This—this—was all he’d ever wanted, all he needed, this sense of belonging and rightness and possibility that they could find together. Just kissing, for God’s sake. And when he had her naked, underneath him, sex with Jess was going to be the most incredible, consuming, inspiring...
Oh, jeez. What was he thinking?
Dylan stilled his hands and his mouth, and turned his head away from hers. He couldn’t do anything about his fast breathing, or the pounding of his heart against her breasts.
“It was a great dream,” he said, finally.
Jess hadn’t moved. “I believe you.”
He dropped his arms and retreated, feeling her hands slide over his belly as he moved away. “This seems to be my day for jumping your bones. I—”
She held up a hand. “No. Don’t say you’re sorry. I’m not.”
He managed a smile. “That’s nice to hear. What brought you over here?”
“I dropped it.” She scanned the floor around them and picked up a piece of paper she found lying under the table. “I wanted you to read Lizzie’s composition from this afternoon.”
“Have a seat,” he told her, taking the page she held. “Want some coffee?”
Jess shook her head. “No, thanks. I plan to sleep tonight. Maybe you should skip the caffeine, too. You look like you could use more rest.”
“Caffeine doesn’t keep me up.” Which was a lie, or why else would he drink it? “Give me a minute to go through this.”
Lizzie had written a poem.
In dreams I fly between the clouds and watch from seagull’s view
The rolling waves, loitering shells and roughly sculpted sand.
Umbrellas, boldly striped, hide the day.
Bare bodies, oiled, catch the rays.
A wooden pier points out to sea, drawing fishes to their doom,
But offering trinkets bright and sweet to lure a human hand.
The scent of salt blooms on the wind.
I wake and mourn to be a girl again.
When he finished, he gazed at the woman in the chair next to him. “Wow. Is it my imagination, or is she really good?”
“I think she’s exceptional for someone her age. I can’t believe her teachers would ignore this kind of talent.” She frowned. “Maybe, since Bisons Creek is such a small town, the schools don’t offer programs to address gifted students.”
“Caroline might be more of an expert on those issues. My guess would be Lizzie doesn’t share with very many people. But she knew you would read this and she wanted you to be impressed.” He handed the page to Jess. “We’ve got the cattle drive tomorrow, but maybe on Saturday you and she can do some serious talking. I’m sure your encouragement will mean a lot to her.”
“A couple of hours doesn’t constitute much of an effort.” She frowned at the paper. “She needs consistent support and feedback. I can imagine how much that would have meant to me when I was her age.”
“Maybe you and Caroline can talk to her together? Then Caroline can stick with it after you’ve left.”
“Yeah...” Jess left her chair and paced between the tables, her gaze sliding across his sculptures as if they weren’t there. “There should be more I can do, though.”
Dylan wasn’t sure what else to say. The limitations to what she could accomplish in the time available were pretty obvious. She’d be gone by Sunday afternoon, which accounted for his current state of frustration, as well as hers.
At the far end of the room, Jess turned, and then stopped. She stood motionless, staring at nothing while Dylan took the chance to appreciate her beauty, as he had once appreciated the Venus de Milo. Jess Granger was even more glorious, however, for being alive.
“I want to stay,” she said.
He sat up straight. “What?”
“I want to stay on the Circle M. Would that be possible?”
Dylan rubbed his eyes with the fingers of both hands. “I don’t see why not. For Lizzie’s sake?”
“For all the kids.” She came returned sit beside him. “All of them could use help with their reading and writing. The rest of you are as busy as you can handle with the other projects you have going on and the ranch chores. My shifts with the kids would give you a break to get other work done, including your sculpture, so maybe you could get more sleep at night. It’s the perfect answer.”
“I hesitate to bring this up,” Dylan said. “But don’t you have a job? And what about the damn article? Wasn’t there a deadline of some sort?”
“I can write the article here and email it to my editor. That’s no problem. I probably would have been working on it at home, anyway. As for the job, well, I do have vacation. I think I could get the okay to use it now.”
He stared at her. “That’s not an offer I would have expected from someone in your position. I’m not even sure I’d have suggested it myself. I voted against the summer camp idea when Caroline proposed it.”
“You had other priorities. And you have to admit that working with the kids takes your attention away from sculpture.” Jess shrugged. “That’s a hard choice to make.”
Maybe. But right now, he was glad he’d lost that particular vote. “In any case, you are welcome to stay as long as you’d like, of course. I’m sure Caroline, Ford and Garrett will be glad to employ your energies in every way possible.”
“I’m so excited.” Her smile could have lit the room if he hadn’t already switched on the lights. “This will be a lot of fun.”
“I hope you say the same a week from now. First, though, you’ve got to get through the cattle drive. Are you riding Cash tomorrow?”
“I’m riding in the truck with Susannah and Wyatt. One lesson doesn’t qualify me as a working cowgirl.”
“You’d do fine.” A huge yawn spoiled the effect of his compliment.
“You have seven kids to look after. That’s enough for the four of you.” She got to her feet. “And you ought to get some sleep. I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“No problem. Just let me get my boots on and I’ll walk you to the house.” He headed for the stairs, and was surprised to find that Jess arrived at the bottom step with him.
She put a hand on his arm. “No. This is one of those moments when I’m asserting my independence. This isn’t Central Park. I can walk myself to the house. You should go upstairs and climb into bed.”
He discarded the first idea that occurred to him, an image of the two of them in bed together. “I can stay awake long enough—”
“No,” she said again. “Go to bed. Alone,” she continued, in answer to the lift of his eyebrow. “Sleep.”
“All right. Can I walk you to the door?”
“I suppose.” When they reached the designated area, she flipped the lights off. They stood in the dark, barely able to see each other. “Good night, Dylan.” To his surprise, she reached up and kissed him lightly. “Sleep well.”
Just that gentle touch set his body humming. “Sure. We’ll be up and out early. Don’t forget your hat.”
“I wouldn’t dare.” She slipped out the door and closed it behind her, waved and then headed up the hill toward the house.
Dylan waited in the dark until he was more than sure Jess would have reached the house and gone inside. Then he flipped on the lights. He might be yawning, but his body remained full of tension, unable to relax. His brain buzzed between past and present, what had been and what could be. What could be, but...
Jess Granger was a self-sufficient woman who lived and worked in Manhattan, loved the big city and didn’t like small towns. She shared the values of that world—values Dylan had deliberately forsaken when he came back home. A serious relationship between them could never succeed when their core beliefs were so starkly different.
And if he’d learned anything at all during his stint on the abstract art scene, surely he had learned the value of commitment and fidelity in relationships. Casual sex led to catastrophe, as far as Dylan was concerned. He wouldn’t go down that road again.
&n
bsp; Not even for someone as special as Jess.
* * *
THANKS TO THE time difference, Jess was able to catch her editor at work before Susannah and Wyatt were ready to leave and follow the cattle drive in the truck.
“Are you surviving out there in the hinterlands?” Sophia Accardi asked. “Has the wind whipped your skin raw?”
“Moisturizer is definitely a girl’s best friend in Wyoming. But I’m near a town with a diner and a bookstore. Plus more handsome cowboys than I can count. What else do I need?”
“Do they chew tobacco?”
“No, Sophia. They don’t smoke it, either, like some people.” She’d nagged the other woman for years but had yet to convince her editor to drop the cigarette habit.
“Never mind that. All done? Ready to come home?”
Jess swallowed. “Um...getting there.”
“I don’t like the sound of ‘getting there.’ What’s the problem? Have you or have you not discovered the answer to the question of what happened to Dylan Marshall?”
“I’ve discovered some of the answer.”
“‘Some’ sounds evasive. Trevor Galleries wants this article to make a big splash, Jess. They’ve paid big-splash money. You have to deliver big-splash content.”
“I know.”
“Otherwise, I’ll find a writer who can. This is a business. I have to look at the bottom line.”
“I understand.” Jess took a deep breath. “While we’re talking, can you okay a few days off for me? I need to stay...for the story.”
“Your copy is due—”
“Yes, but Dylan Marshall is slow coming around. Give me the week. I’ll come back with the truth.” She was becoming pretty convincing at this lying thing.
“You’d better. We’ve had some good years together, sweetie. I’d hate to see it end.”
The line went dead. Jess stared at her phone. “You’re all heart.”
Susannah came to her bedroom doorway carrying a basket of food, with Amber skipping along behind her. “We’re ready if you are,” she said.
“All set.” Jess put her phone on the dresser and picked up her camera, smiling at the thought of leaving Sophia and Renown Magazine behind as she went out to enjoy the rest of her day.
An hour of travel along a web of gravel-and-dirt roads brought them to their rendezvous point with the cattle drive.
“The good thing about today’s route,” Wyatt said from the backseat as Susannah stopped the truck, “is that we can park here on the bluff overlooking the valley and watch them gather the cattle up along the river and push them on. We’ll get kind of a wide-scale view of the process.”
“Sounds like the perfect photo op. And I brought my zoom lens,” Jess said, opening her door. “I can get close-ups as well as distance shots. How long will it be before we see them?”
“They’ll come from the south end almost any moment now.” Wyatt pointed to the left. “And exit to the right. We’ll meet them for lunch just on the other side of those trees. It’s a small pasture, ideal for holding this herd together while we eat.”
“Do the kids understand what to do?” Susannah was keeping an eye on Amber, busy with her coloring book in the backseat of the truck. “There must be some skill involved in herding cows.”
Wyatt got out and leaned against the grille of the truck. “The trick is to have a leader moving forward, and then using your wranglers to apply pressure from the sides to keep the animals moving. The cattle at the end of the line will want to keep up with the others that way. Ford will be at the head, with the kids on the sides. Garrett and Caroline can supervise, while Dylan will be riding at the rear in case of stragglers.” He blew out a deep breath.
Jess noticed the sigh. “Would you be the leader if you were out there?”
“I usually bring up the tail. Dylan’s a good man in front.”
“When will you be able to get back to work?”
“On a horse, maybe Christmas.” He winked at her. “Or when I get sick of sitting around. Whichever comes first.”
She considered the implications. “So you’ll be shorthanded through the summer and fall. That’s a long time.”
He nodded. “You’re not kidding. Caroline’s been taking up some of the slack while she’s here for the camp, but she’s supposed to be in her office, not herding cattle.”
“That’s right, Dylan mentioned she works for the Department of Family Services.”
“And she has lots of clients to cover. Ford’s still winding up his work for the law firm he left in San Francisco, plus handling legal cases in town, too. And Garrett’s church requires his attention, of course. Nobody’s covering just one job here right now, except me. And Dylan, I guess.”
Jess looked at him hard. “You don’t consider Dylan’s art a job?”
Wyatt shrugged one shoulder. “I’d call it more of a hobby. A sideline.”
“He made some pretty impressive money with that sideline.” She tried to swallow her indignation. “Some of his art pieces sold for six figures.”
“Money doesn’t define what’s important in life.”
“Getting paid for work is generally the definition of a job. He’ll be selling the work he’s doing now, as well. Trevor Galleries is very eager to publicize this upcoming show.”
“Which is why you’re here. But what’s your point, Ms. Granger? I’m pretty sure you’ve got one.”
She pulled in a deep breath. “I’m surprised you treat something that means so much to your brother as a hobby.”
His blue eyes were stern. “Dylan’s a cowboy first and foremost. He’d tell you that himself.”
“But is that the way he wants to live his life? Maybe he’d like to be an artist who does ranch work as a hobby.”
“That’s not an option this summer.” He glanced to the left. “There they come.”
The noise struck her first—a hundred different versions of “moo,” all sounding at once, and repeated time and time again. In protest? Or did cows just need to talk while they moved?
Then she could hear the other voices, as kids shouted “Hey!” and “Git” and “Yah.” There were whistles in the mix, sharp and clear. Jess thought she could detect Caroline’s voice among the other sounds, though she couldn’t be sure.
Finally, she could distinguish Ford’s light blue shirt at the front of...well, it looked like a big black cloud rolling along at his heels. A very noisy black cloud. As she watched, the cloud resolved into individual animals, black cows ambling forward, jostling and bumping each other, crowding together and shouldering their way through as they followed Ford on his bright gold horse. The horse’s name was Nugget, he’d said, and the color was called palomino. Caroline’s horse, Allie, was also palomino, but a darker shade. Jess could just make out Allie now, on the far side of the river of cattle. There were three other horses with her, but she couldn’t tell the riders apart in their helmets.
On the near side, she found Garrett in his red shirt and four teenagers riding with him, doing pretty well at keeping the procession going forward.
“I can’t figure out which one is Nate.” Susannah had come to stand beside Jess, holding Amber in her arms. “Watch the cows, sweetie. Isn’t that amazing, how they’re all staying together? Nate’s down there helping.”
“Can I wave to him?”
Susannah laughed. “I don’t think he’ll see you. But you can try. We’ll both wave.”
Jess glanced at Wyatt, to share the humor of the moment with him, but found an expression of pain on his face, instead. Not physical pain, she thought, but emotional. As soon as he realized she was watching, however, his expression went blank.
He gave a brisk nod. “They’re doing a good job.”
Turning back to the scene, she lifted her camera and began taking pictures, trying to capture the action as faithfully as she could. With the telephoto lens, she found Becky on Caroline’s side of the herd with Nate, both of the kids doing their best to keep the cows together. Lizzie, on her po
ny, Major, was farther away. The girl was making no effort to work with the others, which left Caroline shorthanded. Lena and Justino rode with Garrett, Thomas and Marcos.
Jess set her sight on Ford at the moment when he turned Nugget directly toward the river. “They’re going across?” she asked, without losing her shot. “Is that dangerous?”
“Have the kids been through water before?” Susannah wanted to know.
“They’re fine,” Wyatt said, his voice calm and quiet. “The kids and the cows have been through water plenty of times. Don’t worry.”
The cows didn’t seem quite as comfortable as he’d predicted. There were calves among the adults, and the little ones tended to balk. Or run away, which required a rider on a horse to bring them back. Caroline demonstrated how it was done as she sent Allie after an escaping calf and blocked its way until it rejoined the herd. Garrett took one on his side, and his black horse gleamed in the sunlight as he shifted in one direction and then another, convincing the calf to go with the flow.
Ford continued to ride forward, and most of the cows seemed to be following him and Nugget. The water in the creek was only up to the horses’ knees, and once the cattle realized this, most seemed to understand the best way to go was through the middle. With the exception of Lizzie, the kids on each side kept the pressure on, and with Garrett and Caroline chasing strays, the process seemed to be a success.
Jess finally located Dylan at the tail end of the drive. Working actively to keep the stragglers on both sides from wandering off, his pony moved like a dancer, swaying and jumping as necessary to do the job. Sitting straight and tall, Dylan appeared to be in complete control, always a step ahead of the cattle he tended.
But then Wyatt straightened up. “Damn.”
A Husband in Wyoming Page 10
