“Do you always do whatever Reese says?”
In the process of returning his knives to their homes, Rico did not pause. “I like him to think so.”
“Are you afraid of him?”
“Isn’t everyone?”
“No.”
“They should be.”
So far Rico had told her nothing very politely. Time to get more specific. “What has Reese done that makes men like you follow him as if he were General Lee.”
Rico’s teasing manner evaporated, and his dark gaze rested on Mary’s flushed face. “That is for el capitan to say. If he wishes for you to know.”
Ignoring the warning in his eyes, she continued. “Y’all met in the war? How?”
“I cannot say.”
“It’s a secret?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps I do not wish to talk about those days any more than el capitan does. The times were bad.”
“What’s his real name?”
“How would I know?”
“You followed the man to hell and back and you don’t know his name?”
“Reese.”
“First name or last?”
“I do not know.”
“Why do you call him captain? He said he wasn’t.”
Rico shot her a quick, dark, unreadable glance. “He said that?”
“Yes.”
“He lied.”
Mary frowned. “Why would he lie?”
“Ask him. Now…” Rico flipped a small, thin knife end over end then caught it lithely by the handle. “Would this work better in a garter on your thigh or perhaps in a sheath beneath your chemise?”
Mary blushed. “Rico Salvatore, watch your mouth!”
His head tilted as if he were listening to something far away. Then his grin turned devilish, and he inched closer. She stepped back and promptly stepped on her skirt.
Rico grabbed her around the waist. “I’d much rather watch your mouth, Miss McKendrick.” His gaze lowered to her lips.
She could have made him stop, but the demon inside whispered: Is it Reese who fascinates you so or merely the act of kissing? As she wasn’t sure, she allowed Rico to kiss her.
The man was no doubt quite skilled from extensive practice, yet Mary felt nothing when his mouth touched hers. No sparkle, no warmth, no lightning or thunder. In fact, an irresistible urge to laugh came over her, and she choked.
Rico pulled back. “Were you… laughing?”
Her eyes went wide. “Of course not.”
“Most women would not dare.”
“I’m not most women.”
He smiled. “I like you, Miss McKendrick. You have cojones.”
“Somehow I don’t think that means I smell good.”
“You do.”
“What in hell do you think you’re doing, Kid?”
The growl was unmistakable.
Reese.
*
The rage that rushed through Reese at the sight of Rico with his smart mouth all over Mary’s surprised him. What had he thought would happen when he sent the Kid in his place to teach Mary about knives? That Rico would actually teach her about knives and keep his hands to himself?
Reese wasn’t that stupid.
At the sound of his voice, Mary stiffened in Rico’s arms and tried to pull away, but Rico held on tight, staring at Reese with a sparkle in his eyes, which made Reese realize the truth.
No one sneaked up on the Kid—except Sullivan. Rico had heard him coming, and he had kissed Mary on purpose. Though to what purpose, Reese had no idea.
“What I am doing should be obvious,” Rico said.
Reese growled again, and Rico let Mary go. She spun around, eyes wide, cheeks flushed, and her hands went to her mouth, but not before Reese saw her lips. Those lips that had only been kissed by him were now wet and red from another man.
What he felt must have shown on his face because Rico stepped in front of Mary, earning himself life instead of death because he thought of her first.
“Relax, Capitan. She found my kiss quite amusing.”
Reese narrowed his gaze on Mary’s face, and she burst out laughing.
The sparkle in Rico’s eyes died. He might have kissed Mary for reasons other than lust, but her laughing about it provoked him. Reese almost felt sorry for the Kid, who had the idea he was God’s gift to women. Obviously, Mary didn’t think so. Reese coughed to cover his own desire to join in her mirth.
“I’m sorry, Rico. You kiss very nicely, I’m sure. But I’ve never been kissed until the six of you came to town, and now two handsome men are kissing me. It’s just too funny.”
“Two men?” Rico raised his eyebrows. “Fascinating.”
“Get lost.”
“But I am to teach the senorita about knives. We were just deciding if a knife would work better in her garter or beneath her chemise.”
Reese’s laughter died. “Get.”
Rico didn’t run; he strolled. Very fast.
Reese hadn’t been near a decent woman in nine years, and he should have stayed as far away from this one as he could get. She was killing him, and he deserved it.
After spending all of yesterday berating himself for touching her, kissing her, needing her, he had spent the night dreaming of her. When dawn threatened, he had been unable to face her; so, coward that he was, he’d sent Rico, then spent the next hour wondering what the two of them were doing.
Mary stared at Reese as if she expected him speak. He stared back, wondering if he’d ever get to see the untouched flesh of her shoulder or kiss the soft skin above her breast again.
Why did she fascinate him more than any woman ever had, even the one he would be married to right now if things had gone differently?
Because Mary looked at him as if he were still the man he had once been. But Reese needed to remember that he would never be that man again. And as he was now, he did not deserve to touch the hem of Mary McKendrick’s dress, let alone put his mouth where he dreamed of putting it.
“Won’t you be late for school?” he asked.
“That’s it?” She stepped toward him. “Go to school, Mary.” Another step. “Be a good girl, Mary.”
She kept coming until they stood toe to toe, and he could smell the scent that was hers alone. His body responded in a predictable manner, and he gritted his teeth to keep from grabbing her and erasing any taste of Rico from her mouth, every memory of the Kid’s pretty face from her mind.
“Don’t mention yesterday, Mary.” She kicked dust over his boots.
“What are you mad about?”
“What do you think?” She put her nose in the air, spun on her heel, and walked back to town.
Reese watched her go and fought not to laugh. If he didn’t lust after her so damn much, he’d like her even more.
Chapter 10
“The days are becoming dull, Reese.” Cash tossed another card onto the table.
He and Nate had found the saloon, which wasn’t hard. The building faced the hotel.
It was a mess. Broken bottles, broken windows, broken tables. Cash and Nate had taken one glance at the place and nearly wept.
They’d decided to spend their free time restoring the saloon to some semblance of order so they could play cards and drink. As if being without a decent saloon had ever stopped either one of them from partaking of their favorite pastimes.
Reese found the two of them, and Jed as well, ensconced in the saloon before ten that morning. Sullivan was in the tower, and Rico had disappeared. He’d been doing that a lot lately.
“Heard you nearly took the Kid’s head off earlier,” Cash observed, eyes still on his cards.
“If I’d have wanted his head off, his head would be rolling in the street.”
“Big talk.” Jed tossed his hand in the center. “I fold.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Reese demanded.
“You treat that kid like he’s your own,” Jed answered. “So you can be the one to kick his butt.”
“What did he do now?�
�
“I don’t know. But he’s up to something. He keeps disappearing. Maybe he’s got a senorita stashed somewhere. And that’s gonna get us into trouble in this town. Every senorita here is someone’s little girl or wife.”
“I am gonna kick his butt.”
“Every woman is a daughter or a wife except for the one who hired you.” Cash gathered his winnings. Nate still stared at his cards, though the hand was done. “She has no daddy in these parts.”
“She’s got no daddy at all,” Reese said before he could stop himself.
“Oh, really?” Cash smiled thinly. “How convenient.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Just a little advice on women, Reese.”
“I can handle women.”
“Now that’s something we’re not certain of. You haven’t touched a woman since Fort Sumter.”
“Just because I don’t let females hang all over me in every saloon between here and Abilene doesn’t mean I haven’t had a woman since 1861.”
“Glad to hear it. Abstinence like that can rot a man’s mind quicker than whiskey.”
“Here, here.” Nate threw his cards in the middle of the table and poured himself another drink.
“Myself, I like fallen women. They’re far less trouble than the upright ones who expect more than money from a man. Those kind of women want your soul too.”
Since Reese’s soul had been lost on a battlefield in Georgia, he had nothing to worry about.
“Lost my soul long time ago,” Nate murmured to the bottom of his glass. “But not to a woman.”
“Did you sell your soul to Satan?” Jed clapped a hand on Nate’s back.
“Maybe.” Nate drained his glass. “Maybe I did at that.”
“As you can see”—Cash dealt the cards, leaving Nate out of the loop—“melancholy is setting in. The boys are bored. You promised us trouble, Reese, and there’s no trouble to be had. I was lookin’ forward to shootin’ that Indian and his Yankee sidekick, but they seemed to have turned tail and run.”
“That’s what El Diablo wants us to think. The longer he waits, the more bored we get, the sloppier we become.”
“How do you know he hasn’t run off to Mexico for good?”
“Because Sullivan has seen him watching us.”
All three men sat up straight and frowned. Jed picked up his cards. “I didn’t see anything when I was in the tower.”
“Me, either,” Cash and Nate agreed.
“Which means?”
Jed sighed. “Sullivan always sees what nobody else does.”
“Exactly. There’ll be trouble soon enough.”
Reese left them to stew on that. The rest of the day passed slowly. He wandered about. There was little to do but wait for El Diablo to return and hope they could kill all the bad guys next time around. Otherwise they’d be sitting in this godforsaken half ghost town forever.
Mary’s idea of arming the populace seemed to have gone bust. Which was too bad, since it had been a good suggestion. Reese was all for less bloodshed. But if that wasn’t going to happen, he would stick to his original plan of blasting every one of the invaders back to hell.
Should he continue to teach Mary about guns in the meantime? The lessons would be useful to a woman alone. But was he convincing himself of the advantages for Mary’s sake or his own?
He’d told Cash trouble was on the way, but Reese knew in his heart that trouble was already here. He wanted Mary more than he’d ever wanted anything else. Since he couldn’t take her, he was distracted. Which was a good way for a man to get himself killed.
No wonder the others were concerned. A leader whose brain was in his pants was no leader at all. But then he’d never said he was.
Long ago they’d elected him captain. He’d declined, but they’d just kept calling him “Captain” and following him around. Like sap on the trunk of a tree, those men stuck to him. Oh, sure, they went their separate ways, but they always came back—like bad luck.
As Reese wandered about town, people continued to scurry into hiding at the sight of him. Their behavior was starting to get on his nerves. Should he tell them he hadn’t shot anyone for getting in his way in at least a year? He suspected his attempt at humor would be lost on the people of Rock Creek.
Every night, a different woman showed up with a day’s worth of food for six men. They plunked their pots and plates in the kitchen and hightailed it out of there as if the hotel were infested with smallpox.
Except for Jo Clancy, who chatted up a storm, even though no one but Rico listened, then trounced upstairs to see Nate.
Reese had tried to talk to first Nate and then Miss Clancy about their relationship. Both had stared at him as if he were incredibly stupid.
Nate had said, “She’s an infant, Reese. What kind of man do you think I am?” And he’d appeared so hurt when he’d said it that Reese didn’t have the heart to answer.
Miss Clancy, on the other hand, had glared. “Nate needs a friend, and since you five are worthless, I guess it’ll have to be me.”
Reese had thought he was being a mighty good friend. How many times had he put Nate back in the saddle? How many times had he covered him with a horse blanket when he lay dead drunk in the corner of a saloon? How many times had he backed Nate in a fight that had come about because the man was pretty much pissed at the world and everyone in it?
However, Reese doubted Miss Clancy would think he was any kind of hero, and since Reese had to agree, he let them do what ever it was they did when they were together. He’d done his best to thwart disaster.
Reese passed the schoolhouse, but school was out for the day. No one sat on the porch of the cabin, no movement behind the windows.
He hunched his shoulders and tugged on his hat. He was acting like a lovesick schoolboy walking past her house, but he couldn’t really help it as there was only one street in Rock Creek to walk on.
Once back at the hotel, he sat outside, having no desire to go inside and play with the boys. Just as he lit the match for his cigarette, Reese caught a glimpse of Mary headed for the creek, a basket under her arm.
How often did she sneak off alone? And why?
The match burnt his thumb, and Reese dropped it to the floor with a curse, before grinding out the flame with his boot. When he lifted his head, Mary was gone.
He returned his cigarette to his vest pocket then headed across the street, through the alley, and down into the valley where the river ran.
*
The warmth of the day drew Mary to the water. Spring slid toward summer, and soon the days would be hot, miserable, and long. Once school was out, she would have little to do but prepare for next session. During other summers, in other places, she had worked in hotels as a maid, served food in a restaurant, waited on customers at a mercantile. But the way the wind had shifted in Rock Creek, there would be no summer job for the teacher.
She dropped her basket then pulled out her soap and washboard. In the winter she hauled water to the cabin, heated it, and scrubbed clothes on the porch. That way took twice as long and was twice as much work as washing clothes in the river. But she couldn’t bear to stick her hands in the icy water that ran past in mid-January.
Today the flow was tepid, almost soothing in the languid heat. She twirled her unmentionables beneath the surface and contemplated the sun on the water.
Mary was a champion daydreamer. Always had been, even when Sister Hortensia forbade her. Daydreaming was not something you could stop on a whim—or a prayer. Daydreaming was part of who you were.
As a child, Mary’d had little choice but to dream about a past she did not know and a future that was frightening. She had been left on the doorstep of St. Peter’s with a note naming her Mary Margaret McKendrick—Irish, to be sure—and that was all she knew. So Mary had dreamed up a father who had died too young and a mother who had loved her enough to let her go. Only in that way could Mary forgive being left alone forever.
But, desp
ite her dreams, the questions always haunted her. Why had she been left? Would no one ever love her? Or was she, perhaps, unlovable?
A heated breeze brushed her face, and Mary lifted her head to breathe the scented wind. Dust and grass and a hint of flowers—Texas in springtime. She loved Rock Creek more than any other town she had ever been to.
The other places she’d lived were gone now. Even St. Peter’s stood empty, the victim of a cursed war. So Rock Creek was the sanctuary she’d dreamed up all those years ago and embellished upon whenever she’d desperately needed something to look forward to.
She’d wanted a home, friends, a life she’d built for herself. She’d learned in those years of being alone and dependent on the mercy of others that the only way to survive was to make certain she could take care of herself no matter what happened.
Mary had seen enough women depend on a man for everything. When the man departed—through death or design, it didn’t matter—the woman was left with the children and no means to take care of them. The panic on the faces of those women when they knocked on the doors of St. Peter’s had impressed itself upon Mary at a very young age.
She’d been almost glad to discover she wasn’t marriage material. Herself, she could depend upon. Mary could manage just fine alone, and if the children she taught sometimes called to the motherly soul she hid, well, she could manage that too.
While kissing Reese had shown her what was missing in her life—excitement, passion, vibrancy—she also knew that anything other than kissing might cost her everything she’d worked so long to accomplish. Teachers with bad reputations did not teach long. And teaching was all that stood between Mary and the desperate life many others were forced to lead.
She was a smart woman who made intelligent choices, with her mind and not her heart. As long as she remembered what was important, her dream would come true. She was no longer a child who longed for love. How could she long for something she had never known? Mary had learned to settle for the best that came along, and for her, the best was Rock Creek. She was not so foolish as to throw away everything on temptation’s kiss.
Mary wrung the water from her extra chemise. Sometimes being smart was no fun at all. But no one ever promised life would be fun. Life was just… life.
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