Kid Calhoun (2 page)

It wasn’t until her father’s death of pneumonia when she was sixteen that Anabeth had learned the truth about where Booth had gotten the money to support them. Her uncle hadn’t dug all that gold from the Two Brothers Mine with backbreaking labor. He had stolen it from other people. While he was supposedly off working in the mine, he had been playing cards and living the high life in Santa Fe.

In hindsight, Anabeth saw how the outlaw trail must have appealed to her uncle. As a younger brother, he had always depended on her father to lead the way—and do the bulk of the work. Booth was a dreamer and used to getting what he wanted by his wits and his charm, rather than by working for it. He had been much indulged by Anabeth’s father, who was a full fifteen years older and used to smoothing Booth’s path in life for him.

Anabeth could remember a long-ago day when her
father had labored with a pick-ax while Booth sat on a stone in the shade nearby and created marvelously accurate drawings of his brother at work. Then Booth had busied himself creating truly lifelike creatures carved from wood. By the end of the day, her father had dug out a scant ounce of gold, and Anabeth had added a burro to her collection of wooden animals.

When her father had been crippled, the responsibility for supporting the three of them had fallen squarely on Booth’s shoulders. To his credit, Booth hadn’t shirked his duty. He had simply found an easier way of providing for them that didn’t require the sweat of his brow.

When Anabeth had learned the truth about Uncle Booth three years ago, she had been appalled. It was hard to think of her charming, fun-loving uncle as an outlaw. But at the age of sixteen she had been well aware of Booth’s penchant for doing things the easy way. And being an outlaw was apparently easier than working to earn a living.

The way Booth described it, he was simply relieving people of gold who had more than they needed. Her uncle made it sound like he was some sort of Robin Hood—only he was the poor soul who ended up with the rich man’s gold. To Anabeth, the outlaw life appeared both daring and romantic. So much so, that she had begged Booth to let her come along and see for herself.

It was because her uncle had indulged her, that Anabeth was in this fix now. Because when she had insisted that Booth take her along on one of his holdups—for the adventure it promised—he hadn’t been sensible enough to deny her.

Booth had come up with the idea of dressing her as a boy and passing her off as his nephew. She had braided her long black hair and tucked it up under a battered Stetson. To the members of Booth’s gang—
Whiskey, Reed, Solano, Grier, Snake, and Teague—she was “The Kid.”

The hardened outlaws had treated her like the troublesome, if entertaining, brat she often was. Indifferently. Irascibly. And downright inhospitably. Booth had taught her how to shoot to protect herself, and along the way she had acquired a few vices that added to her disguise.

It hadn’t taken long riding with Booth’s gang before Anabeth realized that she didn’t want to spend her life as an outlaw. As far as she was concerned, the rewards were never as great as the fear of getting killed—or of having to kill someone.

Anabeth should have quit riding with the gang. But she was too anxious about Booth’s safety when he rode off alone. She was a better shot than he was, and she paid more attention to the details that kept them safe, both during the robberies and afterward.

Anabeth had soon realized that if anyone was going to do something to put them back on the right side of the law, it was going to have to be her. So she had begun asking for a portion of Booth’s share of the loot to save toward the day when they could leave the outlaw trade. Booth had laughed at her, but he had given her what she asked for.

It hadn’t been easy saving. Booth spent his share of the spoils on whiskey and women, and it never seemed to last very long. Anabeth always ended up giving her uncle a part of her savings to delay the necessity of having to hold up another stage.

Despite her uncle’s faults, Anabeth loved him dearly. She lived in dread of the day when all her carefully laid plans to go straight would go awry. What if Booth were shot and killed? Or they got caught? Unfortunately, her dream of saving enough money to buy a ranch in Colorado—where Booth had never robbed a stage—was a long way from being
realized. Sometimes she felt as though she were fighting a losing battle.

Only it was a battle she couldn’t afford to lose. Because Anabeth didn’t want to spend the rest of her life masquerading as a man, either. She wanted to see what it was like to dress and act like a woman. She had watched the ladies stroll the boardwalk in Santa Fe, so she knew a lot about how to walk with small, delicate steps, how to smile flirtatiously and twirl a parasol. But she had never had the chance to try it out.

Anabeth knew from seeing her uncle with Sierra Starr at the Town House Saloon that there was also a physical side to being female. But she had no inclination to rut with a man. Her lack of desire shouldn’t have bothered her, but it did. She worried that there must be something wrong with her because, at nineteen, she didn’t possess the more tender feelings a woman was supposed to display toward a man.

It was easy to excuse why she hadn’t been attracted to any of the men in Booth’s gang. For each one she could find a fault—too old, too drunk, too dirty, too mean. But there was another man who should have been attractive to her, for whom she should have been able to feel something, and hadn’t.

Wolf
.

She had met the Apache years ago when they were both children. Wolf had discovered the valley when he had trailed a deer there. Each of them had filled a void in the other’s life, and they had become fast—if secret—friends.

In the years since they had met, Wolf had taught her all he knew of the Apache; she had taught him the white man’s customs and tongue. More recently he had helped her capture wild mustangs and taught her how to tame them. The seven horses she had now
were the beginning of what she hoped would be a herd she could someday take to Colorado.

Lately, she had noticed a change in Wolf’s behavior toward her. The last time she had seen him, just before she left the valley to come north to Santa Fe, she had realized for the first time that he desired her as a woman. Anabeth felt a knot in her stomach when she remembered what had happened between them that day.

It was the first time in nearly a month that she had seen Wolf. They had been lying in the cool grass beside the deep, crystal clear pond that graced one end of the valley, watching the clouds pass overhead. She had been feeling especially restless, and the words were out before she realized the meaning that could be attached to them. “You were gone a long time. I missed you.”

“It has been a single moon since last I saw you,” he had teased.

“Where have you been?” she asked.

His smile was feral. “Hunting. Stealing horses. Fighting soldiers.”

“I wish you didn’t enjoy it so much.” She touched a wound on his thigh that had barely healed. “And that you would be more careful.” She felt his flesh tense under her touch.

“I am a warrior. It is my destiny to die in battle.”

“Not too soon, I hope,” she chided. “I would hate to have to cut off all my hair.”

“Would you mourn for me as a proper Apache woman?” Wolf reached out and grasped a handful of her hair.

Anabeth was surprised by the look in his eyes, by the possessiveness of his touch. She didn’t know what to do about either, so she rose abruptly. He let her waist-length hair slide through his fingers.

She turned and looked back at him over her shoulder.
“I’ll never have to mourn you, Wolf, because there will be no one to tell me you’re gone.” It was the truth. No one in his village knew Wolf came to the valley. No one would know to tell her he was dead.

Anabeth was wearing only an Apache breechclout, two strips of fringed buckskin that fell to the knees in front and the ankles in back, held at her hips with a cord of rawhide. It was the dress of an Apache brave. Even with Wolf, she had never acted the role of a woman. She had been too young when she met him to feel any modesty around him, and she had never felt uncomfortable with her breasts bared to his gaze. Until today.

Anabeth raised her arms and dived gracefully into the pond. When she came up for air, Wolf was dragging off his moccasins. For a second he stood in his breechclout on the grassy verge. He was a magnificent-looking man.

Her eyes drifted up his bronzed body, from his sinewy legs to his flat, taut stomach, then across his chest where the muscles rippled. His shoulder-length black hair was parted in the center and held off his face by a rawhide band. Her gaze roamed up his corded neck to his jutting jaw and strong cheekbones, until she finally met his dark, dark eyes.

Desire
.

Anabeth had never seen that particular look directed at her before, but she recognized it all the same. It should have elated her. Instead, it frightened her. She turned and swam rapidly toward the opposite edge of the pool.

She should have known better. Wolf was a hunter. He responded instinctively to her flight by chasing her. She raced to elude him, but he grabbed her ankle. This was a familiar game, but there was something different about Wolf’s hold on her. Anabeth kicked herself free, as she had in the past, but instead
of letting her escape, Wolf caught her again at the waist.

“Let go!” she cajoled, breathless with excitement, anxious without knowing why. “I want to swim. I—”

Suddenly, with a shriek of delight, she lunged up out of the water and put the full force of her weight on his shoulders, forcing him underwater. By the time he came up again, spitting, spluttering, eyelashes dripping, she was already levering herself out of the water and onto the wide rock ledge on the opposite side of the pond that eventually rose into a sheer cliff.

She stretched out on the hot stone, her wet hair conforming to her shape like a shiny, form-fitting cloak. Ordinarily she would have urged Wolf to join her. This time she did not.

He swam over to the ledge anyway, and levered himself out in a single powerful move. He lay down beside her, close enough to make her feel uncomfortable. She started to edge away, but he put a hand on her hip to keep her still.

Slowly, deliberately, Wolf’s hand stroked down the naked length of her thigh where her breechclout had fallen away.

Anabeth shivered at the ticklish touch. She watched Wolf with wary eyes. He had never touched her this way. She felt confused and unsure of what he wanted from her. Surely not to couple. But she did not know how else to explain Wolf’s strange behavior.

His eyes were heavy-lidded, his lips full, his jaw taut. Every muscle in his body seemed tense. The pulse in his throat beat fast. Anabeth reached out to touch it, and he actually recoiled from her.

Suddenly he was on his feet pacing back and forth before her. She leaped up to confront him, fists on hips. “What’s the matter with you?” she demanded. “What is it you want from me?”

“What a man wants from a woman,” he said in a low, guttural voice. “To hold you. To lie with you.”

Anabeth drew a sharp breath. She had never thought of Wolf as a man, with a man’s desire. Her eyes dropped to the ground. Her bare toes traced a wet pattern on the rock. She looked back up at Wolf with curious eyes. Maybe she would feel something for him if she let him touch her. Maybe all that was needed to awaken her feminine nature was to let him make love to her.

“All right,” she said at last.

Wolf stared suspiciously at her, as though he expected her to pull some trick on him, as she had in the pond. At last he stepped close enough to slip an arm around her waist. Slowly, surely, he pulled her into his embrace.

Anabeth felt Wolf’s shudder as their two bodies aligned. His flesh felt warm against hers. Tentatively, she rested her cheek against his shoulder. His body had a distinct scent, a musky fragrance that she found pleasant because she associated it with the boy who had grown to manhood as her friend.

Anabeth traced his collarbone and the hollow above it. Her eyes widened with surprise when she felt his body tighten beneath her fingertips.

Wolf’s hand left her shoulder and smoothed over her hair, all the way down to her hips. It felt good. Comforting.

“Do that again,” she murmured.

He did as she asked, then slipped his hand under her hair and caressed the length of her back, from the dimples in her buttocks up her backbone, until he finally circled her nape with his hand.

Anabeth shivered. “Don’t stop.”

Wolf’s hand skimmed the length of her again, and Anabeth couldn’t help the soft sound of pleasure that
escaped her. She was jarred when Wolf put both hands on her hips and pushed her away.

“Why did you stop?” she asked. “That felt good. Will you do it again?”

Abruptly, he turned his back on her.

“What’s wrong?” She reached out to touch his shoulder, but he flinched away from her.

“You do not want me,” he said in a curt voice.

“What?”

He turned to face her, and she saw the frustration in his dark eyes. “I do not see a woman’s passion when I look into your eyes.”

“What?” She had known for some time that she didn’t react as other women did to a man, but it was still a shock to hear Wolf say the words aloud.

“You do not desire me.”

He sounded so unhappy that for a moment Anabeth was tempted to lie. But she met his brooding gaze and knew he would see the truth in her eyes. “No,” she admitted. “I don’t.”

His lips flattened in dissatisfaction.

Her temper flared. “Did you want me to lie?”

“No. There has always been truth between us. So I will tell you this. I want you for my woman. And I will have you.”

“But that’s ridiculous. I don’t desire you! I can’t—”

“Enough!” His voice was sharp. “There is nothing more to be said now.”

Anabeth was angry. “We’ll talk about this right now! I don’t think—”

“Helllllooooooo! Anabeeeetttthhh. Where are yoooooou?”

Anabeth had whirled at the sound of her uncle’s voice echoing down the valley. “It’s Uncle Booth! You’d better go now. I—”