The Devil's Own Desperado (7 page)

Colt released Saul’s arm and smiled, his expression softening. “Saul, part of growing up means knowing when to bide your time and when to bite your tongue. It means a well-raised young man does not talk in a disrespectful manner to a lady. Respecting a lady means coming to the table with your hair combed and the tail of your shirt tucked into your trousers.”

“She’s just my sister.” Despite his protests, Saul stood and shoved his shirttail into the waist of his trousers and dragged his fingers through his hair.

Amelia bit back a laugh at Saul’s instant obedience.

Colt ignored Saul’s last comment. Instead, he smiled across the table at Jenny. “Does he talk like that to you too, Miss Jenny?”

Jenny nodded, her long walnut curls bobbing, a shy smile curling her bow-shaped lips. Amelia’s heart lurched. She hadn’t seen a smile on Jenny’s face in months.

Colt leaned back in his chair and winced again with the movement. Amelia hunted through a small cabinet next to the stove. She pulled out a large square of white cloth and folded it into a triangular shape. “Let’s see if putting your arm into a sling helps, Mr. Evans.”

He nodded. Amelia bent over his shoulder and slid the cloth under his arm. She drew the ends up and tied them behind his neck. His thick hair curled around the knotted white fabric. A deep wave marked where his hat normally rested on his head. Again she felt an inexplicable need to smooth those waves.

He released a slow breath of relief. “Thank you. That feels better.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Evans.” She straightened and shoved her hands into the pockets of the apron.

“Colt,” he said, tilting his head up to her face. “My name is Colt.”

Amelia scurried over to the stove, willing her hands to stop trembling and hoping her knees weren’t knocking together so loudly they could be heard. “How do you want your eggs, Mr. Evans?”

“It’s Colt, and I like them scrambled.”

Amelia scooped oatmeal into bowls, and set them on the table. She poured the milk into a large pitcher and set it out as well. If she went about her normal, everyday routine, perhaps her heart would stop its maddened cadence and the butterflies would leave her stomach. “Saul, will you get the sugar bowl and put it out? Jenny, everyone will need a spoon, fork, and a knife.”

Silent as a drifting fog bank, Jenny set eating utensils out for everyone. Amelia’s skin tingled when Colt’s voice rumbled, “Thank you, Miss Jenny.”

Amelia cracked several eggs into a bowl and whisked them into a yellow froth. She poured the liquid into the hot frying pan, listening to the banter at the table. Saul prattled on and on about the injustice of the chores he was expected to do, when all Jenny had to do was feed and water the chickens. Amelia bit her tongue. She could tell Saul a thing or two about the injustices of the workload around the house.

Colt said, “Tell me again how old you are, Saul.”

“Twelve. I’ll be thirteen in three months.”

“And how old is your sister?” There was a deceptive gentleness to his voice, one that raised the hair on the back of Amelia’s neck.

“Jenny or Amy?”

Colt’s laughter filled the warm room. “Saul, never, ever ask the age of a grown lady. It isn’t polite. How old is Jenny?”

Amelia bit her tongue again. She wanted to point out Colt Evans had asked her how old she was…but maybe, asking in private was another thing entirely.

“Jenny’s seven.”

Amelia scooped the eggs out and glanced over to the table in time to see Colt lean his elbow onto the edge of the pine planks. Incredulity rang in his voice. “You can’t do more than your seven-year-old sister can?” Colt smiled and winked at Jenny, taking the sting from his voice. “I have never heard tell of a twelve, almost thirteen-year-old boy, who can’t do more work than his little sister.”

Jenny’s smile beamed across the room, her dark eyes twinkling with mirth. Amelia brought her attention to the sizzling bacon and blinked away tears. In less than ten minutes, Colt Evans had coaxed two smiles from Jenny.

After breakfast, Amelia sent Jenny and Saul from the house with orders for Saul to hoe the vegetable garden and Jenny to weed the small herb garden. She cleared the plates from the table. “I’ll start some water heating for your shave, Mr.—”

“Colt. My name is Colt,” he interrupted.

She froze for a moment near the stove. “I would feel very forward to address you by your given name, Mr. Evans.”

His laughter boomed through the room. Amelia whirled. His head was tilted back and the strong cording of his throat stood out in relief. “Amelia, you didn’t have a problem taking care of me while I was unconscious and naked as the day I was born, but you think it would be forward to use my given name. There is something that doesn’t add up there.”

She twisted her apron between her hands, staring at the floor. A moment later, Colt caught her chin in his palm and tilted her head to him. She hadn’t heard him cross the floor. Her breath caught in a mingling of fear and some nameless anticipation.

“My name is Colt. Try it, Amelia. Colt.”

Amelia’s skin burned with the light touch of his fingers and her heart hammered against her breastbone. She wet her parched lips.

“It’s a simple name, really. Four little letters. Colt.”

Her throat was frozen. She was falling into the depths of his gray eyes. The pad of his thumb brushed along her lower lip. The butterflies returned to her stomach and that curious ache renewed. She shook her head, freeing herself of his gentle hold. She staggered a step away and broke the spell.

“I still have my father’s shaving things. Will that be all right, or do you have your own?”

Amelia risked a glance at him. He was studying her. She couldn’t look away from that intense scrutiny. At long last, he said, “If the razor’s sharp, your father’s things will do.”

Amelia set a pot of water on the stove to heat. She went into her bedroom and in the trunk at the foot of the bed, found her father’s straight-edge razor, razor strop, shaving mug, and brush. She carried them into the kitchen. Without looking at Colt, she handed the razor and strop to him. “Perhaps it should be sharpened.”

A second or so later, the rhythmic zip of the razor along the strop broke the silence. How many mornings had she woken to that sound, and the sounds of her mother’s soft, hushed voice as her parents shared a peaceful moment alone before anyone else joined them in the kitchen?

She dipped her finger into the water. It was warm enough. She carried the pan to the table, draped a towel around his neck, and swished the brush into the water. Swirling the brush in the mug, she lathered the long, soft bristles.

Amelia applied the lather to his cheeks, chin, and throat, until he appeared to have a heavy, thick, white beard. She picked up the razor and hesitated. “Are you sure you want me to do this?”

He caught her wrist. His thumb moved in a light caress over her palm. A delicious chill shivered up her spine, and her breath caught in the back of her throat. His smile lanced into her. “Don’t slit my throat and anything else will be fine.”

Amelia pulled her wrist away. She bit her lower lip, tilted his head to a side, and dragged the blade down his hollowed cheek. The rasp of the razor over his beard stubble was a familiar sound. How often had she sat at this table, watching and listening to her father shave? She wiped the build-up of lather on the towel and made another stroke down his cheek.

There was something intimate about standing this close to him and performing this routine ablution. Her heart raced, that ache deep in her was almost a pain, and her chest was tight. She concentrated to keep her hand from trembling. The warmth of his skin seared her palm and fingers, as surely as if she’d grabbed a hot pan from the oven.

Carefully, she shaved his chin, tilted his head to the other side, and shaved that cheek. She was so close to him she could see flecks of black and even white in the depths of those gray eyes. With one finger, she tilted his head back and slid the razor down the column of his throat. His pulse tapped a slow and steady cadence.

Finally, she was through. Amelia stepped back. Colt dipped a corner of the towel in the still-warm water and wiped the last of the shaving lather from his face and neck. Then he pulled a hand along his jaw. “No blood, Amelia. Didn’t miss a single spot either. You did a right fine job.” He stood and dropped the towel onto the tabletop. “You’d almost think you’ve had practice shaving a man’s face.”

Did he think she had been this close to any other man? “No, I haven’t.” Amelia shook her head. “I’ve never done this before. I was just very careful.”

She needed to flee the suddenly too-small confines of the house. Colt caught her elbow as she turned, and pulled her into his chest. He winced but didn’t release her. “I didn’t mean it as if I thought something wrong, Amelia. I just wanted you to know you did a good job.”

She dropped her gaze to the long, elegant fingers wrapped around her elbow. The irrelevant thought struck her that he had pianist’s fingers, just as Daddy had said Momma did. “Please, Mr. Evans, let me go. I have chores to do. I have to clean the stalls—they haven’t been done in a week—and the garden needs to be watered or it’s going to shrivel up to nothing.” She was babbling and she couldn’t stop the tumble of words from her mouth. “If I don’t supervise Saul, he’ll weed out the vegetables along with the weeds. He isn’t too careful about what he gets with the hoe.”

“Colt.” His fingers shifted on her wrist, sending a jolt of raw energy through her suddenly quivering insides. “Say my name, and I’ll let you go.”

His deep velvety voice snaked into her and grew into a scalding heat. Her chest tightened, her heart quickened, and her mouth went dry again. His thumb traced a light circle on the inside of her wrist. The sensation was nearly overwhelming, and it shimmered through her, coiling around her limbs with a dizzying lethargy.

“Please…Colt, let me go.”

Amelia fled the kitchen as if the hem of her skirts were ablaze. If Colt was any judge of women, he’d say she had never been that close to any man other than her father. Dear heavens, a nineteen-year-old woman who had never been close to a man. Hell, he was damn sure now she’d never been kissed.

The room dimmed in his vision and he grabbed the table to steady himself against the lightheaded exhaustion hammering at him. He took a moment to gather his waning strength and then staggered into the bedroom. He collapsed on the bed and stared up at the low, flat roof of the cabin. Maybe if he fixed his gaze on one point on the ceiling, the room would stop spinning around him. This was worse than being drunk. At least with a roaring drunk tied on, he would have an excuse for the room whirling around him. He let his thoughts drift and the room slowly stopped dancing, easing his nausea.

Letting Amelia shave him had been torture. It had taken everything in him to keep from grabbing her around the waist and pulling her onto his lap so he could kiss her. She had smelled so good, the scent of rainwater and vanilla in her hair and on her skin. He wondered for a moment if she put vanilla in her bath water. If he’d bent his head forward, he could have pillowed himself on those soft mounds swelling under the bodice of her blouse.

And gotten his throat slit for his impertinence.

The rapid, dramatic pounding of her heartbeat at the base of that long, creamy neck had driven him to distraction. Would she have tasted like vanilla if he had pressed his mouth to her throat? His loins tightened with the thought of pressing his mouth against her racing pulse and tasting her warm skin. If she put vanilla in her bath water, she’d taste like a sweet sugar cookie just meant to be savored.

He groaned. Was he out of his mind? He didn’t have time to cool his heels here, seducing a virgin. He had to find his gun before the Matthews brothers picked up his trail and found him. Colt draped his arm over his eyes. Find the gun and get the hell out of this two-bit town, while leaving a trail plain enough a blind man could follow—at least for a day or two. He slid his arm to his side. He had to find that gun for more reasons than that he felt naked without it.

If he were a stubborn, headstrong woman, where would he hide a gun? There weren’t a lot of places in the room to hide a revolver. He glanced around the low-ceilinged room, over a short chest of drawers, a wobbly nightstand, and a battered trunk at the foot of the bed. He smiled.

He sat up, ignoring the way the room spun around him, and forced himself to take long, slow breaths until the motion ceased. He stood. The room didn’t loop around him this time. He pulled the lid up on the travel-scarred trunk at the foot of the bed. A heavy down comforter rested on top, and Colt tossed it onto the bed.

His hand brushed against silk and he lifted an ivory wedding dress, tucking it under his injured arm. Under the dress he found a fading tintype. Colt picked up the picture and dropped the dress into the depths of the trunk. A woman, clad in the ivory dress, stood stiffly next to a man in a high-collared shirt. If this was a picture of Amelia’s parents, she didn’t look like either one of them, but there was a marked resemblance between the woman and Jenny. The woman had been beautiful. The man wore a preacher’s suit, had his hair slicked back, and sported a narrow mustache. The white collar around his throat made Colt think of a noose.

Colt raised a brow. Her father had been a preacher-man? No wonder Amelia was so sheltered and naive. It would also explain why she wasn’t married. Most men that he knew—and those who believed themselves to be men—weren’t keen on courting a preacher’s daughter.

A wry smile lifted a corner of Colt’s mouth. A preacher’s daughter had taken him in and nursed him. He returned his scrutiny to the picture. The father was evident in the son, as well. Saul was just a younger version of the older man. And as he studied the picture of the couple, a different memory clicked.

He imagined the man in the picture with a thick mustache, a spade beard, and a slouch hat perched on his head. Colt’s jaw dropped. Thirteen years before, or thereabouts, one of the most notorious shootists in Missouri had just up and vanished. A few had taken credit for gunning down Brimstone Phillips—so named for his habit of quoting the Good Book in a thick, Scottish burr—but when no one could come up with a body, no reward was ever paid.