Bound for Eden

by Tess LeSue

  She broke out in a cold sweat and the knife trembled in her hand. She couldn’t do it. She just didn’t have it in her to murder a man. She pictured Vicky and Adam waiting for her at the fishing hole, huddling together in the darkness as the bullfrogs sang and the mosquitoes whined. If she didn’t kill him now, she would have to sacrifice herself. She clenched her teeth. One thrust and it would be over . . .

  No. She couldn’t. The knife fell from her fingers and she tasted ash. “You win,” she said softly.

  “Oh, Alex.” Silas’s foul mouth crushed down on hers and his disgusting tongue jabbed at her lips. The minute she felt that thick, hot slug of a tongue she came to her senses. Revolted, she spun around and struck out. The fire iron whistled through the air and came down hard on the back of his head. Silas made a grunting sound and then slumped to the ground.

  She heard Gideon closing in, still mocking her with a sound like a squealing pig. Panicked, she ran. Behind her, the black cherry tree had caught and blazed like a roman candle, and there was an almighty crunching noise as the house collapsed in on itself. Sparks flew skyward into the night. There went home.

  Alex ran like the devil himself was after her. She had to find Adam and Victoria and get out of Grady’s Point before Gideon caught up to them. She heard a gunshot echoing through the firelit woods. Never mind getting out of Grady’s Point, they had to get out of the state, maybe even the South. She wouldn’t rest safe until she’d put a thousand miles between herself and Gideon Grady.

  2

  Independence, Missouri

  LUKE SLATER WAS mighty glad to see the dusty streets of Independence. It was a long trip down southeast, and he was ready for a drink and a bath and the soft warmth of a woman. He reckoned this would be his last time out this way. Once he’d picked up the prize stallion he’d come for, he could afford to stay put at home in Utopia. Then he could give Amelia Harding his full attention. It was high time she gave up her coy games and accepted his offer. The house was done now, after he’d worked all winter finishing the interior, and it was the finest house in the whole territory. He pictured her delight when he carried her over the threshold and she finally saw what he’d built for her. He’d even bought genuine lace curtains for the front room, just like the ones her mother had in their parlor. He’d worked his fingers to the bone over the last few years to pay for the best furniture money could buy. And he had every intention of making as much money as he could on this last run so he could hang up his traveling boots for good.

  At the moment, saddlesore and weary, he couldn’t imagine he’d miss the traveling in the slightest.

  He sighed happily as his mare, Isis, threaded her way through the hardpacked-dirt streets. Luke liked the rawness of Independence: the bustle and noise and fuss, the new brick buildings and the mercantile stores bursting at the seams with everything a wagoner could ever need. He passed the courthouse and headed straight for Dolly’s.

  The cathouse was a blaze of light in the dusk. He could hear Dan Bannon banging away at the piano and Dolly herself singing lustily, if a little off-key. He hitched Isis and unbuckled his saddle and bags and hefted them over his shoulder. “Luke!” Dolly hollered the minute she saw him. She jiggled across the saloon and threw herself at him. He struggled to keep hold of his saddle.

  “You said you wouldn’t be back this way for another year,” she said with a mock-scowl, fluttering her spidery lashes at him.

  “I didn’t think I would be,” he replied, gently trying to extricate himself, “but I couldn’t resist bidding on Jackson’s stallion.”

  “How did you hear about that, way out there in the wilderness?”

  “Jackson sent word.”

  “I wondered why he was taking so long to sell,” Dolly said coyly, leading him to the bar, and gesturing at the barman to pour a whiskey. “Everyone knows he could have sold that stallion a dozen times over by now.”

  “If you don’t mind, Doll, a bath would be mighty welcome. Have you got a room free?”

  “Ah, pet, if I’d known you were coming I would have reserved the best. You know you’re always welcome to stay. I’d let you bunk in with me,” she said with a wink, “but even I’m booked tonight. There are two wagon trains leaving tomorrow, so there’s a rush on. Why don’t you sit and wet your whistle and I’ll send my boy around the hotels and boarding houses to find you a room, eh?”

  Luke let Dolly ease him into a chair and press a glass into his hand.

  “I know there’s a game on tonight, if you’re interested? I’d be happy to put in a word and get you a seat at the table, then the minute I have a girl free I can let you know. Unless you’d like a tumble now?” She leaned forward suggestively, revealing the full swell of her impressive bosom. He could see where her powder had collected in the lines of her cleavage.

  “As tempting an offer as that is,” Luke said, taking her hand and pressing a kiss on it, “you know I like to bathe first. I’d hate to have you smelling of sweat and horse afterward.”

  Dolly snorted. “Sweat and horse is sweet compared to some we get around here.” Her gaze flickered to a table in the corner, where two men sat hunched over a near-empty bottle of whiskey. They looked like mean drunks.

  “There are two more of ’em, upstairs with Seline,” Dolly told him in a low voice.

  “You might want to check she’s all right,” Luke suggested dryly.

  “I got the Mexican outside her door. He hears anything he’ll be in there like a shot.”

  Luke raised his glass in salute and drained the fiery spirit.

  Dolly had to leave him for a client, so he sat alone and drank until her boy came back with news of a room.

  “There’s only the common bunkhouse downstairs at Ralph Taylor’s,” the boy huffed, holding out his hands to help Luke with his saddlebags. Luke handed them over and the kid sank under the weight.

  “A bed’s a bed,” Luke sighed, although he’d hoped for something more comfortable than Ralph’s flea-ridden bunks.

  “Mr. Taylor said if he’d a known you was coming he would have saved one of his suites for you.”

  “Suites? That what he calls them poky rooms upstairs?”

  “Yes, sir. And he’s doubled the price since last year.”

  Luke rolled his eyes.

  “There’s so many wagoners, he says, and so few beds. At a premium, Mr. Taylor says, sir.” The boy paused. “What’s premium mean?”

  “It means people want it,” Luke said, stopping by Isis. “You reckon Dolly would stable her for me tonight?”

  “I reckon Dolly would do ‘bout anything for you, Mr. Slater.” The kid grinned. “She says if she weren’t doing so well whoring she’d marry you in a second.”

  “Is that right?” Luke laughed. “Shame for me the whoring is so good, then.”

  The boy wrinkled his nose. “You can do better than her, Mr. Slater, she’s mighty old.”

  Luke gave the boy a gentle kick in the seat of the pants. “Enough prattle, there’s a bath waiting for me.”

  3

  ALEX COULDN’T RESIST trying out her disguise. “Not so pretty now, am I?” she said with a grin.

  “You’ve lost your mind!” Victoria had a death grip on the knob of the rickety iron bedpost. She was trembling so hard the whole bed was shaking, its springs squeaking in protest. Alex wouldn’t be surprised if the racket could be heard throughout the hotel.

  She ignored her overwrought sister, knotting the straps of Adam’s worn denim overalls. Her brother was a good half a foot taller than her, so if she used the buckles the bib would drop down to her waist, revealing the curve of her breasts under the shirt. Once she’d tied the straps it worked fine, the bib sitting high front and back, hiding any trace of her shape. She rolled up the cuffs and examined her boots. They were old and battered, but still clearly feminine. She kicked them off and put on Adam’s big clomping boots instead.
Her feet slid around when she walked, but they were far more convincing.

  “We’ll have to buy me some new boots tomorrow.”

  “You can’t seriously be thinking about going out in public like that!”

  “Of course not.”

  Victoria sagged with relief.

  “You’ll have to cut my hair first.”

  Victoria looked like she was going to throw something. Or faint. “What would Ma and Pa say?”

  “Ma and Pa would say, ‘Hurry up and get out of here before the Gradys catch up to you.’” Alex dug the scissors out of their bundle and snipped them in the air.

  “It’s not right,” Victoria said desperately, tears welling. She’d been crying pretty much continuously since they’d left home.

  “No, it’s not,” Alex agreed, pressing the scissors into Victoria’s hand, “but you’ve seen the posters. That likeness is too close for comfort.”

  They’d first seen the poster in St. Louis. The Gradys were offering an impressive bounty for one Alexandra Sparrow. “But your name isn’t Sparrow,” Adam had said, bewildered, as Alex hurried them to the steamboat that would take them up the Missouri River. Upriver lay Independence, the gateway to the west, the first step on the Oregon Trail. At the end of the Oregon Trail was Stephen Sparrow, their foster brother, the only family they had left in the world. Stephen was Ma and Pa Sparrow’s natural son, their only natural child. Alex, Victoria and Adam were foundlings. Alex had been orphaned when she was eleven, Victoria’s mother had died when she was eight and her father had lit out, leaving her defenseless and alone, and Adam’s family had abandoned him when he was near dead from the fever. The Sparrows had taken each and every one of them in, even though food was scarce and it put a burden on their own small family. Eventually they had adopted Victoria and Adam, but Alex hadn’t wanted to be adopted. She remembered her own parents too well and with too much love to forsake their name.

  Gideon knew she wouldn’t be using the name Barratt. He assumed she’d use Sparrow but she wasn’t stupid enough to use her foster family’s name either, she thought contemptuously. It was a stab in the dark on his part, but the name hardly mattered when there was that likeness of her, and she’d had no doubt the posters would follow her into Missouri. Gideon was no fool. He would have guessed where they were headed. She’d barricaded them in their tiny cabin for the short journey and had their meals delivered to them, and they hadn’t seen daylight again until they disembarked in Independence.

  “Cut it, Vicky,” she ordered softly, turning her back. She closed her eyes as the blades rasped through the thick, golden waves of her hair. It would grow back. And when it was gone she would no longer look like the woman on the posters.

  Alex kept her hands clenched as her beautiful hair piled up around her feet. Finally, the last clump fell and Victoria put down the scissors. Alex examined the result in the flyspecked mirror. She felt a pang at the sight of her naked neck. Victoria had left a thick mop on top, which flopped over her eyes in messy curls, hiding a lot of her face. Her skin was still dirty from the dusty streets. At a glance she’d pass for a boy, wouldn’t she? She took a deep breath. “I suppose we’d best test it.”

  “Test it?” Victoria’s voice cracked. “You don’t mean to go out like that?”

  “That was the point of the exercise,” Alex said dryly. “Don’t fret, I won’t leave the hotel. I’ll just go down and ask where we go to buy a wagon.”

  “At least take Adam with you.”

  “No,” Alex said firmly, stopping Victoria from waking Adam, who was snoring happily on the bunk in the corner of their “suite.” “You can wake him if I’m not back in half an hour.”

  Alex closed the door on Victoria’s hand-wringing and pulled Adam’s saggy brown hat down over her freshly chopped hair. Struggling to walk in Adam’s boots, she clomped down the stairs. She tripped over her feet on the final step and went flying into a youth who was standing by the front desk.

  “About time,” the boy snapped, shoving her back onto her feet. “Where’s Mr. Taylor? Don’t worry, Mr. Slater,” he called across the entry hall, “this must be his new boy. Every week he’s got a new one. No one wants to stay in this filth for long.”

  “Tell him to get me a bath ready.”

  “Yes, sir. You heard him.” The boy gave Alex a shove toward the corridor. “Go heat some water.”

  Alex cleared her throat and tried to lower her voice. “I ain’t Mr. Taylor’s boy.” Her voice came out husky and uncertain and, to Alex’s ear at least, not at all boyish.

  “You ain’t?” The boy looked suspicious.

  Alex shook her head. “I’m a guest.” This time she thought she sounded more convincing.

  The boy looked Alex up and down in disbelief, taking in the rumpled clothes and dirty face. Alex couldn’t help tugging nervously at the overalls.

  The man silhouetted by the open door sighed and reached into his pocket. “I don’t care whose boy you are. I’m tired and I want a bath.” He took a coin from his pocket and flipped it at Alex. She fumbled to catch it and it fell to the floor, where it circled lazily before dropping with a clatter by the scuffed toe of her brown boot.

  She gaped down at Seated Liberty, glinting in the lamplight. A whole dollar? For drawing him a bath? The man must be a fool. Either that, or a very rich man indeed. Despite the bag of gold hidden in her luggage, Alex couldn’t resist picking up the coin. She was done with being penniless. She tucked the coin into her pocket.

  “Where’s the washroom?” she asked.

  The boy gave her a disgusted look and pointed. Alex headed off without looking back to see if either of them followed her.

  “I’ll go back and take care of your horse, Mr. Slater,” she heard the boy say.

  The washroom was outside, across the dirt courtyard. There was a stove burning in a corner of the room, but otherwise it was dark. Alex hurried to light the lamps and then she busied herself stoking the fire. There was a barrel of almond shells and pinecones and a stack of kindling, so it didn’t take her long to have the stove glowing red.

  As she worked the man came in and dropped his saddle and baggage on the dirt floor. He groaned as he sat down on the rough-hewn wooden bench. When she heard him take his boots off her stomach clenched. Good Lord, he wasn’t going to undress now, was he? Her eyes widened in panic. She’d thought to fill the tub and leave before he disrobed.

  “I’ll just get the water,” she mumbled, leaving without looking at him. She didn’t want him to see her flaming face. She busied herself pumping water and setting it on the stove and never once looked his way.

  “You’re a wagoner?” he asked her as she watched the stove anxiously, waiting for signs of a bubble.

  “A what?” She couldn’t help it: she looked at him. And gaped.

  There in front of her, half-naked, was the most incredible man she’d ever seen. She’d thought Silas Grady was big. But this man . . . he seemed immense in the small washroom. His shoulders stretched beyond the width of the doorframe and she couldn’t look away from the expanse of his chest. Which wasn’t surprising, she thought dumbly, as he wasn’t wearing a shirt and she’d never seen so much naked flesh in her life.

  His skin shone like oiled rosewood, a burnished warm brown, stretched taut over hard lengths of muscle. A faint black line of hair ran between his nipples and down his flat, firm stomach.

  He cleared his throat and she was suddenly aware that she was staring. She tore her gaze from his body and made herself look at his face.

  And, oh glory, that didn’t help at all.

  The man was simply perfect. His forehead was broad, his jaw square, his nose straight, and he had the most beautiful lips she’d ever seen. The blue-black shadow of stubble only served to emphasize the masculine strength of his beauty. He looked the way Lucifer must have looked, she thought witlessly: a dark angel. His hair was the ric
h, deep shade of damp Mississippi earth, and his eyes were black and liquid—not still, but turbulent, like a flooding river. She felt as though she might drown in them.

  “I know you’re not mute,” he said, his voice low and rough.

  Alex swallowed hard and tried to find her tongue, although she still couldn’t look away from those intense black eyes.

  “Sorry, what was your question?” Her voice came out at its natural pitch and she saw his eyebrows rise. Startled from her stupor she blushed and tore her gaze away from him, using all her willpower to keep her eyes trained on the tips of her boots.

  “I asked whether you were a wagoner.”

  “A wagoner?” This time her voice cracked.

  He sighed impatiently. “Are you heading west? With a wagon train?”

  “Oh! Yes, sir . . . I mean, that is, we aim to . . .”

  “The water’s boiling,” he said, nodding toward the vigorously bubbling pot and cutting off her babble.

  Relieved, she took it from the stove and filled the tin tub. She was only too aware of his black gaze and almost tripped over her own feet in the process. Catching herself against the doorframe, she blushed furiously. In order to give herself a chance to regain her composure, she hurried out to the pump for a bucket of cold water to balance the temperature in the tub.

  She was alarmed to find him unbuckling his belt when she returned. She dumped the last bucket of water in the tub as quickly as she could, sending splashes onto the dirt, and backed toward the door.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked. “I didn’t pay you a dollar so I could clean up after myself.”

  “You want me to wait?” Alex squeaked.

  “I want you to heat some water for me to wash my hair, and strop my razor for me so I can shave. Then you can rustle me up a towel and clean up the bath when I’m done.”

  Alex was sorely tempted to throw the dollar back at him and run for her room. But his breeches fell to the floor and she couldn’t breathe, let alone move. She’d had no idea . . .