Rachel’s eyes strayed in that direction and she felt hot color wash into her cheeks at his knowing grin. She had seen him nude, of course, when she nursed him, but that had been vastly different. He had been inert then, sick and unable to care for himself. But he was awake and alert now and even though he was still weak and pale, there was an aura of strength and vitality about him that she found both frightening and fascinating.
“Don’t you dare move!” Rachel snapped, stung by his abrupt manner and his total lack of modesty. “You’re in no fit condition to travel.”
“I’ll manage.”
Rachel’s smile was poisonously sweet as she gathered up Tyree’s clothing and tucked it securely under one arm. Her tone was equally venomous when she spoke.
“I am sure you could manage quite well,” she said, biting off each word. “But I do not intend to see my efforts in your behalf wasted. You are not to set foot out of that bed for at least another week.” She gave him another cloying smile. “Now, you just lie there like a good boy and I’ll bring you some breakfast. You look like you could use some solid food.”
And so saying, she turned on her heel and flounced out of the room, Tyree’s clothes bundled securely under one arm, her back ramrod straight with determination.
Tyree swore under his breath. What the hell! Who did she think she was, anyway, telling him what he could and couldn’t do? Damned interfering female!
He grinned wryly as he settled back against the pillows. Might as well be comfortable, he mused. He sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere, not in his present state of undress.
He was sitting there, his arms crossed over his chest, the sheet scandalously low on his hips, when she returned. She carried a large bowl of oatmeal mush in one hand, a delicate china cup and saucer in the other.
Rachel came to an abrupt halt as she entered the room, her eyes flaring at the sight of Tyree propped up in bed. The sheet, barely covering his loins, looked very white against his swarthy skin.
She took a deep breath, determined not to let him know how strongly the sight of his naked chest appealed to her.
“Shall I feed you?” she asked, each word dripping ice water. “Or can you manage on your own?”
“I thought you said solid food,” Tyree growled, eyeing the oatmeal with obvious distaste.
“This is solid enough for a man who’s had nothing but beef broth in his belly for nearly a week,” Rachel retorted. “Take it or leave it.”
Scowling, Tyree accepted the bowl, grimacing as he swallowed a spoonful of oatmeal.
Rachel studied him openly while he ate. His face was hard and unyielding, his eyes cold and cynical beneath straight black brows. There was a wary tenseness about him now that he was fully conscious, a kind of hunted animal alertness, as if he were waiting for a trap to be sprung.
Setting the bowl aside, Tyree met Rachel’s frank gaze with one of his own. “I ate my mush like a good boy,” he said with a wry grin. “But I draw the line at tea.”
“Would you prefer coffee?”
“I’d prefer whiskey.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for coffee,” Rachel said firmly. Collecting his dirty dish and the untouched cup of tea, she glided out of the room.
Tyree stared after her, his expression dark with anger and frustration.
When the woman returned, a sturdy old man accompanied her. “I’m John Halloran,” the old man said, extending his left hand. “I guess you know my daughter, Rachel.”
John Halloran was tall and straight, with hair the color of iron and skin that resembled old saddle leather. His right shirt sleeve, empty from the elbow down, was tucked inside his pants pocket. His grip was firm as they shook hands.
Halloran’s bright blue eyes twinkled merrily as he noticed Tyree staring at his empty shirt sleeve. “Lost my arm in a cattle stampede years ago,” he remarked good-naturedly. “But I’m better now. How about you?”
“Much better. I’m obliged for your hospitality.”
“Glad to help out, though Rachel, here, has to take most of the credit. I, uh, don’t believe I caught your name.”
“I don’t believe I gave it, but you can call me Smith.”
“On the run, eh?” Halloran surmised, chuckling. “Well, rest easy, Smith. We’re a long way from any real law out here.” He glanced briefly at die gun lying on the table beside the bed. “You any good with that iron?”
Tyree shrugged. “I usually hit what I aim at.”
John Halloran nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, I reckon you do at that. Well, an extra gun might come in handy,” he muttered cryptically, and ambled out of the room, his bushy white eyebrows drawn together in a thoughtful frown.
When they were alone, Rachel asked bluntly, “Are you wanted by the law, Mr. Smith?”
“Listen, lady,” Tyree answered testily, “I’m obliged to you for taking care of me, but my status with the law is none of your business.”
“I don’t think I like you,” Rachel retorted, her sky-blue eyes flashing fire.
“Not many do.”
“And you like it that way, don’t you?” Rachel observed intuitively. “Ever since I came in here this morning, you’ve done your best to be unpleasant. Why? What are you trying to prove?”
“You’re a nosy brat,” Tyree muttered. “Didn’t your old man teach you not to pry into other people’s affairs?”
Rachel recoiled as if she had been slapped. “Pardon me,” she said, the frost on her words an inch thick and rising. “I’ll not pry into your personal life again.” And drawing her dignity around her like a cloak, she left the room.
Tyree stared after her for a long time, mentally cursing her for taking his clothes. He couldn’t very well go parading out of the place wearing nothing but his boots and a smile. Damn the woman! Why didn’t she mind her own damn business and let him mind his?
He slept away the rest of the morning, dutifully accepted the thin beef broth and fresh baked bread the woman served him for lunch, and politely asked for seconds.
Mollified by Tyree’s sudden appetite and subdued manner, Rachel brought him a second slice of bread still warm from the oven along with his soup. She also offered him a cup of hot black coffee modestly laced with brandy. She tidied up the room while he ate, ever aware of his eyes on her back.
“I’m sorry for this morning,” Tyree said after awhile. His voice was gruff, giving Rachel the distinct impression that he was unaccustomed to apologizing for either his words or his actions.
“I’m sorry, too,” Rachel said, smiling.
“You and your old man run this place alone?”
“Just about. Job Walsh and the Apaches have scared off most of our hands.”
“Walsh?”
“He owns the Slash W Ranch just east of here. It’s the biggest spread in this part of the territory.”
“And he wants this place, too.”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“It’s an old story,” Tyree said shrugging. “You must have a pretty good piece of land if Walsh wants it.”
“Yes. Do you know Walsh?”
“I know the type.”
“Then you know what we’re up against.”
“I know you’re a fool.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“You heard me. You’re out of your mind if you’re bucking the Apaches on one hand and a land-grabber like Walsh on the other.”
“That may be!” Rachel replied curtly. “But our roots are here, on the Lazy H. My mother and my little brother are buried here. We’re not leaving.”
“Suit yourself. It’s no skin off my ass.”
“No, it isn’t!” Rachel snapped crossly, and stalked out of the room, slamming the door soundly behind her.
John Halloran smiled fondly at Rachel as she moved about the spacious kitchen preparing their dinner. She was a lovely young woman, every inch a lady despite the rugged life she led. He was proud of her quiet beauty, proud of the way she carried her share of the work load w
ithout complaint, proud of her inner strength and character.
We did ourselves proud, Ellen, he mused to himself. Proud indeed!
“He’s wanted by the law, you know that, don’t you?” Rachel said irritably. She was still angry with the man who called himself Smith. His language and his arrogance were beyond belief. “We’ve no business keeping him here any longer.”
“Another day or two won’t hurt,” Halloran countered mildly. But Rachel was right. The man was obviously on the run. He had that hunted air about him, that wary alertness common to all hunted creatures, be they man or beast.
“I don’t like him,” Rachel muttered, spreading a red and white checked cloth over the table.
“He’ll be moving on soon,” Halloran said. Rising, he poured himself a cup of coffee from the big black pot that was always simmering on the back burner of the stove. “I wish I could—”
“Could what?” Rachel asked suspiciously.
“Nothing, nothing,” Halloran answered quickly. But the thought lingered in his mind. The man calling himself Smith might be a wanted man, a dangerous man, but he could definitely be an asset to the Lazy H. He had gunman written all over him, and a good, fast gun was something the Lazy H desperately needed.
John Halloran’s thoughts were temporarily interrupted as Rachel put dinner on the table. She was a good cook, he mused, but then Rachel had always excelled at anything she put her mind to.
They made small talk about the ranch during dinner. It was Rachel’s habit not to discuss anything unpleasant during meals and Halloran obliged her. Thus, the time they spent dining together was always a time to relax and enjoy one another’s company because, besides being father and daughter, they were good friends.
Rachel smiled at her father as he filled his plate a second time. It amazed her that he never gained any weight, for he ate enough for two hearty men. He was a rare and warm human being, she thought fondly. Despite the harsh land and their never-ending troubles with Job Walsh, her father remained a gentle man with a kind heart and a good soul.
Laying her fork aside, Rachel prepared a plate for Smith. She dreaded the thought of seeing him again. It made her uncomfortable, just being in the same room with him. He was, she decided, the most aggravating man she had ever met.
She felt his eyes on her face the minute she entered the room. The force of his gaze made her uneasy and two bright spots of color appeared in her cheeks.
“Smells good,” he drawled.
Wordlessly, Rachel placed the tray on the bedside table. Her whole attitude screamed that she did not appreciate his presence in her house.
“Sorry I didn’t die,” Tyree muttered irritably. “It would have saved you a lot of extra work.”
“Yes, it would have,” Rachel agreed. “I’ll be back later for the tray.”
Tyree scowled as she swished out of the room. Never had any woman looked at him with such loathing. He attacked his food with a vengeance, admitting, grudgingly, that she was a hell of a good cook.
In the kitchen, Rachel put the last of the dinner dishes away, then joined her father in the den for a game of checkers. It was the best part of the day, a time for sharing the day’s problems, a time when decisions were made, ideas exchanged.
A knock at the front door interrupted their game. John Halloran opened the door cautiously, frowned as he invited his visitors inside.
The voice of the fat, territorial marshal penetrated Logan Tyree’s dream, waking him instantly. Eyes closed, Tyree listened while John Halloran assured Marshal Brody that no one answering Tyree’s description had been seen on the Lazy H.
“But you’re welcome to search the place if you’ve a mind to,” Halloran offered.
In the back bedroom, Tyree held his breath as he waited for the marshal’s reply.
“No need,” the lawman responded gruffly. “But if he comes sniffing around, you shoot first and ask questions later. He’s a hired gun. A killer.”
“A killer?” There was genuine alarm in Rachel’s voice.
“Yes, ma’am,” Brody said. “A cold-blooded murderer. Gunned down two men in a Texas whorehouse for no reason at all some years back. Never even gave ‘em a chance to draw. Killed a man here in Arizona, too. And that’s just three of many.”
In the bedroom, Tyree had a mental picture of the worried glances passing between Halloran and his daughter, and his hand closed over the .44 lying under his pillow. Would Halloran turn him in, now that he knew he was harboring a fugitive?
Tyree’s eyes probed the dusky room. The window was the only way out of the house other than the door, and while he didn’t particularly relish the prospect of running off into the night stark naked, he would do it if he had to because, by damn, he wasn’t going back to prison!
“He sounds quite desperate,” Rachel said anxiously.
“Yes, ma’am, damn desperate,” the marshal replied, warming to his subject. “And lucky to boot. We lost his trail out in the desert a couple weeks back, but we figured he’d head south for the border, so we trailed in that direction. We were circling back when a sandstorm caught us. Damned if it no sooner blew over than a handful of redskins run off with our horses. Damn savages! Took us three days to walk to the Bar J for fresh mounts. Three damn days! If I ever catch that bastard, Tyree, he’ll pay for those three days.”
“Well, we’ll keep our eyes peeled for him,” Halloran said sincerely. “You can be sure of that.”
“Pa—”
“Later, Rachel,” Halloran said. “You and your men are welcome to spend the night in the bunkhouse, Marshal. You’ll be comfortable there. It’s the first building on the left.”
“That’s mighty kind of you,” Brody said. “Evening, ma’am.”
“Breakfast is at six,” Rachel said. “You and your men are welcome to join us.”
“We’ll be there.”
Rachel turned angry eyes on her father as she closed the door behind the marshal and his posse. “Pa—”
“Hush, daughter.”
“I will not hush. And I will not have that dreadful man in this house another night.”
“You wanna turn a sick man over to a lawman like Elias Brody? Why, I’ll bet Tyree would never make it back to Yuma alive.”
“That’s not our concern.”
“Isn’t it? He’s a human being, Rachel. It’s not for us to judge him.”
“Oh, Pa,” Rachel murmured helplessly. “You should have been a preacher.”
Halloran chuckled. “Maybe. Let’s go check on our patient.”
Tyree was sitting up in bed when Rachel and her father entered the room. The .44 was nestled in his right hand, aimed in the general direction of the door. Rachel could not help thinking the gun looked right at home in Logan Tyree’s calloused hand.
“That’s two I owe you,” Tyree drawled.
“You heard?” Halloran asked, dropping down onto the foot of the bed.
“Enough. I’m obliged to you for not turning me over to the marshal. Fat Ass never takes his prisoners in alive.”
“I’ve heard rumors to that effect,” Halloran remarked, glancing pointedly at Rachel.
“I don’t care,” Rachel muttered defensively. “The man’s an escaped convict, and we’re breaking the law by having him here.”
“I don’t want to discuss it now, daughter,” Halloran said sternly. “Why don’t you go get us some coffee?”
Rachel left the room without another word, her mind in a whirl. She had heard of Logan Tyree. He was a gunslinger, a known assassin, reported to have killed at least a dozen men in cold blood. Even here, in their small town, his reputation was well-known. It was rumored that he sometimes killed for money and sometimes just for the sheer love of bloodletting and violence. Dear Lord, Logan Tyree!
Chapter Two
The days passed slowly for Tyree. He chafed at lying idle day after day, but his protests fell on deaf ears. Rachel was an efficient, cool, competent nurse. She anticipated his wants, satisfied his needs, made him as co
mfortable as humanly possible. But she adamantly refused to let him get out of bed.
“Dammit!” Tyree fumed one afternoon, exasperated by her stubbornness. “I know you’re anxious to be rid of me, so why not just give me my clothes and let me get the hell out of here?”
“Because I don’t want your death on my conscience,” Rachel retorted. “You’re too weak to walk to the front door, let alone ride across country alone. You still have a bit of a fever, and you’re not getting out of that bed for another five days.”
Another five days, hell, Tyree mused irritably. He had already spent close to two weeks in bed and that was enough for any man. Another five days would have him climbing the walls.
Later that afternoon, Tyree slipped out of bed and began pacing the floor. Rachel, damn her, had been right as rain, he thought dourly. He was weak. And his side hurt like the very devil. But he closed his mind to the pain and continued to walk up and down the length of the room, silently cursing Rachel all the while. Damn the woman for always being right!
He had never been fond of small spaces and being confined in Halloran’s guest bedroom, comfortable as it was, was almost as bad as being shut up in the Yuma hotbox…
He had spent ten days in that hellish contraption, and he had been naked as a newborn babe then, too, Tyree mused ruefully. You couldn’t lay down in the hotbox. You could only stand erect hour after hour, or squat on your heels. Or kneel, if you had a mind to pray. But nobody had ever prayed his way out of the box. You stayed inside until the warden decided you had learned your lesson; stayed, baking in the desert heat as the temperature soared to over a hundred and ten degrees. Stayed, shivering from the cold as the mercury plummeted to below sixty in the dead of night.
Some men died in the box. Some went crazy, but Tyree had managed to cling to his sanity, though ever afterward he harbored a strong aversion to small, closed-in spaces…
He paced the bedroom floor a few minutes at a time several times a day, and when he wasn’t pacing, he often stood at the window, staring hungrily at the timbered hills visible beyond the western boundary of the Lazy H. And sometimes he just watched Rachel as she worked in the flower garden that bloomed alongside the house. She raked and weeded and pruned at least a couple of times a week. It was a purely pleasurable way to spend half an hour, Tyree mused, because for all her stubbornness, Rachel Halloran was a mighty pretty woman, especially when the sun danced in her golden hair, reminding him of a painting of the Madonna he had seen one time down in Santa Fe.
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