by Nora Roberts
“It didn’t bother you, to see it kill?”
“It was so fierce and fast. Clean, really. Just doing her job, you know? I think if I’d been expecting it, if I’d had time to think about it, I might’ve reacted differently.”
She sighed a little, tipped up the brim of her hat. “The calf was so damn cute, with those flowers dripping around its head. But it was life and death, in seconds. It . . . this is going to sound weird, but it was sort of religious.”
She paused to swipe at her sweaty forehead. “Being there, witnessing the moment, it just made me more sure of what I want to do, and what I need to learn so I can do it. I took pictures. Before, during, after.”
“Honey, it may be squeamish, especially coming from a beef farmer, but I don’t think I’d want to see that cougar chowing down on a buffalo calf.”
Grinning, Lil went back to hoeing. “Did you know what you wanted, what you wanted to do, to be, when you were my age?”
“I didn’t have a clue.” Squatting, Jenna plucked weeds from around the ferny green of carrots. Her hands were quick and capable, her body long and lithe like her daughter’s. “But a year or so after, your father came along. He gave me one cocky look, and I knew I wanted him, and he wasn’t going to have much choice in the matter.”
“What if he’d wanted to go back east?”
“I’d’ve gone back east. It wasn’t the land I loved, not back then. It was him, and I guess we fell in love with this place together.” Jenna pushed back her hat, looked over the rows of carrots and beans, the young tomatoes, and on to the fields of grain and soybeans, to the pastures. “I think you loved it with your first breath.”
“I don’t know where I’ll go. There’s so much I want to learn, and to see. But I’ll always come back.”
“I’m counting on it.” Jenna pushed to her feet. “Give me that hoe now, go in and clean up. I’ll be in in a bit, and you can help me start supper.”
Lil cut across toward the house, taking off her hat to slap it against her pants to dislodge some of the trail dust before going in. A long, hot shower sounded better than good. After she’d helped her mother in the kitchen, she could take some time to start writing up her notes and observations. And tomorrow, she had to get her film into town, get it developed.
On her list of things to save for was one of the new digital cameras. And a laptop computer, she thought. She’d earned a scholarship, and that would help with college expenses, but she knew it wouldn’t cover everything.
Tuition, housing, lab fees, books, transportation. It all added up.
She was nearly to the house when she heard the roar of an engine. Close, she determined, on their land. She walked around the house rather than inside to see who was coming and making such a racket out of it.
She set her hands on her hips when she saw the motorcycle roaring down the farm road. Bikers traveled the area regularly, and especially in the summer. Now and then one or more rode in looking for directions, or a couple days’ work. Most approached a little more cautiously, she thought, while this one barreled straight in as if he . . .
The helmet and visor hid his hair and most of his face. But the grin flashed, and she knew it. Letting out a whooping laugh, she raced forward. He stopped the bike behind her father’s truck, swung his leg over as he unhooked the helmet. He set the helmet on the seat, and turned in time to catch her in mid-flying leap.
“Coop!” She held on, tight, as he swung her in a circle. “You came.”
“I said I would.”
“Might.” Even as she gave him a squeeze, something trickled inside her, a little like heat. He felt different. Harder, tougher, in a way that made her think of man instead of boy.
“Might turned into did.” He dropped her on her feet, and still grinning, looked at her. “You got taller.”
“Some. I think I’m done now. So did you.”
Taller, and harder—and the scruff he hadn’t shaven off in a day or two, she judged, added sexy. His hair, longer than the last time she’d seen him, curled and waved around his face so his chilled blue eyes seemed even clearer, sharper.
The trickle inside her went warm.
He took her hand as he turned to study the house. “It looks the same. New paint on the shutters, but it looks the same.”
He didn’t, she thought. Not exactly. “How long have you been back? Nobody said you were here.”
“I’ve been back about ten seconds. I called my grandparents when I hit Sioux Falls, but I told them not to say.” He released her hand, but only to wrap his arm around her shoulders. “I wanted to surprise you.”
“You did. You really did.”
“I stopped by here before I went there.”
And now, she realized, everything she wanted and loved most was here for the summer. “Come inside. There’s sun tea. When did you get that thing?”
He glanced back at the motorcycle. “Nearly a year ago. I figured if I could make it back this summer, it’d be fun to bike cross-country.”
He stopped at the base of the stairs, cocking his head as he scanned her face.
“What?”
“You look . . . good.”
“I do not.” She shoved at her hair, gone to tangles under her flat-brimmed hat. “I just got back from the trail. I smell. If you’d gotten here a half hour later, I’d be cleaned up.”
He just kept staring at her face. “You look good. I missed you, Lil.”
“I knew you’d come back.” Giving in, she went into his arms again, closed her eyes. “I should’ve known it would be today, when I saw the cougar.”
“What?”
“I’ll tell you all about it. Come inside, Coop. Welcome home.”
Once her parents had come in, greeted Coop, settled down with him, Lil dashed upstairs. The long hot shower of her dreams became the fastest shower in history. Moving at light speed, she pulled out her small supply of makeup. Nothing too obvious, she ordered herself, and used a light hand with blush, added mascara and just a hint of lip gloss. Since it would take forever to dry her hair, she pulled it all back, still damp, into a tail.
She thought about earrings, told herself it was too obvious. Clean jeans, she decided, a fresh shirt. Natural, casual.
Her heart was beating like a marching band.
It was weird, it was strange, it was unexpected. But she had the hots for her best friend.
He looked so different—the same, but different. The hollows in his cheeks were new and fascinating. His hair was shaggy and sexy with the dark brown just starting to go streaky from the sun. He’d already started to tan a little—she remembered how he’d go brown in the sun. And his eyes, that glacier ice blue, just pierced some unexplored land inside her.
She wished she’d kissed him. Just a friendly hi-Coop sort of thing. Then she’d know what it was like, know what it felt like to have his mouth meet hers.
Calm down, she ordered herself. He’d probably laugh his head off if he knew what she was thinking. She took several deep breaths, then walked slowly downstairs.
She could hear them in the kitchen: her mother’s laugh, her father’s joking tones—and Coop’s voice. Deeper, wasn’t it deeper than it had been?
She had to stop and breathe again. Then fixing an easy smile on her face, she strolled back into the kitchen.
He stopped, in the middle of a sentence, and stared. Blinked. Just that instant, that surprise that flickered in his eyes, had her skin humming.
“So are you staying for supper?” Lil asked him.
“We were just trying to talk him into it. But Lucy and Sam are expecting him. Sunday,” Jenna said with a finger wag. “Everybody here for a picnic on Sunday.”
“Absolutely. I remember the first one. We can fit in some batting practice.”
“Bet I can still outhit you.” She leaned back against the counter and smiled in a way that had him blinking again.
“We’ll see about that.”
“I was hoping for a ride on that toy you’ve got out
there.”
“A Harley,” he said in sober tones, “is nobody’s toy.”
“Why don’t you show me what it can do?”
“Sure. Sunday, I’ll—”
“I was thinking now. It’s all right, isn’t it?” She turned to her mother. “Just a half hour?”
“Ah . . . Do you have helmets, Cooper?”
“Yeah, ah, I bought a second one figuring . . . Yeah.”
“How many tickets have you racked up riding that?” Joe asked him.
“None in the last four months,” Cooper said with a grin.
“Bring my girl back like you took her.”
“I will. Thanks for the tea,” he said as he rose. “I’ll see you on Sunday.”
Jenna watched them go out, then looked at her husband. “Oh,” she said.
He gave her a weak smile. “I was heading more toward: oh, shit.”
Outside, Lil studied the helmet he offered. “So are you going to teach me to drive this thing?”
“Maybe.”
She put the helmet on, watching him while she strapped it. “I can handle it.”
“Yeah, I bet you could.” He got on. “I thought about picking up a sissy seat, but—”
“I’m no sissy,” she said, and swung on behind him. She snugged her body behind his, wrapped her arms around his waist. Could he feel her heart thudding? she wondered. “Let her rip, Coop!”
When he did, zipping down the farm road, she let out a scream of delight. “It’s nearly as good as riding a horse,” she shouted.
“Better on the highway. Lean into the turns,” he told her, “and keep a good grip on me.”
Behind him, she smiled. She intended to.
COOP MEASURED OUT grain while the sun streamed through the loft windows. He could hear his grandmother singing as she fed the chickens, and their clucking accompaniment. In the stalls, horses chuffed and chewed.
It was funny how it all came back—the smells, the sounds, the quality of light and shadow. It had been two years since he’d fed a horse or groomed one, since he’d sat down at a big kitchen table at dawn to a plate of flapjacks.
It might have been yesterday.
The constant was a comfort, he supposed, when so much of his life was in flux. He remembered lying on a flat rock by the stream with Lil, years before, and how she’d known what she wanted. She still did.
He still didn’t.
The house, the fields, the hills, just the same as he’d left them. His grandparents, too, he thought. Had he really thought them old all those years before? They seemed so sturdy and steady to him now, as if the eight years since hadn’t touched them.
They’d sure as hell touched Lil.
When had she gotten so . . . well, prime?
Even two years before she’d just been Lil. Pretty, sure—she’d always been pretty. But he’d barely thought of her as a girl, much less a girl.
A girl with curves and lips, and eyes that put his blood on charge when she looked at him.
It wasn’t right to think of her that way. Probably. They were friends, best friends. He wasn’t supposed to notice she had breasts, much less obsess on what they’d felt like pressed into his back while they’d roared down the road on his bike.
Firm and soft and fascinating.
He sure as hell wasn’t supposed to have a sex dream about getting his hands on those breasts—and the rest of her.
But he had. Twice.
He bridled a yearling, as his grandfather had asked, and let the filly out to the corral to work her on the line.
With the stock fed and watered, the eggs gathered, Lucy walked over to sit on the fence and watch.
“She’s got some sass to her,” she said when the filly kicked up her hind legs.
“Energy to spare.” Coop switched leads, worked her in a circle.
“Picked her name yet?”
Coop smiled. Since Jones it had been tradition for him to name a yearling every season whether he made it out to the farm or not. “She’s got that pretty, dappled coat. I’m thinking Freckles.”
“Suits her. You’ve got a way, Cooper, with the naming, and the horses. You always did.”
“I miss them when I’m back east.”
“And when you’re here, you miss back east. It’s natural enough,” she continued when he didn’t speak. “You’re young. You haven’t settled yet.”
“I’m almost twenty, Grandma. It feels like I should know what I’m after. Hell, by my age you were married to Grandpa.”
“Different times, different place. Twenty’s younger in some ways than it once was, older in others. You’ve got time to do that settling.”
He looked back at her—sturdy, her hair shorter, with a bit of curl, the lines around her eyes deeper—but the same. Just as it was the same that he could say what was on his mind, or in his heart, and know she’d listen.
“Do you wish you’d taken more? More time?”
“Me? No, because I ended up right here, sitting on this fence watching my grandson train that pretty filly. But my way’s not yours. I married at eighteen, had my first baby before I was twenty, and barely been east of the Mississippi my whole life. That’s not you, Cooper.”
“I don’t know what me is. First?” He looked back at her. “You said first baby.”
“We lost two after your ma. That was hard. Still is. I think it’s why me and Jenna got close so quick. She had a stillbirth and then a miscarriage after Lil.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Things happen, and you go on. That’s all there is. If you’re lucky you get something out of it. I got you, didn’t I? And Jenna and Josiah, they got Lil.”
“Lil sure seems to know what she wants.”
“The girl does have her eyes forward.”
“So . . .” He aimed for casual. “Is she seeing anyone? A guy, I mean.”
“I took your meaning,” Lucy said drily. “Nobody in particular I’ve heard about. The Nodock boy did a lot of sniffing around in that direction, but it didn’t seem Lil was interested overmuch.”
“Nodock? Gull? But, Jesus, he’s twenty-two or -three. He’s too old to be hanging around Lil.”
“Not Gull, Jesse. His brother. Younger. He’d be about your age. Would you be sniffing in that direction, Cooper?”
“Me? Lil? No.” Crap, he thought. Just crap. “We’re friends, that’s all. She’s practically like a sister.”
Her face bland, Lucy tapped her boot heel on the fence. “Your grandfather and I were friendly when we were coming up. Though I don’t recall him ever thinking of me as a sister. Still, that Lil, she’s got her eyes forward, like I said. Girl’s got plans.”
“She always did.”
When work was done for the day, Coop thought about saddling one of the horses for a long, hard ride. He wished it could be Jones, but the yearling he’d once helped train had become one of the stars of his grandparents’ tourist trade.
He considered his options, had just about settled on the big roan gelding named Tick, when he saw Lil walking toward the corral.
It was lowering to admit, but his mouth went dry.
She wore jeans and a bright red shirt, scuffed boots, and a worn-in gray hat with a wide, flat brim, and her long black hair loose under it.
When she got to the fence, she tapped the saddlebag slung over her shoulder. “I’ve got a picnic in here I’m looking to share. Anybody interested?”
“Might be.”
“The thing is, I need to borrow a horse. I’ll barter this cold fried chicken for a ride.”
“Take your pick.”
Angling her head, she gestured with her chin. “I like the look of that piebald mare.”
“I’ll get you a saddle, and let my grandparents know.”
“I stopped in the house first. They’re fine with it. We’ve got a lot of day left. Might as well take advantage.” She draped the saddlebag over the fence. “I know where the tack is. Go ahead, get your own horse saddled.”
Friends
or not, he didn’t see the harm in watching her walk away, or noticing how her jeans fit as she did.
They set to work, with a rhythm both of them knew well. When Coop lifted her saddlebag, he winced. “That’s a lot of chicken.”
“I’ve got my recorder and camera, and . . . stuff. You know I like to make a record when I’m out on a trail. I was thinking we could head for the creek, then take one of the spur trails through the forest. Get a good gallop on the way there, then it’s pretty scenery.”
He shot her a knowing look. “Cougar territory?”
“The couple I’ve tracked this year cover that area. But that’s not why.” She smiled as she swung into the saddle. “It’s just a pretty ride, and there’s a stream where the forest opens up. It’s a nice spot for a picnic. It’s a good hour from here though, if you’d rather something closer.”
“I can work up a good appetite in an hour.” He vaulted onto his horse, settled his hat more securely on his head. “Which way?”
“Southwest.”
“Race ya.”
He gave the gelding a light kick. They galloped across the farmyard and through the fields.
There’d been a time, Lil thought, when she’d been the better rider, and by a long shot. Now she had to admit they were on level ground. The mare was her advantage, being light and quick, so with the wind in her hair, Lil reached the thin line of trees less than a length in the lead.
Laughing, eyes bright, she leaned forward to give the mare a congratulatory pat on the neck. “Where do you ride in New York?”
“I don’t.”
She straightened in the saddle. “You’re saying you haven’t sat a horse in two years?”
He shrugged. “It’s like riding a bike.”
“No, it’s like riding a horse. How do you . . .” She trailed off, shook her head, and began to walk the horse into the pines.
“How do I what?”
“Well, how do you stand not doing something you love?”
“I do other stuff.”
