Seduced (4 page)

“Oh,” Annie whispered. “Heaven help us.”

The stranger was tall and lean, his face whiskered. Another time, in another place, his black eyes might have been considered handsome. But now, in this field surrounded by an air of violence and danger that was so palpable, so real as to be nearly visible, all she could think was,
This is the devil come to visit.

“Melody,” Jimmy snapped and she tore her eyes from the stranger and smiled at her husband, wearing her charm and manners like a dress that no longer fit, because Jimmy demanded it. Not in so many words, of course. She doubted he had the intelligence to understand that. But it was a part of what she'd learned managing his anger.

And she welcomed the part, the distance it gave her between the woman married to that monster and what was left of the woman she'd been. The woman who'd turned the soil behind her. It was strange to realize now that she relished her performance, because it no longer bore any resemblance to who she was.

“Welcome back,” she said, crossing the small patch of grass toward the horses. Jacks, she noticed, looked hard used, and she wished she could kick her husband with the same spurs he’d used against Jacks's white hindquarters. “You had a successful trip?”

“I found a prospector,” Jimmy said, cutting a glance to the stranger, who stared at her with hard eyes. Sweat broke out under her arms. But she lifted her ratty, dirty skirt in the curtsy Mama had taught her, as if he were a gentleman come to call.

“A pleasure to meet you…”

“Cole, Mrs. Hurst,” the man said, tugging on the brim of his hat. “Cole Smith.” The name was dubious. They had traveled with a lot of Smiths after the war, men leaving past deeds behind. It did nothing to instill confidence in this man who seemed more sword than flesh.

“Welcome, sir. Please, call me Melody—”

“Call her Mrs. Hurst,” Jimmy said, his smile a slice in his marred face. “I like that.”

Cole Smith continued to stare at her, as if gauging her reaction, so she gave him none. “Allow me to introduce my sister, Annie Denoe,” she said, pointing toward Annie, where she clung to the shadows of the porch.

“Ma’am,” he said again with that dip of his head.

“She don’t talk,” Jimmy said, unbuckling his saddlebags and letting them fall to the ground before dismounting. “A mute gimp.”

Melody felt her skin glow red hot but she kept her eyes on Jacks, reaching for his reins as Jimmy picked up the bags and headed for the barn.

“The women will take your horse,” Jimmy said over his shoulder.

The stranger shook his head. “I care for my own.”

Melody gave the stranger her most dazzling smile, the one that had helped her snare Christopher before the war.

To think that had once been my finest accomplishment
.

“It’s quite all right,” she said. The stranger could not go into the barn, not with Mr. Baywood there. Her head spun at the thought. This man did not seem as if his hands were clean in the moral sense, but Jimmy would kill him just for being here if he found Mr. Baywood. Jimmy was a man who covered his tracks in a very brutal way. “We have room to spare.”

“You're well outfitted.” His eyes seared over her skin, and she was sure he could see the lies and sweat on her. His words sounded like an accusation and she pretended her feathers were ruffled by his insinuations.

“My husband has taken great care in securing us this home.”

Not quite a lie, but she felt the false bottom of it and knew if pressed it would collapse. She would collapse.

His black eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.

“I’ll camp.” He pointed to the copse of trees on the far side of the clearing, away from the barn but facing the front door to the house. “My horse will stay with me. But water would be appreciated.”

“Of course,” Melody said with a smile. “I’m assuming you will be joining us for dinner."

"Only if there's enough."

That made her pause. The world was hungry since the war, no one turned down a meal.

"Judging by my husband’s saddlebags he has bought provisions. Why, it will almost seem a party, won’t it?”

After nodding politely, Cole clucked his horse into motion, walking away from Melody. Annie rushed to her side. As Cole walked past the porch, he stopped, something on the wood gathering his attention.

The bloodstain.

They’d scrubbed it best they could, but the heart of the red stain remained, screaming violence. After a long, agonizing moment Cole moved on.

Melody let out a breath and rested her head against Jacks's neck. Her hands shook, her legs felt like water. “What have we done?” she whispered.

But Annie did not answer. Annie did not talk when Jimmy was near. It was as if she’d reverted back to the girl she’d been before the war. Shy and silent. But watching. Always watching. It was a trick she'd refined in ballrooms, much to Mama's dismay.

There were times Melody wanted to shake her. Force her to talk, because she could not stand the silence. Could not tolerate for one more moment just the sound of Jimmy’s voice in her ear.

But in many ways it was Annie’s way of protecting herself, by not attracting Jimmy’s notice.

The way Melody wore her charm and grace, Annie wore her silence.

And both acts made Melody feel alone sometimes. Alone inside a cage.

This is no time to fall apart.

“We just need to keep them away from the spring,” Melody said and Annie nodded. Together they walked toward the barn, leading Jacks. But Melody felt the burn of the stranger’s eyes on her back as she walked. There was no telling what he thought of her, but as long as it wasn’t the truth, they were safe.

“I'll stay here,” Annie said.

Melody nodded, thinking of her husband making a meal of Annie and her leg and the way she allowed him to think she was mute. Annie was not bothered by the names Jimmy called her, the abuse he heaped on her head, but there were times Melody could barely stop herself from leaping to her feet and scratching out his hateful eyes. His malicious tongue.

“Keep Mr. Baywood quiet.”

“You?” Annie whispered.

Melody squeezed Annie’s hand. “I will be all right.”

Another lie with a false bottom.

MRS. HURST WAS a china doll. A beautiful, fragile doll. If Cole were to grab her wrist, he was sure she would shatter.

Mrs. Hurst was also a very unwelcome and unexpected complication.

He'd been in Denver three days when he heard the news that there was a blond man with a deserter's brand staying over at Delilah's looking for a rock oil prospector. And Cole had been following a blond man with a deserter's brand for months.

Cole had gone to Delilah's and there Jimmy sat, slouched over the bar. He had kept his hat pulled low, but in the bright sunlight coming through the door he could not hide that
D
scarring his flesh, high on the cheek, nearly obliterating one eye.

There simply was not enough coincidence in the world, so Cole put his hand out and said, “I hear you're looking for a prospector.”

After an interview that consisted mostly of Cole buying Jimmy something to drink and saying all the words he knew as they related to oil prospecting, he was hired. He'd learned early on as a bounty hunter that lies were mostly about confidence and eye contact. Cole named a price, Jimmy agreed and paid half up front, and then Cole followed him from Denver up to this clearing. To this cabin with its bloodstained porch.

And two women.

Melody slid a dried venison steak that she'd boiled onto his tin plate and followed that up with a scoop of beans, carefully attempting to hide the bruises on her arm with the small sleeve of her gown.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said and she nodded, her smile brief and practiced before being quickly put away.

Thirty seconds in that clearing and he'd known three things.

The horses were hers.

Jimmy hated his beautiful wife as much as he wanted to own her.

And, most importantly . . . this land wasn’t his.

But Cole couldn't be sure that it was his brother's. Yet.

Initially, Cole had thought he was tracking his younger brother Gavin, but the rumors said that the man gathering Steven's letters from the newspapers had a Georgia home guard brand on his face. Gavin was from West Virginia and Cole could not imagine his baby brother deserting anything.

So he’d given up on the stranger being Gavin, but continued to track the man who was pretending to be kin, picking up the letters Steven had left behind.

But in all those months of following Jimmy, talking to innkeepers and bartenders and the newspaper men with their black fingers, there'd never been mention of a wife. Or a mute, gimp sister.

Had Jimmy hid them so well? Or was this the wrong man?

For taking his brother’s letters, Cole meant to question Jimmy. For killing Steven and squatting on his land, should that be the case, Cole would kill the coward.

But what the hell was he supposed to do with Jimmy’s wife?

He’d killed a woman, once. Tracking a man and his partner who'd robbed a wagon train and shot a sheriff. He'd tracked the thief across Missouri and found him outside Kansas City. Cole had shot both the thief and the man he had thought was the thief’s partner—only to find out it was the man’s wife.

Guilty or not, Cole was still haunted by the sight of that long, red braid in the dust.

It was terrible proof of how far he'd fallen. Proof he was no longer the man he'd been before the war—the gentleman farmer who'd never dreamt of violence. Never imagined how much blood would one day cover his hands.

And that was why he didn't just pull his guns now and demand answers from Jimmy. Someone always got hurt when guns were pulled.

But if Mrs. Hurst had had a hand in hurting Steven, then it was up to God to have mercy on her soul, because he would not.

The sight of that bloodstain on the porch would not leave his mind. Something terrible had happened here, and recently. And the way the Hursts pretended that all was fine made him deeply suspicious.

He wore his guns to the dinner table.

“Your sister will not be joining us?” he asked.

“Oh, no, she is caring for Jacks. He appears to have been wounded on the ride.” She said it with a smile, as if she had no idea how a man’s spurs worked.

“She’s better out there with the horses,” Jimmy said. “Half animal herself.”

Cole was watching Mrs. Hurst and he did not see any betrayal of emotion. No flash of pride or defense. Nothing but that cool smile.

An incredibly convincing liar. Or . . . she was just that cold.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve fed a guest.” She sat down on the other stump used as a chair and picked up her own fork and knife.

“He’s not a guest.” Jimmy’s lips and chin were shiny; he was already half through his steak. The level of whiskey in the bottle at his elbow was going down after every bite.

“That’s right,” she said, bright as day, as if immune to the tensions at the table. “An oil prospector. I must confess I’ve never heard of the profession. Is that interesting work?”

Cole had no idea. He’d been a farmer, soldier and a bounty hunter—but never a prospector. The only reason he was one now was because that’s what Jimmy had been looking for in Denver and that’s how he could get onto the land without pulling his guns.

Once he got his answers about Steven, he could kill this man and put his guns away forever.

“Your work must have taken you to some wonderful places,” she said when he didn’t answer.

He had not been to anyplace wonderful. Not for many years.

“Well.” She still talked despite his silence. He was making her efforts at conversation nearly impossible. His sister, if she were alive and here, would kick his shins under the table. “Everyone talks about gold and silver; I had no idea rock oil was out here, as well.”

“Not as profitable as gold and silver, so most people don’t care.” His voice was rough from disuse. He cleared his throat.

She blinked, as if surprised he could speak. “Well, still, it is a treat to have you here.”

He laughed down at his plate, taken sideways by her flattery. It had been a very long time since he’d sat down to a table with a lady. And he’d thought his manners and charm long gone, but he was surprised to find them, shabby and rusty, but intact nonetheless.

“You have a poor idea of treats, if I am to be considered one.”

“Oh?” She tilted her head, the blond hair gleaming in the firelight. “And what would you consider a treat?”

“A plum. A fresh one.”

Her laughter was bright; it brought his head around with surprise. When was the last time he'd heard a lady laugh? “I feel the same way about peaches,” she said. “There are days I think I could cry for missing—”

Jimmy’s hand snaked across the table to grab her wrist. She did not flinch or wince, her smile was intact, but she went pale, her lips tight. She glanced down at the table and her eyelids fluttered.

He was hurting her.

Cole’s hand slipped under the table toward his Colt.

“It’s nice, ain't it?” Jimmy asked, his eyes trained on Cole.

“What is?” Cole asked.

“My wife's voice. Reminds me of home. She used to play piano. Had all the boys in knots, lining up to turn the music pages while she played.”

Jimmy let go of Mrs. Hurst's wrist and she put her hands in her lap, her smile trembling at the edges. This was the first and only sign that the tensions around the table were affecting her. Evidence that she was not what she seemed, other than a very good actress.

His relief was a faint echo of pleasure.

He did not want to kill her.

“More beans,” Jimmy said, and Mrs. Hurst jumped from her chair to get the pot.

“So, you think there’s oil here?” Jimmy asked Cole.

“There was some found in Canon City in '62, and there are seeps all over this area.”

“I heard the army is paying top dollar.”

“Crude sells for six dollars a barrel in Denver.” And that was the extent of what he knew about rock oil.

Jimmy smacked his hand down on the table, and Mrs. Hurst flinched so hard she brushed her hand over the hot pot and hissed in pain. Jimmy did nothing, but returned to eating with a certain gleam in his eye as he watched her suffering.