Knight in a White Stetson (14 page)

“East Fork looks pretty good considering the water,” Calla said around a mouthful of sandwich.

“I might have to give up my bathtub. I think we’ll need a trough in that big spring before the end of the summer.”

“I’ll have Dad bring up another trough. I’ve got a big one someplace down there, I think. God knows I’d hate for you to have to give up your bath.”

“Thanks. What about those thirty-five head down on Little Sheep Flats? Do you want them moved up to this field? The grass looks better here.”

“Yeah,” Calla said thoughtfully. “We’ll move ‘em up tomorrow. No sense letting them graze the Little Sheep off too close. We might use it for fall feed, if ever it rains again, which, by the looks of that sky up there, it may do this afternoon.”

Henry finished his sandwich and lounged back on the rock. He folded one arm behind his head and tipped his cowboy hat over his eyes. After a minute, his breathing slowed and Calla realized he was asleep. She smiled and brushed the crumbs from her sandwich off her shirt.

This was what made all the hassle of the loan payments and dealing with the BLM and hiring a different smart-aleck cowboy every summer worth it. She leaned back and looked at the pattern the quaking aspen were making across Henry’s light-colored shirt as the breeze lifted the little, coin-shaped leaves to the sun.

She occasionally forgot how much she loved her job, she realized. Cow camp was the perfect place to remember. Her own eyes slowly closed.

* * *

A fat raindrop hit him in the eye.

“It’s raining,” Calla said drowsily.

“I can feel it.”

She got to her feet. “We’d better hit the road before the lightning…”

On cue, an earsplitting crack of thunder sounded, followed almost immediately by a flash of light.

“That was close,” Henry said, shooting to his feet. “Come on.” He grabbed for her hand but she snatched it away and began to run.

“Calla!”

“I want to get those hobbles off the horses.”

Another crack of thunder sounded, simultaneous this time with lightning. Henry felt the hair on his neck rise and he took a diving lunge at Calla. The flying tackle caught her from behind, knocking the wind out of her.

“Lie down, idiot,” Henry yelled at her while another, then another, bolt hit the ground around them.

She caught her breath and began to fight him. “Let … let go! The horses are hobbled.” She squirmed wildly, but he held tight. The rain was washing over them in sheets now, a typical summer storm, and Calla knew the lightning would move on as quickly as it had come. But meanwhile her horses were hobbled and unable to seek protection. She kicked Henry with her boot heel.

He grunted at the contact and tightened his grip in return.

“Henry, please,” she screamed.

Her plea did what her struggles could not.

“Stay here,” he shouted
at her. “I mean it!” Cursing her,
cursing himself, he made a dash for the frightened horses, keeping his profile as close to the ground as possible. Calla followed. Damned if she’d let him risk his life for her horses alone.

They each caught a terrified mount, dragged off the loosened saddles and unhooked the hobbles. The horses bolted.

Henry looked up
to see Calla working beside him. He wanted to murder her. He wanted to sweep her into his arms like some sort of movie hero. He took her wrist in a death grip instead.

“Come on.”

They sprinted together toward a lava rock overhang Henry had noticed earlier. Wet to the skin already, the small protection would probably do nothing more to keep the rain off them, but it would offer a slightly better chance they’d escape this storm without getting quick-fried.

He shoved her under in front of him, then crowded in beside her.

“Henry…”

“Shut up, Calla.”

She was quiet for a minute. “Uh, Henry…”

“Calla, I’m warning you. I am so beyond angry at you right now, I can’t even talk.”

“Fine. Don’t talk. But move your elbow. It’s digging into my … ooh, blood! I guess I went down harder than I thought.”

He whipped his head around to stare at the blood on her fingers. For a second, he thought he might just pass right out from the shock.

“Oh, God.”

“It’s just a scrape.” She lifted her torn shirt. A bruise was already forming under the ugly abrasion along her ribs.

“Oh, God,” Henry moaned. He’d done that to her. To her perfect, soft skin. He touched it gently.

“Ow! Don’t touch it!”

He winced, drew his hand back. “Calla, baby, I’m sorry.”

“For saving my life?” She grinned. “Thanks a lot.” He couldn’t take his eyes off the wound. He wanted to take her in his arms, offer comfort, bathe the poor skin with soft cloths and kisses. Their current position allowed him none of that. “Does it hurt?”

“Of course it hurts. You weigh a ton.”

He groaned again. Calla couldn’t help but chuckle at the anguish in his eyes. It was either laugh or fling herself at his feet and beg him to never stop looking at her like that.

“Henry, it’s just a scrape. I’ve had way worse.”

“Not because of me.”

“Nope. Ow,” she said as she dropped her shirt back in place. “It’ll be fine. I have some Neosporin in the first aid kit at camp.”

“I’m sorry I hit you so hard. I felt the hair—”

“I know. I felt it, too. You saved me, Henry.” She dropped her head on his shoulder, just for a second, to soothe both of them. “You’re a handy guy to have around.”

* * *

The storm lasted less than twenty minutes. When it was over,
the dusty mountainside was scrubbed clean and the clouds that had hovered so ominously minutes before looked about as threatening as bed pillows.

Henry eased himself out of the low crevasse. Steam rose from the black rock the sun had baked to high heat earlier in the day. He looked around. Calla crawled from under the overhang and he automatically reached to help her to her feet. She ignored his outstretched hand and worked her way to her feet.

“Oooh,” she groaned. “Ow, ow, ow.”

“Sore?”

“Ow, yes.” She winced. She brushed gingerly at her clothes. They were caked with mud. They’d be stiff as boards in about fifteen minutes. The sun was already blazing down at them. “I wonder where my faithful steed is?”

“Probably back at the Hot Sulphur eating a nice bucket of oats by now. We better get going.” He looked around
at
Calla. “You need me to carry you?”

She laughed. “Save your strength. You’ll need it for the walk back to camp, city boy.”

They walked in companionable silence for several minutes, Henry resisting the urge to scoop her into his arms every time she winced
at
the pain in her side.

“Hey, Henry?”

“What? You need to rest? How’s your side?”

“Fine. I just wanted to ask you a question.”

He glanced at her. Her color was good, she was breathing okay. So, why wouldn’t the little knot of guilt and concern fade?

“Shoot.”

“Why are you here, really, working for poverty wages in the middle of the desert?”

Henry shrugged, prepared for the question. “I’m trying to get away for a while. And since I didn’t think I’d live through a
Club Med vacation, I thought this was as good a place as any to do it.” He gestured at the wet, empty landscape around them.
“This is certainly away, you must admit.”

Calla laughed. “True. So, what are
you getting away from? The law? Debtors’ prison? An evil wife?”

“I told you I don’t have a wife. I
have an ex-wife.”
Calla stopped abruptly. He
turned to her and she searched his
eyes with such a sweet expression, he wanted to pull her to him and kiss her.

“Henry. How horrible. Is that why you’re here?”

“It happened a while
ago. It’s not why I’m here.”

“Still … it’s sad. Were you heartbroken?” A disturbing idea hit her, made her a little sick. “Are you still heartbroken?”

Her color had faded. Maybe she’d knocked her head in that
fall, too.
He put his hand
on her forehead. She brushed him away impatiently.

“Stop that. How long were you married? When did you divorce? Is this too painful for you
to talk about?”

Henry started walking again. Calla followed. “I don’t mind talking about it.” He didn’t, he realized. He never talked about Heidi, not
to anyone. It
was humiliating, for one. Gross evidence of his poor
judgment. No, he never talked about Heidi. “I married her after
I finished my Ph.D. I was working for an ag-chemical company, and she was my lab assistant.”

“I’ll bet she was extremely smart.”

Henry considered that. “Not as smart as you.”

Calla sputtered. “Oh, please. I’m good
at
my job. There’s a
big difference.
Was she very beautiful?”

He wanted
to argue
the point, but decided it could wait. “Heidi? Yes. She was beautiful.”

“Poor Henry. You must have loved her very much.”

Henry shrugged. “Don’t put too fine a point on
it,
Calla.”
They started up a hill. Calla, beside him, wasn’t even breathing hard. “Our marriage was over just about the same time it started.”

“What happened?”

“She slept with my brother.” Henry was almost as stunned
by that revelation as Calla obviously was. He’d never told a soul
about Heidi
and David’s affair. It was something he planned to
take to his grave.

“Wow,” Calla breathed, stunned. She
didn’t have any sisters,
but she was darn sure she’d never have slept with their husbands if she had. “Uh, listen, we don’t have to talk about this anymore.”

“I
don’t
mind talking to you
about Heidi. But you have
to
understand something. I was young. I fell into what I thought was love. But those feelings were dead long before Heidi and I
divorced. She married me to get her hands on some information I owned and she lied to
me about almost everything in our lives from the day I met her.”

Calla came
to
a dead stop, dragged him to a halt beside her.
“Oh, Henry, I’m so sorry.”

Henry was unnerved. Calla’s hazel eyes shined with sympathy and gentle concern. This was not the woman who faced thunderstorms with nary a whimper, was it? His chest tightened, and he felt a strange constriction in his throat. He removed her restraining hand from his arm and moved off again. They walked in silence for a long while.

“How do you live with that kind of deception?” she asked quietly.

“You live with it. But it makes for a pretty grim marriage.”

“I’ll bet.” She chewed on her lower lip for a minute.

Don’t do it, Calla. Don’t marry him. You’ll be sorrier than you could ever imagine possible, Henry said silently.

“I have to do it,
you know.”

As if she’d read his mind. “No, you don’t.”

“You don’t understand.”

He was angry. At her, at
Dartmouth,
at himself. “I think I do. You don’t have to do this to save your ranch.”

“That isn’t why I’m doing it.” But her usual argument held none of the heat it normally did. Henry kept walking, not meeting her eyes.

“Isn’t it?”

“No,” she said slowly. “Or, anyway, it’s not the only reason. It’s more complicated than that. I care for Clark. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a husband. He’s smart and well educated and sophisticated. He’s not like anyone from around here. I never
knew anyone like him when I was growing up. You probably wouldn’t understand that, but I’ve waited a long time to meet someone who wasn’t just another hard-drinking good old boy with a John Deere cap and a plug of chewing tobacco in his lip and no future.”

“I understand it.” He didn’t want to. It made everything more difficult. But he did.

“You do?”

“Yes. When I met Heidi, I was the biggest lab geek you ever met.” He smiled slightly. “Outside of an occasional afternoon on the ice, my lab was my entire world. I never found anything else as interesting. Not after my Dad sold—” He stopped. He could tell this woman about Heidi, but not about the farm? What was wrong with him today? he wondered. “Anyway, I never even had a date until my sophomore year in college, and then it was with this very nice, but unfortunately bucktoothed girl who was almost as socially inept as I was. We talked about quarks and the chemical foundations of evolution and Stephen Hawking all night. I think I saw her nod off about eight-thirty. Heidi was different from any woman I ever knew. She was confident and sexy and smart. Not just some good old girl lab assistant.”