Shadow's Stand

by Sarah McCarty

  “That right?”

  She smiled, looked down and nodded, inordinately pleased that he’d tried to speak her language.

  “Good.”

  There was absolutely no reason for her breath to catch in her throat or for her breasts to tingle under his gaze, but they did. She licked her dry lips and tried to pretend that she wasn’t suddenly vitally aware of him. It would probably help if she could pull her attention away from his hands. Those strong hands had surprisingly elegant fingers. Hands that probably knew exactly how to touch a woman to bring to her that perfect moment of pleasure she’d overheard her father’s concubines discussing—

  “Honey, you keep looking at me like that and we aren’t going to make it to this place of yours before morning.”

  He’d caught her staring at him, worse yet, he had correctly interpreted her interest. But it wasn’t really interest. Just weakness in her defenses. She was not a woman fated for a man. Her destiny lay elsewhere.

  “I am not looking at you in any certain way.”

  He smiled. A genuine smile that took his expression from austere to charming. “Is that so?”

  His fingers brushed her cheek. She blinked as the emotion inside her shifted to something more dangerous. And much more exciting. It was wrong to feel anything for this man. Shadow was an outlaw. A horse thief. A man without principle who made his way in this wild land through violence. He was everything her father would not want for her. Everything that was wrong for her, yet there was so much about him that was acceptable to her. At least on that instinctive level that would not be quiet. Bringing her hand up to her cheek, she rested her fingertips against his. Was this what her mother had experienced when she’d fallen in love with a man from China? This overwhelming push in a direction she knew she should not go?

  The attraction her mother had felt for her father had to have been powerful for her to leave her family and suffer the insults and degradation of a society that had no place for Chinese ways and those who chose to embrace them. But her mother had embraced her father’s culture even when she’d not been welcomed into it. She’d learned the language, learned the customs and she’d raised her daughter with the same beliefs. Fei shook her head. She wished her mother had lived long enough for her to ask for the answers to questions she still had. Questions about why and how. She wished her mother were here so her father would be here, but she wasn’t, and he wasn’t, and as surely as her mother was locked in her grave, her father was locked in the anguish of her death. Grief had stolen his will and his love and the man she’d left in the cellar at home was just an empty shell of the man her mother must have loved. She wished she could remember that man.

  “I think I liked it better when you were staring at me like I was dipped in honey.”

  This time Fei didn’t mind the interruption of her thoughts. Sad thoughts had no place in her new life. She placed her hand back in her lap. The heat of Shadow’s skin lingered in the tips of her fingers. Curling them, she held the sensation to her, trying to hold the connection to him. To her mother. To her plan. “And how do you think I stare at you now?”

  “Like I’m a rather disgusting bug you poked with a stick.”

  She couldn’t restrain a slight smile. Shadow had a way with words that painted images in her mind. “Maybe I’m hoping you’ll run away.”

  His expression sobered. “Are you?”

  She studied the guns he’d acquired, sitting so easily on his hips, the knives tucked so casually into the knee-high tops of his moccasins as if they belonged there, the rifle resting so casually across his lap. She remembered the way he’d fought the hanging party even when bound.

  This time, you finally chose right.

  Maybe she had. “No, I do not hope you’ll run away.”

  “Good to know I have my uses.”

  “Everyone needs a purpose.”

  “And what is yours?”

  To save her family’s reputation. To save her cousin. To find a way for herself. “To fulfill my destiny.”

  “That’s a tall order.”

  “It is the same for everyone.”

  “You think I have a destiny?”

  “You do not?”

  “Honey, I think my brother’s and my birth was greeted with nothing but a curse.”

  “You are a twin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Such good fortune upon your family.”

  Shadow pulled his horse up short. “My mother was an Indian whore. My father was a Mexican soldier from a family that didn’t see their union, or anything that came of it, as a blessing.”

  Her horse carried on a couple more steps. Fei turned in the saddle so she could meet his gaze. There was no emotion in his expression, no emotion in his eyes, but Fei understood the type of anger that came from that kind of pain.

  “My mother was white, my father Chinese, of a good family. I know what it is like to have the ancestors frown upon you. It is a curse that doesn’t leave and taints the fortunes of all around.”

  Shadow urged his horse closer. “Damn it, Fei. I’m sorry.”

  The horse whickered. He seemed such a nice horse, with soft brown eyes. How did he feel being ripped from his life? Leaning over, she patted his neck. “But it is not an excuse to do what you will.”

  “Are you about to lecture me?”

  “Where did you get the guns?”

  “I told you.”

  “This horse is well cared for. He was happy in his home. You can see it in his eyes.”

  “You’re upset because you think I stole a horse from its happy home?”

  “It is not fair to him.”

  “Maybe I’m his destiny.”

  “And maybe not.”

  “Haven’t you ever done anything you weren’t proud of simply because you had no other choice?”

  She had. Like leaving her father alone in the room beneath the barn. The room was a sanctuary. It had a well and they kept it stocked with food. Originally, the door only locked from the inside, but she’d been forced to add the bar to the outside. She’d debated bolting the door behind her, but she feared too much that, if something happened to her, her father would never be able to get out. So she’d bound him to the room with lies, telling him the emperor’s troops had located them and they were scouring the area for their hiding place. Hopefully that would keep him in that room and she wouldn’t return to find all her plans broken around her.

  “Fei?”

  She glanced up to find Shadow studying her with those too-seeing eyes. “Yes?”

  “I really can take care of whatever your problem is.”

  She was gambling on that very thing, and for that to happen, she had to trust him, but it was hard to trust a man who made his own rules, lived his own way, a man she couldn’t read. Yet he was following her lead without question. She had to know why.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “What?”

  She motioned with her hands, at a loss for the phrase. She finally settled on, “Doing as I say.”

  “You saved my life. That gets you a certain level of cooperation on my part.”

  A certain level. That implied an end. “For how long?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  “You are not curious as to my need? What if I want you to kill someone?”

  “Then I’ll kill them.”

  The shock went through her like a bolt of lightning. “Because I ask?”

  He shrugged. “I owe you.”

  He would kill someone for no more reason than that she wanted it. Fei didn’t know whether to be grateful or horrified. She’d prayed to her American ancestors for help. This is who they had sent? A man who made promises to kill as easily as other people promised to pick up the post.

  “Xei-xei.” Her thanks came out breathless and timid. Everything she didn’t want to be. Shadow stopped her with a hand on her horse’s reins. His eyes were little more than dark shadows beneath the brim of his hat.

  “Honey, I’m damn good w
ith a gun and even better with a knife, but I can’t fight enemies I can’t see. You need to tell me where the threat is.”

  Yes, she did. For better or worse, her destiny was tangled with his. The time for secrets had passed. She took a breath and held it, controlling the panic. Just this much could ruin everything. “I do not know the threat, but I know it will come to be.”

  “Explain.”

  “I have found gold.”

  “Gold?”

  This was not the first time she’d encountered skepticism. When she’d first brought a trace to the assayer in town, just to see if it truly was gold, he had not been excited. But she had been, because she knew how much more there was and her first instinct had been to run home and bring back the nugget, but as she’d left his office and felt the gazes of the men who always hung around outside, she had realized her mistake. Any one of the hard-eyed men would have taken her gold from her. So instead of hurrying home, she’d lowered her eyes and slumped her shoulders. No one had followed her home. And no one had followed her since, but she couldn’t continue to hide. She needed the gold. She needed help. Shadow was what she had. An outlaw. A thief. A man who said he would kill for her.

  “Yes.”

  Shadow let go of the reins and sat up. “How much? A sprinkle in the pan or enough to build a mansion?”

  Reaching into her pocket, she wrapped her fingers around the heavy nugget. Since the day she’d found it in her father’s secret claim, her life had changed. Revealing it now would make it change again. For good or for bad, there was no telling.

  “Fei?”

  She eyed the breadth of Shadow’s shoulders. By all her ancestors, there was nothing to keep this man from killing her and taking the nugget.

  “I am afraid.”

  The truth hung there between them.

  “Why?”

  “I cannot stop you.”

  “No, you can’t.” He moved his horse closer. “But you can trust me.”

  “Swear on your ancestors that you will not hurt me.”

  “I’ll do you one better.”

  She waited. His fingers skimmed up her arm, grazing the black silk of her tunic, skimming the sensitive skin of her neck before cupping her cheek in his palm. She was vividly aware of how easily he could hurt her. A tightening of his fingers, a twist of his wrist and her worries would be over. Her cousin’s face flashed in her mind—angry, resentful and determined. She’d told Lin to wait, not to do anything impulsive. She’d told her to trust in her and their plan. If she died now, her cousin would be alone with no plan and only her reckless nature to sustain her. That couldn’t happen.

  Shadow’s thumb stroked over her lips. Fei should be scared, but she wasn’t. She couldn’t look away. Not as his fingers caressed her cheek. Not as eyes narrowed and his gaze dropped to her mouth. Not as his grip tightened ever so slightly. And certainly not as he said, “Fei Ochoa, I make you this promise. As your husband, I will protect you.”

  As her husband. If she accepted his promise, she was accepting the marriage. It would not be honorable to deny it. She swallowed, searching his face for any sign of deception. There was none. He was giving her what she wanted. In exchange for what?

  “Why should I believe what you say?”

  “You’re my wife. Your troubles are mine.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want it that way.”

  Could he truly be a man of honor?

  “You are a horse thief.”

  “Only if you consider taking back what’s yours as stealing.”

  “These are your horses?”

  She expected him to smile. He didn’t. If anything, his expression got harder. “What’s mine stays mine.”

  It was a warning. She would do well to pay heed, but in that moment, she could see the man behind the calm. He was intense. He was angry. And…he could be trusted.

  She took the nugget from her pocket. Catching his free hand in hers, she placed the gold in his palm, holding his gaze as she wrapped his fingers around it.

  “I accept your promise.”

  THE STONE WEIGHED HEAVILY in Shadow’s palm. He’d held enough gold to recognize what that weight meant. Son of a bitch, if there was more, she really had struck it rich. And she was right. There was no telling where her enemies would come from. But they would be coming.

  “You no longer want to promise?”

  There was no censure in Fei’s question. Just an acceptance that rubbed Shadow the wrong way. He’d been fighting for others all his life. First for his mother, then his brother and then Hell’s Eight. But now he had a wife, something of his own to fight for, and she wanted to deny him his right? Hell, no.

  “I promise you this, too. As long as I live, no one will hurt you.”

  She shook her head. “That is too much. We only agreed on protection, not your life.”

  He gave her back the nugget. “Maybe that’s what you thought.”

  She blinked and shoved it back. “Then I cannot accept your promise, after all.”

  He didn’t take it. “I’m not giving you a choice.”

  Her lip quivered. She backed the little mare away. “You promise too much.”

  His horse followed instinctively, until the ledge was at her back and there was nowhere to run.

  “You ask too little.”

  The mare was calm, but Fei was ready to come out of her skin. Shadow reached out, needing to remove that fear from her eyes, the quiver from her lip.

  “What are you afraid of, Fei?”

  She shook her head. “I cannot have your life on my conscience, too. I cannot.”

  His fingers slid around the back of her neck. His thumb pressed against her lip, stopping the trembling. “Too?”

  Her eyes widened and her pupils flared. “Please.”

  He remembered that moment when she’d grabbed the knife from Hubert’s boot and come for him, risking all to save his life. She hadn’t been afraid then. She’d been full of fire, light and purpose. His exotic, avenging angel.

  Tears welled in her eyes. This close, he could see the dark circles beneath, the unnatural pallor of her skin. The woman was exhausted and at the end of her rope.

  “I do not want your life,” she whispered.

  “Just my protection.”

  She nodded.

  “They go hand in hand.”

  “No.”

  He debated dragging her off the horse and into his arms. He badly wanted to hold her. To take that burden she wouldn’t show him from her shoulders. That fear from her eyes. It was his nature to help the weak. He wanted to help her. Son of a bitch, when had he decided he wanted her? And what the hell good would that do? He was an outlaw with a price on his head. He hadn’t been joking when he had said his days were numbered.

  Reining in his desire, he let her put distance between them. “How much more gold is there?”

  “Enough.”

  “For what?”

  “A new beginning.”

  Starting fresh he could understand.

  “And when you get this new beginning, what do you plan on doing with me?”

  “You may have the claim.”

  “You’re going to let me have all that gold? No questions asked?”

  “I am Chinese, I cannot own anything here. And even if I could, I do not have the skills to fight those who would take it from me.”

  “I have enough skill for both of us.”

  She was shaking her head before he finished. “My destiny begins with the gold, it does not lie with it.”

  Interesting philosophy, he thought.

  “You are a man who could do much with the power gold would give you,” she continued.

  He tipped back his hat. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “It was meant as nothing more than the truth.”

  He believed that. Fei went to great lengths to try to keep him at a distance. It was beginning to irk him. “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome.”

  So po
lite. So proper, when just a few minutes ago she’d been as aware of him as he was of her. He might not be her “forever man” as Tracker was to Ari, but he sure as shit wasn’t that forgettable.

  With a sharp motion, he sent her ahead. The silence stretched out to uncomfortable. Watching Fei’s posture, Shadow noted the tension in her hands and the stiffness of her back. She was upset. The moon was high in the sky, bathing everything in white light. It caught on the silk of Fei’s tunic. The hairs on the back of his neck said no one was following, but they were leaving a trail, so that could change at any time. He figured they were heading toward the foothills to the west. More specifically, Flat Top Mountain. He wasn’t that familiar with the terrain, otherwise he’d stash Fei and go back and lay out some diversions. Once they got to the claim and he got her settled, he’d do just that, but for now he was just going to have to take a chance that no one would pick up their trail. Just another thing to irk him.