Apache Summer

by Heather Graham

  “He’s gone off on his own!” Tess said indignantly. “He’s taking first guard,” Jon said softly.

  “I’m going to bed,” Dolly announced.

  “Tess, now you come, too.”

  Jori was dragging his saddle and blanket to the fire. He stretched out and closed his eyes, setting his hat over his face. Dolly headed for the wagon.

  Tess hesitated, then decided to go after Jamie.

  She heard Jon rise as she moved into the bushes, and she swore softly, certain that he would follow her. He did. But before he could reach her, a hand snaked out for her, catching her arm, swinging her around. She tossed back her head and met Jamie’s angry eyes. She wrenched free from his grasp.

  For safety’s sake, she took a step backward.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “Looking for you.”

  “I told you not to run around in the dark!”

  “But you” — “Miss. Stuart, from now on, you’re taking orders from me. And from now on, you listen. And if I hear one more crack out of you about my being a Yank just like von Heusen, I’ll tan your backside until it’s the color of a Comanche. Are we understood?”

  “No!” she snapped indignantly.

  He took a single step toward her. In the near darkness, his eyes seemed to glitter with a menacing light.

  She decided that she wasn’t going to tempt fate any further that evening.

  She didn’t think he made idle threats.

  She turned and fled.

  Jon was standing not far from the camp fire. He had seen her reach Jamie.

  She slowed her pace as she saw him. She smiled pleasantly and wished him good night. “Good night, Tess,” he told her.

  She crawled into the wagon. Dolly was already softly snoring. Tess unhooked her shoes. Closing the cover of the wagon, she stripped down to her chemise and pantalets. She crawled into her bunk, closed her eyes and made every effort to sleep. Her heart was still pounding, and she didn’t know if it was with vexation or excitement. He wanted her property, not her person, she reminded herself. Then how could he seem to insinuate so much that seemed sensual when they talked about dry land? And then, of course, he could change so quickly. Lose his temper over simple words when he could tease so long himself. She didn’t understand, but he was occupying more and more of her mind. And more and more of her heart.

  It was light when she awoke. Dolly was already up. Tess quickly slipped into her dusty brown dress for the second day on the trail. She tied her shoes and slipped from 115 the wagon. She could smell coffee brewing already, and something was cooking in a frying pan.

  She could hear voices by the fire. Jori and Dolly, she determined. She started around the wagon then held Still.

  Jamie, bare-chested, in only his boots and jeans, was shaving. His mirror was leaning against the steps at the front of the wagon, his shaving mug was on the second step, and he was wielding a straight razor against his cheeks.

  Apparently he caught sight of her in the mirror. He nicked himself and scowled deeply at her. She should have walked by. She could not. She smiled, enjoying the sight of him so. He had wonderful shoulders, broad and very bronze. He was nearly as dark as Jori, with powerfully bunched muscles in his arms and chest, and hard, unyielding ones at his lean waist. She swallowed suddenly. She’d seen lots of men bare-chested. The hands often stripped off their shirts after a long day and doused themselves with water at the troughs. Jamie Slater’s chest was different. She couldn’t look at him and wonder if the herd was doing well. She looked at him and wondered what his flesh would feel like beneath her fingers.

  Maybe he read her mind. Maybe her thoughts were obvious in her eyes.

  They were still locked with his in the mirfof.

  Her smile faded and she felt a crimson blush rising to her cheeks.

  She prayed for motion then and she managed to move her feet and hurry past him to the fire. “Fish!” she said delightedly.

  “Freshwater fish, just wonderful,” Dolly supplied happily.

  “Jon, you’re wonderful!” Tess claimed.

  “Oh, I didn’t catch these. Jamie did,” he told her casually.

  Dolly passed Tess a plate.

  “I’m taking a walk to the brook with a few of the utensils. I’ll be right back.” “Thanks, Dolly,” Tess said. Dolly winked. Jon smiled at Tess as she hungrily ate her fish.

  “Coffee?” he asked her.

  “Please.” He handed her a mug, then said something about finishing the harness.

  She was left alone with a beautiful, early morning sun and the delicious food and coffee. She set down her plate and took a long swallow of coffee.

  She closed her eyes, inhaled the aroma and felt the heat. When she opened her eyes, Jamie was standing before her.

  “Miss. Stuart, you might want to hurry along a little. The rest of us have been up a while now, and I’m ready to ride.

  We can make Wiltshire by tomorrow if we keep moving.” She gazed up at his newly shaven face. All the planes and angles were handsome, smooth and rugged all at once— masculine … and still belligerent. It was war, she thought.

  She sighed softly.

  “Why, Lieutenant, I, at least, am fully clothed.

  And I do promise that I can finish this coffee and the fish before you can be dressed and ready to ride.”

  ” Then let’s see it, huh?”

  He started to walk by her.

  “Oh, Lieutenant,” she called. “What?”

  “You’re bleeding, sir. There seems to be a—a gash right at the tip of your chin. Have you been Shaving long, sir?”

  “Longer than you’ve been wearing a corset, Miss. Stuart. A whole lot longer,” he told her pleasantly. That time, when he stepped by, she quickly leaped to her feet, finished her coffee and, as quickly and delicately as possible, peeled the last of her fish from the bone. She glanced over her shoulder.

  He was buttoning the last button of his shirt.

  She cast the last drop of coffee and bit of food into the ashes of the camp fire and raced for the steps to the driver’s seat of the wagon.

  She made it just as he rode up on his roan.

  “I won,” she told him.

  “At best—and that’s if I’m in the mood to be cavalier— it was a tie, Miss. Stuart.”

  “At best for you, Lieutenant.”

  He smiled.

  “Half of your acreage, Tess.”

  “A quarter.”

  “That remains to be seen,” he told her, riding close.

  “But then, a lot of things remain to be seen, don’t they?” He nudged Lucifer and rode to the rear of the wagon.

  “Jon, you ready?

  Where’s Dolly?”

  “Here, here, I am coming, I do declare, the rush you boys get yourselves into! I was just down at the brook, cleaning up the pans, and there you are, riding off without me.”

  “Dolly! We’d never ride off without you!” Jamie promised her solemnly.

  “Never,” Jon echoed.

  “But times awastin’, Dolly,” Jamie said.

  “And suddenly, I’m just darned eager to reach Wiltshire.”

  Dolly climbed onto the wagon. Tess lifted the reins against the mules, and they were under way again.

  By late afternoon of the following day they had reached the outskirts of Wiltshire. Then Tess gave the directions to her home, a large ranch outside of town.

  Tess held the reins. As the house came into view, she saw Jamie pull in on his big roan and stare. He glanced her way.

  “That’s it? That’s your—ranch?”

  “That’s it.”

  He started to laugh suddenly, looking at Jon. Then he spurred the roan and raced toward the house. Tess flicked the reins and hurried after him with the rumbling wagon. The house was magnificent. Joe had put years and years of work into the sprawling, two-story ranch house. There were two large barns to the left and a large red carriage house to the right. The vegetable garden, lush with summer,
could be seen behind the house. The paddocks, stretching before and behind, seemed to go on forever.

  Horses, her uncle’s prize thoroughbreds, roamed in the paddocks, the yeaifs foals seeming to dance alongside their mothers.

  Tess knew about the weathered paint on the fine old house, however.

  Since the war, nothing much had been done. They had considered themselves lucky to hang on to the property once the battles had ended and the dust had died down. There were floorboards on the blue~-gray porch that needed to be mended, and Tess thought that if Jamie Slater looked long and hard at the velvet drapes in the parlor, he would see the material was old and fraying.

  In the past few years, all their efforts had gone into their battles with von Heusen.

  She drove the wagon hetwcen the paddocks toward the house. Jamie and Jon were far ahead of her. They’d reached the clearing before the house, and Jamie was turning around on the huge roan, looking at everything around him.

  He was still amusd. A—and pleased.

  He must have thought I was a potato farmer and that he bartered himself for a few dusty acres! Tess decided. Well, he should be pleased.

  The front door burst open as the wagon reached the clearing. Hank Riley, Joe’s foreman, came hurrying down the st~s, followed by Janey Holloway, who had worked for them since Tess had begun to work at the paper. Hank was as tall and skinny as a young oak sapling, with a weathered face so browned and crinkled that he sometimes looked like an Indian. Janey was young and plump and pretty, with sandy hair and soft gray eyes.

  Jane stared from Jamie to the wagon, then screamed with joy, clutching her heart when she saw Tess. Hank didn’t make a sound. He came hurrying down the steps of the porch and over to the wagon and reached right up, catching hold of Tess and swinging her down. He lifted her up and swung her around again, a smile crinkling his face to 119 even greater depths.

  “Tess! The Lord be praised, but that man told us you were dead!”

  “I’m not dead, Hank, I’m fine.” Hank had set her down. Jane was crying softly.

  “Jane!” Tess took the young woman in her arms to comfort her.

  “It’s all right! I’m here. I’m alive, I’m well!”

  “Oh, Miss. Tess! Miss. Tess, it’s just so wonderful to see you! He said he was coming back tonight~ and at first we thought that you were him coming back a little early. He had the sheriff with him, you see, and he said as how everyone had heard that both you and your uncle had been killed in an Indian raid, and that the land would go up for public auction. Hank and me and the hands were to clear out. Well, the hands could stay on until the actual auction, but” She paused, gasping for breath.

  Hank, casting a curious glance toward Jamie and Jori, continued the story indignantly.

  “He said that since Jane and I might think ourselves too close to the family, we’d have to get out before we started stealing property from the deceased!”

  “He—who the hell is he?” Jamie demanded, dismounting.

  Hank frowned, not about to answer the question until he had a signal from Tess.

  “Well, Miss. Tess, I’ll answer him about who the hell he is—once this fellow tells me who the hell he is himself!”

  Jamie’s eyes narrowed, and his face started to look like thunder.

  “Hank,” Tess said quickly.

  “This is Lieutenant Jamie Slater, he’s with the cavalry. And Mr. Jon Red Feather..

  Hank, they’ve been gracious enough to see me home”—” Then Joe really is dead,” Hank said miserably.

  She nodded.

  He swallowed hard, looking into the distance.

  “I’d kinda hoped, seeing you and all … Then he really did get it from the Indians.”

  “No. From von Heusen.”

  “Him again,” Hank muttered.

  “He—him,” Jamie interjected.

  “Axe we, or are we not, talking about von Heusen all the way around here?”

  “Of course!” Tess stated firmly.

  “You mean to tell me,” Jamie said, striding toward Hank, “that this yon Heusen has already been here, telling you that the property is going to go up for public auction in lieu of being granted to legitimate heirs?”

  “Yep, something like that.”

  “Just like a vulture,” Jon commented. “Well, he’ll be back,” Hank promised.

  “Soon enough.

  You’ll get to meet him.”

  Dolly, still on the wagon, cleared her throat.

  “Oh, Dolly!” Jamie exclaimed apologetically. He hurried around to help her down. Dolly smiled and took Hank’s hand firmly.

  “I’m Dolly Simmons, Hank. Nice to make your acquaintance. And you, too, young lady. Jane, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “A fine name, a fine name. And I’m mighty parched. Perhaps we could go inside and have ourselves a sip of something.”

  “Yes, let’s!” Tess said.

  She started for the house. Jon dismounted and looped his pinto’s reins around the hitching post in front of the house.

  Tess was halfway up the stairs before she realized that Jamie hadn’t moved.

  He was still standing with the roan’s reins in his hands.

  “Jamie, come in, please,” she said politely. A bit distantly perhaps—they were still involved in their fierce, personal battle.

  “We’ll see to the wagon later. Hank and the boys will help.”

  He shook his head, looking at Hank, not her.

  “That the trail to follow into town?” he asked, pointing toward the road.

  “Yep, that’s it.”

  “Where’s the action congregate around here?” Hank was smiling but curious.

  “Why, the Bennington saloon. The best card games in town go on there, the best whiskey flows there, and the best girls” — He paused, glancing quickly toward the ladies.

  “Well, Lieutenant, the best entertainment in town can be found there, too.”

  Jamie nodded. Smiling at Tess, he told her, “I think that I’ll take a ride in.”

  “Now?” she demanded. The best entertainment in town! Von Heusen was expected at the house, and he was about to ride off to enjoy himself with a dance-hall gift! “No time like the present.”

  “But von Heusen is going to come here!”

  “I don’t want to meet Mr. yon Heusen. Not just yet.” He swung up on his horse and glanced at Jon. Tess tried hard to follow his gaze. Something passed between them, like cons of words, and yet it all happened in a few seconds.

  Jori was staying with her. And still, she was furious. Jamie was demanding half her land and he wouldn’t even stay around to meet his adversary.

  “Lieutenant, if you head into town, perhaps you should stay there for the night,” she snapped. They all stared at her. She had to control her temper.

  She had to quit caring.

  He grinned, “Why, Miss. Stuart, do you think there’ll be enough there to keep me occupied all night?”

  “I imagine, Lieutenant, that that is entirely up to you. Do what you feel you must.”

  She turned her back on him as quickly as she could. He was a free man, she thought furiously. He could do whatever he wanted to do, drink himself silly, consort with whores, gamble his life away. He sure as hell wasn’t going to do it on her property, though!

  He was going to do it, though. He didn’t even enter the house, but turned and rode away. Tess tried very hard to look back, not to let anyone see that her eyes had misted with her are and frustration.

  Damned Yank. Damned Yank.

  “It’s a nice place you’ve got here,” Jon complimented as they entered the house.

  “Beautiful!” Dolly exclaimed.

  It wasn’t exactly beautiful, Tess thought. But it was nice, and it was livable, too. The parlor into which they entered was vast, and it was combined with a big dining room that held a heavy carved Mexican table that could seat fourteen for dinner. To the left of the dining area, against the rear wall, was the broad sta
ircase that led to the second floor.

  Nearer the door was Joe’s desk, on a dais, perched on a cow skin. His large wing-chair was behind it, and two heavy leather chairs were situated before it. There was a spittoon in the corner for those who felt they absolutely must chew tobacco. In the center of the room, on a beautiful hooked rug, was a. large, soft, brown leather sofa. It sat next to the fire, with matching chairs across from it and occasional tables beside it. There were bright Indian flower vases on the tables. There were flowers in the vases, and Tess smiled. Hank and Jane had kept up, no matter what.

  “Well!” Dolly said.

  “Now this is nice! Tess, where would you like us to stay?”

  “Oh!” She had forgotten that even though Jamie Slater had ridden away the moment they arrived, she had other guests to attend to.

  “I’msorry. Upstairs, Dolly. Hank, we can wait a while on the other things, but let’s bring up Dolly’s trunks. Come up, please!” She urged Dolly and Jon forward.

  When they reached the second-story landing, they looked down a long hallway with doors on either side and a big-paned window with velvet draperies at the end.

  “There are eight rooms up here,” she murmured.

  “We shouldn’t be wanting.”

  Jane, who had followed her up the stairs, cleared her throat softly.

  “Tess, your room is aired, and Joe’s room is 123 aired, and I just happened to air the back two, but I haven’t touched the others yet. I was getting around to them, but then when we heard … When we heard that both you and Joe … Nothing seemed to make much sense anymore.”

  “That’s all right,” Tess said.

  “But we’ll nee~l linens and all for Mrs. Simmons and Mr. Red Feather. Can you see to that? We’ll put them in those two rooms you aired.”

  “What about the lieutenant?”

  “I believe he’s staying in town. And should he wander back, well, he can wander into the barn.”

  Jon made a choking sound, then laughed. Dolly gave a little gasp.

  Tess didn’t care. She walked grandly down the hall.

  “Dolly, this room here is more appropriate for a lady, I think.

  There’s a big dressing table in here, and the light is wonderful in the morning.”

  “It is just wonderful!” Dolly said delightedly.