The Wayward Heart

by Jill Gregory

  And the spell that had bound her up in its sensuous magic broke abruptly as she realized what was about to happen.

  “No!” She tried to pull away. “Texas, you mustn’t... we mustn’t... No, please... let me go!”

  He froze, his lean face flushed with desire, every muscle in his body aching with need. His eyes glinted with a passion that urged him to go on, to ignore her protests and teach her what a man and woman were made for.

  But he did not.

  He released her with an oath, and stood, fastening his trousers with shaking fingers, his face grim while Bryony lay back on the hay and sobbed.

  Bryony couldn’t seem to stop crying. Shame filled her as she realized what she’d allowed to happen—and what had almost happened. What was wrong with her? She was no better than a harlot to melt in the arms of the man who’d killed her father—in the arms of a heartless, murderous gunfighter who cared no more for her than for a flower he would uncaringly crush beneath his boot!

  Her tears flowed faster as she recalled the shameless way she’d responded to him, the mad craving she’d allowed to run wild.

  Texas watched her in silence. His face struggled to find the mask of careless composure he always wore, while his heart gradually slowed to a normal pace after his heady encounter with this intoxicating, raven-haired beauty.

  He wanted her, wanted her with a ferocity that bordered on madness, but he was still sane enough to realize that taking her by force was something he could never do.

  She was so young, so fragile, so innocent. And no woman should ever be initiated into womanhood with a scream of terror in her throat. No, he wanted her warm and willing, and wild with the same driving need he felt for her.

  But he knew damn well how unlikely that was, for she hated him with a loathing that could never be undone, and he couldn’t even blame her. After what he’d done, he knew well enough that there was little chance she would ever turn to him with anything but fury in her heart.

  “Go away!” Bryony cried, her slender body racking with sobs. “Leave me in peace. Leave me alone.”

  “With pleasure, ma’am.” Texas’s frustration and bitterness were hidden now, his expression once again a steely mask. “But first I reckon I’m going to talk to you, for that’s what I came here to do.”

  She raised her head. Her green eyes were still swollen with tears, but they flashed with fire.

  “What can you possibly have to say that I would want to hear? Don’t you know that I despise the very sight of you?”

  “It didn’t seem so a few moments ago, ma’am.”

  “Oh! How dare you!” Her fists clenched as she stared at his tall, broad-shouldered frame. He looked huge and intimidating in the dimness of the barn. His booted feet were planted apart, and the muscles in his arms bulged with power. He was frowning, and his eyes were hard.

  How could she have forgotten even for a moment that he was a man to fear, to loathe—not to love.

  “Just go away!” she gasped.

  “That’s odd. Those are the very words I came here to say,” he drawled. “Go away. That’s what you’ll do, Bryony, if you have an ounce of sense in that beautiful head.”

  Shocked, she stared at him for a long moment. “Why should I?” she demanded at last, anger trembling in her voice.

  “Because you won’t live long if you don’t.”

  Almost the very words Rusty Jessup had spoken to her.

  A cold shiver of fear brushed the hair at the nape of her neck.

  “Is that a threat, Mr. Logan?” she asked, sitting up and pushing her tangled hair out of her face. “Are you planning to murder me as you did my father?”

  “Don’t tempt me.” His eyes were like ice. “Though for your information, I didn’t murder your father—he died in a fair gunfight, and if I had it all to do again, I’d shoot him still. Only this time I’d riddle his body with bullets, instead of only drilling him with one.”

  She gasped, stunned by the cruelty of his words. She felt sick, as sick as if he’d struck her a blow to the stomach with one of those powerful fists.

  Sudden fury swept through her, crazing her, and she leaped, screeching, to her feet, diving at him with raking fingernails, kicking and biting viciously as he attempted to hold her off. She bit his hand as it closed over her arm, and her nails dug a scratch across his cheek, but then he gained control of her, holding her struggling, slender body tightly against his muscular frame.

  “Stop fighting me and listen,” he commanded. “I didn’t come here to threaten you—I came to warn you, damn it. Your life isn’t worth a wooden peso if you stay in Arizona. No, don’t look at me that way, Bryony—I’m not the one who’s going to harm you. Someone else is planning your demise, little tenderfoot, and I reckon I know why. But that’s none of your concern at the moment. All you have to do is get the hell out!”

  “You’re loco!” she spat, her green eyes narrowed furiously as she fought back tears. “You come to me with all these vague warnings and predictions, refusing to tell me the basis for your suspicions, and expecting me to trust and believe you? You, of all people on this earth? You must think me a complete fool, and I promise you, Mr. Jim Logan, that I am not!”

  “Prove it,” he challenged her. “Leave Arizona today—before it’s too late.”

  “Never!” Bryony’s voice quivered with anger.

  He shoved her away, down into a soft mound of hay. “Damn you!” he muttered under his breath. “And damn Wesley Hill!”

  With those words, he grabbed up his fallen hat and spun about to descend from the hayloft. Bryony had landed face down in the pile of hay, and as she struggled to sit upright, her hand touched something hard and cold only inches from her head.

  The gun. The derringer she’d searched so hard to find in the hay only a short while ago. She watched Texas Jim Logan stalk swiftly across the barn below, heading toward the bolted door. She scrambled quickly to her feet, her breath coming hard, a terrible thudding in her heart. Her temples ached with a cruel, blinding pressure. Without stopping to think, she raised the gun, her finger on the trigger.

  Chapter Twelve

  It must have been some sixth sense of danger that made Jim Logan glance back at the girl in the loft. He saw her raise the gun and aim it at him. He had only an instant to react.

  Leaping into a half-crouch, his hand flew to his hip and drew out the Colt. He fired in the same instant. His face had turned a ghastly white.

  The bullet struck Bryony’s derringer with a shattering impact, sending the reverberations through her hand and wrist in shock waves of pain. Her lips parted, but no sound emerged as she dropped her weapon and sank to her knees, her face contorted with pain, her hand dangling limply before her.

  In three huge strides, Logan had crossed the barn and swung himself up into the loft to kneel beside her, a string of epithets streaming from his lips. If Bryony had been in a fit state to observe him, she would have seen the fear in his eyes as he bent over her, a fear which no man had ever been able to kindle, but which threatened to overwhelm him as he realized that for the first time in his life he had shot at a woman, that he could have killed her if his aim had not been faultless.

  “You damn little fool!” he cried hoarsely, examining her hand. “I might have killed you! A fate you deserve as sure as hell, but I’ll be damned if I’m the one who’s going to be responsible for it!”

  Bryony barely heard his furious chastisements, or noticed his distraught concern. Her hand had gone numb, but there was a dreadful ache in her wrist and she felt waves of blackness rushing over her intermittently, blotting out sight and sound.

  Seeing her stunned, half-fainting state, and observing with relief that there seemed to be no physical damage to her hand—only the aftermath of pain and shock—he carried her to the edge of the rickety ladder and helped her descend it, supporting her swaying body.

  When they finally reached the bottom rung, he swept her into his arms and bore her quickly out of the darkened barn and t
o the ranch house, glad that none of the wranglers had returned yet to impede him. Kicking open the ranch house door, he carried Bryony swiftly through the hallway, and then halted momentarily as Rosita’s stolid form blocked his path.

  The Mexican woman’s dark eyes widened at the sight of her mistress’s limp body in the arms of the tall gunfighter whom she recognized immediately. Her usually stoic expression changed to one of astonishment, but Logan was not in the mood to explain.

  “Where’s your mistress’s room?” he demanded in a tone that invited no questions.

  “Arriba.” She pointed up the staircase and then followed hurriedly as he climbed the stairs. Rosita showed him to Bryony’s room and watched as he lowered her with unexpected gentleness onto the brass bed.

  As quickly as he could, Texas explained how Bryony had been hurt. If Rosita was shocked by the tale, she showed no evidence of it. After that first moment of amazement her usual complacence returned, and she merely listened silently until he finished.

  “Un momenta,” she murmured then, and left the room.

  He paced anxiously about the bedchamber, glancing worriedly at Bryony, who had closed her eyes and was moaning softly. Her small, lovely face was very white, framed by the dark mass of long black hair that tumbled about her shoulders in soft, thick curls.

  She looked beautiful and fragile as she lay unmoving upon the bed, and his features darkened into a bitter scowl as he observed her. A moment later Rosita returned with cold cloths with which she bathed Bryony’s face and the injured hand, swathing her wrist in the cool wrappings and placing it on pillows. Bryony seemed to be relieved by these ministrations, and her eyelashes fluttered open.

  “Oh, Rosita,” she whispered gratefully, but then her gaze fell on Texas, who stood beside her bed.

  Fear darted into her eyes.

  “You!” she cried.

  “At your service, ma’am,” he drawled grimly, his face set like a granite mask.

  “You tried to kill me,” she whispered as the full memory of what had happened came rushing back to her.

  “On the contrary, Miss Hill. If I’d been trying to kill you, you’d be dead. I only wanted to deflect your shot, for you see, you were trying to kill me.”

  “Go away!” she muttered, suddenly too exhausted to continue the argument. Weariness pressed in on her, and she no longer had the strength to deal with this man who seemed to delight in tormenting her.

  “Go away,” she repeated in a whisper so weak it was barely audible.

  “I’ll do that.” He frowned. “But remember one thing. The next time you take up a gun against me, be prepared to die on the instant, for woman or no woman, I won’t spare you a second time.”

  With these words, he turned on his heel and strode from the room, his boots thumping as he went down the stairs and out of the ranch house. Seconds later, the two women heard a horse’s hooves thundering away from the ranch.

  “Are you all right, Senorita Hill?”

  Bryony glanced wearily at the plump, pretty Mexican woman. “Yes, Rosita, I think I’m fine now. My wrist still aches but it’s much better than it was. Gracias, muchas gracias.”

  The housekeeper shrugged. “De nada.” But some of the aloofness she’d shown toward Bryony in previous days was gone, and she seemed to be looking at her with quiet compassion.

  “Rosita,” Bryony began, encouraged by the woman’s softened attitude, “I must ask you a favor. Por favor.” She paused, blushing scarlet as she realized that her gown was sadly rumpled and her chemise was torn. Rosita must have guessed something of what had gone on in the locked barn. Mercifully, the housekeeper wasn’t the type of person to ask questions, but Bryony had no desire to have the whole ranch talking of her encounter with Jim Logan.

  ‘Please,” she pleaded, meeting Rosita’s solemn gaze. “Please don’t tell anyone what happened this afternoon. About my injury or... or anything. I’d like to forget the whole episode, and I don’t think I could bear a lot of questions or gossip.”

  Her eyes clouded with unshed tears. “Will you do this for me, Rosita? Will you not mention it to a soul?”

  “Si, Senorita, I will keep silence,” the woman answered simply. “Do not worry yourself about this. Try to rest.” For the first time since Bryony had met her, Rosita smiled. It transformed her face. “I will go to the kitchen now and cook for you una deliciosa cena. It will make you strong.” She departed noiselessly, her heavy bulk disappearing through the doorway.

  Bryony lay back against the fluff of pillows, thoroughly shaken by the tumultuous events of the afternoon. She tried to think only of the supper Rosita was preparing for her, but her mind kept returning to her encounter with Jim Logan, and to the question that was dominating her thoughts.

  Would she have pulled the trigger on the derringer? If he hadn’t prevented her, would she have killed Texas Jim Logan?

  She covered her face with her hands, knowing the answer. If any man deserved death, surely he did. After all, had he not killed her father? Had he not killed countless men?

  There was no doubt he deserved to die.

  Yet she would not have killed him, could not have. It was the plain, simple truth and it sat upon her heart like the weight of a gravestone.

  She felt sick and clammy and dreadfully frightened.

  It wasn’t fear for her life, however. It was a fear of Texas Jim Logan himself, a fear that went beyond his size and his strength, and his prowess with a gun. It was a fear of his power over her, for she couldn’t deny that when he touched her or kissed her or stroked her, she melted like candle wax, losing all her resolve and her common sense, and becoming soft and pliable in his strong hands.

  This terrified her more than any threat or warnings, for no man had ever wielded such power over her before in her young life and she didn’t understand its source or its meaning. She only knew that she ought to hate him more than anyone in the entire world, and instead, she felt...

  Bryony shivered. She didn’t know exactly what she felt.

  Filled with shame, panic-stricken by her own confused, tempestuous feelings, she buried her face in the softness of her pillow.

  As the April afternoon waned, the wranglers returned to the ranch, their rowdy voices filling the warm desert air outside her bedroom window. But Bryony didn’t even hear them. She was caught up in her own world of confusion and doubt.

  And she couldn’t ignore the warning Jim Logan had issued—the warning that her life was in danger if she remained in Arizona.

  Was he speaking the truth? Even so, how could he expect her to believe him? Yet, his warning somehow coincided with her own instinct that someone was trying to frighten her away.

  She didn’t want to panic. Or to run away like a frightened child.

  She wanted to stay and make her home on the land that was rightfully hers. For the time being, she decided, she’d wait and see. She’d stay alert—she’d be careful.

  If anything happened to give credence to Logan’s suspicions, then she would decide what had to be done.

  But a sense of uneasiness settled over her, and would not go away. Even when Rosita brought her supper on a tray, and turned up the oil lamp as the dusk deepened outside her window, the uneasy feeling persisted. And when late that night the coyotes called to each other from the hilltops, their melancholy wails piercing the night, she felt a chill deep in her heart, and her sleep that evening was filled with nightmares.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The following day Bryony decided to ride to town with Buck Monroe. She came out of the ranch house with her letters in hand, dressed for riding. She was determined to shake off the misery of yesterday, and the way in which she meant to do this was by occupying herself with pleasant diversions.

  First, she intended to select a horse for her personal use. She hadn’t had an opportunity to ride since she’d arrived at the ranch, but she intended to rectify that at once, and she’d already decided which mount to make her own.

  It was a beautiful sprin
g day, with a cool breeze sweeping down from the mountains. The sky, the sun, the mountains, the flower-covered valley—everything was radiant with color.

  Spotting Buck and some of the other ranch hands in the far corral, she started toward them. To her surprise, they all stared at her in wide-mouthed amazement as she approached. She flushed, made acutely uncomfortable by their scrutiny.

  “Wal, I’ll be a dog-eared Gila monster!” Buck exclaimed, his jaw dropping.

  “What are you talking about? What’s the matter?” Bryony demanded, gazing from one to the other of the men’s astonished faces. “For heaven’s sake, haven’t you ever seen a riding habit before?”

  Grinning, Buck shook his head, studying the slim, elegant figure she presented in her dark blue velvet outfit, with her glistening black kid boots up to her knees, and her riding crop clutched in her gloved hand. Atop her head, contrasting markedly with the cowboys’ wide-brimmed Stetsons, she wore a smart little derby cap of blue velvet to match her habit.

  To Buck and the others, she looked as foreign as a dainty English tea cake set amidst their steak and beans, and they couldn’t help gaping at her. But Bryony felt dismay surging through her, along with a trace of resentment.

  “Well?” she asked Buck, fire kindling in her eyes. “What is it? I’ll have you know, Buck Monroe, that this is my very nicest habit. I wore it every Sunday on my rides through the park, and if it was good enough for St. Louis society, I believe it’s good enough for you!”

  Buck burst into a loud guffaw, then fought to control his amusement as he saw the hurt look in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Bryony. Uh, Miss Hill. You look fine—mighty fine. I swear it. It’s not that at all.”

  “Then what?”

  “Well, ma’am...” He gazed at her earnestly. “That’s a real pretty outfit and all—real pretty. But it doesn’t seem too practical for Arizona. For one thing, it’s too heavy for desert heat. You’ll be hotter than Rosita’s chili in no time. And for another thing, well, hell, ma’am, it just looks so danged dandyish. Citified, if you know what I mean.”