Cactus Flower

by Duncan, Alice

  Eulalie huffed once, peeved that such a drastic possibility might eventuate—and all because of a fiend like Gilbert Blankenship—then reminded herself that life was merely life and didn’t have it in for her or Patsy in particular. She said a silent prayer that Edward, if his spirit lingered anywhere, would forgive her and understand.

  Then she fingered her Colt Lightning on the night stand, and made sure her Ladysmith was nearby and her knife in its sheath under her pillow—just in case—and tried to get to sleep again.

  Eventually she did.

  * * * * *

  Long before dawn, Nick was cursing himself as a damned fool. It wasn’t his lookout some prissy city girl was too stupid to prepare herself for rigors of the West before she ventured into it. Miss Eulalie Gibb was nothing to him but a pain in the neck, and here he was, giving up an entire night for her—and without even the benefit of enjoying her favors, if she had any. So far, it didn’t appear likely, although he recalled the softness of her skin and the fullness of her breasts with something damned near akin to longing, idiot that he was.

  And why? Why was he stuck here in the damned hall when he might be home sleeping peacefully—or having a nice romp with Violet? Because he’d succumbed to the irresistible urge to protect a female. Damn it! He’d believed he’d overcome his tendency to harbor chivalrous impulses years earlier. The good Lord knew he’d tried hard enough.

  But no. Here he was, sitting in a hard chair and playing knight in shining armor to protect a female whom he didn’t like and who didn’t like him.

  “Nick,” a thick voice said. “How’s about you take this gold eagle and lemme into that li’l lady’s room for a few minutes.”

  Nick chuffed out an irritated breath. “No can do, Sam. Miss Gibb’s not for sale. I already told you that downstairs.”

  “Aw, Nicky, be a sport.”

  “Get the hell out of here, Sam.” No use being polite. Sam didn’t care, and Miss Gibb wouldn’t appreciate it.

  “But Nicky.”

  Nick allowed the front legs of his chair to hit the floor—he’d been leaning back against the wall, as if that would offer him a measure of physical comfort, which it didn’t—grabbed Sam Bollard by his collar, turned him around, and shoved him back towards the stairs. He didn’t expect he’d have to heave Sam down the stairs as he’d had to do with Gus, because Sam wasn’t as stupid as Gus. After all, Nick had been working as a blacksmith and farrier ever since his father died fifteen years earlier. He had muscles in places Gus hadn’t even heard of, and he was stronger than just about any other man in town except for his uncle Junius.

  Speaking of Junius, Nick hoped Sheriff Wallace would keep him in jail overnight, because Nick couldn’t be in two places at once, and he’d committed himself to playing guard dog for Miss Gibb, fool that he was. If Junius got out of the jug and did something else stupid, he’d be on his own, and Nick owed him too much to be comfortable with that, even though Junius’ inability to handle liquor vexed Nick sometimes.

  When he was sure Sam was gone for good, Nick sat back down in his chair, leaned the back against the wall, and tried to catch a nap. It was a difficult thing to do, and not merely because the chair didn’t make a very good bed. Nick was annoyed with himself because he couldn’t get Eulalie Gibb out of his mind. Actually, it wasn’t his mind that was affected, damn it. And there wasn’t a blasted thing he could do about his state of sustained arousal, either, because he’d been a fool and told Dooley he’d protect the new merchandise.

  Nick couldn’t recall the last time he’d gone and done something so damned stupid.

  “Hey, Nick,” came a whisper from out of the dark. “How’s about you let me see that little gal for a minute or two.”

  Sighing, Nick let the front legs of his chair down, stood, and dealt with another fellow too stupid—or too titillated—to take no for an answer.

  * * * * *

  Since Eulalie couldn’t think of a good reason not to, and she also had ulterior motives, she adopted a cheerful expression when she prepared to leave her room the next morning, praying she’d be able to find another place to stay, and the sooner the better.

  Therefore, she dressed with care, selecting a sober gray gown and pinned a lovely confection of a hat onto her hair. Because she’d read that parasols were a necessity to a lady’s complexion here in the territory, she picked hers up and hung it over her arm. Pausing at the door, she sucked in a deep breath and prepared to greet the day—and whatever else lay in wait to pounce on her out there in the world.

  As she had anticipated, what lay in wait for her was Nick Taggart, leaning back in a hard-backed chair, heavy-eyed, cranky, with his arms folded over his chest, dark stubble decorating his chin, and a frown on his face that made him look as if he’d welcome the opportunity to pounce on someone, most likely her. Eulalie gazed upon him in dismay. If he was as crabby as he looked, her ulterior motive might be difficult to achieve. Nick gazed back at her with antipathy.

  “Oh, my, Mr. Taggart, you look as if you didn’t sleep a wink last night.”

  “I wonder why,” he growled.

  Eulalie felt her lips tighten and endeavored to retain her smile. “I’m very sorry you had such a disagreeable night. Perhaps if you will be kind enough to introduce me to the lady whom you mentioned yesterday, I might make more suitable arrangements for my lodging.”

  “Huh.” The front legs of the chair Nick had been sitting in thumped on the floor, and he rose, frowning magnificently. Slamming his hat on his dark hair, which was mussed this morning, probably because of his disturbed night, he said, “Yeah, I’ll take you there right now,” and held his arm out to indicate the direction in which he expected her to walk.

  If Eulalie had not exactly forgotten overnight what a splendid specimen of masculinity Nick Taggart was, the reality of him made the breath catch in her throat. She didn’t approve of this reaction, and she frantically tried to recall Edward’s classical features to her mind’s eye. She failed, although she did manage to suppress her urge to rise up on her toes, remove Nick’s hat from his head, and run her fingers through his tumbled locks.

  She was only suffering from fatigue, she told herself, although she suspected she might be a victim of self-deception. She suppressed a sigh, “Did you say this woman’s name is Johnson?”

  “Yeah.”

  Eulalie took another deep breath and tried again. “Thank you for guarding my door last night, Mr. Taggart.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”

  He was making it very difficult for her to engage him in polite conversation. She thought perhaps he’d appreciate a bit of humor. “Did you have to throw anyone else down the stairs?”

  “No.”

  Very well. So humor was out. “It was very kind of you to watch out for me.”

  “Huh.”

  Annoying man! Well, Eulalie wasn’t going to let him spoil her day. She hadn’t met a man yet who wasn’t a fool for flattery—except, of course, Edward, who had been perfect in every way. Eulalie thrust aside the niggling voice in her head reminding her that Edward had been a trifle on the spindly side. A man’s physique had nothing to do with his character, she told herself. Nevertheless, judicious appreciation of his musculature might be used to win a man over, if he believed a woman to be enamored of his physical traits. Not that Eulalie would ever be swayed by so unimportant an aspect of a fellow’s makeup as his muscles.

  It was certainly warm in this revolting backwater. Eulalie wished she’d thought to bring along her fan.

  However, that was nothing to the purpose, and she had work to do. Therefore, she said, “I imagine none of the men in town would dare challenge you, Mr. Taggart. You’re so big and strong.” She contemplated batting her eyelashes at him, but decided against it. No matter how much of a rugged westerner Mr. Nick Taggart might be, Eulalie sensed that he was neither stupid nor a man to be easily manipulated by such an overt display of her charms. This was especially true since they hadn’t exactly got off to a go
od start with each other.

  From the way he looked at her, anyone would think she’d just told him to jump out a third-story window—not that there were any buildings that tall in this godforsaken place. “Yeah,” he said. “Right.”

  Eulalie had been through a good deal of late. It had cost her a measure of self-respect to be coy with Mr. Taggart, since coyness was not as much a part of her character as was her sharp tongue. Her temper snapped. “For heaven’s sake, Mr. Taggart, anybody would think I’d spent last night torturing you! Can’t you at least be civil?”

  He eyed her coldly. “Well, now, ma’am, I don’t know. Seems to me you haven’t been awfully civil to me. Until now. I wonder why that is.”

  “It’s because I didn’t realize you were a gentleman until you proved yourself to be one,” she said, lifting her chin and thinking she sounded like an elderly matron from the Upper West Side in New York City.

  “Huh. You don’t believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt, in other words.”

  Lord, no. Giving people the benefit of the doubt had been her and Patsy’s downfall. What she said was, “I’ve discovered it to be prudent to withhold judgment.”

  “That’s crap.”

  They’d been going down the uncarpeted staircase. Eulalie had just hit the bottom step when that comment smote her ear. She whirled around and scowled at him. “Well, really!”

  Nick got to the bottom right after her. “You know I’m right.”

  “I do not!”

  He towered over her, and he was an exceptionally large man. Eulalie wasn’t accustomed to feeling little and fragile, and she didn’t like it. Well, she did like it, but she didn’t like it that she liked it.

  “That’s crap. You didn’t like me from the moment you saw me—and I was trying to help you at the time, too.”

  Eulalie couldn’t bear being loomed over like this. She feared for her self-control. Turning so that she wouldn’t succumb to the temptation to leap upon Nick Taggart and beg him to take care of her, which she knew to be a foolhardy urge if she’d ever had one, she sniffed, whirled around, marched toward the door and said, “If you will recall the circumstances, I don’t believe you can fault me for my leap to judgment.”

  “Huh. I guess I can understand why you might not take to Uncle Junius, although he’s a good fellow once you get to know him, but that was no reason to be mean to me.”

  She felt him there, huge, beside her as she stamped across the scarred wooden floorboards of the Peñasco Opera House, and she spared a moment to be grateful that he was a good influence rather than an evil one. It was difficult enough having an enemy as physically unimpressive as Gilbert Blankenship after one. If Nick wasn’t precisely a friend, at least he wasn’t an enemy.

  The outer door to the Opera House had been shut and bolted sometime during the night, although Eulalie couldn’t imagine when. She knew for a fact, having looked at her bedside clock, that people were still roaming freely after three o’clock in the morning. She paused at the door, glaring at it, wondering how to open it, when Nick pushed past her. He lifted the bolt and shoved, and daylight streamed into the dim interior of the Opera House. Blinking into the sunshine, Eulalie took a deep breath and said, “Thank you, Mr. Taggart.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He pushed one side of the batwings and Eulalie sailed past him out into a new day that she knew from experience would be fraught with fear and frustration. Every now and then she succumbed to the temptation to bemoan her fate. That she did so on this occasion she chalked up to exhaustion.

  Squinting, she hesitated on the wooden boardwalk that had been built along the street on either side, and gazed around her at her new domain. Some domain. The whole place was a study in beige and brown, with the occasional splash of red or blue being worn by a pedestrian. There wasn’t a tree in sight, and the only bushes she saw were grayish green weeds of one sort or another. Eulalie presumed they were examples of some species of the hardy specimens that grew in inhospitable climes. Offhand, she couldn’t recall seeing anyplace quite as inhospitable as Rio Peñasco, although she’d spent most of her days back East, so she had little first-hand experience upon which to draw. She heaved a sigh before she could stop herself.

  “Not what you’re used to,” Nick observed.

  “Um …” Eulalie contemplated lying and decided against it. As she’d observed earlier, Nick wasn’t stupid. He’d surely catch her in the lie, and being the person he was, he’d probably call her on it. These Westerners. So brash. “No, it isn’t. It does have a certain … um … appeal, however.”

  “Yeah?”

  Catching a hint of amusement in the one word, Eulalie tilted her head and peered up at him. She wished she hadn’t when she caught the full glory of his green eyes glinting at her from under the brim of his broad hat.

  Before he could ask her to point out the charms of Rio Peñasco, which she wouldn’t be able to do because it had none, she hurried to forestall him. “Well, I mean, this landscape has such a vastness about it.” That much was true. The fact that she’d prefer her vastness broken here and there by stands of pretty green trees, a little grass, and the occasional bubbling brook, she didn’t let on. “I’ve never seen so much … sky.”

  She felt, rather than heard, his chuckle. It was like a low vibration in the sweltering morning air. “Yeah. We’ve got lots of sky, all right.”

  “Yes.” A fit of candor grabbed her by the tonsils and made her say, “And … honestly, Mr. Taggart, I’ve never been anywhere quite like this. It might take some getting used to.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure it will.”

  He took her arm, making her jump. She hadn’t meant to do that. When she peeked up at Nick again, she was distressed to see that he was frowning.

  “I won’t bite, dang it, Miss Gibb,” he growled.

  “I know that,” she said meekly. “I’m only … adjusting to my new circumstances.”

  “Yeah. Well, if you don’t mind my saying so—”

  Eulalie suppressed the urge to inform him that she undoubtedly would mind him saying so.

  “—it don’t seem to me as to how you planned this jaunt of yours very well.”

  “You have no idea how much preparation went into my decision to come here.”

  “True, but you obviously didn’t expect what you found when you got here.”

  “That’s not so. I had anticipated Rio Peñasco to be rough, Mr. Taggart. I hadn’t expected to be attacked almost the moment I got off the stagecoach, and I hadn’t realized exactly how …” Eulalie searched her brain for words other than bleak, barren and godforsaken. “… how … devoid of plant life the landscape would be.” Or how the wind blew constantly, carrying with it fine grains of grit that sanded the paint off buildings and the skin from delicate eastern cheeks.

  “Yeah, well, people are beginning to plant stuff. Trees and the like. We even have us a few fruit groves close to town.” He sounded a trifle defensive.

  Eulalie seized an idea that had suddenly popped into her head, rather like a gun blast. “Yes! I’m sure that’s so. And when more women move here, I’m sure Rio Peñasco will begin to bloom. Why, I’ve heard that women civilized San Francisco after the Gold Rush a few years ago. I’m sure the same thing will happen here.”

  Silence ensued. Glancing at Nick, she was surprised to see that his nose had wrinkled and he was frowning again. Oh, dear. And here she’d thought her notion so brilliant, too. It was becoming increasingly clear to her that Nick Taggart was unlike any other man she’d ever met, and the realization irked her.

  “Well, Mr. Taggart? I’m sure you can appreciate the civilizing nature of the female of the species. Or are you one of those men who dislike women?” Discouraging thought, especially if she had to enlist his aid.

  “I don’t dislike all women. But I can live without a female’s notion of civilization.”

  Hmm. Interesting. There was probably a story there, although Eulalie knew this wasn’t the time to pursue it. Fe
eling a slight tug of desperation, she asked, “What about Mrs. Johnson? You like her, don’t you?”

  “Sure, I like Mrs. Johnson. But she’s a widow lady with lots of kids to take care of.”

  “How does that make her different from the rest of womankind?”

  He shrugged. “She don’t want anything from me, is all.”

  She stared at him, nonplussed, but didn’t get the opportunity to question him further because at that moment she caught sight of his uncle Junius, and she stiffened, lifted her furled parasol, and prepared to fend him off with it if it became necessary.

  “It’s all right,” said Nick, evidently aware of her preparations. “He won’t hurt you. He’s sober this morning. Hell, he wouldn’t have hurt you yesterday. He only wanted to dance a little.”

  Eulalie was not amused—if his comment had been intended to amuse. She didn’t let down her guard.

  “Nicky!” Junius’ voice boomed through the momentarily still air.

  “Hey, Junius. You feelin’ all right?” Nick didn’t leave Eulalie’s side, but he smiled broadly at his uncle, who appeared a little worse for wear this morning.

  Junius rolled to a stop in front of Nick and Eulalie and whipped off his hat. “Headache is all. Don’t handle my liquor like I used to.” Junius, who was a huge man like his nephew, only a little heavier and with a belly on him, peered at Eulalie, whose every sense was alert. “Is this the young gal I danced with yesterday?”

  “It is.” Nick still grinned.

  She jumped a yard in the air when Junius suddenly stuck out his hand at her. She stared at it for a few seconds, unnerved.

  “I’m mighty sorry, ma’am. I get a snootful and then I feel like dancin’. I didn’t mean to scare you none.”

  It was an apology, however inelegantly presented, and Eulalie was touched. Her nerves still twanging, she took the hand Junius offered. It was a huge hand, and gnarled and tough, with gigantic calluses. Eulalie felt rather as if she were gripping old leather.

  “This here is Miss Gibb, Uncle Junius. Miss Gibb, my uncle. Junius Taggart.”