Beautiful Dreamer with Bonus Material (9 page)

“Did that shit-eating coyote lay a hand on you?”

“Nope,” she said honestly.

What she didn’t say was that Turner had tried his best. If she had been any slower, she would have been on her back in the dirt.

Mason waited for Hope to say more. He knew he was getting only part of the truth, the part she wanted him to know. He started to say something, then bit it off. His lips flattened into a colorless line.

“I’ll do the water hauling from now on,” he said.

“No.” Her voice was smooth and calm. It left no opening for an argument. “But if you’d like to ride shotgun,” she added, smiling widely at him, “I’d love to have the company. Like I said, talking to the cows isn’t real stimulating.”

He looked at her for another long moment. She was smiling her familiar, heart-warming smile, but her skin was too pale. He was certain that Turner had tried something. It was what Mason had feared since the instant Pete had told him about the boss getting up real early and going to check on the south well.

Though few men spoke aloud about it, Hope wasn’t the first woman to find herself on the rough end of Turner’s arrogance. Only one girl had gone to the sheriff over it. The humiliation that had followed was a lesson to any other female who thought she had the same rights as Big Jase Turner’s son.

Mason knew that no matter what happened, Hope wouldn’t say anything to him about Turner. She was trying to protect Mason’s pride. Just like she had by taking over the water runs. She knew that Mason’s hands were too bad right now to handle the heavy truck and the stubborn couplings. He wouldn’t have a chance against a man less than half his age and nearly twice his weight.

Silently, secretly, Mason cursed the fate that had let him live long enough to lose his beloved wife and then grow too old to defend the woman who meant as much to him as any blood daughter could have.

“I’ll ride with you from now on,” he said quietly.

Hope didn’t argue. She was relieved to know that she wouldn’t have to face Turner alone again. The man simply didn’t understand plain English. To him,
no
was a coy prelude to a wrestling match.

Maybe that was how his other women liked it, but not Hope. The thought of fighting Turner both frightened and sickened her. Like the thought of having his hands all over her again. It made breakfast do a backflip and try to climb right up her throat.

Mason went to the pickup truck and lifted a rifle from the rack that stretched across the rear window. He checked the load, eased the firing pin back into place, and pulled a box of shells out of the glove compartment. When he came back to Hope, he was smiling.

There was something in his smile that made her very glad to be his friend rather than his enemy.

“Snake gun,” Mason said laconically. His voice was rough with age and the fury that still turned deep inside his gut at the thought of Turner lying in wait for Hope like a coyote at a water hole. “Drought like this, you git snakes at the wells.”

She cleared her throat. “Yes, I’ve noticed that.”

He stopped smiling and looked at her unflinchingly. “If I ain’t around and you gotta go to a well, you be goddamn sure you got a snake gun with you. And you keep it real close to hand no matter what you’re doing. Hear me, Hope?”

She tried to smile. She couldn’t. Instead, she hugged Mason quickly. “I hear you.”

He nodded curtly. “I’ll watch the pump. You go over that little rise and run some rounds through this here rifle. Been a long time since we done any shooting together.”

Hope didn’t argue that she would rather have dozed in the cab. She took the gun and the shells and walked over a rise until she came to a place where there would be no chance of a ricochet hitting any cattle. She found a particularly ugly clump of big sage growing against the bank of a dry ravine, mentally labeled the bush
John Turner,
and began trimming it down to size one twig at a time.

When Hope had shot enough rounds to soothe Mason and herself, she walked back over the rise to the well. Mason was tinkering with the generator. Whatever he was doing had an immediate effect; the sound of the engine decreased by about half. He stood up to listen, nodded, and bent over the machinery again. There was a long-spouted oilcan in his hand.

“You’re incredible,” she said, half-exasperated, half-delighted. “I oiled that blasted machine from one end to the other two days ago and it didn’t get a bit less noisy.”

He smiled, pleased that there was something he could still do right despite his aching hands. “You done fine, honey, but you don’t like this generator and she knows it. Takes a gentle hand to keep her humming.”

“Not to mention gas and oil,” Hope said beneath her breath. Her fuel bills were a constant drain on her cash. She reached out to unscrew the fuel-reservoir cap and gauge the contents with a pessimistic eye.

“Already checked it. It’ll do ’til tomorrow.”

Hope hesitated, made sure the cap was on tight, and unconsciously squared her shoulders. “When I get back to the ranch, I’m calling Hawthorne.”

It had to be done and Mason knew it. But nobody had to like it.

He took off his hat, rubbed his forehead, and settled his hat back into place with a quick jerk. “How many you selling?”

Closing her eyes, she tried not to think about her range cattle burning like garnets against a sunset ridgeline where piñon grew in ragged lines of black flame.

“I—I don’t know. Half.” She swallowed. “Yes, half. That should stretch the natural feed enough to last until the rain comes.”

“Hawthorne gonna use his own men for the cows?”

“He did the last time.” Hope bit back a curse and shrugged instead. Whining never made a job easier. “If he can’t use his own men, I’ll hire the Johnston boys. They love a roundup.”

Mason smiled. “Yeah. Good kids. A mite young, but we all was once.”

She remembered her own teenage years and smiled a bittersweet smile. “Yeah. Real young.”

He rested his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. The gesture said all that he didn’t have the words to tell her: respect, support, love, understanding. He had never been more proud of her than at this moment, when she squared her shoulders and faced what had to be done without complaining.

“You grew into a damned fine woman,” he said simply.

“I just do what I have to for the ranch.” She smiled crookedly and looked around the dry, mysterious land that was part of her soul. “I spent most of my time after I was fourteen being homesick for the Valley of the Sun. I hated L.A. Julie and Mom loved it.”

Hope sighed and fell silent. If her father hadn’t had to pay for two homes, he would have had enough cash to look for more wells. But her mother had insisted on having her daughters go to high school in a “civilized place.” So her father had taken the ranch’s small profits and mailed them to L.A. Then he had prayed that the Hope well would keep on running sweet and pure until he had saved enough money to dig a deeper well.

“Poor Dad,” she said softly, not realizing that she had spoken aloud.

Mason put his arm around her shoulder. “Don’t go feeling sorry for him. He done what he wanted and let hell take the rest.”

Her throat ached with tears she wouldn’t cry. “But he worked so hard.”

“He didn’t grudge a bit of it. He lived for the summers when you and your ma came home.”

Mason didn’t mention Julie. Hope’s sister had always been a beautiful butterfly child, barely able to stand up to the heat of a simple summer day. The hard work and isolation of the Valley of the Sun had defeated her as much as they had bored her.

Hope had been the opposite. She loved the heat, the isolation, the silence, and the sight of cattle moving through the piñons. She had been born for this land in a way that her mother had never understood.

Mason smiled, remembering the good times. “Having you following him around with bright eyes and bushels of questions made your dad feel taller than God and smarter than Satan.”

Hope smiled sadly. She had loved her father very much.

So had her mother, something that Hope hadn’t realized until her mother was dead and a grieving daughter found the letters that her parents had written while they were separated.

“Mom loved him,” she said.

Mason sighed. “Love. Hate. Coins have two sides. Your ma’s passions ran deep. Deeper than the wells we never drilled.”

Hazel eyes looked up at Mason, seeing the past in his lined face, hearing it in his familiar voice.

“You’re like her in that, honey, when you let yourself be. You got your dad’s grit, though. His and then some. You musta got Julie’s, too.” Mason shook his head at the memories welling up like a clear, unexpected spring. “She was pretty as a Christmas calf, and just as sure to die young.”

A familiar tightness settled in Hope’s throat. She had loved her older but not wiser sister, had held her hand through wrongheaded affairs and brutal rejections. Hope had tried to talk with Julie, to help her understand and cope with a world that simply did not care whether one Julie Gardener had champagne and roses or vinegar and skunkweed.

Julie had never accepted the basic truth of the world’s indifference. Her self-absorption had been both innocent and soul-deep. After their mother had died, Julie discovered drugs.

She had died within two years.

“Don’t look so down in the mouth, honey.” Mason tugged gently on a handful of Hope’s dark curls. “Julie just wasn’t made for this world. It happens that way, time to time. So you bury the ones that can’t make it and you wipe your eyes and you get on with living. Because you was made for this world, Hope. No mistake about it. You’re strong and straight and giving. You was made to love a good man and raise strong sons and daughters with staying power. You and your children will heal the Valley of the Sun. And then the past will all be worth it, all the dying and the tears and the pain.”

Looking at Mason’s seamed face and clear eyes, she felt his certainty like a benediction. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his gray-stubbled cheek. “You’re a good man,” she whispered, her voice catching. “The best.”

He smiled gently at her and handed her a faded scarlet bandanna to catch the tears that were welling from her wide hazel eyes.

“Thanks.” She laughed oddly as she wiped her eyes. “Lately I seem to have more water than my namesake well.”

“You’re tired, honey. You’re doing the work of two men.”

Hope’s only answer was a long, ragged sigh and a shrug. “Not of two men like Rio. Did he get any sleep at all last night?”

“He’s a tough son.” Approval warmed Mason’s laconic statement.

“But it isn’t fair for him to—”

“Fair don’t water no cows,” Mason interrupted bluntly. “You git to worryin’ about fair and you won’t have no time left to smile. Take my word for it, gal. I been there.”

“The least I can do is fix up the other bunkhouse for him to use.”

“Don’t bother. Rio liked the porch just fine. If it gits too cold,” Mason added matter-of-factly, “he can take one of the upstairs bedrooms.”

Hope knew her shock showed on her face. She had expected Mason to object to any arrangement that ended up with Rio and the unmarried boss lady sharing the house.

“Something wrong?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Speak plain, honey. I’m an old man.”

She snorted. “As long as I’ve been at the ranch, you’ve been standing over cowhands with a shotgun if they so much as said hello to me. But Rio—Rio moves into the house with me and you don’t turn a hair.”

“He’s different.”

“Are you saying he likes men better?” she asked baldly.

Mason laughed and shook his head at the things she had learned during her modeling career. Then he looked at Hope with eyes that were faded by age and made wise by experience. “Nope. He’s not married, neither. But that’s not why Rio won’t touch you.”

She made a wry face and swiped her hand down her blouse, brushing out dust. “I’m not real happy about touching myself right now.”

Mason didn’t smile. “Oh, you tempt him sure enough. He ain’t blind. But he won’t do nothing about it.”

“Why?” she asked, her voice tight with the surprising pain she felt. “Is something wrong with me?”

“You know better, honey. Rio’s just got too much respect for you—and for hisself—to bite off something he ain’t got no mind to chew.”

“What does that mean?”

“Rio knows you’re a permanent sort of woman. And Rio . . .” Mason rubbed his neck and shrugged. “Rio’s a temporary sort of man. He never stays nowhere for more than a few months at a time. Just the way he is. Footloose as the wind.”

Hope said nothing for the simple reason that her throat was closed tight. She didn’t doubt the truth of what Mason was saying. In the deepest part of her mind she knew that he was absolutely right.

And in the deepest part of her heart she wished that he was absolutely wrong.

Nine

B
ECAUSE THERE WAS
no one around to notice, Hope climbed slowly, almost painfully, down from Behemoth’s cab. Stretching helped, but not much. Her arms were cramped and aching from the effort of manhandling the heavy vehicle out of ruts and through tight curves.

Even with only half the range cattle left to take care of, she still had barely enough hours in the day to make the necessary water runs. Since Hawthorne’s men had trucked away her cattle last week, she had worked constantly while dry winds churned dust devils out of an empty sky.

In the past week the temperature had dropped into the low sixties for several days. The nights had edged down toward freezing. Rain had been predicted yesterday and the day before, part of a northern storm front sweeping down from Alaska and Canada.

So far, no rain had fallen.

Half-eager, half-dreading what she would see, Hope looked toward the Perdidas rising tall and hard from the dry land. Thin clouds shimmered and swirled around the rugged peaks. Other patches of clouds floated randomly in the deep blue sky.

Not enough.

Not nearly enough.

Although the air was no longer so dry that it burned against Hope’s skin, rain hadn’t fallen in the high desert. Only the mountains had been blessed with water. Clouds had condensed in the cold air high up the Perdidas. After a day, moisture thickened into a black veil stitched with glittering threads of lightning. Wind carried the sound of thunder to the desert below like a distant sigh, bringing with it a scent of rain that was as thin as a shadow.

Some of the temporary creeks that drained the Perdidas’ rugged slopes carried small streams of water again. There wasn’t much, but it was enough so that the most adventurous cattle could spread out from the wells. Every cow that moved out into the countryside eased the strain on the natural feed around the troughs. The animals were on the edge of dangerously overgrazing the land around the wells, damaging it beyond repair or recovery.

Yet the small pools in the creek beds and ravines were already drying up. The parched land and dry air sucked up water much faster than it could be replaced by mountain runoff. If it didn’t rain again soon, there wouldn’t be any more surface water around than there had been a week ago.

If it didn’t rain soon, she would have to haul feed as well as water to her remaining range cattle.

“You’re borrowing trouble again,” she told herself. “No need to do that. God knows you have enough without going looking for more.”

Nearby an Angus mooed and walked with heavy grace toward her. The cow’s eyes were huge, dark, and had lashes as long as Hope’s little finger. The animal’s coat was thick, slightly curly, and had a black satin richness that begged to be stroked. Butting gently against Hope’s arm, the cow demanded attention.

“Hello, Sweetheart.” Smiling, she rubbed her palms vigorously over the cow’s long, solid back. Automatically she looked for any cuts or scratches that might need a swipe from the bottle of gentian violet that she always kept in the truck. “Where’s your Sweet Midnight?”

Sweetheart snuffled.

“Out running around again, huh?” she said sympathetically, scratching the base of the cow’s blunt ears. “Well, what do you expect of a half-grown bull calf?”

Sweetheart butted Hope less gently this time. The cow knew there was a handful of grain somewhere nearby.

Laughing, Hope shoved against the cow’s muscular neck. She might as well have shoved on the Perdidas. Sweetheart stood pat on her four sturdy legs, demanding her due as Hope’s first and most favored Angus.

“Sweetheart, if I’d known eight years ago that such a cute little ‘kivver’ would grow into twelve hundred stubborn pounds of confident cow, I’d have sold you for steaks.”

The Angus blinked her incredibly long-lashed eyelids. Her moist muzzle prodded Hope’s stomach again.

Giving up the game, Hope went back to the truck’s cab. She untied the grain bag, picked up a battered cake pan, and scooped out some grain.

“Here you go, girl.”

Sweetheart cleaned the pan with more enthusiasm than manners. Her long, thick, surprisingly agile tongue slicked over the metal until nothing was left but a vague scent of oats. The cow lifted her head and looked patiently at Hope.

“Nope,” she said. “Just one pan for you.”

She threw the pan back in the truck and started to pull the hose off the back. As she dragged the ragged canvas tube toward the well, Sweetheart backed off a bit and watched with what could have been interest, confusion, or amusement.

None of the more than thirty black cattle crowded in around the trough as Hope filled it. She was careful not to let the water get so low in the Angus trough that there would be shoving matches and trampling hooves around the big tank. Her breeding animals were too valuable to risk in a free-for-all among thirsty cows.

To Hope, the Angus were the very core of her dream of building the Valley of the Sun into a productive ranch. For that—and for their massive, muscular beauty—Hope loved the Angus. Sweetheart was more a pet than the lean cats that kept the barn from being taken over by mice.

Sweetheart was also a valuable breeder. Hope had kept four of Sweetheart’s calves for the breeding herd. Sweet Midnight, the most recent of her calves, showed promise of being a prizewinning bull. Several ranchers had offered to buy the robust yearling. Hope had turned them down, even though the money would have helped her out. She was saving for the future.

Sweet Midnight would be the founding sire of the Valley of the Sun’s Angus herd. The cows he would breed were as carefully researched and chosen by Hope as Sweetheart had been. Their bloodlines were the finest. It showed in their bulky grace, surprisingly gentle temperaments, and their vigorous, muscular offspring.

Relaxing against Sweetheart’s massive warmth, Hope listened to cattle suck cool water from the trough she had filled. Other cows came up and snuffled over her shirt as if to say hello. Then they moved off to bury their noses in the fragrant hay Mason had brought to the pasture earlier in the day.

Hope watched each cow, each calf. She knew them individually, their strengths and weaknesses, their quirks of temperament. She was alert for any signs of disease or injury, no matter how small.

There weren’t any. With a wry smile she admitted that the cattle were in better shape than she was.

The wind stirred, shifted, blew more strongly.

Sweetheart turned and watched beyond the truck. Her blunt, furry ears were cocked forward, but she wasn’t nervous.

Hope glanced over her shoulder and saw Rio walking toward her. Sweetheart mooed softly as she wandered over to the tall man. Hope saw the sudden flash of Rio’s smile as he held out one hand and ran the other down the cow’s neck. Sweetheart’s long tongue curled out, swiped across his extended palm, and vanished.

When Rio walked up to Hope, the cow followed like a pet dog.

“What’s your secret?” she asked.

“Salt,” he admitted, grinning.

He shoved hard on the persistent cow’s neck. She heaved a barn-sized sigh and ambled back to join the other Angus.

“Must be time to put out more salt licks,” Hope said.

“I’ll do it tomorrow.”

“I can do it.”

“I’m sure you can.” He had seen her handle the heavy blocks of mineral salt once, and had promised himself he would take over that job.

“But you’re going to do it anyway.”

“How’d you guess?”

Laughing, she shook her head, pushed off her hat, and let it hang from its rawhide thong down her back. She shook out her hair and combed her fingers through it. She loved the feel of the wind lifting the heavy mass of hair away from her face.

Rio wondered if the sudden, hungry speeding of his pulse showed against his neck or temple. Deliberately he looked away from Hope’s unintentional seduction and stared at the cattle instead.

“Good herd,” he said after a moment or two. “One of the best I’ve ever seen.”

“Thank you. I won’t pretend I’m not proud of them. I bought some, culled calves, and raised the rest. They’re my gift to the Valley of the Sun.”

Rio’s black eyebrows rose in surprise. To him, Hope was as unexpected as water in a stone desert. “Your family didn’t raise Angus?”

“No, but Dad always wanted to. The first thing I bought him with my modeling money was Sweetheart. He didn’t live to see her bred.”

“You were a model?” Rio asked, surprised again.

Hope thought of the picture she must make—dirty boots and stained blue work shirt, faded jeans and a beat-up cowboy hat. She smiled crookedly. “Long ago, far away, in another country.”

Not all that long or that far,
Rio thought hungrily. He didn’t say it aloud. He was trying not to look at her the way a man looks at a woman he wants. Badly.

Yet he couldn’t always force himself to look away. His uncanny eyes had memorized the purity of Hope’s profile, her shining hair, the womanly lift of her breasts, and the long, achingly lovely line of her legs.

He had known more beautiful women in his wanderings, women who could make men stop and stare in hunger and disbelief. He had never known a woman who called to his mind and senses the way Hope did. He wanted to talk with her, laugh with her, help her, protect her, stand close to the shimmering radiance of her dream.

And he wanted to touch her, to learn the hot, secret textures of her body, to know the sweet demands of her mouth and the heat of her response, to hear her cry out his name when the pleasure he brought her consumed her to her soul.

Grimly Rio called himself a goddamned idiot.

Hope wasn’t for him. His mind knew it, but his body was fighting that knowledge every bit of the way. All Hope had to do was breathe and he wanted her with a force that was different from anything he had ever known with another woman.

Despite the heat coiling in his gut, making him ache, Rio wouldn’t make a move to touch Hope. He had nothing to give her but the well he wanted to find for her, for her dream. When he found it, when the dream was truth, then his brother the wind would call to him. And he would leave.

Hope deserved better than that.

He looked away from the woman he shouldn’t touch and said quietly, “I’ll bet you were good at it.”

“Modeling?”

He nodded.

Hope smiled and dismissed her career with a wave of her hand. “I made a lot of money, but I wasn’t an international cover girl, if that’s what you mean.”

“Did you want to be?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“All I ever wanted was the Valley of the Sun. After Mom and Julie died, I was free to come back home.”

“You don’t model anymore?”

Hope gave Rio a sideways glance out of hazel eyes that were haunted by shadows and lit by flecks of gold. “No. When I’m in L.A. . . .” She shrugged. “I’m not a city girl. I can live there, but I don’t like it.”

“The money is good.”

“That’s why I stayed as long as I did. I had to pay off the inheritance taxes or sell the ranch. After I paid off the taxes, I worked until I thought I had enough money to keep the Valley of the Sun going while I built up the herds and put the ranch on a paying basis.”

“Is there ever enough money on a ranch?” he asked dryly.

She gave him a bittersweet smile. “In some ways, I was as green as grass. I didn’t know that there’s no such animal as ‘enough money’ when you’re talking about a desert ranch.”

“Could you go back to modeling?”

“Could you live in a city?” she asked.

“I have.”

“And now you don’t.”

Rio didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. He was here rather than in a city. So was she.

Hope looked at her beautiful black cattle and the brilliant currents of water welling silently up from the hose at the bottom of the tank.

“I could exist in the city,” she said slowly, trying to make him understand what she barely understood herself. “I can only
live
here. This is my past, my present, my future. No matter where I live, the Valley of the Sun is the only home I’ll ever have. I’ve always felt that way. I always will. The ranch is part of me.”

He wanted to put his arms around Hope, to fold her gently against his body and hold her, to promise her that he would find the well that would allow her to live forever on the land she loved.

But he couldn’t do it. Not the holding. Not the promising.

As a child he had learned that promises were only words, and that the unspoken promise of a comforting hug could be the biggest lie of all.

Not that his parents had meant to be cruel. It just had turned out that way. They had been more interested in fleeing the Indian part of their heritage than they had been in anything else, even their black-haired son.

Silently Hope and Rio watched the cattle glisten blackly beneath the clear light of morning. The fact that it was Friday morning—and early morning at that—suddenly registered on Hope.

Rio shouldn’t be on the Valley of the Sun. He should be at Turner’s ranch.

“Did you finish with Turner’s horses?” she asked.

“After a fashion.”

She turned and looked at Rio, caught by something buried in his western drawl. “What does that mean?”