Autumn Lover

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Elyssa sensed it as certainly as she had sensed the brutality that lay just beneath Gaylord Culpepper’s slow talk and calculating eyes.

  And if the Ladder S did not manage to meet the army deadline, Elyssa would have nothing left. Not even dreams.

  Don’t think about it, she told herself. Thinking won’t help. Only working will.

  And praying.

  “Now, if you don’t look pretty as a picture,” Mickey said.

  Elyssa started and glanced over her shoulder. A tendril of hair floated down over her nose. Impatiently she blew the hair aside and looked at the young ranch hand who appeared whenever she left the ranch house.

  Mickey was leaning over the stall door. The look in his eyes might have pleased Elyssa if it had been Hunter doing the watching and hungering.

  But it wasn’t.

  With barely veiled impatience, Elyssa turned back to her milking.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Have you lost the whetstone again? Or is it the barrel staves you can’t keep track of this time?”

  “I’m through with those barrels. Done told him.”

  Elyssa didn’t have to ask who “him” was. Mickey didn’t like Hunter, but he was very careful around the older man.

  “Told him he could hire me at gunfighter wages or I’d leave you flat.”

  Without breaking her silence, Elyssa turned and shot a squirt of milk at the cat. Cupid opened her mouth and caught the liquid with little fuss and less mess.

  “What do you say to that?” Mickey challenged.

  “What did Hunter say?”

  “That he’d let me know before the week was out.”

  “Then that’s what I say.”

  “Huh.”

  Ignoring Mickey, Elyssa kept working. When she thought she heard him move on down the aisle, she let out a silent breath of relief and went back to humming. Finally she stripped the last of the milk from Cream’s teats.

  When Elyssa stood up, she put her fists in the small of her back and arched. Slowly she stretched her back, straightening out the kinks of a week’s hard riding over the Ladder S, hunting for cows.

  “Damn, Sassy, but you make a man want to sit up and howl at the moon.”

  Startled, Elyssa spun around.

  Mickey was still there, hanging over the stall door. He was looking at her breasts as though he owned them.

  Angrily Elyssa turned her back on Mickey and adjusted the scarf she had put in the dress’s low neckline. It had been pulled to one side during the milking, revealing the rising curves of her breasts.

  “Aw, now, don’t go and cover them up,” Mickey complained. “If you hadn’t wanted me to see them, you wouldn’t have worn that dress, now would you?”

  “You miserable—”

  Hunter’s voice cut across Elyssa’s.

  “Mickey, if you don’t have anything better to do than lean on stall doors, you can check the irrigation ditches in the kitchen garden.”

  Mickey straightened so quickly he stumbled. Elyssa knew that he was as startled to find Hunter in the barn as she had been to find Mickey still hanging around.

  “I’d hate to lose the garden harvest,” Hunter said, “just because you’re in a lather over a little flirt. Get going.”

  “Well, ain’t you just a dog in the manger,” Mickey complained. “You ain’t getting any, so you don’t want no one else to get none neither!”

  A single look at Hunter’s eyes made Elyssa feel chilled.

  “Take care of the garden,” Hunter said softly. “Now.”

  “What if I got on my horse instead?”

  “Then I’d shoot you as a horse thief. Every head of stock around here is wearing a Ladder S brand.”

  “Not every head,” Mickey said, smiling maliciously. “Lately I seen a lot wearing a Slash River brand. Ab Culpepper’s brand. Covers the Ladder S like a blanket, don’t it?”

  “Are you going to work or get off the Ladder S?” Hunter asked.

  Swearing like a sailor, Mickey walked out of the barn. On his way he grabbed a shovel.

  “I told you about flirting with the men,” Hunter said.

  The contempt in his voice froze Elyssa.

  Then it infuriated her.

  “I was milking the ruddy cow,” she snarled.

  “Not when I saw you. You were arched up like a dancer or a lover, and your breasts—”

  Abruptly Hunter changed the subject.

  “Stop pushing me, Sassy. I guarantee you won’t like what happens.”

  Hunter’s use of her hated nickname infuriated Elyssa.

  “Then stop looking at me,” she said icily. “And you do look at me, Hunter. You know it as well as I do.”

  “You look right back.”

  “Yes. Why don’t you do something about it?”

  “Weren’t you listening? You wouldn’t like it.”

  “Try me.”

  Out beyond the barnyard, one of the dogs began barking. Sharp, high-pitched, urgent, the sound sent adrenaline racing through Elyssa. She barely managed not to knock over the bucket of milk as she leaped for the gun she had propped in a corner of the stall.

  Hunter’s hand shot out and wrapped around Elyssa’s arm.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

  “Seeing what set off the dog.”

  “Stay here. I’ll take care of it.”

  Elyssa started to argue, then reconsidered.

  Hunter nodded curtly, took her shotgun, and stalked to the entrance to the barn. Before he stepped out into the sunlight and autumn wind, he gave a careful look around.

  “Well, it’s about time,” he said.

  With that, Hunter walked easily into the sunshine. A moment later Mickey came racing in from the garden, rifle in hand. Hunter waved him off and continued across the yard.

  Three small groups of men sat on horseback close to the ranch house. Their clothes were trail-worn and dusty. Like Hunter, some of the men wore remnants of Confederate uniforms. Others wore the blue trousers of the Union.

  The rest wore the buckskin of plainsmen or the fitted leather pants and broad-rimmed hats of Mexican cowhands. Men who had come from the Texas thornbush country wore leather chaps.

  Remainders of dusty blue and gray uniforms were mixed equally throughout the three groups, as were checkered shirts and buckskin, leather chaps and flannel and wool. No one lined up according to North or South or plains.

  The former soldiers had left the war behind them in all but one way—they were well armed. Plainsmen, drifters, and soldiers alike wore their weapons as unselfconsciously as they wore their boots.

  The horses the men rode came in many sizes and all colors except one. White. A white horse made a man a target against every landscape, whether desert or grassland, thornbush or mountain meadow.

  Four black-and-white dogs circled the men at a distance, barking wildly.

  From behind Hunter came a staccato whistle. The dogs stopped barking as though shot. As one they turned and loped off to whatever livestock they had been tending before the ranch yard filled up with strangers.

  Hunter looked back over his shoulder. As he had expected, Elyssa was following him.

  At least she has that scarf tucked back in place, Hunter thought.

  The memory of Elyssa’s half-bare breasts rising from violet silk went through Hunter like lightning through a storm, tightening every nerve in his body.

  I’m going to have to come down on her like a hard rain about her clothes. The men out here aren’t used to seeing a woman like her running around loose.

  Hunter was having a hard time getting used to it himself.

  “I thought I told you to stay in the barn,” Hunter said.

  “Why? There’s no danger.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Elyssa shrugged. The motion loosened her scarf, revealing a kiss-sized patch of skin low on her neckline.

  Hunter tried not to think what that soft skin would feel like beneath his lips, his tongue, h
is fingertips. He tried not to think how eagerly her nipples had risen at his accidental touch eight days ago.

  He failed.

  With a silent, searing curse, Hunter forced himself to look away from the tempting bit of skin.

  “I could tell it was safe the instant you left the barn,” Elyssa said.

  “How?” he asked roughly.

  “By the way you moved.”

  The words stopped Hunter like a wall. He hadn’t realized that Elyssa had learned to read him so well.

  Belinda was my wife for years, and she never figured out anything about me.

  The insight made Hunter uneasy. The longer he was around Elyssa, the more ways he was discovering that she was different from Belinda.

  Unlike Belinda, Elyssa knew and understood the work that went into a ranch.

  Unlike Belinda, Elyssa truly cared about the horses and cattle, dogs and cats, that roamed the Ladder S.

  Unlike Belinda, Elyssa was aware of the land itself, of its beauty and its dangers. She saw the ranch as more than simply a way to pay for a fancy carriage or drapes for a drawing room that was as out of place in the wilderness as Belinda herself.

  Broodingly Hunter looked at the vital young woman who had left the safety and shelter of the barn in order to stand close to him in the sunlight and dust of the ranch yard.

  You better remember that Belinda and Sassy are alike in the only way that matters, Hunter told himself harshly. They’re flirts right down to the sweet marrow of their bones.

  Next to that, no other difference matters.

  “Cover yourself,” he said.

  The contempt in Hunter’s voice was like a slap.

  Elyssa’s eyes narrowed in anger and a pain whose sharpness surprised her. She looked down at her neckline and saw a bit of skin no bigger than the ball of her thumb. The injustice of Hunter’s reaction stung her.

  “Good Lord above,” she said, exasperated.

  “Keep your voice down!” Hunter said.

  “From your tone of voice,” Elyssa said softly, “a body would think I was running around half-naked.”

  “You are.”

  “Rot. If you hadn’t been looking so hard, you wouldn’t have seen a ruddy thing!”

  Hunter said something unpleasant beneath his breath.

  Elyssa ignored it.

  “Who are those rough-looking men?” she asked. “Friends of yours?”

  “They’re riders looking to be hired at fighting wages.”

  Worriedly Elyssa counted the men. There were eleven.

  “You said only seven,” she protested.

  “Some of them won’t get fighting wages. They’re not worth it.”

  “How am I supposed to be able to tell the difference?”

  “You aren’t. That’s my job.”

  With that, Hunter turned on his heel and went up to the riders. They had been watching the byplay between Hunter and Elyssa with interest, amusement, boredom, or envy, depending on the man.

  “Howdy, boys,” Hunter said. “Good to see you, Morgan. Heard you were somewhere in Nevada.”

  “Thank you, suh. Good to see you again…on this side of the rifle barrel.”

  Hunter’s smile was so quick that Elyssa almost missed it. She looked back at the rider who had spoken and saw that his hat, trousers, and gloves were all Union issue. His smile was very white against the dark coffee color of his face.

  Silently Hunter looked over the rest of the men.

  “I assume you boys know what the Ladder S is up against,” Hunter said.

  Some of the men nodded. Others just waited.

  “Miss Sutton will pay fighting wages,” Hunter said. “No booze allowed.”

  “What?” asked two of the riders.

  “Is she runnin’ a church or a ranch?” demanded a rider who looked to be younger than Mickey.

  “You don’t like the rules, ride on,” Hunter said.

  One of the men grumbled, reached back into a saddlebag, and pulled out a pint bottle that had about half an inch of whiskey left in it. He poured the whiskey onto the ground.

  Hunter looked at the boy who had wondered whether the Ladder S was a church or a ranch.

  “What about you, son?” Hunter asked.

  “What about me?” the boy retorted.

  The kid had lank blond hair and eyes that were sullen, defiant, and oddly weary.

  “Morgan,” Hunter said.

  He didn’t say any more. He didn’t have to.

  Morgan reined his horse over to the boy’s, reached into the saddlebag with his right hand, and pulled out a nearly full pint bottle of whiskey.

  “What the hell ya think you’re—” began the boy.

  His words were chopped off by the sight of the six-gun that had appeared magically in Morgan’s left hand.

  “Morgan is Miss Sutton’s first hire,” Hunter said calmly. “He’ll be my segundo. Any of you boys don’t like taking orders from a colored man, ride out now and no hard feelings.”

  None of the riders moved to leave, including the boy who was still staring at Morgan with a combination of dismay and awe.

  “Johnny, Reed, Blackie,” Hunter said, nodding to three men who wore remnants of southern uniforms, “you’re hired. Put your gear in the bunkhouse and your horses in the corral back of the barn.”

  The three men nodded and reined their horses toward the corral.

  “Johnny?” Hunter said.

  The slender, chestnut-haired man looked over his shoulder. “Yes, sir?”

  “Any chance that your brother Alex will show up?” Hunter asked.

  “Comancheros got him last year. He was chasing some story about a redheaded child. He just couldn’t believe Susannah died with the others.”

  “Damn,” Hunter said softly. “Sorry to hear that. Alex was a fine man.”

  “That he was, for all the good it did him.”

  When Hunter turned back to the waiting men, his expression was bleak.

  Curious, Elyssa looked between Johnny and Hunter. She sensed the deep currents of emotion running between them, emotions that neither man put into words. She wondered if they ever had.

  Or could.

  “All right,” Hunter said curtly. “I don’t know any of you, so I’ll have to ask which of you boys favor the long gun.”

  Five of the remaining men spoke up.

  A look passed between Morgan and Hunter. The black rider lifted his reins. His wiry pony loped out of the barnyard down toward the cottonwood trees.

  When Morgan was about four hundred yards away, he reined in, stood on the saddle, and balanced the bottle of whiskey on a broad branch. Glass glittered in the sunlight.

  “One shot each,” Hunter said. “Notch the branch as close as you can without hitting the bottle. You on the left. Start now.”

  The man sighted and fired with an ease that spoke of long familiarity with rifles.

  Bits of bark leaped, but only Morgan saw.

  “Less than an inch!” hollered Morgan.

  “Next,” Hunter said.

  The second man fired.

  The top inch of the bottle exploded.

  The rifleman said something beneath his breath and sheathed the weapon with a disgusted look on his face.

  “Next,” Hunter said.

  The shooting continued until the fifth man was done. Two of the men notched the branch less than a finger’s width from the bottle.

  “If any of you boys fancy yourself with a six-gun, too,” Hunter said, “go to the cottonwood.”

  Two of the riflemen left for the cottonwood tree, including the man who had shot the top off the bottle.

  Silently Elyssa looked from Hunter to the men and back again, wondering what he would do next.

  “I suppose if I walk off, you’ll just follow me,” Hunter said.

  “Of course. The Ladder S is my ranch. I’ll hire the men you choose, but at the very least I have the right to see how skilled they are.”

  “You’ll get that fine silk all dirty.�
��

  Elyssa looked at Hunter in disbelief.

  “The cow took care of this ‘fine silk’ with one swipe of her grimy tail,” Elyssa retorted.

  Hunter looked at the shotgun in his hands and fought not to smile. The graceful gold and silver tracings on the barrel reminded him that it was Elyssa’s gun he carried, not his own.

  Fancy gun for a fancy lady, Hunter thought acidly. Silk and fire and the kind of body that haunts a man.

  Damn!

  “Stay behind me,” Hunter said, his voice rough. “Six-guns are chancy things, especially if a man is in a hurry.”

  Without looking at Elyssa again, Hunter walked to the cottonwood where the riders were gathering. Elyssa had to hike up her skirts and all but trot to keep up with him.

  “All right, Morgan,” Hunter said. “Let’s see if your Arkansas toothpick still has a good edge.”

  Smiling, Morgan unsheathed a knife whose blade was as long as his forearm. With quick, hard strokes, he carved the Ladder S brand into the cottonwood’s bark.

  “Back up about forty feet,” Hunter said to the men. “When I say so, draw and fire.”

  The men backed their horses, spread out slightly, and waited. Morgan went to stand beside Elyssa. He lifted his hat in silent greeting, but his eyes never left the horsemen.

  “Fire!” Hunter said.

  Shots shattered the quiet. The area between the two S-shapes of the Ladder S brand exploded into leaping bits of bark. Quite a few bullets ended up outside the brand as well.

  “Cease firing!” Hunter commanded.

  The men holstered their guns and turned toward Hunter. He signaled to Morgan.

  “At the bottle. Now,” called Morgan.

  One of the riders got off two shots before the other men recovered and began firing. The quickest man was the same one who had shot the neck off the bottle with a rifle.

  “What’s your name?” Hunter asked.

  “Fox.”

  “Well, Fox, you’re pure hell on bottles.”

  The other men smiled.

  Hunter smiled in return, briefly.

  “You’re hired, Fox,” Hunter said. “So are you two.”

  Hunter indicated the riders who had been almost as quick as Fox to get back into action with their six-guns.

  “What about the rest of us?” asked the kid.

  As he spoke, he reined his horse over until it was all but standing on Hunter’s feet.

  “Oh, Lordy,” Morgan muttered. “That boy must have et a full plate of stupid for breakfast.”