It seemed hours later when he lay still beside her, the room was dark, the house quiet, and she felt his long powerful body stretched out next to her, content, sated, and she felt with pleasure his lips gentle on her neck. “I love you, Palomino. I love you.” The words sounded so real, but suddenly she wanted to ask him “Do you?” Was it real? Would anyone ever really love her again? Love her and mean it, love her and not hurt her, love her and not go away? A small trickle of tears suddenly fell from the corner of her eye to the pillow, and he looked at her sadly and nodded his head. He pulled her into his arms then and cradled her gently, crooning to her softly meaningless words as one would have to a wounded animal or a very small child. “It's all right, babe. It's all right now, I'm here with you…”

“I'm sorry…” Her words were muffled as suddenly the sobs of a lifetime broke from her, and the grief that had lived pent up inside her broke from her like a flock of wild birds. They lay like that, locked together, for almost an hour, and when her tears were spent, she felt a familiar stirring beside her and she smiled slowly and reached down to touch him, and then guide him to the same spot again.

“You all right now?” His voice was husky in the darkness, and she nodded. “Answer me.”

“I'm all right.” He would go no farther and his eyes were riveted to hers.

“You sure?”

“Yes, I'm sure.” With her body she showed him the gratitude that she didn't know the words for, arching toward him and giving him as much pleasure as he had given her. It was a meshing of two people beyond any she had ever known in the years before him, and as she lay beside Tate Jordan and slept, Samantha wore a small happy smile.

When the alarm went off at her bedside the next morning, she awoke slowly, with a smile, expecting to see him, and what she saw instead was a note beneath the small clock. He had set it for her when he had left her bed quietly at two o'clock that morning. He had turned on the alarm and written her a note on a little scrap of paper. It said only I LOVE YOU, PALOMINO. And as she read it she lay back on her pillows again, closed her eyes, and smiled. This time there were no tears.

13

At the end of the day's work Samantha looked as fresh and alive as she had at the beginning, and Josh commented on it with disgust as she hung up her saddle with a grin.

“Christ, woman! Look at you, Sam, tough as nails. Three weeks ago you could hardly walk after a day's ride, you were so out of shape. Now you fly off that damn horse and look as bright-eyed at six o'clock at night as you do in the morning when you get up. Makes me sick. You ought to be carrying me back to my cabin. My ass is sore as hell, and my arms are killing me from roping those damn steers. Maybe what you need is to shake your butt and work a little harder.”

“Bullshit. I worked harder than you did today!”

“Oh, yeah?” He snarled playfully at her and swatted her behind with his hat as she walked past.

“Yeah!” She ran past him with a grin on her face and a long blond ponytail tied with a bright red ribbon. She had almost flown in her saddle all day long. All she had been able to think of was Tate Jordan, but neither of them had given anything away as they worked. If anything, he had been indifferent and almost surly, and she had done her best to ignore him the few times they might have had occasion to speak. He spoke to her casually only once over coffee at lunchtime and then strolled away to chat with some of the other men while Sam hung back with the ranch hands she knew best. It was only now that the day was over that she allowed her thoughts to soar toward Tate again. All day she had remembered moments of their night together, an instant, a glimmer, the shape of his leg as he had lain naked and uncovered amidst the tousled sheets, a look in his eye as he leaned toward her to kiss her again, the way the back of his neck looked as he lay down for a moment with a happy sigh and let her run long, tantalizing fingers slowly down his tingling spine. She loved the way he looked and the way he felt and what he did to her, and now it was all she could think of as she ran back to Aunt Caro's house. She had no idea when she might see him alone again. His cabin was highly visible, so near to the main hall where the men ate, and Aunt Caro was back from her brief trip with Bill. It was obvious that a meeting between them would take some arranging, but she felt certain that he would find a way. The thought that now he and Bill King would both tiptoe into the house and then creep out again at midnight brought a gurgle of laughter to her lips as she opened the front door.

“My, aren't you happy this evening, Miss Samantha.” Caroline eyed her with pleasure from where she sat. And for the first time in four months she saw John's familiar face and felt not a twinge. She checked for a moment, narrowed her eyes pensively as she watched him, and then shrugged with a small quiet smile as she went to her room to wash up.

“I'll be back in a minute, Aunt Caro.”

When she returned, they shared dinner, only tonight Samantha found herself wondering where Tate was. Was he in the main dining hall with the others? Had he opted to stay in his cabin and cook for himself, as a few of the men did? But most of them preferred to eat dinner with the others. Even the men with wives on the ranch often came to the main hall after dinner for coffee and a smoke and the companionship of the men they rode with all day long. Suddenly Samantha ached to be with them, but she also sensed that if she joined them all of a sudden in the evening they would begin to wonder why she was there. They accepted her in their midst in the daytime, but in the evening they expected her to stay at the big house with Caroline, where she belonged. It would have shocked them to see her there in the evening, and it would have been impossible to seek out Tate without causing comment. Someone would have easily figured it out. Gossip on any ranch was rampant, and there was a kind of sensitive radar that all of them seemed to have. Romances and marriages and divorces were almost instantly discovered, along with illicit affairs and illegitimate babies, which made it all the more remarkable that Bill King and Caroline had kept their secret for so long. Even if some of the old timers, or those who knew them well, suspected, no one on the ranch had ever been sure. Samantha found now that she respected that and understood all the more how difficult the clandestine life-style must have been. Now she felt herself fairly throbbing with excitement, aching to be with the man, to talk to him, to laugh, to tease him, to touch him, to go for a walk in the night air, to look up at him with interest and pride and hold his hand, and after that to come back to her bedroom and discover each other's bodies once again, as they had the night before.