The Renegades: Cole (24 page)

“This here trail don’t look too perfect to me.”

“It’s not bad,” she said. “And just think, once you get down it you don’t have to come back up it for a long time.”

“ ‘Less’n’ I wanna go to town. ‘Less’n’ I might be needin’ supplies.”

“You can take pack horses for supplies and not have to hoist the wagon up and down.”

For an instant he was quiet, and she tried to
think when he’d ever complained so much about anything. Cowboys didn’t complain and didn’t put up with those who did.

“Better start unloading your wagon,” she said finally, annoyed that she’d have to tell him something so simple.

“We was thinking maybe we’d ought to let your wagon down first,” he said.

Then, at her puzzled frown, he added, “Seein’ as how you’ve done got the coffee made, and all.”

That was when she noticed that they were already unloading her wagon with the household items. The wooden chest that held her clothes, the larger one with her bedding, and a great assortment of boxes and bundles sat scattered around on the grass.

She shrugged.

“Fine with me. I don’t care which comes first.”

“And seein’ as how it’s a long ways down this here canyon,” he said, “we was wonderin’, Miss Aurora, honey, if you might be ready to jettison this here pi-anny.”

She gasped. The very idea made her feel empty.

“The piano! Why, no! What would I do?”

Then she clamped her mouth shut. She wouldn’t be the one lifting all that weight, struggling to carry it a thousand feet down the side of a cliff. The piano was terribly heavy. It might cause one of the men to injure himself, or even to fall off the trail.

“Well, I mean … I hadn’t really thought about getting the piano into the canyon,” she said slowly, her heart sinking.

What would she ever do without the comfort of her music? Especially with Cole gone, she would have to have it. She had just come to depend on him too much, that was all, and she’d get used to his absence after awhile, but until she did, she would just die without her music.

But what if it slipped and one of her loyal crew died beneath that piano? A deep chill moved through her blood. She hadn’t really considered this at all.

“It’d take the rest of the evenin’ jist for that one thing,” Cookie said.

“I guess the Palo Duro isn’t quite as perfect a place for our new home as I first thought,” she said, trying her best to keep her voice from shaking. “You men have risked so much for me on the drive, I can’t ask you to do this, too.”

They didn’t want to, or they never would’ve mentioned it. They’d appointed Cookie as spokesman because he was closest to her and they were embarrassed to go against all cowboy tradition and admit that there was something they couldn’t do.

“Mainly we’re scared of busting it all to pieces right in front of yore eyes, Miss Aurora,” Lonnie said, his voice heavy with chagrin and a touch of resentment that she would ever suspect them of concern for their own welfare. “One good lick against a rock on that wall is all
it’d take. We ain’t worried about gettin’ hurt ourselves.”

“If you all were worried about getting hurt, then you wouldn’t be trailing cattle,” Aurora said, and was relieved when they all laughed. “I just hadn’t thought about this problem one time …”

She straightened in the saddle against the disappointment dragging her down and forced a briskness she didn’t feel into her voice.

“It is, more than likely, impossible to get the piano to the bottom in one piece,” she said, “plus think of the time and energy it’d take to move it when we need to be moving the things we can’t live without.”

Cole eased Border Crossing over to the side and stood in the stirrup, ready to swing down.

“Aw, that piano’s going to the new headquarters if I have to carry it down on my back all by my lonesome,” he said, and stepped off his horse. “Let’s get some ropes on it, boys.”

A little buzz ran through the group of men.

“Mostly we jist didn’t know how to go about this movin’ piannys down a cliff business,” Tom said, taking his rope from his saddle. “We shore would hate to say we cain’t do it, though.”

“We can do it,” Cole said, not a trace of doubt in his voice. “Look at it this way: it has to come out before we start lowering the wagon, anyhow, and once that’s done, we’re halfway to the bottom with it.”

That drew a lot of laughter and joking and
they all fell to the task with a will. She couldn’t stop them now, no matter what she said or did. Cole had challenged their manhood, and she’d never known a cowboy to back down from that.

But Cole had done it in such a way that nobody’s pride was hurt, nobody was mad.

And she’d get to keep her piano. She had no doubt that he could figure out how to move it safely.

But mostly she felt elation about Cole, which was insane because he’d be leaving tomorrow. It made her so happy, though, to know it
wasn’t
gone, after all, that inexplicable closeness they had shared during the drive. He had seen her true feelings while she’d tried her best to hide them. He knew her well enough to know how much she needed her music.

And he was trying to give her what she wanted. So did that mean he cared about her, perhaps just a little?

At least he cared about her piano.

“Let’s not leave any rope burns on the wood,” he said, and began pulling the tail of his shirt out from under his belt.

Unbuttoning it as he went, he strode swiftly to the men gathered at the back of her wagon waiting for the ones inside to push the piano to them. He stripped off the shirt and threw it onto the tailgate.

The sight of him half-naked in the sunlight took her breath away. It made her ache deep, deep inside.

He took a stance with his legs set apart, ready to take the weight when it came.

“Let us have it,” he called.

The others helped, but when the heavy instrument came over the edge, Cole took the brunt of it. His powerful shoulders and arms bulged and rippled in the sunlight beneath his copper-colored skin, the horseman’s muscles in his thighs threatened to burst the seams of his tight Levis.

Watching him melted her right into her saddle.

Mesmerized, she kept her gaze glued to him as they lifted the piano to the ground and set it gently down.

“Give me a minute,” he said.

He picked up the shirt and tore it into pieces.

“Ropes!”

And then, with amazing patience, he fitted a strip of cloth under every lariat where it rubbed tightest on the edges of the instrument. He was directing the men, who obeyed without a murmur, to make a sort of cradle out of the ropes, which, she could see, would keep most of the weight balanced in the center.

He must not be in
too
much hurry to leave or he’d never have started this. Moving the piano was going to take some time.

“Now the mules,” he said.

Cookie had already unhitched them, and now he brought the team forward. Cole had him separate the four into two teams, one on each end of the piano.

She smiled to herself. That was one thing she admired most about him: he never seemed to be in doubt about anything. He was acting as if he’d moved pianos down thousand-foot cliffs for half his life and hadn’t put a single scratch on any of them.

He asked for more ropes, with the lengths at the bottom of the instrument, ropes to be held by riders on the trail below it. Squatting on his haunches, he helped pull them under; once those were attached, they were finished and ready to lower the piano over the edge.

The muscles in his arms bulged and then relaxed as he drew the final knot tight. He stood up.

And turned to look at her.

Caught staring, her feelings completely unguarded, she looked back at him.

The dark mystery vanished from his eyes. He smiled at her, a smile so sweet it broke her heart.

I love you, Cole McCord
.

The truth flashed into her soul like a lightning strike.

She loved him.

No. It couldn’t be. He made her feel safe, that was all.

No. She wouldn’t love him. She would
not
.

But she did.

His look, still tender, held hers for the longest time. Then he turned back to the men.

“Over the rim, now,” he called. “Gently, gently. Lonnie, mount up and come with me.”

She continued to stare, to drink in the sight of him as if she’d just found water in a desert, and she was powerless to look away.

Her vision blurred, but she watched him anyway, hungrily, desperately. This would have to keep her warm at night when the cold winds blew across the plains and reached down into the canyon. This and the memory of their lovemaking night.

She had already loved him then.

How could she have never known it until now? Adventure or no, new experience or no, if she hadn’t loved him she would never have gone out to him where he was waiting beneath the pines.

Cole went to his horse and swung up onto Border Crossing in one long, fluid movement, a powerful sweep of motion that made her want to watch him forever. He rode to the head of the trail, gesturing for the men to move the piano to a spot a few yards away on the rim of the caprock. Then, without so much as another glance at her, he disappeared over the edge of the cliff.

Tears filled her eyes. He
did
care about her, a great deal, or he wouldn’t go through all this trouble to save her piano.

That wasn’t like him, not like he was in the beginning, because then he had been all practical, all intent on survival and getting to Texas, nothing else. Her mouth curved up in spite of her tears. Did he remember insisting she should sell that wagon and everything in it? He hadn’t
cared one whit for her feelings back then.

Yes, on the trail he had changed. He truly had.

But not enough to stay.

C
ole put his whole mind and muscle into the backbreaking task of lowering the piano over the edge of the canyon wall and launching it on its long descent. After Aurora looked at him with her soul in her eyes, he rejoiced that he’d started the crazy job and willed it to take him over so he couldn’t think about anything else.

He watched his horse’s footing. Then he watched the piano, swaying gently in its rope sling, and signaled Lonnie how to help steady it. Then he started looking for the best spot to set it down when the rope played out and they had to move the mules it was tied to. But none of that did him one whit of good. Even when he’d made a quarter of the descent and was using a big part of his strength to hold the downward-inching piano away from the side of the gorge, his heart remained on top of the rim, helplessly beating its life away in Aurora’s small hands.

That look she had given him with those beautiful eyes—eyes blue as heaven itself! Dear God, no woman had ever looked at him that way.

He still hadn’t gotten over the surprise of it. It was as if she thought he was a hero or something for saving her piano. Never before, not even when he’d rescued Mrs. Bowers’s little girl from Carlos Fuentes’ gang of bandidos, had he experienced such passionate, admiring gratitude.

But there’d been something else in Rory’s face, too, something new. Something he couldn’t quite name.

Whatever it was, it had made him feel tough enough to carry the whole
world
on his shoulders, never mind one measly piano.

He whoaed Border Crossing softly to a stop on a bend in the path and stood in the stirrups to take hold of the piano with both hands, straining so hard to keep it from swinging against the cliffside that his leather gloves slipped on the polished wood as if they were slick with sweat. How in tarnation had Aurora Benton cast such an influence over him, anyhow?

What the hell was he doing risking his and his good horse’s life to move a
piano
, of all the useless objects a ranch didn’t need, anyhow?

How had things come to such a pass that he couldn’t bear to think of leaving her here without her music?

He couldn’t bear to think of leaving her
.

Instantly, he smothered the thought.

What was the
matter
with him? This might be expected of a green kid or a senile old man, but he was exactly halfway in between the two and had plenty of experience, so he should have full use of his faculties.

He helped set the piano down on the trail, the men on top brought the mules a way down the path, he and Lonnie swung the instrument out into space again, and it resumed its torturous descent. Lord, Lord, this could take the rest of the week at this rate. No, it wouldn’t even take until dark. If it did, he might have a feeble excuse to stay another day.

“Hold it at the next turn, please, Cole,” Aurora called over the rim. “We’re going to hitch the other team of mules to one of the long ropes.”

“Sure thing,” he yelled. “Nothin’ to it. I sit around on my horse and hold pianos in the air over my head every day of the week.”

Her laughter rolled over the top of the cliff to make him smile.

“That’ll work,” she said.

He grinned, not only because she’d turned his own saying back on him but also because she’d sounded so sincere. She really believed he could make this whole thing work, poor girl, and her blind faith pleased him far out of proportion to the compliment.

All the time that he, Nate, and Lonnie held the instrument on the trail balanced against a ledge in the wall, Cole thought about Aurora. She not only considered him a strong man, but
she also believed he was a good man.

His mind kept coming back to that as if to a lodestone. That was foolish, though, because she was way too inexperienced to judge the character of a man like him.

So, then, why did he set such store by her notions? And why did he care so much about her feelings?

He had felt something truly akin to fear whenever she’d faltered in her confidence or grown sad, as she had about losing the piano. And that had been nothing compared to the panic that had seized him when he thought she could’ve been shot.

None of that was like him at all. As a rule, it was everybody for himself—or herself—around Cole McCord, tender feelings included. He must be losing his mind.

Truth to tell, he thought as the piano resumed its downward progress, he
was
becoming more than a little bit loco. He didn’t even recognize himself any more, because Aurora was in his thoughts most of the time.

He wanted her more than any woman he’d ever met and that was the truth.
That
was probably the real reason she was always in his thoughts. This was a physical attraction only. He hadn’t been with a woman for a long time before coming on this drive, so he’d attached a disproportionate importance to that one night with Aurora. When he got to Fort Worth, he’d do something about wiping out that memory.

Finally, by some miracle, since his mind was
not on the job more than half the time, they got the piano down safely with only a few scrapes and scratches and much sooner than he wanted, since that set his mind free to obsess on Rory. They spent the hours between noon and dusk lowering both the wagons and the food supplies. The other gear could wait on the rim until morning.

While Cookie prepared the first hot meal of the day and the men took their first rest of the day, Aurora gave what she called a “free, open-air concert” to express her gratitude for all their hard work. He had never seen her happier.

Stretched out flat on his back beneath a fragrant juniper tree, Cole propped his head on his saddle so he could watch her. She had had them set the piano up off the ground onto a detached wagon tailgate to protect it from dampness, and had located a tarp to wrap it in later against the night air.

And she had thanked him a dozen times with that heart-stopping smile.

It was a good thing they’d not shared a bed more than once or he would never have been strong enough to leave her. That smile alone could addle a man as bad as an all-day ride with no shade and no water.

She began playing a melody he’d never heard before, maybe one of her own creation, that made him wonder what the time was about. It could make a man feel sad and glad, both, with a lot of passion either way, the best he could tell. It might be a love song.

Her hands moved over the keys with a smooth, caressing touch that he could practically feel on his skin. He needed to stop watching her. He had to stop. That night they’d had, their one night, was flowing back into him, feelings and all.

That
was what the song was about. This music was telling the story of that night to the canyon, to the cool air, to the bobwhites calling and the rushing water. And to him.

He would get up and walk away, he couldn’t listen or look at Rory any more.

But the lowering sun was playing in her hair, striking fire in it and burnishing its gold. And her hands moved as they had moved on his body that night to set his blood aflame.

He wanted them on him again more than he had ever wanted anything.

“Come and git it!” Cookie yelled. “Or I reckon I’ll have t’ throw it out!”

Thank God.

Aurora stopped playing, everyone lined up with plate in hand, and the whole crew ate at once, since the canyon was holding the cattle. Cole made sure to sit across from Aurora instead of beside her.

No one talked much, even once the meal was done, and when the first guard went out, the rest of the crew fell exhausted into their bedrolls. Aurora got up and walked toward her wagon with only a soft murmur to him as she passed by.

“Thanks again, Lightning. Good night.”

“Good night, Rory.”

But he couldn’t sit there and let her go. He tried, he truly tried—he didn’t move at all until she’d reached her wagon.

“Rory,” he said then, and was on his feet striding toward her before she’d done more than turn toward the sound of his voice.

“Yes?”

He waited until he was so close no one could overhear. Or maybe he waited just to hold her where she stood for an instant more, with her hair catching gold sparks from the fire and her body showing its perfect shape in dark clothes against the pale canvas.

“Tomorrow we need to ride several miles down the canyon, farther than we went the other day. I want to take a look-see for signs of an outlaw hideout or maybe even a stray band of Comanches.”

He stopped, but then he forced his tongue to say the words.

“Before I go.”

She stiffened.

“I have a lot to do here,” she said. “And outlaws or Comanches or not, we’re in the Palo Duro now. To stay.”

Truth hit him like a slap in the face. Their long, private scouts were over. No longer did he have her all to himself for the whole day as a matter of course. His job was done.

Yet he couldn’t give it up.

“I know you’re here to stay,” he said, “and I don’t mean you should run if we find something.
What I’m saying is that you’re better prepared if you know what you’re up against.”

She looked into his eyes for the longest time, her own a blue, smoky gray in the gathering dusk.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll give it one day. We’ll ride out after I get the men started on the house.”

She turned, went into the wagon, and dropped the flap closed behind her.

That was when he knew the real reason he had to ride alone with her one more time. He had to try to tell her good-bye.

They rode down the canyon the next morning mostly in silence, and he wondered how he could ever have thought he could talk. But yet he couldn’t keep silent. His throat hurt with the words crowding each other to fill it and spill out onto his tongue.

Why the hell hadn’t he rolled out of his bed before dawn and gone on his way? He’d never had any trouble before now leaving a woman asleep and unaware of his leaving.

“You think your crew knows how to build a house?”

There. That had come out without breaking his teeth or his jaw. They could have one more good ride, and he could help her make plans and think through what she had to do next and in the morning she’d wake up and he’d be gone.
That
was the way to do things.

She chuckled.

“They’ll have to learn if they don’t. I can’t exactly hire some carpenters from town.”

“It’s good you’re having them drag the logs in from further upstream,” he said. “I’d hate to see you lose any of the trees around the house.”

He felt like an awkward guest in a stranger’s parlor. Why didn’t he just keep his mouth shut instead of saying something so stupid?

Evidently, from the quick glance she gave him, Aurora thought the same.

All this home-building talk made him sick, anyway.

“If you thought there were outlaws or Comanches in here, why didn’t you say so before you moved the piano?”

He looked at her sharply. She sounded slightly amused.

“I didn’t say I thought they were in here.”

Her mouth turned up at the corners. She had the most gorgeous, full lips, the most sensual mouth in the world.

But he would not, would
not
let himself kiss her again.

“So we’re spending today exploring the canyon in the
hope
we’ll find some enemies?”

Her husky voice held a definite edge of amusement.

“I didn’t say they’d be enemies, did I? They might be the best neighbors you ever had and bring you squash from their gardens and eggs from their chickens.”

That made her laugh out loud. Oh, God, how he would miss that sound!

“Outlaws and Comanches with gardens and chickens,” she said. “Civilization has come to the Palo Duro.”

“Not to mention music,” he said. “You could give one of your open-air concerts in return for the gifts of food.”

“Thanks to you,” she said, and she gave him that look again.

He couldn’t get up before dawn and ride away without a word. He would hate himself forever for a coward if he did, for he had to have every memory of her that he could gather.

“Let’s sit by the stream awhile,” he said, and rode Border Crossing up to an old cedar growing a few yards from the creek.

Loco was too mild a word for the shape he was in. He had no earthly idea what to say to her.

They dismounted and sat cross-legged in the shade of the cedar, on a grassy bank near a rock they could lean against.

“This is a great picnic spot,” Rory said lightly, “but it’s too early to eat the one meal we brought. Searching out our neighbors all day will make us hungry later on.”

I want to spend all day making love with you. I’m only hungry for you
.

She was close enough to reach for, close enough to kiss if he bent toward her, but she sat Indian-style, as he was, her back very straight, her manner tense as she faced him. Now the way she looked at him was unreadable.

He wanted this look, whatever it was, off her face. He wanted her smiling at him the way she’d done on top of the rim yesterday.

That
look would never come again, though, not when he was done talking to her. Then she’d really know him, she wouldn’t want him any more, and he would want to go.

Yes, the sooner he was gone, the better.

But he needed one more time in her arms, one more unforgettable time.

Proof right there, if any was needed, that he was a no-good, selfish rounder. Another time with her would only break her heart.

His own heart was beating out of his chest with the effort he had to make not to touch her. A curl of her hair was caught on her cheek. His hand itched and prickled, but he didn’t reach out and brush it back to fly in the breeze with the others.

He reached for the strength at his core, for the force that had brought him alive through hails of bullets and days and nights of hunger and thirst, through his mother’s death and his brother’s, and the galling misery since Travis’s.

“Aurora,” he said, “I have to talk to you.”

“I’m listening.”

An edge in her voice as fine-honed as the brightness in her blue eyes made him look at her again. She was wound tight, tight as the wanting that was tearing him apart.