He turned around. “Cover yourself.”
Whether she did or didn’t, she leapt at his back, slamming both fists into it before yelling, “Happy now, you son’bitch? Doesn’t change a damn thing and you know it!”
Didn’t it? Degan wondered. Maybe not. Max Dawson, female, was still an outlaw wanted for murder and bank robbery. What would John Hayes do under these circumstances? His job, of course, and that was to apprehend and bring in the individual so a court of law could decide the matter of guilt or innocence.
The fists pounding on his back didn’t budge him, and since he was blocking the shack’s only exit, he didn’t turn around right away to confront her. He’d give her time to button up her shirt and himself time to forget what that shirt was covering. When he did turn, she was pacing back and forth across the shack’s measly ten feet of space, kicking the cut ropes, kicking the pile of leaves, the only two things on that side of the shack to kick.
The lantern was in the front corner to Degan’s right, the coil of rope to his left, but she didn’t go near them. She was staying away from him now, as far as she could get. It was a good thing he’d brought a long coil of rope. He was going to have to use the rest of it now.
“Take your boots off.”
She stopped to give him another glare before she sat down hard and reached for one of her boots. “Sure! Why not? This shack doesn’t stink enough already?”
Two knives fell to the floor when the first boot came off. A third fell with the second boot. Degan shook his head incredulously. He knew one of those knives had been stashed under the leaves. She wouldn’t have been able to reach her boots when she’d been tied up. She definitely took precautions, carrying so many weapons.
He looked at her feet and saw dingy gray socks with holes. He wondered if she ever willingly took her boots off. For that matter, he wondered if she ever bathed. He figured she must because she didn’t smell bad. But she obviously hadn’t washed in the last day since the rain. Her mud-caked face was like a mask, and not a pretty one. Did she know how she looked? Did she even have a mirror?
He could see the two curves under her shirt, now that he knew to look for them. That stiff leather vest of hers acted as a corset, flattening and concealing what was under it. He should go pick up her things that were scattered down the hill and get her back into that vest. Yet he was still having trouble coming to terms with there being a female beneath that rough, muddy exterior. His eyes roamed over her. Her loose black shirt was tucked into loose black pants, leaving her waist and hips undefined. She’d chosen the right clothing to hide her womanly shape. He would never have believed Max Dawson was a woman if he hadn’t seen her beautiful breasts.
He picked up the three knives and tossed them outside before he said, “You can put your boots back on, but stay where you are.”
“You’re all heart, fancy man,” she replied scathingly.
He picked up one of the pieces of rope on the floor, one long enough to bind her hands behind her back. He couldn’t bring himself to hog-tie her again, but he knew just tying her hands wasn’t enough to prevent her from trying to escape again. So he got the remainder of the coil of rope and wrapped it around her arms and torso to keep her arms confined to her sides. Then he hauled her to the back wall and sat her down so she could lean against it.
“I take it back,” she snarled. “No heart at all.”
“Shut up,” he said tonelessly. “It’s this or I tie you to a tree outside.”
“I’ll take the tree if it means I don’t have to be in this room with you.”
“I wasn’t offering a choice.”
He started to sit next to her so he could finish securing her with the rope, but he reconsidered. If he tied their ankles together, they would be sitting side by side, and once she fell asleep, she might lean against him and rub some of that dried mud on his jacket. He went outside to get his canteen of water. He offered her a drink first, which she took grudgingly, then removed the white bandanna from her neck and thoroughly wet it. She tried to avoid the cloth as it came toward her face, but she didn’t have room to maneuver and fell over to her side. He dragged her back up so he could finish.
“I’ll need that back before you take me in.”
He held up the bandanna to show her how dirty it was. “It has to be washed first.”
“I don’t care what it looks like. I have a specific use for it, and it’s not to protect my face during dust storms.”
“I can guess.”
“No, you can’t. I use it to cover up the fact that I don’t have a lump in my throat like you do.”
“Yes, I’ve already figured that out. And that lump is called an Adam’s apple.”
“Like I care what it’s called? Just put the bandanna back around my neck.”
“You can in the morning when it’s dry.”
He draped the cloth over the peg in the wall. When he turned back to sit next to her, he paused. He’d done his best not to look at what he’d been cleaning, but it was hard to miss now. He didn’t castigate himself for not seeing it sooner. He’d come across too many smooth-skinned, late-blooming boys for a girlish face to have warned him, even if hers hadn’t been so dirty. Well, maybe not. With the mud and dirt gone, Max Dawson was a little too pretty now.
Chapter Eight
MAX OPENED HER EYES and instantly snapped them shut. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She had wanted one last chance to escape, not that she had any options left other than to wiggle out of that rope and get her hands on one of the knives her captor had tossed outside. He hadn’t woken earlier until she’d almost been out the door. If it hadn’t been for those damned creaky boards that were barely nailed together, she would have been free, riding away to Mexico, Noble racing his heart out for her. She knew she should have tossed those boards out when she’d moved in, but she was so tired of sleeping on the ground.
She missed the cabin she’d found in Colorado. She’d made herself so comfortable there for the first winter she’d been on the run that she’d stuck around until the fall and would have stayed longer if the owner hadn’t returned. She missed home, too. She’d been gone nearly two years, and after the wanted posters had started showing up, she’d begun to think she was never going to be able to return. But this fancy dresser was going to send her back to Texas. To hang. And what the hell was he, dressed like a city-slick gambler? All in black except for a white shirt that looked softer than anything she’d ever owned.
He was a handsome man, maybe a little too handsome. Tall with wide shoulders. His clothes fit him as snugly as if they’d been tailored just for him. He didn’t have a beard or a mustache, but some dark stubble was on his face this morning. His wavy, black hair wasn’t long, but wasn’t real short either. His gray eyes were inscrutable. But she’d heard him laugh that one time, before he’d cut it short, and she’d seen a few frowns, too, but otherwise there had been no sign that he had emotions like normal folks did. But he had the prettiest gun belt and holster she’d ever seen. Silver etching? Who gussied up a gun belt like that unless they just wanted to show off?
The only men she’d ever seen dressed somewhat like him were fresh in from the East, but greenhorns didn’t wear a gun the way he did, as if they knew how to use it. This man was too fancy, too competent, and when he frowned, darn right scary. But she was too angry at getting caught to be wary of him.
He was still sleeping next to her, back to the wall, his legs slightly bent. When she tried to get up she saw why. Damn! He’d tied their feet together, must have done it the moment she fell asleep. Her legs were stretched out. He couldn’t stretch his without pulling her away from the wall. And he’d wake up the moment she tried to move. Or would he? He’d complained about being tired last night. Judging by the light coming in through the open doorway, the sun was barely up, so he still hadn’t caught up on much sleep yet.
She leaned forward to see if she could wiggle her foot out of the boot he’d looped the rope around. The rope was tied tight. She co
uld actually feel it pressing through the leather against her ankle.
“How old are you, Max?”
She flinched slightly, startled by the sound of his voice. “What month is it?”
He snorted as if he doubted that she didn’t know. She gnashed her teeth, frustrated that he was already awake. There went her options other than to somehow convince him to let her go. But she wasn’t sure she could stop growling at him long enough to do that. He was besting her at every turn. No one had ever done that to her before, not even that old bastard Carl Bingham, who got her into this mess for dying when he shouldn’t have died.
She still didn’t know how that had happened. She hadn’t met anyone she could trust enough to help her correspond with her grandmother until she’d come to Helena. After becoming friends with Luella, she’d finally written to her grandmother and told her to write back to Luella, who would give the letter to Max. She expected Luella to receive her grandmother’s reply any day now. But now she wouldn’t get it, thanks to him!
She was frustrated enough to scream and far too furious to even look at her captor, but since he hadn’t said anything since asking about her age and hadn’t moved yet, she sat back and volunteered, “If it’s July, I reckon I’m twenty. If not, then I will be soon. Don’t have a reason to keep track of days, just seasons. And I haven’t seen a newspaper since last year. So why don’t you keep your skepticism to yourself, fancy man.”
“You toss out a word like skepticism, yet you butcher the English language. Where’d you grow up?”
“Texas, and if you send me back there, it will be to die. Will your conscience survive that?”
“I’m not sure I have one.”
He leaned forward and untied their feet, then stood up. With her hands still tied behind her back and the rope still tied around her arms and torso, she couldn’t stand, not without a lot of wiggling, so she stayed where she was. He grabbed her bandanna from the wall and tossed it in her lap, implying he’d be untying her hands so she could put it back on. But he didn’t. He stepped outside instead.
She got to her feet as fast as she could and moved to the doorway. He wasn’t in sight. Her knives weren’t either. His horse was there, but he’d unsaddled it last night, so she couldn’t get on its back without first getting her hands loose. And that coil of rope was still around her. She tried to stretch the rope at her wrists so she could get one hand out of it.
“Why the assumed name, Max Dawson?”
She sighed in disappointment. He’d only gone off to relieve himself. “I didn’t assume nothing. I got named after my pa, Maxwell Dawson, since I was his firstborn and there was no guarantee he’d get a son, though he did a few years later. My name’s actually Maxine, but my family always called me Max, and the folks in Bingham Hills where we lived only knew me as Max, so that’d be my guess why that name was put on the wanted posters.”
“And that’s why you’re dressing the part? You didn’t once think that wearing a dress would conceal your identity better than any hideout could?”
“Yeah, I thought of it. But if it ain’t obvious to you, it’s actually more dangerous to be a woman alone out here than a man on his own who resembles an outlaw. ’Sides, no one takes a girl who wears a gun seriously. And I like to wear my gun. I’m damn good with it, you know. You’re lucky yours was already drawn.”
“What about your hair? The poster depicts you with short hair.”
“I had it cut short long before I had to leave Texas, but Gran cut it better’n I do. Thought it would make me less appealing so the boys in town would stop sniffing around. But it didn’t work.”
He nodded as if he agreed that short hair wouldn’t have made her less attractive to men. It was a bane to have a face like hers when she didn’t want to be noticed. But ever since she’d left home, taking her brother’s clothes with her instead of her own, she usually only had to wear her wide-brimmed hat, keep her face smudged with dirt, and introduce herself as Max for people to take her for a pretty-faced boy. Even Luella hadn’t guessed and had had to be told on their second meeting.
As if he’d read her mind, her captor asked, “All things considered, how would you meet someone like Luella?”
Max actually grinned. “Obviously not in the usual way. I rescued her the night I first passed through Helena. She doesn’t usually leave that brothel, at least not at night and not alone, but one of the girls was sick. She’d been sent to fetch a doctor, and a trio of rowdy drifters thought they could have their way with her in a back alley. I’d been avoiding the main street m’self, skirting around the backs of the buildings. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have heard her crying.”
He raised a black brow. “You ran off three men? Or you shot them?”
She snorted. “Didn’t need to shoot. I might look like a kid, but I’m as dangerous as anyone with a drawn gun. They took off and I escorted Luella back to her brothel. It was the first time I’d ever been in one, so I was curious enough to follow her up to her room when she invited me there. Didn’t know she wanted to repay me in her usual fashion. Now that I think back on it, it was kinda funny how fast I got out of there.”
“So she doesn’t know you’re a girl?”
“Oh, she does now and keeps my secret, but that night she didn’t know. I felt bad though, for leaving her without an explanation, so I went back for a visit later that week after I found this shack. Told her who I really was. It was her night off and we talked all night. Never made a friend that fast before. Heck, she’s the only friend I’ve made since I left home. And once a week, when she has a night off, she lets me sleep in her bed. I surely do miss a soft bed.” Max ended with a grin.
He came to stand directly in front of her. Looming over her is what it felt like. She was tall for a woman at five feet eight, which supported her guise as a boy, but he still had a good half foot in height on her. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of looking up at him and backed up into the shack instead.
He followed her in and picked up her bandanna, which had fallen from her lap when she got up. She turned around so he could cut the ropes on her wrists. He didn’t. He put the bandanna around her neck and tied it himself, which had her gritting her teeth again. Was he just going to leave her vest and coat behind? She couldn’t put them back on with her hands and arms tied like this.
“Why doesn’t your wanted poster identify you as a woman?”
She shrugged, but he might not have noticed, standing so close to her, so she said, “That poster comes from Bingham Hills, Texas. It’s people there who want me back. Maybe they figured out that offering that much money for a woman would set more’n just bounty hunters and lawmen after me, if you know what I mean. Just a guess, mind you. But I’m glad they left out that little detail for whatever reason—or I might’ve had to kill someone for real.”
“Is that your way of trying to convince me you haven’t killed anyone—yet?” he asked, still standing behind her.
“Did it work?”
The man was mighty curious about her this morning, but he didn’t bother to answer that. Instead, he asked, “What sort of food do you have on hand?”
She moved farther away from him. “Nothing. I’ve been hunting for food as I need it.”
“You’ve been subsisting only on meat up here?”
He sounded hungry. Her desperate, impulsive attempt to seduce him with her body last night hadn’t worked, which wasn’t surprising considering how dirty and angry she was. And thank goodness, because she hadn’t given any thought to what would have happened if she’d succeeded. But food! Her gran was fond of saying that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. She even had some spices left in her saddlebags that she could use to make him something special.
She turned around and gave him a tentative smile. “It’s not exactly safe for me to go shopping in town for anything else. But I can hunt up something for us if you’re hungry. I sure am.”
“You and your rifle have parted ways for good” was
all he said.
She was back to gnashing her teeth. She was not going to try to get on his good side again, not when he obviously didn’t have one. She’d have to find some other way to escape while they were carting her to Texas for the trial. If there would even be a trial. Accused of killing the beloved founder of Bingham Hills, who was also the mayor of the town, who supported half the town and owned most of it—no, she probably wouldn’t even be given a trial. They’d send her straight to the gallows. And she didn’t even shoot that bastard.
Chapter Nine
UNBELIEVABLE! MAX WAS FUMING. The man was actually pulling her along behind him with that damn rope of his, as if she were an animal! He’d tightened the coil wrapped around her, then tied it off and had the end of it in his fist. He collected her horse first and hobbled it by the shack, then dragged her down the hill with him to collect her coat and vest.
Her hat was nowhere in sight, and after only five minutes he gave up looking for it. Max was livid. He should have gotten her things last night, not waited until the wind blew her hat away!
“What do they call you, fancy man?” she gritted out on the way back up the hill. “I want to know who I’m killing when I get loose.”
“Degan Grant,” he said without glancing back.
Max almost choked. “Holy cow, the gunfighter?”
He didn’t confirm it, didn’t reply at all, but who would use that name if he didn’t have to? Folks were claiming he was the fastest gun there was, but she reminded herself that gossip like that was rarely true. She was fast, likely faster than him. She’d like a chance to prove it.
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