The Heart Breaker (16 page)

His soul had been stripped away from him that day. The bleakness and grief had closed around him, enveloping him in blackness. It was the darkest time of his life.

With a raw curse, Sloan rose to his feet and turned away from the grave. Would he ever be free of the haunting memories? Of the guilt that hounded him?

He ran a hand raggedly down his face. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, he lifted his gaze to the rocky, pine-clad slope above the meadow. These mountains, this ranch, the cattle and horses, were all he’d ever wanted before he met Doe. He’d never imagined he would come to cherish a woman above his heritage. Even above his own life.

He would have died in her place if he could. Instead he’d had to live with a bitter knowledge:
he
was the reason Doe was dead. If he hadn’t been so set on protecting his herds, his land, if he hadn’t been so determined to continue the feud....

To get back at him, his enemies had made his wife their target. They’d found Doe alone, driving back from town, and shot her team in its traces. She’d put up a valiant fight, Sloan learned later. The buckboard was riddled with bullet holes, while the rifles she’d carried were empty of ammunition. But when the last bullets were spent, Adam Kingsly and his confederates had set upon her like a pack of rabid wolves.

By the time Sloan found her, he was helpless to save her. Doc Farley told him afterward that if she hadn’t died from the gunshot wounds, the blood loss from the savage rape would have taken her.

His vengeance had been swift. With coldblooded efficiency he’d tracked every last man down, all seven of them, and made them plead for
their miserable lives, before ending them with more mercy than his wife had been shown.

But he couldn’t bring Doe back.

His tortured eyes slid closed. For a few moments Sloan allowed himself to hurt. He let the ache rise up inside him, fierce and overwhelming, as he re-lived tormenting memories he wanted to shut away.

Then he inhaled another shuddering breath and forced himself to turn back to the grave.

“Doe, there’s something I have to tell you,” Sloan murmured in a voice that was low, ragged. “I married again. A stranger from back East. But I want you to know, it doesn’t mean anything to me.
She
doesn’t mean anything. I did it for Janna. Our daughter needed someone to care for her and raise her to be a lady. I know that’s what you would have wanted.”

He paused, unwillingly remembering the woman who’d lain unprotesting beneath him last night, allowing him the hot sweet comfort of her body while he pounded into her.

“She can’t take your place, Doe. I can’t think of her as my wife, or even mistress of the Bar M. Hell, she doesn’t know beans about ranch work. She’s never tanned a hide or driven a herd through a snowstorm. But she’s not as green as I first feared. And Janna has taken to her. She’s good with Janna, Doe. I think you’d approve.

“Still … it’s hard, seeing her in your place. The other day she found your buckskin coat, the one you were wearing the day you… She was washing out the bloodstains.” His mouth twisted. “I yelled at her. Scared the daylights out of her. But I didn’t want her touching your blood.”

Sloan stopped, distractedly fingering the brim of his hat as he remembered his fury at Heather that
day. It wasn’t just her interference that had riled him so unreasonably. It was the insidious effect she had on him. For the past year his heart had been encased in ice, yet the duchess kept finding cracks in his defensive armor.

He despised the emotion she roused in him. He resented her fiercely for all he felt, all she made him feel. He resented his weakness for her.

He didn’t want to want her. Yet he couldn’t get the taste of her out of his mouth, or the feel of her off his skin, or her voice out of his mind. His attraction for Heather was getting out of hand. Last night had shown him his own frightening vulnerability—

With a harsh oath, Sloan pulled some semblance of control around himself. What the hell was he doing, thinking such profane thoughts over Doe’s grave, for crissakes?

Clenching his teeth, he gave one last glance at the headstone and jammed his hat on his head. Then, turning away, Sloan gathered the bay’s reins and swung himself into the saddle.

He was halfway across the meadow before a measure of equanimity returned, and his resolve along with it. He had no intention of being led around by his groin. He would get his craving for his new bride under control if it killed him.

He knew what he wanted from Heather, and it didn’t include love or even passion. He would never feel for her what he’d felt for Doe. He never wanted to care that deeply for a woman again. He couldn’t stand the pain.

Not that it would come even close to that.

Last night had sure as hell been a mistake, but the simple truth was, it had meant nothing to him. He had used Heather’s body, that’s all.

It was a basic tale of man wanting woman, male
needing female. Only sex. Desire in its basest, rawest form. The kind that had nothing to do with love or tenderness, and everything to do with physical need. Their lovemaking could never be like what he’d known with Doe, tender and gentle and … meaningful.

The duchess could never be anything more to him than temptation, Sloan swore. He damned sure wouldn’t let her.

H
is vow to keep away from Heather proved easier once the spring thaws finally came in mid-April. Sloan was able to bury himself in ranch work—the hell with her wary eyes and soft mouth and silken body. The exertion focused his mind and made certain the overriding pain was in his muscles.

With the melting of the snows, he could take stock of the disastrous damages the brutal winter had wrought. Few folks could remember a season whose bitter cold lasted so deep into April, or one so devastating. Fully a third of the Bar M herds had perished, and the steers remaining were more bones than beef.

Heather knew Sloan was avoiding her, yet she tried to bear his neglect with stoicism. She was still inclined to make excuses for him, and during the days at least she had her own work to keep her busy. If during the long nights she had to battle wrenching loneliness, well then, it was the price she had to pay for choosing this life, as the wife of a cattle baron who cared for nothing but his ranch and his daughter.

At least her relationship with Janna continued to
develop. Her fondness for the young child grew, as did the bonds of trust and affection between them. Beginning to shed her quiet shyness, Janna often could be heard chattering to her doll in baby language, before setting off on hands and knees, crawling into corners to explore. Yet for the most part she stayed close to Heather, as if reluctant to let her out of sight.

Heather’s acquaintance with the Bar M ranch hands improved as well. She had never known men quite like these cowboys—ones so honest and direct, who took pleasure in simple joys. They treated her with respect, indeed almost reverence, but lived such rugged lives, she wanted to help ease their hardships if she could.

One afternoon as she stood at the kitchen window, Heather saw several of the hands ride in. She donned her coat and carried a tray out to the bunkhouse, laden with two golden-crusted pies still warm from the oven.

The cowboys were unsaddling their horses at the corral, and when they saw the pies, they tugged off their hats and greeted her with whoops and “Thankee ma’am’s.”

While they teased Cookie good-naturedly about the inadequacy of his cooking, Heather followed the tall, ginger-haired Rusty into the bunkhouse and deposited the pies on a wooden table. She had just stepped outside again when she came to an abrupt halt.

Her husband had ridden up on his rangy bay and sat staring down at her from beneath the brim of his hat.

To her dismay, Heather heard herself stammering. “I b-brought the men some rhubarb pies. Caitlin told me cowboys are wild for it.”

His silence, along with his hard, unwavering gaze, unnerved her.

“Did I do something wrong?” she murmured.

It was all Sloan could do to repress a savage reply. He shut his eyes briefly as a memory pierced him. Doe laughing quietly at herself as she poked at a pie crust, burnt to a crisp around the edges and raw in the middle. Her dismal failure as a cook had frustrated her, only because she’d wanted to please him. She’d never gotten the hang of baking the white way, fixing biscuits like rocks and flapjacks like leather....

The tormenting memory faded, leaving him with a bittersweet, lingering sense of loss.

“No,” Sloan forced himself to say to his present wife, more gruffly than was warranted. “You did right, duchess. The way to a cowboy’s heart has always been through his stomach.”

Heather bit her lip hard, refraining from making the reply that sprang to her tongue.
Is that the way to your heart, Sloan? Do you even have a heart?

She watched, unsurprised, as without another word, he whirled his bay and rode off at a lope, leaving her to stare after him.

He seemed somewhat repentant, however, when he joined her in the study late that evening for the first time in over a week. After asking her how Janna had fared, Sloan went to his desk and pulled out the account books. For a time, the only sound in the room was the crackling of the fire in the hearth and the occasional scratch of his quill pen.

When his heavy sigh broke the silence, Heather couldn’t tell whether it was due to frustration or despair. She looked up from her book to see Sloan roughly run a hand through his tawny hair.

“What is it?” she asked quietly.

“It’s going to be a skinning season.” She waited. When he explained, his tone held an edge of bleakness. “It’s what they call a bust year for cattle. When there’s no market for beef, a rancher can only make money selling his steers for the hides.”

“And there is no market for beef this year?”

“That’s putting it mildly. The price has been dropping for the past two or three years, and it’s at rock bottom now. Add to that the fact that I have fewer head to sell because so many were lost to the cold. Even worse, I’ll have to compete with the big cattle outfits up north. Word is, a lot of them are selling out. If they dump their beeves on the market all at once, it’ll only send prices lower. Even selling the hides won’t recoup my expenses.” He laughed without humor. “At least with smaller herds I won’t have to hire as many hands for spring roundup.”

Heather watched him helplessly, wanting to offer comfort. “You can rebuild your herds, can you not?”

“What would be the point?” His lip curled cynically. “The days of the big cattle dynasties are over. Jake saw it coming. He’s been pushing me to diversify since he came back last summer.”

“Then what do you plan to do?”

Sloan shrugged. “Convert some of the land to raising hay. I started last year. That’s the only way we survived this winter. I don’t much like the idea of becoming a hay farmer, but the demand for hay is growing. And it takes money to keep a ranch going.”

Money he didn’t have. “You still have a great deal of land. Can you not sell some of it?”

His head shot up, and he looked at her, his expression hard and protected. “I don’t think you understand.
The Bar M isn’t for sale and never will be.”

Heather returned his gaze steadily. “Perhaps I
don’t
understand, but I would like to. Very much.”

Sloan took a deep breath, as if realizing her sincerity. “Nearly forty years ago, my father came to Colorado during the gold rush days. But instead of digging for gold, he and Ma carved the Bar M out of rock and timberland. Pa died defending it, and left it to me and Jake. I’d cut off my hands before I willingly sell an ounce of dirt of this place.”

Heather heard the passion in his voice and could no longer question his fierce desire to protect the legacy left to him. Sloan had been entrusted with the land and everything on it, and he would keep it or die trying.

He must have realized how harsh he sounded, though, for his tone softened. “I’m better off than some of my neighbors; any of the larger cattle companies are. In the past few years several big Eastern conglomerates have pushed their way into Colorado, buying up small family ranches, taking advantage of bad times, foreclosing on mortgages and the like. And the U.S. government’s policies have supported the outsiders. In fact, the laws they’ve made lately are downright hostile to homesteaders.” Sloan made a scoffing sound deep in his throat. “Hell, half the politicians in our own legislature don’t know the first thing about ranching. They’re miners or railroad magnates who don’t give a damn about the folks who built this state with their own sweat and blood.”

“Like you,” Heather murmured.

“Me and all the ranchers like me, whether cattle or sheep.” He sought her eyes. “That’s the real reason I decided to run in September’s election. As a state senator I could make a stand for the ranchers
… maybe make a difference. The man I’ll be challenging sure as hell won’t help them. Quinn Lovell has represented this district for two years, but he doesn’t know beans about ranching or about what Colorado really needs. He’s a mining baron who only cares about raping the land for gold and silver. Lining his pockets. Expanding his rule.”