Sonny jumped, and Rose thought Sue Ellen must have pinched him.
Even in the dim light, Rose could see his ruddy face flush redder, and irritation made him react nastily. “Patrick can’t be too good a hand, or you wouldn’t be losing horses.”
“What?” Dismayed, Rose stopped her retreat.
“You wouldn’t be losing …” He cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable and sorry he’d spoken. “That is, we heard rumors someone was stealing your horses.”
Rose had thought, hoped, that nobody knew. Now, sober with dismay, she asked, “Where did you hear that rumor?”
“Now, Rose, a man can’t reveal his sources.” Sonny may have been mean-spirited, but he wasn’t stupid. He peered at her. “But I guess it’s true?”
Rose watched him steadily. The years had taught her that Sonny used words as both shield and weapon, and only silence could break him.
As she hoped, he began to sweat, then stammer. “I have my cowboys keep an eye on your place. Kinda because I feel protective, and kinda because I figure it’s going to be mine someday.”
“And why do you think that?” Rose asked.
“Ah, face it, Rose. You haven’t got a chance. It’s a man’s country and cattle country, and here you are trying to raise horses. I told you when you sold me those extra acres I’d be first in line to take the rest, so I figure—”
Of all of Sonny’s irritating idiosyncrasies, this one annoyed Rose more than any of them. “You bought my land for no more than a fair price, Sonny, and I only sold it to you because I couldn’t run cattle on it. I don’t owe you anything.”
“Ah, Rose. You’re so prickly, no wonder you’re an old maid.”
“Sonny!” Sue Ellen sounded sincerely shocked.
Defiant as a rude little boy, Sonny insisted, “It’s true. She’s not that bad looking — a little worn down from working so much, and so skinny she’s only got one stripe on her bedgown, but she’s got brown eyes as pretty as any heifer’s and a smile that makes a man wish for long winter nights. In fact, if she smiled at the men as often as she smiles at her horses, they’d be buzzing around her. And if she’d come to this party in a new dress … “
“Sonny Pogue, if your mama could hear you now!” Sue Ellen scolded.
“Don’t you bring my mama into this.” Sonny sniffed and rubbed his sleeve across his nose.
“She’d be ashamed,” Sue Ellen said.
Sonny sniffed again, and subsided. But not for long. Nothing could subdue Sonny for long — he was too vulgar to sustain a snub. “Say, Rose, that stallion you rode here. That Goliath. He’s a pretty horse, but too big for a lady to ride. I’d take him off your hands for three hundred dollars.”
Behind his back, Sue Ellen laughed silently, then winked at Rose. “That’s real neighborly of you, Sonny. Especially since Bubba Von Hoffman offered five hundred already.”
“What?” Sonny huffed like the steam engine that rolled over the new Texas and New Orleans Railroad. “He’s throwing his money around.”
“He likes what I’ve done with my breeding program,” Rose answered coolly.
“But I’m your … we’re your friends,” Sonny whined.
“When my daddy bought me those stallions twelve years ago, everyone laughed. You laughed hardest, Sonny.” Rose descended the last steps to the ground. “I’m not giving you Goliath.”
“I’ll say five hundred dollars.”
“I’m not selling him. To anybody. Goliath is my horse, as I am his master. We know each others’ minds and hearts, and he’ll allow no one else on his back.” Sonny had mined the bedrock of her resolution, and he seemed to recognize it, for he backed up. Allowing herself a smile, Rose said, “But I’ve got one of his foals I’m beginning to break — as pretty a mare as I’ve ever seen. Sue Ellen would look mighty elegant on her.”
Sonny stopped, and his eyes narrowed. “Mares aren’t worth as much as stallions.”
“Starbright is the first foal off that English chestnut mare you admired last time you were out at my place.”
“Don’t have the money to be throwing around on a horse for Sue Ellen.”
“That’s true.” Rose nodded judiciously.
“That’s funny. Rose told me that Royal Lewis said the same thing,” Sue Ellen said, lying through her teeth.
“Yes, until he saw … “ Rose tried frantically to finish the tale, but telling falsehoods was no talent of hers. Lamely, she finished, “ … you’re not interested in that.”
She strolled toward the stable and heard Sonny’s boots as they struck the stairs behind her. “Wait a minute. Just a minute. What did Royal Lewis do?”
Rose halted, started again, halted, providing enough tension to set the hook, yet not knowing what to do with the fish she’d landed.
But Sue Ellen knew. She moved to the edge of the porch and wrapped her pale, soft hands around the rail. “Why, he bought one of Rose’s mares for his wife to ride. Ana Marie Lewis has been gloating no end, but I told her to nevermind. I told her my husband didn’t have the time or the money for such frivolities. I told her—”
Breathing heavily, he yelled, “Damn it, Sue Ellen! You told her a damn sight too much. Just like a woman.”
Sue Ellen shrugged her shoulders in a coquettish, well-practiced gesture. “If you can’t hunt with the big dogs, Sonny, stay on the porch. Royal Lewis made a wagon load of money on his cattle this year.”
Belligerent, Sonny insisted, “No more than me!”
“And he can afford to pay four hundred twenty-five dollars for a good horse for his wife. So don’t you go bragging you’re worth so much when you can’t ante up.”
“Four hundred twenty-five dollars.” Obviously, Sonny hadn’t heard a word beyond the price. “Four hundred twenty-five dollars. For a horse. For my wife.”
Sue Ellen had him headed right in the direction she intended, and now she went in for the kill. “For me?”
“What?”
Sonny started to straighten, but she reached out and massaged his beefy shoulders. “You’ll buy Starbright for me?”
“Now, Sue Ellen … “
“Oh, Sonny.” Clasping her hands, Sue Ellen leaned over the rail and gave him a clear view of her snow-white bosom. “That’s even more than the model fifteen Singer sewing machine I wanted you to buy me.”
“A lot more, and what do you need a sewing machine for? My mother never had a sewing machine. She sewed all our clothes by hand. And what’s good enough for my mother is good enough for my wife!”
“I know that, Sonny, and you’re right.” Sue Ellen fluttered her eyelashes. “And your mother rode her own horse, and here you’re paying four hundred fifty dollars for Starbright for me. Your daddy would be so proud!”
His daddy had been famed for his stinginess. But Sonny was a healthy male animal who did his best thinking with his glands, and his glands were working overtime now. “Four hundred twenty-five,” he said weakly.
“Sonny, darling, Starbright is a better horse than that cheap thing Ana Marie Lewis got.” Sue Ellen’s fingers fluttered, captured Sonny’s hand, and brought it to press on one of her breasts. “Won’t you pay four fifty for Starbright?”
Mesmerized by Sue Ellen’s cleavage and the feel of her in his palm, Sonny nodded up and down, up and down. “Never paid as much for a horse before, but I’ll do it for my little sugar.”
“Sonny, you are the sweetest thing.” Sue Ellen brought his hand to her lips and kissed it, then shoved it back at him. “You go inside and tell Royal and Ana Marie Lewis that you bought the best horse in Texas for me, and don’t you let on you know anything about Ana Marie’s horse. It’ll be really funny if they pretend they don’t know a thing.”
Still stunned with lust and his own extravagance, Sonny did as he was told.
Sue Ellen watched him fondly. “If there’s one thing that man loves better than a roll in the hay, it’s bragging about his possessions. And right now, he could strut sitting down.”
“You wer
en’t the belle of three counties for nothing,” Rose observed, amused by Sue Ellen’s wholesale manipulation of Sonny. “You put that training to use even now.”
“Did you think he got everything his own way?” Sue Ellen observed Rose shrewdly. “You did, didn’t you? I know Sonny’s a bully and a shyster, sometimes, but I keep him on the straight and narrow.” Moving down the steps, Sue Ellen came to Rose and shook Rose by the shoulders. “But he’s no thief, and he’s not a ruthless criminal. Rose, I want you to stay the night.”
“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.” Rose placed her hands over Sue Ellen’s and pressed lightly. “Thanks to you, I’ve sold a horse—”
“Two horses, after Sonny talks to Royal Lewis.”
“—and I’ve had a break from the ranch. But it’s true what Sonny said. I don’t want it noised about, but someone is stealing my horses, and I’ve got to catch the bastard.”
“You can’t do that by yourself.”
“I know.” The smile that charmed even Sonny broke across Rose’s face. “I don’t want you to repeat any of this — in fact, I want you to shut Sonny up about the thieving—”
“Done.”
“—but I sent for a Texas Ranger.”
“A Ranger? You sent for a Ranger?” Sue Ellen seemed stunned by Rose’s audacity. “When?”
“A couple of months ago, when the stealing first began. Patrick tries to help, but he’s too old to do more than help train horses and sneak off to Fort Pena to play some cards when he thinks I don’t notice.”
Shivering, Sue Ellen rubbed her arms. “There’s a chill in the air tonight. Must be winter coming on.” She took a restless turn around her well-tended rose bed and came back to stand in front of Rose. “Are they sending somebody?”
“I received word they’d send a Ranger as soon as one was free.”
“That should be soon.” Sue Ellen reassured herself. “There’s not much to do now that the Indians have been subdued. But in the meantime, Thorn’s back.”
A thrill rattled Rose, a thrill she hoped Sue Ellen hadn’t noticed.
But there wasn’t much Sue Ellen didn’t know about men and women, and she looked both sorry and embarrassed as she quoted, “Never wrestle with pigs, Rose. They enjoy it and you get dirty.”
Rose didn’t want to, but she had to ask. “What are you saying?”
“Thorn doesn’t want you forever. Not forever. Not more than he wants any other woman who crosses his path. He wants revenge, plain and simple. Rose, he’s been in prison, and your testimony put him there.”
CHAPTER THREE
Rose took a deep breath of the chill night air.
Freedom. It smelled like freedom.
Freedom from overbearing ranchers, from insincere pleasantries, from business discussions that pointedly excluded the lone concerned female. Freedom from the worry of the ranch, the horses, their disappearance. For a few moments, until she reached home, she could pretend she was carefree again, riding the rises and dips of the Davis Mountains without a thought beyond the moment.
Leaning down across Goliath’s neck, she spoke softly, encouraging him, and he leapt forward. Stretching his neck out, Goliath mouthed the bit and seemed to sense her need for flight, her sheer pleasure in his motion. With polished responsiveness, the intelligent horse monitored their progress, watching for the tumbleweeds that might entrap him, the gopher holes that might trip him. The night wind urged them along. The stars shone; the moon trickled a thin white light over the oak-studded landscape. Together, Rose and Goliath frightened a mule deer from its cover. Together, they heard a coyote crying its lament.
Freedom. Perfect, mindless freedom.
You’re going to be mine.
Rose never swore, and right now she regretted it. Why, when she released the restraints from her thoughts, did Thorn always appear? He was a thief, for he stole her sense of freedom and replaced it with guilt.
Guilt that she’d sent him to prison, although she knew it had been the right and proper thing to do. Guilt that she’d been too cowardly to go to his mother and apologize for sending her son away. Guilt that he had been humiliated enough to steal that saddle in the first place.
Yet when Rose saw him tonight, nine long, guilt-ridden years had vanished, swept away by a swagger and a wink. He did want her. It was there, in his confident smile, his brash claim, the press of his body against hers. But did he want her for revenge, as Sue Ellen claimed? Or did he want her horses, as she feared?
Surely not. As a boy, Thorn had always been fearless and brazen and quick-tempered, but he’d always been kind — and more than kind. Passionate, generous, dedicated to her and their love.
But she didn’t know him anymore, did she? Perhaps prison had changed him. Perhaps he really had run with the wolves for the last ten years … and she imagined she heard a lonely howl. She imagined she heard the distant drum of pursuing hooves, and she felt the prickle of awareness as someone’s gaze followed her progress.
She whispered encouragement to Goliath until the canyon arms dropped their embrace, and she rode into the broad, mountain-ringed valley of Corey Ranch. The clapboard house stood on a rise above the stream, its broad porches commanding a view of the stables and the fenced area where the less valuable horses grazed and dozed.
All looked peaceful.
Yet anxiety clawed at her as she swiftly rode to the corrals. One, two, three, four … twenty-four horses were in the enclosure, exactly the right number. Hurrying on, she went into the dark stable, leaving the great door open for a bit of light, and again counted. Twenty stalls. Eighteen horses. Just as it should be, with one stall left for Goliath and one left empty for any unexpected guest.
Letting the peace of the dark, warm, familiar stable enfold her, she realized nothing was out of order. Nothing was amiss.
As she led Goliath to his stall, she spoke softly to the horses that reached out with neighs and nudges to greet her.
She loved them all. Wily, gentle, affectionate, high-spirited — the horses were more than merely a living to her. They were her family now.
Tying a clean apron over her dress — it was her best bengaline dress, for all that she’d turned it — she removed Goliath’s saddle and wiped him down. Grooming him, she noted the sculpted muscularity of his neck, shoulder, and leg, his firm belly, his strong croup, buttocks, and thighs. No other creature on earth was blessed with such a combination of intelligence and strength.
No other creature except …
It had been a near thing nine years ago. She’d been visiting her horses in the stable. Thorn had been visiting her. Two young people who had been unlikely friends their whole lives. He’d brought out the merriment in her. She subdued the streak of wildness in him. No one had thought, when they were children, that they would become mates, but by the time they were seventeen, everyone saw the attraction that drew them together.
Her mother had talked to her, seriously, about the importance of maintaining a pure body and mind. But she didn’t address the desire that Thorn created in Rose.
Her father had talked to her about Thorn’s wild ways, his increasing penchant toward mischief, and his lack of repentance for his deeds. But he didn’t address Thorn’s uncanny comprehension of her needs and thoughts.
Her parents — staid, upright, Christian people — couldn’t understand the heat between Thorn and their daughter, but they felt it, and in their plain way imagined that their words could dampen the fire.
And naive little Rose believed what they believed.
So Thorn touched her that afternoon in the barn, she hadn’t expected to tumble into the straw like some weak-kneed easy woman.
But she had.
He’d been sitting there on the rail, watching her groom her first colt, and when she stepped out of the stall, he’d jumped down beside her.
“Rose, honey, you know what I’d like?” he had asked.
She’d shaken her head, smiling up into his serious face.
“I’d like to rub y
ou all over, just like you did that colt.”
Her smile faded. Something about his tone, and the way he towered over her, made her want to soar like a hawk on the wind.
A dangerous pursuit, but irresistible.
“I’d like to stroke your back” — his hand rubbed her spine — “and your waist and your breast” — his voice quivered a little — “and your legs all the way up…”
The updraft caught her, she opened her mouth to gasp in excitement — and he kissed her. Kissed her face and neck as if he wanted to swallow her whole. His lank body shivered with need, and he muttered, “I think of you, Rosie, all the time. All night, all day, wanting you, dreaming of you … damn it, Rosie, please.”
“Don’t swear,” she admonished as she took him by the wrist and led him to the empty stall.
She had to take his hands and place them on each of the points he wished to touch, but once she gave him that permission, he took liberties she’d never imagined.
The heel of his palm massaged her nipples.
She liked that.
He pushed aside her bodice and chemise and put his mouth there.
She nearly flew right off the straw and into the air.
He laughed — even in his youthful rush, he was wickedly happy — and he whispered, “Tell me I’m not alone in this. Tell me you dream about me, too. Rosie?” He pushed her skirt up around her waist and struggled until he had his pants pushed down to his knees.
“Yes. Please. Yes. Thorn!” She half-screamed when he opened the slit in her drawers and pushed his finger inside her.
“Hush. Quiet, now,” he warned, but he grinned into her face, inviting her to share his delight. “God, you’re ready for me. You’re slick. It won’t be so tough. I won’t hurt you much, and then you’ll be mine. Tell me, darlin’. Tell me you’ll be mine.” He was coaxing as he positioned himself. “Mine.”
Then the stable door slammed open.
They both jumped, shot out of flight in midair.