Wyoming Woman (12 page)

If Luke had really cared for her, he would have fallen at her feet and begged for her love. Instead he had come dangerously close to making a beggar of her.

A flock of crows passed overhead, their raucous calls echoing across the sky.
Fool! Fool! Shame! Shame!
Their cries seemed to be mocking her. Never again, Rachel vowed, thrusting out her chin. She had her pride and her values, and the determination to get whatever she wanted. There was no excuse for letting a man,
any
man, reduce her to a quivering lump of physical need.

Choose,
Luke had told her. Well, she had chosen. She was through with him and his kind. From this day forward, her head would rule her heart. She would be wise, calculating, even cold. And no man would ever,
ever
dare to hurt her again.

In the distance now, she could see the sprawl of buildings and corrals that formed the heart of the Tolliver Ranch. Behind it the rugged peaks of the Big Horn Mountains towered like protective giants. Two golden eagles rode the updrafts, spiraling in lazy circles against the blue sky. Rachel shaded her eyes, watching the pair until they vanished into the blinding
glare of the sun. Something in her ached in envy of their fierce bonding, male to female, so natural, so perfect. If only human mating could be so simple.

But it wasn't, for a fact. With rare exceptions, like her parents, men and women fought, manipulated and struggled against each other. Rachel had seen it many times. Now she had experienced it for herself, and she felt utterly drained. The emotions she had experienced with Luke this morning—the rage, the hurt, the vulnerability—had caused her more pain than she ever wanted to feel again.

Eager for a bucket of oats and a rubdown, the bay broke into a trot. Rachel leaned forward in the saddle and kneed the horse to a gallop. They flew across the prairie, the wind whipping her hair and stinging her eyes. Every stroke of the bay's powerful legs carried her farther away from Luke Vincente's insolent gaze and blistering kisses. She would be safe now, she told herself. She was almost home.

As she galloped the horse through the gate, Rachel remembered that she was spattered with dirt from the top of her head to the toes of her boots. She bit back a groan of dismay. If anyone in her family was watching her arrival, there would be questions. The answers to those questions would force her to lie. Her only hope of escape lay in making it to the barn, and from there to her room, without being spotted.

Scanning the house and yard anxiously, she reined the horse to a walk and swung its head toward the barn. She was safe, she concluded, relaxing a little. It was far too early for her parents to be back from
Sheridan, and there was no sign that her brothers had returned from their outing with Slade. Johnny Chang and his boys were on the mountain with the cattle, and if any other members of the Chang family had glimpsed her from the house, they would be discreet enough not to mention her appearance.

Dismounting outside the barn, she led the horse into the shadows. The aromas of fresh hay and manure surrounded her as she slipped off the bay's bridle and poured some oats into a bucket. Her face felt hot in the coolness of the barn, her skin as taut and dry as parchment.

While the big bay munched oats, Rachel unbuckled the cinch, hefted the saddle and carried it to the rack on the north wall of the barn. Pulling a clean rag from the gunny sack that hung next to the stalls, she slid the blanket off the horse's back and began rubbing down its warm, damp coat.

Little by little the motion of the rag, gliding over the gelding's silken contours began to soothe Rachel's ragged nerves. Her explosive encounter with Luke had shaken her to the core. But Luke Vincente's dark presence was enough to unsettle any woman, she reminded herself with a bitter little smile. Time would dim her memory and heal her heart. But for now…

She began to tremble as the memory swept over her. Luke's arms around her, his hands on her breasts, his hard body pressing hers as his kisses roused her to a frenzy of exquisite need. Would she ever feel it with anyone else—that aching burst of joy, like the soaring of eagles toward the sun?

Her mind's eye filled with the sight of him crouched over the unconscious sheepdog, his hands tender, his eyes welling with hope and despair as he urged it back to life. She would have died for him at that moment. And later, when the little collie had scrambled to its feet and shaken its coat, showering dirt in all directions, and she had heard Luke laugh for the first time…

Rachel sagged forward, pressing her face into the solid warmth of the bay's shoulder. Heaven help her, how was she going to live without him? How was she going to face waking up every morning of her life knowing that she would not see his face or hear his voice or feel the roughness of his morning whiskers on her skin?

She closed her eyes, blotting bitter tears against the gelding's satiny coat as she fought the temptation to saddle the horse once more, ride hell-bent for Luke's ranch and fling herself into his arms. That would be the worst thing she could do, she admonished herself. Seeing Luke again would only fan the flames of trouble and tragedy. She could not, would not let it happen. Not ever.

A long shadow fell across the straw-covered floor of the barn. Rachel sensed rather than saw it. Reining in her emotions, she forced herself to turn around.

For an instant she was blinded by the glaring rectangle of sunlight that shone through the barn door. As her vision began to adjust, a tall, lean silhouette emerged through the brightness, moving toward her.

“Luke?” The whispered name escaped her lips be
fore she could think. For the space of a heartbeat, her pulse leaped. Then the figure moved into the shadow of the barn. Rachel bit back a groan as she recognized him.

“Where the devil have you been, Rachel?” Bart Carmody's white-toothed grin flashed in the darkness. “I've been waiting half the morning to see you!”

C
lasping her by the shoulders, Bart grinned down at her. Under different circumstances, Rachel might have been glad to see her old neighbor and childhood friend. But right now all she could think of was making a swift getaway to her bedroom.

“How…nice to see you, Bart.” She forced each sticky word from her mouth. “Where's your father? I'd like to say hello to him, as well.”

“Dad's lumbago was acting up this morning, so I decided to ride over alone and deliver the invitation.”

“Invitation?”

“We're having a barbecue and dance at our place on Saturday night. Your whole family's invited. I know it's short notice, but we only decided on it when we heard you were back. It's a welcome home party!”

Rachel stared up at him, perplexed and more than a bit unsettled. It struck her as odd that neighbors who had paid her scant attention when she was growing up would go to the trouble of throwing a party to
celebrate her return. To question such a generous act, however, would be churlish. Good neighbors were the lifeblood of this lonely country, where blizzards, drought, fires and sickness were never far out of anyone's thoughts. If she planned to spend the rest of her life here, she would be wise to build bridges, not tear them down.

Bart's smile broadened as he studied her. “Look at you!” he exclaimed, thrusting her out to arm's length for a better inspection. “All grown up and prettier than ever, but still a tomboy, I see, and still getting into trouble. Right now you look as if you've been rolling in a buffalo wallow.”

He laughed at his own joke, his blue eyes twinkling with a charm that had been breaking hearts since he was in grammar school. Rachel's vulnerable young heart had been among them. But if Bart had seen her at all, it was as a scrawny, freckle-faced kid with perpetual scabs on her elbows. From the time he was old enough to sneak out at night, Bart had preferred the company of the more experienced and buxom town girls. He had never looked at Rachel…the way he seemed to be looking at her now.

“Feisty little Rachel,” he scolded gently as he brushed the dirt from the tip of her nose. “You always did have a talent for getting bumped and scraped and splattered. What happened to you this time?”

“Nothing. Just a…silly accident.” Her voice sounded high and shaky in the hollow space of the
barn. Bart seemed too charming, too attentive. He was beginning to make her nervous.

“Accident!” He laughed. “Seeing you like this reminds me of the time you and your brothers tried to dig your way to China!”

“You'll find that I clean up nicely these days,” Rachel said with a strained laugh. “But it's been a few years since we played together, hasn't it? What have you been doing all this time, Bart?”

“Not much.” His hands had begun to massage her shoulders, kneading the tautly aching muscles. “Just helping Dad run the ranch and counting the days until you came home.”

In the silence that followed this declaration, the bay chose to raise its tail and drop a steaming clump of manure onto the straw, scant inches from Bart's immaculately polished calfskin boots. For a rancher's son, Bart had an inordinate distaste for anything dusty, dirty or smelly. Nostrils twitching, he released Rachel's shoulders and edged carefully to one side.

Rachel forced herself to laugh. “I was just wondering what to say to your remark, but I think the horse just said it for me.”

He looked puzzled. Rachel took advantage of his momentary shock to turn away and resume the task of rubbing down the gelding's coat.

“And what's that's supposed to mean?” he demanded.

“You say you've been waiting for me to come home. How on earth can you expect me to believe that, Bart? You barely gave me a second glance when
we were growing up. You were too busy chasing after girls like Lula Mae.”

“I was a fool.” He moved to the opposite side of the horse, where he could face her as she worked. “But I've come to my senses, Rachel. Deep down, I've known all along that it would be you and me some day. We have the same memories, the same values. We're very, very right for each other.”

His hand slid across the horse's back to capture hers, the fingers curving under to lightly massage her palm. Rachel stiffened at his touch. “I think this whole thing is moving a little too fast for me,” she said in a small, cold voice.

The motion of his fingers stopped, but he kept her hand imprisoned in his. “Then I'll slow it down, if you say so. I'll do whatever it takes to win you. But understand this, sweetheart. I'm a determined man. When I go after something I want, I don't give up until it's mine. And I want you.”

He ducked under the horse's neck, caught her waist, and swung her off her feet. Rachel had no time to catch her breath before his mouth ground onto hers, hot and damp and demanding. Years ago she had fantasized about kissing Bart and how romantic it would be. But now that it was happening, she was too stunned to respond. She froze in his arms.

When his tongue invaded her mouth she began to resist. Her hands worked upward to push against his chest, but his arms held her fast. The voice of common sense shrilled that Bart was offering her everything she'd always wanted, and that she would be a
fool not to accept him. But as he was kissing her, Rachel felt nothing except a slow-rising panic. It was too soon. She had only just come home.

She had only just come from Luke.

Her struggles had thrown him off balance. Staggering backward, he suddenly went rigid. What had begun as a kiss ended in a muttered curse. Carried by her own momentum, Rachel spun out of his grasp, stumbled and fell into a pile of loose straw.

For an instant she sputtered upward, ready to fight like a wildcat should he leap on her and try to wrestle her down. Then, as she swept her vision clear of hair and straw, she realized what had happened.

Bart had backed into the clump of fresh horse manure. It oozed over the soles of his polished boots and clung to the hem of his spotless trousers. The earthy stench rose like a miasma around him.

Bart's handsome face, its chiseled mouth and chin smeared with dirt from their ill-fated kiss, was a study in shocked revulsion. Unable to help herself, Rachel began to giggle, then to chuckle, then to belly laugh in a most unladylike fashion. Her hands clutched her aching ribs as she bent double, rocking back and forth in the straw. Tears of laughter left rivulets of mud down her dusty cheeks. Was she laughing at Bart or crying for Luke? Either way, she realized, the knot of tension in her chest was slowly loosening.

Bart glared down at her as he scuffed the sides of his boots in the straw. “That wasn't funny, Rachel,” he snapped. “And I won't have you laughing at me. It's…disrespectful.”

“Disrespectful, is it?!” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Why, just look at you, Bart! If you had a mirror and could see your face, you'd be laughing, too!” It was all right now, she thought. Surprise had allowed him a brief advantage, but she was back in charge now, as she liked to be.

Bart continued to scowl at her. “That may be, but it's not your place to laugh at me, Rachel. As my future wife—”

“Your future
wife?
” On the offensive now, Rachel scrambled out of the straw to confront him. Her eyes blazed with fury through her tears. “What makes you think you can just come storming over here and claim me like an unbranded heifer, Bart Carmody? Any man who wants to marry me can damn well earn my favor first! He can bring me flowers and chocolates and take me dancing in the moonlight! He can pay me pretty compliments and curry favor with my parents! And when the time comes, he can fall on his knees and
beg
me to be his! And even then, I might say no!”

She glared up at Bart, her mind churning in the silence. Would Luke have brought her flowers and chocolates? Would he have taken her dancing in the moonlight and whispered pretty words in her ear? Perhaps long ago, before life had twisted his soul like rawhide in the sun, he might have done such things. But surely not now. Not the Luke she knew.

Would he have begged her to be his? Rachel's heart contracted as she realized how close she had come to begging
him.
But a match with a man like
Luke would be an invitation to disaster. She had no choice except to forget him and move on.

Little by little the muscles of Bart's face relaxed into a smile. He shook his head. “Little Rachel. You certainly haven't lost any of your spit and vinegar. You and I are going to have an interesting life together.”

Rachel stifled a sigh. It was as if Bart had chosen to ignore everything she'd just told him. He still assumed that all he needed to do was open his arms and she would fall into them, along with her twenty-percent share of the Tolliver ranch.

She was not so naive as to think he loved her. The ranch had to be the reason Bart was courting her so ardently. He was thinking of his future, and what a tie to the Tolliver family would mean. There might be other girls more to his liking, but none with the kind of dowry Rachel could bring to a marriage.

The thought of his motives hurt and annoyed her. But there were two sides to every coin. Bart was Lem Carmody's only son, and the Carmody ranch was a fair piece of land. A union between Bart and Rachel would be smiled on by both their families. She would be foolish to toss his proposal aside like so much chaff.

Rachel's head had begun to ache. Bart was saying something to her about the barbecue, and how he would make it a point to dance with her in the moonlight, but the air in the barn had suddenly become stifling, her brain too befogged to concentrate on his words.

“Would a glass of cold lemonade on the porch be too much to ask?” His face wore a determined smile. “I'll finish with your horse while you run to the kitchen and get some for me.”

“Yes…thank you.” Rachel spun away from him, grateful for any excuse to leave the barn. Thomas Chang made fresh lemonade most summer days and kept it in the spring house. Nothing tasted better after a long, hot ride. And she could hardly expect Bart to turn around and go home without some refreshment and polite conversation. She would be safe enough, she knew. Thomas would be close by, his presence a safeguard against any improprieties. All the same, she was not looking forward to the next hour.

She had just cleared the shadow of the barn when a cacophony of war whoops and clattering hoofbeats reached her ears. Shading her eyes, Rachel saw Slade and her brothers racing full out through the ranch gate. Jacob was in the lead, leaning over the neck of his lathered horse. Slade followed, waving a severed coyote tail like a war trophy, with Josh riding just off his flank. A long cloud of dust trailed behind them.

The flood of relief that washed over Rachel was laced with worry. What sort of mischief had the three been up to this morning? Had they invaded Luke's property, perhaps visited the site of the rigged cave-in?

Rachel strode out into the yard, waving her hands above her head. The three young riders whooped in return and slowed their horses to a ragged trot. All of them wore broad grins across their dusty faces.

With a sigh, Rachel turned toward the house. She would order lemonade all around. Then she would deal with whatever troubles had blown in with the boys' arrival.

 

A ripe golden moon hung low in the sky above the Carmody ranch house. The savory aromas of beans, biscuits and barbecued beef floated on the night air, mingling with the sound of voices and the lively whine of a solitary fiddle. Children played hide-and-seek among the wagons and high-wheeled buggies, squealing with laughter as they darted in and out of the moonlit shadows. Where men stood talking, their cigarette tips made glowing points of red in the darkness. Smoke spiraled upward, ghostly against their weathered faces as they passed around discreet flasks of whiskey.

Every cattle rancher within a forty-mile radius was here with his family. Luke had not been invited, but he was here, too, lingering in the deep shadows beyond the lamplight, watching and listening.

That morning, by pure chance, Luke had met the elderly fiddler, who'd hailed him to ask directions to the Carmody place. The two had shared a pleasant drink, and the old man had mentioned that he was on his way to fiddle for what he'd called a grand whoop-de-do that evening. There'd be dancing till the moon went down, he'd declared, and half the county was going to be there.

Half the county, including the men who'd murdered Miguel.

The thought had been too much for Luke to resist. The boot track he'd found was the only lead he had, and it wasn't enough. He needed faces. He needed names. Heaven help him, he needed solid proof. If he didn't find it soon, Ignacio's fragile patience would explode, and the boy would be gone.

Taking care to keep his face out of the light, Luke strolled the fringes of the crowd. There were plenty of cowboys dressed as he was, in denims, boots and clean plaid shirts. Aside from his height and the broadness of his shoulders, he did not stand out in any way. Even so, as he strained his ears for any meaningful snatches of conversation, the loudest sound Luke could hear was the pounding of his own heart. He was strung so tightly that if anyone had so much as touched him, his nerves would have snapped like frayed bowstrings.

As he drifted in and out of the shadows, he struggled to focus his attention on the murmuring clusters of men, and not on the glowing circle of light where couples whirled and danced to the lively strains of the fiddle. If he looked in that direction, he knew he would see Rachel dancing with Lem Carmody's son. The sight of her in another man's arms would turn him into a jealous, hotheaded fool. Worse, it might make him careless, and he could not afford to be careless tonight.

Even so, he could not resist a glance as she and her tall blond partner rounded the circle of dancers. Rachel was wearing a daffodil-yellow gown of a fabric so light it seemed to float around her. The heart-
shaped neckline, puffed sleeves and ruffled hem accentuated the curves of her trim little body. The dark-green sash at her waist matched the ribbon in her hair, which hung down her back, gleaming like amber silk in the lamplight. Her eyes sparkled. Her mouth smiled as she responded to something her partner was saying.