Beautiful Bad Man (33 page)

He’d be asleep soon. She could see the weariness.

“The only change is a brigade of mice moved in while we were gone,’, she said. “Driving them out will take weeks.”

“Remind me when I wake up, and I’ll show you how to make a mouse trap with a water pail and a greased stick.”

One hundred and two.

F
OR THE FIRST
time in the week they’d been home, Early stiffened and let out a low growl. Cal cursed. He could make it from the bed to the bench here under the ramada and move around the house without leaning on Norah, but not much more.

He heard her behind him, accepted the field glasses she offered and scanned in the direction the dog stared. Nothing. He handed Norah the glasses, and she disappeared around the house.

“If anything’s coming that way, it’s not close enough to see,” she said when she returned.

He looked again. “A lone rider.” The figure drew closer. “Rifle barrel in the air and a white cloth tied on the end.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means he doesn’t want to get shot.” He put the glasses beside him on the bench, sure who it was without seeing features.

Norah knew too. “Van Cleve.”

Cal started to raise the rifle, and Norah stepped in front of him. “If you don’t like what he says, you can shoot him afterward.”

“And you’ll stay out of the way.”

She drew in a deep breath, let it out, and looked away.

“Getting rid of the body would be hard the shape I’m in,” he said, conceding. “All right. We’ll listen.”

Van Cleve rode to the ramada. “I want to talk. May I get down?”

“Sure,” Cal said, “and you
may
shove that rifle in the scabbard before you do. In fact you had better.”

Once on the ground, Van Cleve took one of the chairs at the table without further invitation. “I want to work out a truce with you,” he said.

“A truce is a temporary thing,” Cal said. “What do you need time for, hiring more men, stocking up on ammunition?”

“All right, not a truce. Peace.”

“Why?”

Van Cleve fiddled with the buttons on his jacket, looking everywhere but at Cal. “You terrified my wife. She was sick for a week.”

His wife wasn’t the only one, Cal thought with satisfaction, remembering the scent of urine that night.

“What effect do you think someone shooting Caleb to collect your illegal bounty had on me?” Norah said, sounding furious enough to shoot the man herself right then.

Van Cleve didn’t look at her or answer her either. “When she finally got out of bed, she went to town and took a train back East to her family. She took my son with her, and she says she won’t come back unless I can guarantee it’s over with you.”

“So you figure to make peace,” Cal said. “I guess you don’t have much faith in bounty hunters.”

“I want her back. I want her back and my son back, and on the next train, not next month or the one after that or next winter.”

“She’s a fine lady. She sure looked good in that white thing she had on that night.”

Van Cleve came half out of the chair. “She’s exquisite, and you should never have gotten that close to her!”

Cal repositioned his rifle a little, just a little until Van Cleve dropped back into the chair. He considered mentioning the way Mrs. Van Cleve had walked down the hall of the big house ahead of him that time. Too bad Norah might not like hearing about that any more than Van Cleve would.

“So what would this peace of yours be like?”

“I’ll abandon any attempt to gain possession of Mrs. Hawkins’ land, and....”

“
Mrs. Sutton
. If you want peace or anything else, you’d better get that straight and remember it.”

“Mrs. Sutton. You keep the land. I’ll put out word the bounty is canceled.”

“How will you do that?” Norah said. “That kind of thing is easier to start than stop.”

“I’ll post signs along the town road.”

“And put a notice in every issue of the Hubbell paper for a year,” Norah said.

“The devil, you say! All right. One year.”

“Is this peace just for us or for everybody left along the creek?” Caleb said.

“You! Just you. You told me you have no family feeling. The woman’s the only thing you ever showed any feeling for.”

“Mrs. Sutton.”

“Mrs. Sutton,” Van Cleve ground out.

Silence stretched between them. Cal half-expected the man to break and go for the hideout gun inside his coat. He willed the rancher to try.

As if Van Cleve read Cal’s thought, he said, “Peace for everyone left on the creek, but if they sell, they sell to me.”

“Sure. If you’ll pay a fair price, they’ll go along with that.”

Cal took the rancher’s choking sound as agreement.

“You’re going to agree to something too,” Van Cleve said, stabbing a forefinger at Cal. “First, if you see my wife in town, you turn and walk the other way. Second, you’re going to stop treating the V Bar C as your private commissary. You’ve already fenced this whole place with my posts and wire. The devil knows what else you’ve stolen. No more.”

“Just a few beeves a year.”

“A few...? Two. Two and no more.”

“Done.”

Van Cleve didn’t offer a hand, neither did Cal. A short man ought to ride a smaller horse so he didn’t have to crawl up the side of a tall one the way Van Cleve had to crawl up on his. The man’s face was red when he reined the big roan around and left faster than he’d come.

“I was wrong,” Cal said to Norah. “That white flag wasn’t to keep from getting shot. That was a flag of surrender.”

“Is she really exquisite?”

He needed a moment to come up with an answer to that. “She wouldn’t get to pretty in a gray dress.”

N
ORAH WRAPPED HER
arms around Caleb’s neck and kissed him until she had to stop for air. “We can believe him, can’t we? He’ll keep his word, won’t he?”

“I think so. He knows if he welshes, I’ll kill him. You can’t reform me, you know.”

“I don’t need to reform you.”

“You don’t?”

The look on his face was almost comical. “Other than Van Cleve, there’s no one else for miles around you have any reason to shoot.”

“I’m going to shoot the next ignorant yahoo who calls you Mrs. Hawkins.”

“That’s what I mean. There’s no one left in the State of Kansas that ignorant, and who are you going to steal from? Mabel and Archie? Other neighbors?”

“There’s still Van Cleve.”

“You just promised not to take anything else from him!”

“A promise to a man like that doesn’t weigh much.”

“We don’t need anything else from him. He’s right. The entire place is fenced.”

“He might have something we could use someday.”

“You’d really risk peace with him for us and our neighbors?”

“There’s no risk. I told you that wasn’t peace talk. It was a surrender. What happened to Preston and the others didn’t bother him. A body in his bed and a gun in his face did.”

“You don’t believe it’s because of his wife?”

“Some maybe.”

“We’ll have to be careful for a long time because of the bounty.”

“Careful never hurts. We better make sure Early doesn’t get fat and lazy.”

He put an arm around her and pulled her close. She nestled in against his shoulder. Oh, how she loved to be held.

“You know what he said, about her taking his son with him?” Caleb said.

“I know. He wants both his wife and his son back.”

“There’s a girl too. I saw them both, and you know she took them both.”

Norah raised her head and met his eyes, questioning.

“If that thing inside you is a girl, nobody ever better talk like that, like she doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t think you have to worry. No one is ever going to belittle a daughter of yours.”

“Jason says the way he does it is think what would Uncle Henry do and do the opposite.”

Norah laughed, but Caleb stayed serious.

“I can’t do that. I don’t want to think about him that much. I don’t want to think about him at all.”

“You can think what would Archie do or ask him. He’s a good father. I used to ask Mabel for advice all the time.”

They sat quiet for a while watching the land change as clouds scudded across the sun. The blazing temperature eased, and the fresh scent of rain on the wind had Norah raising her head and turning her face toward it with a smile.

“You sure look beautiful today.” The low, husky sound of his voice reverberated in her stomach and parts she knew no names for.

“You’re not strong enough for me to be beautiful today.”

“Yes, I am. All I need is a partner willing to do some work.”

“Work. What work would she have to do?”

“She’d start by getting some blankets and soft things we could make a bed with right out here where the air is cooling.”

“Right out here in broad daylight.” She did her best to look disapproving, failed abysmally, and hurried to the house. By the time she returned with the buffalo robe and an armload of winter blankets, he had the table and chairs pushed out of the way.

They piled the blankets into a bed, and Caleb collapsed on them and stretched out on his back.

“Can you do that? The ground is hard, and your back is still sore.”

“My back is fine. Now, the first thing you do is....”

“I know the first thing,” Norah said, crouching down and seizing a boot. “Be quiet and let me do it.”

She pulled off one boot, the other, stockings. Holding a long, narrow foot, she turned it from side to side, examined it carefully, did the same to its mate. “You know, these things ought to be kissable, but....”

Leaving him scowling, she fetched a pitcher of water, the wash basin, and towels from the house and washed his feet. Slowly. Patted them dry. Kissed each one over the arch, on the knuckle of each toe.

“Norah.” He’d never said her name quite that way before. She smiled and ran the tip of her tongue along his sole, abandoned his foot, crawled forward, and unbuttoned his shirt. Getting it off over his head didn’t take much time, unbuttoning the top of his flannels and pushing them down, kissing each inch of skin as it appeared, did.

“Do I get to do this to you?”

“You’re not strong enough, remember?”

“I’m feeling strong enough to rip your clothes off right now.”

“Hmm.” He lifted his hips and she pulled off his trousers, pushed the bottom of his flannels down slowly. “You’re right, you do look strong, but I think....” She cupped her hands around his sex, examined it with a frown, and reached for the wash rag.

“No.” He grabbed her by the arms, pulled her full length across him and held her there. “Either you get out of those clothes and get down here naked before I count to ten, or I’m ripping them off.”

“This is your favorite dress!”

“It looks gray today. One.”

She scrambled to her feet and only made his deadline because the more she took off, the more slowly he counted.

“There, you brute,” she said, kneeling beside him, intending to stretch at his side. “I’m naked, and I’m.... Oh. Ooh.”

She had expected they would couple side by side as they’d done before. He lifted, pulled, arranged. Long fingers explored, found her ready, made her more ready. Hard heat probed at the entrance to her body. She slid down over him before she understood what he was about.

“Caleb.”

His hands skimmed over her ribs and cupped her breasts. Callused thumbs rubbed nipples already erect and sensitized. She hung in his hands, adjusting to the difference in familiar sensations. He lowered her toward his chest, pushed her more upright again. Her inner muscles spasmed with pleasure.

“You’re the one supposed to be working here,” he whispered.

She recovered enough to move, experiment, tilting her hips one way then another, raising herself, sliding down. Wanting it to last forever, she moved slowly, holding his arms and leaning forward, back, moving slightly, more, more.

He thrust up under her, his hands on her hips. She knew it would end soon, didn’t want it to end, wanted.... His hand slipped to where they joined, his thumb rubbed the place with no name. The pleasure coalesced, the pinpricks expanding to sunbursts. The way Caleb pulled her hard to him, the sound he made, the arc of his body all increased the intensity of aftershocks that rocked through her and through her until she collapsed on his chest.

“You do good work, partner.”

She didn’t answer, concentrating on the feel of him still inside her, the way his breath still came fast and deep enough to rock her against his belly and chest. Rain pattered on the flimsy roof above, made gray veils that enclosed them in a private world.

“I love you,” she said.

“I know.”

“So you were only pretending to be asleep the night I told you.”

“I guess not. I never heard you say it. I figured it out.” He rolled to his side, putting her on hers. “At first I couldn’t figure out what would make a woman so persnickety about this being right and that being wrong climb out a window, shove a rifle in a man’s back, and show every sign of being willing to pull the trigger, but then you said
too
, and I figured it out.”

“I said
two
.”

“You said, ‘I love this baby too,’ and I figured out I’m the too.”

“Aren’t you clever.”

“I am. I love you too, you know.”

“I do know. Granny told me.”

“How would that old witch know?”

“Before I ever got there when she was working on you, you told her. You said you always loved the Girl. She thought you had another woman stashed away somewhere.”

He pushed his fingers into her hair, cupping her skull in a way that meant a kiss was coming. “That was a boy’s love for a dream he didn’t think would ever come true. What I feel for you is a man’s love for a woman, a wife.”

If he kept saying things like that, he’d get himself promoted from very bad to bad. Maybe she’d even tell him. After this kiss and a few hundred more.