One Brave Cowboy (11 page)

He hadn't seemed to notice her moving around in the kitchen, and she felt oddly shy about bouncing outside to greet him first thing, so she'd made coffee and hustled Mark down to the bus stop. Back in the house she saw no sign that he'd helped himself, so she filled a cup with coffee and opened the back door in time to watch him heave a tattered plank off the deck. He turned, ready to grab another one. His expression softened, business to pleasure, and he greeted her with a cowboy salute—the touch of a finger to the brim of a hat—a little different from the crisp salute he'd given Mary on the heels of paying her public tribute, but offered with equal ease by the same man.

One look and she was ready to leap.

“Whoa!” The salute became a warning flag. He pointed toward the hole she was about to put her foot in.

“That's your second save this morning.” She doubled the stretch in her step-off leg and flip-flopped over to his side of what was left of the deck. “I forgot to set the alarm, so your racket was timely.” She handed him the coffee. “Mark made it to the bus.”

“You might want to use the front door for a couple of days, especially after it rains.” He cast a glance overhead as he sipped.

“That's two rain forecasts. You and the bus
driver.” She scanned the sky. “Those don't look like rain clouds.”

“They aren't. They're warnings. Put them together with the barometer in my head, and you've got a sure thing.”

“You have an imaginary barometer?” Under his hat, buried in his beautiful black hair. She smiled at the image.

“Oh, it's real. Got one in my head and one in my back.”

“Cougar, you don't have to do this now. You don't have to do it at all.”

He handed her the coffee and bent to pick up another splintered plank.

“Cougar!”

He tossed the plank into the grass and turned with a tight smile. “Okay, now's the time to use words lightly. The headache is down to a dull roar, and I'd like to keep it that way.”

“But you don't have to—”

“I want to. Actually, I
need
to. I've learned the hard way. I give myself an injection, and I keep moving. I don't think about it until I realize, hey, it's almost gone.”

“Can I help?”

“Sure, if you put some shoes on.” He took the coffee back and ushered her to the edge of the deck, where he motioned for her to take a seat with his red
toolbox between them. He pulled out two pieces of paper. “I have two plans, A and B.

“I started out with Plan B, and then I started dreaming up options. See?” He pushed the toolbox aside and sidled closer, presenting his drawings as though he actually had a stake in all this—a grade, a medal, a check, something more than parking space. “Plan A has some extra cool stuff. Two satellite decks. This one's a play area for Mark, and this one's for stargazing.” He pointed out each part of the pencil drawing, neatly executed with a straight edge. “And then up here, you can have this workbench for whatever project you've got going. I see you do some gardening, and you build little things and decorate stuff.”

He pointed to a cross-hatched area. “I wanna put up some shade here and here. Build a frame and maybe throw some cottonwood cuttings on to start with.”

“Like a bowery,” she enthused.

“To start,” he stressed, as though she might take exception to the lovely traditional touch. “You and Mark are both pretty pale until you turn pink for a day or two, and then it's back to pale.”

“Peel first. Then back to pale.”

“I wasn't gonna mention that, but, yeah. I read that you people get a lot of skin cancer out here on the prairie.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “Don't
worry—I'm not feeling sorry for you or nothin'. It's me. That peeling part is pretty disturbing.”

But she was studying his sketch. “This is too much work.”

“It'll take a little time.”

“That's true.” She looked up at him. The playful smile was gone, and the message was clear.
Do you want me around, or not?
“You said I could help.”

“
Real
shoes.” The smile was back. “If there's enough lumber, I can do this for little or nothing. You take an inventory of what's in the barn while I finish ripping this up. From what I can tell, the stuff out there is all treated lumber, which this isn't. So I'm thinking…” He slapped the paper with the back of his hand. “This was meant to be.”

“Meant to be.” She nodded. “I never met the people who lived here, but they left so much of themselves behind, I feel like I know them. They were going to build something out of that pile of lumber. An outdoor something, right?” She laid her hand on the lid of his toolbox. “Can I use your tape measure?”

He lifted one shoulder. “You can just eyeball it.”

“I tend to estimate on the wishful side.”

“Oh, yeah.” He laughed. “They say that's a woman thing.”

“They also say it works to a man's advantage sometimes.”

“But not in this case.” He handed her the tape
measure. “Width, length and thickness. All of it matters.”

“Gotcha. I'll write everything down and prepare a report. I have both Excel and PowerPoint.”

He winked at her. “So do I.” He leaned across the toolbox and gave her a kiss. “Look, Ma. No headache.”

 

The storm rolled in suddenly. Barn swallows went silent, and the air stopped moving in prelude, but Celia kept counting, pulling the tape out, letting it snap back into place and making notes. She was almost finished.

Then daylight dimmed, and the wind took charge of the world. Celia began clutching her notes and searching for the cell phone that only worked half the time, but she froze mid-rush. The skies had opened, and the deluge hammered the barn's ramshackle roof. Celia truly hated being alone in a storm. She considered making a dash for the house, but a flash of lightning turned her away from the door. She wasn't even going to try to roll the mammoth thing shut.

Water had already started to fall through the holes in the roof. There were three steady streams. Fortunately they ended on the floor's two empty stalls and a concrete slab. She'd have to fix those. She was going to use this barn for something. Someday.

She decided to get back to work on her building
materials inventory. Better than sitting there listening to heaven clashing with hell.

“Celia!”

Her heartbeat leaped into overdrive as she turned to find Cougar standing—barely—one arm braced on the doorjamb, chest heaving, hat gone, hair dripping.

“You can quit now,” he called to her.

And she came running. “My goodness, you're soaked.”

He looked at her as though she'd grown a beak. “Do you see what's out there?”

“A storm.” She gestured toward the track door. “I couldn't close it.” Not that she'd tried. “This will blow over.”

“This place could go with it,” he shouted as he grabbed the door and gave it a mighty shove. The noise level dropped by half. “What the hell are you doing? I thought you'd be in the house.”

She rammed one hand against her hip. “Do
you
see what's out there?”

“I closed up the camper, turned Flyboy out and then went back to the house thinking that's where you'd be. In the basement, for God's sake.”

“I didn't realize…”

He was looking around. “The car.” He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the far side of the barn. “Just in case the roof caves in,” he said as he set about rolling the canvas from bumper to trunk
and over the roof. He jerked the back door open and gave a sweeping gesture. “Party of two?”

She scooted across the cracked leather seat, and he followed her. “Wow, this is some backseat,” she said. “Actual leg room. And it really is pretty clean.” She braced her forearm on his shoulder and felt around for the hard lump under her bottom. It was a giant buckle. “Hey, they had seat belts in those days. You're soaked, Cougar. Are you cold?”

“If I say yes, will you tell me to take off my wet clothes?”

He smiled at her when she touched his wet hair. “You lost your hat.”

“I tossed it in the back door of the house.” He laughed. “Hell, that's the first thing I thought of.”

“And the horse was the next, and then the camper.”

He shrugged out of his shirt and hung it over the front seat. “How long have you lived here?”

“Almost a year and a half.”

“Okay, I should've gone looking for you right after I took care of the hat.” He lifted his arm around her shoulders. His chest was brawny, bronze and smooth, and his arms exuded power. “You look up and see those wall clouds forming, you get yourself underground, woman.”

“I really don't like the way you say
woman
.” She shrugged. “Okay, I didn't look outside.”

“Geez.”

“I was almost finished with my inventory.” She thrust the paper under his nose. “Look.”

“I'm wet.”

“Well, it's a lot of lumber.” She tossed the paper over the front seat. “Did you happen to hear anything on the radio? Anything about where the storm is headed?”

“Mark should be okay,” he assured her quietly as he unclipped her hair. “This thing came out of the Hills, tracking east.”

Her voice rose when she said, “They went north,” then dropped. “But you can't be sure.”

“You can never be sure.”

“I shouldn't have let him go.”

“Yeah, you should've kept him here. He could've been sittin' here in the car with us, wondering whether we're gonna get to see Oz.” He ran splayed fingers through her hair. “But he isn't.”

She glanced askance. “I wonder if that radio works.”

“I wonder if this baby's been sittin' here since 1966. It's in great shape. Somebody sure loved her.” He leaned over the seat and turned a couple of knobs, which brought nothing forth. He came back to her laughing. “Can't believe I did that.”

“Neither can I, but thanks for trying.” She cuddled up to him again. His skin had gone from wet-hot to cool-clammy. “You're cold, aren't you.”

“I'm gonna say
yes
and see where it gets me.”

She smiled and stroked his shoulder. “I wonder if anybody ever went to a drive-in movie in this car. Or went parking by the river.”

“Or got his girl pregnant.”

“Or just lost her virginity.”

He tucked one hand beneath the hem of her T-shirt, his eyes plying the depths of hers. “Did you?”

“Not in this car. Did you?”

“Not in any car.” He ran his fingertips across her abdomen slowly, following her waistband around back. “I've never owned a car. Or gotten a girl pregnant.”

“Would you like to?”

His hand stilled, and he gave her an incredulous look.

“Own a car,” she said with a smile. “I can tell you like this one.”

“Right now, between owning an old car and doing what it takes to get a girl pregnant in the backseat of an old car…” He closed his eyes. “Let me think.”

She felt her bra go slack. The wind whistled through the barn walls.

“Better make up your mind. We could end up in Oz, where there's no car and no sex.”

“I ain't no tin man, honey.”

He shifted her in his arms and planted a warm, wet, breath-stealing kiss on and around and within her mouth as proof. She unbuckled his belt, unzipped his pants and found more evidence. His flesh ex
panded. There was no rust in his joints and no uncertainty in his brain. He was all human, all man, all there for her and easily made ready. He whisked her T-shirt over her head, taking her bra with it, and coddled her breasts with gentle hands and plucking fingers until she was all about getting him inside her, and he pushed her to the point of telling him so.

He loosened her shorts and slipped his hand between her legs. She pressed his flesh hard and heavy until he took her hand away with a reluctant, “Uhuh. Just let me.”

“Cougar…”

“I have no protection for you.” He nibbled her earlobe as he explored her with kind, caring fingers. “If I go in, I'll explode before I can get out.”

“Cougar…”

“It doesn't get any better than Cougar.”

He slid his finger inside her, and she gasped and gave welcome—moisture drawn out by his wondrous finger to the so, so sensitive flesh between her outer folds. Her whole being followed his woman-centered stroking until it was she who exploded. He held her, pet her, protected her with his sheltering body, giving her the most while she made the best of his gift.

And then she returned his gift in kind. She pressed him back against the car door, lowered his jeans, took him in her mouth and made him let go and let Celia.

They held each other, hands stirring over each other. The car smelled of nothing but their sex, and
the storm swirled around them like music, rocking, rolling, finally winding down.

“It's letting up,” he said, and she looked up at him, smiling. He smiled back. He rolled his eyes heavenward. “Outside.”

Reluctantly they covered themselves, straightened and zipped and buttoned.

“It's gonna be mud city,” he said. “What kind of shoes are you wearing?”

“The good kind.” She lifted her foot for his inspection. “The washable kind.”

“South Dakota gumbo will eat those things up.”

“My feet are washable, too. You have some footwear snobbery going on, Cougar.”

“I'd pity you if I didn't know you had boots.” He sat up. “It's a long way to the house, but, hell, I've done ten times that with at least two-twenty on my back.”

“Oh, goodie, a piggyback ride.”

“But that was before I took a load of shrapnel.” He glanced down at his knees. “And I've got my boots to consider.”