Rebel with a Cause

by Carol Arens

  Missy turned her back to the fire, staring this way and that into the darkness. She lifted her hands to her hair and plucked the pins from it, one after another. Bit by golden bit the strands tumbled and snaked between her shoulders. Her hair looked like a waterfall sparkling with amber light. If he touched those tresses they might feel like mist.

  With both hands at the top of her head she skimmed her scalp, sifting the strands through her fingers. He shouldn't stare like a green boy, but by damn, he couldn't yank his gaze to the bleakness beyond her fire-warmed circle.

  Her fingers caressed a twining path to her neck, then suddenly she clenched them in apparent vexation. She grabbed a fistful of hair with both hands and pulled it. She kicked at a dirt clod while she tugged the tangle this way and that.

  So much for enchantment by firelight. The prairie was what it was, hard and merciless. A day in the saddle would cause a woman's hair no end of trouble.

  At last, she gave up on wrenching and tugging. She knotted her fists and slammed them on her hips, her annoyance clear even at this distance. After a moment her shoulders relaxed. He thought he heard her say something but from this distance couldn't tell what it was.

  She bent over and gathered up her skirt. One peek at her stocking-clad calves and his heart kicked up a notch. The red glow of the skirt shimmied past her knees and he reminded himself to look away.

  His gaze, contrary as a mule having a stubborn fit, only sharpened.

  With a wiggle of her hips, she lifted the skirt hem over her thighs then tucked the fabric across her arm. Zane nearly fell off his horse watching the way the garment caressed her round little behind like a lover's hand.

  Slowly, she turned around and around, warming her legs. Blamed if she didn't look like dinner on the barbecue spit. Impossibly, the fire's heat seemed to sizzle across the night to singe him. The pair of garters circling her thighs winked a welcome that made his belly simmer.

  Had it only been a thought ago that he had dismissed the notion of prairie enchantment? The dark and the fire might hold more magic than he had ever suspected.

  The enchantment ended abruptly when Muff barked. Like a pin-pricked bubble the vision burst and the skirt plunked to the cold earth.

  Zane remained silent, gazing out over the bleak, dark land for five cold minutes before he dismounted and led Ace toward the campsite. He didn't want Missy to know that he had been peeping at her. That had not been honorable behavior by any standard, but damned if she hadn't touched him in a way he would never have imagined. In a way that made him feel like a man coming home.

  "Nice fire," he announced, stepping into view. The heat warmed his face when he walked past, leading Ace toward the stream.

  "Nice...bunny," she replied, frowning at the carcass swaying limply from the saddle pack.

  While Ace sucked up a long drink, Zane removed the saddle and propped it against the broken limb of a cottonwood.

  "This is dinner, darlin'. Out here it doesn't come out of a kitchen on a silver platter."

  The pup approached the rabbit, tucking his tail between his legs. He sniffed then scurried behind Missy's skirt to cower. Evidently the dog was just as citified as its mistress.

  "I'm grateful for the dinner, Zane, truly." Missy gazed at the game like it was a lost friend. She reached her fingers toward it but stopped and curled them in a fist. "It's just that I have a bunny back home. I found him abandoned in the peonies when he wasn't bigger than a minute."

  Zane lifted the carcass from the saddle and carried it toward the stream. He knelt down, listening to the water lap against the bank. Without a doubt, he'd be the one to skin and clean tonight's meal.

  Silk whispered and petticoats crinkled. Missy crouched beside him, nearly thigh-to-thigh.

  "It's certain that this rabbit never saw a peony in his life. He was born to be food, either for us or some coyote," he said.

  "It took me for a minute, that's all. My Achilles has the same brown markings."

  "Achilles?"

  "When he hops about the yard he springs up like he's got wings on his feet."

  He looked down at the brown-and-white creature half-skinned in his hands. Next time he'd be sure to bring down a wild turkey. Chances are she wouldn't have made a pet of one of those lanky birds.

  "I didn't come adventuring with the expectation of honey-glazed ham and chocolate cake with raspberry sauce for supper every night."

  She sucked in a breath and held it for an instant. She flipped a tangled mass of hair from her shoulder to her back.

  "I'll cook it." She pointed to the skinned rabbit then looked Zane full in the eyes. "If you'll show me how."

  "Exactly how much experience have you had in the kitchen?" He'd spent an hour or more finding a rabbit big enough for both of them to eat. He'd be hanged if he was going to let her burn it.

  "Oh, hours upon hours!" Her face brightened with a smile. "Mother insisted that a lady should know how her kitchen runs. Suzie and I spent many a rainy afternoon watching cook take pastries out of the oven."

  "The thing about pastries is that they don't have to be gutted."

  "Gutted?" she gasped. "Adversity holds..."

  She held her hand open waiting for the knife he held.

  "Tell me what to do." She squeezed her eyes shut, creasing the corners in spidery lines. Her face blanched as though she was the one about to be gutted.

  "I'll need some salt. It's over there in my saddle pack in a leather pouch, if you'd get that for me."

  Settlers at the homestead five miles back might have heard her sigh of relief when she closed her fist.

  She leaped up and rushed for the salt.

  "If you have tea and cups in here, I'm your woman," she called out. "Edwin swears that I excel at serving tea."

  * * *

  Missy watched Zane's throat move, swallowing a steaming sip of coffee. He passed the hot tin cup to her.

  The consumption of coffee seemed to have no apparent ceremony to it. Unlike tea that had to be poured in the proper way and sipped with the fingers held just so, coffee could be taken sitting or standing. It could be savored alone or even shared, as now. At a tea party she would never have imagined putting her lips on the same cup rim as a gentleman had.

  Now, with the tin warming her palms, she sought the very spot where Zane had put his mouth.

  "Dinner was delicious," she said, then took another unsweetened swallow of the dark brew and handed the cup to Zane. "After the second or third bite I didn't give Achilles a thought."

  "Looks like the mutt forgot old ties easy enough."

  Steam floated up from the mug, tracing a swirling vapor across Zane's face. In the dark it was hard to see the color of his eyes but they were sure to be a reflection of the simmering drink they shared.

  "Muff is not a mutt, he's bred as pure as can be." She glanced at the dog, watching his purebred fur turn yellow with the grease from the leftover rabbit he devoured. "Back home, heads would turn if he were anything but pure."

  "He sure has caused a few heads to turn out here." Zane passed the cup. "What made you bring the runt along?"

  "If I wasn't home to keep him in hand, I'm afraid Edwin might give him to a neighbor." Missy snuggled the tin in her palms to gather the warmth. The bite in the night air threatened to snuff out the heat of the little campfire. "For some reason, he has no patience with Muff. No matter how many times I explain that he's just a puppy, Edwin can't forget about his ermine slippers."

  "When I was a kid my mother gave me a pup." His eyebrows lifted in apparent surprise, as though a forgotten memory had been restored. "Its teeth were as sharp as a new pencil."

  "If only Muff had taken to the slippers with his teeth. Edwin wouldn't have judged innocent chewing to be an insult. As it was, the slippers never did dry right."

  Zane rolled his neck, probably easing the aches of a day in the saddle out of the muscles. "Dogs are pretty much of one mind on that, no matter how pure."

  Muff, finished with picking the b
ones of the rabbit, carried the carcass to a nearby bush and began to dig. Dirt stuck to the grease in his beard. It turned his paws brown and his nose a mucky orange. He didn't look a thing like the white puff who had stolen away from home in her satchel.

  Zane stretched and tipped the soles of his boots toward the fire. He folded his arms across his flat belly, lounged back against the fallen cottonwood log and closed his eyes. With his face in repose and the fire reflecting off it, the injury to his left eye was plain to see.

  "I'm sorry about your eye." The swelling had gone down since they had fled Luminary, but the puffiness had left a sickly purple-green ring that made her feel blameworthy.

  "That wasn't your fault."

  "I'm sorry about your thumb." A jagged red line sliced through the center of his thumbnail where he had pulled out the splinter with his teeth.

  "Not your fault either."

  The flood was not her fault, to be sure, but the fact that he was in the position to be injured was no one's fault but hers.

  She refilled the coffee tin and thought to offer Zane the first sip but he seemed so peaceful with his feet toasting by the fire. Just as well, the heat in her palms was a comfort she hated to give up. "I'm sorry that your coat got left behind at Maybelle's."

  "That might be your fault." A smile nipped the corners of his mouth. With his eyes closed she was free to stare directly at his face. Handsome was a weak word when it came to describing Zane Coldridge. Mercy forgive her, she wanted to crawl over on hands and knees and kiss that mouth even though it curled with the barest trace of a smirk.

  His eyes cracked open and his gaze slid her way as though he had read her wicked thoughts.

  "I suppose that if I'd been more careful with my dress, you'd have captured your bank robber by now," she said with a quick glance at the fire to hide any lingering expression of longing.

  "Hard to imagine losing your gown to a cow."

  She looked back and saw a smile that carried right up to his eyes. She couldn't help but stare openly now.

  "If I had imagined it I would have put it out of reach of the beast's jaws."

  If a body could know ahead of time the misadventures that might occur, she could be at least prepared to meet them.

  For instance, if she had imagined the flood, she would have done any number of things differently. For one she'd have brought along her hairbrush when she rode away from the Green Island Hotel. The past twenty-four hours had made her head feel as messy as an abandoned bird's nest.

  As if, once more, sensing her thoughts, Zane untied his lace ribbon. For an instant she hoped he meant to lend it to her but he smoothed the strip with his fingertips, made four precise folds then tucked it in the pocket of his shirt. He gave the pocket a pat, pressing the lace close to his heart.

  "That must be a very special ribbon," she said, hoping to hear the story behind it. Flame-burnished hair freed from its confinement sifted across his brow, hiding the tale that his eyes might tell.

  An uneasy wind moaned over the land and caught the mournful howl of something rather larger than a coyote. Muff growled but snuggled his grease-and-mud-smeared self deep into the safe folds of her skirt.

  "Wolf," Zane muttered, then fed a buffalo chip to the flames.

  "Wolves aren't common in Boston." She peered into the darkness, relieved that she did not spot a pair of ferocious yellow eyes. The wind must have carried the cry from miles away. In spite of that, she shivered.

  "Scoot on over, darlin'. Sit here between my legs."

  The scandalous invitation drew the blood from her face straight to her belly. How curious.

  He had seen her shiver and might think she was frightened of the wolf, or cold to the bone. Both of those things were true. But she had noticed his gaze dip a time or two to the peekaboo feathers adorning the low-cut bodice of her harlot's gown. Her shiver came from somewhere else.

  "I'm not a bit cold," she made up. "Or scared."

  Reflections of flame played across his eyes. His winged eyebrows called like a summons from Lucifer.

  "It's this dress, isn't it?" She yanked up the low decolletage. "I'm not really a--"

  "I don't have a hairbrush, but I think I can get at those tangles with my fingers."

  "Oh." She let go of her bodice. Evidently, he was not tempted by the chill-prickled flesh swelling out of it. That was a relief...most certainly.

  Zane pointed to the space between his knees and, like a magnet drawn to an attracting force, she scooted backward into the V-shape that his thighs presented. Thank the stars that he couldn't see her humiliation when his fingers slipped through her hair and encountered a knot the size of a tumbleweed.

  Even though her body had been closer to his a few times, back-to-belly in the saddle or tucked up tight in the tarp, this was more intimate. Those times had been forced by circumstance. This time, he had invited her into his personal space and she had wiggled her derriere right in.

  For an instant Edwin's frown flashed in her mind, but she snuffed the vision out like a tiny flame between her fingers.

  "Wolves travel in packs, I've read." She continued to scan the dark beyond the fire's reach but the threat seemed diminished with a pair of muscled legs braced about her.

  "Wolves sound like the devil, but they're not much of a threat to us. You'd best keep the dog close, though."

  The only thing visible of Muff was his nose. It poked out of a fold of her skirt to sniff this way and that.

  "The truth is, with a few exceptions, I'd rather face the beasts of the night than many a man." Zane's voice whispering warmly past her ear sounded relaxed, but even in repose she noticed that he scanned the night for danger.

  "Or a tangle," she mumbled, apologizing for the messy challenge he had taken on. "You seem to have a way with hair, though."

  She'd had her hair brushed before, pampered by hands that knew just what a lady needed, but never by hands hard with calluses, never by strong, suntanned fingers that sifted through tangles like a spoon stirring honey.

  "Along with learning my ABCs I learned to get the knots out of the sporting ladies' hair." He plucked at an especially stubborn knot.

  "There is surely an interesting story behind that." How much of it would he be willing to tell?

  He hesitated the duration of a wolf's howl and its mate's answer before speaking.

  "Maybelle took me in when no one else would; she was like a doting aunt. There weren't a lot of ways to pay her back, but I did learn that after a night's work, the girls sometimes needed help with their hair. Some of them could read so while I worked on their hair they taught me what they could."

  He must have learned more than his letters growing up in a brothel. "Why did Maybelle take you in? What happened to your folks?"

  "Look at that moon," he said with a neat sidestep to her question.

  "As slivers go, it's exceptional." Something horrid must have happened to his folks for him to close up at the mention of them, but talking was a balm. "Sometimes, Zane, my heart aches for my father so much that I cry my eyes dry."

  His fingers went still in her hair. The night wind tiptoed across her face.

  She missed her mother and her brother, as well, but her heart ached for Suzie. Without her twin, there had been no one for her soul to speak to.

  Writing her manuscript gave solace, but every time she wrote something down, it was stolen or heartlessly abandoned.

  "Have you ever seen a butterfly moon?" she asked. Suzie was not here, but Zane was.

  A soft snort whispered past her ear. For a man with gentle hands, he was amazingly cynical.

  "I was born under one," she persisted. The world was full of wonder, if a body knew how to look for it. Zane Coldridge would be a happier man if he tried to.

  "There can't be such a thing, darlin', since the moon is shining at the exact time that butterflies are down for the night."

  "Most of the time that's true."

  "I suppose you're going to tell me all about the times it isn't
true." Another grisly knot fell victim to his experienced fingers.

  "We have a lot of hours with nothing else to do." She felt the quick catch of his breath then the slow hiss of its release.

  "Don't spin me any dime-novel yarns. I told you that the things you read in those books are mostly untrue."

  "This is a story from my own dear father's lips. I'm sure it's gospel."

  "You can talk until dawn and I guarantee that I won't see a butterfly near the moon."

  "Of course you wouldn't, not on a normal night." She took a quick glance at the sickle moon. His fingers felt like warm stones sliding through her hair. This was far from a normal night. "As my father told it, and Papa never told a lie, a butterfly moon happened on the night that Suzie and I were born."

  A wolf howled, closer now. The hands in her hair didn't falter, making the mournful wail no more frightening than a puppy whining in the dark.

  "It happened at midnight. Mother had been in labor for two days. We didn't come into the world easily, the way my brother had. The doctor told my father to prepare for the worst. Papa was in a state, so fearful of a loss he couldn't bear.

  "After listening to the doctor's bad news, he ran out the kitchen door, into the herb garden. He fell on his knees, begging God for a miracle. It was right then that he felt a touch on his shoulder. He said it was so light it might have been a brush of wings."

  Zane's rough-knuckled fingers stroked a section of hair that he had smoothed moments before.

  "When Papa opened his eyes and looked around, no one was there. From the upstairs window, he heard mother cry out as though it were her last breath.

  "Then he looked at the big fat full moon. Even through his tears he saw them."

  "Butterflies?" While Zane's voice didn't sound convinced, it didn't sound mocking either.

  "Thousands of them. By the light of that moon Papa saw them glow orange and blue and yellow. He likened it to a rainbow cut up into bits and tossed about the sky. Then he heard a baby cry. That was me. He shouted for joy and ran for the house. When he was halfway up the stairs, he heard another cry. That was Suzie. He heard us both wailing away at the same time. He twisted his ankle on a toy ship that Edwin had left on the stairs but he hobbled up to us in a flash. Papa liked to say that since the night of the butterfly moon the house hadn't known a moment's peace and quiet. Papa wasn't a big fan of peace and quiet anyway."