Audrey and the Maverick (9 page)

“Let me pass. I’ll see for myself.”

“No.”

“Why? Why, Audrey?” Hearing her given name in his deep voice, whispered so huskily, so near her ear, she couldn’t suppress a shiver. He moved fractionally closer to her. She did not step away, fearful he would open the door and see the bunks, then know about her children. She gripped the edges of the doorjamb, blocking him as she stood her ground.

He bent to nuzzle her neck. “Why do you let other men near you but keep me at arm’s length?”

Audrey’s faithless body sizzled at the kisses he feathered against her neck. “What makes you think I let other men near me?”

He lifted his head to look at her. “Besides your rumpled bed and disarrayed clothing?”

She quickly looked down at her shirt and skirt, seeing the crooked closure of the top few buttons. There was nothing she could do about it without releasing the door. He touched his hands to hers where they clasped the doorjamb. His eyes holding hers, he drew his hands up her arms to her shoulders. He unfastened the first of the crooked buttons, then the next, then the last, baring a small expanse of skin at the top of her bodice. Gently, slowly, he drew his fingers down one side of the open material, stopping where the buttons were properly fastened.

“Give me one night, Audrey. One night. You won’t have to return to Hell’s Gulch. You could stay here.” He gripped the back of her head, arching her throat for his kiss, his lips light, his breath hot. Audrey’s breathing grew erratic. What was he doing to her? Why was he doing this? And worse, she didn’t want him to stop.

“I will pay you, in addition to dropping your sentence. Tell me what your fee is.”

Audrey shook her head, but his mouth came down on hers and rational thought took flight. He held her waist and drew her away from the door as he walked backward. Away from the door was good, Audrey reasoned with herself. At the table, he turned and lifted her to sit atop it, never breaking the kiss. She loved the way he smelled of leather and a faint spicy sweet scent, loved the way his mouth surged and retreated against her own.

Gradually, she became aware of sitting on the table in a very unladylike position. Her legs were splayed, and he stood between them. She thought she should close her knees but couldn’t make her body comply with what she told it. She didn’t want to push him away; she wanted him closer. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, loving the feel of his hard chest against her breasts. One of his hands was around her back and one was on her thigh, pulling her to the edge of the table, bringing her against himself.

Through a haze of sensation, she felt him lift her skirt, exposing her bare knees and the ruffled ends of her drawers. “No,” she whispered, but she must not have spoken aloud, for instead of stopping, he bent and licked the base of her throat. His hot tongue traced a path up the line of her throat to her chin, around her chin to her lips. A strange languor stole through her limbs. His hand was beneath her dress, stroking her thigh, moving slowly closer to her hip. And then he touched the most private part of her, a place no one had ever touched before.

She gasped.

“Easy, easy now,” he whispered, his command hypnotic. His thumb caressed her through her cotton drawers, finding flesh so exquisitely sensitive that waves of sensation washed through her body, melting her, eroding her resistance.

She gripped his hand, but he didn’t stop. “Let me do this. Let me give you pleasure. Let me show you what it will be like between us.”

His able fingers found the slit in her drawers and touched her feminine core, skin to skin. Audrey threw her head back, bracing herself on the table with her hands. Suddenly, heat burst through her body in convulsions. Her legs gripped his hips as she bucked against his hand, wanting, needing more of him, more of—what? She didn’t even know. He watched her as he did that thing with his thumb.

When the waves subsided, Audrey focused on McCaid. He grinned a self-satisfied male smile. “What was that? What did you just do to me?” she asked breathlessly.

Some of the humor left his face, to be replaced by an emotion she couldn’t identify. “Have you never felt that before? Have you never climaxed?”

Embarrassed at her abandon now that the world was righting itself, she didn’t trust her voice. She shook her head.

He took hold of her face, his eyes serious. “Come to me tonight. I will let you in—Maddie won’t have to know. Let me love you. Please. It will be a night of this, a night like you’ve never felt before.”

“No.”

He leaned his forehead against hers. “Why?”

“I have plans for this evening.”

He pulled back to look at her. “You’re not going to be alone tonight, are you?”

Audrey knew she was misleading him. She pushed free of his arms and slipped off the table. It was better to face him standing on her own two feet. “No, I’m not.”

“What is your fee? What does one night with you cost?” he rasped.

Audrey’s mind scrambled for a coherent response, opening a fissure in her passion wide enough to let reality seep in. A night in his arms would be heaven. He raised feelings in her she’d never felt before, but even a single night could have disastrous effects. He would return to his normal life and she would be alone, possibly pregnant.

“I am not for sale, Mr. McCaid. Not for any price.” She crossed the room on unsteady legs and opened her front door.

His face hardened as he silently regarded her. He set his hat on his head, gave her a brief nod, then left.

The drive back to Hell’s Gulch did little to soothe Audrey’s raw nerves the next day. She was keenly aware of McCaid next to her. She found herself looking at his hands as he loosely held the reins, wondering what the leather of his gloves would feel like against her skin. She sat closer to him than perhaps she should, anticipating the small movements his leg made now and then as they rode the long way home. He caught her looking at him once. Her eyes rose to his. Blood heated her face.

To make matters worse, her body had gone strange. She had a constant moistness where he’d touched yesterday. Her skin was tingly, her breasts sensitized. Perhaps she was getting the flu.

Julian didn’t know how much more he could take. He wondered if she was aware of the effect she was having on him, wondered if he’d broken through her resolve during their interlude yesterday. He checked over his shoulder. Amy was sound asleep in a little cocoon he’d made for her among the sacks of flour and sugar. That meant he and Audrey were virtually alone. With growing enthusiasm, he considered setting the brake and dragging her onto his lap, taking her right here on the bench, in broad daylight. Rough and hard. Without prelude. Burying himself in her warm, moist flesh.

He cursed silently and gritted his teeth. At this rate, his own thoughts would unman him. He should have left her in town. Keeping her near him was madness. He had a plan for his future, his children’s future, and it couldn’t be achieved through Audrey.

His prayers for a reprieve were answered when they reached the ranch: the shearing team had come in. Over the next few days, Julian joined the crews trimming sheep in the large barn built for that purpose. The work was backbreaking and left him little energy to pursue Audrey, which was as he intended.

The shearing team, along with some of his men, was organized into four crews of two to do the shearing, another small crew to do the tail docking, another for castration, a man who marked the newly sheared yearlings, and a couple more who gathered the wool and bagged it in large canvas bundles.

The days blurred, one into another, as Julian worked alongside his men, seeing to sheep after sheep. Each time the meal bell rang, he felt a rush of anticipation—he would see
her
. Unfortunately, it was a feeling shared by every other ranch hand he employed. She behaved no differently toward him than she did toward any of the boys, except perhaps Hadley, who was still recovering from his wound.

Audrey refused to let the boy be assigned any work that would disturb his mending leg. Franklin had set him to stationary tasks, such as mending leather halters and cleaning rifles. Julian asked himself a dozen times why the hell he didn’t send the boy packing. Neither Hadley nor Audrey seemed to favor that option. Perhaps the boy had something to prove to his father. Perhaps he had something to prove to Audrey. Whatever the reason, having him around Audrey was about as much fun as chewing gravel.

It didn’t help matters for Julian to realize what a clumsy crew of workers Franklin had hired. His men frequently had to stop work so that they could get patched up—minor things mostly. Ruptured blisters, gashes from careless handling of the sheep, digestive upsets, the list was endless. He mentioned his observation to Franklin as they made the rounds by the corrals after lunch.

His foreman burst out laughing. “Are you blind, boss?”

Julian gave him a warning face that would have frightened a man less familiar with him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“They’re hankering after Miss Audrey. Because you claimed her, they can’t, in the normal course of things, speak to her. But if they get injured, she’s the one who doctors them up. None of them are letting Jenkins near ’em.”

Julian drew to a stop. “They’re willfully injuring themselves?”

“I don’t suppose it’s willful. Hadley’s injury wasn’t.”

Julian thought about that conversation that evening after the bell rang for super. His mood was foul. As he came around the corner, he caught sight of two of his men gleefully examining a fresh cut on a third friend’s forehead. Julian glared at them. He had a cracked rib from a ram who didn’t take to the idea of castration and hadn’t been properly restrained, yet he wasn’t running to Audrey for help.

He cleaned up for the meal, then went up to the cook tent where a makeshift medical area had been set up, intending to put a stop to this nonsense immediately. Besides Hadley, half a dozen hands were lounging around, some with bandages on their heads, another with an arm in a sling, another with his foot propped up, a few with bandaged hands. When they saw him, they all came to their feet. He looked from one to another, holding his silence long enough to make them nervous.

Julian put his hands behind his back, refusing to wince at the pain in his ribs, and considered the situation. Though it damned near killed him to reprieve Hadley, the boy’s injury was still fresh. And if he were honest with himself, he couldn’t bring himself to undermine any burgeoning passions between the boy and Audrey. Hadley would be here come autumn; Julian would not.

“Except for Hadley, anyone not healthy enough to work will collect his wages and head home. Is that understood?” The men muttered their agreement and took themselves off, limps spontaneously cured.

“Jenkins!” Julian bellowed.

“Right here, sir!” Jenkins hurried out of the cookhouse.

Julian frowned down at the older man. “Effective immediately, Miss Sheridan is out of the doctoring business, unless the injury is too severe for you to handle.”

“Yessir!”

Audrey stood at the threshold of the cookhouse. “Those men were resting, Mr. McCaid, as I asked them to do.” She faced Julian squarely, hands on her hips.

Julian turned his full attention on her. She was causing his men to act like idiots, exposing themselves and others to needless danger because of their lagging focus on their work. He had a cracked rib as proof. “They were taking advantage of you. And of me. I don’t need anyone drawing pay who can’t work, especially when the wound is self-inflicted just so they can get near you.”

“No one would do such a thing!”

“If Hadley needs something, Jenkins will see to it.”

“He’s got a bad gash that clearly was not self-inflicted. I have to check his wound to be sure it is not getting infected. I will continue to do that a couple times a day. Other than that, Jenkins can see to his needs.”

Julian glared at her, wondering why she couldn’t simply follow his orders. He put his hand against his aching rib. He wished he had never brought her out here. Then he thought of what a day would be like if he didn’t see her. He’d run his horses into the ground riding back and forth to Defiance every day just to hear her voice. He spun on his heel and went to take a plate, his ill humor closing in on him.

That evening Julian opened his shirt and examined his aching side. The area by his two lower ribs on his left side was sore as hell, and a black bruise in the shape of a cloven hoof stood in clear contrast to his skin. The mark was fitting; he felt as if he’d been kicked by the devil himself.

He drew a bar of soap out of his supplies and looped a towel about his shoulders. A long soak in the ice-cold water of the river might do him some good. Unfortunately, the source of most of what ailed him stood between his tent and the river. She was folding her dried laundry and putting it in a basket. The gold in her hair caught the evening’s fading light. He ached to touch it, see if it was as soft as he remembered it. Why torment himself by keeping her here? He should pack her up and send her back to town.

His men would be better off, certainly. But would he?

“Hi,” he said, coming even with her. He grasped the ends of the towel he’d draped about his neck, unsure what her reaction to him would be and wishing he’d buttoned his shirt.

She cast a quick look at him, then reached up to release another piece of laundry. “Evening.”

“I was going to the river for a quick bath, but I could give you a hand with this, if you like,” he offered.

“That’s not necessary, thank you. I can manage.” Just then she missed her grip on a shirt, and he reached up to steady it. His shirt gaped open, revealing the livid hoofprint on his side.

Audrey gasped. “McCaid! What happened?”

“I got in the way of an angry ram in the shed today.” He shrugged his shirt back in place, but that didn’t deter her. She brushed it aside and gently tested the area around the bruise.

She looked up at him, her hands cool on his raging skin. “This needs to be wrapped. These ribs are bruised, maybe broken. Why didn’t you come to me?”

He gave her a self-deprecating grin as he tried to ignore the feel of her hands on him. “When should I have done that? When you had a line of my men waiting to see you? Or when I shut your infirmary down and chased them all away?”

She sighed and shook her head. “Sit on this log. I’ll go fetch the bandages.”

He didn’t move. The breeze ruffled her hair. He caught the stray lock and smoothed it back behind her ear. Her hair was god-awful soft. She regarded him with a steady, worried frown. He pretended she was actually concerned about him. In truth, she had to be frustrated as hell. He was one of dozens of men trying to get into her bed. Still, he couldn’t help but touch his fingertips to the downy skin of her cheek.

“Do you know how beautiful you are, Audrey? Sometimes, you honestly take my breath away.”

She made a face. “That isn’t me—it’s the kick to your side making it painful to breathe. Wait here while I get the bandages.”

“I’m headed to the river. I thought a good soak in the cold water would help the swelling.” Hopefully it would clear up a couple of swellings.

“Yes, that’s a good idea. Knock on the cabin door when you return. I’ll patch you up then.”

When the knock came, Audrey couldn’t hide her smile. She was glad to see McCaid. He had been keeping his distance since she refused him in town. She was surprised to realize she missed him, missed the hungry way he looked at her. She quickly opened the door, but the man who stood on her threshold was not McCaid. It was the same man who had cornered her in the cookhouse. She tried to slam the door shut on him, but he pushed his way into the cabin.

“Did you forget about me? You put up enough walls. Made it hard to get to you. Was it your idea to get me and Zeke assigned to the back pastures? Not very nice of you. Not when we got unfinished business between us.”

Audrey backed away, sending a quick glace to the bed where Amy slept. “McCaid’s coming back. He’ll see you,” she whispered, worried about waking Amy.

“Sure he is.”

“He’ll kill you if he finds you here.”

“You won’t let that happen, now, will you? You ain’t gonna let nothing happen to me or Zeke, ’cause if something does happen, Kemp’ll make your kids pay for it. Which one would you give up first? That little whore’s daughter in your bed? Or maybe one of them boys who’s growin’ fast enough to be troublesome?”

Audrey was almost at the other door. If she made it, she could run to camp for help. But she couldn’t leave without Amy. Several ideas careened through her head; each she dismissed out of fear. She backed up against the door, standing flush against it instead of opening it and running free. The man smiled, his whiskered cheeks parting to reveal tobacco-stained teeth. He stood against her. And then she heard it.

Whistling.

McCaid was returning from his bath. The man heard it too. He cursed and shoved her out of the way, making his escape through the door behind her. Neither door in her cabin had a lock. Audrey quickly propped one of the two chairs against the doorknob.

Shaking, she checked on Amy, gently drawing the sheet over her foster daughter’s sleeping form. This was an unacceptable situation.

A knock sounded on the opposite door. Even knowing it was McCaid, Audrey felt her heart slamming against her ribs. She forced herself to look calm, but her composure was only skin deep; her insides were still knotted with panic. She straightened her hair and smoothed her apron, then opened the door. It was indeed McCaid standing there. His hair was wet and darker than usual. He wore his denims but had not buttoned his shirt. He gazed down at her with his warm brown eyes, looking more handsome than any man had a right to be.

Audrey fetched the basket she’d used to hold the salve, bandages, and scissors. She handed that to him, then returned to light a kerosene lamp. The sun had set, and she would need light to tend his ribs. She struck the match against the wood table and set the flame to the wick. Light flared in the room. She picked up the lamp and turned to see McCaid frowning at the far door.

He’d seen the chair.

“What’s that about, Audrey?”

“The doors have no locks.”

“You don’t need a lock against me. I won’t come in unless invited. And the boys wouldn’t dare.”

Audrey stepped over the threshold and shut the door behind her. “A girl can’t be too careful.” She and McCaid would be within eyesight of this door—she felt safer knowing no one could get into her cabin without being seen. She had McCaid sit on one of the tree stumps that were set up as stools in the open space behind her cabin. Putting the lamp on the next stump over, she frowned down at him. “You look blue.”

“I’m freezing. I stayed in that blasted river as long as I could.”

“I’ll do this quickly, then, so you won’t get a worse chill.” She set the basket with her supplies on the ground next to his feet and knelt between his legs so that she could get close enough to pass the binding around him. His thighs were long and thick. She thought about touching them, feeling his muscles beneath her hands. He watched her, his eyes warm despite his chill. She swallowed hard. Forcing herself to focus on the task at hand, she dipped a couple of fingers into the jar of salve.

Bracing her left hand against him, she felt his wiry dark chest hair beneath her palm and promptly lost her ability to think. A thin, faint scar crossed his chest. Surrendering to her curiosity, she moved her hand up and down in a slow path, following the scar, her fingers combing through his springy hair. He sucked in a sharp breath and held it. She glanced up in time to see his hooded eyes, dark and hungry, watching her.