Wanted!

by Pam Crooks

  “I will not sleep in your bed tonight,” she said in a husky voice.

  His brow arched. Did she think she had a choice? That he wouldn’t anticipate any covert moves she might try to make in the middle of the night?

  “Oh, it’s no bother, really,” Chat said, clearly oblivious to the undercurrent of rebellion brewing between them. “Whenever we have overnight guests, which isn’t often actually, but when we do, they always stay in Ross’s room. His bed is bigger and more comfortable than mine. He made it himself, you know. Come here. I’ll show you.”

  Chat headed toward his bedroom, but Red stayed behind. She glared at him, her slender feet spread in a defiant stance, but Ross sensed her vulnerability.

  Her worry.

  About what? That he was lying? Or had no intention of sleeping on the couch but would share the bed with her against her will?

  He held her glare with one of his own. He was guilty of a long string of mistakes in his life—shooting her in an arrest gone wrong among them—but he’d never put raping a woman on the list.

  “Miss Renault? Are you coming?” Chat waited in the doorway of his room.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.” Ross’s low voice rumbled with the vow only Red could hear. “Damn you for thinking I would.”

  She appeared taken aback by that, but the rebellion in her lingered. “You’re a bounty hunter, Santana. I’ve never trusted one. Why should you be any different?”

  She swung away from him, depriving him of a terse response, leaving him with no choice but to watch her go and the sway of her hips when she did.

  “Isn’t his furniture beautiful?” After Red joined her, Chat strolled past his tall bureau to the nightstand with its kerosene lamp on top. She turned the flame higher, and the glow splashed into the room. “He designed and built all the pieces himself. The quality can’t be matched, and his workmanship is flawless. He’s brilliant, don’t you think? I’m so proud of him.”

  Ross gritted his teeth against his sister’s gushing. He figured what talent he had spoke for itself. Chat didn’t need to do it for him.

  Yet as he busied himself rolling up the revolving bookcase designs and tidying his desk for the night, he strained to hear Red’s response.

  “And why is it your bed is so much smaller than his? And not nearly as new?” she murmured.

  “Oh, well, when we moved out here several years ago, Ross offered to build me a bedroom set of my own, but I decided to wait until I was married. I want the set for my dowry. To share with my new husband.”

  “I see.”

  “When Sarah spends the night, she stays in my room,” Chat babbled on. “And that’s why I offered it to you, but truly, Ross’s room is so much nicer. And don’t worry about him sleeping on the couch. He’s slept in places far worse.” Chat laughed.

  Red slid a haughty glance his way. “I’m sure he has.”

  “Well, it’s settled then, Miss Renault. Is there anything else I can get you?”

  Red reached out, laid a gentle hand on Chat’s arm. “No, but thank you for everything. You’ve been most kind. And please, call me Lark. I insist.”

  Chat smiled. “All right. Good night, Lark.” She turned and headed for her bedroom. “Good night, Ross.”

  “Good night.”

  Chat disappeared inside her room and closed the door.

  Ross’s gaze locked with Red’s. He rose from his chair, strode toward her, taking his time.

  She stood without moving, watched him come.

  He halted. Her head tilted back.

  “If you touch me, I’ll kill you,” she whispered.

  A corner of his mouth lifted. “Killing’s not your style, Red. Only stealing.”

  She sucked in a breath, and he knew his taunt cut deep. “Go to hell, won’t you?”

  “I’ve been there, darlin’, thanks to you and your kind. And I don’t care to go there again.”

  “My kind.” She whirled away. One fine-boned hand gripped the top edge of the bed’s carved footboard, hard enough to turn her knuckles white. She probably wished it was his neck instead.

  But when she faced him again, her features were cool. Controlled. He had to admire her for the dignity she found, then wore like a diamond-studded crown.

  “My name is Lark,” she said quietly. “Your insistence to call me anything else is not only rude but infuriating.”

  He scowled. Did she have an inkling how many times he’d thought of her over the years? She’d become indelibly imprinted in his mind. He doubted he’d ever think of her as anyone but Wild Red, reputed outlaw and thief.

  He strode toward the bureau, opened the top drawer, removed his toothbrush and powder. But, hell. He might as well use her legal name, since it meant so much to her if he did. He needed her to capture Catfish Jack. No sense in getting her hackles up every time they had a conversation.

  He tossed a clean towel over his shoulder and faced her. Her hand, he noted, still gripped the footboard.

  “You can’t stand there all night. You need to rest to keep your wits about you tomorrow,” he said. “No telling what might happen. We both need to be ready for it.”

  “I’m not sure I can do this.” She glanced away, her teeth finding her lower lip again.

  His eye narrowed. “Sleep in my bed?”

  “A bounty hunter’s bed.”

  Impatience rolled through him that she despised him so much. He yanked back the coverlet. “Get in.”

  She met his gaze square. Now that her hair had begun to dry, wisps of auburn curls were collecting at her temple and cheeks. “Fine. Like you, Santana, I’ve slept in places far worse, I suppose.”

  The barb had the effect of both annoying him and amusing him. She sat on the mattress and drew her knees up, then busied herself fluffing the pillow behind her, more to avoid looking at him than to see to her own comfort.

  Ross stepped closer, grabbed a shapely ankle with one hand, the chain and leg iron he’d attached to the bedrail with the other. In the breadth of a heartbeat, he clamped the shackle around her ankle.

  The iron held fast.

  He ignored her yelp of outrage, gathered his toothbrush and powder, and left the room, closing the door behind him.

  Chapter Six

  Lark gaped at her leg in horror. Santana had tethered her to the bed like a disobedient dog.

  Furious, she lifted her ankle and pulled, but the chain wouldn’t give. She bent forward, grasped the links with both hands and yanked. They didn’t budge. She leaned over the side of the mattress, found the end attached to the bed’s iron frame and tugged there, too, all to no avail.

  The brute.

  She flung herself back against the pillows and fumed up at the ceiling. She could call out for Chat, but what good would that do? Santana wouldn’t give in. Besides, Lark didn’t want his sister to see her manacled to the bed. Was there anything more humiliating?

  She glared daggers at the closed door and thought of him on the other side. He’d caught her completely unaware with the leg iron, had probably rigged the thing when she was bathing in Chat’s room. Was he snickering right now? Gloating? And just when she was beginning to think staying here might not be so bad after all….

  It was only Chat’s kindness that made Lark delay her plan to escape. So did the trouble Santana went to by readying her bathwater. Making sure she was fed and treating her wound, too. Lark admitted she’d been pretty scared at first. Both of them had gone to great lengths to put her at ease.

  Except for the sleeping-in-Santana’s-bed part.

  Santana didn’t trust her any farther than he could throw her, and, well, as reluctant as Lark was to admit it, maybe she couldn’t blame him. He hadn’t built his reputation as a shrewd bounty hunter by being stupid in his dealings with the lawless.

  Not that she was lawless. Not these days, at least.

  So he made sure she wasn’t going anywhere any time soon, which would ensure both of them a good night’s sleep. She’d be safe from Catfish Jack, to
o. Even though she hated Santana for his underhanded way of keeping her where he wanted her, she could understand his reasoning for it.

  The fury within her faded, and she didn’t bother to revive it.

  She slid her gaze about the perimeter of his room with wary curiosity instead. He liked his surroundings simple, clean and uncluttered. A man’s taste, she supposed. One who wasn’t prone to pretentiousness. He merely surrounded himself with the things that meant the most to him.

  Like a picture of Chat on his dresser when she was several years younger, still wearing braids and ribbons. Next to it, a photographer’s shot of an older couple, staring boldly into the camera lens. His parents, perhaps. On the wall, there was a framed photo of an Arabian horse, dark coat gleaming from the sun. One of his prized mounts?

  And the furniture pieces. Solid and strong, like the man who built them. The lantern’s glow shimmered across the smooth, polished surfaces of the deep mahogany bureau and dresser, shadowed over their carvings and curved rolls, and glinted off the handsome matching mirror.

  The furniture signified permanence. That Santana had set down roots, something she’d never done until she moved to Ida Grove, and maybe not even then. Everything in this room was a part of him, either something he created or loved and most likely both, and how fortunate he was to have it all.

  Some strange sort of longing stirred within her. Lark had never owned a piece of furniture in her life. Nothing in her sleeping room in town qualified as hers, except a few potted geraniums. She was only renting the furnishings from Mrs. Kelley. Why had that never bothered her before?

  Catfish Jack threatened to take away even that small semblance of stability in her life. If Santana ever found out the truth about the Muscatine heist, he definitely would.

  Lark shut the troubling thoughts down. There was nothing she could do to change the horrific events of the afternoon. What mattered more was how she would deal with them in the morning. To do that, she had to sleep. As Santana said, she’d need her wits about her to deal with everything that had happened.

  The chain contained a gang ring in the middle, giving the leg iron length so Lark could move about in reasonable comfort. She reached over to turn down the lamp, and the room plunged into darkness. Mindful of her sore shoulder, she settled into the pillow, pulling the covers to her chin. Her eyes closed. If she didn’t think about them, she wouldn’t be aware of the manacle on her ankle or that she was lying in a bounty hunter’s bed.

  From within the linens, Santana’s masculine scent rose up to surround her.

  Her eyes opened again.

  A disturbingly male blend of fresh-cut wood and tobacco. Not a bounty hunter’s scent, but a man’s.

  Lark didn’t want to think of him as being one. She didn’t want to think of him lying in this bed with his skin bare against the sheets and his long, lean body relaxed in sleep.

  The breadth of the mattress would hold a woman as well, and an image of him tangling his arms and legs with hers lingered in her mind.

  She swallowed, not wanting to think of him in that way, either.

  She shifted to her side and forced a new round of thoughts into her brain. Important thoughts, like her job at the bank and how she treasured it more than anything. Mr. Templeton with his wife and little Phillip, enjoying their trip in Omaha. And, oh, Mrs. Kelley.

  The dear woman would be fretting over Lark’s safety and whereabouts. Never in a million years would she think Lark was here, in Ross Santana’s bed, desperately in need of his help and protection to save herself from a cutthroat like Catfish Jack.

  Lying in the darkness, alone in an unfamiliar bed, the homesickness rolled through Lark in churning waves. She missed her sleeping room, Mrs. Kelley’s cooking, the comfortable, boring routine she had become accustomed to day in and day out.

  Would she ever have it back again?

  Lark’s eyelids fluttered open. She’d managed to fall asleep at some point, for the night had slipped away, and with it, worries and apprehensions. A shy morning sun peeped through the closed muslin curtains, keeping Santana’s room pleasantly shadowed and serene.

  She had no qualms about where she was. Or why. The time would come soon enough when she’d have to deal with harsh reality again, but until it did, she was content to simply lie in Santana’s bed, snuggled beneath the covers, deliciously warm, comfortable and safe.

  The house was quiet, but Lark detected the faint scent of brewing coffee. If Chat was up already, preparing to cook breakfast, she was careful not to wake anyone. The girl was a gem, and Lark had liked her from the start. If only—

  The muted squeak of the door creeping open on its hinges scattered the thoughts. Lark rolled over and lifted a hand to push away the mass of curls that fell against her cheek.

  Santana stood in the doorway. He wore Levi’s and nothing else except for a towel around his neck. Clearly, he’d just bathed somewhere; droplets of water still dotted his chest. His hair was casually finger-combed back, a stubble of beard darkened his cheeks, and with that black leather patch over his eye…

  Heat unfurled in her belly. He looked primitive. Powerful. Purely male.

  “Did I wake you?” he asked in a low voice.

  “No.” The hushed tone of her voice matched his—husky, strangely intimate.

  “I forgot my razor last night. You mind if I come in and get it?”

  She couldn’t stop a small smile. It was his room, after all. And she was shackled to the bed frame.

  “Feel free,” she murmured.

  “Thanks.” He strode toward the washstand, a fine accent to the other pieces in the suite. He hesitated, then turned back toward her. “As long as you’re already awake, I could just shave right here.”

  “You could.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “It is.” His need for her agreement amused her. What would he do if she said no?

  “I won’t be long.” He lit the kerosene lamp, took down his straight razor from the shelf above the basin.

  “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere, thanks to you.”

  She yawned and shifted to her side to see him better. What else did she have to do but watch him? Her lacerated shoulder made only a mild protest, a good sign the wound had begun to heal.

  “I made coffee. You want a cup?” he asked.

  A leather strop hung from a nail next to the shelf. He dragged the blade across the cowhide, back and forth, again and again, giving the razor a smooth, sharp edge.

  “Maybe later.” She was much too comfortable to think about doing anything but lie there.

  “For what it’s worth, I didn’t have a choice chaining you up last night.” The muscles in his back bunched and bulged from each stroke and left Lark fascinated by their play. “You would’ve run first minute the lights were out.”

  Lark dragged her gaze from him. She didn’t want to be fascinated. “Maybe.”

  “No maybe about it. You would have.”

  She didn’t bother to deny it, but found herself watching him again. He took his shaving mug from the shelf, dipped its brush in water, stirred the bristles into the soap in the bottom.

  Their eyes met in the mirror. He had a strikingly dark gaze, rich as molasses, and he held her captivated.

  Santana had the power to make a woman forget things she shouldn’t.

  “Did you sleep well?” he asked, his tone husky again.

  “Hmm. Surprisingly so.”

  “In a bounty hunter’s bed.” He grunted, lathered his cheeks with the frothy soap. “Imagine that.”

  She scowled at his sarcasm. Or was he teasing her? “I’d punch you if I could get to you, Santana.”

  Amazingly, he chuckled at that. “Good thing you’re shackled then.”

  “Are you going to leave me like this all day?”

  He placed the straight razor at the base of one sideburn, ran the blade down his cheek in a smooth swipe. “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether you plan to r
un or stay.”

  She snorted. “Do you think I’d tell you if I intended to run?”

  “I’ve learned to read the signs.” He rinsed the blade, the set of his jaw telling her he was dead serious. “You wouldn’t have to tell me a damn thing.”

  His words gave her pause. Had she underestimated him?

  “And what are my signs telling you, Santana?” she asked softly.

  “You’re torn about it.” Again, the blade journeyed down his cheek, until all the soap was gone. “You’re straddling two worlds. The one you lived in as an outlaw, and the one you’re living in now as a respectable citizen.” He jutted his chin, then ran the razor over its curve. “That means I can’t trust you.”

  She raised up on an elbow. In spite of everything, his declaration stung her hard-won sensibilities. “Regardless of what you think, I am completely trustworthy, Santana. Mr. Templeton trusts me in his bank day in and day out. Don’t you dare think I didn’t earn that from him by being honest in every way.”

  Santana tossed her a hard glance. “Circumstances the way they are, your point is moot, Red.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, Lark.”

  His use of her name failed to assuage her, and she fell back against the pillow in frustration. Why did he have to be so brutally frank?

  “All right.” Damn him. “You have my word.”

  “About what?”

  “About escaping from you.”

  The razor hovered in midair. “Say it.”

  She rolled her eyes. The man truly didn’t trust her, and why did that bother her? “I promise I will not try to escape you. Leastways, today. Unless you give me reason to.”

  “Or unless I fail in my protection of you.” He regarded her steadily. “Agreed?”

  She hesitated only a little. The addendum assured her he took his intent to protect her seriously. God knew she needed it. “Agreed.”

  The razor slid over the other side of his face with the same expert strokes of the first. He was silent so long she began to get worried.