Daniel strode over to her, hunkered down at her side without once meeting her gaze, and pressed the handkerchief he’d just fetched from her bureau against her bleeding palm. The pressure stung, but not as badly as his brusque manner. What had happened to the warmth in his voice? The tenderness in his touch?
Did he hate the books so much that seeing them in her possession tainted her by association? Surely not. The Daniel Barrett she knew was fair-minded and patient. He’d not judge her over something so meaningless as a pile of dime novels.
“Daniel, I can explain,” she began, needing to mend the rift that had suddenly cratered between them. “I only read them in order to—”
“I’m going downstairs to heat the water for your bath,” he interrupted. He pushed to his feet. “I’ll call up when it’s ready.”
I read them in order to feel closer to you. She finished the thought in her head even as she watched him stride out the door. Away from her. As if he could no longer stand to be in the same room.
A sob welled in her chest. She’d lost him. All because of some stupid books. Books she never should have read in the first place, not if she truly cared about his feelings. But she’d been selfish. Impatient to connect with him. And now Daniel Barrett was further away from her than ever before.
Dan stoked the fire in the kitchen stove, throwing enough kindling in the firebox to get a roaring blaze going. The sooner he heated the water, the sooner he could leave. And he needed to leave. Needed to get some distance. To clear his head.
He dug a milk pail out of the closet, took it to the sink, and started pumping water into it. As he worked the handle with his right hand, he ran his left through his hair and blew out a heavy breath.
They were just books. He had no reason to get so riled over them. He should simply pretend he’d never seen them. Go back to the way things were. Only he couldn’t forget. Couldn’t ignore the well-worn covers, creased and curled at the edges, that looked as if they’d been read not just once or twice but dozens of times each. Couldn’t forget the way Etta had dropped her head to stare at her hands, or the guilty flush that had pinked her cheeks.
She’d known how he felt about those stories. Shoot. It would be impossible not to know his feelings on the matter, the way he grumbled and carried on whenever anyone so much as mentioned Dead-Eye Dan. That’s why seeing her stash bothered him so much. It felt like a betrayal. Like she was being disloyal. Even if he hadn’t been free to speak his true feelings, he’d thought they’d been friends at least. Now, he wasn’t so sure. A friend wouldn’t go behind a friend’s back like that, not when he’d made his opinion on the matter so evident.
Yet, his best friend in the world, Stone Hammond, had teased him mercilessly about the books when he’d found out about them. Stone had even, at the behest of his new wife and adopted daughter, posed for an advertisement photograph that appeared at the back of the latest Dead-Eye Dan novel. It was an advertisement for a company that produced Henry repeating rifles, one of the rifles Dead-Eye Dan was famous for. And why had Stone committed this egregious sin? So the company’s owner would allow his kid to return to Stone’s wife’s school. Granted, the kid was like family to them. A fact that made Stone’s actions a little easier to swallow.
Did Etta have a good reason? He wouldn’t know. He’d cut her off before she could explain, too afraid of what he might hear. Afraid to learn that she admired the fictional version of him more than the real one.
The sound of water splashing into the sink as the pail overflowed brought Dan back to the reality of the kitchen and the bath he was supposed to be readying. Books or no books, the woman had been through an ordeal tonight and deserved some pampering. She’d been pinned to the floor by a tree. She’d been cut and bruised and no doubt scared out of her mind, and he’d stomped away because he was brooding over some stupid books. Some hero he was turning out to be. No wonder she preferred Dead-Eye Dan.
He carried the pail of water to the stove, set it on to heat, then went over to the washroom and collected the bathing tub. He set it up near the stove so Etta would be warm and then returned to the pump with a second bucket. He filled the tub halfway then decided to fill the kettle while he waited for the water to finish heating. After that, he went in search of the tea box. Women liked tea.
He was sniffing the different pouches, trying to decide which bag of dried leaves he should choose, when a creak from the staircase brought his head around.
Etta.
Man, but she was beautiful. Her golden-brown hair hung in waves about her shoulders, tumbling nearly to her waist. He’d never seen it down before. She must have unbraided and brushed it in anticipation of her bath.
Her bath. Dan swallowed. The thought of what would happen in this very room in a matter of minutes set his temperature shooting upward with all the speed of a bullet fired at the sky.
Abandoning his search for the perfect tea, he scuttled off to the washroom, making an excuse about fetching soap and towels. “The water’s still heating,” he said as he reentered the kitchen, a towel draped over his arm, a cake of soap in his hand. “It’ll be a while before . . . What are you doing?”
Marietta had the door to the stove’s firebox open and was feeding something to the hungry flames. Something that looked suspiciously like . . . her books!
“Stop!” Dan tossed the soap and towel onto the table and rushed toward her as she placed another novel into the heart of the stove. His own heart lurched at the sight. “Etta. Stop.” He grabbed her arm and pulled it back before she could place the last book in the fire, one that looked newer than the others he’d spied beneath her bed.
She glared at him, defiance glistening in her eyes. “Let me go, Daniel.”
He’d done this, and it was killing him to see what his pride had wrought. “Etta, you don’t have to . . . I never meant . . . You love those books.”
“No, Daniel.” She yanked her arm from his grasp and slapped the remaining book against his chest. “I love you. The books were just a way to pretend that a part of you could actually belong to me.” The defiance faded from her eyes to be replaced by abject misery. “And now you never will.”
Dan was so stunned, his mind instantly bogged down like a wagon wheel sucked into deep mud. Unconsciously, he lifted a hand to catch the book she’d thrust at him, but he barely noticed it was there.
She loved him? Could such a miracle be possible? He hadn’t even courted her. Kissed her. Shoot, he’d barely allowed himself to be in her presence much of the last few months. How could she possibly love him?
“I promise I won’t make a pest of myself anymore.”
Dan blinked. Tried to focus. What was she saying?
“My father will be back soon. You’ll be free to leave then. Start your ranch. Train your mules. I won’t interfere, I swear. I’ve learned my lesson. I never should have come back early. I thought I might convince you . . . but it was a mistake.”
She was rambling, stumbling about the kitchen in circles, so worked up she was waving her hands in the air as if she were swatting mosquitoes. And she wasn’t making any sense, either. What mistake?
The kettle started hissing, tugging Dan’s attention away from her. He stuffed the thin book in the waistband of his trousers, afraid she’d burn it if he left it behind. He closed the firebox door then wrapped a towel around his hand and collected the steaming pail. He poured the water into the tub then bent down to stir it with his hand. Not warm enough. He added over half the kettle, too, careful to keep back at least a cupful for her tea. Satisfied that the bath was sufficiently warm, he straightened and stepped back.
“I’ll leave you to your bath, Etta.” How weak those words sounded when what he wanted most was to shout out his love for her. To wrap her in his arms and kiss her with all the passion that had been building inside him for the last three years. But he couldn’t say the words. Not while his oath to her father shackled him. So he took another step back. “There’s water for tea, if you want it.”
I’ll never leave you, Etta. Not willingly. The words burned like acid in his throat, but he clenched his jaw against them and simply nodded. “I wish you the same.” He backed another step toward the door. “I’ll . . . ah . . . check on the stock. I think the hail has stopped. Don’t even hear the rain anymore.”
Then, before he could give in to the burgeoning temptation to toss his vow to the wind and sweep her into his arms, he shoved the worktable away from the busted back door and escaped into the night.
Chapter Seven
Once the shooting stopped, Dan dodged the outlaws who came looking for him and circled around to collect Ranger. Taking advantage of the fading light, he hid in the shadows cast by the bluffs and picked his way unseen to the outcropping of rock to the north that hid the back entrance to Devil’s Canyon. He ground-tied Ranger near some scrub brush, then made his way on foot to the narrow entrance that resembled a crevice more than a door.
His rifles would do him no good in such tight quarters, so he left them behind. He’d have to make do with the revolver at his hip, the pistol tucked into the back of his waistband, and the four knives he carried. Made a man feel a bit naked when he thought about the amount of firepower that existed in the den he was walking into, but he had surprise on his side. Surprise and cunning. It would be enough. It had to be. Mary Ellen’s life depended upon it.
—from Dead-Eye Dan and the Outlaws of Devil’s Canyon
Etta worked so hard over the next three days, she had no energy left to do much talking. A good thing, to Dan’s way of thinking. Working alongside her, he watched her sweep up broken glass, clean up water-damaged furniture and rugs, even drag fallen branches and broken shingles into piles for him to burn later. She’d cleaned his cabin, too, while he’d been out mending fence and checking the herd.
He’d found five head drowned in a gulley and another two dead in the field on that first day, most likely killed by the hail before they could find shelter. The worst had been the half-grown calf he’d found bawling in a tangle of gnarled mesquite. Poor thing was bloodied by the pelting he’d taken, his back leg broken and twisted from the prairie-dog hole he’d stepped in. Dan had to put him down. He hated that duty. But he couldn’t stand to see an animal suffer, either. So he did what had to be done. Then he’d dragged the calf’s carcass to the ditch, deposited it with the others, and stuffed his grief away as he rode home.
That’s when he’d found his cabin swept clean. His bed straightened and made up with fresh linens. Oilskin nailed over the broken-out windows. And a plate of supper, still warm, sitting on the table in front of his sofa, as if she’d watched for him to return and brought it over while he tended Ranger in the barn.
It’d been the same yesterday after he’d returned from assessing the damage at his new property. She’d had dinner waiting for him. Warm. Tasty. Homey.
Yet isolating, too, for she made a point to deliver the meals when he was busy with other chores, never when he could interact with her.
The silence he’d thought a blessing had become a curse. It ate at him. Rubbed him raw. He wanted to return to the easy camaraderie they’d shared before the storm, but she wouldn’t let him. She avoided him. Why? How could she tell him she loved him then immediately start acting as if she didn’t?
At first, he’d excused her behavior as some kind of belated reaction to the harrowing experience she’d gone through during the storm. Later, he told himself she was just too busy to seek him out, what with all the water damage in the house and debris littering the yard. But this morning, he’d purposely waited until he saw her at the kitchen window, then carted his tool chest up to the back porch to repair the door he’d busted the night of the storm. He’d greeted her with a smile and a howdy. She’d returned the gesture with a polite nod and a pleasant enough expression, but then she’d excused herself to go check on the laundry hanging on the line. Even though the dishpan was filled with soapy water and the counter was cluttered with dirty dishes. Since when did she leave a job half done in order to tend to a different chore? Never. Until now.
He couldn’t explain that away. The woman didn’t want his company. Period.
Dan had slammed the hammer back into his tool chest so hard, the box had splintered. Then he’d stomped back to his cabin to brood and possibly punch a few holes in the walls. But then he’d spied the book he’d rescued from the stove, sitting on the table by his bed. Not understanding the sudden compulsion to pick the thing up, he did it anyway and started reading.
It had to be the worst Dead-Eye Dan book yet. Wasn’t based on a lick of actual fact. He’d never ridden into a den of outlaws to rescue some woman he fancied. Never heard of Devil’s Canyon. Doubted the place even existed. Yet the more he read, the more he imagined the fictitious Mary Ellen as Marietta and the more desperate he became to see how the story ended, to make sure she was rescued and safe. He’d wasted half the afternoon on the fool thing before the truth finally hit him square between the eyes.
“The books were a way to pretend that a part of you could actually belong to me.” The words she’d spoken the night of the storm rose up to challenge him. Words he must have heard only subconsciously as he’d battled to absorb her profession of love. “And now you never will.” Words he should have heeded. Should have acted on. “I won’t make a pest of myself anymore.”
Good gravy. Was that why she avoided him? She thought her secret stash of books had somehow ruined their friendship? That there was no way for her to win his affections now?
A mirthless laugh escaped him. Stars and garters. If she only knew. Knew how his arms ached so badly to hold her that he had to fist his hands to keep from reaching for her. How he dreamed of her every night. How his knees went so weak when she smiled at him that he had to brace against the impact in order to remain on his feet. How his heart rate tripled whenever her fingers carelessly brushed his arm or touched his hand. Man, he was so far gone over her, he’d never find his way back.
But she didn’t know.
Because he’d held his tongue, honoring his promise to her father. Dan crushed the rolled-up dime novel in his fist.
She’d confessed her feelings; he’d said nothing. She’d wished him well in his life without her, and what had he done? Nodded and wished her the same.
“I never should have come. I thought I might convince you . . . but it was a mistake.”
No! Loving him was not a mistake. He couldn’t let her go on thinking it was.
Dan lurched to his feet, flinging the book down onto the bed as he rose. He marched out of the room without a thought to his hat or his gun. Strode straight for the cabin’s front door and nearly jerked it off its hinges.
Time to set the woman straight.
Marietta stood at the kitchen table, folding the linens she’d brought in off the line. His linens. The sheets and coverlet she’d taken from his bed the morning after the storm and replaced with fresh ones from the private store in her hope chest. She didn’t know what perversity had led her to place the sheets she’d stored away for her married life on the bed of the man she wanted most for a husband but could never have. He had no idea where they’d come from, of course. To him, they were just clean sheets.
To her, they were dreams—dreams she couldn’t completely release, even at the cost of her own heartache.
She ran her fingers along the edge of the unadorned white pillowcase in her hand, seeing in her mind’s eye the brown pattern she’d worked into the ones now cradling Daniel’s head. A rancher’s daughter in love with a rugged cowhand knew better than to trim the sheets she hoped to one day share with him with daisies and tatted lace. She’d kept her design simple. So simple, one might think it merely a jagged line if one glanced at it too quickly. But it wasn’t a line. It was a fence—a bar
bed-wire fence, representing strength, protection, and home.
Tomorrow, she’d remove the embroidered linens from his bed and put his old sheets back on. She’d pack away her dreams and set him free.
Marietta’s eyes had just fluttered closed on that melancholy thought when the back door, still not properly rehung, flew in on its hinges and crashed against the kitchen wall.
She jumped a foot, a gasp clutching her throat. She spun around to face the intruder, pressing the pillowcase she’d been folding to her breast in a desperate bid to keep her riotous heart from escaping her chest.
Daniel strode into the kitchen. Eyes fierce. Jaw set. Arms tense at his sides. She should be relieved it was him and not some villain come to pillage her home, but something about the way he looked at her stole her breath. She backed up a step and promptly bumped into the table.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as she skirted the chair beside her and eased backward toward the hall.
He had no right to come in here looking at her like that—like he was ready to do battle for her honor. There wasn’t even anyone to battle, for Pete’s sake. He was the one who’d made it clear that she was nothing more than a duty to him.
Yet he followed her, stalked her, his eyes never straying from her face. “I don’t care about the books.”
“What?” Marietta knocked into a chair and stumbled slightly.
“I don’t care that you like to read those infernal Dead-Eye Dan novels,” he said, his voice hard, insistent. “Shoot, I’ll even buy you a new set to replace the ones you burned.”
He continued his advance. She continued her retreat.
“You don’t have to do that. I . . . I don’t need them anymore.”
She backed past the table into an area free of furniture. Nothing to hold on to for support. Nothing to hide behind.
“Yes, you do!” He shouted that comment.
Marietta flinched.
“The books are important.” He scowled at her. “You can’t go around saying you love them one minute and then toss them away the next. It ain’t right.”
With This Ring? Page 5