KNIGHT IN A WHITE STETSON

by Claire King

  "Then Dartmouth can live."

  "Very funny."

  "Come on." He scooted out from under her, grabbed her wrist and tugged her to her feet.

  "Aaah! I'm naked! Where are we going?"

  "Out to that trough. I've been fantasizing about you in there for two weeks."

  "What time is it?"

  "Get a watch. Are you sleepy?" He wasn't. He could have run all the way to Hot Sulphur Lake. And back to Calla.

  "No, but we should…"

  He pulled her through the tent flap and scooped her into his arms, making her laugh.

  "Put me down. I must weigh a ton."

  He nipped at her neck. "Shut up."

  He lifted her into the trough and climbed in after. Water cascaded onto the ground around them, and the hot water steamed in the clear night air.

  "Oooh, nice," she said.

  "Calla. Be still for a second."

  She looked up and found him watching her intently. She let him look.

  "You are so beautiful," he breathed. "Calla, you're beautiful."

  Of course, she wasn't, but it pleased her that he thought so. "So are you, Henry. I've thought so from the first second I scooted out from under that pickup."

  She turned until her back was to him and she settled against his chest. His hands came up to cup water over her exposed breasts and shoulders, warming them. His lips in her hair made silent promises he wasn't ready for her to hear.

  "You have the most beautiful breasts. They were about the … third thing I noticed about you."

  "Third?"

  "Okay, first. They've haunted me ever since."

  She giggled. "They haunted you? My breasts have haunted you?"

  "Stop laughing at me, you little brat. I was being poetic."

  "Well, you stink at it." She turned in his arms, went to her knees, kissed him lightly a dozen times. "And don't call me a brat, or I'll haunt you with my breasts some more." She collapsed into giggles.

  He smiled into her hair, deliriously happy. "You know, I've imagined this a thousand times, but I never imagined you'd be laughing."

  She shook her head and leaned into him. "No. That would have been bad." He could feel her chest shake against his. After a minute she quieted and snuggled closer. "Henry?"

  "Mmm?" He petted her silky bottom.

  "Have you had enough of this hot tub?"

  His fingers reached a little lower, where soft hair clung to them. "Why?"

  She wriggled, giving him better access. "Because I was thinking we could go back in the tent and … oh, do that … ahh … a little lower…"

  "You were thinking…?"

  "Slide your finger … there, that's … oh, Henry."

  He watched the stars as he touched her, held her in his hand.

  "Are you sore?"

  "I've been riding horses for twenty years, spud. It'd take a better man than you to make me sore."

  "Good." He slid his legs between hers and positioned her on his lap, straddling him.

  "What are you?" she teased, "Eighteen?"

  She impaled herself, greedy, impatient and wanton, and rode him, he thought later, with considerably more grace than she ever rode any mule.

  * * *

  She heard the pickup from miles away. It snapped her awake just as if she'd had a full eight hours under her eyelids. Not even close. It had been light when they'd finally collapsed on their makeshift bed, each gasping for air, each begging the other, no more, no more.

  "Henry." She shook him hard, but he only grunted. Consequences, dire and imminent, started seeping through the sexual satisfaction, making their way to her brain. "Henry, wake up. My dad's coming."

  He didn't budge, and she couldn't help feeling a little smug over that.

  "Henry!"

  He snuffled and flung an arm over his eyes. Calla stared at his armpit, remembered how the hair there had fascinated her that day in the stack yard. It did still, she thought.

  "Henry!"

  "Okay, come here," he mumbled, "I'll rub you, but I'm too tired to…"

  She shoved him. "Wake up, fool. My father's coming. I can hear the pickup."

  "Your father?"

  He was up and dressed before she could roll her sleeping bag.

  * * *

  Chapter 17

  « ^ »

  The ride back to the ranch was nearly as silent as the ride up had been. Jackson, true to form, didn't try to interrupt the quiet with idle conversation.

  Calla finally broke the long silence when they were about fifteen minutes from home. She had to. Or go crazy. Why was it, as smart as she was, as old as she was, as sensible as she was, she hadn't given a thought last night to how dreadful she'd feel in the morning? How stupid and wretched and heartbroken and cruel.

  "Anything come back this week?" she asked her father. She was willing to talk about anything to keep her mind off her own stupidity. She'd made love, lost her virginity, to a man she couldn't possibly marry. To a man she couldn't possibly love.

  "We had fifteen head and a black bull come in Thursday. Ate off an acre of second cutting before I even saw 'em."

  Only she was desperately afraid she already did love him. Like a madwoman. But she was sensible, she was smart. A man she'd known a month couldn't possibly mean more to her than her brother, than her mother, than the dream of every ancestor for a hundred years. Could he?

  "Calla?"

  Oh, they were talking about the cows, right? "I'll have to move 'em back up next week."

  Henry didn't say anything. She was probably right. He might not be around to move the cows next week. Depending upon what Pete turned up, he might be away from the ranch a day or two next week.

  "Did Dupree call?" If he hadn't, maybe that meant he'd given up. Maybe that meant she could make a different choice. A choice that wouldn't make her feel like this; like her heart was trying to claw its way from behind her ribs.

  "Twice. No, three times. Is something wrong?"

  "No. No, nothing." Calla frowned out the bug-encrusted front window of the truck. Okay. Okay. She could fix this. She fixed everything. That was her job. All she'd have to do was marry Clarkston Shaw III and live with a broken heart for the rest of her life. "Have you heard from the honeymooners?"

  "Helen calls every day to see if I'm eating right," her father said good-naturedly. "I talked to Lester. The fool sounds like he's just turned twenty and fallen in love with Cinderella."

  "Probably spending every minute at the slot machines," Calla said.

  "I doubt it." Jackson smiled. "The way my sister was giggling, well, I don't even want to think about it."

  "I just hope she trimmed the hair in his ears," Calla said. She was quiet for a minute.

  "Aren't you going to ask me if Clark called?" Henry heard the amusement in Jackson's voice. The old bugger.

  "Did he, uh—" Calla cleared her throat "—did he call?"

  "Nope. He came out."

  Henry grimaced. Wonderful. Now he had two problems to handle. He was going to have to figure out who had had Calla watched, and he was going to have to get rid of Dartmouth for her. Of course, if the ugly suspicion forming in his excellent but slightly sex-befuddled brain was correct, it would be the same task.

  "He came by?" Calla asked. "He's in Idaho? He's not supposed to be back for another week." She was supposed to have a week. To get over the worst mistake of her life. To get over wanting to weep every time she thought of him. Of Henry, beautiful, wonderful Henry.

  "He said he'd brought something for you to sign. Came by the house last night. I told him you were at cow camp." Jackson leaned over the steering wheel and smiled warmly at Henry, who was riding next to the passenger door. "I didn't mention you were up there, too, Henry."

  "Thanks anyway—" Henry nodded politely "—but that was unnecessary."

  "Is he coming back? Did he go to Boise?"

  "No. He's staying up to the motel."

  "Why didn't he just stay at the ranch?" Calla asked.

 
; Henry could think of twenty reasons why Dartmouth shouldn't stay at the ranch, but he kept his mouth shut.

  "Because I didn't ask him. He's your friend."

  "Fiancé," Calla corrected absently.

  Henry shifted hard against her, but Calla didn't seem to notice. She ran her hand distractedly through her loose hair. In a sudden movement, she lifted her hips off the bench seat of the cab and reached into the pocket of her jeans for a hairband. She found one and wound her hair into a tight ponytail. Henry very much wanted to give that ponytail a yank. "When's he coming back? Did you tell him I'd be back this afternoon?"

  "He said he'd wait for you at the motel. Apparently the rental car place just informed him that the road out to Sulphur Lake is not approved for that little car. He put the ranch address down on his last mileage ticket. He thought they'd give him a free upgrade because of all the extra miles. Instead, they made him sign a liability waiver." Jackson chuckled happily. "He's liable for full replacement cost for any damages to the car on this trip. I got to hear all about it."

  "Lucky you," Henry said grimly. Jackson raised his eyebrows and gave Henry a knowing smile.

  They arrived at the ranch a little after 2:00 p.m. and headed straight to the barn to unload the horses from the long trailer.

  "Daughter, your saddle smells like a dead cat."

  "It got wet," Calla said.

  "That tack tent leaking again?"

  "Not too bad," Calla said truthfully.

  "Well, how did it get so wet? Both these saddles smell like dead cats. What did you two do with 'em? Leave 'em out in the rain?" He went back in the barn, carrying Henry's saddle.

  Henry and Calla exchanged glances. Henry knew Calla was worried about Pete, but the anxious look on her face was disturbing.

  "Calla…" he began.

  "Not now." She jerked her head toward the open door of the barn, where her father was hanging bridles neatly on the hooks in the old barn walls.

  "Well, that's done," Jackson cheerfully announced. "Bet you two would like a hot bath right about now. A week in cow camp is enough to take the bloom off any rose, even one as lovely as my little girl." He patted Calla affectionately on the head. Henry recalled how the simple gesture had once made him weak-kneed.

  It still did.

  * * *

  A half hour later, shaved and showered, Henry heard the pickup start in the driveway. Jackson heading to town for groceries, Henry thought. Then he heard the dogs set to whining, and a second later he heard Calla's voice, shushing them. He threw open the door of the bunkhouse and stepped outside, barefooted and dressed only in jeans.

  "Hey," he shouted. The friendly dogs stopped their take-me-to-town pleading, and wagged over to him. The hot, late-day wind dried his damp hair almost before he reached the pickup. "Where are you going?"

  "To see Clark."

  Henry felt a surge of something hot ball up in his gut. Jealousy, and it had fangs like a rattler. It infuriated him.

  "The hell you are." And break my heart? he wanted to add. And make me beg? He chose to focus on the other reason she shouldn't go to town, instead. "You're not going anywhere alone. What did you think this past week in Two Creek was about? You're being watched Calla, have you forgotten that?"

  "No." She couldn't meet his eyes, which turned the rattler in his gut to panic. "Let go of that mirror. I'm going to town."

  Henry reached for the door handle just as Calla punched down the lock. He tried to get his hand inside the window, but she was already rolling it up.

  He was more than panicked now. He was furious, down to his bare feet. Was she leaving him? Was that what this was about? "Calla, dammit, open this door."

  "Look, Henry. I have to do it," she shouted miserably through the closed window. Already her throat was closing with tears. They'd been threatening all day. "I hope you can understand. I hope … I hope you can forgive me." I hope you won't always love me the way I'll always love you.

  "Roll down the window, Calla," Henry said through clenched teeth.

  "I have to do it. I promised." She was crying now, her hands pressed against the window in supplication. "I promised my mother. For Benny. She made me promise, Henry."

  He saw the tears pooling in her eyes, running down her cheeks, making her words hitch. The woman who never, never cried. A shaft of terror went through him. He pounded a heavy fist against the side of the truck in frustration.

  "Calla, if you drive off this ranch, I won't be here when you get back." It was a lie, and he knew it as he said it. He'd dog her heels every minute until the day she married that Ivy League idiot. And then he'd kidnap her. Damn her.

  She had her face in her hands now, and he could see her shoulders shaking. God, he loved her. How could she do this to either of them?

  "Calla, if you don't open this door right now and talk to me…"

  Before he could think what it was he was threatening, she'd straightened in her seat, spun her tires and let up on the clutch. Henry stepped back to avoid having the tires go over his bare feet. Before she was out the driveway, Henry was running hard toward his pickup.

  The keys, which he had become accustomed to leaving in the ignition, were gone.

  Henry ran to the house, mindless of the pebbles and bits of hay and weed heads that bit at the soft bottoms of his feet. He burst through the door. Jackson, sitting over a cup of coffee and a thick, ancient-looking farming book, looked up calmly.

  "Did you take the keys out of my pickup?"

  "Nope," Jackson said, taking a sedate sip of coffee.

  "Damn that woman." Henry realized his heart was pounding furiously in his ears and his fists were clenching and unclenching. He wanted to weep in frustration, in anguish. He'd never known he could hurt like this. She'd left him. Left him for another man. After she made him fall in love with her. Well, he wasn't letting her get away with it.

  "I need a car."

  "'That woman' took the only one we got," Jackson said.

  "I'll take the Hydro100, then."

  "You're going to chase her down in the tractor?" Henry recognized it for the idiotic plan it was. He laced his fingers at the apex of his pounding head and looked to the ceiling for inspiration.

  "Dammit," he roared.

  Jackson got up from the table and took a coffee cup from the cupboard. "I have some pie here," he offered.

  Pie? Pie? "I need to get to town, Jack."

  "No, you don't," Jackson said as he handed Henry a cup of coffee, which Henry promptly slammed back down on the counter. "She'll be back."

  "Look, Jack, you don't understand…"

  "I never thought that boy was right for her," Jackson said conversationally. "I'm relieved she didn't go too far. Problem with Calla is, she's got that McFadden blood. All honor and commitment. She promised her mama, you know, that she'd keep the ranch going. I figured once she married that fool Clark because of it, it'd be all over. She'd be miserable for the rest of her life. Lucky you came along." He raised his cup in salute and then took a genteel sip. Henry watched him incredulously. He could hardly hear for the roaring of blood in his ears.

  Her own father thought she'd come back to him. There was hope in that, wasn't there?

  "Jack, it's not just Dartmouth…"

  "I'm telling you, son, she'll be back. You don't need to worry about Clark."

  "I'm worried about Calla," he shouted.

  He had Jackson's full attention.

  "I don't have a thing you can take up there, Henry," Jackson said quietly.

  Henry raised himself off the table and looked desperately around the room.

  "I'll take a horse."

  "Henry, son, don't be a fool. It's thirty miles. Even if you ran the horse the whole way, and providing it didn't drop dead on you at mile twelve, she'd be back long before you ever reached her." Jackson rose and put a calming hand on Henry's shoulder. "You can trust Calla. She can take care of herself. She always has."

  Henry fought for control of himself. He knew Jackson was righ
t. She could take care of herself. He just didn't want her to have to anymore.

  He wanted to take care of her.

  * * *

  She cried for thirty miles. Huge, wrenching sobs. If she'd had any brains at all, she'd have pulled over before she killed herself, she thought once or twice.

  Henry. Henry. She would never get over Henry. When she was old and gray and teaching her own granddaughters how to make water magically spill onto McFadden fields, she'd remember every single thing about him. And mourn the fact that McFadden fields were, in the scheme of centuries, more important than one woman's heart.

  She had herself marginally pulled together by the time she reached the Paradise Motel. Clark wasn't in his room and Jerry at the desk in the shabby, odd-smelling little office said he didn't know when he'd be back. He gave Calla the key to Clark's room.

  She shook from her head to her feet, her capable, work-worn hands barely able to fit the key into the lock. Reaction, regret, terrible remorse tore at the foundation of her spirit. She knew, she knew what she had to do, but she hadn't grieved like this since Ben's death.

  Henry, I'm so sorry.

  Maybe Henry would go back to his old life. Maybe she would never have to look him in the eye and explain to him that love and happiness really weren't all that important in the larger picture of things. Family was important. Fulfilling your obligation was important. Keeping promises was important.

  But then, Henry knew that. He'd made the same decision when Heidi had slept with David. He'd chosen his family over his personal happiness. He'd understand. Somehow he'd understand.

  And if he didn't, well, there was nothing she could do about it—114 years stretched behind her like Idaho's mighty Snake. Muddied with pain and sorrow and decisions made in haste, but strong and powerful nonetheless. The current of the future was even more powerful. The ranch was everything. She had to remember that.

  Calla picked up the phone on the faux wood nightstand and dialed the ranch. Henry picked up on the first ring.

  "Yeah?" he growled into her ear. She winced and fought to steady her shaking voice.

  "Henry?"

  He heard the catch in her breath. She'd been crying. Well, good. He'd been damn close to it himself. "Where are you?"