Nan Ryan (11 page)

Sheriff Cooper’s squinty turquoise eyes lifted to the Texas deck. Sure enough, there stood Em, blowing kisses and smiling. Minutes later she came racing down the gangplank and straight into his arms.

“Kiss me, Coop,” she commanded, throwing her arms around his neck. “Kiss me like you missed me as much as I missed you.”

“Now, Em, honey,” he said softly, looking nervously around, an embarrassed grin on his reddening face, “mind your manners. We’re not alone.”

“No? Then let’s go someplace where we can be alone.” She locked her gloved hands behind his head and stood on tiptoe. “Say, perhaps the bridal suite of the Conde Hotel.”

“Em Ellicott!” he scolded, his face flushing with heat. “You behave yourself or—”

“Or you’ll what, Sheriff? Arrest me?” She laughed sunnily, withdrew her hands from around his neck, and lifted them together before his face. “Go on, lawman. Slap the cuffs on me and take me away.”

“Shhhh!” Coop grabbed her arm, jammed his hat on his head, and propelled her to the waiting carriage.

Em never failed to shock and charm him. She was far too assertive for a genteel lady, yet it was that very quality which he found so irresistibly appealing. So downright scary. He never knew whether to run for his life or to never let her out of his sight.

Once they were inside the carriage, waiting for her trunks to be unloaded from the
White Camellia
’s hold, Em turned to him and plucked the hat off his head. She took off her gloves, ran her fingers through his thick red curls, and said, “Coop, if you don’t kiss me, I’ll hold my breath like a baby until I turn blue and pass out. So help me I will.”

Grinning boyishly, the embarrassed, enchanted lawman gently cupped her pale left cheek in a big, freckled hand, leaned down, and started to press a quick kiss to her right cheek. But the bold, eager Em was too swift for the patient, gentlemanly Coop.

She quickly turned and lifted her face, so that it was her waiting lips with which his wide mouth came in contact. Before he could move away. Em had a tenacious hold on his shirt collar and her warm, soft lips were moving persuasively on his. Coop didn’t stand a chance against this formidable flashing-eyed, sweet-smelling, soft-skinned, lushly curvaceous female. When Em kissed him, he was putty in her hands. Once her honeyed lips took charge, he was no longer in charge of his lips or his wits.

Em knew that.

So she kissed him now as if no one else were around. She kissed him the way she knew he liked best. She kissed him in an all-out effort to make him stop stalling and start hunting down a clergyman.

Coop knew what she was up to.

But that didn’t keep his toes from curling inside his tall leather boots.

Chapter Twelve

T
he dense fog still had not lifted when Helen descended the back porch steps, crossed the big yard, and walked down to the quarters with Dom following closely at her heels.

She and Dom stopped several feet from the open door of the quarters and Helen called out, “Captain Northway! Charlie! It’s laundry day. If you’ll toss out your dirty clothes, I’ll wash them for—”

Before her sentence was finished, Charlie appeared alone in the open doorway. His blond hair was tousled and he was in his knee-length nightshirt. Yawning, he rubbed his eyes, then scratched his tummy through the nightshirt’s white cotton fabric.

He looked so small, so sleepy, and so adorable.

“Charlie, I’m sorry,” Helen said softly, edging cautiously closer, “I woke you. Forgive me.”

She expected no answer. While the beautiful little blond boy had begun to talk with Jolly, he still had nothing to say to her. Or to his father.

“Is Jolly here yet?” was Charlie’s anxious reply as he squinted up at her.

Helen felt her breath catch in her throat. Eagerly moving nearer, she said, “No. No, not yet. Jolly’s coming over again this morning?”

Nodding, Charlie opened his mouth to speak again, but Dom’s antics distracted him. The spoiled blue-gray tom wanted Charlie’s attention. Demanded Charlie’s attention. To ensure getting it, Dom had turned and quietly strolled off into the moving mists, disappearing completely.

Only to come racing back, sprinting directly to the little boy, skidding to a stop scant inches from Charlie’s small bare toes.

The Russian Blue fixed Charlie with his strange green eyes and made soft plaintive sounds in the back of his throat. The sleepy Charlie immediately grinned, squatted down on his bare heels, and rubbed a small hand back and forth over Dom’s silky-furred back.

The cat loved it.

Dom meowed and purred and stretched out contentedly at Charlie’s feet. He threw back his well-shaped head in an open invitation for Charlie to stroke him beneath the chin. Charlie caught on at once and did just that.

Dom was in ecstasy.

Charlie giggled, looked up at Helen with flashing brown eyes, and said, “She likes me!”

Helen smiled. “He. Dom’s a boy cat. He likes you a lot, I’d say.”

“So would I,” came a deep, masculine voice from directly behind Helen.

Startled, she quickly turned around. Kurt Northway stepped out of the swirling mists. Smiling easily, he came up close beside Helen, his forest-green eyes focused solely on the small blond boy.

Helen’s eyes remained on Kurt.

As usual, he wore nothing but his faded, low-riding calvary trousers. Helen found her nervous gaze following the lines of his hard sinewy figure from the wide, muscular shoulders to the scuffed black boots on his feet. Recalling yesterday morning’s wild ride, she remembered all too well how it felt to be pressed close against that lean, hard frame.

She didn’t remember the long scar she now saw so clearly slashing downward from the small of his back and disappearing into the waistband of his trousers. Wondering how she could have missed something so visible, she had—for a fleeting second—the inexplicable desire to reach out and touch the white satiny imperfection marring the smooth tanned flesh.

Heat rose to her face. Hoping that the guilt over last night’s dream didn’t show on her face, she needlessly cleared her throat.

“Captain, if you’ll gather up your dirty laundry and bring it up to the back fence, I’ll wash it for you.”

Kurt’s eyes lifted from his son, cut to her.

Pinning her with his forest-green gaze, he smiled and said, “That’s kind of you, ma’am. Only problem is … what will I wear while you’re washing my clothes?”

Flustered, Helen gestured weakly. “Surely you have—”

“Two pair of trousers,” he stated. “I’m wearing the good pair. The others are torn. Besides the trousers, I own exactly three tattered blue uniform blouses and one white shirt.”

Listening, looking back and forth between the two grown-ups, Charlie announced proudly, “I have this many shirts.” Rising to his feet, he held up ten spread fingers. “I think,” he added, frowning, not quite certain. He tipped back his head to look up at Kurt. “Don’t I, Captain?”

“You sure do,” Kurt said evenly, displaying no emotion.

But his heart lurched wildly in his naked chest and the tips of his fingers felt numb. For the first time ever, Kurt Northway heard his only son directly address him. It was such an unexpected thrill, Kurt wanted to laugh out loud and shout for joy. At the same time he was momentarily speechless and his throat felt uncomfortably tight.

It mattered little that Charlie had called him Captain instead of Father. That was normal. To be expected. The child had only heard him called Captain. Both Jolly and Helen Courtney addressed him that way.

“Ten shirts,” Kurt added, thinking it was true. Charlie did own ten shirts. But all were faded, frayed, and too small for the growing boy and he wished more than anything that he could afford to buy his only son new clothes.

“I think maybe they’re all dirty,” said Charlie, shrugging slender, nightshirted shoulders.

Helen said to Charlie, “If you’ll bring them out, I’ll wash and iron them today.”

Charlie tilted his head to one side and said, “What will I wear to go fishing with Jolly?”

Helen leaned down, placed her hands gently atop Charlie’s narrow shoulders and said, “Slip on a pair of trousers and gather up the rest of your things. It’s summertime. You can go without a shirt today.”

“Like the captain does?”

“Like the captain does,” Helen confirmed. She dropped her hands away and straightened. “Now go on inside and gather up your soiled things.”

Charlie hesitated as if thinking something over. Then shyly he reached out, took Helen’s right hand in both of his own, and asked in a soft, hopeful tone, “Come in and help me?”

Helen was in a pickle.

She really didn’t want to. Northway would surely follow and she didn’t want to go inside with the Yankee captain. There was something disturbingly intimate about her being with him inside the room where he slept each night. Besides, it was downright improper. Her Grandmother Burke would surely have frowned on such libertine behavior.

But the last thing on earth Helen wanted to do was turn down the sweet, fragile child who by his very invitation was showing signs he was beginning to trust her.

Helen went inside with Charlie, Dom slipping in ahead of them.

Kurt followed.

But he purposely stayed near the open door. He stood unmoving with his back resting against the door-jamb, his long, lean frame in a relaxed attitude. Sensing that his presence in the closeness of the quarters might be somehow threatening to Helen, he deliberately maintained his distance.

Helen looked about the large room and could hardly keep from frowning. Consciously hiding her disapproval of the Northways’ careless, typically male manner of housekeeping—or lack thereof—she immediately spotted a small, grimy shirt resting squarely atop the blue-and-white-checked tablecloth. The shirt was threadbare and faded from too many washings. The child badly needed clothes. Helen wished she could buy Charlie a whole new wardrobe, but she didn’t have the money.

Helen walked over, plucked up the worn shirt, smiled, and said, “One down. Nine to go.”

Watching her, Charlie grinned. He dashed across the room with Dom following, grabbed another soiled shirt from off a chair back, spun around, and held it up high for Helen to see.

“Two down!” She pointed at the raised shirt and held up two fingers.

And then it became a contest.

A lively, amusing game to see which one could find the greatest number of dirty shirts. The cat found the foolishness far too strenuous. Dom shook his regal head reproachfully, leaped up onto the unmade bed, stretched out, and closed his eyes as if to say,
Wake me when this nonsense ends
.

Momentarily forgetting Kurt’s presence, Helen and Charlie raced around the cluttered room, hunting, fishing, and yanking soiled shirts from the unlikeliest of locations. A triumphant squeal of delight went up each time either of them hit pay dirt.

Kurt stayed where he was throughout, watching the playful pair from beneath lowered lids, tempted to join in their fun, not daring to do so. No way would he intrude and risk bringing the rollicking game to a premature end.

Kurt kept quiet and thoroughly enjoyed being only a spectator. He watched the two chase madly around the room, squealing and laughing, Helen behaving as if she were the same age as Charlie.

Studying them in their abandon, Kurt wasn’t certain which was the most charming. His small, blond, nightshirted son, or the slender, golden-haired, woman-child.

With his sculpted lips turned up into a smile of pure pleasure, Kurt eased down onto his heels in a crouching position, draping a tanned forearm across his thigh.

The spirited game continued.

Finally, when all but one of the shirts had been accounted for, Helen shouted out a loud, resounding “Nine down! Only one more to go!”

Face red from laughing, brown eyes flashing, Charlie turned anxiously about in a circle, searching high and low, eager to be the one to find the last shirt. To beat Helen to it.

From his vantage point across the room, Kurt spotted the missing shirt. Feeling much like a kid himself, he could hardly contain his excitement. Furiously attempting to catch Charlie’s eye without alerting Helen, he was at last successful.

Frantic, Charlie finally turned big questioning eyes directly on his father. Kurt grinned at his son and almost imperceptibly gestured, pointing a lean forefinger toward the unmade bed. Charlie’s blond head snapped around; he looked at the bed, saw nothing there but the rumpled white bedsheets and the dozing Dom. He quickly turned back to Kurt.

Kurt tapped the floor with his forefinger and again nodded toward the bed. Charlie put his hands on his knees, bent from the waist, peered under the bed, and spotted the shirt.

Bubbling with enthusiasm, he couldn’t keep from laughing. His hands flew up to cover his mouth, but not before Helen whirled around, glanced at the grinning Kurt, then at the laughing Charlie.

The secret clearly written on his face, Charlie started for the bed. So did Helen. Screeching so loudly it stirred the dozing Dom, they raced each other across the room. Annoyed, Dom raised his head and glared at them as they fell to their knees beside the bed and hurriedly crawled under. Yelping and wiggling forward on their bellies, they lunged for the shirt.

They wrestled, they reached, and they giggled.

Kurt watched, applauded, and laughed.

Jolly Grubbs, having shouted a greeting several times without receiving an answer, appeared in the open doorway at the height of the fun and frolic. Puzzled, he dropped on the stoop the pair of heavy valises he carried, rapped loudly on the doorframe with his knuckles, and stuck his white head inside.

He couldn’t believe what he saw.

Helen and Charlie were under the bed, giggling and scuffling, Helen’s skirts and petticoats swirling up around the backs of her dimpled knees, Charlie’s long white nightshirt twisted and riding up almost to his tiny heinie. Kurt Northway was watching, laughing, and applauding the lunacy.

“’Pon my soul,” Jolly called out in a loud voice, “have I come to the wrong farm?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “These can’t be the folks I know.”