KNIGHT IN A WHITE STETSON

by Claire King

  "Calla, honey, you hire somebody last night?" Jackson asked patiently.

  "Yep." She took another sip. "His name's Henry. He'll be here for breakfast. He's the one who helped me change my flat yesterday, when I was stranded." Calla glared briefly at Lester. "Meant to tell you last night, but then Clark came and I forgot. Sorry, Dad."

  She got up and planted a kiss on her father's cheek. "He'll help put up the first cutting, and then I told him to ride up on Bennett the rest of the summer."

  "Fence riding?" Lester exclaimed, bug-eyed. "Did you know he was from California?"

  "Lester, you're positively lucid this morning, you know it?"

  "Calm," Jackson said mildly.

  "Okay, yes, I know he's from California, but he doesn't look much like a city boy and he says he knows tractors and I've seen him with the horses this morning and he's already half cleaned out Lester's shop, so I think he'll work out fine. We'll see, anyway."

  "He cleaned out my shop?" Lester sputtered, one dirty hand going dramatically to his wrinkled brow. "God almighty."

  There was a short rap on the kitchen door.

  "Come in," Jackson, Calla and Lester shouted in unison at the closed door.

  "Thanks," said Henry, with a chuckle, as he opened the door and stepped inside. He put a hand out to Jackson. "You must be Calla's father. Lester told me I'd be meeting you this morning. Henry Beckett."

  "Jackson Bishop, son. Welcome to Hot Sulphur Lake Ranch. Hear you'll be working for us this summer."

  "Yes, sir. Hired on last night."

  Calla wasn't sure, but she thought she heard a slight drawl drift into Henry's voice as he spoke to her father. She rolled her eyes.

  "Lester." Henry, his face grave, stuck his hand out to Lester, who shook it reluctantly. "Sorry if I scared you this morning. I thought your ranch manager here would have told you she hired on a new hand."

  "Scared me? Huh. Takes more than a little pissant like you to scare me, I can tell you right now," Lester grumbled. "Scared me, hell." He stalked out the door.

  Henry looked at Calla, who looked back over her coffee mug, her warm hazel eyes twinkling with shared amusement.

  "Well, son, you best sit down and have a little something to eat." Jackson motioned him to a chair. "We're on our own this morning, sorry to tell you. My sister, Calla's aunt Helen, lit out this morning on a run to town. She says she goes in for supplies, but she don't come back 'til sundown and she's usually got her hair done up, so we're a little suspicious, ain't that right, Calla, honey?"

  "Mmm-hmm," Calla said absently, her hand tangled up in her loose hair. She was gazing studiously at the agricultural newspaper in front of her. "Oh, right. Breakfast. There's muffins in the oven, usually, and coffee on the counter. Cups are on the shelf right above. If you want anything else, you'll have to fix it yourself."

  "This is fine, thanks." Henry brought the warm muffin pan from the oven and set it on the table in front of Calla and her father. He moved to the cupboard and took out a mug. "Coffee?" he inquired of Jackson.

  "Well, thank you, young fella. I believe so."

  Henry filled both mugs, handed the older man his coffee, and sat down next to Calla. He grabbed a muffin from the pan and took a huge bite, tugging a piece of the paper from under Calla's elbows with his free hand. She gave him a sidelong glance.

  "Careful," she said, "Cowboy coffee."

  "I think I'll be okay," Henry said, taking a gulp from his cup. He sputtered and coughed, bits of muffin flying out of his mouth onto the table. Calla, still studying her paper, reached out and absently smacked him hard between his shoulders.

  "Told you."

  "I'll believe you next time."

  "I'll bet." Calla sipped her coffee to hide her smile. Henry got up and ripped a paper towel off the bolder.

  "Well, kid—" Jackson, oblivious to the exchange, faced Calla "—what's on the schedule for today?"

  Calla looked up at her father. He'd asked the same thing of her every morning for the past three years. Jackson was competent, smart, Calla thought, even brilliant in his own way, but he was incapable of running the ranch on his own. Mostly because, although he loved Calla, and had loved Calla's mother, he was no McFadden, and did not love the ranch. Calla knew it, Jackson knew it and Calla's mother had known it, which was why she'd left the ranch to her only daughter. Calla had been just twenty-one at the time, but had already been making many of the decisions since Benny died. The ranch was her mother's to give, and she wisely chose Calla over Jackson.

  "It's been in my family for over a hundred years now, honey-bunch," Judy McFadden Bishop told her before she died. "I know you'll keep it in the family for another hundred."

  "I thought we might cut the upper fields today." Calla turned abruptly to Henry, who leaned against the counter by the coffeepot, watching her. "You can run a swather?"

  He nodded, his eyes on hers. She turned back to her father. Was her stomach going to flutter like that every time she looked at the man all summer? Well then, the sooner they got the hay up and packed him off to Two Creek, the better.

  "I'll put Henry on the swather and get Lester to hook up the baler for the field we cut Thursday. Should be dry enough now." She drained her coffee mug. "I'm taking a horse up to the lake and see if I can't find that wild cow of Charlie's. Russ Thompson from the Bureau of Land Management called yesterday morning and told me he saw her up there.

  "And if you wouldn't mind, Dad," she continued, clearing her throat, "I'd like you to take a little time today and see if you can't straighten out that mess out in Lester's shop. Henry started on it this morning. It's really gone to hell, I have to admit, and since we're heading hard into farming today, I want to have things at least clean enough where I can find a damn wrench if I want one. Excuse my language." She looked at Henry, who gave her a quizzical smile.

  "I'd be happy to, darlin'," Jackson said, getting up from the table and ruffling a hand across the top of her head. "Poor old Lester, he sure will be mad when he comes home to a clean shop, though. I won't step in when he tries to kill you for it, you know."

  Calla caught his hand and gave it a quick peck. "I know, Dad. I'll take my chances."

  "You always do."

  Henry watched Calla as she released her father's worn hand. His hands were steady on his coffee cup and his eyes were calm, a habit born of long years of practice and experience, but the small gesture of affection between Calla and Jackson shook him a little.

  Henry wondered what it would be like to touch this woman so casually. He had nearly lost his head when Jackson ran his hand across his daughter's head, and followed suit. Her hair was damp from a washing, and she hadn't pulled it into the severe ponytail she'd been wearing yesterday. He hoped she wouldn't. It gleamed even in the dim light of the kitchen. He'd wanted to plunge his fingers in that mane of hair since he'd first seen a strand of it come loose from her ponytail while she was changing that tire.

  And when Calla caught her father's hand in hers and pulled it to her lips to kiss it, Henry felt a strong, warm wave of … something … envy? … desire? … pass through his chest to settle at the pit of his stomach. His mouth went suddenly, ferociously dry, a first, sharp sign of lust.

  He swallowed a couple of times to work the saliva back in. Okay, so he was a little horny. That wasn't a terrible sin. Or an indication of anything more important. Just libido. After all, it had been more than a year since Heidi had left him. A year since he'd passed his hand across the crown of a woman's head, felt the press of a mouth on his hand. Since he'd felt anything at all, for anyone at all.

  He caught himself mooning, just a bit, at the woman in front of him. Mooning, for God's sake.

  This is trouble, he thought. I should run. Boy, California is the place you oughta be.

  But when Calla got up from the table and started outside, he followed. He couldn't help himself.

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  « ^ »

  Henry ran the swather along the ed
ge of the last row, following a straight line, the blades of the machine neatly cutting the hay and laying it behind in long, perfect rows. Henry had always loved this job. It was the engineer in him, he thought. Nothing like straight lines to satisfy an engineer. Calla would be satisfied.

  Calla.

  Straight lines were all well and good, he thought, but curvy lines had their merits, too.

  There was no air-conditioning in the cab of the swather, and he felt the sweat bead down from his hair to his neck and soak into his T-shirt. A wonderful feeling. A little hard work, a little healthy lust. Definitely a good sweat.

  Henry looked back over his shoulder at the beautifully cut rows of sweet alfalfa. It had been years since he'd been in a swather, the summer his grandfather died and Henry's father, already a prominent physician, had sold the farm in central California to real-estate developers who turned the rich soil under and planted fifteen hundred identical, neatly spaced, half-acre house lots with views of the delta.

  Henry reached the end of his perfect row and turned the swather deftly, plunging it forward into the tall, purple-budded alfalfa of the next section. The smell of cut alfalfa was one of his favorite scents, and he closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

  Calla.

  He opened his eyes and headed for a point at the end of the field. She'd sneaked her wily way into his thoughts every few minutes since she scooted out from under that truck yesterday and thrust her hand at him like a man.

  She wasn't as beautiful, he thought, as some women he'd seen. After all, he'd worked in Los Angeles for the past two years. He saw the most beautiful women in the world every day. She wasn't even beautiful like Heidi was, like most of the women to whom he'd ever been attracted. Heidi had been blond and willowy thin, her skin light, her eyes the crystal blue of the Pacific Ocean. She'd worn clothes in the latest fashion, and she'd looked perfect in them, her model's figure shown to its best.

  Henry, rich and young and smart, had dated several thin, beautiful blondes before he married Heidi, but she was by far the most captivating. To me and everyone else, Henry thought, his mouth twisting into a grimace.

  But Calla wasn't thin and blond. He tried to imagine any woman he knew hefting that tire down from the back of that dusty pickup, and couldn't. He smiled. Calla was definitely not willowy. Her chest was strong and wide, with breasts that looked firm and heavy and high, even in those god-awful work shirts. Her hair was the color of rich chestnuts and her eyes were an astonishing shade of hazel, flecked with jade.

  He tried to imagine the color of her nipples. Dark, he decided. Wine-colored, or maybe the blush of soft plums. The swather took a sudden dip sideways and ruined Henry's perfect row. So much for an engineer's brain, he reflected.

  There was definition in her slender arms and Henry knew those sleek muscles didn't come from a weight machine or thrice-weekly aerobics classes. He'd watched her break loose those rusted lug nuts in wonder. How he'd kept himself from running his hand along her strong neck and into the sweaty crease at her elbow, he'd never know.

  He'd like to have seen her legs. They weren't miles long, like Heidi's were, but he thought they'd wrap nicely around his back.

  Oh, pull yourself together, Johannsen. He was a highly educated man. He knew a budding obsession when one whacked him over the head.

  He turned the swather again. He'd been right about his dilemma in the kitchen this morning. He had been celibate too long.

  It was the only reasonable explanation for how unreasonably he wanted Calla. He'd wanted her under that pickup yesterday afternoon, on the barn floor later that night, this morning on the kitchen table after her father had stepped outside; would have taken her without a second thought if she'd but crooked a finger in his direction.

  He'd almost kissed her when she slapped him on his back this morning, even though he knew she was laughing at him. He'd almost reached behind him and pulled her hand to his chest and kissed her.

  He'd lain awake all last night, tossing and turning in his sleeping bag, wondering how she tasted, how soft her lips were. He'd spied on her, spied on her! when she walked Dartmouth to his car last night, and grunted in disgust when he saw the bastard lean forward and touch his lips to hers.

  And he'd wondered idly how easily the bones in Dartmouth's skinny neck would break under his hands.

  Henry looked back at the row he just finished, annoyed by the slight, compensating dip in the alfalfa. Calla's nipple, he reminded himself. He turned again.

  A swarm of gulls followed the machine, greedily scooping up the mice that ran from their destroyed nests. An old bird dog he'd seen shaded up under a tree on Calla's front lawn that morning trotted happily beside the swather, row after row, turning when Henry turned. Ah, farming. It was boring, steady, peaceful work. He could have stayed on that swather the rest of his life, he thought.

  He had just made another row when he caught the movement of a horse out of the corner of his eye.

  It was Calla, atop a young sorrel. Two perfectly matched, glossy-coated border collies flanked the horse, keeping their eagle eyes and sharp noses on the wild-looking cow in front of Calla's horse. Calla kept the cow against the fence line, guiding it slowly toward an open gate at the end of the field next to the one Henry was swathing.

  She looked over at him. He was too far away to see her face, but he knew she was smiling at him. He waved. She raised one slender hand and held it aloft for a moment. Not a wave, really, more like a salute, he thought. He chuckled aloud.

  * * *

  Calla eased the cow through the gate. She looked down at the dogs. They hadn't taken their eyes off the animal.

  "Take a bite," she said. They took off in a rush of black and white, silently nipping at the heels of the wild cow. The cow kicked and bucked her way across the empty field.

  "Come back," she called softly. Instantly, the dogs wheeled and returned to her side. Serves you right, you old biddy, Calla thought. The cow had given her more trouble than a herd of reckless heifers, alternately running at her and from her. She'd wasted a whole morning and it wasn't even her cow. What she didn't do for her neighbors, she thought, shaking her head as she turned her pretty sorrel and pointed him toward the barn.

  She looked over her shoulder. Henry was more than halfway through the huge field of alfalfa. She swept the rows of hay with the critical gaze of someone who knows her job well. Pretty good, she acknowledged. One little dip, but otherwise nice and straight. He had done this before.

  She watched the swather cut its way down another row. He'll work out okay, she decided. At least for the farming. She'd have to wait and see how well he'd do when he moved to camp to watch the cows and work on the miles and miles of Bennett Mountain fence lines. Ranch hands were so unpredictable.

  But she couldn't see Henry going off and leaving the herd for a drunk in town. She couldn't see him overlooking a saggy fence just because he'd have to climb to get to it. She couldn't see him taking a too young horse down a too steep rocky canyon, bruising him and rendering him useless for the remainder of the summer; all things Lester had done in the past.

  She could trust Henry. She knew it already. He'd do the right thing.

  She watched him a moment more. And felt a stirring inside her, a feeling that had become alarmingly familiar in the hours since Henry had leaned his long frame against her barn door.

  Now, if she could just be trusted to do the right thing.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  « ^ »

  It took two weeks to put up the hay. Henry ran the swather, Lester came along after him a few days later with the baler, and Calla came after Lester with the stacker. Together they put up four hundred tons of sweet, Sulphur Lake hay. Calla was thrilled at how smoothly everything went.

  It was the first year she hadn't had to fight with Lester at every turn. Every summer he'd argued with her about the moisture content of the hay and the number of bales in a stack and the position of the stacks in the hay yard. But this summer he
did as he was told. Calla was surprised how much free time she had now that she didn't have to spend time arguing with Lester. She suspected Lester's compliant mood had a lot to do with Henry.

  He was a little afraid of Henry, she knew.

  Henry was up every morning before anyone else. He wolfed down his breakfast, usually before Calla was even back from her chores in the barn, and was out on the swather all morning. He came in for lunch and to flirt briefly with Aunt Helen, who was thrilled at having another man to compliment her cooking, and then he was gone again. When he finished for the day, he took his evening meal into the bunkhouse. He never ate with the family in the evening. Not like Lester. No one else seemed to notice that was odd, but Calla wondered at it. Ranch hands had always eaten at the McFadden table. It was tradition.

  Henry didn't come in and watch TV at night. Or stay around the ranch on Sundays. Or inquire after her health or ask for advances on his pay. He didn't follow her into the barn in the mornings. Never touched her wrist again with his thumb, in that heated, hypnotic way.

  He was the perfect employee. Darn it.

  Clark had left a week into haying. He'd gone East again. Calla never missed him when he was gone, her life was too busy for that kind of nonsense, she told herself, but she found herself wishing he'd hurry back. She felt better, more comfortable, when he was around every night. Even though she saw almost nothing of Henry after that first day, except to wave at him occasionally from across a new-mown field or smile as he brushed past her on his way out the kitchen door, she knew she was spending less time thinking about Clark—her beloved, intended Clark—and more and more time thinking about her new ranch hand.

  Calla ran the roaring, dusty stacker around the field, picking up the last of the stray bales. The empty field gave her a strong sense of satisfaction. She was never especially fond of the farming aspect of the place—that had always been Benny's department—but she took pride in her tidy fields and intelligently planned watering system.