by Maren Smith
A predator no longer, Millicent swallowed hard before, with only the faintest of tremors, she said, “How dare you threaten me. Who do you think you are?”
“Aw, that wasn’t a threat,” Garrett scoffed. “If I ever hear you say something like that to Lydia again, I’m going to find me one of them bridles—now, that’s a threat. Be real glad I’m not Myron right now—that’s a threat too, albeit somewhat ambiguous. I don’t like ambiguous. I’m a direct kind of man. I like everything to be open, honest and clearly understood right from the very start. To that end, I think all I’d really like to say to you is this: From here on, every word you say to or about Lydia and her son, you’d best imagine you’re saying to me, because that’s exactly how I’m going to take them.” Garrett pretended to think about it. “Now that can be either a threat or not. It depends on you, what you decide to say, and what kind of mood I’m in when I receive the news.”
Millicent’s face colored, turning rosy in the nose and cheeks first and then flushing deep red everywhere else, all the way down her throat. Her back stiffened. Her head rose as high as she could make it go. She opened her mouth, only to close it again without giving voice to any of the indignations that she visibly re-swallowed.
Lydia was so far past “angry,” it was all she could feel. There was no gratitude in her for Garrett’s well-timed interference. She couldn’t think. She was shaking so badly all she could do was follow when Garrett took hold of her arm. He had her almost out the door when a kicking of the red candies across the floor reminded her of what Paquah had done. Opening her purse, she tried to go back and at least pay for the candies, but Garrett kept pushing. He also tossed a few coins on the counter.
“Sam,” he called.
“It’s fine,” the shopkeeper assured, though he did pick the money up. “I know an accident when I see it. And if you want to talk thievery…” He dropped his voice for Garrett’s benefit, though Lydia couldn’t help but hear it too as he muttered, “Elizabeth Crankshaw stole fistfuls of candy every time she came in this store all the way up until she was twelve. And her mother knows it.”
“Bet you’ll never hear her mention that,” Garrett whispered back. Again, he had Lydia almost out the door before she felt a tug at her skirt and remembered her son.
“I’m sorry, mama,” he said as she scooped him up.
“Don’t you fret,” she said, but fretful was all she felt and Garrett wouldn’t stop pushing at her. She couldn’t evade his hand; he was steering her—a tap at her shoulder making her jerk one direction, a two-fingered touch at her elbow causing her to flee in the other. “Stop touching me!” she spat, whipping around to glare at him with Paquah clinging to her with candy-stained fingers and three humbug balls in his mouth. Oh lord, he must have picked one up off the floor. He really was a thief!
“Hold on now.” Garrett snagged hold of her arm when she tried to shove past him. She turned in a full circle, breathing hard now, so distraught, she could barely see where she was going or remember which way the Red Petticoat lay from here: three blocks down and one street over. She caught sight of Millicent watching through the reflective glass of the mercantile’s display window. Millicent smirked; helpless anger exploded through Lydia’s chest. When she caught sight of her own reflection, however, all she could see was a woman on the verge of tears.
She almost lost control of herself.
“This way.” Garrett steered her away from the glass, and she was so busy blinking back the rush of hot bitter tears that she almost plowed head-on into the white shirt and red suspenders that suddenly appeared to block her path.
“Myron,” Garrett greeted. Both hands on Lydia’s shoulders kept her from fleeing ahead of him.
“I’m sorry,” Myron said helpless. “You know what she’s like.” He tried to laugh, but it sounded as feeble as the rest of him. “What can you do, eh?”
Tsking once, Garrett propelled Lydia straight past him. “I can think of one or two things.”
Myron’s already weak smile faded. They left him standing on the sidewalk, looking supremely embarrassed. Lydia didn’t care. All she wanted now was to get away, from the store and everyone in it. She couldn’t see. Her eyes were full of tears. She bumped into the side of a wagon parked along the sidewalk. She started to go around it, but Garrett let her get as far as the front seat and then he stopped her again.
“Here we go. Come here, buddy.”
Sheer panic struck when he slid his hands under Paquah’s arms, lifting him straight out of hers.
“What are you doing? Stop it!” She grabbed Paquah back again, but Garrett stopped her with an arched eyebrow.
“You’re fine,” he said, quite calmly, but Lydia didn’t feel fine. She felt frantic. That franticness burst into a wildfire of terrifying proportions right up until he caught her face, his huge fingers closing, gentle yet firm, upon her chin. He forced her gaze to his, holding her in every way a man could possibly hold a woman. It felt like more than just one hand. It felt like more than a simple stare. He was smiling when he did it. But then, he’d been smiling when he’d threatened Millicent, too. Garrett smiled a lot, even when he didn’t mean it. She had no idea what he meant right now, but it seemed so genuine when he said, “It’s all right, Emerald. I’ve got you now. You’re going to be just fine.”
She opened her mouth, but the temptation to demand “what do you know about it’ died before it could leave her lips. He didn’t know anything. How could he? But she didn’t say it. She couldn’t. Maybe because in that moment, more than anything, she wanted to believe him when he said he had her and that she would be fine.
She had been alone so long.
More than anything in the world, in that moment she needed to believe him.
Chapter Four
When Garrett wrapped his hands around Emerald’s waist, boosting her up onto the first seat of the wagon, he had a moment of anger so stark and deep that it was all he could do not to march back into Singleton’s store and give Millicent a hurt as equal and stark. He didn’t slap women, but he wanted to slap her. She wasn’t his wife. Correcting her wasn’t his place, and while delivering a great roundhouse clap to her mean-speaking mouth might have been deeply satisfying for him, it wasn’t likely to teach her anything beyond the wisdom of learning to fear him.
He might not have minded that.
Obviously, he hadn’t yet been a rancher long enough to counter all the killer instincts the military had drummed into him. He needed to work harder on that.
He held onto Emerald, his hands at her waist a full minute longer than was necessary, and she didn’t even notice. She was shaking. She had her hands clutched so tight in her lap that her knuckles were white and her fingertips dark red, and still that didn’t stop her trembling. Her spring-green eyes were darker than normal. They still flashed, but the spirited anger he was used to was muted now. There was a lostness in her gaze he didn’t like the looks of. Short of walking back into the store and delivering that slap (to Millicent and her circle of friends—one after the other—because not one of them deserved to get away with this unscathed), he had no idea how to fix this.
“I have to get out of here,” Emerald said suddenly, and not even to him. She was staring out over the top of the horses in a way that made him think she’d forgotten he was there. She must have forgotten her little boy, too. Standing up in the back of the wagon, when the child reached over the seat to pluck at her arm, she startled and ripped her arm out of his reach. The moment she recognized her son sent her straight back to panic. She grabbed him, pulling him tight onto her lap. Her face as pale as her knuckles, she both clung to and rocked him, as if expecting any minute to have him yanked away.
There was a story there, Garrett recognized. Someday he was going to find out what it was.
Reaching up, he patted her knee. “Settle yourself, sweetheart. I’ll take you home.”
For the first time, she looked at him, recognized him, and a flash of that much-missed fire sparked in the
depths of her green eyes. It was the little boy, however, who quietly lay his hand over Garrett’s and pushed until Garrett removed it from her knee.
Solemn black eyes stared Garrett down as the child wrapped his mother in the protective embrace of both skinny arms. He rested his head upon her breasts, the soft creamy mounds providing quite the pillow above the black and crimson ruffle of her dress.
Garrett smiled and winked, letting the boy know he understood. The child could have his way… for now, but that right there was a pillow he was going to have to learn to share.
“I’ll take you home,” Garrett said again.
“I can walk.” Emerald held her head high. She was pulling herself together again, looking around far enough to notice whose wagon she was in and taking stock of all the people on both sides of the street, some of whom were taking stock of them. One particularly prune-faced old woman wore a frown that clearly said it was bad enough to have to share a town with prostitutes without one of them drumming up business at the local store.
Garrett frowned back, letting his just as clearly say, ‘Mind your own damn business.’
Hmphing, she tipped her nose into the air. She snapped out her fan and stomped into the millinery. With any luck, she’d buy a larger bonnet. Her current size must be pinching somewhere.
That look must also have put a spur under Emerald’s tail because she suddenly jumped up from her seat. “I can walk.”
She sat back down every bit as abruptly when Garrett heaved himself up into the wagon and climbed right over the top of her. “I’ll drive you.”
“Oaf!” she declared, clinging to both her boy and the seat as he maneuvered around her to drop onto the seat beside her. Under any other circumstance, he’d have gone around, but if it kept her where he wanted her…
“Sorry,” he lied.
Her eyes narrowed. “You did that on purpose!”
“Naw, surely not. That’s something an uncouth man would do. Me?” Garrett gathered the reins and unlocked the brake. “I’m damn near civilized.”
He snapped the reins and Emerald grabbed the seat again as the wagon jolted into motion. She missed, catching hold of his knee only to snatch her hand back almost at once. Her face underwent a rainbow array of lovely pink fluctuations. “You can grab my knee all you want to, sweetheart. I really don’t mind.”
Stiff as a fence post beside him, she looked away. “No, thank you. In fact, I’d just as soon you stop this thing and let me down.”
“A gentleman would never let a lady walk home in distress.”
“As if you could ever be mistaken for a gentleman,” she scoffed.
“That makes two of us.” He winked at her little boy again. “You’re not much of a gentleman either.”
She snorted, a distinctly unladylike sound. “You’re impossible.”
“I know.”
“What about your shopping?” she demanded, trying a different track. “You went there for something and left without it.”
“Singleton’s has been there for years. It ain’t sprouted legs and walked away yet. I reckon it’ll still be there when I get back.”
She frowned, patting the little boy’s back as if he were the one fussing even though he hadn’t made a sound. “We’re going the wrong way.”
“Are we?” Garrett smiled and touched the brim of his hat as they passed two younger ladies, both of whom quickly looked the other way rather than make eye contact with Emerald.
“You said you’re taking me home.”
“I am.”
“The Red Petticoat is back behind us—four blocks now and one over. We’re going the opposite direction.”
He made a leisurely right on the next street, steering the horses down a narrow alley, past a stack of wood crates and barrels, and back out into the sunshine on the other side.
“Four blocks and two streets back,” she corrected. If she sat any straighter, the next bump of the wagon would snap her right in half.
“You know, it’s just occurred to me. Barroom brawls aren’t exactly a formal introduction.” Adjusting his hat, Garrett shifted the reins to one hand and held his other out to her. “Name’s Garrett. Garrett Drake.”
“I know who you are.” She glared at his hand first, then him. “And you know me.”
Prickly.
“I know your working name, but it’s not quite the same thing, is it?”
“It’ll do.” She looked away.
He turned the wagon left, taking them even further from the Red Petticoat.
Her mouth flattened. Swiveling on the seat, she looked back as if she could see straight through the buildings behind them to where they ought to be going. “Five blocks.”
“It’ll be six in a minute.”
She snapped back around, her rising ire fairly crackling as she locked her fiery stare on him yet again. “Is your plan to take me farther and farther from the saloon the longer I refuse to give you my name?”
He grinned. “Damn. I was hoping to get you all the way home before you noticed.”
Emerald snapped to her feet, wobbling slightly, the child in her arms throwing her off balance.
Garrett caught her arm just as she turned and probably before she pitched straight out over the side onto her nose. Even if she hadn’t lost her balance, he had no doubt she would have jumped—moving wagon or not—if he hadn’t grabbed her. “Set your butt back down.”
“Or what?” she challenged, and would have yanked her wrist back had he given her the chance.
Garrett tightened his grip. “I’ll put you over my knee right here and now—broad daylight, in front of all these lovely witnesses, and I do mean right now if you force me to it.”
He’d have thought it physically impossible for the human body to tense any straighter. Somehow she managed it. “You wouldn’t dare!”
Garrett stopped the wagon in the middle of the street, and she abruptly sat. As he thought about it hours later, he’d have to wonder if she did it because she realized he might, in actuality, dare just fine, or maybe she’d simply lost her balance. As it was, for almost a full minute, they studied one another—Garrett steady and calm, Emerald as wary as a cougar in a cage.
Running the reins through his fingers, Garrett clicked to the horses and gave them their head. They were all the way down the seventh block and headed into the intersection for the eighth before she grudgingly muttered, “Lydia.”
A trickle of real amusement teased a genuine smile from his lips. “Nice to meet you, Lydia,” he said and turned the wagon left into the next alley, steering them back the way they’d come. “And this little man?”
“Is none of your business.”
Nine blocks it was.
“Paquah,” she spat before he was halfway through the turn. “His name is Paquah.”
“Nice to meet you too,” Garrett said cheerfully. As if anticipating the coming shake, the little boy lifted his head off her breasts and held out his hand. Garrett clasped it warmly, engulfing his small hand all the way up to his wrist. The next left took them to the same street as the Red Petticoat, although almost all the way through the small town of Culpepper Cove. By this junction, clustered businesses had given way to rows of rental and townhouses. Another few blocks and they’d be past the church and cemetery, and headed for the country.
“How long have you been in town?”
“Too long by half,” Lydia muttered, “and ten times longer still since I’ve known you!”
That actually made him laugh, but he made an immediate right and now they were one street too far over going the other way.
“A long time,” Paquah told him.
Garrett winked at him. “Can’t have been too long. I’ve been living just outside of town for years and only just ran into your mama the first time the day of that infamous brawl.”
“If only you were a Petticoat regular, you might have seen me sooner.”
“I keep trying to be regular,” Garrett tsked. “Someone doesn’t seem all that intere
sted in taking my money. Don’t yet know why that is, exactly. Maybe my money ain’t the right color, I don’t know.”
“Find another gem.”
“I like the one who bit me.”
“Next time I’ll bite harder. Maybe you’ll stop coming around!”
“Maybe next time I’ll bite back,” he said with a smile, though his eyes narrowed.
That steady flush of pink stained her cheeks a little darker. Putting her back to him, Lydia looked everywhere but at him.
“Oo, your mama’s a cactus,” Garrett mock whispered to Paquah.
She shot him a dark look and shifted her son until the child was as far removed from Garrett as the narrow seat and her lap would allow.
“Is it just me…” Garrett began.
“Yes,” Lydia snapped.
Garrett stopped the wagon again. Passing the reins through his left hand, he braced his feet on the buckboard and his elbows on his knees. Then he smiled, doing his best to stifle his own rising irritation. “I’m beginning to think there’s something I might ought to do to change that.”
“So do I. Letting me get down the first time I ask would be a wonderful way to start!” She stood up again.
Garrett caught her wrist. “Set your butt down, Lydia.” He said it calmly, quietly, in a well-practiced tone that never failed to shock the hell out of people who failed to recognize when he was this close to losing his patience.