"I could get used to this," Genny said into the mike. The gentle chill of early morning, the bright blue sky, and a view all the way to the edge of the world all contributed to her sense of well being.
Rock's voice was raspy in her ears. "Wait till you see these hills in the spring, along about the middle of April."
His arm brushed hers as he pointed to the left. If the world bore any relationship to her maps, they were approaching Skeleton Gulch. She saw the flash of wing that was a circling eagle. It rode the wind over the gray-green plateau, then stooped into a weightless plummet after its unsuspecting prey.
Rock guided the helicopter into a more gradual descent and they landed at the head of Skeleton Gulch.
The hike into the Shinbone didn't seem as far or as steep this morning. They walked quickly, in silent accord, comfortable with one another. If she weren't so worried about Sophie, she would be totally content. Four days, and they hadn't heard a word. If her aunt didn't show up soon, Genny was going to have to call New Hampshire. Mom might know where Sophie had disappeared to.
Rock stopped her with an arm blocking the trail. Without a word, he shoved her back into an alcove in the rock wall, held a finger to his lips. Mystified, Genny stood quietly as he slipped ahead, edging his way along the wall, looking for all the world like a spy on a mission.
Silence. She waited for what seemed an hour, wondering what had alarmed him. A rattler? No, for he wouldn't have told her to be quiet if it had just been a snake on the trail. A rabid cow?
Did cows get rabies?
She heard the rumble of masculine voices, echoing between the vertical walls. A woman's high laugh. More rumbles, then silence. Soon the rattle of a stone indicated someone--or something--was coming up the trail toward her hiding place. Surely it was Rock. He hadn't met a bear or a cougar; a human voice had answered him.
She couldn't prevent a surge of fear, despite telling herself that her imagination was running amok. When Rock reappeared, she clung to him.
"Sorry, darlin'," he said after kissing her thoroughly. "I just wanted to make sure it was your archaeologists in there. We get some pretty dangerous characters out here sometimes."
Anger replaced her fear. What did he think she was, helpless? She'd been on the District two months now and they hadn't been entirely uneventful. She'd managed to get herself out of a couple of tight situations without assistance. What right did he have to assume she needed his protection?
About to yell at Rock, Genny clamped her mouth shut. She had to pull herself together. Her personal problems--and her increasing worry over a missing aunt--had no place in the field.
For a brief moment she wished the BLM pilot had brought her in to meet Frank and Elaine. Using the Bureau helicopter might not have been as much fun, but it would have been a lot less hazardous to her emotional equilibrium. She was a professional and it was time she remembered it.
"I never expected to find anyone but Frank and Elaine," she said, trying to freeze his ego with her voice.
Rock snorted. "If I'd seen these two anywhere else, I'd never have guessed they were your field people." He glared, as if it were her fault he'd assumed the Ainsworths were a couple of desperados and acted accordingly.
In spite of residual irritation, she had to smile at Rock's instinctive chivalry, his immediate action to protect her. Genny might deplore the old fashioned, masculine reflex, but she had to admit to a tingle of pleasure. She'd never been treated like a fragile treasure before. The Forsythe men treated their women as if they hadn't a brain in their heads, but they didn't cherish them.
"What a place!" Elaine waved and called from the mouth of the Shinbone. Her long braid was half undone and her clothing was dusty, for all it was yawningly early in the morning.
"Spectacular, isn't it?" Entering the grassy-floored gulch, Genny saw that the Ainsworths had pitched their dome tent where it would get the brief morning sun. A clothesline held underwear and socks. Up at the head of the gulch, three mules and a horse grazed, their saddles piled on a huge boulder. "How's it going?"
"I haven't started yet," Frank said. His braid, as long as his wife's, was still tidy, but his salt-and-pepper beard looked as if a crow had nested in it. "One of us has to do the mundane chores like setting up camp."
"Did you have any trouble getting in?"
"No. The flagging led us right to it. I haven't been down to the next canyon--Armbone, wasn't it?"
"It's a gulch," Genny said, involuntarily, and caught the gleam of Rock's grin. "Yes, Armbone Gulch is where I found the petroglyphs. If you've got time, I can show you." She started toward the mouth of Shinbone, but Rock's call halted her headlong rush.
"Hold on a minute, little lady. We've got a pretty full schedule today."
"I can find it, Genny," Frank added. "I've got a map, and you left flagging to mark it, didn't you?"
Blushing, Genny nodded. She had never seen such beautiful carvings as the petroglyphs in Armbone and she knew Frank would be as enthusiastic as she was. She'd been looking forward to sharing them with him, to hearing his exclamations of wonder when he first saw them. But Rock was right. Their schedule was too full for her to take time to show Frank around. He was competent and experienced. She could trust him and Elaine to do a good job.
"Look at this, Genny." Elaine thrust a piece of greenish rock into her hand.
She looked. Turned it over and looked at the other side. Puzzled, she raised an eyebrow at the petite geologist. "I don't see anything."
"No, and that's what's interesting. From everything I'd read, I'd expected to find leaf fossils in all strata of the greenish tuff." She took back the shard, shaking her head. "I've looked at maybe a hundred fragments like this, and haven't seen a single one."
"Does that mean I get my reservoir?" Rock said.
"That means I need to do a lot more work," Elaine said. "I need to discover why there are no plant fossils here."
"Shit!" Rock visibly controlled his anger. "Well, don't let us delay you, Ms. Ainsworth. The sooner you're done with your investigations, the sooner my cows'll have their water."
"Rock, there's no guarantee..." Genny began.
"Yeah, I know. If there's even one itsy bitsy fossil here, my cows'll go thirsty." He turned away. "I'll wait for you up on top. Don't take too long."
"Spoiled brat," she muttered. For an educated man, he was certainly insensitive to the need to preserve archaeological resources. And she was getting darned tired of his habit of stalking off whenever he didn't get his way.
Oh, well. She still had a job to do. "How long do you think it'll take before you have some results for me, Elaine?"
"That depends. If I don't find anything in the talus," she pointed at the large and small piles of fallen rock that ringed the meadow, "I can probably say with some assurance that there's nothing to find. But if I do, well, you know."
Yes, Genny knew. She and Elaine had worked together two years ago, mapping the extent of a rich plant fossil site in Wyoming. As a result of their investigation, the area had been close to all development.
She hoped she wouldn't have to give Rock news like that. "Do what you can," she said. "And Frank, if you don't mind, I'd like you to start here, in Shinbone. I don't want to keep Rock waiting any longer than necessary."
"Sure, Genny." Frank spread his copies of her large-scale maps across the tent. "This is the most likely spot for petroglyphs," he said, pointing at the narrow upper end of the gulch, "so I thought I'd climb up there this afternoon. I should have some answers for you in a few days."
"Okay, when do you want to meet?"
"Week from Thursday? Four o'clock at the trailhead?"
"Right. Now, let me show you just where I think you'll find some more." She pointed along Skeleton Gulch, leading his eyes to the mouth of Toebone. "I didn't get in there, but there's a wall with a ledge at just the right height."
Half an hour later Frank reminded her that Rock was waiting.
"Oh, no! I forgot." Quickly Genny gathered her maps and notes together. "Now, have you got everything you need?"
"Relax, Gen. We've done this before." Frank's grin was understanding.
"Of course you have. That's why I wanted you to do this job for me." Frank and Elaine Ainsworth were the best field team she'd ever met. Archaeologist and geologist--a perfect combination. It would be too bad when they finished their doctoral research and were no longer available for short-term projects like this one. "I'll see you Thursday. Bye, Elaine."
Elaine waved from her precarious position at the top of a steep talus slope, but she never looked up from the rocks she was sorting.
The rest of the day was a dead loss, as far as Rock was concerned. Genny was so busy being an archaeologist that she seemed to forget she was a woman.
She had apologized for taking so long in the Shinbone, but he could tell she hadn't really been sorry. Or maybe she was sorry she inconvenienced him, but not sorry she'd stayed so long with her friends.
Well, at least the Ainsworths were Westerners. They'd have a realistic view of the relative value of a bunch of leaf fossils and rock carvings versus cattle.
Wouldn't they? He surely did wish he knew how long he'd have to wait for a decision on his waterhole.
"D'you still want to go to that site up by Monument Rock?" he asked Genny as he guided the helicopter across Rattlesnake Creek. He was gettin' damn tired of being nothing but her taxi driver. They'd dropped in to five sites so far today, each one as boring as the next. Once she'd showed him some black smudges that were supposed to be smoke paintings; another time her enthusiasm had been for a falling-down old cabin that Rock knew for a fact had been a line shack for the Circle H back in the Twenties.
The last site had been a kitchen midden he'd found, up above Three Forks. That had really turned her on.
Good thing something did. She'd surely paid little enough notice to him today.
"Are you still angry?"
The soft words in his earphones startled him. "Huh?" Hell, he wasn't even sure which way was up today.
"I asked if you were still angry."
A quick glance showed she was looking straight ahead, but her teeth were worrying her bottom lip.
Damnation! That's what he should be doing right now, instead of playing taxi driver. He should be kissing the dickens out of her, so she'd forget about rock carvings and rickety log cabins and million-year-old leaves. "Naw. I'm not angry." Nope. He was mad as hell, but he wasn't angry.
"So what's the matter with you? You've been about as charming as a hyena with a toothache." He heard laughter in her voice.
"Yeah, well, you've been about as friendly as a wounded moose."
"That's unfair! I was perfectly cordial until you got into a snit because I took so long down in Shinbone Gulch."
"A snit? I got in a snit? What about you? It wasn't me who got bent all out of shape when I was reminded that we had a lot of ground to cover today."
"I did not!"
"You sure did...what the hell?" She was laughing at him. Her full throated laughter filled his ears and sent shivers down his spine.
"Oh, Rock, listen to us. We sound like children, fighting over who threw the ball through the window."
He bristled, until their recent words replayed themselves in his mind. Darned if she wasn't right. They had sounded like a couple of kids having a spat. And she did have a job to do. She wasn't here just for fun, like he was. He squeezed her knee. "Let's start over. Do you still want to go to the Monument Rock site today?"
"Yes, please, if it won't make you too late getting home," she answered politely.
"No sweat." He aimed the 'copter north by northwest. The later they got done, the more likely she was to agree to spend the night at his ranch, instead of wanting to go back in to Vale.
"No, Rock, I can't," she told him later that afternoon, at the ranch. "I've got to go back to Vale."
"Why?"
His arms were holding her flush against his unyielding chest and thighs, his mouth was hovering just fractions of an inch above hers. It took all of Genny's willpower to remember that she had responsibilities. Her job. Her cat.
Aunt Sophie, who was still missing.
"I'm going up to Baker tomorrow with Dan. We're leaving early." His breath was warm and moist on her face.
"I can have you in town right after sunrise."
"No. I can't." To her own ears, she sounded as desperate as she felt. "I want to but I can't."
"I'll come home with you, then." Before she could answer, he took her mouth, devoured it, sapping her of intelligence and will.
He was swollen and hard against her belly. Genny couldn't help herself as she rocked against him, exulting in her power to arouse. She opened to his tongue, meeting it with purpose and enthusiasm. His taste suffused her mouth, his scent surrounded her and filled her nostrils. She wanted to fuse with him, to take him into herself until they were one being.
When he finally released her, after his lips had explored her cheeks, tasted her earlobes, and lingered at the hollow behind her ear, Genny slipped free of his arms. She couldn't think when he was touching her.
The sun cast their shadows long across the sagebrush-covered slope. She looked across the empty landscape, saw how its rugged topography and arid climate had shaped the man who held her. It was a hard land, and he was a hard man. It was a lonely land, as he was a lonely man. It offered haven and grandeur to those strong enough to meet it on its own terms. To meet it and the man it shaped.
Could she?
Did she want to?
Right now, right this minute, she wanted nothing more. Owyhee Country was beginning to feel like home. Rock's embrace was beginning to feel like where she belonged.
"I really have to go," she said, her voice sounding weak and strained.
"Your place or mine?" His eyes were asking more than if they would share a bed tonight.
"Both." Before he could explode, she laid a hand on his arm. "I've got to be alert tomorrow, Rock. You know if you come to my place, we won't get much sleep. Let me do my job this week. I'll drive out to the ranch Friday, after work. We'll have the whole weekend."
He gave in, grudgingly.
* * * *
It was an awful week. The trip to Baker ended up taking two days. She and Dan pulled in about three Thursday afternoon to discover that Frank Ainsworth had radioed a request for some special equipment he needed immediately, if not sooner. So early Friday she hitched a ride with Chuck in the BLM helicopter, then waited for him to pick her up on his way back from Jordan Valley. She had planned to call New Hampshire before she went to work this morning and ask her mother if she'd heard from Sophie, but she completely forgot. When she finally remembered, she was halfway to Skeleton Gulch. She might as well wait until she talked to Rock. Maybe he'd heard.
To make matters worse, she'd arrived home from Baker to discover Marmalade had knocked her answering machine to the floor. It held one message, from a cemetery plot salesman. If Rock had tried to reach her--or worse, if Sophie had--they hadn't been able to. The only consolation was that there hadn't been any messages for her at work. She supposed that meant no emergencies had occurred. She hoped.
She was going to be terribly late. One thing and another--a gregarious neighbor, an empty gas tank, another telephone solicitation--conspired to keep her in Vale until nearly six o'clock. And when she tried to call Rock to tell him she was running late, she discovered his phone was out of order.
To make matters worse, she broke a fingernail opening the sliding door on her van.
The big log house was blazing with light when she pulled into the driveway, but there were no vehicles in the driveway. It couldn't be a party.
"Where the hell have you been?" Rock demanded when he pulled the door open. His face was set in grim lines, angry lines.
"Hello, Genny. I missed you, Genny. Did you have a safe trip, Genny?" She handed him her overnight bag and slipped past him into the wide front hall. "You really make a person feel welcome, Rock."
"I expected you hours ago." He slammed the door and stalked past her, heading for the kitchen. As she followed, Genny looked into the brightly-lit living room. Empty. So was the dining room. The door to Rock's study, across the hall, was closed, but a line of light showed under the door. He must be trying to support Idaho Power all by himself.
She didn't really have time in her life for a bossy, temperamental, spoiled man. Could she live without him? This past week had gone a long way towards showing her she couldn't. She'd missed him as she would if part of herself were absent.
She followed Rock into the kitchen and stopped short. "Sophie? Where have--?"
"Hello, dear. Rock said you were concerned about me." Astonished, Genny stood stiff while her aunt embraced her. "I told you in my note not to worry."
"Where have you been? Why haven't you called? If you only knew...."
"Genille, dear, I have been taking care of myself for many years."
"And now I'll be taking care of her," Pancho said, coming from the back porch and slipping an arm around Sophie's waist.
Genny goggled. She'd never known her aunt to date. And she certainly had never--never--seen her lean into a man's embrace as if she belonged there.
"Wish us well, Genille. Pancho and I were married last Sunday." She looked up at Rock's cook with a sweet smile and stars in her eyes. Genny had never seen Sophie so beautiful. Or so apparently happy.
"I think I'd better sit down," she said, feeling her knees weaken.
Stumbling across the kitchen, she dropped into a chair. "Why, Sophie? How could you...?" She shook her head. "To just go off like that, and not let anyone know...."
"It was my fault, Miss Forsythe," Pancho said, never relinquishing his hold on her aunt. "I was afraid that if I gave her time to consider, she might change her mind. I regret if our impetuosity caused you grief."
"Don't believe him, Genille. I was as eager as he was." Again Sophie aimed an enchanted smile at Pancho. "I've never been swept off my feet before, and I wanted to enjoy the experience." She patted the hand resting on her waist. "Besides, at my age, one daren't let a moment of happiness escape."
Taking a deep breath, Genny smiled at the older couple. "I'm very happy for you both. This is...is wonderful news." She had to stop and swallow the tears that hovered just behind her eyes. "Have you told the family?" Sophie was her mother's oldest sister, and Mom's only remaining blood relative. The extended Forsythe family considered her one of theirs. "What about your job?"
"We're going to call tomorrow," Sophie replied. "It was too late when we arrived this evening, what with the time difference and all." Slipping free of her bridegroom's embrace, she pulled a chair close to Genny's. "I faxed my resignation from Reno, before the wedding. I'd intended to call you from there, but, well, I just never got around to it."
From the lecherous smirk on Pancho's face, Genny could imagine why. Anger rose within her.
"Don't you think you're a little old for such...such thoughtless behavior, Sophie? An elopement? How romantic! How inconsiderate! If you only knew how I worried. You've been gone almost a week and you didn't even have the good manners to call...."
"That's quite enough, Genille!"
"Put a lid on it, Genny!"
"Miss Forsythe, I protest!"
Genny felt her mouth drop open at the assault from all sides. She immediately regretted her outburst, but she didn't think it deserved the glares she was being impaled with. "I'm sorry, Sophie. It's none of my business what you do. But you were my guest, and I think I had a right to be concerned."
"I left you a note, Genille. Your responsibility ended there." Her beloved aunt had never been so cool to her before. Genny felt abandoned.
"I told you she'd be all right," Rock reminded her. "And I said she was probably with Pancho. You wouldn't believe me."
If there was anything Genny hated more than a bossy man, it was one who was also right and told her so. "Oh, shut up," she snarled. "Since you're safe, Sophie, I think I'll go home. I've been neglecting Marmalade." She picked up her overnight bag from the floor where Rock had dropped it and headed for the front door.
"You're not going anywhere," Rock said, grabbing her above the elbow.
She tried to jerk her arm free. "Oh, yes I am. I'm going home."
Immediately she felt her feet leave the floor as Rock swept her into his arms. "You're going to bed," he said, his voice hard. "With me."
"Let me go!" She kicked and struggled but was held in an unbreakable embrace. Her futile struggles only made her angrier, as Rock carried her up the stairs and along the upper hall. When he shouldered his bedroom door open, she started pounding on his chest with her free hand. "Let me go, damn you! Let me go!"
"Why, Genille Enderby Forsythe! Was that a cuss word sullyin' your pretty lips? Shame on you."
He tossed her to the bed, and before she could roll away, fell on top of her. "Now, if you'll just calm down, we'll talk about this. Believe me, darlin', you aren't any happier about this whole shebang than I am."
His words stopped her struggles. She stared at him, seeing the dark anger still in his face. "You don't approve?"
"Hell no! That pretty, sweet smellin' lady is gonna break Pancho's heart. And there isn't a damn thing I can do about it."
"Sophie is going to break Pancho's heart? Haven't you got it backwards?" Genny couldn't believe Rock. Didn't he see that her gentle, sophisticated aunt was totally out of her element as Pancho's wife? "Rock, he's a cook!"
That hadn't come out quite like she meant it, but before she could say anything else, Rock reared back, glaring.
"Yeah, Pancho's a cook. And I'm a cowboy. Does that make us dirt under your pretty little feet, City Girl?" Rolling off the bed, he stalked across the bedroom, to stand silhouetted before the sliding glass doors that looked out at the Owyhee Mountains. The night was black, and the curtainless window reflected everything in the room. Her image stared back at her, hair disheveled, face mottled from unshed tears, eyes pleading.
No, darn it! She wasn't going to plead for anything from Rock. Not even understanding.
"Don't twist my words!" she said, rolling off the bed and to her feet. In three strides, she was standing behind him, close enough to make her point but far enough that he couldn't misinterpret it. "I'm not a snob and neither is Sophie. And I'm not a city girl; our farm may not be bigger than Rhode Island, but it's a long way from a city. Sophie does live in a city, I admit. She has for years. You've got to agree that a lifetime in Boston hasn't prepared her to live out in some godforsaken covered wagon like your grandmother did."
"Pancho lives here." He gestured, to indicate the ranch house. His voice was soft, his words were clipped. The line of his shoulders was unyielding.
"So? Do you expect Sophie to move in? To take over Pancho's chores, picking up after you and washing your dirty socks?" The more she said, the angrier she got. "My aunt is a successful businesswoman, Rock. Not some domestic servant moving in for your convenience. She didn't get to be an executive secretary because she can type and make decent coffee. She has an MBA, for Pete's sake. She makes three times as much a year as I do"
"Good. She can help me with my taxes." He whipped around to face her. She took a step backwards when his glare struck her. "Can she use a computer?"
"Of course she...darn it Rock! You're confusing the issue! The point I'm trying to make is that it won't just be Pancho who'll suffer from this marriage." Rock had glared at her as much as he'd smiled in the month they'd known each other, but never with the hostility she saw in his eyes now. Genny took a deep breath, hoping to make him understand.
"Can we sit down?" She gestured at the two tapestry-covered chairs in the seating area of Rock's huge bedroom. "I'd like to tell you about Sophie, so you'll understand why I'm so concerned."
The tenseness in his jaw remained and his eyes were no less narrowed, but he did move away from the window. She seated herself, while Rock leaned, his long arms propping him on the back of the other chair. "I'm listenin'."
"Sophie's heart was broken when she was young," Genny told Rock, remembering how she'd thought the story was so wonderfully romantic when she was a child. "She was just seventeen when she fell in love, and he was five years older. He was a senior in college. He loved her as much as she loved him." She heard her voice go soft and dreamy, and wasn't surprised. Sophie's story had always seemed incredibly romantic. Like an especially poignant novel.
"Stewart's major was Eastern Philosophy. He was in R.O.T.C because that was the only way he could afford college; he was the youngest of nine children and his parents weren't wealthy."
Rock made an indeterminate sound that she interpreted as impatience. She decided he wouldn't want to hear about the poems Stewart wrote, or how happy and carefree he and Sophie were.
"They were going to wait until he got his military obligation out of the way. Stewart didn't want Sophie to be tied down while she was still in college, and he wouldn't hear of her quitting to marry him."
Another restless sound. She left out all her favorite parts, afraid Rock would walk out in the middle of the story. "Stewart was in Military Intelligence, a...a spy, I think. He was sent to Viet Nam. Within a month he disappeared. No one ever knew what happened to him. He was just gone." As usual, she choked up. Her voice shook and her eyes burned as she finished Sophie's story. "Sophie was pregnant. But she lost the baby. She was left with nothing but beautiful memories. And she never loved again."
"That's the biggest pile of crap I've ever heard."
"Rock!"
"If you think Sophie has spent her life pinin' for lost love, you've got another think comin'. That's one foxy old gal, Genny, and she could teach you a trick or two."
Her jaw dropped. The very idea!
"Ask her if she spent the last twenty-five or thirty years mourning for Stewart." His tone challenged her.
"I...I can't. It's none of my business."
But now that Rock had put the idea in her head, she couldn't help but wonder if her aunt had indeed been celibate for so many years.
"Neither's her marriage to Pancho." Rock's eyes narrowed. She could almost see the wheels turning behind them.
After a long moment of silence, she said, "What is it Rock? What are you thinking?"
"That I'm as big a fool as you." He sounded embarrassed.
She bristled. Romantic she might be, but believing in the poignancy of Stewart's and Sophie's tragic love didn't make her a fool.
"Pancho and Sophie aren't any of my business either." His mouth twisted, and she could tell it wasn't easy for him to admit error. "Here you and me have been goin' round and round about something we can't change, and wouldn't have any right to if we could."
"We love 'em. They're married." The slight inflection in his voice made his words a question, as if he needed her agreement.
She nodded.
"It's up to us to do what we can to show 'em we're okay with it. I surely don't wish Pancho any misery, or Sophie neither."
"No. Nor do I." Suddenly ashamed, Genny wondered why she had reacted as she had. Darn it, she liked Pancho--he was a nice man. Patient, gentle, caring. And a wonderful cook. "I hope they'll be happy. I really do."
"So do I, even though I have my doubts." He rubbed his chin, and Genny heard the soft rasp of a day's growth of whiskers. "When Pa married Selma," a frown flitted across his brow," they sent out fancy announcements to all their friends. Reckon we oughta do that?"
"Yes, of course. I'll be glad to help." She stopped, feeling an idea trying to make itself known. "I'd like to do something more, though, since Sophie's a stranger here."
"Yeah, me too. A party maybe. Invite all the neighbors?"
She knew he meant everyone within a hundred miles. Neighbors were few and far between in Owyhee Country. "Not just a party, Rock. Let's give them a reception!" She bounced up and down in sudden enthusiasm. "A real wedding reception. With a cake, and everything."
"I don't know," he said, sounding unsure. "What's wrong with an ordinary party? Or a barbecue." He grinned widely. "Back when Pa was alive, we used to have a big barbecue every August. I didn't bother, last year. It didn't seem worthwhile, somehow."
Genny tucked a thought in the back of her mind, to worry when she had time. There was more than ordinary sorrow in Rock for the death of his father. She should have noticed sooner. Whenever he mentioned his father or his stepmother, he changed. Became angry. And she usually got the brunt of it. But for now, she had a party to plan.
"What's wrong with both?"
His eyebrows lifted.
"A reception and a barbecue? We could have a big wedding cake, and you could cook a whole cow, or whatever you do." The Daniels had roasted a whole pig in a pit in their yard, besides grilling a truckload of steaks.
"Dancing on the pad," he contributed, referring to the concrete landing pad where the helicopter sat. "The Jones Boys always used to play for us. That's a country western band," he added, at her questioning look. "And maybe some steer ropin', just to keep things interesting."
"I could invite my whole family. They promised to come West to see me next summer, but I'll bet they'd come this year for Sophie's wedding reception." A dark shadow seemed to cross Rock's eyes, but she ignored it. Of course Sophie would want her family to meet her new husband. She looked around. "Have you got something I can write on, Rock? I want to start making lists."
"Whoa, there, darlin'. There's plenty of time for lists in the mornin'. We got us better things to do tonight." He pulled her to her feet. "My feelings will be plumb devastated if you'd rather plan a party than share some lovin' with me."
She melted against him, aware that nothing had been resolved, that she still had a hard kernel of anger smoldering within her. But how could she resist, when his touch promised paradise?