister, Gaylynn. The postmark was late May, nearly two months ago, and was listed as Lonesome Gap, North Carolina.
When he’d phoned his mother for her birthday a few weeks back, she’d told him that Gaylynn had gone and married Hunter Davis down in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The last time Dylan had seen Gaylynn had been April, at their older brother Michael’s wedding to Brett. And now Gaylynn was married, too.
Dylan shook his head, hoping this matrimony bug wasn’t contagious somehow. Not that marriage had been in his short-term plans before the accident, but now it was even further off. First he had to see how his recovery went this summer. He had orders to return to the doctor in Arizona come September for another evaluation. If the truth be known, Dylan still had this fantasy that he’d be able to return to the rodeo circuit. Reality dictated otherwise, but it was just so damn hard for him to accept that he’d never return to the life he’d loved for more years than he could remember.
Returning his attention to the package, he opened it up, thinking that he really should send Gaylynn and Hunter a wedding gift, even if they had eloped. His sister had looked and acted pretty skittish the last time he’d seen her, unusual for her since she was the fearless one in the family. But maybe that was because he’d seen her at Michael’s wedding and reception, neither one of which had been a quiet affair—not with dozens and dozens of Janos cousins attending. His family was not known for their subdued natures.
Which was why Dylan hadn’t told them about him being in the hospital. They would only have gotten hysterical and flown down to Arizona on the next plane. He’d had enough to cope with.
Despite the battering the package had taken en route, Gaylynn had packed the contents well, with plenty of those irritating plastic peanuts that stuck to your fingers like glue.
He found the note first.
Dear Baby Brother,
Hope this reaches you in good shape. I’ve enclosed the paperwork on this surprise for you, from the original note from our great-aunt Magda in Hungary, to the Post-it note Michael wrote me. I hope the box serves you as well as it has Michael and me. And listen, I think there’s a side effect of this whole thing—I don’t know how to explain it other than saying a new skill is bestowed upon the owner. For me, it was drawing—remember how I could never even draw a straight line before? I’ll have you know that I’ve even sold several of my sketches now! Who’d have thunk it, huh?
Enjoy, Gaylynn
P.S. It’s very old so take good care of it! Don’t go tossing it into that sorry excuse of a bag you call a suitcase.
P.P.S. How about giving me a call sometime? They do have phones in Arizona, right? You heard I’m a married woman now? You remember how I had a crush on Hunter when I was thirteen? I almost gave you a black eye for saying that, so I figured you’d remember. The folks aren’t happy that we eloped, but they are glad I resigned from the Chicago public-school system. Now I’m working at the Lonesome Gap Lending Library and very involved with bringing new life to this delightfully quirky town.
Attached to his sister’s stationery was a crumpled Post-it note from Michael to Gaylynn. Dylan’s older brother was much more laconic than his sister was, and his note was correspondingly brief.
Thought you might find this interesting. Brett swears it worked in our case. Judge for yourself.
And last of all was a letter in an unfamiliar spidery handwriting.
Oldest Janos son,
It is time for you to know the secret of our family and bahtali—this is magic that is good. But powerful. I am sending to you this box telling you for the legend. I am getting old and have no time or language for story’s beginning, you must speak to parents for such. But know only this charmed box has powerful Rom magic to find love where you look for it. Use carefully and you will have much happiness. Use unwell and you will have trouble.
Reaching into the package one more time, Dylan found a tissue-paper-wrapped item. When he finally unwrapped it, he discovered an intricately engraved metal box. So this was the famous box—the one involving an out-of-whack love charm and a no-account count, as his sister had put it at the time.
Dylan had heard about it when he’d gone home for Michael’s wedding. This little box had supposedly brought him and his new bride, Brett, together. And now Gaylynn thought it had done the same for her and Hunter.
Dylan just shook his head. His brother and sister had always been more fanciful than he was. He’d never heard if there was anything inside the box, though. All he’d heard was that after opening it, you fell in love with the first person of the opposite sex you looked at—if you believed that kind of thing, which he didn’t. Shaking the box, he heard something hard clinking inside. Come to think of it, the box was kind of heavy for something so compact.
Opening it up, he found out why—inside was a flat geode the likes of which he’d never seen before.
A sudden shrieking scream jarred his attention from the geode and the Gypsy box to the front window, where he saw Abbie. She had her back to him and she appeared to be clutching the top rung of the corral’s log fence. Her next shriek turned into a wail as she lost her footing and slipped, landing smack dab in the middle of a Montana-sized mud puddle.
Four
For a second or two, the Gypsy box seemed to hum in Dylan’s hands before he abruptly set it down, all his attention now focused on Abbie, who had yet to get up. Had she hurt herself when she’d fallen? It wasn’t that far from the top rung to the ground, but all you had to do was fall the wrong way…hell, he’d seen it happen enough times on the circuit.
Almost yanking the sagging cabin door off its hinges, Dylan rushed outside to check on Abbie. He came up from behind her, hunkering down to her side so he could see her face.
“Are you okay?” he demanded. “Did you hurt yourself? Is anything broken?”
“Just my image. Only a greenhorn falls off a corral fence,” Abigail noted in rueful disgust. Seeing his concerned expression, she reassured him, “I’m not hurt, just embarrassed.”
“Then why the hell didn’t you get up?”
“Well, since I’m down here, I decided I might as well enjoy the luxury of the moment,” Abigail replied with dry humor before adding, “You know, some women pay good money for a mud bath. Supposed to do wonders for the skin.”
Dylan just shook his head as he held out a hand to help Abbie stand up. She never reacted the way he thought she would. Just when he thought he had her figured out, she threw him a curve. She had plenty of curves, from her silky hair to her lush breasts.
“Here, let me help you up,” he said.
She shook her head, the wild waves of her golden hair bouncing around her slightly mud-spattered face. “That’s okay, I can do it myself.”
What she did herself was slip again, her supporting hand shooting out from under her and almost sending her facedown in the mud.
Dylan said, “Unless you’re planning on making that a mud face mask, too, I’d suggest you take my hand.”
“All right. Just don’t try any funny stuff,” she warned him before cautiously holding her hand out to him.
“Trust me, you look funny enough for both of us,” he drawled, twining his fingers through hers as he helped her up.
“I’m getting you all muddy,” she noted remorsefully, trying to disentangle her fingers from his before she got him even messier.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” he murmured. “I’ve b
een dumped in my share of mud holes.”
“Really? And here I was thinking you were such a hit with the ladies,” she saucily stated.
“Very clever. You’ve got mud on your nose.” When she instinctively raised her hand to wipe it away, he said, “No, don’t do that. You’ll just make it worse.”
Looking down at her mud-spattered jeans, she ruefully replied, “I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Anything is possible,” he whispered before lowering his head to brush his lips across hers. Having expected a more forceful approach from him, she was charmed by his gentleness.
He cupped her elbows in his lean hands, but made no attempt to tug her into his arms. He didn’t need to; his kiss was powerful enough to keep her close as he let his mouth do the convincing. The promise of more to come was there as he shifted his mouth and coaxed her lips to part, transforming the sweet kiss into a heated celebration of hunger and desire.
Abigail wanted him with a sudden fierceness that shocked her. Common sense was swept aside as certainly as his tongue swept across the delicately curved roof of her mouth. Her tongue darted to meet his with joyful eagerness. She hung on to the belt loops of his jeans as the world spun out of control all around her. With every breath she took, her breasts brushed against his chest, creating a waterfall of pleasure cascading throughout her entire body.
As if sensing her unsteadiness, Dylan slid one arm around her waist while shifting his other hand up to cup the back of her neck, enabling him to pull her more completely into his kiss, deepening it to another level of intensity.
Somehow she’d known with a feminine instinct that kissing Dylan would be dangerous to her peace of mind, but she hadn’t had a clue that this kind of mindless bliss would be involved. This was alarming…so why wasn’t she fighting? Why was she melting against him?
Because this felt too darn good to stop now.
She had no idea how long she would have stood at the edge of the horse corral—in plain view of the ranch house and the barn, kissing Dylan as if her life depended on it—had she not been interrupted by the unique blare of the horn on Ziggy’s four-wheel-drive vehicle. It blared out the opening of The Sound of Music.
