Early Dawn

by Catherine Anderson

  She nodded.

  “You’re having me on. How can that be? You have different surnames.”

  “He’s my half brother. After his father died, our mother remarried.”

  “Well, butter my ass and call me a biscuit.” He swept off his hat, stared into the bowl, and then settled it back on his head. With a low laugh, he said, “You truly must be good with a gun if Ace Keegan was your teacher. He’s so famous, there were dime novels written about him. Is it true that he once took down six men with only five bullets?”

  “The fifth bullet ricocheted, a freak accident actually, going through the first man, hitting a rock, and glancing off to hit the sixth man in the temple.” She gestured with her half-eaten corn bread. “Ace says that ricochet was all that saved his hide that day. They never tell the whole truth of it in dime novels. They wanted it to sound as if he’s so good he can fire his gun and kill two men in one swoop. He hates most dime novels, by the way. He says they glorify violence.”

  Still reeling from the discovery that he’d rescued Ace Keegan’s sister, Matthew thought of the books he’d read about the man. “I suppose they do, at that. From what I gathered from the stories, though, Ace used his guns only to defend himself. It’s not as if he went looking for trouble.”

  “No. Once he got a reputation with a gun, trouble came looking for him. That’s how it goes for famous gunslingers. They can’t have a cup of coffee in the town café without worrying about someone calling them out. He’s married now and has two children. He straps on a gun belt only when he has no choice, his hope being that any upstarts looking to make a name for themselves will leave him alone.” Her expression went suddenly sad. “This situation makes me feel terrible. I am sure that he and my other brothers are out there somewhere, trying to find me, and Ace is wearing his guns. You can bet on it. If he takes on the Sebastians and word gets out, his happy life with Caitlin and their children could be ruined.”

  Matthew helped himself to another piece of corn bread. He’d never thought about what it might be like for a man who had a reputation with a gun. “In the past, did a lot of upstarts go gunning for him?”

  “So many that Ace lost count.” She sighed wearily and set aside her half-eaten meal. “He told me once that most of those upstarts were little more than boys, that there’s no way to describe how he felt afterward when he was the one left standing. It bothered him so much that he’d swear he wouldn’t draw the next time, that he’d rather die than go through it again.”

  “But when it came right down to it, he always went for his gun?” Matthew had killed only one man, but even though he’d despised the bastard, he understood how Ace must have felt. “I’d do the same, I reckon. It’s one thing to think about dying and quite another to actually do it when you’re nose-to-nose with a revolver.”

  “I’m glad he could never just stand there and get shot,” she said softly. “It wasn’t as if he wanted to kill anyone. They gave him no choice.”

  “Before I left Oregon, I practiced with a gun for three solid weeks to get good enough to take on the Sebastians. I’d read stories about your brother, and it was my aim to become just like him. Now, talking to you, I can only wonder what I was thinking. In the dime novels, they don’t talk about the dark side of being a gunslinger. They just—”

  “Glorify the violence?”

  Matthew nodded. “Right before I set out after the Sebastians, I’d sold my spring calves for a goodly sum. After I hit the trail, I practiced damned near every night and spent a good deal of my cash to stock up on more ammunition.”

  “Did you accomplish your goal?” she asked. “Did you become as good as Ace?”

  Matthew believed that he was pretty damned good, but being boastful didn’t sit well with him. Instead he repeated her words: “I’m good enough to get by.”

  This time, the smile that touched her lips was full-blown and made her whole face seem to glow. In that moment as Matthew gazed across the fire at her, he decided that he’d never seen a more beautiful woman. Even sunburned, trail-worn, bruised all over, and swallowed by his clothes, she outshone every other female he’d ever clapped eyes on, including Livvy. Even as the thought moved through his mind, Matthew felt a stab of guilt. While his wife had been alive, he’d never looked at another woman. What kind of man was he that he could do so now, with her lying dead in a grave that his stupidity and carelessness had dug for her?

  After cleaning up the supper mess, Matthew gave his only bedroll to Eden and got her settled near the fire for the night. With his saddle for a pillow and only his jacket for warmth, he would sleep in the darkness, where he wouldn’t be blinded by firelight if the Sebastians came calling. Probably an unnecessary precaution, but he reasoned that Eden would feel more at ease if he kept his distance.

  Right after stretching out on the ground, he sat back up again and lifted one side of his jacket to sniff himself. He detected nothing rank, which just went to prove that the old adage was true: After three days without bathing, a man could no longer smell himself. He had enjoyed talking with Eden tonight over the meal. Being around her, even for so short a time, was making him remember his other life—how it had felt to wash up before supper after a long day of hard work and laugh at the table over silly jokes, how good it had been to bow his head in thanksgiving before shoving food into his mouth, and what fine ladies his wife, mother, and sisters had been. After three years without dinner conversation, he realized not only that he’d lost his social ease, but also that he missed it and wanted it back. The first step, he decided, was to clean himself up.

  Pushing back to his feet, Matthew went to rummage through his packs, praying the clothes he’d lent Eden weren’t his only laundered ones. Toward the bottom, he found three pairs of fresh jeans and several clean shirts. He headed for the stream armed with soap, a towel, and his straight razor.

  The water was colder than a witch’s tit and nearly took his breath. He got used to it, though, and set to work scrubbing away the layers of grime and sweat on his skin and in his hair. After drying off and dressing, he laundered his soiled garments, cringing as he scrubbed. Now that he was clean, the stench of the clothing told him just how awful he must have smelled. Damn. He’d had no business taking a jab at Eden earlier that day for judging him by his appearance.

  Matthew started to shave and then hesitated. His face was badly scarred, and the growth helped conceal some of that. Jesus had worn a beard, so it wasn’t as if whiskers were unacceptable. Besides, Eden would be sure to ask what had happened if she saw his entire face, and he wasn’t inclined to answer such questions. There was also the inexplicable fact that he didn’t want her to see how ugly he actually was.

  After returning to camp, Matthew stretched back out on the ground and contemplated the vastness of the starlit sky. Why did he care if Eden thought he was ugly? As soon as he could drop her off in a decent-size town, he would never see her again, so why did her opinion even matter? It didn’t, he decided. It couldn’t. He was a man, and he had eyes in his head, so he was aware of how pretty she was. But that was as far as it could go.

  He drew his watch from his pocket and ran his thumb over the engraved words on the back. Forever. That had been his and Livvy’s vow to each other, to love each other forever. Now, after only twenty-four hours in the company of another woman, he was wavering on that promise.

  No way. Matthew’s word was his bond. He would never betray Livvy. Never.

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  Chapter Six

  With the deepening darkness came a plummet in temperature that curled like icy fingers over the thick collar of Eden’s jacket to send shivers down her spine. Even with the fire and Matthew’s bedding to shield her, she grew so cold she couldn’t sleep. Turning herself like the fish on a spit that Matthew had cooked earlier, she tried in vain to warm all parts of her body, but the heat of the flames failed to chase away the chill that had taken up residence deep in her bones. How on earth could Matthew sleep with only his coat to
shield him?

  Guilt lanced through her as she recalled how Wallace had slept under two wool blankets while she huddled in misery on the icy ground with nothing to protect her from the cold. Now she was doing essentially the same thing to Matthew. Apparently, he possessed only one bedroll and had given it to her. Eden considered offering to share the pallet and blanket with him, but fear and revulsion held her back. If it came down to that, she would be the one to brave the elements, and he could have the bedding.

  She’d just turned over again, hoping to warm her back, when his shadow fell across her. She squeezed her eyes closed in dread, thinking he meant to join her in the bed. She jumped with a start when he tossed more wood on the fire. Her body went limp with relief when he toed the pieces to get them burning and then returned to his own spot just beyond the firelight. Thank you, God. She was coming to trust Matthew to a degree, but what the Sebastians had done to her was still too fresh in her mind for her to trust any man completely.

  Unable to drift off, Eden was aware that Matthew returned to stoke the fire several more times. With each of his visits, her guilt mounted. At this altitude, the night temperatures dropped to near freezing, even in the late spring. If she was shivering within a few feet of the flames, he had to be absolutely miserable.

  Watching Eden toss and turn, Matthew was in a quandary. Keeping the fire built up hadn’t helped. She was still shuddering from the cold and wasn’t getting a wink of sleep. Tomorrow would be another grueling day, possibly twelve hours or more in the saddle. If she didn’t get some rest, she might collapse from exhaustion. Only what could he do about it? As rusty as Matthew’s social skills had become, he still remembered the rules of common decency. No matter what the reason, a man didn’t share a bed with a lady who wasn’t his wife, especially not with someone like Eden, who’d so recently endured sexual abuse. She panicked if he even touched her. How would she react if he slipped under that blanket and wrapped himself around her to share his body heat? He couldn’t do that to her.

  It was miserably cold, though. Even Matthew felt the chill, and he was accustomed to being exposed to the elements. He thought about giving her his jacket for extra warmth, but then he’d be tossing and turning himself, and the bottom line was, in order to save her life, he needed to be well rested and thinking sharp in the morning.

  It was a hell of a pickle. As things stood, neither of them was getting any sleep. Matthew got up again to fetch more wood for the fire. Once the flames were reaching high, he returned to his chosen spot to sleep, but ended up staring worriedly at his charge instead. She turned one way, then another. He saw her chafe her arms through the jacket sleeves and rub her feet together, trying to chase away the chill. By morning, the poor girl would be an icicle. Damn. He didn’t want to frighten her, but at least she’d recover from that. After all that she’d been through over the last six days, she might not survive if she caught pneumonia.

  Still watching her, Matthew sat up. A lump that felt the size of a breakfast muffin had lodged at the base of his throat. She looked so fragile in the firelight. Despite her game attempt that evening to appear normal and chipper, she hadn’t been able to eat all of her supper or hide how utterly worn-out she was.

  For the last three years, Matthew had lived by the motto that a man had to do what he had to do. Right now, he regretted that, because what he had to do was not going to sit well with her. And that was putting it mildly.

  Sometime later, Eden heard Matthew get up to throw more wood on the fire and then he startled her half to death by placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Eden. I meant to be a gentleman and let you have the bedroll, but I’m freezing my ass off. We’ll have to share.”

  Share? Eden made fists in the wool blanket, staring up at his whiskery countenance. She’d come to believe that he was a decent man despite his ragged appearance, but that didn’t mean she wanted to share a bed with him. “Pardon me?”

  After setting his folded gun belt on the ground near her head, he drew off his Stetson, lifted an edge of the blanket, and slipped onto the pallet beside her. When he hooked an arm around her waist, she jerked as if she’d been stuck with a hat pin.

  “Easy,” he said near her ear. “I only mean to spoon with you, nothing more. If we share our body heat, maybe we can both get some rest.”

  Eden’s heart leaped and then pounded against her sore ribs like a trip-hammer. “Spoon?” she echoed.

  “Yeah, like two spoons tucked together in a drawer.”

  Eden was not an eating utensil, and as cold as it was, she had no intention of pretending to be. “Mr. Coulter, no, this is highly improper. If you need the bedroll, take it, by all means. But I’m not going to sleep with you.”

  “Why? You afraid the squirrels might tattle on us?” He tightened his arm around her waist, his broad hand heavy on the front of her jacket just beneath her breasts. When she stiffened and grabbed his wrist, he sighed, his breath stirring her hair. “That hand’s not going anywhere. If you’re thinking otherwise, get the thought straight out of your head.”

  Eden couldn’t get the thought out of her head. She struggled against the steely circle of his arm, but he tightened his hold and slung one leg over hers to keep her from moving.

  “Stop it,” he said firmly. “If I meant to rape you, do you think I’d bother to be sneaky about it? All I want is to get you warm. You’re on your last legs, Eden. You need sleep, and you can’t get it when your teeth are chattering.”

  Eden couldn’t bear to be touched, and it felt to her as if he were touching her everywhere. She tried to pry his arm from around her again, but it didn’t budge. “Please, Mr. Coulter, don’t do this. You can have the blankets. I’ll be fine sitting up by the fire.”

  “I don’t want the damned blankets,” he said gruffly. “I want you to get some sleep. That’s all I want. I’m not good with words, Eden. But this is about surviving. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  She tried to think of a response, but nothing came to her.

  “Do you want to live?” he asked softly.

  “Yes,” she managed to push out, remembering that horrible moment when she’d chosen to eat rather than die.

  “Then do what has to be done. You’ve been on a horse for over thirty hours. You’ve been brutalized. Your body has needs, and right now, one of them is sleep. We can’t make a bad situation better by catching pneumonia.” He turned his hand despite her grip on it and enclosed her smaller fingers in his. “I could touch you anywhere I want. Am I?”

  “No,” she replied, hating herself for the squeak in her voice.

  “Why do you suppose that is?”

  Tears burned her eyes. She squeezed them tightly closed. “Because you don’t want to?”

  “Exactly. We need to stay warm. You need to rest. Until I get you somewhere safe, you’re my responsibility. How will your brothers feel if I let you freeze to death? It’s colder out here than a whore’s tits in a snow-storm.” He muttered something under his breath and in a louder voice said, “Damn it. Every time I open my mouth, I stick my foot in it.”

  He ran his thumb over her clenched knuckles, and the tears in Eden’s eyes spilled over onto her icy cheeks, feeling hot against her skin.

  His voice still thick, he added, “I’ve spent three years alone, Eden, with only Smoky and Herman for company. The few times I rode with a posse, the other men were as rough around the edges as I was.” He fell silent. “I haven’t rubbed elbows with polite folks for way too long. I don’t mean to sound like I was raised in a barn.”

  “I’ve spent five days with monsters,” she replied, her voice shaking. “I don’t mean to be difficult, but I’d rather go without sleep than do this.”

  “Your druthers don’t play into it.” He released an exasperated sigh and suddenly sat up. “Okay, fine, you win. There’s more than one way to tree a coon.”

  She turned onto her back to stare incredulously up at him. With abrupt, frustrated jerks, he removed his jacket and flung it ove
r her.

  “No,” she protested. “You’ll freeze without a coat.”

  “I’ll stay by the fire and be fine.” He circled the pit and hunkered down. “Now, do me a big favor and go to sleep.”

  Wincing at the pain that danced over her ribs, Eden pushed to a sitting position. Now that he’d shed the jacket, she noticed that he’d changed into clean clothes and looked as if he’d taken a bath. Just the thought of getting in that icy water made her shiver more convulsively. To the left of the fire, he had erected a makeshift rack where wet jeans, a shirt, underwear, and socks had been hung to dry.

  “I can’t take your coat, Matthew. I felt guilty enough about hogging the bedroll.”

  “No choice. You can’t sleep alone and you can’t sleep with me. Maybe you’ll be able to stay warm with the extra jacket. I can catch a few winks and be fine, but you’ve got to get some rest.”

  She knew he was right. She was beyond exhausted. “I appreciate the gesture, truly I do, but I can’t take your coat.”

  “I gave you the coat. Remember the rule. You’re to do what I say when I say it, and I’m telling you to go to sleep.”

  Eden sighed. “All right, you win. We can sleep together.”

  “You just said—”

  “Forget what I said. I won’t sleep a wink knowing that you have no jacket.”

  In the firelight, his incredibly blue eyes glinted like sapphires as he regarded her. “I won’t take liberties,” he finally said.

  “I pray not.”

  “I’ve never forced myself on a woman in my life, and I’m sure as hell not about to start now.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just—” She broke off, searched for a way to explain, and in the doing, finally understood how frustrating it must be for him when he wanted to communicate a thought and couldn’t. “I can’t get them out of my head. The Sebastians, I mean. And when . . . when you touch me, even in impersonal places, I feel frantic.”