But of course he would want to return to his home in Smoke River.
“Are you married?” she blurted out.
He settled his green eyes on hers and in their depths she saw an unnerving combination of pain and hunger. “Was once. She was killed.” Then the curtain dropped over his expression, shutting her out.
For the second time in the last twenty-four hours, Caroline could think of nothing to say.
“Got any more questions?” He signaled for the waitress.
She shook her head, feeling her color rise.
“Good, because I’ve got a couple. First, what the hell are you doing this speech stuff for?”
“I told you, I am campaigning to give women the vote.”
“No, I mean why are you doing this? Why are you risking your life to make speeches?”
Caroline exchanged a look with Fernanda. She could evade the question. Prevaricate, or just plain lie. Or she could tell him the truth. Before she could open her mouth, he spoke again.
“I know your father bullied your mother,” he said. “You explained that in your speech at the church in Gillette Springs. Is that it?”
“N-no. At least that’s not all of it.” Under the high collar of her blue dress she felt her throat close.
The waitress approached, pad and pencil in her hand. Rivera ordered steak, rare. Fernanda ordered the same. Caroline couldn’t make a sound.
“You hungry?” he murmured.
She nodded, her cheeks burning.
“She’ll have a steak, medium rare. And some…tea?”
Again she nodded. Fernanda touched her hand. “Hija, you do not need to answer the questions. Does she, señor?”
Hawk shook his head. “No, she doesn’t. Everyone’s got a right to a private life.”
“Even you, señor,” Fernanda pointed out with a twinkle in her black eyes. “But you will tell us why you look angry when you talk to Mr. Paine?”
Hawk blew out a long breath. “I want—wanted—Will Paine to take you on to Idaho.”
“And he cannot,” Fernanda pressed. “So you are angry with him. And that is because?”
Hawk couldn’t begin to answer that question. Because he wanted to go back to Smoke River, back to peace and quiet in the little town he’d sought out to heal the festering wound in his soul. Because he didn’t want to be responsible ever again for someone that meant anything to him.
Aw, hell, why not admit it. Because he didn’t want to see Caroline get hurt.
Supper didn’t improve his outlook. The steak was fork-tender, the apple pie was succulent and the coffee hot and strong, but still everything seemed wrong. Out of kilter. He’d lugged his saddlebag with him into the hotel, but inside he had only one clean shirt and a pair of drawers, plus three boxes of cartridges and a hunk of jerky. If he was gonna spend another night sleeping in the same room with Caroline and Fernanda, he needed a bath and some clean clothes.
They hadn’t objected to sharing the room with him last night, but tonight he was dirtier and sweatier and so tired that rolling himself up in a quilt and sleeping on the floor in front of the door held less appeal, especially when a nice soft bed sat just six feet away.
Both Caroline and Fernanda had been quiet throughout the meal, Fernanda absorbed in her steak and Caroline because she couldn’t seem to relax. She fiddled with her knife, her fork, her teacup, even the buttons on her blue dress. Maybe she was uneasy about the sleeping arrangements? She hadn’t seemed to mind his presence last night in Gillette Springs, but she’d just had the spit scared out of her by that note.
Or maybe she was scared about tomorrow. She was making another damned speech at ten o’clock, this time at some ladies’ auxiliary hall down the street from the hotel. He drank the last of his coffee and studied her face.
Hell, she looked nervous already. At the church the other night she’d looked cool and composed right up until she got that note. Now she looked like she had a case of stage fright so bad it would freeze up Sarah Bernhardt.
He wanted to know why. Why did she persist when she was clearly frightened? He wanted to know a lot of things. Women were so unexplainable it was a wonder a man ever got close enough to marry one.
The sound of guitars and banjos and a violin drifted from the ballroom. Then a low thump sounded, and Will Paine got up and went off to “keep order,” Hawk guessed. When he heard another thump and then a pistol shot, his first impulse was to back the man up. But his second impulse was stronger: sit tight and make sure no one got within striking distance of the two females under his care.
Another pistol shot went off, and Caroline jumped and hissed air into her lungs. He looked at her face and swore under his breath. She’d turned another pasty shade of white.
“You about ready to turn in?”
She was out of her chair before he could set his coffee cup down. He tossed bills onto the table, tore after her and caught her at the doorway.
“Wait up,” he ordered. “You don’t go anywhere without me, remember?”
Caroline halted. “Oh. I was in such a hurry I forgot.” Well, no, she hadn’t forgotten, exactly. It was just that she could not sit still when a gunshot sounded, even with Hawk Rivera at her elbow.
Oh, Mama, were you this frightened? How strong and calm you always seemed.
And her mother had not had Hawk Rivera protecting her. She wondered if it would have made a difference.
He took her arm and kept her close at his side, so close she could feel his chest move in and out with each breath. For one insane moment she wanted to turn into his arms and press her face to his chest, listen to his heartbeat. While her own pulse was ragged, she was sure his would be strong and steady.
She shook herself out of the thought and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. The dance music grew fainter as they climbed the three sets of stairs up to the hotel room. When he unlocked the door, Fernanda marched inside, spun, and pointed to Hawk’s dusty leather saddlebag in the corner.
“You have clean clothes?”
“Yeah. What I’ve got on me could stand up all by themselves.”
“Then take them off. I go find a basin to wash.”
“No.” He blocked the doorway. “I’ll have a bathtub sent up, one for you and Caroline, and another for me and my clothes.”
“Ah, no, señor. Is not proper.”
“Proper! Hell, I haven’t let either one of you out of my sight for two solid days, what’s ‘proper’ got to do with it?”
Fernanda set her hands on her hips. “Is not proper for a man to wash his own clothes.”
“Señora, I’ve been a bachelor for twelve years. That’s a lot of laundry.”
“And no woman, eh?”
“No woman.”
Caroline ducked her head to hide the smile she couldn’t hold back. No woman. No woman.
Oh, for pity’s sake what was wrong with her? She didn’t care if he had a dozen women, which he no doubt had, looking the way he did. A more ruggedly handsome man she had never seen.
And a more foolish girl you have never met. She and Hawk Rivera were as different as horses and cheese.
“Go, then,” Fernanda said to him. “Tell them to bring soap, also. Pretty smelling.”
Hawk groaned, and Caroline tamped down an unexpected spurt of laughter.
Four giggling Mexican hotel maids hauled in the two bathtubs and filled them with buckets of steaming water. Hawk discreetly withdrew to the hallway, where he walked up and down, listening to the feminine squeals and laughter floating out of the room. God, a woman sure liked to splash around in a tub of water.
He tried to keep his mind on the pattern in the carpet under his feet, on the rose-flowered wallpaper covering the walls, on anything but Caroline’s slim body naked in a bathtub.
Didn’t work. When Fernanda summoned him with a whispered “Your turn, señor,” he was hard as Texas granite.
Inside, Caroline was drying her long hair with a towel while Fernanda soused some garm
ents up and down in their used bathwater. Small garments. She had strung up a makeshift clothesline with a length of grocery string, and when she started hanging up the wet clothes he noted what they were: lacy camisoles. Pantalets with ruffles. Two petticoats and a corset cover with an embroidered rosebud in the center. His hard-on got a lot harder.
“Now you, señor.”
He dropped his gun and holster on the floor where he stood and started to undo his belt, then paused. “I allowed you ladies some privacy—how about you doing the same for me?”
Caroline sent him a quick glance, but Fernanda grinned at him. “You do not mind if we are wander outside alone?”
“Forget it,” he amended. “You don’t go anywhere unless I can see you.”
The Mexican woman blinked. “Even to the necessary? Is just down the hallway, señor.”
“I’ll go with you. Either that or use the chamber pot.”
Caroline turned scarlet.
He unhooked his belt buckle. “Turn around, both of you.”
They about-faced so fast he’d swear they had military training. But not military discipline. The minute he splashed into the tub, Fernanda pounced on his clothes and tossed them into the other tub. Caroline kept her back to him.
He slid down to rest his neck on the metal edge and closed his eyes. A bathtub was one of the seven wonders of the world.
He massaged his wounded arm, assuring himself it was just a flesh wound and that it wasn’t getting infected, then slapped a soapy cloth all over his body. Lilac scent bloomed under his nose. Ladies’ scent. Caroline’s scent. God. He hoped neither of them could see his privates through the bathwater.
He rinsed off and stood up to find Fernanda pinning his laundered shirt and drawers to the clothesline. He toweled himself dry, suddenly wondering what Caroline would think of his scarred body, the chest wound he’d taken two years ago, the parallel knife slashes across his midriff.
Her voice jarred him. “Are you decent?” she asked. “May I turn around now?”
“Not yet.” He walked to his saddlebag and pulled out his remaining clean shirt and a pair of drawers. He’d just finished buttoning his trousers when Fernanda gave a little yip.
“Ay de mi, señor. You are muy cut up!”
Before he could get his shirt closed, Caroline spun around, a hairbrush clutched in her hand. “Have you been wounded before? In the War?”
“One war,” he gritted. “And one private fight.” He wished she hadn’t seen his bare chest. It was easier to pretend it had never happened when the scars were hidden under a layer of clothing.
But she had seen, and the look on her face stopped his breath. “Is—is that what a gunshot wound in the chest looks like?”
“Somewhat. This one’s mostly healed over.”
“My God. Oh, my God.” She dropped the hairbrush and hid her face in her hands.
“What?” He reached her in two steps. “What is wrong?”
“Tell him, mi corazón. Tell him.”
“I can’t,” she said, her voice muffled.
“Tell me what?” Hawk demanded. He grasped her shoulders and gave her a little shake. “Tell me what?”
Silence. He could hear her uneven breathing, feel her body tremble under his hands. And, goddamn, he could smell the lilac scent of her hair.
“Señor, do not ask her this thing. She is not yet ready to speak of it.”
Hawk felt like a coal shovel had been whacked over his skull. He wanted to pick her up and hold her in his arms and never let go.
She broke away and perched on the edge of the bed. Very slowly she lifted her face and looked at him. “I am speaking tomorrow. I am trying very hard to not be afraid.”
“The hell you are,” he snapped out.
“Speaking? Or afraid?” Her voice was calm, but her widened deep blue eyes were frightened.
“Don’t do it,” he said. “Don’t give your damn speech.”
“I must.” And then she sent him that little smile that made mincemeat of his insides. “And it is not a ‘damn speech.’”
He couldn’t stand looking at her one more minute. Instead he went over to the window and peered down at the street below. Dressmaker. Sheriff’s office. Mercantile. Red Rooster Saloon. Another saloon. He wondered where Overby was. Was Oakridge his final destination?
He didn’t like the man. Didn’t trust him. For all Hawk knew, Overby could have tipped off someone when they stopped for the meal at the Tumbleweed way station. The thought ate at him.
Finally he grabbed the quilt off the other bed, checked his revolver and laid the rifle down next to the far wall. Then he rolled himself up in the soft blanket, squashed his saddlebag under his head for a pillow and tried to sleep.
With his eyes closed, every sound in the room inflamed his imagination: Fernanda’s humming, her shoes hitting the floor, the sound of the bedsprings when she settled down. But there wasn’t a sound from Caroline.
Had she undressed? Slipped into the bed by the window? Or was she still sitting on the edge of the mattress, drying her hair? He cracked one lid open.
Her back was toward him, her arm lifting and dropping, slowly pulling the hairbrush through the thick, dark waves. At the end of each stroke she smoothed her other hand down the entire length, and then repeated the motion. Watching her was unsettling. Arousing. He ground his teeth and shut his eyes.
Fernanda’s humming lapsed into light snores, and still Caroline made no sound—no petticoat rustles, no shoe dropping onto the carpet. What the hell was she doing, just sitting there staring out the window?
The glass lamp cover scraped and a breath puffed out the light. And then nothing.
“Caroline?” He spoke quietly so Fernanda wouldn’t wake up.
“Yes?”
“Are you all right?”
There was a long, long pause before she answered. “I will be. It is always hard at night when I start to remember…things.”
Hawk sat up. “What things?”
She didn’t answer. After a while he heard the swish of bedcovers.
It took a long time before her breathing evened out and deepened into sleep. Hawk lay back down, puzzling over the hollow feeling that bloomed deep in his gut.
Chapter Nine
I am worry for my lady. She is good soldier, but she is a woman, not a soldier. She think she must do this thing, and she is right maybe, but the risk, it is great.
This man, Señor Hawk, try to protect her. I pray to the Virgin every night he will do so, but my lady she is stubborn like bull, even though she look like delicate butterfly.
Each day I grow older by ten years. When we reach the end of this journey, my hair it will be white like albino goat. Ay de mi, what a hard thing this is to watch.
Caroline inspected her face in the mirror mounted in the back room of the Oakridge Ladies Auxiliary hall. And scrunched her eyes shut. She looked ravaged. Dark circles spread like bruises under her eyes and her skin was so devoid of color she looked like a ghost.
Despite Hawk’s advice, she had pinned her hair in the usual bun at her neck. Her concession to looking “softer,” as he had suggested, was the yellow calico skirt and ruffled shirtwaist she now wore. There shouldn’t be many men at an auxiliary meeting, so it wouldn’t really matter how she dressed.
She wiped her damp palms down the sides of her skirt, straightened her shoulders and stepped out into the hall. Fernanda planted her plump form at her side. Sheriff Will Paine stood in the back, collecting the weapons from the few men as they entered.
Hawk stepped in front of her and signaled that all was clear. He was carrying his rifle, she noticed. She knew she would be protected, but fear lay sour in the pit of her stomach and she had to keep swallowing to forestall the nausea that threatened.
Mama must have had nerves like iron railroad spikes. She sucked in air, moved into the hall and faced her audience.
A sea of placards waved. WOMEN STAND UNITED. VOTING RIGHTS ARE SACRED. DOWN WITH MALE DOMINATION.
She made her way toward the raised platform amid a spattering of applause, but when she saw there was no lectern to position herself behind, her step faltered. She would be dreadfully exposed. She glanced at Hawk, saw his gaze scan the area where she would stand, and after a moment he nodded at her.
She walked forward, ascended the single step and moved to the center of the platform. Then she turned and smiled at the crowd.
Hawk placed himself two steps behind her and slightly to the left, keeping his lifted rifle visible this time to get the message across: harm her and you won’t live to tell about it.
He studied the men in the audience, caught Will Paine’s eye and raised his eyebrows. Will gave him a lazy thumbs-up. Hawk prayed the sheriff had confiscated all the weapons without missing any.
Caroline began to speak, keeping her voice calm and even, without even a tremor to reveal how frightened she was. Hawk knew she was terrified because the hands she clasped behind her back were shaking like aspen leaves in a breeze.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming to hear my views on why women should be allowed to vote.” She paused and swallowed.
“We’re waitin’, honey,” a man called from the back. “We ain’t convinced, are we, gents?”
A chorus of No’s rolled over her.
“Well, then, gentlemen, I shall try to convince you. Did you know that when a woman marries, all her property, money in her bank account, a house, farmland, even the clothes on her back no longer belong to her? What she once owned now belongs to her husband.”
“Huh! That why you ain’t hitched, lady?”
Hawk winced. Some men sure liked hitting below the belt. But he hadn’t realized that a man owned a woman’s property no matter what.
“No, it is not,” she countered. “My marital preference is not at issue here. The issue here is fairness. The truth is, gentlemen, that women are not a race to be subjected, to be turned into slaves. A women is your equal.”
“Not hardly!” someone yelled.
“Why not?” a woman screamed in answer. “I’m just as smart as you!”
Another woman in a pink gingham dress shot to her feet. “I work just as hard as any man. Harder, if you count havin’ babies.”
Her Sheriff Bodyguard Page 6