Big Sky Lawman

by Marilyn Pappano

  “Thanks. My cousin Billy Knows-His-Gun makes belts, boots, saddles.”

  “Knows-His-Gun knows his leather, too.” At his exaggerated wince, her smile turned into a grin. “Hardly an original remark, I take it.”

  “I’ve heard it a time or two before.” He gestured toward the bookcases. “Do we have any similar tastes?”

  “I’ve read a lot of these. The only thing you’re missing is my favorite—romance.”

  “Twelve years of schooling at Chatham Prep—”

  “Thirteen,” she corrected. “Don’t forget kindergarten.”

  “—didn’t root out your ability to appreciate something so hopelessly common and universally appealing as romance novels? I’m surprised they ever deemed you suitable to teach there.” Catching a handful of her wool coat, he pulled her close and nuzzled her neck. “I prefer my romance living and breathing and in my arms. But I’d be happy to clear off a few shelves for you.”

  And then he kissed her—nothing toe-curling, not breath-stealing, but a sweet, achy taste of what she was sure to get later. It lasted only seconds—thirty, maybe sixty. It left her feeling needy, greedy, wanting.

  “Are you ready for dinner?”

  She didn’t want to go to dinner or anywhere else besides his bedroom. All she wanted was to take off those clothes he’d just put on, to strip off her own clothes and spend the rest of the night exploring how incredible the sex between them could be. He would agree, she was sure of that. All she had to do was say the words.

  I trust you.

  But did she?

  She could say the words and make him believe them, and then they could seduce each other, but it wouldn’t be fair. She would be taking something he clearly didn’t want to give until he was getting something specific in return. She would be cheating him, and cheating herself, and their relationship might not survive. Way too much to risk just because her libido had come back to life with a vengeance.

  “Sure,” she said with an unsteady smile. “I’m ready.”

  Contrary to Winona’s prediction, Neela’s had been busy, with a fifteen-minute wait for a table. Sloan hadn’t minded, though, since it had prolonged his time with Crystal by that much. He hadn’t minded that he knew everyone in the place, too, or that half of them had spent their evening watching Crystal. She hadn’t been too thrilled to be the center of attention, but she was so damn beautiful. How could he blame them, when all he wanted was to sit and watch her?

  Now it was approaching ten o’clock and they were in the meadow on his land. He’d offered her several choices—dancing and a drink or two at one of Whitehorn’s bars, a return to his apartment, a return to her house. She had suggested this, the site of their picnic in what was certainly not picnic weather. She didn’t seem to mind the cold, though, and he didn’t even notice it. Just looking at her was enough to make him hot. Thinking about kissing her was enough to keep him that way.

  They were sitting on a boulder at the river’s edge. The sky was filled with stars and a half moon, and the world seemed a million miles away. Everything was peaceful…except for one small part of his conscience.

  He brought his feet up, rested his arms on his knees, let his hands dangle free. “That picture of you at your engagement party…”

  Peripherally he saw her turn toward him, waiting without speaking.

  “I knew you came from money, but until I saw that picture, I didn’t have a clue how much.” Truth was, the realization had intimidated him. He knew better than to judge a man’s worth by his bank balance, knew he could be proud of who he was and the life he’d lived even if he never earned much more than minimum wage. He knew money didn’t make a man—James Rich-man proved that—and there were many things in life more important than how much money a person had.

  He knew all that, but Crystal had been raised differently. She’d grown up in a society where money and standing were all-important. She’d left that life, granted, and come to his part of the world, but not voluntarily. She hadn’t given up the parties, the clothes, the plantations, the jewels, by choice.

  She might not be able, or willing, to give it up permanently.

  He took a breath, then turned his head so he could see her. “I’d never be able to give you a house like that, or a ring like that, or a life like that. If you settle for me, financially, you’re settling for less. A lot less. I make decent money for this job in this part of the country, and I’ve saved a fair amount of it, but what I earn in a year probably wouldn’t even pay for the champagne at that one party. I just think you should be aware of that.”

  For a long, still moment, she simply looked at him, her expression impossible to read. Then she brushed her hair back, anchoring it behind her ear, and tilted her head to study him. “I don’t want a house like that,” she said evenly, “but if I did, I could provide it, or something similar, myself.” At his incredulous look, she shrugged embarrassedly. “I have a trust fund. From my great-grandmother. It’s been invested in the high tech and Pacific Rim stock markets for years. I hear it’s done all right.

  “As for the ring, what should have been a symbol of joy was a burden instead. I couldn’t wear it anywhere unless there was security, and it snagged on everything. And I don’t like champagne. And if you think my going out with you means I’m settling, then you’re not quite as smart as I thought you were. I’ve settled all my life, but not anymore. I’m never going to settle again.” She paused, then quietly added, “I think you should be aware of that.”

  Grinning ruefully, he shook his head. “It threw me for a loop, that’s all. You seem so normal—”

  “Thank you. No matter how my parents disagreed, I like to think that, except for this one little quirk, I am normal.”

  “I’ve never heard anyone describe being beautiful as a little quirk.”

  “I was referring to being psychic.”

  “Oh. You are beautiful, you know.”

  Her gaze slipped away, then came back, bringing with it a shy smile. “Thank you.”

  Sliding to the ground, he stood in front of her, planting his hands on either side of her hips. “I can’t give you anything in the way of luxuries, but I can give you this promise. If we ever stand together after announcing that we’re going to get married, you won’t look like you did in that picture. I’d do my best to make sure you never had a reason to look like that.”

  She lifted her hand, touched his jaw so lightly that he barely felt it, then let it slide down until her fingers caught in the lapel of his coat. “You’re wrong, Sloan,” she whispered. “Not feeling the way I felt in that picture, being happy, being accepted—those are the greatest luxuries in my world. And you’re the only man who’s ever given them to me.”

  Of course he kissed her. How could he not? He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him, and claimed her mouth. She opened to his tongue, and he thrust inside, wishing like hell he could take possession of her body as easily. It didn’t ease his sexual frustration any knowing that he could seduce her as easily, if only he hadn’t put that one condition on their lovemaking.

  But he’d never before been with a woman who didn’t trust him, who expected him to betray her, and he was too old to start now. He needed her trust more than he needed her body.

  Though certain parts of his own body were willing to argue the point at that moment.

  Still clinging to him, Crystal lay back on the boulder, her hands urging him to follow. It was a hard bed, and a cold one, but it would be adequate if she would just say the words and make him believe them. But all she said as he settled between her thighs was, “Please…oh, please…” And then he took her mouth again, and for a long time neither of them said anything.

  In desperate need of air, and restraint, and something to think about other than how aroused he was and how perfectly she used her hands and body and soft, husky whimpers to torment him, he broke away and rolled onto his back, staring up into the night sky. He dragged in sweet, cold breaths and willed his erection to
go away—not likely, as she snuggled closer to him—or at least subside to only painfully intense.

  “Kinda like being back in high school, isn’t it?” he asked when he thought his voice would be steady. It was, but so thick and hoarse that he hardly recognized it. “Or were Chatham Prep kids too superior to neck wherever they got the chance?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” she murmured. Her hand was tucked inside his coat, right square in the middle of his chest. He wondered if she could feel the thudding of his heart, wondered if he slid his hand underneath her sweater if he’d feel the same heavy beat.

  Just the thought made his own heart skip a beat.

  “By high school,” she went on, her fingers lightly massaging, the tips working their way between buttons to reach his bare skin, “I was already so afraid of the other kids that I never had a date.”

  “Why were you afraid?”

  She loosened one button, then slid her hand inside his shirt. Sloan felt his skin ripple, felt his nipple pucker as she grazed across it. “My earliest memory is of my mother shrieking to my father that there was something wrong with me, that all she’d wanted was a normal child to love and take care of, and instead she’d gotten a little freak or witch or whatever the hell I was.”

  She smiled faintly. “She had known my father all their lives, and she’d never known that Aunt Winona was psychic. It was a big family secret. When he realized that I shared her psychic abilities, he had to tell my mother. She took to her bed for a week. She forbade me to ever tell her anything, but I was a kid. I’d blurt out that Grandmother was calling and fifteen seconds later the phone would ring. It freaked her out every time.

  “My father had been conditioned by his parents to never discuss Aunt Winona’s odd behavior with anyone. They convinced him it was something to be ashamed of, something that normal people, good people, weren’t afflicted with. He and my mother decided that was the best course of action for me, too. She drilled me every time we left the house to not blurt out anything, to not say anything that couldn’t be explained, to never, ever tell anyone I was different. That was the term she eventually settled on. Different.”

  She’d been an innocent child, too young to know that her abilities weren’t so unusual, that they were certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Parents never ceased to amaze Sloan, some with their boundless love for their children, others with their endless mistakes in raising them.

  “I got regular lectures on how to behave around other people, instructions for how to cover up if I slipped and warnings about the consequences if I ever confided in anyone. ‘The kids will make fun of you and call you names like Crazy Crystal, weirdo and freak,’” she recited, “‘and their parents won’t let them play with you, and you won’t have any friends, and you’ll be lonely and sad, and it’ll all be your fault for letting them know you’re different.’”

  Sloan muttered a heartfelt obscenity in the heavy silence that followed.

  “Needless to say, I wasn’t the most outgoing kid at Chatham. I didn’t have my first date until college, where I made up for my stunted high school social life in one night, from first kiss to losing my virginity.”

  “Your parents should be shot.”

  “Oh, they’ve been punished. They’ve lost James. He was the magic that was going to fix everything. He was so perfect that merely being married to him was going to turn me into the perfect daughter they’d always dreamed of.” Then she lifted her head and smiled down at him. “More importantly, they’ve lost me. I’m worth knowing, in spite of the premonitions and the visions, but they never figured that out.”

  And in that moment when she smiled, in that very second, Sloan completed a process that had started the first time he’d ever seen her. He fell in love. He’d never been there before, but he had no doubt that was exactly where he was.

  Desperately, passionately, impossibly in love with Crystal.

  He sat cross-legged on the boulder and tugged her into his lap. Able to feel her chill from lying on the rock even through her clothes, he cradled her close and simply held her for a time, and she was content to be held. He couldn’t find a degree of tension anywhere in her body, and he was touching her just about everywhere.

  “You’re a remarkable woman, Crystal,” he said, his mouth against her ear making her shiver. “It’s a wonder your parents didn’t drive you into intensive therapy.”

  “I’m not remarkable,” she disagreed. “I’m a terrible coward. I’ve been afraid all my life—of disappointing my parents, of letting my secret slip, of being found out for the fraud I’ve become and the freak I was taught that I am. When things became impossible at home, I ran away rather than stay and deal with them. If they become impossible here, I’ll probably run away again.”

  His arms tightened around her as if he could somehow hold her there and keep her safe. “They won’t become impossible here.”

  “You mean because you haven’t found anything to support my vision. But that could change.”

  “I mean because things are different here. You’re not alone. You have Winona, Raeanne and Rafe. You have me. Nothing’s going to hurt you with us around. And if you want eight more loyal protectors…”

  She tilted her head back to gaze up at him, and he lost his train of thought. She looked exotic in the moonlight—gleaming black hair, delicate china skin, incredibly kissable mouth. He wanted to stop talking and do just that, but too much kissing and he was going to forget that she didn’t trust him, that sex without trust was just sex, that he wanted so much more. His bone-deep need was going to persuade him that trust could be worked on after sex, that it might even be easier to cultivate once their physical needs were met.

  Clearing his throat, he fixed his gaze on the river a few feet away and went on. “We’ve been invited to my folks’ house for dinner tomorrow. We can go early and do some riding, or we can just make it for dinner, or we can do something else entirely. What do you say?”

  “Riding would be nice,” she murmured.

  He murmured his agreement, too, before giving in to the need and kissing her again, one sweet time after another on the bank of the Little Blue River under a sky filled with stars and a half-moon, with the world a million miles away.

  And everything was most definitely peaceful.

  In the ten years since she’d last ridden, Crystal had forgotten how different the world could look from the back of a horse. She would probably pay for the reminder tomorrow with aching muscles, but at the moment she was enjoying it tremendously.

  Sloan’s father was the only one of his relatives who’d met them when they arrived to saddle the horses. The rest of the family, he’d informed them, had gone on their weekly shopping trip into town.

  Arlen Ravencrest was a handsome man, taller than his son, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped and black-haired. The resemblance between them was so strong she had no doubt that in another twenty years, Sloan would look exactly like his father did now, except, of course, for their color. Being a full-blood Cheyenne, Arlen’s skin was several shades darker than his son’s.

  After questioning Crystal on her riding experience, he’d singled a chestnut out of the horses who’d come trotting when they’d appeared at the pasture fence. While he’d saddled the gelding, then helped her mount, Sloan had saddled his own horse, a beautiful paint.

  Now they were miles from the house, riding alongside the road that cut through the reservation, and hadn’t yet passed another house or another person. Such space was daunting and impressive. It made her feel small.

  “Tell me about Georgia.”

  Crystal glanced at Sloan. He was, at the same time, far more relaxed and far more controlled in the saddle than she was. With his black Stetson tipped forward to shadow his face, he looked daunting and impressive, too, and handsome as sin. It was no wonder cowboys were prime hero material in the books she read. Sloan on a horse could certainly win her over.

  Gazing back to the countryside, she focused her thoughts on his request. “It’s a
beautiful state. There are beaches, swamps, rolling hills, mountains. Small towns, big cities. Live oaks, sugar pines, Spanish moss, azaleas, wisteria, kudzu. It’s nothing like this.”

  “Is that a compliment or an insult?”

  Smiling brightly, she parroted his own words back to him. “Different isn’t necessarily better or worse. Sometimes it’s just different.”

  “Smart ass.”

  Her smile turned smug before she returned to the subject. “We don’t have much of this kind of wide open space in Georgia. Most of what isn’t developed for housing, industry or agriculture is fairly heavily wooded. This—” she stretched out one arm to encompass the countryside “—can take your breath away. It’s so open and vast, but kind of lonely, too. So, is this all a reservation is? Land and houses?”

  “What were you expecting?” he asked with a grin.

  “I don’t know. Towns. Lots of people. Kids and dogs and horses.”

  “Tepees? Open fires, drying racks?” His grin broadened. “The sort of encampment you see in old Hollywood movies?”

  “I know better than that,” she scolded. “I just thought there would be something different about a reservation.”

  Suddenly he grew serious. “There is. Whatever problems the surrounding areas have are usually magnified on a reservation. Unemployment on the rez—any rez, not just Laughing Horse—runs from thirty percent to seventy or even higher. The poverty is pervasive. We have severe drug problems, alcohol problems and high suicide rates, especially among our young people. A large percentage of our children are being raised by grandparents or other relatives because their parents aren’t able or willing. Even more are living at boarding schools for the same reason.

  “On top of that, we’re losing our languages, which are the basis of our cultural identity. In the first half of the century, the government forced the reservation children into boarding schools, where they were punished if they spoke their native language. As a result, fewer of their children learned, and even fewer of their grandchildren. Today most young adults on any given reservation can’t speak their tribal language. Traditionally, we learn from our elders, but when you don’t speak their language, it’s hard to benefit from their wisdom.”