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Kristin understood the risk involved in what he was asking. But she needed a moment in his arms—needed it too much to be cautious. “Go on,” she said. “If I can get away, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
She turned to check the crowd as he walked off. There was no sign of Webb. Blake and his family, including Joseph, were picnicking on the blanket they’d brought. They’d be expecting her, but they wouldn’t be concerned if she didn’t join them. No one else appeared to be paying her any attention. Taking her time, she slipped away, walked back down the street, and around the far side of the hardware store.
Logan was waiting with his buckskin horse. He mounted and swung her up behind the cantle with her skirt bunched over her knees. Taking a back road through the fields, they emerged onto open ground, where Logan nudged the horse to an easy lope.
With her arms wound tight around him, Kristin laid her head against his back. As she listened to the beating of his heart, she remembered the last time they’d ridden double, when he was weak from blood loss, and she had to hold him on the horse. So many things had happened since then—not the least of them falling in love with him.
He stopped the horse in a spot she recognized, where cottonwoods and willows grew around a seeping spring. The place was on the border of the Dollarhide Ranch—but he would know that. After easing her off the back of the horse, he dismounted and took her in his arms. His kiss was long and slow and deep, his tongue tasting her, stroking the sensitive tissues inside her mouth. Waves of molten desire poured through her, pulsing deep in her body. Through layers of clothing, his arousal pressed hard against her hip. But they both knew that nothing was going to happen here, not today.
“The next time we make love, I want it to be where we can take our time,” he murmured between kisses. “I want to memorize every curve and hollow of your body, to love every part of you. But I don’t know how long I can stand this waiting. Webb needs to know. We need to tell him before he figures things out for himself.”
“Not yet. I need to make a clean break with him—and it will go easier if it’s his idea. Trust me, I know him. My family knows him. This could come back on all of us, not just you and me.”
He sighed and released her. “Is there a chance he could hurt you?”
“I’ve never known him to hurt a woman. Not physically, at least. But he could damage you or take his anger out on my family.”
“You make him sound like a madman.”
“He’s not. But he’s a very proud man, accustomed to having his way. Nobody defies Webb Calder and gets away with it.”
“We’re defying him now. He just doesn’t know it.” He pulled her close in a quick, hard hug. “Come on. It’s time you were getting back to your family. I’ll let you off somewhere safe.”
“You’re not going back to eat, at least?”
“Better for me, and safer for you if I don’t make an appearance. Don’t worry, I already got what I came for.”
They rode back in silence, both of them aware that they couldn’t risk more time together. Not until she made things right with Webb.
He let her off near her house. From there she could walk back to the celebration without anyone questioning where she’d been. Kristin watched him ride away, feeling his frustration as she felt her own. This tangled mess was hers to resolve. She had to find a way.
* * *
The sun was low in the sky when the musicians from Miles City—a fiddler, a guitarist, and a bass player—took their places on the bandstand and began warming up. Years ago, when the immigrants had put on the celebration, accordion players from the Old World had played mostly polkas and waltzes. When the band on stage broke into a lively foxtrot, the younger couples flooded onto the dance floor.
Blake’s family had gone home. But Kristin had stayed in the hope of talking to Mason. So far, he hadn’t shown up. But the hour was early yet. He might be planning to come later and make an entrance. That would be like him—or at least like the Mason she remembered.
Kristin wasn’t the only one watching for Mason. Gerda had no end of partners, but even when she was on the dance floor, her gaze searched the crowd, looking for the one face she wanted to see.
As the twilight deepened, electric lights, strung above the dance floor, twinkled on, lending a magical effect to the darkness. Faces glowed. Skirts and petticoats swirled to the music. Even the shadows seemed to dance.
The men, mostly cowhands, outnumbered the women at least two to one, so no willing female lacked for partners. When a homely young cowboy asked Kristin to dance, she gave him her hand and let him whirl her around the dance floor. He was polite and shy and surprisingly light on his feet. When he returned her to her place, she rewarded him with a genuine smile. There was still no sign of Mason. Maybe he wasn’t coming after all.
Two tall figures stood in the shadows off to one side of the dance floor. One of them was Britta. The other was her father, Lars. Kristin studied them with furtive glances. Big Lars, with his hulking frame and craggy features, kept a fierce eagle eye on Gerda as she danced and flirted. His expression said clearly that if he had his way, girls would be locked up at home until suitable husbands showed up to claim them.
Tall, like her father, Britta towered over average-sized men. But there was a grace about her slender figure that Kristin had noticed and admired. Her strong features, freckled by the sun, failed to meet the day’s standard of dainty, porcelain beauty. But her blue eyes lit her face with kindness. Now in her mid-twenties, she’d already been dismissed as an old-maid schoolmarm. But she deserved better, Kristin thought. She deserved a man’s love and a family of her own.
Now she stood well back from the dance floor, as if to avoid the humiliation of not being asked to dance. Her face, in this unguarded moment, wore a wistful expression. Was she here to keep watch on her popular sister—or maybe to control her volatile father? It was hard to believe that she would choose to be here for herself.
The catchy foxtrot tune had ended. There was the usual shuffling of partners, a buzz of conversation. Then a hush fell as a tall figure strode across the floor—long legs clad in jeans, trail-worn boots, a holstered pistol—the only one allowed here—slung from his belt, and a leather vest emblazoned with a star-shaped badge. It was the new sheriff, Jake Calhoun, and he was walking straight toward Britta.
He was a handsome man with dark hair and chiseled features that hinted of his ancestry—Cherokee, perhaps, or Spanish, or even Creole. When he faced Britta, he was tall enough to look straight into her eyes.
She looked surprised, then seemed to recover. “Am I under arrest?” she asked.
A smile tugged at his thin mouth. He held out his hand. “May I have the honor of this dance, Miss Anderson?” he asked.
She looked skeptical for an instant, as if she thought he might be joking; but then she gave him her hand and allowed him to lead her onto the dance floor. The musicians glanced at one another, then took up a slower blues beat.
