KNIGHT IN A WHITE STETSON Read online

"Oh, poor Lester," Helen wailed. "Here, come sit down."

  "More likely it's the liquor," Henry whispered in Lester's hairy ear as he helped him to a kitchen chair. "You smell like a still."

  "I ain't the only one," Lester snarled.

  Henry straightened. "Try to stay awake for another hour or so. I'll come back and check on you. But I've seen a lot of concussions, and this is just a bump on the head."

  "Thank you, son," Jackson said. "You're mighty handy to have around. You might want to lay your hand to going out and checking on Calla."

  "I planned to."

  Henry washed his hands at the laundry room sink, pulled on his boots and headed for the barn. Calla was probably out there crying her eyes out, Henry thought fondly. A little feminine angst was a pleasant thing, in his view. Brought out the best in a man.

  He found her where he knew she'd be—perched on the top rung of the stall where Bubba spent his lonely, gelded nights. Her back was to him.

  "Is he okay?" she asked as he pushed the barn door shut.

  "He's fine. You must have pulled up."

  "I realized it was him at the last second. He went down like a brick, though. Thought I might have killed him."

  "I know. You okay, sweetheart?"

  She turned to him. Her eyes were not full of tears. Or even a little feminine angst. They were blazing. He felt that plank slam against his chest.

  "Don't call me sweetheart."

  "Okay."

  "Don't call me anything but Calla. I'm your boss, not your sweetheart. Got it?"

  "Got it."

  She turned her back on him again. He stood at the barn door, regarding the strong slope of her back. He could imagine it perfectly, arching under him in climax. He ran his tongue over his teeth and jammed his hands in his pockets.

  "That stupid Lester."

  "Yep," Henry said. "He's not the sharpest tack in the box."

  "What was he doing in the kitchen at three o'clock in the morning? Looking for something to eat?"

  "Or something."

  "I really could have killed him with that bat."

  "I know." He was standing next to her. Her smooth, rounded hip was at eye level. He couldn't see her skin under her nightgown, but he could smell her. She smelled incredibly good. "You're tough."

  Calla looked down at him warily. He returned her gaze with studied innocence.

  "That bat your only protection, Calla?"

  "I don't need much out here. Protection, I mean."

  "I could teach you to use a gun."

  "I've been using a gun since before you were out of short pants, Henry."

  "Oh. My mistake."

  "Are you laughing at me?"

  Henry shook his head gravely. "Nope."

  "Good." She considered the wall in front of her for a minute. "What else would Lester have been in the house for?"

  Henry climbed the stall one rung at a time until he was perched next to her. "Calla, have you ever caught Lester in your kitchen before?"

  "That's a laugh."

  "I mean, in the middle of the night."

  "Once or twice."

  "And you think he goes there for food?"

  "What's your point, Beckett?" she asked, shifting until she was turned toward him, her ankle cocked on the board under her. Henry could hardly tear his eyes away. He imagined her naked under her nightgown. The thickness in his tongue was gone now, and his head was blissfully clear.

  "Nothing." He paused. He took a deep breath, as much to capture the scent of her as to fortify himself. "I'm just saying Lester must have a tapeworm. He isn't in his bunk from eleven to midnight, every single night. You could set your watch by it."

  "Oh, Lord." Calla groaned and put her head in her hands. She really might cry now, Henry thought without alarm.

  But when she lifted her head a minute later, he could see the laughter in her beautiful hazel eyes.

  "Lester is boinking my Aunt Helen."

  "Not very romantically put, but yes, I'd say that's the gist of it."

  Calla started to giggle, and couldn't stop. She laughed so hard, Henry thought she'd fall off her perch. He reached out a hand just in case.

  "That's probably why he doesn't show up for work until nine. He's exhausted, the big stud." She howled with laughter. "Eleven to midnight? What does he do after the first five minutes?"

  Tears started to show in the corners of her eyes. Henry watched in fascination. He'd never seen anyone laugh so hard, so uninhibitedly, before. In spite of himself, he began to laugh, too. It bubbled up from inside him. He felt like a little kid, caught up in some excruciatingly funny knock-knock joke.

  "Don't laugh," he managed to say. "I've seen Lester in his underwear. He must terrify your poor Aunt." Calla doubled over and clutched at him, laughing so hard the sound became choked in her throat. He rocked with her back and forth on the narrow board.

  What in the world was happening to him? he wondered.

  After a minute, their laughter slowed. He breathed deeply once more and watched Calla wipe her eyes on the hem of her nightgown.

  How this woman got to him! Nine hours ago, watching her leave his embrace to go to Clark, he'd been ready to kill her, or kill for her. When she'd come running to him across the compound in her plain white nightgown, he would have lain down his life to save her. Ten minutes ago, he'd have opened a vein to be allowed to comfort her, and now his stomach hurt from laughing at what only she could think was funny. His tidy engineer's brain was fading fast in this Idaho desert. He should flee to California and his ordered life as soon as possible. But that was impossible, for more reasons that just this wild-driving, belly-laughing, chestnut-haired cowgirl.

  "You were such a jerk tonight," she said. She had finished dabbing at her eyes and had turned back to face the stall. She reached out a long, suntanned foot and scratched Bubba's back with her toes.

  "I know. Sorry."

  Calla looked at him, surprised, suspicious.

  "I didn't expect such a quick apology," she said.

  "Disappointed, I'll bet."

  "Oh, funny."

  "No, I'll bet you had a good hour's worth of scolding all saved up, didn't you?"

  "I don't scold."

  Henry grinned. "The heck you don't."

  They were silent for a moment.

  "You drove Clark to it, you know. He's really very nice."

  "Well, that must be exciting."

  Another minute passed. Henry breathed steadily beside her. His heart had slowed somewhat, but the tension in him was intense. He was glad it was dark in the barn. He would have been somewhat embarrassed if she'd been able to look down and see just how little control he had over his libido these days.

  "You didn't have to make all that stuff up about Harvard and MIT. You're not in competition with Clark."

  "No?"

  "Come on, Henry. It was one little kiss."

  "I may have had a lot to drink tonight, but I remember a lot more than just one little kiss. I remember everything, in fact. Down to the very finest detail."

  His voice was calm and serious. Calla shifted away from him a bit, her toes still on the warm back of Benny's horse.

  "Whatever. It was no excuse for lying."

  "I wasn't lying."

  "Henry, please. I don't care. You're a good hand. I'm happy to have you."

  "Thanks. I'm happy to be had. But I'm still not lying."

  She peered at him through the dusty gloom. "You're a doctor?"

  "Well, of chemical engineering. I couldn't have done anything for Lester if you'd hit him any harder tonight." He smiled at the memory of Helen fussing over her bald, rummy lover. He wondered what Calla looked like fussing over someone. "The best I could have done was come up with a good formula for encasing his head in polypropylene-based membrane until the paramedics arrived."

  "Don't laugh at me."

  "I'm definitely not laughing at you, Calla."

  She dropped down into the stall with Bubba and walked slowly around him, h
er hand on his wide rump. Henry frowned at her bare feet and considered whether he should rescue her before the old horse crushed her toes. He decided against it.

  "What are you really doing here, Henry?" she asked after a long minute.

  "I'm really working for you."

  "You have a Ph.D., if I'm not mistaken. And it's not in riding fences."

  "Changing sprinklers," Henry corrected.

  Calla closed her eyes, gathering patience. "He didn't mean that. He was just upset. You certainly drove him to it."

  "You always fight his battles, Calla?"

  "No." She shook her head. "I mean, I'm not fighting his battle."

  Henry ignored her. "Because if you do, it's going to be a long life for you."

  "You didn't answer my question."

  "That makes us even."

  "What?" She twisted her head in honest confusion. Sweet Calla. Henry wanted to lie down with her right in that straw-filled stall. It had taken him a while to see past the unbelievable body and the unflinching toughness, but this woman, for all the responsibility she carried on those lovely shoulders, was about the most naive person he'd come across in years. He thought he could fall in love with her for that alone.

  "You didn't answer my question this afternoon in the stack yard. About Dartmouth."

  Calla put her forehead on Bubba's flank, hiding her flushed face. "As I recall, I didn't have much of a chance."

  "You've got one now."

  She was quiet a moment.

  "Yes," she said finally.

  "Yes, what?" Henry stifled in the darkness.

  "Yes, I'm going to marry Clark. If he asks me." She hadn't taken her head off the horse.

  Henry sat for a second longer, then reached down for her across Bubba's back. The horse shifted a little. Calla looked up, took his warm hand and walked around to face him. He looked down at her for a long moment, studying her face, then reached under her arms and lifted her easily up to sit next to him.

  She closed her eyes and waited for Henry to kiss her.

  But he didn't kiss her. Instead he swung his legs over the stall and jumped down to the plank floor.

  "Do you want me to go back and get you some shoes?"

  "No. Henry?"

  "I'll see you in the morning. I'll be heading out."

  "Heading out?" Calla blinked at him. The moment of deep tension was gone. She was instantly furious. "You're leaving? Because I'm marrying Clark? Of all the petty, childish… What am I supposed to do for the rest of the summer? It's too late to hire a summer rider. I never thought you'd run, you big, selfish…" she groped for an appropriately hideous epithet "…city boy."

  "I'm leaving for camp in the morning, remember?" he said as he walked calmly out the barn door. And just because she was so testy and he was so rigidly, aggravatingly aroused, he shouted over his shoulder, "You better have better accommodations up there than you do down here. I've had a mouse in my mattress every night for two weeks."

  He left her fuming. And barefooted.

  Calla sat for a long time in the dark of the barn. She had wanted him to kiss her again. She had wanted it more than anything else in the world. He had lifted her as though she were no bigger than a child. Clark had never even let her sit on his lap.

  She was going to marry Clark. What was the matter with her? Of course, she was going to marry Clark. She'd been waiting nearly a year. It was all part of the plan. Of course. She should have shouted it at the blockhead.

  It was a fait accompli. She knew it, her family knew it, now Henry knew it. It had to happen. Everything was riding on it. A hundred years were riding on it. Her mother and Benny were counting on her. She was the only McFadden left.

  So why would she have gladly sold her soul and her best horse a few minutes earlier for the touch of Henry's lips on hers?

  Calla hitched up her nightgown and scooted, bareback, onto Bubba. He grunted a little in surprise, but didn't so much as shift under her weight. The bare skin of her thighs brushed his warm, coarse hair, doing nothing to ease the aching arousal she'd felt from the minute Henry had climbed the stall rungs to sit next to her.

  Oh, Ben, she thought suddenly. I wish you were here to help me. To remind me why I have to forget this man, this beautiful Henry. To help me stick to the plan.

  Calla leaned forward and wrapped her arms around the thick neck of the gray. She stretched her legs out behind her until she was lying along the length of the horse.

  Even if Benny were here, he never would have helped her, she knew.

  Her brother would have chosen Henry for her. And let one hundred years of family history take care of itself.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  « ^ »

  "Calla, this is Peggy over at the co-op," the voice from the machine shrilled in Calla's ear. "Lester called this morning for a diesel delivery. Calla, I'm real sorry, but we can't deliver gas until you pay your outstanding bill. Give me a call when you get a chance. Thanks."

  There was a screeching beep. Another voice came on the line. Calla tried to steel herself.

  "Uh, yeah. Hello. This is Dusty Johnson. I tried to cash the check you give me for the horseshoeing? And, um, well, there wasn't no money in your account to cover it." The voice was young, hesitant, but it bore into Calla like a drill. "Yeah, so anyways, I'm a little short on account of the weekend and all and I was wondering, if you get it straightened out will you give me a call back? I'm at my mom's house. Okay. Well … okay. See you. By the way, that bay of yours oughta not be rode for a couple days. I quicked her left front hoof just a little."

  Sammy? She was planning to use Sammy this weekend to move the heifers to the Little Sheep pasture. She'd have to start shoeing her own horses again. It was safer. And cheaper. She'd just have to find the time.

  Another beep.

  "Calla, Clark. I thought we might have dinner tonight. You pick a spot and I'll meet you. I'd hate to have to come all the way out to the ranch and then have to bring you home. This sports car doesn't get the mileage it should. I think I'll talk to the rental company when I take it back. I'm going to tell them I want credit for the extra mileage. Call me at your convenience on the cellular—555-2270. Bye."

  "I know your number, Clark," Calla said out loud. She unbuckled her chaps and tossed the heavy leather onto the kitchen table. Another beep.

  "Calla, this is Dick Dupree. Just calling to remind you about our meeting this afternoon. Four o'clock. I'll buy you a cup of coffee." A long pause. Calla thought the message might be over, but it wasn't. Unfortunately. "And, Calla, why not invite your dad to come on in with you? I'd like to run something up the flagpole and see how it flies." Beep.

  A bad debt, a bad check, a halfhearted dinner invitation and a threat. She should never have got that machine.

  Foreclosure. It wasn't imminent, she knew from her own set of books, but Dupree, the family banker for as long as Calla could remember, was ready to put the screws to her. He'd been hinting at it for months.

  Dupree had been skeptical when Calla took over the cattle operation. And when Judy McFadden Bishop died and left the ranch to her daughter, he was positively beside himself with worry. He'd wanted to put the ranch in trust for her, under her father's care, until she was twenty-five. But Jackson didn't want to run the ranch, and he told the banker so. Dupree then suggested the bank hold the ranch in trust and hire a ranch manager for her until such time as she was mature and settled and married enough to handle it. Calla had hit the roof.

  But he'd been a good enough banker, overall. When she'd needed the down payment on a new stacker three years ago, he'd only made her beg a little. And he didn't say much when the registered bred heifer market went down the tubes in '97, even though he'd warned her about it—something to the effect of don't count your chickens, she vaguely recalled. That was the problem with Dupree. He was always talking in cliché. She could hardly remember what he ever had to say.

  But she was careful about the loan payments. They were late most m
onths—and the balloon payment at the end of the year kept her up nights—but she always managed to make them. He couldn't complain.

  But he had been complaining, Calla acknowledged. For months, now. She went to the refrigerator and pulled out the pitcher of cold tea Helen kept fresh for her.

  What did Dupree want? Surely not the ranch. It had been in her family for more than one hundred years, and even Dupree wasn't foolish enough to foreclose on McFadden property. The outcry from neighboring ranches would be deafening, and Dupree would lose many of Calla's fellow ranchers to the big Boise banks. He'd been in small-town banking long enough to know that, surely.

  Besides, he'd have to do something pretty shady to foreclose on a good note. He'd have to wait until she missed—if she missed—the balloon.

  But he wasn't waiting.

  No, something else was going on. Dupree had been edging her toward some kind of cliff for months. If she wasn't careful, she'd drop right off.

  She took her tea and trudged up the stairs. She hadn't been back to sleep after her conversation with Henry in the barn last night and she was beginning to feel it.

  How in the world had she got herself into that one?

  That's right, she remembered. It was Lester.

  She looked at the clock on her bedside table. Two-thirty. She stripped down and stretched out on her bed, exhausted. She worked hard during haying, sometimes rising in the middle of the night to catch the hay with dew still on it. Henry had made it easier and faster this year, but she still felt the strain. She dozed lightly, letting her mind drift. And as it had for weeks, it stubbornly, inevitably, drifted toward her hired man.

  Henry had gone up to camp with Lester. She always took the riders to camp, to show them around and talk about the fence lines and the schedule for moving the herd from field to field. But she let Lester do it this time, to his grumbled dismay.

  If nothing happened, she wouldn't see Henry again until the weekend, and maybe not even then. She'd send Helen to town to buy supplies—groceries, milk, calf vaccine—and she'd leave them in the bunkhouse for Henry to retrieve. Standard operating procedure. And since Henry was looking after her herd, she'd have time to get some things done around the place. Things she'd put off too long. It was very likely she wouldn't see him for weeks. If nothing happened.