by Ann Roth
Feeling tender and protective, he pulled the covers up over her shoulders. Lana mumbled and burrowed closer.
Sly felt unbelievable. Great. Complete.
Hold the fort. He didn’t want these emotions, couldn’t take the risk of caring too much.
She could leave him, and as with most everyone else he’d ever cared about, probably would. That scared him even more than his overpowering feelings for her.
As he started to untangle his limbs from hers, his groin accidentally brushed against her hand.
Just like that, he was hard again. He slid his palm over her bottom, then between her legs. Her breath caught in the aroused little sound he’d come to anticipate.
They began to make love again, and for a long time Sly didn’t have a single coherent thought.
* * *
MUCH LATER, AFTER enjoying the best sex of his life—twice—Sly lay on his back with one arm under his head and the other around Lana.
It was going to take a while to recover. Then she kissed his rib cage with her soft, warm lips. As spent as he was, his body stirred and he wanted her all over again.
God help him, he couldn’t get enough of her, and didn’t think he ever would. While he debated how to deal with that, she propped herself on her elbows.
“I never knew it could be like this,” she said, staring at him as if he were something special.
“We have great chemistry.”
“It’s more than that. When we make love, you’re so considerate and caring.”
“Are you saying your previous lovers weren’t—not even your ex?”
“Let’s just say that Brent was more into his own satisfaction than mine.”
Sly didn’t understand guys like that. “He didn’t deserve you. You were right to divorce him.”
“He divorced me,” she corrected in the straightforward way he admired. “I was hurt and it took me a while to move on. But I can’t say I’m sorry about the divorce. Because if Brent and I had stayed together—” she planted a sweet kiss on Sly’s chest “—I wouldn’t be here now with you.”
It was about as close to a declaration of love as she could get without saying the words. Sly wasn’t ready for that, but she knew the score. She kissed his rib cage, then his belly. His mind blanked.
He was tasting his way down her body when her stomach growled. Loudly.
Chuckling, he gave up. “I guess it’s time to feed you again.”
Lana smiled and shrugged. “Apparently.”
They were in the kitchen, foraging through the fridge, when the first bars of “Mama Knows” filled the air. “Is that your cell phone?” Sly asked.
Lana straightened and turned away from the fridge. She was wearing one of his clean T-shirts. It almost swallowed her up. Sly liked that.
“Yep. It’s my mother—the last person I want to talk to. It’s almost ten-thirty. She’s usually in bed by now.” She shot Sly a panicked look. “What if something’s happened?”
“Maybe you should answer it.”
“Talk to my mom right after you and I had sex?”
“She won’t know that. This might be a good time to mention me,” he suggested.
He saw right away she wasn’t ready for that conversation. “Tell her some other time, then,” he said. “Listen, I haven’t checked my phone since I left here before your doctor’s appointment. I’ll do that while you talk to her.”
* * *
BEFORE LANA ANSWERED her cell phone, she sat down at the kitchen table. Sly was standing at the counter, listening to his messages. Shirtless and barefoot, with the top button of his jeans undone, he looked like a walking ad for sex appeal—except for the stunned expression on his face. Lana was so curious about that, she almost ignored her chirping phone.
She answered just as Sly disconnected and joined her at the table.
“Hi, Mom,” she said, rolling her eyes at him. “You’re calling so late. Is everything okay?”
“Yes, fine.”
“That’s a relief.” Lana let out a sigh. “I’m sort of busy right now. Can I call you back in the morning?”
“Let me guess—you’re online, visiting that adoption site again, hoping to find a pregnant girl who wants her baby to go to a single mother.”
If that wasn’t the beginning of a lecture... Lana was relieved she’d never told her mother about Sophie, and anxious to get her mother off the phone. “No internet for me tonight,” she said. “This is something completely different.” She smiled at Sly.
His solemn expression puzzled her.
“Well, it must be important,” her mother said, sounding out of sorts. “In the past hour, I’ve called you twice. Both times I had to leave a message. I’m glad you finally decided you could spare a moment to talk to me.”
“Way to guilt-trip me, Mom. I, uh, left my phone in the kitchen, and didn’t hear it ring before.”
Which was true. Her phone had been in her purse, which she’d placed on the counter. “You’re usually asleep by now. Whatever you have to say must be important.”
“It is. Your father and I heard from Cousin Tim earlier and I have some interesting news. He’s decided to countersue Mr. Pettit.”
Lana’s jaw dropped. “Cousin Tim is countersuing Sly...er, Mr. Pettit?” she repeated for Sly’s benefit.
She saw by his grim expression that he’d already heard. He pointed at his phone. Someone must have left him a message about it.
“That’s right,” her mother said. “It seems a few of Cousin Tim’s cows have turned up sick. One even died. He’s claiming that Sly Pettit poisoned them.”
Sly wouldn’t do that. Or would he? Of course not, Lana assured herself. Yet she distinctly remembered what Sly had said that night at the Italian restaurant. That he was tired of waiting for the lawsuit to settle and that he wished he could do something to push it along.
Was this was his way of righting the wrongs he believed her cousin had done?
Doubts crept in, unwanted but impossible to ignore. As Lana met Sly’s gaze, she suddenly felt sick.
In a blink, his eyes lost all warmth. His entire expression shuttered and closed, almost as if he’d read her mind.
Without a word, he stood and spun away from her, his shoulders set and his spine stiff. Lana realized that somehow he’d sensed her suspicion.
He opened the back door, walked out and shut it behind him with a firm click.
Her mother was saying something about Cousin Tim, but Lana couldn’t focus. “I have to go,” she said.
She disconnected and then headed outside to find Sly.
Chapter Eighteen
Sly was still reeling from Dave Swain’s message. Tim Carpenter’s accusations and countersuit—all of it was a big load of bull crap, stuff he would deal with when he contacted the attorney in the morning.
What he couldn’t handle was Lana’s off-the-cuff gut reaction to the news. Her expression had clearly revealed that she suspected he’d poisoned Carpenter’s cattle.
That stung and made him mad, too. Mostly at himself for breaking his own cardinal rule and trusting her. And for starting to care.
What a damn fool he was. He wanted to head for the barn, jump on Bee and gallop through the darkness until his mind emptied. But he needed his boots for that, and they were in his bedroom. Sly wasn’t about to return to the house until he pulled himself together.
And so he paced the porch in his bare feet. The motion-activated lights kicked on, and he could easily see where he was going. Step around the furniture. Thud-thud-thud. Pivot around and don’t think. Thud-thud-thud.
He was starting his third lap and nowhere near calm when the back door opened and Lana slipped outside. Light from the kitchen sliced right through the T-shirt he’d loaned her, silhouetting her naked body. The body
he lusted after and couldn’t get enough of.
Even now, smarting and angry, he wanted her. Sly called himself every name in the book—idiot, lamebrain, stupid jerk and a few four-letter epithets he wouldn’t use on his worst enemy.
Lana reached out to him. “Please, can we talk?”
“What for?” He stepped away from her. “You assume I poisoned those cows.”
On the slim hope that he’d misread her, he sucked in a breath and waited for her to deny it. She didn’t.
His laugh sounded hollow even to his own ears. “You should leave,” he said.
“Not like this.”
“That’s right—you’re wearing my shirt. Go upstairs and get your clothes.”
“That’s not what I meant, Sly, and you know it. If you want me to go, I will, but not while you’re angry. First we have to straighten this out.”
“You should have thought about that before you assumed I poisoned your cousin’s cows.”
Barefoot or not, if he didn’t get some space, he’d explode. He strode down the porch steps and kept going, wincing as he stepped on pebbles and God knew what else, until he heard the kitchen door close as Lana reentered the house.
Before long she was outside again, in her own clothes, purse slung over her shoulder and keys in hand. She stopped right in front of him, just beyond the reach of the porch light. Even so, he could see the gleam of her pleading eyes.
“You wouldn’t poison anyone’s cattle,” she said. “Neither would Cousin Tim. I just... His countersuit caught me by surprise.”
Nothing she said explained the shock and horror on her face when her mother had told her what had happened. That Lana had suspected him, even for a moment, was unacceptable. Unbearable.
Sly’s heart constricted painfully. He had trusted her, but she couldn’t trust him. He gave a terse nod. “Good night, Lana.”
Her mouth trembled, and for a minute he feared she was going to cry. God above, he hoped not. He was already treading on thin emotional ice himself, hurt to the quick and barely holding it together.
But she only raised her chin and walked past him, into the darkness and toward her car.
* * *
SLY WOKE UP Wednesday in a bum mood, and things only got worse after he spoke with his attorney. “I didn’t do it,” he told Dave.
“I know that, Sly.”
His attorney believed in him. Why couldn’t Lana?
He was still kicking himself for letting his guard down last night. For allowing her to get too close.
“The question is, can you prove it to Tim Carpenter?” his attorney asked.
“How the hell am I supposed to prove I didn’t do it?” Sly grumbled. “I assume he had an autopsy done on the animal that died.”
“He used the same vet as you. His heifer had arsenic poisoning. The three that are sick have the same symptoms, but they’ll probably survive.”
“Sounds very similar to what happened to my cattle,” Sly said. “Carpenter must think I’m retaliating for what he did. Oh, that’s rich. What am I supposed to do now?”
“My suggestion is for you and Tim Carpenter to work with a mediation attorney. I can recommend one who’s top-notch. I spoke with him earlier and he’s willing to work with the two of you to reach some kind of resolution.”
“There’s nothing to resolve,” Sly said. “I didn’t do it.”
“As you know all too well, Tim Carpenter is claiming the same thing.”
Sly mumbled a few choice words and for the first time, considered a new angle. What if someone else was involved? “Let me think about the mediator and get back to you.”
He spent most of the next two days alone on his horse, galloping across the ranch in search of calves that had become separated from the herd. He didn’t find any. Which was a good thing, but Sly needed the distraction that herding a lost calf or two would have provided. With effort he managed to steer his mind away from Lana and their night together. That had become too painful to remember.
Instead, he focused on the new turn of events with Carpenter. Before the countersuit, he’d believed the situation was as bad as it could get. He’d been wrong. His life seemed to be spinning out of control.
The poisonings were too similar to be a coincidence, which meant someone was messing with them. But if another person was involved, how would Sly ever recoup the money he’d lost, and how could he possibly find that person?
Late Friday morning he made a decision. He couldn’t go on like this, and he hoped Carpenter felt the same. He would attempt to talk to his neighbor again, so that they could straighten out this mess. Just the two of them, without a mediator or any lawyers involved.
His mind made up, he rode Bee to her favorite pasture, removed her saddle and slapped her lightly on the rump. She trotted to a big shady hawthorn and began to nibble sweet grass. Sly slid his cell phone from his pocket. He was searching for Carpenter’s number when his own cell phone rang.
The screen identified the caller as Timothy Carpenter. Speak of the devil. “Carpenter,” Sly said by way of greeting. “I was just about to call you.”
“Were you, now. Planning on cussing me out?”
“Something like that. You and I need to sit down and talk. No lawyers—just you and me, man-to-man.”
“Damn straight, we do.”
That the rancher was willing to talk with Sly at all was progress of a sort. “Where and when?” Sly asked.
“My place. Now.”
“As long as you don’t point any guns at me or try to take a punch at me.”
“I won’t, if you don’t accuse me of something I didn’t do.”
“No guns, no accusations,” Sly agreed. “Just the two of us talking things through.”
Fifteen minutes later he drove up Carpenter’s driveway, past a barn that had seen better days. He stopped next to the house, which could use a coat or two of paint. The buildings at the Lazy C needed work, but the fields beyond were green and populated with livestock. Sly noted a tractor and a few men in the distance.
His neighbor was standing on the porch, wearing reflector sunglasses and a Stetson. As Sly crossed the yard, Carpenter folded his arms over his chest.
Matching his unwelcoming scowl, Sly climbed the stairs. Neither of them removed their hats or their sunglasses. “I didn’t poison your cattle,” he stated.
“Yeah? Well, I didn’t poison yours, either.”
Though Carpenter had five or six years on Sly, they were roughly the same height and both muscular and strong. Despite the sunglasses, Sly sensed his hostile glare.
He rested his hands low on his hips. “You gonna ask me to sit down, or are we going to do this standing up?”
His neighbor nodded at a pair of lawn chairs in the front yard, in the shade of an old black walnut. They both sat down, their weight causing the old chairs to creak.
“I’d have bet my left arm that you poisoned my cows to get back at me for dragging out the lawsuit,” Carpenter said.
Sly snorted. “That’s not how I work. Ask anyone in town. I prefer to solve my problems by talking them out.”
The ones that weren’t too personal, that was. He tended to keep those close to the chest. “I’m starting to wonder if someone else might have set us both up.”
Carpenter bent down and plucked a blade of grass, the expression of doubt on his face reminding Sly of Lana.
That she believed him capable of poisoning Carpenter’s cows hurt. But he didn’t want to think about that. Pushing the pain inside, he waited his neighbor out.
Carpenter straightened again, stuck the blade of grass between his lips and rolled it to the corner of his mouth before he went on. “You’re smarter than you look, Pettit. Something came to my attention this morning that put me of the same mind.”
Sly tipped his hat back and pulled off his shades. “What are you saying?”
Carpenter, too, removed his sunglasses and met Sly’s gaze. “That someone who wanted to do me serious harm set me up by poisoning your cattle and making me look guilty. When things didn’t go as fast as he wanted, he upped the ante and poisoned some of mine.”
Sly swore. “You must have made some nasty enemies.” Given Carpenter’s sour disposition, not hard to believe. “Just who is this crazy person?”
“A son of a dog by the name of Pitch Alberts.”
Sly had never heard of the man. “I’m not familiar with him.”
“You wouldn’t be. About a year and half ago he came into town looking for a job. He worked for me until mid-November of last year. That’s when I found out he was stealing hay and cattle feed from me. Of course, I sacked him. He didn’t have any money. I knew he’d never pay me back for what he’d stolen, and the loss wasn’t big enough for me to press charges.
“Pitch didn’t appreciate losing his job just before the holidays, but that was his fault. I told him he was lucky I didn’t call the sheriff.”
Sly probably would have done the same thing as Carpenter.
“Pitch hadn’t crossed my mind since, until Eddie, a guy on my summer crew, said he ran into Pitch last night at a bar. Pitch had had a few and was bragging that he’d fixed my wagon. From there it was a matter of putting two and two together.”
Sly shook his head. “I trust you’ve been in touch with Sheriff Dean.”
“This morning, right after Eddie told me. Sheriff Dean’s been out searching for Pitch, to take him in for questioning. As yet, that’s all I know, but I’d stake my ranch that he did it.”
“If that’s true, then I owe you an apology,” Sly said.
“I’ll take it. I’ll owe you one, too. By the way, my lawyer advised me to keep all this to myself for now. I wouldn’t want Pitch suing me for slander.” The corner of Carpenter’s mouth lifted, the closest he’d ever come to smiling.
“Copy that. I’ll do the same, then. Keep me informed.”
“After my lawyer, you’ll be the first person I’ll contact.”
