McCrory's Lady (14 page)

      
Price cursed in agony as he drew back his broken knuckles; but before he could take a breath, Blake was on him, raining hard, vicious punches to his nose, jaw, throat and body until the big man's knees buckled and he went down.

      
Eden and Maggie, who had finished dressing and headed toward camp, heard the sounds of a struggle up in the rocks across the other side of the pool. The younger woman dashed toward the embattled men just as Colin rode in.

      
“Father, he'll kill him,” Eden said.

      
Colin had seen the two women returning, fresh from bathing. He had a pretty good idea of why Blake was administering the beating to Price. He waited until Wolf pulled the unconscious man up by his shirt front for another blow, then stepped in. “You'll only break your hand. He can't feel it.”

      
“He will when he wakes up,” Wolf said savagely after delivering the last punch. He dropped the inert body into the dust and stood up, wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. His eyes immediately moved from McCrory to Eden, who watched him with a mixture of fear and confusion on her face.

      
“You could've killed him,” she accused. “Why?”
Because you 're a gunman. You like to kill. Just like Lazlo
.

      
“I had my reasons.” Wolf met her angry expression with a shuttered look that revealed nothing, but his fathomless black eyes held her golden gaze hypnotically.

      
“You'd better soak those hands before they start to swell,” Colin said to Wolf, noting the currents between the half-breed and his daughter. “Take her back to camp,” Colin instructed Maggie curtly, wanting Eden away from the ugliness that was brewing.

      
Wordlessly, Maggie took her young charge by the arm and they walked away from the men.

      
Colin turned to Rosa, who had brought a bucket of water from camp and motioned for him to revive the unconscious gunman.

      
With a wide grin, the older man threw the water in a great splash. Price groaned and began to roll over, clutching his stomach with one hand and his profusely bleeding, ruined nose with the other.

      
“I'll pay your wages in the morning, Price. I want you headed for San Luís at first light. If I ever see you in Arizona, I'll kill you myself.”

      
“I didn't do nothin! Thet breed there, he—”

      
“I caught you spying on the ladies while they bathed—and saying things about Miss McCrory you ought to be gelded for,” Wolf gritted out.

      
Colin's eyes narrowed. He had been sure about the spying, but as to the other, it made him nervous to have a breed gunman championing Eden's honor. “You're lucky I don't finish what Blake started, Price,” Colin said softly. “Dinna tempt me by saying anything more.” The thickening of the burr in his voice betrayed his agitation.

      
Beau Price subsided, nursing his broken nose in silence as he glared sullenly at McCrory's departing figure.

      
Eden listened from behind the copse of mesquite where she had insisted they stop to eavesdrop, her cheeks flushed with anger and humiliation.

      
Maggie touched her arm gently. “I figured Wolf had a good reason for what happened—and that it concerned you.”

      
“He was there, too. He must've seen us the same way Price did.” The idea of Wolf Blake's hard black eyes observing her naked was even more upsetting. At least, she would never have to face Beau Price again.

      
Maggie smiled shrewdly. “I doubt Wolf is the voyeur that Price is. But he is your champion. You could do worse, I think.”

      
Eden's startled eyes turned hard as amber glass. “I already have. Lazlo was trying to kill my father. Wolf Blake works for him. But they're both hired gunman.”

      
She turned and fled back to camp with Maggie trailing after her. Eden's hurts would take a long time to heal. Maggie wondered if the young half-breed could be the key to that healing.

      
That night Fulhensio cooked some fish he had caught downriver, and baked fresh biscuits. Everyone but Price feasted. He lay curled up on his bedroll with a flask of cheap whiskey to ease his misery. The other men bathed and shaved before dinner, and Rosa even waxed his mustache to dramatic proportions.

      
Maggie's eyes traveled to Colin as he assigned sentry duties. She could still feel the rough abrasion of his beard on her cheeks and throat. Her lip was even cut from his harsh, savage kiss.
And I was just as wildly out of control as he was.
What was his fascination for her? She had lived without a man since those months of travesty with Whalen, and that was a lifetime ago.

      
I don't need Colin McCrory.
The crackling night fire hissed,
Liar
.

      
Colin felt her gaze follow him. Even ten feet away he could swear he smelled lilies of the valley, although he knew it must be his imagination. What insanity had taken hold of him this morning in that storm? He was behaving worse than a stag in rut—over a common saloon whore! But honesty forced him to admit there was nothing common about Maggie Worthington, no matter how disreputable her past.

      
What the hell would he do when they reached Tucson? Eden was determined that he keep his word and marry the woman. Would it be so unthinkable? She could certainly act the part of a refined lady, and no one in Arizona knew of her past.
But
I
would know.

      
Marrying a woman like Maggie would be a betrayal of Elizabeth, and he could never imagine that. If only Eden had been old enough to remember her mother, so modest and soft-spoken, yet firm in her convictions. Elizabeth had been a lady born and bred. No acting was ever required from her. Everything good and decent he had aspired to become and had achieved he owed to his wife and her support of him. He could not remarry anyone, least of all a woman of carnal appetites such as the alluring witch sitting across the campfire, silently taunting him by her very presence.

      
Whatever was to be done, there was precious little time in which to reach a decision. They would cross the border into Arizona Territory in a few days. Colin looked over to where Beau Price lay in the shadows, passed out cold. Without Price's extra gun, they'd do best to push harder. Maybe he could hire a few more pistoleros in Calabasas, the border town he was eager to reach. At least, it meant sleeping on something that passed for a bed after the rigors of the trail. It also meant he would not have to watch Maggie brushing her hair by firelight, as she did every night.

      
He could not resist staring at the thick dark waves that fell to her waist, crackling and glowing like the burnished coals in the fire. She sat away from the men, but the chill desert nights kept the women near the fire's warmth. Eden was already asleep. With deft fingers, Maggie plaited her hair into a fat loose braid, then turned down her bedroll and climbed in beside her young charge. He knew she was aware of his perusal even though she gave no overt sign of it. Cursing, he stalked into the dark to take the first turn at guard duty.

      
The sun rose, a hot sullen ball of dull orange, as the small caravan headed north, minus one rider. Beau Price was left behind to sleep off his hangover and then ride the opposite direction. They had made only a few miles when Wolf signaled from the rise ahead.

      
Apaches!

      
Colin scanned the open rocky ground where the only cover was greasewood and saguaros. One jagged pile of rocks lay about a half mile to the west. The raiders, according to Wolf's signal, were approaching from the east. Slapping Eden's horse forward, he yelled at Maggie, “Ride for that point while we cover you!”

      
She was already pulling the rifle from her saddle scabbard as she spurred her horse after Eden. Wolf had come streaking down the rise, lying flat against his horse's neck as shots whizzed all around him, kicking up puffs of dust. A party of nearly a dozen Apaches followed, about two hundred yards away but closing swiftly. Once Colin leveled his rifle and shot the man in the lead from his pony, the others slowed their headlong rush, seeing two more armed men.

      
Then, one of the Apaches saw the two women riding toward the rocks and veered away to cut them off. Three of the others followed while the rest headed toward the men. All the savages molded themselves against their fleet small mustangs, making difficult targets for the three men who kept up a steady barrage of fire. One Apache's horse went down with his rider, but the rest were gaining on the women.

      
Suddenly Maggie reined in and stopped her horse, then turned in the saddle and drew a bead on the closest Apache barreling down on her with his arm raised, whooping a bloodcurdling cry of victory. She dropped him with a clean shot through his chest, then aimed for the next one.

      
“Maggie, get the hell away!” Colin yelled. He, too, fired at her target, but from his galloping horse he missed. She didn't.

      
The raider left was now caught in a withering crossfire between Maggie and the three white men. He wheeled his lathered mount around and regrouped with the rest of the Apaches, who had fallen back in their pursuit of Colin, Wolf and Fulhensio. By this time, Colin had caught up to Maggie and they spurred their horses after Eden. As they entered the protection of the rocks, he seized her reins and pulled Maggie's horse to a halt.

      
“What the hell were you doing out there? Trying to commit suicide?” he yelled as he leaped to the ground and pulled her down to face him.

      
“I can't ride worth shucks, but I'm a damned good shot—as you must have noticed,” Maggie said calmly.

      
“You damn fool! They could've caught you—or shot you off your horse.”

      
“They could've ridden us both down if I hadn't slowed them up, too.”

      
“Oh, Maggie, thank God you're safe! I was almost here when I saw what you'd done to save me,” Eden said, hugging her friend. Then, she looked up at her glowering father. “She saved my life, Father.”

      
“I suppose that means I owe you—again,” he snarled at Maggie.

      
“I suppose it does,” she replied, her voice level.

      
They pushed on after changing their saddles to the spare horses. The ride that day was a brutal one, as they attempted to put as much distance between them and the Apaches as possible. After two days of riding all the horses in shifts, they reached Calabasas, a small, dusty town just north of the border.

      
While Rosa and Wolf made arrangements for their exhausted mounts, Colin and the women went to what passed for a hotel.

      
“It's not much, but at least we can sleep without sentries,” he said as Maggie and Eden surveyed the bare adobe building baking in the late afternoon sun. It was built on the traditional southern Arizona floor plan with small high windows and three-foot-thick walls to keep the sun at bay. The rooms were arranged in a row across the fifty-foot front with a sun porch facing onto the courtyard behind. A few scraggly pines and a madrone tree offered a bit of shade. Dust hung heavy in the air as they walked into the dark interior through a narrow doorway. Colin had to duck his head to enter. A short, rotund woman with skin like parchment and eyes like raisins smiled a toothless welcome.

      
“I'll need your best room for the ladies and three beds for me and my men,” he said in serviceable border Spanish.

      
Knowing he lived far to the north near the Anglo capital of Prescott, Maggie again wondered at his fluency with border language and his familiarity with the land; but Eden quickly diverted her attention by mentioning the well visible outside the back door.

      
“Do you think we could get baths in our rooms?” she speculated.

      
Colin made the arrangements, and the old crone ushered the women into the courtyard. Colin touched Maggie's arm lightly, and she stopped as Eden followed her hostess.

      
“Tomorrow we reach Tucson. We need to talk tonight. In private.”

      
“All right.” Her heart skipped a beat but her voice was steady. She looked into his eyes…and read nothing.

      
“Meet me out back by the well at moonrise, after the rest are asleep.”

* * * *

      
Maggie lay on the hard, lumpy, corn husk mattress, staring at the ceiling where fallen chunks of plaster had left ugly gray patterns. Eden had not made a sound for a quarter hour. Silently, Maggie sat up and slid off the crude bed, moving slowly so the leather straps supporting the mattress would not creak.

      
“You're going to meet Father, aren't you?” Eden's voice broke the stillness.

      
Maggie sighed. “It's not for a moonlight tryst, dear heart.”

      
“I know.” Eden paused, then said, “I want to tell him about Lazlo. I've been working up my courage all week on the trail, but I can't seem to do it.”

      
“Just try and sleep now. It'll all work out. You'll see.” Maggie left the dark room, hoping Eden could sleep. Lord knew, she herself would get no rest this troubling night.
We'll end it between us once and for all.

      
Colin stood in the shadows, watching her approach the well. Bright moonlight spilled over her hair, making it gleam like dark fire as she walked with that sensuous assurance that irritated him and inflamed his blood at the same time. She had such long legs. Long and slender and pale. He could imagine running his hands over them, feeling them wrap securely around his hips. He cursed himself and stepped away from the madrone tree, blocking her path with his body.