Patricia Potter (15 page)

He surprised himself by obeying. He looked around the kitchen when she disappeared. There was a big pot on the stove from which an odd aroma came. His nose twitched as he tried to identify the smell, but he could not.

The kitchen was cozy, with flowered curtains and a colorful woven rug. There were numerous pictures, obviously drawn by the children, on the wall, and pegs from which polished pans hung. The room was cluttered with books and clothes, not neat like his room in Denver, but it was scrubbed bright and smelled clean and fresh. There was warmth and comfort and…he felt an odd, blinding sense of coming home.

For a moment he allowed himself to wonder how it would feel to live in such a place, but he quickly dismissed the thought as being as crazy as the woman was. Even a hotel room soon became a prison to him after a few days; he could never stay long in one place. He needed only grass under him and a sky above. He needed space and freedom as he needed to breathe.

“Let me see them.” Her voice jerked him back to the present and once again he surprised himself by lifting his hands, palm up, to her.

“They’ll never get well if you keep using them like that,” she scolded, and her fingers ran over them, spreading cool, soothing salve on the raw areas.

He felt a curious weakness, a warm sensation that was becoming all too familiar when he was with her. The heat in his belly was bad enough, but the growing longing in his mind was even worse. He had never known a touch could be so light, so gentle. He had never known a woman’s look could curl his insides. He’d never known the kind of weakness that settled in his limbs, one that kept him from pushing away when he knew that was exactly what he should do.

She looked rapt as she accomplished her task, all her attention on his hands. She was wearing a blue dress, simple but appealing with its small touches of lace. It was nearly the same color as her eyes. A tendril of dark auburn hair escaped from a twist in the back of her head, falling against a lightly tanned face. She was all softness and warmth and beauty, and she scared the hell out of him.

“You were going to tell me why you want to stay,” he said, more harshly than he intended.

She looked up, the blue eyes full of worry and determination, and even a plea for understanding.

“If I leave,” she said slowly, “this town will erupt into warfare.”

He looked at her in amazement. Didn’t she understand what was going on? “It already has, lady,” he said.

She shook her head. “Not like it will.”

“And you’re going to risk your life and those kids’ lives to prove that?”

“Alex won’t hurt me. Not really.”

“That’s not what I hear.”

“He won’t,” she insisted again. “And Jake trusted me to keep peace.”

“Then he was a damned fool.”

“And,” she added with a stubborn look, “it’s our home.”

“It’s only wood and nails. Rotting wood and nails, at that,” he said roughly.

She shook her head. “It’s the only home I’ve ever really had, that’s ever belonged to me.”

He sighed with frustration. Reason obviously wasn’t one of her strengths.

“You can’t run this place on your own.”

“That’s why I need you,” she said with a quick smile that tugged at him.

“I’m not available.”

“Why?”

Her hands had stopped working. One of them was resting on his, and he felt a jolt of electricity run through him, dizzying, tingling streaks of red-hot fire. “You can’t afford me,” he finally managed to say.

She looked at him, and he felt the appraisal in her eyes. “How much would I need to afford you?”

He wondered for a moment whether he should tell her whom she was trying to hire, and what his usual fee was. It would be one way to jolt some sense into her. Yet he couldn’t force himself to say the words. His work had never bothered him before.

“I don’t plan to stay in town much longer,” he said curtly, standing up to leave. He saw her gaze move along the length of his body, resting for only a split second at his hip, where the gunbelt rested, and then continue upward. His body seemed to turn to liquid heat, and he wondered how she would feel next to him. It took all his will not to grab her and find out.

“You’ve seen the worst of the ranch,” she said quietly. “But it’s really a fine place. We just…need some help.”

“You need more than ‘some,’” he replied. “You need an army.”

“I think you’d do just fine.”

“Don’t you ever give up, lady?”

“Willow,” she said.

One of his hands went to the back of his neck. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know enough,” she shot back. “I know you like children, that you’re capable around the ranch, that you’re very kind.”

“Kind?” The word was an expletive the way he said it. “Christ, lady, I thought—”

“Willow,” she broke in. “Everyone calls me Willow.”

“I’m not everyone, dammit.”

“No,” she agreed evenly with a smile lurking on her mouth. His eyes, usually so cold, were now blazing. That fire was, she thought, very attractive. And dangerous.

“You’re a lunatic, inviting a stranger into your home.”

“You’re not a stranger.”

“I sure as hell am.”

“If you meant us harm, you wouldn’t protest so much,” she said tranquilly.

He glowered at her, frustrated at her undeniable logic.

“At least stay for dinner,” she attacked gently. “Although I must tell you Estelle cooked today.”

He furrowed his brow. Things were moving much too quickly. He had never thought himself half-witted before, but he was quickly reevaluating his ability to think and cope. “Estelle?” he said.

“She doesn’t really cook well, but we’d never tell her that,” Willow said.

“Why?”

The bluntness of the question made Willow smile again. He was obviously unused to sparing feelings or mincing words.

“Estelle has had a bad time,” she said slowly, wanting him to understand. “She needs encouragement.”

“And the boy?”

There it was again, Willow thought, that interest in Chad, although he tried to hide it.

“Him too,” she said.

“And you?” He didn’t know why he asked it. He certainly hadn’t meant to. He wanted as little to do with her as possible. He wanted to know as little as possible.

She looked at him blankly for a moment, and his mouth tightened as he continued roughly. “What are you doing here? Trying to run a ranch on your own. You don’t belong here.”

Willow turned his own question on him. “Why?”

Because you’re too soft, too innocent
….

“This is harsh country, Miss Taylor.”

Now she was frustrated. But at least “Miss Taylor” was better than “lady.”

“Jess,” she said, and it took Lobo a moment to realize she was referring to him. The name had a certain softness on her lips, and softness had never been applied to him.

He swallowed. He damned well liked the way the name sounded.

“Will you think about the job?”

“No.”

Her eyes were wide, not pleading, but expectant.

“I won’t be here long enough,” he repeated, not knowing why he was making excuses. He’d never made one before in his entire life.

“Will you at least have dinner with us? Chad would be so pleased.”

Christ, dinner with the houseful of lunatics! Yet the idea was suddenly terribly compelling. Part of him longed to stay, but another part, the sensible part, warned him away. He already felt partially trapped. A few more moments and he might as well surrender entirely. And she knew it. There was a gleam in her eye that told him so. He had the sudden feeling that she was not altogether as innocent as he had first believed. There was a sneaky streak in her. And he was damned determined not to yield to it. Not to her. Not to the boy. He couldn’t afford it.

He shook his head, pulled on his gloves, and rose.

“I have things to do,” he said curtly, brushing past her as she also rose from the table. But before she could make one more objection, his long legs had propelled him out the door, off the porch, and into the saddle. Without a backward glance he spurred the pinto into a gallop, as if all the demons in hell were after him.

L
OBO HAD KILLED
his first man, the son of an Apache chief, at twelve, and he’d killed his first white man when he was sixteen. The soldier had been one of the few whites he’d seen up close since his capture eight years earlier. There had been several others, a few slaves who’d survived Apache initiation, and renegade traders who brought whiskey and guns to the camp. But most of them had been as much Apache as white.

Lobo had killed the white soldier for the simple reason the man had been trying to kill him. Lobo had felt no regret at the action, only a certain satisfaction that it was not him lying on the ground.

Other killings also came easily. He’d never formed attachments with anyone other than his brother. A human being, particularly one shooting at him, merited no more concern than a food animal, perhaps even less, for the animal was innocent.

The Apache were hard taskmasters and tolerated no weakness. It was a lesson he’d learned well. But they did have their own code of justice and honor, and because of that he still lived.

Lobo slowed his pinto. If only she knew. If only she knew some of the things he’d done.

Christ, she would run like hell and never look back.

He pulled off one of his gloves, the salve making it sticky and uncomfortable. Damn. He rubbed his hand against his leg, and then against the back of his neck. The woman and kids had no idea what they were involved in. Newton had said he was hiring more men. Marsh Canton was in town. The whole territory was ready to explode. He’d seen it before, and he could smell it coming now.

It was time to leave. He’d failed and he knew there was no way to frighten her and her family of misfits from the ranch. He also knew that he had lost the ability to terrorize them, although he was realistic enough to know that Willow Taylor, like every other decent woman, would be horrified when she actually learned who he was. She wouldn’t want to touch him, then, not even to bandage a wound.

But he couldn’t forget her plea or her words. Or those of the chubby little girl. “I like you.”

His stomach clenched in agony. His head swam with uncertainty. Maybe…

But then he remembered the room full of books. He sure as hell didn’t belong there. Books. A teacher. Things he’d never known.

Lobo thought of the humiliation of not being able to read, not even the telegrams that summoned him to do what he did best. The words had to be read to him by one of the few people he trusted in Denver. He could write his name but not much more. He could recognize denominations of bills, but he couldn’t add. He relied on his reputation to keep men from cheating him, and he had devised clever ways to keep people from learning he couldn’t read or write.

Lobo had wanted to learn, not only wanted, but craved the independence and power he believed came with it. But he’d always been afraid of being laughed at, at seeing fear change to ridicule in faces around him.

And he had never asked anyone for help.

Now he was getting weak-kneed about a woman who would despise a man of ignorance.

He swore every Apache curse and white oath he could remember. But none of it did any good.

9

B
rady scowled at the bull.
It had taken him three days to find the beast.

Not exactly three, he admitted. He had taken two to recover from the barn burning. Even then he hadn’t recovered from self-disgust.

He had not gotten far the first day before he had to stop. His stomach wouldn’t hold anything, and his head pounded like a hammer striking an anvil. He’d reached town, located a worn saddle for which he’d paid five dollars, and suffered the looks of contempt he’d seen often enough. He’d also bought some food, but as soon as he tried to eat, it came back up again.

He was tempted to take his gun and blow out his brains. But first he had to return the bull. And then he had to find out more about the cowhand who’d rescued him. He had to pay back. Dear God in heaven, he had so much to pay back.

Something about the cowboy had tugged at his consciousness during the past several days, but he’d been in too much pain to focus on it. Gradually, his mind and body had cleared of the poison he’d managed to consume the night the barn burned, and the nagging became even louder.

Although the image of the cowboy remained blurred, Brady had the eerie impression of recognition. And it wasn’t a favorable impression. Not that he could do anything if the stranger did intend some kind of harm.

Brady’s hand went to the gun in his holster. He tugged out the weapon and held it. His hand shook even worse than it had several days before. He remembered how the weapon used to feel, almost like part of his hand. He had been fast and good. He had proved how good when he chased down the Lassiter brothers. One by one he had taken them out. The last man, Dale Lassiter, he had chased for six months. And he had watched him die with the pleasure of a man damned.