In the Arms of a Cowboy

by Pam Crooks

  Clements drew his mount up in a spray of dirt and gravel. “We've got trouble,” he panted. “Quarter mile of track burned out. Completely gone.”

  “Damn it!” Reese spat the oath. “Silas McCrae.”

  “Yes, sir. I reckoned it'd be him.”

  “What of the trestle bridge?” he demanded. “Any damage?”

  “None, sir, that I can tell.”

  “Thank God for that, anyway.” Reese let out a breath, his expression hard. “Have you seen McCrae?”

  “No, sir.” Clements heaved in air. “But I thought I spotted his horse hidden in some brush. When I saw the fire, I went to check it out. On my way back, his horse was gone.”

  Guilt stabbed Liza. She knew how anxious Reese had been to meet with his men and devise a plan against the crazy fur trapper. She knew how much his railroad meant to him. She knew how much he wanted to prevent this.

  And yet he had been kept from it because of her, sending telegrams, buying green henrietta and having lunch on the church lawn. Trivial things. Things that could have waited until after he protected his railroad.

  “Oh, Reese,” she breathed and touched a hand to his arm. “I am sorry.”

  He seemed not to hear. A grim line slashed his mouth. He began unhitching the sorrel from the buggy.

  “Gather as many men as you can,” he ordered Clements. “I want them armed and ready to ride. Have them meet at the depot and send word to Bram. And I want guards posted on the bridge. We can't let McCrae get to that next.”

  “Yes, sir. Anything else?”

  “No. Get moving.”

  “Yes, sir!” In an instant, he obeyed, kicking his mount's ribs as he tore off, yelling for volunteers at the top of his lungs.

  “Liza.” Reese's fingers worked deftly at the harness. “I'll run you home. We'll take the sorrel--he'll be faster without the buggy.”

  “I will not think of it!” she said, aghast.

  His fierce gaze told her he would not tolerate an argument. “I want you safe. Away from this.”

  All about her, townspeople responded to the urgency in Clement's calls, spilling from businesses and crowding the boardwalks. A horse-drawn water wagon clattered around the comer. Rifles and revolvers appeared from nowhere. Liza's alarm increased tenfold.

  “I will find my own way home, Reese. Do not worry for me.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Carrison.” Jack Hadley stood uncertainly behind him, Maudeen and the boys at his side. His glance touched on Liza, then skittered away. The look was without accusation, but rather, surprisingly, held a hint of remorse. In a fleeting thought, Liza wondered if Maudeen had rendered him with some wifely chastisement to affect the change in his mood.

  “Mind if I ride with you?” Jack asked in a stiff tone.

  Reese did not immediately answer, as if he, too, pondered the difference in him. He gave a terse nod. “I'll be glad to have you.”

  Jack seemed relieved. “Maudeen can take . . . Miss Liza home, if you like. I'll leave 'em our rig and borrow a horse.”

  Liza sensed Reese's reluctance to let two women drive themselves home with children in tow, given the volatility of McCrae.

  “I'll be happy to take her, Mr. Carrison,” Maudeen spoke up. “We won't dally. I promise.”

  “I will go home with Maudeen,” Liza said firmly.

  After a long moment, Reese consented. “Thanks, Maudeen. I owe you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “No, you don't!”

  “I'll see you at the depot, then.” Jack waved at Reese and embraced Maudeen and his sons. He sprinted toward a group of men already headed that way.

  “Our wagon is parked on the next street, Liza,” Maudeen said in her quiet voice. She took Toby's hand.

  Reese delved beneath the buggy's seat, retrieved their brown-paper-wrapped purchases and handed them to Liza. He delved again and produced a gleaming rifle.

  “When you get into the house, Liza, I want you to lock the doors,” he said, dropping the lever to check the chamber. “I'm guessing McCrae won't bother you when it's me he wants, but be careful anyway.”

  Liza nodded and swallowed hard, her eyes riveted to the gun. The full impact of the danger he was in struck with ugly force. The use of weaponry had never been condoned by her people. They shunned violence and confrontation, and yet the Gaje did not hesitate to fight viciously for what was theirs.

  Seeing Reese with a gun terrified her. He would do anything to save his railroad and its massive trestle bridge.

  “You must not get hurt,” she said, her voice quavery. “I am afraid of what could happen.” She bit her lip, knowing Maudeen waited discreetly, knowing she should join her, and knowing, too, they stood in full view of all his people.

  “I'm well-armed and well-manned. McCrae'll be at a disadvantage with us.” He dropped a handful of shells into his pocket.

  “Will you stop the fire?”

  “I'll do everything in my power. I just hope it hasn't turned into a full-blown prairie fire by now.” He took the reins and led the sorrel from the buggy. He paused in the street. “I'll see you later. Tonight. After dark, most likely.”

  Her chin lifted. Beneath his hat brim, his tiger eyes met hers, challenging, demanding her to deny she would be there when he returned.

  “I will wait for you,” she said firmly.

  A flash of emotion flickered through his gaze.

  “You damn well better,” he said roughly.

  She had delayed him long enough. He turned, ready to mount the sorrel without benefit of a saddle, eager to join his men.

  “Reese.” Her fingers closed over his forearm, halting him. He turned back. She did not care that Maudeen watched, that the entire town could see him here with her, saying good-bye to a Gypsy when everyone knew he was intended for Rebecca Ann.

  She did not care.

  She flung her arms about his neck. Tight and fierce.

  “God be with you,” she whispered into his shoulder.

  He crushed her to him in one brief clasp. His mouth touched her hair, so fleeting she might have imagined it, and released her.

  In the next moment, the sorrel's hooves pounded the dirt road. Too soon, the sound faded. Liza sniffled and shifted the packages in her arms, freeing her hand to hold Toby's. Maudeen repositioned Jacob on her hip.

  “Is Mr. Carrison's railroad gonna burn down, Liza?” Toby asked, peering up at her with the innocence of an angel.

  “No, sweetling.” She took a long breath, regaining her composure. “He is very smart. He will save his train. You will see.”

  “Good. I'm gonna ride on it someday. Just like my pa.”

  “Of course you will.”

  Maudeen and Liza exchanged somber glances. Without saying anything, they walked to the wagon and perched Toby between them. Liza held Jacob, giving him her beads to chew on, and he slobbered over them with delight.

  Within moments, they left the town behind and headed for home. Maudeen kept Liza's troubled thoughts at bay with talk of her garden and the storm’s damage to her green beans. Liza politely considered her invitation to come over and help with the chore of canning the produce growing in abundance.

  “Our cabin is that way,” Maudeen said, pointing in the opposite direction than which she turned the rig. “You must come over again soon, Liza. I promise you won't recognize the place.”

  Maudeen's proud mention of her cabin brought memories crashing back to Liza, filling her head of the time she'd spent there after the tornado.

  “Yes,” she murmured. “Reese has told me much has been done already.”

  How different it would look now, she thought to herself as Maudeen prattled on about the new shed and chicken coop and the barn-raising they planned in the near future.

  Yet its destruction would remain ever vivid in Liza's mind, no matter what it looked like now. She would always remember eating dinner on the floor, sleeping on a tablecloth, and quilts hanging on a line, shutting out the rain.

  How could she forget? For it was th
ere that she had fallen in love with Reese Carrison.

  Chapter 14

  Reese searched the front lawn, expecting to find Liza wrapped in blankets on the grass and sleeping peacefully beneath the obsidian sky. He searched along the porch, too, and then the sides and back of the house. He found no sign of her.

  She was gone.

  The clock in the kitchen read nearly two in the morning. He stood in the tidy room, not moving. The only sound greeting him was the steady drip, drip, drip of ice melting in the icebox, a solemn cadence to the pounding of his heart.

  She’d promised to wait for him.

  He swallowed down gall from the lie. He'd believed her, like a fool.

  He hadn't expected the lamp glowing in the kitchen, though, a beacon of welcome for his return. Or the bowl of thick vegetable soup, now cold, covered with a clean towel on the stove. To keep him occupied after he discovered she'd left? His lip curled.

  He smelled the smoke on his body, the sweat and grit from riding hard and from overworked muscles, weary of fighting the fire. It'd been a night of frustration and failure, a night without a sighting of Silas McCrae, a night of gut-wrenching damage to the N & D track.

  But he bore it all to come home to Liza. It'd been the one thing that kept him going hour after hour after goddamned hour.

  How he hated the house's silence. He'd lived with it before, but now, suffocating and harsh, it closed in on him, choking his every breath.

  He sucked in air. Filled his lungs, cleared his mind of the self-pity. She could be anywhere. He'd vowed, more than once, to go after her, but in the reality of the moment, his despair cried out for a reason why he should track her down. She’d made her decision. She didn't want to stay.

  She didn't want him.

  Ignoring the bowl of soup, he doused the lamp and left the kitchen. Embers glowed in the main room's stone fireplace and cast a muted orange glow in the darkness. Out of habit, his eye swept the room and found nothing out of place.

  Empty. So damned empty.

  He moved toward the stairwell leading up to the loft. In the quiet, a faint sound reached his ears.

  A tremor raced through him. He turned slowly.

  She lay on the couch facing the fireplace, hidden from view from behind. She slept deep, her breathing soft and regular, and blissfully oblivious to the hell she'd put him through.

  A grin touched his mouth, hesitated, and then spread wide. In his relief, he nearly laughed out loud.

  He went to her. One arm was stretched out in front of her, relaxed in sleep, her fingers slightly bent. On the floor, next to the couch, cut-out pieces of green henrietta were folded in a neat stack.

  He hunkered down beside her. She was barefoot and nestled against the cushions. A shapely leg peeked from beneath the profusion of her skirts. Freed from its braid, her hair pillowed her head in a red-gold mass that trailed over her shoulder and hung past the couch's edge.

  For a long moment, he watched her sleep and pondered the power she wielded over him. It amazed him, this power, for he didn't know how to resist, or, just as perplexing, didn't know if he should.

  He slipped his arms beneath her and lifted her from the couch. Her mouth puckered, but she hardly stirred more than that, merely snuggled into him with a gentle sigh. In spite of his weariness, his muscles treasured her weight, and he carried her to the stairs, up to his bedroom in the loft.

  There would be no front lawn for her tonight. Not this Gypsy witch who'd charmed him with an unfamiliar hex. She was in his world now, in his house, and he gifted her with his own bed.

  Already, the covers were turned down, in readiness for his return. As carefully as he could, he laid her upon the cool sheets and held his breath lest she awaken and protest.

  She didn’t but merely rolled to her side. He pulled the quilts over her, and she burrowed deeper, seeking their warmth. In the darkness, he delayed leaving. His gaze strayed to the other side of the bed, unruffled, unused; to the second pillow, empty and unneeded. She looked small in the massive bed. Surprisingly small. He was consumed by a yearning to make love to her so strong his temples pounded from the force of it,

  There were few more foolish than he. But he would not sleep with her tonight. Though his body sought release in hers, release from lust and tension and worries about Silas McCrae, he would not touch her. He would not give in.

  He was bound by intent to another. A vague unease riffled through him at the knowledge, and his mouth grew taut.

  Liza had stayed. For now, that was all that mattered.

  A hint of an early autumn nipped the air, filling Liza's lungs with its crisp bite. She perched on the top rail of the corral fence, her gaze captured by Reese as he rode the stallion at a brisk walk.

  The breeze toyed with her hair, sending strands flitting across her cheek. She never wore a kerchief these days, and a braid only on occasion. Reese preferred her hair cascading down her back, swept aside by combs and ribbons, and she obliged him, often using the intricate carved tortoise shell he had given her, the fashion used by the women in his society.

  She lilted a hand and tucked the strands behind her ear. Reese coaxed his horse from the walk into a high-stepping trot. Watching him, she smiled in pleasure. In contentment.

  She had grown comfortable living with him. More than she had ever imagined. His home was hers now, or so it seemed in her heart, and she had formed a great attachment to all that was his.

  It did not seem that she had waited more than two weeks to hear from her people, for every day was filled to overflowing. She spent time with Zor whenever she could, happy that he had grown steadily stronger. And when she was not in the corral with him, she gladly cooked and cleaned and cut Reese's grass while he worked long days at his railroad. With Maudeen's help, she had learned to plant a vegetable garden--a garden!--and to weed it and water it and nurture it with loving care.

  A woman did these things for the man in her life. Be it the Gaje blood flowing in her veins, or, right or wrong, the love in her heart, she did them all willingly, living each day to the fullest, and trying not to think of the time when her people would come, and it would all end.

  They had not heard a single word in all this rime. Liza was not surprised. The Gypsies could be elusive when they wanted to be, hiding in woodlands and canyons and out-of-the-way places to trick the disapproving Gaje. Nanosh was very shrewd. He would not be found until he was ready. And with Hanzi's help, they would search for her in their own way, sending secret messages among their people and leaving behind the vurma for the many friends and relatives traveling in Gypsy tribes scattered all over the prairie.

  She did not think about it so much anymore. The telegrams would find her people when nothing else could. She must be patient.

  Her mouth pursed. Yet Reese's world was not without its worries. She feared the Wild One's return almost as much as Reese did. She listened with trepidation as he told of his men's efforts to secure the N & D against his attacks, of rebuilding the burned-out track, of the endless hours of keeping watch. But in more than two weeks, Silas McCrae had not let his grizzled face be seen. Liza could not help but hope perhaps he had realized the folly of his ways and given up.

  Saints in heaven, that it could be so easy.

  Reese's exultant yell scattered her wayward thoughts. Smiling at his enthusiasm, she leaned forward on the rail and stuffed her turquoise skirts between her knees.

  The stallion's midnight-black flanks gleamed in the sunlight. Reese rode him in an easy canter around the corral. The horse responded to his commands with a lithe grace, all signs of lameness gone, every movement free and spirited. Reese's beaming approval made the countless hours Liza had spent treating the animal worthwhile.

  After they finished, she clapped her hands in proud delight.

  “He is beautiful, is he not?” she asked as Reese reined the stallion in at the fence.

  “I've never seen him better, that's for sure. You've done a fine job with him, Liza.”

  �
�And to think you wanted to shoot him dead.” She shook her head in mock disapproval and clucked her tongue. She could not resist teasing him.

  “Keep reminding me of that, woman, and you'll find yourself sharing the barn with him.”

  Her eyes widened in feigned dismay. “You mean you would toss me from your magnificent bed?”

  “I would. Being's I can’t join you myself, why not?”

  Her heart fluttered at his unexpected admission. “It was not my choice to take the bed. I woke up one morning, and there I was.”

  A side of his mouth lifted; he leaned on the saddle horn. “And yet you don't complain and sleep there every night now,” he said softly. “I think you prefer it to the lawn.”

  She shrugged and thought of her tiny cot in Nanosh's wagon. “Your bed is more comfortable, yes. I have learned to like it. Very much.”

  He grunted. “You'll like it even more when you have a man to warm you.”

  Heat swirled through her belly. It was true. She could not fall asleep without thinking of him cramped on the couch downstairs, or the strange emptiness she felt being separated from him. Nor could she deny the constant ache to twine her legs with his and fill her arms with the breadth of his body.

  “I do not think of such things,” she lied.

  His unwavering gaze suggested he knew better. “Funny. I think of them all the time.”

  The stallion swung his head, as if miffed at being ignored. He sidled closer and nudged his black nose against Liza, nearly knocking her from her perch. She scrambled to regain her balance.

  “Do you think you are so wonderful that you can push me around, you silly horse?” she scolded, planting a kiss near his ear. “Here, then. Have this, but mind your manners next time.”

  He burrowed against her palm and chomped at a small turnip. Reese dismounted and flipped a stirrup over the saddle's seat to loosen the cinch.

  “Has Hank come to call lately?” he asked nonchalantly.

  She peered around the stallion's face. “Yesterday again.”

  Reese glowered at her. “He's a pest. Thinks he knows everything in the world about horses.”