Kit Gardner (21 page)

For once, she did as he told her without any sort of resistance, though the trusting smile she gave him was nearly enough to keep him there with her, and to hell with the rest of the world.

He closed the door behind him and moved into the yard, just as a curricle pulled to a halt directly before the barn. A slim figure alighted from the carriage and paused in momentary silhouette against the open barn doors.

Halsey.

With coattails billowing behind him, and apparently unaware of Rance, Avram Halsey strode determinedly into the barn.

Soundlessly, Rance crossed the yard, moving around Halsey’s horse with a reassuring murmur to the animal and a rubbing of his muzzle. He paused at the open barn doors, one shoulder braced against the jamb, arms crossed over his chest. One look at Halsey assured him the man had not ventured here so late in the evening owing to some catastrophic event. No, the reasons were of a more personal nature, as was evidenced by Halsey’s measured yet deliberate tread as he moved about the barn. A brow arched, and he sniffed with disdain as he paused to poke his walking stick into Rance’s trunk.

He certainly hadn’t come out of some unassuageable need for Jess. Perhaps this proved impetus enough for Rance to leave his shirt as though hastily donned, unbuttoned, its tails swinging free.

“Looking for something, Halsey?” he asked, just as Halsey bent low over his saddlebags.

Halsey jerked upright, spun about, then made an obvious attempt to look supremely unguilty of anything. “Yes,” he snapped with a thrust of his insignificant chin. “I was looking for you, Stark.”

“In there?” Rance drawled, jerking his chin at the saddlebags. He registered Halsey’s flush, then shoved himself away from the jamb, set his lantern aside and started restacking the planks. Halsey watched him closely for several moments, so that Rance anticipated a barrage of questions regarding where he’d been just now, half dressed, smelling of whiskey, of desire, of woman.

But not from Halsey. No, the man was preoccupied, all right, but not with thoughts of his betrothed or what she might possibly have been doing with her half-clothed farmhand in the depths of a moonlit night.

Rance doubted the thought had ever entered the man’s mind.

This, more than anything else, now convinced Rance he’d be damned if Jess married the man. The fool didn’t love her anywhere near the way she deserved to be loved, the way Rance—

A plank fell from his hands and clattered atop the pile. He stared at his clenched fists.

“I know what you’re about, Stark,” Halsey began, in his annoyingly pompous tone.

Slowly Rance settled his gaze upon the other man. “Is that so?”

“Indeed. Your rather boastful display of weaponry skill in
my
churchyard today at last proved what I have known since the first to be true. You, sir, are of the outlaw persuasion. Hence, you will be more than amenable to what I intend to propose.”

Rance narrowed his eyes. “Have you ever met an outlaw who was the least bit amenable, Halsey? Particularly a half-drunk outlaw?”

Halsey’s Adam’s apple jerked in his throat. “I daresay I’ve met too few outlaws to say. However, little more than simple logic dictates that you riffraff, drunk or otherwise, seek only one thing in this life.” Halsey’s gums peeled wide over his teeth as he spoke the solitary word. “Money.”

“Ah.”

“And I intend to make your leaving this town a worthwhile endeavor indeed.”

Rance hoisted two planks. “You intend to bribe me.”

Halsey blinked. “In a crass manner of speaking, perhaps.
I
view it as a minor business transaction to further both of our best interests.”

The planks fell heavily atop the stacked pile, bringing a wince to Halsey’s tight features. Rance reached for another plank wedged beneath the sole of Halsey’s polished boot. “What about Jess?”

“Who? Oh, Jessica. I fail to see a connection, Stark.”

With one swift jerk of his hand, Rance snatched the plank from beneath Halsey’s foot, sending the good reverend stumbling back into an empty, hay-strewn stall. “Watch your step.” Rance tossed the words over his shoulder, heaving another two planks atop the pile. “The cow beds down in there.”

Halsey’s walking stick met with the ground as he lurched upright to examine the bottoms of his boots. With a huff, he straightened his topcoat, twisted and craned his neck out of his stiff collar and marched toward Rance. “Listen to me, Stark. You have been nothing but the proverbial thorn in my side since you arrived here.”

“Funny, but I find that I’m enjoying it, Halsey.” Rance allowed his false grin to deepen as Halsey’s flush mounted. “So much so, it’s going to take an awful lot to convince me to leave. Have you got that much?”

A peculiar glitter filled Halsey’s dark eyes, and he moved several paces closer, his voice dropping. “You strike me as a mildly intelligent fellow, Stark.”

“A compliment of the highest form, coming from you, Halsey.”

A hint of a frown skittered across Halsey’s face and was gone. “Stark, the moment you pack up and ride away from here, several East Coast businessmen intend to offer for this land.”

Rance bent to hoist another plank. “Friends of yours, are they?”

The corner of Halsey’s lip curled upward with grim satisfaction. “Business acquaintances from several months back. Stark, the offer will be substantial.”

“Substantial to whom?”

“Not to them, of course. They’ve spent the past year traveling all over the state, buying up enormous tracts of land for unheard-of sums. Why, I haven’t a notion. But you know those wealthy Eastern businessmen. Then again, you probably don’t. Take it from me. They haven’t enough to spend their money on. Why the devil else would they want sun-parched prairie?”

“Wheat,” Rance muttered, half to himself, the idea bristling to life in his mind.

“What was that?”

“Wheat. Grain. It has to be. They’re speculating. The land’s no good for cattle raising anymore, but for farming, with the proper irrigation methods—”

“Indeed.” Halsey sniffed dismissively. “Their intent is no concern of mine, if the price is right.”

Rance gave a slow smile that never reached his eyes. “The land isn’t yours, Halsey.”

Halsey waved a white-gloved hand. “A mere technicality, which I, of course, intend to remedy posthaste. Once you’re gone, and her sorry little dream of restoring the place goes with you, Jessica will do as I ask without question. She will marry me before the final signatures are put to the deeds. You see, Stark, a bereaved woman makes for an obedient, malleable woman. I learned the value of this when her husband was murdered and all that nasty talk about Frank started being bandied about. I hear so very much of the scuttlebutt, you know. I suppose people have a tendency to confide in a man like me, and I, perhaps, simply to clarify the issues, offered what I knew. If this fed the fire, so be it.”

“Even if it meant hurting Jess.”

“Ah, but in her despair she had to cling to someone, didn’t she? Besides—” Halsey gave a caustic snort. “Most of the talk was true. Frank Wynne was the lowest kind of opportunist. Before Jessica’s father died, he
paid
Wynne to marry her, and left him a cattle business to boot. Wynne saw the opportunity and took it, then continued to gamble, drink and philander his way from here to Abilene. But, as is often the case, his sins caught up with him, in some gambling den in Wichita.”

“You believe he had it coming,” Rance said slowly.

“Of course.”

“No man deserves to die like that.”

“On the contrary. I believe the great sinners merit the most atrocious deaths, Stark. Did you know that his killer—some typically despicable sort—roams free as we speak? Though one cattle fellow passing through from Wichita remarked that Wynne drew first on the outlaw. I suppose that would make Wynne’s killer innocent of murder.”

“Depends how you look at it. A man still died.”

“Yes.” Halsey had the effrontery to smile. “And my future wife now owns the most sought-after parcel of land in these parts.”

“And Frank Wynne was the opportunist.”

Halsey arched a belligerent brow. “Now, see here, Stark—”

“What would you call capitalizing on a woman’s misfortune, Halsey? The calling of the good and kindhearted?”

“As if the woman shall suffer in the least!” Halsey huffed with a stomp of his walking stick. “Trust me, one day she shall duly thank me for the roof she has over her head and the clothes I put on her back. Indeed, my allowing her a few extra coins in her purse to spend on fripperies and such should more than suffice for any foolish heartache she allows herself over losing this farm.” Halsey arched a self-satisfied brow. “Stark, even a woman of Jessica’s moral fortitude can be bought.”

Rance dug his fingers into the lumber he held, solely to keep himself from pummeling Halsey into the dust. The words rumbled from the fury swelling in his belly. “You don’t love her.”

Halsey brushed an invisible piece of lint from his lapel, then poked his chin at Rance. “An odd comment from an outlaw farmhand.”

His breaths seemed to test the confines of his skin, coming heavy, deep. “You don’t care about her or the boy.”

Halsey laid his slender white-gloved hands upon his walking stick and peered down his thin nose. “Surely you don’t intend to lecture me on scruples, Stark? You? A man who bears the stain of how many men’s lifeblood on his hands? And you trifle yourself over a mere woman?”

Rance heard his teeth grinding ominously, felt the deep stab of the splinter into his hand, the merciless itching of his fists. “Her happiness means nothing to you.”

Halsey’s thin lips twisted. “A woman’s happiness is solely her responsibility. We men must content ourselves with whatever she can muster. Now, enough of this blather about Jessica. Do we have a deal?”

“G
o to hell,” Rance snarled, heaving the last of the planks aside and advancing toward Halsey.

“I beg your—”

Two steps, three, and Rance clamped his hand around Halsey’s neck, hauled him back against the wall, and shoved his face a mere inch from the good reverend’s. “Get out.”

Halsey blinked furiously, his face suffusing with scarlet. “I’m offering you more money than you will see in your rotten lifetime, you dumb bastard,” he choked out.

With one flex of his arm, Rance curled his fingers about Halsey’s windpipe and all but lifted the man out of his proudly polished boots. “More money, you say? Not if I kill you. I bet you didn’t know the asking price for dead reverends these days, eh, Halsey?”

Eyes bulging, Halsey attempted to shake his head, which Rance stilled with further pressure against the man’s windpipe. “Better think about who you’re doing business with, Halsey. At some point in our careers, we outlaws come around to reforming. Any sort of low-down bribery from scum gets us all irritated. And when I get irritated—” Rance smiled a truly diabolical smile that drove the last of the blood from Halsey’s face “—I get trigger-happy.”

He released Halsey and watched with grim satisfaction when the good reverend crumpled into the dust, soiled white gloves clutching at his neck.

“Now, get the hell out,” Rance muttered disgustedly.

With one hand, Halsey braced himself against the wall, half rose, then glared up at Rance. “Y-you’ll—” he sputtered, a ragged cough shaking his entire body. “You’ll regret you ever laid a hand upon me, Stark.”

“Now you’re getting tedious.” Rance grasped the good reverend’s arm, hauled him to his feet, and proceeded to escort him from the barn. “Nothing like a tedious reverend to get an outlaw all irritated again. Where’d I leave my gun?”

With a high-pitched squeal, Halsey twisted free and stumbled back against his curricle. A hoarse cough again wracked his body, and he spat into the dust, then wiped the back of his arm over his mouth. His mouth hung slack. His eyes spewed unabashed hatred. “I won’t let this happen, Stark. This farm will be mine, and Jessica will be mine. And you will forever rue the day you attempted to foil my best-laid plans.” With a last jerking of his coattails, Halsey clambered into his curricle and slapped the reins.

Rance watched the buggy until the last of the dust settled around him or was swept away on a fitful breeze. Tilting his head back, he stared up into the star-studded blanket overhead, at a moon spilling milky white over him. The rage left him, gradually, but not entirely. No. Never that. He knew it had always given him the edge that proved invaluable in his work. But here, in the solitary haven of this farm, it might well have proven disastrous. For Jess. And for any kind of future he could allow himself to envision they might have.

He should have taken Halsey’s money and left.

His gaze settled upon the sleeping house. He should have taken that blond saloon girl upstairs to that squeaky-springed mattress and vainly tried to vanquish the ache in his loins that burned incessantly now and had long since robbed him of all reason.

His boots scraped hard, unforgiving earth as he moved toward the house. The hinges creaked, and the door thudded softly against the opposite wall. Silvery moonlight flowed into darkness.

She didn’t move.

With barely a whisper of movement, her slumped shoulders gently rose and fell in the rhythm of deep slumber. Her even breaths stirred the lace doily in the center of the table, and Rance found himself taking his breaths in unison with hers. Moonlight shimmered on the honeyed curls spilling riotously over her shoulders and her arms, now crossed beneath her head.

A deeply wild possessiveness seized him at that moment as he watched her sleep, yet he stood there, just beyond the haven of her warm kitchen. He’d never thought to find such peace, such singular comfort, in a sleeping woman. A slow-spreading warmth suffused him as he stepped into the kitchen and silently closed the door. He reached for her, one hand curving about her shoulder.

She murmured something, a sleepy rejoinder from some past conversation, then curled into his chest with a satisfied purr. Gentle as a butterfly, she nestled in his arms, and he lost himself in her sleepy woman’s warmth. Her hair flowed like spun silk beneath his fingers as he brushed several strands from her cheek. His knuckles lingered there, upon that soft curve of down, then drifted over her lush lips, softly parted with her deep breaths.

“So innocent...” he rasped. Sweet Jess, still so naive about the men who would use her for their own gain. And yet she, more than any woman he could imagine, deserved a noble, proud man, a man unfettered by deception, by hidden plots and schemes. Only such a man would bring her the happiness she so desperately sought.

She stirred, nestling closer, and slipped one hand about his neck. “Logan...” she breathed against his throat.

“Hush,” he murmured, cradling her closer against the swelling that filled his chest near to bursting. He’d lost himself. He knew this with a certainty that at once filled him with the deepest foreboding, even as his soul swelled with desires both primal and possessive. The irony of two such conflicting passions was not lost upon him. He breathed her name and buried his lips in her hair, filling his lungs with her scent, with the headiness of realization.

Soft breasts, barely bound by her cotton wrapper, pushed wantonly into his chest even as she slept. Of its own accord, certainly not borne of any noble aspirations he’d ever harbored, his palm curved around the lush fullness.

Her long breath played like liquid heat against his throat.

Raw, naked desire washed over him again. There was a heaviness in his loins he’d never before experienced as he rose and bore her to her bedroom.

Gently he laid her upon the white coverlet and drew her hand from around his neck. He paused then, caught in the spell the midnight moonlight wove about him as it caressed this slumbering woman. She lay bathed in its pearly luminescence, her white wrapper a filmy cloud that beckoned for his fingers to ease the folds from all he desired, until she lay naked for him in this shaft of moonlight.

He braced his hands upon either side of her, lowered himself over her until her soft breath played a siren’s song upon his lips, until the throbbing in his loins became torturous. His gaze fastened upon her breasts, he lowered his head, thirsting for her taste, and then she murmured something, jabbed a sharp elbow into his ribs, rolled onto her side and curled into a ball.

Her cheek nestled against one hand, as though seeking solace and comfort there. The thick sweep of her lashes shadowed her cheek, like those of a child. She looked so damned unknowing that he lurked here in the night, aching with a thunderous need for her.

Damn. When the hell had he become so noble?

He drew the edge of the coverlet over her, deriving a fool’s pleasure from the deep sigh she emitted as she snuggled deeper into the bed. Yes, only a fool would submit himself to such torture and feel good about it.

He spent the next hour ridding himself of the fever still filling his veins, in the coldest water he could find. And wondering what he was going to do about Avram Halsey.

* * *

From a cloudless sky, the sun slapped at the earth, rousing billowing waves of choking heat. A steady breeze churned the dust, yet did nothing to temper the clinging weight of torrid air. There was no escaping it. And in her kitchen, Jessica stood at her stove, bent low over an enormous boiler filled with eighteen empty glass jars immersed in bubbling water. Steam enveloped her, plastering her hair to her forehead and neck as she poked her head closer to ensure the jars still nestled snugly in the metal rack that held them above the bottom surface of the iron pot. Beside the enormous boiler, two large pots spewed more steam, and the pungent aroma of beets and beans boiling heartily.

Through tears of perspiration clinging to her lashes, Jessica peered into the two smaller pots and jabbed a fork into the boiling beets. Her teeth worried her bottom lip as she then poked the fork into the beans. If she overcooked the beets again this year, she’d give up on cooking and canning for good. No sense in embarrassing herself over her extreme ineptness at tasks an ordinary woman accomplished with skill and ease.

Then again, Stark didn’t seem to mind in the least when she burned the bread or overcooked the beef. And his plate was always scraped clean of his potatoes and vegetables, even when she knew they were underdone by many minutes. Perhaps
he
wouldn’t object at all to canned beets that had spent an extra minute too long in the boiler. Perhaps
he
would show his appreciation for her efforts by gobbling down those beets with a resounding smacking of his lips. To do so, he would have to remain throughout the long, cold winter months.

Jessica moved to the tiny window over the sink, leaned against the hard block edge of the counter and brushed her palm over the film of steam coating the glass. She watched one trickle of water weave an erratic path to the sill, just as the perspiration trickled down her spine to pool at the curve of her lower back, where the muscles had taken up a rhythmic ache. Yet what chore proved too arduous when a woman had the appreciation of such a man, no matter how she might foul it up?

Her lashes fluttered to her cheeks as memory stirred. Appreciation. It was there in the simple manner in which his hands caressed her skin, as though committing every curve and hollow to memory. It was there in the bold passion displayed so profoundly in his eyes whenever they alighted upon her. And his mouth when it moved so tenderly over hers.

Indeed, she could envision years of endeavoring in unbearable heat to master the delicate art of canning vegetables and fruit in return for such appreciation. For one night spent in his bed.

The ache in her loins blossomed upward into her belly and gathered into a churning ball of heat. Her fingers loosened the top buttons of her gown, just beneath her chin, then drifted lower, loosening several others before stilling upon the upthrust curve of one breast. The muslin was damp, heavy against her skin, as though begging to be shed. And beneath its thickness, a nipple thrust with wanton impudence against her trembling fingertips.

A breath whispered through her parted lips. “Logan...”

The back door slammed open against the opposite wall. “Where is he?” Avram Halsey boomed, marching without preamble into the steamy kitchen. He took three strides, then abruptly slammed one boot into a kitchen chair and let forth a painfully grunted “Good heavens, Jessica.”

“I moved the table,” Jessica said, her fingers fumbling over the parted buttons at her neck. “You might have seen it if you had removed your glasses, Avram.”

Twin fogged lenses fixed upon her, his eyes entirely concealed by the ovals. “The devil I would have. That table has sat in the same precise location since I’ve known you. Why, might I ask, did you move it?”

The row of buttons completed, Jessica spun with sudden realization to tend her boiling beets. Blithely she waved a hand through steamy air. “I found it was in the way.”

“You’re mistaken, Jessica. I never once found maneuvering around it an inconvenience.”

Logan Stark did.

“Whereas now, my toe aches so, I believe it might be sprained. Did you hear me, Jessica?”

“Yes, Avram. Perhaps you should soak it.”

“Oh, good heavens, surely you’re not canning vegetables again? You quite outdid yourself with overcooked beets last year, my dear. I daresay I haven’t had an appetite for a beet since.”

Jessica shoved a fork into a well-overdone beet and made little effort to tame her tongue. “Perhaps you’d best find yourself another table to sup at all winter then, Avram. Even Mabel Brown could can a beet better than I.”

Quite obviously unaware of her sarcasm, or his suddenly tenuous circumstances, Avram let loose a guffaw that sent a chill of agitation shimmying up Jessica’s spine. “I know of no surer recipe for dyspepsia than a place set at Mabel Brown’s table. Damned woman’s cooking has me fetching Doc Eagan every time.”

Jessica snatched a long, curved wooden ladle from above the stove and began transferring beets from the boiling water into the glass jars. Her teeth slid together as Avram paused to peer over her shoulder, then again gave a harsh laugh.

“You know, Avram,” she began, her tongue all but curling with her acerbity, “Doc Eagan has long expounded the close connection between good morals and good digestion.”

Avram sucked in a hissing breath. “Jessica, what the devil are you implying?”

A smug smile crept over Jessica’s lips as she ladled. She gave a casual shrug of her shoulder, well aware that Avram lingered just at her elbow, and that he had seen fit to finally remove his fogged glasses to stare at her. “Implying? Why nothing, Avram. Does that naturally imply something?”

“Why, no,” Avram quickly replied, his elbow jostling against her as he polished his glasses clear of steam. “Absolutely not. Nothing of the sort. It’s just that I’ve never once heard Doc Eagan mention such a thing.”

“You see him often, don’t you, Avram?”

“Often? Why, no. Not that often, actually. At one time, perhaps several times a week, but not for quite a while now. No, indeed, my food has never sat better in my belly and bowels.”

“That’s good to hear, Avram. Would you care for a beet?”

“A beet? Why, yes, now that you mention it, I just might, Jessica. Indeed, I would partake, but all this talk of morals has reminded me why I came. Where is he?”

“Who, Avram?”

“Who, indeed. That black-hearted outlaw you call farmhand. Where is he?”

Jessica stuck the ladle into the beans. “I believe he went to town with Christian.”

“You
believe?
Ha! Now this is what I’ve been talking about, Jessica. This laxness you display is entirely too much for me to bear. Allowing your son one moment alone with that—that
hoodlum
is outrage enough, but to so casually, so
deliberately,
send him to town with such a man, why it—it staggers the imagination.”