The Cowboy Who Broke the Mold

by Cathleen Galitz

  Letting his gaze linger on her flushed countenance before falling to the full, soft swell of her breasts, Jud- son’s eyes narrowed with predatory interest.

  “I promise to go real slow.”

  That silken promise brought carnal images to mind, and Carrie forced the air into her lungs in short, shallow gulps. Where was that iron will she had always before been able to exercise over such wayward thoughts? The challenge glistening in the depths of those cerulean blue eyes left her helplessly entranced. The God’s honest truth of the matter was that Carrie had been wondering for quite some time what it would be like to dance a slow one with Judson Horn.

  Against her better judgment, she nodded her head yes.

  A magical something passed between them as he took her hand in his and led her to the center of the crowded dance floor.

  This is dangerous. Dangerous and exciting… Carrie thought to herself, hoping that she wouldn’t trip over her own two feet and again verify his opinion of her as a bumbling Eastern dudette.

  Those thoughts fled the instant Judson wrapped his arms around her and pressed her close against his chest. Assailed by his clean, masculine scent, she felt the heat shimmer over her skin as she was lifted away by the intensity of emotion that washed over her.

  “You’re very beautiful,” he said, succumbing to the temptation to brush aside a stray lock of hair from her eyes. Judson felt its silky texture between his fingers. A kitten could be no softer.

  Carrie’s only response was an inaudible sigh. That wonderful heat coming from his body made her feel warm all over. As she nestled her head against his shoulder, she felt him tighten his hold around her waist. For one fleeting moment, she put aside her fears and allowed herself the indulgence of floating away to the strains of a romantic waltz enfolded in a pair of arms that she suspected could be just as gentle as they were strong.

  Next to hers, his heart beat savagely, stirring her own blood to its wild refrain. Carrie told herself that what she was feeling was insane. Aside from the insurmount- able fact that he was her boss, Judson Horn was totally wrong for her. They had absolutely nothing in common. Any fool could see that a relationship with such a man was destined for failure. She was pretty sure he held more affection for his livestock than he ever could for a woman! Still, whatever she had once upon a time felt for Scott was nothing compared to the bombardment of senses and emotions that Judson evoked in her. This was like being swept away without a raft in a raging river. This was going over a waterfall and rejoicing in the certain destruction that lay at its end. Crashing, crashing, crashing into the mists of passion….

  With a start Carrie realized that the music had stopped and that she and Judson were center stage, lost in one another’s arms. Feeling the scrutiny of the whole assemblage, she stepped out of the circle of his warm embrace.

  With flushed cheeks, she hurried back to her table.

  Estelle was waiting for her.

  “Jud’s one helluva dance, ain’t he?” she asked, her dark eyes narrow slits.

  Carrie took a long swallow from the glass of punch Cody had given her. Never before had a drink tasted quite so good.

  Feeling her way as cautiously as if she were walking through a minefield, she answered, “He certainly is.”

  For the first time all evening, Estelle chose her words carefully. “Did you know that he and I used to win dance contests all over the state when we were just kids?”

  Carrie shook her head no. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Even way back then I had my cap set for him. Did you also know he broke my heart by eloping with the prom queen the same day we graduated high school?”

  Carrie’s eyes darkened as she tried to picture Judson as a young man in love.

  “Of course…” Estelle added, taking a sip of beer and looking at her as though from behind the sights of a rifle. “The little white princess’s brothers were none too happy about her marrying a breed.”

  “Enough!” Judson’s voice was a low growl.

  “What’re ya afraid of?” queried Estelle, meeting the icy fury in Judson’s eyes head-on. “That once our lily- white schoolteacher knows you’re a half-breed she’ll expect you to begin every sentence with ‘how’?”

  Crackling with anger, her laughter rose hyenalike into the dark, smoky air.

  “You never did have sense enough to stop when you were ahead, did you, Stella?” Judson’s voice was the sound of dry reeds rustling in the wind as he turned and walked away.

  Fondling her beer bottle, Estelle turned her ire upon Carrie. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way Jud looks at you,” she snarled. “I’m afraid he’s done gone and gotten himself twitterpated over you, city girl. It’s for your own good that you know just exactly what you’re letting yourself in for.”

  “Surely you don’t think—”

  Continuing as smoothly as if Carrie had not even opened her mouth, Estelle wasn’t about to let herself be interrupted. “I don’t hold no grudges against you per- sonally—it’s just your kind is all.”

  “My kind?” Carrie asked, dumbfounded.

  “The white kind. The wrong kind for Jud.”

  Tearing at the label of her beer bottle with long, red fingernails, Estelle laid her heart on the table. “I don’t mind admitting that I’m head over heels in love with Judson. It ain’t no secret. Everybody knows it. But to be honest with you, short of hog-tying him, I don’t think there’s any way to ever get him to make that trip to the altar again—and definitely not with another white gal. Whether or not he’s willing to shack up with one is another matter, though I dare say the parents round here might take exception to that kind of an arrange- ment—you being a role model for their precious little darlings and Jud being chairman of the board and all… Not to mention how well an interracial affair would be received amongst the good folk here.”

  Estelle’s crude remark was another pointed reminder of how fragile Carrie’s status in this community really was. She had an ugly premonition that this conversation was on the verge of erupting into a free-for-all. Still curious despite her intense desire not to be, Carrie re- mained rooted to her seat. It was hard to refrain from asking all the questions rushing through her mind. What difference had race played in Judson’s first marriage? How had his brothers-in-law entered into the picture? And how could anyone as stunning as this woman fail to capture any man’s heart she set out to claim?

  “Well, don’t say you ain’t been warned. Just remem- ber a breed’s an outcast, accepted by neither Indian nor white,” Estelle said, throwing back her head and down- ing the last of her beer. “And the scars you can see ain’t nothing compared to those you can’t.”

  Setting the empty bottle down on the table with a hollow thud, she stumbled to her feet, adding shrilly, “Oh, and one more thing…When you get a chance, tell that son of the devil he can find himself another baby-sitter for those ornery twins of his!”

  With a swish of her yellow skirt and a jangle of tur- quoise jewelry, Estelle passed through the swinging doors of the Atlantic City Mercantile and into the black Wyoming night.

  Stepping up beside Jud at the bar, Bill Madden ven- tured a question. “So what do you think of our new teacher now?”

  “She’ll do, I guess,” was Judson’s terse response.

  Still smarting from his confrontation with Estelle, he was inclined to think all women were more trouble than they were worth. It would probably be wise to just call it an early night.

  “I knew if you’d just withhold judgment until she’d had a chance to prove herself, you’d—”

  “And I’m telling you to wait and see what happens when winter hits full-blast and life-of-the-party Ms. Ra- ben discovers subzero weather is more than what she’d bargained for. When, come midterm, our kids are left without a schoolteacher and there’s damned little chance of finding a replacement!”

  “You’re too young to be such a curmudgeon,” the superintendent said, slapping Judson on the back with a familiarity tha
t, considering his present state of mind, was a tad risky.

  “She’s terrific! The kids all adore her, and every par- ent I’ve talked to purely gushes with praise for her.”

  Judson wasn’t listening. He was looking thunderously at the table where Carrie sat as the belle of the ball. By the way she had reacted when she thought he was drink- ing a beer on the ride from Rock Springs, he’d assumed that she was a teetotaler like himself. He’d also paid attention at dinner, noticing that she had stopped at one glass of wine. He remembered her telling the waiter that she seldom drank, and unless he’d been mistaken she hadn’t been drinking anything else but punch the rest of the evening.

  So that dazed look on her face just didn’t add up— not until Judson caught sight of a silver flask from under Cody Trent’s jacket. Suddenly it was as plain as that stupid jackalope on the wall that he was spiking the punch. The way he kept pouring it down Carrie between dances made Judson wonder how the poor thing was able to stand at all. It was obvious to him that a certain stud was intent on taking advantage of their pretty new schoolteacher.

  Catching a glimpse of bewilderment glistening in eyes the color of a spring meadow, Judson felt a hot gush of protectiveness well up inside him. Damn it all to hell! When had he gone and gotten so soft in the heart? What difference was it to him whether this little greenhorn was in over her head or not?

  Judson didn’t take time to consider the answer to those questions. Pushing back his hat, he wondered how in hell he was ever going to pluck this innocent, little lamb from the midst of a pack of wolves without getting himself killed in the process.

  Snuffy and her husband were off jitterbugging with gusto, leaving Carrie surrounded by men vying for her attention. For the life of her, she couldn’t understand why she was suddenly feeling so giddy. Her head was spinning as she smiled demurely at the blur of faces around her.

  “I don’t remember any of my teachers looking like you,” simpered Ted Barrows, a young man destined to inherit one of the most successful ranches in the county.

  Pulling up a chair, Judson ignored the hostile glares he received from the other men as he edged in beside Carrie. Leaning close to her, he whispered in her ear, “I think you’ve had enough for one night. Why don’t you let me walk you back to your room?”

  At the sight of Judson’s arm draped about the object of his desire, Cody Trent bristled. “Excuse me, but Car- rie and I was just about to scoot a boot on the dance floor.”

  Judson pushed his Stetson casually back to better re- veal eyes the color of gunmetal. “Why don’t you just scoot your butt out the door instead?”

  Cody jumped to his feet. “And why don’t you just try to make me, chief?”

  Standing, Carrie placed herself precariously between the two men. Her head was swimming.

  “Maybe you’re right, Jud,” she interjected woozily.

  “Sit down,” commanded Cody, never taking his eyes off Judson for a second. “I ain’t about to be shot out of the saddle tonight, leastwise not by a damned breed!”

  The room grew ominously silent. The band trailed off. in midsong as every eye in the bar swung to the two men facing off center stage like bull elk locking horns.

  “You already have been, cowboy,” Judson coun- tered smoothly. “Next time, why don’t you try hitting on a lady without lacing her drinks first?”

  Slipping an arm protectively around Carrie’s waist, Judson turned and directed her toward the door. She screamed a second too late to warn him of Cody’s wild roundhouse swing. The blow caught Judson square in the eye. He stumbled, dropping his arm from around Carrie, who landed with a squeal upon a hard chair of knotty pine that skidded across the floor before coming to a halt and dumping her unceremoniously on the floor.

  “Come on,” Jud muttered, righting himself and blocking a flurry of frontal jabs.

  There was something frightening in Jud’s eyes as he took on his adversary. Something latent, primordial and savage lashing out at all the injustice in the world with the force of a piston. All the pent-up hurt and anger deep inside him went into a solid uppercut that con- nected with Cody’s nose with a sickening crunch. Blood spurted as the shorter cowboy fell to his knees clutching his nose.

  “Ya broke it, ya sonufabitch!” he cried, watching the blood flow through his fingers in bright red gushes.

  A couple of Cody’s friends rushed forward to grab him under each arm. As they dragged him ignomini- ously out the swinging doors, the cowboy mumbled through thick lips, “Don’t think I’ll forget this, ya stinkin’ Injun dog.”

  Carrie’s knees were weak. The echo of that threat beat against her head like the steady thumping of war drums. She fought the urge to scream hysterically when she covered her face with her hands and discovered they were splattered with bright flecks of blood.

  “Oh, my God,” she groaned.

  “He’ll be okay. I’ve had my nose broken lots of times,” Judson reassured her, trying to downplay the incident.

  Carrie looked at him in amazement much the way he assumed Jane must have first looked at Tarzan.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said, wiping a streak of blood from his face and directing her outside into the crisp autumn air.

  “Are you all right?” she questioned, the concern in her voice as caressing as the cool night breeze that en- veloped them.

  “I’m fine,” he replied gruffly. “How about you?”

  Because she was not really sure, Carrie declined to answer. She could make out the tracks in the dirt where Cody had been hauled to the safety of a waiting vehicle. “Do you think he’ll carry through on his threat?”

  “Don’t know,” Judson said slowly, looking into the depths of those misty sea-green eyes as if searching for something that had eluded him all his life. “It’s never smart to make an enemy if you can help it, though I’ve made plenty of ’em for a hell of a lot less.”

  Carrie wondered if “a lot less” entailed having had the misfortune of being born neither completely brown nor white in a world that set such great store by the color of a person’s skin.

  “It’s all my fault,” she murmured by way of apol- ogy.

  Brushing aside the hair that fell across his forehead, Carrie gently inspected his eye. Already it was swelling into an ugly purple mass. As her fingertip brushed against his cheekbone, she felt Judson quiver beneath her touch. Her fingers trailed the white ridge of the scar along his jawline and reluctantly dropped to her side. So much pain was written in that rugged, battered face. She wondered if Estelle was right. Could any woman ever tame his wild, skittish heart?

  Beneath her heavy thoughts, Carrie felt herself sway. She was grateful for the steady support that Judson of- fered. As he guided her slowly down the old boardwalk in the moonlight, she drank in every detail of the man beside her: the mingled scents of cologne, smoke, sweat and blood; the determined set of his jaw; the raw power emanating from every pore in his body. And though Carrie was appalled by the fight she had just witnessed, in some dark cavern in her heart, she had secretly thrilled to it. She felt protected and cherished.

  The porch light back at the inn illuminated Judson’s bloodstained shirt as he opened the front door to let Carrie enter. It only took him a moment to discern that she was in no shape to navigate the way to her room by herself. Though the fresh air had helped to clear her head, Carrie was nevertheless unable to walk down the middle of the narrow hallway without bouncing off the walls.

  “I feel awful funny,” she admitted with a hiccup.

  “I imagine you’ll probably feel worse in the morning.”

  Suddenly Carrie felt herself being swept up into a pair of masculine arms. Wrapping her arms around the strong column of his neck, she nuzzled against him, shamelessly enjoying the sheer strength of this man who had so savagely defended her honor.

  “Judson?” Running her hands along the width of his shoulders, she looked him straight in the eye.

  “What?” The single word was but a rasping chord s
tuck in his throat.

  “Are you twitterpated?” The question sent Carrie into a fit of tinkling laughter.

  He wasn’t amused. “Which room is yours?” Judson asked from between clenched teeth.

  “Search me,” she giggled.

  As her laughter faded to a soft, enticing sigh, Judson felt the fire of desire licking in his loins. She certainly wasn’t making this easy for him. Such an adorable mor- sel would be easy pickin’s for any randy cowboy on the make. He thanked God that he had been able to get her away from the bar. He seriously doubted whether Cody Trent would have exercised the same restraint.

  “Where are your keys?” he demanded in an angry whisper.

  “I told you, search me,” she whispered seductively.

  Something akin to summer lightning flashed in Judson’s eyes. He set her down and pressed her back against the wall. Unbuttoning the pearl fastening of her blouse pocket, he slipped his hand inside. Beneath the cool, red silk, Judson felt how warm and very soft her breast was, and he stifled a groan as the nipple hardened under his caress. Sliding his hands down the length of her, he stopped momentarily to encircle the small cir- cumference of her waist before plunging his hands into both back pants’ pockets. He noted that Carrie’s shapely behind was as firm and rounded as he had imagined. He pulled her toward him, grinding his hips into her, making sure she felt how hard she made him. He was rewarded with a slight gasp. Continuing on, one front pocket at a time, Judson delved their depths stopping just short of the inviting warmth between her legs.

  “Damn,” he muttered out of frustration and need. “I still can’t find the key.”

  Carrie smiled coyly, her eyes heavily lidded. “That’s because I didn’t lock it. It’s room number seven.”

  Lucky number seven, Judson thought to himself. Lift- ing her cotton-candy lightness back into his arms, he carried her to her room. With one hand, he turned the knob and pushed the door open with a boot.