Defiant (8 page)

“Who's Ty?” the stranger asked.

“He was courting my ma. He was killed last year. He left this ranch to us. I miss him real bad, just like my pa. I'm going to be a Ranger too someday, just like them. Ma doesn't want me to, but—”

“But Mr. Foster needs some rest.”

Jeff turned around sheepishly at the sound of his mother's voice. “But Ma, he asked about—”

“I know,” she said. “I heard.” She was still wearing her coat, which was dripping water. She took off the floppy hat, and her hair fell down her back. She used one arm to wipe rain from her face; the other carried a braided bridle and a saddlebag. A strong stench accompanied her into the room.

Jeff's gaze fastened on the bridle, then he looked back at the patient. “I've never seen a bridle like that.”

The stranger's eyes had moved to meet his mother's. Jeff felt an odd presence in the room, like electric tension in the air before a storm. The stranger wasn't smiling, nor was his mother.

“My wife made it,” he said simply, his eyes glinting with challenge. Then he turned away, facing the wall, closing off Jeff and his mother as readily as if he'd slammed a door in their faces.

Jeff looked up at his mother. She was biting her lip as she sometimes did when she was uncertain about something. But then she put her arm around him and guided him out of the room, gently closing the door behind her.

5

Hours later, Wade was still thinking that he owed the woman thanks, but he couldn't force the words from his mouth. There had been disapproval in her eyes as well as questions as she'd fingered the bridle. What would she think if she knew he'd had an Indian wife? That might cause her to throw him out when murder hadn't.

But then why should he blame her? Almost everyone in Colorado despised Indians. Hell, it was probably everyone, what with all the newspapers screaming about atrocities and moving all Utes to Utah where nothing but starvation awaited them.

He sickened whenever he thought about it. The Denver papers had been particularly virulent, accusing the Utes of everything from burning down forests to massacres that never happened. Wade had heard all the charges from miners and hunters traveling through Ute territory. Justification for stealing more land.

And the Utes, hoping for peace under Chief Ouray despite broken government promises and treaties, had steadfastly tried to appease the whites by giving up more and more land. The whites always wanted more, though, particularly the minerals in the Utes' shining mountains. And then they took other things that didn't belong to them, like Ute women.

Even his son had been considered less than human because of his Indian blood. So easy to kill. Nits make lice. That's the way many soldiers put it.

Wade couldn't withhold a groan. Drew had been the one good thing in his life, the only thing that had made any sense in the past seventeen years.

He had cared for Chivita. She'd been gentle and kind, and she had given him a son, but he'd felt no passion for her, only gratitude that she had soothed some of that fierce anger he had turned on himself.

She had been so accepting, so eager to share with him the simple pleasures of a mountain sunrise or a bud on a tree. She had asked for so little in return for teaching him, in her quiet, innocent way, how to live again. And now he'd turned away from all her lessons.

Wade reached for the beaded necklace on the table. It had belonged to his son, a gift on his name day. Chivita had patiently carved the beads from buffalo horns, and Wade had traded for the silver eagle, which had been fashioned by a Navaho craftsman. It had been Drew's prized possession.

There were still traces of blood on it. Drew's blood, he supposed. Ignoring his pain, he dropped the necklace over his head. He could care less what the woman or her son thought. He wondered whether he was actually challenging them.

It galled him to owe a debt to a woman who, like so many others, held Indians in contempt. It galled him even more to be imprisoned here by his own weakness.

Unable to sleep, he tried to sit. The lamp beside him was still lit, and he put out the flame, then looked toward the curtained window.

He wanted it open. He wanted to feel fresh air. Maybe then he wouldn't feel so trapped.

He managed to get to his feet and stumble over to the window. He pushed aside the curtains and tried the window. It opened halfway, and he leaned against the wall and breathed deeply.

The rain had stopped, but the sky was dark, unlit by any star or piece of moon. He couldn't see the mountains. Black Mountains, they were called.

But they weren't nearly as black as his soul.

Mary Jo wasn't sure when the rain had stopped. She woke to the stillness of the night. It was eerily silent after the nearly constant sound of thunder and the pounding of heavy drops against the roof.

She might as well get up, walk around, do something. Once she woke up at night, she always had trouble going back to sleep. Years, she supposed, of waiting for the sound of a door opening, of boots approaching her room. She'd spent nearly all her married life waiting.

And now she felt as if she were waiting again, but this time she didn't know for what.

She stood in her nightdress. She'd made it herself several years ago before Jeff had been killed, and he had loved it. She'd spent hours sewing lace to the thin cotton. It had been a luxury, and she had not worn it since he died. She had no idea why she had put it on. A need to feel like a woman again?

She nibbled on her lip as she tried to deny the longing that had been stirred inside her. It kept bubbling, no matter how hard she tried to stop it. The fact that it had started with the stranger's arrival terrified her. He was everything she should run from, should keep young Jeff from.

Air. Fresh air should restore her reason. She tiptoed through the room, careful not to wake her son. She crept quietly to the front door and opened it, standing in the doorway.

A fresh breeze seemed to be washing away the heavy, sultry air that had clung around the ranch house for many days. It felt good brushing through her hair, cooling her hot face.

She relished the sight of clouds rushing across the dark sky. Rushing away now to plague someone else with endless days of rain.

And yet she was grateful to the rain. It had helped the stranger. It had washed away his tracks.

The stranger.

Her thoughts kept coming back to
him
. And her protectiveness toward him, regardless of how rude he was, or how ungrateful.

Jake came out on the porch and sat, cocking his head to one side. He whined for attention, and she stooped down, her hand running absently alongside his ears. The whine changed into a growl of pleasure.

“Ah, Jake,” she whispered. “What do you see in him to like?”

He growled again.

“You're just as troublesome as he is,” she told the dog. He wagged his tail and then, as if to prove her charge, he darted down the steps and into a yard that was now mostly mud.

Disregarding the dampness of the steps, she sat down and leaned against the post, too tense to go back inside. Somehow the vast darkness around her was comforting.

Why wasn't she afraid of Wade Foster? Because she had already endured much in her life? She had gone hungry as a child when crops wasted away, and she had huddled in hiding with her mother during those times the Comanches were raiding. She had waited in fear with her mother for her father to come home, and years later waited in fear by herself for Jeff to come home.

Now she
was
afraid again, not of Wade Foster but of her own emotions, of her need and her loneliness. They had been tolerable until he came.

My wife made it
. She knew she hadn't been able to hide that moment of shock. She still couldn't believe it. An Indian bridle. And the necklace was Indian. The necklace that he had so frantically sought when he'd first awakened.

Jake bounded back up the steps, shaking himself and covering Mary Jo with mud. How nice to be so indifferent to niceties. How nice to have nothing to worry about but a good roll in the mud.

But now he would have to stay outside the rest of the night.

She finally stood. “You can be a watchdog tonight,” she told Jake.

He looked dejected.

“It won't work this time,” she said severely.

He whined, and she almost gave in.

“No,” she said. Before she could change her mind, she went back inside, closing the door behind her. She wished she didn't feel guilty, though she knew that in moments Jake would be out exploring, sniffing, and having a good time.

She wouldn't be granted the same pleasure. The same perplexing questions about the mysterious Wade Foster would only continue to whirl around in her head.

Wade's window looked out onto the porch and he had seen the woman. He'd told himself he should retreat to his bed, that he shouldn't invade this moment of privacy she apparently sought. Yet he hadn't been able to take his gaze from her, from the slender form that moved gracefully, that leaned wistfully against the post.

What do you see in him to like?
she'd asked the dog.

Nothing
was her insinuation, and he didn't blame her. So why did she continue to care for him? Why hadn't she told the posse he was here? Why hadn't she just let them take him away? Why had she taken the trouble of retrieving his bridle?

His good hand clenched. He knew his body's ability to recover. Two days, and he should have enough strength to leave. But how? No horse. No money. No place to go. How far could he walk? Not to the Utes' shining mountains.

And he had no way to repay the woman. God knows how he hated debts. Especially to someone who would have looked down on his wife and child.

He'd watched her bend her head, her hair tumbling down across her shoulder as she hugged the dog. She puzzled him, interested him in ways he didn't want to be interested. He had nothing to offer a woman like her, would never have, now that his right arm was smashed. He accepted that. Punishment for the past.

He limped away from the window and back to the bed. Her bed. It even smelled of her, flowery and fresh. Something in him ached at the thought. He would move over to the barn tomorrow, and then leave as soon as he could.

He closed his eyes, but he kept seeing her there, on that porch. Almost ethereal in the white gown.

“Goddammit,” he whispered. It was as if the devil weren't finished with him yet. He'd just devised a new torture.

Birds were singing when Wade woke the next morning to a soft knock on his door. The sun was streaming through the window, and a light breeze was ruffling the curtains.

All of which meant the posse would probably be nosing around again.

But he felt better. The food and rest had helped. How much?

The knock came again.

“Yes?” he finally said, convinced now that whoever it was—mother or son—was not going away.

The door opened, and Mary Jo Williams came in. A delicious smell wafted in with her. His stomach grumbled.

She smiled, that tentative, searching smile that he'd never seen on a woman before. He'd seen the type that lured, that seduced, that was coy. And he'd seen the kind that sought so hard to please. But never this kind that challenged yet showed compassion. The kind that indicated tolerance but not surrender.

“You look better,” she observed. “And sound better.”

He was instantly embarrassed but didn't know what to say so he just waited and watched. She wasn't beautiful as much as she was interesting. Her eyes were alive with intelligence, spirit, and curiosity and yet she had learned to hold her questions. Her hair, gleaming red in the streaming sunlight, was plaited in a long braid that fell halfway down her back. The part of him that was still very much male wished he had seen more of it last night, and he felt the strongest desire to run his hands through it. No. His hand.
One
hand. The other was useless. He frowned at the harsh reminder of reality and lowered his gaze.

She was carrying a tray with a bowl of steaming hot water. He also saw soap and a razor.

“I thought you might like to wash before eating,” she said. She hesitated a moment. “I could shave you if you like.”

He wasn't sure he would like that at all. He didn't like the dependence. And he sure as hell didn't know if he wanted her hands on him again. They were too soft, too tempting.

Yet he hated to think how he looked. He had let his beard grow during the war. He had thrown away every semblance of civilization during those years.

After a Yank had begged him for his life and Wade had turned on a fellow guerilla, he'd wandered off to the mountains and simply existed. He'd understood what he'd become and had nursed his self-hatred, remembering as if it were yesterday the faces of men he'd killed.

His left hand touched his cheek, feeling the roughness again. Had he reverted to that animal that didn't deserve to live among decent people?

And then he became aware once more of the woman's searching gaze on him. He nodded.

She moved closer to him, sitting in the chair that touched the bed. He wished she didn't always smell of flowers. He closed his eyes at her first touch, kept them closed through the washing and soaping of his face, and finally the scraping of the razor against his skin.

He almost winced at the longing her touch stirred inside him. He felt disloyal to Chivita, because she had never aroused this need in him, had never stirred his heart.

It was suddenly all he could do to keep from pushing her away. He felt just as naked now as he had without his trousers, as if she were peeling layers of defenses from him, rather than whiskers.

But he held himself still, tolerating. After what seemed hours, the razor left his face, and he felt a cool towel against it.

“You can open your eyes now,” she said, her voice carrying a tiny bit of amusement. “I didn't slit your throat.”