by Martha Hix
“Oooh, wee!” shouted Geoff. “Puddin’ wit’ berries on da top. Oooh, wee.”
Upon getting a smell of and a gander at all that heavenly milk, the usually independent Electra compromised her principles, twining herself around Braxton’s ankles, her whiskers upturned as if to say, “Big boy, how about sharing some with li’l ole me?”
He pointed an udder at her. She lapped appreciatively. Skylla laughed, so did Geoff and Braxton when Electra caught a stream in her eye and huffed off with feline indignation. Skylla couldn’t recall the last time she’d really, really laughed. She’d thought she’d forgotten how.
On a forward step she bent closer. “This is fun!”
“I aim to please,” he said, a sensuous pitch to his voice that sent Skylla’s nerve endings to tingling.
He lifted his eyes to her. His lashes were thick, long, and much darker than his gold-shot head of hair ought to allow. Brax’s big hand moved up Bossy’s tricolored coat, patting and petting as he went. The cow leaned into his hand. And Skylla had the most sinfully luscious desire.
She wished his hand would caress her.
Sitting under a magnolia tree and finishing off the strawberries she’d found picked in the cookhouse, Kathy Ann said to Electra, who was dining on a scorpion, “I want to talk about the soldier. I sure like his looks. Why shouldn’t I have him? What’s so special about Skylla or Claudine? Skylla’s an old gimp. And Claudine’s just old. She’s had enough husbands. It’s my turn. I’m old enough.”
Finished with her feast, the calico licked her whiskers and crawled onto Kathy Ann’s lap.
Pleased at being the person Electra trusted, Kathy Ann stroked an appreciative chin. “Lots of girls in Mississippi marry young. Not from the plantation class, of course. Doesn’t that sound just like Claudine, plantation class? Who cares about any old plantations? I want something different.”
Maybe she could get the soldier to take her away, somewhere nice. Say, California. She’d read about that faraway land in a storybook, and a hankering like nobody’s business had been after her ever since.
“I wonder if he’s heard of California, Electra?” She frowned. “If he has, he wouldn’t remember it right now. All he does is gaze like a lovestruck puppy at Skylla. She makes me sick. What a goody-goody. ”
Kathy Ann was jealous that her sister had all the luck, when she had none. course, Claudine’ll tear into sister over the sergeant before it’s all said and done. You wait and see. Then we’ll see who’s lucky.”
Her gaze on line with the cat, she caught sight of the soldier’s boots as he walked up. She looked up to see him frowning, just as Ambrose had frowned. Like a father.
“Girl, what are you doing lollygagging? You haven’t earned the right to sit around. Find Skylla. She’ll need your help with supper.”
“Quit ordering me around.” She gifted him with the sort of face most often seen in a schoolyard. He put his hands at his hips and got all aggravated. “Why are you scowling at me?” she asked. “Are you still mad because I tricked you yesterday?”
His feet spread, he bent forward and rested both hands on his thighs. Glaring, he replied, “I’m not mad at you. But let’s get something straight, little girl. Don’t mess with me.”
“Why don’t you give me a kiss, and we’ll talk about it?”
“Not interested. I don’t kiss children.”
“Oh? You were ready to marry me yesterday.”
“I’m doing the talking. You listen. And you listen closely.” He pointed at her. “Mention five thousand dollars one more time in front of Skylla, or your mother, and I will throw you down the well.”
“Have you done stuff like that a lot? Are you cruel to girls?”
“I’m willing to start with you.”
“Skylla will run you off if you aren’t nice to me. So there!”
“Don’t press your luck. If I catch” His expression got tight before he said, “Wait a minute. What’s on your mouth? It’s red.”
“These lips are ripe and ready for kisses.”
He got in her face, but not for kisses. “Listen closely. If I catch you talking to your mother and sister like you did last night, bet your britches you’ll know worse than the bottom of a well.”
“Oh, really? Do you think you can catch me?” She pushed herself to her feet and shoved her palms on his chest. Giggling and picking up her skirts, she spun around to run away. He caught her before she took five running steps, and when he pulled on her arm to spin her around, she yelped in pain and kicked his shin. “Let me go, bad man!”
“Quit acting like a spoiled brat and I will.”
She stopped struggling.
“Thank you,” he said. “Now go to the kitchen. Skylla needs your help. She’s cooking a”-he smiled and his eyes got soft—“blancmange with strawberry sauce.”
Strawberry sauce. Oh, no! Kathy Ann felt shame, for she’d eaten every last one of the berries. She bolted, running past the stables and toward the creek. At the edge she kicked pieces of deadwood and small rocks, sending them airborne. Nobody loved her. Nobody had ever loved her. Except Electra. Claudine and Skylla, they were obligated. Kathy Ann needed love.
It was at that moment she saw three Indians atop ponies. She recognized Stalking Wolf, fierce young leader of the Comanches, and his braves, Black Sky and Head Too Big.
Naked as worms, their skin like copper pennies, the chief and his braves were on the other side of the creek. Their black hair having grown to their shoulders, and with feathered spears in their hands, they looked exactly like what they were.
Savages.
Were they? Emil Kreitz, the grocer in Ecru, had told her that during the republic days a young girl had been captured by the Comanches—and she’d turned happy. Cynthia Ann Parker had been torn from her Injun husband, returned to the white world, and she’d died of grief. The Comanches couldn’t be all bad.
How would Stalking Wolf treat a wife? Well, he couldn’t own a broom closet to lock up a wife when she was bad.
The Injun chief kneed his pony, and horse hooves slashed water as he started across the creek. Kathy Ann didn’t scream. She had the urge to stay put. She liked danger. And she wanted to ask him about Cynthia Ann Parker.
The closer Stalking Wolf got, the less adventurous she felt. She whirled around, running as fast as her legs could carry her. Never once did she glance back, for fear of losing ground. It seemed like forever before she gained the ranch.
Goody. She was safe.
As she exhaled, Geoff sashayed from the barn and over to her. “Anythin’ da matter, Miss Kathy Ann?”
“Nothing!” She pushed him out her way. “Go ’way, you little black raisin. Go ’way before I box your ears.”
Busy making up her mind, she chewed a fingernail. Why mention the Injuns to her elders? Maybe Claudine or Skylla would venture into the woods . . . and get captured. Then Sergeant would be Kathy Ann’s.
Her big grin collapsed when her sister stepped in front of her, the soldier at her side.
Suspicion in her brown eyes, Skylla asked, “Did you do something with the strawberries?”
“I ate them.”
“You little fiend—”
“No, Braxton, no.” Skylla took his hand. “They’re only strawberries. We still have the blancmange.”
At dinner, Claudine couldn’t care less about sweets. She had an awful feeling. She feared Brax found Skylla attractive, even though he was obviously angry that she hadn’t scolded Kathy Ann over the strawberries. Would the incorrigible imp provide the link to bond Skylla and Brax together?
If he married Skylla, where would that leave a redhead with too many years and too few prospects?
If you don’t watch your p’s and q’s, you’ll end up the pitiable old auntie to their brats. Never! When Brax Hale begat children, Claudine would make certain they were hers.
Eating dinner, Brax ignored the changeable redhead, and stewed over the strawberry incident. He’d be damned if he could understand why Skylla coddled the fi
end. Once he was legal head of this family, Kathy Ann would change—or the sun wouldn’t set in the west!
“Dis am nice smothered steak,” Geoff complemented.
“Mr. Main provided us with a cut of beef,” Skylla said. “Thank you, Mr. Main.”
Charlie Main belched in reply.
Kathy Ann rolled her eyes and chowed down.
“You never said anything about the roasts I provided.” Claudine didn’t cotton to having attention centered on anyone else, but who the hell cared what that twit thought?
Charlie Main pushed his plate toward the center of the table and stood up. “I’m going to bed.”
No doubt to down the jug of moonshine Brax had promised as a reward for the ranch hand’s afternoon of butchering, carrying water, and chopping wood.
Once the main course was through, Brax didn’t tarry. Certainly he didn’t hang around for blancmange. He made for the bunkhouse, his partner behind him. As the Hale men prepared to bunk down for the night, Main already snored on his cot.
Geoff shook the empty crockery. “He drank the jug dry.”
“I watered it down.” Brax glanced at the sleeping cowhand. “He hasn’t done an honest day’s work in who-knows-when. He’s out like a light.”
Geoff rolled a shoulder. “Won’t take much to rock me to sleep, Bubba.”
“Tell me about it,” Brax concurred.
“I thought we weren’t going to do much work.”
“What else can we do?” He turned up his palm. “I can’t sit around and watch Skylla work like a section hand.”
“You’re getting sweet on the lady. Next thing, you’ll hem and haw about running out on her.”
“I won’t.” Skylla had gotten in over her head with this place, but in an easier setting, she’d do just fine. “She can take care of herself. She’s a scrappy woman.”
“You shore gots eyes fo dat crippled girl. Pappy, Mammy, and a hound dawg answerin’ ta Sammy, you does.”
“Cut it out.” He eyed Main again, to be certain of confidentiality. “Before we got here I told you not to use that field-hand patter, but it’s been thicker than ever. If those ladies find out you’re fooling them, we’re in deep shit.”
“We may be in it already.” Geoff sat down on his cot, leaning his back against the log wall. “The redhead knows I’m a fraud.”
“What does she know?”
“The usual. Very little.”
Brax hooked his shirt on a peg. “Keep it that way.”
“I will.” A pause. “What if you get so fond of Miss Skylla’s, um, biscuit-making that you get an idea to stay put?”
“That won’t happen.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it, Bubba, my man. I think you might forget California altogether.”
“Wrong.”
“You may claim to want your pound of flesh, but—”
“Pound of flesh?” Brax cut in. “I’m not after revenge. I want . . .” His voice trailed off as he came to grips with his intentions. “You’re right. I was after vengeance. I wanted a St. Clair to pay for Vicksburg . . .”
“You speak in the past tense.”
Brax realized he had spoken as if his feelings had changed. Perhaps they had. That was the frightening part.
“I don’t want to hurt Skylla,” he admitted and felt better for it. His irritation over the strawberries vanished as he considered that decent and fine woman. “I ought to do right by her.”
“Then we’re making a home here?”
“Not a chance. But I’ll do something to help Skylla get a new start in the town of her choice.”
“Watch your back in the meantime, Bubba. That Claudine isn’t to be trusted. She’s one conniving redhead. Already, she’s cornered me. I think she figures to set me against you.”
“I don’t need to tell you how to handle her.”
“That you don’t, Bubba. That you don’t.”
Needing a breath of air, Brax quit the log cabin and wished he could lose himself in a fine cigar. He ambled past the ranch house and outbuildings, and had every intention of soaking his feet in Topaz Creek. Someone had beat him there. A woman strolled along the bank in the moonlight, her head down and her arms crossed under her breasts.
Skylla.
She looked like an angel, decent and pure, what with the silver of moonlight spilling down on her; Brax gazed upon her almost with awe. He cut the gap between them.
Eight
“Evening,” Brax drawled as he approached Skylla in the moonlight, the sounds of night around them.
She said hello, her eyes on his bare chest. He liked her looking at him. She needed to start thinking of him as a man, which would be the next step in getting her to the altar.
“Mind if I join you for your walk?” he asked.
“I’d be delighted.”
They strolled along the creek bank for five, maybe ten minutes. Then he lent a hand to seat her on a cypress log. She stared at him. He did the same to her. Sitting down beside her, Brax warned himself off putting his arm around her.
When she spoke, she was all business. “I’m amazed you’ve gotten Charlie Main to work. He has a reputation for laziness. I had grave doubts this morning. Tonight is a different story. You’ve had no trouble encouraging him. You are”—her heart-shaped face brightened into a moonlit smile—“you’re amazing.”
Brax took pride in her praise, but . . . “I didn’t come out here to talk about Main.”
“You’re still upset about the strawberries. Please forgive Kathy Ann. She didn’t know we had plans for them.”
“She knew you didn’t pick them for the fun of it.”
Skylla sighed, a mixture of weariness and frustration. “She craves attention, any attention, even the wrong kind.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Kathy Ann is, was . . . illegitimate. You see, her mother was once Ben Lewis’s kept woman, but they had a falling out. She gave birth in New Orleans. Yvette, Kathy Ann’s mother, turned to prostitution.” Skylla had no trouble saying the word usually whispered by women. “But she did more than sell her body. Yvette neglected her daughter. Many times Kathy Ann was locked in a closet. For various reasons.”
“Sounds rough,” Brax murmured, not unaffected.
“I don’t know all the particulars, but I do know the police found Kathy Ann in a locked closet. She’d been there for days. Her mother was dead on a bed. Kathy Ann hadn’t met her father, but she knew his name. Ben and Claudine took her in.
“My sister is a very troubled girl. And I don’t want her to run away again.”
“Again?”
“Yes. She’s prone to taking flight. I won’t chance her running into trouble, especially not here on the wild frontier.” Skylla shivered. “I shudder to think what would happen if the Indians got her.”
They might try parboiling the brat.
Skylla hugged her arms. “Truth be known, I don’t have much experience dealing with a troublesome girl. I don’t know what’s best. I’m just doing what I sense is right.”
Brax took Skylla’s hand. “I’ll do whatever I can to help,” he said, though he’d just as soon volunteer to have a tooth extracted.
Her voice rang with relief. “Thank you.”
Enough about Piglet. “Skylla, it’s time we talked about me and you. We haven’t discussed the wedding.”
“You . . . you’ve only just arrived.”
Brax frowned, confused by her withdrawal. “Why did you send off for a husband if you don’t want a wedding?”
“It was Claudine’s idea. She contacted Mr. Petry.”
“But you went along with it.” He hoped. He prayed!
“Yes, I went along with it.”
“Then what’s the problem? Let’s set a date.”
A moment passed, peppered only with the sounds of moving water and insects calling in the night. Skylla studied the ground. “You’re free to marry Claudine.”
“I don’t want to marry her.”
Her line of sight h
astening to his, Skylla’s eyes got even bigger. “You can’t be serious.”
“I came here to marry Miss St. Clair, not Mrs.”
“But you must. She’s . . . she’s counting on it.” There was something suspicious about the way Skylla spoke. “I . . . I’m not ready for marriage.”
Brax didn’t like the sound of this. Not at all. “What does that mean?”
“It means I still mourn someone very dear to me. A sailor. An ensign. His gunboat went down off Florida.” The chill of grief shook her, evident even in the muted light. “He’s been gone a good while now, but the concept of marriage is just too fresh for me.”
The strangest feeling came over Brax. He understood her loss. Why not let her adjust to the idea of becoming Mrs. Hale? It needn’t be a lengthy wait, regardless. Not with his eagerness to take her into his arms and teach her the delights of the bedroom.
Geoff had been right. Brax had big eyes for her.
She deserves better than the likes of you, Braxton Hale. True, but that wasn’t the problem. Or was it?
He owed her something. What could he offer? As sweet and kindhearted as Skylla was, she deserved a wedding gift. At least a ring. If worse came to worst, he could give her the cameo. Yes, that’s what he’d do. Give her the cameo.
His palm brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheek, his fingers settling against her ear. He feared she’d retreat, and when she didn’t, profound relief rushed through him. “I know your mind is troubled, Skylla. There’s a lot to be settled. But I have a terrible hankering. Would you allow me a kiss?”
Her eyes widened as she drew in a quick breath. Then a tiny smile tugged at her lips. “I would allow it.”
Slanting his lips over the lushness of her mouth, he put his arms around her thin yet womanly body. He tasted the sugar from the blancmange; it mixed with the natural sweetness that was the dark-eyed belle. He yearned to explore the depths of her mouth, then did. Every nerve in his body sparking, he discovered the joys of kissing his bride-to-be.
His fingers combed her hair, disturbing her hairpins, and he loved the feel of that heavy dark wavy mass as it cascaded down his arm. When he pulled her closer, the sensation of her breasts against his chest evoked such a craving that he ached to lay her on the grasses and make love to her until dawn’s first rays . . . and then start over again.