KNIGHT IN A WHITE STETSON

by Claire King

  Colonel Frank's files, which Henry had begun covertly copying onto a library of diskettes just weeks after he joined I.C.D., were rife with the kind of budget juggling and official bribing rampant in organizations run by military personnel. Henry had known they would be.

  In exchange for his formula and his freedom, Henry promised Frank the files would never reach the Pentagon or the press. The colonel was smart enough to know the possibility of retirement as full-bird general, as well as his cushy pension and his unsullied reputation, would be ravaged by any disclosure of the activities in which he routinely indulged. He accepted Henry's offer with the long practice of military compromise.

  And then he'd laughed. Right out loud, with Henry facing him, bemused, across the wide oak, army-issue desk.

  At least I know my training program works. You came in here two years ago a damn chemical genius and I turned you into a soldier. Look at you. You're staring down a damn lieutenant colonel of the United States Army. I'm almost proud of you, son.

  When Henry had been told at the beginning of his association with International Chemical Defense that he'd go through the official training program required of all I.C.D. "employees," he'd been surprised. He'd found the military-type training interesting, but pointless, and argued the necessity of it with Pete over countless beers at the Quantico commissary. Pete had overridden his objections.

  "You're playing a different game, now, Doc," Pete had told him. "This isn't the private sector. You got our information in that mutant brain of yours now, information we're paying for, and we want you to know how to protect it."

  He had been grateful for the training when it came time to leave I.C.D. It had been very useful.

  Henry looked over at Calla, who was still driving hell-for-leather over the familiar back roads.

  He hoped to God it wouldn't be necessary to use it again.

  * * *

  Jackson helped them unload the horses and Calla's gear and, with a half hour's worth of instruction from his daughter still ringing in his ears, headed back for the Hot Sulphur. Henry picked Calla's saddle easily out of the dirt and made for the tack shed.

  "Hold it," Calla said. She was walking up the path from the little outhouse, buttoning the top button of her Wranglers. Henry looked away. It was either that or fall at her feet and start whimpering. "Where're you going with that?"

  "I like a clean camp. If I'd known you were going to leave your saddle lying around, I wouldn't have invited you."

  "Huh," she snorted, trying not to smile. It was like hanging around with a gorgeous, genius comedian, working with this man. She was forever fighting little chuckles and savage lust. Savage lust! She almost laughed out loud at that. Instead, she frowned at him, grabbing the saddle from his arms. "We're moving the tack into the big tent with you. I'll be sleeping in the tack tent."

  "Whatever you say."

  She dumped the saddle back onto the ground, pommel down, and walked to the smaller of the two canvas tents perched on the hill and unzipped the flap. She stood at the entrance, her back to Henry, for a minute.

  "This is impressive."

  "Thanks."

  She turned around and squinted at Henry, shielding her eyes against the strong sun with one long brown hand.

  "Are you always this neat?"

  "It's an old habit."

  "Well, it makes me a little nervous. Tidy men have always seemed to me to be a little anal."

  Henry laughed. "Anal, huh? Well, rest assured, I'm as big a slob as the next guy. In my heart. I've just learned to keep things orderly. It's pretty difficult to keep track of things in a laboratory if everything isn't kept in good order. Plus, stuff tends to blow up."

  She turned around and peered into the tent again. "You oiled everything," she said.

  "Yeah. The leather was pretty dry."

  "It stinks in here. And you bolted the saddle trees to the floor."

  "They kept tipping over. When we tear the tents down in the fall, we can unbolt them."

  She turned to him. "There's no room for a cot in here if we don't take the saddle trees out."

  "Huh."

  She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head. "Did you do this on purpose?"

  "Of course not." He hadn't, in truth. He'd done it all that first day. Before Pete had shown up.

  Calla stared at him for several seconds before she came to a reluctant conclusion. "I guess I'll have to bunk with you."

  "Guess so."

  "Well, hell." She knitted her brows, then looked at him. "Don't get any ideas."

  "I won't." Not any new ones, anyway.

  Calla stepped off the low wood platform that made up the floor of the tack tent. She scooped up her saddle and rested it on her hip. Henry started toward her but she turned quickly and ducked between the open flaps of the small tent.

  This woman would rid him of every gentlemanly instinct he ever had if he wasn't careful. Still, there was something pretty intoxicating about a female who could so thoroughly take care of herself.

  Despite her strength, though, Henry thought a half hour later, she was most definitely a woman. Calla and Calla's belongings had taken over his neatly swept sleeping tent like a sweet-smelling Hun invasion. Henry had set up her cot, ignoring her protestations that she could take care of her own self, thank you very much, against the wall opposite his. Her down-filled sleeping bag, a match to Henry's, lay on top of it. She had emptied her leather saddlebags of a pile of neatly pressed jeans, shirts and underwear, and had stacked them in a small wooden box now shoved out of the way under the cot. A mesh bag on top of the clothes held shampoo, soap, a toothbrush and paste, a hairbrush and a rat's nest of ponytail holders and hair clips. The tent, which normally smelled faintly of dust and sweat and leather, now smelled of Calla's hair and skin and the detergent Helen used to wash her clothes.

  Henry stood at the tent flap and smiled. It had been a long time since he'd had a woman in his house. It was a pleasant sensation, even when his house was a canvas tent in the middle of the Idaho wilderness and the woman belonged to another man.

  * * *

  Calla listened to the steady breathing of the man on the other side of the tent. The sound of it filled the still air. It filled her senses. She had been tossing inside her sleeping bag for hours.

  She was twenty-four years old and had never spent an entire night with a man. Well, Clark, the other night, but he'd been downstairs on the couch.

  No, that was silly. She'd spent many nights with men. Lester, Jackson, Benny. She'd been surrounded by men her entire life. She had, in point of fact, she reminded herself harshly, spent hundreds of nights in this very tent with various men every summer since she was six years old.

  So, why was this particular man and his steady breathing keeping her awake?

  Probably because this man wasn't her brother or her father or an old, hairy-eared man she'd known since childhood.

  This was Henry.

  She'd watched him carefully all day. After she'd settled in—no, after Henry had settled her in, she corrected herself—they'd saddled horses and spent the rest of the day riding the fence lines Calla had been building and repairing all her life.

  After Henry had settled her in. She frowned in the darkness. He'd set up her cot and smoothed out her bag and carried her empty saddlebags to the tack tent. While she'd refolded her clothes into the little wooden box, he'd even oiled her saddle for her with the bottle of strong-smelling neat's-foot oil he kept stored against pack rats in a metal box under his saddle tree.

  Then he'd returned to the larger tent and packed a new saddle pad under the top of her sleeping bag.

  "Pillow," he'd said matter-of-factly, and then walked back outside.

  She had been annoyed and embarrassed. And thrilled.

  Henry had taken care of her. A small gesture as those things went, she supposed, but it was still disconcerting and had made her feel awkward and clumsy. She liked being in control. Being in control was what she did best.


  She had reasserted that control once they were out on the range. She'd removed a voluminous map from her saddlebags and spread it across her saddle horn. Henry had moved his horse close to hers for a better look, his booted foot resting against her stirrup. She'd marked fence lines with her finger and then pointed to them across the horizon. Henry had listened with gratifying intent.

  They'd returned to camp at dusk and Calla had taken the map out again while Henry pulled out the dinner Calla had packed for them—a cold roasted chicken and fresh carrots and zucchini from Helen's garden. Henry had lit the lantern and brought it to the picnic table that served as the Two Creek Camp dining table, food preparation area and office. Then he'd come from behind and leaned over her, studying the map, his breath stirring the fine hairs on the back of her neck. His wide palms had been flat on the table, and Calla had stared for a minute at the little moons at the base of his fingernails.

  "Calla?" he'd inquired politely.

  "Uh, sorry. I was thinking about something else."

  After she'd told him of her plans for the next day, she'd folded the map and returned it to her saddlebags.

  "It's late," she said. "Must be eleven o'clock."

  Henry lifted his wrist so she could see his watch. "I'm going to buy you a watch."

  She stood opposite him across the picnic table. For some reason, every muscle in her body was tensed.

  "I guess I'll turn in," she said awkwardly.

  "Good idea. You've got us all over these hills tomorrow." He smiled.

  She nodded, then ducked her head at his calm regard and walked to the outhouse. When she returned, Henry was gone.

  "Hey," she called softly. The echoes of a million crickets beat gently against the rimrock cliffs surrounding the camp. "Where are you?"

  "Over here."

  Calla walked toward the sound of his voice. When she reached him she saw he was neck deep in a metal water trough next to the horse pasture. It was outside the fence, useless to the animals, and Calla wondered why she hadn't noticed it before.

  "What in the world are you doing?"

  "Taking a bath."

  "In the horse trough?" Calla laughed.

  "No, in the hot tub," he'd said, closing his eyes. Calla had noticed steam rising from the water. She came closer.

  "I'm naked in here."

  Calla jumped back a step, and she heard Henry chuckle softly.

  "Did you tap that hot water spring?"

  "Yeah, a couple days ago. I'm not the type of person who can go a whole week without a bath."

  "No? I wish you'd talk to Lester. How did you do it?"

  "I dug it up with a pick and shovel, put in a springbox, tapped a pipe into the springbox and ran the pipe into the trough. It has an overflow that runs down into the horse pasture. That keeps it pretty clean. I cover it with a tarp during the day to keep out the leaves and dirt."

  "Very clever. Where'd you get the trough?" She ran her hand along the side of the smooth metal tub. She couldn't see beneath the surface of the water. Unfortunately.

  "I found it behind the barn. I brought it up in case we needed another water trough up at East Fork. It's pretty dry up there."

  "I thought you didn't know where East Fork was. I thought you were helpless."

  "I am." His voice had thickened, sounded almost sleepy, but he met her gaze with startling intensity. "Right now anyway."

  Calla's breath caught in her throat while they shared another of those long, stretched-out moments that seemed to come every time they were within fifty feet of each other.

  "How hot is the water?" she asked after a minute, lowering her eyes, trying not to try to see beneath that dark water.

  "Come in, Calla. Find out."

  She looked up at him. He was still watching her, his eyes steady, intense and of the deepest brown. "Henry," she whispered, her mouth dry. "Don't do this."

  Henry went still for a minute, then leaned his head back and closed his eyes again. "You're right," he said roughly. "Go on back to the tent. If you want a bath, I'll come in and you can come back out."

  "Okay. Thanks."

  He'd been as good as his word. He'd come back to the tent a few minutes later, dressed in a clean pair of jeans, a towel slung around his bare shoulders. He'd hung the towel on a nail hammered into the cross post of the tent, slipped into his sleeping bag, pulled his jeans off under the covers and tossed them to the bottom of his cot.

  "All yours," he'd said evenly. He hadn't even looked at her. She'd slipped out of the tent without a word.

  The bath had been wonderful, a tremendous luxury in the normally rough life of cow camp. She'd even washed her hair, watching the babbles flow silently out the overflow to reappear, foaming, in the horse pasture beyond. After her fingers and toes were properly wrinkled, she'd stood on the little wooden deck Henry had built next to the tub and dried herself off in the starlight. No moon tonight, and the feeling of being naked in the soft night under a billion bright stars had made her feel a sensual relaxation she hadn't felt in months. Maybe years. Maybe ever. She had slipped her flannel nightgown over her head, put her boots on her bare feet and padded back to the tent. Henry had been asleep.

  She'd thought she'd fall asleep, too, after a hot bath and a long day. And she'd been tired from three days of preparing for Lester and Helen's wedding.

  But now it was two hours later and all she could think about was the man on the cot across the tent, breathing in that sleep-steady rhythm. She turned over again, punching the pad into a ball.

  There were several very good reasons why this was stupid, she told herself.

  One, she was engaged. Engaged people were so filled with love for their intendeds they couldn't even look at another person, much less wonder what it would feel like to sit in a hot-water trough in the middle of the night with that person's hands running up and down…

  Okay, let's not think about that anymore.

  Two, she was this man's employer. She had bossed many mew, young, old, ugly, pretty. This one was no different. So, why had she been counting the number of times he drew breath in a minute? Calla wondered.

  Three, this was definitely not the man of her dreams, even if sleeping next to him in one of her favorite places in the world made him seem like the man of her dreams. The man of her dreams was going to help her pay off the note to her ranch. The man of her dreams was going to make sure she wasn't the McFadden who lost a century's worth of land and livestock. The man of her dreams was not an $850-a-month, dusty cowboy. Clark was the man of her dreams. Future generations were riding on that fact.

  Four… She couldn't think of four. She'd have to make do with three reasons not to climb out of her sleeping bag and into the sleeping bag of the man lying five feet away.

  She shifted again. It was going to be a very long week.

  * * *

  Henry heard the rustle of nylon as Calla turned again in her cot. He'd been listening to her for hours.

  Go to sleep, baby. You're driving me crazy.

  Henry clenched his fists inside his sleeping bag and forced his breathing to steady.

  I wonder if that flannel nightgown you were wearing when you came in has hiked its way up around your hips?

  Henry squeezed his eyes tightly, trying to rid himself of that particularly erotic image. He couldn't.

  It was going to be a very long week.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  « ^ »

  Calla awakened to the smell of bacon frying. She clasped her hands above her head and stretched inside her sleeping bag. Since when did Lester fry bacon in the morning? And what time was it anyway?

  She blinked her eyes open, and shut them again. Henry was frying bacon. Calla peeked over at his empty cot. It was still rumpled from sleep. At least it wasn't folded up all nice and neat. At least the man was human.

  The man was also … singing. No. Calla shook her head and squeezed her eyes open and shut a couple times more. Henry was not singing. It was her imagination.


  But he was. He was singing an old cowboy song in a voice wildly off-key.

  It was the most charming sound Calla had ever heard. She lay in her bunk for several minutes, savoring the sound of Henry's rotten singing voice and the smell of the bacon and the feel of the breeze that lifted the tent flap and brushed across her face.

  Cow camp. How did other people survive without the wonder that was cow camp?

  It was late in the morning, at least eight o'clock, Calla estimated by the light that poured through the flap of the east-facing tent. She couldn't recall the last time she'd slept in. Well, slept in sober, anyway.

  Calla stretched again and slowly eased herself to a sitting position. She wondered when she had finally dozed off last night. She looked resentfully over at Henry's sleeping bag. He obviously hadn't had the same trouble sleeping she'd had. Cross-legged on top of her sleeping bag, she reached down and tugged the little wooden box from underneath her cot. She untied the little mesh bag and took out her hairbrush and a ponytail holder.

  "Yay-yeeeaaa, yipee-i-ooo-ooo."

  Yodeling!? Calla laughed. There was instant silence on the other side of the canvas. Then she heard footsteps heading for the tent. She tried to scurry back under her covers but she was too late. Henry yanked open the tent flap.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but Calla saw his expression change from mild to acute embarrassment as he realized she was still in her nightgown, her hair brushed free around her shoulders. He collected himself after a second and narrowed his eyes.

  "Are you laughing at my singing?"

  "Was that singing? I thought maybe you were skinning a coyote for breakfast."

  Henry thrust out his wrist to show her his watch. "Coyotes are seldom awake at this late hour."

  Calla threw her brush at him. He dodged it effortlessly and forced himself to be cheerful, even though his mouth had gone dry at the sight of her cross-legged on her narrow cot. "Breakfast is ready. Do you plan to get up or would you like it served to you in your bed?"

  "I would like it served to me in my bed. First the bathtub, then breakfast in bed. I swear, I don't ever remember cow camp being this luxurious before."