KNIGHT IN A WHITE STETSON Read online

  "So they came to my ranch to look for you. How long did you think you could use me to hide out?"

  "I wasn't using you. I didn't even know about you until I found you on that road with a flat tire." His tone was unreadable, but he hurt. The rejection was a slap, and just because he'd been expecting it, it didn't lessen the sting. He rested his hand on his knee and concentrated on not touching her. "I was finished with my little tour of the West, and since I'd spent most of my childhood on my grandfather's ranch in California, this seemed like a good place to stop and regroup."

  "Great. Well, thanks for choosing Hot Sulphur Lake for your regrouping. But now you're going to have to leave. I can't involve my family in this. The ranch is in a precarious enough position as it is." She paused. "My God, Henry, I feel like I just stepped off a cliff."

  "I know. But I can't leave right now. And I can't let you go back to the ranch."

  Calla had had enough. She shoved him off her cot with her bare feet. He caught himself before he tumbled to the floor. She stood next to her cot, her nightgown settling around her ankles. "You keep saying that, but you're wrong, spud. You are going to leave and I am going back to the ranch. The cows can wait until I hire another cowboy or until Lester gets back from Reno. I don't want you or your Perfect Soil or your secrets anywhere near us. I don't want them anywhere near Paradise. I have more than enough to handle as it is. I have the bank breathing down my neck, I have to deal with Clark and his prenuptial agreement, I have a mysterious bunch of developers sneaking around…"

  Henry reached up and put his hands firmly on her hips. The movement stilled her instantly.

  "Someone is watching you, Calla. I saw him at the wedding."

  Calla sank back down onto her cot. Her eyes were wide. "What?"

  "Someone is watching you," he repeated. "And until I talk to Pete and find out who it is, I can't take any chances. I think it's probably just routine surveillance—" Henry lifted a bare shoulder "—but then again, this guy was a local yokel, and the people I know don't usually hire locals for that kind of job."

  "Oh, my God." Calla's head was spinning. Someone had been at Helen's wedding, watching her? Someone from this weird world to which Henry and his beautiful ex-wife and funny, smooth-talking Peter Fish belonged? Suddenly, Two Creek didn't seem nearly far enough away from the rest of the world. Suddenly, she wished cow camp were in the middle of the Himalayas. "Routine surveillance?" she whispered. "I can't believe this."

  Henry stood in front of her, measuring her reactions with that warm, steady regard. She wanted to punch him. She also wanted to wrap herself up in his strong bare arms and allow him to take care of all this for her. He had been very good at taking care of her so far. Maybe he'd prove as effective at this odd job as he had at all the odd jobs he'd been doing for the Hot Sulphur these past few weeks.

  What was she thinking? She always depended upon herself. She was no damsel in distress; he no knight in shining armor. She put her head in her hands.

  "I'm not happy about this," she mumbled.

  "I know," he said simply. "I'm sorry."

  "What's going to happen now?"

  Henry laughed again, a hollow sound. "I wish I knew. I've left messages for Pete. He knows where to find me. In the meantime, Two Creek is about as safe as any place on earth for you right now."

  "What about my father?"

  "He's safe. They just want to keep an eye on you."

  "But why? I don't have anything to do with this."

  "Because Pete is a very smart man. He knows what's important to me. And he'll use it."

  "Use what?" Calla whispered in the darkness.

  "You, Calla. He'll use you. You are what's important to me."

  Calla sat, letting that information seep into her. She was what was important to him.

  "Do they know I'm engaged?"

  Henry gave a snort of laughter. The sound was no longer hollow. Now it held something. Not humor though, Calla thought

  "If it hasn't mattered to me, I don't think its going to matter to them."

  "Henry, be serious."

  He dropped to his knees in front of her.

  "I am serious. I want you, Calla," he said, his voice no longer even, his tone no longer unreadable. "I want you. You have taken over everything. I barely sleep, I barely eat. I sat up nights in that bunkhouse for two solid weeks, just hoping you'd walk by your bedroom window. I get aroused watching you brush your teeth, for crying out loud." His hands clenched the wooden slats of her cot, but he made no move to touch her. Calla stared at those rigidly controlled, beautifully formed hands. "Pete saw it. Your father saw it. Hell, even Lester saw it. I have never felt this before, whatever the hell this is. And I am as sorry about it as I can be. I wish I'd never seen your boots sticking out from under that pickup. But I did see them, and now I have to stay and fix whatever kind of mess I've gotten you into." He searched her face with his fierce brown eyes. How had his stupid wife ever resisted those eyes? Calla found herself wondering.

  "You get, uh, aroused watching me brush my teeth?"

  Henry leaned back on his heels and put a hand over his eyes. "I have just told you that I make weapons of war, that my wife was a spy and that someone, possibly the United States Government, has sent an operative to watch your every move, and that one single piece of embarrassing information concerning my raging libido is all you gleaned from tonight's conversation? Wonderful. You are going to be the death of me."

  "Henry," she began, "I'm sorry if you have misunderstood our relationship. But I'm sure you realize that my commitment to Clark—"

  "Don't, Calla." He rose to his feet. Calla heard him pop open the buttons of his jeans, rumble around in his clothes pack and sit heavily on his bunk. "Don't tell me all this again. I really don't want to hear it. Your blessed engagement is the least of my problems right now."

  "I can't sleep with you."

  "I don't remember asking you to."

  "I'm sorry if you're angry. But you knew from the beginning—"

  "Calla."

  "What?"

  "Shut up."

  "Is Henry Beckett your real name?"

  Henry sighed. Hell, he owed her this much. "No. It's Mitch, Mitchell Johannsen. Henry's my middle name. Beckett was my mother's maiden name."

  "Oh. Can I still call you Henry?"

  "Yes. I don't care." He did, though. He loved the way it sounded when she said it, loved how it made him a different man. The kind of man who wouldn't wear a lab coat all day. The kind of man who saved women from lightning strikes. The kind of man who was allowed to sleep in a tent in the wilderness, listening to the sleepy breathing of a beautiful cowgirl.

  * * *

  Chapter 15

  « ^ »

  As Henry stood flipping flapjacks in the cool morning, he decided Calla might not come out of the tent at all today.

  He should be concerned about that, he knew. He scooped the hotcakes onto a plate and doused them with syrup. He had planned to save some of them for Calla, but he found himself ravenously hungry. Confessions could work up the appetite, he thought. He'd make Calla her own batch. If she ever came out of the tent.

  He tucked appreciatively into the heavy cakes. There were all kinds of things he should be concerned about, he reminded himself, not just the mood of his boss fretting away in her canvas fortress. If there was ever a time for clear reflection and concise thinking, this was it.

  Well, too bad for him. He smiled as he washed down a mouthful of his breakfast with a cup of coffee.

  "There're sourdough hotcakes out here, Calla," he called. Calla peeked her head out of the tent. No red eyes, Henry thought gratefully. That figured. She'd fight like a cat and bellow like a bull if she were unhappy, but silent, sulking tears were probably beyond her. He beamed at her.

  "Are you hungry?"

  She sniffed the air. She was starving. And as scared as a jack-rabbit in a kennel full of hound dogs.

  "No," she said stubbornly.

  "Well, are you
ever coming out of that tent?"

  "As a matter of fact," she said, eyeing him with as haughty an expression as she could muster, "if I didn't have to use the outhouse, I would say, no, I am never coming out of this tent."

  He had the good grace to avert his gaze before she caught his smile. He plunged his dirty plate into the wash water. "Well, thank goodness for bodily functions, then."

  She hopped from the tent platform and jogged down the path to the outhouse. Her side must not be giving her much trouble, Henry thought, the way she was galloping around. She returned a minute later, still in a cranky temper.

  "No wash water?"

  "It's in the covered pot, your highness."

  She grunted and shoved her hands in the steaming water. "Ow!"

  "You okay?"

  "No, I am not okay," she said, grabbing a dish towel. Henry took Calla's hands in his own and examined them carefully. No sense having another injury on his conscience, he rationalized. This was certainly not just an excuse to touch her. He reached for the canteen he'd filled earlier.

  "Here, let me pour some cool water on them," he said. She jerked her hands away.

  "I'm fine. Stop hovering." She sat down heavily at the table. Henry decided to let her take her time with whatever she was going to say. He mixed up another batch of sourdough batter.

  "You don't want breakfast?"

  "I guess," she said reluctantly, looking into the bowl of batter. "Is that the sourdough I sent up?"

  "Yep." He poured four neat circles onto the hot griddle.

  "The start of that is seventy years old."

  "Really?"

  "My grandmother got a start from a lady who brought a crock with her on the Oregon Trail. So I guess it's actually older than seventy years."

  "Mmm. You know, sourdough is a natural chemical reaction of—"

  She put a restraining hand on his arm. "Do me a big favor today, Henry. Don't talk to me about chemical compositions, okay? I've had it to here with them." She indicated a spot five inches above her head.

  "You got it." He didn't kiss the top of her shining hair, but the urge nearly overtook him. He flipped the hotcakes.

  "We need to talk, Henry."

  "Rats," he said, as he tossed the cakes expertly into a steaming pile on Calla's clean plate. He poured syrup over them and handed them to her with a flourish.

  Henry poured Calla a cup of coffee, opened her hand and placed it there, and sat down across from her. He folded his hands together like a schoolboy. She glared at him, but he saw the corners of her mouth kick up briefly. Good. He was being charming. He thought so, but he couldn't tell. He'd never actively tried to be charming before.

  "So, what do you want to talk about?"

  Calla took a long time answering. She finished her breakfast while Henry waited. After a while, she came to a decision. "Nothing. I guess I don't really want to talk about anything."

  She wasn't going to sulk, she wasn't going to run, she wasn't going to leave him and return to that hoax of an engagement. She was going to stay. He knew with a sudden flash of insight how much the decision was costing her. Her honor ran as deeply as his, and she was accustomed to caring for herself. But she was going to let him take care of her. He was elated beyond all reason.

  "Well then—" he reached over, grabbed her coffee cup, took a loud slurp and returned it to her, as familiarly as if he'd been drinking from her cup for twenty years "—if you're finished being a brat, I guess we'd better get going. Those cows aren't going to move themselves, you know."

  She looked at him, questions in her fine hazel eyes.

  "What?" he asked.

  "Is it safe to leave camp? What if Pete comes?"

  "He'll wait. Nobody comes all the way to Two Creek and then leaves before they talk to the cowboy in charge."

  "Not that you're in charge," she said automatically. Henry rose and took her plate and fork and washed them. She sat nursing her coffee.

  "What about … what about the guy at the wedding? What if he shows up here?"

  "He won't. He's gone."

  "How do you know?"

  "Because I watched him leave."

  "And how do you know he won't come back?"

  "Because I told him in no uncertain terms what I'd do to him if he did come back."

  Calla plunked her cup down. Coffee sloshed onto the table. "You threatened him? Are you serious?" She was outraged. "You're a scientist. A doctor, for crying out loud. You can't go around threatening people."

  He swabbed up her coffee with the dishrag. "I'm also a well-trained killing machine." Calla's mouth dropped open in shock. Henry laughed. "I'm joking. Close your mouth. The flies will get in."

  She put her head in her hands. "I can't believe this."

  "Well, believe it. You bring it out in me, apparently. I've been threatening lots of people since I met you."

  Calla was intrigued in spite of herself. She raised her head and cocked a brow at him. "Like who?"

  Ah, it did his ego good, seeing that look in her eye. "Lester."

  Calla sputtered. "Lester? When did you threaten Lester?"

  "When we were haying. I told him I didn't want him to give you any more grief. I told him you had enough on your mind. I told him I'd take a finger for every harsh word I heard him utter in your direction."

  "You did not."

  "Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad."

  Calla thought for a moment. "That explains a few things about Lester's recent behavior." She handed him her coffee cup; he drank the last sip and washed it out. Calla stepped over the seat of the picnic table. "I just have to brush my teeth." She headed for the tent, and then stopped abruptly. She turned and studied him solemnly. "It is okay if I brush my teeth, isn't it? I mean, you won't hurt yourself or anything, will you?"

  He gazed at her for a minute, making her feel foolish, and imperiled, over her little joke.

  "Calla, sometimes I hurt just looking at you."

  * * *

  Calla looked over at the man riding next to her. They were pushing a small group of about thirty pairs of mother cows and their calves down a fence line in one of the wide, flat valleys that pocketed the high-desert hills above Hot Sulphur Lake Ranch. He had been singing almost since they left camp. Calla grinned in spite of herself at the sound of his ear-cracking voice.

  How he could sing at a time like this was a mystery. But she supposed he was accustomed to the pressure of a brilliant mind and whacked-out career in chemical espionage. Nerves of steel, the fool.

  But his relaxed manner was contagious, she found after a while. If he wasn't worried… She lounged in her saddle, watching Henry work the small herd. He was a much more competent cowboy than Lester. Not as good as she was, but pretty darn good. He didn't rush the animals, who were sluggish in coming off a good pasture in the afternoon heat. Their reluctance didn't make him jumpy as it did so many cowboys she'd known. He simply waited for them to pick their way across the rock, whooping and tossing his hat when they seemed to stick in one place too long.

  A couple times he dismounted and nudged along a slow-moving calf with his knees. Firm but gentle. Calla somehow knew women and babies would always get that from him. The mysterious man at the wedding hadn't been privilege to that side of Henry. Neither, apparently, had old Lester. Calla smothered a smile.

  They stopped for lunch in the middle of the afternoon, after the cows had reached their destination, a rocky meadow adjoining the Little Sheep Flats. Henry unsaddled his horse and used the saddle for a pillow. Calla sat cross-legged in the dirt beside him. The cows and the hobbled horses munched contently on the dry grass of the Idaho midsummer.

  "No clouds today," he observed from under his hat. Calla stretched out a few, safe feet away.

  "Not yet, anyway."

  "How's your side? Sore from riding?"

  "A little."

  "You want me to look at it?" He kept himself from adding, "Please," but just barely.

  As if she could stand him looking under her shi
rt. "No. It's okay."

  He was quiet a long time.

  "Tell me about Benny," Henry said.

  Calla looked at her sandwich. It occurred to her that if Henry hadn't packed lunch again today, she would have gone without. She probably wouldn't be eating at all if it weren't for Henry. How had she become accustomed to this caretaking so quickly? she wondered.

  "I thought you were asleep," she said.

  "Hah. And let another storm sneak up on you?"

  "On me?"

  He tipped his hat farther down over his face.

  "What do you want to know?"

  "I don't know. What do you want to tell me?"

  Calla considered that. She didn't spend much time talking about her older brother. She spoke to her mother about him before she died, but her father found the subject of his firstborn too painful. Calla respected that.

  And Clark had never once asked. They'd talked about her family on their first date and after she'd told him she had an older brother who had died in an accident, he'd never broached the subject again. In the beginning stages of their relationship, she'd accepted his lack of questions as polite regard for her feelings. Lately, though…

  "Benny was everything a little girl would want in an older brother. He taught me everything. How to fish and hunt and ride."

  Henry chuckled from under his hat.

  "Not every little girl wants to know how to hunt and fish and ride, Calla."

  "I did. That's what Benny did, so that's what I wanted to do. It's why I'm such a hopeless tomboy, I guess."

  "Not hopeless," Henry murmured drowsily.

  Calla warmed to her subject. How long had it been since anyone had asked her about Benny? "He was ten years older than me. When I was born, my mom told me he just … sort of took over raising me. I can hardly even remember being with anyone else when I was growing up. My mom was busy with the ranch. Dad helped her, plus he had all his other interests, so I didn't see a lot of them." That sounded disloyal. "Not that they weren't great parents."

  "You just had more in common with Benny."

  "Yeah." Calla laughed softly. "Looking back, I'm surprised he put up with me. I followed him around like a pup. I can remember when I started kindergarten, I was crazy from loneliness. He was in high school then. I used to bounce up and down on my seat on the school bus all the way home—I could hardly wait to see him at the end of the day. I'm sure he thought I was a terrible nuisance."