As Maggie dragged the saddle and blanket into the barn, she heard the slamming of the cab door and the coughing sputter of the truck motor before it started. The truck was bouncing down the rutted lane when she emerged from the barn to walk to the house.
There was still her brother to feed, so Maggie walked to the sink to wash her hands before fixing lunch. She stared at her reflection in the mirror, unable to understand how her father had known she’d been with Chase that morning, or how he had guessed that they had made love.
The pickup’s accelerator was pressed to the floor all the way into town, where the truck clattered to a bumping stop in front of the small café. Angus charged out of the cab, slamming the door and stalking into the building. It was lunch hour and the place was half-filled with customers. His glance swept over the occupants in undisguised irritation as he crossed the room to sit on a stool at the far end of the counter. The bullet-headed owner was standing at the grill behind it, a metal spatula in his chubby hand.
“What’ll you have, Angus?” Tucker didn’t move, except to turn his head and look at his latest customer.
“Coffee.”
The owner-cook flipped a pair of hamburgers with the spatula and squashed them flat, then shifted his hulk the two steps needed to reach the coffee urn. After filling a white cup, he traversed the length of the counter to set it in front of Angus.
“Anything else?” Tucker paused to wipe his hands on the stained front of the white bibbed apron.
“Yeah.”
“Stick around,” Tucker advised. “This place will clear out in another half-hour. Then we’ll talk about it.” A gleam brightened his small eyes as he added softly, “Partner.”
Two weeks later a full moon peeked from behind a cloud, casting its light on a pair of riders walking their horses through tall, Calder grass. The creaking of saddle leather was loud in the stillness. Angus glanced at his son, whose head seemed to be on a swivel, always looking nervously around. He had the same crawly feeling in the pit of his stomach, too, and his throat was dry. Dam
n, but he wanted a drink. He looked to the front again, gathering courage from his all-consuming hatred.
“That bunch of cattle we spotted should be over that next hillock,” he whispered to Culley and pointed.
“Pa, what happens if we get caught?”
“We aren’t gonna get caught. Tucker and me have it all figured out. All we have to do is drive the cattle to the road where the truck is waiting.”
There were several seconds of silence before Culley asked, “Are you … nervous, Pa?”
The choice of that adjective was one Angus could admit to feeling. “Some. But I keep imagining Calder’s face when he discovers he has cattle missing. The bastard will be furious.” Angus paused to gloat silently over the thought. “No one’s had the guts to stand up to him until we came along. No Calder is going to ride roughshod on us little guys and ever get away with it again. I’m going to get even with that son-of-a-bitchin’ bastard for all the grief and misery he’s caused if it’s the last thing I do,” Angus vowed. “We’ll haul every steer off this place before we’re through with our midnight rides. We’ll break him, Culley—you and me.” A soft, malicious laugh came from his throat. “We’ll be rich and he’ll be poor. He’s going to regret the day he let his son lay a hand on your sister. He’s going to regret it real bad.”
“And we’re going to make sure of it,” Culley murmured in fervent agreement.
Removing his hat, Chase combed his fingers through his unruly brown hair and set the felt Stetson back in place. The sun was directly overhead, scorching the metal of the pickup where it wasn’t protected by the tree’s shade. He scanned the hillside in the direction from which Maggie would be coming. She was already almost a full hour late.
They usually managed to meet twice a week at a pre-arranged location. It wasn’t the most satisfactory solution, meeting in the daytime with limited time to spend together. Even if he ignored the fact that her father would never give Maggie permission to openly date him, where would he take a fifteen-year-old girl? The only social gathering place close by was Jake’s, and he couldn’t take her there.
So they had met when and where they could. A couple of times ranch work had kept Chase away, but this was the first time Maggie hadn’t shown up. He felt raw inside, eaten up with a need he couldn’t control.
He had waited as long as he could. Abandoning his vigil, Chase turned and grabbed the shirt draped over the side of the pickup bed. As he pushed his arms into the sleeves, he walked to the cab of the truck. He had yanked open the driver’s door before he heard the hoofbeats of an approaching horse.
Remaining poised beside the open door, Chase turned toward the sound. Some of the tension eased from him at the sight of the horse’s rider, a slim extension of the mount she rode. She cantered the bay toward him, weaving through the stand of trees to reach him. Pleasure swept through him, soft like the stirring warmth of a summer breeze, when she reined to a stop near the truck and kicked her feet out of the stirrups to slide to the ground.
There was a certain knowing look to her smile, an awareness that the rounded shape of her upper body sang to him and excited his male interest. She was a picture of country freshness, framed before his hungry eyes. The pull of her was urgent, but Chase stayed by the truck door, making her walk to him.
“Sorry I’m late, but I had to practically drag Pa and Culley out of bed this morning,” she explained with a kind of breathless rush. “Everything ran behind schedule after that. I wasn’t sure you’d still be here.”
Maggie stopped a foot in front of Chase and tipped her head back to study his face—bony and rugged. Inwardly, she strained toward him, asserting her will on him. It gave her a sense of power to see the glinting darkness of want appear in his eyes. It was there now, but he was resisting it.
“I was just leaving.” Irritation flickered through him at being denied the sight of all that black hair tucked under her hat. “Take your hat off. You look like a twelve-year-old when you have your hair hidden in the crown.” Chase suffered small spasms of guilt when he was reminded of her youth, but they were never strong enough twinges of conscience to make him stop meeting her.
With a soft laugh, Maggie swept the hat off her head and shook her hair free. She eyed him with a challenge that was unknowingly provocative before her gaze drifted down to brazenly admire his hard-muscled torso where the unbuttoned front of his shirt swung open.
“Do you like what you see?” His dark eyes were three-quarters lidded, and there was a lazy curve to his mouth.
“Yes—what little I see.”
Her audacious reply produced a deep chuckle from his throat. “You are turning into a bold little hussy,” Chase mocked.