Keegan's Lady (25 page)

She doubted that. She hadn't been truly safe since the first moment she clapped eyes on him, and if she stayed here, she'd never be safe again. Nonetheless, he'd maneuvered her into a corner. If she ran off, she would be breaking her word. Not just her word to him, but, as he'd so cleverly pointed out, her word to God.

CHAPTER TWELVE

After tending to most of Caitlin's abrasions, Ace gave her the rag and whiskey and sent her to the bedroom where she could clean the scrape on her hip and change into her nightgown in private. Positive thinking, the latter. When his bride emerged from the bedroom, she was fully clothed in a faded blue muslin dress with a button-up collar and long sleeves. Since it was already after midnight, he didn't take that as an encouraging sign.

Not that he'd had high hopes. Intimacy of any kind, emotional or physical, was clearly not in the cards. Unless, of course, after thinking things over, he decided that forcing the issue would be best. Prolonging her misery might be more a cruelty than a kindness.

In an attempt to help her relax, he decided to make a batch of hot cocoa. Warm milk was believed by most ladies to have tranquilizing properties. Ace didn't harken much to the practice himself, preferring a belt of strong whiskey on the rare occasion he felt the need. But whiskey didn't seem quite the thing to offer Caitlin. If she was privy to the wiles of men, she might think he was trying to ply her with liquor.

After building fires in both the fireplace and the cookstove, he chipped off some sugar from the sugar cone into a pan, mashed it into fine granules with a spoon and then began mixing in the cocoa, ever conscious that Caitlin sat at the table watching him. The silence seemed deafening. As he drew a pitcher of cool milk from the ice box, he decided to make an attempt at small talk.

"Luckily, I went into town to buy a stove and ice box a few days back. Only picked up one block of ice, but now that we have a lady in the house, I’ll arrange for regular deliveries."

“I can get along perfectly well without a continuous supply of ice, Mr. Keegan. I know it's expensive."

At least she no longer seemed inclined to argue with him about whether or not she'd be staying at the Paradise. That had to be a sign of progress.

Ace slanted her a look over his shoulder as he bent to rearrange the stove wood with a poker. Her faded blue gown was obviously one she'd made to wear around the house, its dimensions ample enough to accommodate an uncorseted waist, the sleeves slim and cuffed widely at the wrists, with no lace or other impractical trim to get in the way while she worked. Even so, the garment was threadbare, eloquent testimony to the fact that she was accustomed to doing without.

He suspected that had been the case for most of her life. Conor O'Shannessy had been a self-centered, mean-hearted bastard with no regard for women. Definitely not the kind of man to put his daughter's needs high on his list of priorities.

Not wishing to sound like a braggart, yet wanting to relieve Caitlin's mind about his finances, Ace said, "A few blocks of ice a week won't deplete my savings Caitlin. I'm not what you would term fantastically wealthy, I don't suppose, but I am well set."

"From gambling?"

She said "gambling" as if it were a filthy word. Acel arched an eyebrow at her. "From making a few sound investments." With a little more force than he intended he closed the stove door. "I seem to have a knack for it.”

"What kind of investments?"

Ace nearly said railroads but managed to bite back the word. If she discovered he was behind the rumors about the railroad spur being built between No Name and Denver, all his carefully laid plans of revenge would go up in smoke. "In transportation, mainly. I've lived in San Francisco for nearly twenty years. In that fair city, wealthy people aren't content to go about in wagons and modest buggies." That much wasn't a lie. "I decided that investing in more modern means of conveyance might prove profitable, and I was right."

"How lucky for you."

The disdain in her voice was unmistakable. Ace nearly told her that luck had had nothing to do with his becoming financially well set. He had clawed his way up from penury as a youth by sweeping the spittle-smeared floors of waterfront saloons. The long hours had been horrible, the abuse he had suffered at the hands of the intoxicated patrons even worse. He'd eventually turned to gambling as an easier way to make money, and he would be the first to admit his success at cards had been largely due to sleight of hand.

But he'd been selective in his victims. He had never fleeced anyone who wouldn't have done the same to him or someone else. He wasn't particularly proud of that, but then he wasn't exactly ashamed of it, either. He'd grown to manhood in a cutthroat world in which he had learned to live by his wits, to guard his back, and to make a profit instead of being bilked. No great disgrace in that.

"Yes, I guess I was lucky," he said. Luckier than most waterfront waifs, at any rate. "Thus my nickname, Ace."

He moved the pot of flavored milk onto the heat and turned his attention to stirring the mixture so it wouldn't scorch. When the edges of the milk began to bubble, he filled two mugs and removed the pot to the warming shelf.

"I hope you like hot cocoa," he said as he bypassed the benches at the table in favor of a seat on the hearth. Extending one of the mugs toward her, he suggested in as kindly a voice as he could muster, "Move over here beside me, honey, where it's warm. Summertime or no, this house is chilly at night. Until I came back here, I'd forgotten how cool Rocky Mountain evenings are."

She rubbed her arms as she moved from the table toward the fire. Looking up at her, Ace decided he could have done far worse for himself. Even in a ragged, ill-fitting dress, Caitlin managed to be beautiful, particularly so in firelight. Her hair glistened like liquid fire where the amber light struck it, and her delicate features looked as if they'd been cast in gilded ivory. His fingertips ached to trace the fragile curve of her jaw. Her skin, he knew, was silken, wonderfully warm, and lightly scented with lavender.

The sporting women he'd kept company with on rare occasions during his adult life had usually worn so much perfume the smell had been nearly overwhelming. Not that there was any comparison between Caitlin and a sporting woman. This girl was a lady from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.

Hoping she might feel more at ease if she could keep a little distance between them, he indicated a small stool before the hearth that he'd fashioned from scrap wood a few days earlier. "Take a load off your feet. I promise, I don't bite."

His gaze shifted to her bodice as she perched gingerly on the stool. Like the rose-colored gown she'd worn earlier, this dress had been fashioned for a less ample bosom.

He was pleased that she'd chosen not to wear stays this time. Fashion be damned. He hoped the corset he'd destroyed was the only one she owned. In his opinion, the contraptions were torturous inventions and bad for women's health. If God had meant for a female's internal organs to be squeezed into her chest cavity, he would have made her that way. That was not to mention the fact that a man liked to feel flesh when he touched a woman, not cloth and rigid whalebone.

When the stool rocked slightly under her weight, Caitlin jerked to catch her balance. Ace flashed a sheepish grin. "Sorry about that. I tried my damnedest to get the legs even, but the more I sawed, the worse it got. A carpenter, I'm not. Let's just hope the house doesn't fold in the first high wind."

She threw an anxious glance at the walls, then at the fireplace. "Everything looks solid enough."

He handed her a mug of cocoa, then took a slow sip of his own. "Trust me, the only thing plumb around here is my patience—as in plumb gone."

She gave a startled little laugh. Ace decided he could live with hearing that sound for the next fifty years. It reminded him of chiming crystal, light and airy and incredibly sweet. He wished she'd relax and let herself laugh more often. Maybe in time.

The damned stool rocked under her again, causing her to shoot him a questioning look. "Surely you aren't that bad a carpenter."

"If you spill anything on the kitchen counters, it will run downhill." He winked at her. "A crooked house built by a crooked man. Luckily the worst of the actual construction is over. No matter how I try, I hit my thumbs more than I do the nails. After all of this"—he gestured at the newly raised house around them—"the only thing I've managed to improve upon with practice is my ability to turn the air blue."

"If you have to nail anything else, maybe I can help. I'm fairly good with a hammer."

"Does that mean I should guard my back?"

She gave another startled laugh. Then she glanced quickly away, as if she feared what he might see in her expression. "Hopefully you won't give me cause to bean you, Mr. Keegan."

"I'll probably give you cause about a dozen times a day, as will my brothers. Without Ma here to keep after us, we've all become Yahoos." He didn't miss the tension that drew her small features suddenly taut. He hadn't meant for her to take him literally. "Harmless Yahoos, of course. As rough as our manners have gotten, you have nothing to fear from any of us. Just the opposite, in fact. My brothers and I watch out for our own, and now that you're my wife, that includes you."

Her gaze lifted to his. Huge, distrustful blue eyes. Ace could have strangled Conor O'Shannessy if the bastard hadn't already been dead. He felt only marginally less violent when he thought of her brother. This young woman had been treated badly, no doubt about it.

His thoughts turned to his half-sister, Eden, who had grown up in the midst of four rough-mannered young men. Impulsive and light hearted, she thought nothing of approaching an unfamiliar male and striking up a conversation, after which she proceeded to talk his hind leg off, much to Ace's dismay. The girl had never known a stranger, and probably never would. Luckily, she had four older brothers to look out for her, one of whom had a fearsome reputation with a gun. No male on the prowl had ever dared to take advantage of her.

Caitlin had had no protectors. Just the opposite. Gazing into her eyes, Ace recalled having glimpsed that same expression in his own eyes years ago when he'd seen his reflection in a mirror. He knew from personal experience that only the most cruel of betrayals could cause such shadows. He also knew how hard it was to regain one's ability to trust. He still hadn't quite mastered the art, and he had a feeling Caitlin had suffered at others' hands even more greatly than he had. It was one thing to be betrayed by strangers and quite another to be betrayed by one's own father and brother.