Gibson did a double take at the sight of Dusty. “My Gawd,” the rancher exclaimed, “you’re a woman! What’re you doing out on the trail with this bunch of drovers?”
Zach felt a stab of something close to alarm. Jealousy, maybe.
“Working,” she replied. “I am a newspaper reporter. My editor wants a story about a Western cattle drive.”
Gibson’s eyebrows shot up. “A reporter! You mean your daddy isn’t a cattleman?”
“Oh, no. My daddy is—” She broke off. “I don’t actually know what my father is,” she said quietly. “Or where.”
Gibson ran his hand over his chin. “I meant no offense, Miss Murray. It’s just that it’s mighty unusual to find a woman on a cattle drive.”
“Señorita Alex, she is not ordinary woman,” José announced.
“I can see that,” Gibson replied. The man was looking at her in a way Zach didn’t like, but since he was an invited guest, he stuffed down his annoyance and tried to ignore what it was doing to his gut. But when he caught one of the Double Diamond hands, an awkward youngster called Sandy who was no more than sixteen years old, staring at Dusty with his mouth hanging open, Zach stepped in close.
“Shut your mouth, kid,” he intoned. “And mind your manners around the lady.”
One of Gibson’s other hands, an older man called O’Leary, executed an awkward bow over Dusty’s extended hand, and Skip made the mistake of snickering. Zach jabbed an elbow into his rib cage.
A meaty back strap of beef from a slaughtered steer turned on a spit over a bed of glowing coals, and around the perimeter lay pots of chili beans and ears of sweet corn roasting in their husks.
“Made a detour near a farm coupla nights back,” Gibson said at Zach’s questioning look. “Came away with sweet corn and a bushel of apples. Cook’s makin’ pies for dessert.”
Curly groaned in appreciation and José rolled his eyes and rubbed his belly.
“Gentlemen,” Gibson announced. “Make yourselves comfortable and let’s eat.”
The cook slapped thick beefsteaks and ears of corn onto their plates. Every one of Gibson’s men jockeyed to sit next to Dusty, but Curly and Jase elbowed them aside with good-natured grins and flanked her. Silence fell as the men dug in.
Zach found himself on the opposite side of the fire pit from where she settled. Gibson sat next to him, and it took Zach exactly half a minute to figure out why. It was more than a neighborly gesture. From over here, the Double Diamond owner could look his fill at Dusty and there wasn’t a darn thing Zach could do about it.
Supper was excellent, ending with slices of apple pie at least four inches thick, but the cook’s coffee couldn’t hold a candle to Roberto’s. Zach sipped his mug slowly and talked cattle with Gibson.
Then the kid, Sandy, suggested they have some music and some dancing, and Zach watched every male in camp leap up to be first in line to claim Dusty. A banjo appeared, then a fiddle, and José unstrapped his guitar from behind his saddle. The older man, O’Leary, produced another guitar.
Gibson studied the crowd around Dusty and rapped his spoon against his tin plate. “Let’s have a Virginia reel. That way everybody gets a turn with Miss Murray.”
The musicians strolled into the moonlit night and the music rose. Bandannas tied to one arm signified which cowboy was playing the part of the woman, and the men formed two lines facing each other. Gibson extended his hand to Dusty and ceremoniously conducted her to the head position.
The two lines swept forward and bowed awkwardly, then Dusty and Gibson met in the middle and joined hands while everyone else, even the grinning cook, clapped and hoorahed. Zach tried not to watch her.
“Any louder and they’ll start a stampede,” he grumbled under his breath. And right at that moment he realized something he’d been pushing to the back of his mind for weeks; he was jealous. Green-eyed, irrationally, possessively jealous.
He tossed the dregs of his coffee into the fire and strode away from camp to study the stars overhead.
“Hey, boss,” Jase yelled. “Why aren’tcha dancin’?”
Good question. Why wasn’t he?
Because... He swallowed hard. Because he wanted to touch Dusty so bad it hurt. The thought of holding her in his arms, looking into her upturned face, sent a cavalry detail of butterflies into his belly and made his knees feel funny.
You coward. You’ve been close to her before and survived. He’d never forget that day when she got dunked in the river and he’d undressed her by the fire. He’d tried hard not to look, but...it was a memory he’d keep stuck deep in his heart for the rest of his life.
Then he thought about the night he had to put Dancer down, when Dusty had found him grieving under a pine tree and had reached out and just held him, saying nothing.
But dancing with her would be different. Dancing with her would be just her and him, moving close together on purpose. With his body touching hers.
He couldn’t do it. But, oh, God, he hungered to be with her. Touch her. His groin ached with it.
He refilled his mug from the speckleware coffeepot, resettled himself by the campfire and closed his eyes.
You’re scared.
Damn right I’m scared. No man in his right mind would fall in love with a city girl from Chicago who’s spent half her life hankering after a career in the newspaper business and the other half achieving it.
The music changed from the Virginia Reel to a waltz. Zach opened his eyes to see a gaggle of cowhands, his own included, whooping it up and clumsily stepping around and around together. Dusty was dancing with Gibson, then with Curly, then Sandy, then...
He couldn’t keep track of how often someone cut in on her and whisked her away from her partner. She slipped out of one man’s arms and into another’s so many times he got tired of keeping track.
“Boss!” Curly yelled.
Zach ignored him.
And then Dusty broke away from her current partner, a lanky cowhand with a droopy blond mustache, and moved toward him. She walked steadily, unhurriedly, straight to where he sat, and stopped in front of him.
He set his coffee mug on the ground and stood up.
Chapter Eighteen
“You’re not dancing,” Dusty observed.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I...uh...can’t dance.”
She propped both hands at her waist and cocked her head. “Can’t?” she accused. “Or won’t?”
Zach avoided her accusing blue eyes. “Can’t,” he lied.
She laughed. “You’re lying, Zach. That schoolteacher taught you to read and write. I bet someone taught you to dance, too.”
He studied the toes of his boots.
“Zach,” she said softly. “Dance with me.”
“Dammit, Dusty...”
She took a step closer and smiled up at him. “Dammit, what?”
“Oh, just dammit. Come on.” He reached for her hand and walked her past the cowhands gathered at the edge of the clearing, kicking up their heels in a spirited polka. In the shadows beyond the campfire he turned her into his arms.
The top of her head only came up to his jaw. He drew in a long breath and groaned inwardly. She smelled of apples and something spicy. Cinnamon, maybe.
He rested his chin against her hair, slipped his hand behind her back and pulled her close. Slowly they began to move.
“Zach?” she said quietly.
“Hmm?”
“They’re playing a polka.”
“Yeah, I know.”
She laughed softly. “But we are waltzing.”
“I know.”
She didn’t say another word, just ignored the music and followed his lead. They circled in the shadows around the edge of the clearing where firelight licked at the darkness. The warm air was scented with grass and apple pie.
They danced in silence until the fiddler began a two-step and then another polka. They kept waltzing. At last Dusty looked up at him and he bobbled a step. “Sorry,” he murmured.
“You do dance, Zach. Very nicely, in fact.”
“Maybe. Good instructor, I guess.”
“The schoolteacher?”
He hesitated. “Nope.”
“Who, then?”
He said nothing for a full minute. Finally he opened his mouth and gave her the only answer he could come up with. “Don’t recall her name. I was only fourteen.”
“Was she someone special?”
He clamped his jaw shut and didn’t answer. He hadn’t thought of the woman, a dance hall dolly whose name he couldn’t recall, for twenty years, and she sure wasn’t what was on his mind at this moment.
Dusty was on his mind. With every breath he took, there she was, stuck in his brain like a toothache he couldn’t shake off. It was a sweet, insistent pain that had him clenching his jaw and starting to sweat.
But he didn’t want to let her go. What he did want... His heart somersaulted into his stomach. He wanted her. He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted a woman in his life.
Forget it, Strickland. Wrong lady. Wrong time. Wrong place. Wrong everything. Never gonna happen.
* * *
Alex could feel the tension in his body as they danced and hear his ragged breathing. Something was bothering him. He should be feeling proud of himself and the other three men who had rescued Orren Gibson’s stolen cattle and driven them back with no loss of either cowhands or cows. Curly had told her everything, emphasizing that they had succeeded because when they discovered the rustlers, Zach had kept his head.