by Nora Roberts
Grimly she brushed at her rumpled skirts. “I can see that amuses you.”
“I have to say it does.” He smiled, and her teeth snapped together. “I guess I’m flattered, but you didn’t have to get yourself in a catfight over me.” Her mouth dropped open. The man looked positively delighted. She was scratched and bruised and aching and humiliated, and he looked as though his grin might just split his face. Over him? she thought, and made herself return the smile.
“So you think I fought with Carlotta over you, because I was jealous?”
“Can’t think of another reason.”
“Oh, I’ll give you a reason.” She brought her fist up and caught him neatly on the jaw. He was holding a hand to his face and staring after her when Barker strolled out.
“She’s got what you might call a mean right hook.” In the street, people howled and snickered as Sarah climbed into the wagon and drove off. “Son,” Barker said with a hand on Jake’s shoulder, “you’re the fastest hand I ever saw with those Colts of yours. You play a fine game of poker, and you hold your whiskey like a man. But you got a hell of a lot to learn about women.”
“Apparently,” Jake murmured. He walked across to O’Riley’s and untied his horse.
Sarah seethed as she raced the wagon toward home. She’d made a spectacle of herself. She’d engaged in a crude, despicable sparring match with a woman with no morals. She’d brought half the town out into the street to stare and snicker at her. And then, to top it all off, she’d had to endure Jake Redman’s grinning face.
She’d shown him. Sarah tossed her head up and spurred the horses on. Her hand might possibly be broken, but she’d shown him. The colossal conceit of the man, to believe that she would stoop to such a level out of petty jealousy.
She wished she’d torn Carlotta’s brass-colored hair out by its black roots.
Not over him, she reminded herself. At least not very much over him.
She heard the rider coming up fast and looked over her shoulder. With a quick gasp of alarm, she cracked the reins. She would not speak to him now. Jake Redman could go to the devil, as far as she was concerned.
And he could take his grin with him.
But her sturdy workhorses were no match for his mustang. Nor was her driving skill a match for his riding. Even as she cursed him, he came.up beside her. She had a flash, clear as a bell, of how he’d looked when he’d raced beside the stagecoach, firing over his shoulder. He looked just as untamed and dangerous now.
“Stop that damn thing.”
Chin up, she cracked the reins again.
One of these days somebody was going to teach her to listen, Jake thought. It might just be today. He judged the timing and rhythm, then leaped from his horse into the wagon. Surefooted, he stepped over onto the seat, and though she fought him furiously he pulled the horses in.
“What the hell’s got into you, woman?” He scrambled for a hold as she shoved him aside and tried to jump out.
“Take your hands off me. I won’t be handled this way.”
“Handling you is a sight more work than I care for.” He snatched his hand out of range before she could bite him. “Haven’t you had enough scratching for one day? Sit down before you hurt yourself.” “You want the blasted wagon, take it. I won’t ride with you.”
“You’ll ride with me, all right.” Out of patience, he twisted her into his lap and silenced her. She squirmed and pushed and held herself as rigid as iron.
Then she melted. He felt the give, slow, easy, inevitable. In her. In himself. As her lips parted for his, he forgot about keeping her quiet and just took what he kept trying to tell himself he couldn’t have.
“You pack a punch, Duchess.” He drew her away to rub a hand over his chin. “In a lot of ways. You want to tell me what that was for?”
She pulled away, furious that she’d gone soft with just one kiss. “For assuming that I was jealous and would fight over any worthless man.”
“So now I’m worthless. Well, that may be, but you seem to like having me around.”
She did her best to straighten what was left of her dress. “Perhaps I do.”
He needed to know it more than he’d imagined.
Jake took her chin in his hand and turned her to face him. “You change your mind?”
Again she softened, this time because she saw the doubt in his eyes. “No, I haven’t changed my mind.” She drew a long breath. “Even though you didn’t come back and you’ve been to the Silver Star to see Carlotta.”
“You sure do hear things. Can’t imagine what you’d know if you lived closer to town. Stay in the wagon.” He recognized the look in her eye by now.
“Stay in the wagon, Sarah, until I get my horse tied on. I’ll just catch you again if you run.”
“I won’t run.” She brought her chin up again and stared straight ahead. When he’d joined her again, she continued her silence. Jake clucked to the horses and started off.
“I like to know why a woman’s mad at me. Why don’t you tell me how you know I’ve been to Carotta’s?”
“Alice told me.”
“Alice Johnson?”
“That’s right. Your friend Carlotta nearly beat her to death.”
He brought the horses up short. “What?”
Her fury bounded back and poured over him. “You heard what I said. She beat that poor girl as cruelly as anyone can be beaten. Eh’ helped Alice get out of town. Then she walked the rest of the way to my place.”
“Is she going to be all right?”
“With time and care.”
“And you’re going to give it to her?”
“Yes.” Her eyes dared him. “Do you have any objections?”
“No.” He touched her face, gently, in a way that was new to him. Abruptly he snatched his hand back and snapped the reins again.’ ‘You went into the Silver Star to have it out with Carlotta over Alice.”
“I’ve never been so furious.” Sarah lifted a hand to where Jake had touched her. “ Alice is hardly more than a child. No matter what she did, she didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.”
“Did she tell you why Carlotta did it?”
“She didn’t seem to know, only that she must have made some kind of mistake. Alice did say that Carlotta was in a temper after you had been there.”
He said nothing for a moment as he put the pieces together. “And she took it out on Alice.”
“Why did you go? Why did you go to Carlotta? If there’s something you…” She hadn’t any idea how to phrase it properly. “If I don’t know enough about your needs… I realize I don’t have any experience in these matters, but I-” She found her mouth crushed again in a kiss that was half hungry, half angry. “There’s never been anyone else who’s known so much about what I need.”
He watched her face clear into a smile. “I went to see Carlotta to tell her I don’t care much for having my name used as a reference.”
“So she took it out on Alice, because Alice was the one who’d come to talk to me.” Sarah shook her head and tried not to let her temper take over again. “Alice only told me what Carlotta wanted her to tell me. It didn’t work the way she’d planned, and Alice paid for it.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
Sarah linked her fingers again and set them in her lap. “Is that the only reason you went to Carlotta?” “No.” He waited for the look. The look of passionate fury. “I went for that, and to tell her to stay away from you. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that you were going to go and bloody her lip.”
“Did I?” She tried and failed to bank down the pleasure she felt at the news. “Did I really?”
“And her nose. Guess you were a little too involved to notice.”
“I’ve never struck anyone before in my life.” She tried to keep her voice prim, then gave up. “I liked it.”
With a laugh, Jake pulled her to his side. “You’re a real wildcat, Duchess.”
Chapter Twelve
Jake learne
d something new when he watched Sarah with Alice. He had always assumed that a woman who had been raised in the sheltered, privileged world would ignore, even condemn, one who lived as Alice lived. There were many decent women, as they called themselves, who would have turned Alice away as if she were a rabid dog.
Not Sarah.
And it was more than what he supposed she would have called Christian charity. He’d run into his share of people who liked to consider themselves good Christians. They had charity, all right, unless-they came across somebody who looked different, thought different. There had been plenty ‘Of Christian women who had swept their skirts aside from his own mother because she’d married a man of mixed blood.
They went into church on Sundays and quoted the Scriptures and professed to love their neighbor. But when their neighbor didn’t fit their image of what was right, love turned to hate quickly enough.
With Sarah it wasn’t just words. It was compassion, caring, and an understanding he hadn’t expected from her. He could hear, as he sat at the table, the simple kindness in her voice as she talked to the girl and tended her wounds.
As for Alice, it was obvious the girl adored Sarah. He’d yet to see her, as Sarah claimed her patient wasn’t up to visitors. But he could hear the shyness and the respect in her voice when she answered Sarah’s questions.
She’d fought for Alice. He couldn’t quite get over that. Most people wouldn’t fight for anything unless it was their own, or something they wanted to own. It had taken pride, and maybe what people called valor, for her to walk into a place like the Silver Star and face Carlotta down. And she’d done it. He glanced up toward the loft. She’d more than done it. She’d held her own.
Rising, he walked outside to where Lucius was doing his best to teach an uncooperative Lafitte to shake hands.
“Damn it, boy, did I say jump all over me? No, you flea-brained mongrel, I said shake.” Lucius pushed the dog’s rump down and grabbed a paw.
“Shake. Get it?” Lafitte leaped up again and licked Lucius’s face.
“Doesn’t appear so,” Jake commented.
“Fool dog.” But Lucius rubbed the pup’s belly when he rolled over. “Grows on you, though.” He squinted up at Jake. “Something around here seems to be growing on you, too.”
“Somebody had to bring her back.”
“Reckon so.” He waited until Jake crouched to scratch the puppy’s head. “You want to tell me how Miss Sarah came to look like she’d been in a fist-fight?” “She looked like she was in a fistfight because she was in a fistfight.”
Lucius snorted and spit. “Like hell.”
“With Carlotta.”
Lucius’s cloudy eyes widened, and then he let out a bark of laughter that had Lafitte racing in circles. “Ain’t that a hoot? Are you telling me that our Miss Sarah went in and gave Carlotta what for?”
“She gave her a bloody nose.” Jake looked over with a grin. “And pulled out more than a little of her hair.”
“Sweet Jesus, Id’ve given two pints of whiskey to’ve seen that. Did you?”
Chuckling, Jake pulled on Lafitte’s ears. “The tail end of it. When I walked in, the two of them were rolling over the floor, spitting like cats. I figure Carlotta outweighs Sarah by ten pounds or more, but Sarah was sitting on her, skirts hiked up and blood in her eye. It was one hell of a sight.”
“She’s got spunk.” Lucius pulled out his whiskey and toasted Sarah with a healthy gulp. “I knew she had something in her head when she tore out of here.” Feeling generous, he handed the bottle to Jake. “Never would have thought she’d set her mind on poking a fist into Carlotta. But nobody ever deserved it more. You seen Alice?”
“No.” Jake let the whiskey spread fire through him. “Sarah’s got the idea that it’s not fitting for me to talk to the girl until she’s covered up or something.”
“I carried her in myself, and I don’t mind saying I ain’t seen no woman’s face ever smashed up so bad. Took a belt to her, too, from the looks of it. Her back and shoulders all come up in welts. Jake, you wouldn’t whup a dog the way that girl was whupped. That Carlotta must be crazy.”
“Mean and crazy’s two different things.” He handed Lucius the bottle. “Carlotta’s just mean.” “Reckon you’d know her pretty well.”
Jake watched Lucius take another long sip. “I paid for her a few times, sometime back. Doesn’t mean I know her.”
“Soon plop my ass next to a rattler’s.” Lucius handed the bottle back to Jake again, then fell into a fit of coughing. “Miss Sarah, I didn’t hear you come out.”
“So I surmised,” she said with a coolness that had Lucius coughing again. “Perhaps you gentlemen have finished drinking whiskey and exchanging crude comments and would like to wash for supper. If not, you’re welcome to eat out here in the dirt.” With that she turned on her heel, making certain she banged the door shut behind her.
“Ooo-whee.” Lucius snatched back the bottle and took another drink. “She’s got a mighty sharp tongue for such a sweet face. I tell you, boy, you’ll have to mind your step if you hitch up with her.”
Jake was still staring at the door, thinking how beautiful she’d looked, black eye and all, standing there like a queen addressing her subjects. “I ain’t planning on hitching up with anyone.”
“Maybe you are and maybe you ain’t.” Lucius rose and brushed off his pants. A little dirt and she’d have them off him again and in the stream. “But she’s got plans, all right. And a woman like that’s hard to say no to.”
Sarah spoke politely at supper, as if she were entertaining at a formal party. Her hair was swept up and tidied, and she’d changed her dress. She was wearing the green one that set off her hair and eyes. The stew was served in ironstone bowls, but the way she did it, it could have been a restaurant meal on fancy china.
It made him think, as he hadn’t in years, of his mother and how she had liked to fuss over Sunday supper.
She said nothing about the encounter in town, and it was clear that she didn’t care to have the subject brought up. It was hard to believe she was the same woman he’d dragged off the floor in the Silver Star. But he noticed that she winced now and then. He bit into a hunk of fresh bread and held back a grin. She was hurting, all right, and more than her pride, from the look of it. As he ate he entertained thoughts of how he would ease those hurts when the sun went down.
“Would you like some more stew, Lucius?”
“No, ma’am.” He patted his belly. “Full as a tick. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll just go take a walk before I feed the stock and such. Going to be a pretty night.” He sent them both what he thought was a bland look. “I’ll sleep like a log after a meal like this. Yessir. I don’t believe I’ll stir till morning.” He scraped back his chair and reached for his hat. “Mighty fine meal, Miss Sarah.”
“Thank you, Lucius.”
Jake tipped back his chair. “I wouldn’t mind a walk myself.”
Sarah had to smile at the way Lucius began to whistle after he’d closed the door. “You go ahead.”
He took her hand as she rose. “I’d like it better if you went with me.”
She smiled. He’d never asked her to do something as ordinary, and as romantic, as going for a walk. Thank goodness she hadn’t forgotten how to flirt. “Why, that’s nice of you, but I have to see to the dishes. And Alice may be waking soon. I think she could eat a bit now.”
“I imagine I could occupy myself for an hour or two. We’ll take a walk when you’re done.”
She sent him a look from under lowered lashes.
“Maybe.” Then she laughed as he sent her spinning into his lap. “Why, Mr. Redman. You are quite a brute.”
He ran a finger lightly over the bruise under her eye.
“Then you’d best be careful. Kiss me, Sarah.”
She smiled when her lips were an inch from his.
“And if I don’t?”
“But you will.” He traced her bottom lip with his tongue. “You w
ill.”
She did, sinking into it, into him. Her arms wound around him, slender and eager. Her mouth opened like a flower in sunlight. They softened against him even as they heated. They yielded even as they demanded.
“Don’t be long,” he murmured. He kissed her again, passion simmering, then set her on her feet. She let out a long, shaky breath when he closed the door behind him.
With Alice settled for the night and the day’s work behind her, Sarah stepped out into the quieting light of early evening. It was still too warm to bother with a shawl, but she pushed her sleeves down past her elbows and buttoned the cuffs. There were bruises on her arms that she didn’t care to dwell on.
From where she stood she could hear Lucius in the shed, talking to Lafitte. He’d become more his dog than hers, Sarah thought with a laugh. Or perhaps they’d both become something of hers.
As the land had.
She closed her eyes and let the light breeze flutter over her face. She could, if she concentrated hard enough, catch the faintest whiff of sage. And she could, if she used enough imagination, picture what it would be like to sit on the porch she envisioned having, watching the sun go down every evening while Jake rolled a cigarette and listened with her to the music of the night.
Bringing herself back, she looked around. Where was he? She stepped farther out into the yard when she heard the sound of hammer against wood. She saw him, a few yards from the chicken coop, beating an old post into the ground. He’d taken his shirt off, and she could see the light sheen of sweat over his lean torso and the rippling and bunching of his muscles as he swung the heavy hammer down.
Her thoughts flew back to the way his arms had swung her into heat, into passion. The hands that gripped the thick, worn handle of the hammer now had roamed over her, touching, taking whatever they chose.
And she had touched, wantonly, even greedily, that long, limber body, taking it, accepting it as her own. Her breath shuddered out as she watched him bend and lift and pound. Was it wrong to have such thoughts, such wonderful, exciting visions? How could it be, when she loved so completely? She wanted his heart, but oh, she wanted his body, as well, and she could find no shame in it.