guys through. Not many soldiers, even career soldiers, are able to finish it, much less able to pass it on the first try. Eb did. He was briefly ‘loaned’ to them while he was in army intelligence, for some top secret assignment.”
Sally had never thought very much about Ebenezer’s profession, except that she’d guessed he was once in the military. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. A man who’d been in the military might still have a soft spot or two inside. She was almost certain that a commando, a soldier for hire, wouldn’t have any.
“You’re very quiet,” Jessica said.
“I never thought of Ebenezer in such a profession,” she replied, moving to look out the window at the November landscape. “I guess it was right there in front of me, and I didn’t see it. No wonder he kept to himself.”
“He still does,” she replied. “And only a few people know about his past. His men do, of course,” she added, and there was an inflection in her tone that was suddenly different.
“Do you know any of his men?”
Jessica’s face tautened. “One or two. I believe Dallas Kirk still works for him. And Micah Steele does consulting work when Eb asks him to,” she added and smiled. “Micah’s a good guy. He’s the only one of Eb’s old colleagues who still works in the trade. He lives in Nassau, but he spends an occasional week helping Ebenezer train men when he’s needed.”
“And Dallas Kirk?”
Jessica’s soft face went very hard. At her side, one of her small hands clenched. “Dallas was badly wounded in a firefight a year ago. He came home shot to pieces and Eb found something for him to teach in the tactics courses. He doesn’t speak to me, of course. We had a difficult parting some years ago.”
That was intriguing, and Sally was going to find out about it one day. But she didn’t press her luck. “How about fajitas for supper?” she asked.
Jessica’s glower dissolved into a smile. “Sounds lovely!”
“I’ll get right on them.” Sally went back into the kitchen, her head spinning with the things she’d learned about people she thought she knew. Life, she considered, was always full of surprises.
CHAPTER TWO
EBENEZER WAS A MAN of his word. He showed up early the next morning as Sally was out by the corral fence watching her two beef cattle graze. She’d bought them to raise with the idea of stocking her freezer. Now they had names. The white-faced Black Angus mixed steer was called Bob, the white-faced red-coated Hereford she called Andy. They were pets. She couldn’t face the thought of sitting down to a plate of either one of them.
The familiar black pickup stopped at the fence and Ebenezer got out. He was wearing jeans and a blue checked shirt with boots and a light-colored straw Stetson. No chaps, so he wasn’t working cattle today.
He joined Sally at the fence. “Don’t tell me. They’re table beef.”
She spared him a resentful glance. “Right.”
“And you’re going to put them in the freezer.”
She swallowed. “Sure.”
He only chuckled. He paused to light a cigar, with one big booted foot propped on the lower rung of the fence. “What are their names?”
“That’s Andy and that’s…Bob.” She flushed.
He didn’t say a word, but his raised eyebrow was eloquent through the haze of expelled smoke.
“They’re watch-cattle,” she improvised.
His eyes twinkled. “I beg your pardon?”
“They’re attack steers,” she said with a reluctant grin. “At the first sign of trouble, they’ll come right through the fence to protect me. Of course, if they get shot in the line of duty,” she added, “I’ll eat them!”
He pushed his Stetson back over clean blond-streaked brown hair and looked down at her with lingering amusement. “You haven’t changed much in six years.”
“Neither have you,” she retorted shyly. “You’re still smoking those awful things.”
He glanced at the big cigar and shrugged. “A man has to have a vice or two to round him out,” he pointed out. “Besides, I only have the occasional one, and never inside. I have read the studies on smoking,” he added dryly.
“Lots of people who smoke read those studies,” she agreed. “And then they quit!”
He smiled. “You can’t reform me,” he told her. “It’s a waste of time to try. I’m thirty-six and very set in my ways.”
“I noticed.”
He took a puff from the cigar and studied her steers. “I suppose they follow you around like dogs.”
“When I go inside the fence with them,” she agreed. She felt odd with him; safe and nervous and excited, all at once. She could smell the fresh scent of the soap he used, and over it a whiff of expensive cologne. He was close at her side, muscular and vibrating with sensuality. She wanted to move closer, to feel that strength all around her. It made her self-conscious. After six years, surely the attraction should have lessened a little.
He glanced down at her, noticing how she picked at her cuticles and nibbled on her lower lip. His green eyes narrowed and there was a faint glitter in them.
She felt the heat of his gaze and refused to lift her face. She wondered if it looked as hot as it felt.
“You haven’t forgotten a thing,” he said suddenly, the cigar in his hand absently falling to his side, whirls of smoke climbing into the air beside him.
“About what?” she choked.
He caught her long, blond ponytail and tugged her closer, so that she was standing right up against him. The scent of him, the heat of him, the muscular ripple of his body combined to make her shiver with repressed feelings.
He shifted, coaxing her into the curve of his body, his eyes catching hers and holding them relentlessly. He could feel her faint trembling, hear the excited whip of her breath as she tried valiantly to hide it from him. But he could see her heartbeat jerking the fabric over her small breasts.
It was a relief to find her as helplessly attracted to him as she once had been. It made him arrogant with pride. He let go of the ponytail and drew his hand against her cheek, letting his thumb slide down to her mouth and over her chin to lift her eyes to his.
“To everything, there is a season,” he said quietly.
She felt the impact of his steady, unblinking gaze in the most secret places of her body. She didn’t have the experience to hide it, to protect herself. She only stood staring up at him, with all her insecurities and fears lying naked in her soft gray eyes.
His head bent and he drew his nose against hers in the sudden silence of the yard. His smoky breath whispered over her lips as he murmured, “Six years is a long time to go hungry.”
She
