Probably because she’d been so danged happy, he had to be happy for her too.
He wedged into the slight gap between Malika and Saber and took hold of the horse’s bridle.The movement put him in close physical contact with Malika.His knee brushed her thigh.The toe of her boot nicked the thick sole of his shoe, and one of her breasts—as firm as it looked—heated his upper arm.
His shirt collar tightened.Mountain nights were normally cool, even in summer.This night was stiflingly warm.The moon face-palmed itself, expressing its private opinion over what was transpiring, and hid behind a gathering of clouds.Saber, normally docile, became edgy, picking up on the mood.
But Jayce clung to his role.He was an honorable cowboy, come to her rescue.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what a helicopter is, ma’am,” he said.
“Of course you don’t.How could you possibly know?”Sarcasm lay thick in the air he was breathing.“Did my brother say how long before he returns?”
He saw no harm to the plot by providing an answer.“Likely toward the end of the summer.Ma’am.”Which was roughly two months away.
He’d never make it.
She tapped her upper lip, the silence broken only by the distantwhoo-coo-cuh-rooof a barred owl, and a door closing somewhere in town.The night filled with shadows.He thought he smelled ozone and waited for the explosion.
“This is perfect,” she exclaimed, to his great confusion.
He almost asked why but caught himself.He knew better than that.
“Why don’t we take Saber back to the stable and bed him down for the night, then I’ll walk you home?”
“I can walk myself home.It’s not very far.”
“Sorry, ma’am, but I can’t allow that.What with the bounty hunters, and wild bears, and all.”
He didn’t want to walk her home any more than she wanted him to.The memory of how she looked naked was taped to the backs of his eyelids, like a pinup on the inside of a teenaged boy’s bedroom closet door, and he had mixed feelings about it.She’d been so brazen—as if she’d enjoyed having someone to watch her—that he’d enjoyed it too much, as well.
That was before he’d known she’d be here for the entire summer, or that he’d be the one assigned to oversee her adventure.He’d only ever played bit parts in scripts before.A gambler.A gunfighter.He’d never had time for anything more.Summers on ranches meant all hands were on deck.
Hold on.
His relief was so profound, he nearly sank to his knees.He couldn’t play the role Mavis gave him.He had a family ranch to help run.He’d remind her of that first thing in the morning, which wasn’t all that far off.
He settled Saber with a few soothing strokes of the neck, then started the short walk to the stable.
Malika fell into step.“Bounty hunters, bears, and out-of-staters.These mountains are very busy.”
He let the out-of-stater comment pass uncorrected, even though it didn’t match with the timeline.Montana was a territory, not a state.
“People come here to get rich.”Before Burning Scrub became a ghost town, the place was hopping.His family was living proof.“There’s silver in the mountains, also a little gold, and beaver in the waterways for trapping.The natives come here to hunt and fish.”
By natives he meant David McAllister and his Salish Kootenai friends from the Flathead Reservation.They liked to camp and hunt in the mountains and get back to nature.Dave, in his Thundering Buffalo role, also led Indian raids on Burning Scrub in exchange for donations to the reservation that they ran through the casinos.
Malika skipped a few steps ahead, turned, and bounced on her toes as she faced him.“People come here to start new lives where no one knows them too.”
“Your brother’s coming back for you,” he said, immediately wary.
“He’s not coming back.If the bounty hunters don’t find him first, he’ll be eaten by bears.”She pressed the heel of her wrist to her forehead.“Whatever is a ruined woman to do to survive on her own in this town?”
Why did she always have to take things too far?“Nobody here knows you’re ruined.”
“Of course they know.Everyone knows.That’s why my brother is being hunted by bounty hunters.The father of the man he killed for ruining me wants him dead for killing his only son.An eye for an eye.”
His left eye twitched.Her storyline was Burning Scrub’s problem.He had a ranch to run.“You could sell pies to miners.Miners love fresh-baked pies.”
“I have a much better idea.”She clapped her hands with excitement.“Miners will love this more than pies.”
