by BJ James
He turned to her, gathering her hands in his. His blue gaze was piercing, his expression solemn. Too solemn. “I was wondering if you’d eaten too many biscuits and too much jam for the ride home” Then recalling the moment in the corral, the flicker of a memory, he made a logical guess, “Short Bear?”
For the blink of an eye and a sharply drawn breath his teasing question didn’t register. Then the breath she’d caught and held flowed from her in a hearty laugh. “I’ll manage.” Then sobering, she admitted, “Until today, I’d forgotten the name Tall Bear gave me.”
“Those were happy days?”
“The happiest.”
Ty stood, keeping her in place with the weight of his hand at her shoulder. “Then think of that, while I see to the fire and Bessie and close up the house.”
“I can help.”
“Next time.”
He left her then, to think of happiest days.
And the next time.
Four
“From the looks of things, the weather’s about to break.” Merrill. tugged at the fingers of her gloves, removing them one increment at a time. The pleasant warmth of the kitchen wrapped around her, taking away the chill of her morning ride. Though the autumn temperatures had remained steady and were still amazingly mild—by Montana standards she kept reminding herself—gloves were a necessity.
“The lady’s a fast learner.” Ty looked up from the sheaf of papers he was reading. “You’ve been here, what? Five weeks? Six? And you’ve learned to read weather signs.”
“Learned to feel them is closer to the truth. It’s cold, and the temperature is dropping fast.”
Though she dismissed it, she had quickly acclimated. With the chameleon-like skills acquired in the vagabond life of a military brat, she’d taken on the protective coloration and manner the land required. Both figuratively and literally. On a glance, she would pass for a born-and-bred or long-settled Montanan.
Ty’s gaze followed as she crossed the kitchen, bringing the cold fresh scent of a morning on the mountain range with her. A reminder that he’d been holed up in the house for days. “Consider these temperatures a blessing,” he suggested tersely. “Doesn’t happen often.”
“So I’ve been told.” Taking the pot of coffee that steamed eternally on the stove, she poured a cup. Waved the battered monstrosity toward Ty in an oblique invitation of a refill, then, at the declining shake of his head, returned it to the heated surface of the stove. “There were fewer eagles down by the river. Migration is beginning.”
Ty made a noncommittal sound. She’d changed in more than manner and confidence since the first reclusive days of her stay with him. The pallid tones of her skin had warmed to a healthy flush. The flags of color drawn on her cheeks by the cold no longer looked like stark, mistaken slashes of rouge on a geisha’s painted face. The thin hard edges of her body had softened into graceful curves as muscles bad been honed and pounds regained.
The hurt and grief that had shadowed her dark eyes still lived deep inside her, would always be a part of her. But each day she coped. And each day it ruled her life a little less. If he’d found her beautiful in her sadness, now she was stunning. Unforgettable.
“Shadow found some tracks down by the lower meadow.”
“What?” Ty’s head snapped back.
“Shadow found some tracks down by the lower meadow and decided to investigate.” She repeated and sipped from her cup, fighting down a shudder at the bitter taste she hadn’t quite learned to enjoy despite the welcome heat “I suppose he’ll be along in a bit.”
“What kind of tracks?” The ranch lay squarely in the winter range of mule deer and the whitetail. The bugling of bull elk was an integral part of the sounds of fall. The shyer, quieter moose occasionally wandered through. Any of these hooved creatures could be dangerous when cornered or crazed by pain or protective instinct. But the chance encounter would be uncommon. A grizzly was another matter. More calmly than he felt he asked, “Did you recognize them?”
“I wasn’t close enough to see. All I can say is that he took off like a hound from hell on a hot trail.” She sipped again, and this time the taste was not so shocking. “Whatever they were, must have been interesting.”
“Must have.” Shadow was seldom far from Merrill. Only something unusual could have drawn the wolf from her side. The gray wolf, perhaps the precursors and an explanation for Shadow’s existence, had been naturally recolonizing in northwestern Montana. Yet he was doubtful of wolves for there had been no recent indication a pack had ranged onto Fini Terre.
A grizzly would definitely be another matter. He’d seen signs of one in the spring. A big one judging from the markings left on trees as it ripped apart the outer bark, skinning it back to feast on the sweeter, tenderer inner bark. A trail of the high, triangular scars marked a meandering path leading from Fini Terre. Throughout the summer Ty and the guides and wranglers had kept a sharp watch, with bear sightings few and distant.
But the grizzly would be on the move again, and ill with the moods of the coming winter sleep. If one had chosen a den on Fini Terre, as it vacillated in and out of this dormant time, waking for periods from what was not true hibernation, it would be even more dangerous. Ty made a mental note to check the lower meadow.
“It’s probably nothing, just Shadow being Shadow.” Casually, not wanting to alarm her unduly, he added, “Until we know for certain, it might be better if I rode the lower pasture.”
“Sure. Whatever you say.” Considering the subject closed, noting the papers he held, Merrill scraped back a chair and dropped into it. Nodding toward the crumpled stack, she asked, “How does the book go? Making progress?”
She’d been surprised, and yet not, when in one of their games of twenty questions, never truly twenty in number, she’d asked and learned that in his winter exile, Tynan O’Hara was a writer. An author, to be exact, of no little success.
As Patrick O’Hara he wrote mysteries with a Western theme, and was better than good. She had, in fact, read several in the past. She’d been reading one on the evening of their first real talk, and more since.
After all, she asked herself now as he scowled down at a particular page, why should she be surprised? He was articulate, educated, he told a story concisely and clearly. That had been evident from the beginning, and demonstrated clearly when he related the story of how Shadow came to be with him. With the same skill, his books were a meticulous weaving of fact and fiction, with intriguing characters a part of the warp and woof, holding them together.
Even with their twenty questions, neither had ever pried deeper than the other was willing to allow. They’d touched only briefly on her work with The Black Watch. In vague terms she’d described the good parts, the successes, and glossed over the failures and the tragedy. The worst of which had driven her into the depression that ultimately led her to Fini Terre. Land’s End.
“Progress!” Ty growled, drawing her from digression and back to the question. “If you call painting the hero into a corner and leaving him no reasonable escape, then, yes, I’ve made great progress.” He tossed the pages on the table, letting them scatter as they would. “I thought a change of scene would help.”
That explained this uncustomary venturing from his lair. “No good?”
“Not in the least.”
“Cabin fever.” Merrill made a glaring diagnosis. She’d volunteered to ride fence while he worked out a particular literary problem. Since he kept only horses and no cattle through the winter, riding fence was simply a matter of inspection and repair of damage done by weather and wild animals. After a crash course in what to look for and what to do if she found anything out of the ordinary, the job had become hers.
“What you need is a ride to the shack,” she declared, coming promptly to the natural solution. “The fresh air would revive any mind and imagination.”
Gathering the scattered papers up with sweep of his arm, with no concern for their order, Ty stacked them away. “You’re right Wh
at I need is a change. A good hard gallop and a day out of doors should cure what ails me.”
“Want some company?” Merrill stared down at her hands, feigning interest in a chipped nail. She’d seen little of Ty lately, while she rode fence and he barricaded himself in his lair. Over the course of days, she’d missed him and didn’t want him to see her disappointment if he preferred to ride alone.
Standing by his chair, his hand gripping the back of it, Ty looked down at her. Her expression was almost hidden by the mass of her hair. Dear heaven she had beautiful hair. Bright as sunlight on a summer day. If he breathed deeply, he could almost catch the scent of it, wild flowers, summer flowers, threading through the clinging purity of the autumn air.
Wild flowers and Merrill and sunlight. The words haunted him. The picture they painted drove him mad. Cabin fever was the least of his problems.
“Sure,” he heard himself saying. “Come along.”
Wise move, O’Hara, he chastised himself, nothing like taking your problem on a quest to solve your problem. To compound the difficulty he added, “The way to the shack will be impassable soon, so why not more than a ride. How about one last fling?”
“Define fling.” Merrill had forsaken the study of her nails, trading it for a close inspection of Ty. He looked less than overjoyed at the prospect of a ride or her company. Hardly a mood for a fling, whatever his definition.
“A picnic.” Ty relaxed the death grip that threatened the slats of the chair, improvising as he went. “Bread, cheese, a good red wine. Along the way we can swing by the lower pasture to check out the tracks and see if we can rein Shadow in.”
“A long ride,” Merrill commented.
Like cabin fever, a long ride was the least of his troubles. “In a hurry?”
“Of course not.”
“Then it’s settled. The meadow, then the shack. If we run late, no problem. The moon is full and can light our way home.”
If he’d said it through gritted teeth, the invitation couldn’t be more stern. “Thanks,” Merrill worked at sounding nonchalant “But I’d better take a rain check. I just remembered some things I should do, and you probably need the time alone more than you need company.”
“I’ve been alone. For days. Weeks. Months.” Ty bit back a curse. None of the blame for his angry mood should fall on her. It wasn’t her fault that she distracted him, that he watched her when she was near, and thought of her when she wasn’t.
It wasn’t her fault she was desirable and tempting and he’d been without a woman for so long. Nor that the hero of the book in progress couldn’t think any clearer than his creator. Closing his eyes, shutting the innocent source of his troubles from sight, Ty drew a long hard breath. He wasn’t a bull moose, and this wasn’t rutting season. Merrill was his guest, and he’d known what he was letting himself in for when he agreed to let her stay.
“Maybe if I’d taken the little blonde up on her invitation,” he muttered beneath the breath that rushed from him in a hoarse growl.
He hadn’t taken her up on her invitation, and he hadn’t responded to her flirtatious advances. As he hadn’t so many others over the years. From the-first, his policy was that there would be no sexual entanglements, no intimacy greater than friendship between staff and guests. Flirting was fun, the sexual fencing even stimulating, yet he’d never wanted or needed to cross the line. He’d never come close to breaking the rules, until now.
The summer ladies came for a short time. A week or two, scheduled into busy lives, to taste the adventure of the northwest He, or one of the hands had taken them with family, friends, or lovers, into the wild, to camp, to fish, and to hunt wildlife with cameras. Some developed a strong yen for what they considered the two-legged wildlife of Montana. Dealing with it was part of the job.
Never a difficult task before. But none of them had been so aloof and fascinating. Nor lived under his roof, sharing his mornings and his nights, becoming more than a passing part of his life. His teeth clenched, a muscle at his temple jerked. A growl sounded deep in his throat. “Too much a part.”
“Ty?” Understanding neither his words nor his mood, Merrill rose from her chair, touching his arm in concern. When he flinched away, she jerked back, knocking her cup from the table, shattering crockery and spilling the last of her coffee over the floor.
“Ohh, no!” Kneeling in the carnage, she gathered dripping bits and pieces of the cup in her palm. “One of your wonderful Indian pieces.” Her fingers were shaking, making the task more difficult. “I shouldn’t have disturbed you.”
Ignoring shards of broken earthenware and the spreading puddle of coffee, Ty knelt before her. Taking jagged fragments from her, he tossed them on the table. “Leave it.”
“I can’t” She pulled her hand from his. “I have to clean it up. If I’m careful and find all the pieces, maybe it can be repaired.”
“Leave it” The words were firm, his tone quiet. “The cup doesn’t matter.”
“It was so pretty.” With her fingertips she tried to dry the brown liquid spreading over the floor.
Catching her hands in his, holding tightly this time, Ty drew them under his chin. His gaze was blue fire, riveting hers. “Leave the cup, leave the coffee. All that’s needed is a broom and a mop.”
“but...”
“But nothing,” he interrupted her lament “I’ll get another cup. I’ll get ten, if I want them. And it’s guaranteed each will be as pretty.”
“Guaranteed?” There was the shimmer of remorse in her eyes.
“Scout’s honor.”
“You aren’t just making this up?”
“Hey, do you think this is the first cup that’s been broken here? Do you flatter yourself that smashing dishes is a privilege reserved for you and this is the last replacement Tomas will ever make for me? It isn’t, by a long shot, in every case.”
“Then why did you use the tin before I came?”
“To save wear and tear, like this, on my knees,” he shot back.
She tried a smile and couldn’t pull it off. She’d seen Tomas’s name on pieces of pottery before. A collection of his work was more than simple earthenware, or table settings. Ty spoke of the potter as a friend. But even if the cup could be replaced, it didn’t change what she’d done. “I was careless and clumsy.”
“And I’m a grouchy idiot.” He kissed her knuckles and chuckled. “With wet knees. Do you think my brew is strong enough to dissolve denim?”
“Oh no. It’s...” The he hovered on the tip of her tongue and was no more successful than her smile. A weak version of the truth prevailed. “It’s very strong.”
Ty’s roar of laughter took her off guard, even as it laid her doubts to rest. Gathering her hands closer, he asked, “So, do we kneel here in the stuff, at loggerheads all day? Or do we find a way to resolve this? What do you suggest?”
“A truce.” Merrill proposed succinctly, her hands returning the pressure of his, eyes dark and bright with unshed tears blinked away.
In a familiar habit, Ty cocked a brow at her. “We were at war?”
“A Mexican standoff.”
“Near enough. So, as I asked, how do we resolve it?”
This time the smile worked. A little lopsided, a little unsteady. “I sweep, you mop. Or, if you prefer,” taking her hand from his, she tapped a finger dead center of his chest, “you mop, I sweep.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, sweetheart, it’s the same in either order,” Ty drawled.
“So?” She threw him the look a child might, denying she was filching cookies when her hand was buried in the cookie jar. “What do we have here, another Mexican standoff?”
“With wet knees? I don’t think so.” Ty climbed to his feet and brought Merrill with him. “I’ll mop the floor, you sweep.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Twice, dammit.” There was no sting in the rare profanity. A silly moment had lightened a bad mood, if not easing the cause.
While she went for the broom,
Ty scooped up the shattered parts of the cup, and with a clutch of paper towels soaked up the rest.
“You cheated!” Broom in hand, with nothing to sweep, Merrill leaned on the wooden handle.
“I mopped.” Giving the floor one last swipe, he stood to inspect his handiwork. “You didn’t say in what order we would perform our duties, nor how.”
“Does this mean you make a better Mexican than I.”
“That, I would say, is strictly a matter of opinion.” He was no more successful with the innocent act than she had been. “Like to go for two out of three?”
“Heaven forbid!” Merrill shuddered. “Your supply of cups couldn’t stand it.”
“Guess not.” He dropped the towels and the remains of the cup in the trash. “Are you up for another challenge?”
She was wary. Stacking her hands one over the other on the broom, she leaned her chin on them and regarded him through narrowed eyes.
“Afraid you’ll lose?” he taunted.
“How can I be when I have no idea what you’re suggesting?” Suspicion ran rampant.
“Nothing major.” Folding his arms over his chest, despite his words, Ty assumed a challenging stance.
A dare. Merrill had never been very good at backing away from a dare. “What’s the deal, and what are the odds?”
“The picnic. I quit struggling with a story line that’s going nowhere at the moment, you forget about the chores that were suddenly so urgent, and we go.” He crossed the kitchen to stand before her. The wildflower scent of her drifted to him, stirring a tenacious flame. “The odds are even.”
“Even, huh? What are the stakes?”
“Nothing major there either. The first one changed and dressed gets to choose the wine.”
“What about the loser?” She straightened to look up at him, accepting his challenge. “What price does he pay?”
“She, Short Bear. She.” His grin was smug. “What will be the loser’s penalty?” A fingertip traced the line of her throat, lingered long at the tiny well at its base, measuring the strong and steady beat of her heart. His denim clad shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I haven’t decided.”
