The Redemption Of Jefferson Cade. Bj James

enough with his reclusive lifestyle to believe the show, itself, would not merit one of his rare visits. As she silently signaled for the bartender to refresh the drink he’d hardly touched, Jefferson wasn’t surprised when she suggested, quietly, “Someone must be offering a spectacular horse to tempt you from your hideout.”

      “Think so?” Shifting his gaze from her, he nodded his thanks to the bartender, then folded his hands around the glass.

      Her shrewd study drifted away to assess the needs of customers. Satisfied everyone was content, she looked again at the handsome Southerner, and inevitably at his hands.

      As with everything about Jefferson Cade, his hands were intriguing. Weathered, callused, the hands of a working man, an artist. A mix of rugged elegance and gentle strength. One of the times he’d been in town and stayed late to walk her home after closing, she’d teased him about his hands. He’d only laughed when she’d called them fascinating, saying it was natural that any living, breathing female would wonder about his touch.

      He’d asked what female? For in the four years since he’d returned to Arizona to work for Jake Benedict at the Rafter B, then Steve Cody at the Broken Spur, he’d done no more than speak a few pleasantries to any woman. Beyond the routine associations of ranching, he was happiest living his reclusive life.

      “Do I think so? Yes,” she murmured to his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. “It must be one helluva horse.”

      Her use of the rare profanity recalled a late-night talk when she’d ventured another startling opinion.

      It must’ve been one helluva woman who spoiled all the rest of womankind for you, Jefferson Cade. She’d made the statement, then never mentioned it again. But he knew she was remembering the night and her words as her eyes probed his.

      Jefferson held her gaze for a long moment, then turned his face away. A virile face maturity had made more attractive, and the new touch of silver in his dark blond hair only complemented. His mouth was solemn now. Beneath the brim of the Stetson, his downswept lashes shielded his eyes. But if his head had lifted and if his lips tilted in a smile that touched his eyes, it would still make an attractive man startlingly handsome.

      He was immune, not a fool. He knew he’d caught the attention of a number of the female population of Silverton in the early days of his return. But he never acknowledged the most blatant flirtation with more than a courtly smile and a pleasant greeting. He became a master at making the most brazen feel he was flattered and perplexed by the advances, a gallantry that, at first, had an opposite effect than the one he wanted. But through the years, as even the most determined found him ever elusive, his would-be lovers became friendly acquaintances, if not friends.

      Though she teased about his charm, Cristal’s interest was platonic. As he recognized her honesty and wisdom, she became a close friend. A rare and trusted confidante.

      “If not for a particular horse, you wouldn’t be here, would you, Jefferson? There’s nothing else in your life. You won’t let there be, because of a woman.” Cristal voiced a long-standing concern, exercising the privilege of friendship.

      Only the narrowing of his eyes signaled this subject was off-limits. For once, Cristal wasn’t to be deterred. “Do you ever get her out of your mind or your heart? This woman you loved and lost…do you ever stop thinking about her? Can you stop? Or do you spend each waking moment remembering how she looked, how she smiled, the way she walked? The fragrance of her hair?”

      Jefferson didn’t respond. Then, pushing away from the bar, his expression unreadable, he looked down at her. “What I’m thinking and remembering,” he said as courteously as if she weren’t prying, “is that it’s time to see a man about a horse.”

      Fingers at his hat brim, a charming smile, a low, “Miss Cristal,” and she was left to watch him walk away. Long after he stepped through the door and disappeared into the crowd, no less concerned she stared at the space where he’d been.

      “Cristal,” a raucous voice called. “How about a song?”

      “Sure, Hal.” She didn’t need to look around to recognize a regular customer. “What would you like to hear?”

      “No preference, honey,” he answered. “Just sing.”

      With a last glance at the empty doorway, Cristal crossed the room. Despite the tightening in her throat, leaning over the piano player, aptly named Sam, she whispered in his ear. When he nodded, she looked over the room, her smile touched with sadness for a lonely man. “How about this one? An oldie for a friend.”

      As the melancholy chords of the introduction ended, wondering what intuition dictated the old tune, she sang of a lady’s choice to leave the man who loved her.

      “Easy girl. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Not anymore.” In a soothing singsong, Jefferson coaxed the nervous mare from the trailer. As she stepped down the ramp, ears flicking in suspicion, he didn’t blame her. Even for a high-strung filly who hadn’t been mishandled, the unfamiliar surroundings and the noise of the stock show would’ve been excuse enough for being skittish.

      When she’d come on the market as a difficult horse offered at a nominal fee, the most uninformed judge of horses could see promise. Which, given the bargain price, sent up a red flag that warned labeling her difficult was an understatement. Jefferson had driven to her home stable for a preliminary look, taking Sandy Gannon, foreman of the Rafter B and an expert judge of horses, with him for a second opinion. Both agreed the filly was of a bloodline and a quality Steve Cody would approve.

      When the seller questioned who could tame the filly, Sandy replied that if Jeff Cade couldn’t, then it couldn’t be done.

      “Let’s hope Sandy knows what he’s talking about,” Jefferson crooned to the filly when she finally stood on the ground. The truth was, Sandy knew exactly what he was saying when he praised the Southerner. Before assuming duties at the Broken Spur, Jefferson had spent the last two of three years at the Rafter B as second in command. Though he’d made a show of grumbling over losing a good horseman, Sandy had backed Steve and his wife Savannah’s choice.

      Now, Jefferson had lived and worked in Sunrise Canyon for more than a year, loving each solitary day. “So will you, girl,” he promised as he led the filly to a stall. “Some folks think it’s lonely in the canyon, but it isn’t. You’ll see.”

      Realizing he was talking to a horse that would run with Steve’s small herd, he laughed. A sound too rare in his life. “A stranger would think the loneliness has driven me bonkers. When it’s driven me a little saner, instead.”

      His string of chatter elicited a low whinny and a nudge, and he knew his faith in the filly hadn’t been misplaced. Stroking her, he murmured, “You’ll be happy here, girl. One day soon, when we know what fits, we’ll choose a name for you.”

      Slipping a bar over the stall door, he made a quick check of the other horses and stepped outside. After a long day and a four-hour drive across the surrounding Benedict land, it was good to steal a minute to watch the moon rise.

      In daylight or darkness, the canyon was beautiful. When he’d come to Arizona as a teenage runaway he’d been too young and his life too chaotic to appreciate the stark magnificence of the land. Ten years later, when he’d left the lowcountry again—running away as an adult—he hadn’t expected to find anything to equal the lovely land he left behind.

      He was wrong. As an adult with an artist’s eye, he recognized the different degrees of beauty, the different kinds.

      The desert was his home now. Though he knew he could never go back, the lowcountry had been in his mind recently. Perhaps because, after years of neglect, he’d taken out his sketches and in the long winter darkness, he’d begun to paint again.

      A painting waited now on the easel. The light wasn’t so good in the renovated cabin, but it didn’t matter. Painting was something he did for himself. A final healing, an exorcism.

      Abandoning the soothing sight of the canyon in moonlight, he returned