by Jenna Kernan
“What?”
“The snake. They don’t generally go swimming.”
Laurie felt a prickle on her neck as she recalled the grass moving an instant before the snake hit the water.
“Something in that patch of grass.” She pointed.
Boon aimed his gun at the opposite bank and waded through the shallow water, exiting at the far side. She blinked in surprise as she noted that his backside was squareish instead of round like her own. She cocked her head, more intrigued than ever as he vanished into the tall grass.
“Coyote,” he called. “Big one.”
He reappeared and headed toward her. She gobbled up the sight of Boon naked and in motion then recalled herself and spun around, facing the opposite direction. But the image of him scorched into her mind. Laurie made no attempt to erase the picture he made. It was a memory to keep a woman warm on a long winter night. But that was all it could be, said the voice in her head. She stiffened her spine as the splashing grew nearer.
What would he do when he reached her? Laurie braced and then realized she half hoped he would gather her in his arms. Whatever was wrong with her? But she knew. She wasn’t afraid of him. She knew he was dangerous but also knew he wasn’t dangerous to her. He’d never hurt her, not intentionally at least.
She’d finally set aside her fear of being touched and the man who had done that was an outlaw sent by her father to bring her home safe. Laurie trembled at his approach.
His voice came from close by. “I’ll just go get my gear.”
She nodded, head bowed demurely. The skin on her scalp began to tingle and she had to squeeze her hand into a fist so she could think. Laurie forced her gaze to remain on the ground.
“I’ll wait here.”
She heard his wet feet contacting the wide stone bank.
“Be right back,” he said.
Laurie didn’t keep her eyes averted for long. Despite the strong talking-to she gave herself, she peeked again. The long muscles of his back corded as he swung his arms in an easy stride. With his disappearance, Laurie still felt restless and jumpy.
Did he recognize that she found his naked body as fascinating as he found hers? Of course not, because ladies did not behave that way and she was the daughter of Valencia Sanchez Garcia, a well-born Castilian lady whose family was none too pleased that she had fallen for a wild Texan. Being Castilian, she did not adopt her husband’s name upon marrying and continued to be known by her given name, Valencia Sanchez Garcia, to her husband’s dismay. It was because of this custom that Laurie’s name was recorded as Laurie Garcia Bender.
Laurie’s mother was everything Laurie had failed to become: reserved, calm, dignified and proper—or had been until she decided to marry a Texan and then divorce him. Laurie felt in her bones that even on her best day she’d never measure up.
Well, she wasn’t her mother. Never was and never would be. Laurie looked at the two piles of clothing. The first, the boys’ Levis and shirt Boon had provided, and the other, the rumpled remains of the fashionable day dress she had created to prove to the world that she was a lady.
Laurie lifted the corset and threw it with all her might. The bulky, ungainly thing flew poorly and then fell like a stone into the pool.
She glared at it for a long moment, her fury boiling inside her. She was not that lady, but neither was she the wild child she had once been.
Laurie didn’t really know who she was. She only knew that she was not riding in that corset ever again.
“You all right, Laurie?” Boon called.
She didn’t think she’d ever be all right again.
* * *
Boon waited until Laurie gave the all clear. Then he made his way back to her. He came to an abrupt stop at the sight that greeted him. This woman did not look like Laurie. He took in the changes.
She now stood in only the gauzy blouse and the simpler dark purple pleated skirt. The blouse had been buttoned up tight and the long purple skirt securely fastened about her tiny waist. She held the Levis and boys’ shirt in a neatly folded pile before her.
Her wet hair tumbled free about her shoulders, soaking the back of her white blouse, making it transparent so he could see the pink ribbon of her chemise between the gaps left by her dripping curls. He lifted an eyebrow as he noted she did not wear her “armor,” as he liked to think of corsets.
Where was it? The answer came when he looked to the pool and saw it lying at the bottom like a drowning victim. A lavender mass of heavy fabric undulated in the moving water, seeming to crawl along the bottom. So she’d abandoned the heavy top skirt, as well, he realized. He cocked his head to study the sodden garment that had once hugged her curvy hips like a caress as it floated downstream.
“You gonna need that?”
“Definitely not.”
“But you going to ride in skirts?” he asked.
“They fit more comfortably than trousers.” She extended the clothing he’d given her. “Thank you for these.”
He accepted the bundle.
“You look different.”
“Less like a lady, you mean?”
“No. That ain’t it.” He shook his head. “More natural, maybe.”
She laced her fingers before her and smiled. “I’ve never liked corsets.” Her tone was conspiratorial.
“Me, neither,” he said, glancing at the drowned discarded duds.
She giggled. “You’ve seen a lot of them I suppose—corsets, I mean?”
The question took him back to that hot, dusty room above the saloon overlooking the street. Evenings he’d watched the cowboys come and go as the women who raised him worked just beyond those closed doors. During the drives he’d slept on that balcony, waking covered with a fine later of dirt.
What would Lottie and Patsy think of him today?
They’d done the best they could, but somehow he still felt they’d be disappointed. God knew he was.
“Boon?”
He refocused his attention on Laurie, all fresh and lovely in the bright morning air. Had Lottie once looked like that, open and earnest and eager?
He needed to get Laurie home safe. Keep her from the kind of tough choices a woman with no friends or family was forced into. So why was he again thinking of riding with her toward Mexico?
Her father wasn’t likely to let him run off with Laurie. He knew Bender would come after him with everything he had. That’s what Boon would do if Laurie was his. But Boon still thought he could outrun them all. He just needed fresh horses.
Laurie looked up at him with such trust. He didn’t deserve it.
“I seen my share of everything. I’m weary with it. You don’t get quit of me and you’ll see it, too.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Nor should you. I pray to God you never understand. Why I seen so many corsets, so many women.”
Why did he care what this woman—no, lady—thought of him? Damn if only the horses were sound, they could ride. Instead, he was trapped as she was trapped, here, together, alone.
Boon released a long breath he’d been holding and gazed off at the falls, watching the water tumble, feeling his insides tumble. He might have the courage to tell her if she would not look at him with that open expression.
“I didn’t have a regular home, Laurie. My ma died bringing me. I never knew her.” He cast Laurie a quick glance and then returned his attention to the cascading water.
“I am so sorry.”
He nodded mechanically, feeling hard and brittle as dried clay. She started to reach out to him, but he inched away and her hand fell back to her side.
Boon continued to stare out, but now his jaw was working as if he was trying to grind granite to dust between his molars.
“She was a good-time girl.”
Laurie gasped. Did it shock her to hear a man call his mother something so black? He wasn’t insulting her, just saying what he knew of her. Not all mothers were saints and not all were willing to raise a child. Some never had the chance. How could he miss so much something that he’d never had?
“They all were. When I was born, she called me Boon, but no one knew her last name and she wouldn’t tell them for fear the shame of her condition would reach her family. That’s why I got no last name. They called her Goldie, but said that weren’t her real name, just the color of her hair. That’s all I know of her.” Lord, he hadn’t talked this much in the sum total of a month. Still he forged on, his mouth dry. “She died and left me to Lottie and Patsy, who raised me up with the help of the cook, Griff. He’d been a buffalo soldier. Lost two fingers and part of an ear fighting the Sioux.” He thought of Paulette and flushed at the memories. His education, he realized, had been unique. “A cow town has lots of places for the young bucks to spend their pay. I cleaned up, helped Griff.” Saw things no boy should ever see, no girl for that matter. “Anyways, I know nothing of my mother except that she hailed from Ohio and wouldn’t give me her name. Her life was hard and it was short.”
Laurie stood in uneasy silence. She couldn’t even meet his eye but fussed unnecessarily with the pleating of her skirts as he wiped his damp palms on his thighs. Where were her gloves?
Now she acted like the ladies he passed on the street, the ones who looked right through him like glass.
He felt himself disappearing, just like he had when he was a boy, sleeping on that porch above the bar. Laurie knew what he was now and that ought to be enough for her to keep her distance. Kissing him had been just a momentary weakness that had later humiliated her. Women were weak and men were persuasive—wasn’t that what Lottie had always said?
* * *
Laurie forced herself not to fidget as she stood beneath his perusal, but had to clasp her hands together to manage it. He’d told her something very personal but also very inappropriate for a lady to hear. Part of her wanted to offer comfort, but she also knew she should not broach this subject. She paused, pondering what to do.
“I guess ladies don’t talk about whores. From what I seen they just sort of pretend they don’t exist, like they’re invisible.”
Laurie met his troubled gaze and nodded. “Yes. That’s right.”
“But they ain’t. They’re just unlucky. When you got no options you fall into all kinds of trouble. I need to get you home before you see any more of how damned hard things are.”
Laurie wondered what options she’d have if word got out of what had befallen her, and cringed. Could he see her tremble? Boon stared at her with cold, clear eyes, then turned to the water, dismissing her from his attention. Silence stretched. Laurie watched him and
fidgeted, clicking her index fingernail against her thumbnail and only belatedly realized she had lost her gloves. Why wouldn’t he look at her?
She could feel him withdrawing back into his shell, rolling up like an armadillo.
“Did they look through you, too, Boon?”
His troubled gaze flicked back to her and she knew it was so. She stepped closer and the pull between them resurfaced, like a rope, strung tight between the two, keeping them from breaking free.
“Oh, hell,” he muttered.
“What?”
“I thought you had more sense. I just told you about my people. If that don’t send you off, I don’t know what will.”
Is that why he told her, to make her run? Instead his willingness to share something so intimate and so painful drew her in. He wasn’t fearless as he seemed. He wasn’t hard and unfeeling like the men who rode with Hammer. And like her, his pain had shaped him.
Did he really think she would ever treat him as if he were beneath her?
“Is that why you told me?”
“Hell, yes. One of us has to show some sense.”
What he had done now seemed all the more endearing. He’d revealed a personal part of himself that she knew he never spoke about, and all to help do as he promised and keep her safe, not just from outlaws and snakes but from the attraction that tugged between them even now.
Why couldn’t she feel this way for a respectable man? Then she had another thought: why couldn’t Boon be respectable?
But that was impossible—wasn’t it? Her heart ached as she considered the possibility and then was forced to let the notion go. He might be able to keep her safe out here, but he was rough and raw and her parents would never let such a man near her if not for the dire circumstances.
He glared at her, as if he knew her thoughts, making her feel she was again the unwelcome burden with which he’d been saddled. But she saw through him now. The anger glinting in his eyes was just his defense against the pain. Boon cloaked himself in fury. She could almost see the chip he carried on his shoulders.
Laurie gathered herself to do what she must.
“Thank you for not taking advantage of the situation in which you just found me.”
He cocked his head and regarded her for a long silent moment, assessing something. Could he read the truth there on her face—see that his revelation had backfired and now she found him even more appealing? He had secrets, too.
He readjusted his gray hat. “I won’t take what you don’t offer.”
“You don’t act like an outlaw.”
“Many would disagree.”
They walked side by side to the yellowing grass where the horses fed.
“Men are supposed to be tempted, I think,” she said.
He glanced at her and then away. “Women, too.”
Laurie felt her heartbeat accelerate. He’d know, of course, from his upbringing and his own experiences. Up until her meeting with Boon, she’d never believed it, had secretly wondered how a woman could stand a man’s touch and to let him do the things necessary to have children. Now she thought she understood because Boon stirred her desire effortlessly.
“A lady isn’t supposed to,” she whispered, thinking she’d never really been a lady.
He took hold of her shoulders and gently turned her so she now stared at his chest.
“Laurie, look at me.”
She didn’t want to, but she did, lifting her gaze as her ears burned hot.
“Women got the same needs as men. Don’t you know that?”
She stared up at him. “I didn’t. Until I met you.”
His hands slipped away and he stepped back. She followed him with her eyes.
“I had a beau in Fort Worth,” she said. “His father owned a large hardware store. Charles was very sweet and had good prospects. Mother encouraged me but...”
Her shoulders rose and fell. She fiddled with the nail of her index finger. But she didn’t speak.
“But what?”
“When he tried to kiss me, I froze up inside. I didn’t like it because...I just didn’t.” She peeked up at him and then away. “Every time he came near me, I did the same thing. Finally he stopped courting me. Mother was furious but I was...relieved.”
“Well, he wasn’t the fella for ya. That’s all.”
Her hands fisted at her sides and her chin took on a stubborn quality. “He was exactly the fellow for me. He was handsome, kind, well-off, with prospects. He was just the sort I thought I wanted. So why couldn’t I let him hold me, but I let you...” She waved her hand at him.
Boon stiffened as his eyes narrowed at the insult.
“Guess hardware boy didn’t know women like I do. You just need to find a feller knows how to please.”
A man like him. She took another step in his direction.
“But maybe you want to find one that don’t have a wanted poster attached to his name.”
Laurie stopped moving, torn again between what was best and what she
wanted.
Chapter Nine
“Laurie, you’re scared and you’re alone and I’m the best chance you got. But what you’re feeling is coming from all that confusion. You just hold tight a little longer and I’ll get you home. We follow this stream out of the canyon.”
He pointed, drawing her attention away from himself and back to their journey. Reluctantly she followed the direction he indicated.
“From there I’ve only got to get you to the stage station just shy of Fort Concho. Your pa is meeting us there. We just have to stay ahead of the Hammer for one more night and we’re home free.”
He escorted her back to the horses where he retrieved two cans and a skillet from his bags. They returned to the rock beside the stream because Boon thought it a better spot to cook.
“Won’t they see the smoke?”
“I’ll keep the fire low and close to the rock face. Be real hard to spot. Have to be right on top of us to see the smoke. Besides, safer to have a small fire in daylight than at night.”
She helped him gather dead wood for a fire.
She didn’t think she was hungry until he punctured the cans with his knife and heated them in the skillet. The aroma made her mouth water and she tried to recall her last meal. Breakfast, before departing on the train, she recalled. Poached eggs, buttered toast and strong tea.
Boon turned his knife to a stick they’d collected for the fire and quickly carved a shallow paddlelike spoon for her as the beans and beef heated. They ate straight from the pan, she with her new spoon and he with the back of his knife now functioning as a sort of shovel. When they finished they sat back against the fallen log to rest a moment.
“Do we have to go now?” she asked.
He glanced at the sky and nodded. “Soon.”
She followed his gaze noting the change in the sun’s angle before returning her focus to him. “Thank you. That was the best thing I’ve eaten in days,” she said.
He glanced up at her. “The only thing you’ve eaten in days. I can lay out a pretty nice spread when I have the fixings. I do baking, too.”