“What?” Mara finally asked, folding the sheet over the quilt, unable to bear it.
“You do know it was Cougar who took you out of that place, don’t you?”
She carefully smoothed out a crease in the sheet, just below the fold. “Today?”
“No. Two months ago.”
She was afraid she meant that. “No. I don’t remember much besides killing Cecile.”
“There was a woman who needed killing.”
Maybe, but Mara wished she wasn’t the one who had to live with the memory of her hand sinking the knife into the brothel owner’s flesh. The desperate thrust that had earned her freedom demanded a high price, turning her dreams to nightmares where everything good drowned in a relentless, blood-red tide. She fought back the tight band of nausea constricting her throat.
“Cougar is the one who brought me to Doc?” Mara asked.
“You didn’t know?”
“No.” There wasn’t much about that night she had tried to remember.
“Well, Cougar is the one who brought you here. He was down in the saloon when he heard a woman scream.” Dorothy set the glass on the table and tightened the strings on her apron. “He killed Cecile’s henchman Aleric.”
“He did?” She finally subdued the crease. She glanced up. “Why?”
“Cougar doesn’t hold with men mistreating women.”
“I’ll be sure to thank him.” There was a bulge in the quilt next to her left thigh.
“I don’t think he believes you owe him any thanks.”
“The man risked his life to save mine.” She patted the bulge flat as she added, “Not once, but twice.”
“He doesn’t feel right about the last two months.”
Mara froze, her hand in the middle of the red square, fingers splayed, a sick feeling welling. “Excuse me?”
“He feels responsible for you, Mara.” Dorothy shrugged. “We all do. You walked away from that brothel without a backward glance and then froze off anyone who tried to get close enough to give you a hand up.”
Mara pushed herself up higher. “I didn’t accept any help because I didn’t need any.”
“That, young lady, is pure bull.”
“I don’t think so.” Mara countered, anger creeping past her gratitude. “The one thing I’ve learned this last year is that a body has to count on herself if she doesn’t want a whole ton of greedy creditors suddenly appearing at her door.” She yanked the sheet over her midriff. “I’ll pay my debt to you, Doc, and…Cougar. After that, I have no intention of being beholden to anyone again. Ever.”
“You’re setting yourself up for a fall, young lady.”
“It’s my fall.”
“No,” Dorothy countered, taking two steps toward the bed. “It isn’t. If you go down, you’re going to take good people with you, including my son.”
“Don’t worry,” she sneered bitterly, “I have no intention of stealing your son from you.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Then why don’t you just say what you mean?” Mara pressed her hand to her aching head.
“I was trying to approach the subject delicately, but since you insist,” Dorothy snapped her apron straight. Mara felt like a bug pinned to a box under her stare. “Did you ever wonder why no one from that brothel ever showed up to drag you back?”
“No.” She’d been too busy being grateful for the fact.
“Well, maybe you should have.”
She had a sneaking suspicion Dorothy was right. She was sure of it as words kept rolling over the older woman’s lips in an avalanche of truth.
“The only reason the new ownership of the Pleasure Emporium,” Dorothy’s upper lip curled over the name, “didn’t drag you back is because Cougar convinced them it wouldn’t be in their best interest.”
“It was Doc who got me the room at the boarding house,” Mara countered quickly. With every word out of Dorothy’s mouth, her debt to McKinnely grew to intolerable levels.
“And hated doing it,” Dorothy agreed grimly. “Everyone knows Gertie wants a slave, not an employee.”
“That’s why I took the job at the restaurant, so I wouldn’t be trapped with no money.”
Dorothy ran her hand over her hair, sat down on the side of the bed, unclenching Mara’s hand so she could take it in hers. “That was your scariest move to date.”
Mara braced herself. No one’s demeanor softened that quickly unless they were getting ready to deliver a blow. “Why?”
“Because of your boss.”
“Mr. Dawson?”
“Shorty Dawson is the biggest lecher this side of the Mississippi.”
Mara pictured the rotund little man with the twinkling eyes in her mind. “He looks like an elf!”
“Well, if he’s an elf, he’s an excessively randy one and not too particular about how he goes about getting his way.”
Mara eyed Dorothy suspiciously. “He never bothered me.”
“I don’t suspect he would after Cougar held his knife to the old goat’s privates and warned him he’d be doing without them should Cougar even suspect him of thinking about you that way.”
Mara slowly withdrew her hand from Dorothy’s. The things the older woman had said whirled through her mind. There had to be a reason McKinnely was doing all this. There had to be, so she forced herself to ask, “Why?”
Instead of answering, Dorothy avoided her gaze. >From the other room came the sound of a chair scraping across the floor. It was the hopeful, almost desperate look Dorothy cast in the direction of the sound that clued Mara in.
“Oh God!” she rasped, staring at Dorothy as the horrible truth dawned. Cougar McKinnely wanted her. Oh no. Oh God! “No.”
Chapter Six
“You had to know,” Dorothy said, standing up. “You’ve been taking too many risks. You had to know…”
“That Cougar McKinnely wants me?” Mara interrupted. “That what Cougar McKinnely wants, he gets? Pardon me, but I’ve heard all that before and it’s still a pile of manure.” She tried to swing her legs to the floor, but Dorothy blocked her. Mara pushed at her restraining arms. “I’ve got to get out of here!” Pain tore up from her ribs. It was nothing compared to the pain in her soul. “God! I never learn.” His kindness had been a trick. And she’d fallen for it. She yanked at Dorothy’s arms. “Let me go!”
Dorothy didn’t let go, she didn’t move, and she didn’t speak. She just stared at Mara. The silence grew heavier and heavier until, finally, Dorothy broke it on a weary sigh.
“I can see from your expression, you’re determined not to hear what I have to say, so I’m going to tell you this much and then I’ll leave you be.” She released Mara’s arms. “You’re here in my house. You are going to stay here until you are healed. And no one is going to hurt you again.”
“You can’t guarantee that.”
Dorothy’s hands landed squarely on her hips and Mara finally got to see the temper everyone claimed went with red hair. “Look at me.”
The way the order was rapped out, Mara didn’t have any choice.
“I can guarantee your safety, Mara Kincaid, because that big man out there,” Dorothy pointed toward the door, her body jerking with the force of the movement. “The one that you’re so determined to think the worst of is going to make it his life’s mission to see that you are. And I’ll tell you another thing.” That finger came to point at Mara with the same subdued force. “About the only hands you’d be safer in would be God’s.”
“He’s a man.”
“He’s a good man.”
“That doesn’t change anything.”
“It changes everything.”
Mara tightened her grip on the quilt covering her legs. The same quilt this angry woman had just finished tucking in so carefully. The woman who wanted to wrap her in gift wrap as a present for her son. “I don’t want anything changed!”
Except the last few months.
“Change is part of life, Mara,” Dorot
hy argued almost gently. “You can’t fight it.”
“Leave her be, Dorothy.”
Mara whipped her head around and saw Cougar standing in the doorway. Lord, he was big. All muscle, confidence and cool control.
“It needs to be said, Cougar,” Dorothy countered, love for her son in her voice. “She can’t go on as she has, risking her life and yours.”
“I can do whatever I like!” Mara struggled to rise off the mountain of pillows propped behind her. She needed to gain some advantage.
All she gained was McKinnely’s attention.
In three strides, he was at her side, his big hands swallowing her shoulders as he pushed her back into the pillows. His long black hair swung forward, casting his dark eyes in shadow as he drawled, “Steady.”
The ease with which he subdued her struggles drove a nail through her soul.
“You can’t keep me here,” she hissed, hating the quaver that shook the last word. McKinnely scared her, plain and simple. He was too intense. Too big. Too close. And now, because she couldn’t control her voice, he knew he scared her.
She closed her eyes and counted to ten. His hands left her shoulders. She opened her eyes. He was still standing beside the bed, looking totally out of place against the blue flowered wallpaper that covered the top half of the walls. And he was still looking at her with that mixture of cool control and banked possession, as he always did.
“I didn’t drag you halfway across the territory only to have you do yourself damage in my mother’s home,” he informed her.
“Then let me go home.”
“No.” One word, but it brooked no argument. She gave it to him anyway, matching him glare for glare, pitting her will against his.
“Yes.”
“You can’t leave, Mara,” Dorothy interjected, looking anxiously between them. “You’re hurt.”
Cougar reached for Mara. Her flinch was involuntary. So was her gasp, but all he did was take the sleeve of her borrowed nightgown and slip it back up over her shoulder from where it had fallen. She caught it before it could fall again. A quick glance showed Cougar wasn’t even looking at her. He was staring across the bed at his mother.
“Whatever you’re trying to do, this is not the time.”
“Hrmph.” Dorothy snapped her apron straight, and shoved a hairpin back into her graying red hair. “When do you think the right time might be? When I’m standing by your grave, crying my eyes out over the waste?”
“No one’s going to kill me.”
He seemed very sure of that.
“How do you know? One of these days, you might have to threaten the wrong man in an effort to keep her safe, and then what?”
And then she would be alone without even her secret illusion that there was someone, somewhere she could count on.
“This isn’t any of your business,” he told his mother. It was a softly worded order, but an order nonetheless. Dorothy didn’t seem to notice.
“It most certainly is.”
While pretending to smooth the quilt, Mara watched Cougar out of the corner of her eye. He folded his arms across his chest, his muscles straining his shirt as he said, “No. It isn’t.”
Mara didn’t know where Dorothy got the courage to argue with him, but her arms crossed over her ample bosom and her mouth opened, obviously prepared to do just that.
He silenced her with another shake of his head and a frown. Dorothy huffed in disgust and turned away. “I’ll get Mara something to eat,” she said as she pulled the door open.
“Thank you.”
Dorothy closed the door behind her, and that left just him and her in this small frilly room together. Mara took a breath for strength. She’d never been good at arguing. Up until Cecile’s, she’d always been more inclined to follow orders than give them. She released the breath in a slow steady exhale. A lot of things had changed since then.
“Do you need anything?” he asked.
“No.” At least none of her inner shakiness showed in her voice.
“When Dorothy gets back with dinner, you eat all she brings.”
Who in heaven’s name does he think he is? The retort that sprang to her lips died as her eyes met his. He was looking at her with a combination of amusement and expectation, his right brow arched in an invitation or a challenge. She wasn’t sure which. As a result, her “I’ll eat what I want” was more a whisper than a statement.
“As long as what you want is everything, I can live with that.”
Well, she couldn’t live with the mouse she turned into whenever he was around. She had a backbone for goodness sake. She put it to use, lifting her chin and straightening her spine. “What you can and cannot live with is not one of my concerns.”
His answer was a flat “It will be.”
What was she supposed to say to that? By the time she thought of something, the silence had gone on too long for it to have any impact. How did people argue like this daily? Her stomach churned. She pressed her hand against it, while she focused on a list of potential retorts to his potential arguments. She’d discovered arguing was easier when she was prepared.
“Everything’s going to be all right for you now,” he vowed quietly.
She hadn’t prepared for that or the memory it tickled. She frowned. “You promised me that before?”
“Yes. On the ride here.”
She skimmed her left wrist with her right hand, remembering the feeling of being restrained. “You held me down?”
“Yes. I did.” He was matter-of-fact as he picked up her arm and shoved back her sleeve, ignoring her tugs to free herself. “You were fighting so hard, I thought you’d hurt yourself.” He touched the mark on her wrist, his frown deepening. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say that!”
His gaze flicked to her in surprise. “What?”
“That you’re sorry!” She jerked her hand free. She never wanted to hear those words from anyone again. “Don’t say it!”
He stared at her with knowing eyes and in one sentence, made the nightmare real again.
“He said that when he raped you.”
The man saying that was one of her few clear memories of that night. She took a deep breath, held it and slowly unclenched her fingers. There wasn’t much point in lying. “Yes.”
He leaned forward. She shrank back, but the headboard limited her movement. He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. When he stepped back, she could breathe again. When she did, her lungs filled with the scent of sage, tobacco, and man. His scent.
“I would give anything for it not to have happened,” he said quietly.
Mara shifted her body into a better position. “Me, too.”
Even more immediately, she’d give about anything not to be having this conversation. She was lying in a bed, dressed in nothing more than a nightgown, for heaven’s sake!
Cougar transferred his weight from his left foot to his right. A floorboard creaked. The sound scraped Mara’s nerves. She felt raw, exposed, and so confused, she had to know the truth. “Is it true?”
“What?”
“Have you been helping me all these months?”
The floorboard creaked again. “Yes.”
“Why?” When he didn’t answer immediately, she asked him again, “Why have you been helping me? What do you want from me?”
“I don’t want anything.”
“Yes. You do. No one goes to all that trouble for nothing.”
“Some do.”
She eyed him consideringly. The man radiated intensity and purpose. “You don’t.”
His head snapped up. The board gave one final squeak as his weight landed squarely on it. The flick of his eyebrow told her he was surprised she’d figured that out about him.
“You’re right. I don’t.”
“So what do you want?”
“Your attention.”
Two little words that scared her to death. “Why?”
This time, the look he sent her questioned her sanity. “Y
ou’ve got to know how beautiful you are from the way the men flock around you.”
“And here I thought my reputation was the draw.”
Her sarcasm took him aback. She could tell from the way his eyes widened before narrowing and the way his hands settled on his lean hips. Well, if he thought he could win her with lies, he had another think coming. Her own Daddy had told her he wouldn’t be able to marry her off without a poke of gold to up the ante, so he’d sold her instead. A girl didn’t have any illusions left after something like that, so she wasn’t falling for this big man’s lies. But it would be nice, she thought, as he kept spinning yarns. Very nice, if half of what he said was true.
“Maybe, at first, the men thought you round in the heels.” He shrugged. “Women who work above stairs are. But, Mara, only a rabid fool would interpret your behavior these last months as anything but proper. You, Miss Kincaid, are a lady from the top of your head to the tips of your shoes.”
A lady dressed in the rag she wore on her back and the shoes she stuffed paper in to fill the holes in the soles? Did he think she was a fool? “Lies are not necessary, Mr. McKinnely. I know who I am, and I’m content with it.”
He leaned his shoulder against the wall and drawled, “Not yet you’re not.”
“I am.”
“Not.”
She folded her arms across her chest, as he had. She hoped it lent her the same appearance of authority as it did him. “Do you have to argue about everything?”
The smile in his voice was unmistakable. “Just some things.”
What did he find so constantly amusing about her? “Why this thing?”
“Because I’ve always had a preference for ladies.”
Did he think because he willed it, he could make it so? “I’m not a lady.”
“You are.”
She blinked back tears that tried to well. Her fingers sank into her upper arms. There was no avoiding the truth. “Ladies aren’t intimate with a man for money.”
“No, they aren’t. Not if they’ve got a choice.”
Promises Keep (The Promise Series) Page 8