She cleared her throat. “We don’t have relatives in the east, or anywhere else that I know of.”
Obviously, Carolina had wanted to make sure Reilly never found out where she’d sent Gracie.
“I didn’t think you were ever coming back,” Gracie said. “By then I figured out I was pregnant. I told my grandma—there was no else to tell—and she packed me up and shipped me to San Diego to live with an old friend I’d never even heard of before. Mrs. Graham, an elderly woman who used to stay at the Diablo, back when she was young. I didn’t have a choice about any of it.”
“Your grandma didn’t tell you I came looking for you?”
Gracie shook her head. “I called her every week, and every week she made a point of telling me I needed to move on. You were gone and never coming back.”
“What a bitch.”
“I wrote to my friends, though. I told them where I was. You could have come for me. I used to lie in bed and pray that you would.”
“Not a soul knew where you were, Gracie. I asked. I’d just put my brother in the fucking penitentiary so I could be with you. Believe me, I asked. I couldn’t understand how you gave up on me just like that.”
She didn’t say anything. Reilly glanced over his shoulder. “All those letters you wrote ... Did anyone write you back?”
“Not even Grandma Beck. After a while, she quit calling or answering the phone. When the baby was born, she sent fifty thousand dollars and told her friend to take care of us, but Mrs. Graham died a couple years later. I was eighteen by then and there was enough money left for us to make it on our own ... we moved away and it’s been just the two of us ever since .”
“Where’d your grandmother get that kind of money to send?”
Gracie shook her head. “All I know is that you left and the whole world turned its back on me and my baby.”
Reilly moved to stand in front of her, staring down at her bent head. The scent of her wrapped around his senses and bypassed his brain. He’d been with dozens of women since he was the teenaged lover of Gracie Beck, but he’d never forgotten her. He’d never had a woman get under his skin so quickly and completely.
Years separated him from their last kiss, but it felt like yesterday, and he wanted to press his mouth to hers like he wanted his next breath. But what scared him was the knowledge that his feelings had nothing to do with the scalloped lace he could almost see outlined beneath her cotton shirt or the history that would always bind them together. It had to do with the here and now, with feelings he barely understood himself. And the fact that she hadn’t turned away even after he’d told her the most horrifying truth she would ever hear. She didn’t look at him like he was something she’d scraped off her shoe.
Slowly, he cupped her face, the feel of her soft skin almost painful against his callused fingers. She was everything good and pure, and he was the last thing she needed in her life.
“I’m sorry,” he said against her lips.
She made a sound in her throat, protest and surrender all wrapped in one confounding moan. Her hands flattened over his chest, fingers spread, his heart captive beneath her touch. Her short upper lip fit perfectly between both of his, and her mouth clung when he took it. They’d learned to make love when neither had been old enough to appreciate the fleeting preciousness of such a thing. Now the need to have that closeness again made him deepen the kiss, part her lips, and taste the sweetness of her mouth.
Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, holding tight as she returned his kiss with lips and teeth and the soft brush of her tongue. He pulled the band from her ponytail, and her hair cascaded into his hands, soft as satin, damp from the rain. She arched into him while he ran his fingers down the curve of her spine, pulling her hips against his, letting her feel how much he wanted, needed her. He wanted to lay her down on that butcher-block table and make her his once more.
She turned her head and said his name.
He heard the withdrawal in her voice like a shout in a quiet room. Instantly, he dropped his hands and stepped back.
Her hair was tousled, her lips swollen, and her eyes filled with bewilderment. Every instinct inside him told him to run. Who cared if that made him a coward? In the end, she made the decision for him and headed for the door.
The horse-dog paused to give him a strangely compassionate look as it followed her out of the kitchen, but Gracie didn’t even slow down.
CHAPTER 13
May 1896
Colorado
The ride back to camp with Sawyer would be imprinted in my memory forever. My emotions had been drawn and quartered, until I didn’t know what feeling went with what part of me. I sat behind Sawyer on his powerful horse, lulled by the rolling motion of its gait, my face pressed into his back. He smelled of horse and sun and river-washed cotton. Familiar smells that mingled pleasantly with his own unique scent. Against all reason, I was comforted.
My tears had doused my bloodlust, and I began to think that I’d acted out of judgment rather than rationale. I hadn’t seen Sawyer with the Smith brothers, and he would have been hard to miss on his enormous horse. And why would he be riding alone now if he was with them? More to the point, why wouldn’t he have simply killed me when I’d attacked? He’d have witnesses to verify he’d acted in self-defense should it ever come under the scrutiny of the law. But he hadn’t taken my life. Instead, he’d helped me.
My arms were around his waist, and only the anchor of his solid body kept me from sliding to the ground. His chest rose and fell with his steady breathing. His voice was gentle when he talked to the horse, but he didn’t speak to me, nor I to him. What would I say? Perhaps I was wrong to have tried to slit your throat? Thank you for not cutting mine?
When he deposited me back at the camp, Chick and Meaira were there to help me. Honey brought me food. Athena fussed around Sawyer and then cared for his horse. I heard his deep “Thank you” and the hint of a smile in her “Welcome.” I’d only heard her use that tone with Chick. After he’d eaten, Sawyer took his bedroll and moved to the other side of the fire. The rest of us slept beneath the tarp by the wagon. It seemed exhaustion took all of us, or maybe it was the sense that we weren’t alone this night, that there was someone to watch over us. Ironic, that the someone was Sawyer McCready. When I awoke the next morning, he was gone.
***
We ate a cold breakfast of biscuits and bacon and then finished packing the camp again to move out. Athena complained the whole time about how I’d caused unnecessary work and grief. In her eyes, I was an ungrateful girl who’d tried to kill their benefactor.
They didn’t speak of Aiken Tate this morning, but they had plenty to say about the Captain. As far as they were concerned, he was better than the second coming and twice as dependable.
I still didn’t know who exactly the other man, this mysterious Aiken Tate, was, and I could only guess at his relationship to these women. Where had he been all this time? Meaira paced and watched the horizon with a desperation I only partly understood. We were stranded with a wagon and no horses. Evidently, Aiken was expected to bring them. But it seemed she was anxious about more than that. She was agitated and irritable, snapping at the others for no reason until, at last, she stalked off to sit by herself. After awhile, Honey joined her. I didn’t know what had happened to have her so upset.
Chick went to work on a party dress she’d been sewing. She was very proud of her efforts, but her skill didn’t quite match her enthusiasm. Darning and sewing the family’s clothing had been my chore since I was ten, and I could stitch a suit of armor if the need called. I feared that her feelings would be hurt should I offer to help, but she was more than happy to let me fix her clumsy stitches and embellish her gown. The cotton fabric was not so fine as the cut and style of the garment, but the dark-rose color would look lovely against Chick’s skin.
“Where will you wear such a dress?” I asked her as I stitched tiny beading to the gathered bust.
Chick turned her round eye
s on me, considering before she answered. After a moment she lowered her voice and said, “Athena say don’t tell you our business.”
“This dress is your business?”
Chick shook her head. She leaned forward and spoke softly. “It what I wear when the men come.”
I tried to keep my expression blank, but my surprise must have shown on my face. Chick looked for Athena and saw her down by the river, bent over her washboard. Honey and Meaira sat on a small rise not far away. Watching for the Captain or Aiken, I thought.
Satisfied that no one could hear, Chick said, “You cain’t tell I said.”
I shook my head. “I won’t.”
“We’s fancy girls.” She gave a nod, her expression prideful. “Not yet. Now we work the fields, wherever Aiken tell us.”
I didn’t know much about fancy girls, but I’d never thought of them as field laborers. I said as much.
Chick laughed, covering her smile with her hand as she did. “I mean we’s in the fields, not working them.”
I still didn’t understand, and I felt embarrassed and dense under her knowing eyes. I was older than she was, but not so world-wise.
“Aiken, he take us from place to place. He got us, but he don’t have nowhere to put us, see? Not anymore. Used to be we was in Atlanta, but Aiken got runned off. Now, sometime, we not even in a town. Just someplace where men be.”
There was no hiding the horror I felt at her words.
“Ain’t so bad,” she said. “He gots a tent and the men is nice. Usually.” She looked down, picking a long blade of grass and pulling it apart with her fingers. “Sometime they’s old,” she said. “Sometime they smell even though Aiken make ’em take a bath.”
“Why do you do it, then?” I asked.
“What else I gon’ do? It not as bad as working cotton. My momma did that. She die ’fore I was ten. Aiken take me in then and I do dishes and scrub floors ’til I was older. Some nights my hands be bloody from it.”
“And now ... Aiken is ... ?” I didn’t know how to word it.
“He own us.”
“Slavery isn’t legal anymore, Chick,” I said, thinking perhaps it was possible she didn’t know this.
“Murder neither, but it still get done.”
Her words brought forth a rush of images. My grandmother’s broken wheelchair ... My brother. Chick squeezed my hand, pulled me back to her.
I said, “Why don’t you run away?”
Chick looked at me, and her eyes were much older than her years. “I got no place to go.” She shrugged. “Nothin’ better waitin’ for me later. I can do this here, elst I can do it in some town for someone else who maybe treat me worse. I don’ want to work no crib.”
I didn’t know what she meant.
“See, the old whores, they’s in the cribs. That what they call the place they work.—cribs. They nasty, but once a whore get used up, that’s all that left of them.”
“Is that—this kind of work—your only choice?”
Chick shrugged. “Athena, she used a work all day, half the night for people who barely gave her enough to eat. Least here we goin’ somewhere. We ain’t hungry. We better off than most.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“’Sides, I like it when they choose me. The young ones always do. Me and Honey. They likes us best.”
Again, I knew my face had betrayed my thoughts. Chick dropped her gaze and spoke to the ground between our feet.
“Athena say you cain’t know how things is for us. She think you look down on what we do. Think us trash.”
“No, Chick,” I said, touching her hand. “I don’t understand it, but I could never think anything but good of you.” And it was true. Chick was sweet and kind, and despite what I’d just learned, I thought her innocent. Someone who needed to be taken care of. But that was foolish of me, I supposed. It was I who was naive and needed to be cared for.
“You ever work for someone?” she asked.
“For my family but not for anyone else.”
“Folks treat their dogs better than a person who need help. Just cuz we ain’t slaves don’t make us people to them. Aiken, he ain’t good, but he better than a lot. And things gon’ get lots better soon,” she said fiercely. “Now Captain ’round. He give us a place. He take care us.”
“Does he ... own you, as well?”
She shook her head. “I wish he did. First, he didn’t want nothing to do with us, but Aiken, he smart. He show him we be good for the saloon. We be real good. He talk Captain into being partners”
“How?”
“Don’ know. Honey, she think Aiken trick him. She think Aiken cheat him. She say Captain a good man. Not the kind to join the likes of Aiken Tate.”
“If he wasn’t above joining Lonnie and Jake Smith, I don’t think his standards are as high as you imagine.”
“Honey smart. She say he good, he good.”
If I was honest, a part of me agreed.
I asked, “How about the others, Chick? How did they come to be with Aiken?”
Something over my shoulder caught her attention and froze her expression into wide eyes and open mouth. I looked. Athena stood right behind me. Her eyes seemed to blaze with anger as she looked from Chick’s guilty face to mine.
“He comin’,” she said.
I turned around and looked to the horizon. Honey and Meaira did the same. Meaira stood, wringing her hands as she watched. There was a hunger on her pale face that confused me. She looked feverish. The others didn’t seem to notice, nor was there welcome in their seeking eyes or any of the caged excitement that had preceded the Captain’s arrival.
Honey stopped in front of where I sat. “I hope you don’t plan on attacking Aiken like you did the Captain,” she said.
I shook my head.
“That’s good. You don’t want to cross Aiken Tate.”
I set Chick’s dress aside and stood, joining the uneasy vigil that awaited his appearance.
“You do what he tell you,” Athena said, her voice dark as molasses.
I’d prepared myself for a man larger than Sawyer, more menacing than ten Sawyers. But Aiken Tate was a petite, dapper man. He had bright, blue eyes and a smatter of freckles across his nose. He wore a small hat perched jauntily on his head and a three-piece suit in gray pinstripes. He was dusty but looked more a businessman than the devil I’d been warned about.
On a lead attached to his saddle were two other horses that looked to be of stock breeding. Work horses. It made no sense to me why he took them rather than leave them with the wagon, but I had to assume he had a good reason for what he did.
He swung off his horse, and Chick dutifully went to take the reins. Athena had a plate of biscuits and bacon waiting and hurried to serve him. There were no niceties accompanying her efforts, however. Just as there was no string of rabbits for her stew.
Aiken’s gaze buzzed over and lighted on me like a bee to a flower. “Well, well,” he said, smiling to show a mouthful of crooked teeth. Still, there was something vaguely charming about the lopsided smile and the sparkling blue gaze. If it weren’t for the apprehension that seemed to flutter between the other women, I might have liked him on sight. “Who are you?” he asked.
My mouth was dry as I answered. “Ella Beck.”
“Ella. That’s a pretty name for a pretty lady.”
His voice wasn’t deep like Sawyer’s, but it was pleasant. Everything about him was pleasant. “What brings you to our humble quarters, pretty lady Ella?”
“I’m lost. Saw— Captain McCready has agreed to take me to the next town with you.”
Aiken’s smile widened. “The Captain’s a good man.” He looked around, then asked, “Where is he?”
Meaira stepped forward, laying a hand on Aiken’s arm. “He said he’d ride ahead and meet up with us tomorrow. He said we should start as soon as you got here. Did everything go okay in town?”
There was something in the intensity of her gaze that I couldn’t decipher. Aiken
ignored her question as he moved to sit on the crate and eat. I realized that, though at first sight I’d thought him a small man, my impression had been erroneous. He gave the illusion of being slight, but in fact he was of solid build.
Meaira followed him like a dog expecting scraps. “Aiken?” she said, her voice edged with need. “Did ... Do you ...” She couldn’t seem to get it out. Aiken gave her a few more tortured seconds of trying before reaching in his pocket and pulling out a small bottle.
He held it out, but when she reached for it, he pulled it back. “You have to make it last,” he said.
She nodded. “I will. I promise. I will.”
Her eyes fixed intently on the bottle. He held it away for another moment before handing it over. Meaira’s smile lit her face. “Thank you, Aiken.”
Athena said, “Everything ready for us to go.” and gave Meaira a look I didn’t understand.
Aiken nodded. “We got a good twenty-five miles to go today. There’s a boomtown sprung up between here and Diablo Springs. I hear they ain’t seen a woman for months out there. We’ll be more’n welcome to settle in beside them all.” He nodded at Athena. “Get the wagon harnessed and let’s get a move on.”
I saw Meaira disappear into the wagon. After a few moments, she came out again. As I moved to help with the last of the crates, I watched her. She seemed strangely disoriented.
“Laudanum,” Honey said from beside me. “Aiken keeps her stocked.”
As if hearing us, Meaira hung her head and turned away.
We moved out within the half hour. Athena drove the team from the wagon. The rest of us walked alongside. Aiken rode up ahead, leading the way and keeping the pace.
When my family left home, I’d walked then, too. After the first week, my legs had become strong and my body had adjusted to the toil. We’d had to strap my grandma to the back in her chair because the terrain was too rough for her to wheel over. I’d trudged along beside her, describing the scenery for her as we moved forward. She would comment on my description after we passed. It became a game for us, me stretching my mind for new ways to say green or wide-open or breathtaking. Grandma trying to envision it from my narrative alone.
Bad Boys of the Night: Eight Sizzling Paranormal Romances: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 178