Reason To Believe (7 page)

She looked up and found his eyes doting on her. She felt warm in the face.

"The ol' man says you have an Indian heart," he told her.

"He said that?"

"Not an Indian
head,
mind you. You do think different."

"From you? I wouldn't say that's all bad."

"You wouldn't say
I'm
all bad? Which part of me isn't?" He challenged her with a look, then tempted her with the light sweep of his knuckles along her jaw. "Hmm? Can't you just give some little part of me a break? Just one small..." He offered a gentle smile. "My hair, maybe? You always liked my hair, and it never got me into any trouble. I never did anything bad with my—"

"Stop it, Ben." She closed her eyes and stepped back in desperate defense of her fragile balance. "I don't want to know anything else about what you've done, or where you've been, or who you've been—"

"The hell you don't. You always wanna know what I've been doin'. Not
how
I'm doin'.
What
I've been doin'. Where I've been and who I've been with." He glanced toward the dark hallway beyond the bedroom door and lowered his voice. "I've been working. I set up shop in a gas station that had been shut down for years, down in McLaughlin. The place is like an oven in the summer and colder'n hell in the winter, but it's got walls, a roof, and a lift, so I'm in business."

"Good for you," she said smoothly.

"Yeah, good for me, so that's what I've been doin' with myself, day after day. And where have I been? I've been livin' in a room about this size, maybe a little smaller. I've been out to my dad's place a lot. Keep my horses there. Go to his sweats once in a while."

He took a step closer, claiming her breathing space. "And who have I been with, you ask? Nobody. I'm alone. I eat alone. I sleep alone. Every night. In a bed just like this one." He turned to take its measure with a practiced eye. "No, I guess it's smaller. But it doesn't matter. I sleep alone." On that note he cocked an expectant eyebrow her way. "Aren't you gonna say, 'Good for you'?"

"Is it?" She stared fiercely. "Is it good for you, Ben?" He sighed and turned away.

"I don't think about those things anymore." She tried not to, anyway, which was close enough.

After a moment, he turned his head, presenting her a strong profile. "Never?"

"Never." She avoided making eye contact. It wasn't
much
of a lie if she willed it to be true. "It's a relief not to go through all those mental acrobatics, trying to figure out how much of what you're telling me is honest. I don't care anymore." Saying it often and with real conviction helped. "So I can just take it at face value. It's no skin off my nose simply to say..." She smiled and recited carefully, "If you say so, Ben."

"I say so."

She nodded. "And you're not drinking
at all
anymore?"

"Not even a little."

"But then, you never drank a
little,
isn't that right?" He laughed, moving in closer. "The ol' Clara-bow
touched

"You were wide open for it."

"I know." A warm smile danced in his eyes as he backed her up against the dresser. "Don't you know by now, Clara-bow..."

Whatever it was, she would not betray any surprise. She put her resolve even further to the test by permitting him to trace the curve of her lower lip with his fingertip.
Steady. Show him you don't feel anything. While you're
at it,
don't
feel anything.
Oh, God. She hated it when he smiled that way.

And dropped his voice barely above a whisper. "Don't you know that I open up on purpose once in a while, just to let you t
ouche
me?"

"Do you, really?" Relieved to find her voice, she continued to look him directly in the eye as she calmly sidled away. The move felt like an achievement of sorts.

She returned his smile. "Make yourself at home in the kitchen if you get hungry."

"I think I'll do some reading." He turned to the bookshelves. "What would you recommend?"

She reached past him, plucked a book off the top shelf, and presented it to him with a flourish.

Strange Sex Lives in the Animal Kingdom.

The tiger.
What a ridiculous term for a woman ever to apply to a man. Clara shuddered to recall the coy smile she'd given him along with the name intended, yes, thoroughly
meant
to give his male ego a mercurial boost. Lord, what fools these women be. The tiger, indeed.

The cowboy, the warrior, the stallion, the stud—
her
stud—and all the rest, she'd called him all those things. What utter foolishness. She fancied herself an intelligent woman, but the phrase and the sound of his voice along with that cocky-bastard smile had her brain going gushy all over again. He knew it, too, damn him. He'd always known it, and he'd always been able to work her with the same old routine.

But she'd christened him herself, hadn't she? He
had
once been her tiger, her now gushy brain insisted upon recalling. Once upon a time she had thrilled to the idea that Ben was different and dangerous, that he was quite possibly the wildest male animal she'd ever met. A long time ago, when sentimentality and idealism had run strong in her, while she had scoffed at the notion that might made right, she had truly believed in an idea that was equally simplistic. She had once been thoroughly convinced that love was all the power she needed to tame the tiger. She had really believed that her love would make him behave.

But, then, he would not have been the tiger, would he?

And she would not have been... Oh, the memory of it made her face burn! How could she, a perfectly intelligent, self-sufficient woman, ever have been his "kitten"?

Or worse, his "little elephant."

Ben had often teased her about her unflagging memory, the way she recalled every milestone. Well,
of course
she remembered exactly what he was wearing when they first met, she would say proudly. A battered straw cowboy hat and worn, oil-stained jeans with a cowboy fit, allowing for an easy swing into the saddle, but never, never baggy.

When she'd pressed him, he could recall her short white skirt and her "funny ol' shoes" with the thick wedges she'd thought quite chic at the time. What he remembered about them was the open heel, where the run had started in the panty hose that hadn't survived the buckbrush and buffalo grass that covered his dad's yard. He could tell her exactly how that run had zipped straight up the back of her leg and disappeared under her skirt. That was one trail's end he'd promised himself he would one day investigate, he would say just as proudly.

Not that she didn't make him wait. It was more than a week before their second meeting. But that was the day he'd first kissed her. And that kiss was no tentative get-acquainted offer, either. It had been the longest, slowest, deepest kiss Clara had permitted herself to experience up to that moment.

After that, her interviews with Dewey Pipestone became a summerlong project. She was soon thoroughly enamored of Indian culture. She was also hopelessly enchanted by that irresistible oxymoron, the Indian cowboy, and namely, Ben Pipestone. The four-week course she'd been taking in Bismarck ended too soon, and rather than return to Wisconsin, she took the boldest step she'd ever made in her short, sheltered life. She'd called her parents, told them a half-truth—that she was going to take an extra couple of weeks to see more of the West with some of her new friends—then left with Ben to follow the amateur Indian rodeo circuit and sample with him those "cowboy days and Indian nights."

They'd left her air-conditioned car behind in favor of his pickup. The cowboy days were hot and dusty, but Clara had loved watching him ride those broncs. Whenever he finished in the money, they'd rent a motel room, and they'd share a bed, kissing and touching each other and finding deliciously frustrating ways to bring each other to climax without actually coupling.

Because she'd fully intended to keep saying
no.

Because he'd prided himself on being able to coax a woman to say,
Yes, Ben, please.

And the chase had been a merry one, the denouement made sweeter by the protracted buildup. Ever after he'd delighted in teasing her about parting with her virginity in an old pickup bed. Her comeback had usually been a reminder of how pathetic he'd looked with the black eye and bruised knuckles he'd earned defending her honor and how humbly he'd confessed his need for her.

He'd never let her teasing bother him that much. He always got the semifinal word in. "You know you loved it."

He knew her final word would be his triumph. "I know

I loved
you."

It happened somewhere west of Faith, South Dakota, after he'd lost two go-rounds. Only one of them had been with a horse. It was the first time Clara had seen him miss his horse out on the first jump, and even though he'd spurred high and scratched the bronc out like a pro, the judges had declared "no time" because Ben's bootheels were off the mark when the horse shot out of the chute.

He didn't even want to stick around for the rest of the show. It wasn't that he disputed the decision, he explained to Clara as they headed for the nearest saloon. When a horse sprang through the gate like a bat out of hell, a cowboy couldn't positively
swear
the rowels of his spurs hadn't slipped off the animal's shoulders before it landed the first jump, not without seeing himself from the ground. But he'd rather get his ass kicked by the horse than stick with him all the way to the whistle and find out he'd scored a goose egg right out of the chute.

"I don't know why you're so down about this, Ben," she said as she sipped the Coke he'd just paid a premium for. "You don't expect to place every time, do you?"

He drained two-thirds of his beer, set the glass down, and eyed her carefully. "Don't you expect me to?"

"Of course not." She answered him with an easy smile. It was just a sport, after all. There were too many elements beyond the rider's control. Why anyone would want to ride a wild horse was really beyond her.

"It's what I do best. You do know that, don't you?"

She gave him the anticipated nod, but she assumed there was some overstatement intended. There were too many other more important things he did well, and at his age, he'd only scratched the surface.

He nodded, too.

Their nods went right past each other.

"And I only do it for a few months out of the year, so I have to win most of the time just to break even."

"You're lucky you don't break your neck."

"No,
you're
lucky I don't break my neck," he shouted as the jukebox pumped out the first few bars of a Willie Nelson tune. He leaned closer. "You wouldn't like to see that, would you?"

She leaned closer, too. "I'm not even sure I like seeing you get down in that chute."

"Sure you do. I've heard you cheerin' me on. You get all excited, watchin' me ride."

He lifted his glass in a mock toast, but she stilled his hand. "I get excited and scared, too. What if you get hurt?"

Lips close to her ear, he teased, "Then check my billfold. If it's empty, then be sure and take me to the nearest Indian hospital." He gave her a wink as he sipped his beer. "Otherwise, you take me to some white hospital, you'll have to hock the pickup to bail me out. Then how would you get home?"

"I'd cash a check."

"That's right. You've got that funny money." He drained his glass, then tipped his chair back and shoved his thumbs in his belt.

The cowboy posture. She loved it.

"Feel like dancin'?" He had that fun-loving gleam in his eye again.

The one she could not resist. "Don't I always?"

The black eye came later, when a sandy-haired cowboy with a farmer tan stopped her on her way back from the ladies' room and asked for a dance. She saw Ben talking to someone at the bar, and she wasn't sure how he would react if she danced with someone else. But she didn't like the feel of the man's sweaty palm on her forearm or the lustful look he had no business turning on her, so she tersely declined.

The man was indignant. "Why not? You danced with
him.
He's a damn redskin."

Clara's eyes fired a quick volley of arrows as she tried to pull away.

"Hey!" The sweaty grip tightened. "I'm the one who beat him out in the saddle bronc."

Half a beat off his cue, Ben closed in. "You askin' my girl for a dance?"

"She don't got no brand on her."

"She's got a mouth on her, and she said no."

"She's got a nice ass on her, too, and I just thought she oughta shake it one time for a white—"

Ben landed a solid right that effectively shut the man's mouth and sent him sprawling in the dance floor dust like a turtle on its back.

But the sandy-haired cowboy was not without friends, and Clara was lucky to get Ben out of the bar with relatively minor damage.

He assured her the damage was hardly insignificant and definitely rated her attention since it had been sustained mostly in her honor. Using his bucking saddle for a pillow, they bundled up together with an army blanket on a bed of hay in the back of the pickup. She made a fuss over his eye, treating the swelling with the bag of ice she'd picked up at the gas station on the way out of town. And kisses. He kept wanting more kisses. She leaned over him and applied them liberally.