Patricia Potter (24 page)

Calling herself all sorts of foolish woman, she finally decided on a dark blue dress, which, though a little faded, gave depth to her eyes and luster to her lightly tanned skin. It was also cool, with little puffed sleeves.

She donned it, knowing that doing so meant she was not going to go to church. The dress, though modest enough, was not appropriate for attending service.

Feeling a little like a student skipping school, she brushed her hair until it shone and debated at length over whether to leave it loose or shape it into the usual convenient knot. She compromised with herself, braiding it into one thick plait that fell halfway down her back. Despite ominous whispers in the back of her mind, she felt reckless and ridiculously happy when she opened the door and walked into the kitchen.

The twins were setting the table, and Sallie Sue was gazing out the window, holding tightly to her favorite rag doll. Estelle was at the stove, stirring the contents of a pot. The smell of something baking floated up from inside the old stove.

Willow wrinkled her nose. There was also the slightest odor of scorched food.

Estelle was humming. The tone was sweet and clear, and Willow realized suddenly that she’d never heard Estelle hum before. When Estelle realized Willow was there, she turned and smiled shyly. “I told Jeremy to add another plate. Is that all right?”

Willow didn’t have to ask why. She merely nodded and asked curiously. “You like him, don’t you?”

Estelle ducked her head slightly. “He don’t look at me funny…like I was a freak or something.” Shame was heavy in her voice, and Willow wondered whether it would ever go away. It was caused not only by the eye, but also by Estelle’s past. She had been made to feel worthless and unclean for so long, she’d come to believe it. Willow blessed Jess for not judging Estelle, and she wondered briefly if he didn’t do it because he himself had been judged so many times.

The scorching smell became a little more pronounced, and Willow thought she’d better do something. “Where’s Chad?”

“Outside,” Estelle said.

“Jeremy, why don’t you go call him and Brady and Jess.”

Jeremy obeyed eagerly, happy to have Jimmy finish their mundane chore.

“D’you think he likes oatmeal?” Estelle asked worriedly. “We don’t have any bacon.”

“I think oatmeal and biscuits will be just fine,” Willow said, wishing they had something more substantial. But the drought and the imminent demise of her garden had made her very careful with money. They did have coffee, milk, and fresh butter, and the jelly given to them by Mrs. MacIntyre.

The door slammed open, and Jeremy flew through. “They’re coming,” he said, and Willow breathed a sigh of relief. She had questioned whether Jess would eat with them or not. Estelle and the children would have been terribly disappointed, not to mention herself.

He came in last, buttoning a shirt, his face damp from a quick washing. He looked awkward in the kitchen, as if unused to being in a gathering, but he sat easily enough where Chad indicated, between him and Sallie Sue. Chad’s eyes shone and his gaze seldom left the man next to him.

Brady took his usual seat, his face flushed, and Willow wondered whether it was from anger or work or both. His eyes filled with suspicions and dislike whenever he looked across the table at Jess, and Jess’s were no more friendly when drawn to Brady. The air was tense with their mutual dislike, and Willow swallowed, wondering whether an explosion was imminent.

Estelle ladled out the lumpy oatmeal and, sure enough, the bottom of the pot was brown and burnt. When Estelle returned to the stove, Willow saw Jess raise one eyebrow. Then he shrugged and started eating. She smiled to herself, once more warming to his consideration.

The others, who had been awaiting his reaction to the food, sighed with relief, all except Brady, who continued to glare.

The biscuits came and, to Willow’s surprise, they were golden and light. Jess’s eyes filled with approval, and shy, retiring Estelle nearly swelled with pride.

Sallie Sue held out a biscuit to him. “Please put jelly on mine.”

Everyone turned and looked at him, and he nearly smiled as he looked down at the small girl’s serious face. He took the biscuit solemnly and very carefully spread it with butter and jelly, receiving a broad, happy smile in return. Even Brady’s sour look softened slightly, and they ate in almost agreeable silence.

“I looked at the garden,” Lobo said suddenly. “Why don’t you dig a trench from the river?”

Willow felt hope begin to tug at her. “I’ve…thought about it…but I don’t know how.”

“I’ve seen it done,” Lobo said. “I think with all of us we can do it. Do you have a plow?”

“I…we…did. It was in the old barn.”

A chair scraped across the floor, and Brady rose. He stalked out of the kitchen without a word, and Willow wondered whether she should go after him. He was hurting. It was in his every movement.

Lobo shrugged. “Can you get one?”

“I can try.”

He nodded, finished his coffee, and stood. Almost as an afterthought, he looked at Estelle. “Your cooking sure beats mine.” It was, Willow thought, probably as close to a thank-you as he could manage, but Estelle understood and smiled.

Willow was almost jealous jerking open the door and disappearing outside.

“I
ASKED YOU
before, how long you planning to stay?” Brady’s anger was throbbing as they worked together on a stall for Jupiter.

“When your hand stops shaking enough to give them some protection,” Lobo said.

“I don’t get it. What in the hell do you want?”

Lobo stopped hammering, and he looked almost puzzled. “Damn if I know.”

Some of the antagonism slipped from Brady’s voice. “Did you really quit Newton?”

“Hell no. I’m just doing this ’cause I like sweating.” He paused. “Look, I know you don’t like me. I damn sure don’t like you any better. But I wouldn’t harm them, and I won’t let anyone else harm them. That’s the first and last time I’m sayin’ it.”

Brady placed a new board in place while Lobo hammered it. Brady wanted to say the gunslinger was hurting Willow just by being there. Brady wasn’t so far gone he didn’t recognize the look on Willow’s face, and it chilled him straight to the bone. He’d never met an old gunslinger. They either died by the bullet or the rope, never old age.

But Brady didn’t say anything. Because Lobo was right. He couldn’t protect Willow, and perhaps this man beside him was the only one who could. But at what price?

“I haven’t lost my nerve,” Brady growled.

“No,” Lobo agreed. “You’ve just let the bottle get you.”

Brady’s hands tightened around the board, though it no longer needed support. “I’ll beat it.”

“Like you did the other night?”

“You won’t let me forget that, will you?”

Lobo shrugged in what was becoming a very familiar gesture to Brady. “Can
you?”

“No.” The voice was devoid of emotion.

“Why?”

“Why did it happen? Partially because of you. What you represent.” Brady’s voice was defeated. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe they would be better off without me.”

“Is that what you think?” Lobo asked with detachment. “Give me another board.”

Brady handed it to him as he tried to figure him out. He’d known dozens of gunfighters; they’d come through his towns swaggering and boasting and killing. But Lobo was different. There was no swagger in him, only deadly purpose, and for some reason he’d turned it against the man who’d hired him. Brady knew he ought to be grateful, but he wasn’t. He feared for Willow, feared for her even more now than when Lobo was on the other side.

By midday Brady was ready to drop, but Lobo seemed affected neither by the heat nor the work, and Brady couldn’t make himself quit before Lobo did. He felt the sweat rolling down his face and trickling down the back of his shirt as he lifted and carried lumber to the barn. Although he’d taken care of chores in the past months, it had been a very long time since he’d worked this steadily and this hard, especially after a binge. His heart pounded with fatigue, and he felt sick to his stomach, but still he kept pace.

Brady knew that Lobo was not much younger than he, but Brady felt a hundred years older and knew he looked it. And yet as he worked, a certain satisfaction that he wasn’t quitting settled over him. He didn’t even need a drink, and that fact surprised him more than anything. Perhaps he was just too exhausted to care about anything but getting through the day without disgracing himself, without proving himself inferior to Lobo.

It was midafternoon when Willow appeared with a basket containing sandwiches, coffee, and cups. She had sent for them around noon to come inside for lunch, but Lobo had declined and Brady followed suit. Now Brady welcomed the break, thanked Willow, and took a cup and sandwich outside to a tree. As much as he hated to leave Willow and Lobo alone, he needed some rest and he needed it away from Lobo’s damning, probing eyes. He’d hesitated for a moment at the barn door, but he knew little could happen so close to the house with the children running in and out.

After Brady left, Lobo stared at Willow and her offerings. He’d tried his best to avoid her, purposely avoiding the midday meal. The intimacy of breakfast, the faces that had turned so trustingly toward him, had made him uncomfortable and confused. He didn’t deserve such trust. He didn’t want it.

So he’d turned all his energy to the barn, and it had quietly amused him that Brady Thomas felt obliged to try to keep up. Lobo had purposely kept his pace fast, knowing he was challenging, even taunting, the other man. But it was time someone did that. Lobo had neither sympathy nor pity for Thomas’s obvious distress; he’d brought it on himself.

But the pace had also partially been for himself. The activity kept his mind from the ranch house, from the woman who lived there. It had been all he could do the night before not to touch her, to pull her into his arms and see whether she felt as good as he remembered. This morning at breakfast hadn’t been much better. She’d looked so damn fresh, so pretty, so untouched and innocent.

He had considered lighting out more than once during the early morning hours. But he’d given his word, and he never went back on his word. At least that was what he’d been telling himself.

As he looked at her standing in the light streaming through the open barn door, he knew he’d been lying to himself just as he had since he first saw her. Warmth started prickling again at the pit of his stomach, and his heart seemed to swell and quicken.

He wanted to dismiss these odd reactions as foolishness or the result of too much work, but he knew that wasn’t true. His hands ached to touch her; his lips wanted to wander down her face; his eyes wanted to feast on her. And there was a certain pain, a certain constriction in his throat as he realized no one had ever gone to trouble for him before. Not voluntarily. Not because they wanted to.

The sudden ache the realization brought made him frown. “You needn’t have done that. I don’t need much.”

She tipped her head up, her eyes sliding over his body as he’d done to her the previous night, and he moved uncomfortably under her scrutiny.

“You’re too thin,” she pronounced with a slight smile.

His eyes turned cloudy as he fought back a retort, and suddenly he realized she was teasing him. Mischief showed all over her face.

He narrowed his eyes in a way that usually made people cower. “Whites eat too much,” he growled.

“Is that what you learned from the Apache?” The question was posed quite naturally as she held out freshly baked bread.

“Along with other things,” he said, not reaching out to take it.

His voice was a warning, as if he were daring her to ask more. She accepted the challenge. “What other things?”

“How to use a knife. How to scalp.” The last was dropped like a cannon shell. He only partially expected her to pale, perhaps to leave; he’d already learned she had more grit than most women, or even men.

“I didn’t think Apaches scalped,” she said, apparently not at all concerned.

He stared at her. That was the last thing he’d expected her to say.

“They don’t, usually,” he answered, wondering where she’d picked up that piece of information. Most whites lumped all Indians together and believed they all practiced scalping. “But after a big victory they sometimes take one for a religious ceremony. It’s sort of an obligation to the most high for giving them victory. Whites,” he added balefully, “took a helluva lot more scalps than Apaches.”

An interested look came to her eyes, not condemning or horror-stricken.

“There was a bounty on Apache scalps, but scalp hunters seldom cared if they were Apaches or a tribe friendly to whites, or even Mexicans.” Christ, but he was saying more than he’d ever said before, particularly about his years with the Apache.

She had dropped her hand with the bread in it. “How long were you with them?” she asked.

He didn’t say anything for several minutes. Instead, he leaned against the newly built stall and seemed to study his hands. “A long time,” he said finally, reluctantly.

“Your family?” She couldn’t let it go, not now when he was giving her answers.

His eyes darkened, and she could see his mental retreat from her. “I’ll take some of that coffee,” he said, ignoring the question and taking the cup in his fingers.