Caden's Vow (20 page)

She waited too long.

He made a slashing motion with his hand. “I don’t want to hear
it anyway.” He came into the kitchen. “Do we have anything here to eat?”

She handed him a cinnamon roll. He looked at it and
sneered.

“You give all your beaus cinnamon rolls?”

She took it back. “Only the ones I like.”

He looked a little stunned. Good.

“Do you want some or not?”

“How many did Culbart have?”

“Four.”

“I’ll take five.”

She put five on a plate and handed it to him, then poured him a
cup of coffee. “After you finish that, you can either make yourself useful or
leave. I have orders to fill.”

The regulars were arriving at the front door with their usual
commotion. “And I’m already behind.”

“Hey, sweet cheeks, I’m here for my sugar!”

Caden’s head snapped up at the unfamiliar voice coming from the
alley. “What the hell was that?”

She groaned. Rowdy Rod. This
would
be the day he decided to show up.

“Hey, sweet thing,” he yelled again. “Come bring me some
sugar.”

Caden’s voice got very quiet. “You serving more than cinnamon
buns?”

That hurt way down deep. Maddie’s chin came up and she folded
her arms across her chest. “Go to hell.”

Caden looked at the sofa in the living room. “I think I’m
already there.”

“It’s very comfortable.” That was an outright lie.

Caden stared at her for the longest time, shook his head and
swore. Rodney called out again. She heard someone in the crowd tell him to shut
his ass up. It was going to be an ugly morning, maybe because of the heat, but
when Caden hit the front door, it got uglier fast.

She ran after him. She couldn’t afford for him to alienate her
customers. Caden burst out the door and grabbed Rod by the throat, lifting him
off his feet. Rodney wasn’t a small man. Neither was Caden, and Caden was
pissed. He kept walking with Rod dangling in his grip until he slammed him up
against a tree. Rodney gasped and kicked. Caden didn’t budge.

“Did you have something you want to say to my
wife,
mister?”

Rodney’s eyes bulged farther as he shook his head. Caden still
didn’t let him go.

“You say one more disrespectful thing to her, or you even look
at her disrespectful, and I’ll rip off those balls that you’re so proud of and
shove ’em down your throat. Do we understand each other?”

The man nodded. Caden looked around at the crowd by the door.
Maddie had the impression he was surprised by the numbers. There were at least
twenty people waiting to buy her baking.

“That goes for the rest of you, too.”

“Hell, mister, you’re not going to get any complaint from us.
Rowdy’s had that coming for a long time.”

“Sure enough that’s the truth.”

“We just want our cinnamon buns.”

“And bread. I need two loaves of sourdough.”

“Miss Maddie,” Anna Lee called. “I need a dozen of the
pull-apart rolls for Sunday dinner.”

Orders started flowing from all around. Maddie held up her
hand. “Hold on a minute. Let me get my pencil and I’ll be right back. I’m a
little behind today.”

One of the women looked at Caden from head to toe, her eyes
caressing him like a touch. “Easy enough to see why, honey.”

It was Hester, one of the local soiled doves who had a penchant
for cinnamon rolls.

“Heck,” she continued, “if that’d be my husband, I wouldn’t
even be answering the door this morning.”

Caden looked at the crowd, at Maddie and shook his head as if
he didn’t understand it all, and maybe he didn’t. He’d gone away and left a
terrified, cowering bride, and he came back to a businesswoman. But desperate
people did desperate things, sometimes stupid, sometimes smart. She had been
smart.

People walked up to Caden and started shaking his hand,
welcoming him to town, telling him what a good baker Maddie was and what a lucky
man he was. One older gentleman with a paunch that hung over his belt patted it
and warned Caden in a few years he’d be looking like him with a wife who could
bake like that. Caden laughed, but she could tell he was still mad. She could
have called out and saved him, but she didn’t. She wanted a few minutes of
peace.

When Caden came inside fifteen minutes later, all he said was,
“You were busy when I was gone.”

She nodded, poured him fresh coffee and started stacking the
bowls that needed to be washed for the next round of ingredients over by the
basin.

He picked up a cloth and went to the sink and started filling
it again.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, I do. Consider it an apology.”

“For what?”

“For what I said.”

“You didn’t say anything more than the truth.”

“Shit. It’s going to take me a while to live that one down,
isn’t it?”

“Nothing to live down. It’s how you see me.”

“The hell it is.”

Someone knocked at the door. It was Mrs. Petittot for her
cinnamon bread. Maddie quickly brought it over. Caden watched with a strange
expression on his face, as if he’d never seen her before, but there was nothing
in that expression to say whether he liked what he saw. Many men—most men, she
had to admit—didn’t like their wives working or earning money; they saw it as a
shadow on their manhood

He finished the dishes. There really wasn’t anything else for
him to do, and quite frankly, everywhere he stood he was in her way. She had a
system and he was in the middle of it. After the fourth time she bumped into
him, he stepped out of the kitchen and grabbed his hat.

“I’m going to go up to the saloon.”

She ignored the panicked flutter inside that said loose women
were in the saloon, and nodded.

“Thank you.”

“What time will you be done here?”

“I usually stop for dinner at five.”

“I’ll be here at five, then.”

She forced a smile. “All right.”

“We’re going to talk, you know.”

She nodded again. But not any sooner than she had to, she said
to herself.

He stopped at the door and looked back.

“Did you really think I wasn’t coming back for you,
Maddie?”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t take the chance.”

He left then, slamming the door shut behind him. She had the
oddest feeling she’d just hurt his feelings.

* * *

A
S
SOON
AS
C
ADEN
entered the saloon, he noticed Ace at a table
in the corner. Caden snagged the whiskey bottle off the counter as he passed.
The owner complained, but Caden tossed the man a coin that would more than cover
the cost. The bartender slapped another bottle in its place. Farther down the
bar, Caden grabbed two glasses. When he reached the table, he set one in front
of Ace and one in front of himself.

“I take it from this—” Ace motioned to the bottle and glasses
“—your reunion with Maddie didn’t go too well.”

“She started a business.”

“From what I heard, quite a successful one. She’s got a nice
little deposit over at the bank.”

Caden growled in his throat.

“What?” Ace argued. “That’s resourceful on her part.”

“It was unnecessary.” Caden poured the whiskey into the glasses
and slammed his shot back. Ace sipped his more slowly.

“Maybe from your point of view.”

“Who else’s point of view matters?”

“Hers.”

“My wife does not have to work.”

“Maybe not, but your wife wants to.”

“How the hell do you know?”

“If she really thought you weren’t coming back and she really
didn’t want to work, she’d bat those big green eyes at that fat banker in town
and have him cover her bills for her.”

“Shut up and drink your whiskey.”

“Why? You don’t like hearing the truth?”

“No.”

“What truth don’t you want to hear?” Ace asked. “That you have
a wife clever enough to come up with a business idea, who’s more than capable of
supporting herself? Or that you fucked it up so badly your own wife thought you
weren’t coming back for her?”

Caden tightened his fingers around the glass.

“You say it’s not my business, but since you sat at my table
and started chewing on my ear, I figure I’m going to make it so. Why do you
think that is?”

“Because you think I’m like my father.”

“For Christ’s sake.” Ace slammed back his shot and held the
glass out for more. “You’re no more your father than I’m my mother.”

“You didn’t know him.”

“I knew him. We all knew him. He was outwardly charming and
completely irresponsible. He spent more time in the bar than he did at home. He
had women everywhere, and he liked to pretend that he was chasing gold when the
only gold he ever found was between some loose woman’s thighs.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Your father was a rounder, Caden. I’m not saying he didn’t
love you, but he was an out-and-out rounder.”

“He loved me and he loved my mother.”

“Yeah, he did. But he was lousy at the day-to-day part of it.
He couldn’t handle responsibility. The responsibility of being a dad and a
husband. He’d rather play cards than put food on the table. He’d rather chase
rainbows than be there with you. It didn’t mean he didn’t love you, but he sure
as shit wasn’t reliable.”

“Who says?”

“Everyone says. Everyone knew. Even you if you think about it.
Why the hell do you think you’re so worried about being like him?”

Caden shook his head.

“He was your father and you loved him and you should’ve and
that’s the way it is. But you grew up differently and you are different and if
you’d stop fucking around trying to fulfill a promise to him that he probably
didn’t even mean, your wife wouldn’t be over there building her business.”

“She’s proud of it.”

“Of course she’s proud of it. Who wouldn’t be proud of it?
Hell, I’d be proud of it if I’d made it happen. Why the hell does that make you
so mad?”

“I don’t know, but it does.”

“Then maybe you’d better chew on the why of that before you
head on over there to chat with your wife again. She did what she thought she
needed to do. She didn’t lie on her back and spread her legs. She didn’t rely on
a man. She used her brain and her skills and she created a legitimate business
to support herself when she thought you weren’t coming back. Now, if it bothers
you that your wife doesn’t have any faith in you, then I suggest you look at
just what the hell you’ve done to make her lose it. But ranting and raving about
how you’re like your dad? That’s just bullshit and it’s not going to serve
either of you.”

“Anybody ever tell you, you talk too much?”

“Anybody ever tell you, you don’t talk enough? You hold
everything inside and think your actions speak for you. Well, they don’t. For as
long as I can remember, for more than half the time I’ve known you, I haven’t
known why you do whatever the hell it is you’re doing. I just take it on faith
it’s for a good reason. Your wife hasn’t even known you a year and she depends
on you a hell of a lot more than I do, and you seem to think she ought to be
able to figure it out. Well, it’s not going to happen, Caden. Sitting here
drinking whiskey isn’t going to solve your problems any more than standing at
that house and screaming like a madman—”

“What the hell do you know about that?”

“Everybody knows. It’s all over town that Maddie Miller’s
husband came home and he’s pissed as hell at her and that is a damn shame,
Caden, because somebody’s going to tell her that, too. And it hurts when you
love someone and they’re not proud of what you accomplish.”

Ace took another shot of whiskey and put his glass down before
saying quietly, “It hurts like fucking hell and Maddie doesn’t deserve that,
Caden. You spend all those hours at the mine hunting for riches when you’ve
already found your gold.”

Ace stood.

“Where the hell are you going?”

“I find I’m bored with the present company so I thought I’d go
over and say hello to Maddie.”

“Stay the hell away from her.”

“Why? Because you’re a jealous son of a bitch?”

“That, too.”

Ace picked up Caden’s glass and downed its contents, too. “Then
you best lay off that whiskey and start putting some shine on your image,
because I’m going over and I’m going to talk to her. Maybe even do more than say
hi. And when we’re done conversing, I’m going to head over to the hotel, lie
down on my bed and I’m going to get some much-needed sleep. And in the morning,
I hope to hell I’m going to find you sober and in a better mood.” Slamming the
glass down on the table, he turned and walked out.

Caden watched him go, feeling all eyes in the saloon upon him.
Just one more thing to blame Maddie for. He poured himself more whiskey, but
this shot didn’t taste as good as the last. Everything Ace had said was running
around his brain.
Fuck.
All he’d wanted to do was
come home and hold his wife, tell her he loved her the way he should have done,
but all he’d ended up doing was yelling and cussing. He really was a sorry son
of a bitch.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

W
HEN
THE
KNOCK
came at the door,
Maddie’s heart foolishly leaped. Of course it wasn’t Caden. He’d gone to the
saloon. He wasn’t going to be back any too soon. No man did once they had a
bottle in their hand. They just drank and drank until there was no more sitting
up, and then they either lay on the table or on the floor until one of their
friends came and scraped them up and carried them home.

She licked her lips and wondered, not for the first time, if
she should go to the saloon. Caden was her husband. It was her job to scrape him
up. He was also the man that had pissed her off. Wiping her hands on her skirt,
she went to the front door and found Ace standing there.

“Maddie.” He smiled. “I heard this is the place to come for
cinnamon buns.”

Disappointment and happiness warred within her. She let the
latter win and smiled. “Ace, it’s good to see you.”

“Good to see you, too.”

“Do you really want a cinnamon bun?”

“I would kill for one.”

“You’d kill for biscuits.”

He smiled. “No, I’d bust heads for a biscuit, but it takes
cinnamon and icing to work me up to killing.” He reached behind her ear and with
a flip of his fingers produced a coin. “But I’m willing to pay for this
one.”

She laughed. The magic trick, as always, made her smile. She
took the coin from his hand and examined it, and as always, there was no
indication of how he made it appear and disappear like that. When she’d
questioned him about it before, he’d asked her wasn’t it enough that she enjoyed
it? And she decided that yes, it was.

“I’d invite you in, but—”

“But what?”

“It’s deathly hot in here. With the oven going all day, I think
I can start baking rolls on the counter.”

He smiled. “Got a shady spot out back?”

She nodded. “Yup. And I’ve even got some cold coffee.”

“That sounds right nice.”

She motioned him through the house.

He shook his head. “I’ll go around the side. No sense starting
talk.”

She shook her head. “As if my reputation couldn’t stand any
more.”

He laughed. “Maddie, honey, I don’t think it can. The whole
town’s abuzz about how you entertained two men in your house today and how they
nearly came to blows over you.”

“One of them
was
my husband.”

“Yep, that’s the juiciest part.”

“Wonderful.”

She went in the house and, for the third time that day, loaded
up some cinnamon rolls on a plate and poured two cups of coffee, adding cream
and sugar to Ace’s, leaving hers black. The man did have a sweet tooth.

He was sitting in the same seat under the big oak where Frank
had sat. As she set the tray before him, she asked, “How likely is it Caden’s
going to pop in here and start trouble again?”

“From the way he was nursing that whiskey bottle, I’d say not
likely at all.”

She sighed and sat across from him. “He drinking?”

He nodded. “Yep. Seems to feel justified.”

“I don’t understand what he’s upset about.”

“Well, no man likes to come home and find another man settled
in with his wife.”

“He wasn’t settled in. He’d just gotten into town and stopped
over to say hi.”

“Your
uncle
Frank.”

She shook her head. “He’s not my uncle.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s probably the part that’s chewing at
Caden’s craw on top of the fact that you seemed happy to see Frank and unhappy
to see him.”

She sighed. “I can’t help it.”

“He didn’t leave you, Maddie. Surely you understand that now.
He was a day late getting back, but he’s back.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not that.”

“Then what?”

She took a sip of coffee. She couldn’t even call it cold it was
so warm.

Ace took a sip of his. “You remembered how I like it.”

She nodded. “I remember all things Hell’s Eight.”

“I know.”

“Have you heard about Worth?” she asked. “How he’s doing?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t heard, but Hell’s Eight wouldn’t
risk a rider for a dog.”

She knew that, too. He’d only been valuable to her.

“That’s not true.”

She looked up. “What?”

“You said Worthless was only valuable to you.”

She hadn’t realized she’d said that out loud.

“Worth means the world to Tucker, too, and the fact that he
took that bullet defending you just makes him a hero. Tucker will use him to
beef up Boone’s legend. Everybody wants one of his puppies because of how he’d
tracked Desi with a bullet in him, bleeding the whole way. Takes a lot of heart
to do that.”

She nodded.

“Takes a lot of heart to do a lot of things,” Ace said.

“You’re not going to lecture me, are you?”

“On what?”

“On not staying put.”

He laughed. “Hell, no. I can’t blame you for breaking out of
the hotel room. I’d have gone stir-crazy by the second day.”

“Caden seems to think I should have stayed.”

“Caden’s got a lot of weird notions. Mostly all involving
you.”

She nodded.

“But none of them have to do with thinking less of you.”

She looked up.

“Maddie. He married you.”

“He didn’t have a choice.”

“Caden always has a choice. You know Caden can be a son of a
bitch.”

“He doesn’t mean to be.”

Ace shook his head. “Maddie.”

“What?”

“You’re supposed to be mad at him.”

“I am.”

“Then why when I say something bad about him do you turn it
around and make it sound good?”

“I didn’t.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“I don’t know how to talk to him,” she told him, wrapping her
fingers around her cup.

“Caden’s a pretty straightforward guy. You said it
yourself.”

She shook her head. “Not with me.”

“Maybe you ought to ask yourself why.”

“I irritate him.”

“Don’t be so foolish. The man married you, Maddie.”

“He had to.”

“He consummated the marriage.”

She dropped her face in her hands. “There are some things I
never need to know. One of them being how you know the intimate details of my
marriage.”

He laughed. “How about we just not look at each other for a
while.”

She nodded. “That would be good.”

He took a bite of his cinnamon roll. She heard him chew, then
heard him moan.

“Damn, they weren’t exaggerating. These are good.”

“Thank you.”

“How many you make of these a day?”

She shook her head. “A hundred, a hundred and fifty maybe.”

“And that’s not keeping up with demand.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“It’s quite a little business you’ve built here. How much you
charge for ’em?”

She told him and his eyebrows rose.

“Damn, Maddie. You’re a hell of a businesswoman.”

“There are some things you pick up—” she was going to say
as a whore,
but she bit her tongue “—over the
years.”

“Caden’s a lucky man.”

She sighed. “He doesn’t think so.”

“Yeah, he does. He’s just a little put out right now.”

“Why?”

“Well, I could venture a guess, but I’m thinking that’s
probably something you should ask him.”

“I will when he comes back.”

“Yeah, that would be the time to do it. And maybe after he
sobers up.”

“He’s drinking that much?”

“Yeah. And Caden rarely drinks. Wonder why that is, too.”

She remembered the sense that she’d maybe hurt his feelings as
he’d closed the door.

“Oh, damn.”

“I’ve never heard you cuss before.”

“I’m trying new things.”

“Normally I’d say it doesn’t look good on a woman, but on you,
it’s becoming.” He finished his coffee and stood.

“Where’d you leave him?” she asked.

“Up at the saloon.”

The saloon where no decent woman would go. She took off her
apron and handed it to Ace.

“In five minutes, take the rolls out of the oven and drizzle
them with the glaze that’s beside it.”

“You want me to bake?” He looked stricken.

“I want you to drizzle. There’s a difference. Remember, five
minutes.”

“Five minutes. Just take them out.”

“Yes, and drizzle the glaze over them.”

“Okay, but you’re not holding me responsible for how they come
out, I hope.”

She nodded her head. “Yes, I am. Those things are expensive to
make.”

“And where are you going?”

She sighed. “To fix a mistake.”

* * *

M
ADDIE
WAS
HALFWAY
to the saloon when she saw Caden coming
toward her. If she didn’t know him so well, she never would have recognized the
signs that he’d been drinking, but his walk was a little too slow and his
motions a little too controlled. Caden stopped in front of her.

“Maddie mine.”

People stopped right alongside them. Ace wasn’t kidding when he
said she’d been the talk of the town this morning. She’d never had so much
attention.

“Were you coming to see me?” he asked.

“I was coming to fetch you home.”

“Why? Nothing there for me.”

“Everything’s there for you.”

He weaved ever so slightly.

“You’ve been drinking.”

“And you’ve been baking.”

She touched a bruise on his knuckle and noted a slight swelling
by his eye.

“You’ve also been fighting.”

“A slight disagreement.”

“With who?”

“Your uncle Frank. We had to renegotiate a deal.”

“What deal?”

“He seemed to think you’re for sale.”

She had been. “The foal?”

“Yes.”

“You decided not to honor the bargain?” She couldn’t conceive
of that. Hell’s Eight never went back on their word.

“Hell, no. Hell’s Eight doesn’t renege.”

She ran her thumb over his knuckle. “I don’t understand.”

“I gave it to him as a gift.”

“How is that different?”

Sliding his finger under her chin, Caden lifted her gaze to
his. The consumption of alcohol did nothing to dim the force of his personality.
“A man couldn’t buy a treasure like you with all the gold in the world. I don’t
want that bastard thinking he could.”

She bit her tongue on the immediate contradiction that sprang
to mind for the simple reason she didn’t want to correct him. She loved the way
Caden ignored her past as if only now mattered.

“But I’d sell my soul if that’s what it took to get you back,
Maddie mine,” he finished.

“You didn’t sell your soul to Frank, did you?” Frank had been
kind to her but he was a ruthless man in many ways.

Caden brought her hand to his mouth. Her heart caught and her
stomach dropped as his lips burned into her palm. He smiled at her gasp, the
hard edge in his drawl now in his expression. “Culbart is now an ally of Hell’s
Eight.”

She gasped again for an entirely different reason, pulling her
hand away. He didn’t let go. “It’s too much.”

An alliance was serious business. Frank could call on Hell’s
Eight for any reason. At any time and they would come, putting everyone she
loved—Caden, Tucker, Sam—in danger. Wives could be without husbands, children
without fathers because of her. She yanked at her hand again. “You have to undo
it.”

Instead of letting her go, Caden pulled her up against him. His
body was hard and warm. He smelled of alcohol, and she tried to tell herself she
should be repulsed, but she wasn’t. She was too horrified by what he’d done. She
wanted to smack him and cling to him at the same time.

“I’m not undoing a goddamn thing. There’s no telling what could
have happened to you out there. Like it or not, I owe your
uncle
more than I can ever repay.”

He meant it. He really meant it. Maddie curled her nails into
Caden’s chest. A treasure, he’d called her.
His
treasure. Her knees nearly gave out. She was Caden Miller’s treasure.

“He’s not my uncle.” Somehow she got the words out.

“You used to think he was.”

“It was—” she shrugged, still wrestling with the reality of
understanding what had been make-believe “—necessary at the time.”

“And now it’s not.”

She shook her head. “No. A lot of things aren’t necessary
anymore.”

“Including me, now that you’ve got the bakery.”

The note in his voice yanked her eyes back to his.

“Why do you hate my business so much?”

“Why do you hate that I hate it?”

“Do you always do this when you’re drinking?”

“What?”

“Answer a question with a question.”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know?”

“I haven’t been drunk in a very long time.”

“Are you drunk now?”

“When those last two shots I pounded down hit me, I’m gonna say
I’ll be pretty far gone.”

Not a good time to talk, then. About anything, especially the
knot of fear and joy tightening in her stomach. She hooked her hand through his
arm and held on. “Then maybe we need to go home.”

“Got that couch with my name on it?”

She smiled, feeling lighter inside than she could ever remember
feeling.

“I don’t want to sleep there.”

“Why not?” she asked, strolling beside him.

“It won’t fit two.”

That was sweet to hear.

“It will fit you, for now.”

“Yeah, I suppose it will.”

He followed meekly. Well, as meekly as Caden could do
anything.

He broke the silence with “Why didn’t you believe me,
Maddie?”

“Because you broke your word.”

“That’s not it.”

“Of course that’s it.”

She didn’t reply, and instead focused on getting them home. He
kept trying to help her over bumps in the sidewalk, but his balance wasn’t that
good, so she pretended to let him help her while she steadied him. By the time
they got back to the house, Caden was noticeably stumbling. There was no sign of
Ace, but the cinnamon buns were on the kitchen counter, properly drizzled. At
least one man listened. With a push, she urged Caden into the living room.