Years

  Returning, she took one look at the rapt expression on his face and thought, oh no, what should I do now? But she was still his teacher and there definitely were things he needed to learn, and if one of them was that helping a woman with her coat didn’t constitute an act of intimacy, so be it.

  “Would you mind, Kristian?”

  He stared at the wool garment, hesitant to touch it.

  “Kristian?” She cocked her head, waiting.

  “Oh!” He jumped and jerked his hands from his pockets. “Oh, sure.”

  He’d never held a woman’s coat before. He watched her shrug into it, then reach up to free her hair from inside the collar — women sure moved different than men.

  She lowered the lantern wick and preceded him down the steps with brisk, businesslike footsteps.

  Downstairs, they collected Nissa, another surprise.

  “You’re coming, too?” Linnea asked.

  “Just try and get away without me. M’ limbs ain’t rusted up yet, and dancin’s more fun than rockin’!” She was gussied up in a navy-blue dress with a white lace collar, joined in the front by a ghastly brooch. And she was rarin’ to go.

  Outside, Theodore sat on the seat of a buckboard loaded with laughing men and the garish redheaded cook, who was regaling them with a loud story about somebody named Ole who could break wind on command.

  As the trio approached from the house, Rusty Bonner leaped down, smiling with half his mouth. He tipped back his hat brim and hooked both thumbs beside his gleaming belt buckle. “Evenin’, Mrs. Westgaard, Miss Brandonberg. Allow me?”

  He presented a palm to Nissa first.

  “To do what?” she crackled, and ignoring his hand informed him, “I’ll ride up front with Theodore. These old bones can still dance, but hunkerin’ on that hay’d jar m’ sockets.” While the men laughed she hotfooted it to the front of the wagon, leaving Linnea facing Rusty, whose hand was now waiting for hers.

  “Ma’am?” he drawled. What else could she do but accept it?

  Theodore cast a baleful eye over the proceedings as Bonner turned on the charm and, smooth as rendered lard, captured her waist and lifted her bodily onto the straw. He followed with a long-legged leap that showed off his wiry agility to great advantage. Theodore scowled as Bonner settled himself about as close as he could get to Linnea’s side.

  Theodore turned away. “Giddyup!” It was none of his business if Rusty Bonner flirted with every woman whose breasts didn’t sag — he glanced askance at his mother — and some whose did!

  But the little missy would be easy pickin’s for a smooth mover like Bonner.

  She’s got no pa to look after her here, so she’s your responsibility! Bonner’ll have her in a haystack faster than a weasel on a hen’s neck, and she won’t even know what he’s aiming for till it’s too late!

  Riding, Linnea felt Rusty Bonner’s hip and thigh press hers. Across the wagon, the boisterous cook was telling a story about skinning a bullhead fish with her teeth. The men roared. But from her right, she felt Kristian’s outrage burning at Bonner. They sat with their backs against the sideboards, knees up-drawn. She tried to ease over and put an inch between herself and Bonner, but when she did she encountered Kristian, and that certainly wouldn’t do! She centered herself as best she could, but Bonner let his leg loll wider and stalk hers. She was conscious that he was the only man here wearing tight denim britches, so tight they were nearly indecent. They added to his sinewy look and that air of banked sexuality that made her feel awkward and a little frightened. She sensed him watching her from beneath the shadow of his cowboy hat while his shoulders slumped indolently, his knees lolled wide, and his wrists dangled lazily against his crotch.

  Nissa’s words came back clearly: With his kind a woman don’t have to.

  By the time they arrived at Oscar’s place, Linnea’s stomach was jumping. Rusty was johnny-on-the-spot to help her alight. But once she was down, he stepped back politely, then touched his hat brim in parting. “Y’all be sure to save me a dance, ma’am.” Turning away from his unnerving grin, Linnea felt enormously relieved.

  Theodore saw to the horses and entered the barn just as Linnea was taking her turn up the ladder to the loft. He watched furtively as Rusty Bonner stood back, eyeing her skirts and ankles as she made her way up. Theodore pressed his palms beneath his armpits and waited until Bonner, too, had gone up, then followed them and immediately searched out John.

  “I got to talk to you.” He took John’s arm and angled him away from the crowd. “Keep your eye on Bonner.”

  “Bonner?” repeated John.

  “I think he’s got eyes for the little missy.”

  “The little missy?”

  “She’s awfully young, John. She’s no match for a man like that.”

  John’s face was an open book. When he became displeased it showed plainly.

  “She all right?”

  “She’s all right. But tell me if you see him hounding her, will you?”

  John wasn’t bright, but his loyalty, when he bestowed it, was unshakable. He liked Linnea, and he loved Theodore. Nothing Rusty Bonner tried would escape his watchful eye.

  The band was already tuning up — fiddle, squeeze-box, and harmonica, and it wasn’t long before the music was in full swing. To Theodore’s relief, the first one to ask Linnea to dance was his nephew, Bill. He watched her face light up with surprise as they stood talking for a moment.

  “Hello, again,” Bill said.

  “Hello.”

  “Want to dance?”

  Her gaze followed a smoothly moving couple. “I’m not very good. You might have to teach me.”

  He smiled and took her hand. “Come on. This one’s a two-step. It’s easy.”

  When he swung her onto the floor, he added, “I wondered if you’d be here.”

  “Where else would I be? Everybody’s here.” She looked around. “But how did they all know where the dance was going to be?”

  “Word gets around. So, how have you been?”

  “Busy — Oops!” She tripped on his toe and broke their rhythm. “I... I’m sorry,” she stammered, feeling foolish, then blushing as she saw Theodore standing on the sideline, looking on. She dropped her eyes to her feet. “I wasn’t raised doing fancy steps like that.”

  “Then I’ll have to show you.” He softened the turns, shortened his steps, and gave her time to adjust to his style.

  “I’ll have a lot of catching up to do if what Kristian says is true. He said some of you started going to dances when you were thirteen.”

  “Fourteen for me. But don’t worry — you’re doing fine.”

  She watched their feet for some time, then he playfully shook her a little. “Relax and you’ll enjoy it more.”

  He was right. By the end of the dance, her feet were negotiating the patterns much more smoothly, and when the music ended she smiled and clapped enthusiastically.

  “Oh, this is fun!”

  “Then how about the next one?” Bill invited, smiling down appreciatively.

  Bill was a smooth and artful dancer. Linnea was soon laughing and enjoying herself with him. Halfway through the second dance, she swirled around in his arms to confront Theodore, not six feet away, dancing with the redheaded cook. Though she knew she was gaping, Linnea found it impossible not to. Why, whoever would have thought Theodore could dance that way? He sailed around on the balls of his feet like some well-balanced clipper ship, guiding — what was her name again? — Isabelle... Isabelle Lawler. Guiding Isabelle Lawler with an easy grace that transformed them both. He caught Linnea’s eye and nodded with a smile, then swung around leaving her to stare at his crossed suspenders and his incredibly wide shoulders with Isabelle Lawler’s freckled arm spanning them. In another moment they were lost in the crowd. Linnea’s gaze followed until all she could see was a glimpse of his outstretched right arm with the white sleeve rolled up to the elbow. Then even that was gone.

  The song ended. She danced next with some strange
r named Kenneth, who was about forty years old and had a pot belly. Then with Trigg, who said his wife would dance only on alternate songs, because she tired easily. Linnea found Clara looking on and waggled two fingers. Clara waggled back and they exchanged fond smiles. She’d intended to talk to Clara when the song ended, but Kristian appeared before her, wiping his palms on his thighs while asking her to dance. Goodness, was it all right for a teacher to dance with her students? She glanced at Clara for help. Clara shrugged, palms up, and smiled.

  Dancing with Kristian, Linnea began to realize that rhythm came built into these Norwegians. Even he, with only a year’s experience, made her feel like a bumbling beginner.

  “Why, Kristian, you’re as smooth as your father!”

  “Oh, have you danced with him already?”

  “No! No... I only meant, I can see he’s very good.”

  Theodore was dancing with a buck-toothed woman now, laughing at something she’d said, and Linnea felt a small spurt of jealousy. But just then another couple danced by, distracting Linnea. “Oh, look at Nissa!”

  They followed her as she whirled around on John’s arm.

  “And, mercy! John, too!”

  Kristian laughed at her wide-eyed amazement. “Ain’t much... ” This time he stopped himself. “Isn’t much else to do around here all winter except dance and play cards. We’re all pretty good at both of them.”

  As the evening wore on, Linnea was paired off with one after the other of the Westgaard men, their helping hands, the fiddler (who took a conspicuous break), several neighbors she’d never met before, and even school-board chairman Oscar Knutson. They were all good, but none were as good as Theodore, and she was dying to dance with him. But he asked every woman in the place except her.

  Once during a break between songs they nearly ran into each other in the crowd.

  “You having a good time?” he asked.

  “Wonderful!” she said, forcing a smile. She was having a wonderful time. So why did she have to force a smile?

  She danced with John — he was almost as smooth as Theodore, but not quite — then twice more with Bill and even with Raymond. She visited with Clara while the redheaded cook was back on the dance floor with Theodore again. Her eyes met his across the noisy hay mow, and she flashed him what she hoped was an innocent smile of invitation, but he only twirled his partner away.

  Blast you, Theodore, get over here and ask me!

  When the song ended, he did cross to them, making Linnea’s heart leap, but when he got there it was Clara he led back onto the floor. Next he chose the buck-toothed one again. A woman who could eat corn through a picket fence! So what does he intend to do, ignore me all night?

  While Linnea was still seething, Rusty Bonner appeared before her, tipping his hat and smiling his crooked smile, the comers of his eyes hooking downward.

  “Dance, ma’am?”

  She’d been standing on the sidelines for two songs while Theodore blatantly ignored her.

  Watch this, Theodore!

  “That sounds fun.”

  When he swung her into his arms, he immediately held her closer than the others, and instead of sticking to the basic box waltz, he languidly shifted from foot to foot with a “one-two” rocking motion that gently pumped her arm. He leaned forward from the waist and held his elbows high in a fashion that made her feel out of her depth. He was nothing whatever like the other men. Even his shoulders felt different inside a streamlined denim jacket that matched his jeans. Beneath it he wore a red and white checked shirt with a red bandanna tied about his throat. When he turned his eyes directly to hers, she found his face so close that she could count the hairs in his sable eyelashes He had a way of allowing his eyelids to droop half-closed that made her stomach start jumping again. She returned a quavering smile and he shifted his arms, locking both hands at the small of her back. She felt his big silver belt buckle graze her waist and sucked in her belly.

  “You enjoyin’ yourself, Miss Brandonberg?” he drawled, and she had the feeling he was indulgently laughing at her.

  “Y... yes.”

  “You dance very well.”

  “No, I don’t. The other women are much better than I am.”

  “To tell the truth, I haven’t been watching them much, so I really wouldn’t know.”

  “Mister Bonner—”

  “Rusty.” He smiled that lazy, melting smile, and nudged her thighs with his. “And what’s your first name?”

  “Linnea.”

  “Lin-nay-uh.” He rolled it from his tongue, syllable by syllable, as if tasting it. “Now isn’t that pretty?” Everything about him made her feel like somebody had just rammed a finger into the hollow of her throat, and she thought, Damn you, Theodore, for making me do this!

  She was surprised when her voice came out smoothly.

  “Are you from around here, Rusty?”

  “No, ma’am. Drifted in from Montana, and before that Idaho and Oklahoma.”

  “M... my, that’s a lot of drifting.”

  He laughed, giving a glimpse of straight white teeth, tipping his head back, then letting his indolent gaze drift to her face again.

  “I ride the rodeos, mostly. It’s a driftin’ kind of life, Linnea.”

  “So what are you doing here harvesting wheat?”

  “The rodeo season is over. Got to have a dry bed and three square ones a day.”

  It struck her why he was so honed-looking: more than likely there’d been many a day he hadn’t had three square ones, living the life he did. She suspected he’d danced this way with strange women in every western state of the union.

  “So tell me. Do you win at this rodeoing?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” His drawl was thick and teasing as he settled a little closer so that her breasts brushed the front of his jacket. “When I let you go, you take a look at my belt buckle. Won it for riding the steers down in El Paso last season.”

  She tried to pull way but couldn’t; he’d drawn her so close she had to lean back to see his face.

  “You ever seen a man ride the steers?”

  She swallowed and tried to breathe normally. “N... no.”

  “You ever seen a man ride anything?”

  “O... only horses.”

  “Broncs?”

  She shook her head in two nervous jerks while he poured that molten, sexy grin over her at far too close a range.

  “N... no. Just saddle horses.”

  “You notice my belt buckle?”

  Her throat closed tightly and her face turned the color of his shirt. His arms were strong and commanding, his shoulders hard as hickory. His fingers trailed on her spine and fired warning shivers down her thighs. He chuckled, throaty and low, and fit his chin against her temple... and her breasts against his chest... and his Texas longhorn against her stomach.

  Theodore, come and get me, please!

  Lazily, he tilted his shoulders back and smiled down into her eyes, leaving his hips cradled squarely against hers.

  “Your cheeks’re all pink. You warm, honey?”

  “A little,” she managed in a reedy voice.

  “Cooler outside. Want to go see?”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Don’t think. Just follow me. We’ll check out the stars.”

  She didn’t want to, but Theodore was laughing with Isabelle Lawler again, and before she could dream up an excuse, Rusty had tugged her to the ladder. He went down first, then looked up. “Sssst! Come on.”

  She glanced down at his face and wondered if Theodore would miss her if she disappeared. Suppose he did, and asked her where she’d been. It would feel mighty sweet to be able to tell him she’d been outside looking at the stars with Rusty Bonner.

  “Hey, you comin’ or what?”

  Three feet from the floor, Linnea felt Rusty catch her waist and lift her down. She gave a surprised squeal as she felt herself suspended in his strong hands. Then he settled her against his hip, looped an arm over her shoulder and ushered her
toward the door.

  Outside, the harvest moon smiled down so brightly it faded the stars by comparison. The air felt good against her heated cheeks.

  “Oh, it was warm dancing,” she breathed, covering her face with both palms, then dropping them to shake back her hair.

  “Thought you said you were a beginner.”

  “Oh, I am. It’s just that you’re — well, it was easy following you.”

  “Good. Then follow me some more.” He captured her hand and tugged her around the corner of the barn, where the moonbeams couldn’t find them. In the shadow of the building he stopped, clasped her upper arms, and turned her to face him, rocking her lightly.

  “So... you haven’t danced much. And you never saw a man ride a bull or a bronc. Tell me, Miss Linnea Brandonberg, pretty little country school teacher... have you ever been kissed?”

  “Wh... why, of course, I’ve been kissed. And more than once!” she lied, inexplicably excited at the prospect of finding out what it was like to really kiss a man — at last.

  “I reckon you’re pretty good at it, then.”

  “I reckon,” she replied, trying her best to sound confident.

  “Show me... ”

  Her heart caromed and a thrill of the forbidden shot through her as his head slowly tipped and his mouth touched hers. It was warm and firm and not wholly unpleasant. It rested lightly against her closed lips for some time before he backed away a mere inch. She opened her eyes to only the black shadow of his face and the underside of his hat brim. “More than once?” he murmured teasingly, bringing the blood surging to her cheeks. Again he covered her mouth with his, and this time the hot, wet tip of his tongue touched her. What was he doing? Oh, mercy, he was licking her! The shock sizzled down to her toes. Instinctively she drew back, but he captured her head in both hands, clasping her ears and threading his fingers into her hair as he drew her almost on to tiptoe. He ran his tongue around the entire rim of her lips until they were wet and sleek. She pushed against his chest, but he only released her mouth long enough to order, “Open your lips... come on, I’ll show you more... ”