Authors: Firebrand
“Why not? Don’t you have good men?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And isn’t Doak your right-hand man?”
“Yes, but—”
“But the bottom line is that you don’t really trust him, or is it that you’re afraid to delegate authority on the chance that your hands can perform their jobs without you looking over their shoulders?”
Cade drove the Jeep as far up the ridge as he could and brought it to a stop. He didn’t know why he was being so hard on her except that he’d been worried that she’d decided to lead the hands.
Turning, he allowed himself to take a long look at Rusty Wilder. He’d thought his memory had played tricks on him last night. She couldn’t possibly be as beautiful and as full of fire as he’d thought. But she was. When her plane had slammed into the hangar, he’d felt something deep inside tear, and he’d lost control.
The men he’d worked with had called him distant. But he’d known the truth. He was frozen inside. As long as he refused to allow any emotion to touch him, the wall of ice he’d created remained intact. First Pixie had come and begun chipping away at it, and then last night Rusty had put a big crack in it, so much so that the feared melting had begun in earnest.
Cade felt like the little Dutch boy with his thumb in the hole in the dike, and every time he looked at Rusty another hole appeared. If Letty hadn’t interrupted,
he’d have taken Rusty to bed and made love to her all night long. There was no doubt about that. And she would have let him. He couldn’t have been wrong about her response. She’d been as caught up in desire as he. Had his explanation been right? Had she been suffering from shock? That was likely. And that was the trouble.
For most of the night he’d wrestled with the problem. Why was he having qualms about what had almost happened? If the goal of his being with Rusty was to produce a child, why would making love to her have been wrong? She wanted him; he had no doubt of that. He wanted her. Even now his body reminded him of that fact. Then why?
He didn’t know, and that was what was bothering him. So far he’d spent two nights on Silverwild, and he hadn’t slept for more than a few hours all told. Sooner or later he’d have to find an answer.
The sun was bright and warm this morning. In the distance the fresh snow on the Wasatch Mountain range glistened. Rusty couldn’t look at Cade. She focused her gaze on the snow. If only there were more snow, so many of her problems would be solved.
At least that’s what she would have said last week.
Now Cade McCall had just forced her to look at another problem, one he was creating with his interference. Of course she should be out there with her men. They expected her there. They were a team. She’d always directed them. They’d never given her any back talk about her orders. They simply followed them, silently, without comment.
Still, she couldn’t help but think about the moment back there when Doak had been handing out assignments. The men had talked to him, verified, asked questions. They never did that with her. But that didn’t mean anything. They were just making certain they understood what he’d told them. Cade’s implication that she didn’t trust Doak had been an unnecessary dig. Doak knew she had confidence in him.
“Of course I trust Doak,” she said into the long silence.
“But you don’t let him make decisions.”
“What business is that of yours, McCall?”
“None, now, but what happens when you’re carrying our child?”
Rusty let out a surprised breath as she unclenched the hand that was holding on to the door of the Jeep. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
“Maybe” was his only comment.
“Damn you, Cade McCall,” she finally said. “You’ve only just come here, and already you’re trying to do the very thing I explicitly warned you against.”
“What’s that?”
“Take over Silverwild.
I
am in charge, and I’ll stay in charge.”
“I know,” he admitted, and after a long while turned toward her with genuine regret in his eyes. “You’re right, and I’m sorry.”
“You are?” An apology was totally unexpected. He was still looking at her with regret. This morning his dark eyes seemed old, very old, as if he’d witnessed the passage of a thousand years and stored those visions somewhere deep inside. There
was pain there, and maybe acceptance. She felt her heart pounding and caught her breath. The silence magnified its beat until it seemed to reverberate across the hills and slam against her like the beat of ancient drums.
“You know that I wanted to make love to you last night so badly it hurt. I would have if Letty hadn’t come,” he said.
“I know.”
She was finding it hard to talk. The focus had changed from what was happening now to what had happened last night. She’d known from the first time their eyes met this morning that it was still between them, as strong as it had been then.
“And it would have been wrong,” he said.
“Why? That’s what you were hired for.”
“I know.” He broke their eye contact and got out of the Jeep.
She watched him for a moment as he walked up the hill, then scrambled after him, reaching him as he came to a stop at the top of the rise.
“Silverwild is very beautiful. I can understand why you want it to go on forever.”
“Then why was it wrong?” Rusty asked again, deliberately looking out across the range, forcing herself to close out the overwhelming physical compulsion she experienced every time they came together. “I wanted you, McCall, and it had nothing to do with the accident. That’s something new for me.”
“I thought it might be.”
“Cade.”
This time they turned at the same time. Rusty met his stare and held it defiantly. She didn’t know where they were heading, but she knew that he
was her answer, her question, and her resolution. She wouldn’t allow him to back away.
“Are you sure you want me to stay? You can still change your mind.” His eyes went even darker as he asked the question.
Rusty nodded. She brought her hand to his chin and rubbed her fingertips along the rough stubble of his beard. She felt a strange lightness, as if the height on the mountainside might be affecting her balance. A gust of cold air caught at her hair and billowed it behind her.
Cade waited, willing himself not to move.
Rusty’s fingers slid down his cheek, around his chin, and rimmed his lips. She marveled at the weathered look of the man. He was like stone—immobile, tense. She had the feeling that if he ever let go, she’d be caught up in the fury of his release like a prairie fire fanned by a crosswind. Down his chin, under his neck to the opening of his shirt her fingertips moved slowly, as if she were measuring the strength of his will.
Heat, more heat, boiling heat was flowing across every nerve ending of her body. Lust, desire, the kind she’d never known before. She knew only that she was on fire and that the man she was touching was chiseled ice beneath her touch. She shivered.
Cade felt Rusty’s shiver. His body was wired, his control stretched to the breaking point. The sunlight danced about her hair, fanning little points of light into a blazing fire that licked at every part of his mind. Her touch was light, but he knew that he was lost. He had been from the first moment he’d seen her in the airport.
This kind of instant desire didn’t happen. If it
did, it flared up and burned itself out. This intense feeling couldn’t survive the heat of its passion. But his desire intensified with every touch. He was like the atomic reactor without the cool-down tank, and sooner or later he would explode.
What was holding him back?
“What are you afraid of, McCall?”
“You, myself, us.”
He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He watched as her breathing quickened, her lips trembled, her eyes widened.
“Don’t do this, Rusty. Not unless you want me to lose all my control.”
“Why should I spare you? I’ve already lost mine.”
Abruptly he reached out, slid his thigh between her legs, and jerked her forward as he crushed her lips savagely beneath his. The intimacy was overwhelming. She felt him harden against her leg. He was clasping her against him, arching her body into his as he shattered her with the power of his desire.
A riot of sensation exploded through her body and into every part of her. He was claiming all, and she was giving all. Cade McCall was the master—her master. That knowledge shot through her like the sound of a bullet. She felt her body lurch. Bullet—bullets? What she was hearing was gunshots.
“McCall, stop!”
Cade drew back. “What’s wrong? Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Rusty drew a deep breath and slid back, separating her protesting body from Cade. “Listen, Cade, the shots. They’ve found Pretty Boy.” She turned away, still breathing hard, and stumbled to
the Jeep. “We have to go. You drive, please. I don’t think I can.”
Cade closed his eyes and tried to regain control. The devil. He was sure his first suspicions were right. Rusty Wilder was a messenger from Satan, and she’d already claimed his soul. As he moved back to the Jeep and started the engine, he desperately tried to remember what happened to Faust.
In the end it didn’t matter. He’d already been branded by her flame.
By the time Rusty and Cade reached the entrance to the canyon where Pretty Boy was found, the rest of the men were already there, including Eugene, who was sitting on the fender of the truck.
“How’d you get here so fast, Eugene?” Cade asked gruffly. “You don’t know anything about finding stray bulls.”
Eugene looked from Cade to Rusty and back again.
“Well, I may not know anything about cattle, but there was this old bull moose once who stayed around the camp so he could mooch off the guys. He was always after the ladies, but he liked to eat good too. Some of us got up a betting pool once on how many ladies he had and how he managed to keep ’em close by. ’Course, if we was going to find out who won, we had to keep a count.”
Rusty opened the door and shaded her eyes from the sun. Pretty Boy was somewhere up ahead, but
because of the narrow entrance to the canyon she couldn’t see him.
“What happened to the moose?” asked one of the hands.
“He found himself a blind canyon just like this and set up moose camp. I figured if it was good for the moose, it ought to be good for a bull. Letty told me where this canyon was. Looks like he’s got a couple of lady friends in there,” Eugene observed from where he was sitting.
“What do you think, Cade?” Doak rode over to the Jeep.
Rusty was out of the Jeep before Cade could answer. She strode angrily over to one of the hands. “Give me your horse, Joe. You fellows make a tunnel. Doak and I’ll go in and drive the bull out. You keep him heading toward the ranch.”
Doak looked first at Rusty, then at Cade, a shade of regret coloring Doak’s expression for an instant.
Cade watched Rusty as she anxiously waited. He nodded. She was right. Silverwild was hers, and she had the right to make the calls. He’d been wrong to try to move in on her power, even if it had been for her own good to rest after the accident. That had nothing to do with it. He had done what he was accustomed to doing—took charge—and the men had seemed willing to listen to him.
He watched as Doak and Rusty rode into the canyon and the men complied with Rusty’s directions, then he walked over to the truck.
“Moose camp, Eugene?”
“Well, it looked like things between you and Mrs. Wilder were a little heated. A good yarn always cools things off. Worked right well, didn’t it? At
least the hands are cool. You still look a little frazzled. Trouble in paradise?”
“More than a little,” Cade admitted. “I think I may have made a wrong move coming here.”
“You mean with the future Mrs. McCall?”
“That’s exactly what I mean. This was supposed to be a business arrangement, Eugene. I could have handled that. It seems to have changed, and I’m not sure about what’s happening.”
“Oh, I think you are, Cade. I’ve always thought that somewhere along the line you lost your sense of direction. You’ve been up in the ice and snow country so long, you’ve turned into an iceman yourself. Now you’ve fallen into the fire, and you’re beginning to melt.”
“What can I do about it?”
“As I see it, old friend, not a damned thing, except make sure you don’t drown in the thaw.”
At that moment Rusty and Doak rode back toward the truck. Rusty was red-faced and visibly upset.
“Something wrong?” Eugene asked curiously, as if he had expected her frustration.
“Wrong?” Rusty swore, and flicked the reins of the horse against her thigh. “That bull isn’t about to let us drive him anywhere. He’s too—too excited. We’ll just have to wait until he’s … done.”
Rusty could barely contain her fury. First her emotions had been stroked to the bursting point by McCall’s kisses. Then she’d ridden into a blind canyon for a bull who was aroused beyond anything she’d ever witnessed in all her years of breeding cows. Pretty Boy was awesome. He was ready to do his job, and he had no intention of allowing anybody or anything to separate him
from the willing cows he’d gathered in the canyon.
The sheer animal instinct of his purpose had fanned her already volcanic emotions to a near explosion. For ten years she’d ridden out with her men without ever feeling the least bit self-conscious about the breeding of the cattle—until today. She looked at the knowing smile on Cade’s face and cut the horse around, riding away from the men until she could bring her feelings under control.
“Say Pretty Boy’s hot and bothered?” Eugene slid down from the fender and spit a pool of tobacco on the hard ground.
Doak nodded. “They get that way, but this old boy’s a real sight. Maybe if he knew us better, we’d get around him. As it is, without a tranquilizer gun I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere.”
Cade looked up. “Tranquilizer gun? Don’t you have one?”
“Yep, but Rusty don’t like to use it. It isn’t as reliable as you think. If you get the dosage too heavy, you can kill the animal. If it isn’t heavy enough, you just make him crazy, and then you can’t get the antidote into him to bring him out of it. Of course, you can hit the wrong place and kill him with the dart.”