California Caress

by Rebecca Sinclair

  “You could have done it yourself,” Drake replied, surprised at how easily the lie sprang to his lips. If it had been Luke fighting this morning, the boy would be dead right now. For some reason, the thought disturbed him.

  “You think so?” Luke asked. “You really think I could’a whipped the Swede?” He leaned toward Drake, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I do too,” he added with a wink, nodding over his shoulder. “I told her I could a done it, but she wouldn’t believe me. Said I’d get myself hurt, maybe even killed. But you don’t think I would of gotten killed, do you?”

  Drake declined a comment, his gaze drifting over the big man’s shoulder to settle on Hope. She sat with her back ramrod straight, her long legs tucked beneath her. The large, velvet brown eyes were lost in the flickering light of the flames that bathed the girl in a shifting, crackling orange glow that made each copper highlight in her hair dance to life. The braid was still long over her shoulder, much the way it had been that afternoon, but now more hair had escaped the tight plait. It was soft, that hair, shimmering with silky promise as the wavy tresses tickled the long, thin neck.

  Feeling his stare, Hope looked up. A surge of color washed over her cheeks before she shifted her weight and turned her back to the table.

  A slow smile pulled at Drake’s lips. The girl might try to convey an air of disdain, but she wasn’t as unaffected by his presence as she would like him to think, not by a long shot. And there was still the matter of payment to be discussed. Has she guessed that he wouldn’t leave until the subject had been decided, he wondered? Yes, Drake thought. She knew it, and she wasn’t at all pleased at the prospect. He turned his attention to the crooked old man at the end of the bench, realizing belatedly that Old Joe had been speaking to him, and that he had no idea what the man had said.

  “Don’t you think?” Old Joe insisted, knowing Frazier hadn’t heard a word of it, and enjoying the man’s discomfort. Nope, Drake Frazier hadn’t changed a bit. His head could still be turned by a pretty face. “Frazier?”

  Drake shrugged, turning his attention to the rapidly cooling stew. To an observer, it would have looked as though he had responded to the question. Only Old Joe knew he hadn’t.

  “Come on, Frazier,” Luke cried in innocent delight. The bench scraped the roughly planked floor as he pushed himself to a stand. “It’ll be fun. The twins’re already there. Pa probably is too. You’re coming, ain’t you, Joe?”

  The old man shook his head and waved the suggestion away with his spoon. “Getting’ too old for those kind a shenanigans. You two go, with my blessin’s. Leave me outta it.”

  “They got girls,” Luke teased. To Hope, he looked like a boy holding a bone just out of a hungry dog’s reach as he anxiously rubbed his big, flat palms together. “Real live girls. How long’s it been since you seen a real live girl, Joe? How long’s it been since you held one?”

  Old Joe stifled a groan. How long? Too long, that’s how long!

  Luke could see his old friend change his mind. The thought of “real live girls” could do that to a man, any man, stuck out here in the middle of nowhere with nary a skirt in sight. A body could get sick of seeing dusty trousers and sweat-soaked shirts real fast, especially when there wasn’t a whole lot else to look at.

  Old Joe wiped his mouth on the napkin, then set it aside and stood up. “You comin’, pal?” he asked Frazier as he climbed over the bench. The bones in his knees cracked with age, but Old Joe hardly noticed. The thought of what was in store for him tonight was enough to take a good ten years off his face. Now, instead of looking ancient, he looked merely old.

  Frazier shook his head as he dipped the spoon into his plate and brought it up heaped with vegetables and gravy. “Nope,” he said flatly, his gaze meeting Old Joe’s bulging eye head on. “The lady and I have some talking to do. Don’t mind, do you?”

  It wasn’t a question, and Old Joe knew it. He wasn’t sure leaving Hope alone with this guy was such a good idea after all. But it was too late for second thoughts. If he tried to stay, he’d have to come up with a damned good reason for his sudden change of heart, and Old Joe wasn’t that quick on his feet.

  The larger eye narrowed until it was almost equal to the smaller one in size. He looked at Hope, who had suddenly gone deathly pale. She caught his gaze as it traveled from her to the sack of flour propped up in the corner near the counter. There was a pistol back there, his pistol, primed and ready to shoot.

  Hope gave the barest of nods. She knew that, normally, leaving the gun behind would be risky. No man in his right mind walked the streets of Thirsty Gulch unarmed. But he had Luke to protect him. Most of the miners who trickled into Thirsty Gulch feared the big man, if only because they couldn’t guess what he was or was not capable of. Old Joe and Luke would be safe without a gun, but Hope might need it to protect herself from Drake Frazier.

  A smile curved her lips as the color returned to her cheeks. Just knowing the gun was there if she needed it was enough to bolster her pitifully floundering courage.

  She nodded to the door. “You two go on, have yourselves a good time.” She sent them a stern look, much like a protective mother would cast on her precocious children. “And don’t get in any trouble. Last time you went to The Button you—”

  Old Joe groaned and shook his head as he plucked his hat, and Luke’s from the rack. “I know, I know,” he grumbled, tossing one to Luke before pulling the other on top of his own wispy head. “Don’t need to go remindin’ me.” He looked like a hurt dog nursing his wounds. “I paid, didn’t I?” he added as he pulled open the door and let Luke by. “And they did rebuild the place, didn’t they?”

  “Did they have a choice?” Hope countered.

  He sent her a thoughtful glance, his wrinkled hand poised on the latch. “Nope. Guess they didn’t at that.” With a grin, he was gone.

  “Come on, Joe, hurry it up,” she heard her brother call impatiently as they rounded the corner of the shanty with a muffled crunch of dried leaves. “The good ones will all be gone by the time you—”

  “Hold yer horses, young ‘un. I’s a comin’.” The voice grew fainter. “I’s a comin’.”

  Luke mumbled something, probably one of the curses Hope forbade him to use in the house, but they were too far away to hear. The words were lost on the cool night breeze.

  Drake let his gaze settle on the girl in the rocking chair, noting that her attention had turned back to the fire. Although she pretended he’d left with the others, he recognized her preoccupation with the dancing flames for what it was.

  Tension coiled in the room, so real it was almost palpable. If he reached up, Drake thought, he might actually feel the hostile currents hanging in the air like a thick, black cloud.

  As Luke had promised, the stew was good, but not good enough to hold Drake’s attention from the matter at hand. He pushed the plate away and stretched. The liquid motion caught Hope’s attention from the corner of her eye.

  She shifted her weight so she could no longer see him, but it did no good. She could feel him looking at her, feel his gaze raking over her body, missing nothing; her entire body tingled with the knowledge of his eyes. The emotions this kindled within made her limbs suddenly itchy and restless. Her fingers played with the peach folds of her skirt, smudged with light patches of flour where the apron hadn’t covered it. That nervous movement wasn’t missed either. Forcing her grip to slacken, she raised a hand to her forehead and noticed her fingers were trembling.

  Angry that a man’s gaze—not his hands, just his gaze—could affect her so strongly, Hope sprang from the chair as though she’d just been struck by lightning. She wasn’t pleased to find her knees shaking every bit as badly as her fingers, but at least they were concealed beneath the billowing expanse of her skirt.

  She walked to the table with what she hoped was a casual step, noticing as she did how more and more of her body began to tingle with each closing inch. By the time she reached the cracked oak tabletop, she could have colla
psed onto the bench beside it in exhaustion.

  Instead, she reached out and began plucking up the discarded plates one by one, scraping the remains of each into the near-empty kettle before adding them to the neat stack she’d created on the side.

  It was difficult, but she found that with a great deal of effort she could almost forget Frazier’s presence and carry on with her chores in the same manner she would have employed if he hadn’t shown up at all. Almost.

  The problem was, Drake Frazier had no intentions of being forgotten. “Put the plate down, Hope,” he said, his voice hard, penetrating Hope’s body as if he’d driven an icicle straight through her heart. She hesitated, but otherwise ignored him. “I said, put the plate down.”

  Hope did, but she put it on the stack and reached for another. “I don’t have time for games, Mr. Frazier, I have work to do.”

  A hand snaked out and wrapped around her wrist as she reached for another plate. Hope froze. She wasn’t surprised; she’d half expected it, but she was shocked that he’d done it so fast.

  “I don’t like games either, sunshine,” he said through gritted teeth. Hope tried to pull away, afraid of the cold hostility in his voice. It was useless. His grip held painfully firm.

  Even knowing a struggle was useless, she yanked again, almost dislocating her wrist for the effort. “Let me go!” she demanded, leaning back as he drew her up hard against the table. Her gaze flickered to the flour sack as she was forced to throw the other hand on top of the table to brace herself. It did no good. With her elbows bent, drawing her body towards him until her torso was almost lying over the table was child’s play.

  “Let me go, you idiot, you’re breaking my arm!” she hissed.

  “I’ll break more than that if you’re trying to welch on our deal.”

  Drake dropped her arm. Hope, not expecting to be released, was forced back a step by the momentum of her struggle. Her arm ached from where his fingers had been. She rubbed the bruise that would probably be blue come morning, if not sooner. Her cheek stung from the memory of his breath.

  “I was doing the dishes, Mr. Frazier,” she replied tightly, her eyes averted to the sack of flour. “How was I supposed to know you’d be offended at the sight of a woman scraping plates? Besides,” she let her gaze wander to the makeshift wooden counter as though searching for a weapon, “now that there are real women in town, I thought one of the girls at The Brass Button would be more your style.” There was a knife on the counter. A knife that still had a piece of carrot peel clinging to its dulled steel blade.

  If there had been a back to this goddamned uncomfortable excuse for a bench, Drake would have leaned back and smiled. So, she thought she knew his style, did she? He’d see about that. Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned his elbows on the table top, and sent Hope a piercing glare. “And how would you know anything about my—ahem—‘style’?”

  She flushed and looked away. “I’ve heard rumors.” She shrugged, her gaze clashing with his. “I know what kind of man you are.”

  “Do you?” he drawled. The deep crease between his golden brows announced that he was not amused. “Do you really?”

  “Yes,” she answered, her voice as hard and flat as her expression. “It doesn’t take a genius to know what kind of man agrees to the kind of deal I offered you, at the price you set. That tells me more about you than any of the sordid rumors floating around Thirsty Gulch.” She smiled, but the expression lacked sincerity. “You know, a southern gentleman would have agreed to the deal and declined payment. A northern gentleman would have agreed to the deal and taken the cash.”

  Drake chuckled when Hope paused for effect. “Which leaves me—?”

  “No gentleman,” she finished before he had the chance. His chuckle was snatched from the air as though it had never been.

  The smile was back on his lips: cold, calculating, contemptuous. Hope suppressed a shiver, as well as the feeling that she might have pushed her luck too far this time. She’d made a mistake in speaking her mind without a weapon to back up her words. The error belatedly clicked in her mind with all the force of a hammer being cocked. She might have just made the biggest mistake of her life, and made it with the most ruthlessly dangerous man she’d ever met.

  “Well, now, sunshine,” he said on a sigh, the smile still in place, “you may be right. But a deal is a deal. And gentleman or not, I intend to see that this one’s honored.” He fingered the bruise on his cheek as his eyes narrowed on Hope. “I think I deserve it,” he paused, “don’t you?”

  Yes, she thought, with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, he does. Drake Frazier deserved to be paid for his services. It was a pity she couldn’t pay him quite the way she had promised.

  Chapter 6

  Dread quickly gave way to fear, and fear to panic, as she watched Drake slip each sinewy leg over the bench. His piercing eyes never leaving her, he reminded Hope of a bloodthirsty predator cornering its weaker prey. Would he toy with her, like a cat would a mouse? she wondered. Or would he skip the preliminaries and go straight for the jugular?

  Drake rounded the table, his strides long and purposeful. It was the sound of his boot heels, a sharp thud on the scuffed plank floorboards, that finally prompted Hope into motion.

  With a strangled cry, she hoisted her skirt and bolted around the opposite side of the table. She was farther from the gun, but closer to the knife. Her backup option just might pay off. The grin that tugged at Frazier’s lips told her that he thought her move a foolish one. And why shouldn’t he? With the exit at his back, and the only obvious weapon yet to be reached, he had every reason to be confident.

  That confidence seeped into his voice, lacing his words with husky arrogance. “Where are you going to go, Hope? Even if you made it outside, I’d catch you before you cleared the woods.”

  “Maybe,” Hope shrugged, nibbling at her lower lip as she fought the temptation to measure the distance between herself and the knife. The gunslinger was watching her too closely. If she risked so much as a glance in that direction he would glean her intent and stop her before she reached the counter.

  “Definitely,” he corrected with a cocky grin. “You can bet on it.”

  Instinct, goaded by the man’s infernal arrogance, made her reach out and seize the top plate of the stack. It was heavy, that plate, molded out of good solid tin. She hurled it at Frazier’s golden head without a second thought. Her eyes widened in disbelief as he sidestepped the flying projectile and snatched it from the air before it could hurt him. Hope waited, breathless, wondering if he was going to throw it back, knowing her reflexes were not that good.

  Drake gauged the weight of the plate in his hand, his gaze flickering between an object that had the potential to be a deadly weapon, and the woman who had hurled it at him. “That wasn’t very smart, sunshine,” he admonished, setting the plate aside.

  If Hope had planned for him to chase her around the other side of the table, she was sadly mistaken. First, Drake did not look like he was going to chase her anywhere, so much as he was going to stalk her like a dog sniffing out a wounded fox. Second, he was rounding the table on the side nearest the counter—and the knife!

  He closed in another step. Two more and he would be around the table entirely. Already he had the advantage of distance, whereas Hope’s only advantage was that of surprise. He would expect her to run away from him, not toward him. With any luck, the suddenness of her action would throw him off guard just long enough for her to reach the counter. A split-second pause, that was all she would need.

  Taking in a deep gulp of air, she dug her fingers into the coarse fabric of her skirt, and ran for all she was worth. The floor slapped at the booted soles of her feet and her braid bobbed against the small of her back. Her heart drummed so loudly in her ears that she could barely hear the muttered curse as it passed Drake’s Frazier’s lips when he guessed her intent.

  Swearing at his own stupidity for not having seen the knife before, Drake flew aft
er her. As Hope had intended, she had taken him completely off guard. Unfortunately, his reaction time was not as slow as she would have liked.

  Hope was quick, but Drake was quicker. She had no more felt the smooth wood of the counter top beneath her fingertips, before it was cruelly snatched away. An arm shot out from nowhere and wrapped itself tightly around her waist, pulling her back until she collided with the brick wall of his chest.

  The air rushed from her lungs, and the tightness around her middle wouldn’t let her draw more. She pulled at the arm, trying to loosen its hold. When that didn’t work, she stretched out her arm and reached for the knife, at the same time pulling up her foot and sinking her heel deep into the shin behind her.

  Drake grunted, a warm rush of air in her ear. His hold loosened but did not fall away. Hope stretched as far as she could and felt the knife’s handle graze her fingertips. She was dragged back before her fingers could wrap around the handle.

  “Let me go, you jackass!” she screamed, throwing a wild punch over her shoulder. The fist hit nothing but air. She threw another, this one over the other shoulder. She was rewarded with the feel of her knuckles smashing into Frazier’s ear before her wrist was captured in his free hand. He forced her arm down so it crossed over the other, making them both useless.

  Tears of frustration blurred her gaze, but Hope refused to give in to them. Nor would she give in to the infuriating power of the man behind her. With her hands pinned, she used the only thing left: her feet. Time and again her heel sank into a shin, a muscular calf, or when she was very lucky, a rock hard thigh.

  Her struggles seemed to have little effect. In fact, the more she fought, the tighter the arm around her waist became. Drawing in breath became increasingly hard and it wasn’t long before the room began to spin in sickening circles before her eyes. Blackness reared up from the floor, threatening to envelop her in its velvety folds. She resisted it, but only barely.