 
### My Antarctica

Copyright © 2018 by J.S. Wayne  
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof  
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever  
without the express written permission of the author  
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or as

permitted by law for academic or critique purposes.

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition Copyright 2013, Second Edition Copyright 2018

ISBN 978-0-9834834-7-2

Smashwords Edition

Terms and Conditions:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work and intellectual property rights of this author.

A Semper Press Book

# My Antarctica

by J.S. Wayne

Can a Utah rancher thaw an ice queen's heart?

Sheridan Travers believes isolation is the best cure for a broken heart. In the aftermath of a messy divorce, she pulled up stakes and relocated to the last place in the country anyone would think to look for her: a small town in central Utah. Despite her best efforts, the locals are determinedly friendly. Especially Murray Young, a local politician who makes his intentions toward Sheridan more than clear.

The last thing Sheridan wants is to get involved with anyone, least of all a social climber who sees her as arm candy and an asset to his political career. During an ugly scene in the parking lot of a local supermarket, things suddenly change when an unpolished but polite stranger, Howie Wilson, steps in on her behalf. As her path keeps crossing Howie's, she begins to wonder if she should break her icy façade...or stay locked in her private Antarctica.

# Contents

My Antarctica

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Dedications

About the Author

Other Books

# Chapter One

"Sherry! Hey, Sherry!"

Sheridan Travers winced. Tightening her grip on the loaded grocery cart, she looked resolutely forward and quickened her pace, praying the all-too-familiar voice behind her was hailing someone else.

If he's not, he's in for a nasty awakening, she thought darkly.

"Sherry! Come on, wait up!"

The voice drew closer, taking on a distinct whining note. She fixed her expression in a mask of pleasant neutrality and stopped in her tracks.

Sharp clacks rang off the asphalt as the soles of polished wingtips struck them. She didn't need to turn to see her pursuer. Murray Young wouldn't dare be seen in public without being freshly shaved and dressed to the nines, no matter what time of day it was. His Tanino Crisci Lilians would be shined to a patent leather gloss, the creases in his tailored slacks would be sharp enough to use in major surgery, and he wouldn't have so much as one cornsilk strand of hair out of place.

She mentally squared her shoulders and prepared for another in a six-month series of skirmishes. Of all the days for Murray to start up his feeble attempts at courtship again, he'd have been hard pressed to pick a worse one. Sheridan's head pounded furiously and her feet ached savagely from spending the day running up and down stairs in pumps. She hadn't eaten all day and the only thing that sounded remotely good was also better than three hours away, in Cedar City.

Sometimes she wished she'd stayed in the picturesque little mountain town. If nothing else, she was pretty sure Murray Young didn't have any clones there.

"Hey! How are you doing?" Murray asked from just over her right shoulder.

She managed not to flinch, but it was a close call. Turning, she allowed a pleasant fantasy of Murray getting run over by a truck to drag the corners of her mouth up into an insincere smile.

"Hi, Murray." She silently congratulated herself on how flat and neutral her voice sounded.

"I was hoping to catch you before you left the office, Sherry. I wanted to ask you if you'd like to go out for drinks."

"As in, I wanted to but then I changed my mind?" She couldn't resist the gibe.

Murray forced a smile, although his right eyelid twitched slightly. She recognized his signature tell of exasperation, and had to fight to keep from laughing out loud.

"No, Sherry," he said with exaggerated patience. "I wanted to, but you left." He inflected the last word in a way which conjured a mind-movie of a three-year-old throwing a tantrum because Mommy wouldn't let him have any more candy.

"I wasn't feeling well, Murray. And I've told you time and time again, my name is Sheridan."

"Sheridan sounds so cold. So...remote. Sherry sounds warmer, friendlier. You can curl up with a nice glass of sherry, but you can't do that with Sheridan."

Like I have any intention of curling up with you.

Instead of laughing in his face or snarling out her thoughts, she settled for her best rushed demeanor. "Glad we got that sorted out. I have to go, Murray. I have plans." A bottle of Merlot from the state liquor store, a midnight jazz playlist, and a long, hot bubble bath followed by a short, cold shower sounded like heaven. Best of all, Murray wouldn't be there.

"Really? Is there any chance I could get you to change them?" He peered at her under long eyelashes, the precise symmetry of his face taking on a boyish, almost mischievous air.

He wasn't a bad-looking man, but seemed soft somehow, despite his oft-repeated announcements of how many hours a week he spent at the local gym. There was something about him that announced to the whole immediate world that he was far more interested in appearances than substance, from his flashy clothes to his personal-trainer-sculpted body. Between that and the fact his shoes alone cost more than half her wardrobe had, she wasn't interested. The obvious display of family money turned her off, and his political ambition to become the next Democratic contender from the district for the State House the following year made him even less interesting.

Sheridan found most politics deadly boring at best and sleazy at worst. Despite her low opinion of the legal profession in general owing to her bitter personal experience, she still considered attorneys two steps up the social ladder from politicians, who she generally filed a step and a half below pond scum. Murray wasn't at all subtle about what he saw in her. If he had his way, she would wind up as a trophy wife, a blonde, tall, pretty woman who wasn't so attractive she would offend female voters, eliminating any concerns from the factionalized elements in Utah politics. Even better, as an outsider, she would be expected to sit down, look pretty and decorative, and do little to nothing else.

No thanks. She'd had enough of that from Richard to last her a lifetime and several more besides. "I don't think so, Murray. And please don't mispronounce my name again."

A deep scarlet flush crept from the collar of his lilac shirt up into his cheeks. "I wasn't mispronouncing it. I was trying to show you how special I think you are."

She sucked in a deep breath in preparation to really let him have it, but backed down. "Murray, let me give you a tip. Women don't like to have their names mangled. Even if I knew you a lot better, I'd still insist you call me Sheridan, and you would do it because it's polite, respectful, and I asked you to."

His mouth twisted down into a grimace and his hands clawed at his sides. Sheridan instinctively flinched back a little, long experience with such body language warning her to expect a strike.

"Dammit, Sherry! What do I have to do—"

"Is there a problem here?"

Murray flinched as if someone had dumped ice water on him, the anger in his face draining to an emotion which wasn't quite fear, but lived in the same zip code. Sheridan turned to see who had knocked Murray so badly off his stride.

For a moment she was looking directly into the setting sun, which dazzled her so much she could only make out a dark silhouette. She blinked furiously and through light-induced tears fought to get a better look at the newcomer.

The subtle scent of sandalwood and the warm, friendly aroma of leather wafted from the stranger, mingling with the sweet, peppery scent of a good cheroot. Murray would never wear cologne so overt, and she knew he didn't smoke. Besides, Murray didn't smell so...masculine.

As her eyes adjusted to the light, she thought, Whoa!

The stranger stood less than an inch taller than she did, even taking into account the leather hat surrounded by a band of what looked like snakeskin and semiprecious gemstones. His dark brown coat eddied in the sharp, cool breeze. Beneath his hat, shoulder-length bronze hair caught the wind and fluttered delicately around his face. His face wasn't particularly remarkable, or ugly, or attractive. It was a plain, honest face adorned only with a goatee grown two weeks past respectability and perhaps two days' worth of stubble. Without an unusually handsome or hideous face to distract the onlooker, his eyes gleamed brilliant blue, like flawless sapphires in a plain setting, the better to allow the viewer to appreciate the beauty of the jewels.

Those eyes blazed with barely restrained anger.

"What do you want, Wilson?" Murray snapped.

The stranger lifted his left hand to his mouth. A deep red glow suffused his face for a moment before he lowered the thin cigar and exhaled out the left side of his mouth, which was furthest from Sheridan and conveniently aimed downwind.

"Ma'am, is this gentleman bothering you?" Despite the anger on his face, his voice, a deep tenor or light baritone with a slight hint of a Texas accent, was low and gentle.

"No, uh—Wilson? No, Murray and I were just talking."

Wilson digested this with a slow series of nods. "Uh huh. Just talking." He mused on that for a moment. "Didn't look like a terribly civil discussion, if you don't mind me saying so, ma'am."

Murray broke in, his chest pushed out almost to bursting. "Wilson, no one wants you here. You're a troublemaker and a genuine problem for the law-abiding people of this town. We tolerate you only because you don't go sticking your nose in other people's business. I suggest you get on out of here and leave us to our private discussion."

Wilson cut his eyes over to Sheridan. "Ma'am?"

From anyone else that many ma'ams in a row, especially to a woman who was probably at least five years his junior, would have sounded condescending as hell. When this man said it, he did so without a trace of irony and no indication that he was anything less than perfectly sincere. Whoever and whatever else he was, he was certainly polite.

Which was more than she could say for Murray.

She made a snap decision, knowing if she'd guessed wrong there was a parking lot full of people who could help her or at least dial 911. "I'll see you at work tomorrow, Murray," she said.

"I— uh, I— have a good night, Sheridan." His voice warped with a mix of anger and dread.

"You too." Without a backward glance she started walking again. Behind her and one step to her right, a series of dull thumps told her the stranger was keeping pace. He didn't speak, seeming content simply to shadow her without trying to make small talk.

"You don't have to follow me, you know," she remarked three steps later.

"I know that, ma'am. I mean no disrespect." A faint note of dry humor darted through the undertone of his words. "If it helps, think of me as goon repellent. Besides, that's a fair stack of groceries you have there. I'd consider it a personal favor if you'd let me help you load them into your car, ma'am."

She thought it over for a moment. Something told her if she refused Wilson's help, he'd be gracious about it, possibly even give her a tip of his leather hat before he walked away to go about his own interrupted business. Nothing in his voice or demeanor suggested he would be anything less than a perfect gentleman.

More than anything else, that decided the matter.

"If you really want to."

"I do, ma'am. Think of it as an apology on behalf of my species." The words came out light, but there was something rough and surly underlying his casual tone. "I don't much care for men who behave like that."

She reached her car, an aging and slightly battered Chevy Cavalier in an indeterminate shade that could have once been dark blue, purple, or black, but had now faded under years in the intense Utah sun and snow. She'd bought it third or maybe fourth-hand, but the price had been right and the sticky steering wasn't enough of a bar to turn it down. As she slid the key in to unlock the trunk, she asked, "What people?"

"The kind who think because they know a person for five minutes they have some kind of special connection and the right to treat them like either best friends or their personal property."

She turned sharply to look at him. If the movement surprised him, he didn't let on. "I heard you tell him your proper name, and immediately he ignored you. That's not something a gentleman does. But then again, Murray Young would have to be a man before he could be a gentleman. He misses on both counts." He turned his face away for a moment, but his jaw twitched and jumped as it tightened.

"What do you mean?"

After a long, silent moment he turned back to her, his stubbled face composed into calm blankness. "Never mind, ma'am. It's ancient history and a poor tale to bother a new acquaintance with." He smiled and held out his hand. "Howard Wilson. Friends call me Howie."

Sheridan took the offered hand. He had a nice handshake, firm and no-nonsense without making it into a dominance issue. In her experience, it was a rare man who knew how to shake a woman's hand without either forgetting she was a woman or insulting her by treating her like glass. His palm was smooth and warm against hers, only slightly roughened with calluses at the bases of his fingers. His fingers were long and thick, capable of delicate precision without being frail in any way. With a jolt of electric awareness, she found herself wondering what those fingers might feel like against other, more intimate parts of her body.

Thankfully he broke the handshake first, deftly disengaging from the clinch in that mysterious way few men ever mastered that signaled the contact was over without making it seem like a slight. Turning, he began to unload the contents of the cart into the trunk of the Chevy, moving even the heaviest and most awkward items with an aplomb that belied their heft and arranging them neatly around the spare tire as effortlessly as if they had been so many bags of marshmallows. By the time she realized she should really stop enjoying the view and lend him a hand, he was placing the last bag of bread on top. He straightened with a flourish and reached for the push handle of the cart.

"I'll take this over to the corral for you."

She had the impression if she wanted to fight him over it, he'd relinquish the cart without question. Part of her felt like she should, just to reassert some dominance in the situation. Another part curled up and purred like a contented cat to have this undeniably attractive man take charge so effortlessly. Whoever Howie Wilson was, he certainly wasn't the usual run of man she'd become used to.

"Thank you."

With a mischievous glint in his eyes, he touched two fingers to the brim of his hat. "Have a good evening, ma'am. Hopefully I'll see you around."

She smiled. "I'd like that."

It was hard, so, so hard to look away from him as he turned without another word and walked the cart over to the corral. She finally managed it by sheer force of will and slid into the driver's seat, but couldn't resist stealing a quick glance over her shoulder as she reached for the seatbelt.

Why couldn't I have met a man like that my first day in town? she mentally pouted.

She slid the key into the ignition and willed the engine to turn over. It coughed once, twice, and then grudgingly revved to life. Gently she stepped on the accelerator, pulling away from the parking space.

As she turned out of the lot onto what passed for the main drag, she wondered if she really did feel those gemlike blue eyes tracking her departure, or if it was just wishful thinking. A man like that could do more for a woman just by tipping his hat than a hundred Murray Youngs with all their fake, polished swagger.

She shivered luxuriously, imagining those eyes heating as she revealed her bare skin to him.

# Chapter Two

Howie pulled the door open and stepped into neon-stippled dimness. The muted roar of conversation, the clacking of billiard balls, and the howl of Stevie Ray Vaughan's guitar as he wailed about a flood in Texas blasted out to greet him from around the divider wall. He gave a little wave as he sauntered into the bar area proper, where maybe thirty people had decided to start their weekend partying a little early. Finding an empty seat at the bar, he waited patiently for the bartender to finish dealing with her current order. While he waited, he spirited a twenty from his wallet and slid it onto the bar.

Finally she noticed him and surged over, all bosom and long legs and grins.

"Evening, Margie."

"Hey, Howie! Long time no see!" the bartender caroled, pushing back her dyed red hair. "Where you been hiding out?"

He shrugged. "You know my work's never done. Just got finished moving the flock to spring grazing, so I've got a few days where the boys can take over while I work out the quarterly expenses. Figured I'd come in and wet my whistle before I get into that mess."

She smiled. For a woman on the shady side of forty and running at fifty with both feet, as she put it, Margie Holcomb kept herself in good shape. Her Jack Daniels halter top and high-cut Daisy Dukes made men of all ages come to a dead stop with their tongues hanging out. She knew it and used it to good advantage when courting tips, but wouldn't think of doing more than that, as crazy in love with her man as she was.

"I don't envy you that."

"Neither do I." He sighed. "Got a Guinness?"

"Always keep a couple back just in case you should happen to remember where this place is." She winked at him.

"Guinness and a shot of Jack, then."

Margie stopped in mid-turn and cocked her head quizzically. "What happened?"

He scowled. "Had a run-in with Mr. High and Mighty Murray Young earlier. He was being unpleasant to a young lady. I voiced my displeasure."

Margie shook her head. "I swear, that man'll never learn. How'd the young lady take it?"

"Dunno," he grunted. "I didn't exactly hang around to take a Gallup poll, but I got the impression she was glad to get away from him."

"You tell her why he's so afraid of you?"

"Nope."

Margie hurried to the glass-faced refrigerator and liberated a dark brown bottle. With a quick flick of her church key, she flipped the top off the beer and neatly into the trash can. Setting it down, she busied herself prepping his shot.

"You know, Murray thinks he's something else in this town, but he's wrong. Just because he wants to run the whole damn thing don't make him qualified, and most folks around here know a snake oil salesman when they see one."

"I'm not so sure about that," he mused. "I hear Young's been talking to the Mangum brothers about building a mall up north of town. Reckons it'll stimulate the economy or some such."

Margie froze. "The only land close enough to town for that to make sense and that's worth a damn to build on north of here is on your ranch."

He nodded. "I know. He tried to get me to sell. Offering more money than the land was worth, even with mineral rights, if you want to know the truth." He frowned, a faint twinge of regret running through him. "Would've made me richer than I ever imagined."

"Why didn't you?"

"Family land. I promised Daddy when he died I wouldn't sell it off during my lifetime, unless a couple of very specific things happened. So far they haven't, and I like running my ranch."

"But if he was offering more than the land's worth, why couldn't you go buy another one? You're always talking about wanting to move out to Texas."

He took a long swallow of the dark stout, welcoming the strong bite of alcohol. Most bars in Utah were restricted by law to selling 3.2% alcohol-content beer on tap, but could sell "strong beer" by the bottle. It was why he came to the Broken Spoke. Otherwise, he likely wouldn't have bothered.

"Texas would be nice, but all the land there is pretty much bought up, and anyone who's selling right now wants the US Gold Reserve for it. I couldn't afford to start up again somewhere else, not and do it the way I am now. Besides, I like being my own boss, and the best I could manage out there would be as an investor, doing the work but still having someone else calling the shots."

Margie smiled sympathetically. "And you call your own shots."

He saluted her with the bottle. "Exactly."

She passed him the shot and made the twenty disappear. He waited until she turned back around and raised the glass. "Salud." Then he tossed it back, wheezing slightly as the sour mash seared its way down his gullet.

"Don't you ever say anything else?" she sniped, her eyes twinkling.

"That's why they call it perfection. It doesn't need anything else. Sounds better than 'cheers,' which I always thought sounded silly unless it was coming from an Englishman."

Margie started to say something, but then she focused on something over Howie's left shoulder. "Evening, doll! Welcome to the Broken Spoke!" It was her standard greeting for people she didn't know, which pretty well let out just about everyone local.

Howie shifted on his bar stool. The first thing he noticed was a waterfall of golden hair that caught the reflections of the neon bar signs and softened them to a warm halo. The second thing he noticed was a pert, upturned nose separating two large, green eyes. The last thing to grab his attention was slightly disproportionate, bee-stung lips that looked like they'd be damn pleasant to kiss.

Sheridan.

He couldn't decide whether to bless or curse his luck. Certain territories south of the border lobbied for immediate annexation of this intriguing new land, while the cooler climates northward hoped she'd stay well away. She was fun to look at, no question about that, but the last thing he needed was to get entangled with a woman.

Even if it was just for the night? the hormonal equivalent of Mexico cajoled, six-shooters waving in the air and tequila shots flowing like water.

It's never just for the night. You know better, cerebral Canada harrumphed, quirking a disapproving eyebrow over the top of a copy of the New York Times.

Somewhere in the heartland, a calm Midwestern voice piped up. I wonder if she'd let me buy her a drink, see where it goes.

Sheridan caught his eye and smiled.

Guess we're going to find out.

He held up his hand in a casual wave, indicating the stool next to him as he dropped it. She came over and hopped up on the stool without hesitation.

"Hi, Howie."

"Ma'am." Ma'am? Ma'am? You couldn't think of a better opening than that? How about using her name, idiot!

Sheridan laughed. "I don't think anyone's ever called me 'ma'am' that many times in one day."

He flushed a little. "I didn't want to be too forward."

She leaned forward and brushed the hand he'd rested on the bar, cradled protectively around his beer. "It's okay. You can call me Sheridan." She hesitated and then added, "Or anything else you'd like."

Howie raised his eyebrows. "I thought you told Murray you didn't like being called out of your name."

She made a dismissive gesture with her free hand. "That was him. It had nothing to do with you."

Truer words had never been spoken. He had no business getting up in hers. Just because he didn't like Young didn't give him any call to intrude into a private affair. If he was sure of one thing, it was that Sheridan Whatever Her Last Name Was could fight her own battles just fine.

"Okay...Sheridan." He tried the name on his tongue, and found yet another point to disagree with Murray on. It rolled around his mouth, tasting lightly of salt and moonlight, conjuring images of a low, sweet melody blown through a saxophone and rumpled bedclothes. It was a name he felt like he could get used to saying. A lot.

"That's better." She grinned. "Do you mind if I call you Howie?"

"Why should I? It's my name."

"Then why should I mind you calling me Sheridan?"

She was quick, he thought admiringly. He'd always appreciated a woman with a quick wit, and Sheridan seemed to have plenty to spare.

"Don't guess you should. Just seemed like after your meeting in the parking lot..."

"Guh. Don't remind me." She shuddered. "If I had my way about it, Murray Young would call me Mrs. Travers."

Against his will, his eyes darted down to her hands. She wasn't wearing any rings, but on the fourth finger of her left hand, he could just make out a slightly pale circle of skin.

With an effort, he raised his eyes back to her face.

"Don't worry about it. I'm divorced."

"Divorced?" Someone had been foolish enough to let this beautiful woman go? The man had to have been out of his damned mind.

"I broke it off. He wanted a trophy, something he could show off to his friends and family, who'd make him look brilliant and about every year or so give him another baby to show off."

"You didn't want to be a mom?"

"I didn't want to be a prize," she corrected without rancor. "I'd like to be a mother one day, but I don't want to make a child with a man who's only interested in how studly he looks knocking me up as soon as I recover from having the last one."

He nodded. His own father had been much the same way, fathering child after child on his mom because that's what he felt it was his duty as a good Christian to do. The constant strain of being pregnant had nearly killed his mother several times, and yet the patriarch waited impatiently for her to be "ready" to have another. It was one of many reasons Howie hadn't bothered with the rites and rituals of the LDS church after he became an adult. While his father had almost disowned him for it, Howie just couldn't see living that way or doing that to a woman. A marriage needed to be about love and respect, not just being fruitful and multiplying or proving to the priesthood that he was willing and able to raise as many children as the Lord saw fit to push through his wife.

"I can understand that." In an overt attempt to lighten the tone, he asked, "What are you drinking?"

"It's okay. I've got it."

He subsided without protest. "Your call."

She blushed fetchingly. "I didn't mean I didn't want you to. I just...don't want to feel obligated to you."

His eyebrows vanished into the crown of his hat. "How would my buying you a drink obligate you?"

She shook her head. "Single woman in a bar accepts a drink from a handsome stranger. There are certain...assumptions that go with that."

"You're thirsty and I'm buying?"

She started to laugh, but choked it off and leaned in close enough for him to smell her light, floral perfume. "My God...you're serious!"

"Some reason I shouldn't be?"

"Look, Howie." A look of pure confusion flickered across her face, followed by something harder, more resolved. It made her look like not just a woman, but a freaking goddess, and every nerve ending in Howie's body sent up a siren wail of need to reach out, take her in his arms...and if something followed, well, who could blame him?

"Everyone knows that a man only buys a woman a drink if he thinks there's something he can get from her."

"Everyone in this bar doesn't know that," he riposted mildly. "Hell, I've bought just about every woman in here a drink at one time or another."

"Did you sleep with any of them after?"

"No."

"Really?"

Instead of answering directly, he turned to Margie. "Hey, Margie. How many women here right now have I bought a drink for?"

"All of them. Some of them twice, or more," she replied without hesitation.

"How many have I slept with?"

Her eyes narrowed speculatively, but she answered slowly, "None."

With a "there you are" wave of his hands, he leaned back against the unpadded wood of the stool's back.

"First off, I wouldn't try to seduce any of the women in this bar. I know most of them, and their husbands, and would like to stay on good terms with them. Second, if a woman wants to come home with me, she will, whether I buy her a drink or not."

"Do you want me to come home with you?" she teased.

Blood rushed to his face and choked his voice into a tense growl. "Let's see how the rest of the night goes. We only met an hour ago."

Sheridan looked at Margie.

"Whiskey sour, please." With a glance at Howie, she added, "His money's no good."

# Chapter Three

About an hour later, Howie's cell phone rang. He held up an apologetic finger to Sheridan to signal he just needed a second and hit the talk button.

"'Lo?"

"Howie, it's Paul."

Paul Sanders was the manager of the Bar Ewe Ranch, and Howie's right hand. Nothing happened on that ranch that Paul didn't know about, but Paul wasn't given to calling Howie on one of his rare evenings in town without a damn good reason.

"What's going on?"

"Look, there's something wrong with a few of the sheep. They're acting funny. Kinda drugged, like."

"Drugged?" Howie thought for a moment, confused. "There's nothing on that range they'd be likely to get into, even if they were able, right?"

"Don't think so. If it was poison, you'd think they'd be dead already."

Howie turned that over in his mind. "How many are affected?"

"That I know of? Four rams, one ewe, and seven lambs."

That tracked. Younger sheep were much more susceptible to toxins than their elders. If they had somehow managed to get into something dangerous, the adults would take it hard, but probably be okay. The lambs, however, were in very real and immediate danger.

"Listen, Paul. Call Doc Randolph and get him out of bed. I want him to come take a look soonest. Then roust the boys and get them all laced up with shotguns. If someone's been coming around with bad intentions, I want to know who, I want to know how, and I want to be certain it won't happen again. Where are you at now?"

"I'm about a mile north of the south gate, maybe five miles west of the house."

He nodded, then realized Paul couldn't see it through the phone. "Okay. Get the boys out of bed and down to the pasture. Get those sheep tubed as quickly as possible."

"That's gonna cost, boss."

Tubing sheep was an expensive proposition. The electrolytes used in the procedure, designed to help their delicate digestive systems recover from most naturally occurring poisons, were costly, plus the overtime he'd have to pay the men. Even so, it was cheaper than losing a head of prime wool sheep.

"Yeah, I know. Make it happen, okay? Do I need to be out there?"

"Don't reckon so, boss. So far there's not enough of them down to justify you haring back. Might as well enjoy your time. Me and the boys will work on getting things put to rights, keep you posted."

Howie chewed that over for a moment. "Do you think it's premature to call in the sheriff?"

"Don't reckon calling Barnes makes much sense until we know what we're dealing with."

It had been exactly what Howie was thinking, but it helped to have Paul confirm it.

"Okay. We'll put a pin in that for now. Do we have activated charcoal on hand, just in case?"

"Yep." Paul didn't waste time asking what the charcoal was for. If the sheep had been poisoned, the activated charcoal might help them eliminate the poison safely.

"All right. If there's any change, let me know right then, okay? In the meantime, I'll call you when I'm on the way back."

"Talk to ya." Paul hung up, presumably already barking orders at the other hands.

Howie scrubbed his hands across his eyes. Sheridan leaned in close.

"What's wrong?"

"Something's going on at the ranch. I've got about twelve head of sick sheep. My foreman's handling it." He thought about leaving, but dismissed the idea. If he went tear-assing home, it would send a signal to Paul that he didn't trust his foreman to handle his business. As a seasoned hand, he'd be entirely within his rights to find even the suggestion of lack of confidence in him insulting. As much as he hated to admit it, there wasn't much on the practical end of the ranching business that Paul couldn't do better and more efficiently than Howie himself could, if he'd just stay the hell out of the way and let the man work.

"Oh my God! Do you need to go?"

He forced a smile. "No, it's okay. Paul will keep me in the loop. He and the boys are starting to treat the affected sheep now. If all goes well, there's nothing I can do except get in the way, ask a lot of questions, and tell them to do things they're already doing. That's not going to help anyone or anything, and it's only going to cause hard feelings. Best thing I can do right now is sit right here, enjoy the company, and let my men earn their pay."

"I'm so sorry. I hope it isn't anything serious."

He twitched a smile, then drained the last of his Guinness. Thrusting a finger in the air and twirling it at Margie, the universal bar sign for a round, he said, "Sheep are always getting into some damn thing or another. They have very delicate stomachs, and it's falling off a log easy for them to pick up all kinds of who knows what. They're vaccinated and we keep up on their feed, but it's possible they found a stand of some plant out on the range that's griping their stomachs."

"I always thought sheep were smart."

He laughed at that. "An individual sheep is very smart, but the herd instinct usually cancels that out. There's a good reason people are often described as sheep, because one gets to running and all the rest follow right behind. Same applies here. They don't know good from bad, as long as it smells right, and that's a damn fine way to land themselves muzzle-first in a heap of trouble." He thought for a moment, imagining the scene at the ranch.

"I shouldn't have moved them to the spring grazing yet. Still too cold, really, but with the lambing season just about over and the base pastures overgrazed from the winter, I couldn't afford another month of throwing in hay. Made more sense to chance the weather and hope a blizzard isn't waiting in the wings."

"Sounds like being a rancher is tough work."

"Can be, but I like it. Can't think of anything I'd rather do, anyway. Having a boss breathing down my neck would only drive me crazy, and I'm not exactly a suit and tie type." He blinked a few times rapidly. "So what about you? How'd you wind up in Price?"

"Oh, just a run of bad luck. When my marriage fell apart, I wanted to find somewhere as far from my ex as I could get, someplace no one would look for me. I came here, found a job, and here I am." She propped her chin on her hand as Margie dropped off the drinks, her demeanor solemn and thoughtful. "You know, I almost didn't come out tonight."

"Why's that?" he asked.

"I wanted to go home, take a hot bath, and have a couple of glasses of Merlot. After I got the groceries unloaded, I decided maybe I needed some social interaction." She waved her hands in a "Ta-da!" motion. "And so I did."

"Well, I'm glad you did, Sheridan."

A George Strait song came on the jukebox, and Howie stood up. If he knew anything about women, he was willing to bet a turn around the dance floor would give her something better to think about than how she got here. He gave her a small bow and offered her his hand. "Do you know how to two-step?"

# Chapter Four

Before he left, Howie made a point to give Sheridan his number, just in case she needed anything. Then, with another tip of his hat, he turned and walked out of the bar with that loose-kneed, easy stride of his.

Sheridan sighed and sipped her drink. He'd been polite, and an entertaining conversationalist, especially when deftly dancing around the needles and barbs Margie flung his way. Under his sure, confident lead, she'd learned the Texas two-step and the Western swing in one night. There was something so Old West gentlemanly about him that it made her wonder how much of it was an act and how much of it was real.

"He's the real thing, hun."

She turned to see Margie smiling at her cryptically.

"Sorry?"

"Howie. He's the real thing."

"Is he?"

"You were just sitting there asking yourself that exact question, weren't you? Is he too good to be true?"

Suddenly the bartender's eyes seemed just a little too sharp.

"You're good at reading people."

To her surprise, Margie laughed. "Honey, I've been behind this bar or one that looked enough like it to make no difference for the last thirty years. You don't last that long in this racket without learning a few things about body language."

"Okay, so what do you know about Howie?"

"He's a genuinely good guy. He sometimes gives rides to some of the folks who get too drunk to drive. Won't take money for it, either. I've seen women leave here with him a couple times, and they always report they've had a good time, but he won't talk about it. Doesn't kiss and tell." She took a deep breath and blew it out. "I'll tell ya, hun, if I was ten years younger and not crazy in love with my man, I'd probably use means fair and foul to get a taste of him for myself. That's a man you could have a good time with and not regret it or feel bad about yourself after the fact."

"Can he do a casual relationship?" As soon as the words left Sheridan's mouth, she wished she could take them back. Dammit, she wasn't interested in Howie!

Yeah. Yeah, she was. She wanted to deny it, to scream to the heavens "It's not like that!" But it was exactly like that. Her own tone had given her away, and from the canary-devouring look on the bartender's face, she knew Margie hadn't been fooled for a second.

"Look, hun. All I'm saying is you could do a hell of a lot worse than get into a one-night rodeo with Howie Wilson. I know Murray Young doesn't much like him, but then he doesn't like being thwarted. At all. The pompous ass just doesn't know how to express his disappointment about it, which is why he keeps pestering Howie."

At Young's name, Sheridan shuddered all over again. "What does he have against Howie?"

Margie grinned. "Young reckons if you throw enough money at a problem, it'll stop being a problem. He wants this new mall deal to go through badly. Figures it'll help him in his bid for the state senate. The problem is the only decent piece of land in three counties that would support that kind of development is owned by—"

"Howie Wilson," Sheridan broke in.

"The same. Problem is..." Margie leaned forward conspiratorially and gestured for Sheridan to do the same. When Sheridan's ear was almost flush with Margie's lips, the older woman whispered, "Howie told him to get fucked and get the hell off his land."

"He said that?" The crudity seemed so completely contrary to his demeanor, Sheridan found it hard to believe.

"Oh, he can get salty enough for anybody when he gets riled," Margie confirmed. "Told Murray he'd meet him with buckshot if he ever set the first toe on the property again."

Sheridan's eyes widened in surprise. "What did Murray say?"

"He said he'd find a way to get him off the land one way or the other."

She swallowed. She'd overheard a conversation from Murray's office that very afternoon, concerning a desirable parcel and its recalcitrant owner. Murray often forgot his executive assistant was around. The words she heard coming from the office, punctuating the low murmurs of an otherwise furtive conversation, made her fervently hope she hadn't heard him correctly. Feeling a little queasy, she stood up and laid a five on the bar as a tip. She gave Margie a lopsided smile. "Have a good night, Margie."

"You too, hun." Margie's smile held more than a hint of good-natured calculation as she waved goodbye.

As she hurried to her car, she tried to remember exactly what she'd heard. Something about poison. Or maybe it was pesticide? Try as she might, she couldn't quite shake it loose. Even so, she was nearly certain that Murray had been talking about the very same land Howie owned. If she was right, something very bad was about to happen, if it wasn't happening already. If she was wrong, she'd feel like a fool.

She considered for a few seconds and then whipped out her cell phone. Logic dictated she find out more about what was happening before she acted. It was entirely possible she'd misheard, or that what was being discussed was not even remotely connected. As much as she personally loathed Murray, accusing an innocent man didn't sit well.

The line buzzed once and went directly to voicemail, a cool, feminine voice reciting the number and instructing the caller to leave a message. She hung up. Waited thirty seconds. Tried again.

Voicemail.

### * * *

"What's going on out there, Paul?"

The foreman's voice was uncharacteristically tense. Paul Browning was the kind of man to take just about everything in stride, but his customary sangfroid had deserted him.

"The tubing didn't work. Instead of twelve sick sheep, we've got five dead and another twelve sick. I went ahead and called the vet. He should be here anytime."

"Anything unusual out there?"

"Nothing I saw, but I've been a little busy." Paul's tone suggested Howie should feel like a damned fool for even asking. "When you get here, maybe you and the doc can figure it out. Right now, I'm trying to keep you from losing any more sheep."

"You're right, Paul."

His cell phone beeped, warning him of another incoming call. "I'll talk to you in about twenty minutes, when I get there."

"See you then, boss."

Paul hung up and Howie glanced at the number of the missed call. Nobody he recognized. He supposed it could have been Sheridan.

The mystery number highlighted, and he mashed the call button. It only rang once.

"Hello?"

Sheridan's voice flowed into his ears like warm, soothing honey.

"Sheridan?"

"Howie! Hey, I was trying to get a hold of you..."

"Look, Sheridan, I'm really sorry. There's an emergency out at the ranch. If you want I can call you back after everything settles down, or maybe tomorrow?" He realized he was biting off the ends of his words in his anger and told himself to calm down. Whatever was going on at the ranch, it was his problem, not Sheridan's.

"Uh. Sure. Okay. Talk to you tomorrow."

Click.

He blew out a breath and stepped on the gas. His livelihood was in very real danger, especially if they couldn't pin down what was wrong.

His love life would have to wait.

# Chapter Five

Paul had been just as efficient as Howie expected when he screamed to a stop just across the cattle guard. He had set up diesel-powered portable floodlights and tied the afflicted sheep to a sturdy section of the fence line, one reinforced with thick timbers. The older sheep shivered and slavered, foam drenching the lower halves of their dark faces. If the situation hadn't been so dire, the appearance they gave of dressing up like four-footed, fleecy Santas might have made him smile. As it was, one of the lambs had folded, tongue lolling and slitted eyes glazed, lying terribly still on the ground. Even as he watched, one of the other lambs gave a heartbreaking, piteous bellow and collapsed to its knees before buckling onto its side. It thrashed its legs weakly a couple of times, and then lay still.

Doc Randolph had beaten Howie to the scene, and he sprinted over to the stricken lamb, stethoscope at the ready. He listened for a moment, prodded the lamb's chest and stomach gently, and grunted as Howie hurried up. "Gone."

"Dammit."

Doc Randolph straightened his lanky six-foot, two-inch frame and clicked off the penlight.

"Paul tells me there's nothing unusual in their diet? No additives?"

Howie shook his head. "Nope. We've been bringing them to this same range about every three years. Never needed to use any supplemental feed, except when it gets real hot in the summer. BLM folks said this range was pretty well clear of anything that might be bad for them, but..." He trailed off.

Randolph frowned. "Two problems with that, not necessarily mutually exclusive. One, they can't guarantee that some idiot sheep won't go gnawing on something they shouldn't. Two, if that was the case, I could see one or maybe two sheep getting into something. But all these sheep, all at once? That doesn't make sense."

"I know, Doc. Problem is, what are we going to do about it?"

"Well, my first thought is some kind of toxin. You've got activated charcoal?"

Paul raised the brim of his tall Stetson and nodded.

"Good. You know what to do?"

"Yep. I'll get the boys." He turned and walked away.

"Say, Doc...can you come with me and bring your light?"

As he walked away, the ewe began to bellow. It was a sound to break even the strongest heart. Howie had no illusions about where mutton and wool came from, and had done his fair share of shearing and slaughtering both. Even so, neither act was deliberately or unnecessarily cruel to the animals, and some benefit came from it after the fact. This was both, and offered no benefit he could see.

"Paul!" he shouted into the darkness.

"On it," came the mellow, drawled reply. Sometimes Paul bordered on prescient with a side of telepathy mixed in, traits Howie greatly appreciated at this moment. He didn't have to waste a lot of time giving orders or explanations. He just gave the reins over to Paul and let him do what needed doing.

"What are we looking for?" Randolph asked, mustache twitching.

"I want to see if there's anything odd about the place they were feeding earlier."

"Like what?"

"Like a conveniently dropped receipt with a name on it. Like something that doesn't belong that you can test to find out if it's our poison. Like anything that seems out of place, wrong, or doesn't belong."

Randolph scowled. "You realize I'm a vet, not Nancy Drew, right?"

Howie snickered. "Nancy Drew would have herself a Freaky Friday if she woke up looking like you."

"Oh. Ho ho. Ha ha. Ow, stop, my sides," Randolph said flatly.

"Yeah, yeah. Lights on the ground."

A few steps later, Howie stumbled over something that sent him sprawling. He fell with a startled curse.

"You okay?" Randolph offered him a hand. With a growl, Howie took it.

"I'm fine. What the hell?"

The men played their lights over the object. To Howie's chagrin, he realized he'd stumbled over the low rim of a water trough, barking his shins painfully. If he'd been only six inches to the left, he'd have wound up completely soaked.

"Didn't you know that was there?" Randolph asked.

"Yep." He brushed himself off, nonplussed. "I wasn't exactly looking for a water trough, though. I was paying attention to other things."

"Just thought I'd remind you: I work with animals, not humans. You break a bone, I'm liable to shoot you," the vet remarked flatly.

Howie hoped the vet was only joking. "No shooting tonight, sorry. I know how much you love your beauty sleep, but if we can find out what made these sheep..."

The sentence died on his lips as he inhaled through his nose. To his surprise, he smelled something that reminded him of a swimming pool.

"Doc, you smell that?"

The vet took a long sniff and then gave Howie a sidelong look and a nod. "Yeah. Smells like a swimming pool."

"Uh huh." Howie leaned down and cupped a double-handful of the slightly brackish water from the trough in his hands. He breathed in and choked.

"Jesus! Smells like someone was bleaching wool in this trough!"

"Hmm." Randolph pondered for a minute. "You got any vinegar up at the house?"

He thought it over. He'd laid in five gallons a couple of weeks ago, but vinegar on a large-scale sheep operation had a thousand uses, from cooking to cleaning to disinfecting certain kinds of cuts and bites. It was entirely possible that the supply had already been severely diminished.

"Yeah. I think I do. If I don't, I'll send Clyde to town to get it."

Howie drew in a deep breath and released it in the most authoritative bellow he could muster. "Clyde! Get up to the house and grab a jug of vinegar, and as much water as you can carry in a single trip. I need you back here in ten minutes, sooner if you can manage it."

"On it!" Clyde jumped into his open-sided Jeep and gunned the engine, sending up a rooster tail of dust and cutting deep, parallel ruts in the field as he sped off toward the house.

"Nothing the boys can do until he gets back." Randolph's deep voice was somber. "Best get 'em over here and make sure someone didn't start exercising their own initiative."

"If they did, I'll reupholster my office chair with their hides," Howie vowed.

In moments, the men were gathered in a loose gaggle as Howie reported what they'd found. All the men were quick to chime in with their own denials. "We've never chlorinated the water troughs before!" Brooks protested, his bearded face going ruddy at the cheeks.

Preston didn't say anything. He was staring at the restrained sheep, the muscles in his lower jaw clenching.

"Preston?" Howie prodded.

The lean man shook his head. "Wasn't me. But I've got a hunch as to who might have done this."

"Before we go throwing around accusations, we need to be sure of our facts. So far all we know is that none of us did it. Y'all checked this area before heading in, right?"

A growled chorus arose from the three men.

"And you didn't notice anything then?"

Another growl of assent, this one a little, well, sheepish. The men would have been more concerned with making sure the sheep were secure and not wandering too far afield than they were with checking the water. If Howie hadn't blundered shins-first into the answer himself, they could have lost days trying to find out what had happened, while losing more sheep every hour.

"Then whoever did this had to have done it after that, but before y'all found them. I need y'all to scatter and check all the troughs. You smell chlorine, we'll have to pump the water out and dispose of it safely. I don't want to lose any more sheep because we got sloppy. No sense doing this sonofabitch's dirty work for him. Scott, you and Preston go get on that. Paul, you and Brooks work on getting the healthy sheep away from here."

The blare of a horn from the gravel road brought everyone's heads around. Clyde screeched into the makeshift paddock and cut the engine. Without a word, the hands went to help the foreman offload the essential cargo. Checking the water supplies for the sheep would have to wait. Delays would mean more dead sheep and lost revenue for every man there, and they all knew it.

A few minutes later, Randolph finished mixing up the medicine. Then he carefully doled out large droppers to each man. "Shove this as far into their mouths as you can manage and give 'em as much as you can. This is their best hope right now."

* * *

Two hours later, the ewe and another lamb lay dead. The others had quieted down and were sleeping placidly. The teams had reshuffled somewhat, with Preston and Brooks checking the water supplies, while Scott and Paul set about chivvying the healthy animals away from the area. Clyde, meanwhile, was engaged with loading the corpses onto the large flatbed ranch truck for transport back to the ranch. One of the animals was destined for Randolph's clinic for necropsy and a definitive determination of cause of death.

Doc Randolph looked as tired as Howie felt as they watched the cleanup efforts.

"Nothing you can do with that meat," Randolph muttered, aiming his chin in the general direction of the dead animals. "If I were you, I'd call Barnes."

Howie nodded woodenly as he flicked his Zippo and lit up a cigar. He didn't usually smoke two in a day, but the stress of the day had taken its toll. "Yeah. I was hoping it was just one of my boys being a bonehead, but this looks like something someone did intentionally."

"It's circumstantial, but still worth reporting. Could be Young trying to scare you off."

"Possible." He took a drag and blew out a plume of smoke into the crisp autumn evening. "Which is why Clyde, Scott, and Preston are going to take shifts watching the property. They'll be armed, and they've got cell phones and CBs. Besides, if we've got eyes out here, we'll get some early warning if any of the other sheep come down with chlorine poisoning." He sighed wearily. "Dunno what else to do."

Randolph clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Sounds to me like you're doing everything you can. Go with it."

"Like I have a choice." He blew out smoke and pulled out his cell phone.

"Guess it's time to call the law."

# Chapter Six

At noon, Murray slammed the door to his office and locked it. As he did, he announced, "I'm going home. Didn't sleep well last night. You know how to get hold of me if anything important happens. Might as well take lunch."

Sheridan took a closer look. He did look tired, with dark hollows under his eyes. If he hadn't been so sleazy, she would have asked if he was okay, but she was afraid he might take that as some kind of weird feminine regret for the happenings of the night before. Instead, she simply said, "Thanks. Hope you sleep well."

He gave her a long, searching look, as if trying to decide if there was more to her words than just what she meant. Finally, he shrugged and nodded. "Thanks."

She waited five minutes after he cleared out to log off her computer and turn off the lights in the office. She'd lain awake until three, hoping Howie would call her back, but he hadn't. Whatever the emergency was, it must have been serious.

As she locked the door, she debated on where to go for lunch. Price boasted a pretty good diner, and she hadn't been there in a while. It sounded about as good as anything, she decided. She got in the car and aimed it in the appropriate direction.

Her phone shrilled.

With one hand she steered, while she clawed in her purse for the phone. She had a friend back in Pittsburgh who would have simply shoved her phone into her bra, where it was always readily available, but Sheridan wasn't that brave or that gauche.

Although at times like these, she had to admit that Jenna's method had merit.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Sheridan."

Howie sounded absolutely exhausted.

"Are you okay?" She didn't feel any alarm or concern for Murray, but the drained tone of Howie's voice triggered a wave of distinct worry.

"No. We had an incident last night. Lost twelve head of sheep. Someone poisoned them."

"Oh, no! That's horrible!" A dark cloud of suspicion oozed over her thoughts, a louder echo of the night before, but her reason demanded she find evidence before she went around broadcasting her thoughts.

"Yeah. I've been talking with the sheriff and setting up a watch schedule. Too damn wired to sleep and too tired to do anything else, but I had to come to town anyway. You want to grab a bite?"

She smiled. "I'm heading for the diner."

He chuckled, the sound gravelly but still amused. "I'm already there. I'll have Sally grab you a menu."

### * * *

Sheridan walked into the diner and looked around. A gaggle of elderly men sat at the counter, sipping coffee and swapping stories. The occupants chatted and laughed, adding a lively buzz of conversation to the atmosphere. Servers swooped and maneuvered around the large room like brightly colored birds of prey, dropping off full plates and topping off empty glasses with brisk aplomb.

Howie sat alone at a booth in the back corner, shoulders slumped and head down. He cradled a full cup of coffee in his hands, staring at the dark brew as if it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen. Beneath his hat, his shoulder-length hair stood out in random directions like straw. The noon sunlight caught the coppery stubble on his jawline, the better to highlight his sunken cheeks and exhaustion-shadowed eyes.

She barely knew him, but her heart ached for him. The vital, polite, funny man she'd met the night before had been replaced by a doppelganger from a dark mirror, a grim, pale, aged shadow of himself. She wondered what she would have to do to make him smile, and swore no matter what it took, she'd do exactly that.

He glanced up as she sat down. "Howdy."

"Hi."

"How's your day going?"

With everything on his mind, he cared enough to ask about her day. Again the specter of her ex-husband arose, and came up a light-year short in comparison to Howie. Richard's self-centered nature barely acknowledged other people's existence, let alone that they might have feelings and concerns that weren't directly related to him.

"Better than yours," she joked.

"That's no lie," he said heavily. "Just heard back from the vet a few minutes ago. Someone spiked one of the flock's water troughs with pool shock treatment, put the chlorine content through the damn roof. It's a minor miracle I didn't lose more of them."

Sheridan's mind reeled. "What did the sheriff say?"

He shrugged. "Sheriff Barnes agrees someone did this on purpose, but without having solid evidence of who or why, there's nothing he can do. Says posting armed guards and waiting for more information is about all I can do."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

Howie met her eyes then, his jaw tightening. "I appreciate it, Sheridan, but this isn't your problem."

"Howie, you're my friend!" she protested. "I agree, it's not my money or my livelihood on the line, but as a friend, it is my problem."

"How do you work that out?" He gave her a puzzled frown.

"Look." She leaned forward and rested her hands on his. "What happened with Murray and me last night wasn't your problem, but you got involved anyway. I'm sure you had your reasons, but no one else I've met around here would have. If it helps any, think of it as balancing the scales."

He blew out a laugh. "Aside from costing you sleep the same as it is me, how's that going to help? Besides, you don't owe me anything, Sheridan. I only stepped in because Murray was being an asshole—"

"Sheridan."

The new, male voice came from above and behind her. Howie looked up and his jaw tightened.

"Can I help you, sir?" he asked frostily.

"Nope. You can find somewhere else to be while I talk with my wife."

Howie inclined his head to Sheridan, a questioning motion.

"You mean ex-wife, Richard. As in, no longer married. As in, no longer yours to boss around. What the hell are you doing here?" She turned to face him.

The months since she'd last seen him had not been kind. His brown eyes were laced with broken red blood vessels, and his nose fairly glowed crimson. Richard smelled like he hadn't showered in several days, and the stained, tattered white T-shirt he wore featured large, yellow sweat rings under the arms. His unshaven face and beetled brow reminded her of Rasputin, the infamous Mad Monk from Russian history.

"When you dropped off the face of the earth, you forgot to leave a forwarding address, Sheri." He tsked mockingly. "Makes it hard to collect the palimony payments."

" _What_ palimony payments?" she demanded.

He produced a thin sheaf of papers and flung them on the table. "The ones the court awarded me when I explained that your leaving deprived me of sixty percent of my business," he purred. "That was a nasty, mean-spirited thing to do, Sheri."

"Mister, I don't know who you are and don't much care, but her name is Sheridan." Howie didn't raise his voice, or even look at Richard, but the no-nonsense tone set every hair on Sheridan's body to prickling.

"Mister, I don't know who you are and don't much care," Richard echoed sardonically, "but stay the fuck out of this. It's none of your business."

Howie looked up. His expression didn't change, but something in the set of his jaw suggested he was evaluating Richard as a possible rival combatant. "I'm tired and pissed off. I'm trying to enjoy my lunch in peace, with pleasant company." He tilted his head toward Sheridan. "You're interfering with that. And I don't like your tone or your language when you talk to a lady. Leave. Now."

Richard's eyes bulged in disbelief. "Are you talking to me?"

Without a word, Howie took off his hat and pushed it across the table to Sheridan. Then he stood, measuring his height against Richard's.

Sheridan grimaced. Richard had three inches and easily fifty pounds on Howie. The only possible advantage Howie had was not being an alcoholic wreck. That's what had really cost Richard the lion's share of his business. He'd become more interested in gulping down bottom-shelf tequila than keeping his customers happy, and the only reason he had any business left at all was because he was willing to work for less than a lot of other private roofing contractors.

"You might want to get out of here," Howie warned. "I am not in a good mood, and Sheridan plainly doesn't appreciate seeing you here."

"Can't say I'm surprised. She's a little whore. You fucked her yet?" Richard leaned in toward Howie, leering obscenely. "She looks like a prude, but she sucks dick like a Chinese massage gir—"

Howie lashed out with one hand, getting a firm grasp on the other man's groin. Richard's eyes bulged to the relative dimensions of a Chihuahua's, and his face flushed a dark brick red. Howie's knuckles stood out stark white against the skin of his clenched hand, and he began to twist slowly. "That will be the last time you speak about her that way in my or anyone else's presence." A dark shadow loomed over his deathly quiet voice. "I won't tell you to leave again."

Richard balled his fist and flung a wild haymaker at Howie's face. He let go of Richard's groin as he ducked. The fist sailed over his head. He straightened and caught his overbalanced attacker by the nape and the back of his beltline. Then he hauled Richard bodily across the diner and flung him out onto the sidewalk, Sheridan hot on Howie's heels. The larger man sprawled in a heap, his breathing sharp and raspy.

"You little cocksucker..."

"Stay out. You try to walk back in, there'll be three cruisers here before you make it to the table." Howie shot a look at the head server. She nodded, one hand on the phone. "If I hear, see, or even think you might be thinking about bothering Sheridan again or talking about her in that way, I'll finish this. Got it?"

Richard looked up at Howie, his unshaven, alcohol-burnished face contorted in hatred. "You're fucking another man's wife, you know. That's adultery. Ain't you ever read the Bible?"

Howie didn't respond. Instead, he turned away and let the door thud shut behind him.

Dead silence reigned through the restaurant. The TV played a baseball game no one watched. The quiet hiss of the grill in the kitchen was clearly audible. Otherwise, no one so much as clinked a fork against a plate as Howie stalked back to the table, a thundercloud swathed in dark brown leather. He sat down, picked up his fork, and began to work on his omelet, which had been delivered while he was otherwise engaged, without a word. Sheridan took his cue, and in a moment, the rest of the diners unfroze, going back to their conversations, albeit at a considerably more muted volume.

After a few bites, he met Sheridan's eyes.

"I'm sorry."

She frowned. "For what?"

"I shouldn't have lost my temper like that. Should've let you handle it. You can obviously take care of yourself, and I overstepped." He grimaced and cast his eyes downward onto the table. "I don't usually behave that way."

Sheridan had been ready to take a stripe off him for exactly that reason, but his apology stopped her cold. He'd been up for over a day already, lost twelve of his sheep and had his men treating who knew how many more, had lost a pile of money, and had been in the right place at the wrong time with her twice in the last twenty-four hours. All things considered, she thought he'd demonstrated admirable restraint, especially given the vile things Richard had said about her.

"It's okay, Howie. I understand why you did it, even if I don't think it was necessarily the right way."

He scowled. "I know it was the wrong way. I knew it when I did it. But that didn't stop me from wanting to beat the ever-loving snot out of him until he learned how to behave like a gentleman."

"Look, Richard will get tired in a couple of days, and then he'll leave. I think he's blowing smoke about the palimony. No judge in their right mind would award him support from me, and I made it a point to leave a forwarding address with the court in case further action was filed against me. It's all hot air."

"I was jealous," he murmured.

"Jealous?" she echoed in disbelief.

"Yes, jealous," he snapped. "Thinking about you kissing him, touching him...and then what he said about you...I shouldn't have let that throw me. Shouldn't have let him get under my skin that way. But...I did."

Sheridan flinched in surprise.

"Oh. Howie..." Her stomach flipped unpleasantly. "I didn't mean to suggest there was...I mean, I didn't want you to think..."

"That you were leading me on?" The question came out calm and flat.

"No! Yes! I...Oh, God, I don't know," she wailed.

He tossed down his fork with a clatter. "Look, Sheridan. I didn't think that for a second. You're a beautiful woman, and I'd be doing both of us a disservice and lying my head off if I said otherwise. But I didn't invite you here to try to seduce you. God knows my life is complicated enough without romantic entanglements. I'm not saying I wouldn't want that, but I only want what you're willing to give. If that's friendship and company, I'm okay with that. If it were to turn into something else, I'd say let's see where it goes."

How could he be so damned reasonable one moment and turn into such a Neanderthal the next? The guy was a walking contradiction!

Suddenly her temper got the best of her. She wasn't sure if she was angrier with Howie, Murray, Richard, or herself for getting mixed up with crazy, bipolar men, but she was sure she'd just about damned well had enough of the entire species.

"Listen up, Howard Wilson! I don't need you or anyone else to fight my battles for me, you got that? I did just fine before I met you, and I can do just fine without you! Goodbye. Don't call me."

She stood, fumbled in her purse, flung a ten on the table, and stormed out. The strong, independent part of her heart hoped Howie would stay exactly where the hell he was and take her seriously about not calling. Another part, the part that wanted to curl up in his lap like a cat and give herself over to his command, hoped he'd follow her.

The independent part got her wish. As she screeched out of the parking lot and headed back to work, she wondered, if that was really what she wanted, why her chest ached with crushing disappointment that Howie had taken her at her word.

# Chapter Seven

The phone didn't ring.

And didn't ring.

And didn't ring.

All afternoon Sheridan kept the phone by her side, checking it furtively about every fifteen minutes, just in case she had missed a call. The device remained mockingly silent.

With Murray out of the office, she decided to check on Richard's story. Filing for palimony was exactly the kind of sleazy, underhanded thing he would do. Fortunately, it was easy enough to check.

She entered the web address for the South Dakota state court system from memory, input her information, and waited. After a few seconds, a few lines of text popped up. They were all links to previous actions between herself and Richard, but nothing new was on the docket.

"Huh."

She printed out the screenshot and then dialed the number for the clerk's office in the county where the action would have been filed. The office voicemail picked up, and she left a message for the clerk to call her back at their earliest convenience, giving her cell phone number as the contact. Then she checked a few state and federal statutes, smiling grimly as she realized just what a bad boy Richard had been.

She almost called Howie a half-dozen times, but always stopped before hitting the call button. She had her pride, dammit! But instead of settling down and taking care of business, she'd only managed halfhearted stabs at filing and organizing the endless paperwork a real estate office generated. A thick sheaf of faxes crouched on the edge of her desk, but every time she tried to focus on them, the words seemed to blur and jump around on the page. Overall, her attempts at imposing some kind of order this afternoon had proven to be nothing more than an exercise in how to develop a tension migraine without even trying.

At 4:53, she finally decided enough was enough. Turning the sign on the door to "Closed," she pressed the button on the multiline phone to engage the automatic voicemail and killed the lights. Setting the alarm system with quick, sure jabs at the keypad, she locked the door and walked the short distance to her car.

Lost in her whirling thoughts, she realized with mild surprise that she'd arrived at the liquor store. Apparently her subconscious had been doing all the work getting her here. She frowned, hoping she hadn't hurt anyone while lost in her fugue state.

How dare Howie try to fight her battles? Who was he to saunter in, looking all sexy and dangerous, with his down-home manners and his chivalrous streak as wide as the Grand Canyon was deep, and try to take over her life?

That's not fair, a calmer voice in her head pointed out. He wasn't trying to take over anything. He was just trying to look out for you.

I can look out for myself, thanks.

Then why are you so upset that he hasn't called you?

Oh, shut up, she snarled.

Without consciously deciding it, she walked right past the wine section to the far wall, where the hard liquor resided. She picked up the biggest bottle of Absolut on the shelf and hurried over to pay out.

"Can I see your ID, please?" the elderly woman behind the counter asked.

"You're kidding me. You've seen me in here at least a dozen times," Sheridan protested.

"Doesn't matter. I gotta see ID every time or I can't sell you alcohol."

She rolled her eyes and fumbled in her purse for her wallet. The move overbalanced the large bag, and it slipped off her shoulder to crash to the floor. Lipstick, makeup, feminine hygiene products, and the universal odds and ends that seem to gather in the bottom of a woman's purse no matter how ruthlessly it's cleaned out spilled out in a tidal wave across the tile.

"Dammit!" she swore, kneeling to pick up the escapee debris.

"Here, let me help you."

The woman behind her in line swooped down and started grabbing at items, depositing them into the bag carelessly. Sheridan tried to smile, but judging from the expression on the other woman's face, she hadn't managed much better than a twitch of indigestion.

"Rough day, huh?"

"You could say that."

"Well, when you get home, I'll bet you'll feel a lot better." The woman stood and offered her hand. "Marie."

"Sheridan." She hefted the bag back onto her shoulder, wallet in her left hand, as she took the other woman's with her right.

"Say, weren't you at the bar with Howie last night?" Marie asked, peering closely at her.

"Um..." There didn't seem to be any point in denying it, so she didn't. "Yeah."

"He's a good guy. Lots of women around here think he's something else."

Sheridan flashed back to lunch and Howie dragging Richard out of the diner by his balls. "He certainly is that," she agreed ruefully.

"We were together for a little while. I didn't want to be tied down to a rancher, but he was always sweet to me. We're still friends." Marie smiled, a quiet, secret quirk of her lips that suggested she was remembering the past with bittersweet fondness. "I hope I'm not talking out of turn, but I'd give a lot to take back some of the water that's gone under that bridge. If you've got a chance to hold on to him, take it."

"I don't even really know him. We just met yesterday."

Marie shook her head, sending brunette curls flying. "Sometimes you just know. I ignored it back when there was a chance. I just hope you won't make my mistakes."

"Ladies," the woman behind the counter groused, "I hate to break up this kaffeeklatsch, but if you're going to buy something, can we get on with it? I've got work to do."

The younger women looked at each other and began to laugh in unison. Sheridan produced her ID and paid for her vodka. As Marie shuffled up to make her purchase, she said, "Hey, maybe we'll see you around, Sheridan. Think about what I said?"

"I will," she promised.

* * *

After a hot bubble bath, she wrapped herself in a robe and mixed herself a screwdriver. It tasted heavenly, and before she realized it the glass was empty.

Empty.

The word seemed too short to really encompass its own meaning. The glass, her apartment, her bed, her heart all shared that same hollow quality. It wasn't a question of simple horniness. If she wanted to get laid, she could go down to the bar and twitch her finger. Plenty of guys would be glad to try to tend to her feminine needs.

There was so much more, though. She wanted someone she could meet as an equal, someone who would be understanding and patient when she needed it but who wouldn't take any guff off her, either. Someone who would understand when she wanted to be left alone and available when she wanted to cuddle up with a good DVD.

She wanted Howie.

As the shadows lengthened, her frame of mind darkened accordingly. The current playlist consisted of breakup and heartbreak songs, and each one seemed to take her mood to ever-increasing depths. Oddly, though, she couldn't summon the will to choose new music. What was playing suited her mood too well.

She gulped down drink after drink, Richard and Murray and Howie all whirling around in her mind, each man striking a different emotional timbre as they arose to the forefront of her mind. Richard brought only self-disgust and rancor. What the hell had she ever seen in him, a self-pitying boozehound who thought making lots of babies was the highest function a woman could aspire to?

Murray prompted annoyance. She didn't want anything to do with him beyond taking his money for making his working life a little easier. God knew, finding a job that paid anything close to what he was offering in town was the next best thing to impossible. Even so, Murray's actions walked just one hair on the right side of the sexual harassment line, and he could easily jump across it simply by calling her "Sherry" one more time.

Then there was Howie. She remembered how his arms felt around her on the dance floor, careful as he had been to make sure there was plenty of daylight between his body and hers. The tense set of his mouth when he'd gotten the call about the problems at the ranch. The cold, menacing expression as he stared Richard down, a bantam rooster squaring up to a ragged, disheveled peacock.

The way he made her feel precious and protected without the corollary of treating her like a prize to be won or a bauble to put on his mantel.

The walls began to look a bit fuzzy, but she didn't stop drinking. The orange juice long gone, she started pouring straight shots. Before long, the bottle felt alarmingly light.

"Enough of this." Were her words actually slurring as badly as they sounded? "I'm gonna call him."

She tottered and wove her way over to her purse and pulled out her phone. It took her three tries to press the right combination of numbers to unlock the phone, and another two to get the recent calls log to open. Finally she found Howie's number and pressed it.

The phone rang four times, and then went to voicemail.

"Hi, Howie. It's...it's Sheridan." Her voice caught a little, and she willed herself not to cry. "Look. I was wrong earlier. I'd...I'd like you to come over, if you want to. I don't want to be alone. If you don't want to, though, I understand." She dictated her address twice, taking care to enunciate clearly.

"Okay. So, yeah...hopefully I'll talk to you soon. Bye."

She clicked the button that severed the connection and leaned back in her chair. Thoughtfully she poured another shot of vodka and swallowed it down. It didn't taste like anything at all.

That's not a good sign, she thought.

# Chapter Eight

With a groan, Howie swung his bare legs onto the bed. It felt obscenely good to finally be horizontal. He'd been up and running for the best part of two days, and his pounding head and screaming muscles protested every minute he forced himself to be doing something other than getting into a prone position.

Although he doubted he'd need the help, he'd picked up a paperback at the local used bookstore. The premise looked intriguing, and he'd read a few of the author's previous works, but if he knew himself at all, he'd probably be out in ten minutes. Even so, a book was good bedtime company. He just hoped he'd remember what he read in the morning.

The men had taken good care of things while he was gone. Paul had set up a heel and toe watch schedule to ensure the road leading to the range was monitored every minute. They had pumped out the contaminated water trough and refilled it from the water buffalo, ensuring the sheep had clean water to drink. The dead sheep had been disposed of, and everything was about as calm as could be expected. In the morning, he'd need to adjust the schedule a little, but for now, his foreman and the hands had things under control.

As it turned out, he was wrong. It didn't take ten minutes for him to fall asleep.

It took less than five.

Before he'd read three pages, the book fell from his fingers to the coverlet over his bare chest. The impact brought him blearily awake, and he pushed the book aside gently. Then he stretched his hand as far as it would go, just enough to flick the light switch and plunge the room into blissful darkness. With a groan, he turned on his side and fell back to sleep.

About three microseconds later, his cell phone rang.

He spat out an inarticulate curse and thrashed around, tangled up in the bedding. With a jerking, flopping motion, he wormed his way free of the sheets, managing to dump himself unceremoniously on his ass on the unyielding hardwood of the floor, which provoked another muttered oath. He got to his feet just as the phone stopped chiming. In two steps he found his discarded jeans and clawed in the pockets to find the phone.

The display read: 1 Missed Call: Sheridan.

Sheridan? Why would she be calling him? She'd told him pretty firmly that afternoon that she didn't need or want him involved in her life.

Maybe she's calling to apologize.

And maybe hell will hold Latin High Mass in a blizzard in July too.

Don't be petty. What if she feels bad about what she said?

What if I don't care?

You do care. Stop being a vindictive asshole and find out what she wanted.

With a resigned huff, he dialed his voicemail.

"You have one message," the robotic, feminine voice informed him solemnly. Then:

"Hi, Howie. It's...it's Sheridan." Did he imagine the little hitch in her words, or the pause that followed? "Listen. I was wrong earlier. I'd...I'd like you to come over, if you want to. I don't want to be alone. If you don't want to, though, I understand." He concentrated as she slurred out her address. From the mushy sound of the words, he guessed she'd been drinking more than a little. "Okay. So, yeah...hopefully I'll talk to you soon. Bye."

"To replay this message, press 7. To save it, press 9..."

He hung up and sat down on the bed, blowing out a long breath. On one hand, he really wasn't in the mood for another rejection from Sheridan. On the other hand, she didn't strike him as the kind of woman to drown her sorrows in alcohol. She sounded really, really drunk, and for all he knew, she could be in trouble to boot.

For a moment, he considered the relative merits of going back to bed and seeing what the morning brought. The idea had a lot of appeal, but somehow he just couldn't bring himself to do that. She'd sounded so forlorn in her message, as if she knew she'd done something irreparable but was hoping against hope it could be fixed anyway.

If she was really as far down as she sounded, he just didn't have the heart to kick her.

He dressed quickly, wondering all the while if he had some kind of a Galahad complex. He'd had a friend in high school who called him "Captain Save A Ho." While he didn't really think that applied, he had to admit he'd always been big on helping women in trouble, often to his own detriment.

Before he left, he stopped out at the range to talk to Paul.

He found the ranch foreman seated on top of the Jeep, his head swiveling carefully left and right as he scanned the area for anything out of place. The older man's shock of white hair should have made him appear frail. Instead, it lent him an appearance of quiet, weathered strength that suggested he could run a man half his age into the ground while being gentle with women, children, and lambs. The wrinkles in his face suggested humor and common-sense, folksy wisdom.

All in all, he couldn't have picked a better foreman.

Paul turned his head the opposite direction and spat a stream of tobacco juice as Howie dismounted from the truck. Then he hopped down off the roll cage, leaving his shotgun on the open roof. "I'd've figured you'd be in Dreamland by now," he drawled.

"I should be so lucky." He chuckled ruefully. "Anything going on?"

"Quiet as a tomb. The sheep are all bedded down and everything's quiet. I've been moving around a bit, checking on the other gate. Got a test kit with me, just in case whoever did this comes back. Every time I go through the area, I sample all the water troughs. They won't catch us napping again."

Relief washed through Howie. "Good. Thanks, Paul."

"Ain't a big thing. Don't make it one," Paul replied mildly.

"Fair enough. Listen, I gotta go into town. Friend of mine's having a rough patch and asked me to come by. I'm tired enough to drop, so I may wind up just crashing there tonight. If anything comes up, make sure your relief knows to call me immediately."

Paul nodded. "You worry too much, you know. Makes you a good boss, but you won't be worth a damn if you don't get some rest soon."

Howie snickered. "Thanks, Mom."

"I'm serious, boy. You take the whole damned world on your shoulders, and that's not good. Man's gotta have some balance. Hell, I haven't see you take a day off since Marie was in the picture—"

"Yeah, yeah. I know. I need to realize there's more to life than sheep."

"Now you're catching on." Paul turned the plug of chewing tobacco in his mouth thoughtfully. "I'm not saying you care too much. Not even really sure there is such a thing. But you're young. You've got a whole lifetime ahead of it. I'm just worried if you don't start living it some, take some chances, you'll wake up one morning not all that long from now and realize you're a broken-down old roughneck who let his whole life pass him by."

Howie thought it over. Paul didn't talk about himself much and wasn't given to dispensing advice, especially the unsolicited kind.

"Is that how you feel?" he asked, pulling out his pack of smokes. "Like your life passed you by?"

Paul snorted. "Hell, no. I made my choices and got no regrets. Never had time for a family or any of the nonsense that comes with it. I've had lots of women, learned a few things about life, and still got to be a free man. I never wanted or asked for more than that." He thought for a minute as Howie lit up. Finally he said, "But you're not me. You want a woman who'll be with you, help you carry the load. You wouldn't even think to ask for it, but you know I'm right if you look down deep enough. Son, you're about the closest thing to a genuine romantic I ever met, for all your big talk about being a cutthroat businessman and rancher. You're both of those things," he hurried on as Howie opened his mouth to protest, "but gets down to the end of the day, you want yourself a woman who'll see that's not all there is to you."

Howie blew out smoke. "Yeah? And is there such a woman? 'Cause if there is, I haven't met her."

"Marie might've come around, if you'd given her time."

He frowned and looked Paul in the eye. "What do you know about it, Paul?"

"You know I always liked Marie. Hell, never made any secret about it. But you've got a nasty habit of setting things to your way or no way, and that's what ran Marie off in the long run."

Howie mulled it over. Was it possible Paul had a point? Could he really be that much of a control freak? Come to think of it, that had been Marie's biggest complaint about him. Even so, she had ultimately left not because of anything he had done, but because her city ways couldn't let her adapt to the often isolated ranching life.

He relaxed a little.

"We've talked about it. She regrets it, but doesn't see how it could have turned out any differently. Sure, we were a good couple for a while, but we just wanted different things."

"Hogwash. You both wanted the exact same thing, just had different ideas about how to get it," Paul scoffed. "This, uh, 'friend' of yours in town. Wouldn't happen to be a lady friend, would it?"

Howie inhaled sharply on his cigarette. "And what if it was?"

"Look. Life's short. You want to camp out on a couch, that's your lookout. I'm just saying, if you have a chance to get into her bed, you should take it."

"I'll take it under advisement," Howie said, suddenly anxious to end the conversation. It wasn't that Paul didn't have valid points. He just didn't want to examine himself quite that deeply or intimately, especially when he was so short on sleep.

"You do that." Paul seemed content to let the matter drop. "Go on. We've got things under control here."

"Thanks, Paul."

"Take care of her, son."

# Chapter Nine

Twenty minutes later, Howie got out of the truck on the street in front of Sheridan's apartment. The lights burned cheerily in the dark, inviting him in. Stubbing out his cigarette with the toe of his boot, he hurried across the street. The closed glass door suggested a barrier, but he pulled the handle and it moved easily. The stairs were covered in a truly godawful avocado carpet and the walls were done in a neutral taupe.

The seventies called. They want their décor back, he thought sardonically as he mounted the stairs. He turned right at the landing, in front of a door with a large 2 on it, and knocked three times. After a moment, Sheridan called through the door.

"Who is it?"

"It's Howie, Sheridan."

"Just a sec." The clatter of a deadbolt followed the rattle of a chain lock being disengaged. The doorknob wiggled twice and the door opened. He caught just a glimpse of a pink, fuzzy robe in the newly opened crack between the door and the jamb.

"Come on in."

He did, closing the door behind him. Sheridan walked back to the table, where a large bottle of vodka sat next to a shot glass. Her unsteady, hitching pace and the way she swayed back and forth confirmed his suspicions about her inebriated state.

"Siddown," she said, patting the chair next to her. "Want something to drink?"

If he couldn't have sleep, might as well go for a beer. "Got any beer?"

"Yup. In the fridge."

He reached in and pulled out a Rolling Rock. Not his favorite, but it would do. At least it would be wet. He sat down and popped the cap off with the ring of his keychain.

"You okay?"

If he was being completely honest, she looked like hell, not that he'd ever dream of telling her as much. Her blonde hair had tangled and stood out all over the place. The sloppy smile on her face proved beyond all doubt she'd had her share of booze and probably a couple other people's besides.

"Yeah. Just got to thinking. I was kind of a bitch earlier."

Yes, you were. "No, you weren't," he said, hoping his tone didn't belie his words.

"Yeah, I was. You were just trying to do what you thought was right. I shouldn't have jumped all over you for it."

He took a long swallow of his beer. "Why did you ask me to come?"

She met his gaze frankly, her eyes a little misty. "I needed to apologize. I've never had someone go out of their way for me before, not the way you did. I pretty much took a shit all over that without even thinking, so damn busy trying to prove that I don't need anyone to take care of me."

In the silence that followed, a song started. He didn't recognize it, but thought the singer and the syncopated rhythm of the drums sounded familiar somehow.

"Who's this?" he asked, tipping his head toward the computer.

"Duran Duran." She ducked her head in apparent embarrassment, then said, her voice slightly mushy around the edges, "I like this song."

"What's it called?"

She looked surprised. "My Antarctica. It's...kind of my theme song, these days."

"Huh. How about that?" It was a meaningless thing to say, and he knew it, but he was stalling for time while he thought.

"You're right about me, you know." She poured herself another shot and downed it without so much as a flicker of change in her expression. "I do keep myself isolated from other people, for what I think are pretty damn good reasons. You met Richard."

Now it made a little more sense. "You mean you thought because I got rough with Richard it meant I couldn't possibly like you or see anything more in you?"

"No, Howie, dammit, you don't get it!" She stood up, her face turning a fetching pink. "What does it say about me that I'd have an ex like that in my past? Someone whose highest compliment about me was that I'm really good at sucking cock." She breathed out a mirthless little ghost of a laugh. "I know! I'll show you how good I am at sucking cock." She tugged at the sash of her robe, letting it slide off her shoulders. Howie's jaw dropped and his mouth went desert-dry as she displayed her body to him.

Her high, firm, pert breasts reminded him of that classic Greek sculpture of the woman with no arms. Her stomach was tight, with a demure little inward belly button that all but invited him to nibble on it. Below that she wore a black, lacy thong so translucent he could clearly make out the slit of her vulva. Her legs were just as long as he'd imagined them to be, and he had to fight back a groan of need as she displayed herself to him without a trace of self-consciousness.

"Would you like your cock sucked, Howie? You want me to blow you like a Chinese massage girl?" Her bitter tone clashed with the porn starlet dialogue. In a flash of insight, he realized what had triggered this drunken episode, and cursed himself for not figuring it out sooner.

Before he could say anything, she raised her hands to her breasts and pinched the tight, dark red nipples in a parody of seduction. Then she sank to her knees and started toward him in a bobbing, weaving impression of a stripper's crawl. "I'll swallow your come just like a good little whore, and then you can have me any way you want me," she panted.

His groin firmed and ached at the thought of Sheridan's hands, mouth, and body against his flesh. The uncivilized part of him wanted nothing more than to take her up on her offer, to guide her mouth to his cock and let her have what she wanted.

The civilized part recoiled in horror.

"Sheridan," he said slowly, "I'd be lying if I said I don't want you. You've got a beautiful body. But...if we're going to wind up in bed, I don't want it to be like this. I want it to mean something. Please, don't let your ex cheapen you or turn you into something you're not."

She flinched as if he'd slapped her. "Y-you don't want me?"

He grimaced. If you only knew... "Right now I want you more than anything in the world, Sheridan. But I can't let this happen. I think it's the booze and your own anger about what Richard said earlier talking, not you."

She shot to her feet, face twisting in anger as she covered her breasts. "Get out."

"Sheridan, wait. I—" He held out his hands, palms up.

"I said get out, you self-righteous bastard! How dare you pass judgment on me and refuse what I offered you?" Tears welled in her eyes as she screamed, "Get out!"

He stood up slowly. "Okay. Okay, I'm going."

"Lock the door on your way out!" she raged.

At the door he twisted the thumb lock and looked back over his shoulder. Tears flowed freely down Sheridan's face and her chest heaved with sobs, but the pure fury on her face stifled anything else he might have said.

He whispered, "I'm sorry," stepped through the door and pulled it closed behind him.

* * *

Ten minutes later, his cell phone rang. He looked at it and groaned.

It was Sheridan.

He debated not answering at all. After all, she'd apologized and then immediately insulted him for not allowing her to degrade herself by being used, no matter how badly he wanted to use her. Didn't she realize he wasn't interested in her for her sexuality? Oh, she was sensual enough for any man, but he was attracted to her intelligence more than her body. How could he look in the mirror and be okay with what he saw if he took advantage of the obvious pain she was dealing with in such a callous way?

At the same time, he was pissed off. He had his male pride, and to be dragged all the way into town only to be shown the door when he didn't fall right in line with what she wanted wasn't going to fly with him. He was no one's lap dog, and had cut ties with women over a hell of a lot less than the way Sheridan had treated him.

Still, he worried about her. If she'd drunk as much as he thought she had, alcohol poisoning was a very real possibility. People died from overindulging all the time. His conscience warred with itself, torn between letting her sleep it off to see where they stood, and going back and trying to care for her the best he could.

Snarling, he answered the phone. "Yes?"

"Howie." Her voice sounded so small it coaxed an ache from his heart. "Please. I don't feel so good. Can you come stay with me for a—"

She broke off. A series of miserable-sounding retching noises issued from the phone.

"Sheridan? Sheridan, answer me!" he shouted.

After a long silence, she spoke. He would have expected someone who'd been eating broken glass to talk like she was. "Ungh. Please, Howie..."

In his mind, he cursed, swore, kicked, and generally threw a shitfit.

Out loud he said, "Make sure the door's unlocked."

* * *

He turned the knob and walked in, shutting the door behind him and securing all the locks. "Sheridan?" he called.

No answer.

"Sheridan?"

Silence.

He swallowed hard and paused at the closed door to the bathroom. Did he dare barge in? Was it possible she hadn't heard him?

He knocked at the bathroom door. "Sheridan?"

Nothing.

He thought furiously. If she were unconscious due to alcohol, she could be in very real danger right at this moment. The worst she could say if she was conscious and just indisposed was that he was being overprotective again.

He could live with that, he decided, turning the handle.

Sheridan lay sprawled awkwardly on the floor, her head lolling on the side of the toilet. For an eternal moment, he watched her to see if she was breathing. After a pause during which whole solar systems lived out their lifespans, her chest expanded. He dragged in a relieved breath in sympathy.

Tear tracks written in mascara traced the contours of her cheeks. She looked heartbreakingly vulnerable, huddled there like so much discarded clothing.

"Sheridan?" he asked, kneeling beside her. She murmured a little, but otherwise didn't stir. He reached out and touched her shoulder tentatively. With a weak little shrug, she pulled away.

"Okay, that's not going to work," he mused aloud.

He stood and turned to face the bathtub. A little trial and error got the water warm enough to be comfortable but not so hot it posed a scalding risk. Then he knelt again and muscled Sheridan into a standing position.

"Wha—?" she protested faintly.

"Shh. It's okay. You need to get into the bathtub, okay? It'll make you feel better."

"Mm. Okay," she murmured, nuzzling against his throat.

He gritted his teeth against a fresh wave of desire and guided her into the tub, panties and all. She whimpered as she slid into the warm water. Despite her slight build, it took everything he had not to let her head fall back against the tub too hard or sink into the water.

"Well, now I've got you in the tub. What the hell am I supposed to do now?"

An idea struck him with the force of a baseball bat to the face.

"If this doesn't bring you around, I don't know what will."

He stood up again, reaching for the shampoo in the caddy hanging over the showerhead, and then knelt again. Dipping his hands in the water, he poured what looked like a reasonable amount of shampoo into his palm. Once that was done, he reached out with the free hand and carefully poured water over her head. Then he started massaging the shampoo into her hair, working it diligently into her scalp and through every strand.

She moaned and her eyes opened lazily. "That feels good," she mumbled.

"I figured you'd rather not wake up with vomit crusted in your hair."

"Ugh. God, I really showed my ass, didn't I?"

And your tits, and...

"Yeah," he said quietly. "You kinda did."

"Is there any way I can make it up to you?"

"For starters, try not to drown while I finish with your hair. Then we'll get you out, dry, and into bed, okay?"

"Mm." She fell silent for so long he thought she'd passed out again.

"Howie?"

"Yeah?" It came out a little sharper than he intended, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Will you stay with me tonight?"

"Yeah. I'll sleep on the couch."

"No."

He drew back. "No?"

"Want you to hold me tonight." Her eyes opened, and they were so green and guileless he felt himself drowning in them. "Will you do that for me?"

Now how the hell do I answer this one?

"Yes."

# Chapter Ten

Sheridan awoke suddenly to bright sunlight, a splitting headache, and a burst of panic. The sun was too high. She was late for work!

No, she realized a moment later. Today was Saturday. She didn't work weekends, so she didn't need to panic. She relaxed back against the pillow with a sigh of relief, only to blink in confusion. Something wasn't right.

A warm, heavy, firm weight rested along her hip that didn't belong there.

A moment's consideration brought her to the realization that there was a warm, breathing body in the bed next to her. That must have been the source of whatever was holding her down, probably an arm.

She managed to turn just enough to see whose arm weighed her down.

Howie's.

In a surge of mingled relief and confusion, she tried to piece together how he'd gotten there. The last thing she remembered, she'd been about three quarters of the way through her Absolut. She had a vague recollection of calling Howie at some point, but getting no answer.

Biting her lip, she willed her fractured memory to reassemble itself. In fits and starts, punctuated by long stretches of mind static, she reconstructed the previous evening's events.

God, she'd been such a complete bitch to Howie. Why had he come back? Was it possible she'd called him during one of those blank stretches and asked him to? Why would he? It wasn't like she deserved it. She knew it would have served her right if she'd woken up on the bathroom floor, shivering, more or less nude, and miserably cramped at the neck, hips, and knees from sleeping huddled on the tile.

Howie hadn't let her.

She reached down under the covers and realized she was wearing panties. Had Howie changed her underwear for her?

"Oh, God," she groaned. What she'd done to him before kicking him out was bad enough, but if he'd swallowed his pride far enough to dress her even to that small extent after bathing her, she would likely die of mortification.

Howie gave a huge snore.

"Howie?" She reached over and shook him a little. He grumbled and turned over on his side. "Howie? Hey, wake up."

"Huh?" He sat bolt upright, startling her. "Oh. Hey," he said quietly. "You okay?"

She nodded, then grimaced as her stomach protested the sudden movement in her field of vision. "I've got a hell of a hangover," she amended.

"You think?" he asked sarcastically. "You pretty well killed off a handle of vodka by yourself last night."

"I don't even want to think about last night," she groaned, shame setting her cheeks on fire.

"It wasn't all bad," he remarked.

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah. Believe it or not, I actually kind of enjoyed washing your hair."

"Ugh. If I hadn't puked all over it, you wouldn't have needed to."

He smiled. "Sleeping with you was pretty nice too."

She whimpered. "Did we..." She made an ambiguous little gesture with her index finger.

Even after only seconds awake, he seemed to have a sixth sense for what she was really trying to ask. "We only slept together. We didn't have sex. You asked me to hold you, and I did."

"I—Howie, I'm so sorry."

He nodded, not agreeing, just signaling that he'd heard her. "I almost didn't come back when you asked me."

"Why did you?"

"Because I knew how drunk you were, and I knew what you were really mad about wasn't anything to do with me. I was just a convenient target."

She sighed. "Yeah. I—yeah. Did I really strip for you last night?"

He refused to meet her eyes. "Yes."

Gulp. "And?"

"And I'll tell you now what I told you then." He raised one bare hand and cupped her chin lightly, tipping her head so she couldn't look anywhere but right into his eyes. "You're a beautiful woman, Sheridan Travers. I want you very much. But I don't want you because of what your ex said about you. I don't just want you for your body. If we wind up...getting physical, I don't want it to be something we do just because we're bored and horny." He closed his eyes for a long moment and then opened them again, as if resigning himself to stepping off a cliff into a pool full of alligators. "Our first time shouldn't just be sex. If that's all it's going to be, I don't want it. I want to make love to you."

She gasped. Of all the things she'd expected, all the recriminations and cold shouldering she knew she deserved, that particular declaration wasn't even on the list.

"You mean...after all that...you still want me?"

For answer, he leaned over and kissed her bare shoulder.

"Right now, I need food more than anything. That and coffee. If you want, I'll cook. Don't guess you want to be slaving over a stove right now."

Her stomach writhed uneasily. "Do you think that's a good idea?"

"Yes," he said firmly. "You need to replenish your system, and the caffeine will help open the blood vessels in your brain. Start with a little water, then have some coffee. A mild breakfast, and you should feel more or less like yourself again."

She turned on impulse and kissed him on the cheek softly. His eyes widened, and he gave her a look of mingled disbelief and pleasure.

"I can't believe you're being so nice to me after what I did."

"Everyone's human, Sheridan." He threw the covers off, revealing his denim-clad legs and his muscular torso. "I can make allowances for that." As he rolled to his feet gracefully, he looked at her levelly. "Just don't make the mistake of treating me that way again, okay? Don't shut me out."

Relief settled in her chest, loosening muscles she hadn't even realized she'd tightened. "I won't," she promised.

Howie padded off to the bathroom, closing the bedroom door discreetly behind him. Although she knew intellectually he'd already seen just about all of her body, she couldn't suppress the powerful surge of gratitude that swept through her at his foresight. She was embarrassed enough, thinking about the previous night and how she'd behaved toward him. Having him see her like this after all that would only have made her feel worse, no matter how he assured her he still wanted her.

She waited a few minutes, until the rich aroma of coffee began to filter through the house and she heard pots and pans rattling in the kitchen. Then she pulled on a simple gray sweat suit and her pink bunny slippers with the googly eyes and stumbled into the hallway.

The sunlight hit her eyes directly, just at the perfect angle to make her wince and avert her face. "Sunglasses," she croaked. "Definitely need sunglasses." Squinting against the glare, she hurried down the hall as fast as her jellied knees would permit toward the living room.

The sunglasses rested on the end table by the couch, and she popped them on with a sigh of relief. The polarized lenses cut the glare from agonizing to merely painful, and she wiped her streaming eyes.

Motion to her left caught her off guard, and she jerked into a vaguely defensive posture. Howie recoiled, startled, coffee sloshing over the rim of her favorite blue mug. He held up his free hand in a gesture of surrender while the other proffered the cup.

"Coffee?"

"Mm. Sorry. I'm not used to having a man in the house in the morning anymore."

He chuckled. "No doubt. Why don't you drink that, and I'll have breakfast ready in a few minutes."

True to his word, in less than ten minutes a plate piled with scrambled eggs, toast, and sausage appeared. Next to the plate, Howie plunked down a shot glass filled with clear liquid. She looked up just in time to see him pitch the empty Absolut bottle into the trash can.

"Did I really drink all that?"

He nodded. "Unless you had a frat party over here before I arrived, you did."

"You didn't have any?"

"Nope. Don't like vodka. Stuff tastes like hairspray to me."

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" She pointed at the glass.

"Hair of the dog. It'll help make the hangover not quite as bad. Take the shot, eat a couple of bites, then follow it up with the coffee." His brisk, assertive manner left no room for argument, even if she'd had the inclination or the desire to fight back. Meekly she followed his instructions, chewing slowly, almost experimentally. After a few moments the flavors of the food registered on her tongue.

"Oh my God, this is good," she purred. "How'd you do that?"

"Nothing fancy. Just eggs with a little cheddar mixed in. I thought about adding peppers, but I figured your stomach probably wouldn't thank me for that. If the sausage is too much, just slide it onto my plate," he added. "I could probably eat a whole pig right now, hooves, snout and all."

She laughed. Although it made her head twinge painfully, it felt nice to have such a domestic conversation. She hadn't realized until Howie came along how lonely she'd been, how isolated her life felt.

"You're funny."

He looked at her over a loaded forkful, arching his eyebrows.

"Lucky for me looks aren't everything, huh?" he cracked.

# Chapter Eleven

After breakfast, Howie quickly cleaned up and then left, promising to call her later in the day. She walked him to the door and brushed her hand lightly over his shoulder, but didn't argue with him or ask him to stay. He smiled at her as he put on his hat, a broad, genuine smile that made him look boyish and charming. Touching two fingers to the brim, he was gone in a flurry of leather and streaming copper hair.

Twenty minutes later, she opened the door to the bathroom, toweling off from a shower, only to be greeted by the phone ringing. Her lips twitched. Could Howie be calling already?

She made it to the handset on the fourth ring. "Hello?"

"Sheridan."

"Murray? What's going on?" she asked guardedly.

"We can start with you explaining why the faxes from yesterday weren't filed the way they're supposed to be before you left," he snapped.

"Look, Murray, I'm sorry. I started to get a really bad headache about three thirty, and I...I just didn't get around to it. I'm sorry. I'll get it taken care of first thing Monday morning."

"Actually, Sheridan, I have another question. What the hell was Howie Wilson's truck doing in front of your apartment?"

Her heartbeat sped up and her face heated. What made Murray think he had any right to ask a question like that?

"What Howie was doing here is none of your business, Murray."

"I beg to differ, Sheridan," he retorted coldly. "For one thing, you're living in an apartment I arranged for you. For another, I am your employer, who has had nothing but problems with Howie Wilson for years. And for a third thing, you won't even give me a chance to take you out, but you're entertaining him at your apartment all night?"

"Are you spying on me, Murray?"

He coughed. "No, Sherry. I just want to make sure you're taken care of. Wilson's bad news."

Something behind her eyes gave way with an almost audible snap.

"So you keep saying. Why, Murray? Because he won't sell his land so you can make it into a mall? Because he stands up to you when no one else will? Because I won't go out with you no matter how hard you try, or let you call me by a pet name no matter how you try to justify it?"

"Sherry, listen—"

"No, Mr. Young, you listen," she snarled. "If you call me Sherry again, I'll file a sexual harassment suit. If you or anyone who has anything to do with you spies on me again, I'll call the sheriff and have you arrested. I work for you. I do your filing and maintain your office for forty hours a week. That doesn't give you any claim over me or what I do in my off hours, Mr. Young. Are we clear?"

"Sheridan, I—"

"Are. We. Clear," she grated.

"Yes, we're clear." He hesitated for a moment. "Come into the office, get your personal effects, and turn in the key. You're fired."

"What?" To her humiliation, her voice soared into a register appropriate to Minnie Mouse. "You can't fire me! On what grounds?"

"Insubordination and unacceptable job performance." She could actually hear the smile in the smug cretin's tone. "You didn't do the job I pay you for to the limit of your ability, and you've been seen hanging around with someone with whom I have a somewhat antagonistic business relationship. This is a conflict of interest I find completely inexcusable."

"And how am I supposed to pay my rent?"

He paused for so long she wondered if he'd hung up. "You know, I have a renter who's eager to get into a place. They've been waiting for a nice two-bedroom apartment to open up. You have until the end of the month to move out."

"And go where, exactly?" she screeched. "Dammit, Murray, you can't do this!"

He harrumphed into the phone. "Actually, Sheridan, read your lease. Look who signed it. I can do anything I like."

"We'll see about that, Murray. I'll be at the office in twenty minutes," she seethed, her blood boiling.

* * *

Even on a Saturday, Murray was immaculately turned out in a salmon cardigan over a pale blue shirt and razor-creased khakis. He stood at the door to his office, sipping coffee from a mug that proclaimed "It's MY WAY or the HIGHWAY!" Everything about his pose, from the set of his shoulders to the sneering smile on his bland face, suggested a man perfectly at peace with his world and his place in it.

"Well, Miss Travers, nice of you to get here so quickly." He gave her a long, lingering up and down examination with his eyes. "Of course, I don't appreciate you showing up looking less than utterly professional. If a client walked in right now, what would they think?" He pressed one hand to his chest in mock horror at the thought.

She ground her teeth. "I came to turn in my key and get my stuff, Murray. I'm not here to be insulted."

He laughed unpleasantly. "Look, Sherry, you brought this down on yourself. Oops!" He put his hand to his face, pantomiming childishly insincere surprise. "I just called you Sherry. Sorry about that. Guess I should worry about that sexual harassment suit, huh...Oh, no, wait!" He beamed at her. "You don't work for me anymore, which means you don't have a legitimate leg to stand on in court. Of course, now this also means I can ask you out anytime I want to without having to worry about what people will think."

Sheridan fumed, but didn't speak. She knew no matter what she said, he'd just find a way to twist it around to make her look foolish.

"So, I've got this sudden job opening," he continued. "Do you know anyone who might want it?"

She tilted her head in thought for a long count of ten and nodded. "As a matter of fact, I do," she assured him, sidling over as slinkily as she could manage.

"Really?" He watched her progress with hooded eyes, every flick of his eyelashes leaving a trail of slime on her skin. "And who might that be? Her name wouldn't happen to be Sheridan Travers, would it?"

She got in close, crowding him, deep in his personal space. She looked into his eyes as if trying to read the deepest, best-concealed parts of his soul. Her lips hovered less than half an inch from his.

And then she reached out and jarred the bottom of his coffee cup hard enough to splash its contents all over him.

"Jesus Christ, you little cunt! What the fuck..." He trailed off into semi-coherent swearing as he darted for the paper towel dispenser on his desk. In the midst of his ranting, she could make out "Stubborn bitch...assault...little whore..."

The last epithet sent her completely over the edge. She started to say something...and froze.

In a box, nestled almost but not quite out of sight under Murray's desk, the top of a plastic container peeked out. The brightly printed label proclaimed it as "pool shock."

Murray doesn't own a pool! she thought feverishly. He talks incessantly about how if the mall deal goes through he'll be able to afford one, but...

Instead of following through on her initial gut reaction, which consisted of clawing his pallid eyes out, she went to her computer and logged on. A few mouse swipes and a couple of clicks brought up her timesheet. She clicked twice and the laser printer hummed to life, spitting out two hard copies.

Like any good executive assistant, she kept meticulous records of her hours. Since she had also, until the last half hour, handled the payroll, she was in charge of doing the deductions as well.

She grabbed the copies and took them into the office, where Murray was swiping ineffectually at his already coffee-stained clothing. With an air of triumph, she flung the top copy into his lap.

"You've got a check to write, asshole," she said sweetly.

"I'm not paying you a fucking dime..." he started.

"Really? Withholding my final pay over an unfortunate accident? After terminating me with no notice? That's pretty petty of you, Murray. Think the folks at Workforce Services and the labor board will be interested in that?"

His face turned an alarming shade of purple. For a moment she thought he was going to physically attack her. But with a renewed string of epithets, he yanked open the top drawer, where the checkbook and ledger was kept. Withdrawing it, he flipped to the first blank check and filled it out with quick, savage strokes of his pen. His name was a nearly illegible scrawl at the bottom. With eyes filled with venom, he tore the check out and flung it at her.

She nodded, took the check over to the copier, and made two copies. Then she picked up his prized silver pen, the one he never let anyone touch, and signed her name at the bottom of one copy. Then she flung the pen down on the desk, daring him with her body language to make an issue of it.

"There. Here's your key." She tossed it on the desk. It skittered off and landed in the trash can.

On her way out, she said over her shoulder, "Don't ever ask me out again, you slimy sonofabitch."

# Chapter Twelve

The high from her moral victory lasted about as long as it took her to drive back to the apartment. She couldn't think of it as home anymore. She knew Murray would keep his promise to evict her, and she had nowhere else to go. Her last paycheck would cover rent, food, or a deposit on a new place, but it couldn't possibly stretch to take care of all three. Thanks to Richard, her credit had taken up residency in the toilet, so getting a loan was out, and since she was newly unemployed, there wasn't a loan place around that would take her on anyway.

She wanted to cry, looking around at the place she'd worked so hard and so lovingly to make her own. The practical side of her makeup rallied against it, though. She could fall apart all she wanted after she dealt with the situation. At least I don't have to deal with my period after all. That's something, she thought.

In desperation, she called Howie.

"Hello?"

"It's me. I— I need help." Without wasting words, she explained the confrontation with Murray and its outcome. "So I need to see if I can stay with you. Just for a little while."

He didn't hesitate. "I'll send the boys out with a truck to load up your stuff tomorrow. For now, get over here and we'll plan strategy."

When she hung up, the tears fell freely, and she made no effort to stop them.

* * *

"That sonofabitch!" Howie grunted for the fiftieth time. He was quickly wearing a hole in the floor of his office as he paced back and forth, his movements sharp-edged and agitated. "Who the hell does he think he is?"

"Right now, he thinks he's the guy who could leave me jobless and homeless at one stroke. So far, events have proven him right," she pointed out.

"He doesn't get off that easy." He thought for a moment. "Okay, so you're unemployed and need a place to stay. You say you were doing his filing? Secretarial stuff?"

"Executive assistant, thanks," she sniffed.

"Yeah, yeah, tomato, toe-mah-toe," he said impatiently. "You were doing everything a secretary does. Do you have any accounting experience?"

"I managed the books for Murray's business."

That brought him up short. "Really?"

"Really, really," she assured him.

"Okay. If I were to train you how to do the books here, would that interest you? It would save me an awful lot of headaches, and give me more time to do hands-on work on the ranch, instead of being stuck in my office all day."

"How hard can it be?"

He chuckled. "Spoken like someone who's never tried it before, but we'll give it a shot. How much was Murray paying you?"

"Ten dollars an hour."

He shook his head. "Jesus, that's slave wages. I can do thirteen. No bennies, but if you want we can call your quarters part of your compensation."

"You'd...give me my own place?"

"Sure. I've got a little guest cabin just around the other side of the house that hardly ever gets used. The men sleep in the bunkhouse. You can take that over, decorate it as you like, and no one will bother you."

She fought with every shred of strength she had not to cry, but grateful tears welled up anyway. "Thank you," she whispered, bowing her head. The tears spilled out and down her face.

His footsteps clumped on the boards, and then he was beside her. With a gentle touch he wiped away the tears, smiling at her. "Easy does it, Sheridan. We'll get you through this. Now come on. Let's have a smile."

She tried, but apparently the effort was less than successful. He made a series of goofy faces at her, each one more ludicrous than the last, until she was laughing so hard her sides ached. "Stop it, you goon!" she pleaded, holding her sore ribs.

"That's more like it." He gave her a grin so bright she felt like the sun had burst into the room.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Paul was seated in the chair next to Sheridan's, listening intently as Howie laid out the situation.

"Won't be a problem," he declared after a moment's thought. "I can take three of the guys and load up the apartment, take us maybe two hours. Then we'll give it a good cleaning and take the key over to Mr. High and Mighty. After that, we'll get her stuff back out here and all she has to do is tell us where to put it."

Paul's immediate acceptance of the situation and his willingness to help nearly had Sheridan in tears all over again. "Thank you, Mr. Sanders."

He turned to her and wagged a finger, a stern gesture his kindly smile put the lie to. "That's Paul to you, missy, and don't you forget it. I work for a living, unlike this woods colt here." He nudged Howie's boot with his own, his eyes sparkling with humor.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Howie retorted with a heroically scaled roll of his eyes, holding up one hand and moving the thumb rapidly up and down in a classic blah blah blah motion. "Don't you have something better to do than bust my balls?"

"Well hell, son, if I don't do it, who will?"

"With friends such as these," Howie moaned, burying his face in his hands theatrically. "Go on, get outta here. Let the boys know who's on moving detail tomorrow."

"Will do. You're coming too, right?"

He looked up, all traces of humor gone from his expression. "Right."

* * *

After the excitement settled down, Howie sent Sheridan to check out her new home. "Try it on for size," as he put it. She hadn't come back, although Paul had told him just an hour ago that her car was still in the drive. He'd peeked in through the bedroom window and found her curled up on the bed.

"Out like a light," he reported.

With that out of the way, Howie decided it was time to start earning his keep again. After a Spartan dinner, he closeted himself in his office and got busy as the sunlight went from yellow to orange to a sullen red and finally faded entirely.

Most people didn't think of ranching as a paperwork-intensive profession, but there was always a ton of it to be done. Ensuring the permits to graze his flock on BLM land were current, receipts for supplemental feed, salt, and other essentials, veterinary bills, and payroll for his ranch hands and all the associated legal junk, such as making sure the payroll tax deductions were handled properly, was nearly a full-time occupation unto itself.

He could have hired an accountant to deal with it, but he knew too many people who'd been burned by sloppy, inept, or dishonest CPAs in the past to find the risk and expense worth the labor savings on his end. Besides, a man who didn't keep one eye on the back end of his business at all times only set himself up to have no business at all.

So why are you trusting Sheridan with it?

Because I want to. Because she needs a job. Because I'm tired of being alone. Because none of your damned business, he retorted.

You're talking to yourself again.

Wrong. Mental conversations don't count.

Whatever you say, Looney Tunes.

Some subtle change in the room brought his gaze up from the papers on his desk.

Sheridan stood in the doorway to the office, leaning cozily against the doorframe. The splashed-back glow from the desk lamp, the only source of illumination in the room, left her form mostly in shadow while striking a golden gleam from her long halo of hair. The long-sleeved white button-down shirt she wore hugged her curves in all the right places while still having enough bulk to make a man wonder what else was hidden beneath, even if he didn't already know. As his eyes tracked downward, he realized with a shock that Sheridan's long legs were bare and only the hem of the shirt shielded her thighs from his view. Her legs looked lean, muscular, and toned, and he wondered dizzily how they would feel wrapped around him...

Mentally he forced himself not to think about that. If she wanted him tonight, she needed only to ask him. If she didn't, he'd rather douse himself in kerosene and light up a cigarette than make a damn fool of himself with her.

But why had she taken the chancy move of walking across the yard to the main house in an outfit that barely warranted the name, where an insomniac hand might have seen her?

The answer suggested itself immediately, confirmed with a glance at the clock. It was after ten. Everyone who wasn't detailed to guard duty would be sound asleep by now, waiting to be rousted for their shift. She had probably weighed the likelihood of being seen and decided the risk was minimal.

Thinking of that, he reached for the smoldering butt in the ashtray and took a long, thoughtful draw off it.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

Sheridan tilted her head a little. "Fine," she replied. "I just came in to see if you needed anything before I go to bed. We've got a long day ahead tomorrow."

You! his inner caveman growled. I need you naked and sweating and sobbing my name as you come all over my cock...

He shook his head. "I'm good. Just about to shut it down for the night. I reckon I've done about as much damage as I can for one day, and what's left won't take me but an hour tomorrow."

She nodded slowly and took two steps into his office, stopping right at the edge of the circle of light cast by the gooseneck lamp. Her eyes glinted in the light even as her own cheekbones bent and twisted shadows, lending her a mysterious, otherworldly appearance. The sudden encroachment into his unashamedly masculine territory struck a strangely discordant but somehow right chord. Her unflinching womanhood somehow offset the dark paneling and earthen-toned furnishings of the office, softening the hard, uncompromising angles with her winsome curves. "Can I have one?"

"Have one?"

"A cigarette." She smiled wryly. "It's been a while."

"Sure." He produced two cigarettes, popped them between his lips, and lit them with his Zippo. Then he kept the one on the left in his mouth and passed the other carefully to her by the filter with his right hand. Only then did he realize he hadn't fully extinguished the last one, and quickly reached to stub it out.

She took the cigarette and lifted it to her mouth slowly. Her chest strained the confines of her blouse as she took a slow, tentative drag and held it. Howie tried very hard not to notice how the hem of the blouse rose around her hips as the tips of her breasts pushed the fabric outward and upward, but he couldn't keep his eyes away any more than he could expect to stop a volcanic eruption. Thankfully, the shadows more or less shielded her skin from his gaze.

After a seeming eternity, she blew out between pursed lips. He had never understood how a woman smoking a cigarette could be a fetish, until now. The way she exhaled caused his cock to swell inside his jeans, making him fervently thankful for the shelter of his desk. Her blouse slid back down to cover her hips again, and Howie wasn't sure whether to give thanks to God or curse the devil for the restored barrier between her flesh and his eyes.

"You can sit down if you'd like. There's no need to stand." He indicated one of the two well-padded chairs in front of the desk. "Besides, it'll make it easier for you to get at the ashtray."

She smiled, and it was like watching the sunrise on the first truly warm day of the spring. Her entire face lit up with genuine, unfeigned pleasure. "Thank you," she said, folding herself gracefully into the chair closest to him.

"You're welcome." He moved the ashtray over so it was roughly equidistant between them, closed the lid on his laptop, and opened the drawer by his knee. He rooted around and produced a bottle of Scotch and two cut glass tumblers, setting them down on the corner of the desk. "I usually like to have a drink after I get done with the paperwork, relax a bit. Would you care to join me?"

"Sure."

"Say when," he ordered, spinning the cap on the whiskey off and beginning to pour.

After about a count of three, she said, "When." She breathed the word out on a gust of husky laughter that sent shocks of desire down his spine. He quickly poured his own drink, capped the whiskey, and handed her the glass he'd poured first.

"Cheers," she said, extending her glass to clink it against his.

"Salud," he replied.

They each took a thoughtful mouthful. Howie rolled the smooth, expensive, smoky whiskey around his mouth, enjoying the way it slapped his taste buds to attention. After a moment he swallowed, savoring the mellow burn as the liquid slid down into his stomach, igniting a pleasant fire.

"This is very good. What is it?"

"It's called Ardbeg Uigeadail." He pronounced the last word "oog-ah-dal." "It's Scots Gaelic for 'a dark and mysterious place.'"

Sheridan's mouth quirked into a pensive frown and she looked down into her glass. "That's a good name."

He smiled. "I always thought so." Before he could stop his mouth, it went on without his input. "It's a good metaphor for what I see in you."

The observation brought her head up sharply. "What do you mean?"

No turning back now. Nice going, Howie. Real fucking suave.

"I mean your heart is a dark and mysterious place. You don't wear it on your sleeve and do your level best to make sure no one sees it, but I can tell it's there. I'm curious about what's inside it."

She sighed. "You don't want to be, Howie."

"Why?" He set his glass down and peered at her intently.

Without meeting his gaze, she murmured, "My heart isn't always a happy place." She picked up her cigarette and took a drag. "I haven't been in a position where I felt genuinely good for a long time. That's why I came here to begin with. It's a thousand miles away from anywhere anyone I know would look for me. I was running from...well, the consequences of my decisions. I figured I could hide here. I don't want to be entangled, Howie. I don't want to feel tied down like that again."

He frowned. "Your own personal Antarctica," he mused. "A place where you can be completely alone and make friendships and attachments on your own terms, or not at all."

"My Antarctica?" She chewed on that for a moment, and then nodded. "As good a metaphor as any, I guess." The words conjured up a faint hallucinatory echo of the Duran Duran song she'd been listening to the other night in Howie's ears.

"Something to remember about Antarctica, though. It's damn cold there, and it's easy to forget all about other people." He leaned back and knocked back about half of the contents of his glass.

"I don't want to forget other people. I want them to forget me," she huffed.

He stood and crushed out his cigarette. "Let me tell you something, Sheridan Travers. You're not that easy to forget. You're not as prickly as you'd like everyone to believe you are." The volume of his voice climbed a little with each word. "If you were, I wouldn't be standing here like a goddamn fool, trying to figure out what the best way to tell you I want to kiss you is—"

He broke off as the echoes of his own words reached his ears. "Look. Can we forget I said that?" he asked lamely.

Sheridan's eyes went huge and her mouth formed an almost perfect O of surprise. "Y— You want to kiss me?"

Howie closed his eyes and exhaled deeply. "Yes."

Sheridan put down her glass and looked Howie right in the eye. "Then do it. Don't think about it. If you really want to kiss me, then prove it."

He clenched his fists and took a long, shuddering breath in a desperate bid for control. "Sheridan, if I do that, I'm afraid I'll let something out I've spent a long time fighting."

"I don't believe you'll hurt me, Howie." She stood, her posture unconsciously mimicking his own. "Quit fighting," she demanded. "You have ten seconds to decide what you want. Do you want to kiss me and see where it goes, or—" She broke off into a squeak of surprise as he hurried around the desk like his chair had just caught fire and enfolded her in his arms as if holding on for dear life to a piece of driftwood in a river.

"You asked for it, Sheridan," he told her, staring down into her eyes as he crushed his mouth against hers in a brutal, punishing kiss.

# Chapter Thirteen

Sheridan had kissed more than her share of men over the years, and had learned there were generally two kinds of men: those who kissed with technique but not passion, and those who kissed with passion but without technique. She had heard there were men who could manage both, ninja masters of the art of kissing, but had never actually met one.

Until now.

Howie's lips caught her lower lip in a warm, yielding vise. The tip of his tongue brushed the sensitive flesh, coaxing her mouth to open to him. Her entire body went liquid and passive as he mastered her completely, ravishing her lower lip and transforming it into a hypersensitive erogenous zone she'd never known she had. The smallest movements of his mouth sent spasms of ecstatic need thrilling through her, drawing her nipples into aching points and causing her clit to swell with desire.

He fed on her mouth greedily but leisurely, taking his time about it, exploring her bit by bit. She melted against him, pressing her body into his to more fully experience his hardness against her as her senses overheated, ignited, and finally exploded.

She had never had an orgasm from a kiss before, but her muted cries into Howie's mouth seemed only to urge him to even greater effort. With a groan he collapsed back into the chair, pulling her astride him, cupping her bottom in his hands as she ground against the hard ridge of his cock. The contact against her clit triggered another orgasm, this one more intense and flowing, and she took the initiative as she clawed at his chest through his shirt.

The roughness of his goatee against her chin should have been a turn-off, but somehow it felt exactly right, abrasive against smoothness, dry hardness at war with wet, yielding softness, yin and yang meeting and devouring each other in their quest for completion. She arched her back and pulled away just long enough to rip the shirt off, leaving her completely bare to his gaze.

She'd shaved her legs earlier. After a little consideration, she decided to go one step further. As the silky curls fell away under the strokes of the razor, she wondered how Howie would like her perfectly smooth and exposed to him, with nothing to hide.

As she displayed herself, he groaned and moved one hand to cup her damp pussy. His roughened hand against the sensitive, singing flesh sent fresh shocks of sensation hurtling through her, and she tried to grind into his hand only to have him pull it away.

"Let me, Sheridan. Let me show you how it can be. How it should always be, between us," he whispered. "Trust me."

"I do," she whimpered.

He leaned into her, nibbling his way down her jaw to the tender spot where it met her neck. She moaned as he nipped lightly at her skin, raising her chin to allow him complete access to any part of her he wanted. To her delight, he accepted the invitation, licking and kissing his way down her throat to the tops of her breasts.

She clasped her hands around the back of his head, thrilling at how soft his long, wavy hair felt between her fingers, as he worked his way back to the middle and moved down with glacial slowness, his lips and tongue gliding over the skin covering her breastbone and the bristly harbinger of his goatee heralding the next move. With a small cry of mingled need for more of his touch and protest at having to leave the hard perch of his cock, she pushed herself upward to give him access to the tender undersides of her breasts. He ran his tongue lightly around the creases, coaxing luxurious shivers of erotic response from her. Then he spiraled inward until he caught one nipple between his lips and suckled it.

Her senses exploded all over again as he lavished care and attention on her, holding her as securely as a baby and as tight as a vise while he sated himself on her body until she couldn't take any more, and then edged her over the next plateau to soar on currents of impossible bliss.

Finally her nerve endings begged for a rest and she pulled away, sinking to her knees before him in a submissive pose as she reached for his belt. "I want this, Howie. Please," she begged.

He watched with an expression of rapt adoration, his stomach rising and falling sharply under her fingers in time with his rapid, shallow breathing as she undid the leather strap and the snap beneath. Slowly, teasingly, she slid his zipper down and reached into his jeans to caress his hardness through his underwear. His cock jerked against her hand as if magnetized, drawn by the warmth of her fingers. She delved deeper, found the opening, and pulled his hard flesh out so she could admire it fully. It sprang out proudly and stood tall as if awaiting her judgment.

From base to crown his cock stood right about seven inches tall, a princely length that was just right for her. The tip flared wide and then pulled into the shaft, itself wide enough that she could just barely wrap her fingers around it. With her hand she explored further, finding the sac of his balls and fondling it gently. His cock surged and wept a tiny bead of clear fluid, as if crying from need. She smoothed her thumb over the slit, moistening the head of his cock with his own precome as he hissed out an urgent breath.

"Please, Sheridan. Oh, God."

"Please what?" she whispered, smiling up at him.

"I don't even know," he admitted. "I just...I need you."

She pursed her lips and blew a stream of cool air onto his cock. His hands tightened on the arms of the chair and he thrust his hips forward in supplication. She laughed at his open display of need, chuckling as she took the firm shaft in one hand and reached out her tongue to swirl it around the angry red head.

He gasped, and she traced the contours of the head, paying minute attention to every curve as she learned his body. Then she swooped forward like a bird of prey and took him in her mouth, relishing the heft of him against her tongue. She took him slowly in, hungry for as much of him as she could manage, until the head bumped against the back of her mouth. Then she pulled back, staring into his eyes with adoration as each inch slipped past her lips. With a gentle, teasing motion, she pushed forward onto him again only to pull back again.

He groaned. "Sheridan, please. Not like this, not this time. I want to come with you, in you..."

She let his cock fall from her lips. "You don't want me to suck you until you come?"

He shook his head urgently. "No, Sheridan. I want to make love to you properly this first time. If you want to make me come like that next time, that's fine, but I need to be inside you."

With a sharp, impatient tug, she yanked his jeans and boxers down around his ankles to expose him completely, to free him for her avaricious gaze and touch. Then she straddled him, reaching down with one hand to guide him between her nether lips. She gasped as the head of his cock found her entrance, and sank down languidly, taking him until her pelvis met the saddle of his hips and his cock scraped the bottom of her pussy.

She rocked her hips back and forth lightly, his pubic hair scratching at her clit and his length brushing and stroking different parts of her with every motion, until finally he hit a spot that detonated her nerve endings and made her screw her eyes shut against the sweet, sharp sensation. As another bright wave of release broke over her, she reared up and then plunged deep, accepting him past the tight inner ring of quaking muscles with another cry of pleasure. Blindly she tilted her head down, seeking his mouth, and claimed it with mounting hunger. He opened for her and she shrieked into him as his hardness found yet another spot that slaked and amplified her need at the same time.

He began to move against her, no longer a passive participant, and she met each thrust eagerly, finding that primal rhythm as ancient as the heartbeat of the universe itself. They collided again and again as sweat beaded and then flowed freely, as muscles tightened and relaxed in time with the crests and ebb of their pleasure, as she clamped down on him and urged him without words to join her in the gyring currents he had brought her to.

He tensed beneath her and clasped his hands on her ass, pushing into her furiously, the wet slap of their bodies meeting and receding only to meet again, growing faster as they panted and strained for just one more breath, one more touch, one more thrust. Then he gave one final, powerful thrust against her, setting off a multicolored supernova behind her closed eyelids as he exploded for her, into her, welding her to him in a hot wash of ecstasy that was as much spiritual and emotional as it was physical.

She folded into him, gasping as her senses spiraled back down to earth lazily, taking his lips in a kiss that was no less passionate for all its tenderness. She huddled there in her lover's welcoming arms, secure from the world outside and all its slings and arrows in the shelter of the union they had just shared.

* * *

The alarm went off, and Howie grumbled and grunted his way back to consciousness. The soft warm weight in his arms felt a lot better than the idea of getting up and turning off the alarm, but the damn thing would just keep going until he did something about it. Why did he have the alarm set anyway, on a Sunday? That was his day to sleep in...

He looked up at the tumble of golden hair streaming over the pillow, gleaming in the morning sunlight and the creamy expanse of bare shoulder arcing gracefully above the covers. Sheridan.

Right.

Today was moving day, after which there were some accounts to settle with one Murray Young.

Pulling away from her softness felt as agonizing as prying pieces of his own flesh off his body with razor-sharp, white-hot tongs. Only an effort of will made him clench his jaw and throw off the covers. He stumbled over to the alarm clock, which was belting out a mindlessly cheerful pop tune, and mashed the snooze button. That would give him another thirty minutes in heaven with Sheridan, after which maybe he could wake her up gently with some things he'd wanted to do the night before, before his need for her overwhelmed his ability to seduce her slowly in favor of ravaging her body.

Sheridan made a pleased little sound as he slid his arms back around her. She turned so her breasts brushed against his chest and twined one leg between his. "Hi," she murmured sleepily.

"Hi." He smiled gently.

"How'd you sleep?" Her voice in the morning, still blurred with dreams and round-edged with sleep, reminded him of warm, tousled silk. It brushed his ears with a tactile thrill that shot all the way down to his groin.

"Like a log, until that damn alarm went off. This is better," he answered, holding her close.

"Mm. I like that."

"Good. I plan to do it often."

She laughed softly and reached up to kiss him. "Can we start now?"

God, she had set a high bar last night. He would have to bring his A game to repay her adequately for the pleasure she'd given him...

Abruptly his stirring cock shriveled as his reason took over, looking at the events of last night from another angle. "Oh, shit!"

"What?" She sat up, not bothering to cover her breasts, and looked at him with wide, alarmed eyes. "What's the matter?"

He buried his face in his hands. "I just realized...we didn't use protection last night."

She laughed. "Is that all?"

"All?" He shot her a disbelieving look. "What do you mean, 'all'?"

She pulled him down and cradled him against her bosom. "Sweetheart, I'm on Depo. It's okay."

He curled in close to her, reveling in the warmth of her. "You're sure?"

"Mm-hmm. I had it in November. Should be good for another two years." Her fingers stroked over his hip until they found his cock. "Means I don't have to wait for this."

He chuckled. "Well, then, don't let me keep you waiting. This time, it's my turn."

She threw off the sheets and lay there, angelic and wanton all at once under his heated gaze. He didn't waste time with detours. He wriggled his shoulders under her legs until they met the globes of her ass and her core aligned with his eye level.

"I'm thirsty, Sheridan."

"Ooh," she cooed. "Maybe you can find something to cure that down there."

"I plan to find out," he assured her, pressing his lips to hers.

She sighed and swiveled her thighs outward, giving him easier access to her pussy. His tongue flicked out and scraped against her clit, causing her to tilt her hips against his face. He traced the folds of her hot center as she pressed herself against the source of her pleasure.

Soon licking gave way to sucking as he drew the tight button into his mouth and then lashed it with quick strokes, first across and then up and down, changing the pace and direction until he found the perfect combination to make her squirm against his mouth. "Oh, God, Howie...yes, lick me!" she cried, pushing down on the back of his head as he obliged her. Her thighs cinched around his head as she shuddered and melted into her climax. He lapped avidly as she released her sweet cream, drinking her like water from a cold, clear mountain stream, until she pulled away and met his eyes with a fierce, wild stare.

"Fuck me," she commanded, and he hastened to do her bidding, replacing his mouth with his cock. She squealed as he filled her, sliding in easily to the hilt. Sheridan clenched down on his shaft, pulling him deeper into her and then locking her legs around his hips, rotating against him until he found the perfect angle to touch all her most sensitive points at once. He slid back and then thrust hard, drawing a surprised cry from Sheridan as his balls slapped against her ass and his cock bottomed out in her.

"More, Howie. Please...more!"

Lost in his animal need for her, with no thought but to mark her as his utterly, to leave no doubt she belonged to him, body and soul, as he belonged to her, he battered her body with his cock, plunging and straining against her as she took his most savage thrusts and begged for another, faster, harder...

She screamed without restraint as she came for him, sobbing out his name in a paroxysm of erotic satisfaction. The unabashed reaction galvanized him, and he buried himself again and again in her pussy until he felt his balls drawing up against his body. With a hail of brutal pumps into her, he howled out his own release as he filled her with his essence again.

Afterward, they lay in each other's arms, talking in muted tones of their lives before each knew the other existed. Howie had never imagined feeling this way for someone, certainly not in such a short time, but he felt something that, if it wasn't love, at least had the potential to grow into it. For now, Sheridan's embrace was about all the heaven he needed or wanted. He could get greedy later.

# Chapter Fourteen

With one last glance at Howie, who nodded assurance, Sheridan handed the key to her apartment to Paul.

"Please make sure they don't get into the bedroom until I get there," she pleaded. "I have...well..."

"Ma'am, they won't put the first toe across the door until you tell them it's okay. I'll fire the lot of 'em if they do anything else." Paul's unflappable, bedrock-solid delivery put her at ease, and she smiled.

"Thanks, Paul."

"Don't think a thing about it, ma'am." He shifted his focus to Howie.

"Y'all going to be long?"

"No. I have two stops to make in town and then we'll be right behind you."

The foreman thought about that for a moment and nodded. "Anything else we should know?"

Sheridan shrugged. "As long as you don't go into the bedroom until I give the all clear, we're fine."

"Got it."

A few minutes later the men poured out of the driveway in a three-vehicle convoy. Howie didn't want this project to take terribly long, but he also knew it would take as long as it took. His part would be to pick up the rental truck, so they could easily haul boxes and bags out of the apartment. The men would load and transport the furniture after they were done boxing up everything Sheridan would let them.

With the men on their way to pick up the boxes, he put his arms around Sheridan with a vague flicker of regret. Given his preferences, he'd really rather have just stayed in bed with her all day, but a rancher's life didn't give much sway to his druthers. There were always interruptions, problems, or things that needed dealing with. He consoled himself with the knowledge that there was always the coming night to make love to her to their mutual content.

She pulled away, eyes sparkling, and smiled at him.

"Thank you, Howie. For everything."

He shrugged. "No big deal, Sheridan. Let's get this dealt with."

"I'll get my purse."

Howie opened the door, turning the lock but leaving it cracked. Sheridan would close it behind her when she came out. He'd have to get her a key, as well. That would be one of tomorrow's projects, he decided.

He stepped out into the dazzling morning. For a short but crucial moment, the sun stabbed into his eyes, blinding him.

The heavy fist that crashed into his gut stole his wind and drove him to his knees with a harsh whuff. As he dropped another fist glanced off his cheek, leaving behind a hot flaring spot of pain.

He blinked away reaction tears and squinted through the brightness, trying to work out who'd hit him. Funny, but there seemed to be three of whoever it was.

No, that wasn't right, he realized after a second. If he were seeing triple, the images would all be roughly the same size.

Three men were actually squared off against him.

The one in the middle was Murray Young. He recognized the other two as guys who did odd jobs for him around town. The big one on the right was named Titus, a bruiser with a linebacker's build and the IQ of a goldfish. Tough but not very bright, no one he cared to take on physically, but certainly someone it would be easy to outthink. He didn't know the other guy's name, but from his relative position, he figured the stranger was the one who'd hit him.

"Where is she?"

Howie took a deep breath. It hurt. "Where's who?"

The guy on the left came in with a short hop, pulling back a low kick meant for Howie's ribs. This wasn't his first fight, and he saw the strike coming. Falling to his right, down and back at the same time, he felt the displaced air rush by as the kick missed, leaving his attacker off balance. He whipped one foot around in a scything sweep at shin level, and connected solidly. The man howled as Howie's boot smashed into the sensitive nerve junction.

"Where is Sheridan?"

"You can't have her, Young. Just like you can't have this ranch. I told you if you came out here again, I'd shoot you for trespassing." Howie glared his defiance up at his nemesis and his friends.

"That won't happen, from where I'm standing. You don't have a gun—"

The sharp shrak-clack of the action of a pump shotgun being worked drew everyone's attention to the door. Sheridan stood there, cradling the long-barreled weapon in her arms, the bore aimed more or less at Murray.

"He doesn't have a gun," she agreed, "but I do."

"Sherry, let's talk about this." Murray raised his hands. "Look, I lost my temper yesterday, and I'm sorry about that. Let's let bygones be bygones, hmm? You can even have your job back, and there's no need to leave the apartment. Just come on back to town with me and we can talk about this."

Howie scrambled to his feet to stand next to her but well clear of her line of fire. "What do you want to do, Sheridan?"

She didn't glance in his direction, but he felt the force of her attention shifting toward him like a flower bending toward the sun. "I think we should shoot them all and call it a day. You've got quite a mouse building on your cheek. Once we bury these assholes, I'll get you some ice."

He brushed a hand over the side of his face. The tender flesh wailed silently as he probed it, making his eyes water. "Urgh. Yeah, that sucks. I'm gonna feel that for a few days."

She nodded. "Do you have a better idea?"

"Actually, I do."

"What?"

"Let's get everyone inside and call Sheriff Barnes. When he gets here, he'll run them in for assault, trespassing, and anything else I can think of."

Sheridan's eyes went wide. For a long, frozen moment, she stood statue-still. Then she asked, "What about poisoning your sheep?"

Murray's face flared an angry red. "Sherry—"

She leveled the barrel at his face. "Shut your fucking mouth, Murray. I saw the container of pool shock you had at the office yesterday. Is it still there?"

He didn't answer.

She took one step forward and shouldered the butt of the weapon, her finger slipping onto the trigger. The hard expression on her face told everyone present she wouldn't think twice about firing. "Is it still there?" she repeated.

"Yes. I didn't think to remove it, didn't know you'd seen it."

Howie thought furiously. A pool shock treatment wasn't something sheep would normally get into because of the strong smell and odd taste. But the way they'd dispersed the water troughs, roughly one every mile, meant that they would go for the nearest source of water, even if it didn't smell right. It would effectively turn the water into diluted bleach, which was a base and would destroy the delicate ecology of a sheep's digestive system. It also meant that forcing electrolytes into the stricken animals would make the problem worse, not better.

For a clumsy job, Howie had to admit its sheer malevolence more than made up for the flaws in its planning and execution.

" _You._ You poisoned my flock. Killed fifteen of them, total," he remarked conversationally. "Cost me right around five thousand dollars, just figuring in the annual wool losses, the vet bill, and the supplies we used trying to fight the problem." He took a slow step forward. "Why?"

"I needed you off this land, Wilson. You're a piece of shit playing at being a cowboy, a waste of resources this town needs to get back on its feet. I made you a perfectly fair offer for this property, and you blew it off."

"Young, I wouldn't have sold my land to you if you had the entire Federal Reserve to spend. You're a lying snake in the grass." Howie pulled out a cell phone. "Now we've got confirmation, and you're going to tell the sheriff the whole story."

"I'm not going to tell Barnes anything," he said confidently. "Steve Barnes works for me—"

The explosion of the shotgun discharging on the porch rang painfully loud. For a long moment, Howie could only hear a high-pitched ringing tone, but the shot had gotten results.

All three men had flung themselves prone on the gravel of the driveway as the gun went off. Sheridan had aimed up into the air as a warning. Now she dragged the bore back down to center on Murray's face.

"You're going to tell Barnes exactly what you did."

He looked like he was about to burst into tears. "Sherry, don't do this. Please. You don't understand what it means to this town—"

"What it means to your political career, you mean," she interrupted, her entire posture suggesting boredom. "Which I think we both know is pretty well over, Young." She tossed her head, indicating the door. "All of you get in there. Now."

Howie said, "Wait." In an aside, he muttered to Sheridan, "Hold them here for a sec."

She nodded, her eyes never leaving the men. He ducked inside and retrieved his personal shotgun, a twelve-gauge with a barrel cut down to less than a quarter inch over the legal minimum, and walked back out, loading it as he did so.

The lovers aimed down on the interlopers.

"Now, you assholes get in the house."

Just then, the roar of a large diesel engine announced the arrival of Scott, who'd been posted up on guard out at the range. He hurried up the drive and skidded to a stop. In one glance he took in what was going on and got out, unlimbering his own scattergun as he came.

"Boss? Everything okay?"

Howie nodded. "We got this. Scott, say hello to the asshole who tried to put us out of business."

Scott's jaw tightened. "You want me to take care of 'em?"

"Nope. We'll let the law do that. You can help us get 'em inside, though."

The three spread out in a loose ring, their weapons aimed directly at the intruders. "Put your hands in the air and walk until I tell you otherwise," Sheridan snapped. The men looked at Howie disbelievingly. He shrugged.

"Hey, I don't know about y'all, but the lady's holding a shotgun and doesn't look to be in a very good mood. You wanna take your chances, be my guest. I'm not gonna get in her way."

# Chapter Fifteen

Barnes and his deputies finished loading Murray into one of the cruisers just as Paul and the men came back. As the hands hurried up the driveway they flared out so their vehicles effectively blockaded the road.

Paul cut the engine on his Jeep and jumped out. "Someone wanna tell me what the hell's going on here?"

Howie whistled at him. "Clear the road! We'll talk in a few minutes."

Barnes puffed up to Howie, his broad face flushed. "Mr. Young's talking about filing charges of unlawful detainment, perjury, coercion..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Howie rolled his eyes and made a quacking duck with his free hand. "I'm sure he'd also like to see me on trial because Santa Claus isn't real and he holds me personally responsible."

"Look, Wilson...isn't there any way you could have worked this out? This is going to mean paperwork for weeks and Young'll be lawyered up in a half hour..."

"Oh, well, by all means, Sheriff, let's ignore the law in favor of not having to do paperwork." Howie spat, disgusted, and lit a cigarette. "Look, I'm pressing charges and have witnesses. I've got eyewitness testimony that Young admitted to poisoning the flock in an attempt to run me off my land. He can bitch and moan and claim false arrest all he wants to, but he can't get around that."

"If you need evidence, Sheriff," Sheridan broke in, "Young has a container of pool treatment in his office. He doesn't own a pool. I bet if you check with Doc Randolph, he'll tell you it's almost certainly the same stuff used to poison the water trough. Also, I overheard him in a conversation on Thursday afternoon about one twenty discussing someone who didn't want to sell a piece of property and something about poisoning."

"All of which is circumstantial and hearsay," the sheriff muttered. "Y'all handed me one hell of a mess here this morning. Weren't for that mouse on your eye, Wilson, I'd wonder if you weren't making the whole damn thing up."

Howie's jaw tightened. "You know me better than that, Sheriff."

He sighed. "Yeah. Reckon I do."

* * *

"So what made you guys come back here?"

Howie, Sheridan, and the men were closeted in the office. Cigarettes were burning and beers were being drunk. The men looked at each other sheepishly.

Paul finally jumped in. "We got to Sheridan's, started to looking around, but realized we needed some guidance on how she wanted everything loaded. Some things a man with any sense just won't do, and part of that's messing with a lady's belongings. So we were sitting at the diner waiting for a call or instructions and having a cup of joe when Barnes' radio went off. Something about a disturbance at the Bar Ewe Ranch. Well, the boys and I gave it about fifteen minutes and then loaded up and headed out."

Howie nodded. "Under the circumstances, I'm just as glad it worked out the way it did. Scott, finish your beer and then take a couple out with you. Don't get sloppy, finish your shift, but enjoy them. You earned 'em. The rest of y'all, take the day off. I'll take the next watch, just in case. We need to make sure Young doesn't send someone out to try something else while we're thinking he's safely locked away, so the guard routine will stay in place for the next little while. Any questions?"

Paul spoke up. "Yeah. I got just one question."

"What's that?"

He nodded at Sheridan, his seamed face guileless. "When's the wedding, ma'am?"

* * *

Sheridan insisted on going out with Howie to keep watch, and after the full-on Amazon warrior impersonation she'd done earlier in the day, no one on the Bar Ewe had the sack to argue with her. So Howie got her a shotgun and the two drove out to the mouth of the range, arriving about an hour before sundown.

When he stopped the truck, they climbed out and opened up the picnic dinner he'd packed. It wasn't an elaborate meal: cold cuts, thick, crusty Italian bread, and cheese, with chips and soda. To Sheridan, standing in the quiet last light of the day munching off a paper plate with only the wind and the occasional bleating of the sheep across the road for accompaniment, it tasted like five-star gourmet cuisine.

After dinner, Howie hopped up on the hood and studied the sheep carefully, the lean lines of his body alert and wary. It took Sheridan a few minutes to realize why he was watching them so intently. He was looking for any sign that one of them might be sick.

She reached over and took his hand. He gave it a squeeze, acknowledging her presence and the contact, but otherwise didn't shift his attention from the flock.

"You know it's over, right?"

He sighed. "Yeah, I know. Still...there are so many things that can go wrong. Each one of those animals is a life. As the rancher, I'm responsible for them. It's up to me to cull the herd when necessary, make sure they're taken care of, heal them when they're sick, and put them down if it gets down to that. Oh, it's usually the boys who handle the nitty gritty details, but ultimately I'm where the buck stops."

"You care for them."

"The boys? Yeah. They're good hands, solid workers. I got no complaints with them."

She sniffed. "I know that. I was talking about the sheep."

"Yeah. I do care about them. A rancher who isn't concerned about the well-being of his flock won't be in business long."

"It's more than that. You're spending overtime money like water right now keeping these sheep under constant guard. I think you'd spend your last dime and more besides if it meant you knew your flock would be okay." She squinted at a gathering of animals near the fence, smiling as she realized they were clustered around a gamboling lamb. "What breed are they?"

"Rambouillet," he replied. "The wool's some of the best you can get in the states, shrinks a lot less than most other breeds. These sheep kept Utah's economy turning over in the twenties."

"Really?"

"Yup. Utah was famous for its wool back then, had millions of sheep around. Now there's less than five hundred thousand in the whole state."

"How many do you have?"

"Three hundred and six." His brow furrowed as he thought. "No. Two hundred and ninety-four, now. I lost four percent of my herd the night Young poisoned the water."

"Bet that cost you some money."

"It's not about the money so much. It's about living beings losing their lives because I made an enemy." He seemed on the verge of saying something more, but gave a little tip of his chin and fell silent.

"Speaking of enemies, I forgot to tell you."

He turned to face her and arched an eyebrow.

"The papers Richard tried to serve me with were fake. I did an online search through the South Dakota court registry. There's no such judge listed in the system, and no such case in the court records. I called and left a message for the court clerk to call me tomorrow."

"That's a crime, isn't it?"

"Perjury," she affirmed. "He's tried stunts like this before, and always gotten away with a slap on the wrist. This time, crossing state lines and all, he's probably going to wind up doing a little time over it."

He chuckled. "Sounds like it's all wrapped up in a neat little bow."

"Except for one thing."

He shot her a questioning glance. "What's that?"

"Well...where do we go from here?"

"What do you mean?"

She thought furiously, trying to gather her fractured thoughts into some semblance of order. "I mean...are you sure this is what you want? I don't know a thing about ranching. You're going to have to show and teach me a lot."

He laughed a full, round belly laugh of amusement mingled with disbelief.

"You seriously think I mind that?"

She gave him an irritated frown. "You don't have to laugh at me!"

He fought to get his laughter under control, with minimal success. "I'm not laughing at you, Sheridan! I just—ah, God, I always thought when two people love each other, they share things. Learn from each other. Isn't that how it's supposed to be?"

She missed the last part, focused as she was on one word.

"You love me?"

He smiled crookedly at her and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do."

"Then you're stuck with me, buster." She curled into his side, savoring the warm security of his presence. "Because I love you too."

They sat there on the hood of the truck, watching the sheep play and graze and be sheep, as the sky flared orange, then muted to purple, and the stars winked to life overhead. They kissed and touched freely, and talked of their future together.

After a while, Sheridan fell silent, her face screwed up thoughtfully. Howie didn't say anything for a time, but the concern in his voice was evident when he finally spoke.

"You okay?"

She nodded, first tentatively, then more firmly. "Yes."

"Penny for 'em?" he asked. She knew he meant her thoughts.

"I was just thinking. No more Antarctica for me, huh?"

"Hard to be isolated when you're hanging around a bunch of roughnecks." He chuckled.

"There's only one roughneck I want to hang around," she retorted.

He pulled her close and kissed her passionately. "Good."

The night closed in around them, as whispers turned to sighs, sighs to moans, and moans to unrestrained cries of desire and rapture.

If the sheep had an opinion on what the bipeds were up to, they kept it to themselves.

# Dedications

As with any other story, this one didn't just spring to life wholly formed and complete unto itself. Because of that, special thanks are due to some very special people:

To Dr. Randall Violett of Southern Utah University, who assisted me with fact-checking and research on the biology of sheep and some slightly macabre offshoots thereof, and was endlessly patient with my questions and "What ifs?";

To Dr. Rachel Kirk, who was gracious enough to work with me and allow me to miss a class period so I could work on this for your reading pleasure. ¡Milles gracias, Doctora...espero que usted gusta este historía!

To the women of House Unicron, past and present: Skwirly, Sparrow, Kitten, Dolphin, Otter, Firefly and Mouse. All of you helped to make me and my House what we are today, through so many twists and turns. Some of us still feel the love. Some do not. Regardless, I thank you, one and all, and most especially those who have stayed the longest and served me and House Unicron best.

Nobilitas servitio penitus perfectam caritatem et fidem et fiduciam.

To the readers, past, present, and future, who keep me going when I'm not sure there's anything to keep going for;

And to the ranchers who form the last bastion of a largely bygone and forgotten way of life.

Thank you, each and every one, from the bottom of my heart.

# About the Author

Born in Amarillo, Texas, J.S. Wayne has lived, worked and traveled through roughly ¾ of the contiguous United States. An author in multiple genres, a misanthropic humanitarian and cynical optimist, he spends most of his time turning words into money as an SEO consultant and article and blog writer, filling the balance of his hours as a storyteller, novelist and polyamorous kink practitioner and educator under the nom de guerre "Lord Unicron." He is fascinated by the use of language, human sexuality, occultism, quantum physics and trying to figure out just what the hell the lyrics to "I Am The Walrus" were actually trying to say.

J.S. enjoys hearing from his readers, fans and those in the kink community. He can be reached by email at jerichoswayne@gmail.com; on Facebook at Jericho Wayne; or through Twitter and Tumblr @iamlordunicron.

If you enjoyed this book, I would greatly appreciate it if you would take the time to write a review. I personally read all of these to ensure I consistently deliver the best, most accurate and enjoyable work possible. Thank you for your attention!

# Other Books

If you enjoyed this book, you may also like:

### The Gael and the Goddess

Even the heart of a goddess is subject to the whims of fate...

Every millennium, the Ocean Goddess, Yemala, makes a pilgrimage to the shore to continue good relations between land and wave. Leaving her watery realm in the hands of her Chancellor, the nymph Amphichrale, she travels to the surface for the first time in a thousand years. A lot has changed since she last surfaced, and the goddess immediately finds herself in the clutches of the mortal law—and unable to use her oceanic powers.

Liam McGrue is a hard-headed, hard-drinking, hardworking fisherman. He asks nothing of life but an easy catch during the day and a warm fire and a glass of whiskey at night. The fiery redhead who claims to have come from the sea itself intrigues him, and his rash, poetic Gaelic heart jumps to her defense and aid. But when he realizes she's not daft or telling him a tale, that she really is who and what she claims to be, Liam will have to choose between his lonely life on the surface and a completely new existence beneath the waves as the consort of a goddess...

Click here to view this book!

### Eat My Shorts!: The Absolute Best of J.S. Wayne (...So Far...)

In Eat My Shorts! J.S. Wayne delivers seven of his best previously-published short stories and novellas along with two new, never-before-seen tales which delve into the danger and joy of romantic love and erotic desire. Populated by a lively cast of humans, demons, deities, Fae, shifters, spirits, vampires and zombies, these scorching stories invite the reader on a whirlwind exploration of some of the many forms and expressions of love, with all the heat, humor, heart and hair-raising action readers have come to expect from J.S. Wayne!

Click here to view this book!

### Dusk

Three people. Two worlds. One love. One galactic threat.

On the remote border world of Dusk, the Dusk Diplomatic Corps serves their planet as diplomats and aristocrats. A bombshell lands on the Corps when Terra sends a request for negotiations to begin mining the planet's most vital resource: magickstone, a uniquely rare element that allows those exposed to it to use magick and to live an unusually prolonged and vital life. Olivia Gunnarson and her lover, Merrick Grissom, believe Terra's real reason for wanting to mine magickstone is their desire for a new and devastating weapon of galactic conquest.

On Terra, Marine Corps Colonel Pedro Silva is dispatched as part of the Terran diplomatic team to serve as a military attaché. En route, he is advised of the unthinkable: The sitting head of the DDC, Ambassador Nils Trelawney, has been assassinated. A new and untested diplomat, Olivia Gunnarson, has been tasked to take his place. What Pete doesn't count on is that the outwardly demure ambassador possesses a wild streak...and her bodyguard-lover will do anything to keep his charge safe and happy. But with an assassin in the shadows and diplomatic relations between Dusk and Terra in jeopardy, will a love affair save them or destroy them all?

Click here to view this book!

### Wail

Heather Kelly knows next to nothing about her family history, but with a new child on the way and her husband deployed to Afghanistan, learning about her roots suddenly becomes vitally important to her. Especially when a warning conveyed through a Ouija board by persons unknown implies that her ignorance may be placing both Heather and the baby she carries in mortal danger...

With the assistance of an unusual group of friends, Heather quickly learns that folklore and myth have their own truth. For hidden in the gnarled and tangled branches of her family tree is a secret so dark it has become a part of the national character of the Emerald Isle itself. Heather soon finds herself face to face with the most dreaded figure from Irish legend: the banshee.

Heather's journey takes her from Marblehead, Massachusetts, to Malin Head, Ireland on a quest to learn the truth behind the legend in a desperate race against time. Aided by seen and unseen allies on both sides of the veil between the mortal world and the one beyond, Heather struggles to assemble the bewildering puzzle. If she fails to unravel the mystery surrounding the vengeful spirit and its connection to her, the past sufferings of her forebears will become her future...and her fate.

Click here to view this book!

### Fantastic Dominants and Where to Find Them: A Player's Guide to the Ultimate RPG

### (non-fiction)

"Where are all the GOOD Dominants?"

This is the question J.S. Wayne endeavors to answer in his latest book, Fantastic Dominants and Where to Find Them! Written with warmth, humor, honesty and sympathy for the plight of the fledgling kinkster, Fantastic Dominants paints a vivid picture of the kink world and the Dominants and pseudo-dominants who live there.

Fantastic Dominants is designed as a practical field guide for the novice submissive, tackling tricky topics such as:

• the glossary and politics of the kink world

• online dating and safety

• negotiation and consent

• deciding when to play

• the all-important differences between unicorns and donkeys in party hats

Featuring "The Dominants' Litany," a "pick your own path" adventure through the world of Kinklandia and a hard-hitting FAQ filled with straight, honest answers to real questions posed by Dominants and submissives alike, Fantastic Dominants and Where to Find Them explains in plain English how to navigate the kink world and find the Dominant and relationship you've always dreamed of!

Click here to view this book!

