Audrey and the Maverick (5 page)

When his lips slanted across hers, she welcomed the touch, unable to help the shiver that rippled through her. His hard mouth was forceful on hers, opening her to his tongue. She felt him enter her mouth, his tongue searching for hers, dancing against her teeth. The heat in her body leapt to life. She uttered a moaning sound she’d never before heard herself make. Her tongue rose to meet his, following his into his mouth, pressing and moving against his.

He broke the kiss, his lips touching her upper lip, then her lower lip, then the space between her lip and her chin. She was bent back over his arm. His free hand came up, his thumb feeling the skin of her cheek, the line of her jaw. She looked at him, watched him as he watched his thumb move across her skin, over her lips. She touched her tongue to the pad of his thumb. His eyes flared. He crushed her to him, his lips moving fiercely against hers, his tongue thrusting into her mouth. His hand moved lower, over her collarbone, lower to cover her breast.

Audrey was unprepared for the desire that knifed through her at his caress. She sucked a sharp breath of air against his lips as she gasped. Slowly, it dawned on her that she lay sprawled against his lap as he arched over her, playing her body like a musician strums his instrument. Reality threaded itself into the heated length of her body, cooling her melting flesh.

She pushed away from him, then jumped off the bench and faced him in horrified mortification. Rage and embarrassment warred within her. He’d just offered her a viable alternative, and still she threw herself at him. She was a Jezebel. She should never have been out here with him, undressed as they were. She should never have sat with him, alone in the night, on the bench. What now? His offer of help was not innocent, as he proclaimed. It had its price. No man gave without taking, she realized, watching him slowly stand and face her.

“Forget it. Forget it all. I don’t want your help. I won’t pay that price.”

“There is no price for my help,” he rasped, taking a step toward her. She took two steps back. He stopped, his hands held up before him. “That was just a kiss—nothing more.”

Audrey covered her mouth with a trembling hand. Even now, her faithless body craved his, craved being in his arms, craved his hot mouth on hers. She shook her head. She couldn’t do what the sheriff wanted. She couldn’t.

McCaid stood still. His voice was low and soothing. “I’m sorry I frightened you.”

Audrey felt tears rise in her eyes, tears of frustration that she now stood several feet from him, tears that a man such as he would never be hers, tears that she was weak and needy and fallible. She spun on her heel and fled into her cabin. At best, she could only be his whore.

And it might be enough.

Julian watched Audrey’s closed door and slowly, raggedly, released the air in his lungs. She’d come alive in his arms in a way that left him stunned and hungering for more.
Shit
. He had practically mauled her, with her still bearing the bruises of another man’s rough handling. He started toward the river. The ice-cold water would be his body’s only relief tonight.

Ignoring the pain of the rocks and stickers underneath his bare feet, he felt again the heat in Audrey’s eyes when she’d looked him over so boldly a moment ago. He lifted his hands to his nose, breathing deeply of the faint rose scent that lingered on his skin. He could still feel her hard nipples pressed against his chest, her strong, slim arms wrapped around his neck in what he knew she meant as a chaste and fervent thank-you. And yet he’d taken her gratitude and filled it with his own dark longing and need.

He was glad she hadn’t asked him to turn around; he wouldn’t have liked seeing her reaction to his scars. He was as lost in his own way as she was. He wished she was still here, with him. He wished he could make her trust him, tell him what the hell was really going on. He wished he could have brushed away her tears. She was twenty. A baby. A baby with a baby. Jesus, he was a bastard. Tomorrow he would do what he could to make it right. He’d meant what he said about having one less criminal in Defiance.

The noise in Sam’s Saloon slowly settled down as Sheriff Kemp stood up by the bar and waved the men to silence. Sam’s had been closed for this meeting. The women who usually worked the room were absent. In fact, so were most of the patrons. The men gathered were hand-selected by the sheriff. Their land bordered Hell’s Gulch or they had formerly used Hell’s Gulch for summer grazing. Some of them owned land that was downstream from Hell’s Gulch. Some, perhaps most, were just plain sheep-hating cattlemen.

The sheriff wasn’t a man who trusted in Fate. He wanted McCaid out of the area, come hell or high water. McCaid was either stupid or stubborn—if he and his men couldn’t bully him out, the sheriff had begun a backup plan. He’d get the area ranchers to run him out. Hence the purpose of this evening’s meeting.

“Gentlemen.” The sheriff held up his hands, bringing the assembly to order. “I called this meeting to give you a forum to discuss your concerns regarding the invasion of sheep ranching in our area. We don’t have a mayor in this town, so this task falls to me. I’ve been hearing grumbling, and I don’t want any of you takin’ the law into your own hands. I think it’s time we confront this issue and decide as a group how we’re gonna deal with it.”

“It’s illegal, is what it is, him buying public grazing land. Weren’t no hearing, no announcement—he just up and buys thousands of prime acres from the government.”

“It’s legal all right. I looked his deed over a year ago,” the sheriff countered.

“That don’t make it right, Sheriff,” another rancher spoke up. “We’re dependent on the water that comes down to us through McCaid’s property, which he’s fouling up with sheep waste. I had to dig wells to water my herd ’cause I didn’t want to lose ’em to poisoned water.”

“And he’s got too many sheep grazing that land. There won’t be nothing left for us once he folds up and runs back East.”

“He’s paying unfair wages. I can’t get any of the help I need—I can’t compete with him.”

“I heard he’s planning on bringing a railroad spur here so he can get his sheep and wool to Cheyenne and Denver.”

“Well, hell, that’s something that could help us all.”

“You think he’s gonna let us use it to run our cattle down to Cheyenne? Hell no. Leastwise, not without gouging us for the service.” The speaker spit a stream of tobacco juice in the general direction of a nearby spittoon. “Any way you look at it, McCaid’s trouble.”

“There’s the other matter too, Sheriff,” Deputy Fred added to the conversation, right on cue. “He took one of our town’s good women with him. God knows what he’s doing to her out there.” He looked at the sheriff. “She’s alone and depended on us to protect her. We let her down.” The men’s voices fired up in angry conversations at that news.

Malcolm watched the proceedings from his position at the back of the room. He’d like to see McCaid run out of town, for a fact. But he had mixed feelings about sending trouble out to Hell’s Gulch where Audrey could get tangled up in it. He crossed his arms and held his silence, ignoring the sheriff’s look as he indicated Malcolm should join the discussion.

“So, gentlemen, what are we going to do about him?” the sheriff asked.

The bunkroom was dark, and the night was cold. Mabel couldn’t sleep. She tried to think of all the things that she liked, as Audrey had taught her to do when she was edgy and restless, but tonight that didn’t work very well. Mostly she thought about all the things she missed, like her mother, of whom she had only vague, shadowy memories. Or Audrey’s mother, who was, for a short while, a true mother to her. Sometimes she couldn’t picture Mrs. Sheridan’s face anymore. Sometimes it was hard to remember what her voice sounded like. She was gone now, longer than the time they’d had together. But Audrey had always been there. When Mabel couldn’t sleep, Audrey let her sleep in bed with her and Amy. Sometimes she would tell them a story. Sometimes she would just hold Mabel, and then the shadows didn’t seem so scary.

Mabel sniffled. When people left, they didn’t come back. She’d learned that, first with her mother, then with Mrs. Sheridan. And now Audrey. She missed Audrey. She looked over at Dulcie, who was sleeping soundly. She thought about waking her up to see if she missed Audrey too, but Dulcie usually saw scary things in the dark, and Mabel didn’t want to know about them right then. She looked down at the foot of the bed, where Colleen lay. She slept as well, her legs snuggled against Dulcie. With Malcolm using Audrey’s bed, Luc had taken his bunk. There was room for the three girls to spread out, but none of them had wanted to sleep with any of the boys. So they stayed together, crowded and comfortable.

Until tonight, when Mabel was sad and no one was awake to comfort her.

Today, she’d done some mending on her pinafore. Audrey had only recently begun to show her and Dulcie how to mend things. Mabel’s stitches were chunky. Tommy and Kurt had teased her about them. She had ripped the stitches out three times and tried over and again to do it as Audrey had shown her. Now her fingertips hurt from being stuck by the needle, and her pinafore had a big ugly knotted scar where the small tear had been.

Mabel tried to sniffle quietly, afraid of waking her foster sisters. She got out of bed and went inside the main room where Audrey’s bed was. If she was quiet, she could get into bed without waking Malcolm, and then she would feel better. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and crept cautiously toward the big bed.

The big empty bed.

“Malcolm?” she whispered, but got no response. She looked around the room, trying to see if he was sitting in one of the kitchen chairs. Maybe he was outside. She opened the heavy, creaky door but didn’t see him on the front steps. “Malcolm?” she called again, a little louder this time.

A cool breeze blew around her, wrapping about her feet, slipping through the thin material of her worn cotton nightgown. Malcolm was gone too. She started trembling. What would happen to them now? How would they eat? She wiped her tears on the back of her hand and went inside, shutting the door behind her. She returned to the bunkroom.

“Luc,” she whispered, hoping she would wake only him, not the whole bunch of them. She wiggled his shoulder. “Luc! Malcolm’s gone.”

“Mabel! It’s the middle of the night,” he growled. “Go back to sleep.”

“Luc, wake up. Malcolm’s gone.”

Luc braced himself on his elbows and looked at Mabel as her words slowly sank in. He ripped off his blanket and went into the main room. He looked on the other side of the bed. He looked under the kitchen table. He opened the front door and looked outside. Mabel followed him. The breeze made strange moaning sounds as it blew around their little house. Mabel put her hand in Luc’s.

“What’re we gonna do?” she whispered, gazing up at him.

Luc’s hand tightened around hers as he looked at her, his lips pressed thin. “He’ll be back, you’ll see.”

“People don’t come back.”

“Sometimes they do. Audrey will. She said she would.”

“Who will feed us tomorrow, Luc?”

“If Malcolm isn’t back in the morning, I’ll feed you. And if he’s not here tomorrow night, we’ll make a plan. Maybe he just went for a walk.” He turned her back to the house. “You better get to bed. You don’t want the others to wake up and see you missing. I’ll wait up a while for Malcolm.”

“Luc?”

“What?”

“I love you.” He didn’t answer her. The look he gave her made her feel sadder.

“Everything’s gonna be okay, Mabel. I ain’t gonna let nothing happen to you. Or the others.”

Audrey was up early the next morning, even before the camp roosters. She dressed quietly and left the small cabin, leaving Amy Lynn still soundly asleep. She met Jenkins at the cookhouse. He had the stove stoked already.

“Get the fry pan, girl. We’re going to make refried beans this morning.”

“No. Show me where the smokehouse is. I want some bacon. And I need to see the chicken coop to get eggs. And the keeping house for some milk and butter.”

“There’s no need for that. I made plenty enough beans last night to refry for this morning. Do as I say, girl.”

Audrey set her hands on her hips and switched to the voice she used for recalcitrant children. “Mr. Jenkins, this is my kitchen now. If you won’t show me the smokehouse, I will find it myself. I have a lot to do before being able to serve breakfast and no time to spend arguing with you about this.”

“So that’s how it is, is it? Well then, it’s your hide if there’s trouble to be had for wasting food. Smokehouse is this way.” He walked through camp, cutting through the neat rows of white tents, grousing all the while about women and their notions. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but there was enough light to see without a lantern. Audrey set her shoulders and followed him, ignoring the men who angrily poked their heads outside their tents to see what the commotion was about.

The smokehouse was a treasure trove. There were several ham haunches hanging, strips of beef drying, a barrel of curing beef briskets. For a moment, she couldn’t collect her thoughts. Her family had been starving while this little smokehouse was filled to the gills with foodstuffs. It didn’t seem fair. She took a slab of bacon, wrapped it in a bit of burlap she found nearby, and handed it to Jenkins.

Next was the chicken coop. She woke the sleeping fowl, causing them to raise a ruckus as she dug for fresh eggs. She took down a wire basket hanging on a peg and easily filled it with a dozen eggs, which she handed to Jenkins. Next was the keeping house. Set deeply into the north side of a hill near the river, it was dark and cold inside. Jenkins set the eggs down and lit a small lamp near the door. Audrey walked down the steps into the dim interior. She found a can of yesterday’s milk and a crock of butter. Taking the butter, she handed the milk to Jenkins, climbed back up the steps, put the lamp out, and stepped outside.

“What now, missy? Don’t think I can hold much more,” Jenkins muttered, adjusting the bacon, eggs, and milk in his arms.

“Now we cook.” They walked back through the sea of tents, Audrey in the lead. Awakened earlier, some of the men watched them go by, a few of them grinning as they saw how burdened Jenkins was.

Audrey mixed up a huge batch of pancakes, then sliced the bacon. She set a pot of coffee to boil on the stove, put milk, sugar, butter, syrup, plates, cups, and flatware outside on the main serving table beneath the cook tent. Jenkins sat on a stool and watched her, his arms crossed in front of him, brows lowered. Soon she had bacon frying and pancakes cooking, enough to fill several large platters. The smells filled the camp, rousing those who still slept. By the time she was ready to feed the men, they were standing anxiously at the serving table with their plates and forks at the ready in a neat line. Audrey smiled at the exuberance with which they watched her fill their plates.

She wished her children were there, lined up for the breakfast feast. She hoped Malcolm knew what to feed them to stretch their meager rations. She turned her attention to pouring out more pancakes and putting fresh strips of bacon out to fry. For the next hour, she filled and refilled the platters and plates and brewed two more pots of coffee.

When she could take a break, she filled a plate that she set aside to share with Amy, and took another to Jenkins, who still sat and stewed on his stool near the outdoor serving table.

“Mr. Jenkins, please eat. We have a lot of work to do today—you’ll need your strength.”

“Good morning.”

Audrey jumped as McCaid’s deep voice sounded behind her. She had tried all morning to keep her emotions controlled, to not think of last night, of what it felt like to be in his arms. All her best intentions shattered at his greeting. She remembered the feel of his embrace, the rippling muscles of his flat belly. She turned to face him, consciously regulating her breathing. His hair was damp, his jaw clean-shaven. He wore a blue chambray shirt and buff vest and pants.

It didn’t matter that he was fully clothed. Her mind knew what was under them, how he smelled, how he tasted.

Resolutely, her gaze rose to his face. She wasn’t sure what to expect from him this morning. Would he think her a wanton for throwing herself at him last night? Would he fire her now and demand she face her sentence in jail? He looked forbidding, his jaw set in a hard line, his eyes shuttered.

“Good morning,” she answered, braced for the worst, hating the blood warming her cheeks.

“You wanted to see me, Mr. McCaid?” Franklin asked as he joined them.

“I did. Miss Sheridan and I have come to a different work agreement. As fine a cook as she appears to be, she is also an accomplished seamstress, which I need up at my house. I would like you to hire a replacement cook.”

“No.” The word popped out of Audrey’s mouth, startling her as well as the men. Her mind was racing, following the paths of several courses of action. She was shocked that he still wanted to help her, despite the fact that she had stolen money from him and thrown herself at him so provocatively. The practical side of her shouted for her to take the sewing machine and any help he’d give her. The decent side of her warned the cost would be too high. The survivor in her said it was a cost she was bound to pay anyway, if it was the only way to keep McCaid away from town.

“No?” McCaid asked, a note of warning in his voice.

Audrey looked at Jenkins and Franklin, wishing she didn’t have to have this conversation in front of them. “I will cook for you and that’s it.”

McCaid eyed her with all the irritation he would a stiff-legged mule. The silence stretched awkwardly into a minute. Jenkins buried his attention in his breakfast plate, noisily shoving food into his mouth. Franklin looked as if he wished to be anywhere but there.

“I can help you, Miss Sheridan,” McCaid quietly offered. “Let me. Take the sewing machine. Learn a trade”—his gaze dipped to her chest—“a new trade.”

“Boss, I just remembered a horse I gotta check on. Come see me when you’re done here.” Franklin said this last even as he hurried away.

Jenkins followed his example. “I got work to do in the cookhouse. Can’t sit here all day watching you two moon over each other.”

Audrey shut her eyes in shame. “Men like you don’t help women like me,” she whispered.

“I’m not most men.” He reached over and lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. His hair was rapidly drying. A heavy lock had fallen free and curved down to his dark brow. “The sewing machine has nothing to do with what’s between us. Take it.” The corners of his jaw flexed as he glared down at her, but his voice was quiet.

“There’s nothing between us.”

He arched a brow. “There will be.”