Patricia Potter (23 page)

But she didn’t pry any further, and he was surprised. She turned away, lifting her gaze to the sky. “Orion, the hunter,” she said.

His eyes followed hers, but he didn’t know what she was talking about.

She sensed his confusion. “Patterns,” she said. “The stars make up constellations, pictures in the sky,” she added when she saw his look of bewilderment.

Hell, they just looked like stars to him. His eyes went back to her. She was even prettier in the moonlight. The auburn hair was darker and her eyes were a deeper shade of blue, so deep and glowing that he ached all over again.

“See,” she said, pointing. “That group up there looks like a dipper.”

He looked, but he didn’t see. It still appeared like a bunch of stars to him. Besides, he couldn’t concentrate on anything but the sweet smell of her hair, the gentle curve of her lips as she spoke.

“Yeah,” he replied because an answer seemed expected.

She smiled suddenly at the lack of conviction in his voice. He was obviously not a dreamer.

Willow looked up at him, at the strong profile, the lips that seldom smiled. But they had for a moment, when he’d kissed her very, very gently. She wanted to ask him so much, but she was afraid that questions might push him away, might make him bolt as he had many other times.

She chose the one she hoped was the least likely to send him running. “Why did you decide to stay?”

He was silent for so long, she was sure he wasn’t going to answer. He was still looking up, and she wanted to kick him to bring his attention back to her.

“I don’t like people telling me what to do,” he said finally.

He must mean Sullivan, she thought. Sullivan wouldn’t be happy to know he was responsible, if, indeed, he was, and Jess wasn’t just using him as an excuse.

“Did you really work for Mr. Newton?”

He shifted against the fence. “Yeah.”

“And now?”

“I don’t like people who lie to me.”

Willow bit her lip. She decided that milking a wild range cow would be easier than getting Jess to talk. Anything would be easier. “And Alex Newton lied?”

“He didn’t mention certain important details.”

“Such as?” she prompted him.

“I don’t fight kids,” he said flatly. “Newton didn’t bring up anything about kids when he sent for me.” There was a long pause, as if he were considering his words. “Something like that can hurt a man’s reputation,” he added, a bit defensively.

“And that matters so much.”

“Lady, when you’re in my business, it matters a hell of a lot.” He was deliberately rude, but Willow wasn’t easily driven away.

“Alex won’t like it,” she told him.

“He’ll get over it.”

Willow hesitated before asking, “Is it over, then?”

He turned and glared at her. “Lady, it’s just beginning. Newton’s hiring every gun hand he can find. You’re going to have a range war, and if you care about those kids, you’ll get out of here.”

She looked away from his intense study. “This is the only home they’ve ever had. They’ve voted to stay.”

“A vote?” Bewilderment was back in his voice. “Kids?”

Willow nodded.

“Nothing will convince you?”

“Can you assure me there won’t be a range war if I leave?”

Lobo snorted. “With Canton here! Hell, no. The pot’s boiling and no one seems much interested in dousing the fire. But you don’t have to be in the middle of it.”

“Do you know…Mr. Canton?”

“Yeah, we know each other.”

“He killed someone the other night.”

“So?” The short word was nothing less than a challenge. His implication that gunfighters killed hung unsaid in the night air.

Willow swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. He was trying to frighten her off, and the more he tried, the more she wondered why. “Why do they call you Lobo?”

He shrugged. “The Apache gave me the name. It seemed as good as any.”

“As good as Jess?”

He scowled. “I told you he died.”

Willow didn’t say anything, but the silence was heavy with her doubt.

He turned away from her. “Lobo fits, lady. Believe me.”

“The wolf is a social animal,” Willow said as if reading out of a book. “He mates for life.”

Lobo turned and stared at her icily. “Unless he’s an outcast, chased from the pack, and then he turns on his own kind.” There was no self-pity in the observation, only the cold recital of fact.

“Is that what happened?”

Lobo felt his gut wrench. He’d never meant to say what he had, had not even consciously thought it before. A cold dread seeped through him as he realized how much control of himself he was losing.

“Lady, I’ve done things that would make you puke. So why don’t you go back to your nice little house and leave me alone.”

Willow hesitated. She sensed the turmoil in him, and it echoed her own churning emotions.

“I don’t care about the past,” she finally said.

He laughed roughly. “I don’t scare you at all?”

She knew he wanted her to say yes. She knew she should say yes. She should be fearful of someone with his reputation, his life. But she wasn’t.

“No,” she answered.

“You don’t know me, lady.”

“Willow.”

He shook his head. “And the last thing you should do is be out here with me.”

“Sullivan would agree.” The woman inside her couldn’t resist the retort. If he didn’t like people telling him what to do, perhaps Sullivan’s warning would make him stay.

That snapped his head around. “He got any call on you?” His eyes were like green-blue fire.

“Only that of a friend,” she said.

“He was making cow eyes at Newton’s girl.”

“Good,” Willow said with satisfaction.

He looked at her suspiciously. He didn’t understand her. He didn’t understand anything about her. Any other woman he knew would be spitting mad not to be the center of attention.

“Were you with the Apache long?” she asked softly.

It was a sneaky question, and he stiffened. “Long enough.”

She sensed his withdrawal, if it was possible that he could distance himself any farther than he already had. The kiss might never had happened, except it was so vivid in her mind.

Her hand went out to his, which was wrapped around the post. “Thank you for staying.”

His hand seemed to tremble, and she wondered if she imagined it.

“You may not be grateful long,” he replied shortly.

“You will stay, then?”

“A few days,” he replied. “But the town won’t like it. I’m usually not welcome.”

“If Alex can hire you, I can,” she answered defiantly.

“But Newton has money, and you…?”

Again the implication was clear, and she knew she was flushing a bright red. She hoped the moonlight didn’t reveal it, but she saw the glint in his eye and knew her hope was in vain.

Her thoughts turned to what had been nagging her, to the violent death that had occurred a week earlier. “Mr. Canton…”

“Marsh Canton,” Lobo supplied.

“You won’t have to fight him if you stay?” Her hand shook slightly as she posed the haunting question.

The glint was still in his eye. “A lot of folks been waiting for that.”

“I don’t want you to stay if—”

“I think, lady, that Marsh Canton and I are probably on the same side now.”

“I’ve never seen anyone so…fast,” she whispered.

His right hand went to his neck. “He’s good. Aren’t you going to ask me if I’m just as good?”

She didn’t want to think of him that way. She preferred thinking of him hauling poor Jupiter from the barn. “No,” she whispered.

“That’s what I do, you know,” he persisted almost angrily. “I’m no hero like you want to believe. I’m a killer just like Canton. You want to know how many people I’ve killed?”

Her gaze was glued to his eyes, to the swirling, dangerous currents in them. She heard the raw self-contempt in his voice, but what he was saying didn’t matter to her, not to the way she felt about him, not to the way she wanted to…touch and hold and…

“I was twelve when I first killed,” he continued in the same voice. “Twelve. About Chad’s age, I guess. I found I was real good at it.”

His eyes, filled with tormented memories and even rage, blazed directly at her. And she felt her need for him deepen, felt her heart pound with the compulsion to disprove his reason for self-derision.

But she couldn’t move, and she had no words that wouldn’t anger or hurt or sound naive and silly. That, she sensed, was what he was waiting for so he could have a reason to leave. The currents running between them were stronger than ever, and Lobo was willing her to say or do something to destroy it, but she was just as determined not to. Silence stretched between them but something else too, something so strong that neither could back away.

If she’d offered compassion or sympathy, Lobo could have broken through her hold on him. But she gave neither. Instead, he was warmed by the unfamiliar glow of understanding, of unquestioning acceptance. He basked in it, feeling whole for the first time that he could remember. All of a sudden he realized this was what he’d been searching for, not freedom but something so elusive he’d never been able to put a name to it.

And it was too late. His insides churned and twisted with pure agony as he realized that one indisputable fact. He carried too much trouble with him. His reputation, which he had so carefully nurtured, was a noose around his neck. The older he got, the more the rope tightened. He could live with that, but he couldn’t live with the fact that it was also a noose around the neck of anyone foolish enough to care for him.

He forced himself to take a step back, to fight his way out of the moment’s intimacy, one deeper than any he’d ever shared with a person, deeper than when he plunged his manhood into a woman. Christ!

“Lady, you should run like hell!” His voice was harsh, grating. “You and those kids don’t need the kind of grief I bring.”

She worried her lips as she sought for something to say, to somehow express her belief in him, but before she found the words, he spoke again.

“And I sure as hell don’t need
you.”
He emphasized the last word as if trying to convince himself, and once again he stepped back.

“Jess…”

His mouth seemed to soften for a moment, and he hesitated. But then his mouth firmed again, and his eyes turned hard. He bowed slightly, mockingly. “If I’m going to be of any use to you, ma’am, I’d better turn in.”

He strolled lazily back to the barn and disappeared within, leaving Willow feeling desolate and alone.

14

W
hen Willow rose the next morning after a restless sleep, she went to the window, moved the curtains, and looked toward the barn.
She didn’t want to. In fact, she tried to keep herself from doing so.

But she might as well have tried not to breathe.

Her eyes searched for him, though she knew he probably still slept. It had been very late when she’d returned to her room, and the sun was just now touching the earth. She heard noises downstairs; Estelle must already be up.

It was Sunday. No school.

She usually took the children into town for church services, although Chad always declined as Estelle did, and she understood. Both felt uncomfortable in crowds. To force the issue would only worsen matters.

But all thoughts of church, of leaving the ranch even for a few hours, fled when Jess came into view. He and Brady were hauling lumber into the new barn. Brady’s movements were stiff, but Jess’s were smooth and graceful, seemingly effortless.

He was not wearing a shirt, and his skin was bronze and glistening in the early morning sun. His sand-colored hair was streaked, thick and tousled as if he’d run his fingers through it. Daylight did nothing to diminish the aura of danger and strength that was so much a part of him; neither did it soften the harsh planes of his face.

Willow swallowed hard, wondering how she could be attracted to Jess though he was a paid killer. For that attraction was still there, that fierce, compelling need, that budding excitement in the pit of her stomach whenever she saw him. But now there was also fear.

A gunfighter, she thought again. He was everything she should detest. He was not, as she’d thought, a paladin, or knight or crusader. But he had become their protector. For some reason he had chosen to become that.

But that didn’t change what he was.

She shook her head as she concentrated on the man. Even from this distance she could feel his pull on her, and she wondered whether he was also feeling that attraction. Or was it all her imagination, that of a lovestruck old maid?

She went to her closet and frowned at her dresses. All of them, except for the one she’d worn to the dance, were eminently practical and respectable; Willow had little extra money for luxuries.