Читать книгу The Cowboy Claims His Lady - Meagan McKinney - Страница 9

Bumping her wheeled suitcase along the dirt road toward the bunkhouse, Lyndie began to wonder what she’d gotten into.

A couple of weeks at a dude ranch had sounded fine in the steaming French Quarter—but that was then. Now she found herself in her high-heeled designer shoes, having to negotiate a hoof-rutted dirt path—not to mention the treacherous road map of a certain Mr. Everett.

He’d shaken her more than she wanted to admit. The lazy, hooded stare sparked something inside her which she feared was lust.

But she was not going down that highway to hell. Not now. Not ever. Fancy lingerie was fine for married women and the swinging single gal, but she was a businesswoman, and the lacy, sheer demi-bras she sold were now nothing more to her than product. They were the accoutrements of some other world, not of her own.

“Ma’am,” a deep-chested voice said in her ear.

Somehow he’d appeared beside her. She faced the ice-gray eyes of Bruce Everett.

He took her suitcase and hefted it easily to his shoulder like a favorite saddle.

“That’s all right—no—really, I can manage—” she stammered, following him like a schoolgirl.

“Been told you can manage just about anything—given what Hazel says about you,” he answered gruffly.

He turned and they locked stares.

Again she was frozen by his gaze.

Hazel showed up at the bunkhouse door, beaming. “We’ve got a good, old-fashioned Saturday night stomp at the Mystery Saloon tonight. You thinkin’ of comin’, Bruce?”

Lyndie cringed. She suddenly felt like she was in junior high, waiting for that first guy to ask her to dance. And there were no takers.

“You know I go for the trail and not the saloon, Hazel,” he answered gruffly.

Her great-aunt snorted like she was one of the cowpokes. “There was a time before Katherine that you were all too familiar with the saloon, and it’s time you stepped out again.”

If Lyndie didn’t know better, she would have sworn Bruce Everett gave Hazel one of those permafrost looks she was beginning to recognize herself. But that was not possible. No one thwarted Hazel. Hazel was the grand-dame of Mystery, Montana.

The McCallums went back more than a century, and had settled the entire valley. Among cattle ranchers, the McCallum name was interchangeable with the Midas touch. Even Lyndie herself knew how persuasive her great-aunt could be. In the midst of expansion and fiscal crisis, Lyndie had been lured to drop everything and attend a three-week vacation at a dude ranch—when she didn’t even know how to ride.

“We’ll see you at the stomp,” Hazel announced.

Bruce stood and stared at the two women, Lyndie’s leaden suitcase still perched on his broad shoulder.

“Well, if looks could kill…” Lyndie murmured as soon as she was locked inside Hazel’s signature burnt-orange Caddy and away from the eyes and ears of Bruce Everett.

“He just needs a nudge, that’s all.”

She looked at her great-aunt. “Hazel, I said no shenanigans. I certainly don’t need them, not when you’ve convinced me to take a break. And certainly Bruce Everett doesn’t need a woman thrown in his lap when he has this Katherine he’s hung up on.”

“He needs to quit his hang-up with Katherine. It wasn’t his fault. She was a headstrong fool who couldn’t be taught to respect a horse. And I don’t care how beautiful she was, he had no business with a woman who wouldn’t respect a horse,” Hazel said astutely.

“I am totally confused. What does this have to do with me?” Lyndie enquired. “Because, let me tell you, I respect horses. In fact, if the truth be known, I so respect them that I’m scared to death of them. So let Bruce and Katherine have their respect-the-horse love-fest without me.”

“He needs to go to the saloon tonight and two-step around a bit. It’d be good for what ails him. There was a time when he was the tomcat of Mystery. And believe me, the ladies didn’t complain.”

Lyndie released a cynical sigh. “I know too well of what you speak, Hazel, but his tomcat ways sound like Katherine’s problem.”

“Katherine’s dead.”

Lyndie gave her a sharp look.

“Yep,” Hazel continued. “She died on the trail with Bruce. There was talk he was in love with her. There was even rumor of a wedding. But Katherine had no horse sense, literally. She felt horses were no better than men, ready to serve her beck and call. When the bobcat attacked, she didn’t realize the cat was protecting her litter. Katherine ignored all her mount’s warnings, and, in my opinion, that’s why she was bucked and fell to her death off that cliff.”

The news punched Lyndie in the gut. Empathy, something she swore she’d feel for no man after Mitch, came swelling up inside her. “I had no idea,” she said softly. “Gosh, how awful for him.”

“Yep. And him the kind of man who likes to have everything in control,” Hazel said solemnly.

“Maybe you ought to leave him alone, Hazel. After all, I’m sure he feels guilty—”

“Guilty? Why should he feel guilty? It wasn’t his fault. The horse neighed and shied. And then shied and shied again. She shouldn’t have forced the poor animal. But that Katherine, she was the kind of gal who never took ‘no’ for an answer, and she spurred that poor frightened animal to its death. Along with hers.”

“How horrible.” A sympathetic moan emanated from Lyndie’s lips. “No wonder he’s so cold.”

“He was never cold before. But now he punishes himself every day.”

“Terrible.”

Hazel took a deep breath as she sped the Caddy along the dusty gravel roads toward her ranch. Every now and again, the matron gave Lyndie a probing glance. “It’s not your concern whether Bruce Everett heals or not. It’s just that the man works so hard. It’s as if he’s running from something—and I just want to see him stop and turn around, is all. Success is useless if you can’t have some fun now and then.”

Lyndie grew pensive, thinking of her own situation. Her divorce had been public and humiliating, but even worse was the inexpressible shock of betrayal, the sudden discovery that her “charming and loving” husband had been not only embezzling money from her for years, but using the funds to support his mistress.

Swindling his wife, betraying his wedding vows and her trust—it had meant no more to Mitch than killing a fly.

Suddenly, wanting to confide in Hazel, she said, “You know, Hazel, I didn’t always work like a slave. I used to have fun, but…well, the fun in me just ran out, I guess. I kind of understand where Bruce Everett’s coming from. Lately, work’s been my only antidote, you know? Sometimes I think that after going through a divorce, ‘hell’ is a redundant concept.”

Hazel gave her another study, then soothed, “You just have to let it go, hon, you hear me? What’s done is done, and it can’t be changed now. Remember, people come out west to start all over. From now on you have to be forward-oriented. And a few weeks at the Mystery Dude Ranch is just what you need.”

Despite the breathtaking summer panorama, Lyndie still felt a chill settle on her as she remembered a much different, much uglier picture from last fall in New Orleans. She had returned home unexpectedly early from a business trip to Manhattan. Nothing in her life could have prepared her for the shock of opening the front door and seeing the man she loved, naked and in the throes of orgasmic bliss with a woman she had never even suspected existed.

She had tried so hard, in the difficult, intervening months, to erase that picture, to somehow focus on the good in her life and expunge the bad. But her own mother’s divorce had left permanent scars. Somehow work seemed the only way to heal. At least she wouldn’t be impoverished as her mother had been when Dad had kissed them all off for a younger woman. Her mother had been abandoned, with no skills, and no job, and a young child of five to raise all by herself. Work was a way to restore her pride, as her mother’s pride had been restored when she went back to school and refused to let the McCallum money raise her child.

But no matter how hard Lyndie tried, it seemed that negative thoughts always had the upper hand; already the “good times” she had shared with Mitch had become a formless mist in her memory, while the sharply defined edges of the ugliness still rubbed her raw….

You have to curb such thinking, Lyndie lectured herself, or the entire trip will be a waste.

“I said, has success tied your tongue? Lands, when you were little, everybody called you Babbling Brook, you rambled on so.”

The memory coaxed a little one-sided smile out of Lyndie. “I forgot about that name.”

Despite the brave front, Lyndie felt the old familiar sting of unshed tears. Even as Hazel watched, Lyndie temporarily lost the battle and one lone tear tipped from her lower lid.

“Love,” Hazel said gently, “they say the best way to cure a boil is to lance it. If you want to talk about something, anything, you just get it off your chest, you hear me? I’m a crusty old dame, it’s true, but I’m an excellent listener.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Lyndie demurred, angrily swiping at the proof she was fibbing. “And I’m sorry for the sob stuff. I honestly didn’t come out here to be gloomy and weepy.”

“Save your embarrassed apologies for somebody who doesn’t love you. You just need to get busy is all. But don’t you think I’m doing one of those silly fix-ups with Bruce Everett. That’s not it. He’s my own special project. I just want to bring out the tomcat in him again. And being a woman of a certain age, I know I can’t do it all myself, so I’ll have to see if the gals at the stomp can do him some good.”

Lyndie couldn’t suppress her smile. “Since when do you eliminate yourself on account of age?”

Hazel grinned. “All right. I may be old, but I’m not dead. And that Bruce Everett is a piece of sirloin that’d be a shame to go to waste.”

Lyndie shrugged. “I guess it’s a pity I’m vegetarian, then.”

“So far,” Hazel bested, then pressed down the accelerator.

Hazel’s guest room was as posh as that in any five-star hotel, but one that blessedly lacked pretension. Curling her toes in the thick Tabriz carpet, Lyndie studied herself in the hand-hewn pine mirror and wondered if she would pass as a Montana native.

She wore her great-aunt’s cowboy boots, the ones Hazel wore every day and which possessed enough scrapes and mud to prove it. Tugging on jeans and a simple white cotton T-shirt, she thought the transformation complete, until Hazel knocked on the door and handed her a black cowgirl hat and a pair of dangling turquoise earrings.

“Now you’re fit to stomp,” Hazel pronounced, tipping her own custom-made Stetson.

“Then, too bad Mitch isn’t here,” Lyndie mumbled on the way to the Caddy. “’Cause I’d sure like to stomp him.”

The dance was held at the old Mystery Saloon, circa nineteen-ten. There was a line to get in at the door, but the minute the Caddy pulled up, a skinny young man in a white cowboy hat opened the door for Hazel, and after helping the cattle baroness to her feet, he immediately went to park the car.

“You’re certainly the celebrity,” Lyndie marveled as the crowd parted to let them in first.

“When you’re older than God, the young folks humor you,” Hazel quipped, winking at her.

Lyndie gave her a wry smile and said, “Ri-i-i-ight.”

The western band was already up and running with a two-step. The room was alive with couples having a good time, and Lyndie suddenly felt her aloneness. To get her mind off the negative, she played tourist. She studied the exquisite truss-work of spruce that held the roof, and she was most impressed by the oak dance floor, worn to an ice-pond finish by nearly a century of sliding cowboy boots.

“When in Rome,” Hazel said, handing her a glass from the bartender.

Lyndie took a sip and coughed. “This is whiskey!”

“Like I said, dear, ‘When in Rome,’” Hazel repeated, smiling secretively.

“I’m not much of a drinker…” Lyndie tried another sip. The next one didn’t burn nearly as much.

“That which doesn’t kill you, my dear…”

“Yeah, I know. But I’m really sick of having to be so strong.”

Hazel gave her another one of those tricky smiles. “That’s what tonight is for. Don’t be strong tonight. Just loosen that girth a little and— Why, speak of the devil! There’s Bruce Everett!”

Lyndie looked across the packed dance floor.

She found him in the haze, leaning against the bar like a gunslinger. She’d thought he was tall, but in the crowd he looked even taller, gazing over the crowd with those shuttered, unapproachable eyes.

“Look! He’s seen us! He’s coming over!” Hazel exclaimed with glee.

Suddenly the whiskey started tasting pretty good to Lyndie. Another gulp and she was prepared to meet those silvery eyes.

“Miss Clay, Hazel,” he said, tugging on the front of his black cowboy hat.

“Why aren’t you out there on the floor boot-scootin’?” Hazel demanded.

“I was waiting for you,” he offered, taking Hazel’s arm and wrapping it inside his, as he led her away.

Lyndie watched the two on the dance floor. Bruce and Hazel waltzed as if they’d been made for each other. As they floated and laughed around the crowded floor, Lyndie gripped her whiskey. She was feeling braver, and yet more out of her element with every passing second.

And for this, she had agreed to a vacation?

She should have stayed home. It was less bruising to her ego to spend every day hunched over her books, than hunched over a bar, hoping some cowpoke would ask her to dance.

Bruce brought Hazel back to the hitching post that separated the bar from the dance floor. Lyndie leaned against it, anticipating the moment he’d ask her. She couldn’t dance a two-step but she was suddenly eager to try.

She watched as Bruce whispered something in Hazel’s ear.

The cattle baroness laughed.

Then he was gone, like a shadowy sharpshooter who dissipated in the mist.

“Well, I’ll be,” Lyndie muttered.

“You’ll be what, dear?” Hazel asked.

“Oh, nothing.”

Hazel winked at Lyndie’s empty whiskey glass. “Why, you’ve gone dry!” She was off to the bar before Lyndie could stop her.

It was another hour before she saw Bruce Everett again. Lyndie spied with him a young brunette who was falling all over him on the dance floor.

“Don’t you think he’s robbing the cradle a bit there?” she muttered over her glass.

“Who?”

Lyndie went to point out Bruce, but the waltz had stopped and the band picked up a lively two-step.

“Dance?”

She looked up and found Bruce next to her, his dark expression quizzical.

It took a moment for Lyndie to realize what Hazel had done. The cattle baroness had to have known that after watching all the couples dancing for an hour, and downing a couple of stiff ones, Lyndie would be tipsy and, at last, ever so grateful to be asked to dance.

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you,” she joked to herself before taking Bruce’s strong arm.

Out on the dance floor she had some difficulty following him. Then suddenly she burst out, “I get it! A two-step is really three steps!”

He laughed. His teeth were very white.

The vision sent an unwanted thrill down her back.

“Give the little lady a hand,” he smirked, pulling her back into sync with him.

“This is fun, actually,” she confessed.

“’Course it is. Why else would we do it, then?”

She looked up at him, capturing his gaze through the shadow of his low-slung hat.

“I’d better watch out,” she teased. “A girl could get used to having fun and not working so hard.”

“Why do you need to work so hard? I thought you were the boss.”

“That’s exactly why I have to work so hard. I’m expanding and I can’t find a silent partner, so I’m having the worst time financing—”

She giggled and put her hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to bore you.”

“You’re not boring me,” he said, his gaze never leaving her.

She laughed out loud. “But it’s technical. You won’t understand.”

“I may not be an MBA from one of those fancy East Coast schools, but I understand a good—”

She put her hand to his mouth. His lips were taut with suppressed anger, and she wondered what it would be like to try to kiss the anger away.

“Look, I don’t want to ruffle your feathers. I’m here on a vacation. To have fun. So let’s have fun.”

He pulled her around the dance floor one more time before he spoke.

“You wanna have fun?” He seemed like he’d pondered something for a while and finally had made up his mind.

“Sure,” she said lightly.

“Have you seen the old gristmill?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen an old gristmill—let alone the one here in Mystery.”

“Then, let’s go.” He stopped dancing and took her hand.

The whiskey must have really hit her hard because she heard herself saying, “What do you do at the mill?” instead of, “My God, I’m not going anywhere with you alone!”

“Skinny-dip,” he answered.

She took this bit of news more calmly than she would have expected. “But you don’t understand. I can’t—” she began.

He stopped her. “Sure you can. Just take off your clothes and jump in. It’s easy.”

“Take off my clothes?” she repeated numbly. “I really don’t think I can take off my—”

“Hey, you’re the underwear queen. I thought showing off the merchandise would be second nature.” he countered.

“Just ’cause I sell lingerie doesn’t mean I can go around—”

“Sure it does,” he said soothingly, putting a vise-like grip on her arm as he led her away.

“No really,” she countered, but still let him lead her.

“I’ll make you a deal then. I’ll let you keep on everything you sell in your shop.”

“It’ll just bore you. I only wear what’s beige and functional. I save the froufrou for the customers.”

He seemed to hold back a grin. “I’m a cowboy, ma’am. Plain and simple’s just fine with me. In fact, you’d like to get plain right down to your birthday suit—”

“I couldn’t. I just couldn’t,” she added.

He grinned in full. “Then, bore me with the beige and functional. And hey, think of it as advertising. Do it for the business. It’s good customer relations to show off the merchandise.”

She didn’t really have an answer for that one.

His arm went around her waist and soon they were out the door.

“Shouldn’t I have told Hazel where I’ll be?” she asked before getting into an old faded-red pickup.

“You never lived in a small town, did you?” he asked, sliding behind the steering wheel.

“Nope,” she answered with more vigor than was necessary.

“Believe me, everybody, including Hazel, knows we’re going to the mill.”

“Now, how can that be?” she murmured stumped. “Does everybody here have cell phones I can’t see?”

“Don’t need ’em. We’ve got Hazel McCallum—and everyone reports to Hazel the goings on ’round here. That’s twice true if it concerns one of her own.”

He smiled that carnivore’s smile and said, “So are you ready?”

She looked at him in the dark. Suddenly she wanted to get out and run.

“I guess,” she whispered, all the while wondering what madness had gotten hold of her.

“I’m only doing this because Hazel trusts you. Otherwise, let me tell you, I never go off with strangers.” Lyndie rambled on while the pickup negotiated the unpaved mountain road.

“I’m no stranger,” Bruce said. “Ask Hazel.”

“She says you used to be a tomcat. And even this city girl can figure out what that means.”

“Haven’t been tomcatting in a while,” he almost whispered.

“She told me that, too.”

A silence permeated the truck’s cab. It was so deep and oppressive, Lyndie was glad when the silhouette of the mill appeared over the hill.

“Here we are.”

He pulled next to the fieldstone building. A small river emptied alongside the building and drove the wheel. Beneath it all was a large inviting pool of river water that shimmered in the opalescent moonlight.

She opened her door and got out.

The creaking wheel and the splash of water suddenly set her nerves on edge. As did the tall dark man next to her.

“So, what do you do here?” she asked in a tough voice.

“Swim. I’ll show you.”

He tugged his shirt out of his jeans and peeled it over his head.

In the moonlight, she could see the ripple of muscle on his chest. There was also a light sprinkling of dark hair that narrowed where his abdominal muscles tightened into a grid. It formed a trail that disappeared into the waist of his jeans.

When he reached for the button on his jeans, she held up her hand.

“If I’m giving a lingerie show, then, so are you. Keep ’em on,” she instructed, gesturing to his white boxers that showed through his fly.

“You sure you’ve never done this before?” He grinned.

She nodded. “I’m sure.”

Tossing off his hat and scuffing out of his boots, he finally stood in his boxers, arms crossed as if impatiently waiting for her to follow suit.

A lump of anxiety caught in her throat, but the whiskey told her she wasn’t out of her mind—that it was perfectly acceptable to go swimming with a man she’d only met that afternoon.

“Hell, it’s the country, isn’t it? What’s wrong with getting back to nature when I’m on vacation?” she muttered, pulling off her hat.

“That’s the spirit,” he coaxed.

“But I’m keeping my T-shirt on,” she told him.

He seemed only too compliant. “Sure. Go right ahead.”

She looked down at herself.

The sheer white T-shirt would be worse—or better, depending on the perspective—than being naked. Still, her sense of modesty wouldn’t allow her to fling it off.

“You know, I think you’re setting me up,” she added warily.

“For what?” he whispered in her ear before he took her hand and pulled her on top of him into the swimming hole.

“You j-j-jerk!” she stammered, gasping at the frigid chill of Rocky Mountain melt water.

“Best to keep moving” was all he offered.

Enraged, she tried to dunk his head.

Laughing, he even let her a few times, as if it would be good for her to get her anger out.

“Bet you can’t do this.” He swam over to the wheel and held on to it for a few feet. Then he dove into the pool as if from a diving board.

“Oh, yeah?” she taunted, answering the challenge. She was shivering and acting like a child, but she had to admit, she couldn’t remember ever feeling so free.

She held on to the churning wheel. After a couple of seconds, she pushed herself off and plunged into the dark, frigid pool.

When she came up for air, she screeched with laughter. “My God, it’s c-c-cold!”

He went to her. Unbidden, his arms encircled her waist. His torso was like a branding iron against her, but she couldn’t deny herself the welcome warmth.

“Is this how you’ve gotten all your girls? Through hypothermia?” she jabbed.

“Nope,” he answered, looking down at her while they treaded water. “Whiskey always worked just fine. But I figured you’d be a tough pony to tame.”

“Ha!” She pushed his head into the water and swam away.

To prove her point, she held on to the wheel, this time longer, then cannonballed him.

“You know,” she said blithely, swimming on her back, “this is fun. I’m actually getting used to the temperature of the water.”

“Unfortunately, once you get out, you freeze all over again.” His gaze followed her.

“Can’t wait.” She splashed him, he nearly splashed back.

She laughed and was almost grateful when he took her waist again and warmed her.

“I have a confession,” she sputtered, wiping the water from her eyes. “You wouldn’t know it from what I do for a living, but I was a tomboy as a child. I always wanted an older brother, too. To do stuff like this. Now I kinda feel like I have one.”

He pressed her closer. “I hate to tell you this, but I have no intention of being your older brother.”

She looked at him. The moonlight sparkled across the water and upon the droplets that clung to his chest hair. He seemed sexier by the minute, and yet, no warning bells went off in her head.

She feared it might still be the whiskey.

“No, really,” she insisted. “That was a compliment. I always wanted some guy friends to pal around with. I thought after five years of marriage that I’d get some companionship from my husband, but, boy, was I wrong!” She smiled and gave him a little splash. “This has been just what the doctor ordered.”

“Good,” he answered in a husky tone, just staring at her.

“What?” she asked, her words lazy and maybe even more inviting than she had intended.

“How’d you meet him?”

“Who?” she asked, suddenly blank.

“Your husband.”

She almost laughed. “At a book reading. Can you imagine anything more dull? That should have been the first warning, huh?” She treaded water. “Then, after that, he decided to write the Great American Novel, and like the infatuated fool, I did everything I could to support him. Even when he took all the money I had to give with my little business, I still believed he deserved more. I always thought he needed to travel more, to prop up his surroundings so he could write. I had to be the perfect helpmate, and that meant to give and give and give ’till I and everything else was spent. But I wasn’t going to end up alone and poor like my mom.” She released a wry smile. “So since I’m alone now, I work 24/7, so I won’t be poor, too.”

A long pause reigned when the only sounds were the creak of the wheel and the soft splash of falling water.

To relieve the tension, she flicked some water at him. “So how d’ya like that for a sisterly confession?”

“Nothing sisterly about it.”

“No?” she asked, raising her damp eyebrows. “You think I’d confess that to a date? I don’t think so. That’s for brothers only, pal.”

His stare only grew more intense. Even in the dimness of the moonlight, she could see his gaze tracing every shadow of emotion that swept past.

“Can’t be my little sister,” he instructed, his voice low, like a seductive growl. “Impossible. Because, first of all, I already have one. Her name’s Becky.”

“I’m sure she’s lucky—” she stammered, losing her train of thought beneath that dark stare.

“And second, I never wanted to do this to her.”

His arms tightened. He crushed her against his chest. Slowly his hard lips descended upon hers. The heat of his mouth shocked her. The delicious contrast of her cold lips and his warm tongue made her release an involuntary moan.

His kiss deepened and she could taste the whiskey on his breath and smell the male scent of him. Against her will, she found her mouth opening to him, as if she was thirsty for him and all she wanted to do was drink. His broad warm chest coaxed like a blanket in the snow. It was all too much to resist, and she felt herself folding into it as if she could crawl inside the fortress of it and be safe and warm forever—

His tongue ran down the slick wet skin of her neck giving her chills that had nothing to do with the Montana night air. Instinctively she crushed her breasts against his chest, her nipples, puckered with cold, brushed erotically against the wet fabric of her bra and the hard warmth of his pectorals.

Her hand slid down his back and pressed his buttock. Groaning, he slid her fingers to his groin, enticing her to feel his arousal. But she knew he was hard and ready without having to verify it. He pressed himself against her, his maleness like a police baton.

She pulled back, suddenly knowing she was in over her head.

The weariness in her eyes seemed to stop him too. His warmth was suddenly gone. She seemed to awaken from a dream, and found herself in the arms of a snowman. He pulled away from her, the eyes still staring, but this time with accusation and censure.

“We’ve got to go,” he said abruptly, pulling her out of the water as if she were nothing but a rag doll.

“Why?” she gasped, disoriented by his moods and the lash of stinging cold air on her wet body.

“Do what’s good for you, girl. Get your clothes on,” he answered gruffly.

She looked at him. Every tight line of his buttocks was visible in the sheer wet cotton of his boxers.

He turned around to scowl at her. She held her breath. If what she saw between his legs was the result of cold shrinkage, she doubted she could handle it, even then.

“You want some now?” he demanded.

She gasped and shook her head.

“Then, get your clothes on.” He turned to scoop up his jeans and shirt.

She fumbled for her jeans. Sodden and shivering, she could hardly pull them on.

“You can put your boots on in the truck.” He led her by the elbow to the pickup and helped her into the cab.

Seated next to her, he flipped the switch for the diesel and started the engine.

“W-w-was it something I did?” she stammered.

He glanced at her, his face a stone mask in the dashboard light.

“I thought we were having fun—”

He stopped her. “Know what a grizzly feels like when it wakes up?”

She shook her head, her eyes wide.

“He’s hungry,” he growled. “So hungry he can’t think of anything but what it is that he wants.”

“And what do you want?” Her words came out in a frightened whisper.

He took one hard look at her. He didn’t have to speak.

Even she heard the word in the silence, the long, echoing word, damning her and praising her in a monosyllabic curse.

You.