Colorado High

by Joyce C. Ware

  Disconcerted by the blaze of white teeth aimed at him, Miguel looked first this way, then that. “I must go now,” he said, getting up from the table. “That new boy I hired?” he said, nodding towards the blue-jeaned figure watching them from the other end of the barn. “He’s a hard worker, but not a ... how you say, hustler?” Aware of their eyes on him, the young man shifted restively from one foot to the other, obviously at loose ends.

  Tessa, sure that her notion of a hustler wasn’t the one Miguel had in mind, suppressed a smile. “You mean he’s not a self-starter?”

  “Si!” Miguel pantomimed steering a car. “He still has to be shown how to go.” He touched his hat brim. “Thank you for lunch.”

  “My pleasure, Miguel.”

  She watched his spare, upright figure move sedately towards the new hand, who trotted forward to meet his mentor. They rounded the corner of the barn together, the younger man nodding as Miguel talked. Tessa left the hiring and firing of the hands who worked with the horses in Miguel’s hands. He always made a nice little show of seeking her approval, but in thirty years she’d never even considered second-guessing him. Barry hadn’t liked that much either.

  Tessa had just finished dressing after a long cool shower when Jed arrived. He knocked, walked in calling her name, and met her at the foot of the stairs.

  She wore slim tan chino pants belted tightly over a blue, sandwashed silk shirt. Her hair, still a little damp, hung loose on her shoulders; her face, except for lipstick, was as God and time-had made it. She was barefoot.

  Jed looked at her appreciatively. “You smell nice,” he said. “Soapy.”

  “Soapy, hell. It’s a very pricey cologne Gavin gave me for my birthday this year.” She grinned. “He forgot to peel the price tag from the bottom of the box. It’s got one of those la-di-da names, but it’s basically carnation.”

  “Okay, expensive soapy. Spicy but sweet.”

  “If you were thinking of adding ‘just like you,’ you can forget it, pal.”

  Jed’s eyebrows rose. “Never crossed my mind.” They walked into the living room. Tessa sat in one of the big easy chairs; he lounged, hipshot, against the stone fireplace, one hand resting along the edge of the mantel. “You’re in a perky mood today.”

  “Have you a problem with that?”

  “No, not really, not as long as it stops short of taking playful nips at anyone in your vicinity ... like me, for instance.”

  She looked indignant. “Whatever makes you think—“

  “I’ve known you a long, long time, Tessa.”

  “One ‘long’ would have been enough,” she remonstrated. “But you’re right,” she said, her smile returning, “I am feeling good. That bay colt, Resha?” He nodded. “He’s a real sweetheart. Our training session went extremely well, and afterwards Miguel and I had a meeting of the minds about the direction the breeding program should be following.” Her smile faded. “It made me forget for a little while about the things that aren’t going so well.”

  “Like Lloyd, you mean.”

  “Yeah. Among others,” she added in a mutter.

  “Well, after you called I did some phoning around. One of the guys I’ve kept up with since my college days tells me that another of our classmates, who majored in biochemistry, is now a well-regarded researcher in genetics out on the West Coast. I figured maybe he could tell us how the twins came by hazel eyes by virtue of legitimate inheritance. As I told you, I’m pretty sure I already know the answer, but who’s going to listen to me?”

  “No kidding! Do you think he might— “

  “I called him next, Tessa. Caught him just as he was leaving for a conference in Chicago. He said he’ll be glad to help. He’ll even testify if need be, but that would probably mean paying his expenses . . . airfare, motel, meals . . .”

  “No problem. He could stay here. Enjoy the view.”

  “Then, on the way over, I got to thinking. What if you took a couple of days off, flew down to Brownsville, called on your in-laws, and asked to borrow that portrait? A temporary loan, you could call it. One look at it should change Lloyd’s mind . . . Jack’s too, I reckon.”

  She thought for a moment, then frowned and shook her head. “It’s a good idea, Jed, but it won’t work. For one thing, although old Boyd kind of liked me— he liked blondes, anyway—Mom Wagner barely tolerated me. She thought I thought I was better than the Wagners— “

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Well, yeah, but I tried not to show it too much.” Jed grinned at her. “I really did try,” she protested. “Anyway, feeling as she did, when Barry died it was easier to blame me for his failings than find fault with her boy.” She shrugged. “In her shoes I’d’ve probably felt the same. So if I sashayed in on them after all this time . . . Hell, Jed, the only contact we have now is at Christmas! Old Boyd always sends Garland a check for her birthday, but he signs the card.”

  “Nothing for Gavin? He’s blond, too.”

  “Yeah, but the wrong gender,” Tessa said.

  “Another dirty old man, huh?”

  Knowing he meant Scott, Tessa narrowed her eyes. Did he know something she didn’t? Deciding to postpone opening that particular can of worms, she said, “As I was saying, if I popped in on them, saying ‘Hi, how you doing, mind if I borrow Gram’s portrait?’ Mom’d be on the phone to Lloyd the very next minute to see what was up. Might do more harm than good.”

  “Hmm-mmm. You may be right about that, Tessa. Damn. I’m sure there’s a way . . . we just haven’t seen it yet.”

  He came over to stand beside her chair. He placed his hand on her shoulder; hers came up to squeeze it. She looked up at him. Her eyes, he realized, matched the color of her shirt. Clear, vibrant, and very blue.

  “Thanks for being such a good friend,” she said.

  Friend.

  After all these years, that’s still what it came down to. Could be worse, he thought wryly.

  “Why don’t you stay for supper?” she asked. “This woman you’ve got staying with Pop . . . would the favor she owes you cover that?”

  He laughed. “That and then some. I’ll give her a call,” he said, turning towards the kitchen.

  “Garland doesn’t get home until six, six-thirty,” she called after him. “If you want a drink first, we won’t eat before seven, so it would be at least nine by the time you got home.”

  Jed turned back, a sheepish expression on his face. “Damn. I completely forgot. Garland called me. She’s staying in Telluride tonight.”

  “She called you?” Tessa’s voice was harsh.

  “She said she got no answer here.”

  She nodded, as if to herself. “Yeah, I was with Miguel and the horses most of the morning.” She looked up at Jed, then immediately away, as if afraid her eyes might give something away. “Uh, did she happen to say where she’ll be staying . . . just in case I need to reach her?”

  Jed, knowing perfectly well the real reason behind her question, pretended ignorance. “With some woman she works with . . . Mona, I think her name is.”

  Under other circumstances, Tessa’s expression of relief might have struck him as funny. She got up and began pacing back and forth. “I’m worried, Jed.”

  “I really don’t think Lloyd’s little blackmail attempt has much chance of succeeding, Tessa,”

  Tessa frowned and waved her hand. “Not that. It’s Garland. We had a ... disagreement last night. No, more than that, as near a row as we’ve ever had.”

  “Yes, I know.” Tessa stopped pacing to stare at him. “She came to see me last night.”

  “So that’s where she went! I thought she had gone—” She stopped abruptly. “Well, I didn’t really know,” she finished lamely.

  “You thought she’d gone up to Shelby’s in Telluride. That’s what Garland said you’d think,” Jed said. “She didn’t seem to care,” he added. “Why do you suppose that is?”

  “How would I know?” Tessa snapped. “You sound like one of those damn psychologist
s! I hardly recognize Garland these days. My own daughter,” she said in a faint, bewildered tone. She pushed her fingers through her hair. “Maybe that sweet, open, honest nature I’ve taken for granted all these years was just a false front.”

  “Come off it, Tessa! That’s bunk and you know it.”

  She glared at him. “Why are you angry at me?”

  “That broken blossom routine cuts no ice with me. I’ve known you, too long.”

  “I thought I knew Garland, too. Did she tell you about this boy she’s been seeing?”

  “Had been seeing,” he corrected. “Although I’m not sure,” he added dryly, “that ‘seeing’ is the right word for it. And he’s twenty-one, Tessa. Hardly a boy.”

  “All right, man! God knows those tight jeans he was wearing proved that,” she muttered.

  Jed looked at Tessa curiously. It was hard to be sure in the dim light, but she looked as if she were blushing. He knew that sometimes color rose in her cheeks when she was annoyed, but that was a flush, not a blush. He couldn’t decide which this was; he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  “A young man,” he gently amended. “And Garland’s a young woman. If it hadn’t been him, it would be someone else.”

  “Scott, maybe?” Her voice shook. “She told me she was willing to use him.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Jed said flatly.

  “Then I guess you don’t know her either! She’s a schemer, that daughter of mine. She’s not even finished college yet and she’s talking about going east to veterinary school and joining a practice in Telluride. She’s already researched it, for God’s sake! So, since Scott knows everybody worth knowing up there, she figures he can introduce her around. If Sylvester Stallone and Tom Cruise keep horses, enter Miss Garland Wagner.”

  “That’s planning, Tessa, not scheming. As for Scott . . . these days that’s called networking.”

  “Networking? Hah! You should have seen him coming on to her the other night! Not in the usual way . . . Scott’s much too smart for that. He doesn’t go in for gold chains and shirts open down to there— he knows that would make him look pathetic. He comes across like . . . well, not so much like an older man trying to look young as a man who’s ageless. He’s very good at it, him and his high-wattage smile.” She looked at him earnestly. “Do you know what I’m trying to say?”

  Jed nodded. “Sure. Don Juan in Ralph Lauren duds.”

  “A couple of weeks ago, I told Garland he meant no harm, but now I’m not so sure. He’ll use her if he can . . . maybe he already has,” she added bleakly.

  “I think you’re worrying unnecessarily, Tessa. Believe me, Garland’s more of a chip off the maternal block than you give her credit for. You didn’t succumb to Shelby’s charm twenty years ago ... I assume you haven’t now, either.”

  Her eyes skated away. “This time around I wasn’t given the opportunity,” she muttered. “Garland told me he wasn’t interested. Flat out, just like that.”

  Jed didn’t know what to say.

  “Did you hear what I just said?” She stood very close. Her anguished blue eyes, searching his, were filmed with tears. “Not. Interested.”

  The tears brimmed over and slid unhindered down her cheeks.

  “Oh, Tessa,” he murmured.

  Meaning to comfort her, he gathered her into his arms. She clung to him, her hands clutching his shoulders, then slipping around his neck. Her tear-moistened cheek pressed hotly against his before sliding slowly, skin on skin, until her lips joined with his, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Oh Tessa.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jed returned the pressure of Tessa’s lips, harder and more urgently until they yielded. His tongue met hers, teased, slid along her teeth, then thrust insistently beyond. He felt her body quiver familiarly against him, and the thirty intervening years vanished like smoke into a winter sky, spiraling away all the accumulated hurt and resentments.

  Tessa clung, kneading the back of his neck as his hands moved lower to capture the rapid rise and fall of her ribs, the elastic softness of her rounded hips. She moaned. The sound was guttural, almost animal-like, and suddenly she was taking the lead. Breaking away, Tessa grabbed his hand and turned towards the stairs. Accompanied only by the sound of their quickened breathing—there was no need to speak— they stumbled up, one close behind the other, into her bedroom and collapsed entwined on the wide bed.

  The room, its shades drawn against the afternoon heat, was dim. The kind light bolstered Jed’s illusion of a return to their youth. He kissed her throat, then the hollow visible in the vee of her blue shirt. As he fumbled to open it, she lifted her hips. He freed the last of her shirt’s buttons, heard the hiss of a zipper, then her whispered plea for assistance. He knelt beside her and eased down her pants—first one leg, then the other— exposing long white thighs smoothly muscled by years of riding, ankles as delicately boned as a thoroughbred’s.

  His eyes couldn’t get enough of her. Still on his knees, he reached toward her plain white cotton panties—no-nonsense, just like her, he thought tenderly—and cupped the crotch with his sun-browned hand. It was damp against his palm.

  “Jesus,” he murmured.

  Her hand reached out to tug at his belt, then grope for his fly. Frantic with desire, he stood only long enough to strip his long lean body free of jeans and shirt, tossing them into the room’s shadowed recesses. Her eyes opened wide at the sight of his naked arousal. She shrugged out of her shirt and lay back again as he knelt above her, tracing the soft globes of her breasts with work-roughened fingers. He bent to nuzzle the hardened tips, first licking, then nipping them gently. She tossed her head from side to side against the pillow, shuddered, pushed him up, and lifted her hungry mouth.

  Jed looked down in dazed wonder as she bent her head to attend to him, her hair a golden shawl across his belly and loins. He bared his teeth and threw back his head. Oh God oh God. The sensation rapidly became too intense to bear. Groaning, he eased her mouth away; then, aided by the eager lift of her hips, he peeled off her briefs.

  “Do I please you?” she whispered.

  “You do,” he murmured. “You always have. But this . . .” His fingers teased through the gold thatch to explore the hot moistness beneath. The musky scent of her excitement intoxicated him. “I’ve dreamed of this many times, seeing you like this— more beautiful than I imagined— but I never thought— “

  “Then shut up and love me!” she demanded in an exultant throaty growl. “Just love me, damn it.”

  A quick hard thrust and they were connected. Friends became lovers in a long, slow coupling that for Jed, hearing her little chirps of pleasure, became a dance of celebration.

  The sweet chirping roughened into panting gasps— She came with a violence that astonished him, her body arching then slackening as wave after wave of tremors found release. Jed, who had been holding back, waiting for her, let go. Feeling himself pulsing deep inside her, he cried put. Adrift in sensation, he wound his fingers in her thick hair, using it to anchor him to a suddenly transformed life.

  “Hey! That hurts!” she protested.

  He released her, then lifted himself, smiling.

  “My darling Tessa,” he said. “I promise never to hurt you again.”

  “Never is a long time,” she murmured.

  “The rest of our lives,” he said.

  She pulled him down. They exchanged kisses. Soft, playful little butterfly flutters at first, but the urgency soon returned. Tessa exhaled explosively.

  “I need air,” she gasped.

  Their bodies were slicked with sweat. She wriggled away from under him, sat up, lifted her hair off her neck, and turned to smile at him. “That was . . . wonderful. Is there no end to your talents, Mr. Bradburn?”

  He smiled back. “That about does it,” he said contentedly, “but I wouldn’t say no to an encore, and maybe some variations. Assuming you’re willing,” he added.

  “Right now I’d rather eat,” she said, e
vading his seeking hand. She stood and pulled on her panties. “Sex always makes me hungry.” She picked her silk shirt off the floor and slipped it on. “Doesn’t it you?”

  He watched her long capable fingers dexterously ease the buttons into their slots. As dexterously as she eased herself away from me, he thought.

  “It’s been a while,” he said, frowning.

  She stepped into her chinos and zipped them closed. “Oh? I thought maybe you and Nell— “

  “Once. Big mistake.” He watched as she snugged her belt tight around her waist, emphasizing the generous curve of her hips. He imagined them under his hands again. Warm, soft, smooth . . . “Tessa? We’ve got the house to ourselves, and it’s still early . . . what do you say we—”

  She plucked an elastic hair-tie from the dresser and secured her hair into a neat pony-tail. “Don’t coax, Jed,” she said absently, looking in the mirror and smoothing her dark eyebrows. “It’s not like you. Besides, I put together a beefsteak and kidney stew this morning, hoping to smooth things over with Garland. Not exactly a summertime dish, but it’s one of her favorites. Of course I didn’t know then she wouldn’t be home for dinner, but if I remember correctly, you like it, too, right?” She turned. “Well, am I?”

  Jed, who had dressed to the accompaniment of Tessa’s chatter, found himself wondering what the hell was going on here.

  “You’re right about a lot of things, Tessa, but not that. Fact is, I don’t like kidneys one little bit. Never have. You must be thinking of someone else.”

  “Can’t imagine who that might be.” She preceded him down the stairs. “Well, I may have a pizza in the freezer, or ... I know, how about a Spanish omelet? If Garland takes up with that Rick Chavez of hers again— I hope she doesn’t, but I couldn’t blame her if she did—I’ll need to add them to my breakfast repertoire.”

  “Handsome, is he?” Jed asked.

  “Movie star caliber.” Tessa shook her fingers as if singed. “I swear if I were younger . . .” Her blue eyes sparkled. She looked sleek, well-fed ... satisfied. “So, what’ll you have?”

  Jed picked up his hat. Old and dusty, just like me. “You, Tessa, but apparently I’m not part of your game plan.”