LOVE OF A RODEO MAN (MODERN DAY COWBOYS) (11 page)

He reached out and grabbed her hands and tugged her to her feet. “C’mon, let’s take a walk along the creek.”

Willows grew on either side of the rushing stream, and birds seemed to be everywhere, swooping and calling to one another. The wide Montana sky above them was cloudless, piercingly blue, and the air smelled freshly washed. Mitch clasped Sara’s hand in his own, leading the way down a faint trail that wa
ndered along the water’s edge.

“Bob and I used to come down here fishing when we were kids,” Mitch reminisc
ed. “We hardly ever caught anything, but Mom always packed us a big lunch, and it felt like a holiday somehow.”

“It feels that way
today, too,” Sara said. “Like a holiday.”

He slid an arm around her shoulders, nestling her against his side, feeling desire and contentment combine in a heady confusion of feeling. He wanted her, the most simple, direct way a man could want a woman, but there was much more to it than that.

It amazed him that for the first time in his life, sexual desire was something he was willing to postpone temporarily. He wanted to know so much more about her than just how her body felt when his possessed it, although that urge was almost overwhelming; he desired her. But first, he wanted to understand the person inside that body, get to know the many different faces of Sara.

For the first time, he was greedy not about sex, but about something much less tangibl
e. He wanted to capture the essence of her mind, find out how and why she thought and felt as she did, learn the patterns of her habits and strengths, get to know the endearing fabric of her weaknesses.

And he didn’t have a clue how to start.

Seduction was one thing; getting her to confide in him was quite another.

“Too bad I didn’t bring some fishing gear today, we cou
ld have tried our luck,” he commented after several silent moments. He peered down into the stream. “Did you and Frankie ever go fishing when you were kids?”

Sara shook her head.
“Growing up in a female household doesn’t do much for your fishing skills,” she said with a wry laugh. “We learned to sew, and Gram taught us how to cook, but we’re not great outdoors. Although I do remember once when Mom decided to take us camping, and we ended up scared out of our wits because Frankie was sure she heard a bear. We spent the night in the car with all the doors locked.”

They traded stories of their childhood and growing-up years
as they ambled along the winding path. An hour passed and felt like several minutes.

At last the position of the sun overhead alerted Mitch to the work he had to do, and reluctantly, he turned them back in the direction of the horses. They mounted, and for another hour rode in what seemed a haphazard fashion over
the surrounding meadows, locating cows with calves that had become separated from the main herds and urging them back with the group.

Sara was becoming more fa
miliar with riding and controlling her mount, and although she wasn’t a great help to Mitch, she felt she didn’t hold him back too much either.

“Want a drink before we start back to the ranch?” Mitch called at last, and Sara gratefully climbed off Steamboat in a spot where the stream widened and poplars formed a shady grove. She knelt and scooped water into the cup Mitch unearthed from the lunch pack and drank, then filled it again and reached up to hand it to him.

He watched her kneeling at his feet, naturally graceful, with her shining, tangled hair spilling out from under the soft-brimmed hat and her snug jeans outlining her curving thighs and buttocks, and all the tamped desire that had been building during the past hours seemed suddenly to ignite in a burning knot of fire in his body.

Instead of taking the cup she proffered, he pul
led her to her feet, spilling the water in the process. But neither of them noticed, because suddenly there was electricity between them, a keen awareness that had smoldered just under the surface all day.

She came up slowly, already within the circle of his arms, and before she had time to wonder what would come next, his lips were on hers.

There wasn’t any exploration this time or any holding back. The kiss was deep and drugging, conveying immediately the passionate wanting Mitch could no longer control, and with lips and open mouth and pillaging tongue, he conveyed that need.

Sara’s lips were warm and eager under his. The restraint he’d practiced disappeared entirely as the sweetness of her mouth and the feel of her body against him roused every primitive urge.

Her hat fell off, and without interrupting the kiss, he reached up an impatient hand and sent his own hat spinning after hers. She arched against him and he kissed her throat, the hollow under her jaw, the soft pulsing center at the base of her neck.

“Mitch... oh, Mitch,” she breathed as his lips traveled back up her face, capturing her lips once again, and desire spilled like hot liquid through him. His hands cupped her breasts, and he felt the nipples harden.

He groaned and wrapped his arms around her, molding her hips tightly against him, and his arms slid around her shoulders and under her knees. The next moment, she was lying full-length in the soft grass, and Mitch was beside her, holding her, pressing the entire length of his body against her in delicious rhythmic movements that matched the quickening thrusts of his tongue as he kissed her.

“Mitch... Mitch, stop.”

Her words finally penetrated the surging wave of desire he was riding. With an effort that seemed superhuman, he rolled away from her, panting hard, staring up into the blue heavens and waiting for the fire to die enough so he could think, or talk.

Finally he rolled his head in the grass, facing her, and her gray troubled eyes met his.

“I want you, Mitch,” she said. “I’m not teasing or playing games here.” She struggled to a sitting position, and after a moment, he did, too.

“It’s just that making love is an awfully big commitment as far as I’m concerned. A two-way commitment. And I’m not sure I’m ready, or have enough time in
my days for that right now.”

She paused and drew her knees up, resting her arms on them, head down. “I’m not
sure you do, either,” she finished.

She sounded miserable, and Mitch reached out a hand and circled her wrist. “Sara, it’s okay. If you need time, that’s fine with me.” He caught her chin in his fingers and forced her to
look at him, adding, “I know what you’re saying about commitment.”

He swallowed, because the rest of what he had to tell her was difficult for him to put into words. “Sara, this thing between us. I want you to know that it’s not just...” He searched for a word, and the only one he could think of sounded biblical and
dramatic, but he used it, anyway. “It’s not just lust with me. This scares the living hell out of me,” he finally blurted in a rush, “but I think I’m falling in love with you. I’m telling you because I can’t have you believing I’m just some fast-talking cowboy out to make it with you.”

She sat motionless, staring at him. His fingers went from her chin to her hair, smoothing the tumbled curls tenderly, picking out bits of twigs and grass.

Finally she nodded the slightest bit, and her words came out in a rush. “Mitch, I know. I know what you’re saying, because I think the same thing is happening to me.”

Her words sent joy surging through him, and he realized that he’d been holding his breath, waiting to see what she’d say.

“So what do you think we should do about it?” His voice was concerned and puzzled, and she reached a hand out and touched his jaw.

“Maybe just leave it alone for a while and see if it grows?” she suggested, and it felt as if the responsibility for the whole thing wasn’t his alone anymore; they could share the decisions that had to be made.

She was wise, this Sara. Time was exactly what he needed to come to terms with his life. By saying no, she was saying yes to a future with him while refusing to rush into something that might endanger that future.

She knew he needed time, and he was thankful for it.

They rode home
in the dizzying brightness of afternoon heat, not saying much, but soaking in the sounds of the horses’ hooves, the creaking of the leather saddles, the smells of the open range and the ripening hay.

It was the same country they’d ridden across earlier that day, and yet to each of them, it felt strange and exceedingly new, like the vista that stretched between them back there by the stream. Love made everything look different somehow.

Mitch was coming to Bitterroot for supper, but he had to take his own truck so he’d have a way home again.

Ruth and Wilson were out when Sara and Mitch arrived at the Carter ranch house, so Sara helped Mitch unpack the picnic things. She’d forgotten to tell Ruth about the visit Adeline had planned for Thursday, so she scribbled a note and left it on the table, thanking Ruth for the hat as well and adding a teasing line to Wilson about the boots.

“See you in an hour, Mitch?”

Instead of answering, he gripped her shoulders, drew her into his arms for a quick kiss on the lips and another on the tip of her nose.

“Drive carefully,” he growled. Sara did, and with every other mile a new obstacle to loving Mitch rose to haunt her, and with every in-between mile, a correspondingly delightful memory of the time they’d spent together made her lips curl upward into a smile.

Organized chaos greeted her at Bitterroot.

Adeline and Jennie weren’t women who allowed grass to grow under their heels once they’d come to a decision, and they’d started immediately turning the large dining room into an area where the public could come for dinner.

With Dave’s help, they’d unearthed the heavy old dining tables and chairs, and there were now six tables scattered in the heavy-beamed dining room where that morning there’d been only one.

They’d don
e inventory on dishes and cooking utensils and had careful lists of everything needed to update the kitchen and outfit the dining room.

They’d wanted to move an old sideboard of Jennie’s out of a bedroom and into the dining room to use as a serving center, but the piece proved much too heavy for them, even with Dave’s help.

“How come you haven’t got a billboard out on the highway advertising this place yet?” Sara teased, marveling at how much they’d accomplished in one day.

“Write that down, Jennie,” Gram instructed, busily running a duster over the tables. “A big sign out on the road would be a derned good idea. Phew, where does the dust come from?”

“I sure hope you two have some plans for food for tonight in the middle of all this,” Sara went on. “Because I did as you said, Gram, and invited Mitch over. He’ll be here soon. I’m going over to the cabin to have a shower and then I’ll help with supper.”

“No need to hurry,” Gram said serenely. “There’s a big roasting chicken in the oven
, and I’m making biscuits. Jennie, you can whip up that special chocolate cake of yours for dessert. Did you young folks have a nice day, Sara?”

Nice wasn’t exactly the
words she’d have chosen to describe a day two people admitted to each other that they were falling in love and didn’t know what to do about it.

Nice didn’t even begin to cover it, but she sure wasn’t about to tell Gram that. “We had a wonderful time, we rode horses. I’ll tell you all about it later.”

“Maybe we can feed your young man and then talk him into helping us move that pesky old sideboard,” Gram was plotting as Sara hurried out the door.

She made her way past the pool and under the trees to her cabin. Standing under the shower for the third time that day, all Sara could hear was a deep v
oice saying, “I think I’m falling in love with you, I think I’m falling…….

Those words and the vivid recollection of M
itch’s arms and kisses made Sara smile.

Cold showers weren’t a bad idea at all, the way that man made her feel.

Gram was in fine form during supper, and Sara alternated between laughing at some of
the things her outspoken relative came out with and feeling guilty for putting Mitch through what amounted to an offbeat inquisition.

Gram was simply cur
ious. She wanted to know everything about everybody, and a bit more than everything about anyone who was interested in her granddaughters.

Bringing a male friend home for a meal had always been the true test of a relationship during Sara’s growing-up years. If the guy got through dinner with Gram and still asked her out again, he was made of the right stuff. The thing was, Gram never asked only the usual sort of questions, like what a person did or what their plans were for the future. She got around to them eventually, by sort of slipping them in between questions not so ordinary.

“Here, have two more of these biscuits, Mitchell. No need to hold back on the grub, there’s plenty more in the kitchen. You believe in dreams, young man?” she began shortly after they’d sat down at one of the tables.

Here we go, Sara thought, looking across the table at her mother. Jennie rolled her eyes in helpless sympathy. Mitch was beside Gram, which S
ara knew was anything but accidental.

“Dreams?” Mitch looked startled, as well he might. He paused in the act of buttering the biscuits. “I don’t really think I dream all that much,” he replied, automatically glancing Sara’s way.

Lately his dreams had centered mostly around her and were x-rated. He certainly wasn’t going to admit that at the dinner table with her relatives around.

Gram snorted. “Hogwash. Everybody dreams; all night, every night. If you concentrate on remembering and learn to figure ’em out, dreams can
be a sort of road map for living. Now, surely you can remember a dream or two for me, and I’ll tell you what I figure they mean. I’m good at it, had a whole lot of years’ practice.” She laid down her fork and waited expectantly.

Dave was seated at the head of the table, and he sent Mitch a look full of sympathy. “Might as well cough up a nightmare or two, Mitch,” he suggested. “She’s gone through all of ours.”

Mitch glanced again at Sara, and she winked at him, one eye closing slowly and opening in a silent signal to beware.

A twinkle came into his eyes. “Well,” he began slowly, “I do have this one dream pretty often, about meeting a wise and beautiful woman who interprets my dreams and tells me my future. Trouble is, I never can remember what i
t is she says,” he teased.

Gram made a noise in her throat and looked at Mitch over the top of her glasses. “You wouldn’t be putting me on, now would you, Mitchell?” she inquired in a steely tone.

“Yes, ma’am, I sure would be,” he said, and everyone laughed, Gram included. There was nothing she liked as well as being beaten at her own game. “So you were a rodeo rider. Sara says you know our Frankie. How do you feel about children?” Gram demanded a short while later, passing Mitch a blue bowl heaped with mashed potatoes.

“Mother, for heaven’s sakes,” Jennie objected. “Mitch is here for dinner, not an interview. And how do you get from Frankie to kids, anyway?”

“Simple,” Gram declared. “Frankie was married to a rodeo man, and they never had any children. I just wondered how Mitchell feels about a family. Maybe this contraception business is general amongst rodeo people.”

Sara groaned
, but Mitch didn’t seem to mind at all.

“I don’t know much about kids,” he confessed. “I’ve got three small nieces I never had a chance to get to know. They’ve gone back to Seattle
now with my sister-in-law, after my brother died. I never got around to having any kids of my own.”

“Never been marri
ed, then?” Gram inquired, and Sara rolled her eyes. “Mind you, marriage don’t cut much ice these days, lots of people having babies without getting married. How you feel about that, son?”

“I figure a kid deserves two parents if he can ge
t them,” Mitch said. “And no, ma’am, I’ve never been married. How about you?” he asked, turning the tables on Gram.

Gram didn’t bat an eye. “Only married once, and it was great while it lasted. But he wasn’t a family man, Jennie’s father. Charming, but he had a bit of the wanderlust in him, always moving on somewhere new. I got fed up with it, so we divorced when Jennie was just a baby. He died out in Australia, years ago. Funny, isn’t it? Neither my daughter nor my granddaughters had the benefit of two parents while they were growing up.”

There was regret in Gram’s tone, and silence fell around the table for several moments, until Mitch bridged it.

“I had a friend from Australia, a bronc rider named Tim. I always wanted to take a trip over there someday,” Mitch volunteered, and Dave said that he’d always dreamed of that, as well.

Mitch entertained them then with some strange tales Tim had told him about Australia and its animals, and for the next half hour, the dining room was filled with stories and laughter.

By the time Sara’s moth
er served huge wedges of chocolate cake thick with gooey icing, Sara had relaxed. Mitch was obviously able to handle Gram with one hand tied behind his back.

Inevitably, just as she was about to start on her cake,
her cell rang, and it was Doc Stone. A dog, an expensive purebred shepherd, had been hit by a car on the street in town. The poor animal was badly injured, needing extensive surgery.

Doc and the owner were waiting at the clinic for Sara
to come and assist with the operation because, Doc reported blandly, Floyd O’Malley was not at home.

Dead drunk, Sara interpreted silently, cursin
g the unreliable assistant. The last thing she felt like doing this Sunday night was going to work, but there was no choice.

S
he outlined the situation to the others, and Mitch got immediately to his feet.

“I’ll drive you,” he offered, but Sara shook her head.

“I have no idea how long this will take, so I’d best have my own vehicle,” she decided. It would have been so nice to spend a little longer with Mitch.

“Sit down and have another piece of cake, Mitchell,” Gram ordered, adding, “
Best keep your strength up, because we were hoping we could get you to help us move some furniture around. Right, Jennie?”

“Better have two more pieces,” Dave instructed. “That damned thing they want moved must weigh five hundred pounds, and if I know th
ese two, that’s only the beginning.”

Mitch caught Sara’s eye as she hurried away, returning the wink she’d given him earlier.

“If there’s enough furniture to move, I may still be around when you get back,” he said.

But the operation took much longer than Sara expected, mostly because Doc turned every bit of the procedure into a major production, checking and rechecking the wounds, the dog’s condition, the transfusion devices, and generally hindering Sara.

She’d realized shortly after
she arrived that the old veterinarian was unsure of the operation, and she ended up doing the major part of it without making it obvious.

Doc breathed down her neck during the entire procedure, his hands trembling badly,
muttering under his breath in a manner she found irritating and distracting. Sara wished that he’d just go home and let her do the work by herself. It surely wouldn’t be as difficult to manage alone as it was putting up with the older veterinarian’s fussing and bungling.

But the dog’s owner, a
retired army captain named Major Whitmore who lived in solitary splendor in one of the largest old houses in Plains, had been adamant that Doc Stone perform the operation on his beloved Angus, obviously not wanting to trust his precious pet to Sara’s less experienced ministrations.

They finally finished the procedure just past midnight, and Doc left, muttering that he would phone the major and give him a report on Angus. The dog had come through the operation well, and the prognosis was excellent.

Still, Sara was afraid to leave the clinic until she was certain the beautiful shepherd was coming out of the anesthesia and resting comfortably, and it was long past 2:00 a.m. before the dog was stable enough to satisfy her.

Finally she drove home and collapsed into bed, making sure the alarm was set for six-thirty in the morning. Clinic hours started at
eight on Mondays. Sara was supposed to open and Floyd was due at nine, with Doc taking over at noon.

Well, she concluded as she checked her alarm, there wasn’t much hope that either Doc or Floyd would appear anywhere near on time, so
she’d better make sure for Angus’s sake that she was there.

Her final thought before she tumbled into
sleep was of Mitch, laughing uncontrollably as she thundered past him on Steamboat earlier that day, of the way his green eyes danced and his white teeth contrasted with his tanned skin, and of how his rough chin felt scraping across her cheek.

By two the following afternoon, Sara was ready to fall asleep standing up. She also was having trouble walking; riding Steamboat had made various parts of her anatomy so sore she felt like moaning each time she sat down.

Not that there’d been much chance to sit that morning. The clinic had been busier than usual, and just as she’d thought, neither Doc nor Floyd appeared when they were supposed to.

Floyd had wandered in at ten-thirty full of the usual set of excuses about stomach problems, and Doc Stone had made a brief appearance an hour ago, fussing around the infirmary over Angus and then disappearing again, supposedly for only a few moments in order to pick something up at the post office. There’d been no sign of him since. There were a number of farm visits to be made that afternoon, and Sara would be late before she even began.

All at once, she’d had enough. She was darned well going to track Doc down and give him a
n ultimatum, she decided. Stomping down the hallway on her way to the door, she heard a strange choking sound from the infirmary.

“Angus?” she called, hurrying over to the cage where the big dog was lying. The sound came again, accompanied by a whimper, and then there was ominous silence. Sara ran over to the cage, her heart thumping fearfully.

Angus was lying as she’d left him, all his intravenous tubes intact, but she could tell at a glance that he was dead.

Sara stared down at the dog in disbelief. She’d checked him at half-hour intervals all morning, and he’d seemed to be recovering slowly but steadily.

“Floyd,” she screamed, and the rusty-haired assistant hurried into the room behind her. Sara did her best to make her voice sound as normal as possible. “Floyd, did you administer anything to this animal in the last little while?” she demanded.

“Not me. Doc gave him a shot when he was here awhile before. Doc said Angus was restless and in pain. He said he gave him a tranq
uilizer,” Floyd said. He took a step closer to Angus. “Ahh, the puir thing’s gone,” he announced sadly. “The major’s going to be beside himself,” he added. “He spent a bundle on that dog, 'twas his pride and joy.”

Sara waited until Floyd left the room. Then she closed the door and walked over to the waste bin. The empty drug vial was right on top, and the moment Sara saw it, she knew what had happened.

Doc had confused two medications with similar sounding names.

One would have simply tranquilized Angus and helped him rest easier. The other, the vial she held in her hand, was for totally different circumstances and undoubtedly had been the cause of Angus's death.

Sara sank into the wooden chair in the corner, and tears began to trickle down her cheeks, sad tears for the unnecessary death of a helpless animal, tears of utter frustration and rage against the circumstances of the death.

Well, tears wouldn’t solve a thing. She blew her nose hard and tried to take rational stock of the situation. Major Whitmore would have to be told his dog was dead. It was no good waiting an i
ndeterminate time for her superior to appear and take on the responsibility; she had to make the call as soon as possible.

Professional discretion forbade telling the major the whole truth about what had happened. Sara delayed the phone call another fifteen minutes while she sent Floyd out to find Doc, which she realized was an absolute waste of time when Floyd came puffing in shortly afterward.

“Doc’s gone out to the Mason farm. Jerry in the post office said Larry Mason was in there when Doc came in and asked him to come out with him and have a look at a colt Larry’s thinking of buying. Guess he won’t be back for a couple of hours.”

Resigned
, Sara dialed Major Whitmore. Instead of being heartbroken, the major reacted with anger, which quickly turned to barely controlled rage.

“Angus is dead? Dead, you say? I find that absolutely intolerable, do you hear me? Intolerable. Bad show. How can my dog be dead, tell me that, when Dr. Stone himself assured me last night and again this morning that my dog was coming along fine, and now you tell me he’s dead. Was Dr. Stone there when he died?”

The major’s loud tones grew even louder, echoing through the receiver. Sara moved the cell farther away from her ear. “No, he wasn’t,” she said as evenly as she could. “I came in right afterward, though, and if anything could have been done, I would...”