Squire's Quest (27 page)

"In my britches?"

Laughter got the best of him, so shocked did she sound. Once he'd tamed it, he said,
"No, sweetheart, not in your britches. But you might want to keep your Union suit on for
now."

She looked down at her bare breasts and sniffed. "A little late for that. Turn
around."

Resisting the urge to ask why, he obeyed. After a moment he heard the rustle of
bedclothes.

"Will you take your britches off too?"

"Do you want me to?"

"No. Yes. I don't know."

"I do." He unbuttoned and dropped, slid between the coarse linen sheets before she
could see he'd taken off everything, not just his britches.

"This is sinful, isn't it?" Her voice trembled.

"I reckon. But just us being here together is probably nearly as sinful. What's that they
say about avoiding the appearance of evil?"

Rolling to his side, he propped his head on one elbow. "I'm likely crazy to say this, but
do you want to stop now?"

Even in the dim light cast by the fire and the single candle on the table, he saw her begin
gnawing on her lip again. "Cal, you're not going to have a lip left if you don't stop chewing
it."

With both hands she covered her mouth. "Oh! I'm sorry."

"No need to be. It doesn't hurt me, but it's might hurt when I kiss you." Slowly he leaned
forward until his lips touched the back of her hand. "Move your hand."

Up so close, he saw her wide eyes as more of a green blur than anything. Her hand
slowly moved to uncover her mouth. He kissed her lightly, let his tongue barely touch her poor,
gnawed lip. Tasted blood. "Oh, Cal, are you so scared?"

"I don't want to be."

"But you are." Drawing back wasn't easy, but he managed. After a few deep breaths
while he forced his mind into thoughts of icy wind and blowing snow, he felt his body slowly
relax. "I'll get the candle and bank the fire. You button up."

Even so, his doowhacker tented his underwear when he crawled back into bed.

Her breathing told him she was doing her best to pretend sleep. Her stiff body told him
she lied.

With a deep sigh, he turned on his side with his back to her. Tired as he was, sleep was a
long time coming.

* * * *

She trusted him. More than any other living person, man or woman. Only her ma had
been more careful of her, more kind to her. Looking across at his face, gilded by firelight, she
sought answers.

She could make no decision tonight. She was so tired her thoughts felt as frozen as the
ice crusting the mules' backs. She wasn't sure of the shape of her life either, for she'd never been
given a choice in it. Even now she had none, for without Merlin she'd be as helpless and as
homeless as she'd been the night her father had abandoned her in the depot.

Once she'd thought to marry, for in marriage would be refuge. Then she'd grown
older--and wiser--and realized that for some women marriage was a terrible trap. She had applied
herself to learning all Mrs. Flynn could teach her, so she'd have a trade instead. Far safer than a
husband.

She tasted blood, realized she'd been chewing her lip again. Had she hurt his feelings?
Or just disappointed him?

* * * *

Merlin was alone in the bed when he heard someone pounding on the door. Before he
could move, it opened, and Cal said, "Good heavens. You look half-frozen. How long did it take
you to dig your way here."

"Bit over an hour," Murphy Creek said. His next words were lost in the sounds of a
closing door and stomping feet.

"Hang your coat up and don't worry about the drips. I'll pour you some coffee."

"I'm obliged. Where's Merlin?" A chair scraped across the floor. "The boys are in the
barn. They'll take care of the mules today."

"Good. It's not a job for just two people." She looked toward the bed, where he'd pushed
himself upright. "Good morning. I was beginning to think you'd sleep all day." Her smile was
more teeth than dimples.

"Hard to sleep through that racket." He sent a glower toward Murphy. "Pull the curtain,
will you?"

Murphy did so, casting a smirk at Merlin as he did. He might have just as well spoken
his thoughts aloud.

Once he was dressed, save his boots, he went after coffee. Cal had a cup ready for him,
doctored the way he liked it, heavy on the cream and sugar. "We out of tea?" He knew he
sounded surly, but maybe he felt surly.

"No, but I thought we both needed coffee today. Guess I was wrong, since Murphy says
the men are already working in the barn."

"I heard him." He took his coffee back to the bed where he perched on the edge. "Any
chance of getting to town today?"

"I doubt it," Murphy said. "Wind's died back some, and it's stopped snowing, but it's still
drifting."

Well, hell.
Another day cooped up with Cal and he'd be a crazy man. "We need
coal."

"Plenty of wood. Now we've dug across the road, we can haul it over."

"Coal's better."

"What the hell-- Beg pardon, Callie. What the dickens is eatin' at you?"

"He's tired, that's all." Callie pulled her short coat from the peg and put it on. Next came
the hat, with a scarf to tie it down. "I'm going to empty the chamber pot. You men sort out who's
going to do what."

She pulled on her gloves and sent a glare toward him. "Just as long as you do it
somewhere else."

When the door slammed behind her, Murphy looked at Merlin, then at the bed in which
two people had obviously slept. "Ain't you learned anything about women in your travels? She
sure don't look well-loved."

"She's not."

"Why--"

"Just shut up, Murphy. Shut up and mind your own business."

The wind was still blowing the next day. The only way Merlin could tell it hadn't
stopped snowing was that the drifts grew each time he went out to dig his way to the barn. By the
end of the day, his shoulders and arms ached and the skin of his face felt flayed.

The scent of fresh bread filled the cabin when he finally went in for good. A round,
golden loaf sat on the small table.

Cal looked around when he entered. "You look like a snowman." There was just the hint
of a giggle in her voice. He had to smile himself, just at hearing it. Laughter was not something
she seemed in the habit of.

"I did my best to shake it all off, but looks like I didn't succeed." He removed his
ice-encrusted coat and hung it on the back of a chair, which he set near the fire. "This be in your
way?"

"No. Once I get this set just right, I'm done here for an hour." She scooted the Dutch
oven--where had that come from?--into the coals and used the scuttle to heap more atop it.

"I went exploring," she said when she'd placed it to her satisfaction and was brushing
ashes off her hands. "There's all sorts of interesting stuff stored up in the loft. Besides the Dutch
oven, there's a churn with a broken paddle, a rocking chair, and a cradle."

Her voice changed at the last word, making his ears prickle. She sounded
almost...yearning?

He sat to pull off his boots. They were well enough oiled that they weren't exactly wet,
but his feet would warm quicker without them. "I looked up there when I was settling in, but
didn't pay attention to the truck piled off in the corner. According to Murphy, there's been a
series of men living here for the last few years."

"A woman lived here once." She kept her back to him.

He went to her, laid his hands on her shoulders. "Cal, what's wrong?"

"I don't know. Something about the cradle--"

"Whatever baby used it is probably all grown up by now. This cabin's been here a
spell."

"Or dead," she whispered.

He turned her and wrapped his arms around her. "That's a pretty pessimistic view of
things. What makes you think the baby's dead?"

"My brother died. He was only two months old, and one morning Ma went to get him up
and he was dead. In his cradle."

What could he say? She was clearly still grieving . He patted her back.

"Pa didn't know about the baby when he left. He'd been so...peculiar ever since he came
back from the War. Sometimes he'd sit at the table and stare into the fire all day long. Other
times he'd act happy, laughing and joking all the time. But those times got farther and farther
apart. Finally, one day he told Ma he was strangling and he had to go away."

"Strangling? What a peculiar thing to say."

"I've thought so too. I still remember him stranding there in the middle of the kitchen.
He looked almost crazy, with his hair standing up where he'd run his hands through it and his
eyes kind of wild. "'I'm strangling on respectability, Emma. Out there--in the War--I learned to
be a savage, a killer. I learned to plunder and pillage and...worse.'

"He didn't say goodbye. He just walked out. It was a long time before he even wrote.
And when he did, it was just to tell us where he was. Ma said he'd send for us, when he got
settled. But he never did. When I got to Virginia City he--"

She whispered something.

Nudging her chin up, he said, "What was that again?"

"He said he wished I hadn't come."

What else could he do? He kissed her, in an effort to show her she mattered to him. even
if she hadn't to her father.

Because she was nearly his height, he found her mouth without hesitation. Her lips were
as soft, her body against his as sweet as he'd remembered. Merlin forgot to comfort and simply
enjoyed.

The breath came from her in a small moan. He slipped his tongue between her parted
lips and tasted mint and something else. Something uniquely Cal.

He explored her teeth, touched the tip of her tongue, which quickly retreated.

She pulled away. "That's not a kiss, not with your tongue."

"It is, but only if you want it to be." Tightening his arms around her, he let her feel how
his doowhacker was standing at attention. "Only if you want it to be."

He'd been coming to this moment ever since he'd seen her standing in a lighted doorway
and known who she was. Maybe he'd been heading this way even longer, because of all the girls
and women he'd known in his life, she was the one who had stuck in his mind, as often and as
strong as his sisters and Lulu, but... Different.

"I think this is what Mrs. Flynn told me to beware of," she said. "A sweet talking man
with only one thing on his mind."

He laughed. Couldn't help it. "Likely so. But I didn't say anything all that sweet."
Leaning his forehead against hers, he moved his head just enough so the tips of their noses
rubbed together.

"Sometimes you talk sweet. And you saved my life. More than once. Ever since the time
back in Eagle Rock."

"My Uncle Silas would say that means I'm responsible for you. He says it's a Chinese
Obligation."

Her chuckle surprised him. "Why Chinese?"

"It's a long story, one for another day." The woman hunger was on him, hotter than it
had ever been.
Pa, you warned me there'd come a time I couldn't think straight, and this may
be it. What am I to do? Cal's a good woman.

She moved just then, and the pressure of her soft breasts against his chest was almost
too tempting. Swallowing hard, he forced himself to step back. "I-I've got work to do. The
mules--"

"Yes, of course. And I've got baking..." She looked up from under those thick, dark
lashes.

He caught a glimpse of green. Was she laughing at him?

* * * *

Callie came out of sleep instantly.

Something's wrong.

Beside her, Merlin snored softly. He'd told her how the scars from the cougar bite had
changed the shape of his nose, more inside than out. If he slept too long on his right side he had
trouble breathing.

Keeping her eyes closed and her breathing shallow, she listened. Something had
disturbed her sleep. A noise? Yes, but what kind of noise? It hadn't been the wind. She'd grown
used to the way it rattled the lid to the woodbin, whistled in the chimney.

Closing her eyes, she tried to hear it in memory. A squeak? Yes, like snow made when it
was cold. It must have come from right outside the window near the head of the bed. She
probably wouldn't have noticed if it had come from the other side of the cabin.

After a while she felt her mind wandering in the drifting, floating way it did when she
was falling asleep. And then she heard the squeak again. Not so loud this time. If she hadn't been
paying attention, she might have missed it.

Wind sang across the chimney top and the latch rattled.

Had Merlin remembered to bar the door? She doubted it.

The rattle came again, and this time she knew it wasn't the wind.
Someone--something?--was trying to get in.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she was out of bed and across the room. The
plank that served as a bar for the door was leaning against the wall under the coats. She slammed
it into place.

There. You'll not get in now.

The latch stopped rattling the instant she'd picked up the plank, for the end of it had
struck her boots and toppled one. Leaning against the door, she strained to hear who--what?--was
outside.

The wind gusted again, and suddenly ceased its howl, almost as if it had been turned off
at the source. She felt the difference on her bare feet, for the drafts that had been playing across
the floor for two days were gone. There was a softness to the night's silence, as if all sound was
muffled by new-fallen snow.

Moving carefully, she set her ear against the door. She'd counted to a hundred fifty-nine
before she heard the squeaking noise again, loud at first, but fading, as if someone was walking
away from the cabin.

One step after another, growing fainter with each one.

Murphy?

Or someone else?

She'd bet Murphy was snug in his bed across the road. She wouldn't lay odds on some of
the teamsters. Most were older and seemed like decent sorts, but there had been a couple, young
and cocky, who'd watched her with speculation in their eyes.