my place is so damn wide open. All it would take would be for one of the men to see you, just once, and it would be all over for us.”
“Would it?” Samantha looked strained as she said it. “Would it really be so awful if they knew?” He nodded slowly. “Why?”
“It's not right, Sam. You are who you are and I am who I am. You don't want them talking and neither do I.” But the truth was that she didn't give a damn. She thought she loved him, and she didn't give two pins what anyone said. What could they do to hurt them? But she saw in his face that it was a sacred rule. Ranchers didn't fall in love with ranch hands.
Samantha looked at Tate squarely. “I'm not going to play the same game they've played, Tate, not forever. If we stay together, I want people to know it. I want to be able to be proud of what we have, not afraid of who might find out.”
“We'll cross that bridge later.” But she had the feeling that he wasn't prepared to move an inch in her direction, and suddenly she bridled and the light in her eyes was as stubborn as his.
“Why? Why not start dealing with it right now? Okay, I understand that we don't have to advertise to everybody right this minute that we're having an affair. But hell, Tate, I'm not going to sneak around forever.”
“No.” He said it very quietly. “Eventually you're going back to New York.” The words hit her like a wave of cold water, and when she spoke again, there was ice and pain in her voice.
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because that's where you belong, just like I belong here.”
“Is that right? How do you know that? How do you know that I'm not like Caroline, that I haven't decided I don't want that kind of life anymore, not that my life is like hers was?”
“You know how I know?” He looked at her with the full wisdom of his forty-plus years. “Because when Caroline came here, she was a widow, she wanted to give up the life she had shared with her husband, because he was gone. And she was forty years old, Sam, that's not the same as thirty or thirty-one. You're young, you still have a lot of living to do, a lot of your crazy commercials to put together, a lot of deals to make, a lot of buses to catch, phone calls to make, planes to miss, parties to go to…”
“And I couldn't do some of that here?” She looked hurt and he eyed her gently, with wisdom and tenderness and love.
“No, little one, you couldn't. This isn't the place for that. You came here to heal, Sam, and that's what you're doing, and maybe I'm just part of that. I love you. I never laid eyes on you before three weeks ago, and I haven't really given a damn about a woman in years, but I know I love you. I knew it the first day we met. And I hope you love me. But what happened to Bill and Caro is a miracle, Sam, they don't belong together, and they never will. She's educated, he isn't. She's led one hell of a fancy life, and his idea of class is a solid-gold toothpick and a fifty- cent cigar. She owns the ranch and he ain't got a hill of beans. But she loves him, and he loves her, and this was all she wanted. For my own reasons I think she was a little crazy, but she'd had another life, and maybe after that this was enough for her. You're different, Sam, you're so much younger, and you've got a right to so much more than I could give you here.” It was totally crazy, they had known each other for less than a month, and only been lovers for two days, and yet they were talking about the future as though it really mattered, as though there were even a question of their staying together for the rest of time. Samantha eyed him with amazement and then looked at him with a small smile.
“You're crazy, Tate Jordan. But I love you.” And then she took his face in her hands and kissed him, hard, on the lips and then sat back and crossed her arms. “And if I want to stay here, if this is the life I want, whether I'm thirty or ninety or eighteen, then that's my decision. I am not Caroline Lord, and you are not Bill King, and you can save your damn self-sacrificing speeches, mister, because when the time comes, I'm going to do exactly what I want to do. If I don't want to go back to New York, you can't make me, and if it's you I want for the rest of my life, then I'll follow you to the ends of the earth and bug you to death until you announce it to every last goddamn ranch hand, and Caroline and Bill. You're not going to get rid of me as easily as you'd like to. You got that?” She was grinning at him, but she saw that there was still a broad streak of resistance in his eyes. It didn't matter though, he didn't know her, and the truth of it was that with only one recent exception, what Sam Taylor wanted, she got. “Got that, mister?”
“Yeah, I got it.” But without saying more, this time it was Tate who kissed her and silenced her almost completely as he threw off the warm blanket and cast it over both of them. Only moments later they were once more blended together, their legs and their arms and their bodies one shimmering tangle as their lips held and the fire crackled nearby. And when it was over, he pulled his lips from hers breathlessly and carried her back to the little blue bedroom where they began again. It was after six o'clock when they noticed that it was nighttime. They had slept and made love and slept and made love all afternoon, and now regretfully Tate swatted her bottom, and then went into the bathroom to run a hot tub. They took a bath together, his endless limbs wrapped around her, as she giggled and told him stories of her early summers on the ranch.
“You know, we still haven't solved our problem.”
“I didn't know we had one.” He lay his head back on the edge of the tub and closed his eyes in the hot bath.
“I mean about where and how to meet.”
He fell silent for a long moment as he thought it over and then shook his head. “Damn, I wish I knew. What do you think, Sam?”
“I don't know. My room at Aunt Caro's? I could let you in the window.” She laughed nervously. It really had overtones of being fifteen years old and very “fast.” “Your place?”
He nodded slowly. “I guess so. But I don't like it.” And then suddenly he brightened. “I've got it. Hennessey's been bitching for two months about his house. Says the cabin's too small for him, it sits in the wind, and it's too far from the chow hall. He's been driving us all nuts.”
“So?”
“I'll trade him. His place is on the edge of the camp, almost behind Caro's. At least if you go there, no one should see you. It's a hell of a lot better than where I am right now.”
“You don't think they'll suspect?”
“Why should they?” He grinned at her in the steam from the bathtub. “I don't plan to pinch your ass every day at breakfast or kiss you on the mouth before we ride.”
“Why not, don't you love me?”
He said nothing, but only leaned forward, kissed her tenderly, and then fondled her breasts. “Matter of fact, little Palomino, I do.”
She raised herself on her knees in the old bathtub and then knelt facing him with everything she felt in her eyes. “So do I, Tate Jordan. So do I.”
They rode back that night after seven, and Sam was intensely grateful that she knew Caroline had gone to dinner at another ranch. Otherwise Caroline would have been frantic. But the day had slipped past them, with their chatter and their laughter and their loving, and now as Sam came back to the main ranch house she felt a sudden loss at not being with him. It was as though someone had severed her right arm. It was an odd feeling to have about a man she had known for so little time, but isolated as they were from the rest of the world, there was something special and intense about their feelings, and she found herself longing for him again as she sat alone in the empty house. Caroline had left her a note that expressed concern at her long absence but not panic, and she had also left a warm dinner on the stove, which Sam only picked at before going to bed at eight thirty and lying there in the dark, thinking of Tate.
When Caroline came home that night with Bill King beside her, they tiptoed stealthily into the darkened house, and Bill went immediately to her room. Sam's presence in the house had made things a little awkward, and Caroline had to remind him every night not to close the front door so hard, but he didn't hear. Now Caroline walked softly down the hall to Sam's room, opened the door, peered into the moonlit darkness, and saw the beautiful young woman asleep in her bed. She stood watching her for a moment, feeling that her own youth had come back to haunt her, and then silently she walked into the room. She thought that she knew what was happening, yet as she had known it for herself, it was something that couldn't be changed or stopped. One had to live one's life. She stood there for a long time, gazing down at Samantha, her hair fanned out on her pillow, her face so unlined and so happy, and with tears in her eyes, Caroline reached out and touched the sleeping girl's hand. It did nothing to wake Sam as she lay there, and on still-silent feet Caroline left the room again.
