KNIGHT IN A WHITE STETSON Read online

  "I'm sure he thought you were adorable."

  "Oh, sure."

  Henry didn't tip his hat. "Believe me. You're adorable."

  "Oh." She flushed, grateful Henry wasn't looking at her. "Benny taught me how to read when I was about four years old by reading me the Sunday comics. His room was downstairs, the room where Helen sleeps now, and sometimes when I'd have a bad dream or something, I'd creep downstairs and we'd go into the kitchen and he'd make me hot chocolate and have me read to him from my schoolbooks until I was sleepy. By the time I was in the fourth grade, I was reading Shakespeare. Benny was the smartest person I ever knew. Until you. I think Paradise never knew quite what to do with Benny." Calla smiled at a memory. "He told me about the birds and bees."

  "Why?"

  "Because he caught me kissing a boy in the barn."

  "How old were you?"

  "Nine, I think. Or ten, maybe."

  "Precocious."

  "Thank you. Unfortunately, my love life was all downhill after that. I was afraid Benny would do serious harm to any boy who came near me."

  "What a nice thought. I wish Benny could have met Dartmouth. I would like to see someone do serious harm to Dartmouth."

  Calla frowned. She could only see Henry's relaxed mouth under his hat. She couldn't tell if he was joking. "You've kissed me, too."

  "I hate to keep bringing this up, but I did more than kiss you. And Benny would have liked me."

  "Hah. Not everyone is as easy to charm as Helen and Jackson."

  "And Lester. You forget I charmed Lester."

  "And Lester," Calla conceded, laughing at him. Talk about adorable. She very nearly scooted over to kiss him, he was so adorable. "Benny was the first person to bring me to cow camp for a summer. I was only six. I rode with him every day that summer. I used to hate to have to come home on Saturdays because my mother would make me take a bath."

  "Six? You were just a baby. I can't believe your parents let you go."

  "I asked my mom about that once," Calla said thoughtfully.

  "What did she say?"

  "She said Benny would have died before he let anything happen to me."

  There was a long, still silence. Calla scooped fine dirt into her hand and let it sift through her fingers. Henry didn't look up.

  "What happened to him, Calla?" he said softly.

  She sifted more sand. "He died before he let anything happen to me."

  Henry raised himself and leaned on his elbow and studied her. She was careful not to meet his eye. "Do you want to tell me about it?"

  She shrugged. "We were across the river one day, looking at a piece of ground Benny thought we might want to lease for spring pasture. The truck broke down a couple miles from Paradise dam. It was hot. In the middle of August. I didn't want to walk back to the dam and into town. It would have taken us all afternoon. So I decided to swim for it. The river is wide there, and the water is calm. Deceptively calm. Benny was furious. He tried to stop me, but I'm pretty quick." She gave a bitter smile. "I jumped into the water. It felt good, actually. There's no air-conditioning in that truck, you know."

  "Calla…" Henry brushed the dirt from her hand and took it in his own.

  "I started swimming. Benny watched me from the bank for a minute. I turned around and laughed at him. I laughed at him." Calla stared out across the valley for a minute.

  "When I was about halfway across, I got caught in an eddy or something and I couldn't get out. It happens all the time. The Snake is like that. We lose kids every summer in that river. It looks so slow and fat, but when you get in there…"

  "What happened to you?"

  "Benny came in after me." Calla took her hand from Henry's and hugged her knees to her. "He managed to get me free of the current somehow, but he was sucked under. I'm surprised by that, you know. He was a good swimmer. He taught me.

  "He didn't come up for nine days. Can you believe that? Nine days. We waited for him. The current kept him under. Somebody said maybe his body was caught under a rock. I can't remember who it was who said that, but it made me cry, thinking of it. Lester brought the camp tents down and we waited on the bank for him to surface. People came from town and took shifts. We even set up lights in case he came up during the night."

  "Calla…" Henry whispered. He pulled her to him, taking her into his lap like a child, cradling her there, wondering if he'd ever felt so heartbroken before.

  "I often wonder if my mother ever forgave me, Henry," she said finally. "He was her firstborn. She was going to leave the ranch to Benny. I was always too scared to ask her if she ever forgave me."

  Henry took her chin firmly in his wide palm and tipped her head to him. Henry was so close she could see the beautiful gold flecks in his deep brown eyes.

  "Don't say that," he whispered fiercely. "Don't ever, ever say that. It wasn't your fault."

  "Oh, Henry," she said as she lowered her head to rest against his shoulder, "of course it was."

  He rocked her, his grip on her so tight she didn't think she could move if she wanted to. Not that she wanted to.

  "I know people think it's strange, the way I pamper that old gray horse," she said after a time. "But he's all I have left of Ben. Sometimes when I'm with him, I can almost feel Benny with me, too."

  "When we get home, Calla, I'm going to build Bubba the most luxurious stall you've ever seen," he vowed. "We'll put padded velvet on the walls and one of those big bug zappers in there. We'll buy thick rubber mats for the floor. He'll think he's in the Kentucky Derby."

  Calla smiled wearily. "You make me laugh, Henry."

  "And you break my heart."

  Calla lifted her head from his warm shoulder and looked at him. "Is your heart broken?" she whispered.

  He smoothed her hair. "No," he said, and kissed her, sweetly, so gently, tears stung her eyes. "But it could be."

  They watched each other for a long moment.

  God, he felt everything for her. But there were rules in this game, and one of them was you didn't take advantage of a sad and vulnerable woman. She'd told him more than once she didn't want him; she'd have to tell him when she'd changed her mind, and with words, not with those amazing hazel eyes. He closed his eyes, sighed sharply in regret and lifted her off his lap. He raised himself to his feet, swung his saddle onto his hip, and walked over to catch their horses.

  * * *

  Pete was waiting for them when they returned to camp. His rented Cherokee was parked at the edge of the camp compound and he had helped himself to a beer from Henry's cooler. He watched them approach through the dusk with a bemused expression.

  "You guys look like the cavalry," he called good-naturedly.

  Henry dismounted without looking at Calla and handed her his reins. "Take care of the horses." Then he looked back at her and said, "I didn't tell you anything."

  Calla started to protest, but changed her mind. Without greeting their guest, she rode off obediently to the horse pasture, leading Lucky, and began to unsaddle the horses.

  Henry strode to the picnic table and leaned over, slapping his hands to the wood, to face his old compadre.

  "Did you send someone to watch Calla?"

  "Oh, hello, Mitch. Yes, the trip up was fine. No, of course I don't mind driving all over hell and back at your beck and call." Pete held up the beer. "Thanks, I have one already. Yes, I'd love to stay for dinner. What are you having?"

  Henry set his jaw. "I'm not in the mood, Fish. Did you send someone to watch Calla or not?"

  Pete took a casual swig of beer. His hawklike gaze shifted to Calla, who was hefting Henry's saddle into the nearby tack shed. She didn't meet his gaze. "Aren't you going to help her with that, you unchivalrous bastard?"

  Henry glanced over his shoulder without taking his hands from the table in front of him. "She's as tough as you and me put together, Pete. Answer the question."

  "She has a perfect little rear end. What the hell kind of jeans are those? She looks like one of those rodeo girls or something
. Do they make jeans like that for men? I think I'd look good in jeans like that."

  Henry leaned closer. It was a case of the student trying to intimidate the master, Henry knew, but his greater size and strength, coupled with a rising fury, gave him an edge. "Don't make me punch you. Tell me."

  "Tell you what? Okay, okay, I'm just funning you, Doc. No. There are no orders to keep an eye on your girlfriend there. If there were, I'd do the job myself. No pay. She is strong, isn't she?" Calla held her saddle against her hip with one sleek arm and carried a stack of saddle blankets with the other. Pete gave a low whistle which Calla ignored but which made Henry bunch his flat palms into fists.

  "I'll hit you, Pete," Henry said through his teeth.

  "Geez, Doc, if I didn't know better, I'd swear you got some real live emotion worked up here. I didn't know real live emotion was even in your repertoire."

  "If it wasn't you, who was it?"

  Pete shrugged and took another slug from the can of beer. "Damned if I know. I'll bet she rides you like a mule, doesn't she?"

  Henry was torn between a powerful urge to beat the snot out of him and laugh at his one-track mind. Pressure's getting to you, Johannsen.

  "Can we get back to the subject at hand?"

  "Your spook?"

  "Well, that brings up an interesting point." Henry sat down at the table and faced Pete. "I don't know if he was a spook. If he was, he was a pretty poor one. I got on top of him in a motel room in Paradise before he even woke up. He spilled his guts like he'd been eating bad fish, to borrow a colorful phrase of yours."

  "I feel like a proud father."

  "Don't. Intimidating people is not a skill of which I'm particularly proud."

  "You're getting good at it though. Hey, look at that." He pointed an index finger past Henry's shoulder at Calla. Henry looked over at Calla. She was back out in the horse pasture. Toke had his soft black nose buried in a bucket of oats and Calla had one of his forelegs tucked between her knees. She was digging mud from the shoe with a hoof pick. "I'd like to get one of my legs between her knees like that. She'd like it, too, I swear to God."

  "Why don't you go out and ask her, Pete? If she doesn't shoot you first, I will. And, Pete, by the time that woman was finished tearing you up one side and down the other, you'd be begging me to shoot you."

  "Feisty is she? I like 'em feisty."

  "You're a mongrel dog, Pete. Now, if you wouldn't mind taking your beady eyes off Calla, I'd like to talk to you about this situation in which I find myself."

  "Go ahead."

  Henry chose his words thoughtfully. "What about the Haitians? Or the CIA? You said they were sniffing around pretty hard before I left."

  "I lied. About the CIA, anyway." Pete smiled. "Offensive tactic. The Haitians are looking, but not too hard, and not way the hell out here. Hate to disappoint you, Doc, but you just aren't the important boy you were two months ago. Word's out you packed your little formula into cotton wool and moved on down the road. My personal opinion is that they never really knew what you had in the first place."

  "But you do."

  "I already told you, it wasn't me."

  "And Frank does."

  "That's true."

  Henry leaned forward. "And maybe Frank has decided I wouldn't use what I have on him if he got to Calla."

  "Maybe so. What have you got on him?"

  "Pete, you're the teacher in this schoolhouse. You figure it out."

  "All the tools are there, Doc." He tapped his skull with a blunt finger. "But you and I were given unequal amounts of brain power. Why don't you let me in on what you've got on the colonel, and I'll take care of this little Calla Bishop mess you've gotten yourself into. Then you can come back and finish the studies with the formula and we'll all live happily ever after."

  "Come on, Pete. I'm never going back. You know that."

  Pete returned his gaze to the woman in the horse pasture. "If that's the way you feel, Doc, then it wasn't very wise of you to get tangled up with this pretty little cowgirl, was it? She's a very weak link in the very short chain anybody could use to hang you dead."

  "Let's forgo the poor metaphors, shall we? Is that a threat, Pete?"

  "Nope." Pete drained the beer can. "More like a question. Why the hell didn't you keep moving?"

  "Why do you think? Listen, Pete, the guy watching Calla was a local, from Salt Lake. I don't care if you find him or not, but I want to know who sent him. And I want to know yesterday." He dug into his pocket, came up with the card on which he'd jotted the jerk's name. "Here. It might be an alias."

  "I forgot I was working for you."

  Henry shook his head in frustration. "Look, just do it. I can't go anywhere without this information. And I can't leave Calla unprotected while I get it myself. I'll make it worth your while."

  "I'll settle for an hour in that tent over there with your cowgirl."

  "I'd slit your throat first. When do I get my information?"

  "I'm not coming back up here, that's for sure. These damn rock roads are murder on my back. When are you coming back to civilization?"

  "I'll be at the ranch again on Saturday afternoon."

  "You've developed a poor idea of what passes for civilization in the past few weeks, Doc."

  "Believe me, it's a hell of a lot more civilized up here than it ever was back in your world, Pete."

  Five minutes later, Pete was rumbling along the road back toward Paradise. Henry walked to the edge of the horse pasture and leaned against a fence post. Calla joined him.

  "That was fast. What did he say?"

  "It wasn't him."

  "Oh." She frowned at him.

  He put a booted foot on the middle strand of barbed wire and lifted the top wire with his hand. "Come through."

  She slipped through the fence with the ease that came from over twenty years of practice. Henry took her hand and led her toward camp.

  "What do we do now?" she inquired.

  "We forget about this until Saturday. Pete's going to work on it for us."

  "Why couldn't I listen to your top-secret conversation? I assumed that since I'm the one being spied on, I would be invited to sit in on the strategy session."

  Henry stopped and looked at her in surprise. "Are you angry?"

  "Yes, I'm angry. I'm not an idiot, Henry. Nor am I a frightened little girl. I've been taking care of grown-up problems for a long time now, and I don't appreciate being relegated to the horse pasture while you two big studs discuss my life."

  He blinked at her. It was almost fully dark now, and he could just make out her features. They were set in angry lines. "Calla, I have never once made the mistake of thinking you were either an idiot or a child. You are, in fact, one of the smartest, most grown-up people I know. I didn't include you in my conversation with Pete for a couple reasons."

  "And they are?"

  "One, Peter Fish is the horniest lowlife I have ever known, and if he so much as batted his pup-dog eyes at you, I would have had to punch him out."

  She considered that for a minute. "Oh" was all she could come up with.

  "And two, I didn't want him to know you know anything about this. It's safer for you that way."

  Henry took the hoof pick from her fingers and tossed it on the table. He tugged her shirt free of her Wranglers.

  "What are you doing?" She pushed at his quick hands.

  "I want a look at your side."

  "It's … it's fine," she managed to tell him. She yanked the tail of her shirt back.

  "Just let me look at it."

  "It's okay. I swear."

  He ignored her and lifted her shirt himself. She stood with her hands in the air while he examined her. He scowled at the bruise underneath the scrape. "Where's the Neosporin?"

  "In the kit. On the table."

  He reached behind her and snagged it, pressing against her for an instant as he did so. She didn't even want to think about what that did to her.

  Henry squeezed out a dab of the
gel onto his finger. "Lift your shirt again."

  "I can do it."

  "Just lift your shirt."

  Funny how she'd started taking orders so well, Calla thought. She'd never been very good at it before.

  He anchored her with a hand at her hip. "Terrible scab," he muttered, touching it lightly as he spread the antiseptic over it. "But not deep."

  "No," she gasped.

  His hand stroked a light circle along the outer edge of the wound. Once, twice.

  "Does the bruise hurt?"

  "No."

  So slowly, like a man gentling a wild animal, he moved to the smooth skin beyond her wound. Calla sucked in a breath, but made no move to stop his wandering hand. It didn't even occur to her.

  "I was afraid yesterday you'd broken a rib," he whispered.

  She could barely form words in her head, much less her mouth. "Um…"

  His fingers drifted down to her belly, stroking, moving to her sides to cup her waist and back again. He was petting her, kneading softly when he came to each curve or swell or indentation. His fingers stretched out until his hand was splayed wide against her stomach. She quivered under his touch. He didn't look up when he smiled.

  "Umm, Henry?" She didn't think to drop her shirt back into place.

  He turned his hand over and curled his knuckles, letting the feel of her sink into him. He made circles on her flesh with the back of his hand, low, until he felt the shallow impression of her navel. His thumb came to rest there while he raised his head to meet her gaze. "I don't think it will scar."

  "What? Oh, no, I don't think…"

  He was standing too close. Too close. She forced her eyes to stay open, looking at him looking at her, though it took every ounce of will not to just let them drift shut, as they did whenever he was too, too close.

  And his hands. The one at her hip flexed and pressed. And the other one. Oh. It was slow, hard, skillful. She wanted him to dip it beneath the waistband of her jeans and make those little circles lower down. For at least an hour.