Calico

by Raine Cantrell

  She took the bottle and glass. With a swish of her plaid, corded silk gown she settled herself at a table. “Play something cheerful!” she yelled to the Rose, wincing when discordant notes were followed by a rousing tune.

  Three men, miners all, left the bar to join Cora Ann. She nodded to Abe and Jimmy Keystone, twin brothers whose faces were as browned and creased as walnuts. Slick Tobell made a fourth.

  “Any of you see McCready today?” she asked, so distracted over McCready’s disappearance that for once she didn’t eye the pokes they set on the table.

  Slick answered her. “Seen his horse in the lean-to when I brought in my mule. Man can’t go far on foot.”

  Breaking open the deck, Cora Ann agreed and began to shuffle. “But he’s not over at Miss Mae’s, and no one’s seen him all day. If he was dead, we’d all know about it.”

  “How’s that, Cora?” Jimmy asked, cupping his ear, for he had lost part of his hearing in a dynamite blast last year.

  “Why, boys,” she answered with a cheerful note, “the bastard who shot McCready would be bragging all over.”

  “Since you’re mentioning bastards, Cora Ann, look who just walked in.”

  Cora Ann looked where Slick pointed. Quincy Kessnick stood in the doorway, his dark shrewd eyes searching the faces of those present. Behind him were the four hired guns that McCready had bribed to kidnap him. Cora Ann glanced at the Rose, who kept right on playing, but she was the only one who didn’t know Quincy was here.

  She shot a look at Dutch, but he gave a sparse shake of his head, warning her to let him handle this. Quincy was almost as tall as McCready but heavier built. His mouth, Cora Ann decided, was wide and full and downright intriguing but for the tilt at the comer that hinted at cruelty. She didn’t understand how a man who was so exacting could even think about marrying the likes of Maggie O’Roarke. Returning her gaze to the cards she held, Cora Ann knew she would keep it to herself just how exacting Quincy could be.

  “Dutch,” Quincy called, “I won’t hold you responsible, for I know you’re only hired help. But where’s McCready?”

  “Gone.”

  “Ran out, did he?”

  Dutch barely spared a glance for Ryder Balkett, the man at Quincy’s right. “He didn’t run. McCready had business elsewhere.”

  The Rose stopped playing and turned around. She took note of the mean-looking bunch at the door and dismissed them as potential customers. The only move she made was to perch on the edge of her stool, ready to run if any shooting started.

  “And Maggie,” Quincy demanded, “did she also have sudden business elsewhere, too?”

  “Wouldn’t you know it? That’s just what happened. Left her dog with me and took off to one of the claims.”

  “Without McCready?”

  “I wouldn’t know.” Dutch turned and broke open the seal on a bottle of whiskey. He set out five glasses. “Why don’t you boys have a drink on the house and then leave Cooney Camp? There’s nothing here for any of you.”

  Quincy motioned Ryder forward. “I want to know where McCready is,” he murmured. “And if he’s with Maggie. If Dutch won’t talk, go after Cora Ann.”

  “Right.” Ryder and his cohorts moved to do Quincy’s bidding. Hitching his gunbelt, he swaggered over to the bar. Ryder had to admire Quincy for not holding it against him that he had taken McCready’s money along with his own.

  “This is business, Dutch, nothing personal,” Ryder warned. He grabbed hold of Dutch’s shirt, expecting his grip to put Dutch at a disadvantage by forcing him to lean forward. But Dutch’s solid bulk didn’t budge.

  “Henry, grab hold of him,” Ryder ordered a hatchet-faced man. “Jess, you help him. Sonny stands by me.”

  Dutch took a deep breath and released it. He saw that the miners were rising, ready to come to his rescue. He didn’t want anyone getting hurt, so motioned them to stay put.

  “I can handle this, boys,” he assured them. Dutch jerked free of Ryder’s hold. He shot a quick look over his shoulder to see the position of the two men behind him. Swirling around, he rammed both men in the groin with his meaty fists. In the next few seconds he grabbed hold of Ryder’s shirtfront, hauling half of his body over the bar, broke a bottle, and held the jagged edge up against Ryder’s throat.

  “Now, you understand that this is nothing personal, Ryder. I just take exception to being roughed up for the likes of Kessnick.”

  From the corner of his eye, Dutch saw that Quincy was fingering his fancy vest’s pocket. There was a double barrel derringer concealed there. “Wrong move,” he told Quincy, shaking his head at him.

  Slick confirmed it would be a foolish move. He had his gun out and aimed at Kessnick.

  Dutch then turned back to Ryder. “We have a right fetching dilemma, boy. You can try for that iron on your hip, like you’re itching to, and I cut your throat before you draw. Or,” he continued, grinning, “if you’re of a mind to, you can back off and take the trash that’s groaning behind me and leave. But don’t take long to make up your mind. I can’t keep my hand steady for long.”

  Ryder’s eyes darted frantically from side to side, looking for help. He hoped Quincy would make a move, but within seconds he knew he was on his own. The glass pricked his skin, but he swallowed anyway.

  “You win,” he muttered to Dutch.

  “Smart choice.” But Dutch didn’t remove the glass. “You two hombres get out from behind me and haul your tails outside. You can help them, Sonny,” he ordered to the man who had waited at Ryder’s side. Once they were moving toward the door, he looked at Quincy.

  “I’ll be sure and tell McCready that you stopped by.”

  “Do that, Dutch. And tell him this isn’t over. No one gets away with stealing from me. No one cuts into my deal and lives. I’ll find Maggie and marry her. Those mines belong to me.” Quincy elbowed aside the three men and left.

  Dutch released Ryder. “Have a drink to wash the fear out of your mouth, boy. I’ve got another job for you.”

  Ryder rubbed his throat. “Crossing Quincy again?”

  “Nothing else,” Dutch answered, pouring him a drink. “Now, listen good to what I want you to do.”

  Chapter 9

  “So that’s how you managed to kidnap Quincy. You bribed his men,” Maggie said, pushing aside her finished plate of beans and bacon.

  “It’s true, Maggie. ‘The devil rules over lovers of temporal goods belonging to this world, not because he is lord of this world, but because he is ruler of those covetous desires by which we long for all that passes away.’ ”

  “That nonsense from your fancy books?” she asked, gesturing to the shelf above him.

  “I take offense, O’Roarke. Yes, it is something I read in a book, but you malign the words of Saint Augustine to call them nonsense.”

  Maggie was about to ask if he knew the man but stopped herself. McCready’s wicked gaze lay in wait like a trap ready to spring on her. Shrugging it off, she rose to clear the table. She wasn’t thinking about McCready’s claim that she should be able to do a woman’s work. She was simply sharing a chore as she had with her father and uncle when they were alive. McCready had cooked, she would wash the dishes.

  Alerted by her willingness, McCready watched her every move. She was once again dressed in her baggy pants and too large shirt. It didn’t matter. He now knew what was beneath them.

  “There’s more coffee,” Maggie said, holding out the pot.

  “No, thank you, Maggie. I’ve had enough.”

  “No reason to be so stiff, McCready. You could’ve just said no.

  “I wasn’t being ‘stiff,’ as you called it, but simply being polite.”

  She straightened from where she had crouched before the fire and turned with hands on hips to face him. “Are you tellin’ me I’ve got no manners?”

  “No, Maggie, that is not what I meant,” he answered without hesitation, knowing how much he could hurt her. He had l
earned several things about Mary Margaret O’Roarke today. Things had angered him, things that endeared her to him, and a few that had him raking his hair in frustration.

  He saw that his answer satisfied her, for she went back to washing their few dishes.

  Leaning back in his chair, cupping the back of his neck with his hands, McCready stared at the ceiling, ruminating on his association with Maggie. She was a woman who didn’t know the meaning of the word quit. Swearing and cursing, she had tackled the repair of the feather mattress. When he had ventured to suggest that his point had been made to have her fix what she had ruined and that she should stop, for it was never going to be slept on, Maggie found her own way to prove him wrong.

  While he had examined the crooked stitches, she had searched for and found a variety of wild herbs and added them to a few small branches of cedar. Crushing them together, she stuffed them into the mattress and sewed it closed.

  Thinking about her smug smile that brought his own smile in return, McCready caught himself grinning. Maggie then surprised him with her knowledge of the medicinal use of wild plants, learned, she said, from other miners, trappers, and Indians. She informed him of the blending of cultures, although those weren’t her words or understanding, that had given Indian cures to Spaniards, then to the Anglos that followed once the Santa Fe Trail had been opened.

  But when she went on to tell him about taking care of a fever-stricken father when she was ten, McCready found his anger growing. He knew that Maggie didn’t know what she had said to make him angry, and McCready didn’t enlighten her. There were other tales she told him, leaving him to draw the conclusion that Maggie had learned her independence at such an early age, it was ingrained in her to fight any one and any way to keep it.

  He thought of his own childhood, spoiled and pampered by Maggie’s standards, if he would tell her about it. In his own mind he knew by comparison to many men, he had grown up with having every monetary need met. A succession of tutors and masters of dance, fencing, and equestrian skills had been hired with the express order to raise him after he had outgrown a nanny.

  The stern face of his first valet, Frederick Beamsworth, came to mind, and McCready found that he still had a soft spot for the English gentleman hired to teach him his manners and the proper form of dress and to care for him in his excesses. Beams had tried to fill the roles needed by a lonely boy.

  But no one could feed the hunger inside him. While Maggie had roamed wild trekking the mountains with a father who wanted her, he had learned to maneuver his way around the drunken bouts of a woman whom had given him life and loathed the sight of him.

  That knowledge had been the grand discovery of his fourteenth year, although he hadn’t learned the full reason. He had dutifully attended the musicals, afternoon teas, and a host of other tiring social functions with the hopes of receiving one nod, one smile, one bit of notice from his mother.

  It had never happened. Within the two years that had followed, he had gained attention of another sort with his drinking, gambling, and women. He had often wondered, during that time, if his mother had known that her dearest friend had seduced him. When the doors of polite society were finally closed to him, he had earned what he desired: his mother’s attention.

  The scathing words exchanged in that interview were burned in his memory. The result had been his leaving with a cash settlement to make his own way.

  McCready glanced around his cabin, one of the few places he called his own. His gaze skimmed the massive stones that formed the wall of the fireplace, then lowered to find Maggie quietly watching him.

  “You’ve come back from where the wee folk had you,” she murmured.

  “The wee folk?”

  “That’s what me father said when he’d get that same look in his eyes.”

  “Did it bother you, Maggie, when he was lost in his own thoughts and shut you out?”

  “At first,” she answered with a touch of sadness.

  “Do you miss him?” He watched as she drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. He sensed that Maggie was sharing with him what she hadn’t shared with anyone else.

  “There’s times when I do. Just like I miss Pete. But they both taught me to get along on my own.”

  “A woman shouldn’t have to—”

  “Maybe for some that’s true, McCready, but not me.” She rested her chin on her knee and looked at him. Even sitting with his long legs stretched out in front of him, McCready was powerful. His bruises had faded, just as the swelling on his eye had almost gone. He hadn’t shaved and the beard shadow suited his hard-jawed face. A longing to touch him swept through her, but Maggie was no longer caught unawares by it. She had suffered through the day with the feeling never quite leaving her.

  “How long you figure on keepin’ me here, McCready?”

  “Until it’s safe for you to go back.”

  McCready’s slow grin as he looked down at her made the wee flutters shimmer and stir inside her. Maggie looked away. “That ain’t much of an answer. I can take care of meself. Never needed no man to do it. Can’t see why you don’t believe me.” Maggie nibbled her lower lip. “I’d be missin’ Satin. What did you do with her?”

  “She’s safe with Dutch. You know he’ll take good care of her. I’m surprised that you didn’t ask me about her before this.”

  “I wanted to. Truth is, McCready, I was scared of what you’d done to her.”

  “Your high-ranking opinion of me is enough to drive me to drink. I didn’t hurt her, just as I wouldn’t hurt you.” He stood and stretched, catching her puzzled expression. He laughed a soft, rough kind of a laugh. Maggie, for all her lack of poise and polished feminine charms, played hell with his good intentions. Reaching down, he opened the cupboard’s door and took out a bottle. “Share a drink with me?”

  Maggie eyed the bottle he held. The wee ones were still stirring about inside her. But McCready had a fondness for whiskey that might put him to sleep. Didn’t her father often tell her that the fairy folk had a fondness for gold and good whiskey? Just like McCready. Maybe, if she had a few drinks with him, McCready and the wee ones would go to sleep and leave her be.

  She found herself smiling and nodded. She started to rise to join him at the table.

  “Stay by the fire, Maggie. I’ll join you there,” he murmured in a voice filled with promise.

  Stepping into a hunter’s snare couldn’t have made her feel more trapped. Pride wouldn’t let her show him that she was afraid. Her blood sizzled softly, and instead of feeling frightened, Maggie felt excited by the challenge. And she had nothing to worry about, she reassured herself. She could handle McCready and his liquor. For sure, a little voice reminded her, didn’t you prove that last night?

  Torn between hope and doubt, she sighed. It was too late. McCready settled himself beside her on the quilt. She took the glass he handed her and drained half.

  McCready told himself not to be alarmed. Maggie knew what she was doing. But not to be outdone by her silent challenge, he finished his drink and without asking topped off her glass and refilled his own.

  Maggie glanced from his wicked mouth wearing a cocky grin up to his eyes filled with amusement. If the boyo thought that he could drink her under the table, she’d make sure that he woke with a head that he wouldn’t want to call his own.

  “To us, Maggie,” he suggested, touching his glass to hers. “And to friendship.”

  “We ain’t friends, McCready. We got business ’tween us an’ nothin’ more.”

  “I’ll place a bet on our becoming friends, O’Roarke. And there’s our marriage to think about. You don’t know how that will turn out.”

  Marriage again? Maggie wished he hadn’t said that. She stared at the glass cupped between her hands. Why did he have to remind her about it? She didn’t want to remember his claim.

  “Drink up, O’Roarke. You’re falling behind.”

  Calling herself a fool, Maggie nevertheless dow
ned the whiskey. This time she held her glass out for more. “We’ve got business that needs settlin’.”

  “What?”

  “Your claimin’ Pete’s mines, for a start.”

  “We can talk about that, Maggie. We’ll work out something pleasing to both of us. Is there anything else that you want to discuss?”

  “Anythin’ else?”

  “That’s what I said. Here we are, warm, safe and alone. It’s a pleasurable feeling. And Maggie, I like mixing business with pleasure.” Once again he toasted her with his glass. “Truth is, Maggie mine, I make a habit of it.”

  Just his mentioning pleasure kept her quiet. She had to finish her drink quickly. The wee ones hadn’t been given nearly enough whiskey to make them stop their fluttering about inside her. The fire at her back was making her warm. At her side McCready sent flickers of flame shivering over her skin with the delicate touch of his finger tracing the shape of her shoulder.

  He bothered her terribly, she admitted. Maybe it was his size. There weren’t many men she couldn’t look in the eye. Maybe he never let her forget that he was a man. It could be that cocky know-it-all grin. Every time she had caught his lips creasing into it today, she had wanted to accept its wicked invitation to share. She couldn’t ignore the way his eyes lingered on her face filled with an amused gleam that she in turn longed to slap away. She didn’t like McCready thinking he knew something she didn’t. And there was no denying to herself that his drawl, so slow and lazy-sounding that she was forced to think of soft things, made her want to touch his long dark brown hair.

  Mentally straightening her spine, Maggie determined she had to do something to deal with it.

  “It won’t work, you know,” she muttered, wondering as she spoke if she was making a mistake.

  “What’s that, Maggie?” he asked with a soft, lazy drawl.

  “You figurin’ on gettin’ me soused so you can have your way with me.”