Buch lesen: «Seduction, Cowboy Style»

One

“Hey, hold up.”

Deck Stryker ambled after his brother Marty, who had just grabbed a grocery cart and headed off down an aisle. It was hard to get lost in the only grocery store in Kadoka, South Dakota, but by the time he got to the corner, Marty had vanished.

Dammit, there was no need to act like he was going to a fire. Striding forward at a faster pace, Deck passed one empty aisle and turned down another—

And banged smack into somebody coming the other way. In the milliseconds that it took his brain to react to the impact, his senses registered softness, full breasts that flattened momentarily against his chest, and a faint floral scent that teased his nose. A woman.

Automatically he reached out, his hands circling her waist as she pitched sideways and staggered to regain her balance. A box of noodles she’d been carrying bounced out of her arms and skittered across the floor, and Deck put out a boot to stop it.

Releasing the woman, he bent and retrieved the box, then straightened and offered it to her. “Sorry, ma’am.”

“I’m sorry, too,” she said, “I wasn’t paying attention…” She broke off and stared up at him, and for a moment, all he could do was stare back.

Attraction. Hot, instinctive awareness, the kind that crashed over a man and left him gasping for air, hit him full in the face. He knew her without ever seeing her before, recognized her, was drawn to her.

Her eyes were compelling, an odd shade of silvery-gray, their thick, dark lashes accenting the softness into which he fell. Deep in his gut, arousal woke as suddenly as if he’d been yanked from sleep by a loud alarm. His fingers tingled where he’d held her waist as if they would carry the imprint of her forever.

She wasn’t a short woman. In the instant in which momentum had plastered her against him her eyes had been level with his mouth. And her body… She’d felt delicate beneath his hands, fine-boned and fragile. As he ran his gaze down over the rest of her, his mind gave a silent wolf whistle. Long and lean were the first words that came to mind. But not too lean, he thought, measuring with his eyes the soft mounds of her breasts pushing at the lavender knit shirt she wore. She had a jean jacket tied around her slender waist which she’d probably discarded when the cool May morning turned into an uncomfortably warm afternoon.

With the shirt, she wore totally impractical, white, city-girl jeans. It confirmed his initial thought that she wasn’t a local girl. The shirt set off her fair ivory skin so that it held a translucent glow and made her eyes seem incredibly striking. Molten silver encased in those dark lashes. He’d never seen eyes like that. They slanted up slightly at the corners, giving her the look of an exotic cat.

She had a strong-boned face with arching dark eyebrows. Dark hair so brown it looked nearly black was caught back from her high forehead with a hair band from which it curled in wild corkscrews to her shoulderblades. Her nose was straight and slim, her cheekbones high and broad, and her mouth… As his gaze skimmed over the full bottom lip and the curved bow of her upper one, the arousal simmering beneath his skin heated up another degree or two.

Abruptly he realized he was staring. That she was staring right back seemed beside the point. She probably wondered if he was crazy.

“I was looking for someone,” he told her. “I apologize again, ma’am.”

“No harm done. I’m not hurt.” She smiled at him, and the mental wolf whistle died away to a whimper of pure, unadulterated lust. Her mouth was too wide. It should have looked odd, but combined with the rest of her features it only gave her an incredibly sexy, pouty look in repose. When she smiled, her lips parted to reveal perfect teeth and her eyes acquired a distinctly devilish gleam.

“Good.” He wondered what else he should say, but talking wasn’t what he did best. Finally he simply tipped his hat and stepped to one side.

Those unusual eyes clung to his for a moment more, but after a short hesitation she stepped past him and went on around the corner from which he’d just come.

When she disappeared around the corner, Deck had to curb the urge to snatch her back. Slowly he started forward again, continuing on through the tiny store. Who was she? Jackson County barely had a thousand people running around it. Surely he’d have heard about it, if a woman who looked like that had been here for long.

“Ready to go?” His brother appeared, pushing a cart toward the checkout counter. He stopped, eyeing Deck warily. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” He made an effort to focus, pushing a too-wide, too-kissable mouth from his mind. “Did you get cereal?”

Marty indicated the cart, which contained several boxes of the food Deck considered an essential. “Sometimes I feel like your wife,” he said in disgust.

Deck only half registered the comment. He scanned the front of the store, then looked back down the aisles in his line of sight, searching for quirky black curls and long, long legs. But he didn’t see her the entire time he tossed the contents of the cart onto the counter.

Her heart-shaped face was still in his mind as they exited the store, each man carrying two bags of groceries.

“Seventy bucks!” Marty complained. “Seventy dollars and all we get are four lousy little bags of groceries. I didn’t even buy any meat except for hot dogs.”

Deck ignored him.

“Can you believe it?” Marty went on as they walked to Deck’s black Ford pickup parked in an angled space along Main Street in front of the store. “The price of—holy smokes, will you look at that?”

Deck lifted his head from the bags he was stashing in the back of the truck. He looked in the direction Marty was staring…and there she was.

“Now that’s a goddess,” said his brother in a reverent tone.

Deck had to agree, although he didn’t like the way his brother was eyeing her. Then again, how many men would ignore her? Silver Eyes must have come out of the store a little bit ahead of them, because there she was, standing uncertainly along the curb a little way down the street. Although he was too far away to see her face clearly, her body language looked anxious and unsettled as she scanned the long, wide-open street as if she was waiting for someone who hadn’t shown up.

“Quick,” said Marty. “Get in. She might need a ride.”

But before either of them could act on the words, a brand-new pickup turned the corner down by the city bar and slowed to a stop in front of the store. Silver Eyes set the single bag she carried in the bed and climbed into the cab. As she opened the passenger-side door and slid in, the man in the driver’s seat looked up and the late-afternoon sunlight fell full on his face.

Deck heard the startled curse his brother muttered. He was too shocked to say anything at all.

The man driving away with Silver Eyes was Cal McCall.

He couldn’t believe it.

The next morning, as Deck manhandled a laden wheelbarrow from the barn to the manure pile, he still hadn’t shaken the image of the silver-eyed woman with whom he’d collided in the grocery story. Of all the cussed, lousy luck in the world, why did she have to be McCall’s woman? The man didn’t deserve to have a good dog, let alone a fine-looking woman like that.

He gritted his teeth as he emptied the wheelbarrow and started back toward the barn. Damn that low-life, cowardly bastard! What was he doing back in Kadoka after thirteen years? Nobody thought he’d ever come back.

And if he had any decency in him at all, he wouldn’t.

It wasn’t as if Deck needed a reminder of the night Genie had died. Genie—his twin sister, frozen in the town’s memory at the age of sixteen. The hair shirt of guilt he’d worn ever since ensured that his memory stay razor sharp and crystal clear.

They’d gone to a community dance. Marty had driven separately, since he and Lora Emerson were a serious item and he’d wanted privacy from his kid sister and brother, the “terrible twinnibles” as he’d called them since they were old enough to toddle around after him. Although they both had driver’s licenses, they decided to ride into the auditorium with the brothers’ best friend, Cal McCall, whose family owned the next ranch over. He could still remember waving goodbye to his dad who’d stood on the porch watching as they’d bounced out the lane.

See you. We’ll be back before dawn.

They’d all thought that was hilarious. And so were the raunchy lyrics of the song they’d sung on the way into town until Genie had balled her fists and hit each of them in the shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise.

Just before eleven Cal and Elmer Drucker had gotten into a fight. They’d been fooling around all evening, vying for the attention of the same girl, and when she’d danced two dances in a row with Elmer, Cal had started a little ruckus. The little ruckus turned into a roll-around-on-the-floor wrestling match until a couple of other guys pulled them apart. Elmer had a cut above his eyebrow that needed stitches so his older brother took him on over to wake up the doctor.

See you. Don’t let him stitch your eye shut.

Cal had strutted around like a banty rooster—until his knee had swollen to the size of a cantaloupe and he’d had to admit he wrenched it pretty good. He’d sat in the corner with ice on it for a while and let the girls fuss over him, but eventually he’d crooked a finger at Deck. “This thing hurts. I think I’d better get home and rub some of that horse liniment on it. We’re branding tomorrow and Dad’ll kick my butt if I can’t ride. You ready?”

It would haunt Deck forever to know that if he’d answered that question differently, his sister might be alive today.

But at the time, he’d thought he had a pretty good chance of finding out whether those enormous jugs under Andrea Stinsen’s shirt were real, so when he saw Cal limping his way, he’d been all too ready to agree when Genie volunteered to take him home.

See you. I’ll catch a ride with Marty later.

It was just his luck that less than fifteen minutes later, Marty was beckoning. How the heck was a guy supposed to score when he kept being interrupted? But he hadn’t been that unhappy. It was apparent by then that pretty Andrea had no intention of letting him check out the contents of her bra that night, so after one last sloppy, steamy adolescent kiss Deck had headed home with Marty.

See you. I’ll come by tomorrow.

But they’d only been halfway down the highway when he saw the flashing lights. Marty had skidded to a panicked stop, recognizing the overturned vehicle as Cal’s father’s pickup…the truck Cal had been driving. Deck was out of the truck before it fully stopped. Emergency workers were already there, and until he explained who he was, they wouldn’t let him into the ambulance that was getting ready to pull away. A part of him registered the enormous hulk of a dead steer in the road, another part noted Cal talking and gesturing as he lay on an additional stretcher being loaded into the second ambulance. But he’d been too frantic about Genie to care about anything else.

She was still conscious when he’d climbed into the back of the ambulance. He wouldn’t have known her if it weren’t for the blue chambray shirt she’d been wearing and the silver buckle she’d won barrel racing that decorated her belt. God, the blood. He’d seen a lot of blood in his work on the ranch but he hoped he never saw anything like that again.

Her eyes had been closed and she’d been moaning in pain, but when he took her hand and spoke to her, she’d whispered, “Deck.”

He hadn’t been able to speak for the fear that clutched his throat, so he bent his head and kissed her fingers.

She’d stirred and opened the one eye that wasn’t swollen shut. “Don’t blame Cal.”

Don’t blame Cal.

She’d never spoken again.

Marty had gone on home to tell their parents, while Deck rode to Rapid City in the ambulance with his unconscious twin. Twelve hours later she’d died in the hospital without ever knowing that her family was around her, without ever knowing that the man who’d done this to her was lounging in a hospital bed up in Philip with a few broken bones instead of in a jail cell where Deck wanted to see him.

See you…see you…see you…

How could she expect him not to blame Cal?

A stinging sensation in his palms made him realize he was standing in the middle of the barn, clutching the wheelbarrow handles so tightly he was in danger of splitting the skin. With vicious force, he slammed open the door of the next stall and started shoveling the soiled straw.

As he put his back into the work, a pair of striking gray eyes floated across his mind, and he seized the opportunity to distract himself. With deliberate attention to detail he called up his memories of the pretty woman with whom he’d collided: full breasts; that too-wide, sexy mouth that had made him want to taste-test it; long, slender legs that were poured into her city girl jeans just right…. What in hell was a fine thing like that doing with Cal McCall?

Three hours later the morning chores were done. Marty’s daughter, Cheyenne, was running a fever, and Marty couldn’t go to the feed store as he’d planned, so Deck climbed into the truck and took off for town. He would swing by the feed store and then pick up the antibiotic the doctor had called in for Cheyenne.

It was a blindingly sunny spring day, and the alfalfa already was tall enough to ripple in a mild breeze. He jammed his hat firmly on his head and drove with the windows down, fingers drumming on the wheel in tempo with Garth Brooks on the radio.

There were a few other trucks in the feed store parking lot when he pulled in. As he slammed the door of the Ford and took the two steps to the front porch of the store in one stride, Stumpie Mohler nodded from his seat in the single rocking chair set amid the barrels and sacks.

“Morning, Stumpie.”

“Morning, Deck. What can we do for you today?”

Deck just looked at him. What the heck did Stumpie think he needed…ice cream? “Feed.”

Stumpie cackled. He’d been a cowhand until three years ago when he’d gotten an arm smashed by a bull and had to have it amputated. Sev Andressen, who owned the feed store, had employed him since then, although it was a standing joke in the community that Sev was paying Stumpie to keep the seat of that rocking chair warm.

“Ain’t gonna get hot enough to work up a good sweat,” the little man proclaimed. Then he cleared his throat ostentatiously. “You heard the news?”

Deck considered. “On the way in here, I heard there’s no rain in sight. And I heard the school board’s considering a tax increase and there’s a new crisis in the Middle East.”

Stumpie hawked and spat into a cup he’d set nearby. “Naw, that ain’t nothing compared to my news.”

He wasn’t going to get out of here without hearing what Stumpie had to say. Deck shook his head, and planted his butt on one of the barrels that lined the rail. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

Stumpie paused and his face registered consternation. “Aw, heck, you ain’t going to be happy when you hear this. It’s a good thing you’re sitting down.”

Deck crossed his arms and waited.

“Word has it you saw Cal McCall in town yesterday.”

Deck nodded. Life in a small town was a pain in the ass sometimes. “‘Word’ has it right. So?”

“He’s bought back his daddy’s place.”

It was a struggle not to show the shock that ripped through his composure. Deck dropped his gaze to the weathered gray boards of the flooring beneath him. One…two… He counted ten nails before he could trust himself to speak. “Is that all?”

“Nope.” Stumpie shook his head, eyeing Deck with wary fascination. “He was in here this morning, asking about ordering feed. Told Sev he done quit his New York job and he’s coming back for good.”

Deck registered the facts. McCall had worked in New York. His lip curled. A city boy. Figured. And he was planning to live here. “Thanks for the news flash,” he said. Rising from the barrel, he headed for the door of the store to give Sev his order.

Not for anything would he let anyone see how the news had shaken him. McCall back here for good? And living on the ranch where he’d grown up? His boots hammered the floor with unnecessary force as he approached the counter where Sev was doing something on a little computer he’d recently installed.

“Morning, Deck.” The big, burly man took one good look at him and added, “I see Stumpie’s already broadcast the news.”

“Yep.” Deck fished in his pocket for the list he’d made. The mares needed some special oats, and Marty had added a few other things as well.

Sev took the piece of paper. “Guess it brings back some sad memories for you.”

“I can think of ones I’d like better.” Deck gestured to the list. “You got everything?”

“Yeah. I’ll help you load it.” He strode around the counter to the front door. “Stump, get in here and cover the phone while I load Deck.”

“You betcha,” came the reply. The little man hustled in the door as Sev led the way out.

With Sev’s help the loading took no time. Ten minutes later Deck was bumping across the gravel street that led to the drugstore.

But when he approached the counter, the pharmacist shook his head apologetically. “It’ll be a few more minutes, Deck. Sorry. It’s been one of those mornings.”

So he cooled his heels wandering around the drugstore while he waited for the prescription. He was standing in front of the magazine rack when someone else came around the nearest corner and he glanced up automatically.

It was Silver Eyes! The woman from the grocery store. Cal McCall’s woman. She stopped dead when she saw him blocking her path.

Today she was wearing black jeans with a white sleeveless shirt that dipped low in the front, showing smooth tanned skin that swelled gently as it disappeared behind the barrier of the fabric. Her eyes were as luminous and bright as they’d been the previous evening as she returned his gaze. Then one corner of her mouth quirked.

“We really must stop meeting in the aisles like this.” Her smile widened, and her eyes warmed with amusement. She put out a hand. “I’m Silver Jenssen.”

Deck looked down at the slim hand she extended. What would her bare skin feel like? Would she be as soft and silky as she looked? He realized she was still standing before him with her hand out, so he slowly put out his own hand and grasped hers.

Her skin was as soft as he’d imagined. No, softer. Her hand was much smaller than his and her skin was smooth as silky fabric. He brushed his thumb back and forth across her knuckles. She was staring at him but those pretty eyes looked puzzled and her smile began to fade. He realized he was staring at her again, just like yesterday. And she was waiting for an answer to her friendly gesture.

“Deck Stryker.” He cocked his head to one side. “Silver for the eyes?”

She nodded. “My mother has them, too. I was going to be named Paula after my father, Paul, but Mama said she knew the minute I opened my eyes that I was Silver.” She grimaced. “Thank heavens. I can’t imagine being named Paula.”

Silver suited her better. He still held her hand. “You’re new in town.”

Her expression altered again, warming. He’d have to try harder to act like a normal human being. Then again, she belonged to McCall so why did it matter what she thought of him?

“Yes, I am,” she said. “I’m just visiting, though, for a month or two.”

“You have family here?” If she’d ever been to Kadoka before, he was positive he’d remember her. And he was dying to know how she’d gotten hooked up with McCall.

She tugged discreetly at her hand, and he let her go reluctantly. “My brother used to live here,” she said. “He just moved back to town.”

“Your brother?” He felt like somebody had hit him right over the head with a two-by-four. Kadoka was a tiny little town. It wasn’t possible that two of its own were returning to live at the exact same time. Which meant…she was Cal’s sister. She was a McCall? But she’d said her name was Jenssen. His mind raced. He’d grown up with Cal and he’d never seen hide nor hair of a sister.

But it was coming back to him now.

No, he’d never seen her, but he knew Cal had a sister. His mama had left his daddy when Cal was still a baby and gone back East to her family. Cal and his daddy stayed on the prairie, and the mother had married some fancy Virginian. This mouthwatering morsel must be the half sister Cal had mentioned from time to time.

She was speaking, and he forced himself to attend to what she was saying.

“…probably know my brother. Cal McCall? I came for a few weeks to help him get the house cleaned up and organized.” She paused. “Is Deck short for something? It’s an unusual name.”

“Deckett,” he told her. “My middle name, my mother’s before she married.”

“Your first name’s that bad?” Her eyes twinkled.

He nodded. “George. I’m not a George.”

“No,” she agreed, looking him over as if comparing him with the name. “You’re not a George.”

“Hey, Deck!” The pharmacist’s bellow was guaranteed to be heard all over the store. “Your prescription’s ready.”

“That’s my signal to get moving.” He hesitated, knowing that once she told her brother who she’d met she very likely wouldn’t even speak to him next time their paths crossed. “You enjoy your visit to South Dakota.”

“Thank you. I’ll be here for several more weeks, so I’m sure I’ll see you again.”

There was nothing he could say to that, so he didn’t even try. Nodding once, he turned and went off to pick up the medicine Marty had sent him for.

“I’ll be fine. Stop worrying!” Silver hunched her shoulder high to hold the cordless phone to her ear as she carried a stack of dishes from a packing crate to the newly cleaned and papered shelf she was filling.

“I know.” She could hear the rueful humor in Cal’s voice. “Old habits die hard. You’ve been my baby sister for a long time.”

“Well, your baby sister’s twenty-six years old now and perfectly capable of staying alone on a ranch for two weeks. I’ll be so busy organizing this house the time will fly.”

“I really am sorry,” Cal said, for what seemed like the tenth time. “I had all the loose ends tied up in New York. But I owed this guy a big favor, and when he called I couldn’t say no.”

She was tired of listening to her brother apologize. “I’m almost done with the kitchen,” she said. “Do you have a preference for how I go about this or shall I just dig in?”

“Whatever.” Cal obviously hadn’t been kidding when he’d told her she could do whatever she wanted to the house once the carpenters were done. “I have to go. Thanks again, little sis. I owe you one.”

“No problem. This is a vacation for me, honestly. Take care of yourself. I’ll see you in two weeks.”

They said their goodbyes, and Silver set down another load of dishes to punch the off button on the phone. As she replaced the phone in the cradle, she realized she’d forgotten to ask Cal if he remembered Deck Stryker from his growing-up days.

Deck.

Golden-brown hair, worn too long under the black hat she had yet to see him without. Too-serious eyes the same dark-blue as the sky right before a summer storm. A mouth with confident, chiseled lips that should smile more often. Come to think of it, she’d never seen him smile at all. She had a feeling that if Deck Stryker ever smiled at her, she’d humiliate herself by kissing the ground at his feet. He was the sexiest man she’d ever met.

That first time, when she’d smacked into him in the grocery aisle, she’d have sworn she’d been struck by lightning when his hands had reached out to steady her. Just for a moment, before he’d set her away, she’d felt the lean, hard contours of his body and had found it hard to draw a steady breath.

The second time, in the drugstore yesterday, she shouldn’t have been quite so overwhelmed by the man. But when he’d taken the hand she extended, she’d gotten the same jittery feeling she’d had the day before, as if she couldn’t get a deep-enough breath after running a five-minute mile. And then he’d just held her hand…and held it and held it until finally she’d gently reclaimed it as her own. He hadn’t smiled once the whole time, either, but those intense blue eyes had devoured every inch of her until he had her more flustered than she’d been when she’d knocked into him the day before that.

If she were looking for a man, she’d definitely look twice at Deck. But the last thing she needed, the very last, was more man trouble. It would be a cold day in hell before she got suckered by sweet words and promises again.

She picked up a china plate from the stack she’d just unwrapped and slid it into the soapy water in which she was washing all the kitchenware before arranging it in Cal’s cupboards and the pretty china closet in the dining room. No, she was too smart to get involved with another man.

Rinsing the soapy dish, her attention was caught by the sparkle of the golden trim on the delicate, fluted edge of the plate. She’d been given a ring that color once. She shuddered to think how close she’d come to marrying the toad who had given it to her, too. Chet had seemed different from the others who’d been more impressed by her family’s bank account than by her as a person. But just like the others, he’d wanted a shortcut to Easy Street, and she’d almost given it to him before she’d seen the truth.

Her morose reflections were interrupted by a knock on the door. Now, who could that be? It wasn’t as if people stopped in off the main road for a chat when the ranch house was two miles back from the highway. Briskly she wiped her hands on a dish towel, slinging it over her shoulder as she walked through the mudroom to the back door and pulled it open.

On the other side stood a girl. Or maybe a woman. She was so skinny it was hard to tell.

Both the girl’s eyes were mottled with old yellow-and-green bruising and there was an ugly red welt along her jaw. A cut snaked up to mar her lower lip line on the left side, and Silver caught her breath at the sight of raw flesh where the mark had split the skin…skin that was dirty and dulled with dust and Heaven only knew what else. On her forehead was a lump the size of a tennis ball, which was red and purpling even as she watched. Silver knew she’d been sheltered from some of life’s harsher realities, but this wasn’t a sight she expected to find on Cal’s back porch first thing in the morning.

“Hello,” said the girl in a hoarse whisper. “M-may I use your telephone?”

“Of course.” Silver opened the door wide and reached out to draw her unexpected guest inside.