Breathless Innocence

  Gargoyle careened to a stop, wheeled on back legs and took off again, running and bucking and tearing up the arid ground.

  “I think that’s enough.” Turner reined in, and while the horse took a minute to shift gears, Turner hopped to the ground and wrapped the reins around the top pole of the fence. Man and beast were both sweating and breathing hard.

  Turner retrieved his Stetson and slapped the dirty hat against his thigh. A cloud of dust swirled upward. “Tomorrow,” Turner promised.

  The horse glowered at him, flattening his ears and shifting his rear end to get a clean shot at Turner’s shin.

  Sidestepping quickly, Turner avoided the kick. “You lazy no-good son of a bitch,” Turner muttered, though he was amused by the stallion’s spirited antics. With a little work, this quarter horse would be one of the best he’d ever ridden—ugly or not. “You won’t win, y’know.” With an eye to the horse’s back legs, Turner loosened the cinch and slid the saddle from the roan’s back. “And I’m considering changing your name to Silk Purse. You know the story, don’t ya?”

  Gargoyle swung his broad head around and tried to take a nip from Turner’s butt, but the reins restrained the stallion and he was left to stomp the hard earth in frustration.

  “Serves you right.” Turner hoisted the saddle to the fence rail, then quickly unsnapped the bridle. Gargoyle didn’t need any more encouragement. He took off, bucking and kicking across the dusty paddock, snorting and galloping with as much speed as any stallion Turner had come across in a long while.

  “Remember—tomorrow!” Turner called out as he vaulted the fence. The roan huffed, fire in his eyes, as if he were already anticipating the outcome of their next encounter. Turner laughed. “Yeah, well, I’m lookin’ forward to it, too.”

  “Quite a show you put on.”

  The voice was soft and feminine, and Turner glanced up sharply to find Nadine standing in the shadow of the barn. He’d forgotten this was her day to come and clean his place. “Didn’t know anyone was watchin’,” he drawled as she crossed the gravel lot, her red hair catching fire in the sunlight. She was a pretty woman with big green eyes, an easy smile, and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of a straight little nose. Divorced, with two small children, Nadine made her way in the world alone.

  “I thought you might need this.” She handed him a cold bottle of beer, right from the refrigerator. “And I didn’t want you tracking dirt on my floor.”

  “And here I thought that floor was mine,” he replied, taking the bottle and twisting off the cap.

  “Not until the wax is dry, it isn’t.” She reached into the pocket of her denim jacket and withdrew a stack of envelopes. “Mail call.” Slapping them into his callused palm, she motioned toward the stallion. “Not too handsome, is he?”

  “He’ll do.” Turner couldn’t help baiting her a bit. “Don’t you know that the uglier they are, the better they look flyin’ out of the chutes?”

  “He flies all right. I’ll give him that.” She squinted up at Turner, and for a minute he caught a glimpse of some emotion she usually hid. She’d been his housekeeper for four years, long before she was divorced from Sam Warne, but lately he’d gotten the feeling that she was interested in more than wiping the grime from his windows. “By the way, she called again,” Nadine added, and Turner’s gut turned to stone.

  “Who?”

  “As if you didn’t know. Heather, that’s who. Seems as if she’s trying pretty hard to reach you.”

  Turner didn’t respond. No reason to. As far as he was concerned, Heather didn’t exist—hadn’t for a lot of years.

  “And the Realtor for Thomas Fitzpatrick hasn’t let up. He phoned, too. Fitzpatrick wants this ranch back in a bad way.”

  Turner’s glower increased. “I already told him—it isn’t for sale.”

  “Thomas Fitzpatrick doesn’t give up easily.”

  “He doesn’t have a choice.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “Just thought you’d want to know.”

  “Only good news. That’s all I want to hear about,” Turner said, his eyes narrowing.

  “Well, you may be waiting a long time.”

  Though she was only teasing, he knew she was right. He closed his eyes for a second. Damn, he didn’t need either Heather Tremont Leonetti or Thomas Friggin’ Fitzpatrick fouling up his life. He was capable of fouling it up himself without anyone else’s help. When he opened his eyes again, he watched Nadine as she waved and moved toward her car, a beat-up old Chevy filled with mops, brooms, soap and wax.

  Turner’s gaze followed after her as she climbed behind the wheel, fired the engine and tore off down the lane, leaving a plume of dust behind her. She was a good-lookin’ woman, a woman any man would be proud to claim as his wife, but Turner wasn’t interested. Besides, she deserved better. He took a long swallow of the beer and wiped the sweat from his brow. Leaning both arms over the top rail of the fence, he eyed the stallion. “You are a mean beast, you know,” he said.

  A soft nicker whispered over the dry fields, and Gargoyle lifted his head, nostrils extended, ears pricked forward, in the direction of the sound. Turner followed the stallion’s gaze to the small herd of mares, sleek hides gleaming in the afternoon sunlight as they grazed near the ridge. Backdropped by a copse of cedar and pine, they plucked at the dry grass, oblivious to the stallion’s interest.

  Gargoyle tossed back his head and let out a stallion’s whistle to the mares. Beneath his dusty, reddish coat, his shoulder muscles quivered in anticipation.

  “You poor bastard,” Turner said with genuine regret because he liked the feisty roan. He watched as Gargoyle pranced along the fence line, whinnying and snorting, head held high, tail streaming like a banner as he showed off for the lackadaisical females. “So you like the ladies, do you? It’s a mistake, you know. Can only get you into trouble.”

  The stallion nickered again and the mares, flicking their ears toward the noise, continued to graze and swat at flies with their tails.

  Turner had seen enough. Wiping his hands on the thin denim covering his thighs, he started for the small ranch house he called home. It wasn’t much, but it was bought and paid for and all Turner needed now that his old man was gone. The mortgage had nearly sucked the life blood from him, but he’d used every penny he’d earned to pay back the bank—Leonetti’s bank. Dennis’s grandfather and father had owned and run the bank and when old John had taken out the mortgage, Turner hadn’t yet met Heather or known of Dennis Leonetti. But once he’d figured it all out, he couldn’t pay off his debt fast enough. The thought that he owed any Leonetti money galled the life out of him.

  What comes around goes around, he thought. Now Thomas Fitzpatrick was interested in the ranch again—wanted to run some geological tests on the land beneath the ridge, scouting around for oil—but Turner held firm. This was his place, bought with his mother’s tears and his own blood and sweat. He wasn’t going to allow the likes of Thomas Fitzpatrick to get his hands on it again.

  As he headed along the weed-choked path, his body, jarred from two hours in the saddle, ached. Old pains, “war wounds,” as he referred to them, reappeared. His hip hurt so badly he nearly limped again, but he gritted his teeth against the pain. He was barely thirty, for God’s sake—he wasn’t going to start walking like a run-down old man.

  Kicking off his boots on the back porch, he swatted at a bothersome yellow jacket, then shoved open the screen door to the kitchen. The house reeked of lemon, pine and cleaning solvent—in Turner’s opinion, a stench worse than horse dung and sweat.

  He didn’t breathe too deeply, but as he crossed the gleaming floor, he noticed the white rose propped in a cracked vase, giving the kitchen “a woman’s touch.” As usual. And as usual, the rose would wither and die until Nadine came back and put another flower of some sort in its plac
e. As if he cared.

  Settling into one of the chairs at the table, he took a long swallow from his bottle. The beer was cold and slid easily down his parched throat. A little too easily. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  He was careful with liquor, because of his old man. He knew how the beast in the bottle could drive a man—how it could break him. But, though he hated to admit it, he had a fondness for beer. One of his weaknesses. His first was—or had been—a woman. He’d given up on one, so he felt no compulsion to forsake the other. But he’d be careful. No way was he going to end up like John Brooks—in and out of the drunk tank all of his life, dying before he was fifty because his overworked liver just gave up and quit.

  He took another pull, drained half the bottle and felt his muscles relax. Shuffling through the mail, his hands leaving smudges on the white envelopes, he eyed the sorry stack of bills, advertisements, a magazine and one lone letter—written crisply in a woman’s hand. Heather’s hand.

  The return address was San Francisco—where she’d moved to escape the small-town poverty and boredom of Gold Creek. For that, he didn’t blame her. Nothing but trouble ever came out of Gold Creek, California. Including himself.

  Memories of Heather skittered like unwanted ghosts through his mind. He finished his beer and reached into the refrigerator before curiosity overcame good sense.

  His mouth went dry for just a second.

  Heather Tremont. No, Heather Tremont Leonetti. She was married now. Had been for years. Her husband was Dennis Leonetti. Big name; big money. A slick-talking banker who had inherited his money, could give his beautiful young wife anything her heart desired—as long as it had a price tag attached. Even an art gallery. And a son. The same SOB she was supposed to have broken up with when he’d come careening into the yard of the Lazy K in his rich boy’s machine. Well, Heather had shown her true colors, hadn’t she? All that talk about not caring about money. About trust. About love. All BS!

  Not that it mattered. Not that he cared. He let the door of the refrigerator swing shut.

  Peeling the label from his empty bottle, he noticed the message written on a notepad by the phone—Heather’s name and phone number written in Nadine’s no-nonsense scrawl. In his mind’s eye, he compared Heather to Nadine. Nadine was so simple, so earthy, so straightforward. Heather had always been complicated, beautiful and manipulative. An artist for God’s sake—with the temperament to match. So why was it always Heather’s gorgeous face that disturbed his dreams? Why couldn’t he take a chance on a simple, good-hearted woman like Nadine Warne?

  He reached again for the refrigerator. This time he didn’t stop when he opened the door. He pulled out a tall, dewy bottle and twisted off the top as he glanced again at the letter.

  Heather.

  He wondered if she’d found happiness with all her money. Not that he gave a damn. Crumpling the letter in a grimy fist, he lobbed the wadded, unread note into a corner where it bounced off the wall and landed on the gleaming floor, six inches from the basket. Well, he’d never been good at basketball. In fact, he hadn’t been much good at anything besides staying astride a stubborn rodeo bronc. Now, even that was gone.

  He glanced through the window to the rolling hills of his ranch; he’d kept it running with the stubborn grit that told him he had to make something of himself, something to break the legacy that he’d inherited from John Brooks. He had all he wanted right here.

  He didn’t need Heather Leonetti or her money to remind him of that.

  Frowning darkly, Turner took another long tug from his beer. He’d finish this one, take a shower and maybe drive into town—do anything to stop thinking about Heather.

  * * *

  HEATHER HAD NEVER BEEN to Turner’s ranch. Never had the guts. She’d put their past in a neat little package of memories that she’d locked in a closet in her mind and had never dared examine. Until recently.

  She’d been married and tried to make the marriage work. It, of course, had been doomed from the beginning. Without love, the walls of her marriage had cracked early on only to crumble later. Now, as she squinted through her sunglasses, her hands were sweating on the wheel of her Mercedes. She’d let the top down and felt the wind tug at her hair and whip across her face.

  The landscape was dry; the grass already bleached gold, the dust a thin layer on the asphalt as the wheels of her Mercedes flew over the country road leading north from Gold Creek to Badlands Ranch. Once called Rolling Hills, Turner had renamed it for who knew what reason. Heather didn’t understand why and didn’t care.

  She only had to face Turner again because of Adam. At the thought of her son, she caught her lip between her teeth. His disease wasn’t, at the moment, life threatening. But at any time his remission could be reversed and then…oh, God, and then… She shuddered though the interior of the car was warm.

  Her own bone marrow didn’t match that of her son. And, of course, Dennis’s wouldn’t, either. That left Turner. For, if Adam should need a donor and was unable to donate enough good tissue to himself, Turner was the next logical choice.

  He deserved to know.

  She pushed a little harder on the throttle, and her car leapt forward, exceeding the limit. She couldn’t seem to get to Turner fast enough. She’d been in Gold Creek long enough to know that he wasn’t married, that no woman openly lived with him, but she wasn’t sure that he wasn’t in love with someone and that whoever the woman was, she wouldn’t want Heather showing up on Turner’s doorstep with the news that not only was he a father, but that the boy needed him.

  She tasted blood and forced herself to relax, removing her teeth from her lip and easing up on the throttle. The ranch was just ahead. She spotted the turnoff to a long dirt-and-gravel lane that wound through a thicket of trees. The ranch house was probably beyond. She turned into the lane. The tire of the Mercedes hit a pothole and shuddered, and Heather sent up a prayer that when she faced Turner again, she wouldn’t break down.

  * * *

  THE TEMPERATURE IN THE barn hovered around a hundred degrees. Dust filled the air that was acrid with the smells of manure and oil from the broken-down tractor. Yellow jackets buzzed near the filthy windows and swallows flew in and out the open door. The light from the lowering sun seeped through the cracks in the old siding and faded in the recesses of the interior. A headache thundered behind Turner’s eyes. He needed a shower and a drink and then maybe a woman. Not necessarily in that order. He’d be lucky if he got the shower.

  Sweat ran down the back of his neck and over his bare back as every one of his muscles strained while he pitted his will and strength against that of the stallion.

  Gargoyle wasn’t going to win this round, Turner decided as he held the roan’s bent foreleg tightly between his thighs and carefully, so as to avoid being nipped in the rear, tapped the nails of the horseshoe back into Gargoyle’s hoof. The roan snorted, shifting his weight against the man and looking for a way to take a piece out of Turner’s hide.

  “Relax,” Turner muttered around a mouthful of nails. His muscles ached, but he didn’t give in. For his efforts, he was flicked in the face with the coarse hairs of the horse’s tail. “Cut it out!”

  Tap, tap, tap. He drove the nails into the hoof. The horse was nervous. Lather greased his coat and his ears were flat with hatred for the man intent on taming his wild spirit. “You’ll live. Believe me,” Turner told the roan as he drove the last nail into place.

  “Turner?”

  The feminine voice, so familiar in his distant memory, caught his attention. He looked up and saw her silhouetted in the open door, her figure dark in contrast to the fading sunlight, her skirt moving slightly in a tiny ghost of a breeze. The hairs on the back of Turner’s neck lifted one by one. It couldn’t be…

  “Turner Brooks?” she repeated, stepping into the shadows of the barn, clo
ser now so that he could see her face, the same damned face that he’d tried so hard to forget.

  Gargoyle shifted, his head swinging around. And Turner, thighs still clamped over the horse’s foreleg, sidestepped the nip. He spat the nails into his hand, all the while never letting his gaze wander from the doorway. “Well, well, well,” he heard himself saying. “If it isn’t Mrs. Leonetti?” She winced a little at that, and he wondered where was the satisfaction he should have felt in wounding her. Letting the roan’s leg drop, he vaulted easily over the railing of the stall. She was still a few feet away, but he noticed her eyes widen a bit, and the quick intake of her breath, as if she were frightened. “You know, I never thought I’d see you again.”

  “I…um…I know.” She licked her lips—from nerves or in an effort to play coy, he couldn’t guess. His gut tightened, warning him that she was trouble. Always had been. Always would be. Her blond hair, the color of winter wheat, stirred in the breeze, and in the half light of the barn her eyes were as dark as the stone cold hue of an arctic sky. Fitting. “You haven’t returned my calls,” she accused, though her words weren’t harsh.

  “Nothin’ to say.”

  “And my letter?”

  One edge of his lip lifted sardonically. God, she was beautiful—frigidly so. The layer of sophistication she’d so carefully wrapped around her made her seem ice-cold and untouchable—like a marble statue. She’d changed over the years, and not for the better. “You sent me something? Must’ve got lost,” he drawled, and they both knew it was a lie.

  “You should’ve read it.”

  “Why?” He folded his arms over his chest, waiting with measured patience.

  Her mouth moved, but she didn’t speak.

  “Look, lady,” Turner said irritably as he remembered using that very word as an endearment in the past. She froze for a second and he mentally kicked himself. “Is there something you want? If so, just spit it out and then leave me the hell alone.”