by Reece Butler
She tilted her head and went back to work. “Do what?”
“You’re tall enough to kiss me over Soldier’s back.”
She laughed, a sound that went right to his heart. He wanted to get down on one knee right here and now and propose to her. But she wasn’t ready to hear it. She might never be ready, but he was going to do everything to prove to her that he could make her happy.
Both their jobs were stressful, but in different ways. She read the clues in people and used her knowledge to decide how to help them. He read the clues in the wind and weather, and the way the animals behaved. He used what he’d learned on the Circle C. Twenty-six years and counting. Nikki’s job was stressful. Coming here had let her relax, which was why he expected she was sleeping so much. If she lived here, she could get away from her job, and maybe find peace.
“Matt? What do we do with all this hair?”
“We could use it to stuff a cushion.”
“What?” She raised her eyebrows and gave him a look of disgust.
He laughed at her expression. “That’s what people used to use it for. But I put it out with the manure. Give it a few years and then it goes back on the land.”
“Recycling, nature’s way.”
“That’s right. We don’t use fertilizers, or anything else that might harm the land. That was the agreement made a long way back by the Tanner’s Ford Valley Association. At the time it was to save money, as chemicals had to be paid for with cash, while manure is free.”
“Organic.”
“Exactly. We’re paid a lot more for our beef because the animals roam free, they’re not exposed to drugs, even by neighboring ranches, and we use the same methods as our ancestors.”
“It must be a lot more work.”
“Yes, and when the weather is bad many of us wish we could use one of those giant machines with the air-conditioned closed cabs. But we—”
“Cowboy up!”
He nodded and laughed with her. Suddenly, he couldn’t stand it. He ducked under Soldier’s neck over to her side, and pulled her into his arms. She was warm, and soft, and smelled like horses and strawberries. He held her, just enjoying her being with him.
“Oh, Nikki, you feel so good, just like this.”
“Shut up and kiss me, you fool.”
He pulled his head back to make sure he’d heard right. She touched her bottom lip with her tongue.
“Yes, ma’am!”
* * * *
Nikki closed her eyes as Matt’s footsteps faded.
How could she get worn out by working with Matt in the barn for an hour or two? After their delicious kissing session was interrupted by the disgusted snorts of Soldier, they’d turned him out into the pasture and cleaned up. Hair had been thrown down shirts, which meant they had to be removed. The same thing with pants, though boots stayed on. That meant they had to be creative. Those stacked hay bales were the perfect height for her to lie on, legs in the air, while Matt showed her what horny teenagers did in the barn when the parents weren’t around.
He’d been quick to point out that he wasn’t the type to do that. She’d given him her best “tell the doctor the truth” look, and he’d blushed and confessed to maybe once or twice, but that was long ago.
They’d shared a shower, and more kisses, then he’d tenderly dried her with a towel, kissing her slowly as he licked up any stray drops. He’d missed quite a few drops. Especially ones between her legs. Her pussy still throbbed, swollen from her orgasm. He’d tucked her in bed, told Tiger and Cheddar to mind their manners, and gone back to work.
Matt was so nice. No, that was too bland a word. He was caring and thoughtful, sweet and demanding, considerate and…and so darn nice. When he wasn’t being Ranch Boss, that is.
Even more, he treated her with respect. Respect as a female who enjoyed being cared for now and then. Yet he didn’t baby her with Soldier, instead expecting her to learn to care for the horses. When he saw she was drooping, he’d carried her upstairs in his arms, laid her on his bed, and kissed her tenderly on her forehead.
Hot tears seeped into her pillow. Gad! She was never this weepy. Maybe it went with being so tired. Matt was right. She’d been going for so long, thinking about her job that, when she finally had a chance to get away and relax, her body had demanded it.
Nikki rubbed her hand in Cheddar’s thick orange fur. A deep rumbling emerged. Sleepy half-closed eyes regarded her. This was another first. She’d never had a pet so, though she knew about cats purring, had never heard one. She liked it. Maybe when Eric went back to South America and this was all over, she would get herself some cats to keep her company. Surely he wouldn’t refuse to let them into his town house since he was the ones who’d brought them to the ranch.
She would need a pair of cats to greet her when she came home, since there’d be no one else. Tears of self-pity seeped out. She had a wonderful life as the Climax physician. She had a sister, brothers-in-law, friends…and a pair of temporary lovers. What did she have to cry about?
The tears and fatigue could be from pregnancy.
“No!” Cheddar jerked, poised to flee at her shout. “Oh, sweetie, I didn’t mean to scare you,” she murmured. She calmed the cat, and herself, and soon the purr returned.
It was far too soon for her to get those symptoms. She would not get her hopes up.
Yes, a pair of cats would do just fine. They would have to.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
After a perfect weekend, a cold rain had developed overnight. June in the mountains could, and did, bring any and every sort of weather possible. Rain, snow, sleet, hail, heat, and everything in between.
Eric hadn’t been surprised when Nikki had slept a lot during the weekend. He figured she’d been going full-speed for too long. After cracking through her shell, the rest and relaxation—along with a dozen or so orgasms—had wiped her out.
They’d gone to supper at the MacDougal ranch on Sunday, and this time it was Matt taking the digs from the guys about how he kept one eye on Nikki the whole time. It was much the same as they’d done to Eric the previous week, but with comments designed to tie Matt up in knots. After being locked out while Matt had Nikki to himself, Eric quite enjoyed his brother getting ribbed.
Matt and Donny had ended up stripping down to jeans and scuffling in the dirt. Simon would have joined in, except for his walking cast. Nikki had fussed, but Marci and Aggie told her to get over it and cheered the men on. Even Florrie got into the act, telling Nikki she should be excited at seeing one of her men proving his strength.
Eric finally stood behind her, rested his hands on her shoulders to both keep her near and remind her who was in charge, and whispered things that made her face turn red and nipples pop. He had to keep her in front of him to hide his own reaction.
The match was halted when Marci rang the dinner bell. Both men were disgruntled without a clear leader. Nikki was also disgruntled, but for a different reason. He’d kept her so aroused by his words and light finger touches that she’d squirmed in her seat all during dinner.
He’d hoped for a wild night, but she fell asleep against Matt on the drive home. They’d cowboyed up, putting her to bed, doing the evening chores, then spending the night just cuddling and sleeping with her. Because of the overcast skies, they’d woken late that morning and had rushed out. Matt had morning chores, Nikki wanted to go in early to see what had gone on while she was away, and Eric had Brewster’s sawmill to face. Alone, thank God.
She’d refused to wait for Matt’s coffee, wanting to get home. All the way to town she’d been quiet. He thought she was worried about being late, and maybe pregnant, until she explained. He knew little about women’s cycles, so accepted her explanation about exhaustion being part of it.
He didn’t ask if part of her mood was due to getting her period, as in they hadn’t made a baby. It was too touchy a subject for a Monday morning before coffee or food. Hell, it was touchy subject at any time!
He’d agreed to keep
it between the two of them, then put it out of his mind and gone to work. There were advantages in being able to compartmentalize to focus on the job at hand.
He spent the day crawling under and between grimy pieces of machinery, figuring out how to change it to work more effectively and efficiently, and at the same time increase safety. He stopped around noon, walking outside in the light drizzle as he chowed down the sandwiches he’d picked up from the diner after dropping Nikki off. He barely noticed the weather as his brain kept on ticking away at the variables. He went back to work and by three o’clock he had an inkling of what he wanted to do.
The deep whup-whup of a helicopter had him hurrying outside while he was shutting down for the night. A dark bird without identifying marks beat past. He recognized the decades-old design.
“What the hell is a Kiowa doing here?”
The dark green-on-black machine was the stuff of nightmares. His. It didn’t matter that the front of the thing had huge visibility with its glass canopy. No, it wasn’t the enclosed space that kept him on the ground. Thanks to Max he was coming to grips with small spaces. But there was no way he’d climb in a giant bumblebee that could crash at any moment.
The chopper banked suddenly and dropped, heading northeast, toward the valley. There could be only one reason why a camouflaged US government helicopter was in Climax, Montana.
“Dammit, Tom!”
Eric struggled to get the too-snug overalls off his shoulders, then shoved them down his legs and kicked them away. He scrubbed oil, grease, and pigeon shit from his hands, then went right up past his elbows. It was a rushed twenty minutes before his truck splashed through the puddles in the parking area. As soon as his tires gripped the highway, his pedal hit the metal, heading home. With luck he’d not find a jubilant friend boasting about stealing an Army, Navy, or Air Force chopper.
It better not be from the Marines. It wouldn’t belong to the SEALs as even Tom couldn’t hoist one from them. Borrow, maybe, but that was almost as bad.
He finally clattered over the Circle C cattle grid and into the yard. He took a deep breath when he didn’t see a government-issue piece of aeronautic impossibility. Cold rain came down with a vengeance as he opened his truck door. He raced to the porch, but was soaked within six steps. He stopped in the mudroom and stripped off a layer. He was hanging things up when he heard two men laughing.
Matt, and Tom.
Oh, shit. Now the stories would fly. He’d counted on Matt never learning a few specific things about him. He stomped into the kitchen in his undershorts and T-shirt. Sure enough, Tom sprawled in a chair with a mug of coffee near his hand, along with a plate holding nothing but a fork and some crumbs. A few clung to the straggly moustache and beard that matched his long hair.
“That better not be the last piece of Marci’s cake.” Tom smiled brilliantly, confirming Eric’s worst fears. “What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were on your way to the Sandbox.”
Tom’s comment about working in the oil field was obviously a cover story. He’d been growing out his hair for a few months to fit in with tribesmen.
“Special delivery.” Tom gestured toward the large cardboard box at the far end of the table. “That’s all your stuff. The paperwork’s inside.” He held his mug up to toast Matt. “You never said your little brother was such a straight-up guy.”
Eric looked at Matt, who shrugged. “He needed a place to park his ride out of the mud,” said Matt. “I told him to put it on that concrete pad behind the machinery shed.”
No wonder Eric hadn’t seen the death machine. “It’s nothing to do with mud,” said Eric to Matt. “Tom wanted to put the damn thing where it can’t be seen from the road, because it’s hot.”
“Of course it’s hot,” replied Tom, pretending innocence. “I’ve been flying for hours.”
“Where did you steal it from?”
“You wound me!” Tom placed his hand over his heart.
“Tell me you didn’t steal it.”
“I didn’t steal it,” Tom replied as if by rote. “You want to see my authorization papers?”
Tom pointed at the satchel Eric just realized was on the table by his elbow. It looked official, but that didn’t mean anything. His good buddy could have stolen it along with the copter.
“Did you borrow it,” added Eric grimly, “or anything else that could get me locked up with the key thrown away when they find it here?”
“Why would you get locked up?” asked Matt, frowning. “I’m the one that told him where to park it.”
“Because,” explained Eric slowly and carefully while glaring at Tom, “you are the rancher, the one who will keep the Circle C going. You are the one who will marry Nikki and populate this ranch with sweet, blonde girls and sturdy, brown-haired boys. I, however, am just an unemployed, well-educated mechanic.”
“Why won’t they lock Tom up?” demanded Matt. “He’s the one who stole it.”
“I didn’t steal it, I—”
“You don’t want to know,” said Eric.
“I sure as heck do,” replied Matt belligerently.
Eric gave Tom a speaking glance. When all he did was shrug, Eric decided to give Matt the whole shebang.
“Tom knows how to kill people in a wonder of different ways. He can operate any piece of mechanical equipment, especially transportation and weaponry. He’ll drink anyone under the table and walk away damn-near sober. He can change his appearance to slip through crowds in plain sight, and can survive for days on one sniff of a dead rat.”
Matt frowned at Tom, who blew on his knuckles and polished them on his shirt. “Know any women who might be interested in a night with Superman?”
“There’s Dot, the waitress at the diner,” replied Matt, still frowning. “She’s divorced, in her early forties, with a shellacked beehive hairdo that reminds me of a packrat nest. She’s on her feet all day but snacks in the kitchen, so she’s hefty. Far as I know she hasn’t got a man.”
Tom sat up. “Big hair, big tits, big ass?
“Yep.”
“A regular Texas gal. Sounds like my kind of woman!” Tom winked at Eric. “In case she doesn’t work out, what did you say the doc looks like?”
Matt pushed his shoulders back. The easy-going rancher was gone. “You go within one mile of my fiancée and your whirlybird will face a stampede of Texas longhorns.”
“And?” Tom leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankles.
Eric hadn’t realized Tom was dressed in a Navy flight suit. Had he stolen the suit so he could take the helicopter, or the other way around? Eric knew Tom would steal anything, but would never poach on a friend’s turf. It didn’t stop him from grinding their gears.
“And,” added Matt, “you will be staked to the ground directly in their path. We’ll put what’s left of you out for the coyotes.”
Tom and Matt shared glares. Then Tom laughed. “Fiancée, huh? Have you told the lady yet?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Eric before Matt could reply. “I should be the one to marry Nikki.”
“You?” Matt redirected his fury at Eric. “You don’t stay here long enough!”
“I had a damn good reason for staying away.”
Matt leaned a hip against the counter, crossed his arms, blatantly waiting for more. Eric exhaled, hard, as he thought about how to explain. No brilliant answers popped into his foggy brain. When in doubt, tell the truth. Just not all of it.
“I used to have nightmares when I was at home. They’re gone now.”
So far. He hadn’t had any the few nights he slept alone before he brought Nikki to the ranch. But he’d been so tired he’d crashed and hadn’t woken up all night.
“That’s bull,” replied Matt. “I would have known.”
“I only had them when I was alone, and only here in Climax.”
Matt narrowed his eyes. “What about?”
“Doesn’t matter,” replied Eric. He looked away, unwilling to meet his brother’s too
-observant eyes.
“Eric’s terrified of flying,” explained Tom cheerfully.
“Was,” Eric clarified.
“So, you’ll go up with me in my bird?” Tom’s grin was wide, but his eyes dared Eric.
“Hell no!”
“Tsk-tsk,” accused Tom. “Wuss.”
“I don’t have time to waste,” replied Eric. “Got that big engineering project for Brewster to complete.”
“Engineering project?” Matt snorted a laugh. “You’re cleaning and greasing his sawmill.”
“And reengineering it at the same time.”
“What would it take to get you up in my bird?”
The hairs on the back of Eric’s neck stood up. They matched the ones on his arms. Tom was a good man in a fight. He could argue his way up and down and sideways until the Brass agreed with him. That did not mean Eric would take his life in his hands and climb into a glass-enclosed death trap.
“See?” crowed Tom. “You’re scared enough to crap your pants at the thought of it.”
“I’ll go up with you,” said Matt.
“I’ll take you for a ride, no worries.” Tom shot his thumb at Eric. “It’s the big kahuna here who needs it.” He widened his eyes. “Face your fears, Luke,” he intoned, imitating Obi-Wan. “Use the Force!”
“Luke was our great-grandfather,” replied Matt, jumping in. “Luke Frost.”
“Eric said he took after his great-grandpa Gabriel?”
“That’s true, but our great-granny had three husbands,” explained Matt before Eric could stop him.
“Three?” Tom rubbed his hands eagerly. “That’s some pioneer woman!”
Eric’s face started heating. He knew where this would go.
“All the valley wives had three,” continued Matt, not caring about Eric’s discomfort. “Nowadays, only two men share a wife.”
Tom looked from Eric, to Matt, and back again. Eric did not like his sly, calculating expression.
“Why are you fighting about who’s going to marry the lady when you can both have her?”
