Maverick Heart

by Joan Johnston

  “What about Tom?” Red asked.

  “If Tom hasn’t gotten himself killed chasing off after those Sioux, he knows the way back home.”

  “Will the two of you be safe by yourselves?” Red asked.

  “It’s only a half day’s ride. Hawk should be hidden away somewhere licking his wounds for as long as it takes us to get where we’re going.”

  “So long, boss,” Red said. “We’ll see you back at the ranch.

  Verity never remembered much about the ride to the Muleshoe Ranch. It was late afternoon when she caught her first glimpse of her new home.

  “There it is.”

  Verity looked where Miles pointed. The one-story log ranch house sat on the crest of a barren hillside that sloped downward to a verdant valley. The Chugwater River curled into the distance. Leafy cottonwoods and lush green laurel bushes rimmed the river. Another long, low rectangular log building not far from the house appeared to be a bunkhouse. The unpainted two-story wooden barn was made of planked wood and stood downhill—and downwind—of the house.

  Near the barn were corrals that contained a dozen or more sturdy mustangs. Ahead of her, scattered across the prairie, were what had to be thousands of Longhorn cattle. Miles must be very rich. It was hard to believe he had freely chosen to remain in such primitive surroundings rather than return to England.

  She began to pick out people—men—moving among the buildings. Someone forking hay into the corral. Someone in the doorway to the barn shoeing a horse. Someone sitting in a rocker on the shaded porch of the house. Someone crouched down scratching the belly of a short-haired yellow dog whose leg was thumping in response.

  Rather than dismounting immediately when he reached the front of the house, Miles called to the men, “Gather ’round, boys.”

  He didn’t have to say it twice. The men, who had been staring ever since Miles and Verity rode into the yard, abandoned what they were doing and circled the two of them. All except the man in the rocker on the porch. He stayed where he was.

  “I’d like to introduce my wife, Mrs. Broderick,” Miles said.

  Grins appeared on the faces of the three men standing before them. Verity noticed one hung back a little from the other two. It was hard for her to look at the third man, because he didn’t seem to have any ears.

  “That was quick work, boss,” one of the men said. “I didn’t even know you was lookin’ for a wife.”

  “Could’ve given a little warning,” another grumbled. “Would’ve cleaned up a little.”

  “Come meet Mrs. Broderick, Sully,” Miles said.

  The young man Miles had spoken to—the man without ears—held back a moment, then stepped close enough that she could see the awful scars on his neck and head and hands. He had been badly burned once upon a time, which explained how he had lost his ears. She felt Miles watching her, waiting for her reaction. She hid her revulsion and held out her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sully.”

  Sully grasped her hand with his scarred fingers. His chin nodded jerkily as he acknowledged her. “Ma’am.”

  “I’m Chip,” another of the men said. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

  His grin widened, his mouth came open, and she realized that though he was only middle-aged, he had no front teeth. “Nice to meet you,” she said faintly.

  “Pickles, you’re next,” Miles said.

  Verity had never seen such a sour face on a man. He was the only one of Miles’s cowhands even the least bit overweight. His face was jowly, his chin doubled, his stomach paunchy. His face was bewhiskered and spittle from tobacco had collected in his gray beard.

  “Consarn it, Miles. Ain’t no place for a woman. You’d be better off goin’ back where you came from, ma’am.”

  Apparently Pickles had a sour disposition to match his face.

  “She’s here to stay, Pickles. I don’t want to hear another word about it,” Miles said.

  The old man pulled an oversized hat down around his ears and walked off muttering, “Consarn it. Ain’t no place for a woman.”

  Sully and Chip tipped their hats and headed back to work. Miles turned his horse around to face the old man sitting in the rocker on the porch. Now that he had been acknowledged, the elderly cowboy rose and walked—limped—down the two front steps and crossed to Verity. He was wearing a none-too-clean apron around his waist.

  “Last, but certainly not least, I’d like you to meet Cookie—he’s the cook.”

  Cookie nodded. “Ma’am. ’Bout time Miles found hisself a woman and settled down.”

  She could see Cookie was limping, but she thought it was age more than anything else that gave him his hitching gait. At least age was a normal infirmity, she thought. Then Cookie reached up to tip his hat, and she saw his hand. She was mortified when he caught her staring. He held his hand out so she could see several fingers were only stumps.

  “Lassoed an old mossyhorn when I was kid and dallied the rope ’round the horn without payin’ attention. He took off, rope jerked taut, cut my fingers clean off.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry don’t do much out here. Learned my lesson and lived to tell about it. That’s about all a man can hope for.”

  Verity sat there wondering what she had gotten herself into. How would she survive here, in this place, with these men, the only woman around for miles?

  Miles had surrounded himself with misfits. She wondered if he had done it consciously, or whether he had recognized some inner torment, some sense of isolation, in the other men that he felt himself.

  “Left some vittles on the stove, boss,” Cookie said, “Didn’t know you was comin’, ma’am, but there’s always extra. Never know who’ll show up at the door. I’ll be headin’ over to the bunkhouse. Gotta serve up grub for the boys.”

  Verity was sore and tired. Her inner thighs were rubbed raw, and the ache in her muscles was bone deep. She was past worrying about how graceful she looked dismounting. She simply wasn’t sure she had the strength left to lift her leg over the horse’s rump.

  She felt Miles’s hands at her waist. He gave a tug, and she fell off the horse toward him. He kept her at arm’s distance and set her on her feet in front of him. His hands stayed where they were long enough to be sure she had her legs steady under her before he let her go.

  She half expected him to say “Welcome home, Verity.” What he actually said was far more revealing. “There aren’t any servants here. I’ll expect you to pull your share of the weight.”

  “I know absolutely nothing about ranch life,” she said.

  “Then I guess you’d better learn.”

  “Who’s going to teach me?”

  “Cookie can help you find your way around the kitchen. You can ask me whatever else you need to know.”

  “Fine,” she snapped. “Is there anything else?”

  “Come on inside. There’s something I want to show you.”

  “A broom? A mop? A dustrag?”

  “The bedroom.”

  10

  To describe the inside of her new home as Spartan would have been to overestimate its comforts. A wooden trestle table with four mismatched chairs took up the center of the front room. A cast-iron four-hole stove stood against one wall, with a sideboard next to it and a sink with an iron pump beyond that. A stone fireplace took up most of the other wall.

  What looked like a door settled on two wooden flour barrels appeared, from the amount of paper and the several books scattered on it, to be a desk. It sat under the four-paned window facing the front of the house. A willow rocker and a rat-bitten stuffed chair sat before the fireplace atop the skin of some immense wild animal with paws and claws.

  When she turned wide-eyed to Miles, he said, “Grizzly.”

  The log walls were chinked with a concoction of mud and newspaper. The wall decorations consisted of steel traps hung from nails, tanning hoops with the skins attached, and the antlers of a deer that she realized, as soon as Miles dropped his Stetson onto it, served a
s a hatrack. The floor was planked with wood, but it was unfinished. Several knots in the wood had fallen out, leaving her to wonder what might crawl in through the holes at night.

  The whole of the inside smelled of whatever was cooking on the stove. And of animal skins. And of male sweat.

  It was no place for a woman.

  What she felt must have shown in her eyes because Miles conceded, “It lacks a few amenities.”

  “A few?” She stared at the door leading to the other room. If things in the front room were this bad, she hesitated to think what she might find in the back. He had said there was a bedroom. Surely there was a bed. She would rather not think about the bed.

  She crossed to the stove, located a potholder, and lifted the lid of the dutch oven. She found a spoon and stirred the contents of the pot. Beans. Chunks of meat in a sauce. Some kind of stew, then. She sniffed. Not bad, really.

  “Are you hungry?” Miles asked.

  “Actually, yes.”

  “So am I,” he said. “Before we eat, I promised to show you the bedroom.”

  Verity swallowed hard. “The bedroom can wait, can’t it?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Miles, I—”

  He held out his hand. “Come with me, Verity.”

  She looked at his face, trying to gauge his intent. It was one thing to couple with him in the dark of night, when they didn’t know if there would be a tomorrow. It was another thing entirely to consider lying naked with him in the bright light of day.

  His gray eyes were inscrutable, his body taut. He held out his hand to her, as he would to a skittish mare, beguiling her to trust.

  She glanced toward the front door of the cabin.

  “There’s nowhere to go, Verity.”

  She laid a hand against her chest, trying to control a heart that had begun to beat like a frantic bird’s wings against her rib cage.

  He took a step toward her.

  She stood her ground. This was what she wanted. There was no reason to flee. But it was hard to resist the urge to run. The worst of it was, she didn’t even know what she was running from. In Miles lay all her hopes of future happiness. But she was vulnerable. There were risks. He had not forgiven her for marrying Chester. He might never let himself fall in love with her again.

  “Miles …” She stared at him, unable to move toward him or away. Before she could act, his lips came down hard on hers, stopping speech, stopping breath, stopping thought.

  Oh, God, his mouth was wet and hot. His tongue came plundering, seeking secrets, demanding a response. Her body bowed against his, and she felt the hardness of muscle and sinew. Their bodies fitted together perfectly, as they had a lifetime ago.

  Abruptly he released her and stood panting, eyes heavy-lidded, nostrils flared, body hard. Aching. He would be aching, she knew, because she ached herself.

  He scooped her up, grunting when her weight put strain on his wounded arm, and carried her into the bedroom. It was a man’s room, with a huge wardrobe and a dry sink and a ladderback chair. The immense four-poster bed was constructed of pine logs. But the exquisite patchwork quilt and lace-trimmed white pillowcases would only have been put there to please a woman.

  He laid her on the coverlet and sat down beside her. She stared up at him as he gently spread her hair out on the pillow around her.

  “I’ve dreamed about this moment,” he said, his eyes searching hers. “Somehow it’s hard to believe this is real.”

  “It’s real.” She smiled. “I have the aches and pains to prove it.”

  He brushed his thumb gently across her skin below the scab on her cheek. “I never considered what this place, this life, might do to you. The wildness of it. The hardness of it.”

  “It isn’t what I would have chosen,” she conceded. “But I’m not sorry to be here. I’ve been waiting as long as you have for this moment.”

  “You have?”

  She caressed the scar where it slashed through his lip. “I used to dream of waking in your arms, of having you look at me with …” She cut herself off.

  There was nothing remotely resembling love in his eyes as he looked down at her. Lust, yes. Love, no.

  Could a love that had been smoldering, buried by ashes of misunderstanding for so many years, still be fanned into flame?

  For a moment she thought he was going to act on the desire she saw flaring in his gray eyes. But he stood abruptly and said, “I’ve got some chores to do before supper.”

  “You’re not going to …?” She felt the heat all the way to her hairline as an amused grin flashed on his face.

  “I’m tempted. But you can hardly keep your eyes open. Rest for a while. I’ll see you at supper.”

  Then he was gone.

  After supper, what then? she wanted to ask. But she knew the answer. He would join her in bed. And somehow they would have to pick up where they had left off twenty-two years ago.

  Verity wasn’t sure what had woken her, but as she listened, wind-driven dust and small bits of gravel pinged against the windowpane. An ominous sky, dark and brooding, filled the small, curtainless bedroom window. A jagged flash of lightning streaked down through the sky, followed instantly by a crash of thunder that made her curl into a protective ball.

  It was hard to tell from the sky what time of day it was, but it felt too hot to be nightfall. Or morning, either. She felt disoriented because she had gone to bed in the afternoon. Was it possible she had slept the night through? Where was Miles?

  She heard no human sounds in the house, only the eerie whistle of the wind through the eaves and the occasional rattle of the windowpanes.

  A trickle of perspiration wormed its way down between her breasts. She brushed at a wisp of sweat-damp hair that was stuck to her cheek and kicked away the warm covers. As soon as she did, the cool draft seeping in through chinks in the log walls and up through the empty knotholes in the floor chilled her skin.

  Which was when she realized she was wearing no more than her chemise and pantalets.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  She nearly came out of her skin. “Miles! You scared me half to death!”

  He was sitting fully dressed in a ladderback chair in the shadowed corner near the head of the bed. As he rose and stalked toward her, she scrambled for the covers she had kicked away and clutched them against her.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “Watching you sleep.”

  She felt flustered, at a disadvantage because he was dressed and she wasn’t. A quick look revealed her corset, stockings, basque-waist, riding skirt, and jacket lying over the bedstead. She didn’t remember disrobing. Her gaze shot to Miles’s face. He answered the question before she asked.

  “I undressed you.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “You obviously needed the rest,” he said.

  “How long did I sleep?”

  “All of yesterday. Most of today.”

  Her eyes narrowed as another thought occurred to her.

  “Where did you sleep?”

  “Beside you,” he answered baldly.

  She stared at the pillow beside hers that bore the clear indentation of someone’s head.

  Her gaze shot back to him. “I … You didn’t …”

  “I didn’t,” he said with a quirk of his lips. “But I wanted to very much.”

  “I’d like to get dressed.”

  He sat at the foot of the bed and crossed an ankle over his knee. “Go ahead.”

  She grimaced. This Miles was still too much a stranger for her to feel comfortable sharing such intimacies. “I’d like to be alone.”

  “I’d like to watch.”

  “You have no right—”

  “You’re my wife,” he said quietly. “I have every right.”

  Verity realized he wasn’t going to budge. But she refused to let him make her feel embarrassed. For her age, she was very well preserved. And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen her—much more
of her—undressed.

  “Fine. Look all you want,” she said, shoving the covers away and shivering as she set her bare foot on the rough floorboards.

  He took her at her word, and she was aware of his gray eyes watching her intently as she slipped the corset over her head and tightened the strings behind her back. It wasn’t an easy task without a maid, but she refused to ask him for help.

  “I’ll do it,” he said.

  He stepped behind her, and she could feel his warm, moist breath at her temple. Her heartbeat skittered, and her breath shortened.

  “I don’t need—”

  “I’ll do it.”

  She gasped as he tightened the corset another half inch and knotted the strings. His hands stayed at her narrowed waist a moment.

  “Your waist is still small enough for my hands to nearly span it.”

  “Chester demanded that I keep my figure.”

  Miles tensed. “Is that why you never had another child?”

  “No.” She hesitated before admitting, “I desperately wanted more children.”

  “So why didn’t you have more?”

  She debated whether to tell him the truth. But it would serve no purpose to lie. “Chester never came to my bed after Rand was born.”

  His grasp tightened. “I’m sorry for you, Verity.”

  “I don’t need or want your pity. I was glad he stayed away.”

  She let that admission hang between them, grateful when he didn’t ask for further explanation.

  “It isn’t pity I’m feeling for you right now,” he said, his lips pressed softly against her ear. “Far from it.”

  Miles was exercising every bit of self-control he had to keep himself from reaching for the two perfect mounds formed by her breasts when he had tightened the corset. He felt Verity quiver, heard her breathing falter. He let his hands slide upward until he was cupping soft flesh beneath a thin layer of muslin. His thumbs flicked across her nipples, which instantly pebbled.

  “Don’t.”

  “Why not? Why should we deny ourselves?”