Chapter 7

7

Tony managed to drag his eyes away from Odalie, but it had been another close call in a veritable buffet of them.

She was feeling something similar. It was obvious that he found her attractive, but he did everything in his power to push her away. She reminded herself that he had a mistress, and that he wasn’t a forever-after sort of man. That wasn’t going to change. It was something she had to accept.

She’d noticed the way he looked at the statuette Maddie had made. There had been something in his expression, in the way he turned the pretty thing in his big, beautiful lean hands that made her heart do loops. But he was never going to give in to the interest she was certain he felt. He wanted no part of her in his life. Well, he was a bachelor. No, a widower. He’d talked about his wife, about how much he’d cared for her. Was he still grieving for her, and he thought getting involved with someone else was like being unfaithful to her memory?

But he had a mistress, she reminded herself again. Even as she thought it, her face tautened. She hated the thought of some other woman in Tony’s arms, being held the way he held her when he’d killed the snake. That had been real hunger, mutual hunger, just before Cole and Ben had run up to them.

It hadn’t lasted, that feeling. He was talking to Heather about the statuette, showing it to her and laughing with delight.

“It’s very pretty,” Heather told Maddie. “Like the baby...!” She held out her arms and Maddie put Penny in them.

Heather cooed into the little face watching hers with such intensity. She kissed the little forehead.

“Do they always look at you like that?” Tony wondered as he looked at the baby over Heather’s shoulder. “I mean, it’s like she understands everything she hears!”

“Who knows?” Heather asked. She turned and handed the baby to Tony, showing him how to hold her so that her little head was supported. He chuckled, reminding her that his goddaughter down in Jacobsville was about the same age. He was getting used to holding babies.

It was like a scene out of a movie. Big, husky Tony holding the tiny little girl, his whole face glowing with delight, his eyes luminous as he looked down at her and talked to her. And she laughed up at him, little gurgles of happiness bubbling up and escaping her tiny body.

“Look at that!” Tony said, enthralled.

Nobody noticed Maddie, with a smartphone, taking pictures of the two of them. Later, one would find its way into Odalie’s smartphone.

“I always wanted kids,” Tony said as he reluctantly handed the baby back to Heather. “But we couldn’t have them.”

“You’re still young,” Heather pointed out with a grin.

“Not so very,” he replied solemnly and with a wistful smile. He glanced at Maddie. “She’s a beauty,” he told her, and grinned at Cort, who joined them. “You two did good.”

“She did most of the work,” Cort said with dry humor, and they all laughed.

“You really love kids, don’t you?” Heather asked Tony as they all went to the table, where places were set with plates and napkins, utensils and glasses as the cowboys started dishing up food.

“I do,” he replied. “It was one of our greatest sorrows that we couldn’t have any. My wife had cancer. It took her a long time to die.” His face hardened. “I was suicidal right after it happened. We were both in our early twenties. I thought we’d have years and years together.”

She turned to him. “You can’t live in yesterday.”

He drew in a breath and smiled down at her. “I keep hearing that.”

“On a different note, thank you for saving my daughter’s life,” she replied solemnly. “We have to deal with those stupid rattlesnakes every single year. There’s no way to get them all.”

“God made butterflies and he made rattlesnakes.” He shrugged. “We make do.”

She smiled. “Yes.”

He glanced at Odalie, who was talking to the leader of the local band that was playing while the ranch hands and their families stood around and listened. “She gets along with everybody, doesn’t she?”

“Most people. She wasn’t always like this. She’s changed a lot in the past two or three years. Good changes.”

“Growing up hurts,” he said from a wealth of bad memories.

“I know you have cousins,” she said gently. “But nobody closer?”

He shrugged. “Friends, mostly, except for Connie and her family in Jersey.” He laughed. “She loved your daughter at first glance. And she doesn’t like most people.” He looked down at her. “My background is rough. So is Connie’s. I didn’t really have the measure of your daughter at first. She’s classy. So... I sort of kept my people away from her.”

“She’s not like that. Not snobby. None of our kids are.” She grinned. “Cole and I came up hard, too. Ranching isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. You might have noticed the thing about free labor...? Anybody who shows up here at regular roundup or bull roundup or any other labor-intensive time gets impressed, as in pirate ships?”

He burst out laughing. “Well!”

“Get Cole to tell you about the government inspector who turned up one year. It’s a doozy.”

“We can talk all day without mentioning the feds,” he said in a mock low tone.

“Right! Got you. Sorry.” She grinned.

He grinned back.

Odalie, glancing at them, thought how well Tony fit in here. It was as if he’d been born on a ranch. He was comfortable with most everybody. With the notable exception of herself. Ah, well, she thought, she was young and there was time. She hoped.

Heaping plates of food were carried from the serving line. Odalie, for all her slenderness, could eat with the best of them. Tony watched her put away enough beef to feed a family of three.

She saw him watching her and grinned. “I’m still a growing girl,” she pointed out. “God forbid I should get skinny and weak, so I wouldn’t have to help throw calves when Dad brings home another lot of them!” she added in a loud voice so her father, nearby, would hear her.

He raised a fork. “You live here, you work here!”

“Communist!” somebody yelled.

“That will give you two weeks of mucking out the stables!” Cole called back.

A white napkin was raised in the air and waved back and forth.

“Good enough for you,” Cole said, and went back to eating.

Tony was chuckling. “Never a dull moment around here,” he mused.

“We’d get dull if we just talked about heritability traits,” Odalie mused.

“You hush about that,” Cole called to her. “That’s family secrets!”

“Is it really?” she chided. “You told that reporter from the cattle magazine all about it just last week!”

“He promised me that he wouldn’t breathe a word of it.”

Odalie rolled her eyes. “John, did he promise that?” she asked her brother.

“I can’t say,” John chuckled, glancing at his dad.

“Why not?”

“He found my worm bed,” he said, pointing his fork at his father.

Everybody burst out laughing. Tony was remembering what Odalie had told him, about John washing a bucket of earthworms clean and dumping them in her bed before she got in it.

“They should have given you a medal for that,” Tony told him. “That’s original thinking.”

“I know where a lot of worms are,” Odalie told Tony with a frown.

He raised his hand. “I take it back. Sorry,” he told John. “I’m scared of worms.”

“Like fun,” Odalie laughed.

“No, really,” he protested. “My grandad used to feed them coffee grounds. Anything that will eat coffee grounds has got to be dangerous!”

Odalie laughed softly and dug into her dessert.

Later, there was dancing. There was Big Ben on the dance platform they’d put up, holding pretty little Mercedes and doing a pretty good box step. Odalie danced with two of the visiting ranchers who were here for Cole’s purebred heifers, but didn’t enjoy it. Her feet were hurting in the pretty new shoes she’d worn for the barbeque, and both ranchers were heavy on their feet and pretty uncoordinated.

She ended up back at the drink table reaching for ginger ale.

“You look washed-out,” John noted as he and Tony got refills of coffee.

“You try dancing with cattlemen who spend their lives with bulls,” she muttered. “My feet are killing me!”

She kicked off her shoes and sighed. “Oh, that feels good!”

“You’ll get cuts,” John said.

She made a face at him as she put ice in a glass. “You wear those shoes for a few minutes and tell me that.”

“Not me. I look awful in high heels.”

“You look awful when you’re not in high heels,” she retorted.

“Worms!” he said. She smacked him in the stomach playfully. It was like hitting a wall.

“Can’t dent me,” he teased. “I’m made of good Everett steel.”

“Is she always that mean to you?” Tony asked John.

“Only when she’s here,” he agreed. “We never fight when she’s in New York.” He grinned.

Odalie started to hit him again when one of Cole’s cowboys, a new one with red hair and a big smile, caught Odalie’s hand and tugged her toward the dance floor.

“No, Ray,” she pleaded. “Look, my poor feet have blisters. I can’t dance!”

“It was a fair bet,” he reminded her. “And I won.”

She made a face at him and sighed. “Okay. But if I collapse on the dance floor, it’s going to be your fault, and I’ll tell Maude!”

“Oh, God forbid!” he groaned as he led her toward the dance floor.

“Who’s Maude?” Tony asked John, not pleased to find Odalie in some other man’s arms.

John noted the older man’s expression and hid a smile. “Ray’s wife,” he said, and watched Tony visibly relax.

“Oh.”

“Ray bet her that she couldn’t throw a calf. So she tried and got knocked over. Ray threw the calf and won the bet. Hence—” he nodded toward the dance floor “—that.”

Tony watched her with a rapt expression, unguarded for those few seconds. “She can sing, she can dance and she looks like a fairy,” he murmured. “But no boyfriend.”

“Singing has been her life from the time she was in grammar school,” John told him. “I tried a lot of things before I realized that Dad had to leave Big Spur to somebody and it was probably going to be me.” He shrugged his broad shoulders and smiled. “It’s not a bad life. I love animals, and I know everybody in a ten-mile radius. I could have landed worse.”

Tony sipped coffee. “I hated it when my grandfather died and the farm got sold. My grandmother never got over it. She died a couple of years after he did. I guess I was too much of a city boy to settle in the sticks, but I loved summers on the farm.”

“Dad said every shot you put in that rattler hit dead center in its head, and from a distance,” John remarked.

“In my line of work—my former line of work,” he amended, “a gun was a necessity. I learned to shoot straight when I was a kid. It’s saved my life a few times.” He glanced at John. “They made all these movies about the old-timey gunfighters being so fast. Fast is nothing unless you can hit what you aim at. The shooter who takes his time and aims well doesn’t die.”

John sighed. “I’m no good with guns. Dad despairs of me. Tanner can shoot anything. So can my sister. I’m the odd one out,” he chuckled.

He noticed that John, like himself, was drinking coffee. “No beer?” Tony mused, nodding at John’s coffee cup.

“I don’t have a head for alcohol,” John confessed. “It’s better not to drink if you can’t handle it. I mean, one little glass of wine and I’m wasted.”

Tony laughed. “I can put away a fifth of bourbon and keep going. But drinking is a bad habit, and I’m not the person I used to be.” His dark eyes twinkled. “Well,” he corrected, “not so much, anyway. I mostly stick to coffee now.”

“I like latte,” John replied. “I bought this little coffee machine that uses pods so I can make my own. It’s a long drive to a coffee shop from here,” he added ruefully.

“I get the beans and grind my own coffee,” Tony chuckled. “I’m a fanatic about good coffee.”

“Coffee is one of the major food groups,” Odalie added as she joined them. “You sadist,” she told Ray. “My big toe will never be the same. I’m telling Maude!”

“Please don’t,” Ray pleaded. “She’ll banish me to the laundry room, and I’ll be washing diapers until my hands wrinkle up and fall off!”

“Well, all right,” Odalie conceded. “I wouldn’t wish that on you. Honest.” She grinned at him. “And you’re not a bad dancer, compared to a goose.”

He made a face at her. “Was she always like this?” he asked John.

“Oh, no,” John said at once, with a mischievous look at his sister. “She was worse!”

“Worms!” Odalie threatened.

John put down his coffee. “Ray, let’s go look at Dad’s new bull and get out of the range of fire,” he said quickly, taking Ray by the arm. He shot Odalie a grin and they left.

Tony was still amused. He shook his head, looking at her pretty little feet. “No stockings?” he asked, wondering.

“I was hoping nobody would notice,” she confessed, noting that her skirt was ankle length. “It’s too hot for hose!”

“I never wear them myself,” Tony replied deadpan.

She laughed. The idea of Tony in pantyhose was hilarious. “Connie would have a field day talking about that!”

He chuckled.

“Why aren’t you dancing?” Heather asked as she joined them. “Just look, only two couples on the dance floor. Those poor boys in the band look so miserable. They’re playing this lovely music and everybody’s too busy eating to enjoy it!”

“We can fix that.” Tony put down his coffee and took Odalie by the arm.

“My feet...” she complained.

“You’re the one who wanted to go barefoot,” he pointed out.

“My shoes are worse than bare feet.”

He glanced at her as they reached the dance floor. “Then why did you buy them?”

“They’re the latest style,” she replied sadly.

“Style is individual. Buy what looks good on you. Don’t be a lackey to the fashion houses.” He took her by the waist and pulled her closer as the band broke into a cha-cha. “I think I remember that you know how to do this?” he teased.

“Do I!”

She followed his quick steps exactly, loving his hand around hers, his big hand at her waist. She laughed. It was another moment out of time. She felt joy well up in her like a fountain. Her face was luminous with it.

Tony saw her reaction and felt it all the way to his feet. She was magic on a dance floor. He was surprised all over again at how easily they moved together.

“Feet still hurt?” he asked as the band finished the song.

She flexed them. “Just sore. My own fault. Stupid shoes.”

He sighed and pulled her close as a sentimental slow tune began to lift from the band. He did a complicated box step, which she followed with ease. She smiled and closed her eyes as they moved around the floor.

“You aren’t looking where you’re going,” he chided softly.

“That’s your job,” she pointed out. “You’re leading.”

“So I am.”

He turned her and every step seemed to bring them closer together. She was fighting her own reflexes the whole time, trying not to give herself away.

“Can I ask you something?” she said after a minute.

“Sure. What?”

She drew away just enough to see his face. “Why don’t you carry an automatic, like Ben does?”

He smiled. “When I was fourteen, I got into a shoot-out with some gang members trying to take over one of our venues,” he said simply. “I was carrying an auto, because everybody had one. It was just the way we did things.” He turned her again. “So this fresh kid comes at me, firing the whole time. I took off the safety and shot back. And the damned gun jammed.”

“Oh, gosh,” she said, lost in his memory with him. She could picture it. “What did you do?!”

“I threw the damned pistol to the ground and went straight at him. Old advice from my people. You run at a man with a gun, and away from a man with a knife. I was quicker than he was.”

“And you were fourteen?” she asked, shocked.

He nodded. His face tautened. “I’ve lived a hard life. It’s left me with some rough edges. Very rough.”

She studied his handsome face. “It doesn’t show.”

“You don’t see the scars?” he asked on a dry laugh, because there were some scars. They didn’t disfigure him, but they were obviously knife cuts.

“That’s not what I meant, Tony,” she said softly. “I mean, your rough edges don’t show in company. You’re very sophisticated with people at the gallery. You’re a lot better at mixing than I am.” Her eyes fell to his broad chest. “I’m painfully shy.”

“No, you aren’t,” he argued.

“Oh, not with people I know,” she protested softly. “But with strangers. I bluff by smiling and telling them my name and asking for theirs. Well, mostly. Not with that Donalson man, at your house on Long Island,” she added, averting her face.

“He was lucky to leave in the same shape he arrived,” he said darkly. “He was very lucky.”

“He isn’t somebody who might try to, well, try to get back at you for protecting me from him, is he?” she asked, and the worry was on her face, in her pretty blue eyes.

He got lost in them. “If he tried, he’d regret it for the rest of his life,” he said in a quiet, deep tone that chilled. His eyes swept over her face, slowly, intensely. “He was lucky that he left the house intact.” His voice deepened. “Nobody touches you.”

Her heart turned over in her chest and she flushed. She couldn’t even answer him. She felt that same, strange joy bubble up inside her. She tried to keep her ragged breathing from showing with a little laugh. “Well, thanks,” she said huskily.

He smiled slowly. “You’re Stasia’s best friend,” he added. “That makes you family.”

Her joy leaked out. Her heart felt heavier. She kept smiling anyway. It would never do to start crying in the middle of the dance floor.

He scowled. “Where is Stasia?” he added.

“She went with Tanner to a cattleman’s workshop up in Montana,” she said. “They’ll be back in a few days. And yes, the doctor said it was okay. Plus, Tanner took two of our men with him who were feds before they came to work here. He’s cautious. He thinks Phillip James isn’t through with him.”

“That’s what I think,” Tony agreed. He didn’t tell her about his meeting at the motel. He knew who was behind that attempt to entrap him. But he wasn’t sharing it. Not with her. If Tanner had been home, however, he’d have shared that information. “Feet still hurt?”

She shook her head and smiled. He smiled back as they moved around the dance floor with a growing number of couples.

From the trestle tables under the tent, Cole and Heather watched them dance.

“Don’t they remind you of us, when we were that age?” Heather sighed.

Cole leaned over and kissed her warmly. “They do. Except that Tony is fighting it tooth and nail.”

“Why, do you think?” she asked.

“Well, if I were guessing, I’d say that he was fighting a losing battle,” he said softly. “Just like I was, all those years ago.”

She smiled and brushed her fingers against his cheek. “They’ve been good years.”

“The best of my life,” he said softly.

“And mine,” she agreed.

Odalie glanced at her parents and smiled. “They’re like two halves of a whole,” she remarked. “We’ve envied them all our lives. It seems that so many marriages end in divorce these days.”

“They do,” Tony agreed.

She sighed as they moved lazily to the music. “Despite all the hard work, I’d rather live on a ranch than any place on earth. I love it here.”

“It’s quite a place,” he agreed. He chuckled. “Does your dad really put all his guests to work?”

“If they show up during roundup in the spring and fall, yes,” she said. She chuckled. “It happened to a congressman who stopped by to chat, and even a doctor who wanted dad to sponsor a benefit for the hospital.”

“Good grief!”

“Well, word does get around, you know,” she said with a laugh. “So now, it’s pretty much confined to relatives and friends who don’t protest too much.”

He grinned. “It’s hard work. But it’s fun, too.”

“I’ve always thought so.”

He looked down at her with a faint smile. “When I first saw you, in New York, I couldn’t picture you in anything that wasn’t couture. Certainly not in jeans, throwing calves.”

“Appearances can be deceptive,” she pointed out.

“Damned right.”

She closed her eyes and let her senses fill with Tony’s closeness. The cologne he wore, the warm strength of his body, the feel of his big hand holding hers, all combined to wrap her in a cocoon of sensation. She never wanted the music to end.

He was feeling something similar and grinding his teeth. All those reasons why this was a bad idea swarmed around his mind like flies around honey. His hand contracted on hers.

“I’m not getting involved with you,” he said flatly, out of the blue.

“Suits me,” she said with feigned laziness. “I’m not getting involved with you, either.”

“Okay,” he murmured on a deep breath. “Just so you know.”

“Right back at you, big man,” she murmured.

He tuned in to the soft music that was playing and put tomorrow out of his mind. She smelled of flowers, and she felt like sweet heaven in his arms. At the moment, that was all that mattered.

Sunday was spent recuperating from Saturday. Monday, Tony directed Ben to pick up his and Odalie’s suitcases, and they headed out to the airfield in a ranch pickup driven by John.

“Skeet season starts in two weeks,” John told his sister as Ben started loading up the plane. “You’ll miss it. Again.”

She grimaced. “I haven’t put in any practice this past year,” she sighed. “Too much work on my voice. Maybe when I get some free time.” She went on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “You go shooting for me. Win some medals.”

“I haven’t won any yet,” he lamented. “Tanner might go, though. But he said it’s not as much fun as it was when you and he went on the circuit together.”

“That was years ago,” she sighed. “I don’t really have the fire for it anymore. And Tanner’s not likely to leave Stasia alone so much, with the baby coming. Practice becomes obsessive.” She hugged him. “Take care of yourself.”

“You do the same.”

She climbed aboard the plane.

Tony hesitated, waiting until she was out of earshot before he turned to John. “Phillip James is on the prowl,” he said quietly. “He’s probing for weaknesses. Don’t let your guard down here, and make sure that Tanner doesn’t let his down, either, not for a second. If we can get him indicted, it’s a capital crime, and I’ve already robbed him of a congressman he was blackmailing to stop the investigation.” He didn’t mention the setup attempt by one of James’s operatives. He could tell Tanner about that later.

“I’ll keep up our end. Please, take care of Odalie,” he added quietly. “She’s impulsive. It would kill us if anything happened to her.”

“I know that. She’ll be safe,” he replied. “I’ve got two good men on twelve-hour shifts keeping her under surveillance, at home and anyplace else she goes. If Stasia comes up, make sure I know when. I’ll put on more people.”

“Thanks, Tony.”

He shrugged. “Stasia’s the only adoptive family I’ve got outside Connie and her family, and my other adopted daughter in Jacobsville,” he said with a smile. “That means I have to take care of her relatives, too,” he chuckled.

“We’ll do our best as well,” John said. “We have two ex-feds who work here, and Tanner has three on his place. They were all working as mercs when they were hired, so they’re pretty good.”

He nodded. “Just don’t lose focus,” Tony said. “There are more things going on than I can tell you about right now.”

“We won’t. Thanks, for all you do for Stasia and my sister.”

“It’s no trouble.”

“Have a safe flight.”

Tony grinned. “Thanks.”

On the plane, Odalie wanted to ask what Tony and John had been discussing so intently, but she was suddenly shy of him. She buried herself in her solitaire app while Tony busied himself with business on his laptop.

It was raining when they landed in New York at JFK. Odalie hadn’t packed a raincoat or an umbrella, so Ben had to run her down the sidewalk to her apartment and then run back with her luggage.

“Thanks, Ben!” she said at the door.

“No worries. Keep your door locked,” he added.

“You bet. See you!”

He ran back to the limo, folding the umbrella as he got to the driver’s side. Odalie closed the door and didn’t let herself look at the vehicle pulling away from the curb.

The past few days had been sweet. At least she had memories, she thought, even if Tony kept warning her off. She didn’t have time for men, anyway, she told herself. She had a career ahead of her. That was where her head needed to be now, not on some man—regardless of how attractive he was. It was just that fear of the stage, all the time, eating at her confidence. She turned toward the kitchen to make coffee and put it out of her mind.