Taming of Jessi Rose (7 page)

“No disrespect, Mr. Darcy, but maybe you want to
be in a pine box over a cow, but not me. Heard he and a couple of his friends took on a whole army of-hired guns up in Montana. The army lost.”

He handed the rope over to Joth. “Here you go, boy.”

Darcy appeared ready to explode. “Have you lost your mind? I'm the one paying your salary, not the Claytons!”

“Not anymore. I quit. Him throwing in with the Claytons changes everything around here.”

Darcy looked first to Griffin and then to his now former ranch hand. “My son says he's just a train robber, not a gunslinger.”

“Your son is wrong. It's been nice working for you, Mr. Darcy.” The man turned his mount and galloped off toward town.

Reed Darcy appeared stunned. He looked to his remaining companion, who seemed to be viewing Griff with a lot less confidence than he had previously.

The man asked Griff, “Are you really Oklahoma Red?”

“I've been called that, yes. Some folks call me Nevada Red, Omaha Red. I've got a lot of names, don't I, Joth?”

“Sure do,” Joth chimed in with a smile. “Do you know him, too, mister?”

“Uh, yeah. Mr. Darcy, maybe we should head on back.”

“You turning yellow, too?” he barked.

“Not yellow. Just smart.” He reined his horse around. “You coming?”

It was easy to see that Darcy clearly had no idea what to do. This encounter had not played out as he'd planned. He was accustomed to having his orders carried out without question. “There are two of us and only one of him,” the wealthy land baron reminded the man.

“Makes no difference. My pappy always said never
provoke a rattler, and that, my friend, is a big one. See you back at the ranch.”

He rode off.

As the silence of the beautiful afternoon settled once again, Griff gave Reed Darcy a lazy smile and said, “Well now. Looks like it's just you, me, and the boy.”

Darcy glared.

“You don't really want to lose your life over a cow, do you?”

Silence.

“I thought not,” Griff replied, answering for him. “So here's how it's gonna be—me and the boy are going to take this Clayton cow and head on back.”

“That cow's not going anywhere. My men may be afraid of you, but I'm not.”

The angry Darcy went for his gun, but it was way too late. Griff had already drawn his steel blue Colt and had the business end coolly pointed at the man's now very wide eyes.

Griff told him, “If I shoot you, Miss Jessi's going to be real mad at me for letting your rotten carcass poison her land, and Lord knows we don't want to make the lady mad. So be a good boy and put that away. Better yet, just toss it over there on the ground—we wouldn't want anybody backshot by mistake, now, would we?”

Darcy seemed to swell with fury.

“Now.”

Reed Darcy must have seen the force in Griff's eyes, because he slowly but sullenly complied.

“Joth, go get it. Careful picking it up.”

Joth hustled over to retrieve the weapon and passed it to Griff, who placed the gun in his left hand, his eyes never wavering from his target. In a low voice filled with steel, he told Darcy, “Now, let me give
you
some advice: stay off Clayton land. If I catch you or your hands
out here again, I'm going to risk Miss Jessi's wrath and shoot you like the rustlers you are.”

Reed Darcy seethed. “You'll pay for this!”

“Maybe, but it won't be today. Now, git.”

The furious and bested Darcy gave Griffin one last malevolent glare, then turned the carriage's team around and headed off.

Joth looked at Griff as if with new eyes and said simply, “Wow!”

After they returned the cow to the herd, Joth and Griff headed home, and the very first thing Joth did when they reached the house was to run and tell his Aunt Jessi what had happened. Griff led his gelding and Joth's Buttercup around to the barn. Jessi found him inside.

“My nephew told me what happened.”

Griff looked down at her lush mouth as he pulled the saddle off the gelding. He wondered what it would be like to feel her kiss. “Joth was in no danger, if that's what's worrying you.”

“No, it's not that, but I thought you said you weren't real partial to guns?”

“I'm not, but that doesn't mean I'm not good with one.”

“Joth says you're quite good.”

“Make you feel better about having me around?”

Jessi nodded. “I won't lie. Yes, it does.”

Griff wondered if he'd ever become accustomed to her beauty. Her disposition and fondness for Winchesters notwithstanding, she was as tempting as an unguarded express car full of gold. But he reminded himself that he was supposed to be here on behalf of the judge, not sizing her up for his bed. To take his mind off things he had no business even contemplating, he said, “Well, Darcy probably won't be having me over for dinner anytime soon.”

“Probably not,” she replied with a knowing smile.

Jessi looked up at him and was reminded of how she'd seen him this morning—vividly, brilliantly nude. Once again she tried to set aside the unfamiliar rush of feelings the memories evoked. “He doesn't like being bested.”

“He didn't look real happy when he left.”

Silence prevailed for a few moments as the air between them thickened like fog. Jessi said genuinely, “Thanks for keeping Joth safe.”

“Anytime.”

They were assessing one another, each harboring their own thoughts. He wondered what she was thinking, and she wondered the same about him.

Griff finally broke the silence. “I wired some friends of mine. I'm hoping they'll start coming in in a week or so.”

“More train robbers?” she asked.

He smiled. “Just a couple.”

“Any of them ever worked cows?”

“Not that I know of, no.”

Unable to hide her smile, Jessi shook her head.

“They're all fast learners, though,” he added, coming to their defense. His voice softened suddenly. “I wondered how long it would take you to do that.”

Jessi looked up into his power-filled eyes and felt his seductive spell slipping under her locked doors like intoxicating tendrils of smoke. “Do what?”

“Smile.”

The tone of his voice stroked her like a hand. Her voice was soft, low. “Are you flirting again, Mr. Blake?”

“I believe I am.” He thought she had a voice as smoky as a Mexican cantina.

“You're not supposed to flirt with your employer.”

“Can't seem to help myself.”

She grinned. “You're going to be a handful, aren't you?”

“Always have been—probably always will be. You'll get used to it.”

Their gazes held. The air was charged.

Jessi looked away first. “Supper'll be done in a while.”

He nodded.

Jessi hurried back to the house.

Alone in the barn, Griff smiled. Was she actually flirting back? He doubted she'd thought the short exchange as anything significant, but it certainly felt like a lot more than that to him. Her beauty and rawhide spirit were as intoxicating as fine tequila. The fact that it had taken him two days to get her to smile his way was pretty humbling for a man whose way with women was legendary, but the challenge she represented surpassed anything he'd ever come up against before. Because of his mission and his desire to head down to Mexico he knew he shouldn't be thinking about wanting her, but as he told her, he couldn't help himself.

Back in the house, Jessi tried to her best to concentrate on peeling the potatoes for supper, but her mind kept straying to Griffin Blake. What was it about him that caused her to smile up at him like a moonstruck girl after being in his presence less than three days? Jessi prided herself on her inner strength and her good sense, but with Griff around, her strength seemed to be fading and her good sense flying out of the window. She'd actually flirted with him back there in the barn, something she hadn't done with any man before, not even her late husband Evan.

Jessi paused. She hadn't thought about Evan in quite some time. She'd married him over a decade ago, more for convenience than anything else; he'd needed a wife to further his political aspirations, and she'd needed a husband in order to maintain her teaching position. At the time her school board had frowned on un
married women teaching in their classrooms.

Although there had been nothing spectacular about their life together, she and Evan had gotten along reasonably well, only to have him succumb to pneumonia less than two years after the wedding day. When her father wrote to her a few weeks after Evan's death, asking that she come and help raise Joth after her sister died in childbirth, Jessi readily agreed because a part of her did grieve for Evan, and she hoped that going home would help her heal and get on with the business of living. For three years it did, until the day Calico Bob had ridden into town with his men to claim his young son and changed her life forever.

So now here she stood, over ten years later, peeling potatoes, sharing a house with another outlaw. But with the flirting Griffin she sensed a light she hadn't been touched by before; and if the truth be told, after experiencing so much darkness, a part of her wanted to run toward that blazing light and be bathed in it, but she doubted she could trust him. He was, after all, an outlaw and an avowed womanizer: two traits no woman in her right mind would ever want in a man. Surprised that she would even admit to being moved by Griffin Blake, she shook herself free of the disturbing thought and went back to peeling potatoes.

That night, after Joth went to bed, Jessi stepped out onto the porch to join Griff as he kept watch. “Nice night,” she offered. The clear sky was filled with brilliantly twinkling stars and the moon was large. “Full moon like this is called a Comanche moon.”

“My mother used to call it a courting moon.”

Jessi looked down at him seated on the porch step near her feet. “I've never heard it called that.”

“Where've you been?” he asked, in a voice soft with teasing. “Everybody's heard of a courting moon.”

“I haven't.”

“So now you're going to tell me you've never been courted?”

“Never been courted.”

Griffin found that surprising and looked up at her in the moonlit darkness. “Not even by your husband?”

“No. It wasn't a love match. We married for convenience.”

“Doesn't sound very romantic.”

“It suited us, though. Marrying him allowed me to do the things I wanted to do in life, and it afforded him the same.”

“No one's ever taken you for a ride in the moonlight or brought you flowers?”

She shook her head. “Nope. Evan asked me to marry him, told me all the reasons why I should say yes, and so I did. We were reasonably happy, I suppose.”

“You suppose?”

“I've nothing to compare it with.”

He thought about that a moment. “I guess that makes sense. Well, if I were courting you, I'd take you on rides in the moonlight, bring you flowers.”

“Ah, but to what end? You don't impress me as the kind of man who'd settle down.”

He shrugged. “I'm not. I'm not cut out for the marriage saddle.”

Jessi had no problem believing that. Most of the outlaws she'd come in contact with were looking for nothing more than a fast tumble in the hay. She doubted he'd be any different. “You must've left a trail of broken hearts behind you, then.”

“Not really. Most women know the score going in. That way, there are no tears when I pull up stakes and move on.”

“My friend Paris believes that love finds everybody eventually.”

“Do you believe her?”

“I don't know. It hasn't found me so far, and I doubt I want it to.”

“Why not?”

Jessi was silent for awhile. “Being alone has its advantages. A woman doesn't have to bow to anyone's wishes but her own.”

“Then we'd make a good pair, you and I.”

“How so?”

“I don't want ties, and neither do you.”

Jessi supposed he was right.

“Courting you would be a challenge, though.”

Jessi looked at him. “Why?”

“Because I believe you'd enjoy it.”

Jessi smiled in the dark. “You certainly are sure of yourself, Mr. Blake, but why court someone you know you aren't going to commit to?”

“For the joy and the passion of it.”

“At least you're honest.”

“I am, and as long as I am, no one gets hurt.”

Jessi pondered that a moment, then heard herself asking without thought, “How would you court me?”

In response, he eased himself to his feet. Facing her now and only a heartbeat away, he said, “Slowly at first—then at whatever speed you'd like.”

“You're very bold, Mr. Blake.”

“Only as bold as you'd let me be, Miss Clayton.”

They were standing so close, Jessi had to fight down the urge to touch his night shadowed cheek. They were as aware of each other as they were of the crickets singing softly against the night.

“How long were you married?” he asked quietly.

“Almost two years. Evan died of pneumonia.”

“He ever kiss you?”

For a moment there was silence. “Occasionally, yes.”

“A woman like you should be kissed thoroughly and often.”

“Do you think so…?”

“I know so…”

He slid a slow finger down her cheek and then lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss was as soft as the night. Jessi had only to stand there and let his whispery lips play cajolingly across her own. Nothing in life had prepared her for the sweet buffeting that claimed her, and when the kiss ended and he eased away, it took her a minute to open her eyes. “It this what you meant about courting me slowly?”

He nodded as he lazily traced the fullness of her bottom lip. “Yes. Every woman should be savored at least once in her life.”