CHAPTER SIX
By the time they’d passed through New Mexico and into Colorado, Bryan felt more in tune with herself. In part, she thought that the break in Oak Creek Canyon had given her too much time for introspection. Though she often relied heavily on just that in her work, there were times when it could be self-defeating.
At least that’s what she’d been able to convince herself of after she and Shade had picked up the routine of drive and shoot and drive some more.
They weren’t looking for cities and major events on this leg. They sought out small, unrecognizable towns and struggling ranches. Families that worked with the land and one another to make ends meet. For them, summer was a time of hard, endless work to prepare for the rigors of winter. It wasn’t all fun, all games, all sun and sand. It was migrant workers waiting to pick August peaches, and gardens being weeded and tended to offset the expense of winter vegetables.
They didn’t consider Denver, but chose instead places like Antonito. They didn’t go after the big, sprawling cattle spreads, but the smaller, more personal operations.
Bryan had her first contact with a cattle branding on a dusty little ranch called the Bar T. Her preconception of sweaty, loose-limbed cowboys rounding ’em up and heading ’em out wasn’t completely wrong. It just didn’t include the more basic aspects of branding—such as the smell of burned flesh and the splash of blood as potential bulls were turned into little steers.
She was, she discovered as her stomach heaved, a city girl at heart.
But they got their pictures. Cowboys with bandannas over their faces and spurs on their boots. Some of them laughed, some of them swore. All of them worked.
She learned the true meaning of workhorse as she watched the men push their mounts through their paces. The sweat of a horse was a heavy, rich smell. It hung thickly in the air with the sweat of men.
Bryan considered her best shot a near-classic study of a man taking hold of his leisure time with both hands. The young cowboy was rangy and ruddy, which made him perfect for what she was after. His chambray shirt was dark with patches of sweat down the front, down the back and spreading from under the arms. More sweat mixed with dust ran down his face. His work boots were creased and caked with grime. The back pocket of his jeans was worn from the constant rub against a round can of chewing tobacco. With his hat tilted back and his bandanna tied loosely around his throat, he straddled the fence and lifted an icy can of beer to his lips.
Bryan thought when the picture was printed you’d almost be able to see his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed. And every woman who looked at it, she was certain, would be half in love. He was the mystic, the swashbuckler, the last of the knights. Having that picture in her camera nearly made up for almost losing her lunch over the branding.
She’d seen Shade home right in on it and known his pictures would be gritty, hard and detailed. Yet she’d also seen him focusing in on a young boy of eleven or twelve as he’d ridden in his first roundup with all the joy and innocence peculiar to a boy of that age. His choice had surprised her, because he rarely went for the lighter touch. It was also, unfortunately for her state of mind, something else she could like him for. There were others.
He hadn’t made any comment when she’d turned green and distanced herself for a time from what was going on in the small enclosed corral where calves bawled for their mothers and let out long, surprised wails when knife and iron were applied. He hadn’t said a word when she’d sat down in the shade until she was certain her stomach would stay calm. Nor had he said a word when he’d handed her a cold drink. Neither had she.
That night they camped on Bar T land. Shade had given her space since they’d left Arizona, because she suddenly seemed to need it. Oddly, he found he didn’t. In the beginning, it had always been Bryan who’d all but forced him into conversations when he’d have been content to drive in silence for hours. Now he wanted to talk to her, to hear her laugh, to watch the way her hands moved when she became enthusiastic about a certain point. Or to watch the way she stretched, easily, degree by inching degree, as her voice slowed.
Something undefinable had shifted in both of them during their time in Oak Creek. Bryan had become remote, when she’d always been almost too open for his comfort. He found he wanted her company, when he’d always been solitary. He wanted, though he didn’t fully comprehend why, her friendship. It was a shift he wasn’t certain he cared for, or even understood. In any case, because the opposing shifts had happened in both of them simultaneously, it brought them no closer.
Shade had chosen the open space near a fast-running creek for a campsite for no reason other than that it appealed to him. Bryan immediately saw other possibilities.
“Look, I’m going down to wash off.” She was as dusty as the cowboys she’d focused on all afternoon. It occurred to her, not altogether pleasantly, that she might smell a bit too much like the horses she’d watched. “It’s probably freezing, so I’ll make it fast and you can have a turn.”
Shade pried the top off a beer. Perhaps they hadn’t rounded up cattle, but they’d been on their feet and in the sun for almost eight hours. “Take your time.”
Bryan grabbed a towel and a cake of soap and dashed off. The sun was steadily dropping behind the mountains to the west. She knew enough of camping by now to know how quickly the air would cool once the sun went down. She didn’t want to be wet and naked when it did.
She didn’t bother to glance around before she stripped off her shirt. They were far enough away from the ranch house that none of the men would wander out that way at sunset. Shade and she had already established the sanctity of privacy without exchanging a word on the subject.
Right now, she thought as she wiggled out of her jeans, the cowboys they’d come to shoot were probably sitting down to an enormous meal—red meat and potatoes, she mused. Hot biscuits with plenty of butter. Lord knows they deserved it, after the day they’d put in. And me, too, she decided, though she and Shade were making do with cold sandwiches and a bag of chips.
Slim, tall and naked, Bryan took a deep breath of the pine-scented air. Even a city girl, she thought as she paused a moment to watch the sunset, could appreciate all this.
Gingerly she stepped into the cold knee-high water and began to rinse off the dust. Strange, she didn’t mind the chill as much as she once had. The drive across America was bound to leave its mark. She was glad of it.
No one really wanted to stay exactly the same throughout life. If her outlook changed and shifted as they traveled, she was fortunate. The assignment was giving her more than the chance for professional exposure and creative expression. It was giving her experiences. Why else had she become a photographer, but to see things and understand them?
Yet she didn’t understand Shade any better now than when they’d started out. Had she tried? In some ways, she thought, as she glided the soap over her arms. Until what she saw and understood began to affect her too deeply and too personally. Then she’d backed off fast.
She didn’t like to admit it. Bryan shivered and began to wash more swiftly. The sun was nearly set. Self-preservation, she reminded herself. Perhaps her image was one of take what comes and make the best of it, but she had her phobias as well. And she was entitled to them.
It had been a long time since she’d been hurt, and that was because of her own deceptively simple maneuvering. If she stood at a crossroads and had two routes, one smooth, the other rocky, with a few pits, she’d take the smooth one. Maybe it was less admirable, but she’d always felt you ended up in the same place with less energy expended. Shade Colby was a rocky road.
In any case, it wasn’t just a matter of her choice. They could have an affair—a physically satisfying, emotionally shallow affair. It worked well for a great many people. But…
He didn’t want to be involved with her any more than she did with him. He was attracted, just as she was, but he wasn’t offering her any more than that. If he ever did… She dropped that line of thought like a stone. Speculation wasn’t always healthy.
The important thing was that she felt more like herself again. She was pleased with the work she’d done since they’d left Arizona, and was looking forward to crossing over into Kansas the next day. The assignment, as they’d both agreed from the outset, was the first priority.
Wheat fields and tornadoes, she thought with a grin. Follow the yellow brick road. That was what Kansas brought to her mind. She knew better now, and looked forward to finding the reality. Bryan was beginning to enjoy having her preconceptions both confirmed and blown to bits.
That was for tomorrow. Right now it was dusk and she was freezing.
Agile, she scrambled up the small bank and reached for the towel. Shade could wash up while she stuffed herself with whatever was handy in the cupboards. She pulled on a long-sleeved oversize shirt and reached up to button it. That’s when she saw the eyes.
For a moment she only stared with her hands poised at the top button. Then she saw there was more to it than a pair of narrow yellow eyes peering out of the lowering light. There was a sleek, muscled body and a set of sharp, white teeth only a narrow creek bed away.
Bryan took two steps back, tripped over her own tangled jeans and let out a scream that might’ve been heard in the next county.
Shade was stretched out in a folding chair beside the small campfire he’d built on impulse. He’d enjoyed himself that day—the rough-and-ready atmosphere, the baking sun and cold beer. He’d always admired the camaraderie that went hand in hand with people who work outdoors.
He needed the city—it was in his blood. For the most part, he preferred the impersonal aspects of people rushing to their own places, in their own time. But it helped to touch base with other aspects of life from time to time.
He could see now, even after only a few weeks on the road, that he’d been getting stale. He hadn’t had the challenge of his early years. That get-the-shot-and-stay-alive sort of challenge. He didn’t want it. But he’d let himself become too complacent with what he’d been doing.
This assignment had given him the chance to explore himself as well as his country. He thought of his partner with varying degrees of puzzlement and interest. She wasn’t nearly as simple or laid-back as he’d originally believed. Still, she was nearly 180 degrees removed from him. He was beginning to understand her. Slowly, but he was beginning to.
She was sensitive, emotional and inherently kind. He was rarely kind, because he was careful not to be. She was comfortable with herself, easily amused and candid. He’d learned long ago that candor can jump back on you with teeth.
But he wanted her—because she was different or in spite of it, he wanted her. Forcing himself to keep his hands off her in all the days and nights that had passed since that light, interrupted kiss in Hunter Brown’s driveway was beginning to wear on him. He had his control to thank for the fact that he’d been able to, the control that he honed so well that it was nearly a prison.
Shade tossed his cigarette into the fire and leaned back. He wouldn’t lose that control, or break out of that prison, but that didn’t mean that sooner or later he and Bryan wouldn’t be lovers. He meant it to happen. He would simply bide his time until it happened his way. As long as he was holding the reins, he wouldn’t steer himself into the mire.
When he heard her scream, a dozen agonizing images rushed into his head, images that he’d seen and lived through, images that only someone who had could conjure up. He was out of the chair and running before he’d fully realized they were only memories.
When he got to her, Bryan was scrambling up from the tumble she’d taken. The last thing she expected was to be hauled up and crushed against Shade. The last thing she expected was exactly what she needed. Gasping for air, she clung to him.
“What happened?” Her own panic muffled her ears to the thread of panic in his voice. “Bryan, are you hurt?”
“No, no. It scared me, but it ran away.” She pushed her face against his shoulder and just breathed. “Oh, God, Shade.”
“What?” Gripping her by the elbows, he pulled her back far enough to see her face. “What scared you?”
“A cat.”
He wasn’t amused. His fear turned to fury, tangibly enough that Bryan could see the latter even before he cursed her. “Damn it! What kind of fool are you?” he demanded. “Letting out a scream like that over a cat.”
She drew air in and out, in and out, and concentrated on her anger—genuine fear was something she didn’t care for. “Not a house cat,” she snapped. She was still shaken, but not enough to sit back and be called a fool. “It was one of those…I don’t know.” She lifted a hand to push at her hair and dropped it again when it trembled. “I have to sit down.” She did so with a plop on the grass.
“A bobcat?” Calmer, Shade crouched down beside her.
“I don’t know. Bobcat, cougar—I wouldn’t know the difference. It was a hell of a lot bigger than any tabby.” She lowered her head to her knees. Maybe she’d been frightened before in her life, but she couldn’t remember anything to compare with this. “He just stood over there, staring at me. I thought—I thought he was going to jump over the creek. His teeth…” She shuddered and shut her eyes. “Big,” she managed, no longer caring if she sounded like a simpleminded fool. “Real big.”
“He’s gone now.” His fury turned inward. He should’ve known she wasn’t the kind of woman who jumped at shadows. He knew what it was to be afraid and to feel helpless with it. This time he cursed himself as he slipped an arm around her. “The way you screamed, he’s ten miles away and still running.”
Bryan nodded but kept her face buried against her knees. “I guess he wasn’t that big, but they look different out of the zoo. I just need a minute to pull myself together.”
“Take your time.”
He found he didn’t mind offering comfort, though it was something he hadn’t done in a long time. The air was cool, the night still. He could hear the sound of the water rushing by in the creek. For a moment he had a quick flash of the Browns’ porch, of the easy family portrait on the swing. He felt a touch of the same contentment here, with his arm around Bryan and night closing in.
Overhead a hawk screeched, out for its first flight of the night. Bryan jolted.
“Easy,” Shade murmured. He didn’t laugh at her reaction, or even smile. He soothed.
“I guess I’m a little jumpy.” With a nervous laugh, she lifted her hand to push at her hair again. It wasn’t until then that Shade realized she was naked beneath the open, billowing shirt.
The sight of her slim, supple body beneath the thin, fluttering material sent the contentment he’d felt skyrocketing into need. A need, he discovered only in that instant, that was somehow exclusively for her—not just for a woman with a lovely face, a desirable body, but for Bryan.
“Maybe we should get back and…” She turned her head and found her eyes only inches from his. In his, she saw everything he felt. When she started to speak again, he shook his head.
No words. No words now. Only needs, only feelings. He wanted that with her. As his mouth closed over hers, he gave her no choice but to want it as well.
Sweetness? Where had it come from and how could she possibly turn away from it? They’d been together nearly a month, but she’d never suspected he had sweetness in him. Nor had she known just how badly she’d needed to find it there.
His mouth demanded, but so slowly, so subtly, that she was giving before she was aware of it. Once she’d given, she couldn’t take away again. She felt his hand, warm and firm on her bare skin, but she sighed in pleasure, not in protest. She’d wanted him to touch her, had waited for it, had denied her waiting. Now she leaned closer. There’d be no denying.
He’d known she’d feel like this—slim, strong, smooth. A hundred times, he’d imagined it. He hadn’t forgotten that she’d taste like this—warm, tempting, generous. A hundred times, he’d tried not to remember.
This time she smelled of the creek, fresh and cool. He could bury his face in her throat and smell the summer night on her. He kissed her slowly, leaving her lips for her throat, her throat for her shoulder. As he lingered there, he gave himself the pleasure of discovering her body with his fingertips.
It was torture. Exquisite. Agonizing. Irresistible. Bryan wanted it to go on, and on and on. She drew him closer, loving the hard, lean feel of his body against hers, the brush of his clothes against her skin, the whisper of his breath across it. And through it all, the quick, steady beat of his heart near hers.
She could smell the work of the day on him, the faint tang of healthy sweat, the traces of dust he hadn’t yet washed off. It excited her with memories of the way his muscles had bunched beneath his shirt when he’d climbed on to a fence for a better angle. She could remember exactly how he’d looked then, though she’d pretended to herself that she hadn’t seen, hadn’t needed to.
She wanted his strength. Not the muscles, but the inner strength she’d sensed in him from the start. The strength that had carried him through what he’d seen, what he’d lived with.
Yet wasn’t it that strength that helped to harden him, to separate him emotionally from the people around him? With her mind whirling, her body pulsing, she struggled to find the answer she needed.
Wants weren’t enough. Hadn’t she told him so herself? God, she wanted him. Her bones were melting from the desire for him. But it wasn’t enough. She only wished she knew what was.
“Shade…” Even when she tried to speak, he cut her off with another long, draining kiss.
She wanted him to drain her. Mind, body, soul. If he did, there’d be no question and no need for answers. But the questions were there. Even as she held him to her, they were there.
“Shade,” she began again.
“I want to make love with you.” He lifted his head, and his eyes were so dark, so intense, it was almost impossible to believe his hands were so gentle. “I want to feel your skin under my hand, feel your heart race, watch your eyes.”
The words were quiet, incredibly calm when his eyes were so passionate. More than the passion and demand in his eyes, the words frightened her.
“I’m not ready for this.” She barely managed the words as she drew away from him.
He felt the needs rise and the anger begin. It took all his skill to control both. “Are you saying you don’t want me?”
“No.” She shook her head as she drew her shirt together. When had it become so cold? she wondered. “No, lying’s foolish.”
“So’s backing away from something we both want to happen.”
“I’m not sure I do. I can’t be logical about this, Shade.” She gathered her clothes quickly and hugged them against her as she stood. “I can’t think something like this through step-by-step the way you do. If I could, it’d be different, but I can only go with my feelings, my instincts.”
There was a deadly calm around him when he rose. The control he’d nearly forfeited to her was back in place. Once more he accepted the prison he’d built for himself. “And?”
She shivered without knowing if it was from the cold without or the cold within. “And my feelings tell me I need more time.” When she looked up at him again, her face was honest, her eyes were eloquent. “Maybe I do want this to happen. Maybe I’m just a little afraid of how much I want you.”
He didn’t like her use of the word afraid. She made him feel responsible, obliged. Defensive. “I’ve no intention of hurting you.”
She gave herself a moment. Her breathing was easier, even if her pulse was still unsteady. Whether he knew it or not, Shade had already given her the distance she needed to resist him. Now she could look at him, calmer. Now she could think more clearly.
“No, I don’t think you do, but you could, and I have a basic fear of bruises. Maybe I’m an emotional coward. It’s not a pretty thought, but it might be true.” With a sigh, she lifted both hands to her hair and pushed it back. “Shade, we’ve a bit more than two months left on the road. I can’t afford to spend it being torn up inside because of you. My instincts tell me you could very easily do that to me, whether you planned on it or not.”
She knew how to back a man into a corner, he thought in frustration. He could press, relieve the knot she’d tightened in his stomach. And by doing so, he’d run the risk of having her words echo back at him for a long time to come. It’d only taken a few words from her to remind him what it felt like to be responsible for someone else.
“Go back to the van,” he told her, turning away to strip off his shirt. “I have to clean up.”
She started to speak, then realized there was nothing more she could say. Instead, she left him to follow the thin, moonlit trail back to the van.