by Lisa Bingham
Sighing, Elam raked his fingers through his hair, then wiped the water from his face. “Start again. I still can’t figure out what the hell you think I can do.”
Bodey backtracked and began with, “It’s about time for Wild West Days in town.”
Elam nodded. As kids, they’d lived for the annual Wild West Days’ celebration with its week-long festivities honoring the first settlers to enter the valley. There were water games with the volunteer fire department, a carnival in the park, and a parade down Factory Street. The Rotary Club served breakfast at the bowery near the town hall, and the police grilled hamburgers at night. In the evenings, there was a rodeo at the fairgrounds, where professional riders were integrated with mutton-busting kids and the high school roping team. And each night, fireworks would bloom in the sky over the mountains like Indian paintbrush, providing the perfect ambience for wooing the latest girl.
Dear heaven above, Elam thought with a pang of nostalgia that faded into a knot of pain in his chest. It seemed like only yesterday when he’d loaded his high school sweetheart, Annabel, into his truck and taken her up the old service road to the same spot where his cabin now stood. He’d been what … sixteen … seventeen? He’d spread out a blanket on the sweet, sweet grass, and they’d lain watching the streaks of color appearing above them. Then Annabel had taken his hand and placed it at the buttons of her shirt …
For a moment, Elam could hardly breathe. His hand rose to unconsciously rub at the pain that lodged in his chest like molten lead.
From somewhere far away, Bodey continued his narrative, “…town’s hundred and fiftieth anniversary … something new … Wild West Games.” Elam barely heard him. His mind was flooded with images of Annabel, of the way she sighed with desire as he unfastened her blouse and cupped the delicate swell of her breast for the first time.
He’d been young and inexperienced, but then, so was Annabel. When she’d pulled him on top of her, he’d thought his heart and his body would explode. And, sweet heaven above, she’d felt the same. But as the image of her head flung back, eyes closed in passion, faded into the pale form of his wife’s body lying posed in her casket, Elam jerked his attention back to Bodey, knowing that he couldn’t allow his thoughts to plunge down that trail.
Because he didn’t think he could handle one more drop of pain.
Bodey was looking at him expectantly—and for the life of him, Elam had no idea what response was required of him. So he finally scrambled to say, “What does any of that have to do with me?”
“I signed up for the Games in January. Me and P.D. Raines. First prize is ten thousand dollars! And we were a shoe-in for the winner’s circle. The competition is nothing more than displaying the skills used by the original settlers—riding, shooting, driving a team.” He bent to whack the black plastic and Velcro contraption that covered his foot and leg to the knee. “Then this happened … and I can’t let P.D. down. I’ve already talked to the contest committee and substitutions can be made up to this Friday.”
Finally, Elam understood the purpose for Bodey’s trip up the mountain. Evidently, he was hoping that Elam would take his place.
“No.” Elam turned away, intending to get back to work. Another few days and he should be able to finish up outside and start painting inside. And then …
Well, he didn’t know what he’d do to fill his time and occupy his thoughts. He’d made a promise to Annabel on their wedding night that he’d build her a house on the hill in the same spot where they’d first made love. He’d begun the project hoping to feel closer to Annabel. Instead … he felt gutted. Lonely. Especially with the project so close to completion.
“Why can’t you help me out?”
Why? Because the last thing Elam wanted was to throw himself back into Bliss’s mainstream, back among people he’d known his whole life, where he would have to field sympathetic looks and well-meaning comments like: “How are you faring?” and “Time heals.” Because he wasn’t “faring” well at all and “time” hadn’t done a damned thing. He was still angry at God and the world for taking away the only woman he’d ever loved.
“Get Jace to do it,” Elam said, referring to the brother sandwiched between them in age. Striding away, Elam signaled to Bodey that he was done with the conversation.
But Bodey didn’t take the hint. He merely dug the tips of his crutches into the dirt and swung along behind him. “I already asked. He’s got mandatory pesticide certification that week.”
Elam sighed, lifting his hands in an apologetic gesture. “Then you’ll have to find someone else to do it.”
He tried to move toward the cabin, but Bodey planted himself in Elam’s way just like he used to do when Elam and his friends were going fishing and Bodey wanted to come along. “I can’t,” he said urgently. “I’ve already tried. Do you think I’d be here if I hadn’t asked everyone I know?”
Briefly, Elam wondered if he should be insulted by that remark. Was he last on the list because Bodey thought he wasn’t capable of doing the job? Or was it because his little brother knew, deep down, that Elam wouldn’t help him even if he begged?
He felt a nudge of conscience. There’d been a time when the Taggart brothers had been thick as thieves. There was no exploit too risky, no demand too wild, that would keep them from banding together to help one another.
But then, everything Elam had thought he’d stood for—family, country, and honor—had begun to implode. First, he’d been sent overseas—the deployments coming one after another with only a few months in between to spend time with Annabel. Then, he’d received word that an automobile accident had claimed the lives of his mother, father, and baby sister, Emily, while Emily’s twin, Barry, had suffered irrevocable brain damage. And then, worst of all, he’d received the call that Annabel had suffered a brain aneurism. Before he could even make his way home, Annabel was gone.
After that, life seemed to crumble around him. He was suddenly alone. Numb. As soon as he’d been able to rejoin his unit, he’d headed back overseas, not really caring what happened to him. It had only been a matter of months before he’d been injured. Then, he’d been sent back to the States for good.
Elam knew that since returning from Walter Reed, he’d been keeping his brothers at arm’s length. At first, he hadn’t wanted their pity—no, not pity. They’d never pitied him. But their concern had been just as stifling, reminding him of everything he’d lost. And knowing that he’d crack if he allowed himself to give in to anything other than anger, he’d purposely erected a wall between them—first literally, then figuratively. His gaze lifted to the sturdy logs and river rock of his new place. A home away from the “Big House” as it was known. It was the first time in generations that any of the Taggarts had chosen to live somewhere other than the ancestral property.
“Shit,” he whispered under his breath. He’d been back in the States for more than a year now, but in all that time, his brothers hadn’t asked him for a thing. Even though Elam was the eldest, Jace had calmly taken over the management of Taggart Enterprises, overseeing the business aspects of the prize-winning quarter horses they bred, trained, and sold; the herds of beef cattle kept on local and mountain pastures; and the three thousand acres of land they farmed to support the livestock. Even more, he’d stepped up to take care of Barry, ensuring their little brother got to his doctors and therapists, classes and social activities so that Barry could become the sweet kid that he was.
Bodey had worked just as hard. He not only oversaw the purchasing and breeding of the livestock, but he was their major source of advertising. As one of the top cow cutting competitors, he juggled a grueling rodeo schedule with the responsibilities of the family ranch.
Elam was fully aware that his brothers had deftly left Elam with little more to do than break the new colts upon his return to the States—a physically demanding job that helped him to forget how hellish his existence had become amid the exhaustion.
But they’d never asked more of him.
&nbs
p; Until now.
With a rush of shame, Elam realized he was a bastard through and through. What kind of man said “no” to his family? Especially with the way they’d been carrying most of the responsibility for Taggart Enterprises for so many years?
“Look, if you know someone else I can ask, give me a name,” Bodey was saying. “P.D.’s taken over that old restaurant in town—Vern’s?—and needs half of the prize money to make some improvements in the kitchen. I can’t let down a friend, Elam. And it’s my own damned fault I got trapped under that horse. I felt him falling and should have kicked free sooner, but—”
“I’ll do it,” Elam said from between clenched jaws—regretting the words the moment they’d been uttered—even though he knew he had no other option.
Bodey couldn’t disappoint a friend.
And Elam sure as hell couldn’t add refusing to help a brother to his already long list of sins.
He looked up in time to see Bodey’s face split with a grin that spread like sunshine over his features. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
Bodey crowed in delight, pumping one fist into the air. Twisting, he threw a thumbs-up sign toward the truck. As if an all-clear signal had been given, the driver’s door opened and P.D. Raines stepped out.
It wasn’t until the shape stepped free of the truck and the orange of the setting sun streaked over each line and hollow that Elam realized that P.D. Raines was a woman.
*
P.D. knew the precise moment when Elam Taggart grasped the fact that she wasn’t a man.
It wasn’t the first time someone had assumed she was male. “P.D.” was androgynous enough that such mistakes had happened before. But she would have given money to have a camera aimed in Elam’s direction when the fierce wildness in his expression eased to one of pure and utter shock.
Just as quickly, the emotion disappeared, and his features became carefully blank. But the transformation wasn’t entirely successful, because as she walked toward him, the muscles of his jaw flicked in a betraying manner.
“P.D., this is my older brother Elam.”
She held out a hand for him to shake. “Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
His grip was firm and sure. “Probably all bad.” The words were meant to be light, she was sure, but Elam’s tone held a thread of something darker, as if he were aware of the rumors circulating around town.
P.D. promised herself that she’d keep things cool, professional. Friendly. But when his palm swallowed hers, she was toast. Some women were butt-aficionados; others were turned on by a man’s chest. But P.D. had always been first attracted to a man by his hands.
Elam Taggart had sexy hands, with long slender fingers and bony knuckles. Faint scars and calluses attested to the fact that he was accustomed to hard work. They were broad hands, the perfect size to handle tools or a woman’s breast—probably with equal finesse. A dusting of dark hair led up to sinewy forearms and shoulders with taut musculature.
P.D. could feel the heat rise in her cheeks and avoided staring at his bare chest, training her eyes instead on the darkness of his beard, the full lips, angular nose, and deep-set eyes. Hazel eyes laced with flecks of blue, green, and gold that reminded her of the Wasatch Mountains that surrounded them.
“What does P.D. stand for?” Elam asked. He spoke softly, but the rumble of his voice could have carried yards.
She cleared her throat before admitting, “Prairie Dawn.”
She thought she saw the slightest lift to his eyebrows—as if she’d surprised him yet again.
“Pretty name.”
P.D. grimaced. “Says the man who wasn’t named after a Muppet.”
That comment took him aback because his lips tugged at the corners. Not really a smile, but close. “And were you? Named after a Muppet?”
She shrugged. “Who knows? My parents were rather … unconventional.”
And wasn’t that the understatement of the year.
Elam was still holding her hand. The warmth seeped up her arm to spread through her body in a frisson of awareness. P.D. would have to be an idiot not to admit he turned her on—she’d have to be dead not to be turned on. But along with that awareness came the knowledge that the gaze he leveled her way could have been a huge, flashing sign reading: NO TRESPASSING!
And P.D. would never be the kind of woman who could convince a man like this to lower his defenses. That would take someone with infinite gentleness and patience. P.D. had never had time for either of those qualities. After clawing her way into mainstream America, she didn’t have it in her to be docile and sweet.
Elam finally released her, then reached behind him to snag the T-shirt off his workbench. He dragged it over his head, but he really needn’t have bothered. His chest was damp and the fabric was so well worn that it clung to every dip and valley of his body.
“Wild West Days start when?” he asked, but he’d directed the question to Bodey.
“Monday.”
Less than a week away. Which was why Bodey had been scrambling for a replacement.
Elam turned to her. “Do you have an outline of the competition or a description of the events?”
“I’ve got a handbook with all of the rules and contest guidelines at Vern’s. If you’ll drop by tonight, around eight, I’ll feed you and we can go through everything.”
Hopefully, by having him meet her at her restaurant, she could cement their association in a casual enough setting so that she could banish her own lustful thoughts and concentrate on the business at hand.
“Fine.” He was backing away, clearly finished with the conversation. “I’ll see you there.”
P.D. was more than willing to give the man his space for a few hours. He probably wanted to get as much work done as possible before the light failed him. Even better, he’d have a chance to dry off and put on a real shirt.
Maybe that way, when they spoke again, P.D. wouldn’t come completely apart at the seams.
TWO
ON his way to Vern’s that night, Elam couldn’t help making a slow “drive-through” of the ranch. Easing his pickup past the “Big House,” where the Taggart family had lived for over a hundred years, and into the ranch compound farther on, he found himself automatically scanning the corrals with the mares and new foals, and the big barn, which Jace had recently had repainted a russet red. Slowing, he passed the pens of Angus cattle already sorted and waiting for a visit from the brand inspector so that they could be shipped to a ranch in Texas the following day. A little farther out was the pasture, where the colts waited for Elam’s attention. Since he would be the one to break them, he spent most of his time there, familiarizing himself with each horse, learning their temperaments, and letting them grow accustomed to him as well.
A hint of dust warned him that someone was approaching from the canal road. When he saw Bodey’s familiar flat-bed truck, he pulled to a stop and rolled down his window. Here on the ranch, there were few sit-down meetings. Instead, information was discussed and relayed from truck to truck or over meals—although Elam hadn’t been around the Big House enough lately to catch many of those impromptu gatherings.
Bodey rolled to a stop. He grinned at Elam, one tanned arm draped across his window.
“You’re on your way to Vern’s?”
Elam nodded, slightly uncomfortable that Bodey knew so much about his movements.
“Please tell me you showered and shaved and—”
“Shit, Bodey. Mind your own business.”
Far from looking cowed, Bodey’s grin grew even wider.
“I just want to make sure you don’t sully the Taggart name. You’ll be taking my place, remember? And I have a certain reputation to maintain.”
“Yeah, for being a pain in the ass,” Elam muttered. But there was no sting to his voice. A person couldn’t remain serious around Bodey for too long. He seemed to make it his mission to make the people around him laugh. “When’s the semi coming in for the cattle?”
; “Jace got a text saying they’d be here around noon. The brand inspector has already been notified. Then Maynard will be sending in a couple of semis for hay about two.”
“And you’ve got everything set up for Sell Day?”
Each June, Taggart Enterprises hosted a Sell Day, when they auctioned off a portion of their quarter-horse stock and stud services.
“The auctioneer will be here around eight. Jace picked up the banners in town and he’s going to get Barry to help attach them to the fence line along the highway tonight.”
Elam nodded, checking the clock. “Let me know if you need my help with anything.”
“Will do.”
Shifting into gear, Elam pulled away, following the back access road to where it joined the highway. It took only a few minutes to make the short drive to P.D.’s restaurant, but with each mile, his tension ratcheted up a notch. As Elam eased his Dodge Ram into a parking space, every nerve in his body was telling him he’d made a mistake by coming to Vern’s tonight. Already, he had an itchy, anxious feeling, as if he were being watched. Judged.
Pitied.
Bliss was his home, and in many ways, the people were his family. He’d graduated in a class of little more than a hundred, and between that, the close-knit network of farmers and ranchers, and a community that took care of its own, there weren’t many strangers. Which was comforting … as well as a damned nuisance. Everyone knew everyone’s business most of the time, and he wished to hell that they didn’t know so much of his.
He appreciated how everyone had rallied around him after Annabel’s death. And the way they’d given him a hero’s welcome when he’d returned two years later, after his stint in the hospital, had been gratifying. But Bliss was a small town, and nothing fueled a small town more than gossip. It had taken only one trip to the grocery store for him to hear the whispers.
… medical discharge …
… wife … aneurism …
… out of the country at the time …
To think that his life had become fodder for tongue-wagging had been more than he could take. So, soon after his homecoming, he’d kept to the ranch or his cabin site. If he needed supplies, he got them from the Big House or drove to Logan.
