Cowboy PI (10 page)

Samantha’s response was immediate and explosive, surprising both of them in its fierceness. “A rodeo!” she cried before she could stop herself. “You could have been killed! People are killed in rodeos!”

“Hey, relax. You’ve startled the horses. It was a rodeo, Samantha, not a war.”

He thought she was overreacting. He didn’t know. Nor could she bring herself to tell him. “Yes, that was a little excessive,” she murmured. “Sorry.”

He stared at her, and she could feel him wondering. “Tell me about it, Samantha,” he urged her. “Tell me what happened between you and your grandfather that’s left you with this legacy of loathing for everything connected with his world. I’d like to understand.”

Things that had to do with ranching, he meant. Things like rodeos. That particular subject she wouldn’t discuss, because it meant opening herself to a pain that was too private, too unbearable. But the rest?

Yes, she decided, maybe it was time he knew. Maybe she wanted him to stop thinking of her as less than she
was. Or maybe it was just the spell of the moonlit night they shared that invited confidences, made it easy to talk to him.

“My grandfather was a hard man,” she said. “I don’t think he ever stopped resenting my mother for being a daughter and not the son he wanted. And then when she married my father, who was a teacher instead of the rancher he expected her to choose…”

“More to resent, huh?”

“Oh, he took her back on the Walking W when my father died and she had nowhere else to go, no money, no job skills and with a daughter of her own to raise. But he made her pay for that. She earned her way as his housekeeper—that was long before Ramona—and I hated watching her forever trying to please him and always failing. My mother was a gentle woman. My grandfather didn’t see that. He saw her as weak willed, and in the end he broke her spirit.”

“But not yours.”

“My mother was a lesson to me. A cruel one. I promised myself I wasn’t going to be like her. That I would never be dependent on Joe Walker.” Samantha sighed. “And yet here I am on this cattle drive doing just that.”

“While not forgiving either him or anything he represented.”

“Meaning he’s dead and gone, and I should just let it go, is that it?”

“I didn’t say that, Samantha. I can understand the issues you have with your grandfather, but to hate ranching and everything associated with it just because of how much he valued it—”

“He more than valued it,” she cut him off sharply. “It was like a religion to him. It is with ranchers. It’s that way with you, too, isn’t it? In your blood. Which is why—”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She turned her head away and was stubbornly silent.
Painfully silent. Gazing at her, Roark sensed that she hadn’t told him everything. There was more. He didn’t press her, though. He understood about secrets and the need sometimes to hold them inside. He had his own deep ache he was guarding.

“It must be hard,” she said after a moment.

“What is?”

“Being a private investigator at the same time you’re living and breathing cattle.”

He wasn’t alone in being perceptive. “It gets tricky,” he admitted, but he didn’t tell her just how torn he was or about the decision he had yet to make.

“My grandfather didn’t have to worry about being divided like that,” she said wryly. “Nothing mattered to him but his precious spread, even when he was dying. I know why he put me on this drive. It wasn’t to harden me. That’s just a small part of a much bigger motive.”

“Which is?”

“He was hoping that before the drive was over I’d fall in love with cattle and ranching. Or at least that I would learn to appreciate them enough I’d want to keep the Walking W in the family. Treat it just like he did and refuse to part with a single cherished acre. That’s how Joe Walker’s mind worked.”

“And will you preserve it?”

She shook her head. “I’ll sacrifice it. Not because it’s a way to get back at him either, but because I won’t have a choice. With his investments having lost a lot of their value, there won’t be enough to save my agency if I don’t sell the whole operation.”

“Too bad.”

“You think I’m being callous, don’t you?”

Roark told her, no, and that he understood her need to rescue the business she had worked so hard to establish. Told her it was regrettable Joe had never given her any reason to share his sentiments, that it wasn’t fair to expect her now to preserve something his treatment of both her
and her mother had taught her to hate. Told her that, in any case, what she chose to do about the ranch was none of his business.

And all the time he was telling her this, what Roark actually wanted was to hear her say she was ready to forget the sins of the past. That she was prepared to fight for the Walking W, that whatever effort it took she would hang on to it. Because, given her opportunity, that’s exactly what he would do himself.

But then he and Samantha had opposite views about ranching. So totally opposite it was a mistake for him to be sitting here on this horse looking at her and thinking how much he wanted her. He’d wanted her from the start and had gone on wanting her throughout the two days of this drive as he’d watched her repeatedly riding after the heifer, braid bouncing, alluring backside lifted from her saddle. She was even more desirable like this in the moonlight, full mouth slightly parted as she eyed the herd, her breasts rising and falling with each breath she took.

Yeah, he wanted her. Wanted to drag her off her horse and place her in front of him on his saddle. Wanted to feel that backside squeezed against his groin while his hands wrapped around her and touched those soft breasts. Wanted to turn her face to his so that he could taste her sweet mouth.

Strong though it was, as frustrated as it left him, it was a temptation he resisted. Because it would end up being more than just sex, it would be an involvement bound to hurt both of them when they wanted entirely different things from life. A hopeless conflict. He wouldn’t risk it.

But Roark wondered how long he could hold out.

They were silent for a long time, and then Samantha spoke, an edge of concern in her voice. “That’s not heat lightning up there, is it?”

“No,” he said, looking at the flashes that flared low in the sky above the distant peaks. “There’s a storm in the mountains.”

“Not headed our way, I hope. We’ve had our share of rain down here.”

The sky above them was still clear, the moon bright. “It’s a long way off.”

But not so distant that they couldn’t hear the dull rumbles of thunder that followed each flash.

“It’s making the herd restless,” she said.

“Yeah, they’re a bit nervous about it.”

“What do we do if—”

She got no further. The stillness around them was rent by a sudden, sharp crack that reverberated along the valley. The result of the blast was both immediate and startling. Like floodwaters bursting a levee, the longhorns bolted and took flight.

Roark heard himself shouting what every drover feared. “Stampede!”

Chapter Five

Roark followed up his first shout with another yell. This one was for Samantha. “Stay close behind me!” he ordered her as the cattle swept by them in a panicked stream. “I’ve got to go after them!”

He knew it wouldn’t be necessary to go back and alert the others in the outfit. They would already have been roused by the unmistakable thundering of a herd in stampede.

“What are you—”

“Samantha, don’t ask questions! Just keep safely behind me!”

His horse, sensitive to the urgency of the situation even before his heels dug into its flanks, sprang forward and raced after the fleeing herd. He had to get in front of the cattle, try to turn them. Otherwise, they would either run until they dropped or end up being so scattered it could take the drovers days to round them up again.

Bent low and strained forward in the saddle, Roark urged his mount to greater speed, making every effort to overtake the longhorns. The terrain was in his favor. A hillock lay directly in the path of the herd. It didn’t stop the cattle, but its steep sides forced a division in the herd, resulting in two branches that were slowed in their struggle to pour around the ends of the hillock. The delay was just long enough to permit Roark to catch up with the herd.

He’d need help to turn them. He knew the others would have leaped on their horses at the first sign of trouble. They couldn’t be far behind him. He swung his head around to look for them and to check on Samantha, and that’s when he saw it, a sight that brought his heart into his throat.

Samantha had sped after him, but she hadn’t stayed behind him. She was now opposite him on the other side of the herd, her horse wading into the ranks of the shoving cattle. What in sweet heaven did she think she was doing? And then he understood. That damn heifer!

Fearing the smaller animal would be crushed in the melee, she was striving to rescue Irma, to cut the heifer out of the herd. The little fool!

Standing in his stirrups, Roark roared a warning. “Samantha, no! Go back!”

Either she didn’t hear him above the bellowing of cattle and the pounding of hooves that shook the ground, or she was too determined to commit suicide to listen to him.

Her horse had better sense than she did. The animal was trying to turn back, trying to carry her to safety as it had been trained to do. Samantha made the mistake of fighting the mare. Reacting with fear and confusion, it reared back. Its inexperienced rider, unable to hold on, was thrown to the ground into the midst of maddened cattle. Cattle with hooves that could trample. Horns that could gore. She would be cut to pieces.

Roark didn’t hesitate. Spurring his mount, he plunged into the mass of surging beasts, battling to reach her before it was too late. It was like swimming across a river against a powerful current that wanted to drag horse and rider downstream. And all the while his desperate gaze searched the area where Samantha had gone down. He couldn’t find her. Where was she?

There! She was just yards away, on her feet now. And as yet miraculously untouched by the longhorns that raged past her on all sides. But how long could she remain a safe island in that deadly sea?

He was close enough now to read the terror on her face. Close enough to count in seconds the time it took him and his horse to squeeze through the swarm to her side. Seconds that felt like light-years.

Understanding his intention to pluck her from danger, Samantha was ready for him, body tensed, arms upraised. His horse managed to slide past her as Roark leaned out from the saddle, intending a rescue that would have thrilled a rodeo crowd.

But this wasn’t a competition. It was a life-or-death necessity, which was probably why he was able to successfully execute it even though he was on the move. Arm catching her around the waist, he scooped her up in front of him, recovered his balance in the saddle, and hung on to her tightly while his horse led them to safety.

As they broke free from the herd, Roark had a vague awareness of the last of the cattle vanishing around the hillock, followed within seconds by the other drovers giving chase. Then there was silence. He could feel Samantha trembling against him.

“Are you all right?”

“Irma—”

“Forget about the heifer. She’ll survive. I want to know if you’re okay?”

“All in one piece, thanks to you and your horse. That was some feat, cowboy. You can let me go now.” He released her, and she slithered to the ground. She looked around, concern still in her voice. “But my own horse seems to have disappeared.”

“She’ll come back.” He climbed down, drawing the reins of his mount over its head and dropping them to the ground to hold the animal in place. Then he faced Samantha, his hands closing around her shoulders, his tone anxious as he scrutinized her in the moonlight. “You’re sure you’re not hurt?”

“No, I’m fine. Well, a little dazed maybe and still trying
to catch my breath, but otherwise fine. And, like I say, very grateful.”

Roark couldn’t remember when he had ever experienced such relief. Or pure anger, which he couldn’t keep himself from expressing now that he knew she hadn’t been injured.

“What in hell possessed you to try something as reckless as that? Why didn’t you listen to me? Why didn’t you stay behind me? Do you realize you could have been killed?”

That I could have lost you?

That’s what he actually meant. Which was why, with the shock of his anger still registering on her face, he obeyed another unexpected impulse. He abruptly stopped lecturing her, hauled her protectively against his chest, and did what he had promised himself earlier he would not do. Crushing his mouth over hers, he kissed her. Kissed her fiercely, possessively.

It was a wild business, all hot and hard and demanding. At first, that is. But once Samantha stopped resisting him, understood he wasn’t punishing her, that his kiss was a demonstration of how much she had already come to mean to him and how scared he had been, the kiss became something else.

Her mouth, which had opened under his in a struggle to voice an objection, now welcomed him. He answered her invitation with his tongue, and she responded to his invasion with her own compliant tongue. A molten fusion of tasting, cherishing, needing. A need that neither one of them could any longer deny.

As their kiss deepened, escalating into a passion that was in turns both rough and gentle but always intense, Roark found himself yearning to bury more than his tongue inside her. He could feel himself swelling, aching with his desire, as he strained against her. Could feel her breasts pressed against his chest, warm and heavy with her own desire.

Oblivious to all reason, he might have sunk to the
ground with her, taken her then and there had she permitted it, if sanity hadn’t returned in the form of approaching hoofbeats. They parted, Roark with great reluctance and, by the expression on her face, Samantha with guilt. But not regret, he hoped.

Unhappy with the interruption, Roark scowled at the rider who arrived on the scene leading another horse behind him. Alex McKenzie gazed down at them with his boyish, engaging grin. Either the moonlight was that bright or what they had been doing was that obvious because the grin slowly sagged on Alex’s face. Poor puppy, Roark thought. The young drover was devoted to Samantha, maybe even had expectations, and now he was disillusioned.