Marshal of Hel Dorado (6 page)

 
    
“What?”

 
    
“You think I’m beautiful?”

 
    
This was a bad topic. He cleared his
throat. “It wasn’t your turn to ask a question.”

 
    
“Yes it was.”

 
    
“No.” Patiently. “It wasn’t.”

 
    
“You asked me what. That was your question.
So that made it my turn.”

 
    
Sam smiled, in spite of himself. It was
going to be a long ride.

 
    
T
he
rising sun was a thin ribbon of light across the horizon as Sam turned them
down a fork in the trail she would never have noticed. She’d dozed periodically
during their conversation, lulled by the gentle thud of his heart. Leaning
against him was unseemly, but five hours of riding, hands bound, pressed up
against him had erased any concern she might have for how it looked.

 
    
The first half-hour on the trail, Scarlett
kept looking for her brothers. By the third hour, she’d given up. By the fifth,
she was convinced they weren’t coming at all. They might have headed back to
the town for her, but they didn’t know she was out here.

 
    
Alone.

 
    
With the Marshal.

 
    
She sighed, shifting her numb bottom. Even
her legs were aching now and her shirt rasped against her skin. Thin trickles
of dried sweat between her breasts itched. Not even the warm, masculine scent
of Sam drenching her was enough to dull the discomfort that urged her to
stretch and scratch.

 
    
“You should sleep.” It was the fourth time
he’d uttered that phrase and Scarlett laughed, a whispery sound that choked off
into a half sob that had him shifting in the saddle around her.

 
    
The sweet little mare they rode hadn’t
issued a complaint, particularly as they’d paused only once in the entire trek
to water the horse and to let Sam relieve himself.

 
    
Not that he’d afforded her a similar
opportunity. She hadn’t been able to see his face in the shadows of the night,
but she’d felt the bland disapproval radiate off him when she’d asked.

 
    
He’d stared at her until she’d withdrawn
the request. She could only hope that an outhouse was the first place he let
her go when they arrived or she was likely to embarrass herself. Her britches
rubbed her in all the wrong places and what wasn’t numb, tingled.

 
    
Corona broke into a trot that slapped the
last vestiges of sleep away. Their trail had meandered through foothills, but
gave way to a rutted lane sided by spruce, pine and scrub. The sun’s rapid
ascent expanded the ribbon of the sunrise into shattering brightness that
rippled across the landscape, filling in the palette with rich colors of yellow
and green speckled by swales of blue, red and orange. Wildflowers jutted out in
a profusion amongst the half-rocky, half-sloping green.

 
    
The trickle of water in the wash near the
trail swelled to a creek, carrying the scent of moisture and coolness. The
first building she’d glimpsed since town squatted at the head of the creek
where it was fed by a huge pond. The hills gave way to a rich basin of green,
decorated by roaming horses, cattle and more ponds, each linked by a stream.

 
    
It was a landscape rich with possibilities,
the water providing life to the nearby landscape, suckling it with refreshment.
The sun warmed her face as she leaned forward, the gentle mare’s backbreaking
trot jouncing her as she fought with numb legs to secure herself.

 
    
The Marshal’s arm snaked around her middle,
fastening her with a pillow of security. A languid heat rolled through her
where he touched her and Scarlett closed her eyes, shunting the sensation away
to avoid a more combustible response. Her curse could be activated by high
emotion. Breathing techniques helped. Inhaling through the nose, exhaling
through the mouth and pushing all the unwanted emotions with it.

 
    
Unfortunately, her proximity to the Marshal
made it harder to push away all the unwanted feelings, because the firm press
of his arm nestled under her breasts conjured a new set of images.

 
    
Ones she probably shouldn’t be thinking
about at all. Her mind shied away from the urge to rub herself against any part
of him, but the fire kindling in her belly flamed at the brief image.

 
    
“Welcome to the Flying K,” Sam’s gruff
voice in her ear dragged her away from the lecherous thoughts to see the
sprawling spread of outbuildings, fencing and land that had been revealed when
they cleared the last foothill.

 
    
The streams created a ribbon that wound
through the center of the basin. Along the river stood a series of log cabins.
The structures nestled amidst groves of trees that would provide shelter from
the summer heat and the winter winds. Scarlett studied the layout, corral like
areas were scattered amidst the cabins, but instead of horses, they were a
patchwork of vegetables tamed to the wild landscape and growing thick and
green.

 
    
Further along the streambed, a pair of
squat, square buildings that looked like the bunkhouse at Quanto’s were backed
onto a huge barn where activity stirred in the form of young horses being
shuttled from the building into adjoining paddocks. A brace of men leaned
against the fences, their voices a soft whisper on the wind, carrying only a
lighthearted tone, but not the words.

 
    
“They’re picking out the mares they’ll work
with and the stallions that need to be gelded before they can be brought under
saddle. Every one, man, woman, child or beast, has to earn their keep here at
the Flying K and every animal is put to saddle, plow or buckboard.”

 
    
“And if they can’t?” She was almost
frightened to ask the question.

 
    
“Oh, they can.” His confidence stroked her
with comfort. “Everything can be put to a purpose, the key is to find what they
are suited for. My father doesn’t believe that anyone or any animal is useless.”

 
    
A seed of hope bloomed in Scarlett’s chest.
Quanto espoused a similar belief. That no matter how destructive their
abilities might seem, there was a positive use for them. They just had to find
out what it was. Scarlett wasn’t entirely certain what good purpose her
destructive ability could serve, but she practiced what Quanto taught and held
onto the fragile hope that someday she would find her answer.

 
    
As the rutted road dipped across the
stream, cool water splashed Scarlett’s legs, kicked up by Corona’s passage. The
languid heat spreading through her body should have sent the dampness up in a
shower of steam, but focusing on her breathing banked the firestorm inside her
to warm embers.

 
    
They were getting closer to the barn and
the men working around it took notice of them.

 
    
A whistle cut across the early dawn. Sam
lifted his arm from her to wave. His sigh stirred the hair along her neck as
one of the men darted from the railing and hopped, bareback, onto a horse
standing idle on the paddock’s exterior.

 
    
“And here comes Micah.” Sam’s words were
low, but she understood the tone. Micah had to be a brother. Only brothers
could make a person sigh with such a wild mixture of affection and irritation.

 
    
“Heyo Sam!” The man’s warm voice rolled out
to greet them. Scarlett would have picked him for Sam’s brother without the
half-whispered caveat. Like Sam, his hair was the color of winter wheat, his
eyes a warm brown of loamy, rich soil and his broad cheekbones and strong jaw
were enough like Sam’s that they were nearly the spitting image of each other.

 
    
“Heyo Micah.” Sam’s dry greeting was
answered with an easy grin, one she’d never seen on the Marshal’s face, but
reminded her of the younger brother, Kid, that she’d met at the bank.

 
    
Micah’s gaze swooped appreciatively over
her, but paused with a frown on her hands where they were bound to the saddle
horn.

 
    
“You taking up kidnapping, Marshal?” The
man’s horse fell into step with his brothers'.

 
    
This close, she could see they were nearly
the same height with Sam just barely inching him out.

 
    
“She’s a prisoner.” Three simple words cut
the legs out from under her. She was a prisoner. She wasn’t a guest, a friend
or a lady to be courted. She was under arrest for robbing a bank.

 
    
Which, to be fair, she had actually done.

 
    
But she didn’t like being described as a
prisoner and the enforced intimacy of their night ride together had almost
helped her forget that fact.

 
    
Almost.

 
    
“Really?” Micah edged forward, his warm
brown gaze seeking hers. “And what did you do, pretty lady? Turn him down for
some church social?”

 
    
“Stop trying to spark her.” Sam admonished.
“She robbed a bank.”

 
    
“Really?” Micah repeated the word, his
interest seeming to only heighten at the truth.

 
    
“Well now, I always pictured bank robbers
as toothless, feckless and smelly. I am terribly pleased to see you are none of
the those, ma’am.”

 
    
Sam stiffened around her, the shift of his
muscles just barely perceptible.

 
    
“Thank you, I think.” Scarlett’s lips
turned up into a small smile that grew when Micah grinned in response.

 
    
He snatched the Stetson off his head and
pressed it to his chest. “Micah Kane, ma’am. Foreman and ranch manager for the
Flying K’s horse stock. And you are?”

 
    
“None of your business,” Sam replied before
she could. Scarlett frowned, her nose wrinkling up. She didn’t care for other
people speaking for her, not her brothers and certainly not the Marshal in that
surly tone of voice.

 
    
“I’m Scarlett.” Impudence had her sitting
up straighter in the saddle and flexing her numb fingers.

 
    
“It’s a pure pleasure to meet you,
Scarlett. Welcome to the Flying K. When Sam gets his a—er, his backside handed
to him by our Pa, I’ll be happy to show you around and help you get settled in.
Do you ride?”

 
    
Scarlett giggled. Sam stiffened against her
further, his arm clamping around her middle and all but sealing the distance
between them. His chest was a hard wall of muscle on her back, but she kept her
attention on his brother.

 
    
His nicer brother.

 
    
“What part of she’s a prisoner did you not
listen to, Micah?” Threat edged Sam’s words.

 
    
“We’ll be locking her up and she won’t be
touring the property or doing any riding—
of
any
kind
—with you.”

 
    
Micah laughed, parking his Stetson back on
his head. His cheerful expression expanded the seed of hope into a full bloom
in her chest. “Don’t mind him, Miss Scarlett. The Marshal affixed that star on
his chest with a stick up his backside. “

 
    
Scarlett couldn’t help it. She laughed
again. Micah’s grin grew brighter.

 
    
“Don’t you have horses to train?” Sam’s
tone practically scowled, not that Scarlett dared to turn and look, not pressed
this closely together.

 
    
“And miss out on you explaining this to Pa?
Nah. The men can handle it and my mares are all gentled. I’ll be starting with
the uncut stallions tomorrow or the next day. Hey,” Micah’s bright gaze danced
over Scarlett’s face. “Would you like to come down and watch? The stallions are
always a bit more of a challenge than the mares and I wouldn’t mind the
audience.”