“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.

When she returned to her own room, Bill was waiting in his pajamas and taking a last puff on his cigar. “Where were you? Still hungry after all that dinner?”

“No.” Caroline shook her head, oddly quiet. “I wanted to make sure that Sam was all right.”

“Is she?”

“Yes. She's sleeping.” They had thought so when they saw the darkened house.

“She's a nice girl. That guy she was married to must've been a damn fool to run off with that other woman.” He hadn't been impressed with what he'd seen of Liz on TV.

Caroline nodded silent agreement and then wondered how many of them were damn fools. She to have let Bill force silence on her for two decades, keeping their love for each other a secret; Bill for living like a criminal, as he tiptoed in and out of her house for more than twenty years; Samantha for falling for a man and a way of life that were both as foreign to her and possibly as dangerous as jumping off the top of the Empire State Building; and Tate Jordan for falling in love with a girl he couldn't have. Because Caroline knew exactly what was happening. She sensed it in her bones, in her gut, in her soul. She had seen it in Sam's eyes before Sam even knew it, sensed it on Christmas when she saw Tate look at Sam while she was busy doing something else. Caroline saw it all, and yet she had to pretend that she saw nothing, knew nothing and no one, and suddenly she didn't want that anymore.

“Bill.” She looked at him strangely, took his cigar away, and set it down in the ashtray. “I want to get married.”

“Sure, Caro.” He grinned and fondled her left breast.

“Don't.” She brushed him away. “I mean it.” And something suddenly told him that she did.

“You're senile! Why would we get married now?”

“Because at our age you shouldn't be sneaking in and out of our house in the middle of the night, it's bad for my nerves and your arthritis.”

“You're crazy.” He lay back against the headboard with a look of shock.

“Maybe. But I'll tell you something. By now I don't think we'll surprise anyone. And what's more, I don't think anyone would care. No one would remember what or where I come from, so all your old arguments are nonsense. All they know after all this time is that I'm Caroline Lord and you're Bill King of the Lord Ranch. Period.”

“Not period.” He looked suddenly ferocious. “They know you're the rancher and I'm the foreman.”

“Who gives a damn?”

“I do. And you should. And the men do. There's a difference, Caro. You know that after all these years. And I'll be damned”-he almost roared it at her-“if I'll make you a laughingstock. Running off and marrying the foreman-the hell I will.”

“Fine.” She glared at him. “Then I'll fire you, and you can come back as my husband.”

“Woman, you're crazy.” He wouldn't even discuss it. “Now turn the light out. I'm tired.”

“So am I…” She looked at him unhappily. “Of hiding, that's what I'm tired of after all these years. I want to be married, dammit, Bill.”

“Then marry another rancher.”

“Go to hell.” She glared at him and he turned off the light, and the conversation was ended. It was the same conversation they had had a hundred times over the last twenty years, and there was no winning. As far as he knew, she was the rancher, and he was the foreman. And as she lay on her side of the bed, her eyes filled with tears, her back to him, she fervently prayed that Samantha would not fall hopelessly in love with Tate Jordan, because she knew that it would end no differently than this. There was a code that these men followed, a code that made sense to no one but them, but they lived by it, and Caroline knew that they always would.

15

The exchange of cabins between Tate Jordan and Harry Hennessey was completed within four days. Hennessey was enchanted with Tate's offer, and with the appropriate amount of grumbling, Tate eventually moved his things. He claimed that he didn't particularly like his cabin, was sick and tired of hearing Hennessey bitch, and had no vested interest in any of the cabins. To him, it was one and the same. No one took any particular notice of the transaction, and by Thursday night Tate had unpacked all his things. In her room at Aunt Caro's, Samantha waited patiently in the dark until nine thirty, when Caroline was safely in her room. Samantha left via her window and padded through the garden at the rear of the house, until only a few moments later she reached Tate's front door. His new cabin was almost directly behind the house and could be seen by no other. It was even protected from the view of the big house by the fruit trees at the back end of the garden, so there was no one who could see Samantha slip quietly through the door. Tate was waiting for her, barefoot, bare-chested, and in blue jeans, his hair almost blue-black, with salt at the temples and liquid green fire in his eyes. His skin was as smooth as satin, and he folded her rapidly into his arms. Moments later they were between clean sheets on his narrow bed. It was only after they had made love that they indulged in conversation, that she giggled about sneaking out her window and told him that she was sure that at that very moment Bill King was tiptoeing through the front door.