Chapter Five
For the first time in her life, Susannah Calhoun was being ignored.
Jedidiah sat with the Fergusons, eating roast rabbit and conversing amiably, while she, Susannah, sat on the other side of the fire eating supper with her fingers. Thanks to Jedidiah’s ridiculous tall tale, they hadn’t even allowed her a spoon to eat with!
She grew even more infuriated at the small humiliation. The Black Widow of Barton Falls? What kind of nonsense was that? His labeling her a three-time husband killer made it perfectly clear what Jedidiah really thought of her. He thought she was the type of woman who led men on and then broke their hearts.
A bite of rabbit stuck in her throat as emotion welled up. She had no idea why she should even care what he thought of her. As much as he fascinated her, he also irritated her beyond belief. All her life, she had been able to get men to do exactly what she wanted. But not Jedidiah Brown. He seemed determined to do the opposite of what she wanted him to do.
Clearly, she was wasting her time staying with him for his dubious protection. They were far enough away from Silver Flats that she should be able to make it on her own. She knew Abigail Hawkins had headed for Placerville, which wasn’t far from where they were now. She would find a way to sneak off tonight.
As Susannah swallowed the last bite of supper, Mrs. Ferguson produced dessert—a batch of cookies they had traded for in the last town. Though she wasn’t offered any, Susannah couldn’t help but smile as she watched Jedidiah eagerly reach for one. She’d never known a man yet who hadn’t fallen into a sound sleep after eating a hearty meal. Once the marshal had bedded down for the night, she would make her escape.
Jedidiah knew that if looks could kill, he would have been dead already.
Susannah was sitting isolated on the other side of the fire and had been sending him dagger-like glances throughout the entire meal. No doubt she wasn’t used to being ignored, but the sooner she learned to keep a low profile, the better off they’d be. Hopefully, the story he’d told Ferguson would help to keep Caldwell off their trail.
But he doubted it.
He’d told the story partly to protect them from Caldwell, but also to rile Susannah. He loved the way her eyes glittered and her cheeks flushed when she was annoyed at him. As much as he knew he had no business getting involved with the woman, he just couldn’t seem to help himself.
She sent him another of those looks, then she smiled as he reached for another molasses cookie. He didn’t trust that smile. What deviltry was the woman planning now?
He finished the cookie in short order, then stood and stretched.
“Ma’am, that was a delicious supper,” he said to Mrs. Ferguson, who beamed at him. “But we need to be going now.”
Sam Ferguson sent Susannah a wary look. “You keep that dangerous criminal under close watch, Marshal.”
Susannah glared at the man, who flinched. Jedidiah reached over and took Susannah’s arm, tugging her to her feet.
“Don’t worry, Sam,” he said. “She only kills her own husbands. Your family is safe.”
Susannah’s mouth fell open, and Jedidiah squeezed her arm in warning. The last thing he needed was Susannah ruining the false trail he had left for Caldwell.
“Come on,” he said, tugging her towards the mounts. “I’m tired.”
Susannah let him lead her along, then paused before Mrs. Ferguson. “Thank you for supper,” she said.
The woman gave a curt nod in response. The evident disapproval brought a moment’s look of distress to Susannah’s face. Then, holding her head high, she followed Jedidiah from the camp.
They reached the horses, and Jedidiah stopped her as she raised her foot to the stirrup. “Are you all right?”
“Fine, Marshal,” she replied frostily. “Now will you help me mount or will you leave me to further humiliation?”
He stared down at her, so proud even in adversity, and something shifted inside him. Gently, he reached out and brushed a loosened curl from her brow. She stood still beneath his touch, staring stonily at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. He had meant only to protect her with his ridiculous tale, not to hurt her.
She nodded stiffly. Jedidiah started to say more, but then thought better of it. Without another word, he bent and cupped his hands, boosting her into the saddle. She took up the reins, staring ahead like a queen awaiting her entourage. He mounted and brought his horse alongside hers.
She slowly extended to reins to him.
“You know how to ride,” he said shortly, then urged the Palomino to a trot. Susannah sat there for a long moment before following.
They made camp up in the hills. Jedidiah helped her down off the paint, then built a small fire as Susannah sat on a nearby boulder.
The sun had set, and the first tiny stars already twinkled in the black velvet sky. Susannah watched Jedidiah as he removed the tack from each animal, his movements sure and smooth, his voice low as he murmured to them.
The fire flickered over his face as he rubbed down each horse. Despite herself, Susannah started to relax as she watched him. Yes, she was annoyed at the man for humiliating her, but there was something soothing about his slow, steady movements as he performed so mundane a task. Fatigue weighed on her. She was simply so tired—physically, mentally, emotionally. All she wanted now was rest—and her good name back.
Needless to say, Jedidiah Brown was not proving helpful in that area.
She frowned down at the handcuffs on her wrists. To make up a story like he had told the Fergusons... It still stung that he had such a low opinion of her. Now she wasn’t only considered a killer, but a man-hater as well!
She turned her gaze once more on Jedidiah. The man confused her.
She tried to hate him. She had every reason to hate him, first for leaving so abruptly last spring, then for his lack of compassion for her now.
She wished he weren’t so intelligent, neatly anticipating and intercepting every attempt to escape him, yet she grudgingly respected his quick wits. She wished he weren’t so strong, since he could easily overpower her physically. But she had to admit that his strength also made her feel protected. She really shouldn’t feel so attracted to him—but she did.
He moved around the camp, setting out the bedrolls with an efficiency that bespoke years of experience. She watched as he smoothed the blankets with strong hands—hands that could manage either a gun or a woman with equal expertise. She had seen him fire a gun, and she had experienced his embrace. Either way, Jedidiah Brown was lethal.
He sat down on the bedroll and took off his hat, running a hand through his long hair. The flames played over the wheat-colored strands and shadowed the sharp planes of his face as he glanced up at the night sky. In the flickering light, she could see the lines around his eyes and mouth. How much of it was from years of riding the trail beneath the merciless sun, and how much from hard living? He turned to look at her suddenly, his sherry-colored eyes seeming dark and mysterious as he met her gaze across the fire.
The seconds ticked by. Her heart pounded, her mouth growing dry as awareness pulsed between them. Slowly he rose and came around to her side of the fire. Her pulse skipped erratically as he approached, and she wondered what was wrong with her. She had been in the company of men much more attractive than Jedidiah without feeling as if her heart were about to explode from her chest.
Yet as he stopped before her, prickles of sensation swept across her flesh, making her feel as if her skin were suddenly too small for her body. He stood there for a moment, looking down at her, then he crouched so that their faces were level.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the key to the handcuffs and unlocked them. He removed the metal bracelets, setting them on the ground at his feet, then took her hands in his, rubbing her chafed wrists with his thumbs.
Her breath caught at his gentle caress. The tiny sound caught his attention, and he met her gaze.
“I’m sorry about today,” he said quie
tly. “I told that story to throw Caldwell off our trail. I didn’t realize that it would hurt you.”
She only nodded, uncertain how to answer him, so confused by her own emotions that anything she said was sure to come out horribly wrong.
He continued to stroke his thumbs over the red marks left by the handcuffs. “You’re such a strong woman,” he continued. “It’s hard to remember sometimes that you have feelings just like the rest of us.”
Strong? He thought her strong? A sob escaped Susannah’s lips, and tears stung her eyes. She had never felt more vulnerable in her entire life!
“Hey now, what’s this?” He brushed a lone tear from her cheek. “Come on now, angel, don’t cry. Yell at me. Insult me like you always do. I’ll even let you kick me, but please don’t cry.”
She sniffled, trying desperately to control herself. She refused to break down in front of him; her pride wouldn’t allow it. “I’m not crying.”
He eyed her with clear skepticism. “All right, you’re not crying.”
She took a deep breath and sat up straight, hoping her nose wasn’t red as a beet from the brief sniffle. “I’m not crying,” she repeated. “I’m fine.”
“Susannah, you’re more than fine,” he said. “Any other woman would have been leaking buckets by now.”
“Well, I’m not any other woman,” she said.
He reached out a hand to gently touch her hair, her face. “You can say that again.”
She swallowed, and her lips parted as his fingers lingered, trailed along her jaw. She didn’t dare move, didn’t dare breathe, lest she disturb the strange current that flowed between them. She looked into his eyes and saw the same need, the same confusion, that she felt.
“I must be crazy,” he murmured, sliding a hand beneath her hair at her nape. Then he leaned forward and kissed her, his lips soft and sweet, clinging to hers with a tenderness that shook both of them.
Her eyes slid closed. She should push him away. But the kiss wasn’t threatening, and the passion she sensed inside him remained firmly under his control. Still, the magic of his touch seduced her, and for just a moment she indulged her need for the comfort of his caress. She grazed her fingers along his arm, needing to touch him.
He broke the kiss and stared into her eyes for a long moment. Then he stood. “This is not a good idea,” he said, his voice a rough whisper. “Why don’t you go on over behind those rocks and take care of your private needs, while I finish setting up camp?”
“All right.” She slowly rose and smoothed her skirts with trembling fingers. The sweetness of the kiss had shaken her down to her soul, and she struggled to go on as if everything was normal. “It’s been a long day, Marshal.”
“You can say that again,” he agreed. “Go on and do what you have to do, then we can both get some sleep.”
He turned away and went to finish laying out the bedrolls. Susannah stared after him for a moment, then went to relieve herself behind the rocks.
His pretty apology and the toe-curling impact of his kiss, hadn’t changed things a bit. She still intended to escape custody and find Abigail Hawkins. Nothing could be permitted to distract her from that goal.
Any other path—including the one toward Jedidiah—would only lead to the hangman’s noose.
Jedidiah took care of his own needs behind a nearby boulder, then returned to the camp and prepared to retrieve Susannah if necessary. But she surprised him. She was gone only long enough to answer nature’s call and then promptly returned.
She settled down on the bedroll next to his. He handed her the carpetbag—from which he had already removed such dangerous articles as a jeweled broach and some hat pins—and watched out of the corner of his eye as she rummaged around and came up with the silver-backed hairbrush he’d seen in the jail cell. She gave a sigh of pleasure as she released her hair from its confines. It settled over her shoulders in a soft cloud of moonlit blonde that fell to the middle of her back. Eyes closed, she began brushing her hair, a half smile of pleasure on her lips.
Jedidiah felt a tightening in his groin as he watched her. She looked like some sort of fairy creature, with her porcelain-smooth skin and silver-gilt hair. Her lips curved in a private, feminine smile that made him want to touch her intimately and learn all her secrets.
He could still taste her.
A man couldn’t live almost forty years on this earth and not have seen his share of beautiful women. He’d even bedded a few of them. But there was something about this woman, something intrinsic to who she was and how she was, that made her damned near irresistible to him.
The fact that she had the face of an angel and the body of a sinner only added icing to the cake.
She turned her head this way and that, brushing her hair until every snarl and tangle was gone. He wanted to take the brush from her hand, wanted to feel the silky blonde strands slip through his fingers as he ran the brush through her hair. It was all he could do not to reach across and make his fantasy a reality.
Only duty stopped him. If he weren’t a lawman and she weren’t his prisoner, he could have indulged all his passions without a qualm. As it was, he had already overstepped his boundaries. She was his responsibility, though, and he wouldn’t take advantage of that.
But he was surely tempted.
She put the brush back in the carpetbag and pulled out a mirror and a handkerchief. Peering into the mirror, she delicately dabbed at the dust on her face. Jedidiah watched her in silence for a moment before he held out his hand for the handkerchief.
Her expression puzzled, she handed it to him. He splashed a bit of water from his canteen on the lacy white scrap, then handed it back to her. She gave him a delighted smile and used the dampened cloth to wash the trail dust from her face and throat.
When she turned away and flicked open a couple of the buttons on her shirtwaist and ran the cloth over her bosom, Jedidiah grew even more aroused. He shifted, trying to make himself more comfortable, and wondered what she would do if he offered to hold her clothes while she washed the rest of her body. He grinned at the thought of her maidenly outrage. He was sorely tempted to suggest it just to see what she’d do.
Susannah turned toward him, suspicion on her face. “What are you chuckling about?”
“Not a thing. I sure am beat, though. Are you done prettying yourself up, or are you going to put on more of a show for me?” He gestured at her shirtwaist.
She glanced down at her open buttons, gasped, and quickly began to close her blouse. A becoming flush crept over her cheeks as she kept her eyes steadily on her task.
“Sure is a shame to cover up such a pretty sight,” he drawled.
“You are a hideous man,” she snapped.
“Now, princess, there are women from here to Texas who would disagree with you on that.”
“I really have no interest in your women, Marshal.” She set the carpetbag aside and made a show of adjusting her skirts as she prepared to lay down on the bedroll.
Good Lord, she was hard to resist when she was all snotty and in a temper. He reached out and took her hand. She whipped around to face him.
“What are you doing?” she asked haughtily, but he heard the breathlessness behind the question. Her fingers trembled in his. She wasn’t as unaffected as she appeared to be.
“Looks like I’m holding your hand,” he said.
“Well, stop it.” She tried to pull her hand from his, but he didn’t release her. “Jedidiah, let me go right now!”
He grinned at her. “Say that again.”
“Let me go?”
He arched his brows. “Not that. My name.”
She rolled her eyes.
He stroked her palm with his thumb. “Say it, Susannah.”
She sighed in exasperation. “Marshal Brown—“
“Not like that.” He turned her hand over and splayed open her fingers so that he could trace lazy circles over her palm. “Say my name, Susannah.”
She closed her eyes and whispered, “Jed
idiah.”
“That’s right.” He pressed his thumb against the pulse at her wrist and found it racing. “I’ll take care of you, Susannah. You just have to trust me.”
Her eyes opened. “How can I?” she whispered. “You think I’m guilty.”
“I think you’re capable of doing it,” he corrected. “That’s a long way from guilty. I also think you’re too beautiful and too smart for your own good. And I think that we had both best go to sleep, or else Caldwell will find us easy pickings when he catches up with us.”
“Do you think he will catch up?”
“Eventually.” Jedidiah rubbed the fading red mark the handcuff had left on her wrist. “The problem is, no matter what story I spread around to cover our trail, everyone is going to remember you. And Caldwell doesn’t strike me as stupid.”
“Sometimes I wish I had been born ugly,” she said bitterly. “This face of mine gets me into too much trouble.”
“I think you’re putting too much store in your looks,” he said. “There’s more to you than pretty packaging.”
“No one else has ever called me smart before. Or strong.”
He paused in his massage of her wrist. “You can’t be serious.”
She nodded. “My entire life, all I’ve heard about is how pretty I am and how easily I’d be able to catch a husband. But what if I don’t want a husband? What if I want to do something with my life besides become some man’s ornament?”
“From what I’ve seen, you have the brains and guts to do whatever you set your mind to.”
“Why are you the only one who can see that?” she asked, her voice uneven with emotion. “Everyone has always been more preoccupied with the color of my eyes than with any opinions I might have. Sarah was always considered the smart one. I was the pretty one.”
He snorted. “No one in this world is just any one thing. You’re sister is as pretty as you are, just in a different way. And you’re both smart enough to give a man fits. Look at all the trouble you’re giving me.”
The Lawman's Surrender: The Calhoun Sisters, Book 2 Page 5