Part of the Bargain

by Linda Lael Miller

  Instinctively Libby froze, the hair tingling on the nape of her neck. Dear God, it couldn’t be… Not here—not when there were men with rifles searching every inch of the ranch….

  She turned slowly, and her heart leapt into her throat and then spun back down into the pit of her stomach. The bear stood within ten feet of her, on its hind legs.

  The beast growled and lolled its massive head to one side. Its mangy, lusterless hide seemed loose over the rolling muscles beneath, and on its flank was a bloodcrusted, seeping wound.

  In that moment, it was as though Libby became two people, one hysterically afraid, one calm and in control. Fortunately, it was this second Libby that took command. Slowly, ever so slowly, she eased her hand back behind her, to the door handle, opened it. Just as the bear lunged toward her, making a sound more horrifying than she could ever have imagined, she leapt inside the truck and slammed the door after her.

  The raging beast shook the whole vehicle as it flung its great bulk against its side, and Libby allowed herself the luxury of one high-pitched scream before reaching for Ken’s CB radio under the dashboard.

  Again and again, the furious bear pummeled the side of the truck, while Libby tried frantically to make the CB radio work. She knew that the cowboys would be carrying receivers, in order to communicate with each other, and they were her only hope.

  Fingers trembling, Libby finally managed to lift the microphone to her mouth and press the button. Her mind skittered over a series of movies she’d seen, books she’d read. Mayday, she thought with triumphant terror. Mayday! But the magic word would not come past her tight throat.

  Suddenly a giant claw thundered across the windshield, shattering it into a glittering cobweb of cracks. One more blow, just one, and the bear would reach her easily, even though she was now crouching on the floorboard.

  At last she found her voice. “Cujo!” she screamed into the radio receiver. “Cujo!” She closed her eyes, gasping, tried to get a hold on herself. This is not a Stephen King movie, she reminded herself. This is reality. And that bear out there is going to tear you apart if you don’t do something!

  “Libby!” the radio squawked suddenly. “Libby, come in!”

  The voice was Jess’s. “Th-the bear,” she croaked, remembering to hold in the button on the receiver when she talked.

  “Jess, the bear!”

  “Where are you?”

  Libby closed her eyes as the beast again threw itself against the truck. “My dad’s house—in his truck.”

  “Hold on. Please, baby, hold on. We’re not far away.”

  “Hurry!” Libby cried, as the bear battered the windshield again and tiny bits of glass rained down on her head.

  Another voice came in over the radio, this one belonging to Stacey. “Libby,” he said evenly, “honk the horn. Can you do that?”

  Libby couldn’t speak. There were tears pouring down her face and every muscle in her body seemed inert, but she did reach up to the center of the wheel and press the truck’s horn.

  The bear bellowed with rage, as though the sound had hurt him, but he stopped striking the truck and withdrew a little way. Libby knew he wasn’t gone, for she could hear him lumbering nearby, growling in frustration.

  Jess’s men converged with Stacey’s at the end of the rutted country road leading to Ken’s house. When the pickup truck was in sight, they reined in their horses.

  “He’s mine,” Jess breathed, reaching for the rifle in his scabbard, drawing it out, cocking it. He was conscious of the other men and their nervous, nickering horses, but only vaguely. Libby was inside that truck—his whole being seemed to focus on that one fact.

  The bear rose up in full view suddenly, its enormous head visible even over the top of the pickup’s cab. Even over the repeated honking of the truck’s horn, the beast’s hideous, echoing growl was audible.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Stacey whispered.

  “Easy,” said Jess, to himself more than the men around him, as he lifted the rifle, sighted in carefully, pulled back the trigger.

  The thunderous shot struck the bear in the center of its nose, and the animal shrieked as it went down. The impact of its body was so solid that it seemed to shake the ground.

  Instantly Jess was out of the saddle. “Make sure he’s dead,” he called over one shoulder as he ran toward the truck.

  Stacey and several of his men reached the bear just as Jess wrenched open the door on the driver’s side.

  Libby scrambled out from under the steering wheel, her hair a wild, glass-spattered tangle, to fling herself, sobbing, into his arms. Jess cradled her in his arms, carried her away from the demolished truck and inside the house. His own knees suddenly weak, he fell into the first available chair and buried his face in Libby’s neck.

  “It’s over, sweetheart,” he said. “It’s over.”

  Libby shuddered and wailed with terror.

  When she was calmer, Jess caught her chin in his hand and lifted it. “What the hell did you mean, yelling ‘Cujo! Cujo!’”

  Libby sniffled, and the fight was back in her eyes, a glorious, snapping blue. “There was this book about a mad dog…and then there was a movie…”

  Jess lifted his eyebrows and grinned.

  “Oh, never mind!” hissed Libby.

  Chapter 13

  Libby froze in the doorway of Ken’s room in the intensive-care unit, her mouth open, her heart racing as fast as it had earlier, when she’d been trapped by the bear.

  “Where is he?” she finally managed to whisper. “Oh, Jess, where is my father?”

  Standing behind Libby, Jess lifted his hands to her shoulders and gently ushered her back into the hallway, out of sight of the empty bed. “Don’t panic,” he said quietly.

  Libby trembled, looked frantically toward the nurses’ station. “Jess, what if he…?”

  There was a gentle lecture forming in Jess’s features, but before he could deliver it, an attractive red-headed nurse approached, trim in her uniform. “Mrs. Barlowe?”

  Libby nodded, holding her breath.

  “Your father is fine. We moved Mr. Kincaid to another floor earlier today, since he no longer needs such careful monitoring. If you will just come back to the desk with me, I’ll be happy to find out which room he’s in.”

  Libby’s breath escaped in one long sigh. What with spending perilous minutes cowering inside a truck, with a rogue bear doing its best to get inside and tear her to bits, and then rushing to the hospital to find her father’s bed empty, she had had more than enough stress for one day. “Thank you,” she said, giving Jess a relieved look.

  He got rather familiar during the elevator ride down to the second floor, but desisted when the doors opened again.

  “You’re incorrigible,” Libby whispered, only half in anger.

  “Snatching my wife from the jaws of death has that effect on me,” he whispered back. “I keep thinking that I might never have gotten the chance to touch you like that again.”

  Libby paused, in the quest for Room 223, to search Jess’s face. “Were you scared?”

  “Scared? Sweet thing, I was terrified.”

  “You seemed so calm!”

  He lifted one eyebrow. “Somebody had to be.”

  Libby considered that and then sighed. “I don’t suppose we should tell Dad what actually happened. Not yet, at least.”

  Jess chuckled. “We’ll tell a partial truth—that the bear is dead. The rest had better wait until he’s stronger.”

  “Right,” agreed Libby.

  When they reached Ken’s new room, another surprise was in store. A good-looking dark-haired woman was there plumping the patient’s pillows, fussing with his covers. She wore well-cut jeans and a western shirt trimmed with a rippling snow-white fringe, and the way she laughed, low in her throat, said more about her relationship with Ken Kincaid than all her other attentions combined.

  “Hello, Becky,” said Jess, smiling.

  Becky was one of those people, it seemed, who
smile not just with the mouth but with the whole face. “Jess Barlowe,” she crowed, “you black-hearted son-of-a-gun! Where ya been?”

  Libby drew a deep breath and worked up a smile of her own. Was this the woman who had written that intriguing farewell on the condo’s kitchen blackboard?

  Deliberately she turned her attention on her father, who looked downright rakish as he favored his startled daughter with a slow grin and a wink.

  “Who’s this pretty little gal?” demanded Becky, giving Libby a friendly once-over.

  For the first time, Ken spoke. “This is my daughter, Libby. Libby, Becky Stafford.”

  “I’ll be!” cried Becky, clearly delighted. “Glad to meet ya!”

  Libby found the woman’s boisterous good nature appealing, and despite a few lingering twinges of surprise, she responded warmly.

  “Did you get that bear?” Ken asked of Jess, once the women had made their exchange.

  “Yes,” Jess replied, after one glance at Libby.

  Ken gave a hoot of delight and triumph. “Nail that son-of-a…nail that devil’s hide to the barn door for me, will you?”

  “Done,” answered Jess with a grin.

  A few minutes later, Jess and the energetic Becky left the room to have coffee in the hospital cafeteria. Libby lifted her hands to her hips, fixed her father with a loving glare and demanded, “Is there something you haven’t told me?”

  Ken laughed. “Maybe. But I’ll wager that there are a few things you haven’t told me, either, dumplin’.”

  “Who is Becky, exactly?”

  Ken thought for a moment before speaking. “She’s a good friend of mine, Libby. An old friend.”

  For some reason, Libby was determined to find something to dislike about Becky Stafford, difficult as it was. “Why does she dress like that? Is she a rodeo performer or something?”

  “She’s a cocktail waitress,” Ken replied patiently.

  “Oh,” said Libby. And then she couldn’t sustain her petty jealousy any longer, because Becky Stafford was a nice person and Ken had a right to like her. He was more than just her father, after all, more than just Senator Barlowe’s general foreman. He was a man.

  There was a brief silence, which Ken broke with a very direct question. “Do you like Becky, Lib?”

  Like her? The warmth and humor of the woman still lingered in that otherwise dreary room, as did the earthy, unpretentious scent of her perfume. “Sure I do,” said Libby. “Anybody with the perception to call Jess Barlowe a ‘black-hearted son-of-a-gun’ is okay in my book!”

  Ken chuckled, but there was relief in his face, and his expression revealed that he knew how much Libby loved her husband. “How’s Cathy?” he asked.

  Remembering that morning’s brief conversation with her cousin, Libby grinned. “She’s doing fine, as far as I can tell. Bad as it was, your tussle with that bear seems to have brought Cathy and Stacey both to a point where they can open up to each other. Cathy actually talked to him.”

  Ken did not seem surprised by this last; perhaps he’d known all along that Cathy still had use of her voice. “I don’t imagine it was peaceable,” he observed drily.

  “Not in the least,” confirmed Libby, “but they’re communicating and…and, well, let’s just say they’re closer.”

  “That’s good,” answered Ken, smiling at his daughter’s words. “That’s real good.”

  Seeing that her father was getting very tired, Libby quickly kissed him and took her leave. When she reached the cafeteria, Becky was sitting alone at a table, staring sadly into her coffee cup.

  Libby scanned the large room for Jess and failed to see him, but she wasn’t worried. Probably he had gone back to Ken’s room and missed seeing Libby on the way. Noticing the pensive look on Becky’s face, she was glad for a few minutes alone with the woman her father obviously liked and perhaps even loved.

  “May I sit down?” she asked, standing behind the chair that had probably been Jess’s.

  Becky looked up, smiled. “Sure,” she said, and there was surprise in her dark eyes.

  Libby sat down with a sigh. “I hate hospitals,” she said, filled to aching with the memory of Jonathan’s confinement.

  “Me too,” answered Becky, but her eyes were watchful. Hopeful, in a touchingly open way.

  Libby swallowed. “My…my father has been very lonely, and I’m glad you’re his friend.”

  Becky’s smile was almost cosmic in scope. “That’s good to hear,” she answered. “Lordy, that man did scare the life out of me, going a round with that damned bear that way.”

  Libby thought of her own chance meeting with the creature and shivered. She hoped that she would never know that kind of numbing fear gain.

  Becky’s hand came to pat hers. “It’s all right now, though, isn’t it? That hairy booger is dead, thanks to Jess.”

  Libby laughed. Indeed, that “hairy booger” was dead, and she did have Jess to thank for her life. When she’d tried to voice her gratitude earlier, he had brushed away her words and said that she was his wife and, therefore, saving her from bears, fire-breathing dragons and the like was just part of the bargain.

  As if conjured by her thoughts of him, Jess appeared to take Libby home.

  The coming days were happy ones for Libby, if hectic. She visited her father morning and evening and worked on her cartoon strip and the panels for the book between times, her drawing board having been transported from the ranch by Jess and set up in the middle of the condo’s living room.

  Jess commuted between Kalispell and the ranch; many of Ken’s duties had fallen to him. Instead of being exhausted by the crazy pace, however, he seemed to thrive on it and his reports on the stormy reconciliation taking place between Cathy and Stacey were encouraging. It appeared that, with the help of the marriage counselor they were seeing, their problems might be worked out.

  The irrepressible Becky Stafford rapidly became Libby’s friend. Vastly different, the two women nevertheless enjoyed each other— Libby found that Becky could draw her out when she became too burrowed down in her work, and just as quickly drive her back if she tried to neglect it.

  “You did what?” Jess demanded archly one early-summer evening as he and Libby sat on the living-room floor consuming the take-out Chinese food they both loved.

  Libby laughed with glee and a measure of pride. “I rode the mechanical bull at the bar where Becky works,” she repeated.

  Jess worked up an unconvincing scowl. “Hanging around bars these days, are you?” he demanded, waving a fortune cookie for emphasis.

  Libby batted her eyelashes demurely. “Don’t you worry one little bit,” she said, feigning a musical southern drawl. “Becky guards mah virtue, y’all.”

  Jess’s green eyes slipped to the V neck of Libby’s white sweater, which left a generous portion of cleavage in full and enticing view. “Does she now? And where is she, at this very moment, when said virtue is in immediate peril?”

  An anticipatory thrill gyrated in the pit of Libby’s stomach and warmed her breasts, which were bare beneath her lightweight sweater. Jess had loved her often, and well, but he could still stir that sweet, needing tension with remarkable ease. “What sort of peril am I in, exactly?”

  Jess grinned and hooked one finger in the V of her sweater, slid it downward into the warmth between her breasts. “Oh, the most scandalous sort, Mrs. Barlowe.”

  Libby’s breath quickened, despite stubborn efforts to keep it even. “Your attentions are quite unseemly, Mr. Barlowe,” she replied.

  He moved the wanton finger up and down between the swelling softness that was Libby, and sharp responses ached in other parts of her. “Absolutely,” he said. “I mean to do several unseemly things to you.”

  Libby tensed with delicious sensation as Jess’s exploring finger slid aside, explored a still-hidden nipple.

  “I want to see your breast, Libby. This breast. Show it to me.”

  The outrageous request made Libby color slightly, but she knew she w
ould comply. She was a strong, independent person, but now, in this sweet, aching moment, she was Jess’s woman. With one motion of her hand, she tugged the sweater’s neckline down and to one side, so that it made a sort of sling for the breast that had been softly demanded.

  Not touching the rounded pink-tipped treasure in any way, Jess admired it, rewarding it with an approving smile when the confectionlike peak tightened into an enticing point.

  Libby was kneeling now, resting on her heels, the cartons littering the coffee table completely forgotten. She was at once too proud to plead for Jess’s mouth and too needing of it to cover herself.

  Knowing that, Jess chuckled hoarsely and bent to flick at the exposed nipple with just the tip of his tongue. Libby moaned and let her head fall back, making the captured breast even more vulnerable.

  “Unseemly,” breathed Jess, nibbling, drawing at the straining morsel with his lips.

  Libby felt the universe sway in time with his tender plundering, but she bit down hard on the garbled pleas that were rising in her throat. They escaped through her parted lips, all the same, as small gasps.

  Her heartbeat grew louder and louder as Jess finally took suckle; it muffled the sounds of his greed, of the cartons being swept from the surface of the coffee table in a motion of one of his arms.

  The coolness of the air battled with the heat of Libby’s flesh as she was stripped of her sweater, her white slacks, her panties. Gently he placed her on the coffee table.

  Entranced, Libby allowed him to position her legs wide of each other, one on one side of the low table, one on the other. Beyond the glass roof, in the dark, dark sky, a million silvery stars surged toward her and then melted back into the folds of heaven, becoming pinpoints.

  Jess found the silken nest of her passion and attended it lovingly, stroking, kissing, finding, losing. Libby’s hips moved wildly, struggling even as she gave herself up.

  And when she had to have this singular gratification or die, Jess understood and feasted unreservedly, his hands firm under her bottom, lifting her, the breadth of his shoulders making it impossible for her to deny him what he would have from her.