Diamond Spur

“No, thanks, honey, I’ve had breakfast once already, about five this morning.” His leg brushed hers and he smiled at her nervous reaction. “I like the ribbon.”

“Thank you.” She glanced into his dark eyes and shivers of sensation ran through her body. It was exciting to look at him, all of a sudden. She felt the magic like electricity as he searched her soft eyes.

“How’s roundup going?” Mary asked when she came back with the coffee and broke the spell.

“Oh, not so bad,” Jason told her. He took a biscuit and filled it with bacon that was crisp and browned just right. “We had one busted leg, two broken ribs, a crushed foot, and fifteen stitches in a leg. Other than that, I guess it’s going fine.”

Kate grimaced. “Well, at least it wasn’t your fifteen stiches,” she said. She creamed her coffee and offered him the faded little cream pitcher that once had boasted a patch of strawberries on one side. Now there was little more than a faded leaf and a few unrecognizable dots of red where it had been.

Jason’s lean, dark hand took it from hers and didn’t let go for several seconds. Kate could hardly breathe. His touch ignited her like fire. She looked at his somber face, feeling the hunger in him like a living thing because it was echoed in her own body.

She remembered how hungrily they’d kissed two nights ago, and her eyes fell to his hard mouth with frank delight. He saw it, and his lips parted. She looked up again, catching the same need in his dark, narrowing eyes.

Neither of them moved. Life seemed to be locked in slow motion for a space of seconds while their eyes said things their mouths couldn’t. Jason abruptly poured cream in his coffee and asked Mary about selling off a few head of the cattle he oversaw for her on the boundary of his own property.

“Go ahead and do what you think best, Jason,” Mary said without argument. “You know I’ve no head for business. If we sell now, will we get enough to make the next mortgage payment?”

“With some to spare,” he told her. “The market’s up just temporarily. This is a good time to get rid of the culls.”

“Are you selling some of yours?” Kate asked, just to show him that she wasn’t too tongue-tied to talk.

“I’ve got a few dry cows and some open ones I’m going to sell off,” he agreed.

“Pitiful,” Kate murmured over her biscuit. “Getting rid of a poor little cow because she isn’t expecting.”

“I can’t afford to keep poor little cows who aren’t expecting,” he returned with a faint smile. “In a cow-calf operation, calves pay the bills. If mama doesn’t earn her keep, off she goes into somebody’s frying pan.”

“He’s a cannibal,” Kate told Mary with a straight face.

“He’s a businessman,” Mary argued.

“Same difference,” Kate returned, grinning impishly at Jason.

He laughed, the sound deep and pleasant in the silence of the cheerful little kitchen. “It takes a cannibal to make money these days,” he admitted. He ate his biscuit and sipped his black coffee. “Well, Gene’s trying to convince me to back him in an art show. He needs up-front money for supplies. Damn, those paints are expensive!”

“I know,” Kate said gently. “But he’s good, Jason. He’s really good.”

He drained the thick white mug, one of the new ones Kate had bought, and put it down on the red-checkered oilcloth that adorned the table. “Kate, there are a lot of good artists in the world. But it takes a great one to make any money. And most of them,” he added somberly, “die poor. He’s got Cherry to support, and someday there’ll be children. He needs to think about them, not about his own pipe dreams. Dreams won’t put bread on the table, or clothe children. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to support him into old age. He’s going to have to start pulling his weight around the Spur.”

Kate wanted to argue, but Jason looked dug-in, and she didn’t want to start something else. It was Gene’s problem, after all, not hers. If he wanted to live his own life, he was going to have to fight Jason himself. Kate didn’t envy him that challenge, either. Jason was a formidable enemy.

“How’s your arm?” Kate asked.

He flexed it, rippling the muscle under the nice fit of the fabric. “Fine,” he said. “I haven’t had a problem with it.” He glared at her. “And I would have healed just fine without being dragged to the doctor.”

“I do realize that, Jason,” Kate said sincerely. “And I promise the next time Gabe begs me to look at your torn and bleeding body, I’ll put a sack over my head and hold my ears shut.”

He pursed his lips, and his dark eyes twinkled. “Would you, really?” he asked. His voice had a new softness when he spoke, his face was more relaxed than Kate had ever seen it.

She sighed, studying him. “I guess not, since you’re the only friend I’ve got.”

“I’ll put the dishes in the sink,” Mary murmured, glancing delightedly from one to the other of them. As she puttered around the kitchen, Kate got to her feet. Kate hadn’t expected Jason to stand up at the same time. She overbalanced and he caught her waist to steady her.

Standing so close to him, her nerves were unsettled, and it showed. She had to force her breath in and out, but she couldn’t stop the rustle of it through her lips.

He stared at her mouth until she thought she’d go crazy if he didn’t bend those few inches and take it. She swallowed, her tongue going unsteadily to her dry lips, and he made a sound under his breath and almost pushed her away.

“I’ve got to get back to work,” he said curtly. “I left calves scattered all over hell and gone.”

“Thanks again for the beans,” Mary said. She glanced at him thoughtfully. “Would you like to come over for supper and sample them?”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Who’s cooking, you or Kate?”

Mary glared at him. “Why, you horrible man, and I was going to bake you a cake, too.”

He tweaked Mary’s chin and bent to kiss her cheek. “You’re a great cook. I apologize.”

“Kate’s cooking, anyway,” Mary muttered. She shook her head, laughing. “You horrible man,” she said again and started toward the hall. “I’ll get our purses, Kate, you can lock the back door after Jason.”

“Yes, Mama,” Kate agreed.

The silence in the room when she left it was deafening. Jason stared at her with all the barriers down. There was no teasing banter now to disguise the desire in his hard face.

He moved toward her, tucking a hand under her soft chin to lift it. “Do you want my mouth as much as I want yours?” he asked under his breath.

Her lips parted. “Oh, yes...!” she moaned.

He bent and roughly opened her lips with his, teasing them in a silence that vibrated with tension. He lifted his mouth and brushed it lazily back and forth across hers, feeling the trembling start.

He bit her lower lip softly. “Do that to me.”

She did, and both his lean hands came up to frame her face, to hold it steady while his dark eyes blazed into hers for an instant.

“Now let’s stop playing and do it for real,” he whispered gruffly, and bent with fierce purpose in his mouth.

Her heart was going crazy when she felt that tentative searching, but before she had time to react to it, her mother’s footsteps echoed toward the kitchen door.

“Oh, damn,” Kate whimpered under her breath. Jason stood erect on legs that felt weak and looked down at her with black frustration in a face like stone.

“I wanted it, too,” he said quietly. “Tonight, I’ll give you that kiss, Kate. I’ll give it to you with interest...!”

Mary walked in with Kate’s purse. “About six suit you, Jason?” she asked the taciturn man who was already at the back door, with his lean hand on the doorknob.

“Six suits me fine,” he said, and grinned at them.

“See you then,” Kate said lightly.

Neither of them fooled Mary, who saw beneath the teasing tones to the intense tension she’d interrupted. “Don’t fall off your horse,” she told Jason.