Читать книгу Wyoming Woman - Elizabeth Lane - Страница 10

B y the time the riders crested the ridge, the lamb had given up on sucking Rachel’s finger and burst into ravenous bleating. Its piercing baby cries echoed across the rain-soaked hillside, but if the four young men had heard, they paid no attention.

Numb with shock, Rachel stared after the defiant figure of her younger brother. Had it been Jacob or Josh? In their growing-up years, she’d never had any trouble telling the twins apart—Jacob had a cowlick in his ebony hair, and Josh had a dimple in his left cheek. This time she had felt no surge of recognition. But the boys would have grown older since her last sight of them, she reminded herself. And the glimpse of that youthful, unmasked face beneath the Stetson had been so brief, the expression on the sharp young features so hardened that the shock of it had left her breathless.

The lamb struggled free and scampered away, unheeded, as Rachel watched the riders vanish over the top of the hill. Only one of her brothers had been with them, she surmised. None of the other three had matched his wiry build. But she was hard put to imagine either of the gentle, lively boys she remembered taking part in something as brutal as the driving of three hundred sheep to their deaths.

Things had clearly changed in the time she had been away from the ranch. People, it seemed, had changed, too. It was as if she had suddenly awakened in a war zone, with land mines hidden all around her.

And right now, she was clearly on the wrong side.

“Rachel? Are you there?” Luke’s voice, coming from below the rocks, startled her. Straining forward, she saw him striding toward her through the grass with the lamb clutched in his arms. The horse stood behind him, its sleek buff coat flecked with foam.

Legs quivering, Rachel rose to her feet. Relief flickered like passing sunlight across his leathery features; then his expression soured. “I thought maybe you’d taken off with your cowboy friends,” he said.

“They’re not my friends!” Rachel was not about to make matters worse by telling him that one of the marauders had been her brother. “But I must say I’m surprised to see you back here,” she said, deliberately changing the subject. “I thought you might just ride off with your precious sheep and leave me to walk home by myself.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed. “I had to come back for the lamb,” he said brusquely. “If you’re coming with me, get down here and let’s get moving. I have to get the sheep home before anything else goes wrong.”

He turned away and strode to his horse without a backward glance, leaving Rachel to scramble down the rocks alone. By the time she reached the horse, he was already in the saddle, cradling the lamb across his lap. Without a word, he reached down, caught her arm and swung her none too gently up behind him. Rachel clambered across the buckskin’s rump, feeling damp and sticky and cross. She had barely regained her seat when he kneed the horse to a brisk trot. The sudden motion flung her off balance, throwing her to one side, so that she had to grab his waist to keep from sliding to the ground.

“Blast it, this isn’t my fault!” she muttered, her face pressed against his sweat-soaked shirt. “Stop treating me as if I were to blame for your troubles!”

His body was like stone to the touch, his muscles tense, his spine rigid. His skin smelled of sage and leather and salty male perspiration. The odor teased at her senses, triggering an odd tingle where her knees pressed the backs of his legs. The sensation crept upward to pool at the joining of her thighs. Rachel stared past Luke’s shoulder, struggling to fix her thoughts elsewhere.

“You’re one of them,” he said. “You told me as much the first time you opened that pretty mouth of yours. I didn’t invite you to be here, Rachel Tolliver, and as far as I’m concerned, the sooner I’m rid of you the better.”

“Well, at least we agree on something,” she said tartly. “How often do you get social calls like the one you had this afternoon?”

“Depends on what you call a social call.” His voice was flat, guarded. “This is the first time they’ve tried to run the sheep over a cliff. But having animals trapped, shot, even poisoned—that’s just business as usual.”

Rachel waited, expecting him to go on. Instead he gathered up the lamb, twisted in the saddle and thrust the squirming baby into her arms. “We’re wasting time,” he muttered, spurring the horse to a canter. “Hang on.”

At once the lamb, which had lain quietly across Luke’s knees, began to struggle and bleat. Rachel locked one arm around the wretched little creature, bracing it against her chest. Her other arm gripped Luke’s waist as she struggled to keep from bouncing off the horse’s slick rump. If she made it home safely, she vowed, she would never again have anything to do with these cursed sheep or with their sullen, arrogant, mule-headed owner. If Luke Vincente wanted to pit himself against the whole civilized world, that was his problem. She’d be damned if she was about to make it hers.

The sheep milled at the foot of the slope, under the brow of the ledge where they’d come so near to their death plunge. The tireless dogs darted along the fringes of the herd, lunging and yipping to keep their charges in line.

Sensing its kind, the lamb renewed its struggles, digging its sharp hooves into Rachel’s ribs and bleating like a miniature steam calliope. A fly settled on Rachel’s matted hair. She shook it away, her temper growing shorter by the second.

Luke had slowed the horse to a trot as they neared the herd, but Rachel was still bouncing behind the saddle, her buttocks miserably sore and her bladder threatening to burst. When the lamb’s hoof jabbed her breast hard enough to bruise, her last thread of patience snapped. “Enough!” she yelped. “Either we stop right here and let this little monster find its mother, or I start screaming loud enough to be heard across three counties!”

“Anything to please a lady.” Luke’s voice dripped sarcasm as he reined the horse to a halt. Shoving the wretched animal toward him, she slid off the back of the horse and dropped wearily to the ground. For a moment she glared up at him, scrambling for a comeback that would put him in his place. But nothing came to mind except the awareness that she was sore and miserable and badly in need of a bush.

“Wait right here, and keep your back turned.” Rachel spun away from the horse and, with as much dignity as she could muster, stalked off toward a clump of tall sage that grew at the foot of the slope. She had spent enough time on the range that going to the bushes in the open was nothing new. But something about this disturbing man’s presence made her burn with self-consciousness.

“Watch out for rattlesnakes,” he said. “They’re bad in these parts.”

Rachel ignored the remark, but her face blazed with heat as she ducked behind the sage. Growing up alongside brothers and cowboys had given her a natural ease with the male sex. At school, the boys had flocked around her, and she’d never wanted for escorts or dancing partners. In the past year alone, she’d rejected three proposals of marriage. Once she had fancied herself in love, but even for that brief time she had kept a cautious rein on her heart so that when the infatuation passed she was able to walk away without regret.

Always, in her relationships with men, Rachel had insisted on being the one in control. So why now, of all times, did she find herself hot and flustered and blushing like a schoolgirl? Luke Vincente was not one of her conquests. He was too old, too proud, with too many shadows lurking about his tall, dark person. Worse, he was a sheep man, with a hatred for her kind that ran bone-deep in both directions.

Why in heaven’s name hadn’t she called out to her brother as he rode past her hiding place? Surely she could have smoothed over the awkwardness, perhaps even lessened the tension by explaining how Luke had rescued her after the accident with the buggy.

If she had played her cards more sensibly, she might be headed for the ranch right now on the back of her brother’s horse. Luke would be rid of her; she would be rid of him; everybody would be happier. So why hadn’t she spoken?

But Rachel knew why. The horror she had witnessed, coupled with the shock of recognizing her adored brother, had left her mute.

As she gazed back toward the hilltop where the four riders had disappeared, a sense of pervading blackness crept over her. For months she had looked forward to home—to the grand sweep of mountain peaks and prairie sky and the smell of coffee on the crisp morning air; to friends and family, to sunny days filled with hard work and laughter and love. But home had changed, Rachel realized. And something told her it would never again be the carefree place she remembered.

Luke lowered the lamb to the ground, then stood back to watch as it tottered toward its anxious mother. A ghost of a smile tugged at his lips as it butted for her teat, clamped on and lost itself in the bliss of nursing. This one, at least, would be all right for now. But how many others would be maimed by those bloody snares? How many precious animals would he lose before the summer was over? This range war was not of his making. But each day of it was chipping away at his livelihood and slowly draining his spirit. He had never asked for anything except to be left alone. Even that simple wish, it appeared, was not to be granted.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Rachel had emerged from the sagebrush and was making her way down the slope toward him. Water and mud had plastered her clothes against her skin, outlining every delicious curve and hollow of her voluptuous little body. Her wind-tangled hair blazed like fire in the fading light. Filthy, disheveled and undoubtedly sore, Rachel Tolliver still walked as if the whole world were gathered at her feet, awaiting her pleasure.

For a long moment, Luke allowed his eyes to feast on her proud beauty. Then, still reluctant, he tore his gaze away. She was a cattleman’s daughter. Worse, she was a rich cattleman’s daughter, as strong-willed and demanding as she was beautiful. He would wager that the proper Miss Tolliver believed the sun, the moon and the stars revolved around her pretty little head, and that anything she wanted could be had by batting those lush golden eyelashes at the right man.

Luke knew about such women. He knew far more than he wanted to remember. Some things, in fact, he would give almost anything to forget.

The memory of Cynthia’s luscious face and lying words came back to haunt him now, just as they had haunted him for the four years he had spent in the hellhole of the Louisiana State Penitentiary.

…I’m so frightened, Luke. The way he looks at me, the way he brushes against me…my own father! He’s come after me before, and he’ll do it again. You have to help me, Luke. Somehow you have to stop him… Then we can be together for the rest of our lives….

Lord, what a gullible fool he had been!

“Oh, will you look at that!” Rachel had come up alongside him. Her muddy hands clasped in delight as she watched the frantically nursing lamb. She had an infectious smile that crinkled her eyes at the corners, deepened the dimples in her cheeks and showed her small, pearl-like teeth. A smile like that could get a woman anything she wanted, he thought. Anything.

“Look at his tail go!” she exclaimed, laughing. “It’s whipping around like a little windmill! How on earth did you manage to find his mother?”

“They found each other. I just hung on to the lamb and followed my ears.” Luke kept his voice flat, resisting the temptation to return her smile. She was one of the enemy, he reminded himself. Worse, she was everything he had grown to despise in a woman. Even for this brief time, he could not let himself warm to her.

“Will he be able to walk the rest of the way with his mother?” she asked, still watching the lamb.

“He’s too weak for that. We’ll need to take him on the horse again. Sorry.” The last word came out sounding more like a barb than an apology. The truth was, the thought of pampered Rachel holding the muddy, squirming lamb in her arms gave him an odd feeling of pleasure.

“As long as you let him finish eating, that’s fine. Since he figured out that fingers don’t give milk, he’s been impossible!”

She arched like a languorous cat, reaching backward to massage her weary spine. The motion strained the buttons of her form-fitting jacket, pulling the fabric tightly against her breasts, outlining her taut nipples.

Luke stifled a groan and averted his eyes. The little minx knew exactly what she was doing, he told himself. To such a woman, seductive behavior would be an instinct, as natural as breathing. No matter that the only man in sight was one she would spit on under most circumstances—a man so far below her in class as to be unworthy of notice. She would enjoy arousing him, making him want her, then walking away with a toss of her fiery little head and leaving him with the devil’s own fire between his legs.

Well, let her do her worst, he thought. He would not give Miss Rachel Tolliver the satisfaction of knowing the effect she had on him. Soon their journey would be finished. He would give her a quick bite to eat, then send her off on old Henry, a horse that would return home as soon as she let it go. With luck, they would never cross paths again.

“How much longer?” She ended her stretch with a light shake of her shoulders. “I don’t like the look of those clouds.”

Luke followed her gaze to the west, where a bank of slate-colored clouds was spilling in over the Big Horns. He sighed, biting back a curse. He’d assumed the weather would stay clear. The last thing he’d counted on was a second storm moving in before nightfall. Anxious as he was to get rid of Rachel, he could hardly send her home in a downpour.

A scowl passed across his face as another thought struck him—one that suddenly made everything worse.

“What is it?” She was studying him, her expression so open and earnest that it caught Luke off guard.

“Your family,” he said. “What will they do if you don’t show up? They’re bound to be out looking for you.” He did not add that, from what he’d heard, any man caught trifling with Morgan Tolliver’s precious daughter would do well to make his peace with heaven.

Rachel did not answer his question. Her gaze flickered away from his, then dropped to her hands, as if she were weighing the consequences of lying to him.

“Rachel?”

Still she was silent. He stared at her for the space of a long breath, then exhaled with mixed relief as the truth sank home. “They’re not expecting you, are they?” he said. “You were driving that rented buggy home from Sheridan to surprise them. That’s why you chose to come with me instead of waiting by the wash. You’d have been stranded if you’d stayed.”

She looked up at him again, and he saw the flash of anxiety in her beautiful blue-green eyes. He was an untrusted stranger, and he had just discovered that no one would be searching for her or riding to her rescue. For better or for worse, she was at his mercy, and she knew it.

“Tell me I’m right, Rachel,” he said.

Her expression hardened. Only the white-knuckled clasp of her hands betrayed her. “You’re wrong,” she said. “If I’m not back at the ranch before dark, there’ll be two dozen armed men out looking for me, including my father and brothers. They won’t rest until they know I’m safe.”

The first glimpse of her vulnerability had moved him. Now it angered him. “Damn it, woman, what do you take me for?” he exploded. “Do you think I’d be crazy enough to touch one hair of your precious Tolliver head? Do you think I’d even want to?” He glowered at the sky, where the darkening clouds mirrored his emotions. “If you’re so all-fired worried, why didn’t you take your chances back there, with those four cowboy friends of yours? You could be halfway home by now.”

Without waiting for an answer, Luke swung his gaze back toward her. She looked even more frayed than she had before, her eyes too large in a face that seemed too small and pale.

“Did you know them, Rachel?” he demanded, resolving to show her no mercy. “Is that why you didn’t show yourself?”

She glanced away, hesitating a second too long before she shook her head. “They were masked. I couldn’t see their faces. And I didn’t know what they’d do if they found me.”

“So you decided you’d be safer with a sheep man.” Luke made no effort to keep the edge from his voice. “Should I be flattered?”

“Stop it!” The worn thread of her patience snapped. “Can’t you understand that none of this mess is my doing? I’ve been away at school. Except for a few days at Christmas, I haven’t lived in Wyoming for almost three years!”

“That doesn’t change who you are, Rachel,” Luke said quietly.

Her head went up sharply, nostrils flaring like a blooded mare’s. “I’m proud of who I am,” she said. “I love my family and I love this land. But today…” The words trailed off as she studied the boiling clouds. “Today I feel as if I’ve wandered into somebody else’s nightmare and can’t find my way out.”

“And I’m your bogeyman.” He spoke without emotion.

She shook her head. “It’s not just you. It’s everything. I want to wake up. I want to open my eyes and find this place the same as it was three years ago, before you came here.”

“You’re saying I should leave so you can have your nice, peaceful life back.”

Either she’d missed the irony in his voice or she was choosing to ignore it. “My father would gladly buy you out, Luke. You could go somewhere else, with plenty of money to make a new start.”

“Just like that.” Luke would have laughed at her naiveté if he hadn’t been choking on his own fury. “You’ve never had to fight for anything in your pampered little life have you, Miss Rachel Tolliver? You can’t even imagine what it’s like to want something so much that you’d spill your own blood to get it, and to hold onto it.”

She raked her hair back from her face with restless fingers. “Maybe not,” she said in a taut voice. “But I know enough to recognize a stubborn fool when I see one.”

“And I know enough to recognize a woman who thinks she can rearrange the people around her like furniture, to suit her own pleasure. Anyone who’s spoiling her pretty view will be shown the door. Well, this time it’s not going to work.”

“Especially not with a man who’s bent on self-destruction!”

Without waiting for his response, she stalked down the slope to where the lamb had finished nursing and was tottering away from the ewe on uncertain legs. Bending down, Rachel caught the small creature around its chest and scooped it into her arms. As she turned back to face him, a ray of amber sunlight slanted through the clouds to touch her windblown hair. For an instant her face was haloed by living, moving flame. Luke was no artist, but if he could have taken brush to canvas he would have chosen to paint her exactly as he saw her now—as a rescuing angel with blazing hair and a wounded lamb cradled in her arms.

But Rachel Tolliver was no angel, he reminded himself. She was a willful, self-centered minx who demanded life on her own terms and gave no quarter to anyone else’s point of view. The sooner she was off his hands and back with her own kind, the better for them both.

The vision dissolved as she moved, striding back up the hill toward him. “Let’s go,” she said. “I’ve had enough rain for one day.”

Luke mounted and reached down for her. She passed him the lamb, then seized his free arm and allowed him to swing her up behind him. She was light and strong, like lifting a bird, he thought as she scrambled into place on the horse’s withers. Light and strong and tough. And while she’d been pushy and temperamental and annoying, not once had he heard her whine.

Passing her the lamb, he whistled to the dogs and urged the buckskin to a trot. Overhead the skies darkened and rumbled, showing a thin streak of red above the mountains, like a bed of glowing coals glimpsed through the grate of an iron stove. The sheep were moving fast now, driven by the pressing dogs and by a sense of urgency that seemed to hover in the air around them all. Luke felt it, too, and he pushed the animals harder. He had been away from the ranch too long. There was evil afoot, his instincts shrilled. He needed to get back home before it was too late.