EBENEZER WAS A MAN of his word. He showed up early the next morning as Sally was out by the corral fence watching her two beef cattle graze. She’d bought them to raise with the idea of stocking her freezer. Now they had names. The white-faced Black Angus mixed steer was called Bob, the white-faced red-coated Hereford she called Andy. They were pets. She couldn’t face the thought of sitting down to a plate of either one of them.
The familiar black pickup stopped at the fence and Ebenezer got out. He was wearing jeans and a blue checked shirt with boots and a light-colored straw Stetson. No chaps, so he wasn’t working cattle today.
He joined Sally at the fence. “Don’t tell me. They’re table beef.”
She spared him a resentful glance. “Right.”
“And you’re going to put them in the freezer.”
She swallowed. “Sure.”
He only chuckled. He paused to light a cigar, with one big booted foot propped on the lower rung of the fence. “What are their names?”
“That’s Andy and that’s…Bob.” She flushed.
He didn’t say a word, but his raised eyebrow was eloquent through the haze of expelled smoke.
“They’re watch-cattle,” she improvised.
His eyes twinkled. “I beg your pardon?”
“They’re attack steers,” she said with a reluctant grin. “At the first sign of trouble, they’ll come right through the fence to protect me. Of course, if they get shot in the line of duty,” she added, “I’ll eat them!”
He pushed his Stetson back over clean blond-streaked brown hair and looked down at her with lingering amusement. “You haven’t changed much in six years.”
“Neither have you,” she retorted shyly. “You’re still smoking those awful things.”
He glanced at the big cigar and shrugged. “A man has to have a vice or two to round him out,” he pointed out. “Besides, I only have the occasional one, and never inside. I have read the studies on smoking,” he added dryly.
“Lots of people who smoke read those studies,” she agreed. “And then they quit!”
He smiled. “You can’t reform me,” he told her. “It’s a waste of time to try. I’m thirty-six and very set in my ways.”
“I noticed.”
He took a puff from the cigar and studied her steers. “I suppose they follow you around like dogs.”
“When I go inside the fence with them,” she agreed. She felt odd with him; safe and nervous and excited, all at once. She could smell the fresh scent of the soap he used, and over it a whiff of expensive cologne. He was close at her side, muscular and vibrating with sensuality. She wanted to move closer, to feel that strength all around her. It made her self-conscious. After six years, surely the attraction should have lessened a little.
He glanced down at her, noticing how she picked at her cuticles and nibbled on her lower lip. His green eyes narrowed and there was a faint glitter in them.
She felt the heat of his gaze and refused to lift her face. She wondered if it looked as hot as it felt.
“You haven’t forgotten a thing,” he said suddenly, the cigar in his hand absently falling to his side, whirls of smoke climbing into the air beside him.
“About what?” she choked.
He caught her long, blond ponytail and tugged her closer, so that she was standing right up against him. The scent of him, the heat of him, the muscular ripple of his body combined to make her shiver with repressed feelings.
He shifted, coaxing her into the curve of his body, his eyes catching hers and holding them relentlessly. He could feel her faint trembling, hear the excited whip of her breath as she tried valiantly to hide it from him. But he could see her heartbeat jerking the fabric over her small breasts.
It was a relief to find her as helplessly attracted to him as she once had been. It made him arrogant with pride. He let go of the ponytail and drew his hand against her cheek, letting his thumb slide down to her mouth and over her chin to lift her eyes to his.
“To everything, there is a season,” he said quietly.
She felt the impact of his steady, unblinking gaze in the most secret places of her body. She didn’t have the experience to hide it, to protect herself. She only stood staring up at him, with all her insecurities and fears lying naked in her soft gray eyes.
His head bent and he drew his nose against hers in the sudden silence of the yard. His smoky breath whispered over her lips as he murmured, “Six years is a long time to go hungry.”
She didn’t understand what he was saying. Her eyes were on his hard, long, thin mouth. Her hands had flattened against his broad chest. Under it she could feel thick, soft hair and the beat of his heart. His breath smelled of cigar smoke and when his mouth gently covered hers, she wondered if she was going to faint with the unexpected delight of it. It had been so long!
He felt her immediate, helpless submission. His free arm went around her shoulders and drew her lazily against his muscular body while his hard mouth moved lightly over her lips, tasting her, assessing her experience. His mouth became insistent and she stiffened a little, unused to the tender probing of his tongue against her teeth.
She felt his smile before he lifted his head.
“You still taste of lemonade and cotton candy,” he murmured with unconcealed pleasure.
“What do you mean?” she murmured, mesmerized by the hovering threat of his mouth.
“I mean, you still don’t know how to do this.” He searched her eyes quietly and then the smile left his face. “I did more damage than I ever meant to. You were seventeen. I had to hurt you to save you.” He traced her mouth with his thumb and scowled down at her. “You don’t know what my life was like in those days,” he said solemnly, and for once his eyes were unguarded. The pain in them was visible for the first time Sally could remember.
“Aunt Jessica told me,” she said slowly.
His eyes darkened. His face hardened. “All of it?”
She nodded.
He was still scowling. He released her to gaze off into the distance, absently lifting the cigar to his mouth. He blew out a cloud of smoke. “I’m not sure that I wanted you to know.”
“Secrets are dangerous.”
He glanced down at her, brooding. “More dangerous than you realize. I’ve kept mine for a long time, like your aunt.”
“I had no idea what she did for a living, either.” She glared up at him. “Thanks to the two of you, now I know how a mushroom feels, sitting in the dark.”
He chuckled. “She wanted it that way. She felt you’d be safer if she kept you uninvolved.”
She wanted to ask him about what Jessica had told her, that he’d phoned her about Sally before the painful move to Houston. But she didn’t quite know how. She was shy with him.
He looked down at her again, his eyes intent on her softly flushed cheeks, her swollen mouth, her bright eyes. She lifted his heart. Just the sight of her made him feel welcome, comforted, cared for. He’d missed that. In all his life, Sally had been the first and only person who could thwart his black moods. She made him feel as if he belonged somewhere after a life of wandering. Even during the time she was in Houston, he kept in touch with Jessica, to get news of Sally, of where she was, what she was doing, of her plans. He’d always expected that she’d come back to him one day, or that he’d go to her, despite the way they’d parted. Love, if it existed, was surely a powerful force, immune to harsh words and distance. And time.
Sally’s face was watchful, her eyes brimming over with excitement. She couldn’t hide what she was feeling, and he loved being able to see it. Her hero worship had first irritated and then elated him. Women had wanted him since his teens, although some loved him for the danger that clung to him. One had rejected him because of it and savaged his pride. But, even so, it was Sally who made him ache inside.
He touched her soft mouth with his fingers, liking the faint swell where he’d kissed it so thoroughly. “We’ll have to practice more,” he murmured wickedly.
She opened her mouth to protest that assumption when a laughing Stevie came running out the door like a little blond whirlwind, only to be caught up abruptly in Ebenezer’s hard arms and lifted.
“Uncle Eb!” he cried, laughing delightedly, making Sally realize that if she hadn’t been around Ebenezer since their move from Houston, Jessica and Stevie certainly had.
“Hello, tiger,” came the deep, pleasant reply. He put the boy back down on his feet. “Want to go to my place with Sally and learn karate?”
“Like the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ in the movies? Radical!” he exclaimed.
“Karate?” Sally asked, hesitating.
“Just a few moves, and only for self-defense,” he assured her. “You’ll enjoy it. It’s necessary,” he added when she seemed to hesitate.
“Okay,” she capitulated.
He led the way back into the house to where Jessica was sitting in the living room, listening to the news on the television.
“All this mess in the Balkans,” she said sadly. “Just when we think we’ve got peace, everything erupts all over again. Those poor people!”
“Fortunes of war,” Eb said with a smile. “How’s it going, Jess?”
“I can’t complain, I guess, except that they won’t let me drive anymore,” she said, tongue-in-cheek.
“Wait until they get that virtual reality vision perfected,” he said easily. “You’ll be able to do anything.”
“Optimist,” she said, grinning.
“Always. I’m taking these two over to the ranch for a little course in elementary self-defense,” he added quietly.
“Good idea,” Jessica said at once.
“I don’t like leaving you here alone,” Sally ventured, remembering what she’d been told about the danger.
“She won’t be,” Eb replied. He looked at Jessica and one eye narrowed before he added, “I’m sending Dallas Kirk over to keep her company.”
“No!” Jessica said furiously. She actually stood up, vibrating. “No, Eb! I don’t want him within a mile of me! I’d rather be shot to pieces!”
“This isn’t multiple choice,” came a deep, drawling voice from the general direction of the hall.
As Sally turned from Jessica’s white face, a slender blond man with dark eyes came into the room. He walked with the help of a fancy-looking cane. He was dressed like Eb, in casual clothes, khaki slacks and a bush jacket. He looked like something right out of Africa.
“This is Dallas Kirk,” Eb introduced him to Sally. “He was born in Texas. His real name is Jon, but we’ve always called him Dallas. This is Sally Johnson,” he told the blond man.
Dallas nodded. “Nice to meet you,” he said formally.
“You know Jess,” Eb added.
“Yes. I…know her,” he said with the faintest emphasis in that lazy Western drawl, during which Jess’s face went from white to scarlet and she averted her eyes.
“Surely you can get along for an hour,” Eb said impatiently. “I really can’t leave you here by yourself, Jess.”
Dallas glared at her. “Mind telling me why?” he asked Eb. “She’s a better shot than I am.”
Jessica stood rigidly by her chair. “He doesn’t know?” she asked Eb.
Eb’s face was rigid. “He wouldn’t talk about you, and the subject didn’t come up until he was away on assignment. No. He doesn’t know.”
“Know what?” Dallas demanded.
Jessica’s chin lifted. “I’m blind,” she said matter-of-factly, almost with satisfaction, as if she knew it would hurt him.
The look on the newcomer’s face was a revelation. Sally only wished she knew of what. He shifted as if he’d sustained a physical blow. He walked slowly up to her and waved a hand in front of her face.
“Blind!” he said huskily. “For how long?”
“Six months,” she said, feeling for the arms of the chair. She sat back down a little clumsily. “I was in a wreck. An accident,” she added abruptly.
“It was no accident,” Eb countered coldly. “She was run off the road by two of Lopez’s men. They got away before the police came.”
Sally gasped. This was a new explanation. She’d just heard about the wreck—not about the cause of it. Dallas’s hand on the cane went white from the pressure he was exerting on it. “What about Stevie?” he asked coldly. “Is he all right? Was he injured?”
“He wasn’t with me at the time. And he’s fine. Sally lives with us and helps take care of him,” Jess replied, her voice unusually tense. “We share the chores. She’s my niece,” she added abruptly, almost as if to warn him of something.
Dallas looked preoccupied. But when Stevie came running back into the room, he turned abruptly and his eyes widened as he stared at the little boy.
“I’m ready!” Stevie announced, holding out his arms to show the gray sweats he was wearing. His dark eyes were shimmering with joy. “This is how they look on television when they practice. Is it okay?”
“It’s fine,” Eb replied with a smile.
“Who’s he?” Stevie asked, big-eyed, as he looked at the blond man with the cane who was staring at him, as if mesmerized.
“That’s Dallas,” Eb said easily. “He works for me.”
“Hi,” Stevie said, naturally outgoing. He stared at the cane. “I guess you’re from Texas with a name like that, huh? I’m sorry about your leg, Mr. Dallas. Does it hurt much?”
Dallas took a slow breath before he answered. “When it rains.”
“My mama’s hip hurts when it rains, too,” he said. “Are you coming with us to learn karate?”
“He’s already forgotten more than I know,” Eb said in a dry tone. “No, he’s going to take care of your mother while we’re gone.”
“Why?” Stevie asked, frowning.
“Because her hip hurts,” Sally lied through her teeth. “Ready to go?”
“Sure! Bye, Mom.” He ran to kiss her cheek and be hugged warmly. He moved back, smiling up at the blond man who hadn’t cracked a smile yet. “See you.”
Dallas nodded.
Sally was staggered by the resemblance of the boy to the man, and almost remarked on it. But before she could, Eb caught her eyes. There was a look in them that she couldn’t decipher, but it stopped her at once.
“We’d better go,” he said. He took Sally by the arm. “Come on, Stevie. We won’t be long, Jess,” he called back.
“I’ll count the seconds,” she said under her breath as they left the room.
Dallas didn’t say anything, and it was just as well that she couldn’t see the look in his eyes.
* * *
IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO TALK in front of Stevie as they drove through the massive electronic gates at the Scott ranch. He, like Sally, was fascinated by the layout, which included a helipad, a landing strip with a hangar, a swimming pool and a ranch house that looked capable of sleeping thirty people. There were also target ranges and guest cabins and a formidable state-of-the-art gym housed in what looked like a gigantic Quonset hut like those used during the Second World War in the Pacific theater. There were several satellite dishes as well, and security cameras seemingly on every available edifice.
“This is incredible,” Sally said as they got out of the truck and went with him toward the gym.
“Maintaining it is incredible,” Eb said with a chuckle. “You wouldn’t believe the level of technology required to keep it all functioning.”
Stevie had found the thick blue plastic-covered mat on the wood floor and was already rolling around on it and trying the punching bag suspended from one of the steel beams that supported other training equipment.
“Stevie looks like that man, Dallas,” she said abruptly.
He grimaced. “Haven’t you and Jess ever talked?”
“I didn’t know anything about Dallas and my aunt until you told me,” she said simply.
“This is something she needs to tell you, in her own good time.”
She studied the youngster having fun on the mat. “He isn’t my uncle’s child, is he?”
There was a rough sound from the man beside her. “What makes you think so?”
“For one thing, because he’s the image of Dallas. But also because Uncle Hank and Aunt Jessie were married for years with no kids, and suddenly she got pregnant just before he died overseas,” she replied. “Stevie was like a miracle.”
“In some ways, I suppose he was. But it led to Hank asking for a combat assignment, and even though he died of a heart condition, Jess has had nightmares ever since out of guilt.” He looked down at her. “You can’t tell her that you know.”
“Fair enough. Tell me the rest.”
“She and Dallas were working together on an assignment. It was one of those lightning attractions that overcome the best moral obstacles. They were alone too much and finally the inevitable happened. Jess turned up pregnant. When Dallas found out, he went crazy. He demanded that Jess divorce Hank and marry him, but she wouldn’t. She swore that Dallas wasn’t the father of her child, Hank was, and she had no intention of divorcing her husband.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Hank knew that she’d been with another man, of course, because he’d always been sterile. Dallas didn’t know that. And Hank hadn’t told Jessica until she announced that she was expecting a child.” He shrugged. “He wouldn’t forgive her. Neither would Dallas. When Hank died, Dallas didn’t even try to get in touch with Jess. He really believed that Stevie was Hank’s child. Until about ten minutes ago, that is,” he added with a wry smile. “It didn’t take much guesswork for him to see the resemblance. I think we won’t go back for a couple of hours. I don’t want to walk into the firefight he’s probably having with Jess even as we speak.”
She bit her lower lip. “Poor Jess.”
“Poor Dallas,” he countered. “After the fight with Jessie, he took every damned dangerous assignment he could find, the more dangerous the better. Last year in Africa, Dallas was shot to pieces. They sent him home with wounds that would have killed a lesser man.”
“No wonder he looks so bitter.”
“He’s bitter because he loved Jess and though she felt the same, she wasn’t willing to hurt Hank by leaving him. But in the end, she still hurt him. He couldn’t live with the idea that she was having some other man’s child. It destroyed their marriage.”
She grimaced. “What a tragedy, for all of them.”
“Yes.”
She looked toward Stevie, smiling. “He’s a great kid,” she said. “I’d love him even if he wasn’t my first cousin.”
“He’s got grit and personality to boot.”
“You wouldn’t think so at midnight when you’re still trying to get him to sleep.”
He smiled as he studied her. “You love kids, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” she said fervently. “I love teaching.”
“Don’t you want some of your own?” he asked with a quizzical smile.
She flushed and wouldn’t look at him. “Sure. One day.”
“Why not now?”
“Because I’ve already got more responsibilities than I can manage. Pregnancy would be a complication I couldn’t handle, especially now.”
“You sound as if you’re planning to do it all alone.”
She shrugged. “There is such a thing as artificial insemination.”
He turned her toward him, looking very solemn and adult. “How would it feel, carrying the child of a man you didn’t even know, having it grow inside your body?”
She bit her lower lip. She hadn’t considered the intimacy of what he was suggesting. She felt, and looked, confused.
“A baby should be made out of love, the natural way, not in a test tube,” he said very softly, searching her shocked eyes. “Well, not unless it’s the only way two people can have a child,” he added. “But that’s an entirely different circumstance.”
Her lips parted on the surge of emotion that made her heart race. “I don’t know…that I want to get that close to anyone, ever.”
He seemed even more remote. “Sally, you can’t let the past lock you into solitude forever. I frightened you because I wanted to keep you at bay. If I didn’t discourage you somehow I was afraid that the temptation might prove too much for me. You were such a baby.” He scowled bitterly. “What happened wouldn’t have been so devastating if you’d had even a little experience with men. For God’s sake, didn’t they ever let you date anyone?”
She shook her head, her teeth clenched tightly together. “My mother was certain that I’d get pregnant or catch some horrible disease. She talked about it all the time. She made boys who came to the house so uncomfortable that they never came back.”
“I didn’t know that,” he said tautly.
“Would it have made any difference?” she asked miserably.
He touched her face with cool, firm fingers. “Yes. I wouldn’t have gone nearly as far as I did, if I’d known.”
“You wanted to get rid of me…”
He put his thumb over her soft mouth. “I wanted you,” he whispered huskily. “But a seventeen-year-old isn’t mature enough for a love affair. And that would have been impossible in Jacobsville, even if I’d been crazy enough to go all the way with you that day. You were almost thirteen years my junior.”
She was beginning to see things from his point of view. She hadn’t tried before. There had been so much resentment, so much bitterness, so much hurt. She looked at him and saw, for the first time, the pain of the memory in his face.
“I was desperate,” she said, speaking softly. “They told me out of the blue that they were divorcing each other. They were selling the house and moving out of town. Dad was going to marry Beverly, this girl he’d met at the college where he taught. Mom couldn’t live in the same town with everybody knowing that Dad had thrown her over for someone younger. She married a man she hardly knew shortly afterward, just to save her pride.” She stared at his mouth with more hunger than she realized. “I knew that I’d never see you again. I only wanted you to kiss me.” She swallowed, averting her eyes. “I must have been crazy.”
“We both were.” He cupped her face in his hands and lifted it to his quiet eyes. “For what it’s worth, I never meant it to go further than a kiss. A very chaste kiss, at that.” His eyes drifted down involuntarily to the soft thrust of her breasts almost touching his shirt. He raised an eyebrow at the obvious points. “That’s why it wasn’t chaste.”
She didn’t understand. “What is?”
He looked absolutely exasperated. “How can you be that old and know nothing?” he asked. He glanced over her shoulder at Stevie, who was facing the other way and giving the punching bag hell. He took Sally’s own finger and drew it across her taut breast. He looked straight into her eyes as he said softly, “That’s why.”
She realized that it must have something to do with being aroused, but no one had ever told her blatantly that it was a visible sign of desire. She went scarlet.
“You greenhorn,” he murmured indulgently. “What a babe in arms.”
“I don’t read those sort of books,” she said haughtily.
“You should. In fact, I’ll buy you a set of them. Maybe a few videos, too,” he murmured absently, watching the expressions come and go on her face.
“You varmint…!”
He caught her top lip in both of his and ran his tongue lazily under it. She stiffened, but her hands were clinging to him, not pushing.
“You remember that, don’t you, Sally?” he murmured with a smile. “Do you remember what comes next?”
She jerked back from him, staggering. Her eyes found Stevie, still oblivious to the adults.
Eb’s eyes were blatant on the thrust of her breasts and he was smiling.
She crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at him. “You just stop that,” she gritted. “I’ll bet you weren’t born knowing everything!”
He chuckled. “No, I wasn’t. But I didn’t have a mother to keep my nose clean, either,” he said. “My old man was military down to his toenails, and he didn’t believe in gentle handling or delicacy. He used women until the day he died.” He laughed coldly. “He told me that there was no such thing as a good woman, that they were to be enjoyed and put aside.”
She was appalled. “Didn’t he love your mother?”
“He wanted her, and she wouldn’t be with him until they got married,” he said simply. “So they got married. She died having me. They were living in a small town outside the military base where he was stationed. He was overseas on assignment and she lived alone, isolated. She went into labor and there were complications. There was nothing that could have been done for her by the time she was found. If a neighbor hadn’t come to look in on us, I’d have died with her.”
“It must have been a shock for your father,” she said.
“If it was, it never showed. He left me with a cousin until I was old enough to obey orders, then I went to live with him. I learned a lot from him, but he wasn’t a loving man.” His eyes narrowed on her soft face. “I followed his example and joined the army. I was lucky enough to get into the Green Berets. Then when I was due for discharge, a man approached me about a top secret assignment and told me what it would pay.” He shrugged. “Money is a great temptation for a young man with a domineering father. I said yes and he never spoke to me again. He said that what I was doing was a perversion of the military, and that I wasn’t fit to be any officer’s son. He disowned me on the spot. I didn’t hear from him again. A few years later, I got a letter from his post commander, stating that he’d died in combat. He had a military funeral with full honors.”
The pain of those years was in his lean, hard face. Impulsively she put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry,” she told him quietly. “He must have been the sort of man who only sees one side of any argument.”
He was surprised by her compassion. “Don’t you think mercenaries are evil, Miss Purity?” he asked sarcastically.