by BJ James
She suspected the pain always came with little warning, with no regard for place or time, without clemency in its crippling attack. Though he’d smiled there on the streets of Silverton, dismissing it, offering an offhand explanation, before it was done he was nearly blinded by it. He coped, with bitter acceptance, but had not escaped unmarked by the powerful hatred strong and passionate men harbored for even a moment of helplessness.
She knew of secret battles and their toll. She tried not to see them every day in Jake.
Jake Benedict. Steve Cody. Men from different places, at different times in their lives, yet so much alike. Strong men, silent in their grim battle against the enduring effects of physical catastrophe. For whom, perhaps for the first time, the clock and age were as significant as strength.
At sixty-three, time and age were Jake’s enemy. Each day’s struggle leached away a little more of his strength, a little more hope. While, with the tenacity and vigor of youth, this man grew even more dynamic.
Steel tempered by the fires of hard luck and disappointment, had grown stronger with each challenge, making Steve Cody a disturbing and dangerous man. Dangerous, indeed.
Lashes sweeping from her cheeks, her eyes wide, she stared into the face of the man who challenged and enticed. A man of courage, and conviction. In another time, another place, she admitted with uncompromising Benedict honesty, a man she would want.
“All through?” Steve asked softly.
“What?” A frown gathered on her face as she cast about for the thread of conversation.
“Ready to place your bet?”
Remembering, she nodded abruptly. “If I were a gambler.”
“Which you aren’t?”
“I’m not a lot of things, Mr. Cody.” Gathering her wits, she appended quiet words with a quiet rebuke. “You’ve delivered your message and made your point. We’ll see to the cattle. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m a trifle too busy to stand around speculating on hidden talents and listening to fractured Shakespeare.”
When she turned to the stallion, Steve captured her braid as it swung over her shoulder. A tug turned her back to him. “The way I hear it, you’re always busy. Too busy for anything but the ranch.”
“Been listening to gossip, have you?” Once before he’d held her like this. Once before his wrist had brushed over her breast. She would ignore the warmth that stirred like a blush in her.
“I needed supplies.” Steve shrugged noncommittally. “The townsfolk are friendly.” Because he couldn’t resist, he looped the braid tighter across his palm. A rope of silk, soft against his flesh, binding her to him. His voice dropped to a husky murmur, his eyes glittered with amber fire. The back of his knuckles brushed the tip of her breast. “Have you ever cut your hair?”
“You’re trespassing, Cody.”
An eloquent shrug dismissed her accusation. “The gates were open. There were no signs of welcome, but none warned that trespassers would be shot.”
Hank would have none of his innocent, teasing pretense of misunderstanding. Her voice was as quiet as before, deceptively quiet. “Is that your good hand?”
“You’ve been reading old news from old newspapers.” Steve grinned as he released her braid. “Both my hands are good hands.”
Hank found her face captured in the curl of his palms before she could dodge away. “Take your hands away.”
“Why, Miss Benedict, ma’am, I’m just showing you I have two good hands.” His thumb raked over her mouth. A mouth that was soft and warm, and delightfully alluring even in contempt.
Hank’s teeth were clinched, her flashing glance was glacial. “Move both your good hands, while they’re still good.”
“Careful, you’ll have me believing none of these red-blooded cowboys ever touches you.”
Her fingers closed around his wrists in a strong, surprising grip as she took his unresisting hands from her face. “No man does,” she said succinctly, her words clipped and as cold as her gaze. “Our riders understand that working for the Rafter B means exactly that, work. I’m not part of the package, I never have been, I never will be. Anyone that wants to stay understands, and never forgets.”
His brows arched, he wondered what in hell they were talking about. “No man...” he began, then broke off. This wasn’t the question to ask, not here. With his sardonic smile carefully in place, he infused his tone with amused incredulity, “Never?”
“Never.” Hank brushed past him, neither caring nor concerned with what he thought. With the practice of a lifetime, she swung into the saddle. Black Jack pranced to the side, eager to be off and running as reward for his patience. Quieting him with the pressure of her knees, she leaned forward in a relaxed crouch, folding her arms over the pommel of the saddle. More at ease with distance between them, she allowed herself a small taunting smile. “Don’t let the gate hit you in the butt as you leave, Cody. And don’t come back until you’re ready to sell.”
Steve’s hand flashed out, catching the collar of her shirt, drawing her face-to-face. “You’re pretty sure of yourself and your men, aren’t you?”
“Sure enough.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be. Maybe you should be more careful. Maybe you aren’t a lot of things, but there’s one thing that’s damn sure, you’re a woman. You might forget, but you can bet your last Benedict dollar your wranglers don’t.” With his free hand he stroked the startled curve of her lips, a sensation he never tired of. “Neither do I.”
Hank jerked away. Wheeling Black Jack around, she held the stallion barely in check, keeping him on the edge, controlling him as much with her mind as her body. “You’re wrong on the first count, Cody. And the second doesn’t matter.”
With a subtle tap of her heels, Black Jack lurched into a run. “Remember what I said about the gate, Cody,” she called as he raced from the barn after her. “Don’t hurry back.”
She rode like a cossack, on a creature that was more wild beast than horse. As one they thundered through the empty corral, taking the fence in a flying leap, spooking Belle, the mare he’d ground hitched by a sycamore. Bending forward, arm outstretched, Hank snagged the mare’s dangling reins. For a furlong they raced side by side, the coal-black stallion with his well seated rider, and Belle.
Blue Belle, named for his mother’s favorite flower, his best hope to carry the first Cody horse. Too valuable to risk in a headlong gallop. Steve’s shrill whistle stopped the mare short, dragging the reins from her captor’s hand.
Black Jack danced to a halt, rearing and prancing, while Hank Benedict laughed and waved. “Neat trick, Cody. I thought you might enjoy a stroll. See the countryside while you can.” As the mare trotted back to him, the stallion whirled and turned in quivering excitement. A strong hand brought him around again.
“Remember your butt, and don’t hurry back.” With a final salute, she was off.
Vaulting the corral fence and catching up his horse, Steve watched her out of sight. A woman, only fools and boys could ever forget it.
Stepping into the saddle, he turned Belle toward Sunrise Canyon. “See you around, Miss Benedict.” Two fingers brushed the brim of his hat. “Miss Benedict, ma’am.”
Chapter 5
The horse approached in a steady gait. The rider, a grizzled man with a whipcord build, slouched comfortably in the saddle.
Steve looped the stallion’s reins over a rail and waited under a cloudless sky. His visitor was in no hurry, not the least perturbed by his curious scrutiny. He rode well, whoever he was. More part of the horse than rider, as only a man who knew horses and spent a lifetime in the saddle could be.
Dust ruffled under glinting hooves. Small stones clattered with a dull ring. At an hour after full daylight the sun was beginning to scorch. If he was aware of dust or heat this desert traveler didn’t show it.
Drawing to a halt at the corral fence, he studied the barn, the house, a roll of barbed wire. Nodding his approval of work done and to be done, he shifted his attention to Steve and the stallion.
Reins held loosely at his fingertips, he leaned an elbow on the pommel of his saddle. A small smile settled over his spare, handsome features. “Howdy.”
Steve nodded a greeting, reaching out to soothe the stallion shying nervously at the unfamiliar voice.
“Quite a piece of horseflesh you got there.”
Steve didn’t take his hand from the horse. “He’ll do.”
The traveler chuckled at the understatement. “A mite nervous.”
“A mite.”
“Been cooped up too much of late.”
Steve only nodded again.
“Not good for man or beast.” A gaze that lost none of its intensity in its paleness settled on Steve, noting the tensile power in a frame still a little too thin. “Not good at all, being cooped up.”
“No.”
The potent gaze turned again to the stallion. “Good lines. Strong. Be a good breeder when he settles down to it, you reckon?”
“I reckon,” Steve answered the question that needed no answer. What he reckoned was that this laconic man had forgotten more than he would ever know about horses.
The traveler looked up at the sky, squinting into the glare of the sun. “Got us a hot one.”
“It’ll get hotter.”
The man with the pale eyes chuckled. “I reckon so.”
Steve said nothing, leaving the next move in this game of verbal chess to his uninvited guest.
“I ’spect you wouldn’t begrudge a man a drink of sweet water out of the stream.”
“I ’spect I wouldn’t.” Moving away from the stallion, Steve gestured an invitation to dismount.
“I ain’t much of a walking man.” In a practiced and graceful swing of a long leg, the older man swung down. Bracing his hands at his waist he arched his back, his eye twinkling as if he were making a secret admission. “But, damn! it feels good to step out of the saddle every now and again.”
“There’s cool water in the house,” Steve offered with an easy hospitality. He liked this straightforward man instinctively. He liked everything about him.
“Naw.” The quiet refusal accompanied a shake of the rider’s head sending silver-tipped hair drifting over his collar. “Directly from the stream is good enough.” Laughing softly, he declared, “More than good enough. It’s how I like it.”
Shoulder to shoulder, in unspoken consensus, they crossed to a worn path leading to the stream. One was taller and older, the other broader and younger, but, in silent rapport, the same.
Tossing his hat aside, kneeling by the stream, the traveler sipped from his cupped hand, then poured another over his head. “Lordy, that feels good.” Another shake of his head sent water flying in a shining arc from his mane of gray. “Sweetest water in the land.”
“You should know,” Steve observed amiably.
Squatting as he was, with a wrist draped over his knee, the older man squinted up at him. “Figured you’d see the brand.”
“Figured you meant for me to.”
“Ain’t no sneak in my makeup.” Brushing back a dripping lock and snatching up his Stetson, he stood to face Steve, waiting for a tacit judgment.
“That’s something the townsfolk would agree on, when they speak of the foreman of the Rafter B.” Were he to recite it, the list of descriptions would be long, and mostly kind. Steve had discovered the majority of people liked Sandy Gannon as much as they didn’t like Jake Benedict. “Granted, you didn’t sneak, but I wonder why you’re here.” Steve’s eyes narrowed, considering the most likely reason. “A quick study for your boss? The rim wasn’t close enough for spying?”
“Didn’t come to spy.” Sandy Gannon took no offense. “No need for it. I knew what you’d do without looking.”
“Because it was what you would do?”
“Maybe that, and what Charlie told me.”
“Then the lady who spends her evenings on the west rim didn’t send you?”
“The lady on the—” Sandy broke off, chuckling. “Had company, have you?”
“Long-distance company. She seems mighty interested in what I’m doing.”
Sandy regarded the western rim. “That’s a powerful long way, even for your young eyes. Are you sure it’s her?”
“Who else would it be?”
“Be easier to tell you who it ain’t.”
“Jake Benedict can’t ride.”
“That’s the list.” Sandy nodded. “But you could take your pick of just about anybody else it could be.”
“I have taken my pick.”
“You may be right. The canyon has been one of her favorite places since she was a pup.”
“Like it is her father’s?”
“Not exactly.” Sandy offered no other explanation. “I imagine you’re wondering what I’m doing here, if not spying.”
Steve noticed the subtle, smoothing shift in the foreman’s speech. Gannon had the reputation of a straight shooter, but he wasn’t above playing roles when it suited.
I Taking a pair of gloves from a hip pocket, Sandy drew them on. Flexing his fingers in the soft leather he glanced back at Steve, as if all his wondering should be resolved. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
The foreman looked at him, the pitying look one reserved for dumb creatures and dense men. “Let’s get started. The day ain’t going to get any younger or any cooler.”
For the first time, Steve was taken by surprise. “What the devil are you talking about?”
Another long, pitying look swept from Steve to the field at his back. “I’m talking about a field that needs fencing and wire that needs stringing. Ain’t it sunk in yet I’ve come to help?”
“Come to help—?”
“Stretching wire is the devil’s own chore, next to impossible for a man alone.”
“So, I’m to believe you came to help? Jake Benedict wants to add my land to the Rafter B, and his foreman comes to help?”
“Something like that.” Standing at ease, Sandy respected Steve’s skepticism. He would have dismissed the young man as a naive fool, if he hadn’t questioned. “I punch cows for Jake Benedict and count him a friend, but my conscience is my own. I follow where it leads, even when it parts company with Jake.”
“He would understand that?” Steve couldn’t quite comprehend relationship of this sort. Not with the mighty owner of the Rafter B. It went against all he’d heard of the ironhanded Jake Benedict, but not, he admitted, of Sandy Gannon. “You really believe he would?”
“Has for well-nigh thirty years. Why would he change now?”
“Given the circumstances, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“Maybe I’m worth the trouble I cause,” Sandy suggested genially. A mischievous grin crinkled crow’s-feet at the corner of his eyes. “Or maybe I’m just handy when he’s in a mood for a fracas.”
Steve laughed, the sudden sweep of tension flowing out of him. “A helluva fracas it would be, I gather.”
“Can be. Has been.”
“I won’t ask who wins, or how many times you’ve been fired.”
“I hold my own,” Sandy replied in his succinct fashion. “Been hired one more time than fired.” Dropping his hat back on his drying hair, he observed dryly. “Less’n you want a baked horse, I’d put that stallion out of the sun. Soon as you do, we can get to that wire.”
“Will you tell Jake?”
“If he asks.”
Steve nodded, gleaning a new perception of the rare friendship that existed between Jake Benedict and Sandy Gannon. He wondered how good a friend the foreman had been to the father’s daughter. After a considering moment, he drew a long, quiet breath. “I’ll put Gitano away.”
The simple sentence cemented a burgeoning bond of trust without fanfare. The smile of recognition that passed between them was as binding as a handshake.
Sandy accepted the confidence easily, as if it were a natural happening for two cautious strangers to trust so completely, so quickly. They were simpatico, men of the same breed. Western men. In his usua
l mild manner he tucked this rare prize away. It would never be discussed, nor would it be forgotten. “Gitano.” His attention returned to the corral and the stallion standing hipshot in the sun. “Spanish, is he?”
Steve nodded. “Gitano Magnifico, by way of Mexico and Texas.”
“Good horse breeders, the Spanish.”
“Some of them.”
“This one was.”
“A bit given to fits of misjudgment.”
“Didn’t recognize what he had? That how you got the stallion?”
Steve nodded.
“Magnificent Gypsy.” Sandy grinned at the extravagant name. “You give the horse that title?”
“The breeder’s blind daughter. Everyone else called him Sapo.”
“Toad,” Sandy translated. “Ugly colt, I reckon.”
“The ugliest.”
“This girl, she saw with her heart when others were blinded by sight.” Sandy pronounced this bit of poetic wisdom with no trace of pretension.
“She loved him. They were...” Steve looked to the sky, his gaze ranging as his mind ranged, searching for the word that would describe the bond between a blind child and a horse too ugly for more than the glue factory.
“Simpatico,” Sandy supplied quietly.
Steve’s gaze returned to Sandy. His look was long, contemplative. “Yes.”
“Her father saw with his eyes, she with her heart, and you with both.”
“Maybe.”
“No maybe to it.” Sandy wouldn’t accept the dismissal. “Every now and then one comes along,” he mused, studying the magnificent horse grown from an ugly, ungainly colt. “You got a good eye, boy.” He looked again at Steve, a sustained, judging look. “A good eye and a damn good heart.”
“Luck.” Steve shrugged away the tribute.
“The day I believe that is the day I kick myself for standing here. Speaking of standing, time’s awasting, the thermometer’s rising. I’ll see to my own mount.” A jerk of his head indicated bare posts waiting like solitary sentinels for the wire that would unite them, completing a holding lot for horses yet to be. “Meet you there.”
