Will of Steel (5 page)

She colored a little. “Really?”

“Really.”

She drew in a long breath. “I guess every woman should dance the tango at least once.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

He wiped his mouth on the linen napkin, took a last sip of the excellent but cooling coffee and got to his feet.

“You have to watch your back on the dance floor, though,” he told her as he led her toward it.

“Why is that?”

“When the other women see what a great dancer I am, they'll probably mob you and take me away from you,” he teased.

She laughed. “Okay.” She leaned toward him. “Are you packing?”

“Are you kidding?” he asked, indicating the automatic nestled at his waist on his belt. “I'm a cop. I'm always packing. And you keep your little hands off my gun,” he added sternly. “I don't let women play with it, even if they ask nicely.”

“Theodore, I'm scared of guns,” she reminded him. “And you know it. That's why
you
come over and sit on the front porch and shoot bottles on stumps, just to irritate me.”

“I'll try to reform,” he promised.

“Lies.”

He put his hand over his heart. “I only lie when I'm salving someone's feelings,” he pointed out. “There are times when telling the truth is cruel.”

“Oh, yeah? Name one.”

He nodded covertly toward a woman against the wall. “Well, if I told that nice lady that her dress looks like she had it painted on at a carnival, she'd probably feel bad.”

She bit her lip trying not to laugh. “She probably thinks it looks sexy.”

“Oh, no. Sexy is a dress that covers almost everything, but leaves one little tantalizing place bare,” he said. “That's why Japanese kimonos have that dip on the back of the neck, that just reveals the nape, when the rest of the woman is covered from head to toe. The Japanese think the nape of the neck is sexy.”

“My goodness!” She stared up at him, impressed. “You've been so many places. I've only ever been out of Montana once, when I drove to Wyoming with Uncle John to a cattle convention. I've never been out of the country at all. You learn a lot about other people when you travel, don't you?”

He nodded. He smiled. “Other countries have different customs. But people are mostly the same everywhere. I've enjoyed the travel most of all, even when I had to do it on business.”

“Like the time you flew to London with that detective from Scotland Yard. Imagine a British case that involved a small town like Hollister!” she exclaimed.

“The perpetrator was a murderer who came over here fishing to provide himself with an alibi while his wife committed the crime and blamed it on her absent husband. In the end, they both drew life sentences.”

“Who did they kill?” she asked.

“Her cousin who was set to inherit the family estate and about ten million pounds,” he said, shaking his head. “The things sensible people will do for money never ceases to amaze me. I mean, it isn't like you can take it with you when you die. And how many houses can you live in? How many cars can you drive?” He frowned. “I think of money the way the Crow and Cheyenne people do. The way most Native Americans do. The man in the tribe who is the most honored is always the poorest, because he gives away everything he has to people who need it more. They're not capitalists. They don't understand societies that equate prestige with money.”

“And they share absolutely everything,” she agreed. “They don't understand private property.”

He laughed. “Neither do I. The woods and the rivers and the mountains are ageless. You can't own them.”

“See? That's the Cheyenne in you talking.”

He touched her blond hair. “Probably it is. We going to dance, or talk?”

“You're leading, aren't you?”

He tugged her onto the dance floor. “Apparently.” He drew her gently to him and then hesitated. After what she'd told him, he didn't want to do anything that would make her uncomfortable. He said so.

“I don't…well, I don't feel uncomfortable, like that, with you,” she faltered, looking up into his black eyes. She managed a shaky little smile. “I like being close to you.” She flushed, afraid she'd been too bold. Or that he'd think she was being forward. Her expression was troubled.

He just smiled. “You can say anything to me,” he said gently. “I won't think you're being shallow or vampish. Okay?”

She relaxed. “Okay. Is this going to be hard to learn?”

“Very.”

She drew in a long breath. “Then I guess we should get started.”

His eyes smiled down at her. “I guess we should.”

He walked her around the dance floor, to her amusement, teaching her how the basic steps were done. It wasn't like those exotic tangos she'd seen in movies at first. It was like kindergarten was to education.

She followed his steps, hesitantly at first, then a little more confidently, until she was moving with some elegance.

“Now, this is where we get into the more exotic parts,” he said. “It involves little kicks that go between the legs.” He leaned to her ear. “I think we should have kids one day, so it's very important that you don't get overenthusiastic with the kicks. And you should also be very careful where you place them.”

It took her a minute to understand what he meant, and then she burst out laughing instead of being embarrassed.

He grinned. “Just playing it safe,” he told her. “Ready? This is how you do it.”

It was fascinating, the complexity of the movements and the fluid flow of the steps as he paced the dance to the music.

“It doesn't look like this in most movies,” she said as she followed his steps.

“That's because it's a stylized version of the tango,” he told her. “Most people have no idea how it's supposed to be done. But there are a few movies that go into it in depth. One was made in black and white by a British
woman. It's my favorite. Very comprehensive. Even about the danger of the kicks.” He chuckled.

“It's Argentinian, isn't it? The dance, I mean.”

“You'd have to ask my buddy about that, I'm not sure. I know there are plenty of dance clubs down there that specialize in tango. The thing is, you're supposed to do these dances with strangers. It's as much a social expression as it is a dance.”

“Really?”

He nodded. He smiled. “Maybe we should get a bucket and put all our spare change into it. Then, when we're Red's age, we might have enough to buy tickets to Buenos Aires and go dancing.”

She giggled. “Oh, I'm sure we'd have the ticket price in twenty or thirty years.”

He sighed as he led. “Or forty.” He shook his head. “I've always wanted to travel. I did a good bit of it in the service, but there are plenty of places I'd love to see. Like those ruins in Peru and the pyramids, and the Sonoran desert.”

She frowned. “The Sonoran desert isn't exotic.”

He smiled. “Sure it is. Do you know, those Saguaro cacti can live for hundreds of years? And that if a limb falls on you, it can kill you because of the weight? You don't think about them being that heavy, but they have a woody spine and limbs to support the weight of the water they store.”

“Gosh. How do you know all that?”

He grinned. “The
Science Channel,
the
Discovery Channel,
the
National Geographic Channel…
”

She laughed. “I like to watch those, too.”

“I don't think I've missed a single nature special,” he told her. He gave her a droll look. “Now that should
tell you all you need to know about my social life.” He grinned.

She laughed, too. “Well, my social life isn't much better. This is the first time I've been on a real date.”

His black eyebrows arched.

She flushed. She shrugged. She averted her eyes.

He tilted her face up to his and smiled with a tenderness that made her knees weak. “I heartily approve,” he said, “of the fact that you've been saving yourself for me, just like your uncle did,” he added outrageously.

She almost bent over double laughing. “No fair.”

“Just making the point.” He slid his arm around her and pulled her against him. She caught her breath.

He hesitated, his dark eyes searching hers to see if he'd upset her.

“My…goodness,” she said breathlessly.

He raised his eyebrows.

She averted her eyes and her cheeks took on a glow. She didn't know how to tell him that the sensations she was feeling were unsettling. She could feel the muscles of his chest pressed against her breasts, and it was stimulating, exciting. It was a whole new experience to be held close to a man's body, to feel its warm strength, to smell the elusive, spicy cologne he was wearing.

“You've danced with men before.”

“Yes, of course,” she confessed. She looked up at him with fascination. “But it didn't, well, it didn't…feel like this.”

That made him arrogant. His chin lifted and he looked down at her with possession kindling in his eyes.

“Sorry,” she said quickly, embarrassed. “I just blurt things out.”

He bent his head, so that his mouth was right beside
her ear as he eased her into the dance. “It's okay,” he said softly.

She bit her lip and laughed nervously.

“Well, it's okay to feel like that with me,” he corrected. “But you should know that it's very wrong for you to feel that way with any other man. So you should never dance with anybody but me for the rest of your life.”

She burst out laughing again.

He chuckled. “You're a quick study, Jake,” he noted as she followed his steps easily. “I think we may become famous locally for this dance once you get used to it.”

“You think?” she teased.

He turned her back over his arm, pulled her up, and spun her around with skill. She laughed breathlessly. It was really fun.

“I haven't danced in years,” he sighed. “I love to do it, but I'm not much of a party person.”

“I'm not, either. I'm much more at home in a kitchen than I am in a club.” She grimaced. “That's not very modern, either, for a woman. I always feel that I should be working my way up a corporate ladder somewhere or immersing myself in higher education.”

“Would you like to be a corporate leader?”

She made a face. “Not really. Jobs like that are demanding, and you have to want them more than anything. I'm just not ambitious, I guess. Although,” she mused, “I think I might like to take a college course.”

“What sort?” he asked.

“Anthropology.”

He stopped dancing and looked down at her, fascinated. “Why?”

“I like reading about ancient humans, and how archaeologists can learn so much from skeletal material.
I go crazy over those
National Geographic
specials on Egypt.”

He laughed. “So do I.”

“I'd love to see the pyramids. All of them, even those in Mexico and Asia.”

“There are pyramids here in the States,” he reminded her. “Those huge earthen mounds that primitive people built were the equivalent of pyramids.”

She stopped dancing. “Why do you think they built them?”

“I don't know. It's just a guess. But most of the earthen mounds are near rivers. I've always thought maybe they were where the village went to get out of the water when it flooded.”

“It's as good a theory as any other,” she agreed. “But what about in Egypt? I don't think they had a problem with flooding,” she added, tongue in cheek.

“Now, see, there's another theory about that. Thousands of years ago, Egypt was green and almost tropical, with abundant sources of water. So who knows?”

“It was green?” she exclaimed.

He nodded. “There were forests.”

“Where did you learn that?”

“I read, too. I think it was in Herodotus. They called him the father of history. He wrote about Egypt. He admitted that the information might not all be factual, but he wrote down exactly what the Egyptian priests told him about their country.”

“I'd like to read what he said.”

“You can borrow one of my books,” he offered. “I have several copies of his
Histories.
”

“Why?”

He grimaced. “Because I keep losing them.”

She frowned. “How in the world do you lose a book?”

“You'll have to come home with me sometime and see why.”

Her eyes sparkled. “Is that an invitation? You know, ‘come up and see my books'?”

He chuckled. “No, it's not a pickup line. I really mean it.”

“I'd like to.”

“You would?” His arm contracted. “When? How about next Saturday? I'll show you my collection of maps, too.”

“Maps?” she exclaimed.

He nodded. “I like topo maps, and relief maps, best of all. It helps me to understand where places are located.”

She smiled secretively. “We could compare maps.”

“What?”

She sighed. “I guess we do have a lot in common. I think I've got half the maps Rand McNally ever published!”

“W
ell, what do you know?” He laughed. “We're both closet map fanatics.”

“And we love ancient history.”

“And we love shooting targets from the front porch.”

She glowered up at him.

He sighed. “I'll try to reform.”

“You might miss and shoot Sammy,” she replied.

“I'm a dead shot.”

“Anybody can miss once,” she pointed out.

“I guess so.”

They'd stopped on the dance floor while the band got ready to start the next number. When they did, he whirled her around and they started all over again. Jillian thought she'd never enjoyed anything in her life so much.

 

Ted walked her to the front door, smiling. “It was a nice first date.”

“Yes, it was,” she agreed, smiling back. “I've never had so much fun!”

He laughed. She made him feel warm inside. She was such an honest person. She wasn't coy or flirtatious. She just said what she felt. It wasn't a trait he was familiar with.

“What are you thinking?” she asked curiously.

“That I'm not used to people who tell the truth.”

She blinked. “Why not?”

“Almost all the people I arrest are innocent,” he ticked off. “They were set up by a friend, or it was a case of mistaken identity even when there were eyewitnesses. Oh, and, the police have it in for them and arrest them just to be mean. That's my personal favorite,” he added facetiously.

She chuckled. “I guess they wish they were innocent.”

“I guess.”

She frowned. “There's been some talk about that man you arrested for the bank robbery getting paroled because of a technicality. Is it true?”

His face set in hard lines. “It might be. His attorney said that the judge made an error in his instructions to the jury that prejudiced the case. I've seen men get off in similar situations.”

“Ted, he swore he'd kill you if he ever got out,” she said worriedly.

He pursed his lips and his dark eyes twinkled. “Frightened for me?”

“Of course I am.”

He sighed and pulled her close. “Now, that's exactly
the sort of thing that makes a man feel good about himself, when some sweet little woman worries about him.”

“I'm not little, I'm not sweet and I don't usually worry,” she pointed out.

“It's okay if you worry about me,” he teased. “As long as you don't do it excessively.”

She toyed with the top button of his unbuttoned jacket. “There are lots of safer professions than being a police chief.”

He frowned. “You're kidding, right?”

She grimaced. “Ted, Joe Brown's wife was one of my uncle's friends. She was married to that deputy sheriff who was shot to death a few years ago. She said that she spent their whole married lives sitting by the phone at night, almost shaking with worry every time he had to go out on a case, hoping and praying that he'd come home alive.”

His hands on her slender waist had tightened unconsciously. “Anyone who marries someone in law enforcement has to live with that possibility,” he said slowly.

She bit her lower lip. She was seeing herself sitting by the phone at night, pacing the floor. She was prone to worry anyway. She was very fond of Ted. She didn't want him to die. But right now, she wasn't in love. She had time to think about what she wanted to do with her life. She was sure she should give this a lot of thought before she dived headfirst into a relationship with him that might lead very quickly to marriage. She'd heard people talk about how it was when people became very physical with each other, that it was so addictive that they couldn't bear to be apart at all. Once that happened, she wouldn't have a chance to see things rationally.

Ted could almost see the thoughts in her mind. Slowly he released her and stepped back.

She felt the distance, and it was more than physical. He was drawing away in every sense.

She looked up at him. She drew in a long breath. “I'm not sure I'm ready, Ted.”

“Ready for what?”

That stiffness in him was disturbing, but she had to be honest. “I'm not sure I'm ready to think about marriage.”

His black eyes narrowed. “Jillian, if we don't get married, there's a California developer who's going to make this place into hot real estate with tourist impact, and Sammy could end up on a platter.”

She felt those words like a body blow. Her eyes, tormented, met his. “But it's not fair, to rush into something without having time to think about it!” she exclaimed. “The wills didn't say we have to get married tomorrow! There's no real time limit!”

There was, but he wasn't going to push her. She had cold feet. She didn't know him that well, despite the years they'd been acquainted, and she wasn't ready for the physical side of marriage. She had hang-ups, and good reasons to have them.

“Okay,” he said after a minute. “Suppose we just get to know each other and let the rest ride for a while?”

“You mean, go on dates and stuff?”

He pursed his lips. “Yes. Dates and stuff.”

She noticed how handsome he was. In a crowd, he always stood out. He was a vivid sort of person, not like she was at all. But they did enjoy the same sorts of things and they got along, most of the time.

“I would like to see your place,” she said.

“I'll come and get you Saturday morning,” he said quietly.

He waited for her answer with bridled impatience. She could see that. He wasn't sure of her at all. She hated being so hesitant, but it was a rushed business. She would have to make a decision in the near future or watch Uncle John's ranch become a resort. It didn't bear thinking about. On the other hand, if she said yes to Ted, it would mean a relationship that she was certain she wasn't ready for.

“Stop gnawing your lip off and say yes,” Ted told her. “We'll work out the details as we go along.”

She sighed. “Okay, Ted,” she said after a minute.

He hadn't realized that he'd been holding his breath. He smiled slowly. She was going to take the chance. It was a start.

“Okay.” He frowned. “You don't have any low-cut blouses and jeans that look like you've been poured into them, do you?”

“Ted!”

“Well, I was just wondering,” he said. “Because if you do, you can't wear them over at my place. We have a dress code.”

“A dress code.” She nodded. “So your cowboys have to wear dresses.” She nodded again.

He burst out laughing. He bent and kissed her, hard, but impersonally, and walked down the steps. “I'll see you Saturday.”

“You call that a kiss?” she yelled after him, and shocked herself with the impertinent remark that had jumped out of her so impulsively.

But he didn't react to it the way she expected. He just threw up his hand and kept walking.

 

They worked side by side in his kitchen making lunch. He was preparing an omelet while she made cinnamon toast and fried bacon.

“Breakfast for lunch,” she scoffed.

“Hey, I very often have breakfast for supper, if I've been out on a case,” he said indignantly. “There's no rule that says you have to have breakfast in the morning.”

“I suppose not.”

“See, you don't know how to break rules.”

She gasped. “You're a police chief! You shouldn't be encouraging anybody to break rules.”

“It's okay as long as it's only related to food,” he replied.

She laughed, shaking her head.

“You going to turn that bacon anytime soon?” he asked, nodding toward it, “or do you really like it raw on one side and black on the other?”

“If you don't like it that way, you could fry it yourself.”

“I do omelets,” he pointed out. “I don't even eat bacon.”

“What?”

“Pig meat,” he muttered.

“I like bacon!”

“Good. Then you can eat it. I've got a nice country ham all carved up and cooked in the fridge. I'll have that with mine.”

“Ham is pig meat, too!”

“I think of it as steak with a curly tail,” he replied.

She burst out laughing. He was so different off the job. She'd seen him walking down the sidewalk in town, somber and dignified, almost unapproachable. Here, at home, he was a changed person.

“What are you brooding about?” he wondered.

“Was I? I was just thinking how different you are at home than at work.”

“I should hope so,” he sighed, as he took the omelet up onto a platter. “I mean, think of the damage to my image if I cooked omelets for the prisoners.”

“Chief Barnes used to,” she said. “I remember Uncle John talking about what a sweet man he was. He'd take the prisoners himself to funerals when they had family members die, and in those days, when the jail was down the hall from the police department, he'd cook for them, too.”

“He was a kind man,” Ted agreed solemnly.

“To think that it was one of the prisoners who killed him,” she added quietly as she turned the bacon. “Of all the ironies.”

“The man was drunk at the time,” Ted said. “And, if you recall, he killed himself just a few weeks later while he was waiting for trial. He left a note saying he didn't want to put the chief's family through any more pain.”

“Everybody thought that was so odd,” she said. “But people forget that murderers are just like everybody else. They aren't born planning to kill people.”

“That's true. Sometimes it's alcohol or drugs that make them do it. Other times it's an impulse they can't control. Although,” he added, “there are people born without a conscience. They don't mind killing. I've seen them in the military. Not too many, thank goodness, but they come along occasionally.”

“Your friend who was a sniper, was he like that?”

“Not at all,” he said. “He was trained to think of it as just a skill. It was only later, when it started to kill his
soul, that he realized what was happening to him. That was when he got out.”

“How in the world did he get into law enforcement, with such a background?” she wondered.

He chuckled. “Uncle Sam often doesn't know when his left hand is doing something different than his right one,” he commented. “Government agencies have closed files.”

“Oh. I get it. But those files aren't closed to everyone, are they?”

“They're only accessible to people with top-secret military clearance.” He glanced at her amusedly. “Never knew a civilian, outside the executive branch, who even had one.”

“That makes sense.”

He pulled out her chair for her.

“Thank you,” she said, with surprise in her tone.

“I'm impressing you with my good manners,” he pointed out as he sat down across from her and put a napkin in his lap.

“I'm very impressed.” She tasted the omelet, closed her eyes and sighed. “And not only with your manners. Ted, this is delicious!”

He grinned. “Thanks.”

“What did you put in it?” she asked, trying to decide what combination of spices he'd used to produce such a taste. “Trade secret.”

“You can tell me,” she coaxed. “After all, we're almost engaged.”

“The ‘almost' is why I'm not telling,” he retorted. “If things don't work out, you'll be using my secret spices in your own omelets for some other man.”

“I could promise.”

“You could, but I'm not telling.”

She sighed. “Well, it's delicious, anyway.”

He chuckled. “The bacon's not bad, either,” he conceded, having forgone the country ham that would need warming. He was hungry.

“Thanks.” She lifted a piece of toast and gave it a cold look. “Shame we can't say the same for the toast. Sorry. I was busy trying not to burn the bacon, so I burned the toast instead.”

“I don't eat toast.”

“I do, but I don't think I will this time.” She pushed the toast aside.

After they ate, he walked her around the property. He only had a few beef steers in the pasture. He'd bought quite a few Angus cattle with his own uncle, and they were at the ranch that Jillian had shared with her uncle John. She was pensive as she strolled beside him, absently stripping a dead branch of leaves, thinking about the fate of Uncle John's prize beef if she didn't marry Ted sometime soon.

“Deep thoughts?” he asked, hands in the pockets of his jeans under his shepherd's coat.

She frowned. She was wearing her buckskin jacket. One of the pieces of fringe caught on a limb and she had to stop to disentangle it. “I was thinking about that resort,” she confessed.

“Here. Let me.” He stopped and removed the branch from the fringe. “Do you know why these jackets always had fringe?”

She looked up at him, aware of his height and strength so close to her. He smelled of tobacco and coffee and fir trees. “Not really.”

He smiled. “When the old-timers needed something to tie up a sack with, they just pulled off a piece of fringe
and used that. Also, the fringe collects water and drips it away from the body.”

“My goodness!”

“My grandmother was full of stories like that. Her grandfather was a fur trapper. He lived in the Canadian wilderness. He was French. He married a Blackfoot woman.”

She smiled, surprised. “But you always talk about your Cheyenne heritage.”

“That's because my other grandmother was Cheyenne. I have interesting bloodlines.”

Her eyes sketched his high-cheekboned face, his black eyes and hair and olive complexion. “They combined to make a very handsome man.”

“Me?” he asked, surprised.

She grinned. “And not a conceited bone in your body, either, Ted.”

He smiled down at her. “Not much to be conceited about.”

“Modest, too.”

He shrugged. He touched her cheek with his fingertips. “You have beautiful skin.”