were true. She thought him to be the most physically attractive man she’d ever met or even seen. He made her spine tingle and her legs wobble, her heart beat faster and her mouth go dry. She loved his thick, lustrous black hair and black eyes. She loved the deep bronze tone of his skin and his perfect white teeth. The sight of his broad shoulders, flat, hard belly and long legs clad in his tan sheriff’s uniform, with a big gun on his hip, almost caused her to go into respiratory failure. Was she in love with him? No, she couldn’t say that. But lust? Oh, yes, she most definitely lusted after the county sheriff; after Willow’s big brother. And if Bram ever decided to give her the time of day, she would give him a lot more than time. She’d give him…
“Oh, stop,” she mumbled, finishing the last of her wine and hitting the small lever to drain the tub. Why did she torture herself over a man who was never going to do anything but look through her? Bram was every bit as stubborn as her dad. Her father would have a heart attack if his daughter took up with a Native American, or a “breed,” as he called those with even a drop of Indian blood, while Bram’s stiff-necked pride would never permit him to get involved with Carl’s daughter. She was in a no-win situation and she might as well forget that Bram Colton even existed.
That was easier said than done, but she hoped she would at least leave him behind when she went to Dallas for her week’s vacation on Saturday. She was going to visit an old college friend, Loni Owens, and there was no doubt in Jenna’s mind that she would have a good time. Loni was a bright, upbeat and extremely uninhibited gal when it came to fun, especially fun with guys. Jenna had hesitated in accepting Loni’s invitation to spend her week off in Dallas because she knew Loni would have a dozen male friends lined up to meet her.
But what the heck? she’d finally concluded. She sure wasn’t getting anywhere with the one man she would love to get somewhere with, so she might as well settle for second best.
She would be leaving very early on Saturday morning.
After obtaining the accident information that he needed and then leaving the hospital that evening, Bram stopped in to see his grandmother. He did that three or four times a week, and not just out of a sense of duty. He genuinely loved the elderly woman and thought her witty, wise and wonderful. Gloria was eighty years old, but since her father, Bram’s great-grandfather, George WhiteBear, was still living at ninety-seven—at least that was the age George claimed to be—Bram was sure Gloria had many good years left. Occasionally he could get her talking about the old days and her youth, but not very often. “Live in the present, Bram,” she usually told him. “Let the past stay in the past.”
She always had something good to eat in her apartment above the Black Arrow Feed and Grain Store, a business that had supported the WhiteBear-Colton family for a good many years, and Bram enjoyed a cup of coffee and a slice of Gloria’s delicious cinnamon-applesauce cake while they talked. She was very proud of his being sheriff, which she considered to be a very high position in the United States government. Bram let her think it, for anything that made her happy pleased him.
“Gran, Willow’s been working in the store long enough to take over. Isn’t it time you retired?” he said just before taking his leave.
“You’ve been trying to retire me for years, Bram,” Gloria said briskly. “What do you want me to do, sit around up here in this apartment and watch soap operas and talk shows on TV?”
Bram had to laugh. “Forget I mentioned it, Gran.”
“And you forget it, too.”
“For tonight,” he agreed with a twinkle in his eye. Leaning down, he kissed her cheek. “See you soon.”
Bram’s home was a two-hundred-acre ranch twenty miles out of town. Known in the area as the Colton Ranch, it had a big rambling house, a couple of barns, and fertile soil—soil rich enough to produce a nutritious grass ideal for raising quarter horses. The ranch had belonged to his parents, Trevor and Sally, and had been passed to their five children after their deaths. None of the five wanted to sell the family home, but the only one who wanted to do any ranching and live on the place was Bram. Much as he liked his job as sheriff, there was something in his blood that demanded a portion of his life be lived outdoors.
And he loved horses, as his Comanche ancestors had, for history books touted the Comanche as the most skilled riders of the Southwest. Bram broke and trained his own horses, but he was so good at the craft that sometimes other ranchers asked him to break one of their wild young stallions. He did it willingly and free of charge. What he knew about horses, he believed, was in his genes and had come to him from his ancestors.
Bram also had a dog, and when he arrived home that night Nellie came bounding out of the smallest barn, barking a joyous hello and wriggling her hindquarters back and forth. Nellie was a black-and-white Border collie with pale blue eyes. She was a love of a dog, and her main goal in life was to herd sheep, cows, horses, chickens or anything else that moved. Anytime Bram wanted some horses brought in from a pasture he whistled to Nellie, and off she’d go to get them. Bram’s best friend, his fishing and hunting buddy, Will Mitchell, had three wild little boys, and all three adored Nellie and would let her herd them around Bram’s yard when Will brought them out to the ranch.
Bram knelt down now and gave Nellie a hug, then scratched her ears. “Did you get lonesome today, girl?”
She wriggled again and licked his face. “Hey, that’s going too far,” Bram said with a laugh, rising to his feet. “Come on, let’s go and scare you up some dinner.”
It had been a long, busy day, and when Bram went to bed he was ready for sleep. But as he closed his eyes he promptly saw an image of Jenna Elliot. Punching his pillow in frustration, he turned to his side and tried to relax. But Jenna was still there, glowingly beautiful and causing him all sorts of physical distress.
Bram always thought of Jenna as Black Arrow’s golden girl. Her hair had been twisted on top of her head today, but he knew what it looked like cascading down her back—like a golden waterfall. Its color nearly drove him mad, and he was positive it would feel as silky as it looked. Even Jenna’s flawless skin had a golden hue, as though sprinkled with gold dust. Add her deep blue eyes to that mix and she sparkled. In Bram’s eyes, anyway, Jenna Elliot sparkled more brightly and more beautifully than any Fourth of July fireworks he’d ever seen.
He recalled how much easier he’d breathed when she went away to college, and how the world had begun spinning crazily again when Jenna came home to help care for her terminally ill mother. After Mrs. Elliot’s funeral Bram heard that Jenna had left town again, but not to return to college; she had decided to become a nurse. That had surprised him. Nursing was a service profession much like his own, and he’d wondered about a golden girl working such long hours. It wasn’t as if she had to earn a living. Old Carl owned half the town and almost as much of the county. Everyone knew he had more money than he could count, and that he doted on Jenna. Hell, she’d never have to work a day if she didn’t want to.
So that nursing business confused Bram, and he’d decided it was nothing but rumor, until he heard Willow mention it. He never asked Willow about Jenna because his baby sister was sharp as a tack and would catch on in a heartbeat if Bram so much as hinted he gave a damn about anything Jenna Elliot might do or say. But every so often he would pick up a tidbit of information about her from Willow. She had no idea that Jenna haunted her big brother’s dreams. No one had any idea about that.
Bram fully intended to keep it that way, too. In truth, he would give almost anything to have Jenna move away permanently. He’d sleep better, since every single time he’d seen Jenna—starting with the day he’d discovered, or admitted, how she affected him—was lodged in his brain and came roaring out too damned often, especially at night.
One
