“I owe you a debt of gratitude,” she said as stiffly and properly as some prim missionary in a faded, old Western.
Good Lord, who talked like that anymore? Cody was tempted to laugh out loud at the antiquated phrase, but something soft lurking in those aquamarine eyes hit him with the force of a pool cue leveled at his thick skull. He was touched by the vulnerability peeking out from behind her usual bravado. It was the same feeling he'd gotten when he'd held Mollie as a baby, the same feeling he still got whenever he silently observed her sleeping to this day. It was the same instinct that drives any male animal to protect that which is his.
“You don't owe me anything,” he muttered uncomfortably.
Except the claim you're making on my heart
...
and I'd sure like it back undamaged
“I'm just glad you're okay.”
“It's more than just saving my life,” Danielle began awkwardly. “It was making dinner and the way youâ”
“I didn't exactly save your life,” Cody scoffed. “And dinner wasn't exactly a five-star affair.”
“It was the sweetest thing I can remember anyone doing for me.”
She had to be kidding. Cody couldn't imagine a life lived without the sharing of such simple courtesies.
“Your husband must have been a real crud,” he muttered, disgusted with the man for not realizing what a precious gift he had. Suddenly curious, Cody found himself inquiring into her private past. “What was he like?”
Danielle was startled by the question. It was the first time Cody had shown any interest in her private affairs. Having vowed not to be the kind of mother who bad-mouths her child's father, she kept her pain entirely to herself. So it was to her own great surprise that she found herself opening up to this virtual stranger. This renegade who had the ability to make her feel desirable again. This drifter who in less than two weeks could very well walk off with more than the secrets of her past tucked neatly in his saddlebag.
“Actually you remind me of him some,” she said after a minute's thought. “He was very good-looking and sure of himself.” It pleased her to see him blush. “And he had loose lips,” she added softly.
Cody hastened to defend himself. “Now wait a minute. I don't as a general rule go around kissing just anybody.”
Her eyelashes dipped. “You don't?”
“No, I don't!”
Grateful that the girls were all tucked snugly in their sleeping bags several wagons away, Danielle gazed steadily into his eyes, and Cody did not turn away. Instead he leaned forward, intimately captured the back of her head, and pulled her close.
“No, not just anybody, by a long shot.”
He barely grazed her mouth. Danielle parted her lips expectantly. Where the last kiss had been punishing, this one was soft and exploratory.
Like a hummingbird drawing nectar from a delicate bud, Cody luxuriated in the sweet taste of her. When she whimpered, he pulled back and drank in the sound of his name on her lips.
Her eyes were as big as the moon overhead and just as bright. Danielle felt heavy-limbed and drunk with sensuality. Cody dropped a kiss upon her upturned chin, then trailed his lips along the arch of her neck, nuzzling the sensitive spot along her collarbone.
Flushed and wanting, Danielle became fluid heat in his arms. He continued torturing her slowly and methodically, nibbling on her earlobes, scattering whisper-soft kisses upon the freckles that had been the bane of her adolescence. He deposited more upon her closed eyelids and one upon the tip of her nose.
Danielle's breathing was a series of muted sighs.
Cody couldn't imagine any man abandoning a woman who could kiss like this one. Nothing in his past had prepared him for the physical impact that this perplexing creature had upon him. The very first time he kissed Danielle, he had meant to hasten her on her way back to the big city with an image of an untamed, uncivilized cowboy branded in her memory. That he had been the one sent reeling had come as a more than a mild surprise to him. After Rachael's death, he'd tried a time or two to blot out his grief with hot sex, but it had left him feeling cold and empty inside. He'd pretty much given up on trying to fill that void in his life. That he couldn't seem to get enough of Danielle's kisses frankly scared the hell out of him.
Pulling away from the heaven of Danielle's embrace, he asked, “Besides being an idiot, is there anything else I should know about your ex-husband?”
“Well, he was a liar and cheat, too,” she replied with a lopsided smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. Realizing that her attempt at levity fell far short of its mark, she tried to expound. “That's why I divorced him.”
The note of distress in her voice gave away her shame. Her failed marriage was her greatest regret in her life. “On second thought,” she amended, bolstered by the sincerity in Cody's face, “Scott wasn't much like you at all. You're an honest man. The girls recognized it right off. They trust you completely and would do anything for you.”
Cody flinched from her words as if they were a whip. He wished he'd never broached the subject at all. Especially uncomfortable talking about liars, the last thing he wanted to hear was how much Danielle admired him for his honesty. The perfect opportunity for admitting his identity slipped away before his eyes into a gaping black hole. How could he possibly explain that little “oversight” away now that the trust glistening in those huge aquamarine eyes had turned his insides to warm honey?
Cody tried to rationalize the twinge in his heart that he recognized as his conscience. In just a couple of weeks they would walk away from one another and go their own paths. What could it possibly matter if he kept his identity to himself? He not only didn't want to disappoint Danielle by admitting he was exactly what she most despisedâa liarâhe also wasn't quite ready to give up his anonymity just yet. It was a refreshing change being accepted for himself rather than his name. Despite his fame, he remained who he wasâa cowboy with a guitar and a pocketful of hurtin' songs inspired by a life of being trampled into the dirt and having to get back up again and dust himself off.
Danielle's words were like barbs rattling around inside his heart. Cody cleared his throat uncomfortably to stop her from going on and on about how wonderful Lynn thought he was. “I think maybe she's just looking for a father figure.”
She gave him a smile that seemed to light her up from the inside out. “You're right, of course. A person only has to watch the way you handle your own daughter to know that you're a pretty good psychologist.”
Her kind words were making him feel like a real heel. “Even a fool's right some of the time,” Cody replied with the self-effacing manner of a man who knew better than to take himself too seriously.
“Was your wife as terrific a parent as you?”
Danielle had accidentally probed a gaping wound that time refused to heal. A muscle in Cody's jaw clenched as he forced the words out of his mouth.
“She was an angel,” he said tersely. That must have been the reason why God had called her back home. Leaving him to raise their child alone.
“Well, you've done a wonderful job raising Mollie by yourself,” she said, hoping to swing the topic back to a less disturbing subject.
The absolute last thing she needed right now was to discover depths and facets of this man's personality that rendered him even more appealing. No woman alive could refrain from reaching out to help a man in pain. As much as Danielle admired the way Cody revered his wife's memory, she couldn't help feel a smidgeon jealous of the woman who had gone to the grave carrying her husband's heart. Nor just a little bit leery. Memories, after all, have a way of editing the past.
Cody looked genuinely pleased with the compliment “Thank you. It goes without saying that I'm partial to the ornery little squirt.”
In the glimmer of the firelight, they passed the time swapping stories about the difficulties of single parenting. Danielle noticed that whenever she posed a question about his past, Cody evaded it with the sure footing of a mountain goat.
“Rode a little in some rodeos,” was his laconic reply. Danielle's eyes grew large at the thought of stampeding hooves, bloodied spurs, and mangled bodies. “No bulls, I hope,” she said with a shudder.
“Nope. Bareback broncos.”
Cody hoped she would never make the connection between him and the national winner who'd used his acclaim to launch a risky singing career.
“Have you ever thought about singing professionally?” Danielle hoped that by exposing a viable alternative, she could dissuade him from ever strapping himself back on another wild twisting tornado of a beast.
Cody brushed aside the concern reflected in those incredible eyes. Had it not been such a comical suggestion considering his present station in life, he would have offered her front-row tickets to his next concert. It may have been his choice to allow this charade to continue, but it bothered him some if she thought him nothing more than an out-of-work bronco-buster dragging his poor daughter from one rodeo to another.
“I just like singing for myself,” he finally replied offhandedly. At least that was how he'd gotten started. His mama's words came back to haunt him.
You've forgotten what singing from the heart is all about, son. You've got to remember to put the music first.
“But you're good.” Danielle broke enthusiastically into his retrospection. “Better than good, actually. I can't quite put my finger on it, but you remind me of somebody I heard on the radio just the other day.”
Cody had to cut her off at the pass. If he was lucky, she hadn't seen any music videos to pair up with his first Top 40 single.
“Thanks, but I like what I'm doing. I'm suited for the solitude of the open range,” he said, trying his best to close the book on this particular topic. Perhaps he was guilty of the sin of omission, but he told himself that didn't really make him a liar. He was simply protecting his rights as an individual entitled to his own privacy.
“Just look up there,” he said, wrapping an arm around her and pointing up at the sky. “You'll never see stars like that in Nashville. My mama always said a starry night quiets the soul.”
Tipping her head up to catch the spinning universe in the mirror of her eyes, Danielle sighed. “Your mother's a wise woman. And you're a unique man, Cody Walker. I can't say I've ever met anyone quite like you.”
He choked on the lump in his throat. For God's sake, she was looking at him like he was John Wayne or something when in fact he felt like pond slimeâno, more like the amoebas that feed on pond slime.
Danielle snuggled against his shoulder. It had been a lifetime since anything felt as good, as right, as holding this woman in his arms and feeling for the first time in such a long time that his life might once again be made whole. Together as they watched the last of the embers in the campfire die out, Danielle tipped her face up to his, inviting more of his sweet kisses.
Cody gladly obliged.
Chapter Six
A
rm wrestling over a keg of lighted gunpowder, Danielle watched helplessly as Cody pressed her arm down for the pin. Suddenly a voice, strong and certain in its conviction, rose over the shouts of the surrounding crowd.
“Look into his eyes.”
A woman stepped forward wearing a long skirt and a bonnet that hid most of her face. Danielle recognized her by the proud lilt of her chin. It was Matty O'Shaw striding right out of the pages of her diary.
Danielle did as she was told, swinging her gaze up into the blue fire of Cody Walker's eyes. Immediately his strength waned.
The longer Danielle peered into Cody's eyes, the more certain she was that she knew him from another time and place. Was she somehow confusing him with the ghost of Matty's harsh wagon master?
The answer glimmered just beyond her grasp.
Beneath Danielle's piercing scrutiny, Cody grew perceptibly weaker and weaker. Intertwined, their arms swayed like the wings of a crazed butterfly. She was within a hair's width of having him pinned when he pulled a most unconscionable trick. He leaned across the keg of gunpowder and kissed her full on the lips.
Struggle was swiftly replaced with images of passionate lovemaking. Tearing at one another's clothing, theyâ
Â
“Good morning, good morning, good morning!”
It was Mollie ringing the morning bell, heralding yet another day with typical good cheer. Reluctant to awaken from such somnolent bliss, Danielle was certain that if she could only get hold of it, she could single-handedly twist that triangular bell into an unrecognizable and unusable shape.
Brushing the sleep from her eyes, she reminded herself that it was bound to be another challenging day. As their leader, she didn't want to appear a slacker. In fact, Danielle was amazed how quickly her troop had adapted to their wagon master's expectations. The girls' whining diminished each day on the trail proportionately to the increase in their fitness and self-confidence as they learned to pull together as a team and abandon their false faces.
After yesterday's calamitous fall into the river, Danielle was anxious to share in “Troop Beverly Hills'” common goal of proving they were not wimps. Ignoring the crick in her back, she started in on breakfast: sourdough muffins, a scrambled egg casserole, spiced fruit compote, milk, and piping hot coffeeâmade just the way a certain blue-eyed drifter liked it.
When Cody sauntered into camp sniffing the air in appreciation, she couldn't help but compare his smile to the sunlight cresting the surrounding buttes. It was just as striking and definitely warmer. Wyoming mornings remained downright chilly until the sun lodged itself squarely in the sky above them, and then it was broiling. This was certainly a land of extremes, Danielle mused silently. Extreme cold, extreme heat...and extreme men. Men more afraid of exposing their hearts than of taking on the brutal elements of nature.
Though Cody had remained guarded last night, Danielle was pleased by how much he had told her. The conversation between those phenomenal kisses had, for the most part, been easy and honest. As a woman, Danielle had known she was hungry for a man's kisses. What she hadn't realized was how starved she had been for simple conversation.
Conversation had been something notably missing from her marriage. Scott simply told her how things were going to be, and she carried out his directives. Visiting with Cody had proven less a military exercise than a soulful replenishing of the spirit. How refreshing it was comparing notes with another single parent, how enjoyable to visit with a man unafraid of an independent woman with a mind of her own. It seemed a perplexing contradiction to Danielle that she could be so comfortable with Cody and at the same time so totally aware of him as a man. A man who had the power to resurrect in her a sense of her own sexuality and a tentative trust in the opposite sex.
Still she couldn't completely shake the sense of foreboding with which her shrouded dreams had started the day. One didn't have to be Sigmund Freud to figure out the symbolism of that powder keg between herself and Cody. Even her subconscious had enough sense to warn her to stay well away from trouble that came wearing size 12DD cowboy boots.
“Glad to see you're feeling better this morning,” he commented, loading his plate with steaming helpings of another of Danielle's delicious breakfasts.
“I am,” she replied with a smile. Noticing the generous portions on his plate, she asked, “Hungry this morning?”
“I figured it would be wise to be first in line today. The girls are likely to be famished after dumping most of last night's dinner over yonder in the bushes.”
Cody pointed to a scraggly scrub pine a few yards away and, with a self-deprecating grin asked, “Does it look a little sickly to you?”
Taking in the decided droop of the boughs, Danielle attempted to assuage his feelings. “It wasn't that bad.”
Cody remained unconvinced by the white lie. “Mollie suggested marketing the slop as a coyote killer.”
Danielle wrinkled her brow as if she were giving the suggestion her complete attention, then shook her head thoughtfully. “Then we'd have to call the Humane Society on you.”
Her laugh was full of sass and brassâjust like the lady herself, Cody decided. Once you got to know her, there was a lot to like about Danielle Herte: the way her smile could bring Christmas to the middle of the summer, the way she maintained a cheerful but firm attitude with the children, even the way she didn't hesitate putting him in his place. It had been a long time since he'd shared such easy companionship with a woman.
Those who knew Cody Walker the Country Star never questioned much of what he said or did. As a whole, they were too quick to laugh at his jokes, too accepting of his faults, too quick to hop into his bed, and far too eager to usher him up the aisle. He never intentionally led any of them on, letting them know right up front that marriage wasn't in his plans.
Cody proceeded to dust off his belief that no man was entitled to more than one great love in a lifetime. While it was good that Danielle's kisses had reminded him that he was still alive, he wasn't about to dwell on his physical reaction any more than upon the fact that for the first time in a long, long time he had awakened this morning without feeling that gnawing sensation in his gut. That familiar sense of loss probably was just in remission, but Cody wasn't ready to turn his back on feeling good just yet.
Besides, he could think of no good reason why he should deny himself the pleasure of Danielle's company. Aside from throwing him for a loop with a pair of lips that made a grown man's blood pound as hot and fast as in the summer nights of his youth, she was easy to talk to and fun to be with. He could spot nothing about her that was forced, not her laughter or her wit, nor even those kittenish little sounds she had subconsciously made when he'd held her in his arms. Instinctively he knew that Danielle wasn't the kind of woman capable of faking her reaction to anything, whether it be a lame joke or a sexual encounter. A lady who could kiss like that didn't need to fake anything.
He had to agree with his daughter that Danielle was good for him. It had been a long time since he'd been able to see anyone of the fairer sex as more than someone out to sink her claws into him for whatever his fame could buy them. And past experience had proven that most weren't above using Mollie as a means of getting to her daddy.
“And it's off to the old boarding school for me,” she'd say in a sugary voice to any of them who dared pinch her cheeks with mock affection.
Like her grandmother, Mollie could spot a fake from a mile away. That his daughter truly liked Danielle was an excellent indication of the lady's true character. Nonetheless Cody hastened to extinguish that matchmaking glint in his daughter's eyes. There was no point in Mollie getting her hopes up that anything permanent might develop between them. He hoped she believed him when he told her that there just wasn't enough room in his heart for anything else but music and Mollie herself.
Â
As the days began to run together with reassuring familiarity, Danielle was surprised to discover how very much she enjoyed the solitude of the open country. Having spent all of her life in the city, she had expected the vastness of the land to make her feel small, alone, and defenseless. Instead it had quite the opposite effect, helping her to draw upon a deep well of strength that she hadn't ever fully realized she had.
The panoramic view of a skyline dominated by mountains had a fortifying effect upon her, and Danielle wondered if the people who so sparsely populated this part of the world truly knew how blessed they were to be so isolated from the problems of major pollution and crime.
Mollie certainly did. The child was as free and untamed as the golden eagle soaring overhead. And as headstrong as a wild mustang.
With the exception of Rose, Mollie was the only female excluded from wearing the long dresses that dominated the 1800s. No one was foolish enough to question Rose about anything, and Mollie explained simply that she, “Didn't do dresses.” She airily dismissed any inquiries by stating, “There had to have been a few tomboys on the Oregon Trail.”
No one seemed to resent her this privilege, least of all her father, who confided to Danielle that he'd just as soon keep his daughter out of dresses for as long as possible. He thought he just might be the overprotective father type whenever the boys started taking notice of his little girl.
With a smile as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa's, Danielle simply asked, “Oh, you think so?”
Nothing could have pleased her more than to witness the tight friendship developing between the blond-headed imp and her own daughter. The first thing she promised to do upon returning to “civilization” was to blow up a snapshot she had taken of Mollie and Lynn mugging over an Oregon Trail marker that an old cow was using as her own personal back scratcher.
Midway through their travels, Cody directed the wagon train along the Seminole Cutoff. It was one day shorter and a whole lot easier than traversing Rocky Ridge and making another four tough crossings of the Sweetwater. Although Danielle could personally vouch for the fact that the river did indeed have an almost sugary taste to itâthus the nameâshe had little desire to sample it ever again.
The long days were broken up by breathtaking sunsets, a myriad of wildlife, and an occasional sheepherder's wagon. Once when once topping a hill, Danielle gasped in astonishment to witness the amazing choreography of several herds of antelope. The girls gave up counting when they reached more than one hundred and fifty head.
The trail was full of surprises. One day they encountered an odd assortment of locals playing golf along a desolate stretch of dirt road curling into vast, empty spaces. Feeling rather like Alice in
Alice in Wonderland
, Danielle rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't imagining things. The group was entered in a one-hole tournament governed by the loose restriction that once you lost all of your balls you were out. Thinking back on Scott's obsession with golf, Danielle knew he would never engage in such rollicking good fun. As the golfers loaded up in their dusty pickups to track balls cleverly camouflaged against the prairie floor, she tried to imagine the look on Scott's face while wielding a club in such rough terrain. She couldn't help but wonder how things might have turned out had her ex-husband paid as much attention to her as to his golf game.
It seemed to Danielle that never were two men more unalike than Scott Herte and Cody Walker. Whereas Scott was smaller and stockier, Cody could easily rest his head on the top of hers when they were standing flush. His body was lanky and as solid as steel, a feat accomplished not in some fancy gym but by hard work beneath a sun that lacked power to fade the wayward shocks of Cody's dark hair. Scott's lighter colored hair was always perfectly combed and his tanned complexion perfected in a gym's salon.
The men were just as different in their likes and dislikes. Whereas her ex had taken up golf for the prestige of belonging to one of the most exclusive clubs in Denver, Cody shook his head at the thought of grown men and women chasing a little white ball across the countryside. His idea of fun was taming a bucking horse, spinning a good yarn, spending time with his daughter, and taking a melody from his head and twisting his heart around it.
Danielle's feelings toward Cody were too new to bear too much introspection. Although his kisses made her breath come short and her heart race with delight, she wasn't so naive as to read any more into their relationship than that. Accepting the fact that their time together was limited, she saw herself as little more to this fleet-footed cowboy than a pleasant diversion before he drifted off in search of another job.
From what she'd gathered from their conversations, Cody had seen much of the country. He was indeed a rambling man. She was a stick-in-the-mud, slavishly devoted to the concept of providing her daughter with stability. Altogether it wasn't a promising combination. Certainly nothing to stake one's heart on.