Broken Spurs

by BJ James

  Ignoring her pointed silence, the foreman launched into a rare one-sided discourse. “I considered having one of the hands exercise him, but that would only make him madder. And the guy who got elected would probably demand combat pay. It don’t help that word got around that the last feller who tried to ride the stallion after a long layoff had a long layoff himself.

  “Matter of fact, Holt still limps when it rains. Poor old hoss.” A slow, considering shake of his head emphasized his sympathy. “I guess he’ll just have to molder there in his stall. I ’spect he’ll be chewing the bark off the rails before too long.”

  “There is no bark on the rails,” Hank snapped, rising to the bait.

  “Well, now, you’re right, there ain’t. But it don’t change the fact that we have a mighty antsy stallion pacing the stable.” Heavy brows lifted as he let an assessing look pass over her. “It appears we have a mighty antsy girl pacing the veranda too.”

  “I haven’t been a girl in a long time, Sandy.” Distant thunder rumbled, as the storm continued to build.

  Sandy grinned and caught the end of her braid, ruffling the curling ends before letting it swing across her shoulders. “To me, when you’re fifty, you’ll still be that feisty young girl who met the world fair and square and never ducked.”

  “Never until now, you mean.” Hank turned from the vista that had absorbed her for nearly an hour. “You think that’s what I’m doing now? Ducking?”

  “We both know who’s out there, sis. I don’t know what’s got you moping and clinging to home like a calf without its momma, but I know what it ain’t.”

  She almost smiled then. Her beloved Sandy was always most endearing when he lapsed so earnestly into his earthy, philosophical cowboy persona. “I suppose you’re going to tell me what it isn’t.”

  “I’m thinking on it. Been thinking on it nearly the whole week.”

  Sighing, Hank accepted the inevitable. “There’s no better time than the present.”

  “Yeah, there was,” the foreman said grumpily. “A week ago, before you stopped sleeping and eating, and skinnied down so bad.”

  “Ouch!” She tried for a smile and succeeded in a grimace. “Am I that bad? A skinny hag?”

  “You ain’t a bone yet, but you’re getting close. And you ain’t a hag. If you don’t believe me, ask that feller down in Sunrise Canyon.”

  There, the subject was broached. “You think Steve is the reason for my mood.”

  “It ain’t the horses. By now you should have them ready for just about anybody to put them through their paces. And it’s for damn sure not the canyon. I know better than most that you have an attachment to the place, but I know just as well that if it wasn’t for Jake, you wouldn’t give a plug nickel for owning it. ’Specially not when someone has finally come in who could make it the spread it ought to be.” Sandy paused in the unnaturally long speech before adding gruffly, “And he will, if he gets the chance.”

  “You think he should have that chance.”

  “I do.” There was no hedging in the blunt statement. “Have from the first.”

  “Jubal shares your conviction.”

  “If you could pin Jake down, make him see beyond this obsession, he’d agree. Fact is, if he told the truth, he’d have to admit a speck of admiration for the boy. Grudging, mind you, but for real. Must be kinda like looking in a mirror that lops forty years off his age every time he looks at him.”

  Hank shot a pleading look at him. “What would you have me do?”

  “I’ve had my say,” Sandy demurred. “The rest is up to you.”

  “I don’t know! My mind’s in a muddle, I can’t think!”

  “Then follow your heart.”

  “That’s no easier.” Biting her lip, she turned her head away, but not before he caught the glint of tears.

  His hardened palm brought her back to face him. “Maybe it ain’t easy, but it’s right.”

  Hank sighed, a tremulous note. “I’m such a fool, I don’t know what my own heart is telling me.”

  “You will, once you put everyone and everything out of your mind. Be selfish for once. When you do, you’ll hear your heart’s voice. Then, if you’re even half the woman I think you are, you’ll go where it takes you. Choosing between love and old loyalties can be a terrible thing. But Jake made his choices a long time ago, and Camilla made hers. Now it’s your turn.

  “Listen to your heart, sis.” Disconcerted by the poetic philosophy, he cleared his throat brusquely and touched her shoulder in a fond farewell. “I’d best be getting on in. Jake and I have some things to go over, tallies and such, before we get down to the real business of plotting who will capture whose knight.”

  “Sandy.” Delaying him, she rose on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Thanks.”

  A blush tinged a rugged face already darkened and weathered by years on the range. Making a production of resettling his Stetson at just the right angle, he stroked the brim and cleared his throat again. “I didn’t mean to meddle. One way or another, I just wanted to help.”

  “You did. Or you will have, once I’m thinking straight.”

  “Just don’t think it to death. Impulse can be a wonderful thing.” Another stroke of the Stetson’s brim, and what was virtual loquacity in a taciturn man was done.

  Hank watched him walk across the veranda with the curiously efficient stride of one who spent little time out of the saddle, and made the most of it. When the door closed behind him, she heard Jake’s querulous greeting and tumbled into confusion again.

  “What do I do?” she whispered to the sky, but the sky had no answer.

  Pacing the veranda, changing one vantage for another, she found herself skirting the issue. Dodging the real question, unable to let her mind consider it. How could she make a choice, when she wouldn’t allow herself to recognize the truth?

  “Nothing,” she muttered heatedly. Angry with her indecision, she made it a choice. “I decide to do exactly that...nothing.”

  With that, she hurried into the house and to her office. Barricading herself behind a stack of the old-fashioned ledgers Jake still insisted on keeping, she sought to immerse herself in the mundane facts and figures of the ranch.

  An hour later, when Bonita tapped on the door, calling her to the late dinner that always followed one of Jake and Sandy’s lusty games of chess, Hank was sitting as she had from the first. Gloom gathered in corners, behind doors and along bare walls, while the lamps remained unlit, the pen in her hand unused, the pages of the ledger unturned.

  Peering into her sanctum Bonita asked hopefully, “Will you come to dinner tonight, Savannah?”

  Hank looked up, frowning, and suddenly breathless. “Say that again. Exactly!”

  Perplexed, but patiently, Bonita repeated her query. “Will you come to dinner tonight, Savannah?”

  Savannah.

  As if the key to all the mysteries of her heart were bound up in the name, everything fell wonderfully into place.

  “No.” Her pulse pounding, Hank rose from her chair. Her choice was made, it had been made all along. “Thank you, but no, Bonita,” she repeated decisively. “I have a dinner engagement.”

  “At this hour?”

  “Yes.” Hank tossed down her pen and closed the ledger. “At this hour.”

  “Where? When?” Bonita babbled, thinking of the miles that separated the Rafter B from Silverton, or any of the closest ranches. “Surely by now it’s too late.”

  “He’ll wait.”

  “The storm, it comes.” Bonita tried another argument. “It promises to be terrible.”

  Hank would have said the promise was wonderful, for she loved the storms. The grandeur of summer thunderheads, the drama. The howl of the wind, the sonorous and prophetic rolls of thunder. A deep purple sky, rent by lightning flashing like the clash of the swords of the gods. Silver rain slanting in the wind, uniting the brooding heavens with the land. And when it was done, there was silence as pristine as the newly washed land.

 
“I have time.”

  Silencing any other objections by throwing her arm around the shoulders of the shorter woman, she walked with her through the house. At the stairway, she took both of Bonita’s plump hands in hers. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I promise.”

  “You go to the Broken Spur. To Señor Steve!” Bonita exclaimed in abrupt insight.

  “It’s something I have to do, Bonita. For myself.”

  “You’re sure?” A patrician brow arched skeptically. “You won’t get hurt?”

  “I’m sure.” Not sure that she wouldn’t be hurt by her decision, but sure that, no matter the outcome, she would ultimately be fine.

  “Then hurry.” Bonita squeezed her hands, then shooed her up the stairs. “Do what you must.” Her expression grew thoughtful. “And go with God.”

  Candles burned low, their flames casting a kaleidoscope of dancing shadows against the walls of the cabin. The hum of the battery driven generator was silent, the dinner prepared with the energy it provided grew cold.

  His back rigid, Steve sat at the table, seeing neither candlelight nor shadows. A stormy breeze gusted through the open doorway, a candle flickered, guttered, sending up a tiny wisp of hazy gray, then rekindled. The scent of smoke and paraffin mingled with the fragrance of flowers.

  A petal fell from the single rose held by a vase in the center of the table. Like a leaf caught in a down draft it drifted forlornly. A teardrop of satin, gleaming blood red against the bleached patina of ancient wood. Catching it between his fingertips, he savored the softness, the scent that held the secret of a thousand memories.

  “Damn me for a fool!” The petal bruised beneath the pressure of his regret, staining his flesh with its color. With a look of distaste he flung it away.

  Lurching from his chair, anxious to be done with reminders of his stupidity, he began to clear the table. Thunder rumbled amid the rattle of dishes. Lightning flashed, illuminating his dusky world for a brief second. Once in the furor, in a mad moment, he thought he heard the cough of an engine, the grind of a gear. In another he imagined the shine of a light too constant, too unspectacular to be part of the storm.

  Halting in his chores, he listened. Nothing. “Accept it,” he growled. “She isn’t coming.”

  But he’d been so sure. Sure she cared, sure she would come to him. There was no help for arrogant mistakes. Tomorrow was the eighth day, he wouldn’t be going for her. The empty threat lay like dust on his heart. He’d never intended to go, for the choice had to be hers. “I thought I knew.”

  Steps creaked, a muffled tread crossed the porch. As he approached the sink he wondered what creature scurried by seeking refuge. The quiet rap came unexpectedly, taking him by surprise. Wheeling about, he found a storm shrouded apparition in the open doorway.

  “What the devil? Who—?”

  A woman too beautiful to be believed stepped into candlelight. A vision in a gown of creamy lawn and lace, with deep brown hair loose and flowing, curling riotously in the storm. Beneath the tumble of her hair, bare shoulders shone as darkly burnished alabaster. Her eyes, catching the reflection of a flame, glittered silver and gold, and solemnly held his.

  She was slender, but not angular, the lines of her body planed and sculpted, but not hard. Her breath came in deep, silent shudders, and with each rise and fall of a daring décolletage, the curve and cleft of her breasts enticed, beguiled. Shimmering, lovely womanliness played hide-and-seek behind a lacy shield. Drawing his hungry gaze with wicked audacity to impudent nipples, tantalizing and unfettered beneath the clinging fabric.

  In the wavering of a guttering candle, she was all he’d dreamed she would be. Never taking his gaze from hers, with an unsteady hand he set the last of the dishes aside, their discord fading into silence broken only by the rumble of thunder.

  Lightning split the sky, a luminous backdrop for the doorway where she stood. Creamy lawn turned to illusory veil, drawing every curve of her naked body in perfect relief.

  Steve’s heart shivered, his chest jolted with a breath caught and lost. He was sure he would die from wanting her, and his voice was rough and raw, his words unexpected. “Tell me you didn’t ride that devil of a horse in the dark of the storm.”

  His eyes narrowed, his manner commanded. “Tell me.”

  Her laughter was soft, sending ripples from his chest to the pit of his stomach. “Black Jack’s tucked safely in his stall.”

  She was moving as she spoke, small and exquisite, with the long, supple skirt clinging and swaying around her. He realized only then that her feet were bare. As bare as her body beneath the pale gown.

  She leaned to snuff out a struggling candle. Lace and gauze dipped lower, revealing, seducing. Steve’s nails scored his palms, his arms shook with the force. Lips tightened over gritted teeth as he fought for control.

  “Dinner ruined hours ago,” he heard himself say in a voice that wasn’t his.

  She laughed again. The same smoky note, the same bewitching allure. “I didn’t come for dinner.”

  “Then why?” She was only inches away, all he need do was reach out to take her. “Why are you here?”

  Her throat arching gracefully, her eyes searched his. Witch eyes, seeing into him, finding desire that matched her own. “My name is Savannah,” she murmured. “I came for you.”

  Passion detonated. The past and all its problems vanished. The future waited. He reached for her, his face grim, his touch gentle. He drew her close, burying his face in her rose scented hair. “Then God help me.”

  “No,” she countered, turning her lips to his. “God help us both.”

  Chapter 13

  He drank deeply of her, a solitary man who had never known true loneliness until Savannah. But now she was in his arms, and as the storm broke, wreaking the passions of heaven on the earth, another storm, one of heart and soul, wreaked its passion on Steve.

  He was shaking, his chest heaving in a broken rhythm, as he drew away from a kiss that shattered every reservation and rational thought. Bodies inches apart, her skirt brushing the crease of his trousers in their only contact, he looked down at her. Candle flame and the flicker of lightning revealed to him a woman he’d never met.

  Savannah, soft and inviting. A sultry wanton, alluring, seductive. Unrepentant.

  The exigencies of the week marked her. Evidence of sleepless nights brushed like blue veils beneath a curtain of lashes. A body grown thinner bespoke hard, driving work meant to deter a troubled mind and quiet the restlessness of a tender heart.

  The toll of every battle was there for him to see, yet the woman who looked at him with grave confidence in her smile was a woman undefeated. A woman who admitted what she wanted, what she must have, and would let nothing stand in her way.

  With his eyes never wavering from her, he lifted his hand to her cheek, letting the back of it follow the delicate curving ridge, his nails scoring a path of fire and need to the base of her throat. Her breath faltered, ceasing, leaving her in utter stillness as the lazy drift of his fingertips traced the band of lace over the swell of her breasts to her shoulder. Slowly, with the curl of a finger, he slipped the fine lawn away, drawing it down to the bend of her arm.

  Falling lace caught and clung, revealing the crest of a nipple clothed only in its intricate pattern. Delicate rose-brown, dappled by cream, mesmerized, enticed. A perfect and fleeting fit for the hollow of his palm, an instant before his grasp closed over the shielding band, baring her body to her waist.

  As he took the weight of flawless globes in his cradling clasp, the breath trapped in longing shuddered from her. The stroke of his thumb over tender peaks drew a hushed cry. Her head thrown back, her hair fanning about her waist, her writhing body reveled in the caress she’d wanted and needed for so long.

  A wordless sigh burst from her as callused palms moved with incredible tenderness over her midriff to her hips and her thighs. Drawing the gown from her, he let it fall like spilled moonlight in a pool at her feet.

  She was beautiful
. As beautiful as he’d dreamed. With a body made for a man’s touch, she was the elegance of sweeping hollows, luscious curves and maddening secrets. A temptress daring that any delightful part be left uncharted, any secrets left unraveled.

  Accepting the tacit dare, he began a silent, wandering journey through mystery and feminine loveliness. With tantalizing caresses he memorized the slope of her hip, the joining crease of buttock and leg; then, at the apex of her thighs, the texture of dark curls coiling into the gliding subtlety of his fingertips. Leaving the shielded treasure unplundered, his seeking, learning hand discovered the flat plane of her hard, lean belly; the curve of a narrow waist, a rippled rib cage too slender for her strength. At last, and again, the cleft and undercurve of her breasts.

  He was fiercely aroused as he cupped their softness once more in his palm. A lover driven to the brink, quenching lusts of his own making, bent to take a taut, exquisite tip in his mouth. His suckling kiss, drawing the unashamed testament of her own lust to his laving tongue, sent spears of keening desire lancing through him. His heart pounded, wild and erratic, the furor of passion outstripping the furor of the ever descending storm.

  Raising his head from her breast, he found her smoky, languid gaze upon him. “Benedict.” Then, softly, “Savannah.”

  “Yes, Savannah.” Her hands pressed against his chest, splayed fingers measured the race of his heart, glided to his throat and curled at his nape. With only a nuance of pressure she guided his mouth back to hers. Her naked body molded curve and plane of his. Drawing him closer, holding him harder, she teased his lips.

  “For this night.” She rose on tiptoe, bringing passion to passion, offering herself to him and to truth. “A night we knew must come.”

  Thunder boomed, and lightning turned the world to eerie fluorescence. The smell of ozone filled the air, and with it the sound of splintering wood as somewhere nearby a tree rent by the fiery bolt fell with a monstrous crash. The floor shook beneath their feet, cobwebs floated from ancient rafters. And while the earth still quaked and the pounding rain began, he swept her into his arms.