“But now you have Johnny,” Jake said.
She smiled, the gesture lighting her features like the sun’s rays after a thunderstorm. “Yes, I have Johnny, and Charlie, Ethan, and Pete, too. I knew your father, Jake, and he wouldn’t have wanted you to stay so embittered. He loved you. He just didn’t know how to show it.”
“You must’ve known him a lot better than me.”
“Only because I made the time to get to know him. Something you never did.”
Jake pinned her with a sharp gaze, but he found no condemnation in her expression. The knowledge that she’d known his father better than he did bothered and bewildered Jake. “Why did you get the ranch?”
“Your father gave me first buyer rights in his will,” she replied defensively.
“But why did he have that stipulation in there at all? Why didn’t he just leave it to me free and clear?”
“Your father knew I wanted to raise horses, and he didn’t think you wanted the place. You never came home to visit after you left for college, and your letters were few and far between.”
“He didn’t even bother to write and ask me what I wanted.”
“Would you have written back?” Kit asked.
Jake thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Probably not. I was more interested in drinking with my fellow classmates and meeting women.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
A rueful grin tugged at Jake’s lips. “Sometimes I think you don’t have a very high opinion of me.”
“Sometimes you might be right.”
A breeze kicked up, blowing some of Kit’s hair across her cheek. Jake leaned forward and smoothed the stray strands back. She trembled beneath his touch.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” he said softly.
Her eyes wide and luminous, she shook her head. “I’m not. You’d never hurt me.”
“Maybe I’m not the man you think I am.”
“It’s true that I was disappointed in you when I first saw you in the jail cell, and later in the saloon. You weren’t like the hero in the books. But the more I learn about you, the more I’ve come to admire the man rather than the hero.”
The naked honesty in her face twisted the knife deeper into his conscience. He didn’t deserve the adoration in her eyes. He didn’t deserve the trust in her voice. He didn’t deserve this strong, compassionate woman.
The only problem was, he wanted her with an intensity that frightened him.
He turned his face, kissed her palm, then curved his hand around the back of her slender neck. Drawing her close, he feathered a caress across her parted lips. Her heart thundered against his chest.
He tasted the sweetness of her mouth. Shyly she reciprocated, sweeping her tongue across his, dancing and retreating like an inexperienced lover. Jake wrapped his hands around her hips, drawing her flush against his rigid desire.
“Ma!”
Johnny’s scream ripped through passion’s ensnaring web.
Kit’s face drained of color. “Johnny.”
Her frightened voice was a mere whisper, and Jake grabbed her hand, pulling her in the direction of the boy’s cry. His blood pounded through his veins, fearful of what condition they’d find Johnny in.
He crashed through the underbrush, thorns tugging at his shirt and arms. Before he even spotted the boy, Jake stumbled into him. He instinctively put out a hand to steady the boy, whose mouth and nose were covered with his palm.
Then the stench struck Jake, nearly knocking him over with its potency.
“A skunk sprayed me,” Johnny managed to spit out, nearly gagging from the odor.
Kit reached down to hug Johnny, then drew back, coughing. “I thought something terrible had happened to you!”
“It did!” Johnny exclaimed, pinching his nose. “I think I’m gonna die.”
Color seeped back into Kit’s pale face, and she looked at Jake with relief. “I kind of doubt that.”
A moment later Ethan and Charlie burst into the clearing, fear clouding their expressions.
The burly black man seemed to grasp the situation immediately. “Whew heee! Smells stronger’n a ten-hole privy.”
Kit put her hand over her mouth and nose. “I thought Toby was with you.”
“He ran after a rabbit,” Johnny said in disgust. “If he’d been with me, this wouldn’t have happened. I didn’t see him until it was too late, then the stupid thing sprayed me.”
Jake tried to breathe in shallow spurts. Some of the skunk’s stink had been transferred to him when he’d run into Johnny. “He was only protecting his home,” Jake managed to say, in between miserly breaths. “Besides, I’m sure he was more afraid of you than you were of him.”
Johnny held up his arms, wrinkled his nose, and looked down at his damp clothes. “Do you think you can get them clean?”
Kit shrugged helplessly. “I’m not even sure I can get you clean.”
Johnny scowled. “I woulda won the egg hunt, too.” He pulled a couple of cracked eggs from each of his two front pockets. “See?”
The scathing smell seemed to intensify, bringing tears to Jake’s eyes. “Anyone have any ideas how to get this odor off him and me?”
“When I was a young’un, a friend of mine got sprayed by a polecat. They scrubbed him with tomatoes,” Charlie suggested.
“Do they have to be fresh?” Kit asked.
Charlie shook his head. “I think canned ones’ll do.”
“You and Ethan go bring up all the jars of tomatoes from the root cellar. It’s a little cool to bathe out here, so we’ll have to put the tub in the kitchen. I’ll get the water started heating up for the bath.” She glanced at Jake, a twinkle in her eyes. “Baths.”
He shot her a pointed glare.
Jake and Johnny walked side by side, following in the wake of the others who’d gone ahead to begin their tasks. Toby the traitor had returned, but retreated with a yelp after getting a whiff.
“Are you mad at me, Mr. Cordell?” Johnny asked in a low voice.
“For what?”
“For getting you all stinky.”
Jake laid a hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault. In the spring all the critters are a little more excitable.”
Including people, Jake thought as he remembered his interrupted dalliance with Kit. Hell, maybe it was for the best.
They passed the corrals, and the horses snorted in annoyance at the sharp odor. At the house, Kit made Jake and Johnny stay outside until she had everything organized. After twenty minutes, Kit opened the kitchen door and allowed them inside. A round wooden barrel stood empty in the center of the kitchen, with opened jars of tomatoes sitting beside it. A tin tub a few feet away was filled with steaming water.
“Strip first, then wash with the tomatoes in the barrel. After that, rinse off in the water,” Kit explained. She wiped the moisture from her tearing eyes. “Take off your clothes, Johnny.”
“In front of Mr. Cordell?”
Jake grinned. “Don’t worry, Johnny, I used to be a boy, too.”
Humor twinkled in Kit’s eyes as she gazed at Jake. “So what are you now?”
“Odiferous,” Jake shot back.
Kit laughed, then coughed and waved a hand in front of her nose. “That’s for sure.”
“I ain’t takin’ off my drawers,” Johnny said stubbornly.
“I suppose giving them a tomato bath wouldn’t be a bad idea, anyhow,” Kit said with a helpless shrug.
Johnny removed his shoes, then his shirt and trousers, leaving on his lightweight woolen drawers. Kit used a wooden stick to pick up his clothing.
“Could you help him?” Kit asked, as she moved toward the back door.
“Where are you going?” Jake asked desperately. He wasn’t averse to sharing a hot sudsy tub with a willing woman, but he’d never given a child a bath before.
“Pete says he knows a way to get the smell out of clothes. I’ll be back in a little while.”
She disa
ppeared, leaving him with a near-naked kid and ten jars of squashed tomatoes. Sighing, Jake removed his own shirt, and rolled up the sleeves of his undershirt.
“Step right up,” Jake said with a dramatic flourish.
With a boyish grimace, Johnny got into the barrel and stood with his arms crossed. “Now what?”
Jake lifted one of the jars and held it up. “Here goes, kid.”
Jake poured the gloppy substance over Johnny’s head, and the boy yelped. “That’s cold!”
“Start rubbing it around like it’s soap,” Jake ordered.
Johnny complied as Jake continued to pour more jars of tomatoes over him. The reddish juice cascaded down his face, leaving pulp and seeds in his hair and on his shoulders.
The boy grimaced. “It feels kinda like a wet frog.”
It’d been a long time since Jake had caught frogs, but he didn’t have any trouble recalling the slimy texture. It wasn’t one of his favorite memories.
Once the boy was saturated, Jake grabbed a cloth and began to scrub Johnny. Tomato droplets got onto Jake’s trousers, and he cursed aloud.
Johnny giggled at the profanity. “Ma’d wash your mouth out with soap if she heard you.”
“It’d be better than tomatoes.” Muttering under his breath, Jake stripped down to his drawers. “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Move over, kid.”
The barrel barely accommodated both of them, and when Jake emptied a few more jars over himself, Johnny was splattered, too. A gleam in his eyes, the boy leaned over, cupped his hands, and filled them with juicy tomatoes. He tossed them at Jake, who sputtered under the onslaught.
“So you want to play tough? All right, you got it.” Jake smushed a tomato against Johnny’s neck, and the boy laughed and counterattacked.
Kit paused outside the kitchen, listening to them hoot and holler.
Jake Cordell had always been a clean man, favoring a bath more than once a month, as was customary among his colleagues. Arriving in Holyoke, Kansas, he found the nearest bathhouse and entered its clean, steamy interior. A pretty, plump-cheeked girl worked at the counter and quickly led him to an open copper tub filled with hot water.
After the young woman had left, Jake removed his clothing, folding each article carefully, leaving his revolver on the top of the pile within easy reach. He didn’t plan on any interruptions, but it was those unplanned intrusions that he always expected.
Sinking his saddle-sore body into the hot, sudsy water, Jake sighed in ecstasy. He leaned his head back and lit a cigar, savoring the silence and the tobacco.
Kit pressed her palms against her heated cheeks. Her overactive imagination had little trouble envisioning the picture she painted with her words.
“I don’t think that little scene would make it past my editor,” she said, fanning her face.
Taking a deep breath to regain her composure, she opened the door and stepped into bedlam. Her eyes widened at the scene that greeted her, and her nostrils rebelled under the onslaught of tomatoes and skunk odor. Jake and Johnny, looking like bloody ghouls, were involved in a tomato fight. Red sauce splattered everything within ten feet of the barrel, including Jake’s clothes, which lay scattered on the floor.
She lifted her gaze to Jake, whose drawers stuck to his body like a second skin. Following the line of his back down to his rounded buttocks and muscled thighs, Kit swallowed hard.
“Hi, Ma!” Johnny broke the spell.
Kit blinked, and she felt a hot flush crawl up her neck. “Ah.” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “It looks like you and Mr. Cordell have been busy.”
Jake turned to her, and his dark eyes twinkled devilishly. Did he suspect her unladylike thoughts? Oh, Lord, how could she look him in the eye?
Jake arched a saturated brow, where a glop of tomato had dripped down from his hair. “Care to join us?”
She quickly turned her back and moved to the sink, where she fiddled with the dirty dishes. “That’s all right. You seem to be doing fine without me.”
“The more the merrier,” Jake pressed.
The suggestive note in his voice brought a tremble to her insides. If she was going to retain any shred of dignity, she had to leave. Immediately.
“Why don’t you and Johnny go ahead and rinse off in the tub? I’ll just take your clothes out and put them with Johnny’s,” she said quickly.
Using a broomstick, she picked up his clothing.
“What am I supposed to wear when I’m done?” Jake asked. “Not that I’m ashamed of my body; it wouldn’t bother me to run around naked as a jaybird until my clothes are dry.”
Startled, Kit twirled around to stare in openmouthed amazement. “That would be … improper.”
“I thought you didn’t care about things like impropriety,” Jake challenged.
“Even I have my limits,” Kit replied stiffly.
Valiantly she tried to keep her line of sight fastened on his seed-littered hair. In spite of her effort, though, Kit’s uncooperative gaze drifted to his chest and lower, and found the tomato-soaked woolens had stuck to everything in the front, too.
“I can see that,” Jake remarked with a knowing grin.
She pivoted on her heel and fled the kitchen, Jake’s laughter tumbling after her. Kit ran until she arrived at the barn. Leaning against a post, she struggled to regain her breath.
“Good to see a man get the better of you,” Pete remarked, emerging from the shadows.
Drawing her shoulders back, Kit tried to regain some semblance of control over her tumultuous thoughts. “Jake Cordell did not get the better of me. He simply—” The outline of his masculinity beneath the soaked drawers slipped into her mind. “Surprised me.”
Pete chuckled. “That’s one way of putting it.”
Kit pursed her lips, and thrust the broomstick with the skunk-smelling clothing at him. “Here’s Jake’s clothes. They need to be soaked, too.”
“You know where the tub is,” Pete said. A sly grin crossed his leathery face. “I figure the stream’s right cold this time of year, if you’re interested in a quick dip.”
Kit tried to muster up a degree of outrage, but failed. She shook her head, giving in to her embarrassment. “What am I going to do, Pete?”
He shrugged. “What do you want to do?”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “Something I’m sure Bertie Wellensiek wouldn’t approve of.”
The old Indian snorted. “Who gives a rat’s turd what she thinks? Besides, you’re raising Cordell’s son already.”
“So you saw the resemblance, too?”
“They both take after Judge Cordell.” Pete rubbed his prominent jaw.
“What am I going to do?” she reiterated plaintively.
“Marry Cordell and give Johnny some little brothers and sisters.”
Kit’s heart leaped at the fantasy. If only it were that simple. “There’s a little matter called ‘love’ that enters the picture. I don’t love Jake, and he doesn’t love me.”
“You marry Cordell, and the rest’ll happen in its own time.” The Indian’s wizened face gentled. “I can see you have feelings for him, Kit, and Cordell isn’t blind to you. His pa was a fair man, and I’d say Jake’s cut from the same cloth. He looks to be a good one to ride the river with.”
Kit contemplated Pete’s words. Though she respected his advice, there was too much to lose if he was wrong.
She glanced down at the smelly bundle. “I’m going to take care of these, then get Jake and Johnny some other clothes to put on after their baths.”
A quarter of an hour later, Kit handed Ethan a pile of folded clothing for Jake and Johnny. Fortunately, her father had been close to Jake’s size, and Kit had found a pair of pants and shirt for him. “Could you take these in to them?” she asked.
Ethan nodded. “Sure, Miz Thornton.”
As he disappeared into the kitchen, her stomach flipped nervously. How could she face Jake now, with her imagination conjuring up visions of what lay beneath his clot
hes?
Ethan returned. “They’re almost done.”
“Thanks,” Kit said with a weak smile.
“I’d best get started on chores.”
The young man left, leaving Kit to wait alone. A couple of minutes later, Johnny and Jake emerged.
“How do we smell?” Johnny demanded, stepping up to her.
Kit sniffed tentatively, but only the faint scent of lye met her nostrils. “Much better.”
She glanced at Jake nervously. Her embarrassment fled when she noticed the fit of her father’s old clothes. The trousers stopped above his ankles, and Jake clung to the waistband to keep them from falling down.
“I guess they don’t fit you as well as I thought they would,” Kit said, then burst into laughter. “I think I can find you a pair of suspenders.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He leaned close to her, his brown eyes twinkling. “Jake Cordell lives for danger.”
Kit crossed her arms. “I doubt if T. K. Thorne had that type of danger in mind.” She noticed Jake and Johnny’s matching cowlicks in their damp hair. “Looks like both of you need your hair combed.”
Upstairs in Johnny’s room, she handed Jake a brush. “Here. I’ll go see if I can find those suspenders.”
When Kit returned, she found Jake sitting on the bed with Johnny standing between his knees, trying to tame the boy’s mussed hair. She paused in the doorway, watching and listening to their conversation.
“I never knew my pa,” Johnny said. “Ma says he was a good man, though.”
“Do you ever wish he was here?”
Johnny shrugged. “I got Ethan and Charlie and Pete. I figure that’s like having three pas.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way.” Jake licked his palm and smoothed Johnny’s cowlick. “There, that oughta pass your ma’s inspection.”
Johnny turned to face Jake. “You can be my pa, too, if you want.”
Jake studied the boy for a long moment, his expression unreadable. “I’d be proud to be your pa.”
Kit’s breath caught in her throat. Maggie had told her Jake Cordell wasn’t meant to be a father, and if he learned he had a child, he’d end up being miserable. Maggie had said Jake didn’t want to be tied down, and she’d made Kit promise not to burden him with the news of his son.
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