Breed True (10 page)

In one quick motion she flipped the long tail of hair over her shoulder and hacked it off.

"Here." She handed him the knife and the hank of hair. "You like it so much. You take care of it."

His eyes darkened and became slits of anger, but without a word, he stuffed the hair into his pocket and turned away. The other men were leaving, and he shrugged into his coat, silently following.

* * * *

"Well, howdy-do, good-day-to-you, and say what…" she murmured into the emptiness left by their parting. Ruefully she brushed the ragged ends of her hair that now touched her shoulders instead of hanging down her back.

"I don't believe he's much of a conversationalist, girls." Jewel was pleased with herself for winning that hand. She turned her attentions back to the babies who were awake and cooing from their cradle.

"Pretty fancy bed you've got there, ladies," she rattled on, covering one topic after another, using her daughters for both company and an audience as she worked in the main room of his house. It was clean, a little dusty, but not the clutter and filth that she and Frank had once shared.

Jewel shuddered, shying away from thoughts of before. She'd learned a long time ago that she couldn't change the past and made it a point to forget most of it. Until she'd given birth to the twins, she'd not seen a future for herself, either.

She looked at them tenderly. She'd been so scared, the whole time she was carrying.

Jewel was glad her fear hadn't marked them somehow. Instead, every time she looked at Emma and Amy, she was surprised anew. "You are the best thing that ever happened in my life," she assured them as she peeled potatoes for a stew.

Remembering his caution about serving too much bread, she took the ground cornmeal she found, made sure it was clear of weevils and made a batch of johnnycake.

Once the mix of meat and cut-up turnips and potatoes was set to simmer on the cookstove, she put another pan of water on to heat and dragged the tub she'd located out next to the fire.

When she had the water ready, she bathed first one twin, then the other, laying them out on the spread blanket so they could kick and fuss in the warm air while she washed the nightgown of each.

"I think we need clothes, ladies. What do you think, Emerald?" Jewel liked to pretend that the girls understood her and frequently answered for them.

"You say I need a dress too? Well, that's not likely in the near future, little girl. But, I do have a suggestion about what you and Amethyst can wear while your nightgowns are drying."

Before she could change her mind, Jewel went to the first bedroom off the hallway where she'd seen a stack of clothes earlier. Glad that she'd gone snooping, she borrowed two of the three shirts she found.

The girls were five months old and growing. They were both scooting and moving on their bellies whenever Jewel let them try. The shack they'd lived in after she'd fled Frank had been infested with vermin, and she'd spent the nights sleeping with the babies next to her and carrying them around with her during the day, so they'd not been free to practice.

Jewel had guarded the babies from the minute they were born. She'd refused to return to the saloon and gambling tables, and as soon as she got the chance after leaving the birthing bed, she'd taken Frank's stash of poker money and run.

She'd been right to be afraid. Jewel shivered remembering the past violence of more than one man.

"Let's not think about that, Emerald." She squinted her eyes at the baby and buttoned her into one of Grady Hawks' shirts. "Mister
High-and-Mighty
is rich. He's got enough shirts to share with us for a minute or two."

She carried the clothed babies back to the kitchen and stripped off her clothes, hurrying through her own bath, all the while straining to hear the sound of approaching horses as she lathered and rinsed, washed her ragged hair, and every now and again, playfully sprinkled water on the girls who giggled and watched from their new bed. "You look fine, like young society ladies," she assured them as they watched her from the cradle, propped there like two dolls at different ends.

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-grabbing 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.