Autumn Lover

by Elizabeth Lowell

  If the question surprised Elyssa, she didn’t show it. Her face had assumed a distant, lady-of-the-manor expression that irritated Hunter.

  “You don’t want to know what I’m thinking,” Elyssa said after a moment.

  Hunter’s mouth flattened.

  “Just as I thought,” he said. “You’re still in a snit. There’s one thing a spoiled girl can’t stand, and that’s the truth.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I just did, didn’t I?”

  Elyssa said nothing.

  “Damn,” Hunter said finally. “I hate it when a girl sulks! What the hell is going on behind those green eyes of yours?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “A simple truth.”

  Hunter waited for Elyssa to explain.

  And waited.

  And waited.

  “All right,” he said roughly. “What is this simple truth of yours?”

  “I need a man who can sneak past the Culpeppers, control Mickey, protect Penny and myself, and get those cattle to the army. In brief, I need you, Hunter. Therefore, I will have to suffer your unwarranted tirades until I no longer need you.”

  The calm, clipped summation surprised Hunter. When angry, Belinda hadn’t been capable of anything more thoughtful than tears, flounces, and pouts.

  “Are you going to cross me at every opportunity?” Hunter asked.

  Elyssa watched Hunter with level sea-green eyes.

  “Are you going to insult me at every opportunity?” she asked calmly.

  “Only when you act like a spoiled little girl.”

  “I suspect that in your eyes I am incapable of acting any other way, no matter what I do.”

  Hunter resettled his hat with an impatient motion of his hand.

  “Are you saying that my judgment is wrong?” he asked with deceptive gentleness.

  “Yes.”

  “I disagree.”

  “I know, just as I know that you disliked me from the moment you first saw me.”

  Hunter said nothing. If Elyssa hadn’t figured out that he was violently attracted to her—and just as violently opposed to being attracted to her—he wasn’t going to point it out.

  “What I don’t know,” Elyssa added, “is why you agreed to work for me at all.”

  Hunter went still. He needed the appearance of being the Ladder S ramrod. Otherwise the Culpeppers would get word that the Texans who had been dogging their trail for two years had finally caught up.

  “I need the job,” Hunter said roughly.

  “Why?”

  “Money.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Again, Elyssa’s cool assessment of the facts startled Hunter.

  “You haven’t even asked how much I’ll pay you,” she pointed out.

  “I’ll get my pay.”

  “By taking the ranch from me?”

  Fury ripped through Hunter. The effort it cost him to keep his temper was shocking.

  He, who prided himself on his discipline.

  “Listen, little girl,” Hunter said in a low, deadly voice, “in Texas I had a ranch five times the size of the Ladder S, a ranch my brother and I built with our own hands. I don’t need to steal from orphans to get what I want.”

  The tangible outrage in Hunter made Elyssa’s mouth go dry. She tried to speak, swallowed, and tried again.

  “All right,” she said. “You’ll get paid three dollars a day and fifty cents for every mustang delivered to the army. Is that agreeable?”

  Hunter nodded curtly.

  Elyssa let out her breath in a soundless sigh.

  “We’ll ride out over the ranch and count cattle as soon as I pack a lunch for us,” she said.

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll just pack a lunch for me.”

  “No need,” Hunter said. “You won’t be riding anywhere with me.”

  “Talk about snits…” Elyssa shrugged. “Fine. I’ll take the north half.”

  “You won’t be riding anywhere, period. It’s not safe.”

  For a long moment there was only silence and Elyssa’s patient blue-green eyes.

  “Hell,” Hunter snarled. “You’re going to ride out as soon as my back is turned, aren’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Just to prove you can,” he said with contempt.

  “No, Hunter. To count cattle. My cattle.”

  He grunted.

  “If you’re so worried about Penny’s future,” Elyssa continued sweetly, “it would be clever of you to ride along with me so that I don’t get hurt. Wouldn’t it?”

  Hunter looked at Elyssa’s smile—two rows of hard white teeth and not one bit of warmth—and knew that he had lost this round.

  “If Leopard won’t tolerate a saddle and a bridle,” Hunter said, walking away, “ride some other horse.”

  Hunter disappeared into the barn before Elyssa realized that she had won. She was still savoring her victory when the dogs started barking.

  A Culpepper on a huge sorrel mule was riding up to the ranch house as though he owned it.

  6

  Elyssa’s first thought was that her shotgun was in the house rather than in her hands.

  But then, I didn’t expect a Culpepper to come calling in daylight, brazen as a cat at milking time.

  Quickly Elyssa glanced around. No one was in sight.

  If Hunter was aware that something was wrong, he wasn’t advertising it. The door leading from Leopard’s paddock to his stall was open and empty.

  Abruptly Elyssa realized that she was sitting in bright daylight with her skirts halfway to her waist. She slid off Leopard in a whirl of emerald and scarlet silk.

  When she hit the ground, her knees buckled. Only then did she realize how frightened she was.

  The flurry of color as Elyssa dismounted caught the Culpepper’s interest. He reined the mule past the kitchen garden, ignored the house, and headed straight toward the barn. The mule moved over the dusty, hoof-scarred ground with a peculiar, gliding gait that was both fast and easy on the rider.

  Three more horsemen trotted into view behind the mule. They fanned out slightly, each watching a separate area of the ranch. The men looked and acted like former soldiers.

  Rebel raiders, Elyssa thought starkly.

  Fear ran nakedly over her skin, leaving a cold trail of gooseflesh that even the hot sun couldn’t warm.

  Surely the Culpeppers aren’t so brazen as to attack in full daylight, no matter how peevish the army captain is feeling toward the Ladder S at the moment.

  The dogs’ barking rose to a frenzy.

  The temptation to run into the barn was great, but Elyssa didn’t give in to it. She suspected that the raiders were like her English cousins and other predatory animals—a show of weakness only encouraged them.

  In any case, her legs were shaking too much to be trusted with anything beyond holding her upright.

  Hunter, where are you? Elyssa asked silently, desperately. Can’t you hear the dogs?

  Nothing came in answer to her questions, not even so much as the sound of stealthy movement from the barn.

  She was alone and the yard was full of raiders.

  Hunter! I need you!

  Yet no sound left Elyssa’s lips. If Hunter was deaf to the dogs, her own screams wouldn’t make any difference.

  It took every bit of Elyssa’s courage to appear relaxed and confident while the breeze blew through the paddock fence and a Culpepper rode up to the barn as though he owned the Ladder S and everything on it.

  The man’s clothes were trail-worn and dirty. Beneath the grime were the outlines of Confederate army trousers, boots, and jacket. Like the mule, the rider was long-boned, lean, and dusty.

  Unlike the mule, the Culpepper had pale blue eyes and a beard that needed trimming. His manners could have used a little polish as well. The look he gave Elyssa was as crude as a hand up her skirt.

  “You the owner of this spread?” the rider a
sked curtly.

  “Yes,” Elyssa said, just as curtly.

  “I be Gaylord Culpepper. I come to buy you out.”

  “No.”

  The rider’s eyes narrowed. He leaned forward slightly as though he didn’t believe he had heard her correctly.

  The mule stamped. Its long ears twitched and swiveled, tracking the sounds of the dogs as they paced between the intruders and the cottonwood trees that lined the nearby creek.

  “I ain’t askin’, missy,” Gaylord said.

  “Good, because I’m not selling.”

  Gaylord looked around, paying special attention to the barn. It was clear he didn’t believe Elyssa would be so brave unless there was an army hidden somewhere close by.

  Elyssa sincerely wished there was. But there wasn’t. All she had was her quick tongue, her trembling legs, and a sincere desire to be somewhere else.

  Anywhere else.

  “Well, that’s a damn shame,” Gaylord said. “We done got our hearts set on this place, and what Culpeppers want, Culpeppers get.”

  “I understand your dilemma.”

  “Huh?”

  Elyssa said the first thing that came to her mind, hoping to distract the raiders until someone could grab a gun and distract them in a more meaningful way.

  “I, too, love the Ladder S,” Elyssa said quickly. “I couldn’t bear to leave the ranch. Surely you understand?”

  “Uh…”

  “Exactly,” she agreed instantly. “You should set your affections in a different direction. I hear that the Northern Territories are quite rewarding for, er, individuals such as yourself.”

  “Too cold.”

  The temptation to suggest hell as a warm alternative was great, but Elyssa resisted it.

  “Texas is reputed to—” she began.

  “No,” he interrupted impatiently. “We done been there. Folks ain’t friendly like.”

  “Perhaps they simply didn’t know you well enough.”

  “Damn mean-spirited folks, them Tejanos. Git all riled up when a man has a little fun. Track him through hell an’ high water an’ never give up no matter what. It’s right tiresome being dogged like that, I tell you.”

  Elyssa tried to look sympathetic. She doubted that she was successful.

  “So I’ll do it yer way,” Gaylord said, “though I’ll take some awful funnin’ from the boys.”

  Elyssa blinked. She hadn’t expected to be able to talk a Culpepper out of anything, much less the Ladder S.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’m very grateful. The ranch is my whole life.”

  “Ya oughta be grateful,” Gaylord retorted. “Ain’t every day a gal gets hitched to a Culpepper. I s’pose you want a preacher an’ all thet folderol. Lordy me, them boys will just bust a gut laughin’.”

  A distinct sense of unreality engulfed Elyssa, as though she was looking at the world through the wrong end of a spyglass. For a moment she was reminded of the Lewis Carroll story that had been all the rage when she left London.

  This is how poor Alice felt, Elyssa thought.

  Perhaps I should offer to serve tea to this mule-riding Mad Hatter.

  The thought almost made Elyssa laugh aloud, but she was afraid if she opened her mouth, a scream would come out. Her appearance of calm was only that—appearance.

  In truth, fear was drawing Elyssa tighter and tighter. She felt as though her bones would break if she made an incautious move.

  “I didn’t make myself clear,” Elyssa said carefully. “I have no intention of marrying you.”

  “Fine by me. I don’t hold with leg shackles none. But if’n it ain’t me, it be Ab, an’ he’s a mean ’un with the gals. Little bit of a thing like you won’t see Christmas hitched to him. God’s truth.”

  Elyssa swallowed over the bile rising in her throat.

  “Mr. Culpepper,” she said with desperate calm, “I am not of a mind to marry anyone.”

  The rider nodded vigorously.

  “I hear ya talking,” he said. “Prob’ly best thet way. The boys is gettin’ restless. Knowing a sportin’ gal come with the ranch will settle them some.”

  “What in the name of God are you talking about?” Elyssa asked, her voice thinning.

  “Well, ya ain’t leaving the ranch, an’ ya ain’t the marrying kind, so thet leaves the sportin’ life, don’t it?”

  Gaylord slapped his thigh hard enough to raise dust.

  “Mighty fine life,” he crowed. “Migh-ty fine!”

  The mule’s ears swiveled, then resumed tracking the dogs that were circling fifty feet out from the men, barking wildly.

  Elyssa stared at the Culpepper who was crowing like a tone-deaf rooster.

  “I tole Ab ol’ Gaylord would get this ranch for the boys an’ not raise the kind of ruckus thet brings them Yankee soldier boys on the run.”

  Without warning Gaylord stopped congratulating himself on his cleverness and looked Elyssa over with a blunt sexual calculation that turned her blood to ice.

  “An’ here Ab is always funnin’ ’cuz he thinks ol’ Gaylord is slow and dumb like a stump,” Gaylord said.

  Elyssa caught herself just as she would have agreed with him.

  “Ab’s always sayin’ how Pappy’s juice was just plumb wore out when he finally got me on Turner’s littlest gal. Lordy, she was a fighter for such a young’un. Ab still smiles when he thinks on it. Course, it were his first gal. Pappy was just breakin’ her in like for him.”

  Dimly Elyssa realized she was holding her breath. She forced herself to breathe. At the same time she worked not to understand what Gaylord Culpepper was saying.

  The mule walked closer to the paddock fence, urged by its rider.

  “Hope ya got stayin’ power,” Gaylord said. “Me an’ the boys is plumb ready.”

  Warily Elyssa backed away from the fence. A show of courage was one thing. Foolhardiness was quite another.

  Only a fool would stay within reach of Gaylord Culpepper.

  “Now, don’t go to backin’ up,” Gaylord complained. “I ain’t gonna throw ya an’ mount ya right off. I just wanna get a feel of them teats. They shore look—”

  “No,” Elyssa said harshly.

  “Thet don’t sound friendly.”

  With shocking speed, Gaylord shot off the mule’s back and onto the paddock fence. Elyssa barely got beyond range of his long arm in time to avoid his grasping fingers.

  Leopard reared and flattened his ears, plainly warning Gaylord what would happen if he came into the paddock.

  Gaylord got back on his mule and looked at the stud.

  “Folks say this ’un is a killer,” he said.

  Elyssa said nothing.

  “Huh. Well, Ab had a mind to ride him, but he ain’t here an’ I am, and I be plain pantin’ for a feel of them teats. Call him off ’fore I kill him.”

  Gaylord might have talked in slow rhythms, but there was nothing slow about the way he reached for his six-gun.

  “No!” Elyssa cried.

  Behind her a rifle fired, drowning out her cry. The bullet landed between the mule’s front feet, startling it into rearing.

  Gaylord stuck in the saddle with the same ease that he had reached for his gun.

  “Holster that gun or die,” Hunter said.

  Elyssa barely recognized Hunter’s voice. There was no emotion in it, simply a cold assurance of death.

  The silence was so complete that she could hear the sound of Gaylord’s gun being returned to the holster.

  There was a shout from one of the men behind Gaylord. He lifted his hand slowly, waving them off.

  “I was just funnin’,” Gaylord said plaintively to Elyssa.

  But there was nothing plaintive about the calculation in his pale blue eyes. They searched the darkness where the door to Leopard’s stall was.

  Elyssa looked too.

  Hunter was invisible.

  “Fun’s over,” Hunter said flatly. “Ride out and don’t come back. If I see you or your men on Ladder S land,
I’ll shoot you on sight.”

  With a soundless prayer, Elyssa backed slowly toward the barn. She took care not to get between the open stall door and Gaylord Culpepper.

  Gaylord swore and shifted in the saddle.

  “Now, don’t go to hurryin’ off,” he said. He looked at Elyssa with pale, predatory eyes. “We ain’t done yet, not nearly.”

  “You’re done,” Hunter said.

  “Where’d ya come from, son?” Gaylord asked.

  “Hell.”

  “Huh. Well, it’s plain as dirt ya don’t know what’s needful for a man hopin’ to breathe tomorrow’s air.”

  “Keep that hand clear of your six-gun or tomorrow won’t ever come for you,” Hunter said.

  Gaylord looked at his right hand as though surprised to find it creeping up on his six-gun.

  Slow? Dumb? Elyssa thought wildly. Gaylord is dumb like a fox is dumb.

  And like a fox, there is something missing from his soul.

  “Listen here, boy,” Gaylord said. “You don’t want no part of this. The Ladder S is as good as Culpepper land. We want it. We’re takin’ it, an’ thet’s all there is to it.”

  “Ride out or die,” Hunter said.

  The combination of calm and deadly promise in Hunter’s voice made the hair at the nape of Elyssa’s neck stir.

  Gaylord reined his mule around and headed toward his men without another word. The four riders left as abruptly as they had come, leaving a wake of dust and barking dogs.

  Elyssa wound her shaking fingers into Leopard’s mane and held on tightly. Now that the crisis was past, her legs were trembling so that she was afraid they wouldn’t hold her.

  Rifle in hand, Hunter stalked out of the barn into the pouring sunlight. The barrel of Hunter’s weapon was clean but not shiny. So was the stock. There was no silver, no gold, no fancy patterns carved in wood or etched in steel.

  Without a word Hunter watched the raiders until they were no longer in sight. Then he pulled a bullet from the firing chamber, uncocked the rifle, and turned toward Elyssa.

  The look on Hunter’s face wasn’t warm. He would be a long time forgetting how it felt when he realized that Elyssa was dead center in the middle of whatever fight might break out.

  She could be lying in the dirt right now, Hunter thought grimly, her blood all red around her and her face pale as salt.