by Nora Roberts
treasure.”
When Cora came around the horses to hug her, Bodine squeezed tight.
But, she thought, while she could hope, for her grandmother’s sake, she couldn’t believe anyone could make a good life by ignoring her own line, and all who’d loved her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Information, straight gossip, sly innuendo, and wild speculation all bore fruit on the grapevine that extended from ranch to resort. How plump the fruit might depend, but you could always squeeze out a little juice.
As Bodine wasn’t sure of the size and ripeness of the fruit she’d come across that day, she felt it her job to find out.
She had a two-pronged reason for knocking on the door of the shack after the evening meal. The timing took it out of the business day—something she thought important, just as she felt it fair and just to hold this discussion on what was, essentially, more Callen’s turf than her own.
He called out a “Come in.”
She found him on the couch, his laptop in his lap as he slouched with a beer on the table beside him, and a basketball game on TV.
He’d gotten some winter sun along the way, she noted, as the lamp caught some lighter tones in that deer-hide mop of hair. “Hey.” He continued to tap his keyboard—not the two-finger style both her father and Chase employed, but as competently as anyone in her offices.
Where had he learned that?
“Grab a beer and a chair,” he invited.
“I’ll pass on the beer.” But she took a seat.
“Give me one second, I just need to … Okay, that should work.”
She waited while he saved the file, put the computer aside. He looked comfortable, relaxed, she thought, and a little scruffy, which always struck her as oddly appealing on him.
She could understand the appealing, even the comfortable if the juice squeezed true and clear, but damned if she could balance in the relaxed.
He stretched out his legs, boosted his boots onto the coffee table. “How’s it going?”
“Actually, that’s something I want to ask you.”
He nodded, picked up his beer. “Can’t complain. Got the advance bookings for the next couple weeks laid out, and the schedule done. Worked out the rotation on the horses. Got your spreadsheet and numbers on expenses. Projecting that to go up some as bookings increase in the spring. And I’m going to want to talk to you about replacing some tack. We’re inventorying now whenever we’ve got the chance.”
He’d learned a lot more, she realized, than how to type with all ten digits.
“Send me a memo on that when you’re done. I meant, how’s it going on a more personal level.”
He raised his eyebrows and his beer. “Again, can’t complain.”
“I’m puzzled why you can’t complain about Garrett Clintok coming back on you. And coming back on you, additionally, while you were standing on resort property working for us. I think that warrants a complaint.”
Though he shrugged, sipped his beer, Bodine saw annoyance flick in and out of his eyes. “Maybe because Clintok doesn’t worry me.”
As intrigued as she was frustrated, Bodine crossed an ankle over her knee. “You’ve become an awfully mellow bastard, Skinner, if that’s the truth. He came to the BAC while you were working and accused you of murder.”
“Not in so many words.”
Whether or not the mellow ran all the way through, she had become a woman who knew how to hold back her own frustrations to get to the meat.
“Why don’t you give me the words so I don’t have to hear the variety of them that trickle down to me from other sources?”
“First place, Easy shouldn’t have said anything to you.”
“I completely disagree, but he, in fact, didn’t. He said something to Ben. If I have the chain of speculation right, Ben saw Clintok drive up, saw you in what he viewed as an altercation, saw Clintok drive away, spitting gravel. Then Ben asked Easy about it, got some details, related those details to others, and so on, until a damn convoluted version of those details came to me.”
She had to take a breath—found herself annoyed Callen continued to stretch out, say nothing, and damn near radiate relaxed. “I don’t like getting trickle downs, Skinner. And especially on something as incendiary as this. You should have come to me.”
He gave her a thoughtful nod, an easy shrug as if considering her point of view.
“I don’t see it that way. It was personal, and I handled it. It didn’t have anything to do with the work or you or the resort.”
“It happened—again—on resort property.” She held up a hand before he could argue that one. “I have an absolute right to complain to the sheriff when one of his deputies harasses one of our people on our property. I don’t care if you don’t see it that way because that’s the way it damn well is. And if you’re going to sit there and tell me he didn’t bring the Bodine or the Longbow names into it, at least by insinuation, I’m going to have to call you something you’ve never been. That would be a liar.”
Now, at last, the mellow dropped away. He shoved up, paced around the limited space. This time she cocked an eyebrow, waited. Apparently it took more to rile him than it once had, but she recognized the impressive temper cooking up.
So she’d wait and see.
“You know damn well, Bo, you know good and damn well this business with Clintok goes back way before any of this. He’s just using this as an excuse to start something with me. I’m not going to accommodate him, and I’m damn well not going to go running to you when he gets in my face. Fuck that, and fuck him. That’s the way it damn well is.”
She smiled, put all the sweetness of a strawberry parfait into it. “Well, golly, Callen, you don’t appear so awfully mellow about it after all.”
“See how mellow you are when some asshole accuses you of murdering two women.”
“That’s part of my point. Exactly my point, so we agree there. Sheriff Tate warned him off you, specifically and justifiably. He didn’t listen and, from all I can see, took it on himself to come at you at work, and in front of another employee, one you’re charged to supervise. I think the sheriff wouldn’t be happy to hear it.”
“That’s not for you.” He rounded on her, eyes a fired-up blue. “It’s not for you to go running to Tate, and it’s not for me to come running to you.”
“That’s hard and hotheaded under the mellow. I won’t go to the sheriff on it. That comes from growing up around men, working with them, living with them, and understanding—maybe even appreciating—how doing that translates in the male brain as an insult to your mighty balls, but—”
“It’s got nothing to do with … Okay.” She had him there, and he wasn’t one for lying. “Okay, that’s one part of the whole of it. The rest is just what I said. This is, always has been, between me and Clintok.”
“Which also comes back to the massive and mighty balls, which is not said as an insult to your kind, Skinner, just a statement of fact. So I won’t go to Tate, but I will say what I know and what I think should the sheriff hear about it and ask me.”
Maybe it irritated the crap out of him—and made his balls itch—but he couldn’t rationally argue with any of it. So he dropped back on the couch. “That’s fair enough.”
“And I’m asking you as the manager of the resort, as your friend, to tell me if Clintok comes back at you again. I need to know what happens on my place, and I know under the mad, you understand that.”
Callen took another pull on the beer. “You’re pretty goddamn good at this.”
“I’m exceptionally goddamn good at this. I’m asking you to trust me, and to stop being so bound up in stupid macho pride you can see telling me about his threatening bullshit isn’t running to some female. You do that, you keep me informed so I don’t have to hear bits and pieces as it travels around the resort or the ranch, I’ll let you handle it your own way.”
“Exceptionally is probably understating.” He hissed out a breath. “You’re so all-fired rea
sonable, I can’t hold my own line without looking like a fool.”
“You’re nobody’s fool, Skinner, and never have been.” Leaning over far enough, she gave his leg a light punch. “And from what I’ve seen, you’ve gotten exceptionally goddamn good about how you handle assholes. Now, have we got a deal?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” And with it struck, he felt free to cut some of the anger loose. “Christ, he pissed me off. Pushing at me, insulting me—and the rest of you, you were right about that—doing what he could to provoke me into taking a swing at him.”
“There was a time you would have, with less provocation. When did you learn to coat that renowned temper of yours with mellow?”
He thought now of how close he’d come—five seconds—to taking more than a swing. But …
“If a man doesn’t learn a few things along the way, he’s wasting his time. Which is a pretty good description of Garrett Clintok. The son of a bitch hasn’t learned a damn thing. He’s just acquired a badge so he can bully from behind it.”
Callen shifted his gaze to hers. “I want another part to the deal.”
“We already struck the deal.”
“We didn’t shake on it.”
Bodine only rolled her eyes. “What would the other part be?”
“If he goes at you or your family about me, you tell me.”
Leaning over again, Bodine held out her hand. “No problem at all.”
They shook. Callen flopped back.
“I’m going to admit something. I’ve been stewing about it ever since. Just couldn’t pull the damn thorn clean out of my side. Because whatever Clintok is, I get the feeling he believes I could’ve done this. He actually believes it.”
Bodine started to disagree, thought better of it. “You might be right on that. He hates you, and always has. It’s irrational and genuine so he’d need to believe the very worst when it comes to you. And he’s never known you. Anyone who knows you wouldn’t believe it.”
“Maybe not, but he was so wound up about it Easy felt obliged to step in and cover for me on the timing, and not altogether truthfully. That doesn’t sit well, either.”
“I expect Ben would have done exactly the same.”
“Maybe.” He scowled into his beer. “Yeah, hell, he would’ve. That doesn’t set very well, either.”
He studied her as she studied him. She’d taken her hair out of the braid so it lay loose and a little wavy from the twining, ink black over her shoulders.
The tone, mirrored in her lashes, deepened, enriched the green of her eyes. In those eyes he read understanding, some sympathy rather than the hard-line, no-bullshit he’d seen in them when they’d started this round.
“I’m going to admit, having this out with you? I don’t much feel like stewing about it anymore.”
“You’re family, Callen.”
“Maybe, but I don’t think about you like my sister anymore.”
She snorted. “You never thought about me like your sister.”
“I thought about you like my best friend’s baby sister. It comes to the same. Now I look at you, and can’t leave it at that. There was this wrangler I knew back in California. I’ve never known anybody as attuned with horses. I used to say he’d likely been one in a past life. He loved horses, a good whisky, and the company of men. But now and again, he’d say to me: ‘Skinner, I’ve got a hankering for a woman.’”
Bodine snorted again, and Callen grinned. “His words. So, he’d find one, and take care of the hankering until the next time it gave him an itch.”
She saw, appreciated, the simple logic and organization of the method. “Is that how you handled an itch?”
“A man has to consider his massive, mighty balls.”
She had to laugh. “You turned that one around on me. Point for you.”
“The thing is, since I’m in the admitting mode, since I’ve been back I’ve had a hankering for a woman.”
He watched her eyebrows cock up, that little smirk move on her pretty lips.
“But the only hankering has been for you.” And watched the smirk vanish. “And reminding myself you’re the sister of the best friend I’ve had, ever will have, hasn’t dulled it one damn bit.”
All manner of things stirred up inside her. Stirred hard and hot enough she wished she’d taken that beer. “That’s a bold admission.”
“Well, you said yourself, I’m no liar. I want my hands on you, Bodine. I’m going to get them there before much longer.”
“I got over my crush, Callen.”
“I think we both know we’re past teenage crushes on this. You’re no liar, either.”
“You’ve got a point, and I might like having your hands on me just to see what it was like. Sex is simple enough if you’re honest about it.”
He laughed. “If you think that, you’ve never had the right kind of sex. I can look forward to changing that.”
“You’re raising the bar awful high for yourself, but … I had another reason for coming over to talk to you tonight.”
“You want to fire me, and I can show you how I vault over that bar?”
“No. No, it’s contrary to that. I heard from Abe today.”
“How’s Edda doing?”
“She’s doing well. She’s taken up … it’s not Kung Fu, it’s…” Searching for the name, Bodine did a slow, surfing wave with her hands.
“Tai Chi?”
“That’s it! And yoga, and according to Abe is half a vegetarian. I can’t picture it.”
“Whatever works,” Callen decided.
“And it seems to be. But she—the two of them had a scare, and have done a lot of talking, evaluating. They’re going to move closer to their daughter, to Bozeman. They’re not coming back, Callen.”
“Hell. I need another beer.” Slowly, he stood up. “You sure you don’t want one?”
“Not right now. He said he’d come back and give me more time, help train a replacement if we needed it. But he figured if we had you in there, we wouldn’t need it. The job’s yours if you want it. And if you don’t, I’d ask if you’d stay on as manager long enough for us to find somebody else. As one of the owners and the manager of Bodine Resort, I’d rather you took the job.”
He walked back, set the beer down. She wasn’t surprised when he pulled her out of the chair.
She wondered if she surprised him by gripping his hair in both fists and assaulting his mouth with hers.
Hankering be damned, she thought. This was hunger, deep, grinding hunger, and the perpetual ache of it had kept her entire system on edge from the moment she’d walked into the kitchen months back to see him charming Clementine.
It didn’t have to make sense, it didn’t have to be smart. It just had to be.
She blew through him, a perfect storm of lust and power, lightning strikes that flashed and burned, leaving erotic afterimages of tangled, frantic bodies. And she took, beyond what his frustration and impulse had prepared for. Stirred up the currents, threatened the flood, and all with only a single, urgent kiss.
Though he cursed her, himself, the altogether sticky situation, he backed off. Now she grabbed his shirt front, and the molten look in her eyes told him clearly she wasn’t done.
Me, either, he thought, but carefully, eyes level with hers, pried open her grip.
She dropped her hand quickly, and he couldn’t quite read the mix on her face now. Shock, insult, disappointment seemed to come and go.
“You—” She broke off, took a long breath. Now he read disdain, and plenty of haughty with it. “You can’t possibly believe I’d use sex to persuade you to stay on as horse manager.”
“You know, Bodine, as good a rider as you are, you’re going to bust your ass falling off a horse that high. Now just—” He held a hand up, palm out, to signal her back. And took a step back himself.
Her eyes narrowed for a moment, then lit up. Oh so sly, he noted. Her lips curved.
“That’s right.” He couldn’t say why that sheer smugness on her
face made him want her more. “I’ve got my limits, and right now I’ve got one foot over the edge of them. So we’re just gonna—” He broke off again, waving her back. “Keep our separate spaces for
