The Girl with the Golden Spurs

Finally the phone was silent.

For the first time in her life Lizzy wished she’d listened to her friend Mandy and had gotten into astrology or something useful. Maybe then she would have seen some cosmic warning in her horoscope or palm today.

Your life as you know it, as you dream it, is over now.

Her life was a joke. First Bryce. Then Nell. And now Walker.

It’s your own fault that you know about Walker.

Curiosity had led her to darker places before this, surely it had, although she couldn’t think of any.

Finding out about Walker’s private tape collection was the last thing she needed tonight. So why had she played the video the second Walker had left with Vanilla?

Because I’m a glutton for punishment. Because like every other female on earth, I’m like Pandora. If you tell me something is forbidden, I just have to open the box.

She remembered her father being hell-bent on making a man of Walker, as he’d put it. He’d made Walker hunt and ride and participate in rodeos. Daddy had bragged and bragged about how Walker had tamed the wildest broncs or killed the most game while both Hawk and Walker had flushed and looked uncomfortable. She thought about how Hawk had always been so protective of Walker.

The phone started ringing again, and Lizzy felt heavy demands from home. She felt guilty about not answering and torn because she actually wanted to talk to her mother. But if she talked to her right now, she’d tell her everything. Maybe she’d even mention Walker.

Mother—get a life.

Tough talk for a self-destructive wimp.

How many times had Mother called already? Seven? It seemed to Lizzy the phone had been ringing forever as she stared at her television screen where two men, obviously lovers, embraced. Then almost immediately the men lay down together on the bed again, and their bodies began to writhe.

The phone stopped ringing for at least a whole minute. Not that the lovers stopped what they were doing on that bed.

Just because he has a gay video doesn’t mean he’s gay. Maybe he was just curious and bought it as a joke. Maybesome gay guy with a crush on him had slipped it into his luggage… Maybe…

The phone started again. Mother had to be the most persistent human being in the world. Lizzy knew it was her mother because she’d checked her caller ID twice before when the phone had rung right after Walker had taken Vanilla down for a walk in the park and to buy take-out Chinese. She’d been hoping, of course, that it was Bryce or Nell calling to say they hadn’t meant any of it.

As the phone continued to ring, Lizzy wiped at her damp eyes. One of the men was tall and blond, like Bryce; the other short and dark and very muscular like her cousin, Sam. The darker man had seven little daggers tattooed onto his forearm. Lizzy knew exactly how many daggers—because she’d counted them twice, maybe to keep her gaze there instead of drifting to the lower part of the men’s bodies, which the camera was now focusing upon.

She averted her gaze, but out of the corner of her eye, she was aware of the men’s supple, perfect bodies tensing, coming closer to some fatal edge. She saw all the parts of their magnificent bodies, yes, all the parts, those long rigid parts with the thick purple veins, and suddenly she started thinking about how long it had been since she and Bryce had had sex.

Men liked watching women with each other. Why? Should she be turned on by watching two men? Was something wrong with her because she resented this video? She thought about Bryce…about his leaving her…about her being too dull…especially in bed.

It was all her fault. What would a kick-ass fantasy heroine do?

What if…what if she proved to him she wasn’t as dull as he thought she was? What if she made him see her as a completely different kind of woman…the way she was seeing Walker in a whole new light?

The men in the video were shouting at each other, soundlessly, because Lizzy had muted the volume.

Look away. Don’t watch anymore. Don’t torture yourself.

She felt far too insane to take sane advice, even from herself. It made her feel crazy to associate her sweet, wonderful brother with what she was watching. Walker had been so dear and thoughtful before he’d left with Vanilla. He’d sensed something was wrong, but unlike Mother, he hadn’t pushed her. He’d simply offered to take the baby out and buy dinner for them. He’d given her space, a precious commodity in Manhattan if ever there was one. Especially, for a Texan used to wide-open spaces.

“You’re sure Bryce won’t come home starved—”

She mumbled something to Walker about Bryce working late.

“So, if Bryce isn’t coming home, are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” His eyes had been so kind. As if he knew. “It’s a beautiful night.”

“Just go. I’m really tired.”

He’d lingered at the door, tall and cowboy dark in a plaid shirt and jeans, until she’d said, “go,” again.

Walker was all male, tougher than any cowhand she knew. He was! Hadn’t her daddy told everybody that over and over again? Walker wasn’t… He couldn’t be…gay. Not her brother.

But despite her fierce determination to cling to what she wanted to believe about him, her life with him was flashing before her eyes like images on cards. Only now every image had a new meaning as she viewed it with fresh insight.

Walker was as formidably large and male as his brother Hawk and as tough as any man. He could stay on a bucking bronc longer than any of them—but he was so kind and gentle and thoughtful. He never bulldozed over people the way Daddy or Hawk or even Cole sometimes did. He loved art and the theater.

Walker couldn’t be gay. Women threw themselves at him.

They asked him out on dates.

But he never asked them.

The big glass doors downstairs opened and crashed closed. Even before she heard Walker’s heavy boots on the carpeted stairs, she jumped up, took the tape out of the player, rushed to the second bedroom and hid it in a drawer.

As her brother strode up the stairs, she ran into her own bedroom and took the phone off the hook, so it couldn’t ring again. If he knew Mother was calling, he’d call her.

By the time Walker walked inside carrying Vanilla, Lizzy was back on the couch with her hands folded primly in her lap.

Vanilla clapped when she saw Lizzy.

Lizzy wished she’d had time to turn the lamp on. She wished she’d grabbed a book or something. It probably looked odd, her just sitting there in the dark.

She steeled herself to look at Walker and felt instantly guiltily disturbed when she did. Instead of his kind, handsome, dark face, she saw those seven tattoos and the joined forbidden parts of those two male bodies.

She took a deep breath.

“You seem in an odd mood,” he said.

“I—I’m fine. H-how come you and Daddy… How come you left Texas?”

“Well, I never was Daddy’s favorite. Maybe I got tired of always having to prove myself.”

“What did you and Daddy fall out over?”

“We had a different vision for the museum.”

“That artist painting the murals was a friend of yours in college, wasn’t he? You brought him home to the ranch once? Were his paintings too abstract or something?”

“Something like that,” Walker agreed vaguely.

Their father had very strong opinions about modern art. If a painting wasn’t like a photograph, he thought it was hogwash.