A FEW DAYS LATER, Blue woke up thinking about his argument with Micah and wondering why he couldn’t just forget it. He’d gone over it and over it almost every day as he rode, and that wasn’t like him at all. Technically, it wasn’t a violation of his code, in that he didn’t regret anything about it, but it was a stupid waste of time and energy.
Did part of him think there could possibly be some truth to what the old man said? Or was he trying to figure out whether Micah really believed his own argument that Gordon had good intentions?
It wasn’t like Micah to tell a bald-faced lie. At least, that’s what Blue’s instincts told him.
He liked Micah. Probably that was what was really bothering him, because he had intended never to let his guard down enough to like or love anybody again. Any entanglement would be nothing but a hindrance to his purpose—for that, the only strong feeling he needed was hatred for Gordon.
It didn’t matter one whit whether Micah really thought there was some good in Gordon. Blue’s own family history told the real truth about the man.
He threw back the covers and set his feet on the floor. No sense staying here if he couldn’t sleep. Might as well go check on his colt.
He’d been letting himself have feelings for the ornery roan, too, even though he knew their days together were probably numbered.
But no man could train a horse to his full potential without a bond between them. The painful healing process the colt was going through just naturally created even more of a connection.
He reached for the clean jeans he’d laid out across the chair and thought about that some more while he stepped into them.
Trust. That was the real creator of feelings. And it had been such a leap for the roan to trust Blue that, once he did it, Blue trusted him in return. The colt was honest, right down to the ground. Nothing counterfeit about him.
Roanie was a smart horse, too. No matter how much pain he was in, he knew Blue was trying to help him. The whole process was settling him down a lot.
He still wouldn’t let Micah come in his stall, though. Time would tell whether he would ever really trust anyone but Blue. It’d be interesting to see what reaction Roanie had to Shane—if he ever saw him again. Blue certainly wasn’t going to let the kid ride with him again.
He got up, went to get a pair of socks out of the battered chest of drawers and sat on the chair to put them on. First light was just creeping over the ranch. The breeze blew in through the west window smelling of pine and sweetgrass, juniper and…water. Running over rocks somewhere.
As if he could know that just from the smell. He grinned. Well, it never did hurt a man to have a little imagination. After all, his had brought him through ten years of hell.
The roan would throw up his head and snort when he caught all those tantalizing aromas in his nostrils. He might be at the window of his stall right now, pawing to get out.
Blue hated to keep him penned up. He’d like to take him out and hand-walk him around, but he didn’t trust him not to bolt. It’d take a while longer in the box stall for the wound to heal enough for that.
All in all, the roan was accepting his captivity fairly well. Probably partly because he was smart and partly because he felt so wounded.
Blue’s stomach clutched. God willing, the horse wasn’t permanently lamed. It would be awhile—a long while, really—before he’d know.
Blue padded to the kitchen in his sock feet to start the coffee and found it already made. Through the kitchen window, he saw Micah puttering around out back, picking fresh tomatoes for breakfast.
Micah had lived here for fifty years or more. He’d probably told Blue what a good guy Gordon was at heart because he wouldn’t want to admit that he’d spent that much time working for a man with a rotten soul. Even if he knew it was true, he wouldn’t let himself see it.
What’d they call that? Denial. Humans were damned good at denial. Probably because lots of times they had to be to keep from going crazy.
Blue went back for a shirt, found a fresh wild rag, too, and went out on the back porch to knock the extra dust off his hat.
“I’ll do your chores,” he said, raising his voice so Micah could hear him.
Micah answered with a lift of his hand.
Blue went back inside, filled a plastic mug, snapped the lid on it, and headed for the barn.
As soon as his boot heels hit the front steps, the roan called to him.
He smiled. Here was a sweet summer day of freedom to spend with his horses. Forget about people.
But he had barely started across the yard when Gordon rode past the corner of the barn. Forget about forgetting about people.
Apparently, he didn’t notice Blue, though. He was headed for Micah.
For a little while, as Blue threw the hay and started portioning out the grain, he thought he’d be left in his usual morning’s peace, but soon Gordon and Micah strolled into the barn.
“We leave for the hospital at one o’clock, Bowman,” Gordon said. “We’ll stop at the Co-op and you can run in for the supplement Toby ordered. Mrs. Beall’s there alone for the rest of the week.”
Blue stared at him in disbelief. Suddenly he was errand boy for Gordon?
“So she can’t load it? Is that your point?”
Gordon answered with a short nod. “It’s ten cases. I’ll call and tell her we’ll pick it up on the way back from the hospital.”
Blue said, “I’ve got horses to ride this afternoon. Your arms aren’t broken.”
Gordon whipped around and looked at him as if he didn’t believe his ears.
“The hell you say.”
Blue held his gaze. “I don’t work for you.”
“Good god,” Gordon said, almost sputtering in his surprise, “what’s your problem? Don’t you want to see the boy? He’s been asking about you.”
What was this? All of a sudden Blue was a member of the family? So he could do the heavy lifting?
All of a sudden Campbell was worried about Shane’s feelings? Half the time, the man made no sense.
“Shane doesn’t work for me,” Blue said. “Not anymore.”
“What’s all this ‘work’ business? You can’t do a man a favor? You can’t visit a hurt boy?”
“The amazing thing is that you can visit him,” Blue drawled. “After you wouldn’t mount a search until you had an intruder on your precious ranch.”
Gordon ignored that. “And Andie Lee,” he said. “She’s asking about you, too. She feels responsible because your horse got hurt and she doesn’t need to be worrying about that.”
Blue smiled coldly. “Your rep’s all wrong,” he said, with soft sarcasm. “You’ve got a heart big as Dallas, Campbell.”
Gordon’s eyes drilled into Blue’s. He tried to move Blue by the sheer strength of his look and the force of his will. Clearly, he expected that Blue would give in.
And why not? He was the boss. Everyone always did what he said.
Blue said, “Drive safe.”
Gordon turned in disgust and left the barn.
Micah made a little whistling noise and shook his head.
“Now who’s actin’ like a mean sumbitch?” he said.
Blue whirled to defend himself. “What the hell’s he doing, pretending to worry about Andie Lee’s state of mind? Going to see Shane when he wouldn’t even look for him before he got hurt? He’s the biggest counterfeit on two legs.”
“He does care about Andie Lee and Shane,” Micah said. “And they both have asked about you.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Blue snapped, and walked away.
He didn’t want Andie Lee and Shane asking about him, he didn’t want to hear Gordon’s bluster, he didn’t want to like Micah. He’d stick to horses.
TWO DAYS LATER, as soon as Blue opened the colt’s stall door, he saw he had trouble. The roan hadn’t called to him when he came out of the house and now he knew why.
Roanie stood without moving, his head hanging low. One glance at him told Blue that he was really sick. Blue watched his flank. The colt’s breathing was much too fast.
Blue moved toward him, murmuring, “Well, now, what’s the matter, Roanie? Let me see your shoulder. Let me look at you now.”
He didn’t know or care what he was saying because he had to concentrate on what he was doing. He didn’t want to rile the colt in any way.
The artery along the jaw was a place Blue liked to take a pulse, and he stroked Roanie’s face until he could get his finger on it, but before he even started to count, he was thinking he should be heading for the house to the phone to call Barry, the ranch veterinarian who lived on the Splendid Sky.
Blue gently urged Roanie to turn so the light from the window would fall on the wound and bent to look at it carefully. It was a great, raw bloody mess with a yellowish, pussy discharge coming from several places in it.
He urged the colt toward the water bucket and Roanie jerked to life, pulling away and kicking out. He didn’t try to kick Blue, but he didn’t want to be bothered, either. Blue got behind him and worked him around into the corner where the water bucket hung. Roanie stuck his nose in it, but he wasn’t interested in taking a drink.
The colt needed antibiotics and pain medicine as soon as he could get them.
Blue left the stall and started for the house, since Micah had no phone in the barn. Andie Lee was driving into the yard as Blue stepped outside the barn. She parked in her usual spot, got out, and walked toward him as if they’d arranged to meet.
“I came in last night to get some clean clothes and a breath of air,” she said. “I want to check on your horse before I head back to the hospital.”
Blue felt a fine relief, not only for his colt’s sake, but because she no longer had the haunted look she’d worn when he last saw her. Which was none of his business. Which he did not want to care about at all.
He also did not want the feelings she roused in him with her long, sure legs striding toward him and the steady way she looked directly at him. As if they were old friends.
“Infection’s set in,” Blue said. “I didn’t see it last night.”
She walked faster, straight past him, headed for the stall. He followed.
“Have you done anything yet?”
“No. I was on my way to call Barry.”
“Barry’s on vacation.”
When she laid her hand on the stall door, Roanie lifted his head to look at her and kicked the wall.
“Well, he’s not dead yet,” she said dryly. The word dead echoed in Blue’s ear.
“Let me go in first,” Blue said.
In a couple of tries, he positioned Roanie where she could look him over. The colt wasn’t happy that Andie Lee was in his stall. Not happy at all. Yet he felt so rotten he only made halfhearted attempts to object. Blue stayed by his head and soothed him with his hand and his voice.
“I talked to Barry about him after he treated him that first day,” Andie Lee said. “He told me he shot him full of antibiotics and that he’d already had tetanus. Ranch policy.”
“Right,” Blue said. “He’s been coming along fine and I didn’t notice anything wrong when I left him last night.”
“Yeah. The problem is that we have to leave this kind of wound open for it to heal,” she said. “That makes it so susceptible to flies, manure and everything else.”
She, too, looked at the colt’s flanks and watched his breathing.
“I’ll go get my bag,” she said, “while you put him in the stock.”
Blue immediately tried to judge whether that would upset Roanie to the point that he’d hurt himself more. He’d feel trapped in the stock, but he’d been in it before. Andie Lee had to be able to get close to him and he had to hold still.
He’d stood in the horse-size space made of pipe for Barry to work on him when he first got him back to the ranch. He hadn’t given much resistance then because he’d been so exhausted. Today, he seemed nearly as weak.
So Blue took down the water bucket and held it under Roanie’s nose until he reluctantly drank a little, then he led him out of the stall and into the stock which was just inside the east barn door. The colt did trust him. He didn’t even offer to bolt when they left the stall and he resisted the stock only a little.
Which scared Blue even more. Roanie hardly had the strength to lift his head.
Once Andie Lee had taken the horse’s temperature and pulse and respiration, she gave him shots of antibiotics and Banamine. Then she squatted beside Roanie’s shoulder and began to work on the wound itself, flushing and cleaning it.
She didn’t talk, just concentrated on her work. Blue watched her.
He thought about how she’d never complained on the way down the mountain holding Shane in the saddle.
“How’s Shane?” he said.
“Much better,” she said, glancing up at him. “I guess Micah told you about the surgery and all.”
“He said the arrow took a piece out of one of his lungs and broke a couple of ribs.”
“Yeah,” she said, “he was really lucky.”
Roanie jumped back from something she did and tried to pull away from her but the pipe across his butt held him in. A fear-filled trembling ran through his hide for a moment, but Blue stroked his neck and Andie Lee stopped working and talked to him. He settled back down.
Blue stared at the raw mess that looked like somebody had cut a steak off the roan’s shoulder.
“Well, how’s he taking it?” he drawled.
He hated the bitterness in his tone because it made him feel petty but there it was.
She looked up at him questioningly, then glanced at the roan as if he could see for himself how the horse was taking it.
“I mean Shane,” he said. “Does he appreciate his good luck?”
Andie Lee flashed him a sharp look and went back to work on the horse.
“Say what you mean, Blue,” she said in a calm tone that made him regret his sharp one again. “Considering what you and I have been through together, we’re entitled to be honest with one another.”
“What d’you think I mean?”
“Shane doesn’t deserve his good luck. Isn’t that what you want to say?”
She stood up and looked him straight in the eye.
“I know how you feel,” she said. “I don’t blame you and I cannot tell you how sorry I am. But Shane’s just a kid and he did not mean to get your horse hurt. Even high on whatever it was, he didn’t want that. He asks about Roanie—and you—all the time. He’s worried about it.”
Her calm reasonableness only made Blue’s temper flare.
“Don’t talk down to me,” he said, “and don’t try to get my sympathy. That kid’s had every advantage in the book and thrown it away. He had no reason to ruin a good horse but he did it anyway.”
Her face flushed red across her cheekbones.
“I’ll take care of your horse,” she said, “if I have to drive back and forth from the hospital every day. And it won’t cost you a cent.”
“Forget that,” he said, his blood as hot as the look in her eyes. “I’ll take care of him myself.”
THE NEXT DAY she came rolling in around noon. Blue was riding the bay colt in the meadow at the edge of the bluff. His first instinct was to ignore her.
Which was ridiculous, since she was so stubborn he knew she’d go into Roanie’s stall and try to work on him, whether Roanie wanted her in there with him or not. He rode back to the barn and then past it at a short lope to pull up at the end of her truck. She was already getting her stuff out of the veterinary box built into the back.
“I told you I’d take care of him,” Blue said. “I meant what I said.”
She looked up, solemn for a second, then she gave him an infuriatingly calm and pleasant smile.
“So did I,” she said.
She went back to her task, gathered up what she needed, threw it all in her bag, and carried it toward the barn.
“I flushed it out this morning,” he said. “The fever’s down. I can give him the rest of the antibiotic.”
“I need to clean the wound myself,” she said.
No surprise there.
Blue got down, tied the bay around, and turned him loose in the round pen. By the time he got into the barn, Andie Lee was standing at Roanie’s stall with the door open, offering the horse a carrot. To his surprise, Roanie had come close enough to her to sniff it.
As Blue walked up, the colt’s tongue flicked out for a tentative lick.
“I don’t give stuff like that to my horses…”
Roanie snatched the carrot from Andie Lee’s hand and began to chew.
“…because it’s not good for them, damn it.”
“I don’t normally give treats to another person’s animal without asking permission,” she said, cool as if she were queen.
His anger flared.
“So how come I don’t rate that same courtesy?”
She glanced from Roanie to him.
“In this case, it’s part of his treatment. I assure you that it’s not bad for him.”
Fury rose in Blue.
“Well, it’s not part of his training. You just want him to like you so you can work on him without my help. So you can work on him even when I tell you not to.”
“Don’t you think he deserves a little pleasure? Something new to take his mind off his pain?”
She looked at him, waiting patiently for his answer.
Awareness of her washed over him in a powerful tide. Her scent and her mouth—oh, God, her mouth. She was close enough to touch. As close as she’d been when he kissed her up there on the mountain.
He wanted more than he wanted his next breath to kiss her again.
“You’re a bad actor,” he drawled. “And I mean that in more ways than one.”
She laughed then, and he couldn’t help but smile. He could not help himself. It scared him. He had no control anymore.
“So are you,” she said, smiling. “You’ve just blown your cover as Grizzly Gruff.”
They looked at each other. Neither of them moved. Her gaze drifted to his mouth. She wanted him to kiss her.
“Andie Lee,” he said, “get out of this barn. You can ruin every bit of training I do faster than I can get it solid.”
Her eyes wouldn’t leave him.
“I promise not to touch—or treat—any other horse on this place.”
“Cold comfort,” he said. “You’ve picked my best one.”
My only one. Who used to be the best. Who may be lame from now on. Your taking care of him won’t undo what your stupid son has done.
But he bit his tongue on the words.
Get over it, Bowman. You sound like a baby. Where’s your code? No looking back.
Roanie turned away, chomping slowly on the carrot. He was stiff. Every movement he made hurt him and he had no energy to spare.
The horse deserved the best care and she was the only veterinarian within miles and miles of the ranch.
“All right,” he said, “let me in there. Don’t ever go into his stall without me—he’s too unpredictable.”
“I’ve been around a lot of horses in pain,” she said.
He held the horse’s head while she bent over and looked at the wound.
“Let’s put him in the stock again so I can trim this dead skin away from the edges,” she said. “And I’ll take his vitals again.”
Blue haltered Roanie with no trouble and led him into the stock once more. Andie Lee took the vital signs, announced they were all much better than yesterday’s and then squatted down beside the hurt shoulder and looked at it carefully before she started to work on it.
“I can’t give you a prognosis yet,” she said. “Except to say there’ll be a lot of scar tissue for sure and very possibly some lameness. I’m surprised he can walk as well as he can so far.”
Blue didn’t answer. He was trying not to think about Shane.
She worked in silence for a little while and Roanie stood it pretty well.
“How was Shane when you went back yesterday?”
“Better,” she said. “I’m excited that he’s responding to the treatment they’re giving him. That doctor came to see me yesterday, and after hearing what he had to say, I’m really getting my hopes up that Shane’s hit rock bottom and it’ll all be up for him from here.”
Blue’s heart twisted. Foolish woman. She sounded just like his mother. How many times had Rose gotten her hopes up for Dannah?
But he didn’t want to care—he wasn’t going to care—whether Andie Lee’s hopes would be dashed like Rose’s.
“I’m happy for once in a blue moon,” she said. “And I’m so glad you aren’t ruining it by not letting me help you with Roanie. If I couldn’t take care of him, I’d feel even more in your debt, Blue.”
“You don’t owe me,” he said.
“Yes, I do. Not only for helping me with the search and bringing us safely down the mountain, but for taking Shane on in the first place. He admires you. He’s asking about you.”
He didn’t want to hear that, either. The next thing he knew she’d be asking him to take Shane back again.
“As soon as Roanie’s all clear of infection, I’ll take care of him,” he said.
Their gazes locked when he said it. They looked at each other as if that was not at all what he’d expected to say or what she’d expected to hear.
They looked at each other while Andie Lee got to her feet, caressing Roanie’s back, murmuring to him about how good a patient he’d been. The horse stood still between them while Blue longed to feel her touch on his own skin.
ANDIE LEE APPEARED at about that same time, sometimes a little later, every day for the next three days. Blue had usually ridden half his horses when she got there.
They fell into a routine of taking care of the horse—after he ate a carrot—while she talked about how Shane had slept and what the doctors had said about him on their morning rounds. Then she talked about Shane’s behavior, which included lots of television watching, sometimes even a little conversation, and much less belligerence towards everyone. Blue tried not to hear the hope in her voice and refused to worry about the disappointment that was probably waiting for her.
Then came the morning when he went to the barn at dawn, as usual, and found Roanie’s wound already cleaned and the greasy pink fly repellent already applied. He turned on his heel to look. Andie Lee’s big gray horse was gone from his stall.
There was no sign of a truck and he hadn’t heard one. The sound of a motor outside his window would’ve waked him.
He latched his horse’s stall door closed again and walked to the end of the barn with Roanie hanging his head over and watching his every move. Blue went on outside and stood, sipping his coffee. Finally, he saw them. Halfway down into the valley, the horse and the woman looking smaller than life but not like tiny toys yet.
Andie Lee’s hair and the near-white hide of the horse caught the first climbing rays of the sun.
She had mentioned that she was going to quit spending her nights at the hospital so she could get a room in the big house ready for Shane. He could understand that she didn’t intend to make the trip back to the ranch in the middle of the day, but why not wait until evening to treat the roan? Or why not tell Blue she was coming to do it at dawn?
Maybe she’d just wanted a sunrise ride and had worked on the roan because she happened to be there. But he didn’t think so. Or maybe she had lots of things to do all the rest of the day.
But he thought this had been deliberate, this coming up before daylight to try to help pay the debt she felt she owed him and disappearing before he came to the barn. She didn’t want to see him any more than he wanted to see her.
Because she, too, was beginning to fear the pull of attraction that was always between them.
Which told him that she’d felt the power of that kiss on the mountain, just as he had, and didn’t want to risk another one.
Didn’t it? Could that be true or was he imagining it?
Bowman, you’re losing your mind. Whatever reason doesn’t matter. Be glad she won’t be here for one day, at least.
He made himself turn and go back into the barn to start his workday. He set the coffee down and broke off a couple of flakes of hay.
“Hey, you,” he said softly to the colt, as he carried them in to him, “so you let Andie Lee work on you, huh? I thought you didn’t trust anybody but me. You going soft just because you like a carrot once in awhile?”
Andie Lee had taken a chance. But the colt would remember her making him feel better up at the Sevenmile camp, too, and her ministrations every day had made him used to her.
Despite all that, she had a lot of guts, Andie Lee did. And a big sense of responsibility.
It was sad that she felt so responsible for everything Shane did. It wasn’t her fault that he made the choices he made.
Hey, wait a minute, Bowman. Wasn’t it Gordon’s fault that Dannie made the choices she made? Then how come you’re making him pay for her death?
That was an entirely different deal. Andie Lee had been there for Shane, loving him every single minute of his life, trying to do everything she could to make him grow up right. Gordon had never come around or even acknowledged that Dannah was alive. That had made him such a huge, exciting mystery that she’d hooked up with that scumbag dope peddler again to come and see her fascinating rich rancher daddy.
Those thoughts set such a fire in his blood that Blue banished everyone human from his mind as best he could and filled it with the horses and what he needed to accomplish with each one of them that day. Until he went in for breakfast and found Micah in fine form, serving up lots of talk while he cooked scrambled eggs and bacon.
Thank goodness the food would be ready in a minute and then there’d be silence while they ate.
“You’ll have to cook for yourself pretty soon,” Micah called through the back screen door. “When I go into town today fer my supplies, I’ll git yours, too.”
Blue finished washing up out on the porch, dried his hands and came in.
“You movin’ out and leavin’ me or what?”
Micah opened the oven door and looked in at the biscuits.
“Fer a few days. Gordon’s decided to take me along to cook fer the hay crews so’s they can camp and not take the time to go back and forth every night.”
“No problem,” Blue said.
“I aim to take the chuckwagon instead o’ tryin’ to clean up the kitchens in any of them old cabins,” he said. “Gordon don’t know it yet, but I am.”
The biscuits came out, Micah put it all on the table and they ate without talking, as always. As they got up from the table, Micah said, “I told Andie Lee to call on you if she needs anything when she brings the boy home.”
Blue stared at him. “When’s that?”
“Don’t know yit. But I’ll be gone at least a week, startin’ the day after tomorrow.”
She wouldn’t ask him. Not if she was avoiding him now. There were a dozen men living around headquarters whom she’d known for years. If she made sure not to see Blue when she doctored his horse, why would she call on him for help?
The day turned out to be hotter than any they’d had so far this summer, but Blue didn’t cut himself any slack. He worked the colts in the round pen, then rode each one all around Micah’s and down the road a little. Andie Lee never did bring her gray horse back. When Blue and Micah did the evening chores, the gray’s stall stood empty
Micah noticed it, too. “Told me she can’t sleep,” he said. “I told her she needs to start ridin’ again. That’ll help her more than anything.”
Blue felt a sharp stab of what must be jealousy. A feeling of betrayal. She hadn’t said anything to him about any trouble sleeping.
“Hard thing, not being able to sleep,” he said, thinking of that first endless year he’d been in prison.
“You can say that again,” Micah said. “Miserable. I never was troubled with it but once or twice in my life.”
“’Cause you talk all the time you’re awake,” Blue said. “When you close your jaw, your eyes close, too, and you’re so tired you go right to sleep.”
Micah laughed. “Bad-mouth me all you want,” he said. “You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone and you’re cookin’ fer yourself.”
The next morning, the gray was in his stall, Andie Lee’s sorrel was gone and Roanie was cleaned up and doctored once again.
It gave Blue the strangest feeling. As if the barn wasn’t completely under his control anymore. As if he were invisible. Or so important she would go to such great lengths not to see him.
It felt like an insult, somehow.
What was the matter with him? He ought to be relieved.
The third morning it was the same, except the sorrel was there and the gray was gone.
Then Blue felt foolish. As if she were playing a trick on him and he couldn’t do anything about it.
No, he felt insulted. She had chattered away to him for all those days in a row and now she was treating him as if he didn’t exist.
Micah came out to the barn to saddle Shorty for the trip, explaining that somebody else would drive the chuckwagon because he wanted to explore a little as he went. He hadn’t been over to any of those parts of the ranch in a long time. Since last year.
He glanced at the gray’s stall.
“Andie Lee still ain’t sleepin’,” he said. “Ramon said she made him move all the furniture out of the room next to hers and put in a hospital bed and she scrubbed everything down and put up pictures on the walls and I don’t know what all. She didn’t tell me all that ’cause she knew I’d give her hell about doin’ too much.”
He fixed Blue with his sharp old eyes.
“If Shane don’t straighten up after all this, I aim to call the law to come and git him,” he said. “Or else run him off so far into the ranch he’ll have to fight a bear to git back here.”
Then he swung up stiffly into the saddle and, after only two more orders for Blue about things to do while he was gone, he rode away. Blue settled into the quiet. He worked harder than usual all morning, enjoying being alone with no one around to bother him.
But he took a shorter lunch break than usual because he never could relax enough to lie down on the porch. That evening, although it was nearly nine o’clock when he finally quit work and showered and ate supper, he sat outside watching the stars until it must’ve been way after midnight.
Still, he woke early the next morning. Way early.
Probably because he was alone in the house. Most mornings, he could hear Micah thumping around.
It hit him, then, that he had changed. He’d already become accustomed to being in a real house with someone else always there. He’d gotten used to sleeping in a real bed and living like a regular human being.
He wasn’t a regular human being, though, because of his plans and he had to keep them in mind. He’d be gone from the ranch one of these days, probably by the end of the summer.
So he might as well get up now and enjoy its beauty. Dawn wasn’t any prettier anywhere—he could never get enough of the way the dark mountains on the west side of the valley lit up and turned to rose when the sun came up.
He pulled his jeans, then his boots and shirt on, and went to start the coffee. Then he stepped out onto the front porch to feel the morning.
A light was on in the barn. Andie Lee.
The thought that he’d waked early because he’d intended all along to catch her there drifted into his mind and floated through like a leaf falling to a bedrock of truth. It couldn’t be true, but it was. He had feelings, not only for Micah, but for Andie Lee, too.
Foolish feelings of liking and desire that could lead nowhere but to trouble for them both.
He’d take care of that right now. He’d tell her he didn’t need her for Roanie anymore. After all, the infection was gone.
He took the steps two at a time, long strides to the barn, and walked in through the east door. Roanie nickered a greeting and stuck his head over. Blue touched his nose in answer, but his eyes were on Andie Lee.
She was standing in the other end of the aisle with her back to him, looking out across the dark valley. Maybe she, too, liked to see the rosy light wash over the mountains.
It wasn’t until she turned around that he remembered he hadn’t buttoned his shirt.
“Blue,” she said, surprised.
He thought, again, that no one else had ever said his name the way she did.
Quick desire rose in him at the sight of her face.
He’d have to be strong.
“If you’re gonna run all over the country by yourself all night, you’d damn well better know it when somebody walks up behind you,” he snapped.
Her eyes widened, then narrowed, as she looked him over. A smile touched the corners of her mouth.
“That’s sweet of you to worry about me,” she said.
“I’m not.”
The smile vanished.
“Well, then,” she said sharply. “Don’t talk as if you are.”
She walked toward him.
“I don’t like anybody in my barn when I’m not around,” he said. “Roanie’s healing. I’ll take care of him and you can stop sneaking around.”
She stopped, just within his easy reach.
“Go back to bed,” she said. “You got up on the wrong side of it this morning.”
When he didn’t answer, she searched his face.
“This strikes me as something akin to looking a gift horse in the mouth. I’m taking care of your horse for free and you’re fussing about when I do it.”
“I can do it.”
“I need to check his wound every once in a while. And I’m just trying to relieve you of one chore out of your day. I owe you, and you know it.”
“No,” he said.
“Alone, odds are that I’d never have brought Shane down off the mountain alive,” she said. “I told you. I’m happy to do something for you.”
She started past him, reaching to open the door of Roanie’s stall. He laid his hand on the top of it and caught her against his arm.
“Give me a break,” she snapped. “What’s the matter with you?”
“It’s you,” he said, and then he realized how that sounded. He added, “Something’s wrong with you, coming in and out of here like a ghost every night.”
She took a step away from his arm and stood with her back against the stall door. He left his hand where it was.
“I wanted to see you, Blue,” she said, as if not seeing her was what he was bent out of shape about. “But…”
He waited, but she didn’t finish the sentence.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said.
He snapped every word off his tongue, crisp and strong.
She waited. He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t quite think what to say that he did mean.
They just stood there, looking at each other, in the harsh circle made by the overhead light. Roanie bumped restlessly against the wall but they ignored him.
He wondered what she could see in his eyes. He was trying not to let her see anything in them—especially not that he wanted to hold her more than he’d known he could want it until this very minute.
“I…was getting afraid that if we were alone again,” she said slowly, “I would shamelessly throw myself into your arms the way I did up there at the Sevenmile.”
She actually said that to him. With her beautiful mouth.
It stopped his breath in his throat. She did want him to hold her again. She did want him to kiss her.
She hadn’t forgotten that kiss on the mountain.
“I was afraid,” she said, and she came closer to him, “that if I got half a chance I’d do something like this.”
She slipped her hands underneath his shirt and up over his ribs. From the first brush of her fingertips on his bare skin, Andie Lee’s touch traveled all the way through him like sudden sunshine melting his bones.
Blue let his arms fall to surround her. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind that holding her would only make it harder to step away from her before things went past a kiss. He knew that this way lay trouble, much trouble, but he let himself hold her.
It was so new to him—touching her shoulders, her back, resting his hands at her small waist. He didn’t add any pressure. He didn’t pull her closer because he didn’t want to be responsible. On her own, she came in against him with a sigh.
“Blue,” she said, and laid her face against him, twining her arms around him to press her body against his.
She gave a relieved sigh and stood very still.
She wore a long-sleeved shirt against the early morning chill, but she had the sleeves rolled up and he could feel the soft fabric at the small of his back and then the even softer skin of her wrists. And her hands. They held him, cupping his sides as if she were holding him together.
That and her cheek on his chest created so many sensations he hardly knew where to put them. So many tender touches and warm embraces. It was as if he’d walked into a different world.
Scraps of memories flew into his head here and there but the desire rising in him erased them and then there was only reality. This moment. He wanted to live it. He was living it now, after so many like it had been nothing but dreams.
He looked down at the top of her head. Her hair gleamed bright against the darkness of his skin.
“I saw you the other morning on the gray,” he said. “That trail’s too steep and rough to ride before sunup.”
He said it before he even knew he was going to speak and then he wished he hadn’t.
She lifted her head and looked up at him.
At least it put a little space between them. Maybe it was good he said it. He had to break this up, one way or another.
Yet he couldn’t open his arms and let go of her.
“Aha, caught you,” she said, her eyes smiling. “I thought you weren’t worried about me.”
“I’m not,” he said again.
She grinned. “That’s your story and you’re stickin’ to it, but now I know that at least in the past you worried about me.”
Lighthearted. She sounded so lighthearted. This was a different Andie Lee.
He couldn’t resist grinning back at her, even while he was shaking his head at her silliness.
“Why were you riding that trail? You could’ve gone around by the road.”
She let her arms drop to step back and look at him. His whole body disagreed with him. It didn’t want to break this up at all.
“Trying to prove I’m still alive, I guess.”
Solemn. She offered that without a smile. With an air of waiting.
As if wanting to hear his opinion of the idea.
“You might prove you aren’t if you keep riding down that hill in the dark.”
“There you go, worrying again.”
He didn’t answer. He only looked at her.
She looked at him. Waiting for something else. Waiting for his opinion of her other idea.
As if he’d never thought of it himself. He could almost feel her hands on his skin again.
Her gaze drifted to his mouth and lingered there.
“Now and again, everybody needs to put a little edge on their life,” she said.
She wanted him.
He wanted her.
Watch yourself, Bowman. Even one time will be trouble. You’re gonna want another time. And another. And what more will she want?
She was waiting, still looking at him as if she didn’t want to look at anything else.
“I put some coffee on,” he said.
They walked to the house without talking. Without touching.
You’re letting your guard down, Bowman. You’re losing your control. You’re letting your pecker lead you around, which never is a good idea.
Up the steps and across the porch. He held the door for her and she walked in. The minute he stepped into the house behind her, they stopped and turned to each other.
She came into his arms. They seemed to have opened and reached for her all on their own.
“Blue…” She whispered his name against his lips, which seemed to have parted all on their own.
He held her closer and then closer still, bending her slender body back until he cradled her head in one palm and filled the small of her back with the other. He brushed her lips once, lightly, just for the taste, and then traced the shape of them with the tip of his tongue.
Deliberately he explored her mouth, dropping one small kiss at the corner and another in the middle where her upper lip made a perfect bow and the lower one was fullest. He took his time, savoring the moment. Kissing her was even sweeter when he knew for sure she wanted it.
But she wrapped her arms up under his shoulders and pressed herself even closer and he took her mouth in a long, slow kiss that she returned with a passion.
He broke the kiss and pulled back to look at her face.
There was such a vulnerable look in her eyes that it seared him.
“You don’t know me,” he said. “Maybe…”
“All I want is to be a woman for a little while. Just a woman, not a mother or a veterinarian or a stepdaughter. I’m about to lose myself, Blue.”
He took her shoulders in his big hands. Her muscles were small but strong as her will.
He knew how she felt. He was pretty damned strong, too, but there’d been a time or two he thought he might lose himself.
“Hold on,” he said, and kissed her again.
She parted her lips and gave him the heat of her tongue. She bit his lower lip gently and pulled on it, gave as good as she got until they both had to have breath.
“Keep that up and you’ll let the coffee get cold,” he said.
She turned away, and as she did, flashed him a look that pierced him with desire.
“Can we see the mountains from your bed?”
“That depends,” he drawled, and took the hand she held back for him.
It’d be okay. She wasn’t getting attached to him or anything like that. She just needed a little help getting through a rough patch right now.
She was right. People did need to keep an edge on their lives.