Chapter Eight
The beer hadto be doing its job because she said yes.
He wasn’t about to give her a chance to change her mind, either. He’d watched her all afternoon, worried she might leave before he had a change to be alone with her again, and he wasn’t waiting one minute longer.
Solar torches cast a warm yellow glow across the path as they walked behind the bunkhouses to the stables. The light above the wide double doors revealed an empty barnyard.
“Where is everyone?” Jazz asked.
“There was limited seating. Lucky for you, I know the owner and scored us two spots.”
He saddled the horses. He’d picked a sweet little palomino mare for Jazz. His gelding was a sorrel with a little more spunk. Since Jazz wasn’t an experienced rider, he didn’t allow her to help. Neither of them needed to be riding their horse upside down in the dark if a saddle tipped sideways.
They set out along a tractor road that divided the fields. A full moon lit their way. Back in the 1800s there’d been another ranch here, and husks of the old buildings remained to this day, but it had been bankrupted by drought and it wasn’t until the land passed to the Endeavour that cattle had been reintroduced. Now, hundreds of beef—dark, restless mounds against the backdrop of night sky that touched the horizon—roamed the range. The stamp of a hoof, and the rustle of low-hanging bellies dragging through grass, combined with the voices and music ringing out from the new homestead gradually fading behind them.
The silvery waters of the Tongue River snaked to their right. They left the tractor road to pick their way through the sagebrush. Dan heard a familiar swish, then a low cooing noise, followed by two booming pops. A shadow burst out from beneath one of the shrubs. Dan’s horse shied a few steps before quickly settling, but Jazz’s little mare remained unperturbed.
“Greater sage-grouse,” Dan said, in case she was wondering, but it turned out she wasn’t.
“I thought so.” She patted the palomino’s neck, rewarding her for her steadfastness, and offered a few soft, complimentary words. “I’ve flushed them by accident before. Protecting their habitat is part of our fire management strategy.”
Of course. Conservation was another one of their mandates.
A path to the water’s edge cut through the trees. A stand of cottonwood stretched the length of the bank, all the way to the bend in the river, and beyond. The river widened and the current slowed at this spot. He used to come here a lot as a kid, although he’d had to sneak in from the road on the far side. Jazz wasn’t the first girl he’d brought here, but he didn’t intend to broadcast that fact.
He helped her dismount, then wrapped the horses’ reins around the low branch of a tree. Since neither animal was skittish, he left them to graze.
“Care to join me for a swim?” he asked.
“Since I don’t have a suit with me, and I really doubt if you’re wearing one under your jeans, I see where this is going,” she said. “I haven’t been skinny-dipping since I was twelve.”
Dan was curious as to who a twelve-year-old girl might go skinny-dipping with. Hopefully it was other twelve-year-old girls, although he wouldn’t put money on it.
“Then you’re long overdue.” He started to strip. He tossed his T-shirt onto the grassy bank. His jeans quickly followed.
A fallen tree had washed up onshore, probably during the floods back in March. She took a seat and settled in, planting her elbows on her knees and her chin on her cupped hands.
“Exactly how easy do you think I am, anyway?” she asked, the same way she might quiz him on what he thought of the weather.
He paused with his thumbs hooked in the waistband of his jockeys. While it didn’t sound like a serious question, he was taking no chances. “Sweetheart, you proved you aren’t easy your very first day, when you told me you couldn’t have dinner with me because you’d already made other plans. And then you kept turning me down every time I asked you out after that.”
“Why does it always have to be dinner? Did you go to bed hungry a lot as a kid?”
“Never.” He wondered if she could say the same thing, but asking was out of the question. “What can I say? I like to watch women eat.”
“As far as fetishes go, that seems harmless enough,” she said, proving yet again that she had a good sense of humor.
Since she hadn’t raised any objections, or taken her eyes of him either, he shimmied out of his drawers and tossed them aside. Nakedness didn’t bother him in the least and he was happy enough to give her a show. His body might not be up to a smokejumper’s standards, but there were only so many hours in a day and it was better than most.
The waterhole wasn’t deep and the current was slow. He waded in up to his waist, then made a shallow dive. He came up shaking his head and wiping his eyes. A raspy night-heron barked its indignation at the invasion before flouncing off in a huff.
“The water’s fantastic,” he said. “No pressure. Just making an observation.”
She still hadn’t moved from her perch on the log. “If I get in the water with you, what’s going to happen?”
The question was almost insulting. He might have checked out more than his fair share of the local talent—thanks, Grandad, for sharing that bit of intel—but the talent had always been willing. “Not a thing you don’t want.”
“What if I think I want it to happen now, but end up regretting it in the morning?”