After Sundown (23 page)

“So we don’t have a horse,” she said again, “and we don’t have much food—”

“We’ve got water. And the supplies in my saddlebags. And firewood. We’ll get some rest, try to find the horse in the morning.”

A plan. He had a plan. Annie felt a bit relieved. “And what if we can’t find the horse?”

He didn’t answer.

She turned toward him. Saw a muscle flexing in his lean, beard-darkened jaw.

And felt like she’d swallowed a chunk of ice, felt it settle in the pit of her stomach. She understood what he was trying not to tell her.

Without a horse, they were trapped here. Stranded in the middle of nowhere. And if the snows kept up like they had...

They wouldn’t last long on coffee and squirrels.

“I-I may not know anything about survival in the wilderness,” she said, her voice wavering, “but it sounds like... like we could...”

He didn’t say anything for a moment.

His voice was quiet. “We’re not going to die out here.”

“You hesitated.”

He looked over at her, his gaze meeting and holding hers. “We are not going to die out here,” he said firmly. “If we can’t find the horse, we’ll wait for the weather to clear and walk out.”

That plan was not as reassuring as his first plan. Not nearly. Annie shivered, realizing that for once, Lucas didn’t seem quite as self-assured and fearless as he always did.

And for the first time, she missed that maddening, confident quality he always had.

She sank down onto one of the chairs in the corner. He finished cleaning the bullet wound in his temple, dabbing at it with his bandana.

“You’re bleeding again,” she whispered.

He just nodded. And folded the bandana into a pad and tied it in place with the strip of cloth from her petticoat. Then he went over to the bed, pulling it across the dirt floor, closer to the stove. He picked up his coat and their icy blankets, and hung them on the foot of the iron bedstead to dry.

Then he started unbuttoning his shirt. “You probably should get out of those damp clothes.”

He said it casually, as if it were a simple and sensible idea, not shocking at all. And suddenly Annie realized what else being stranded here meant.

It meant spending the night alone with him. Several nights.

With no bars between them.

He hung up his shirt on the bed. Annie remained right where she was. In the corner. Fully clothed in her freezing, clinging dress and undergarments. Watching him.

The muscles of his back and arms flexed in the lamplight as he unrolled the mattress, spreading the coverlet out across it. Along with the quilt. There weren’t any pillows. He sat on the bed and took off his boots. Then he lay down and stretched out on his back with a muffled groan.

“What are you doing?” She still hadn’t moved.

“Going to sleep,” he said as if it should be obvious, sliding beneath the quilt and rolling on his side.

Annie frowned. So he intended to take the bed
and
all the covers? But then, she thought grudgingly, he needed them more than she did, since he was the one who’d been shot.

She started looking around, trying to think of where she was going to sleep. The moth-eaten animal pelts hanging on the walls didn’t hold much appeal as blankets. And the freezing cold floor wasn’t much of a choice. Especially since there were mice—or some such—running around in here.

“Are you coming to bed or not?”

Her stomach flipped at his grumbled question. She turned her head and stared at him blankly, her heart beating too hard. “You mean I... we... we’re both going to...” Heat flooded her cheeks. “I-I don’t think that’s a good idea, Marshal.”

“Antoinette,” he said with exaggerated patience and a bleary-eyed stare, “I started out my morning getting shot. I spent all last night riding. I spent the better part of an hour hiking down this mountain on foot. And I haven’t eaten much of anything since breakfast yesterday. Now, it’s real flattering that you think I might be capable of something more than sleep right now.” The hard line of his mouth curved downward. “But I’m not.”

Annie lowered her lashes, realizing he was right. Of course he was. A bit too brusque and pointed, but right. Lucas might be tough enough to chew nails and spit tacks, but even he had his limits.

The man might be a hero, but he was also human.

“All I want is sleep,” he continued, “and I’d just as soon not freeze to death while I’m doing it. This is no time to get all shy and squeamish. If we’re not going to die out here together, then we have to survive, together.”

Practical, logical. As always. And it was true: The question of whether or not they should share a bed was somewhat less important than other questions at the moment. Like whether they could stave off the cold and stay alive.

“Would you...” she said haltingly. “Would you...”

“What?” he snapped.

“Turn down the lantern.”

He muttered a curse, but complied with her request, leaning over the side of the bed to turn the lantern down, all the way.

As darkness enveloped the small, dank, drafty cabin, Annie stood up and unbuttoned her dress, shivering as she let it fall to her ankles, followed by her ruined, tattered petticoat. But she decided to leave on her camisole and pantalettes. They were chilly and damp. But essential.

Grateful for the darkness, she walked over to the bed, reminding herself that she and Lucas had trusted each other with their lives today. She would just have to trust him to keep his hands to himself tonight.

The mattress was stuffed with cotton, and it felt lumpy, and the woven coverlet was stiff and scratchy against her skin, and the bed creaked. But the quilt felt soft and warm as Lucas held it open and covered her with it.

She curled up on her side, with her back to him. The bed wasn’t very wide, wasn’t really meant for two people. She thought he might make some effort to keep distance between them.

But he didn’t. In fact, he looped an arm around her waist and drew her close to him. She tensed. “Marshal—”

“Need to conserve heat.” He settled in beside her, his hard, muscled body going slack. “Go to sleep, Antoinette. You’re perfectly... safe... promise...”

He seemed to barely have enough strength left to finish mumbling those few words. His arm around her relaxed.

But Annie didn’t sleep. Couldn’t. She just lay there, staring into the darkness. Listening to the wind battering the small cabin, howling through the stovepipe. And for some ridiculous reason, tears began sliding down her cheeks.

After all she had been through yesterday and today, why she should cry now, she couldn’t figure out. She shut her eyes, tried to keep quiet. Didn’t want to bother Lucas when he needed rest so badly.

But he must’ve heard her.

Because after a minute, she felt his fingertips on her cheek, his thumb brushing her tears away.

“Don’t,” he said quietly.

Annie buried her face in the coverlet. Why did men always say that when a woman cried?
Don’t
. Like it would solve anything. Like she could just turn her emotions on and off. She was afraid. He might not understand or care, but she was afraid.

“Shhh, we’ll be all right,” he said. “I’ll keep you safe.”

Annie opened her eyes, his words warming her as much as his touch. He
did
understand. Without her having to explain what she felt, he understood.

And he did care.

I’ll keep you safe
. Nobody had ever said that to her, not in her whole life.

His arm settled around her waist again, and he drew her close, and even though he didn’t say any more, her tears stopped. Despite all the danger they were facing, she felt... protected.

Maybe because Lucas was the kind of man who really could keep a woman safe, who would always chase the dark things of the world away. Strong and unyielding, full of courage and fire and determination. And moments of unexpected gentleness.

The kind of man most girls grew up dreaming about.

But Annie knew better than to believe in dreams. Life had taught her too many times that they didn’t come true. Not for women like her.

So as she closed her eyes, and tried to rest, she also tried very hard to remember that she didn’t want or need a man’s comfort or caring, or his strong arms around her. Didn’t need this at all, she thought as she began to drift to sleep.

Didn’t... need... Lucas.

L
ucas remained still as he opened his eyes just a bit, his head hurting as if some persistent railroad worker were pounding a spike into him. He lay on his back beneath the quilt, blinking in the lamplight, realizing two things at once. First, he was alone in the bed.

Second, he could smell hot bean soup. And coffee and some kind of frybread. His stomach growled at the warm, mingling aromas. When he recovered from his surprise enough to lift his head—cautiously, wincing—and look around, he discovered that Annie had been up for some time.

Apparently she had been busy while he was still asleep: She had not only brought in more wood for the fire, which was crackling in the stove, and made a meal, she had straightened the place up a bit, cleaned away some of the dust, arranged all the chairs neatly around the table in the corner, made everything tidy.

At the moment, she sat at the table with her back to him, wearing her plain brown dress, the food spread out around her: iron frypan, a metal coffeepot, the tin cup and plate from his saddlebag. Across from her sat another cup and plate she must have found somewhere in the dugout.

She had set two places. Had made him breakfast.

Lucas rested his head back against the mattress, regarding her in silent surprise for a moment. He never would have guessed that she might know how to cook—never mind be able to make something out of the few ingredients they had on hand. It only drove home what he’d been brooding about—or rather, trying
not
to brood about—since he’d opened that letter from the Denver orphanage.

Though he’d spent weeks hunting this woman down and almost a month in her company, the truth was he knew damn little about her.

Lucas sat up, groaning softly at the pain in his temple, and she turned toward him.

“Good morning,” she said, a bit hesitantly. “How are you feeling?”

He considered that question for a moment, gingerly probing his bandaged temple. His head still ached, and his throat was parched with thirst, but the dizziness was gone. “Better.” A good night’s sleep had been exactly what he’d needed. “What time is it?”

“Almost midday, I think.”

Lucas rubbed his eyes. A good night
and
half a day’s sleep. He moved to sit on the edge of the bed and looked up.

Their gazes met and held for a moment, until she glanced away, a hint of dusky color in her cheeks.

He grabbed his shirt from the bedpost, studying her by the lantern’s glow. She had tamed her curls into a long, thick braid that hung down the back of her chair, the end tied with a strip of cloth from her petticoat—a match for the one still knotted around his head. She looked sweet, almost shy, sitting there so quietly, the light giving her dark eyes that languid look beneath the fringe of her lashes...

Lucas pulled his shirt on and started buttoning it.

He’d kept his promise last night. She had been completely safe beside him. Unharmed.

Untouched.

He’d been left with nothing but vague, dreamlike memories of her soft, rounded shape curled against him beneath the quilt. And her body shifting during the night, snuggling closer to his warmth. And her leg resting against his, her skin warm even through the heavy denim of his trousers.

Last night, he’d meant what he’d said—he hadn’t been capable of anything more than sleep.

But apparently he was feeling better.

Because just the hazy memory of her lying beside him, almost naked, was enough to heat his blood and stir a taut feeling low in his belly.

He grabbed his boots, tugged them on, and stood up.

“I was going to wait,” she said, gesturing to the food on the table, her empty plate, “but I was starving, and I didn’t want to wake you—”

“Don’t worry about it.” He went outside to heed the call of nature, and to take a few deep breaths of the frigid air, trying to chill the fire from his veins before he allowed himself near her.

When he came back inside, a blast of snow and wind and sun blew in with him as he shut the door.

“It hasn’t stopped snowing.” She sounded worried.

“No.” He walked to the bucket of water that sat on the stove, poured some into a dented basin, and carried it to the corner, where there was a fragment of mirror nailed to the wall. He grimaced at his bearded, bloodstained face. When he unwrapped the bandage from around his forehead, he saw that at least the crease in his temple had stopped bleeding.

After tending the wound and washing up, he walked over to the table, took a seat across from her, and dug into the food hungrily.

“Good,” he said when he paused long enough between mouthfuls to speak. He tried the coffee and nodded appreciatively. “Damned good.”

“Thanks.” She sat watching him, her voice quiet. “Luc—Marshal... about the bounty hunter, I wondered...” She hesitated, shifted on her chair. “I never asked about Travis,” she said finally. “Is he all right?”

“When I left town,” Lucas said around a mouthful of frybread, “Holt seemed to think he would be fine.”

“I’m glad.” She was silent for a moment. “You thought I had escaped, didn’t you? You thought I was the one who’d hurt him.”

He lifted the cup of coffee and took a long swallow before he replied. “All the evidence pointed to that at the time,” he admitted.

“All the evidence,” she echoed softly. “Why did you risk your life to save me?”

He studied the rim of his cup. “It’s my duty to look after anyone who’s in my custody. You’re my—”

“Prisoner,” she finished for him, nodding. She picked up her empty dishes and stood, carrying them over to the bucket of water on the stove. “I understand.”

Lucas set the coffee down and stared at the tabletop. She didn’t understand a thing. She couldn’t
begin
to understand why he had done what he’d done.

Damn it,
he
didn’t understand any of this: why she stirred his senses like no other female he’d ever set eyes on. Why she had possessed his every thought for weeks.

How could he feel this way about
any
woman? Let alone
her
?

She had been his brother’s mistress.

Had taken James’s life.

And Lucas was so obsessed with her, he had almost died for her. Had killed for her without remorse.

The more he tried to resist her, the more he ached to take her in his arms and kiss her again, to learn the taste of her, to feel her body respond to his. He wanted that with an urgency unlike any he’d known before.
Need
was the only word he could call it.

He needed her.
More than he needed shelter from the storm or food or even air. For reasons he couldn’t understand. Reasons all tangled up with her soft curves and her gentle heart and those unexpected flashes of steel and tenacity he kept noticing.

None of it made any kind of logical sense.

And she stood there with her back to him, silent, taking longer than necessary to wash one cup and one plate. And she thought she understood him.

With a frustrated curse, he pushed back from the table and paced over to the door, to the bed, to the stone wall at the back of the small dugout. He found himself eye-to-eye with a wolf trophy on display, its pelt stretched out and nailed up by the paws.

Lucas frowned, feeling a certain kinship with the fallen predator—except that the poor son of a bitch was out of his misery.

And the wolf had probably died from a nice, quick rifle shot... not from having his guts all torn up by what he felt for a female.

He turned and settled in next to the wolf, resting his shoulders against the rock, crossing his arms over his chest. He expelled a harsh breath.

“Tell me how it happened, Antoinette.”

“How what happened?” she asked.

“How you shot James. Tell me what happened that day.”

With a startled gasp, she looked over at him.

He held her gaze across the lamplit darkness between them. There was no taking it back now, no more ignoring the question that had been gnawing at him for so long. He wanted her answer. Needed to know.

But she shook her head. “You decided a long time ago what you were willing to believe. I
tried
to tell you the truth the day you arrested me, and you wouldn’t let me. You never even gave me a chance—”

“I’m giving you a chance now.”

“Why? All this time you’ve only cared about
your
version of what happened. And now you want the truth? Why does it suddenly matter to you?”

Lucas looked away.
Because I can’t believe you’re a killer. Because you’re so dammed sensitive and delicate and softhearted. Because you are not
capable
of cold-blooded murder.

Because you’re not what I thought you were.

When he hesitated, she turned away. “You’re just like everybody else back in St. Charles,” she said bitterly. “Not one of them ever gave me a chance.
Me
. Annie Sutton. Never mind what my mother was—”

“I know you’re not your mother.”

For a moment, she seemed unable to speak.

Then she pinned him with a glare. “Really?” she asked sarcastically. “I’ve lost count of the number of times you’ve called me a whore—like you thought I was born and raised in a cathouse while my mama was between customers.”

He gritted his teeth. “I don’t know where you were born and raised. You never told me.”

“You never asked!”

“I’m asking now.”

“In a backwater cabin that wasn’t much bigger than this place.” She choked out the words. “In a patch of Missouri woods that couldn’t be called a town. I started out with a big brother and a papa who was a farmer and a mama who was the prettiest lady around. And all I remember is Papa grumbling about bad weather and bad crops, and we were all hungry a lot, and it was the happiest time of my life.”

She turned her back, her shoulders rising and falling rapidly as if she were struggling for breath.

Lucas didn’t know what stunned him more: that her childhood had been similar to his own boyhood days on his family’s farm—or that she’d grown up with a father and an older brother.

Men who should’ve taken care of her, watched over her. Protected her. “What happened to them—your father and your brother?”

“Papa left when the war started,” she said bitterly. “The militia came looking for recruits and he ran off. We tried to find him—Mama and me and my brother Rafe—but we never did. That was when Mama moved to St. Charles. And
that
was when everything changed.”

She reached down and picked up the empty tin cup she had washed, turning it around in her hands as she continued.

“We took rooms in a boardinghouse, an awful place down on the river, and Mama started getting lots of visits from what she called her ‘gentlemen friends.’ Yankees, Confederates, it didn’t seem to matter to her. Nothing seemed to matter to her after Papa ran off. Nothing and... nobody.”

Lucas felt sick, imagining what it must have been like: Antoinette couldn’t have been more than five or six, watching an endless stream of soldiers and river rats and other men “visit” her mother. She would’ve been too young to understand why the people of St. Charles scorned her. People she didn’t even know, who didn’t know her.

Not one of them ever gave me a chance.

People like him.

“As soon as Rafe was old enough, he left.” Her voice had become hollow. “Went off to make his fortune in the West so he could rescue us all. But he never came back either. He disappeared. Just like Papa.” She set the tin cup down. “After that, it was just Mama and me.”

Lucas studied her, understanding for the first time the flashes of steel he had noticed beneath her vulnerability. And her grit and stubbornness. Even her cooking ability.

She had spent years making something out of nothing, fending for herself, with no one to take care of her and a mother who didn’t give a damn about her. “Why didn’t
you
leave when you were old enough?” he asked, shaking his head.

Her eyes widened in surprise. “I couldn’t leave Mama. I couldn’t abandon her like everyone else.”

Lucas stared at her, astonished that she would be so loyal to her mother in spite of everything. It was beyond his comprehension that anyone could care
that
much for someone, flaws and all.

But she had stayed. Had sacrificed any hope of a normal life, of friends or a place in the community or a husband and children of her own.

Had chosen a far different life.

“And how did you meet James?” Lucas asked tightly.

She hesitated, walking over to the table, reaching out to grip the back of one of the chairs. “It was my seventeenth birthday,” she replied, looking down. “Mama gave me a pretty dress to wear—the first new dress I ever had. And she took me to one of the fancy new hotels in town for dinner. But everyone was looking at us, and whispering.” She shrugged as if it didn’t matter, as if she were used to it. “And they turned us away. But I didn’t really care. The dress was enough of a gift.”

A smile touched her lips—brief, fleeting—as if it were a favorite memory.

After a moment she looked up, staring into the darkness, into nothing. “The next morning, a gentleman in an expensive suit and a paisley ascot came to see us. He said he represented Mr. James McKenna, and he said Mr. McKenna had an offer for me. ‘A mighty fine offer,’ he called it.” A look of pain crossed her features. “I remember exactly the way he looked at me when he said it.”