Authors: Christina Dodd
A thrill rattled Rose, a thrill she hoped Sue Ellen hadn’t noticed.
But there wasn’t much Sue Ellen didn’t know about men and women, and she looked both sorry and embarrassed as she quoted, “Never wrestle with pigs, Rose. They enjoy it and you get dirty.”
Rose didn’t want to, but she had to ask. “What are you saying?”
“Thorn doesn’t want you forever. Not forever. Not more than he wants any other woman who crosses his path. He wants revenge, plain and simple. Rose, he’s been in prison, and your testimony put him there.”
CHAPTER THREE
Rose took a deep breath of the chill night air.
Freedom. It smelled like freedom.
Freedom from overbearing ranchers, from insincere pleasantries, from business discussions that pointedly excluded the lone concerned female. Freedom from the worry of the ranch, the horses, their disappearance. For a few moments, until she reached home, she could pretend she was carefree again, riding the rises and dips of the Davis Mountains without a thought beyond the moment.
Leaning down across Goliath’s neck, she spoke softly, encouraging him, and he leapt forward. Stretching his neck out, Goliath mouthed the bit and seemed to sense her need for flight, her sheer pleasure in his motion. With polished responsiveness, the intelligent horse monitored their progress, watching for the tumbleweeds that might entrap him, the gopher holes that might trip him. The night wind urged them along. The stars shone; the moon trickled a thin white light over the oak-studded landscape. Together, Rose and Goliath frightened a mule deer from its cover. Together, they heard a coyote crying its lament.
Freedom. Perfect, mindless freedom.
You’re going to be mine
.
Rose never swore, and right now she regretted it. Why, when she released the restraints from her thoughts, did Thorn always appear? He was a thief, for he stole her sense of freedom and replaced it with guilt.
Guilt that she’d sent him to prison, although she knew it had been the right and proper thing to do. Guilt that she’d been too cowardly to go to his mother and apologize for sending her son away. Guilt that he had been humiliated enough to steal that saddle in the first place.
Yet when Rose saw him tonight, nine long, guilt-ridden years had vanished, swept away by a swagger and a wink. He
did
want her. It was there, in his confident smile, his brash claim, the press of his body against hers. But did he want her for revenge, as Sue Ellen claimed? Or did he want her horses, as she feared?
Surely not. As a boy, Thorn had always been fearless and brazen and quick-tempered, but he’d always been kind — and more than kind. Passionate, generous, dedicated to her and their love.
But she didn’t know him anymore, did she? Perhaps prison had changed him. Perhaps he really had run with the wolves for the last ten years … and she imagined she heard a lonely howl. She imagined she heard the distant drum of pursuing hooves, and she felt the prickle of awareness as someone’s gaze followed her progress.
She whispered encouragement to Goliath until the canyon arms dropped their embrace, and she rode into the broad, mountain-ringed valley of Corey Ranch. The clapboard house stood on a rise above the stream, its broad porches commanding a view of the stables and the fenced area where the less valuable horses grazed and dozed.
All looked peaceful.
Yet anxiety clawed at her as she swiftly rode to the corrals. One, two, three, four … twenty-four horses were in the enclosure, exactly the right number. Hurrying on, she went into the dark stable, leaving the great door open for a bit of light, and again counted. Twenty stalls. Eighteen horses. Just as it should be, with one stall left for Goliath and one left empty for any unexpected guest.
Letting the peace of the dark, warm, familiar stable enfold her, she realized nothing was out of order. Nothing was amiss.
As she led Goliath to his stall, she spoke softly to the horses that reached out with neighs and nudges to greet her.
She loved them all. Wily, gentle, affectionate, high-spirited — the horses were more than merely a living to her. They were her family now.
Tying a clean apron over her dress — it was her best bengaline dress, for all that she’d turned it — she removed Goliath’s saddle and wiped him down. Grooming him, she noted the sculpted muscularity of his neck, shoulder, and leg, his firm belly, his strong croup, buttocks, and thighs. No other creature on earth was blessed with such a combination of intelligence and strength.
No other creature except …
It had been a near thing nine years ago. She’d been visiting her horses in the stable. Thorn had been visiting her. Two young people who had been unlikely friends their whole lives. He’d brought out the merriment in her. She subdued the streak of wildness in him. No one had thought, when they were children, that they would become mates, but by the time they were seventeen, everyone saw the attraction that drew them together.
Her mother had talked to her, seriously, about the importance of maintaining a pure body and mind. But she didn’t address the desire that Thorn created in Rose.
Her father had talked to her about Thorn’s wild ways, his increasing penchant toward mischief, and his lack of repentance for his deeds. But he didn’t address Thorn’s uncanny comprehension of her needs and thoughts.
Her parents — staid, upright, Christian people — couldn’t understand the heat between Thorn and their daughter, but they felt it, and in their plain way imagined that their words could dampen the fire.
And naive little Rose believed what they believed.
So Thorn touched her that afternoon in the barn, she hadn’t expected to tumble into the straw like some weak-kneed easy woman.
But she had.
He’d been sitting there on the rail, watching her groom her first colt, and when she stepped out of the stall, he’d jumped down beside her.
“Rose, honey, you know what I’d like?” he had asked.
She’d shaken her head, smiling up into his serious face.
“I’d like to rub you all over, just like you did that colt.”
Her smile faded. Something about his tone, and the way he towered over her, made her want to soar like a hawk on the wind.
A dangerous pursuit, but irresistible.
“I’d like to stroke your back” — his hand rubbed her spine — “and your waist and your breast” — his voice quivered a little — “and your legs all the way up…”
The updraft caught her, she opened her mouth to gasp in excitement — and he kissed her. Kissed her face and neck as if he wanted to swallow her whole. His lank body shivered with need, and he muttered, “I think of you, Rosie, all the time. All night, all day, wanting you, dreaming of you … damn it, Rosie, please.”
“Don’t swear,” she admonished as she took him by the wrist and led him to the empty stall.
She had to take his hands and place them on each of the points he wished to touch, but once she gave him that permission, he took liberties she’d never imagined.
The heel of his palm massaged her nipples.
She liked that.
He pushed aside her bodice and chemise and put his mouth there.
She nearly flew right off the straw and into the air.
He laughed — even in his youthful rush, he was wickedly happy — and he whispered, “Tell me I’m not alone in this. Tell me you dream about me, too. Rosie?” He pushed her skirt up around her waist and struggled until he had his pants pushed down to his knees.
“Yes. Please. Yes. Thorn!” She half-screamed when he opened the slit in her drawers and pushed his finger inside her.
“Hush. Quiet, now,” he warned, but he grinned into her face, inviting her to share his delight. “God, you’re ready for me. You’re slick. It won’t be so tough. I won’t hurt you much, and then you’ll be mine. Tell me, darlin’. Tell me you’ll be mine.” He was coaxing as he positioned himself. “Mine.”
Then the stable door slammed open.
They both jumped, shot out of flight in midair.
“Miss Rose!” Patrick’s Irish brogue sounded sharp as a razor. “Where are you?”
Thorn rolled away from her, tugging his pants up while pulling her skirt down. She fumbled with the buttons on her dress.
“Miss Rose?” Patrick’s boots stomped across the wooden floor.
“Don’t!” Thorn and Rose exclaimed together, and the boots paused.
“What’s going on in there?”
Patrick sounded mean enough to tangle with a cougar, but Thorn bobbed up, brushing the straw from his hair. “Nothing, sir.”
Looking up at Thorn, Rose despaired. His shirt was in a tangle, his Levi’s were buttoned wrong, his face was red and scared and frustrated. He looked just like what he was — a young cowboy who’d been interrupted during his roll in the hay.
Patrick’s explosion proved it. “Ye worthless young half-wit, what have ye been doing with Miss Rose?”
Frantic, Rose added her protestation to Thorn’s. “Nothing, Patrick.”
“Nothing? Then how come ye’re staying out of sight? Haven’t got yerself buttoned up yet?”
She withered with embarrassment, trying harder to get her buttons closed.
Thorn said, “Don’t you talk to her like that! She didn’t do anything. I did it.”
“I never doubted that for a moment. Ye’re nothing but a hoodlum, a no-good half-pint thief and skirt-chaser who’s been after Miss Rose like a stallion in rut.”
“Oh, yeah?” Thorn stepped out of the stall. “My mama says you’ve got quite a story in your background, too, so who’re you to judge me?”
Rose heard the crack, saw Thorn fly backward and hit the stable wall. She cried out as Patrick yelled, “Brat!”
He stomped out of the stable and she ran to Thorn. A bruise puffed his lip and blood trickled out of his mouth. He sat immobile, staring at the empty doorway.
“Let me get you a wet rag,” she said.
But he pushed her away and stood.
She was unsure of his mood, but she knew she didn’t like the savage fury that gathered on his features. “Thorn?”
“Brat?” he muttered. “Hoodlum? Thief?”
“He didn’t mean it, Thorn. He’s been like an uncle to me, and he—”
“Doesn’t think I’m good enough for you. I know what he thinks. What everybody thinks.” He wiped blood off his chin with the back of his hand, and his gaze fell on her father’s best tooled-leather saddle.
“Thorn?” She scrambled to her feet. “Don’t do that.”
He laughed, a harsh and reckless sound. “How do you know what I’m going to do? You think you know so much about me, but you didn’t know I was a hoodlum, did you? A thief, like he said.”
“You don’t steal things — especially not a saddle that’s worth more than any horse in the stable.”
He turned on her, grabbed her arms, and shook her. “I have. I’ve stolen corn out of the fields and pies off a windowsill.”
“Thorn!” She was shocked. As shocked as if he’d confessed to cattle rustling. “Stealing is wrong!”
Perversely pleased, he said, “And one time I stole a book from the traveling teacher.”
“Oh, Thorn.” She covered her ears, not wanting to hear more. “How could you?”
“It’s so damn dull here, Rosie. So damned” — he went and lifted the saddle off the sawhorse — “dull.”
“Please.” She stepped toward him, palm extended. “Please, Thorn.”
“That’s what you said in there.” He jerked his head toward the stall, and repeated, “
Please, Thorn. Please
. But that was before you knew I was a … a half-pint skirt-chaser.” He weighed the saddle in his hand and looked at her with a crooked smile. “Someday you’re going to be mine. No matter what I do or what I am, you’re going to be mine, and proud of it.”
“Don’t take it.”
He looked at the saddle as if he didn’t know what it was, then at her. “Mine.”
CHAPTER FOUR
On that long ago day, Thorn hadn’t meant the saddle, but he hadn’t returned it, so Rose had done what had to be done. She had turned him over to the sheriff and testified at the trial that sent him to jail.
The fact that his mother had testified that she’d found the saddle in his room — that his own mother had helped send him to prison — meant nothing to Rose. Rose felt totally responsible for his incarceration, and she hadn’t been able to look the woman in the eye since.
She’d done what was right, but at a cost that sometimes seemed too great. When she was alone at night, or when she saw her friends’ children, or when she caught sight of a man who stood with a kind of insolence …
No, she wouldn’t think about Thorn now. No strange horse stood in the empty stall. No strong male body waited to renew acquaintances in the hay.
Odd, that she’d let Thorn spook her so.
She turned to hang up the brushes, and jerked back from the broad male figure that blocked the entrance of the stall. The blood raced in her veins, and if she’d been the screaming type, she’d have let loose a loud one.
Then he spoke, and she felt only foolish.
“Miss Rose? Did I startle ye?”
“Patrick.” She half-laughed, half-gasped. “Yes, you did! You should have made some noise.”
“Same as normal, Miss Rose, but ye were muttering something about spooks and didn’t hear me.”
Rose blushed, glad of the darkness. But she didn’t need light to see the bandy-legged son of Ireland who tended her ranch. She knew every line and angle of Patrick O’Brien, keeper of her horses, foreman of the ranch, gambler par excellence. As a man of fifty, he had left Ireland and everything he had there and taken a ship to Galveston. From there he’d found his way to the Corey Ranch where he’d worked for the last twenty years.
Now, as Patrick pulled a lucifer from his shirt pocket and scraped it across the sandpaper, she said, “I sold Starbright tonight.”
The lucifer flared with fire, and its rotten-egg smell filled the air. Patrick stared at her, his sagging, hound-dog face astonished. When the match had burned down to his fingers, he gave a pithy oath, blew it out, and stomped it into the floor. “Ye sold me darlin’ filly?”
“To Sonny for Sue Ellen.” Lighting the lantern herself, Rose fixed him in the beam. “For four hundred and fifty dollars.”