The Love of a Cowboy

by Anna Jeffrey

  Brenna looked out the door again and sighed. “Look at that.”

  Dahlia, too, looked out. Jimmy was sitting on Luke’s lap, his head on his father’s broad shoulder.

  “Jimmy does adore his dad,” Brenna said. “Morgan and I’ll take him home with us soon as we eat”—she bobbed her reddish brows up and down—“so you and Luke will have some privacy.”

  Embarrassed, Dahlia looked away.

  “Hey, like I said,” Brenna said. “Don’t be embarrassed. Morgan and I are just glad he’s met someone he’s willing to introduce the rest of the family to. Most of the time, we’ve never known who he . . . well, sees.”

  Sleeps with, was what Brenna had almost said.

  The men brought in the steaks and while Luke took Jimmy to the bathroom, Morgan opened the bottle of wine they had brought. Luke and Jimmy returned and all of them sat down to eat.

  While they visited over the meal, Luke cut off tiny bites of his own steak, put them on his son’s plate and cajoled him to eat them. Brenna buttered his potato, broke a slice of toast into pieces and arranged it beside Jimmy’s meat. The three of them, Luke, Brenna and Morgan, carried on the conversation as if their constantly and patiently directing Luke’s son was not a distraction. Dahlia believed she saw genuine love on display.

  She began to understand how much time and persistent attention taking care of Jimmy required and the fact that Luke was the one who had cared for him since the day of his birth. Her respect and admiration for the man re-doubled.

  Soon Jimmy said he was sleepy and Luke laid him on the sofa with a pillow and an afghan and a stuffed horse. He was asleep in no time.

  Brenna opened a second bottle of wine and with no embarrassment, regaled them with a graphic recount of her and Morgan’s latest visit to the gynecologist. Dahlia was uncomfortable at first with such a frank conversation with people she hardly knew about an intimate subject, but at the same time the openness made her feel accepted. Like family.

  Then Brenna remarked that since Luke seemed to be the only McRae who was fertile, he had better get married again and have more kids if the old-fashioned custom of having a McRae son inherit the ranch were to prevail.

  Luke cut her short. “That’s not funny. Three kids is enough for anybody.”

  “But you’re only thirty-four years old,” his sister argued. “You’ve got plenty of time to have more kids. God knows, you wouldn’t have any trouble finding a wife.”

  “Cut it out,” Luke said. “No more kids.”

  Dahlia winced at his sharpness and the feeling of belonging disappeared.

  Brenna and Morgan soon left, taking Jimmy with them and leaving Dahlia and Luke standing at the cabin’s front door. “It seems that everybody looks after Jimmy,” she said.

  “They do. And I appreciate it. He can’t take care of himself and I can’t be here every minute.”

  He went to the kitchen, returned with what was left of the dinner wine and set the bottle on the glass-topped coffee table. A CD player and speakers were tucked into one of the bookcases. He turned it on and inserted a CD. To Dahlia’s surprise—she expected to hear something country—the haunting strains of Enya filled the room. “This is Brenna’s music,” he said, as if he didn’t want to admit he might like it, too. He drew her into a dance position.

  “It’s beautiful. I love it,” Dahlia told him and melted into his arms.

  They moved to the music, swaying in place. The heat of him radiated into her body. His thighs rubbed against hers. His erection pressed against her stomach and she welcomed it. She thought of their erotic lovemaking earlier in the afternoon and the primitiveness of the setting, how he had taken her to another plane where she had cared about nothing else but him and the pleasure he brought her had become the center of her universe. The need began to build gain.

  “You make me crazy,” he whispered against her ear. “Let’s go to bed.”

  Drained of energy, her heartbeat slowing to normal, Dahlia let herself sink into the pillow and brushed Luke’s bristly cheek with hers. Time could stop. She was where she wanted to be forever, safe and whole, sharing Luke’s bed, miles from the rest of the world. She loved him. She knew it now, to the depth and breadth her soul could reach, like in the poem. She believed he loved her, too, so why wouldn’t he say it, especially at a moment like this?

  A symphony of crickets thrummed through the open windows, punctuated by the hu-hoo of a nearby owl and the wail of a distant coyote. The night was as soft as the music and black, the moon and stars hidden by cloud that hinted of rain. The cabin’s metal roof popped like an exploding firecracker and she jumped.

  “Shhh. It’s just cooling off. In the high country, when the sun goes, so does the heat.”

  “Not like Texas.”

  She strummed his ribs with her fingertips. His skin was soft and smooth and moist. He smelled of clean sweat, his smell. “Was I loud?” she asked him.

  He braced himself on one elbow and pushed strands of hair off her face. One corner of his mouth eased into the lopsided grin that had become so endearing. “You woke up the dogs. Didn’t you hear them barking.”

  She smiled into the eyes that just moments ago had been dark and turbulent with passion. Now they were turquoise and calm, a tropical lagoon after a storm. She touched his lower lip with her forefinger. “You bring out my basest instincts, Luke MacRae. Emotions I didn’t even know I had.”

  He bit down gently on her fingertip. “You’re the damnedest woman, Dahlia. All a man could ever want.”

  His body shifted, she tightened her hands tightened on his ribs. “No, don’t. Don’t move yet. Stay inside me.”

  “I couldn’t move if I wanted to.” He settled and placed his warm lips near her ear.

  They lay still while Dahlia called back the most perfect day she had spent with a man in her entire life. A long creak of the front door hinge rent the ambience. Her pulse quickened. “Luke? Was that—”

  “Luke?” It was a coarse female voice.

  His head jerked up and he shrank from inside her.

  The front door closed with a thud!

  A butterfly swarm took flight in Dahlia’s stomach. “Who—who is it?”

  “Where are you, Son?”

  Footsteps scuffed up the hall on the thick carpet. Luke twisted to look behind himself. Dahlia looked past his shoulder. A tall, female shape filled the open doorway, silhouetted in the hall light. Dahlia’s heart stuttered. OhdearGod.

  Click. Blinding overhead light flooded the room, obliterating all vestiges of the loving moments that had occurred minutes earlier. A gray-haired woman stared from the doorway. “Wha—what‘s going on here?”

  Dahlia buried her face against Luke’s thick biceps. He didn’t move, thank God. “Go back to the living room, Mom.”

  The silhouette left the doorway, muttering obscenities.

  Luke sprang to his feet, shut the bedroom door and rounded the end of the king-size bed.

  Dahlia groped for the bed sheet and clutched it against her chest. “God, Luke. What should I do?”

  “Nothing. I’ll take care of it.”

  His jeans lay in a pile on the floor. He grabbed them up and jerked them on, his belt buckle and pocket change clinking and jangling. He stepped out of the room and pulled the door closed behind him.

  “Who’s with you?” His mother’s voice crackled with indignation.

  “Where’s Dad?” The front door hinge creaked again. “Dad, you got back early.”

  Oh, no!

  “Not too damned early, from the looks of things,” the mother spat. “Where’s Jimmy? Is he here? I hope you haven’t left him alone in the Big House.”

  Dahlia waited for Luke to tell them his sister was looking after his seven-year-old son, but the next voice was the dad’s. “Claire, you know what those doctors said about getting upset.

  What’s going on here, Son?”

  Dahlia scanned the bedroom. Her jeans lay crumpled on Luke’s chair half a dozen steps away. No shirt,
no bra. Where were they?

  Oh no! They were on the sofa in the living room where Luke had started undressing her. A manic urge to wrap up in the bed sheet and streak from the cabin careened through her head.

  “Who is that girl?”

  “Cool it, Mom.”

  “What’s going on, Son?” Luke’s dad repeated.

  “Nothing. Just keep Mom in here, will you.”

  Dahlia scrambled from the bed, headed for her small duffel bag on the floor near the bathroom doorway. Luke’s warm essence trailed down the inside of her thigh, but she didn’t take the time to stanch it. Before she could dig out a change of clothing, the bedroom door opened. Luke was back, holding her bra and shirt in one large hand. She winced, picturing him gathering up her underwear while his parents watched.

  He shut the door with a clap and locked it. “Put your clothes on. I’ll take you back to town.”

  She dropped the duffel, grabbed the bra and polo shirt and lunged across the room to her jeans. She was shaking so badly, her foot missed her pants leg. Luke came to her side and held her steady while she skinned the jeans over her bottom, sans underwear. She crammed the bra into the jeans pocket and yanked her shirt over her head. “My boots, Luke. They’re in the living room. And my purse.”

  “I’ll get ’em,” he said, stuffing in his shirt tail. He slipped through the bedroom doorway again.

  “That’s the girl from the Forest Service, isn’t it? The one you’ve been taking to the ski lodge.”

  Oh God, no. How did his mother know that?

  “I hear about the two of you every time I go to town. You take that slut—”

  “That’s enough!” Luke’s voice, a bark. Dahlia had never heard him speak so harshly. “She’s no slut. I don’t want to hear any more of this. I’m not a kid. This is where I live. What I do here is my business.”

  “Claire,” Luke’s dad said. “The doctors told you not to get upset—”

  “I hope Flaggs don’t find out about this. This will break Lee Ann’s heart.” The mother’s coarse voice lowered to a stage whisper. “Good Lord, Son. Have you no shame? It hasn’t been a week since you brought her here for a respectable dinner with your family.”

  What? Dahlia felt her eyes bug.

  “Cut it out, Mom. I mean it.”

  Luke returned to the bedroom, carrying Dahlia’s boots and purse and wearing a dour expression. “You okay?”

  No, she wasn’t okay. No part of this was okay. Especially not after hearing he had brought his old girlfriend to dinner with his parents just last week. Still, Dahlia bobbed her head, dropped to the edge of the bed and pulled on her boots. “Get me out of here. Before your mother has a stroke.”

  He caught her hand. “Come on. Looks like you’re about to meet my folks.”

  “No!” She dug her heels into the carpeting. “Luke! I can’t meet them like this.”

  “Then what do you want to do, sneak out the window?” His arctic stare brooked no argument. Her fingers ached in his tight grip. Her mind raced, headed nowhere. “Why can’t we just, just . . . just walk past them?”

  He hesitated a few seconds, as if he might be considering that as an option. Then, he said, “No. We can’t do that.” He tugged her down the hall and stopped just inside the living room. “Mom, Dad. This is my friend, Dahlia. Dahlia Montgomery.”

  From her seat on the sofa, a sixtyish woman with wiry, iron-gray hair glared. A tall, white-haired man with startling blue eyes—the eyes from the portrait in Big House entry—stood in the middle of the living room, his brow furrowed in puzzlement.

  Dahlia cringed, clutching the lifeline Luke’s hand had become. “Uh, uh . . . how do you do?”

  With obvious effort, the matriarch pushed herself up from the sofa and stood, her fists planted at her hips, the malice in her eyes as piercing as a honed icicle. She came closer, within inches, and glared up at Luke. Tall as she was, she was a good six or seven inches shorter than her son. “You didn’t answer me, Son. Is this the girl from the Forest Service?”

  Dahlia had been in Callister long enough to know that to the local ranchers and loggers, being associated with the Forest Service or any branch of the federal government was akin to sitting at Satan’s knee.

  Luke’s grip tightened on her hand. She shot a look up at his profile. His jaw muscle wasn’t just twitching—it was jumping. “Yes,” he snapped. “It is.”

  His mother must have seen his anger, but she was undeterred. “Your experience with your ex-wife should have taught you about getting involved with outsiders. And your daughters? Have you thought about the stories they hear about their father shacked up in the hotel where they go skiing?” Her head jerked toward Dahlia. “You, young woman, might feel more at home in someplace that rents by the hour.”

  Dahlia quailed, stunned by the venomous hostility.

  “I said cut it out, Mom.”

  Luke’s dad came to his wife’s side and placed his hand on her elbow. “Claire,” he said quietly. “Let’s go up to the house.”He looked at Luke. “Where’s Jimmy, Son?”

  “Jimmy’s fine. He’s with Brenna and Morgan.”

  Claire jerked away from her husband’s touch, her lips pressed into a flat line. She moved toward the front door and Luke’s dad followed, carrying his hat and guiding his wife through the doorway. “We’ll see you in the morning, Son.”

  The front door’s closing brought silence—except for Enya’s haunting voice crooning from the CD player. Dahlia drew a breath for what seemed like the first time. Her purse slid off her shoulder and hit the floor with a plop. She wilted onto a chair near the door and clasped her heated cheeks with her palms.

  “Oh my God. I can’t believe this happened.”

  Luke knelt on one knee in front of her. “It’s not the end of the world. It’ll be okay.”

  Her nose and eyes stung, but she forced herself not to cry. “How can it be okay? They think I’m a—” She stopped. She couldn’t say the word about herself.

  “I’ll set it straight tomorrow, after Mom settles down.”

  “Take me home,” she said in a voice that came out tiny. “Please. Just take me home.”

  “C’mon,” he said, picking up her purse and handing it to her. “It really will be okay.”

  She didn’t know how her weak smile looked, but she knew how it felt—pitiful and helpless.

  Dahlia wedged herself into the corner of the passenger side as Luke’s pickup bounced down the Double Deuce’s long driveway, For the first time, she remembered that in her frantic hurry to get dressed, she had left her panties on the floor in Luke’s bedroom.

  Like a horror mask, Claire McRae’s angry visage loomed in the night’s blackness. She wished she could teleport, zip to the cottage in town without having to think or endure a two hour ride over the rough road ahead. Her every nerve had balled into a knot at the base of her neck. Her heart and dignity ached from a dozen lacerations. It was a toss-up which had her more upset—being thought a slut by the mother of the man she loved or learning he still saw an old girlfriend.

  The pickup slowed, eased across the cattle guard that spanned the ranch’s stone gateway. They turned left toward town. She glued her sight to the dual fans splayed over the narrow road by the headlights. Only after they had traveled several miles did her neck and shoulders began to relax.

  Luke spoke first, his voice sounding tight and artificial. “Boy. Blacker than the inside of a cow tonight.”

  “Why didn’t you stand up for us, Luke?”

  He looked at her across his shoulder. “Us?”

  His answer confirmed what she had feared for weeks. To him, there was no “us.” Her throat felt like she had swallowed a tennis ball, but she pushed on, a glutton for punishment. “Us. As in you and me. Why didn’t you stand up for us as a couple?”

  His eyes swerved back to the road, his lips moving in a swear word. “I don’t know, Dahlia.”

  Waiting tears spilled over her eyelids. Trying to stop them brought a hiccupping
sob.

  The pickup jolted to a halt. He shifted out of gear, pulled her across the seat and wrapped both arms around her, cradling her head against his shoulder. “Don’t do this, Dal. C’mon . . .” His fingers slid beneath her hair. “Hush, now.”

  He soothed and petted her until her sobs turned to sniffles. Then he hooked a knuckle under her chin and dabbed at her wet face with an ironed handkerchief that smelled of fabric softener. “Don’t cry, now. I guess we can’t blame Mom for flying off the handle. I know how I’d feel if I found one of my girls . . . well, like she found us.”

  Dahlia pushed away. “That’s ridiculous. It’s not the same thing and you know it.” She yanked her purse to her lap and dug out a Kleenex, mopped her cheeks and blew her nose. “We’re adults and we were in a private place. She ripped into us like a chain saw for no good reason. How can you ignore that?”

  He thumbed his hat back and rested his elbow on the steering wheel. “Mom acts on reasons she thinks are good ones, Dahlia.”

  “Really? And what good reason does she have for insulting me? But what’s worse, you didn’t defend me.”

  “I told her you weren’t a slut. Seems to me that’s defending.”

  Good grief! Can he really be so obtuse?

  “I know what Mom did wasn’t right, Dal. She’ll calm down. It just takes a little time.”

  “And then what?”

  A quick anger flared in his eyes. “Look, nine people count on me keeping things running smooth and I go out of my way to do it. I’m not going into a long-winded explanation, but I depend on my mom a lot. She can make my life hell, but in the ways that are important, she makes it easier. There’s some things I’m not gonna screw up. For you or anybody else. I never said I would.”

  His words cut like whip lashes. He had never spoken to her in anger. She fought back another gush of tears. “No, I guess you haven’t.” She stuffed the ragged Kleenex into her purse. “Let’s go on. It’ll be daylight before you get back home. I’m sure she’s watching the clock. If you’re late, she might paddle you.”