In the week since Open House, Brandy’s sullenness had deepened into outright animosity. Yesterday the simple request that she rewrite an illegible assignment had brought on a temper tantrum that had earned the girl ten minutes in time out. The day before she had been reprimanded for pushing in line. The day before that for saying a bad word.
The confrontation which had been building had the feel of an old-time shoot-out at high noon.
“You’re not my mother, and you can’t tell me what to do!”
Arms akimbo, Brandy challenged her teacher in front of the entire class. Standing defiantly rigid beside her desk, she refused to erase the message she had written on the chalkboard when Carrie’s back was turned.
“Go home Jackalope Marm!”
Carrie took a deep breath and checked her watch. “The rest of the class is dismissed for recess.”
Taking her time arranging papers on her desk, she waited for the last student to leave the room before meeting Brandy’s icy sapphire eyes straight-on.
“What’s this all about?” she demanded.
“Why don’t you just go home where you belong?” the girl snapped.
“What on earth would make you say that?”
Carrie truly wanted to understand the reason for Brandy’s sudden public display of antipathy. In the three weeks that school had been underway, she had made a determined effort to reach out with kindness to the youngster who bristled like a porcupine whenever she was offered a simple compliment. No matter how surly or contrary Brandy reacted, Carrie persisted in chipping away at her defenses with patience and kind- ness. And up until Open House, she had felt certain that they were making progress toward establishing a posi- tive connection. Had Judson repeated her concerns and somehow upset the girl?
“You just should, that’s all,” the child mumbled.
“Come on, out with it,” Carrie persisted. “You can be honest with me.”
At this, Brandy quirked an eyebrow exactly as her father did before speaking his mind. “Okay—you don’t have to leave, but I want you to leave my daddy alone!”
The earnestness of the entreaty rendered Carrie speechless. Aware that Brandy was closely monitoring her reaction, baiting her for any defensive response that would help justify her blatant disrespect, she knew it was crucial to remain not only calm but also empathetic. Carrie chose to let Brandy have her uninterrupted say.
Tossing a long, dark braid over her shoulder, the girl offered a curious explanation. “You’re no good for him…You’re gonna get him in trouble!”
Carrie’s brow wrinkled in confusion. Since when did Judson Horn need protection from anything or any- body?
“What kind of trouble are you talking about?” she asked.
“The kind of trouble an Indian gets into when he looks at a white woman the wrong way! The kind that’ll get me killed on the playground!”
Carrie was shocked. Recalling Cody Trent’s barroom racial slurs, she realized she really shouldn’t be. In a community as small and conservative as this, it was little wonder that Brandy had been privy to some un- savory stories about her father’s background. What she didn’t realize was that Judson himself had openly dis- cussed the scars upon his back with both his children. That a couple of Brandy’s classmates continued to em- bellish the story just to see her fly into a rage was com- mon knowledge to everyone but Carrie herself.
A profusion of questions tumbled through her mind. Had she somehow been the cause of someone taunting Brandy or Cowboy at recess? Had Judson perhaps broached the topic of their budding relationship with his children? Was the chemistry between them as obvious to everyone as it apparently was to Brandy? Could her feelings for him really put him in danger?
Seeing the girl’s hands clenched into tight fists at her sides, Carrie worried more for any would-be tormenter than for Brandy herself. A formidable opponent for even the older boys in the class, Brandy would likely make short order of any woman casting sidelong glances in her father’s direction.
Suddenly the cause of the child’s misbehavior seemed obvious to Carrie. Having been the queen of the house for over a decade, Brandy wasn’t about to give up her position without a fight. Frightened by the prospect of losing her most precious possession—her fa- ther—she had come up swinging.
“You’re just like her!” Brandy stormed with a mewl of pain.
Carrie understood that she was referring to her mother, the woman Judson said had abandoned the twins at birth.
The vulnerability so carefully hidden behind Bran- dy’s hard tomboy facade rose to the surface as tears puddled in eyes so very like her father’s. Though Carrie longed to reach out, wrap her arms around the child and quash all of her fears, she didn’t dare. The probability was high that the girl would react like a cornered wol- verine. Suspecting that the girl carried inside her the deep-seated belief that she was unlovable and had somehow caused her mother to reject her, Carrie felt certain that Brandy needed time, patience and a good counselor. The hard part was going to be convincing Judson.
Taking the girl’s hand into her own, Carrie squeezed reassuringly. That Brandy did not immediately pull away was encouraging.
“Don’t you think maybe you’re overreacting? You have nothing to fear from me, Brandy,” Carrie contin- ued gently. “Love isn’t a competition. It’s never less- ened in the giving.”
Carrie knew it might be too much to expect a child, so deeply hurt and scared, to reason like an adult. Al- ready having lost her mother, Brandy obviously couldn’t afford risking the loss of her father, as well. But Carrie persisted, trying to reason with her.
“Sweetheart, don’t you know how much your father loves you? That nobody in this whole world can take him away from you?”
Crossing her fingers behind her back, Brandy asked with false nonchalance, “Do you know that Daddy’s going to marry Estelle?”
The news struck Carrie like a meteor. White-hot pain sliced through her. Exposed to this unexpected revelation, all the lies she ever had told herself about not falling for Judson simply fell apart.
Anger immediately followed on the heels of anguish. Carrie resisted the urge to grab the closest object and fling it against the wall in a temper tantrum to rival the eruption of Mount St. Helen’s. She was an idiot, and all men were jerks out to play her for the fool. Judson Horn and Scott Ballson were the same under the skin— brother skunks.
It was hard to believe that a man could kiss her so passionately without giving any indication that he was actually engaged to someone else. Carrie couldn’t imag- ine when it could have happened. Then again, Estelle had made quite a point of telling her that Judson wasn’t the marrying kind, and as mad as she had been the night of the party, the fiery beauty had left Carrie with the definite impression that their relationship was on the skids.
Was it possible that Brandy had simply made the whole story up for reasons of her own?
Politely congratulating Brandy on her father’s up- coming wedding, Carrie sent her out for the last few minutes of recess. Bright and early tomorrow morning she intended to pay Mr. Horn a visit at home. If Brandy was lying, it would simply highlight the need for her to seek counseling. If she was telling the truth, Carrie would simply have to make Judson rue the day he’d ever been born.
Judson prided himself on the fact that there was little on earth that scared him. And that’s what made Carrie’s kisses all the more disturbing. They left him shaking in his size twelve boots. Something in those feathery-soft kisses resurrected a demon he thought he had slain a long, long time ago. For the past two nights, his sleep had been riddled with erotic, impossible dreams that left him sheathed in sweat.
Even if he could bring himself to simply stay away from Carrie in the future, which he sincerely doubted, she would probably suspect the truth—that he was avoiding her out of pure fear. Fear that history would repeat itself in the same ugly pattern etched upon his back. This time, however, Judson knew there was more to consider than just himself. He had to think about how any relationship he entered into would ultimately affect his children. His first obligation was to them. And though he had the sneaking suspicion that Cowboy would be delighted to see his father’s relationship with his teacher blossom into something more constant, he wasn’t sure how Brandy would react.
Shucking off his covers, Judson decided that it was a perfect day to ride out to check on his hunting camp before the season opened—anything to put as much dis- tance between him and the enchanting pair of emerald eyes that had tormented him throughout the nights.
Besides it was a matter of necessity to get things ready for the arrival of the rich Eastern clients whom he was expecting. What they were paying for was a trophy hunt, not any part of the work required to make it happen. It would certainly be easier to make prepa- rations now while the weather was still relatively nice than to try and fight the snow and bitter cold that was sure to come.
Carrie was up with the sunrise Saturday morning de- termined to seek out the truth of Brandy’s claim that her father was soon to be married. She poured herself a cup of coffee to drink on the way over to Judson’s ranch, the Blue Sky Lodge. Though much of the snow from earlier in the week had already disappeared, it felt like the cold had settled in for what was going to be a very long winter. Patches of thin ice cracked beneath her boots as she made her way from her pickup to the corral where Judson was in the process of saddling up his favorite stallion, a black cutting horse, Cowboy had told her was named Washakie.
The uneven ground, stamped by tire treads and horse hooves, was muddy in spots where the ice had yielded to the sun. Carrie had dressed appropriately in jeans, a bulky coat and boots. She stopped for a moment to ob- serve Judson pull himself into the saddle with the un- conscious grace of a natural athlete. Tall and at ease in the saddle, Carrie thought the expression “larger than life” fit Judson Horn as well as those worn jeans that caused her pulse to flutter so. When he finally turned his head and marked her presence, she noticed that the contours of his face were as sharp and clean as the Wind River Mountains looming in the background.
His sexy Western drawl was slow and easy. “What brings you here so early on a Saturday morning?” he asked, characteristically getting to the point without any small talk.
The gravel in that voice was unmistakable in the way it wound itself around her nerve endings. The memory of this man’s kisses was still warm upon her lips, send- ing a quiver of liquid fire to a place low and deep in her body. The sky was as vivid blue as the eyes that swept over her.
In that instant Judson noted that Carrie had on the same shiny, new boots that she had worn at the Harvest Ball and a pair of jeans that caused a man to consider the need for a cold shower.
“I need to talk to you.”
Her tone indicated that this was not a social visit, and the sudden surge of joy Judson felt at seeing Carrie so unexpectedly was replaced by an ominous sense of mis- giving.
It had been his experience that whenever someone from school came calling, it meant trouble. Many had been the time when he had covered his mother’s drunken form beneath a blanket to face the authorities by himself, armed only with the standard line that his mom was too sick to come to the door.
Carrie’s somber manner created a sense of déjà vu that made Judson instinctively protective of his own brood. What had those two rascals of his been up to now?
Beneath the brim of his hat, blue eyes issued a chal- lenge as he bent to offer her a hand. “Hop on if you want to talk. I’ve got business to attend to.”
Carrie eyed the beast critically.
A cynical smile curled Judson’s lips. He was sure she had about as much desire to spend time on horseback as he did attending a high society tea.
But Carrie had only to think of her reason for being here to put aside her apprehension about climbing atop a horse as big as a building. She firmly clasped Judson’s outstretched hand. He pulled her up with little effort, leaving her to figure out some way to keep from falling off the back end of the horse.
Judson kneed the horse, and Carrie was pitched for- ward against a back as sturdy as the wall that she was certain to encounter in the ensuing conversation. Slip- ping her hands around his waist, she made a wild grab for the saddle horn.
“It’s not a brake,” Judson chided, covering her hands with his own.
How rough those hands felt against her own smooth skin. Unbidden images of those masculine hands ca- ressing every inch of her body caused Carrie to squirm uncomfortably. Each surefooted step the horse took along the trail jostled her against Judson’s lean, hard body. Feeling her heart beating rhythmically next to his, she became aware how very like two nesting spoons their bodies fit together.
Amazed at how truly powerful the animal underneath her was, Carrie could better understand how a man like Judson was so intrinsically connected to the land. The horse himself seemed an inviolate link to his indepen- dent way of life.
After a while Judson asked, “What’s so pressing that you felt the need to make a personal house call?”
“I understand that congratulations are in order.”
“What for?” Judson asked, thinking perhaps one of the children had won some kind of an academic contest.
“On your upcoming marriage to Estelle Hanway.”
Judson pulled hard on Washakie’s reins and twisted around in the saddle to look her square in the face. “Where in the hell did you get that idea?” he de- manded in an accusatory manner.
“Brandy told me.”
“Where’d she get that idea?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out,” Carrie replied evenly.
“Well, it certainly wasn’t from me!”
Seeing the doubt and the pain reflected in the endless meadows of Carrie’s green eyes, Judson found himself on the defensive. Every time Estelle brought up the is- sue of matrimony, he had made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t ever going to marry again. He doubted that she was the source of this disquieting rumor.
The whole thing was as puzzling to him as the war- iness reflected in Carrie’s manner. True, he had de- ceived her with that harmless jackalope story, but after the way he had kissed her the other night, Judson couldn’t imagine that she would doubt his feelings to- ward her. What kind of a man did she think he was anyway?
“Estelle and I are just old friends. She’d like it to be more than that, but I’m not in love with her and I wouldn’t hurt her like that.”
For a man not used to explaining himself, Judson felt it important to set the record straight. As much as he hated to admit it, he did care what Carrie thought of him.
“It might come as a surprise to you, Carrie, but I don’t sleep around. That’s not the kind of example I want to set as a father. If anyone knows that actions speak louder than words, it’s me.”
Carrie didn’t know that the specifics of that heartfelt statement included a lifetime of pain and disappoint- ment. She only knew that beneath Judson’s clear gaze, her doubts scattered like glittering bits of stardust. Ever since Brandy had informed Carrie that her father was engaged, she had been walking around with a great big rock dead-center in the middle of her chest. Relief shat- tered that rock into a million pieces and sent her heart soaring.
Unlike Scott, this man was neither a user nor a liar. If Judson was engaged to be married, clearly it was news to him. For some reason, Brandy had invented this whole story, and Carrie could see it only as a cry for help. One she desperately wanted to answer.
“Jud, your daughter told me in no uncertain terms that I was to stay away from you—that you were al- ready spoken for.”
“Why would she say such a thing when she knows it isn’t true?” Judson was truly perplexed. Females, whatever their age, were a complete conundrum to him.
Carrie offered the only obvious answer. “Maybe be- cause she hates me.”
Her hurt tone implied that her concern was more than just professional.
Washakie’s steady clip-clopping through the ice on the trail was the only other sound as she relayed the “jackalope marm” incident and ensuing conference she’d had with Brandy.
“Hold on,” Judson directed, maneuvering the stal- lion onto a less-traveled trail.
Instinctively Carrie wrapped her arms more tightly around his waist.
“Didn’t you tell me just the other night that you hated me?” he chided gently.
Embarrassed to have her own words thrown back at her, Carrie buried her face in the fur-lined collar of his coat. His neck smelled clean and kissable.
“That was different,” she protested. “I was scared. And you know that I don’t really hate you.”
“Then you should know that Brandy doesn’t really hate you, either. Has it ever occurred to you that she might simply feel threatened by our relationship?”
Carrie swallowed hard, knowing that this wouldn’t be easy to admit. “Actually, Brandy’s not the only one who’s scared. To be perfectly honest, my own feelings for you are pretty frightening. You might as well know the reason for my fears is that I once made the mistake of getting involved with my boss. It was disastrous. In fact, it ended up costing me my job.”
Judson had wondered what the impetus had been for a woman like Carrie to suddenly move to such an iso- lated place. No wonder she had been so angry when she had discovered that he was chairman of the school board. No wonder his little practical joke had left such a sour taste in her mouth. He wanted to kick himself a hundred times over for his insensitivity.
At a loss for words, Judson found himself in the unenviable position of being pulled between the two strongest yet most vulnerable women in his life, Carrie and his daughter.
He had noticed that Brandy had been acting peculiar lately. When he’d come home late from the Open House the other day, she had been waiting up for him. The instant he’d opened the front door, she’d pounced on him demanding to know where he’d been. At the time Judson had dismissed her odd behavior as the onslaught of puberty, that perplexing condition that prompted her to lock herself in her bedroom one minute and throw her arms around his neck the very next.
Judson sighed philosophically. “Well, darlin’, it looks like we’re all going to need a little bit of time adjusting to one another and overcoming our personal fears.” He certainly didn’t exclude himself on this count.
Continuing on in a voice both tender and confident, he assured her, “I’ll do my very best to earn your trust, and I don’t doubt that sooner or later Brandy’ll get used to the idea that she’s going to have to share her daddy with another woman. Once she figures out that you’re not out to steal all my love from her, she’ll be all right.”
Carrie’s breath caught in her throat. Had she heard him correctly? Had he actually used the word love?
Squinting against a sky too bright to look at with open eyes, Carrie felt her heart soar as high as the red- tailed hawk circling above. She rested her head against Judson’s broad back and considered the future. Not so long ago she had thought herself too damaged by Scott’s deception to ever open herself to another man’s advances. Now she wasn’t so sure.
Deep inside, Carrie knew both she and Judson carried a lot of emotional baggage that precluded either of them plunging headfirst into a relationship. Once she wished to dismiss the physical attraction she felt for Judson as being nothing more than a dream, a snowy, warm, wet dream that threatened to consume her body and soul and dissolve all her inhibitions and fears into a puddle of slush…Now in the dawn of a new day with her heart pumping out a wild, savage beat in time with Judson’s own heart, Carrie no longer wanted to pretend that what she was feeling was anything less than love. True, ach- ing, frightening, wonderful love.
Old fears about becoming involved with the boss dis- solved beneath a sun that glistened on the melting snow like a field of diamonds. Judson was not Scott, she re- minded herself. He wasn’t even technically her boss; it wasn’t as though he was in charge of evaluating her or anything. And hadn’t he just admitted that he wasn’t the kind of man who would use a woman just because she was willing and available?
There was something comfortably moral and upright about Judson. You could see it in the way he was raising his children. How rare was the man who would accept such responsibility, rising to the daily challenges of being a single father and provider. Carrie suspected that he would be as repulsed by Scott’s underage choice of a sexual partner as she had been. Maybe even more so.
Carrie told herself that it was cowardly to allow past disappointments to keep her heart a prisoner forever. Promising to move forward in this relationship slowly, one step at a time, she knew she owed herself no less.
As they picked their way up the rock-studded hillside, it seemed to her that this land was too vast to be con- tained in the human heart. Somehow this simple life in the outback of Wyoming seemed more real than the one she had left behind. The sun here, unencumbered by smog and skyscrapers, nourished those plants strong enough to withstand its direct rays. Drinking in the warm sunshine, Carrie felt herself putting down deep roots.
Judson coaxed his horse through a narrow crevice in the face of the sheer canyon walls. Nature had cleverly obscured the opening. Reminded of the biblical refer- ence of a camel passing through the eye of a needle, Carrie gasped in surprise as the aperture opened to a piece of heaven on earth.
A natural spring bubbled out of a cleft in the rocks to feed a small, crystalline pool surrounded on all sides by towering sandstone walls. Strange rock paintings of primitive creatures adorned the walls. Instinctively un- derstanding she was on sacred ground, Carrie felt a shiver pass through her.
How many years ago had ancient travelers left their marks unobtrusively upon these walls in shades of char- coal and berry? She couldn’t help but wonder what had inspired one particular drawing of what looked like a spaceman. The smudge of primitive fires still clung to the sandstone cliffs, and when Carrie closed her eyes she could almost hear the beat of primal drums.
Silently Judson dismounted. As he lifted his hands to her, Carrie abandoned herself to the sensation of falling, falling, falling…into a pair of sure arms. Feeling the impact of his arms crushing her body against his broad chest, she longed to taste his lips upon her own again. A sweet ache spread through her like wildfire, making her tingle all over in anticipation.
Judson noted that the sunlight caught in the wild tum- ble of her silken hair made Carrie look as pretty as a model. Sternly he reminded himself that this picture of youthful innocence was exactly the reason why he should stay far, far away from her. He knew his inten- tions were not the kind one should be entertaining about a respectable schoolteacher.
His troubled past alone would be enough to destroy her reputation, and if some of the community’s more vocal bigots got wind of the fact that Carrie was ro- mantically involved with a half-breed, he suspected they’d do their best to make her life a living hell. The thought drove a skewer right through his heart. He didn’t want to be responsible for running off the best teacher who had ever graced the grounds of Harmony.
That thought, combined with the deep reverence he felt for this particular place, stopped him from taking her as he wished, this very instant, to couple beside these placid waters like animals uninhibited by unnat- ural constraints. But this was not some teenagers’ lov- er’s lane; it was holy ground. No matter how badly his body cried out for release, Judson would not violate honored tradition. Truly there was something mystical about this secluded hollow. This was the navel of the earth, connecting him to the land, to his ancestors, and ultimately to himself. In the breaching of a humpback whale, in the thunder of a herd of buffalo, in the strength of a cougar’s awesome paw, in the proud toss of a wild horse’s mane was the presence of the Great Spirit. It was a presence that shrouded this place in mys- tery and kept it hidden from sacrilegious interlopers.
“I’d appreciate it if you don’t tell anyone about this place,” he said softly. “It’s not just that it’s on my own private property, it’s also part of my heritage, and I don’t want a bunch of overzealous archaeologists dis- turbing the spirits.”
“I won’t,” she promised.
That Judson had brought her here, an outsider in every sense, touched Carrie more deeply than she cared to admit. There were no words to express the over- whelming sense of serenity the place evoked in her. Clearly Judson remained faithful to his Native Ameri- can heritage in his respect for Mother Earth. She felt truly privileged to share this hallowed ground with a man who managed to keep the very best of both of his cultures without compromising either.
The sincerity glistening in those eyes of satin green quelled any need Judson felt to press her further. The lessons of the past were but ashes in the wind. By in- viting her here, Judson had opened his heart up to in- spection. Like the consecrated waters bubbling forth from the hidden spring that fed this clear font, his life- blood was similarly protected by sheer walls of stone. Etched upon them was an abiding reverence for the land itself, for the time-honored traditions of his ancestors, and for the love of a vanishing way of life.
Delving into eyes as trusting as a fawn’s, Judson recognized the acceptance for which he had been searching all his life. A husky murmur caught in his throat as he pulled Carrie into the circle of his embrace. For a long time they remained entwined in one another’s arms, paying homage to the past and welcoming the future.
Undisturbed by the outside world, they tasted the im- measurable potential of what could be—if only they could find the courage to overcome the obstacles in their way and learn to trust in one another.