Carole Howey - Sheik's Glory

by Carole Howey

  "Especially if the other guy's bigger, meaner, and drunker," he managed to retort.

  Flynn's grin became a grimace. It wasn't a far stretch.

  "I thought you might've helped me out there when Boland had me pinned. I mean, you could've knocked him over the head or something."

  Gideon guessed Flynn was only half joking.

  "Somebody once told me never to sucker-punch nobody," he remarked, wishing that he'd disobeyed just once more. "Come to think of it, it was the same fella who told me that strong was using your head instead of your fists. Sound like anybody you know?"

  "Get the hell out of here," Flynn growled affectionately with a wave of his dirty hand. "And take my brother with you."

  "Come on, son."

  Gideon felt a hand on his shoulder and he fought an urge to shudder. The gesture reminded him, sharply, of the few times when he'd been on the street back in Louisville and some policeman had gripped him the same way. And the fact that Seamus Muldaur had called him son when he'd denied better folks the privilege rankled him so he wanted to kick the man in the shin. Or someplace even more painful. Gideon didn't say anything. He remembered what Flynn had told him about power and words. He'd get even with Seamus Muldaur in some other way, he decided, leading the man from the room in silence. For starters, he'd talk Micah into giving Muldaur a knot head like Jezebel, or a puddin' foot like Reliable to get him back into town, maybe by Tuesday next.

  Flynn was smart, all right, Gideon decided, even if he didn't follow his own good advice: there were sure better ways of getting revenge on people you didn't like than putting yourself in the way of getting beat up.

  Missy felt as if her heart had been cut out with a rusty blade, tossed in the dust, and stampeded. She could not bring herself to look at Flynn as she approached the bed with her doctoring chest under her arm. It was quiet in the room with just the two of them there. Quiet as death. She placed the chest on the nightstand feeling as if the floor had given way beneath her, hoping that nothing in her movements betrayed her devastation.

  I don't mean to go through with this. . . .

  She hadn't heard the first part of the conversation between Flynn and his brother, but it didn't take any imagination at all to deduce what it was Flynn didn't mean to go through with. Especially when the name of another woman was mentioned.

  "You're angry, aren't you?"

  Flynn sounded like a chastened schoolboy. Missy allowed herself a tiny, broken sigh of relief that he'd completely misread her reaction.

  "No." She opened the chest and pretended to hunt for something. She did not trust herself to meet Flynn's gaze without crying. The noise of tiny, half-filled bottles clinking against one another was an eerie but fitting accompaniment to her agitation.

  "How much of our argument did you hear?"

  Flynn's weary question startled her.

  "What?"

  Flynn took in and let out a short breath, as if it were all his lungs would allow him. Still she fought the urge to look at him.

  "We weren't making any secret of what we were talking about," he allowed, as if he regretted it. "You must have heard something that well, that stunned you, at least. We'd best have it out in the open. I'll be as honest with you as I can."

  The word honest struck her like a poisoned shaft. The clinking noise had stopped; she realized she was no longer rooting through the chest. When did you mean to tell me that the wedding was not going to take place? she wanted to ask him. Were you going to wait until we stood before the justice? Or did you mean to show me up and publicly humiliate me, as well? She pressed her mouth shut to prevent such questions from coming forth. Just because her heart had behaved foolishly that was no reason why her pride should compound the error.

  "I heard nothing." She squeaked out the lie. "Eavesdropping is as dishonest as stealing. Or lying."

  "And just as hazardous for one's peace of mind," Flynn commented dryly. "Look at me, Missy."

  She did not.

  "Is it that you can't bear to see my face looking like a smashed pumpkin, or is there some other reason?"

  It's because I despise you, she wanted to say with a stare that would freeze his black soul. But that was more of a falsehood than she was prepared to tell. She straightened her back and held on to the edges of the chest as she formed her response.

  "You do look terrible," she said to the chest.

  "But that's not why you won't look at me."

  "Perhaps you know the answer to that better than I."

  "Damn it, Miss Ow! Son of a" He'd tried to sit up, but he fell back on the bed with a stiff grimace. Missy wished with all that was left of her heart that she could feel glad that he'd hurt himself, but she could not. She shoved aside her own anguish in favor of investigating the source of his.

  "Lie still," she ordered him swiftly, undoing the buttons of his soiled, bloodied bib shirt. "Where does it hurt? Here?" She slid her hand inside his open lapel. His bare chest was hot and firm beneath her fingers, except for the soft thatch of hair that ran down the middle. She wondered if that hair was honey gold, like the curls on his head.

  "No," he grunted. Grasping her wrist, he guided her hand down along the lower left side of his ribs. He took in a gasp as her fingers found the spot. "Right there," he breathed. "But I don't think they're broken. I've had broken ribs before, and as bad as this feels, they felt a hell of a lot worse. Besides” she felt his other arm slide up her back, and his free hand kneaded her shoulder” it’s starting to feel a whole lot better."

  "Don't, Flynn." She wrenched away from him, pulling her hand from his shirt and retreating to the bucket Gideon had left by the bed. She fumbled for one of the washcloths soaking in the bucket. She was shaking. It had been a mistake to touch Flynn that way, a mistake to touch him at all. Her face felt hot with shame and desire. She wanted to die, but not before killing him.

  "What did I do now?" he growled.

  "You b-bastard!" Missy wrung the word out like the washcloth she dropped back in the bucket. She backed away from the bed on unsteady legs, willing herself not to stumble or faint.

  "Missy . . ." With effort and another awful grimace of pain, Flynn propped himself up on his elbow. "I can't pretend to know what's gotten into you, but I sure wish you'd tell me. I hurt too bad to play guessing games. I

  swear to God I won't touch you again. Just I’d be obliged if you'll just come over here and patch me up like you promised."

  Like I promised! Missy steamed inwardly, glaring at him as she clenched her fists in the folds of her skirt. I'd like to patch you up, all right! I'd like to measure you for your burying suit, that's what I'd like to do! And after I finish with you, I'll measure myself!

  Allyn, Missy recalled, had always said she wore her emotions like a fancy new gown. She could hardly be surprised that she couldn't keep to herself what she'd overheard Flynn and his brother discussing. She felt as if she'd go up in flames if she even tried to. They were alone in the room anyway. She'd already made a fool of herself in Flynn's company on occasions too numerous to recall; she guessed one last time wouldn't make any difference.

  For this would, indeed, be the last time.

  "I heard some of your conversation with that flimflam brother of yours," she told him, pushing her sleeves up her arms as she steeled her gaze to his. "I didn't have to listen too hard; the two of you were shouting loud enough to be heard halfway to Rapid City. Someone named Madeleine is with him. Apparently she means a great deal to you, or she thinks she does. I can almost pity her. Then you said something about not meaning to go through with it"

  "And you naturally thought I was talking about the wedding." Flynn squeezed his eyes shut and fell back on the bed again. "Tell me, Missy, did you see bogeymen in the dark when you were a child?"

  "I don't see what my childhood has to do with this!"

  "Nothing, except that you're so damned willing to believe the worst about everything and everybody, especially me. Do you trust me, and my love, so little?"


  She was silent, but the answer hung in the air between them anyway.

  Flynn lay still with his eyes closed as Missy bathed his injuries. He welcomed each new hurt and sting, for they helped him ignore the ache in his gut, where Missy had lanced him with her suspicion.

  But, damn it, hadn't he deserved her distrust, in some measure? He'd never been entirely honest with her, and she knew it. Was it any wonder that she suspected him of an ulterior motive where her heart was concerned?

  The touch of the clean washcloth was cool against his bruised cheek. He knew the gentleness of the hand that wielded it. He suspected she probably wanted to strangle him with his pillow no doubt an easy feat, in his current state and it was all he could do to stop himself from catching her wrist and pressing a kiss against her palm.

  She left the cool cloth against his swollen eye and dressed his bruised knuckles. It was heaven to be clean of grit and blood, but he found that he needed to be clean of one more thing, besides.

  "Ask me, Miss," he breathed, catching a trace of her rose water in the air between them. "Ask me anything. I'll tell you now. It's more important to me that you know the truth than it is for me to protect anybody. You deserve that from me. You deserve that, and a hell of a lot more. Just don't freeze up on me. Please."

  She was no longer touching him. He opened his good eye and found her sitting there on the edge of the bed, where she'd been all the while, staring at him. There was no smile in her opalescent gray eyes, and her small, full mouth was drawn up in a pout that was at once childlike and ancient. She blinked, and another tear escaped from the corner of her eye. She brushed it away with the back of her wrist and she looked down, sad and thoughtful. "I can't," she whispered, wrapping a clean, soft gauze bandage about his hand. "Not now. Anyway, you shouldn't be talking. You need to rest. You need"

  "I need you damn it." The hell with it. He had nothing to lose. He pulled his half-wrapped hand out from under hers and caught her fingers, willing her to look at him.

  His will must have been as weak as the rest of him, for she slipped her hand from his, not with any ferocity, but with a firm dignity that made him feel even worse than before.

  "Missy"

  "I have to think, Flynn." She stood up. Flynn felt a chilly blast of air despite the oppressive July heat. "There are too many questions, and I suspect not even you have all of the answers. You believe you want to talk it all out, but right now that knock you took on the head is doing your thinking for you. You need to rest. I'm going to leave. I'll send Mrs. Fedderman up with some broth for you a little later."

  "Would you . . ." God, his chest hurt, and he suspected that it was from more than a couple of bruised ribs. "Would you bring it up yourself?"

  When she looked away, he knew what her reply would be. He felt a weight descend on him that made breathing more difficult still.

  "I don't think so," she murmured, gathering up her supplies. "I have to I mean, I'll be quite busy." She sent him one glance as if it were all she could spare. "I'm sorry."

  With a brief nod, she left the room.

  "So am I," Flynn murmured to the closed door.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Seamus Muldaur called at two o'clock the following afternoon, Wednesday, by which time Missy had decided on a course of action. She doubted it was a particularly wise course; certainly Allyn would have advised her against it, even though Missy knew it was precisely the sort of thing Allyn herself would have done under the circumstances. Allyn, however, would have done it in her most beautiful and elegant attire, that being Allyn's particular and most effective variety of armor.

  Missy chose instead her working clothes: boots and a boot skirt in a practical shade of muddy brown, a coffee-and-cream gingham shirtwaist, and a shawl collar vest, topped off with her own brown Stetson hat with its thin, braided leather stampede string. Her dark hair was forced into a knot at the base of her neck, but one or two brave corkscrew strands had escaped, she knew, to guard her cheeks.

  Missy greeted the elder Muldaur with a forced smile that she could only hope masked her true feelings for the man. Seamus, though, to her relief, appeared to be preoccupied, or at least more interested in seeing his brother than in exchanging anything more than polite greetings with her. Perhaps he'd already sensed her enmity the day before. If so, she'd waste no time on self-reproach.

  "And how fares my brother today? Better?" Seamus inquired as he planted one sleek, highly polished boot upon the stair.

  Missy stared at him realizing, with some chagrin, that she did not know, having not seen the patient awake since late the previous afternoon. She had peeked in during the night, when both Flynn and Gideon had been fast asleep, just to ascertain that Flynn was in no particular discomfort.

  "I'll leave you to determine that for yourself, Mr. Muldaur," she murmured, studying the large gold signet ring on Seamus's left hand, which was gripping the banister.

  "Call me Seamus, please," he corrected her with a thin smile, indicating that he perceived her dislike of him. "And may I call you Missy?"

  "Yes," she allowed, not daring to meet his gaze as she did. She'd sooner see him in hell, and she suspected her eyes would have proclaimed as much. With a ceremonious nod of dismissal, Seamus started up the stairs.

  "Oh, Mr.Seamus?" Missy remembered her own mission at the last possible moment.

  Flynn's handsome brother paused, wearing a look of polite inquiry.

  "Mrs. Fedderman expects you to stay for supper today," she told him, practicing a congenial tone that sounded, to her delight, quite natural. ''And so do I, although I have some ranch business that might detain me. I do hope you'll stay?" That was sincere enough. It would not do at all, she knew, to have Seamus Muldaur interfere with her plans for the afternoon, and as long as he remained here at the C-Bar-C with Flynn, he would be safely occupied.

  "I don't see why not," he conceded with an inquisitive inclination of his head. "Perhaps my brother will be fit enough by then to join us at the table. No doubt you two will want to discuss your marriage plans. I understand the wedding is to be tomorrow?"

  Thursday. Missy had wanted to forget. She would have preferred that Seamus not be there to witness any scene between herself and Flynn, particularly if her mission in town proved enlightening, but perhaps she was worrying prematurely. Whatever the outcome of her afternoon, she doubted in any case that Flynn would be sufficiently recovered for their planned nuptials on the morrow.

  What an absurd circus her tranquil, well-ordered life had become since February! She was in the midst of an audible sigh before she could stop herself.

  "We shall see," she murmured at the end of it. "Good afternoon." She started for the door, hoping not to have need to look upon Seamus again for a long while.

  "Missy?"

  He sounded very much like Flynn saying her name, yet at the same time quite different. Enough of both to cause her to shudder.

  "Yes?"

  "I brought your horse back." He sounded confused. "He's tied up outside, behind my rig. I'd thought you raised champion thoroughbreds. Forgive me, but the animal I rode to town yesterday was slow, stupid, and just plain mean."

  Gideon! That imp! Missy prevented herself from laughing, but just barely.

  "Horses are just like people in many ways," she told Seamus with a civil look she was sure Allyn would have approved of. "Even the best of them must occasionally be permitted a bad day."

  She left the house without another word.

  The day was overcast, but Missy doubted it would rain. Dakota was dry, and never more so than in July. Still, a thunderstorm, even a rare tornado, might whip up on occasion without a calling card. Not likely on a gloomy day such as this, though. Such violent aberrations usually came from seemingly serene skies as cloudless and blue as Flynn Muldaur's eyes.

  "Goin' to town?"

  Gideon's alarmingly astute question cracked like a whip as she mounted her mare. She recovered from her surprise at once, finding him on the porch with her eyes as
she settled into her saddle.

  "As a matter of fact, I am," she told him. The bruise on his cheek from yesterday's skirmish was already fading, she was happy to see. Youth recovered more quickly than age, she realized. In all matters.

  Gideon was getting taller, too, she noticed as he slouched beside a pillar. None of them knew exactly how old Gideon was, not even Gideon himself, but there could be no question that whatever his numerical age, he was on the verge of becoming a man.

  "Want a little company?"

  A sweet man. Her heart warmed.

  "No, thank you." She refused him a trifle reluctantly and did not sustain his steady, dark-eyed gaze. "I don't mean to be long. There are a few things I forgot yesterday in all of the excitement, and some things Lucy asked me to pick up for the baby. Speaking of which, aren't you supposed to be out back waxing that cradle Micah just finished?"