The Cowboy (15 page)

It wasn’t enough.

Trace’s presence filled the car. The night shadows emphasized the crow’s feet around his eyes and the deep brackets around his mouth. He looked tired, and she could easily imagine he’d spent a long day working at some physically demanding job. She could tell he’d showered, because his hair was still damp, but he hadn’t shaved, and beard darkened his cheeks and chin. He obviously hadn’t planned to go out again.

“Thank you for coming,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

She felt a need to fill the silence, so he wouldn’t bring up her behavior the weekend she’d run away from him in Houston. “Why haven’t I ever seen this car before?” she asked.

“It’s been in a garage, along with a few horse-drawn carriages used by the first Blackthornes at Bitter Creek.”

“Who customized it for you?”

“It was a gift to my grandfather.”

When Trace didn’t mention the donor, Callie asked, “Who gave it to him?”

Trace shot her a deprecating smile. “President Eisenhower. He used to come for hunting parties at Bitter Creek.”

“I see.” The car, which apparently dated from the 1950s, looked brand new. It was one more sign of the difference between their two families. Any carriages her forebears had used had long since worn out. And there were no presents from presidents who’d been hunting buddies.

“No word from your parents?” Trace asked as he backed the oversize car and headed for the main road.

“Nothing,” she said, staring straight ahead to avoid his gaze.

“Where do you want to start looking?”

“I sent them to the south pasture. We might as well start there,” Callie said.

“Sent them?”

Callie folded her hands on her lap to keep from fidgeting. “Ever since the Rafter S auction—” She stopped herself. It was none of Trace’s business that her parents had been having marital difficulties. “They went on a picnic this afternoon,” she said instead. “And they haven’t come back.”

“Did they have a cell phone? A CB?” Trace asked.

Callie shook her head. “I wanted them to have some time alone to—” She cut herself off again. “The truck might have broken down.”

“How many miles could they be from the nearest road if they’re in the south pasture?” Trace asked.

Callie thought for a moment. Three Oaks consisted of sixty-five thousand acres of grassland, which was just over one hundred square miles of property. It had a rectangular shape that ran five miles from east to west, and a little more than twenty miles from north to south. The ranch house was situated in the middle pasture, along the widest part of Bitter Creek.

Callie did the math and didn’t like the answer she came up with. “They would never have to walk more than five miles from any place in the south pasture to reach a road.”

“They could have walked that in a little more than an hour. You’ve driven all the roads, I presume.”

Callie nodded soberly. “I spent three hours driving up and down every gravel track they might have crossed getting home from the south pasture, and I checked out the camp house, where we feed the crew during roundup. I didn’t find them.”

“One of them must be hurt.”

Callie’s heart skipped a beat. “Why do you say that?”

Trace met her gaze, then turned his attention back to the road. “Nothing else makes sense. Unless you think they might have run away from home.”

Callie snorted in disgust. “They went on a picnic.” But Trace’s words made her think of something else that hadn’t previously occurred to her. Another scenario that was so unpalatable, so unbelievable, that she hadn’t let herself consider it.

Her father was notoriously jealous. What if, instead of making up, her parents had argued about Blackjack? What if her father had struck her mother and accidentally—What if he’d taken her body and—

Callie shivered.

“Cold?” Trace asked. “I can turn up the heater.”

“No,” Callie said. “I was just thinking.”

“Why did they go off without a cell phone or a CB?” Trace asked.

“I wanted them to have some time alone. I never dreamed anything like this would happen.”

“Life is full of unexpected turns,” Trace said.

And too many of the turns in her life had been unexpectedly tragic, Callie thought. Losing Trace. Losing Nolan. And maybe losing—Callie refused to let her mind
dwell on what they might find. “I was surprised you offered to help, after what I … Why did you?”

“Can’t a neighbor help out a neighbor?”

“Not when one is a Blackthorne and the other is a Creed,” Callie said.

“Let’s just say I did it for old time’s sake, and leave it at that.”

Callie eyed Trace warily. “This isn’t going to change my mind. I’m not going to get involved with you again, Trace.”

“No?”

“No.”

He didn’t argue, simply aimed both fender-mounted spotlights into the thick brush on either side of the road and drove slowly along the perimeter of alternating steel and mesquite fence posts that framed the south pasture. The shiny steel posts were there to keep the fence standing if a range fire burned out the wooden ones, while the mesquite would keep the fence standing if cattle leaned against the less sturdy metal posts to scratch and knocked them down.

“Lot of rotten posts down,” Trace noted. “You ought to replace that mesquite with cedar.”

Callie pressed her lips flat to keep from replying. Mesquite rotted from the inside out, so it was hard to tell when a post needed to be replaced unless it actually fell down. On the other hand, cedar rotted from the outside in, so the signs of wear were more visible and repairs could be made in a timely fashion. But mesquite was available for free, since it grew all over Three Oaks. Cedar posts had to be bought, with money they didn’t have.

She caught Trace staring at her and said, “I know what you’re thinking.”

“What am I thinking?”

“That we Creeds might as well give up and sell Three Oaks to you Blackthornes right now, because you’ll get it from us sooner or later,” Callie said bitterly.

“That’s probably true,” Trace said with a half smile. “But I was wishing it was eleven years ago, and that I knew then what I know now.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that I didn’t know then what I was giving up when I left you behind.”

Callie felt the hairs stand up on her neck and turned, expecting Trace to tell her he had discovered Eli was his son. When he didn’t speak, she said, “We can’t turn back the clock, Trace. What’s done is done.”

“What’s done can be undone,” he contradicted. “Wounds can be healed.”

“Scars don’t go away. Scars are there for a lifetime.”

Callie leaned out into the brisk wind to listen. The salt cedar and mesquite and huisache trees stood so thick, their leaves made an amazing amount of noise brushing against each other in the breeze, while the grass whispered a song all its own.

She could hear cattle lowing, the cry of a kiskadee, the keening notes of a mourning dove. Every so often the spotlight caught on a pair of reflected eyes, but it always turned out to be a white-tailed deer, or a Nilgai—the African antelope that had first been introduced to Texas by the King Ranch, or a Santa Gertrudis cow.

“Honk your horn,” Callie said. “Maybe they’ll hear that, even if they can’t see the spotlight.”

“If it’s noise you want, why not try a couple of shots.” He gestured with a finger toward the front fender. “The gun in the front case is a Remington 700 rifle. I loaded it before I left the house.”

“I suppose it’s worth a try,” Callie said.

Trace stopped the car. “You want to do it? Or shall I?”

“I’ll do it,” Callie said.

“There are more bullets in the chrome box mounted at the front of the running board,” Trace said.

The .223 caliber varmint rifle was illegal for large game, like deer and feral hogs, because the bullet was too small to humanely kill with one shot, but it was accurate at long range and perfect for rabbits. And humans.

Callie shuddered, then mentally shook herself. She had to stop imagining the worst. She was going to feel pretty stupid when her parents showed up with some story of how they’d decided to take a little time for a second honeymoon.

She removed the rifle from the leather case, checked the load, made sure Trace was still sitting in the driver’s seat, then braced the stock and fired into the air.

When the explosion of sound diminished, Callie listened for human voices. All she heard was a cacophony of beating wings and the angry cries of a flock of great-tailed grackles that had been flushed into the spotlight. Too soon, it was quiet again, except for the percussive trees and the singing grass.

“Do you want to head back home?” Trace asked, when they’d covered every road that ran through the hundred square miles of Three Oaks at least twice.

Callie looked at her watch in the green light from the dash. The time had flown by, yet the night had seemed
endless. “It’s not long until dawn. The camp house I mentioned, the one we use during roundup, is just a quarter mile down the road. It’s got a woodstove and a pump and some Coleman lanterns, and we keep it stocked with coffee. Let’s go there.”

Trace glanced at her, but she was grateful he didn’t point out the obvious, that daylight was a good hour and a half away, and that she could be home in twenty minutes and get a cup of coffee there.

Callie didn’t want to go home. The fact that she hadn’t gotten a call meant there was no good news waiting for her there. She pointed Trace in the direction of the rustic wood-frame camp house, but when they arrived, she sat without moving.

“I’m so afraid,” she whispered.

“I know,” Trace said.

She turned on him, venting her fear and frustration. “How can you possibly know what I’m feeling? You’ve never known what it was to be scared—of anything! What are we going to do if Momma and Daddy—” She clenched her teeth to bite back a sob.

“Come here.” Trace reached over, grabbed her by the waist, and settled her sideways in his lap.

She sat stiffly, unyielding. “Don’t you dare try to comfort me. Not now. It’s too late, Trace. Eleven years too late. You were never there when I needed you. When I cried for you. When I died inside for the want of your arms around me, holding me—”

One strong arm circled her shoulders, while his large hand cupped her head and urged it against his shoulder. “Go ahead and let it all out,” he crooned.

She pressed her mouth hard against his muscular
shoulder, keeping the sounds of anguish inside. Her hands clutched fistfuls of his shirt as her body sought the warmth and comfort of his.

“I’m here now. Lean on me, Callie.”

He was like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, tempting her to trust him. But once she took a bite, once she gave in, all would be lost. She shoved her hands against his shoulders and pushed herself upright, resisting the offer of solace. “No, Trace. No.”

His hand slipped to her nape, his callused fingertips caressing the tension there. She kept her body rigid, but she was melting inside. Her gaze focused on the day’s growth of black beard on his cheeks and chin. She wanted to feel the harsh brush of it against her flesh. She wanted to feel the softness of his lips against hers. She lifted her eyes to his hooded gaze and saw a need that matched her own. She wanted to lose herself inside him, safe from the frightening, unfathomable future.

She closed her eyes and succumbed to temptation.

I
T WAS LIKE COMING HOME
. I
T WAS AS THOUGH
the years they’d been apart had passed in the blink of an eye, and they were once again exuberant college kids who loved one another with the whole of their beings. She moaned as his hands cupped her breasts, sighed into his mouth as it captured hers. She threaded her fingers into his hair as she lost herself in the familiar taste and smell of the man who was the other half of her.

“Callie,” he murmured against her mouth. “I’ve wanted you for so long.”

“Oh, God, Trace.” She turned to him hungrily, greedily, desperately seeking solace from the terror that waited in the darkness, oblivion from the fear of what she might discover in the light of day.

He pulled off her boots, then stripped her bare, lifted her, shifted her, until she was straddling his waist, facing him body to body on the soft leather seat.

She had already unbuckled his belt, already unbuttoned his jeans and dragged them down his hips, already reached for him, so that once she was naked there was
nothing to stop them from joining. She slid down onto his shaft, felt him filling her, stretching her.

He caught her groan of satisfaction with his mouth, mimicked with his tongue the intrusion of flesh into flesh. She bucked against him, rode him hard and wild, took what she needed and gave all he asked. And found passion beyond feeling, pleasure beyond bearing. She fought against the final culmination, fought against the end, wanting the moment to last.

But there was no stopping the inevitable. She felt herself at the edge of a cliff with no choice but to leap with him, to relish the moments of soaring ecstasy before they must once again touch solid ground. Her cry of exultation ended in a sob of despair.