Michael's Father

by Dallas Schulze

  "It's obvious that mechanic you worked for didn't appreciate a challenge," Gun said. He leaned into the engine compartment to poke at wires and cables.

  "He taught me to recognize a hopeless case when I saw one," Megan countered.

  She'd spent six months working for a mechanic in Seattle. Technically, she'd been hired as a secretary-receptionist but she'd ended up spending most of her time in the garage helping her employer. She'd learned a fair amount about the inner workings of a car and might have stayed longer if the man's nephew hadn't been laid off. Since his nephew had two children to support, Bill had felt obliged to offer him a job—/ler job. Family's got to take care of each other. Bill had told her regretfully. She'd heard her grandfather say much the same, though he'd usually managed to get the word duty in. And he'd generally been looking at his only grandchild when he said it, his mouth drawn

  tight, making it clear that duty could be quite painful.

  **It's not as bad as it looks," Gun said, drawing Megan's attention back to the present. **Once the engine is rebuilt, I'll find someone to do the bodywork."

  "There's not enough body left to work on."

  **E)id anyone ever tell you that you have a negative attitude?" He shook his head sadly but there was laughter in those incredible blue eyes of his.

  **Realistic." Megan grinned at him.

  She'd come to tike Gun in the three weeks she'd worked on the Lazy B. It was hard to imagine not tik-ing Gun. Considering his rather remarkable good looks, it wouldn't have been surprising if he'd turned out to be a conceited jerk. But if he was aware of his attractiveness—and how could he not be?—she'd never seen any sign of it.

  He was rarely without a smile, but she sometimes wondered if the charm he wielded so easily was as much a shield as anything else. Could the subtle tension that lay between him and Colleen have anything to do with the sadness she thought she sensed in Gun?

  **If you talk to me real nice, I might let you help me pull the engine," Gim said with the air of one proffering a rare treat.

  **Be still, my heart." Megan rolled her eyes in a fair semblance of someone on the verge of fainting from excitement.

  "Careful with the sarcasm or I'll have to find myself another mechanic's assistant," he warned mockingly.

  Sunlight caught in Gun's hair as he leaned forward, drawing her attention to the spark-plug wires, which looked as if they'd been installed about the time the Titanic was setting sail. He really was gorgeous, she thought, studying his profile. On a purely objective level, he was probably even better looking than Kel.

  But there was nothing objective about her feelings for Kel. Just being in the same room with him made her heart beat faster. It had been like that from the moment they'd met. And the effect had done nothing but grow stronger.

  Especially this past week. Megan felt her cheeks warm at the memory of their ride to the creek. She didn't know if she'd improved her skills as a rider but she'd certainly learned a thing or two about herself as a woman.

  **Do you always blush at the sight of a corroded spark plug?" Gun's teasing question snapped Megan out of her thoughts.

  She blinked and focused her eyes on him. **The sight of corrosion makes my blood pressure rise," she said lightly.

  "And I thought it might be the look Kel's giving you that brought the color to your cheeks."

  **Kel?" Megan's head jerked in the direction Gun had nodded.

  Kel was just coming out of the bam leading Dude. Distance and the hat he wore made it impossible to teU if he was looking at her but Megan knew he was. She could feel his eyes on her, as tangible as a touch. She smiled, wondering if he'd come over to say hello.

  Not that he hadn't said a very thorough hello at breakfast this morning. The memory made her flush. She'd half expected him to go back to treating her the way he had before their ride. But whatever it was that had made him keep his distance, he'd apparently changed his mind. In the week since then, they'd exchanged several kisses hot enough to steam paint off any walls they might happen to be standing near.

  Kel swung himself into the saddle, and Megan had to swallow a sigh. As always, the sight of him on the big black horse made her think of cigarette conmier-cials and wide beds, not necessarily in that order.

  She thought he hesitated a moment, as if thinking about walking Dude over to where she and Gun stood next to the Corvette. But if so, he must have changed his mind, because he merely touched his hand to the brim of his hat in a classic Western gesture and reined Dude's head around. Megan watched until the shoulder of one of the surrounding hills blocked him from sight.

  Kel frowned at the view between Dude's ears. He didn't like the way he'd felt when he saw Megan with Gun. He didn't like it because it felt suspiciously like jealousy and he didn't want to care enough to be jealous. Hell, he hadn't even been jealous of Roxanne and he'd been married to her. Of course, by the time he'd figured out that there was cause for jealousy, their marriage had been too far gone for him to feel much beyond disgust.

  Not that there was any cause for jealousy here. Even if he didn't trust Megan, he trusted Gun. They'd been

  friends all their lives. Gun could charm a bear away from honey but he'd never betray a friend.

  Of course, there was no way for Gun to know that anyone had a prior claim to Megan. Kel's frown deepened into a scowl. He hadn't talked to Megan about it but she didn't seem any more eager than he was to bring their relationship out in the open. He suspected she was enjoying the slightly wicked feeling of carrying on a secret intrigue.

  And what's your excuse, Bryan?

  He shifted uneasily in the saddle. He'd told himself that he didn't want to set a bad example for Colleen but it was a thin excuse at best. His little sister was no longer a child and the fact that her brother was a normal man with normal appetites wasn't likely to cause her any major trauma.

  Maybe, like Megan, he was enjoying the secrecy. Once other people knew that they were lovers—which he sincerely hoped they were soon to be—then he'd have to deal with the sidelong glances, the speculation. And he'd be faced with the possibility of having to kill any of his men foolish enough to conmient on Megan in his hearing.

  But he wouldn't have to worry about anybody—say his good friend Gun, for instance—thinking that Megan was available. The image of Gun and Megan leaning over the engine compartment, their fair heads close together, lingered in Kel's memory.

  He could trust Gun. But what about Megan? Nothing in his experience had given him leason to have much faith in women. He wasn't foolish enough to think that, because his mother had betrayed his fa-

  ther and Roxanne had, in her turn, betrayed him, it meant all women were not to be trusted. On the other hand, the track record of the Bryan men was such that he couldn't help but feel a little cautious.

  Dude slowed and Kel, who hadn't been paying much attention to where he was, realized that they'd reached the stock tank he'd come out to check. It was a good thing his horse knew what he was supposed to be doing, Kel thought ruefully. He stepped out of the saddle and ground hitched the big horse by letting the reins drop to the dirt. There were a few head of cattle milling around the tank, and they cast a disinterested look in his direction as he approached.

  Kel looked them over automatically, checking their condition. He was satisfied with what he saw. It had been a comparatively mild winter this year and a reasonably wet spring. The range was in good shape and so was the herd. If they didn't have a drought this summer or any of half a dozen other possible disasters, they'd do better than average this year.

  Assured that the stock tank was clear and full, Kel swung into the saddle, but he didn't inunediately nudge Dude into motion. He tilted his hat back and really looked at the land around him for the first time that day. From the time he was a boy, whenever he'd been upset or had suffered a disappointment, he'd always found solace in the land. He could remember riding out onto the range the day after his mother left for the final time. He'd known somehow that she wouldn't be
back this time, not for him, not for Colleen, who'd been little more than an infant. It was the last time he could remember crying.

  When Roxanne had departed for Boston, he'd helped her load her things in her car, watched her drive off, and then he'd saddled Dude and ridden for hours. He'd worked out his self-directed anger at having made such a stupid mistake, at having let his gonads do his thinkin g.

  And here he was again. Except that this time was different. He couldn't really compare M^an to his mother or his ex-wife. She was only here for the summer. She wasn't a vital part of his life and he wasn't going to let that change. An affair—if she ever decided she was ready for one—would be nothing more than a sunmier diversion for both of them. The reminder made Kel feel better. She was temporary in his Ufe. And he wouldn't want it any other way.

  Feeling restless, Megan wandered out onto the porch. Colleen was occupied with her physical therapist, the house was clean, a batch of bread was rising on the kitchen counter. She wasn't in the mood for leading and it was too early to start preparations for dinner.

  She wrapped her hands around one of the upright posts that supported the porch roof and stared moodily across the ranch yard. There were storm clouds to the north, hanging thick and heavy over the mountains. According to Kel, they'd probably have rain sometime tonight. She hadn't lived until she'd been through a summer lightning storm in Wyoming, Colleen had told her at breakfast.

  Maybe she could blame the approaching storm for the fact that Colleen had gotten out of bed early this

  morning. This morning, of all mornings, when Megan had planned to talk to Kel, planned to tell him that... Tell him what? That she was having trouble sleeping nights because she lay awake thinking about him sleq>ing across the hall? That she was tired of this game of stealing kisses and quick caresses that left her aching? That she wanted him to make love to her?

  It was the truth, but even if Colleen hadn't shown up for breakfast this morning, Megan wasn't sure she could have found the words to ask Kel Bryan to become her lover.

  He'd told her that it would be up to her to let him know when she was ready to take the next step between them. After that incendiary encounter when he'd taken her riding, he'd promised not to push. The decision would be hers, he'd said, made without pressure.

  He'd kept his word. She could hardly count kissing her as applying pressure, not when she'd be^ such an eager participant in those kisses. The fact that she'd spent the last two weeks in a state of tingling arousal wasn't entirely Kel's fault.

  But it was definitely his fault that his self-control never faltered. Well, faltered, maybe, but never weakened to the point where he forgot all about his stupid promise to let her decide when they should take the next step.

  Last night, for example, they'd been in his den, with the door shut and no one to bother them, and she'd been stretched out on the sofa with her blouse half off, Kel's big body—his very aroused body—pressed along the length of hers. There'd been nothing to stop him

  from taking her right then. Certainly, she wouldn't have whispered so much as a word of protest.

  But he'd stopped, damn him. Even though he must have known she wasn't going to ask him to, he'd stopped. He'd pulled her to her feet and hooked her bra, buttoned her blouse, even stroked some semblance of ord^ into her tangled hair. She'd stood there like a stick figure, feeling as if she'd just been spun by a hurricane, her thoughts tumbling one over the other in her head, moving too quickly for her to grab hold of any single one.

  "You tell me when you're ready, Megan," he'd said, his voice raspy, his green eyes hungry.

  She was ready. More than ready. She'd had plenty of time to think about it, to decide that this was what she wanted—to be Kel's lover, even if it was only for the summer.

  But she hadn't been able to find the words to say as much. It was one thing to slide under the spell of passion he so effortlessly wove around her. It was something else altogether to stand there, flat-footed, and ask him to make love to her. But after a nearly sleepless night, she'd made up her mind that she was going to do exactly that. And Colleen had to choose this morning to get up early.

  Megan sighed and released her hold on the post. Stepping off the porch, she bent to pluck a stalk of lamb's-quarter that had sprung up in the flower bed. She wandered down the path to the gate, plucking leaves off the plant as she went.

  She considered herself a mature woman. She'd been traveling on her own since she was eighteen. She was

  accustomed to making her own decisions, taking responsibility for her own choices. In this case, it wasn't the decision that was hard to make. In a way, she'd made that particular choice when she'd come to work for Kel. It was just finding a way to tell him that was giving her fits.

  Damn him for being such a gentleman, anyway.

  Megan tossed aside the shredded lamb's-quarter and scowled at nothing in particular, her expression as gray as the clouds building to the north. She was about to turn back to the house when she noticed some of the ranch hands lined up along the rails of the fence that marked off the corral next to the bam. They seemed to be watching something inside the corral. Needing a distraction, Megan pushed open the gate and started across the packed dirt of the yard.

  In the weeks since she'd come to work here, she'd gotten to know most of the men. The Lazy B was similar to the small town she'd first compared it to, and it wasn't possible to Uve in such a small community without becoming acquainted with its members.

  An elderly and highly temperamental man by the name of Zeke did the cooking for the men, and Kel had warned her that Zeke was jealous of his status as cook. He'd started out on the Lazy B when Kel's grandfather owned the ranch, cowboying until he announced that his bones were too brittle for sitting a ca3mse and that he'd take over the cooking, which until then had rotated among the men. His cooking was plain but filling, and the men had no complaints except when it came to baking. As one of the men had put it, if there was only a gun made to fire them.

  Zeke's biscuits were hard enough to bring down a buffalo. Zeke had demonstrated the truth of this claim by throwing a panful at the cowboy in question. The resultant bruises had proved beyond a doubt that the biscuits were hard as rocks. Zeke thereafter refused to bake anything for a bunch of ingrates who ought to be thankful they'd foimd someone who'd hire thdr sorry asses, let alone feed 'em.

  Megan had heard the story from Gun the first week she'd worked here. She'd asked what the cowboys did for bread, if Zeke refused to bake. Gun had told her that Zeke bought bread but he was ornery enough to buy the cheapest stuff he could find. Grace Cav-enaugh had occasionally taken pity on the hands and made up a batch of biscuits or baked a couple of extra pies. Zeke allowed these intrusions on his territory only because Grace Cavenaugh had informed him that he was a no-good excuse for a human being and that if he opened his mouth to her, she'd take a frying pan to his mangy head.

  Megan had laughed at the image and asked why Kel didn't do something about Zeke. Kel shook his head and grimaced. Zeke scared the hell out of him. The old coot had known him since he was in diapers and he wasn't at all impressed that Kel was now the boss. If Megan was smart, she'd keep her distance from Zeke.

  Megan considered herself a smart woman but the challenge had simply been too much to resist. She'd waited until she was sure she was going to be staying on the ranch for the summer and then she'd made up a huge batch of feather rolls, using her grandmother's recipe. She'd carried them down to the bunk-

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  house and presented them to Zeke, who was every bit as crusty and intimidating as she'd been told. She wanted his recipe for venison stew, she'd announced, and she was willing to trade a batch of rolls for it.

  Zeke had glared at her through a haze of cigarette smoke and told her to take her rolls and remove her fanny from his kitchen. Megan stood her ground. How did he think the cowboys were going to like it when they found out that sheM had to throw out four dozen of the best rolls this side of the Rockies just
because he was being cranky? Not to mention the apple pies now cooling up at the house.

  Zeke's eyes narrowed to slits. It had probably been seventy years since anyone had dared to label him cranky. Cantankerous, maybe. Or a few other, less poUte words, but not cranky. Small children were cranky. He gave Megan a glare that had been known to make cowboys find urgent business elsewhere. Megan met the look without flinching and held out the big bowl. The smell of fresh bread wafted through the towel that covered it.

  Zeke's mouth watered. He hadn't had fresh bread since the last time that old biddy of a housekeeper had brought some down. Gun had been talking up the new housekeeper's baking, saying she made the best pies he'd ever set a tooth to. If the men foimd out he'd turned her away—and he had a feeling she'd make sure they did find out—he was likely to have a riot on his hands. Besides, those rolls smeUed mighty good.

  **I don't give out my recipes," he snapped.

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  "Fine. Then maybe next time you make venison stew, you could make enough extra for the house. And when I have extra baking, I'll bring it down."

  He nodded, accepting a fair trade. He made venison stew the next night and Megan kept the men supplied with fresh bread and baked pies or cakes a couple of times a week. Kel shook his head over her managing to get around Zeke, and the men became her instant friends.

  Carey Mils and Dick Brownwell made room for her at the fence as Megan reached the corral. She wasn't sure what she'd expected to see, maybe one of the cowboys riding a bucking horse, but there was nothing in the corral except Kel and a bay horse, and they didn't seem to be doing anything but simply standing there.

  **Kers whispering him," Dick said, pitching his voice low.

  **Whispering him?" She could see that Kel was talking to the young horse.

  "Only ever seen one other fellow could whisper a horse the way the boss can." That was Carey, his weathered face full of admiration.

  "What does it mean?" Megan asked without taking her eyes from Kel.