Broken Spurs

by BJ James

  “I’d like to speak with you, Mr. Cody.”

  He hadn’t been wrong. The voice suited her down to the last softly drawled word. Quiet words, refined, with a hint of arrogance and tempered steel. “Well, ma’am,” he matched his tone to hers, the drawl, the arrogance, the steel. “I’d like to oblige you, but I don’t think we have anything to talk about.”

  Her silver gaze turned frosty. “I think we do.”

  Questioning what she had to say that merited stopping him on the sidewalk, and wondering why she was so hostile, he chose to hear her out. But on his terms, and to his advantage. “Suit yourself, lady.” He let his gaze drift to her mouth in a long, thoughtful look. Long enough and thoughtful enough to wear away a bit of the lofty confidence. “Speak.”

  Stung by his unconcern, and unsettled by a gaze as dark and unfathomable as midnight, she drew herself even more erect. In her boots she stood a regal five-four that barely topped his shoulder. A feathery brow lifted as regally. “I would have preferred someplace more private.”

  Steve’s grin was slow and wicked. He was enjoying himself more than he had in months. Looking down at her, hardly an armful dressed like a cowhand with the frosty expression of a queen, he couldn’t resist teasing. “Well, now, don’t tell me this is an Arizona pickup.”

  “I beg your pardon!” The frost deepened.

  “Do you?” With the thumb of a loosely fisted hand, he tilted his hat from his forehead. In a drawl more pronounced, he murmured lazily, “I’m a Texan, ma’am, and, lord, I do hate to make a woman beg.”

  “I beg your pardon!” she blurted out of angry habit, then caught a stuttering breath at the unfortunate repetition.

  As a flush of color stained her cheeks, a nerve fluttered at her temple. Wondering if it was a gauge of her temper, Steve pushed his advantage. “All right, if you insist, in your case I’ll make an exception, Mrs....” Glancing down at fingers he already knew were bare, he amended, “Or Miss?”

  “It’s Miss,” she snapped, just managing to rein in her irritation.

  The slightest inclination of his head acknowledged her control, and he decided to test it. “All right, if you insist, in your case I’ll make an exception, Miss...” His brow wrinkled in a. broad parody of innocent curiosity as he paused for another answer.’

  “Benedict,” she filled in the blank again with strained grace. “Hank Benedict, from The Rafter B.”

  “Hank? Miss Hank?” Steve mused with a grimace. “A pity.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself, Mr. Cody.” The advantage of surprise had slipped away. She didn’t know how, but she wasn’t ready to fold. “I don’t need your pity, not for my name, nor for anything.”

  Sliding his hat back another notch, concealing his surprise that the Benedicts had made their move so soon, he lounged against the porch railing at his back. His look traveled the length of her once more, leisurely seeking out the womanliness beneath the rough clothes. A condemning growl that held no shred of teasing rumbled in his throat as he returned his gaze to hers. “Let me guess. Jake Benedict, ruler of the Benedict empire, wanted sons. Strong sons, to carry on his work and his name. When there was only one child, a daughter, he turned her into the next best thing.”

  “Jake?” Her eyes narrowed speculatively at his use of her father’s name. “You’ve done your homework, I see.”

  “No homework needed.” He shrugged a shoulder in a deprecating gesture. “Say the name Silverton and someone’s sure to come back with Jake Benedict. A free association, like saddle tramps and broncs. Doesn’t take a genius to figure he’s the most powerful man around. The sort who would turn his only daughter into his right hand man.”

  The caustic observation should have been an insult, but something in his tone took the sting from it. Another time, she would have taken her cue from his face, but not now. It was too difficult to judge his expression as she looked from unrelieved brilliance into the shade of the jutting roof of the store. Calculated, no doubt, to give himself another advantage. A move so natural it was second nature. A wily move, a wily foe. She wondered if, like Jake, he played a fiendish game of chess.

  Whatever game he was playing now, he was good. But so was she. Pleasantly, with a trace of irony, she observed evenly, “If you’re telling me that as a woman raised to be her father’s son I’m a dime-a-dozen cliché, then consider, also, my company.”

  Two fingers brushed the brim of his hat indolently. One cliché saluting another. “Touché.”

  “French, Mr. Cody?” A hint of the South was in the drawl again. Hooking her thumbs in the back pockets of her jeans, with narrowed eyes, she probed the shadows. “Is that the extent of your bilingual skill, or is there more?”

  “A phrase or two. Enough that I can order from a menu.” At her look of doubtful mockery, he smiled. “Even a dime-a-dozen rodeo has-been climbs out of his dusty cliché once in a while, Miss Benedict.”

  A flash of amusement sparkled in her eyes, warming the frost a bit. With a minute inclination of her head, she acknowledged it was her turn to concede a point in what had become a guarded fencing match.

  Their gazes met for a moment, adversaries, acknowledging and respecting the worthiness of an opponent.

  An acquaintance of the Benedicts walked by, halted, watched curiously, then moved on reluctantly.

  Hank hadn’t acknowledged the man, indeed, had hardly noticed him. But because of the minor intrusion into her riveted concentration, she was abruptly and acutely aware of other watchful stares. She realized that the news of Steve Cody’s arrival had certainly leaked from the courthouse. Concetta had managed a discreet call from the registrar’s office, sending a runner to the corrals with the news for Hank first.

  That small act of friendship would have strained the discretion of the benevolent busybody. And like any gossip too good to keep, once the news was broken, it would spread like wildfire. By now, anyone in Silverton who wasn’t deaf, or asleep, already knew or would know soon just exactly who this rangy black haired cowboy was.

  Conversation on street corners were common in Silverton. Conversations between a Benedict and the new owner of Sunrise Canyon were not.

  Half turning, she looked down the crowded walkway, her mind churning. This encounter was ill-advised. A tactical error that would require a temporary mending of fences. But how?

  Surprised by her withdrawal, Steve watched her. In this stolen moment, allowing himself a very masculine appreciation of a woman, not his adversary. He found he liked her. He liked her spirit, and the challenge she offered. He liked her body, shapely and compact, yet gracefully lean, with small breasts rising with each breath. He liked her profile, the tilted nose, the stubborn chin, the way her lashes swept her cheeks as she struggled with herself, or with him. He liked her hair, rich and dark, with sunlight striking shimmering cinnamon in its depths. He wondered how long it would be freed from the braid, how thick, how silky. How it would feel in his hands, sliding through his fingers. And how sweet the caress of it drifting over his body.

  Remembering she was a Benedict, never forgetting she was a woman, he watched her, thinking impossible things, feeling the rush of impossible desire.

  “I am my father’s son, Miss Benedict,” he said softly, turning his mind to the issue. “I know what it’s like to spend a lifetime trying to be something I couldn’t be. Trying to give a man I loved something he couldn’t have.”

  The sympathy she heard in his words rankled. The last thing she wanted from this man was sympathy. Her chin lifted, the challenge returned. “No, Mr. Cody, you don’t know.” She’d striven all her life to be a Benedict. As a Benedict, she’d play the cards she’d drawn. “This wasn’t the place for this discussion, but there’s no help for it now.”

  In this abstruse shift, an inexplicable mood vanished. They were adversaries again. In feigned nonchalance, he waited for Hank Benedict to come to the point. “Your choice, lady,” he reminded. “Your discussion.”

  In a clipped voice, she snapped, “Are you
always this insufferable?”

  His mouth tilted in a restrained smile. “Are you always this imperious?”

  As color rushed to her cheeks again, Steve relented. “All right, Miss Benedict, you look like a busy woman, so let me save you some time.” Pushing away from the rail, he stood, looking down at her. “The Broken Spur isn’t for sale. Now or in the future.”

  Steve felt a deep respect, tempered by regret. Respect for this woman who would fight him, valiantly, defiantly, to the end of her strength. Regret that she wouldn’t admit there needn’t be a battle at all. For one mad moment, he was tempted to offer a compromise. Wisdom predicated on Benedict history and the seething look in her fascinating eyes warned it would be thrown back in his teeth.

  “I’ll be bringing in my stock soon.” Annoyed with his moment of weakness, he spoke curtly. “I’d appreciate it if you’d send a couple of your hands over to round up the cattle you’ve been grazing in the canyon. If there’s no one you can spare, I’ll be obliged to herd them out myself.”

  “You’ll herd my cattle out?” Hank glared up at him, holding desperately to a control that threatened to slip away.

  “Your choice again.”

  “Rafter B cattle have been grazing that land for twenty years. You can’t just waltz in and take possession, then tell us to get out.”

  “I can, Benedict. I just did. You have two weeks to move every horse and cow wearing the Rafter B brand off the Broken Spur.”

  “None of this would be necessary if you’d listen to our offer. It’s generous and more than the land is worth.”

  “More than it’s worth to you, maybe, but not to me. This is more than a ranch, it’s a dream. There’s not enough money in all the Benedict coffers to buy a man’s dreams.”

  “That’s absurd!” A door closed, footsteps crossed a wooden porch, paused, then clattered down the steps. Hank was too indignant now to care who witnessed her encounter with this stubborn interloper.

  “Is it?” Steve asked mildly. “Tell me why.”

  “Everything has a price,” she snapped. “Even dreams.”

  “Not mine.”

  “Listen to me....”

  “No.” Steve wrapped her braid around his palm, drawing her closer. “You listen. You don’t need my land, Benedict, you have more than you can use. Without the canyon, you may have to cull your herd, or drive them farther and stretch more fence. But beyond that inconvenience,” he wrapped the braid another loop around his hand, tugging it not ungently to emphasize his point, “you don’t need it.”

  “Need doesn’t enter into it. My father wants the canyon.” The calm she sought escaped her. Even in anger she was aware of the strength of his hand and the heat of his wrist as it rested against the slope of her breast. She wanted to move away from his touch, but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of struggling to be free.

  Lifting her chin a haughty inch, she stared up at him, seeing him more clearly from close range. The inescapable eyes she thought were black were darkest brown, flecked with gold. She saw now that he was pale for a cowboy. A paler half-moon scar curved over his temple, then disappeared into his hairline. A reminder of tragedy. As was the shirt that clung to his shoulders and chest a little too loosely.

  He’d been ill, grievously injured in a rodeo mishap. She’d read of it in the news months ago. Gazing at the grainy photograph of a handsome cowboy with an engaging grin, she’d sympathized with his misfortune. It would’ve been too incredible to imagine that one day his misfortune would pit them against each other in a battle that promised no easy solution.

  No solution? she wondered. Perhaps it was there all along, in the truth.

  “You’re right,” she admitted, trying a new course. “We don’t need it, at least not geographically. My father has been ill for several years, since then he’s been even more obsessed with the canyon and the grazing land around it. He wants it badly.”

  “Why?” Steve asked, bluntly. “Because it sits squarely within the boundaries of the Rafter B? Another man’s land, a blight in the middle of the map of all his holdings?”

  “That’s why, exactly. He wants the boundaries to be completely intact. You speak of dreams, that’s been his dream all his life. The one dream he couldn’t have.” There was compassion, not malice, when she said softly, “You know what it’s like to want something that badly, to almost have it, then lose it.

  “You almost had the national championship, and you would’ve if it weren’t for a stroke of bad luck. Doesn’t it rankle? After all the years of grueling work and pain, don’t you ache for that buckle? Wouldn’t you like to hold it in your hand, knowing it’s yours? Yours, Mr. Cody. Your dream. Just as my father had a dream, until first Charlie Abramson, then you, were his bad luck.”

  Steve stared down at her, still holding her braid. Not pulling, simply holding. “That was quite a speech,” he said, releasing her. It wasn’t simply a speech. He knew every word came from her heart, and that she meant no hurt to him. But something perverse in him wouldn’t let him accept it. “I hate to pop your bubble, but the championship was my father’s dream. The Broken Spur is mine.

  “I won’t be selling, Miss Benedict. Not to anyone, for any reason.”

  “There’s other land....”

  “No,” he said so quietly she hardly heard, but only a fool wouldn’t have sensed the unshakable resolve, the edge of danger. “Not for me. And no one, not you, not your father, or anyone will take it from me. If Jake Benedict wanted his land intact, he should have thought twice before buying up all the ranches beyond the canyon.”

  “He was convinced Charlie would sell one day.”

  “Then he didn’t know Charlie. Just as you don’t know me. But you will, maybe better than you’d like. I’m here to stay. Save us both a lot of misery, accept it.” Twinges of pain had begun to flicker behind his eyes like muted lightning, a warning of one of the rare headaches that still plagued him. He hadn’t much time, in a matter of minutes he would be half blind with it. Parking was at a premium because of the sale, and his truck was blocks away. If he didn’t leave soon, it might as well be miles.

  “If you refuse our offer, you’ll have only yourself to blame for the consequences.” The minute she said the words, she wanted to recall them. She wanted to apologize as he stood like an image turned to stone. Only his eyes seemed alive, their feverish darkness stared at her from a face that seemed grimmer and paler.

  “Threats, Benedict?” A thin, humorless smile quirked at a corner of his mouth. “Have we come to that at last?”

  “No!” With a jerk of her head, she searched for a way to make him understand she spoke of misery and heartache, as he had. But how did one explain an unfortunate choice of words?

  His smile didn’t change. “It sounded like a threat.”

  “No, please.” She laid a hand on his bare arm beneath the turned back sleeves. He was shaking, and even in the early afternoon heat, his skin was cold and clammy. Startled, she looked up at him, frowning in unexpected concern. Her fingers tightened over his arm. “Is something wrong?”

  “I’m fine,” he snapped, damning the luck that she should discover his weakness.

  “But you’re shaking!”

  A lie wouldn’t work, she was too sharp for it, so he settled for half truths. “It’s nothing, just the lingering effects of an old injury. I’ll be okay in a second.”

  “What can I do? There’s a doctor in the next block.”

  He laughed, a guttural growl meant to be mocking. “Threatening me in one breath, offering help in the next? What sort of woman are you?”

  “A woman who is her father’s son,” she said mildly. “A Benedict, remember?”

  “Yes.” The word resounded in his head, and the ax wreaked its havoc. There were two of her. There would be two of everything until the headache subsided. His doctors has given them a fancy medical term for a name. Then explained the involvement of the optic nerves, that there would be no lasting damage. The attacks would gradually
decrease over a period of a few months, then subside completely. It had been months, and they were decreasing, but even if this one lasted less than the course of the last one, a hellish couple of hours lay ahead.

  “I remember,” he managed. But she was more than that simplistic summation. Far more. He’d heard it in her voice and seen it at first glance. In the way she walked, the way she dressed. The way she looked at a man. That cool challenge in her silver eyes, that made her a challenge herself.

  She answered to a man’s name, but he would have to have worse than double vision not to see there was a hell of a woman beneath the rough clothes. A woman any man would want.

  She would love with mind and heart, body and soul. Completely, without reservation. As completely as she fought.

  Catching her hand in his, he took it from his arm. Her fingers were slender and tapered, the nails even but short. There were calluses on her palms. And blisters—new calluses in the making. Her bones were delicate, but he felt the tensile strength. Strength to fight the battles of Jake Benedict and the Rafter B.

  With his thumb he stroked a roughened ridge at the base of her fingers. The skin was tough, but once it would have been raw and bleeding, the pain excruciating. Only time, more work, more injury and more healing had formed this protective shroud. Time and pain.

  “Savannah Benedict,” he murmured. “Woman extraordinaire. Enemy mine.”

  Ignoring her gasp of surprise, he released her reluctantly. He was pushing the time frame, he had to go.

  “How do you know my name?”

  “Shh...” He stroked her lips, stopping the tumble of words, discovering he liked the feel of her mouth, moist and startled, under his fingertips. “It’s no mystery, and I’m far from clairvoyant. Charlie might’ve left Sunrise Canyon twenty years ago, but he never forgot you. A solemn nine-year-old with freckles and braids, who slipped away to the canyon to play with his daughter, or tag behind him, when the battle over her made the Rafter B too uncomfortable.”