Fire and Rain (2 page)

 For a moment it felt as though time had turned back upon itself, touching again the years before she had mistaken Luke's affectionate tolerance for a very different kind of love. Longing swept through her, a futile wish that she had been different three years ago, or he had been; but she hadn't, and he hadn't, and the memories still shook her. She saw Luke as she had seen him that night, a huge, looming presence, his eyes a golden blaze of reflected firelight. The width of his shoulders had blocked out the world when he bent down and swept her up in an embrace.

 The first instants had been pure bliss, the culmination of years and years of dreaming; and then his arms had tightened and tightened and tightened until she couldn't breathe. His mouth had become rough and demanding, forcing hers to open, giving her a kiss that was as hard and adult as the male body grinding intimately against hers. She had been confused, completely at a loss, and finally a little frightened. It wasn't how she had envisioned Luke's response to her declaration of love – where was the tenderness, the joy, the sweetness of knowing you loved and were loved in return?

 With an effort, Carla banished the agonizing memories and answered Luke's question. "Fred is my truck."

 "Tell him the truth," advised Cash. "Fred is a battered, bewildered, dwarf four-by-four that does its best to play with the big boys. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten a call and had to go and winch Carla out of some damned mud hole. Next time it happens I've got half a mind to make you go and get her, Luke. After all, it's your fault that she's barreling all over the Four Corners chasing ancient shadows."

 Luke's intent, golden eyes fixed on Cash. "It is?"

 "Damned straight. If you hadn't given her that shard of Anasazi pottery you found somewhere up in September Canyon, she never would have become interested in archaeology. If she weren't interested in archaeology, she wouldn't have been off running after old bones with her professors every summer and most vacations."

 "I thought it was boys that girls chased," Luke said, fixing Carla with enigmatic golden eyes.

 "I gave up chasing boys right after I graduated from high school," Carla said flatly. "And stop trying to change the subject," she continued, turning to Cash, changing the subject herself. "You owe me fourteen bucks for the pizza."

 "And eighty-six bucks for truck repairs?"

 She smiled slightly and shook her head. "No, but I wouldn't turn down a hug."

 Cash engulfed Carla in a hug. Though she was five foot seven, the top of her head barely brushed Cash's chin. He lifted her and swung her around. When he set her down again, she was almost on Luke's feet. There was barely room for her to breathe. Luke was the same height as her brother, six foot three, and weighed within a pound or two of Cash's one ninety-six. That was probably one of the reasons the two men got along so well – they were built on the same scale. Big.

 Without warning, Luke's long fingers tilted Carla's chin, forcing her to meet his eyes.

 "Are you really all grown-up now, sunshine?"

 The old nickname and the searching intensity of Luke's eyes took Carla's breath away, making speech impossible.

 "Hey, that reminds me," Cash said. "It's been months since I've played killer poker."

 "Not surprising," Luke retorted, releasing Carla with the speed of a man passing a hot potato on to its final destination. "It's been months since you've found an out-of-state sucker who doesn't know why Alexander McQueen is called 'Cash.'"

 "Lucky at cards, unlucky at love."

 Luke snorted. "I'll shuffle. Carla can deal. You open the champagne I brought."

 "Champagne?" Carla asked, stunned.

 She looked up into Luke's eyes. He was still standing close to her, so close that she could sense the heat of his big body. She hadn't sensed anyone's presence so acutely in years.

 Three years, to be exact.

 Luke's slow smile as he looked down at Carla made something stir and shimmer to life deep within her.

"Champagne," he confirmed, his voice deep. "You only turn twenty-one once. It should be special."

 By the time the cards were shuffled, cut and dealt, Carla was sipping from a glass of golden champagne, which fizzed and sizzled softly over her lips and tongue. She hardly noticed the alcohol, for her blood was already sparkling from the memory of Luke's fingers on her skin.

 Are you really all grown-up now?

 The implications of that question scattered Carla's attention, making her lose at cards more rapidly than usual. Before Luke poured her a second glass of champagne, she had lost her original stake – six dollars. She handed over the last of her nickels. Without rancor, for it had been Cash rather than Luke who had won the lion's share of the pots. Long ago, Carla had decided that Cash must have made a deal with the devil in exchange for luck at cards.

 By the time Luke poured Carla a third glass of champagne, the pizza was reduced to grease spots on the paper plates, and it had become clear to everyone that Cash's luck was running as high as ever. Luke was down to three dollars from his original six, and Carla had traded seven days' worth of home-cooked meals for fifty cents each and promptly had lost every penny.

 Normally Carla would have stopped drinking halfway through her second glass of champagne, but nothing about her twenty-first birthday was normal – especially the presence of Luke MacKenzie. The champagne was a dancing delight that smelled as yeasty as the bread she loved to bake. Cash and Luke were in fine form, trading insults and laughter equally. When Luke poured a third glass of champagne for Carla, she was into Cash for a summer's worth of meals and Luke was down to seventy-five cents.

 Carla rooted for Cash unabashedly, frankly enjoying seeing Luke on the losing end of something for a change. Luke took the "card lessons" in good humor, squeezing every hit of mileage from his shrinking pile of small change.

 And then slowly, almost imperceptibly, Luke started winning. He rode the unexpected streak of luck aggressively, repeatedly betting everything he had and getting twice as much back from the pot. By the time the last drops from the magnum of champagne had been poured – by Carla into Luke's glass, in a blatant attempt to fuzz his mind – Cash was down to his last nickel. He tossed it into the pot philosophically, calling Luke's most recent raise.

 Luke fanned out his cards to reveal a pair of sevens, nine high. Cash made a disgusted sound and threw in his hand without showing his cards.

 "What?" Carla said in disbelief. She reached for Cash's abandoned cards, only to have her fingers lightly slapped by her brother.

 "Bad dog, drop!" he teased. "You know the rules. It costs good money to see those cards and you're broke."

 Carla withdrew her fingers and muttered, "I still don't believe that you couldn't crawl over a lousy pair of sevens."

 "You forgot the nine," Luke said.

 "It's easy to forget something that small," Carla shot back. She sighed. "Well, I guess this just wasn't your night, big brother. All you won was something you would have gotten anyway – a summer's worth of dinners cooked by yours truly."

 "Sounds like a damned good deal to me," Luke said.

 There was a moment of silence, followed by another. The silence stretched. Luke arched his dark eyebrows at Cash in silent query. Cash smiled.

 "You'll have to throw in wages," Cash said.

 "Same as I paid the last housekeeper. But she'll have to keep house, too. For that I'd bet everything on the table. One hand. Winner take all."

 "What do you say, sis?" Cash asked, turning toward Carla.

 "Huh?"

 "Luke has agreed to bet everything in the pot against your agreement to be the Rocking M's cook and housekeeper."

 "You're out of school for the summer, right?" Luke asked.

 She nodded, too off balance to tell him that she was out of school, period. She had crammed four years of studying in the three years since she had graduated from high school. It had been the perfect excuse not to spend summers on the Rocking M, as she had since she was fourteen.

 "You can start next weekend and go until the end of August. A hundred days, give or take a few," Luke said casually, but his eyes had the predatory intensity of a bird of prey. "Room, board and wages, same as for any hired hand."

 Carla stared at Cash. He smiled encouragingly. She tried to think of all the reasons she would be a raving idiot for taking the bet.

 Her blood sizzled softly, champagne and something more.

 "Do you have your toes crossed for luck?" Carla demanded of her brother.

 "Yep."

 She took a deep breath. "Go for it."

 Cash turned to Luke. "Five cards, no discard, no draw, nothing wild. Best hand wins."

 "Deal," Luke said.

 Suddenly it was so quiet that the sound of the cards being shuffled was like muffled thunder. The slap of cards on the table was distinct, rhythmic. There was the ritual exchange of words, the discreet fanning and survey of five cards. Luke's expression was impossible to read as he laid his hand face-up on the table and said neutrally, "Ace high … and nothing else. Not a damned thing."

 Cash swore and swiftly gathered all the cards together into an indistinguishable pile. "You're shot with luck tonight, Luke. All I had was a jack."

 For an instant there was silence. Then Luke began laughing. When he turned and saw Carla's stunned face, his expression changed.

 "When the isolation gets to you," Luke said carefully, "I'll let you welsh on the bet. No hard feelings and no regrets."

 "What?"

 "Women hate the Rocking M," Luke said simply. "I doubt that you'll last three weeks, much less three months. College has made a city slicker out of you. Two weekends without bright lights and you'll be whining and pining like all the other housekeepers and cooks did. You can make book on it."

 Whining and pining.

 The words echoed in Carla's mind, leaving a bright, irrational anger in their wake.

 "You're on, cowboy," she said flatly. "What's more, you're going to eat every last one of your words. Raw."

 "Doubt it."

 "I don't. I'm going to be the one who feeds them to you."

 Luke's slow smile doubled Carla's heart rate and set fire to her nerve endings. He laughed a soft, rough kind of laugh and gave her the only warning she would get.

 "There's something to remember when you start feeding me, baby."

 "What's that?"

 "I bite."

~3~

What in God's name am I doing here? Have I gone entirely crazy?

 "Here" was on a dirt road winding and looping and climbing up to the Rocking M. All around Carla for mile upon uninhabited mile, the Four Corners countryside lay in unbridled magnificence. It wasn't the absence of people that was causing Carla to question her own sanity; she loved the rugged, wild land. It was the presence of people that was giving her stomach the ohmygod flutters. To be precise, it was the presence of one particular person – Luke MacKenzie, owner of a handsome chunk of the surrounding land.

 And a handsome chunk himself.

 In the back of her mind Carla kept hearing her brother's advice.
Chin up, Carla. You can do anything for a summer. Besides, you heard Luke. He won't be any harder on you than he is on any other ranch hand.

 "Thanks, big brother," Carla muttered as she remembered Cash's smiling send-off that morning. "Thanks all to hell."

 Not that she was angry with Cash for being amused by her predicament. He had only been doing what big brothers always did, which was to treat their smaller sisters with a combination of mischief, indulgence and love. Nor was it Cash's fault that Carla found herself driving over a rough road to a live-in summer job with the man who had haunted her dreams for every one of the seven years since she had been fourteen. Cash wasn't at fault because he hadn't been the one to suggest the bet that he had ultimately lost.

 However, he had neglected to mention that Luke would be part of her birthday celebration. When Carla walked in the front door and saw him, she had nearly dropped the pizza she was carrying. Luke had always had that effect on her. When he was nearby, her normal composure evaporated. She had made a fool of herself around him throughout her teenage years.

 
Well, not quite all of my teenage years, Carla told herself bracingly. I was eighteen when I took the cure. Or rather, when Luke administered it.

 After that, she had stopped finding excuses to go out to the Rocking M and watch the man she loved. But she hadn't stopped soon enough. She hadn't stopped before she had told Luke that she loved him and begged him to look at her as a woman, not a girl.

 The memory of that disastrous evening still had the ability to make Carla flush, go pale and then flush again with a volatile combination of emotions she had no desire to sort out or describe. The one emotion she had no trouble putting a name to was humiliation. She had been mortified to the soles of her feet. But she had learned something useful that night. She had learned that people didn't die of embarrassment.

 They just wanted to.

 So she had turned and run from the scene of her personal Waterloo. Driving recklessly, crying, putting as much distance as she could between herself and the man who was much too sophisticated for her, she had fled the ranch. All the way home she had told herself that she hated Luke. She hadn't believed it, but she had wanted to.

 Since then, Carla had tried to put Luke MacKenzie out of her mind. She hadn't succeeded. Every time she went out on a date, she only missed Luke more. Not surprisingly, she didn't date much. The harder she tried to find other men attractive, the brighter Luke's image burned in her memory.

 
No man can be that special, Carla told herself fiercely. My memory isn't reliable. If I were around Luke now, as a woman, he wouldn't be nearly so attractive to me. Familiarity breeds contempt. That's why I let all this happen. I wanted to get familiar enough to feel contempt.

 That, or outright insanity, was the only explanation for what had happened the evening of her twenty-first birthday, a celebration of the very date when she had legally become old enough to know better.