Читать книгу Diamond Spur - Diana Palmer - Страница 7

CHAPTER ONE

THERE WERE HUGE live oak trees sheltering the Donavan place from the south Texas heat. The impressive pale yellow Spanish-styled stucco house sat between barbed wire fences, far back off the ranch road at the end of a dusty, winding driveway. Kate Whittman was glad to be poking along on the old quarter horse Jason had given her instead of driving. It had been dry in this part of Frio County, Texas, for some weeks now, and the dust was much less noticeable on a slow-moving horse than in a car.

The Donavan driveway had never been paved. The ranch covered thousands of acres and spare cash always went into buying more cattle, not into modernizing roads. In these days of low cattle prices and overwhelming interest on ranch loans, it took a business mind like Jason Donavan’s to keep the wolf away from the door.

Her green eyes scanned the horizon. It was roundup time, Kate knew, and on an operation this size, the spread had to be broken down into sections. Each camp had its own crew and foreman, and Jason would be riding around from one to the other to keep an eye on things. During roundup, somebody always got hurt. While broken bones, burns, contusions, and abrasions were part of the usual demands of ranch work, herding cattle and branding always brought grief. This time the boss himself had run afoul of a maddened mama longhorn, and the ranch foreman had gone sneaking over to Kate’s house to fetch her. Any time Jason got hurt, they sent for Kate, because Jason Donavan wouldn’t let anybody else near him. He trusted Kate because she wasn’t afraid of his temper, and because she alone could manage him when that temper was at flash point.

Kate sighed wistfully, thinking about all the times she’d come down this winding driveway. She and Jason didn’t date; in fact he hardly seemed to notice her as a woman. But she’d been friends with his younger brother Gene, and with the housekeeper, Sheila, long before that odd kind of friendship developed between Jason and herself, born out of an equally odd confrontation one night when he’d been drinking. He didn’t let anyone very close, even Kate, but she was allowed privileges that no one else was. He was protective of her, in a rough sort of way; a kind of unrelated older brother. Of course, that wasn’t at all what Kate wanted from him. But it was as much as she could expect from a man who kept to himself the way he always did.

There was a lot of road between the open range with its spacious improved grazing land, green now that spring had arrived, and the house resting in its solitary nest of trees. In one pasture, cows with new calves were grazing. In another, young castrated bulls made up the steer crop. In still another, huge Santa Gertrudis bulls had been turned out with hearty longhorn-Santa Gertrudis crossbred cows for the third stage in Diamond Spur’s three-crossbreed breeding program. In still another pasture, purebred longhorn bulls had been introduced to the crop of two-year-old heifers for their first breeding. The longhorn papas would insure that the new mothers dropped small calves, insuring an easy delivery and less herd losses.

Kate smiled at the efficiency of it all. Jason was a wizard with cattle. His sprawling cow-calf commercial operation had a spotless reputation with its customers, and a large part of it was due to Jason’s personal interest in his ranch and the time he spent overseeing every part of its operation. He was always the first to try new techniques, to use better methods of production. That ability to change with the times, to bend to the demands of modern cattle marketing, had kept his Diamond Spur ranch solvent. When, several years back, other ranchers had turned to investing heavily in new land acquisitions, Jason was experimenting with artificial insemination and embryo transplants and innovative methods of nutritional supplementation.

Kate pushed back her long, dark brown braid and settled lower in the saddle. She grimaced as her jean-clad leg brushed over a nail peeking through the leather. She’d designed and decorated these jeans herself. She hoped they weren’t torn because they were part of a collection she hoped to sell to the manufacturing company where she worked. She really couldn’t afford any new denim. Things were in bad shape at the small place she shared with her mother, but she didn’t want Jason to know just how bad. Anyway, he didn’t need any more worry at the moment. The cattle industry was depressed, and even a man with Jason’s business sense could go broke. If he lived, she thought with black irritation, remembering how impossible he was about injuries. Jason never would go to a doctor with a cut. He’d try to treat it himself and the only way he’d have it seen about was if it got badly infected, or if Kate stuck her nose in. For Jason’s foreman Gabe to run off in the middle of a roundup hunting her, and risking the boss’s temper asking her to intervene, it must be pretty bad this time.

Nobody ever seemed to guess that she wasn’t as confident as she pretended to be with Jason. He intimidated her, too. After all, he was thirty—almost ten full years her senior. But she’d learned over the years to hide her uncertainty. Now her dark, slender eyebrows drew together as she wondered if he’d done some irreparable damage to his tough hide. He was male perfection itself, as most of the single women around San Frio would have agreed. It was a pity that he’d become such a dyed in the wool misogynist. She wondered how he’d ever get an heir for Diamond Spur with that attitude. And if anything happened to Jason, his younger brother Gene would never be strong enough to hold the family finances together.

The Diamond Spur had belonged to Jason Donavan since the death of his father, although Gene would inherit a good share of it. Old J.B. Donavan had drowned when the Frio River came down in flood one spring morning eight years ago. But the ranch’s name went back a lot longer than eight years. Back in 1873, a Civil War veteran named Blalock Donavan had chanced to sit in on a poker game in San Antonio. In a game that went on all night, and during which one man was killed for cheating, the young Confederate sergeant from Calhoun County, Georgia, won the last hand with a legendary straight diamond flush—and without any wild cards to make that impossible feat any more possible.

In the pot had been a total of one hundred Yankee dollars—and the deed to a broken down cattle ranch in Frio County, Texas. The ranch hadn’t had a name at the time. Everyone locally just called it the Bryan place. But Blalock Donavan had won it on a Royal Diamond Flush, with a silver spur in the kitty as his part of the ante. So the Diamond Spur it became. The Diamond Spur it remained. And a Donavan still owned it, 113 years later.

Kate’s pale green eyes softened as she saw the heavyset woman bending over a pan on the front porch. Diamond Spur was one of the richest cattle ranches in Texas, enabling Jason to drive a Mercedes and a new very classy black Bronco. The interior of the house was like an antique museum, with pieces from around the world. And Jason entertained on a lavish scale. In fact, Jason’s kitchen had every modern convenience, but his housekeeper, Sheila James, still did her own canning.

Sheila was an institution at the ranch. Rumor had it that she’d been madly in love with old J.B. Donavan, but that gentleman had no use for women after his Nell deserted him and his two sons. The old man took to strong drink and became a holy terror. They said even Sheila had grown afraid of him after that, but that she’d stayed on to look after the boys. She had character and an uncanny tolerance for people. She had a lot of perseverence, too, because old J.B. Donavan had been a hardcase with a mean temper. Jason still was, although Kate could reach him when no one else could. That was something of a joke locally, Kate knew, but nobody laughed about it in front of Jason.

Sheila looked up from the lazy rhythm of the front porch swing, her blue eyes sparkling as Kate came closer. “I sent Gabe after you. I hope you don’t mind,” she said apologetically. “I figured Jason would bleed to death and become an eyesore out there because his men would be too scared to bury him.”

She paused in the act of snapping green beans and stringing them, the shallow pan across the knees of her brilliant green and yellow checked housedress, her salt and pepper hair short and sweaty. She was fifty and looked it. Even Jason gave her a measure of respect, but Sheila was no match for his temper when it was aroused.

“Can’t you do anything with him?” Kate replied mischievously.

“Not without a loaded gun,” came the dry reply. “Gabe told me that Jason finally stopped the bleeding and bandaged himself, but the blood was still seeping through when he went out again. I’m afraid it needs stitches.”

“Well, I’ll see what I can do,” Kate promised. “Is he where Gabe left him, with the crew out on the Smith bottoms?”

“That’s what Gabe said. Thanks, Kate,” Sheila replied.

Kate smiled as she turned the horse. “Old-fashioned transportation, isn’t it?” She grinned. “But it’s a long walk, and Mom has the car at work, since it’s grocery store day.”

“And you wouldn’t ride over with Gabe because he’s sweet on you?” Sheila asked knowingly.

Kate, who was twenty and a little nervous about men because of an extremely sheltered background, nodded. Her father and mother had raised her in the same strict fashion they’d been raised. They were old-fashioned, church-going people. And even though her father was dead, her mother was still a stickler for morality and didn’t hesitate to ask Jason’s opinion of Kate’s infrequent dates. That rankled, too, but Kate’s mother, Mary, thought the sun rose and set on the man. Kate’s late father had been Jason’s foreman, and she sometimes thought that was one reason Jason seemed to feel responsible for her and Mary.

She drew her mind back to the present. “Gabe is a very nice man, but I want to be a fashion designer. I don’t want to get married for ages yet.”

Sheila nodded, thinking privately that Kate and Jason got along so well because both of them wanted their independence. Jason would probably never marry since that Maryland woman had thrown him over for a movie contract.

“Good luck,” she murmured. “He was already wound up and cussing when he went out the door this morning. Had some terrible things to say about what I did to his eggs.” She sniffed, snapping beans with renewed vengeance. “Nothing wrong with salsa and refried beans on top of them. Well, is there?” she asked Kate.

Kate knew how Sheila made salsa, and having tasted the extremely hot sauce once, she had every sympathy for Jason. “Why did you put salsa on them?”

“Because the minute his feet hit the floor, he started cussing because he couldn’t find where I put his jeans, and then he swore the detergent I used gave him an allergic reaction, he said there wasn’t enough cover on his bed...” Sheila’s thin lips flattened. “I guess I cause cancer, too, although he stopped short of accusing me of that!”

Kate shook her head, laughing softly. “You ought to short sheet his bed for him.”

“Oh, don’t you worry, I’ll get even,” Sheila replied. “He loves cherry pie. Hell will freeze over and shiver before he gets another one.”

That wasn’t quite true, of course. Jason would get hungry for that cherry pie and start flattering his housekeeper, and he’d have his cherry pie like a shot. He and Sheila had these blowups almost daily, and both forgot them just as frequently.

“Well, I’ll go try to patch him up so you can get your own back on him,” Kate offered.

“If you can get him back here, I’ve got some nasty antiseptic...!” the older woman called.

Kate shook her finger at Sheila and rode on. But once she was on the narrow, rutted path through the grass that led to the holding pens, she felt a little nervous. Jason in a temper wasn’t the most pleasant person to be around. Part of Kate was still a little afraid of him, although she wouldn’t admit it or show it. He was a very masculine man, and he didn’t bother to hide his faults; he just let them hang out for everyone to see. He’d never have made it as a diplomat.

Kate smoothed her hands down her jeans and fumbled to tuck the shirttail of her faded blue print blouse back into them. Down the road, a deep, drawling male voice called out orders with more than the usual amount of venom, rapid-fire Spanish reverting quickly to English and back again. Jason spoke both. Since most of the local ranch hands were of Mexican-American descent, being bilingual came as naturally as wearing boots around San Frio. Cattle bawled and dust was everywhere, with men on foot and men on horseback trying to keep some kind of mad order in all the confusion.

This rural part of south Texas hadn’t changed a lot since the Civil War. There was less native grassland because of the enormous amount of grazing that had been done back in the cattle era. These days ranchers who wanted good grass had to plant it, so the local Soil Conservation Service people were Johnny-on-the-spot with help for those who wanted it, as Jason had. But, too, there was a lot of scrub and more prickly pear and mesquite than anybody wanted. Despite the drawbacks, the open country was the same; wide and spread out and endless, with just a few scattered trees here and there to signal houses hidden from the sun. It was pioneer country. Cowboy country. And Kate, who’d been born next door to the Donavans, loved it with all her heart. Sitting astride the quarter horse with the wind blowing the grass down and teasing her shirt, she felt as free and unchained as the land itself.

She left her horse at the big makeshift corral and moved along on booted feet, tugging nervously at her long swath of hair. Her hair was a deep, rich brown, down to her waist when she didn’t braid it or put it up. She had a pretty oval face with wide-spaced green eyes under long lashes, and a straight nose and a bow mouth. It wasn’t a particularly beautiful face. It was thin and high-cheekboned. But Kate had a sweet personality and a kind of unabashed honesty that overshadowed her lack of beauty.

Just ahead, a large fenced area held a number of bawling calves and unhappy cows who were having their babies taken away for branding, tagging, and a disease check. There was a long chute down which calves were herded singly to a tilt tray that held the bovine head in a kind of vice while the rest of the protesting animal was branded, tagged, and vaccinated. A lot of ranchers had recently gone back to the old-time way of using a corral and doing each animal out in the open with ropes and cutting horses. But Jason liked this new technique and his men had it down to an art—they could usually tag, brand, and vaccinate an animal a minute.

Most of the victims were calves, but new bulls and replacement heifers had to be screened, too. They were given the same treatment, and many of them protested. Jason ran purebred longhorn cattle in this section of the ranch, so the horns on some of them were frankly dangerous if a cowboy let himself get backed into a corner. That was what Gabe had said Jason had done. Jason didn’t like mistakes. He didn’t make them himself, and he expected the same perfection in other people. So naturally he wasn’t admitting that he was badly hurt. That unforgiving attitude was a source of worry to Kate, who was afraid that someday she might make a slip and be crossed off his list of friends forever.

Jason was leaning against the chute, tall and powerful and darkly elegant in his unconscious pose, one worn boot hooked on the lowest board of the chute while he watched big blond Gabe drive a calf up it to be worked. But before Kate was halfway to him, his dark eyes had found her. He always seemed to see her before anyone else did.

She could see that he was favoring his right arm, resting it on his propped-up leg. He looked good in Western clothing. Faded jeans and a worn black Stetson, leather boots curled up and matted with dirt from long use and a dusty chambray shirt made him look like a handsome desperado.

He was handsome to Kate, anyway—even if his high-cheekboned face had overly craggy features and he wasn’t shy about speaking his mind. He was dark-eyed, dark-skinned, with a deceptively lithe build. Tall and powerfully muscled, Jason had one of those physiques seen so frequently on the screen and so rarely in real life. With the misshappen black Stetson pulled low over his eyes, he had that dangerous look. Kate came closer.

“I wondered why Gabe vanished all of a sudden,” he mused in a deep, south Texas drawl. His dark eyes cut upward to where his forearm was trying to look invisible. “My God, are we so hard up for help that we’re kidnapping seamstresses?”

“I’m a designer, not a seamstress,” Kate pointed out pleasantly, smiling up at the tall man. “And if you don’t think I can throw a calf, stand back and watch me. My daddy was foreman of this outfit before Gabe was, and he taught me all I know.”

Jason’s dark eyes softened as they searched her creamy complexion, lingering on her thick, dark eyelashes. “I guess he did, but most of these calves outweigh you, honey,” he murmured dryly.

His casual endearment made her heart dance, but she kept Jason from seeing it. “Your arm’s bleeding,” she remarked, nodding toward the bloodstained sleeve.

“NO!” he exclaimed in mock surprise.

“You need to see a doctor,” she continued, unabashed.

“It would be too embarrassing for both of us if I bothered Dr. Harris over a little scratch like this,” he said reasonably.

“If you don’t, I’ll stand here all day and get heat stroke,” she sighed. “But just go ahead and step over me while you work. If you don’t bleed to death first,” she added darkly.

Gene would have laughed at that, but Jason didn’t crack a smile. Jason’s younger brother, Gene, was a live wire, ever since his marriage to Cherry Mather. But Jason had always been the quiet one, the deep one. He hardly ever smiled, except when Kate was around.

“I don’t have time,” he muttered.

“Yes, you do,” she said stubbornly. She put her hands on her hips and moved closer, staring doggedly up at him.

At close quarters, the effect he had on her nerves was dynamite. She’d always had a kind of crush on him, but suddenly it was being translated into something new and deliciously physical that attracted her and frightened her, all at once.

She didn’t know that her proximity was giving him some problems as well. Little Kate who’d always been like a little sister was beginning to make him nervous and irritable. He’d avoided her lately for that reason. Now here she was, getting on his nerves again, when he needed it least.

“I told you, my arm’s all right,” he said curtly, his voice more cutting than he meant it to be, because her unconscious posture was bothering him. Her firm young breasts were all too visible under the thin fabric of her shirt, and the tight belt she wore with those tailored jeans brought his dark eyes down over her tiny waist and full hips and long, graceful legs. That made him madder and he forced his eyes back up to hers.

But she wasn’t looking. She’d taken possession of his arm while his attention was diverted.

She unfastened the cuff and began to roll the sleeve up. “Go ahead and growl, I don’t mind.” Touching him even in this casual way made her tingle all over, so she resorted to humor to hide her reaction. Her green eyes danced up to his. “I’ll give you a peppermint stick if you let me drive you to the doctor, Jason.”

As usual, her light teasing knocked the fire off his temper. He gave in, chuckling in spite of himself as he watched her dark head bend. She was so full of fun, so unlike him. She bubbled through life, always finding the bright spots, while he brooded in the shadows. She’d always been able to make him laugh. Nobody else did, God knew. If he had a surefire weakness, Kate was it.

She drew the fabric carefully up his arm, noting first the terribly complicated black watch strapped in the dark hairs on his wrist, then his muscles as she uncovered a blood-soaked white handkerchief; linen, too, with the initials JED in one corner, for Jason Everett Donavan.

“If this is a little cut, I’m George Washington,” she muttered, grimacing as she moved the bandage aside to view the deep gash above his elbow. She looked up, searching his eyes. They were very Spanish, like part of his ancestry, and he had a way of looking at her that made her knees go weak.

“My, my, how you’ve changed, George,” he mused.

“It needs stitches,” she said. “It’s too deep to bandage.”

“It isn’t. But I’ll let you patch it up,” he sighed irritably.

“We’d have to go back to the house. And Sheila’s there,” she added, smiling mischievously. “Waiting, with a bottle of nasty antiseptic and just bristling with evil intent. Dr. Harris, on the other hand, is a kind man who wouldn’t hurt you. He’s the lesser of the two evils.”

“Damn it, a little blood won’t hurt me,” he countered, his dark eyes daring his very interested cowhands to say a word.

“Will gangrene hurt you?” she challenged, losing her patience as she was losing the argument. He could be so bullheaded! “Do you want to lose your arm because you’re too pigheaded to see a doctor?”

“You tell him, Miss Kate,” Red Barton agreed from his perch atop the fence. He was just out of his teens, a good cowboy with a tendency toward alcohol that would probably have kept him off any other ranch. But he’d saved Jason from a diamondback the same week he’d signed on at Diamond Spur, and he’d be there for life, if Kate knew her taciturn neighbor. Jason never forgot a favor.

“Gangrene’s a turrrrrible thing,” Barton continued. “First she gets red stripes running down, then green, then the whole thing starts to rot off...” He shuddered as his pale eyes widened and his hands gestured theatrically.

“Oh, shut up, Barton!” Jason shot at him. “I don’t need any advice from a man who almost lost his own damned foot to a mesquite thorn!”

Barton lifted his chin, “Well, at least I finally did go to a doctor, didn’t I, boss man?” he challenged.

“Sure,” Jason agreed. “Feet first, in an ambulance.”

“No need to rub it in,” the cowboy replied with a grin.

“All the more reason for you to go willingly, now,” Kate told Jason. “Think,” she said conspiratorially, “how your men would gloat if you had to be carried away.”

Jason looked quietly furious. In fact, he looked hunted. He glared at Barton, who looked like a cheshire cat, and then back at Kate, who stood just looking at him, her arms folded.

“I give up,” he said heavily.

“Don’t worry, boss, they’ll give you a bullet to bite on,” Barton called after him.

“Save one for yourself, and a gun to use it in, if that lot of calves isn’t done when I get back,” Jason snapped back. “Hey, Gabe!” he yelled to his foreman.

The big blond man turned with a hand to his ear.

“I’ll remember this!” Jason told him.

Gabe made him a bow guaranteed to incite any half-enraged man to violence. Jason’s eyes flashed and he took a step forward.

“He’s young, Jason.” Kate got between him and his quarry. “They’re all young.”

He looked down at her with smoldering eyes under his jutting, scowling brow. “So are you, cupcake,” he said.

“That’s right, old man,” she returned. Then she frowned a little. “Well, not too old,” she amended. “You’re just thirty. I guess you’ve got a few good years left.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “My God. Look who’s talking about age—a child of twenty.”

She glared at him. “Almost twenty-one,” she amended. “The same age as Gene.”

“Yes, Gene.” He spared his branding operation another wistful glance. “They’ll never get it done alone,” he muttered. “If only I could get Gene to hold up his end, I could show a profit. Damn it, why does he want to fool around with painting? He’s chasing rainbows, and on my time!”

“Gene isn’t a boy anymore, Jason,” she reminded him as they walked toward his big black Ford Bronco. “He’s a grown man, with a wife.”

“Some wife,” he said harshly. “Cherry couldn’t boil water, and her idea of married life is to watch soap operas and walk around with her hair in curlers.”

“She’s just eighteen,” she said.

“I tried so damned hard to get them to wait.” He opened the passenger door and helped her up into the high cab with a steely hand and closed it. Before she could get him to listen to her protests, he was under the wheel, managing very well with his right arm. With the bucket seats so close together, she was almost touching it, too. Kate was fascinated by the inside of this vehicle. It had power windows and cruise control, a stereo radio, tape deck, and two gearshifts—one for automatic drive and one for four-wheel drive. The old Ford that Kate shared with her mother was a straight shift with no frills, and by comparison, the Bronco was sheer luxury, right down to the comfortable fabric-covered seats.

“You aren’t fit to drive,” she complained.

“Nobody’s driving me anywhere, unless it’s to the cemetery one day,” he returned. He fumbled for a cigarette, but he couldn’t manage the wheel with his injured arm. “Damn.”

“I thought you’d quit,” she mused. She took the cigarette, lit it, and handed it to him, making a face at the tangy, unpleasant tobacco taste.

“I did,” he agreed with a faint grin. “I quit for a week, in fact. And I quit last month, too. I quit religiously about every third week.”

“Your ashtray looks like it,” she observed, watching him thump ashes over a pile of finished butts the size of a teacup upended. “How can you stand that mess?”

“If I clean it out, it will depress people who ride with me.”

She stared at him. “Come again?”

“Most of my men aren’t neat. If I start cleaning out ashtrays, they’ll think they have to do it, too. They’ll feel threatened and they’ll all quit, and I’ll have to handle roundup all by myself.”

He had a dry wit that few people ever experienced. Kate, sitting contentedly beside him, felt constant amazement that of all the people he knew, she was the only one who ever got this close. He seemed never to see her as a threat, which was more irritating to Kate the older she got. She was becoming a woman, and he didn’t even seem to notice.

Well, he did hate women, she had to admit. He didn’t date, or he hadn’t in the past few years. Not since that Eastern tenderfoot had come out to visit a neighbor and Jason had fallen head over heels in love with her. He’d been all set to propose, with the ring bought and everything, when she suddenly announced that she was off to Hollywood where she’d been offered a movie career. Jason had tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn’t be budged. Men were a dime a dozen, she’d laughed at him. Movie contracts were thin on the ground. Sorry, sucker, in other words. And Jason had gone on a three-day drunk that had become legendary in local circles, all the more shocking because he never touched liquor in any form. That prejudice was a holdover from his childhood because J.B. Donavan’s drinking had brought violence down on his sons’ heads.

Although Kate had grown up next door, and her father had worked for the Donavans, Jason was so much older that she’d had very little contact with him. But Gene and Kate had gone to school together, and she often helped him with his grammar. He’d talked occasionally about their upbringing, and it had softened her toward Jason who one afternoon just after his almost-fiancée’s defection, had chanced to come growling out of his study, dead drunk. Jason’s unexpected appearance had first disturbed, then shocked Kate. She’d never seen him anything except cold sober and in complete control of himself. Until then.

“Little Miss English tutor,” he’d laughed coldly, those dark eyes frankly insulting as Gene had tried unsuccessfully to push him back into the study. “Is English all you’re teaching my brother in these cozy afternoon sessions?”

“Come on now, Jay,” Gene had coaxed, half a head shorter and not a fraction as strong as the jean-clad, unshaven man he was trying to budge. “Don’t pick on Kate.”

“I don’t want damned women cluttering up my house! Not even your women!” Jason had stormed, black eyes flashing, his lean sharp face as hard as marble. Stone.

But Kate knew the look of pain. She had an uncanny empathy for people who were hurt; she could see it through anger or bad temper or even drunkenness. Jason’s heart was broken, couldn’t Gene see how much he was hurting? It was like watching a poor, wounded animal trying to escape from a bullet.

Ignoring Gene’s frantic signs to go away, she went right up to Jason and took one of his lean, strong hands in hers. “Come on, Jason,” she said, her voice as soft as it was when she talked to the kittens at home. “You’re tired. You need to lie down.”

Gene’s pale, broad face winced as he waited for Jason to knock her down. But, amazingly, his brother’s sharp features relaxed. Through a haze of alcohol, Jason went with her like a lamb back into his study.

“How about getting Sheila to make a pot of coffee, Gene?” Kate asked him, nodding as her eyes told him to step on it.

“Sure. Right now.”

He was gone and Kate closed the door, coaxing Jason to the long leather lounger. She helped him down and sat beside him, her slender fingers gently stroking back his disheveled hair. He was beautiful, in a rough sort of way, she thought, her eyes going over his chiseled sharp features, the stubborn jutting chin, the beautifully carved mouth. He lay quietly, watching her with eyes that only half saw, black and intent.

“It’s only been a few months since Daddy died,” she said, keeping her voice low and soft. “He was my whole world, the only person who ever cared enough to let me be myself. He didn’t want me to marry money or be famous. He loved me just the way I was. At first,” she continued, because he was really listening, “I thought the pain would never stop. But day by day, little by little, I got through it. You will, too, Jason. One day, you won’t even remember what she looked like.”

He caught the soft fingers stroking his damp brow. “How old are you?” he asked unexpectedly.

She smiled. “Eighteen.”

“A very wise old eighteen, little girl,” he replied. His drawl was a little slurred, but his eyes never wavered from her face. “What the hell do you care if I mourn myself to death?”

“Jason, you’ve been awfully good to Mama and me since Daddy died,” she said gently. “And I guess nobody else looks deep enough to see how bad it’s hurting you....”

“I’m not hurting,” he interrupted curtly. “No damned woman is ever going to hurt me!”

She closed her fingers around his. “Of course not,” she agreed, soothing him back down. “You’re just worked to death. But you need time to get your life back in order. Why don’t you go away for a week or two? Gene says you never rest. A vacation would put the bloom back in your cheeks,” she said with a mischievous smile. “The vinegar back into your black heart....”

“Shut up or I’ll throw you out the front door,” he replied. But there was a faint glimmer in his eyes, and it didn’t sound like any serious threat. “God, you’re brave.”

“Somebody has to save you from yourself,” she sighed. “Alas, I guess I’ve been chosen. Now how about a nice bowl of razor blade soup and an ugly pill?”

He burst out laughing. Gene and Sheila came in the study door together with stunned amusement suddenly claiming their faces. And that had been the beginning of an odd and beautiful relationship. From that day on, Jason became Kate’s responsibility if he got sick, or hurt, or in a fight. He never touched liquor again, but he seemed to have a knack for accidents. Especially the past few months. This was the third time since winter began and ended that Kate had been summoned by someone to look after the big man. And he reciprocated in unexpected, and sometimes unwelcomed, ways.

She became the object of a rough kind of affectionate, almost brotherly overseeing. In fact, Jason had taken on a lot of responsibility that Kate hadn’t appreciated. Like helping Kate and her mother to buy their father’s property while he managed it for them. Like finding Mary, Kate’s mother, a job in the local textile factory. Like checking up on the infrequent dates Kate had and making sure those men didn’t take advantage of her. But Kate had managed to keep her temper, and her sense of humor, as she’d survived his first attempts at affection.

But when, a few months ago, she’d begun to notice Jason in a new way, he backed off, as if he sensed the almost imperceptible shift in her attitude toward him.

Not that it was blatant. Kate hadn’t realized it herself until a month or so ago. But Jason had suddenly left her to run her own life. Actually, he’d given up running it last year, although he’d protested when she wanted to study fashion design. There was a school in Atlanta that she’d favored, and Jason put his foot down hard. Her mother needed her, he said. Atlanta was just too far away. There were home study courses. He’d find her one. He had, despite her objections. Kate was almost through it now, studying at night.

She worked as a serger on the pants line at the manufacturing company where her mother sewed on the shirt line. It was interesting work, and Kate loved anything to do with the construction of clothes. But serging was becoming sporadic, and today there hadn’t been any work for her, so she was sent home by her floor lady.

“Why aren’t you at work?” Jason asked after a minute.

“They ran out of pants for me to serge,” she said. “They’ve got Mama doing repairs that were sent up from that Central American plant they opened last year.”

He glanced at her sideways. “Do you really like that job?”

“I like it.” She smiled at him. “I love the textile business.”

“And you’re still hell-bent on being some famous designer, I gather,” he said tersely.

“Why not? If you’re going to dream, dream big.” She eyed him. “You did.”

“I had more than the usual amount of drive,” he replied. He winced as he brought the cigarette to his mouth with his sore arm. “Damn, this thing hurts!”

“You should have let me drive,” she said.

“I’m not crippled.”

“You’re incorrigible, that’s what you are.”

“So you keep telling me.”

He shifted, and she caught the scents of leather and tobacco that clung to him. He hadn’t taken off his hat, and she noticed how battered the poor old black thing was.

“Don’t you ever buy new hats?” she asked unexpectedly.

“I’ve just gotten this one broken in,” he protested. “It takes years to get a hat just so.”

“You’ve worn that one since I was in grammar school.”

“That’s what I mean. It’s just getting comfortable.”

As the big vehicle rumbled over a country bridge, one of the few wooden ones left, Kate glanced down at the trickle of water below. Any day now, the rains would come and the rivers would fill up, and low places like this would become dangerous. Even the smallest dip could become a river with rain, because there was so little vegetation to contain the water.

“Look here, you aren’t giving Gabe any encouragement, are you?” he asked so suddenly that she jumped.

Her pale eyes fixed on his dark, somber face. “What?”

His eyes held steady on the road as the burly vehicle shot down the long, level stretch of road that led into San Frio. “I don’t like the way he looks at you lately,” he added, glancing at her in a strange, possessive kind of way that even her inexperienced eye recognized. “And I sure as hell don’t like him coming over to the house when your mother isn’t there.”

She didn’t quite know how to handle what he was saying. She watched his averted face nervously, trying to measure the amount of feeling that had been in his terse statement. Her heart was going crazy. “He didn’t even get out of the truck,” she began.

“Gabe likes girls, and you’re filling out.” He didn’t look at her as he said it. He didn’t want her to see how disturbed he was at the thought of Gabe making a pass at her. “Don’t lead him on. He’s a good man and I’d hate to lose him. But, so help me, if he ever touched you, I’d kill him.”

Kate felt the ground go out from under her. She couldn’t even speak for the shock, she just stared at him. There had been a trace of violence in that threat, and the normal drawl had gone into eclipse as he spoke.

“Jason, didn’t you notice that I was riding Kip?” she asked after a minute, and the words came out roughly.

He frowned. “So?”

“Gabe came in the pickup,” she said. “I wouldn’t ride over to Diamond Spur with him. I know he thinks he’s interested in me. He’ll get over it. Last month it was little Betsy Weeks,” she added with a forced smile. “He’s a typical love ’em and leave ’em cowboy. He’s no threat.”

He glanced at her sideways. “Okay.”

“Anyway, I can handle my dates, thank you,” she said.

“I remember the last time you said that,” he replied with a faintly amused smile. “Do you?”

She hated that smile. Of course she remembered the last time, how could she forget? She’d defended to her mother the reputation of a boy she wanted to date, only to have to suffer the embarrassment of calling home from a pay phone in the middle of the night to be rescued. But Jason had come in Mary Whittman’s place, and Kate had never heard the end of it. In addition, Kate’s erstwhile date had sported a black eye for several days thereafter and subsequently joined the Marine Corps. It had all but ruined her social life. Local boys knew Jason, and since the incident, Kate had spent every weekend at home. There was nothing between her and Jason, but his attitude had created that impression. She wondered if he realized how people looked at his possessive attitude, or if he cared.

She glanced at him, frowning. He was possessive, all right. But was it only because they were friends, or was he feeling the same odd longings that were kindling inside her? She looked away nervously.

“Would you like to listen to some music?” she asked, her voice edgy and quick.

He glanced at her and smiled. “Okay, honey. End of discussion. Turn on whatever you like.”

What she liked was country-western, and that seemed to suit him very well. If his arm was hurting, he made sure it didn’t show. Kate sat back against the seat with a sigh, while turbulent sensations came and went in her taut body. She couldn’t even breathe properly. What if he noticed?

Things were getting totally out of hand. She felt almost uncomfortable this close to Jason, but in an exciting kind of way. She shifted, wondering at the remark he’d made about Gabe. Had it been just a joking statement, or had he meant it?

Well, he’d never so much as made a pass at her, and knowing how he felt about women, there was no future in mooning over him. She’d already realized that. But it was easier to tell herself he was off limits than it was to do anything about it. And what good would it do to drive herself crazy with doomed hope? She leaned back, closed her eyes, and listened to the rhythmic strains of the music as they drove toward town.