Carole Howey - Sheik's Glory

by Carole Howey

  He cleared his throat and continued to look straight ahead at the road before them.

  "I said it's a nice place," he remarked a little louder, as if he begrudged her the words. "The C-Bar-C, I mean. You should be proud of it."

  "Well, thank you," she murmured, aware that his compliment, however reluctant, warmed her. "It is nice, and I am proud. I'm surprised you didn't choke on such pleasant words."

  "Me?" He sounded as if he were choking as he turned toward her wearing an incredulous look. "I've tried to be pleasant about this from the very beginning. If you'd been willing to listen"

  "If you'd behaved like a gentleman"

  A low moan from the back of the wagon cut them off. Missy turned about quickly. To her dismay, Gideon was doubled over on the floor of the wagon clutching his knees. Beside him, uncorked and on its side, was a bottle of molasses. Dear lord, she had been so distraught over this business with Flynn Muldaur that she'd all but forgotten about Gideon. It wasn't hard for her to put together what had happened.

  Chapter Eleven

  "Can you move, Gideon? If not, we'll have to carry you."

  Missy had gone from a sharp-tongued shrew to a paragon of maternal concern quicker than Muldaur could blink, and for about 30 seconds the change in her rendered him mute and paralyzed. She was out of the wagon and beside the boy before he'd even set the brake.

  The answer Gideon gave was another mournful groan.

  "Take the supplies and Miss Cannon's things inside," he ordered the hands who'd come out front to bid Missy welcome home. "Micah's behind us with those new mares. Are the stalls ready?"

  "You bet, Mr. Muldaur."

  Missy's eyes flashed at him like twin steel sabers, as much as to say, Don't you interfere with my routines!

  "Plenty of clover and alfalfa hay on hand?" she challenged the men, looking capable of inflicting bodily harm if they answered incorrectly. "And salt blocks? I have three foaling thoroughbreds, gentlemen, and I intend to have three live, healthy births come January."

  The hands looked at one another, apparently puzzled by her brusqueness.

  "Well, sure, everything's ready," Rich Hamper, the self-styled leader of the delegation of two, spoke up. "Just like you like it, Miss. Why wouldn't it be?"

  Missy, mollified, blushed prettily to the roots of her hair and managed only a brief glance at Muldaur that he took for apology.

  "Well, I thought maybe Mr. Muldaur might have instructed you otherwise in my absence."

  Hamper grinned at her, revealing crooked, tobacco-stained teeth.

  "Him? Naw. He said to just keep on doin' like we was doin' till you got back, so we just kep' on doin'. He didn't bother us none. Good to have you back, though, Miz Cannon."

  He didn't bother us none. As if he, Muldaur, were nothing more than an insect, or a pesky child. Muldaur masked a scowl, but he realized his jaw and his fists were clenched nonetheless. He avoided looking at Missy, sure that he'd be unable to endure her patronizing, perhaps even smug, look.

  Gideon gave another low, piteous moan. All attention focused once again on the boy, for which Muldaur silently blessed him. He did not wait for instruction or a request. He simply scooped the groaning boy into his arms and carried him into the house.

  Missy always loved homecomings, especially after prolonged absences. The ranch house had its own distinctive smell as all houses did, a blend of smoke, people, and good cooking. She breathed deeply as she entered her home and received an unexpected, but not wholly unwelcome, surprise: woven among the texture of aromas was a trace of something new, like a rich strand of fine, fancy red wool in a plain bolt of gray. Following Muldaur's purposeful stride through the small great room to the stairs, she realized what it was.

  Long ago, it seemed to her, Flynn Muldaur had touched her at Filson's and put a spell upon her heart. That spell was a secret, devastating blend of his heat, his voice, his merry blue eyes, and his beguiling, spicy scent. It was that aroma she smelled, hopelessly entangled with the smells she'd always recognized as home. Flynn had already become a part of them, she realized, changing them ever so slightly, but irreversibly altering them nonetheless. She could not help but notice that his own scent had undergone a slight but indisputable change as well, no doubt as a result of his having lived there among her home scents for the past three weeks.

  The C-Bar-C had become, in that short time, home to him as well.

  ''He feels a little warm, but his color's fine," Flynn remarked as he carried Gideon into the clean, bright room that was once Allyn's bedroom. "He'll be good as new as soon as the effects of all that molasses wear off. Maybe he'll take a lesson from that: Gluttony carries its own penalty." He laid the boy down on the bed on top of the wedding ring quilt with the kind of care a father might exhibit.

  Missy found herself smiling as Gideon uncurled himself on the bed.

  "You sound like a fire-and-brimstone preacher, Mr. Muldaur, but your gentle actions belie your true feelings. I would never have expected it of you."

  Muldaur straightened and faced her, hooking his thumbs into his belt. She realized there were but three feet separating them. His blue eyes surveyed her with somberness that quickly gave way to amusement.

  "Do that again."

  "What?" She was confused and alarmed; she thought she'd somehow committed another embarrassing, if not unforgivable, error.

  "Smile," he told her, his own grin widening. "You look real pretty when you do."

  She opened her mouth to retort, but discovered that in the face of his unexpected, gentle teasing no crushing, scathing remark occurred to her. Utterly stymied, she brushed by him, pretending to be more concerned about Gideon than about Muldaur's partiality to her smile.

  "I'll have a cot brought up here from the bunkhouse, Mr. Muldaur," she managed in a muffled tone as she loosened Gideon's crooked collar with trembling fingers.

  "I'll go see to it." His tone was cool again behind her. She heard him walk toward the door.

  Gideon gave a piteous moan and writhed on the bed.

  "Here, let me help you with him first."

  Muldaur was beside her again and he sat on the edge of the bed by Gideon. "Let me get your shoes off, son. You'll be more comfortable that way." He began unlacing Gideon's boots.

  "I ain't your"

  "I know, I know," Flynn soothed him wryly. "You're not my son. But that doesn't mean I can't slip once in a while and call you that, does it? You ever make a mistake? Say, like dipping once too often into the molasses jar?"

  Missy stifled a giggle, but not too successfully, for Flynn glanced up at her with a reproving look. Gideon, she noticed, said nothing. Silence gives assent, she reflected, helping the boy slip his arms from his coat sleeves.

  "Have you helped many men undress?"

  "No." She answered Muldaur's breezy inquiry before it occurred to her that he was teasing. When she glared at him, he grinned.

  "Mr. Muldaur, we're going to be sharing close quarters for a time, it seems, much as I would rather things were different. I must therefore ask that you refrain from that you don't"

  "Tease you?" he supplied, arching an eyebrow in wonder. "But that's my nature. I tease people, especially women, the way some people breathe. I don't even think about it. I just do it."

  "Well, just don't do it!" she snapped. "Or find someone else to tease. I can assure you, the habit finds no favor with me!"

  She went about turning Gideon's coat sleeves right side out, and she hung the garment on a chair. She wondered if she sounded as much like a fussy little old maid to Muldaur as she did to herself.

  "Funny," Muldaur, behind her, mused, as though it were anything but. "When other women say that, I get the feeling they mean just the opposite. With you, though, I'm betting it's true. Might be that's one reason why I like to Well, Lucy doesn't seem to mind it. Guess I'll stick to teasing her."

  "Who's Lucy?" Missy could have bitten her tongue off for the abrupt question, and having asked it, she could not even pretend to be busy
brushing Gideon's coat.

  "She's the cook I hired." Did Muldaur never sound anything but amused? "Didn't you wonder where those heavenly smells were coming from when you came in?"

  Missy wondered if the walls of the small room had inched inward, or if she was simply losing her mind. Neither prospect pleased her.

  "I do the cooking for the C-Bar-C." She turned to him with what she hoped was a look of icy disdain. "Since you hired the woman, you may tell her we no longer need her services. And her pay will come out of your half of the expenses."

  Why had she not remembered how tall and imposing Muldaur was? He straightened before her, shifting his weight so that his left leg was crooked at the knee and his right hip jutted out slightly. He exaggerated the pose by sliding his right hand into his back pocket. His left arm hung at his side, limp but ready. For what? she wondered.

  "You're a hard-nosed case," he said slowly, appraising her with a long, unsmiling look. "Anybody ever tell you that? Lucy stays. This is my decision."

  Missy drew herself up. "How dare you"

  Gideon made a sound on the bed that was half groan, half whine, effectively cutting off their argument. Muldaur looked beyond her to the boy, his features changing to reluctant concern.

  "Do you need a bucket?" He addressed Gideon in a softer but cautious tone. "Or maybe a trip to the privy? Where does it hurt?" Gideon, Missy knew, had a way of making people tread lightly around him, especially when they'd already been stung once by one of his defensive retorts. Muldaur sank to the bed at the boy's side, tentatively reaching for Gideon's belly.

  Gideon rocked on his side and uncurled a bit. His face was still screwed up in agony, his eyes were scrunched closed, and he had his arms clutched across his middle as if they were strapped there.

  "Maybe he's really hungry," Missy fretted, sitting opposite Muldaur on the other side of the small bed. "It's nearly dinnertime after all, and we didn't have but a small luncheon on the train."

  She rubbed Gideon's back through the soft linen of his shirt. After three months of good, regular meals, she was surprised that she was still able to feel his ribs. His shoulder blades, too, jutted out like promontories. It was hard to remember, sometimes, that Gideon was nothing more than a boy. This kind of contact served as a sharp reminder.

  Muldaur pressed his lips together in a doubtful look.

  "Try lying on your belly," he suggested to the boy.

  To Missy's surprise, Gideon rolled over, giving only a small grunt as proof of his continued discomfort. She and Muldaur watched him for another minute. He neither moved nor made further noise.

  A minute crept by. Missy began to feel a renewed wave of uneasiness sharing the bed with Muldaur, even with the prone, unusually silent Gideon between them. She stood up again, wanting distance. He was too close. Too dangerous. He scared her.

  "I'll get you a cup of tea, Gideon," she murmured, loosening the uppermost buttons of her peplum. Goodness, but it was warm in this room. Why had she not noticed it before?

  "I'll open a window," she heard Muldaur mutter. Oh, so he felt it, too. Then it was not just her imagination. What a relief.

  "I hate tea," Gideon groaned. "I won't drink it."

  "Missy can't just let you lie here and suffer," Muldaur said. "Tea's not so bad. As long as you don't smell it first."

  Unexpectedly, Gideon chuckled. The merry sound brought a sigh forth from Missy, a sigh she hadn't realized she'd been hoarding.

  "I guess you're not feeling too bad, if you can laugh." Was the relief in Muldaur's voice real, or had Missy only invented it? "Let Missy get you some tea, like she said. Never turn down a pretty lady when she offers to serve you; it'll happen seldom enough in your life, I can tell you. I'll stick around and help you get into bed."

  Gideon sat up slow as a slug. His hair stayed just as it had been on the pillow. She watched Flynn smooth it back with a tender hand, and something inside her melted like chocolate in a pot.

  "I'll get into bed," Gideon groused, although his eyes had lost some of their typically hostile look. "But I can do it myself. And I ain't takin' no tea." He said that last for her benefit, and he sent her what he no doubt thought was a fierce scowl to back it up. She smiled.

  "All right; no tea," she promised as solemnly as she could. "But” she glanced at Flynn, who was drawing the quilt back on the bed so Gideon, still wearing his clothes, could climb between the covers” I’ll see if Lucy can fix you up some broth. Nice hot soup is the best thing for you, with a tummy ache. Don't you agree, Mr. Muldaur?"

  "It's Flynn."

  "Beg pardon?"

  "Flynn," he repeated, standing up. "That's my name. Gideon here intends to use it. I hope you do, too."

  Overwhelmed by sudden confusion, she looked away.

  "Well, I"

  "Look at me, Missy." His hand closed about her arm, warm, but not rough.

  She would rather have been snatched baldheaded by a buzzard than to obey his mild command, but she followed his tug and found herself gazing into his eyes once again.

  Such beautiful eyes, she thought, wishing she could stare into them forever.

  "Why are you blushing?"

  "I'm not blushing!" Her face heated.

  "If you say so." He shrugged, and she knew his concession to be one of expediency rather than acceptance. "I just wanted to tell you that except for hiring Lucy, I haven't changed anything in the three weeks I've been here. I wanted you to know that. I would have told you before, on the ride home from town, but we couldn't seem to get more than five words out at a time without it turning into an argument. And" he seemed to anticipate her retort, and he released her arm to raise both of his hands in a pacifying gesture” I guess I'm as much to blame for that as anybody."

  Missy found herself staring at the floor between them.

  "I had a hand in it, too," she conceded by way of apology.

  "We both have a lot to learn about partnering a business like this," Flynn went on. "And a lot to learn about each other. Sort of like a marriage, I guess. And we sure won't learn it all at once. My brother has a favorite saying: 'Rome wasn't built in a day.'"

  "Your brother, the congressman?" She found that she enjoyed talking with him in an uncontentious way and she wanted to prolong the experience.

  Flynn's brow furrowed, and his eyes darkened to the stormy indigo of a blue northern. Missy drew back in alarm. The storm subsided. Flynn quickly recovered, although not quickly enough to make Missy forget that it was her mention of his brother that had brought such a look of menace, however fleeting, to his handsome features.

  "What I was getting at," he went on as if she had not said anything, "is that we should start trusting each other at least enough to call each other by our first names. If we go around saying 'Mr. Muldaur' and 'Miss Cannon' and looking like every other minute we want to kill each other, it's bound to be bad for morale. Our own as well as everyone else's. And as you said, we have three foaling mares, and we want three live, healthy births. My understanding of mares is they get testy and fractious when they're foaling, and they do best when they're surrounded by peace and tranquility. So maybe we could agree to use our first names, and to keep our argu debates within the walls of the house. For everyone's sake."

  Missy forced herself to meet his gaze again. He might move in, she remembered Joshua saying that day in Louisville when she'd learned the chilling truth about Flynn Muldaur. But if he did so, it would only be with the intention of driving Missy out. Gazing at the man before her, who had so tenderly cared for Gideon in his distress, she realized she was finding it harder and harder to credit such a nefarious scheme.

  Quite possibly, that was exactly what Flynn Muldaur intended.

  She drew in and released several breaths while she tried to decide what her next remark should be. For whatever she said, it was sure to set the tone for their relationship here at the ranch. It would be all too easy, she sensed, to acquiesce to his deceptively sincere blue eyes and his quiet, abnormally respectful address. H
e no doubt realized that, too. Still, she wanted to trust him. She longed to. If she was being truthful with herself, she longed for far more than that from Flynn Muldaur.

  The most dangerously unreliable person . . .

  Those had been Joshua Manners's very words. And she would be a fool to forget them if she wanted to hold on to the ranch she'd struggled so hard for during the past eight years.

  She swallowed hard and maintained his gaze.

  "Since Gideon intends to call us by our first names, I suppose it would be rather stupid for us to do otherwise," she said, monitoring him for any sign that he took her response for a victory of some sort. He betrayed none, by not so much as a lowering of his eyelids. She felt only a slight relief at the fact, and plunged ahead, lest he mistake her concession for something more than it was.