Authors: Patti Berg
She couldn’t give up.
But Vegas and auditions were a long way off. Right now the only thing that concerned her was getting to Mike’s before the streak of morning sunlight on the horizon widened.
She hadn’t told Lauren and Sam where she was going. If she had, a whole new series of questions and speculations about her brief encounter with Mike would have popped up. Instead she’d told them she wanted to go for a ride. They’d both thought she was out of her mind to go out so early in the morning, but she wouldn’t be swayed. In the end, Sam told her to take any one of the horses in the barn.
But the barn was empty.
And even if she did have a horse to ride, she didn’t have the foggiest idea where Mike lived. Obviously the morning was not turning out as she’d planned.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Sure didn’t expect you up at the crack of dawn.”
Charity spun around at the unexpected sound of a stranger’s voice. The man was old and bent, but she saw a ton of charm hidden behind his scraggly whiskers.
“I’m Charity Wilde,” she said, smiling. “You must be Crosby.”
“Yeah, that’s me all right. Just call me Cros. I’m not big on lots of syllables. And this here’s Rufus,” he said, patting the Border collie who’d dropped to his haunches at his master’s side. “Used to be Jack’s dog till all them kids took over the house and drove Rufus crazy. He hangs out with me now.”
Crosby scratched his grizzled cheek. “We’re out for our mornin‘ constitutional. What’s your excuse for being out here?”
“I wanted to go for a ride.”
“Jack turned the horses out before headin‘ to Sheridan. Must have left an hour or so ago to pick up Beau from the airport. Don’t know why that kid had to go away to college. A man can learn a hell of a lot more stickin’ around this place.”
“I heard there weren’t enough girls around and that’s why he chose to go away.”
“Yeah, I heard that, too.” Crosby cocked his head and his bushy white brows knit together as he studied her. “You gonna stick around?”
“Just a few days.”
“Too bad. I ain’t never been big on crowds but wouldn’t hurt to have another woman or two in this part of the country. Give us old farts somethin‘ better to look at than cows or each other.”
Charity found herself smiling. “Gets lonely out here, huh?”
“I ain’t got time to get lonely. Pastor Flynn comes by every night to check on me and sticks around for hours. You’d swear the feller didn’t have a home of his own.” He scratched his whiskers again. “You run into the good pastor yet?”
“Last night. Actually I thought I’d pay him a visit this morning.”
A wily grin touched his rheumy eyes. “Well, you ain’t gonna find him out here. He hangs his hat a mile or so up the road. I’d give you a ride but I ain’t allowed to drive no more. Can’t get on the back of a gall-darn horse, either. Sure is a pain in the butt gettin‘ old.”
Charity linked her arm through Crosby’s. “What if I walk with you a ways and you point out the direction I should go to find Mike’s place?”
“No need for you to waste your time with me.” He pulled away from her arm and hobbled slowly toward the tack room. “Grab one of them saddles and bridles in there, we’ll round you up a horse, and I’ll head you toward Mike’s.” His eyes narrowed. “You a good rider or a so-so one?”
“I always thought I was pretty good. Of course, I let some stallion named Satan get the better of me last night.”
“You mean to tell me you got on that mustang’s back?”
“Rode him a good ten or fifteen minutes before he dumped me.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. Does Mike know?”
“He saw it all.”
Crosby chuckled and stepped aside while she went into the tack room to pick out a saddle. “Mike tried to sit Satan once, but that fool horse wasn’t havin‘ none of it. Damn near kicked Mike’s teeth out, and they’ve been doin’ battle ever since.”
“He’s going after Satan this morning. I plan on going, too.”
“Well I sure as hell hope you’re goin‘ after the man and not after that horse.”
“I hate to disappoint you, but I’m going for the horse.”
“Too bad. A woman couldn’t hitch up with a better man than Mike.”
“I’m not interested in getting hitched.”
He hit her with a smirk. “So you say.”
Crosby headed for the far barn door and she followed, lugging the heavy saddle, blanket, and bridle with her, wondering why people didn’t see what she did—that she and Mike were all wrong for each other. Maybe they simply had their hearts set on finding a woman for Mike, and she was the first single one to cross his path. That was highly possible here in Nowhere, where cows outnumbered people a hundred to one, where kids like Beau left the ranch and headed for the big city after graduating from high school and rarely came back.
If you wanted to get married out here, you usually went elsewhere to find the woman or man of your dreams. Or you imported them. Well, she might be imported, but she wasn’t on the market.
Her destiny was the stage and the closest she ever wanted to get to a bridal gown was wearing a skimpy one made of sequins and feathers in a Vegas extravaganza.
Crosby let out a whistle, which startled her back to the here and now. “I’ll have a horse here for you in a second,” Crosby said, letting out another piercing whistle.
The pasture beyond the barn was dotted with horses—appaloosas, bays, and chestnuts—but it was a striking brown-and-white paint that galloped toward them.
“This here’s Jezebel.” The horse nuzzled Crosby’s hand, then his pocket, looking for something to eat.
“Hold your horses, gall darnit!” Crosby pushed Jezebel’s muzzle aside and pulled an apple from his pocket, balanced it on his palm, and in a flash Jezebel snatched it away.
“We used to ride this place together,” Crosby said, running gnarled fingers over the horse’s mane. “She don’t get much of a workout no more, but she’s got speed and ain’t too particular about who rides her.”
Charity scratched behind Jezebel’s ears and the horse nuzzled her coat pocket in return. “Sorry, girl. There’s nothing there.”
“She don’t mind. Just whisper sweet nothin’s to her on occasion and she’ll be happy.”
Leave it to a man to think that sweet nothin’s was all a woman needed, Charity grumbled to herself as she raked her gloved fingers through Jezebel’s mane. Personally she didn’t need or want sweet nothin’s, or a man for that matter— not a drop-dead gorgeous one, not a sweet one, not a controller. All she wanted was the spotlight.
And right now a change of subject.
She hefted the saddle over Jezebel. “I hear you’ve been on the ranch a long time.”
“Been here since the thirties and haven’t left since, except for Lauren’s weddings. She had too dang many of those things if you ask me. Don’t think I’ll be goin‘ to any more, thank goodness, now that she settled down with that brother of yours. Course, Reece, that’s Jack’s dad, keeps badgerin’ me about goin‘ to Santa Fe and livin’ with him and Mike’s folks. Can’t think of any reason why a man would want to do a damn fool thing like that.”
“It’s warmer there in the winter.”
“Don’t like the heat. Don’t like New Mexico,” Crosby grumbled, as he slipped the bit into Jezebel’s mouth and adjusted the bridle. “Lived in that part of the country once and ain’t about to go back. Lived in that Vegas place, too. Course, it wasn’t no highfalutin city back then.”
Finally a subject that had nothing to do with babies, marriage, men, condoms, or wild horses—things she knew nothing about. “Did you like Vegas?” Charity asked as she tightened the cinch.
“like I said, there weren’t much there back then. Moved to Boulder City when me and my pa got work on the dam. Hoover, Boulder, don’t rightly know what they call the thing these days. Didn’t care what they called it then, either. It was the only place you could make money durin‘ the Depression, and that’s why we went.”
“If the money was so good, why’d you leave?”
He shrugged. “I killed somebody in a barroom brawl.”
Charity’s fingers stilled on the saddle. Had she heard him correctly? She stole a glance at the old codger, who’d just admitted to being a murderer, and caught sight of his grin.
“I take it you haven’t heard that rumor yet?”
“No,” Charity said, wishing the lump would leave her throat. “It’s not true, is it?”
“Could have been true if I’d hung around much longer. Boulder City was too laid back for me, so I hung out in Vegas. Did too much gamblin‘, too much drinkin’. Spent too many nights with ladies who weren’t exactly ladies. Thought I could make it rich there, but I lost as much money as I made. Then I found myself gettin‘ caught up in one fight after another and ended up witnessin’ someone get killed. Finally got smart and moved up here and ain’t regretted it a bit.”
He gave Jezebel a couple of sugar cubes that had half crumbled in his pocket. “What about you? Has that hell hole worn on you yet?”
“Not in the least.” Charity saw no reason to tell Crosby about the love-hate relationship she had with Vegas and focused instead on the good side. “There’s always something to do. Always something new to try. It’s exciting, fun, and I can do the kind of work I love to do. I really can’t think of any place else I’d rather be.”
“Yeah, well, I said the same thing once.” Crosby led Jezebel out of the barn. “Hope it works out better for you than it did for me. But if it don’t, you come back here. Like I said, we could use a pretty face around the ranch.”
Charity swung into the saddle, the chill of the creaking leather seeping through her jeans and even her long Johns. She wondered how Crosby’s frail body could handle the bone-numbing weather, wondered if it was good for him to be out here alone, especially when it was still half dark. “Can I walk you back to your place?”
“Hell, no. Rufus and I still got another half mile or so to go on our constitutional. Doctor’s orders, you know. Gotta keep the blood circulatin‘. Besides, you gotta get to Mike’s place.”
He pointed toward a distant hill. “He lives just over that rise. No need worryin‘ about knockin’ on the wrong door. Ain’t no other cabins for miles. Ain’t a more needy man for miles, either.”
“I’m not in the market for a needy man,” Charity said, wishing the conversation hadn’t turned from Vegas to matrimony. “I’m not in the market for
any
man.”
“Yeah, so you said before, but I ain’t never known a woman to get up at the crack of dawn just to go chasin‘ a horse.”
Crosby slapped Jezebel’s rump and the mare took off on a run, headed toward the rising sun. Headed toward Mike.
And Charity wondered if Crosby—not to mention Lauren and Sam—knew her better than she knew herself.
Mike slumped over the kitchen table,
staring at the scribbles on a lined yellow tablet, at a sermon that was going nowhere and had to be ready to deliver tomorrow morning.
He hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours. He hadn’t showered, changed clothes, or even taken a razor to his face. All he’d done after chasing Charity and Satan across the prairie was drink a pot-and-a-half of coffee and try to get something inspirational down on paper.
But words didn’t come as easily as they had when Jessie was alive. Then, his messages had flowed easily from his fingers to the paper. Now he had to dig deep within his heart for every phrase, had to search his Bible for just the right passage. It took a solid week to write a half-hour sermon. Then on Sunday he’d ask himself what right he had to deliver God’s message when he’d committed one of the most grievous sins of all.
He’d thought about giving up his ministry, but he couldn’t. It was as much a part of him as the Wyoming prairie. He’d left this land, his friends, and his family a few times—for college, where he’d met Jessie; divinity school; for a honeymoon—but he always came back, because he found it hard to breathe anywhere else.
Breathing would be just as difficult without his faith. A time or two he’d ridden across the plains, where no one could hear him but God, and he’d beg for forgiveness, he’d shout at the Lord and ask Him to take his troubles away. But the guilt stayed with him. At times he feared that God had abandoned him, then he’d return to a belief he’d always held, that the Man upstairs was looking for the right time to relieve him of his burden.
All in good time, he kept telling himself. All in good time.
He downed the dregs of cold coffee in his mug and scribbled a few more sentences, drawing his thoughts and words from old familiar hymns, and threw in a few references to candy hearts, chocolates and flowers, all the trappings of Valentine’s Day, which they’d be celebrating this Sunday, along with a handful of birthdays. He tossed in long-remembered biblical passages from the Song of Solomon and I Corinthians, and would have added his own personal reflections on love, but those weighed too heavily on his heart.
Absently grabbing the coffeepot off the warmer in the center of the kitchen table, he started to fill his cup, but he’d already drunk the last of it. He set it back down and rubbed his eyes. He was exhausted, but he needed to get a few more lines on paper.
He opened his Bible for more inspiration and the volume parted easily at the worn pages in the book of John, the place where he kept the picture he’d taken of Jessie the night before he’d rushed her to the hospital.
He lifted the yellowing Polaroid and drew his finger over his wife’s smiling face, her delicate features. Somehow over the years he’d forgotten the sound of her voice, forgotten the feel of her body snuggled against him during the long cold nights of winter. The love he’d felt for her was still there, he’d just tucked it deep in his heart. But the longing for her had stopped years ago.
What he missed was having a wife, a woman to kiss, to make love to till the wee hours of morning.
If he had a wife ...
What was he thinking? He couldn’t sleep through the night. Instead he’d toss and turn and wake up in a cold sweat from nightmares. He couldn’t subject a woman to that.
Of course, if he had a wife, he wouldn’t be sitting here now with only an empty coffeepot and a half-finished sermon for company.
Charity Wilde was responsible for these feelings. Until yesterday he’d resigned himself to being alone; now he didn’t know what he wanted.
Leaning back in his chair, he closed his eyes, thinking he might try to catch fifteen or twenty minutes of sleep before heading out after Satan.
Before long he felt himself drifting in and out of dreams. Suddenly he was on the prairie with a wild stallion, a brazen, carefree creature leading him on a fast and furious chase. And when he got close enough to toss his rope, the beast whirled about in a tornado of wind and snow, transforming right before his eyes into Charity Wilde.
Her long, lean body was all creamy white and completely, beautifully naked, her waist-length hair blew about her in the breeze, reaching out for him, the silky brown tendrils wrapping about his chest, pulling him willingly into her embrace. Tighter, tighter, her exotic, intoxicating perfume wafting through his senses until he saw nothing and felt nothing but the mesmerizing showgirl.
The knocking at the door ripped him from his dream and the chair skittered out from under him when he jumped to his feet.
Blast
! He wasn’t ready to let the image of Charity go. It was foolish to want her, but what man in his right mind wouldn’t?
He stormed across the living room, prepared to give the ranch hand who’d interrupted his daydream a piece of his mind, but when he threw open the door it wasn’t Benny or Hank or even Woody or Bill who stood on the porch.
It was Charity Wilde, her skin an even creamier white than what he’d seen in his daydream, her once black hair a brilliant brown, her cheeks and the tip of her nose chilled a pretty pink. She was fully clothed, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t imagine the charms hidden beneath the heavy layers.
He wasn’t a man of many words, but right now he was speechless.
Charity was stunned when the door jerked open. Since when did a minister walk around in an unbuttoned blue chambray shirt hanging loose from his jeans, with his chest so explicitly visible? And Mike’s chest wasn’t just any chest. It was rippled with muscle—hard, hard muscle—and his skin, what she could see beneath the mat of black curly hair, was a glorious slightly faded-by-winter bronze, the kind many of the male dancers she knew obtained from a bottle. His feet were bare, and she found herself wanting to touch them the same way he’d touched hers last night, massaging them slowly, methodically, sensually.
A wanton, lust-filled lump stuck in her throat as she focused on his face. She stood on the porch in the cold and looked at the heavy black stubble on his chiseled jaw, the stunning emerald green eyes that now had deep shadows beneath them, and hair as dark as a starry night, blue-black and shiny. Not surprisingly, a heavy lock fell over his brow. He raked his fingers through it, but it fell right back, disorderly, unruly, and absolutely beautiful.
No man should be so gorgeous, especially to a woman who didn’t want to mess up her life by getting involved with a guy.
It had been a big mistake to come here.
She drew in a deep breath and exhaled, a puff of fog forming between them, which thankfully clouded his good looks.
“Mornin‘,” he said, in his deep, velvety voice. The mist cleared, and she couldn’t miss his gaze as it meandered down her body to her heavy battered-leather boots, then wandered back to her face, all in half an instant. “How’s the ankle?”
She’d forgotten there’d been any pain in her ankle. Nearly forgotten her name. “Better,” she choked out. “Thank you.”
He looked past her to the snow-dusted yard, probably trying to figure out how she got to his place. His eyes settled on Jezebel, then riveted on Charity again. “Crosby doesn’t let just anyone ride his horse. What did you do, put some kind of magic spell on him?”
“I smiled.” She tucked her gloved but freezing hands under her arms for a little more warmth. “If I smiled at you, would you let me in?”
A slow grin touched his face, and he stepped aside, holding the door wide. “Sorry. I’m not used to company this early. You took me by surprise.”
She was glad she had. If he’d known she was coming, he might have dressed for the occasion, and she really did like looking at his body.
He closed the door behind them. “Would you like some coffee?”
“No thanks.”
They stood stock-still, awkwardly watching each other like young kids at their first dance, neither knowing what to say or do.
“Tea?” He sounded like a flight attendant.
He looked like a god.
“No thanks.”
He leaned against the door and his shirt parted a wee bit more.
Good heavens
! She had to turn away to stay sane, but even with her back to him, she couldn’t forget the image of his body or his heated eyes, which she knew were watching her move about the living room, studying her just as she studied his not-so-humble abode.
“Did you come here to see what I look like first thing in the morning?”
She turned at his question. “No. I’d expected you to be dressed, ready to go after Satan.” She perched on the carved log arm of a rustic western sofa and crossed her legs, taking some weight off her ankle. Again she leisurely gazed at his toes, the long, lean length of his legs, his hard, flat belly, and his breathtaking chest. She smiled in spite of herself. “Is this your normal attire for chasing wild stallions?”
His hands didn’t move toward the buttons. She’d thought for sure that he’d pull his shirt together, or make some excuse for his appearance, but he did neither.
“This is what I wear when I’ve spent half the night chasing wayward women and the other half writing a sermon.”
“Tough night, huh?”
“I’ve had worse.”
He pushed away from the door and went to the hearth to toss another log on the already blazing fire. Apparently he was in no rush to go after Satan.
Against her better judgment, she was in no hurry to leave, either.
Her gloved fingers moved toward her scarf, unwrapping it slowly. She dropped the wool muffler over the sofa back, feeling all at once like a stripper from the wrong side of Vegas, especially when Mike’s green eyes fastened on each and every one of her moves.
Nervously she fumbled with the buttons on her coat and he moved toward her slowly, intently, like a tiger stalking prey. Her heart went on overdrive and her fingers trembled. He nudged her hands aside with his strong, nimble fingers, then took his merry sweet time unbuttoning her jacket, watching her eyes, and her lips as he methodically worked his way to the bottom.
With that done, with her heart racing, he tugged off one of her leather gloves, followed by the wool one she wore under it for extra warmth. His body loomed gloriously, breathtakingly before her and she ached to touch him. All of him. One would think she’d never been near a man before the way her pulse quickened and her body throbbed! Usually she was indifferent. More often than not she looked at dancers, choreographers, and directors as androgynous human beings.
But right now, her mouth, her nose, and her eyes were only inches from Mike’s stomach, from the column of short black hair that raced from his navel to some hidden, forbidden place beneath the waistband of his jeans, and she saw a sexy creature, not a sexless one.
She looked up shyly, hoping he couldn’t feel the thoughts ripping through her. Sex. Minister. Sex. Minister. Sex. Those two things didn’t go together at all!
Nor did the slow, sensual way he took off her second glove and smiled. “Your fingers are freezing.”
And she was probably going to burn in hell.
The good pastor captured her hands in the heat of his palms, rubbing them gently to bring back the circulation. “So,” he said, drawing her fingers close to his mouth, blowing his warm, moist breath on them. “What brings you here so early?”
Suddenly all she could think of was the sensuousness of his actions. The way he’d comforted her and held her close last night, even though he was angry at her for helping Satan escape. His mesmerizing touch on the bottom of her foot. Tender fingers smoothing over her ankle and higher still, inching up under her jeans when all he would have had to do was take her boot off and hightail it out of her bedroom.
And now—
pant, pant
—the way he was standing so close to her that she could feel the heat of his body as he held her fingers precariously close to his lips.
These were the actions of a man on the make, a man who’d go to any lengths to get what he wanted from a woman. She’d been around a lot of sleazy men in Vegas, men who thought she was easy, that all they had to do was whisper sweet nothings in her ear and she’d fall into their arms and then their beds or even the back seat of their cars.
She’d never succumbed before because those men had left her cold. But Mike made her feel awfully weak in the knees. He came darn close to hypnotizing her, made her think that he could persuade her to do just about anything.
Of all the men she’d ever met, he should know better.
She took another deep breath, tried to remember what he’d asked her, and finally answered his question. “I came here to help you look for Satan.” Her eyes trailed to his lips, to her fingers, which were just a fraction of an inch from his mouth. “I hope you don’t think I’m here for... any other reason.”
His brow rose in question. “Such as?”
“I don’t know. Sex, maybe?”
He frowned. “What makes you think that?”
“The way you’re about to kiss my fingers. The way you unbuttoned my coat and took off my gloves. Then there’s the way you’ve been all nice and sweet to me, as if you want something in return.”
He dropped her hands all too suddenly and plowed his fingers through his hair. “Have you been in Vegas so long that you’ve forgotten what polite, well-bred men do? Have you forgotten what lending a helping hand is all about? Does everything in your life revolve around sex?”