Patricia Potter (39 page)

“You first,” Lobo said.

It was a command, and Brady stiffened. He wasn’t sure whether it was from his own uncertainty or annoyance, but whatever the reaction, it strengthened his resolve. His hand fell to his gun and tightened around the handle, and he slowly pulled it from the holster. He felt cold and spastic, but his hand wasn’t shaking. Thank God it wasn’t shaking. He lifted the gun and pointed it at the target on the tree. His trigger finger trembled slightly, and he hesitated, feeling the wary, watching presence of Lobo behind him, yet he didn’t sense impatience.

Brady swallowed, then took careful aim, and his finger pressed against the trigger, slowly but with a confidence that was slowly returning. The gun discharged and he saw the bullet hit the pine between the two lines. He lowered the gun to his side, feeling a burst of quiet, bittersweet victory.

“Not bad,” Lobo said, and Brady thought he heard some satisfaction in that voice, though he wasn’t sure. It was too damned difficult to tell anything about Lobo. Whenever Brady thought he had him pegged, Lobo did something that made him feel one hundred percent wrong.

Brady stepped back, holstering the pistol, while Lobo went to the pine. “Nearly dead center,” the gunman said. He looked at Brady, his lips twisting in a wry smile, and once again Brady wondered about him, and what he was feeling. Brady tried to remember the scraps of information Willow had told him about Lobo, but they had been few. Nothing seemed to fit this man, nothing he’d learned in his years of law-keeping, nothing he’d learned of men. Lobo defied every conception, every expectation. Even now Brady didn’t know if he was merely being baited or made to face his own demons, though the latter seemed unlikely.

“Your turn,” Brady said finally.

Lobo brought up his pistol with a smooth draw, and without seeming to aim, fired. Splinters flew from the spot between the two lines drawn by mud.

Both men advanced to study the bullet holes. The indentations in the pine were side by side, not more than a quarter of an inch apart.

“A draw,” Lobo ruled, and Brady nodded.

Lobo shrugged. “Guess I’ll learn a new thing at that.”

Brady couldn’t stop grinning at Lobo’s use of Brady’s earlier challenge. Neither could he stop the grudging respect that was growing inside. Despite the scowl on Lobo’s face, there was a gleam in the man’s eyes, as if he’d scored a victory, not sentenced himself to a day of plowing.

“Someone told me I was pretty good at plowing,” Brady responded, his lips twitching.

Brady thought Lobo was going to smile as a flash of understanding passed between them. But then the moment passed, and Lobo retreated into the ultimate loner, needing no one, wanting no one. Brady knew a sudden loss, which stunned him. He turned around. “Let’s get going. Willow will be long gone now.”

The two men mounted and rode back to the house in silence.

T
HE DAY WAS
never going to end.

Willow sat behind the desk and watched her students struggle with their examinations. She had spent the morning with the young ones, listening to them read and do their sums orally. Then she passed out papers and asked them to write about the person they admired most.

The older children had more complex examinations, and they were bent over their desks, most of their faces furrowed in concentration, even Ethan, which gave her a thrill of satisfaction.

The twins glanced at each other and grimaced, but Willow’s attention had wandered and she didn’t notice it. Nor did she notice the strange looks she was receiving from some of the other students.

Although she was looking straight at the children, she wasn’t seeing them. She was seeing Lobo as he was the previous afternoon, standing by the tree, looking young and happy and expectant. Then his features slowly dissolved into the expression she’d seen in the evening: cold, hard, bitter. His soft words turned into clipped, deadly ones.

She had waited for him to return. After Marisa had left, she’d waited and waited, even knowing deep inside that he wasn’t coming. Still, she’d hoped. She had wanted to touch him, to tell him she loved Lobo as well as Jess. And she did.

Her body ached today in needing him again. She needed the feel of him moving inside her; needed his most intimate caress; needed his touch, restless and loving, fierce and tender. Now that she’d tasted the splendor of his love, how could she live knowing she would never again have that radiance? That ecstasy and excitement, that tender trembling?

Others had lived without it. She tried to think of those sailors’ wives, of whalers’ wives who had to wait for their men for years. She thought of Penelope and how she’d waited for nineteen years for her Odysseus to return. Willow had once thought that romantic. No longer. It would be the worst kind of Hades.

But she’d promised herself, and had sworn to him, she needed no more from him than the present.

“Miss Willow, I’m finished.” A small voice disrupted her thoughts.

Willow went over and collected the paper, smiling at Hiram, her youngest and most enthusiastic pupil next to Robert, who was still bent over his desk and writing intently. Although she would miss all of them during the next six weeks, she relished the thought of spending more time with Lobo. She wanted every precious second she could get.

As she looked over her students, she felt more than the usual affection for them. She felt naked greed for a child of her own, something she had never felt so strongly before. She’d always loved children but had been satisfied with taking care of those who belonged to others. Now she wanted a little towheaded boy with turquoise-colored eyes, one to whom she could give everything Lobo had never had.

After the children left, Willow quickly gathered her things. She’d never wanted to get home so quickly. Despite the specter of Alex Newton, the next days seemed to stretch blissfully before her.

Willow and the twins were almost home when she noticed a rider following her. She felt fear as she recognized the horseman from the night Newton’s men came to burn the barn. There were two other men to the right of him, and they seemed terribly sinister.

Willow slapped the reins against the withers of the horses, spurring them on to a fast gait. She wanted to get home; she wanted the safety of Lobo.

“Hold on,” she told the boys, who climbed in the back and grabbed the sides. The wagon rocked and bounced until she felt she would be thrown off, but she knew if she stopped or slowed, something terrible would happen. She felt it in her soul.

There was a gunshot, and then the horses bolted and she no longer had any control. The reins were useless in her hands; so was the brake she tried to use. At any moment the vehicle would overturn, crushing her and the boys.

The landscape was flying by, passing in a whirl of colors. Terror flooded her. She didn’t want to die yet, not when she’d just discovered the richness of life, the joy of love. She tried to take control again, pulling on the reins, but the horses had the bits in their mouths and she didn’t have the strength to hold them back.

Willow heard more gunshots, and sensed a rider nearby. She wished she had a whip or gun or some sort of weapon, but she didn’t. Glancing around, she saw the horseman riding next to the wagon, his body low over the neck of a pinto.

Her heart was already thundering harder than the horses’ hooves, and now it twisted spasmodically as she saw him prepare to jump. He half rose on the bare back of the horse, then leapt to the seat of the shaking wagon. He grabbed the reins from her and pulled back on them. As frightened as she was, she noticed the strain of his muscles against his shirt, the strength in his arms and his legs as his low, magnetic voice soothed the horses. Slowly their-pace grew less frantic.

Willow remembered how Chad had described the “stranger” jumping from his horse onto Jupiter’s back. She hadn’t believed it, and even now she couldn’t credit her eyes. She’d never seen such skill. Her heart had stopped in those few seconds when he seemed to hang in air.

Another horseman came up beside the wagon, and Willow saw it was Brady.

“You all right, Willow?” Brady asked as Lobo continued to give all his attention to the horses.

“How did you know there was trouble?” Her lips were still trembling and she stuttered slightly.

“Lobo seems to have a sixth sense where you’re concerned,” Brady said wryly. “We were plowing a trench and all of a sudden he said we ought to come looking for you.”

“Where did the other riders go?”

“They left when we came. Toward Newton’s ranch.”

“Sullivan warned us there might be an ambush, but for Lobo,” she said softly. He turned with a surprised jerk when he heard her say the name. The horses were walking now, their skins glistening with sweat and their mouths dripping with foam.

Her gaze met his and held it. His eyes darkened to a bright green-blue, and she was mesmerized by them. There was nothing cold about them now, nothing aloof. They glittered with fire, with raw, scorching need, and she felt all her nerves sizzle in response. She put her hand on his arm. He flinched but didn’t move away.

“No more riding by yourself,” he ordered.

“She’s not by herself,” one of the twins broke in.

Willow saw Lobo weigh his answer instead of laughing, as most men would have. “No,” he finally said, “and she’s very lucky to have such brave companions, but I think she also needs someone like Brady, who can shoot.”

With those few words he elevated Brady considerably in the twins’ eyes and Willow saw the ex-lawman’s gaze settle on Lobo a moment and then move away. Her heart twisted as she realized what Lobo was doing: preparing the way for his own departure. And in doing so, he’d given Brady the greatest possible gift—respect.

The twins dominated the rest of the trip, talking about the men with guns, the wild ride.

“I wasn’t scared,” Jeremy said.

“Yes, you were. I heard you yelling.”

“You yelled louder.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

Willow looked apologetically at Lobo, who shrugged.

“Thank you,” she said. “I keep saying that.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“How did you know I needed help?”

He was silent. He didn’t know how he knew. He and Brady had been taking turns plowing a deep trench when he’d felt an intense fear. He’d not known anything like it since he was a boy, and all of a sudden he’d realized why it was so intense. It was fear for someone else.

Without saying a word he’d run to the corral, not taking the time to saddle the horse but sprinting to its bare back. He knew Brady would be behind him in minutes; he’d sense what Lobo had not said. They were working that way now, with an unspoken communication between them though there was still wariness.

Lobo had not gone far before he heard shots and saw the wagon jolting down the road, followed by two men firing pistols. They’d turned quickly when they saw him, and he wished he’d been able to go after them, but he had to stop the wagon.

He remembered the horse, however. He remembered it well. It belonged to the man named Keller who had come to burn the ranch. The man with him was also working for Newton. Lobo didn’t forget men he might meet again. And now he marked these two well. Especially Keller.

Lobo didn’t think Newton had ordered this attack. Scaring Willow, burning her barn, yes, but the coldblooded assault on a woman and children didn’t seem to fit, even considering the man’s rage. And murder could easily have been the result if he hadn’t come along.

Maybe Keller got tired of waiting for him and decided to ambush an easier target. Maybe the man thought Newton would be grateful, would even pay the high fee everyone thought Lobo had been offered.

Guilt ran through him like the sizzling heat of a brand, and he wondered whether the doc was right, whether he was causing more harm than good, whether he was a lightning rod rather than protection. If Willow had been hurt or killed…

His shoulders tensed and his hands tightened on the reins. The nearness of Willow was agonizing. He smelled her light scent, the intoxicating blend of soap and flowers, and each time their skin brushed, he felt touched with fire. He ached to put an arm around her, to comfort her after the terror she’d been through, but he kept his arms stiffly by his side. If he gave in to his need again, he could never stop, not when everything in him yearned for her.

He had to be clearheaded, not drugged with sensations that had no place in the life he’d chosen, if they were to survive the next few hours, the next few days. He had to be clearheaded in order to go when he must go.

He sat rigidly on the bench seat of the wagon, his lips drawn tightly together, his eyes hiding worry and need. His shirt hid the bunched muscles in his back, and his gloves hid the wretched condition of his hands. He was hiding from everything, fleeing from feelings that were so dangerous.

As they reached the hill, Chad stood up and waved at them, and they continued on, Lobo’s pinto following behind without urging. The house, the yard, looked peaceful enough; even the chicken house was unusually calm.

Lobo heard Willow’s exclamation as she saw the trench running from the garden toward the river. She turned to Lobo. “How is it coming?”

“I think it’s deep enough. The water’s already built up behind the dam. We’re going to blast the bank this afternoon. The force of the explosion should carry the water to your field.”