River Lady

by Jude Deveraux

  “Because you can’t find a woman willing to have you?” she spat up at him.

  Revis raised one dark eyebrow. “Perhaps you should be taught a few manners. A little pain might make you less unwilling.”

  “She deserves it,” Abe injected.

  “Shut up,” Revis said with a growl, his eyes never leaving Leah’s face. “Did your stupid brother tell you about me? I take what I want and I use it until it’s all gone. You can’t resist me, can’t fight me, because I always win.”

  With that his mouth took hers in a rough, fierce kiss.

  When he was done, the light in his eyes told Leah he was sure she’d want him now. He was certain his kiss would make her fall down at his feet.

  With a snarl, Leah spat in his face then turned her head away as he raised his hand to strike her.

  “Bud and Cal,” she said, “if you don’t protect me, I’ll never cook for you again.”

  The statement made Revis halt his hand in midair. Abruptly he released her, pushing her back against the cabin wall. His handsome face twisted into an ugly smile. “You think you can turn my brothers against me? Do you think that perhaps you can control what is mine?”

  “No, I…I don’t want you touching me, that’s all. I don’t want control.” Something about him frightened her more than ever. Her hands clutched at the wall behind her as if she might be able to claw her way to freedom.

  “You need to learn that I am the master here and no damn woman—.” Again, he raised his hand to strike her.

  But the blow never landed.

  Bud’s big hand lightly gripped Revis’s wrist. “The woman will cook,” Bud said in a soft, gentle voice, but there was no mistaking the command it held.

  Revis’s face was a study in astonishment. He started to speak, but as he looked from the men flanking him, making him seem small by contrast, his eyes went back to Leah and what she saw made her shiver. He hated her now and for a moment she almost wished she’d given in to him.

  Revis twisted his arm from Bud’s grasp, turned on his heel, and left the cabin.

  For a moment all was silent. Then Verity began to cry loudly. Abe sat down heavily in a chair. “Oh Lord, but you’ve done it now, Leah. Revis ain’t one you oughta make mad.”

  Bud and Cal looked at one another then quietly left the cabin.

  With shaking hands, Leah began to clear the table.

  Chapter 17

  It was late at night when Leah finally was able to sneak away from the robbers’ cabin. Revis hadn’t returned, but his attack on Leah had frightened Verity so much that it had taken Leah hours to calm her. In her hysteria, the woman had started saying that Revis would come back and kill them all. Leah washed the frail woman and finally got her to sleep.

  Abe started to tell Leah what he thought of her turning Revis down, but a few choice words from Leah made him leave the cabin. Most of the long day Leah spent cooking and at the noon meal she tried her best to thank Bud and Cal for helping her. The young men acted as if they didn’t hear her. On impulse Leah kissed each one on the cheek.

  “You ain’t thinkin’ about beddin’ them dummies, are you?” Abe wailed. “You cain’t turn down Revis for these goons.”

  “Abe,” Leah said evenly, “I’ve just about heard enough from you. If you—.”

  Abe cut her off. “You make me or Revis too mad and I’ll let him know about that rich boy you got hidden away. So think twice about threatenin’ me.”

  Leah had not said much after that and Abe snickered in self-satisfaction and kept reminding her of little chores that needed doing.

  It was night when she got everything cleared away and began the long walk to the cabin where Wesley was hidden. All the way up she invented a story to give him as to why she hadn’t been with him.

  She was very tired when she entered the cabin, but her heart was pounding. Would Wesley be all right?

  She lit a lantern by the bed and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Wesley sleeping peacefully. He opened his eyes immediately.

  “Leah?” he whispered.

  “I’m here now. I brought you some food. Can you eat?”

  He was silent as he watched her. “Where have you been, Leah?” he asked softly as he eased himself into a sitting position.

  “Don’t sit up! Lie still and I’ll feed you.” She tried to stop him, but he brushed her hands away.

  “I want an answer.”

  There was a command in his voice and suddenly it was all too much for Leah. She collapsed onto the edge of the bed, buried her face in her hands, and began to cry.

  “Leah, honey,” he began, reaching out to her. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  “I…I’m sorry,” she said, sobbing. “I’m just tired and so many things are happening.”

  “What sort of things?” he asked, his jaw clenched. “Who shot me and why were you gone all day?”

  Leah wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Tired or not she was now going to have to give the performance of her life. “Oh Wesley,” she said. “It was such an awful accident. The men were hunting and they shot you by mistake. They helped me carry you here then left. I guess they were afraid you’d come after them when you recovered so they wanted to get away.”

  She took a deep breath. Now was the hard part. “After I got you here, a little girl appeared at the door. She begged me to come to her house. Her father was dead but her ma and six brothers and sisters were all down with the measles and there was only the girl to look after them. I felt that you’d be all right here alone since what you really needed was rest so I went with her. All day I’ve been cooking, cleaning, and nursing sick people.”

  She stopped abruptly and looked at him, her eyes begging him to believe her. She wasn’t sure she could handle a fight with him on top of everything else.

  Wesley’s eyes bored into hers. Never in his life had he heard such a string of lies, yet she was begging him to believe her. There were circles under her eyes, her dress was food-stained. He knew no one lived in these woods, which was why he’d originally brought her to them. He also knew there was a nest of robbers here and if anyone tried to settle, they usually forfeited their lives.

  Yet Leah was making up a story about a woman and seven kids living here. Right now he was too weak to get up and find out the truth about where she’d spent the day, and from Leah’s look of fear she wasn’t about to tell him what was really going on.

  “That’s just like you to take on other people’s problems,” he said, forcing a little smile.

  “You…you don’t mind?” Leah asked, holding her breath. Was he really going to believe her and not tear his wound open when he went searching for her?

  “Leah,” he said softly, “have I been such a tyrant that you’d believe I’d force you to stay with me and leave a widow and some children to die? Is that what you think?”

  “No…I’m not sure I knew what to expect. You don’t seem as badly injured as I thought. I was worried about you here alone.”

  And too scared of something to stay with me, he thought, but he took her hand and kissed the palm. “Can you stay or must you return?”

  She dreaded the trip through the night down the mountainside, but she was afraid of remaining with Wes. Revis might start to look for her. “I have to return. Will you be all right?” She stood.

  “I’ll miss you but I’ll survive. You go on and get as much sleep as you can. I’ll just eat and sleep some more. My side hurts too much to do anything else.” His voice was a study in tiredness.

  “Yes,” Leah murmured, and while she still had some energy she left the cabin.

  “Goddamn her,” Wesley muttered as soon as the door closed. What in the world had she gotten herself into? First she’d slipped off into the night to meet that good-for-nothing who’d visited their camp and all the next day she was jumpy as a rattlesnake. The next thing he knew he’d been shot, and while he was bleeding to death, she was fighting with that scoundrel.

  Today Wesley had stay
ed in bed, eating food someone had left for him and waiting for his wife to return. And when he had seen her again, she’d looked ten years older and scared to death.

  What the hell was going on?

  Carefully, his hand on his bandaged ribs, he swung out of the bed. For all the blood he’d lost, the wound really wasn’t that bad and he’d purposefully tried to get rid of Leah before she started wanting to inspect it. If she could lie, so could he, and his lie would be to tell her he was sicker than he was.

  Outside he cocked his head and listened. It was easy to hear Leah thrashing her way down the mountainside. If she meant to do anything in secret, she was making a poor job of it.

  As he started following her, he heard the sound of another person off to his left. It was a heavy person and Wesley guessed it was the big man he’d first seen in his camp. He was trailing Leah, staying just out of sight of her.

  Soundlessly Wes slipped to the left, and as he traveled he picked up a large tree branch. With the size of the man, it’d take something heavy to get his attention.

  Following the man and Leah, Wes traveled quite awhile before he halted above the cabin in the clearing. Silently he watched as Leah walked to the back, and in the moonlight he could see the thin man run to meet her.

  The words of “Where the hell have you been?” floated up to him.

  Wesley crouched on the ground, watching the scene, puzzled for a moment, wondering just exactly what Leah was involved in.

  But the next moment he came upright because the stick he’d been carrying had someone’s foot planted on it. He looked up into the eyes of the young giant he’d first seen yesterday. Instinctively Wesley drew his fist back, but someone behind him caught it. He swiveled about and saw a second giant.

  Wes pulled his arm out of the man’s grasp. “Either one of you touch my wife and I’ll kill you!” he said, seething. He wasn’t exactly in a position to threaten, but that didn’t stop him.

  “She is safe for now,” one of the men said.

  “Come back to your cabin now before you start to bleed.”

  Wes looked from one man to the other in the moonlight and suddenly he knew that what was going on involved great danger—and Leah was somehow caught up in it.

  “My wife needs help, doesn’t she?” he said, praying he could trust these two.

  “Come to the cabin and we will talk,” said one of the men.

  Four hours later, Wesley was again alone in the little cabin. The lantern was out and it was dark in the room, but Wes was sure his anger was enough to provide half the world with light.

  The two young men, Bud and Cal, had difficulty at first in talking, almost as if their voices had never been used very much. But, after some persuading and when they saw Wes’s intense interest, they started talking as if they couldn’t stop.

  They didn’t remember their parents but had been adopted by Revis’s mother when they were three years old and already so big that people stared at them. Even as a boy, Revis had been a thief, yet he’d been charming too. While other people treated Bud and Cal as if they were freaks because of their size and their silence, Revis had been good to them. Revis’s mother used the boys as an extra team of oxen, so when Revis suggested they travel westward, Bud and Cal had agreed.

  Now they’d been living in the Kentucky forest for four years and even as good as Revis was to them and as much as they owed him, they didn’t like the way he treated the women he brought to the cabin. A few times Bud and Cal had tried to help the women, but the women had screamed in terror, especially after Abe made up stories about the young men.

  But Leah was different. She hadn’t taken Abe’s word that they were stupid and she’d been kind to them.

  “Leah takes on everyone’s problems,” Wesley muttered. “Will you help her escape?”

  Bud and Cal looked at each other. “She will not go without you. Abe says that if she leaves he will tell Revis where you are.”

  “Revis would kill you,” Cal said flatly. “He does not like other men touching his women.”

  “Neither do I!” Wesley snapped before beginning to question the men about all of Revis’s operation. Wes knew that thieves had been robbing the westward travelers for years, before Revis came west. All Bud and Cal knew was that Revis reported to someone called the Dancer and they knew nothing about him.

  “I’d like to find out who this Dancer is,” Wesley said thoughtfully.

  The men rose. “We have to return now. Revis will be back. You just get well and we will watch out for your pretty lady.”

  “She is a lady, isn’t she?” Wes said as they left.

  Now he sat alone, thinking over what he’d just heard. He was impressed, very impressed, that Leah was risking so much to protect him. Thinking back over their marriage, he hadn’t done much to make her love him. For just a moment he thought of Kimberly and wondered how she’d have reacted in the same situation. He was certain Kim would never risk her pretty neck or her cherished virginity to help anyone.

  “I’ll make it up to you, Leah,” he whispered into the darkness. Right now he must leave Leah’s protection to the boys, but when he was well and didn’t think he might bleed to death at the least movement, he was going to protect her himself. And further, he was going to see if he could do a little more for her than just be a burden.

  Chapter 18

  Leah didn’t sleep much that night. She kept having terrible dreams about all that could happen to Wesley alone in that cabin. Who knew what these woods held? That bear they’d seen could tear down the door and get him. Or even worse, Revis could find him and put a bullet through his heart.

  When she woke, her head hurt and her eyes were swollen.

  “You better stop lookin’ like that,” Abe said as she started breakfast. “Revis likes pretty women.”

  “I don’t care what your Revis likes. I’ll do what I please.”

  Abe leaned closer to her. “It better please you to please him or it just might please me to tell him the whereabouts of your rich lover.”

  With shaking hands, Leah returned to the skillet full of frying bacon.

  It wasn’t until after breakfast, when she’d cleared everything away and was starting the noon meal, that she saw Revis. He was leaning against the side of the cabin, trimming his nails with a long, thin-bladed knife.

  Leah jumped, then put her chin up and walked past him.

  He caught her hair and wrapped it about his wrist, pulling her toward him. “So, the lady’s too good to speak to the thief.”

  “Leave me alone! I don’t want your attentions and I have work to do. Bud and Cal—.”

  He jerked her head back. “You’ll regret turning them against me,” he said, putting his lips near hers.

  Leah saw him smile then felt a tug at her head. The next moment he pushed her away and held up a long strand of her hair in triumph. Leah’s hand flew to the back of her head, feeling the ragged edge where he’d cut it. As she ran into the house, Revis’s laugh followed her.

  All day Leah worked herself nearly to the breaking point, cooking, cleaning, ignoring Abe’s jibes, protecting Verity, who cried when any man came too near her.

  And everywhere she looked, Revis seemed to be there watching her. He’d suddenly appear out of the forest or from behind the woodpile or he’d be standing silently in a corner of the cabin. He never got close enough to touch her, since after he’d cut away her hair either Bud or Cal was always close to her. Twice Leah caught Revis looking at the boys as if in speculation.

  At sundown Revis disappeared and not long afterward Leah told Bud she was going to visit her husband. The big man nodded once and Leah wasn’t really sure if he understood her or not. If she ever got time, she was going to find out if the young men were as stupid as Abe said they were.

  “You better be back here afore Revis comes back,” Abe warned, but Leah ignored him.

  The lying was what was destroying her, Leah decided as she trudged up the mountainside. She seemed to be telling everyon
e a different story. Wesley was lying alone in a cabin, no doubt cursing his luck at being stuck with a Simmons. He’d decided to stay married to Leah because she was more “fun,” but where was the pleasure now?

  When Leah opened the cabin door, Wesley knew he’d never seen a more forlorn-looking person. She looked so miserable he almost wanted to laugh. Ever since he’d known her no matter what was dished out to her, she fought back. He never felt guilty about telling her what he thought because if she disagreed, she did so loudly.

  But the woman entering the cabin now looked as if she’d given up, as if she didn’t want to bother with life’s hardships any longer.

  Immediately Wes knew there was only one cure for her misery: he was going to make love to her.

  He held out his hand to her.

  With a frown Leah ignored his hand. “I brought you some food.”

  “I’m not hungry. Come sit by me.”

  That’s all I need, Leah thought, Revis after me during the day, Wesley pestering me at night. “I need to get back.”

  “Leah,” Wes said with surprising firmness for one so ill. “Sit down.”

  She didn’t really feel much like having a fight and besides, what could he do?

  When she sat on the edge of the bed, Wes put an arm around her and drew her back so she was leaning against the wall. He nestled his big, warm body next to her small, rigid one.

  “Chicken, potatoes, beans, cornbread,” he said softly, looking inside the basket she’d brought.

  With his free hand, he took the basket, leaned across her, and set it on the floor. That done, he didn’t quite straighten up but kept lying half across her.

  “I…I must go.” She halfheartedly pushed at him.

  “Leah,” he murmured, trailing a finger down her cheek, “you aren’t afraid of me, are you?”

  “Of course not,” she snapped. “I’ve got to go, that’s all. I’m not afraid of any—”

  She stopped because he kissed her, not just a simple kiss but a long, lingering, soft kiss that began to take the tiredness out of her.