Her Winchester was there, too.
Sally chafed to think of her chaps and broadcloth pants, but she’d seen herself that they were destroyed. She thought of what Ma would say if she knew Sally had changed into her manly clothes after she’d left the train. Ma would be annoyed at her behavior, but those clothes, tough and protective, had helped save Sally’s life. Ma would forgive all Sally’s outrageous behavior and give thanks because of that.
A tiny twist of pleasure forced Sally to admit it would feel good to wear the doeskin dress. And it would be much easier to put on, considering the sorry state of her ribs and leg. Eyeing the doeskin, Sally knew that this morning she was going to get dressed and get out.
So what if she was on top of a mountain? She’d scoot downhill on her backside if Logan wouldn’t give her a horse. One way or another, she was going.
Sally figured to dress then go find herself a sturdy crutch. She knew she’d never get far without being caught, but if she could get up and prove to Logan and Wise Sister that she was capable, they’d lend her a horse and let her get on with it.
This was the West, and out here, just like in Texas, people forked their own broncs. This was Sally’s problem, and she’d solve it.
She moved slowly, careful not to jar her aching leg. Standing, she had only two hops to reach the dress. She made that with only a token protest from her battered body. She sank into a chair and took it slow and easy pulling on Wise Sister’s gift.
The tanning had taken a lot of time and was already done before Sally had come crashing into Wise Sister’s life. Sally wondered what Wise Sister had been planning for the lovely piece of goods.
Studying the cabin, Sally knew Wise Sister might have had grand plans to decorate the leather and use it in her home somehow.
Sally listened carefully as she pulled her dress into place. Once it was on, she also noticed the bit of ribbon that had been on her chemise. It had been lying on the table beneath the dress. The pin she used to keep it in place and remove it to be hidden at the end of the day was there, too. Not a speck of blood on her secret, womanly indulgence. She picked up the bit of foolishness and, with care, found a seam inside the soft dress and pinned the ribbon in place, out of sight.
She hurried to finish dressing, worried that Logan might come to the cabin. With her ears peeled, she prepared to yell out for him to wait until she was decent. When he saw her dressed, she fully expected him to start yelling right back.
She wasn’t interrupted and was soon fully dressed, even getting her remaining boot on her good foot. That made her feel steadier. She sat, gathering her strength, wondering exactly where she’d have to go to get a crutch, when she heard a footstep at the door.
There was a knock, which there had never been before, but then Sally realized how rarely she’d been left alone. One of her two caretakers was always with her. Humbly, she had to admit that they’d taken good care of her.
“Come in.” She squared her shoulders, bracing for the fight she intended to win.
The door swung open and Logan stepped in and smiled. “We knew you were ready to get dressed. I see you’ve finished.”
It irritated Sally to find out her scheming and plotting had, instead, been predictable. “I’m dressed and ready to go.” Sally crossed her arms, delighted at how little that hurt.
“Wise Sister has already gone to scout for your friends. Your breakfast is ready over in the other cabin. Shall I carry you over there or bring it here?”
“You made me breakfast?”
“No, of course not.” Logan shuddered. “I want you to get better. What I’d cook might well set you back. Wise Sister made it before she rode out.”
“She shouldn’t go out there. It’s dangerous.”
“She’s only going for a few hours. She said something about Buff, but I didn’t understand it. Just that Buff would read her sign. Does your friend speak Shoshone?”
“Not that I know of.”
Logan shrugged. “Wise Sister is sure she can leave a sign your friends can follow but stay clear of anyone else who might be prowling around. We talked about it, and she convinced me I’d only make things worse.” Logan smiled.
He wasn’t a very normal sort of man. Her pa wouldn’t have been happy about a woman doing a job he saw as his. And most men wouldn’t laugh at themselves. Sally found that the attitude was refreshing. But Logan was strange, with his odd painting. Maybe he’d learned to accept others in hopes they’d also accept him. She wondered if he liked her pretty new dress.
“Wise Sister left some heavy branches. She said she thought you’d be able to fashion yourself a good crutch with it.” Logan came up beside her, swung her rifle over his shoulders and scooped Sally into his arms.
Whatever kind of bad job he was doing of caring for himself, Sally had to admit the man was strong.
He lifted her with ease and smiled down at her. “Let’s go. You can eat, and I can paint you.”
Sally felt a very strange twist in her gut that she didn’t understand, and her arms seemed a bit too natural wrapped around Logan’s neck.
Logan stopped. “Do you mind getting the door?”
Sally grinned. They got into his cabin the same way.
He settled her at the table with such gentleness Sally couldn’t stop from whispering, “Thanks.”
Logan paused as he slid his arms free of her back and knees, his face too close. His eyes were an odd shade of deep brown, and this close she could see they were shot through with an almost golden yellow stripe. Though he acted gentle, those eyes made her think of the eagles that soared overhead in this strange land. Predator eyes, strong, dangerous. There was a depth to them that made no sense. The man painted when he should be chopping wood and hunting for supper.
But, though she didn’t understand the way he lived, she saw in him patience, confidence, an assurance that, though he knew he didn’t exactly suit the world, he suited himself. It was amazingly attractive.
It reminded her for a fleeting second that she dressed like a man and worked a man’s job. And yet she apologized to no one for her behavior. Could it possibly be that deep down, she and Logan were a lot alike?
Then his eyes changed. Where once there was kindness and concern, the depth now held warmth. More than warmth … heat.
He kissed her.
He certainly shouldn’t be doing that. She pulled back to tell him to stop, but he followed along, and she forgot what she was going to say.
His hands touched her face, and he tilted her head gently and deepened the kiss.
Her hands came up to rest on his wrists. To hold on. Tight.
She wondered at his talented, strong hands and how gentle they were.
Something awoke in her that she hadn’t known was sleeping. An affection for Logan bloomed that was a mismatch for her opinion that he was a no-account kind of man.
He raised his head so their lips separated, and Sally followed after him and brought him back to her, back to that kiss.
Logan straightened away, his eyes on her as if she were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, even better than a hook-nosed bald eagle. “Let me draw you, exactly like that.”
Scooting her chair close to the table, he sat around the corner from her, only inches away. His sketchbook was laying right there, and he picked it up. It was never far from his hands. He began drawing while Sally wondered what he saw in her that he found so fascinating, that made him share a kiss then grab a pencil.
“You can move if you want.” He looked up from his drawing but it was a studying kind of look.
“Really? I thought you’d want me to sit still.” So that meant she was obeying him, even while she was still planning to tell him he had a lot of nerve to just announce he was going to draw her picture.
Not to mention kissing her.
And he hadn’t mentioned it once he pulled back. She’d noticed that clear enough.
God, have mercy. I want him to kiss me again.
“No, moving is go
od for me. I can see different angles of your face, catch the way your bones and muscles work together. I can catch shadows from the light coming in through the window.” He reached past her and pulled a red-and-white-checked towel off a plate on the table, revealing scrambled eggs, a slab of venison, and a square of cornbread covered with honey. “I’ll pour you some coffee.”
Logan set his sketchbook aside as if it hurt him to let it go, grabbed the coffeepot off the stove, poured a black tin cup full of the steaming liquid, then hurriedly returned the pot with a clank of metal on metal and rushed back to sit beside her and resume drawing.
“You hadn’t oughta kissed me like that.” Sally hated saying that. Hated knowing she could never let him do it again. He’d done it before, and she’d thought that was the end of it. Now he’d sneaked past her again. “It’s not proper.”
He looked up from his drawing, but his expression showed no agreement with her or regret that she’d just told him he couldn’t kiss her again. Instead he just studied her for long quiet moments with those deep, probing eyes. It seemed like he was trying to see inside her head.
Which she sorely hoped he couldn’t, because she didn’t want him to know how much she’d thought of their first kiss. How often she’d imagined having another … which she just had … and how much she regretted that she had to call a halt to such nonsense.
Finally, he went back to drawing.
Sally decided not to mention the kiss again and invite another such long look.
She ate quietly, savoring the meat and eggs. She’d seen no chickens, but maybe there were ducks and pheasants around. Wise Sister would know how to rob their nests.
She stared out the windows, wondering about the kiss and Logan’s single-minded painting and the work a lone woman would have to do to provide this meal, when she noticed how far and wide she could see. “You’ve got both your shutters off today.” The south wall of his cabin was almost completely open.
She sought out the huge painting, now leaning on the east wall. “What made you paint it in such an odd fashion? It doesn’t look real. I thought a painter’s skill was judged by how much his pictures looked like what he was drawing.”
Logan smiled, looked up from his sketchbook, opened his mouth, and then stopped. “I need you to take your hair down, catch the light on all that yellow gold.”
Her hair was in one long braid that had swung over her shoulder and hung down nearly to her lap.
“I’ll do it.” He reached over, without asking so much as a by-your-leave, and tugged on the leather thong Wise Sister had given her to contain the braid.
“What are you—”
“Got it. Thanks.” He tossed the strip of leather onto the table next to Sally, set the sketchbook beside the hair tie, and with quick movements undid her braid then pulled her hair into disorder.
“You—wait—I don’t—” Sally sputtered, shoving at his hands, but it was too late to do a thing.
His hands lingered on her hair far longer than Sally thought was necessary. Their fingers were intertwined. She ought to stab him with her fork, but her breath caught as she saw his eyes slide from her hand, tangled in his fingers, to her eyes.
With a shake of his head, he let go of her and went right back to drawing. “Blazing Land is the name of the picture. It was”—he looked up from his drawing and smiled—“pure indulgence that I painted it. A waste of paint and canvas, a huge picture impossible to take home.”
He looked at the wall-sized painting behind his back. A rueful smile bloomed. “But it was like I had that inside me. I couldn’t do anything else until I—got it out—got it out of the way.” He stared at the picture, then shrugged his shoulders and went back to drawing.
Then she looked a bit farther and saw a smaller painting. The big one demanded attention, but the smaller one… “Is that—me?” She sat on a horse, dressed in pants and her buckskin jacket, the horse in motion under her while she focused completely on something beyond the picture. She held the reins in one hand, a rope coiled over her head in the other, a lasso she was almost ready to throw.
Logan looked up, followed the line of her vision, and smiled. “Yes. Another thing I had to get out of my system.” He looked back at her. “Except, I don’t seem to have quite done that yet. I get up in the morning thinking to capture another sunrise, and all I can do is study sketches of you.”
He made a move that looked like he was going to touch her hair again, then stopped and jabbed his pencil at her plate. “Eat. You need food to knit your bones. That’s what Wise Sister said.”
“You’ve never even seen me on horseback.”
“Well, not while you were conscious.”
That’s right. He’d carried her home. Just swept her up and whisked her away, like one of his eagles carrying something back to its nest. Eagles did that with food.
She shook off that thought and studied the painting he’d done of her. The picture seemed to move. It was alive, dust kicking up, the horse wheeling, obeying the pressure of her knees. She could feel herself—in the painting—riding, concentrating, aiming that rope. She could smell the sweat a person worked up and the horse, the dust, the cattle she’d have been working. “That’s—that’s—you’re really good.”
Logan looked up and grinned. “Well—it’s not humble to admit it, I suppose, but, yes, I am really good.”
He reached for her again, this time not checking himself, and stroked one finger down the side of her face, around so he touched her chin, staring at her in that intense way. Frowning, he said, “It’s not a normal pastime, painting. But since I can’t seem to stop and can’t focus on anything long enough to find a more useful career, I’m just giving it all I’ve got.”
Logan quit touching her then looked over at the painting of her for a minute. He snapped his fingers and lunged out of his chair toward the other side of the room where a square of cloth covered something on a table. He pulled the cloth away, and Sally saw another picture of her, dressed in buckskin again. A twinge of embarrassment surprised her. He’d never seen her in women’s clothes until today, and he’d yet to comment on Wise Sister’s gift.
She thought of the way he’d kissed her. She’d never considered kissing much. When she was around men, it was either her father or brothers or men she was trying to outdo in some way. She wanted the cowhands on her family ranch to respect her. And there was no place for kissing in that. Nor had she ever wanted there to be.
It hit her suddenly that she spent most of her life proving herself to men and when, as she always did, she proved herself better, she looked on them with pity. So, if a tough Texas cowboy couldn’t win enough respect to awaken some affection, how could a man who painted pictures?
Simple answer was he couldn’t. And if she didn’t respect him, then she shouldn’t be kissing him. She thought of her big sister Mandy, married to a man her parents loathed … Luther hated. Sally suspected Mandy hated him, too, once she’d gotten over being addle-headed in love with him at first.
It could happen. A woman could fall for a no-account man. Or a man could appear to be of some account then prove himself later to be a scoundrel and a liar, as Sidney had.
Sally knew that lesson from hearing about her big sister, mainly through letters they received from Luther, but some of it had sneaked into Mandy’s letters, too. Mostly she knew how Mandy felt just because of the complete lack of any affectionate mention of Sidney.
Mandy was the smartest, toughest big sister a girl could have, and she’d been tricked into marrying a man who was busy night and day wrecking her life. Now it looked like Sally might have that same inclination. In fact, as she thought about it, Sally remembered the stories she’d heard about her own pa, the first man Ma had been married to. Though Sally could barely remember him, her sisters claimed he was a hard man to have around. So even her ma had been lured into a bad marriage.
And Beth—well, Alex had turned out to be okay, a fine man in fact. But that was just pure good luck. When Beth married h
im, it didn’t look like she’d done one bit of a good thing.
Sally stroked the tiny scar on her neck.
“What is that?”
Abandoning her dark thoughts of no-account men, Sally touched the bit of redness that was never going to fade. “My sister Beth’s husband—”
“The doctor.” Logan supplied, drawing away.
“Yes, he … well, he did a little bit of surgery on me.”
“On your throat?” He looked up, horrified.
“Yes, it was the day he married my sister. They’d only met a few hours before. My throat swelled shut when I was stung by a swarm of bees, and he cut here.” Sally drew one finger down that tiny scar and thought kind thoughts about Alex. Maybe Beth had known what she was doing.
“He made a hole into my—well—my lungs, I guess. I don’t reckon I know exactly what he did. But he cut here, below where my throat was swelled shut, and blew through a tube to keep me alive until the swelling went down.”
“I’ve never heard of that.” Logan shook his head as if denying it and studied her neck more closely. “I don’t remember much about my father’s doctoring advice, but I know a person can’t be having his … or her … throat cut.”
She saw a flash of anger on Logan’s face, as if he were mad about Alex cutting into her. As if he’d like to protect her from any such violation. His concern and anger appealed to her in a way she couldn’t describe, since she’d never felt such a thing for a man before. “Alex knew what he was doing, I’d say. Though I was unconscious, I suspect I was grateful enough for the air when it started flowing again.”
Sally was warmed by Logan’s protective anger, and she could see how a woman could be lured toward a man who wasn’t what she wanted. It happened too much, too easy. And maybe especially her family seemed apt to make stupid choices in men.
Which explained why she was thinking about Logan’s kiss. And even worse, wondering how she could get him to kiss her again. It was probably in her blood to do stupid things when it came to men.
Sophie's Daughters Trilogy Page 43