Early Dawn

by Catherine Anderson

  She wasn’t sure how long she scrubbed, only that the sound of Matthew’s low voice suddenly jerked her up short. “Eden, if you keep on that way, you’ll rub yourself raw.”

  Eden whirled so quickly that her long hair swung over her face, the wet strands clinging to her nose and mouth. Then she remembered that she was naked, hugged her breasts, and dashed back into deeper water, where she could sink up to her chin.

  Matthew stood on the bank, long legs braced wide apart, one knee slightly bent, his gaze fixed on the darkening horizon behind her. His jaw muscle twitched under the thick scruff of dark beard, and his larynx bobbed as he swallowed. Slowly, he drew his gaze back to her, his focus on her face. Shadows shifted in his eyes.

  “You can’t wash the memories away.” He switched his weight from one leg to the other. “I wish you could, but scrubbing your hide off won’t erase what happened.” He passed the back of his hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry for interrupting your bath, but you were gone for so long I got worried, and I . . .” He swept off his hat, raked his fingers through his hair, then clamped the Stetson back on his head. “I didn’t want you to take another chill, so I came to check on you.”

  Eden glanced down at the upper swells of her bobbing breasts and saw red tracks on her skin from the drag of her fingernails. For a moment, she felt dizzy and disoriented. Clawing at herself that way wasn’t normal.

  “I feel . . . so dirty,” she pushed out, needing to explain her crazy behavior so he wouldn’t think she was unhinged. “I need to get it off.” A lump welled in her throat, and scalding tears filled her eyes. “Only no matter how hard I scrub, I don’t feel clean.”

  Memories skittered around in her head like spiders. A low moan escaped her throat, and then, though she tried to stifle them, sobs erupted from her throat. Matthew cursed under his breath.

  “Eden, you need to get out of that icy water. If I go back to camp, can I count on you to do that right away?”

  She gulped and nodded, unable to speak. When he turned on his heel and walked away, she stared after him through a blur of tears until he disappeared from sight. Then, shivering from the cold, she waded toward the bank, grabbed the towel, and started drying off. Every time she looked at her scraped skin, she feared for her sanity. What had possessed her?

  After dressing, she squatted beside the stream to wash the other set of clothes he’d lent her. If she hung them by the fire, they might dry by morning, and she’d have something clean to change into tomorrow night.

  When she returned to camp, Eden felt embarrassed—over her inexplicable behavior at the creek, and also because Matthew had seen her naked. As she handed him the bathing paraphernalia, she couldn’t look him in the eye. Fiery heat crept up her neck, and she turned away to drape her wet clothes over a bush.

  As he cleansed the toothbrush in whiskey, he said, “After I take a bath, I’ll hunt up a couple of forked limbs to make a clothes rack closer to the fire.”

  Her tongue felt as if it had been glued to the roof of her mouth. She pried it loose to reply, “That’s, um, a good idea.”

  “The denim won’t dry by morning, otherwise.”

  Still intensely uncomfortable and not wanting him to see how red her face was, Eden descended on the packs that had been removed from Herman’s back. She quickly located the one that held the trail rations. “While you’re washing up, I’ll throw something together for supper,” she said, glancing over her shoulder.

  He inclined his head at the pack. “I’ve got spuds, carrots, and onions in there. If you cut the jerky into small pieces, it cooks up fairly tender. There are a few canned goods, too. Maybe you can make some stew.”

  “Stew it will be.”

  After washing and dressing, Matthew crouched by the stream to scrape the whiskers off his face. He’d skipped shaving last night because he was self-conscious about his scars, but he couldn’t go on hiding them forever. Now that the rest of him was clean, the shaggy beard made him feel scruffy.

  As he ran the straight blade over his jaw, he recalled what Eden had said to him when he’d caught her scouring her skin raw with sand. I feel so dirty. I need to get it off! He would never forget how she’d looked right then, her eyes dark with shame yet sparkling with tears. For an awful moment, he’d been tempted to wade into the water and scoop her up into his arms. He was damned glad now that he hadn’t. She might have flown into a panic. Hell, no maybe to it—she would have flown into a panic.

  When he was around Eden, he needed to step lightly and think before he acted. She was a courageous lady and had a strength of spirit he greatly admired, but even so, she wasn’t steady on her feet yet and probably wouldn’t be for many months to come. When a woman was sexually abused, it did something to her, way deep inside, and sometimes she never completely recovered. He hoped that wasn’t the way of it for Eden. She was such a curious blend of vulnerability and mettle, of city sophistication and country charm. And pretty as a picture, to boot, with those delicate features, big blue eyes, and that glorious tangle of red hair. What a waste it would be if she never got over what had happened to her and missed out on all the wonderful things life had to offer—love, marriage, children, and happiness.

  Matthew slapped some bay rum on his face, and then, following Eden’s lead, washed his soiled clothing. Afterward, he collected all the stuff and headed back to camp, hoping with every step that Eden had started to feel better during his absence. He hated that he had embarrassed her so badly, but on the other hand, he couldn’t regret that he’d gotten worried and interrupted her bath. She was in enough pain with those busted ribs. She didn’t need the additional discomfort of raw skin.

  Oh, yes, he felt certain that at least two of her ribs were broken. Right before she’d dashed back into the water, he’d seen her side. It wasn’t only bruised, but also badly swollen. Damn Pete Sebastian to hell.

  Matthew found Eden crouched by the fire, tending a pot of stew and a pan of trail corn bread. He didn’t miss the way she kept her arm clamped tightly to her side each time she moved. He needed to do something about that, but only after he got some whiskey into her. Approaching her right now, so soon after the incident at the creek, would go over like rain at a Fourth of July picnic.

  He draped his wet laundry over the bush where Eden had hung hers, then went to find limbs to erect a clothes rack. When he stepped into the light a few minutes later, she stared at him for a long moment. “You don’t look like the same person,” she said.

  Feeling self-conscious, Matthew turned his back to her and drove the forked limbs into the ground. Without his beard, he felt exposed. “Sorry. I know I’m not much to look at. Pete Sebastian worked me over with a pistol butt.” He strung a rope between the limbs and went to get their clothes. When he returned to hang them near the fire, he added, “I was never what you’d call a pretty boy.”

  His comments startled Eden even more than his appearance had. Without the whiskers to hide his face, he was one of the handsomest men she’d ever clapped eyes on. He had a disarming grin, the paralyzed corner of his mouth drawing down slightly to give it a crooked, boyish appeal that offset the chiseled cut of his features. In the flickering light, his blue eyes formed such a contrast to his dark skin that they almost mesmerized her. She barely noticed the scars. He thought he was ugly? In Eden’s opinion, nothing could be farther from the truth.

  “Smells good,” he said as he hunkered down across from her. He raised one eyebrow when he saw that she’d put on a pot of coffee and hunted up the plates, spoons, and cups. “Been a long time since I’ve sunk my teeth into food I didn’t fix myself. I’m surprised you know how to cook.”

  He was acting as if nothing had happened, which eased Eden’s embarrassment. “Of course I know how to cook. Even people in the city have to eat.”

  “I figured maybe you had servants.”

  “We did have servants, but they had days off. And, as I said before, we haven’t always had money. For years after my family got to California, we lived in
a tumbledown farmhouse outside of the city and scraped to get by.”

  “Tumbledown, huh? Somehow that’s hard to picture.”

  Eden glanced up from the stew. “Trust me, it was tumbledown. The front porch was so rotten the overhang leaned sideways, and the roof leaked like a sieve. Ace and Joseph were constantly trying to patch it.”

  “You look like a lady to the manner born.”

  Eden shot him an incredulous look. “You’ve read Shakespeare?”

  “No. Is that Shakespeare?”

  “Yes. ‘To the manner born’ is from Hamlet.” Eden lifted the spoon to her lips to taste the stew broth. “Anyway, back to my knowing how to cook. I was born in that old farmhouse and spent most of my childhood there. To keep food on the table, Ace swept saloon floors, and my mother did other people’s laundry and cleaned houses. At the end of the day, she was exhausted, so I had to learn my way around a kitchen at a fairly young age.”

  He inclined his dark head at the pot. “I hope that tastes as good as it smells.”

  Eden couldn’t help but smile. “I hope so, too. Right now it isn’t bad, but I could still stub my toe as I’m adding the salt.”

  He chuckled. “You know the cure for too much salt?”

  “Add more potatoes.”

  “You do know how to cook.”

  “Well enough, but it’s been a while since I cooked over a campfire. There’s a knack to it.”

  “Have you done it much in the past?”

  Her mind drifted back over the years. “Not really. During the lean times, my brothers hunted to keep meat on the table, and I went along if Mama would let me. Then later, while visiting in No Name, I enjoyed helping round up cattle from the open range. When you’re out like that, so far from a house, you have no choice but to cook the old-fashioned way.”

  He shook his head. “You truly are a marvel. You’ve worked with cattle?”

  “Not as a job or anything, just for the fun of it.”

  “You actually thought it was fun?”

  “Mostly. I stay away when they’re branding and castrating—that part turns my stomach—but I enjoy the other stuff. It’s relaxing to ride herd. I especially like the night shift. It’s so peaceful in the dark and quiet. Out in the open, the stars are so beautiful, and the lowing of the cows is sort of like music.”

  “I’ve been on my fair share of cattle roundups. It didn’t worry you to be so far from camp in the dead of night?”

  She patted a holster on her hip. “Not with my Colts as backup. If there was trouble I couldn’t handle alone, my brothers would have been there in a blink if I had fired three signal shots for help.”

  “I see.” He gazed into the flames. Then he looked at her again. “So you enjoy music?”

  “I do. My brothers play string instruments. When we gather as a family, we have a lot of fun.”

  He pushed erect and went to the packs. When he returned, he had the whiskey jug and a small bag of sugar. After pouring them each a cup of coffee, he added a generous splash of liquor and a spoonful of sweetener to each mug. He stirred the drinks, handed her one of the cups, and lifted his in a toast.

  “To a good night’s sleep. There’s nothing better than a couple of stiff drinks to chase your cares away.”

  Eden wasn’t sure she wanted her cares to be chased away. She no longer felt threatened by Matthew, but she didn’t completely trust him yet, either. He was a man, after all, and if he got foxed, he might become amorous. That would land her in a fine mess, especially if she were foolish enough to get intoxicated herself.

  Studying him surreptitiously, she took measure of the rugged masculinity of his face, the broad set of his shoulders under the leather jacket, and the bulge of thigh muscle that stretched the denim of his jeans taut as he crouched across from her. If he started making inappropriate advances, what on earth would she do? Her mother said a lot of men got lovey-dovey when they drank, and any woman, no matter how plain, looked good to them.

  “I, um, appreciate your thoughtfulness, Matthew, but I don’t care much for whiskey. I’ll let you enjoy mine and have straight coffee.”

  He took a sip from his cup and grinned at her. “You haven’t tasted whiskey fixed this way. Try it. It’s delicious.”

  Reluctantly, Eden took a sip. It was delicious. She hadn’t tasted anything sweet for so long that she wanted to guzzle it. “Mmm,” she murmured appreciatively. “It is very good. Only one for me, though. I don’t imbibe often, and I don’t want to get silly.”

  “Who cares if you get a little silly?”

  Eden cared. Matthew was undeniably handsome in a dark, dangerous way, but she wanted nothing to do with him physically. She appreciated how he pushed himself to find the right words just when she needed to hear them, his gentle manner with the horses, and how he had avoided looking at her naked body down at the creek. But that was as far as it went.

  Ignoring his question, she served each of them some stew. They settled beside each other to eat, drinking the spiked coffee between bites. She started to feel warm from the pit of her stomach clear to her throat. Halfway through the meal, he fixed them both another drink. Eden eyed hers askance, determined not to touch it, but she found herself reaching for her cup anyway.

  “This is lovely,” she murmured. “The sugar adds just the right touch.”

  “It’s my trail version of Irish coffee. Too bad I can’t lace it with cream.”

  “It’s wonderful just as it is.” Eden meant that. The sweetness was difficult to resist. She took another sip and smiled at him. “I’m afraid I’m getting a little tipsy.”

  “No harm in that.”

  By the time supper was over and they’d cleaned up, Eden knew she was a little tipsy. When Matthew started to fix more Irish coffee, she held up a hand. “No more, Matthew. I don’t want to get intoxicated.”

  “You won’t. My aim is only to get you relaxed so you can sleep better tonight.”

  Against her better judgment, Eden accepted the third cup of coffee. He settled beside her to enjoy his own. Occasionally, his arm brushed against hers, making her acutely aware of how overwhelmingly masculine he was. If he got out of line, she would be in big trouble—only somehow, she no longer felt quite so alarmed by the prospect.

  “Eden, about what happened down at the creek.”

  Heat inched up her neck. “I’m sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Don’t apologize. I think anyone who went through what you did might react the same way.”

  “Then why are you bringing it up?” Eden really, really did not want to talk about it. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather drop the subject.”

  “I can’t,” he said softly. “What you said is still bothering me. You’re not dirty, Eden. The Sebastians are. Dirty clear to the marrow of their bones.” He looped an arm around her shoulders and drew her snugly against his side. Eden stiffened at the contact, but gradually she relaxed. “What you’re feeling . . . it’s all in your mind, and no amount of washing will make it go away. Instead, you just have to keep telling yourself that it wasn’t your fault, that none of it was your doing. You hear what I’m saying to you? I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to put it all behind you.”

  “I thought I had,” she whispered, trying to keep her voice steady. “I felt so good when I first got in the water, and then, the first thing I knew, I was scrubbing with sand to get their filth off me.”

  He sighed and rested his chin atop her head. “Ah, Eden.”

  Those two words curled around her like warm tendrils of smoke, easing the ache in her chest and the tension from her body. Silence fell between them. Leaning against him, Eden listened to the rush of the creek and the twitter of birds as they roosted in the trees and copses for the night.

  He finally ended the silence. “I hope you’re not blaming yourself for what happened, Eden. You aren’t, are you?”

  “How did you . . . ?” She sent him a wondering look. “I never said a word about blaming mys
elf.”

  “You didn’t need to. I’ve been there, not in exactly the same way, but there, all the same. Crazy thoughts can go through a person’s head after something terrible happens. You keep circling it in your mind, thinking of all the things you could have done different, of all the ways you might have changed it. I hope you’re not having thoughts like that.”

  She rested her head on his muscular shoulder, wondering as she did how she could feel so at ease with his arm around her. The whiskey, she guessed. She never should have accepted the third drink. “Sometimes I do. When they came aboard the train, I called attention to myself. That was so stupid of me. Any sane woman would have stayed in her seat and kept her mouth shut.”

  “Why did you leave your seat?”

  “They were shooting people, and the little boy behind us started to cry. Wallace threatened to kill him if his mother didn’t shut him up.” Eden closed her eyes. “When Wallace took aim at Timothy, I couldn’t just sit there. I got between the gun and the child. Timothy is a darling little boy. I didn’t want him to get hurt.”

  “And you think that was a stupid thing to do? Brave, maybe, but not stupid.”

  “They might not have taken me if I had stayed in my seat.”

  He sighed again. “Maybe, maybe not. But the little boy probably would have died. The Sebastians kill young and old alike. Down in Mexico, they slaughtered an entire family, including a baby. They don’t know the meaning of mercy, and no life is sacred to them.”

  Eden shivered.

  He tightened his arm around her. “You did what you had to do, Eden, and you paid a terrible price. But none of it was your fault.” He shifted to get more comfortable. “The morning of the train robbery, I was following their tracks, like I told you. What I neglected to say is that I happened upon an old peddler in a clearing. They had slit his throat. Do you think it was the peddler’s fault that he died—that he did something to deserve it?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then stop blaming yourself for what they did to you. When thoughts like that enter your head, push them out. You protected a child. That was the right thing to do, and it took a lot of courage. If anyone should feel bad, it’s the other passengers on the train who did nothing, especially the men.”