“What is this thing you want that you’ll fight for? Kids? Grandkids?”
“Absolutely. The things my parents never got to have.”
“And you’d like to give them a ruined landscape?”
“It doesn’t have to ruin it. You saw one disaster out of thousands of oil wells.”
“One disaster you can still see the effects of twelve years later if you go look.”
“Oh, and you have?”
“As a matter of fact, I have. Last winter when I was home.” He actually looked impressed. Harper glared at him. “I don’t just talk through my ass, Cole. I do my research.”
“Okay. I’ve never said you weren’t smart. You’re damn smart, Harper. And you care. I love that you care. But why hate this so much? Everyone uses oil. You flew here. You drove on asphalt made of petroleum. Finding oil here could help your family out.”
“I wish I didn’t have such a big footprint. I don’t back in Chicago. I’m vain about that.” She offered a tiny, sheepish smile. “But I don’t have an alternative. Believe me, if I were smart enough to come up with an electric airplane, I’d be the first on that project.”
“I believe you.”
“Look,” she said. “I know we can’t go back to zero oil in this world. That’s not my goal. But we’ll never have other alternatives that are affordable if places like Paradise Ranch keep feeding into the big money oil pot. That’s all.”
“So it is purely philosophical for you?”
“No!” She wanted to throttle him for his dogged attack. So what if it was philosophical? Everyone had a philosophy. She was now seeing his, too. One wasn’t right and the other wrong. “I do love this place. I do want it pristine. Why isn’t that enough? You should want it pristine, too, for these illusory future grandchildren of yours.”
“I want it to be, period.”
“There are other ways to save it.”
“I’ll grant you that. Today we’re exploring one way.”
They fell silent, and he put his arm around her again. Maybe they’d drawn lines in the sand, but she appreciated that he wasn’t angry. Surprisingly, her own irritation had gone, too.
“Do you want kids?” he asked.
What the heck? Her brain had brought the topic of children up just that morning. This had to be some weird kind of psychic disturbance in The Force, she thought.
“I haven’t thought much about it,” she said. “I don’t think I do right now, the way my life is. You want a whole bunch, it sounds like.”
“Two or three to carry on the legacy.”
“Are you forgetting how well that didn’t work for Sam Crockett?” She said it lightly, but a seed of melancholy sprouted deep within her.
“Sam Crockett has six amazing daughters. They’ll figure out his legacy.”
His questions stopped. He embraced her shoulders again. She stared a long, silent while into the distance, across a view she’d memorized years and years ago. She did love it. She loved it with every fiber of her innermost being. And despite Cole’s points—valid ones, she had to admit—she would find a way to keep this untarnished for the future. Even if she came here alone when she was Grandma Sadie’s age to view it.
Cole stretched his long legs straight out and smiled. He made no move on her, and she was glad, despite the continuing thrill of being so close. She relaxed into his strong, silent western hero side and followed his lazy gaze to the horses, still staked by the bushes they were contentedly decimating. He reached up to scratch his chest and closed his eyes.
His muscles contracted and froze into a giant, steel block.
“Oh shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Harper!”
She shot to her feet at his sudden, frenzied cry, and he, too, rocketed to a stand. His hat hit the ground, his eyes rounded with genuine terror, and he flapped his arms and hunched his back like a drunken flamingo.
“What? What? Cole what’s wrong?” She jumped to his side.
“It’s in my shirt. It’s flippin’ in my shirt. Oh, freakin’ God, it’s big as my hand.”
“What is? What are you talking about?” She didn’t know whether to laugh at his ridiculous dance or panic along with him.
“I think it’s one of those damn hobo spiders. What do I do? Those mother-effers are poisonous.”
He clutched at his shirt, feeling for the thing he believed was going to dispatch his life on the spot. The strong, silent hero had turned into a babbling idiot. At least, she thought, now holding back a laugh, here was another thing that hadn’t changed. His pathological arachnophobia.
She tried to catch one of his flailing arms.
“The first thing you have to do is stop jumping around like Pinocchio,” she said, barely hanging on to her straight face. “Stand still so if there really is a spider, you don’t scare it. Do you think it’s bitten you?”
“Don’t even say that.” He whimpered.
“You big baby. Pull your shirt off.” He stared as if he hadn’t understood the command. “Stop backing up!”
“Give me a grizzly bear any time,” he moaned.
“Where is this death-dealing creature?”
“You’re not funny. God, it’s still crawling.”
She couldn’t contain the laughter anymore. Even if it was a hobo spider, even if it did bite him, there was debate about how dangerous the bites were, and there were easily accessible antidotes. Her big, safe, strong friend was hilarious. With her palm, she pressed against his shirt and twisted it softly, feeling along his left pectoral. She jumped a little when she felt the inch-round bulge. Instinctively she gathered the fabric and captured the spider.
“Got him.”
She literally felt the shiver shimmer through Cole’s body. Tilting her head, she gazed up into his face, which was finally draining of panic. A woodsy, warm scent emanated from his flushed skin—even at his least macho, his power was substantial.
“Thank you.” His breath floated onto her face. “You saved me.”
“Unless you got bitten. Then I’m too late.”
“I retract my thanks.” He uttered a low growl as he worked his shirt buttons open. “You’re evil.”
“I’m enjoying this.”
He shrugged out of his shirt only to wind up with Harper holding part of his snowy-white T-shirt along with the limp plaid fabric. “Great.”
She couldn’t say a word from a mouth suddenly as dry as mountain scree. The T-shirt stretched even more nicely than the sweater from yesterday over well-defined arms and pecs she absolutely didn’t remember from the last time they’d gone river swimming. Where was that wiry, skinny kid when she needed him?
“Pull the undershirt off, too.” She managed to choke the words out.
Cole shucked it, shivered, and brushed his hand roughly over his torso as if clearing away the last of his heebie-jeebies. Then he bent and brushed out his hair, leaving it with even more of its signature spiky messiness.
“Guess I’ve wrecked that mood,” he said.
“Good thing you had a big, strong woman to take care of the problem.”
“Yeah.” He caught her eyes, and not a touch of embarrassment shone in his. “You know, I’ve always hated spiders. Don’t know why, but clearly I haven’t gotten any better. Thanks.”
She stood less than a foot from his bare chest. For all the masculine scruff that showed up on his face by late afternoon every day, the skin before her was gloriously smooth and solid and pretty much the hottest thing she’d seen in longer than she could remember. She had to back away or risk reaching out to stroke the flat plane over his heart.
“I . . . you’re welcome. Doofus.”
He waggled his brow. “So, you gonna finish the job with the thing in my shirt or are you just going to stand there and hold it?”
“I think I’m going to make you ride back shirtless. If it happens again we don’t have to go through this. You can brush it off.”
“Oh no. Uh-uh.”
She smiled at last and looked at the bunched shirts
in her hand. Slowly she uncurled her fist. Cole backed away like a startled mustang. In the center of a web of wrinkles, stark against the white cotton of the undershirt, sat an inch-long brown-ish spider with classically freaky arched legs and two zig-zag brown stripes down its abdomen.
“Do you, like, sit and study spiders so much that you recognize them in split seconds?” she teased. “These guys aren’t that easy to ID.”
“Last summer Leif said he’d noticed a couple of spots infested with hobos. I leaped to the conclusion.”
“You’re a freak.” She grinned and walked several feet away to shake the spider out behind a different rock outcropping.
“Wait, you aren’t going to kill it?”
“Why? We invaded its home. It won’t be back here before we leave.”
“Now who’s the freak?” He grabbed his T-shirt from her and held it up, inspecting every inch. “Bring on the well drillers—wipe out the spiders.”
Harper shook her head and settled her gaze on his incredibly beautiful torso, flexing in preparation for donning the shirt. A snarky comment to cover her deep, deep enjoyment formed at her lips and hung there ready to fly, when a soft crash and sibilant spray of scree pebbles spun them both in place. Right above them on a slight path behind more large rocks, Skylar Thorson sprawled on her butt, scarlet creeping up her cheeks.
Chapter Six
COLE WATCHED THE disoriented teen scramble to her feet and back defensively toward the rock she’d apparently slid from. As she drew back, she gathered up a book of some kind and held it roughly against her stomach.
“Skylar?” Harper called. “Are you all right?”
Cole’s first thought, since he could see the girl wasn’t injured, was to wonder what she was doing there in the first place.
“Fine,” Skylar called.
“Come on down here.”
“I’ll just go home.”
“Oh no.” Harper shook her head and crooked a finger. “Come.”
The teen picked her way slowly down the short slope. She glanced at Cole but turned quickly away, a scowl on her face. Surprised, with no clue what he’d done to deserve the stink eye, he pulled his T-shirt over his head and smoothed it down.
“Well, well, hi there,” Harper said when Skylar stood in front of them. “This is a surprise. Can I ask what you’re doing here?”
For a moment she said nothing. “I heard you tell my mom where you were riding. They let you take my horse without asking me, so I came to keep an eye on him.” Her pointed little chin rose in a small show of bravado.
“We looked for you so we could ask, but you weren’t home.”
“I wasn’t that far away. They could have found me.”
“Then I’m sorry. We would have left Bungu alone if you’d wanted us to. I get that you don’t know me well enough to know if I’ll ride him carefully. Still, that’s not really a reason to come spying.”
“It’s not Bung-goo,” she said, ignoring the apology and the mild chastisement. “It’s Boong-goo. Everyone gets it wrong, even my mom. It’s Shoshone for horse.”
“Bungu.” Harper pronounced it correctly. “I’ll remember. Would it help if I told you he’s every bit as brave and perfect as you said he was?”
Skylar’s defensive posture eased—like any woman whose child got complimented. “He’s a really awesome horse.”
“He is. But this is a long way to come on foot. Seems a little extreme. You sure you aren’t spying on us for some other reason, too?”
The teen shrugged. “I’m not spying. It wasn’t hard to follow you. I do cross-country at our homeschool sports group. It’s the only sport Mom lets me do because it doesn’t cost much and the coach goes to our church. I could do chess, but I don’t like chess.”
“Bummer.” Cole interrupted her. “Chess keeps your brain young.”
“Don’t mind him. He was captain of the chess team in high school. It was his only claim to glory.” Harper fixed him with a teasing grin, but couldn’t control her eyes as her gaze moved down his torso and back up. He grabbed his outer shirt.
Skylar, too, gave him a dazed up and down assessment. When he tried to smile at her, she whipped her gaze away again. The defensiveness returned.
“Like I said, I run a lot.”
“Does your mom know where you are?” Harper asked.
“I come out exploring all the time. It’s fine.”
Cole exchanged a skeptical glance with Harper. “We had lunch earlier. Would you like a brownie or something to drink?” he asked.
Skylar shook her head and stuffed her hands into her jean pockets, her notebook, or whatever it was, wedged between one arm and her side. “Are you going to sell the ranch?”
Harper’s jaw dropped.
“Who told you they might be selling?” Cole asked.
“I hear stuff. My grandpa talks to Dad, and Dad talks to Mom. And now you want to let there be oil wells here.”
“Look,” Cole said, hoping somebody who wasn’t family wouldn’t sound like he was sugarcoating the truth. “I promise, the talk you’re hearing is just that, talk.”
“We don’t want to sell the ranch,” Harper said firmly. “And we didn’t invite the oil company people to come, our dad did. So we don’t know anything about that yet.”
Cole eased out a long sigh. In his opinion, a fourteen-year-old child didn’t need to know anything about the business decisions being discussed on the ranch. All it would take was for her to blab to one friend, and some person in Wolf Paw Pass would start rumors—correct or incorrect. Paradise Ranch’s problems could be spread across Wyoming.
“We should probably head out,” he said, quietly ending the conversation.
Harper didn’t argue and turned toward the girl. “I’m guessing you’d rather ride Bungu home. I’m telling you, if I ride him, I won’t want to give him back. He’s like driving a brand new sports car.”
A smile darted across Skylar’s mouth. “Okay.”
“And how are you getting home, smart girl?” Cole turned to Harper.
“Maybe somebody will give me a lift?” She raised her brows and glanced from Cole to Skylar.
“Bungu doesn’t carry double yet,” the girl said. “He still kind of bucks.”
Cole immediately felt the result of Skylar’s announcement, as his pulse kicked into high gear. The idea of Harper sitting behind him on a horse for an hour and a half sent happy shivers coursing through his body. Right along with a little bit of dread. Cuddling with her next to a rock with the safe, unsexy topic of oil wells and the future between them was one thing. Having her sweet, very sexy body pressed up to his on the back of a swaying horse was quite another. Nonetheless, his lips and voice formed the words.
“Guess you’ll have to ride with me.”
Harper’s wide eyes mirrored the tension in his body perfectly. “I guess you’re right,” she said.
Their mutual uncertainty intertwined and spread like an infection. He wondered if there was a vaccination against attraction.
Once the horses were ready to go, Skylar mounted Bungu, and Cole swung back up on Paco. Harper used a large rock as a mounting block and still had to encircle Cole’s torso in order to hoist herself up behind him. She settled in behind the saddle, holding him around the waist as they jostled to get underway. He liked her touch. He reveled in the distraction of her body’s pressure against him and marveled at the way she fit against the curve of his back like a soft, custom-made sweater. It took a solid fifteen minutes along the trail for him to get his mind, body, and voice to all behave together again.
“You ride as well as you always did.” He finally teased her, when his words felt normal and his skin shivered only slightly from her touch.
“Hard to forget when a person rode before she could walk.”
“The perks of being a ranch kid. We might not know the future, Harpo, but do you miss this sometimes anyway? Do you think about growing up here?”
“Sure I do. It was like growing up in Disneyl
and. And I never think I miss Paradise when I’m back home in Chicago. Well, okay, I miss this—the horses—but it takes a trip back to remember how grand it all is. And after this visit, it’ll be very hard to leave.”
“I assume you really do think this art show is worth it?”
“What do you mean? Of course I do.” Her half-wounded words pressed against his neck like a physical touch.
“All I mean is that you should be sure you’re truly following your heart. Don’t leave here for any other reason than it’s exactly what you want. It’s a first rate show, isn’t that what you said?”
“It’s exactly what I want. And I don’t know how first rate my stuff will make it, but Crucible is a classy gallery—not a dive or a struggling, starving artist’s place. My work will hang in the same hall as a lot of big name local artists. I’m excited and honored.”
“All right then. That’s what I’m talking about.”
Cole let Skylar, ahead of them, take a solid lead. She rode like a ranch kid, too, easy in the saddle with a light touch on the reins and a long-legged confidence.
“You met our little spy before she showed up here,” he said. “What’s her story?”
Harper’s answering sigh brushed the back of his neck. “I don’t know for sure. I came across her sketching yesterday and found she’s very talented for a fourteen-year-old. I only talked to her for five minutes. She and her brothers, Marcus and Aiden, are homeschooled. That’s why they’re able to roam around. Melanie gave them a vacation day today.”
“I’ve heard that from Leif. He really thinks his grandkids should get into the public school in Wolf Paw Pass, but he says Melanie is a pretty devout woman. She thinks this is the way to protect the kids from bad influences.”
“Skylar hinted yesterday at not loving school. But parents have to do what they think is best, I guess.”
“You know, she’s taken some sort of dislike to me,” he said. “I got the hairy eyeball a couple of times. Never had that happen before. Is it because she’s turned into a real teenager? What did I do?”
To his surprise, Harper chuckled. “Trust me, she doesn’t hate you. That was no hairy eyeball; it was pure embarrassment she was trying to disguise. She thinks you’re the only hot guy in Teton, Jackson, and Sublette counties combined. Which may be the entire geographical extent of her world.”
The Bride Wore Denim Page 9
