by Gem Sivad
It was her intention to have the shirts clean and back in the bedroom stack by the time Hawks returned. But, she couldn't resist the lure of his bounty. After her bath, she carried the girls to his room and laid them side-by-side on the bed while she sorted through his clothes, enjoying the soft feel of cotton shirts.
Jewel held a pair of Grady Hawks' long johns up, and on impulse, dropped the blanket she'd covered herself in and pulled on a pair of his underwear, shifting the waist to above her breasts. Then she buttoned his last shirt over the ankle-length pants that outlined her shapely calves. The shirt hung below her knees. It was the color of red dust, and she stroked its softness wishing she had a dress that color. A turquoise-studded belt she found in her snooping, looped around her waist, completed the colorful outfit. Since her boots were wet and muddy from her morning trek through the snow, she left them off.
Her hair curled as it dried, bouncing on her shoulders instead of pulling on her head with its long weight. It was surprisingly comfortable, and she grinned, looking in the mirror on the wall like an idiot, remembering the astonished look on his face when she'd handed him the clump of hair. Maybe he'll think twice before he orders me to do the next thing.
She didn't hear the outside door open while she stood playing dress-up games like a child. The sound of Grady Hawks' voice was the first indication that someone else was in the cabin with her.
"Julie?"
She froze and looked for someplace to hide, and then stood transfixed, afraid to answer or move.
"Julie Hawks?" This time she could hear the sound of more than one man's voice, and she listened, trying to gauge his mood.
"Looks like your bride flew the coop, Grady."
They shifted language then, and she heard different voices, including her husband's, but she couldn't distinguish what they said.
On his third call, "Jewel," said in a stern voice that demanded answer, she gathered the girls in her arms and carried them into the main room.
One look at her and they all stopped talking. Then the one called Dan Two-Horse slapped Grady Hawks on the back and said something in the language she didn't know, making them all laugh.
"I didn't hear you come in." She stumbled over the words, aware that she'd been caught pilfering his possessions.
"Next time I leave, put the bar across the door." He didn't say anything beyond the warning meant to protect her and the girls when he couldn't. But his gray eyes raked her body possessively, as though by covering herself in his shirt, she'd become even more his. Her nipples tented the material, and she was embarrassed at how it suddenly seemed to cling to her breasts.
Grady Hawks reminded her of a big cougar studying its prey, readying to pounce. At the same time, she was uncomfortably aware that she was the prey.
Chapter Eight
Grady didn't know what she was expecting, but it sure wasn't a caution about barring the door. The way the woman flinched and froze when he was around told its own story of her recent abuse.
The bruise on her jaw, now an ugly mustard yellow, was testimony that Frank Rossiter had died too easily. Grady would like to have staked him out and slowly flayed him alive.
Julie carried one child on each hip when she hesitantly answered his third call. He'd been going to chastise her for not answering him twice; first when he called her given name and then again when he'd joined it to his. But when he saw what she wore, the words dried on his tongue.
The woman stood before him in leggings and long-tailed shirt that was the color of the desert morning. He frowned at her bare toes and grumbled, "Put something on your feet."
Jesus … His cock was hard in two seconds just looking at her. Her nipples pointed through the material, emphasizing the rounded breasts beneath. Her face was flushed and innocent of the powdered artifice from the day before. In her flustered stance, he could see the young girl who had faced him outside the Eclipse Social years before.
He wanted to shove Dan and the others out the door, put the babies in the cradle he'd spent most of the night making, and explore his wife's body on the blanket in front of the fire. Naked on the blanket in front of the fire, he amended his thought.
Instead, he stomped his feet, loosening the snow collected there, and asked, "Food?"
"Oh." She looked relieved.
Guess she could see from my face what I really wanted. He frowned as she hurried to leave the room. "Next time I call, answer." The tight swelling at his groin made his voice harsher than he intended.
"My name is Jewel," she muttered.
"Not anymore," he answered swiftly. "You are Julie Hawks, my wife, now."
For a year, he could almost hear her silent rejoinder. For a year, and then we'll be free. But she answered brusquely, "Sit down at the table. There's a pot of stew made, and johnnycake to go with it. My dress should be dry by now. I'll change. You can serve your own meal." Carrying the shirt-clad babies, one on each hip, she grabbed her clothing from beside the fire and hurried from the room. A scrap of white fluttered to the floor beside the door, and she left it behind, unnoticed in her hasty retreat.
Grady walked to the door and retrieved the material which proved to be linen pantalettes. He smiled, felt a tightening in his groin, and tucked the clothing into his pocket.
The men had waited for Julie to leave before speaking. Grady approved that. On this ranch, there are too many secrets tucked away from the outside world to trust a woman who is probably temporary. But he fingered the scrap of cloth she'd dropped and thought of the hidden pale skin that had blushed rosy pink as he'd watched her feed her young.
"Your woman has crawled under your blanket." Dan Two-Horse nudged him and laughed.
"I don't think she'd agree," Grady frowned at his cousin. They always ate meals in this room and discussed the work for the day, either before it happened or at night, to report back on how much got done.
All of the men in the room were part of Hawks Nest. They studied him openly to judge if he'd lost his mind. He'd gone into Eclipse to attend a cattlemen's meeting and ridden home with a ready-made family.
Aware of the new presence in the cabin, the men ate fast and talked at the same time.
But intentional or not, Julie's cooking offered them solace with the uncommon smell and taste of a hot meal that had been waiting at the end of a hard day's work.
They all understood that it was better to get their talking done while the woman stranger was out of the room. But they scraped the last drop of stew from their plates and enjoyed the cornbread she'd baked to feed them. Trusted or not, the woman had already brought welcome change to his home.
Without the ranch fortress, most of the people on Hawks Nest land had no place to go, no home. Over the years, the elder Hawks brothers had built the ranch with the help of their Kiowa in-laws. They'd made it known that any man, red or white, who earned his keep with work would be welcomed on the spread.
When the Apaches were herded to San Carlos, many escaped and found their way to Hawks Nest, becoming part of the crew that worked the high country, drifting undetected among the cows and drovers.
As soon as the door closed, Rowdy spoke around the stew in his mouth. "Got the new drovers rounding up strays in the high country. Told 'em to hold the cattle in that box canyon and use what they needed."
"There are women and children with some of 'em, Grady. I don't know how that's gonna play out."
Grady's cousin, Dan Two-Horse, stared at the table grimly and repeated his position in an ongoing disagreement. "A man has the right to have his family with him."
The goal to separate the Indians from their lands had gained momentum and was largely aided and sanctioned by the government.
In late summer, the Apaches who had refused to be imprisoned on reservations had begun to drift in, finding sanctuary and jobs on Hawks Nest land before moving on. In turn, they protected the borders fiercely, all the while remaining invisible to the neighboring white ranchers.
Now Alan Michaels and his band of land-gra
bbing agents had focused on owning the property that offered life to hundreds of refugees. There was more scrutiny of the property than Grady was easy with. At first, he'd had been firm. No women or children.
The Indian men could hide in open sight, mixed in with the Hawks Nest crew. The women were not so easy to conceal.
"It was a practical rule," Grady began stating his position again, but Dan broke in and finished for him.
"…To a solitary man who has no woman to miss, maybe. Now that you have a woman of your own, you'll understand the way it is." It was commonly held that Grady Hawks was as hard as stone. Since his father had been killed, Grady remained aloof from the others on the ranch.
But Dan Two-Horse had argued from the beginning that the Indians riding for the Hawks Nest brand earned the same rights as white cowpunchers. Those men had cabins built for their families when needed. It was a moot point, since white drovers were rarely hired to work on Hawks Nest land. Dan argued that the common benefits offered to whites should be provided for the Indian drovers who came to the ranch and herded cattle.
But now, sanctioned or not, the Indian women were coming, driven from their homes by white men's expansion. Children were inevitable.
Christ, it's a mess churning into worse. Grady didn't have to look across the room to know that his own woman had reentered. The men had stopped talking.
The twins she carried, one on each hip, were evidence of her fertility. He'd never enjoyed the game of poker when he and his dad had played, but this was one gamble he was betting would pay off. His cock swelled, assuring him that it would be a willing participant.
He let himself follow the gaze of his men. She looked younger with no paint on her skin. The red hair that was left from her morning tantrum curled softly around her face and fell to her shoulders.
Her boots steamed by the fire, still soaked from the morning's trek through the snow, and he fingered the pantalettes that should have protected her legs from the cold. He frowned. She'd changed back into the dress Hamilton Quince's wife had given her. It was too long and dragged the floor, catching on things. After he'd watched her stumble over it twice, he rose, unsheathed his knife, and crossed the room.
"Stand still," he ordered her. He crouched at her feet and cut the bottom four inches of material from the gown. Her feet were still bare. "Pick your foot up." He wrapped the first foot in the extra length, tying it off above her calf. She stood still, teetering, trying to not touch him.
Deliberately he ran his hand up the inside of her bare leg. A flush stained her cheeks pink, and since he knew it wasn't passion, he figured it for anger and was careful with the knife she'd already wielded once this day. Nevertheless, he explored the smooth flesh that pebbled under his touch, her heat scorching his fingers that itched to climb higher.
"You realize you just destroyed this dress, so I will not be able to return it." Her anxious words warned him that this was serious. "I don't want to owe the Quinces anything. Now I do."
He ignored her distress and set her first foot in place to lift the other. When he finished, she had makeshift socks protecting her feet from the cold floor.
He stood, slid his knife home and looked across at the babies. They waved at him, almost making him smile. "You cook and clean." His voice thickened, as had his cock, while he'd knelt on the floor touching what he wouldn't let himself have yet. He turned away, controlling his lust and told her gruffly, "I'll worry about the Quince woman's dress."
She answered sharply for his ears only. "Cooking and cleaning are extra duty. You brought me here to be a broodmare. That's what you'll get. Anything else will cost you."
He turned back and gripped her chin, forcing her head up so he could stare into her eyes. "Breed true, then," as though by his ordering it, her womb would assemble a baby with the features needed to please the white Texas citizenry.
"Sometimes I wonder how it is that men, being as stupid as they are, have come to be in charge."
The woman had to have the last word, but she didn't shift away from him, and he claimed that as victory. Whether she knew it or not, she hadn't feared sassing him.
His grip changed to a caress, and he stroked her jaw. "We're bigger than you, Julie.
That's why a beautiful woman has to find a man to take care of her. Otherwise the wolves will take her down."
"Who protects her from her protector?" she asked bitterly.
He dropped his hand and stepped back. "Maybe you'll decide that you can trust him,"
he murmured the words low enough to keep them private between them.
He had no idea what he was talking about. The words were not the rehearsed thoughts he'd mulled on while he was away from her. Being near her had a way of knocking sense from his head.
With no explanation, awkwardly he pulled out the comb he'd carved from wood that morning. When he handed it to her, she hesitated before she accepted the gift and tucked it into her pocket on her retreat to the cold bedroom she'd staked out for herself and the babies.
Grady watched her leave the room and wondered how long he'd be able to restrain himself from claiming her. He wanted to bury his face in the soft waves that now touched her shoulders. He lay awake that night, imagining the silken strands brushing across his body and used his hand to get release.
At breakfast the next morning, he caught the other men staring at the rich auburn locks and jealously wished he'd never told her to leave it down. He didn't want to share that part of her beauty with anyone.
* * * *
It was late autumn. The snow that had fallen the night of her arrival marked the beginning of the new season. Grady rode out every day and let Julie have the ranch house to herself. Julie served breakfast for the men and then retreated to the other side of the room where she fed the twins as she hummed softly to them. Even the clink of cutlery against plates stopped as they listened to the woman's voice.
After his cousin, Dan Two-Horse, had given him direction, Grady followed a morning ritual with her.
Grady and Dan had been standing in the barn, ready to ride to the high country and bring in late calves when Dan had told him to go back inside and say good morning.
"Your wife is like a thoroughbred that's been abused. Use her carefully, cousin. Woo her.
Let her know that you're her friend, her protector."
At first Grady had bristled at the advice. But Dan had continued anyway. "She's your wife. Make her want to be your woman. She's a good mother. Start with that and let her know she can trust you."
Grady and Dan-Two Horse were more like brothers than cousins. They knew each other better than most siblings. Grady had followed his father's white path, although the white world held him at arm's length.
Henry Hawks, Grady's father, had married an Indian woman to gain the land and had used Indian ranch hands to hold it. While he was alive, the other ranchers looked to him to keep the Apaches happy. But his death left this part of Texas in an upheaval, coming at the same time as migrating tribes of Indians crossed the mountains fleeing the U.S.
cavalry. The ranchers around Eclipse looked with suspicion on Grady with his mixed blood.
Dan, on the other hand, moved in and out of both worlds, mingling with the people of every race as easily as he whispered their horses.
"I see the way you look at her. That's good. She needs to know that you desire her."
Grady interrupted Dan sharply. "If you know so much about women, why don't you get your own?"
"I have a woman. She just doesn't know yet that she belongs to me." With no more explanation than that, Dan mounted and followed the other riders toward the foothills.
Grady had stood alone in the barn puzzling over his cousin's words. And then he'd gone back to the house.
"Thought I told you to bar the door." It wasn't much of a good morning, and she'd stepped back as though expecting violence.
"Come here." He could see that his gruff words frightened her, but he couldn't unsay them or change the tone he'd used, so he wa
ited.
Her steps were reluctant as she approached. When Julie stood before him he studied her. The bruise was a fading mark on her otherwise creamy skin.
Grady cupped her face in his hands, holding her still when she tried to jerk away.
"Easy," he murmured. "Be easy, I'll not hurt you." And then he'd brushed his lips across hers and departed, leaving her stunned and silent.
"Don't forget to bar the door," he reminded her as he left. He'd tasted her lips and wanted more. After that, every morning before he left for the day's work, he called her to him for a kiss. After the first week, she even wrinkled her nose at him when he told her to bar the door.
He took that as progress, since she smiled at him during the process.
*
They fell into a routine that gave Julie's fears time to settle. Temporary sanctuary or not, Grady Hawks made her feel that she had a home and a reason for being. The big, silent rancher didn't hide his desire for her, but he didn't bother her at night or try to get personal except for the kiss he insisted on from her every morning. So, she cooked and cleaned the cabin instead of worrying about what she couldn't control. I'll not be beholden to him for any reason when we go.
The oak planks she walked on grabbed her attention first. The beautiful wood was streaked with mud, and on hands and knees she scrubbed the area, knowing that her daughters would soon learn to navigate in safety there. The best she'd been able to provide before was a dirt-packed floor that was never clean no matter how hard she'd tried to maintain it.
She worked all day, pouring her tension and anxieties into the strength of her labors.
When she heard horses enter the ranch yard, she cast a quick look out the big window to see her husband and the other ranch hands disappearing into the barn.
In a short time, the men filed into the room, following Grady Hawks to the table where their supper waited.
"Cold out," her husband grunted as he stomped his feet free of snow, leaving a muddy puddle where she'd just cleaned. The other men silently followed Grady's lead as they collectively headed for the food. Julie was aware of a few uneasy glances cast her way, as she mopped the floor free of the mess they'd tracked in. She didn't bother to hide her anger at the extra work they made for her.