Prologue Page 16

  But the minute he'd held her fingers in his, slick and supple, a heat sprang up between himself and her. This time he knew she'd felt it, too. There was no mistaking it. Those sighs she'd breathed—she hadn't done that just because her skin stopped hurting. Though he knew she had an ember of desire slumbering within her, up until now she'd rigidly denied such feelings. Even in the shop today, he hadn't been sure she'd respond to his interrupted kiss.

  Tonight, though, he'd felt her passion stirring, stretching like a cat after a long sleep, and it scared him. He should have ended it right then, but no, like a dimwit he'd kept her fingers entwined with his much longer than he needed to.

  He stopped at the pump and glanced up at the kitchen. It was dark now, but a faint candle glow came from the window on the floor above. Her bedroom window.

  His jaw tight, he turned and strode to the shop, his spurs ringing like chimes on the wind.

  Be careful. . . .

  CHAPTER NINE

  After that Chloe set a place for Travis at the table every morning and evening, and he appeared for the meals. Although he didn't try to kiss her again, remembering the preliminary brush of his lips, and later, the feel of her hands tucked in his, often kept her awake and staring at the ceiling over her bed.

  He'd been right about the petroleum jelly and gloves—her hands were much better. They weren't those of an idle, pampered woman, but at least she could flex them again.

  When she finally thought of Evan one day, she realized she hadn't missed him a single minute since she'd last seen him. What would happen when Travis was gone and she was left with only the desiccated teacher?

  Early one morning Travis was finishing his coffee and Chloe was rolling out pie dough when young Andy Duykstrom delivered a towel-covered apple crate to the back door.

  "The Missies told me to bring this straight to you, ma'am, with no dillydallying," Andy said, eyeing Travis. It was the first chance he'd had to get a look at the stranger up close and he lingered in the kitchen.

  Travis stared back at the slow-witted boy, trapping him in his gaze.

  "Was there anything else, Andy?" Chloe asked.

  Dragging his eyes away, he fished an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Chloe. "Yes,'m, they told me to give you this, too." She gave the youth a peanut butter cookie for his trouble and sent him on his way.

  She opened the envelope and found a note from the Grover sisters expressing sympathy for Frank's accident, and apologizing for being so late in writing to her. They asked that she accept this small gift from them. Lifting the towel, she found the crate contained twelve quart jars of their elixir.

  Travis glanced at the note when she dropped it on the table.

  Chloe stared at the jars while she gripped the edges of the box. A wave of an emotion rolled through her, one she'd felt a long time ago when her mother died. But there was nothing about twelve quarts of whiskey that should make her think of her mother, she puzzled.

  "Who are 'the Missies'?" Travis asked.

  "What?" Chloe asked absently.

  He repeated the question, watching her closely.

  "Oh, they make moonshine about ten miles from here. Except they think they're making medicine, elixir. Everybody buys the stuff from them. Albert even sells it sometimes at the Mercantile. My father was on his way back from their place when his wagon overturned and he was killed."

  Travis watched as she lifted the jars out, dusted each one and carefully put them on the pantry shelf, taking great care to ensure they were precisely aligned with each other. Then she took them all down and began the process again.

  After she’d done it a third time, his brows drew together, her behavior worrying him. Finally he rose from the table and went into the pantry. "That's enough, Chloe," he ordered gently, taking the dust cloth from her.

  Detached, she glanced up at him for a moment and saw concern in his eyes. Then she looked at the perfectly ordered row of jars on the shelf, their contents the color of clover honey. "I guess I'll go find something else to do," she said.

  He started to touch her cheek but stopped himself. He nodded and handed the cloth back to her.

  She wandered aimlessly to the parlor, sat at the desk to count her money and discovered she finally had enough to pay the mortgage, with a little extra besides. She wouldn't lose her home. She knew she should feel joy, but instead she just sat and stared at the pigeonholes, the bubble of that nameless emotion still growing in her chest. Her father's mining claim caught her eye again and she pulled it out to look at Frank's faded blue signature.

  Suddenly, her mind showed her a series of images, like pictures in her mother's old stereoscope, of a laughing, kind, leathery-faced man lifting a blond little girl to his shoulder, helping her to build a birdhouse, taking a sliver from her foot.

  That man had been her father, not the silent, drunken stranger who had been killed last spring. A seed of understanding began to take root in Chloe's heart.

  Her father had really died with her mother.

  * * *

  That afternoon Travis was sitting by the open shop door repairing a saddle when Chloe abruptly left the washtub and walked across the yard to the gate. He glanced up in time to see that her face was pale but her expression was determined.

  "I'll try to be back by dinner," she said over her shoulder, her hand on the latch. She still wore her apron, damp from dipping into the tub.

  "Taking a walk?" he asked, carefully casual, as he stitched a stirrup with a big curved needle.

  But she didn't reply. She only pulled open the gate and set out across the open prairie.

  Troubled, he put his work down and followed her, staying far behind but keeping his eyes on her lavender skirt as she strode over the dry grass. After they'd walked about two miles, Chloe disappeared behind a low rise. When he topped the hill, he saw her approach a wild, overgrown graveyard below, its picket fence sagging in and out.

  Travis paused under the limbs of an old lone oak, anchored like a sentinel on the side of the hill. He saw Chloe pacing next to a head marker. It was new and not yet weathered much. She waved her arms as she carried on a fierce monologue, railing at the man buried under it. Travis couldn't hear her words, but he heard her anger. Finally she dropped to her knees and began to rock, her head bowed. Hot winds tugged at her hair and skirt as she knelt at the grave.

  For the first time in many years he felt the reluctant stirrings of empathy. He'd learned to shut out nearly every emotion save bitterness and -anger. But grief he could understand, that awful sense of loss and of being lost.

  When the sound of her sobs floated to him he took several steps forward, intending to go to her. Then he stopped and leaned against the oak. She needed to work this out, to make peace with Frank Maitland's ghost and put it to rest.

  Struggling to maintain the distance between their hearts, Travis stood there keeping watch over her for the rest of the afternoon.

  * * *

  Roxanne's customer rolled over and looked at her. "Smells like they're boiling old buffalo hides down there," he complained.

  The brassy-haired saloon girl had brought him up to this second-story room. It wasn't fancy—located directly over the kitchen, all the cooking odors drifted through the floorboards. The old bed sagged beneath their combined weight, and the sound of squawking chickens in the alley floated through the window.

  Offhandedly, he asked, "What did you say your name was, honey?"

  "Roxanne," the girl replied. "What's yours?" She didn't usually ask, but he was different from the typical cowboys who came to her from the trail drives.

  “Jace."

  “Jace, this is a sight better than the storeroom I used to work in. That one smelled from the beer kegs." She stretched out a languid hand to brush his dark hair off his shoulder, then let her fingertips trail down to his bare hip. Hmm, he was a handsome one, with his boyish face, and, well, skill to please her. She didn't get many who bothered. And she'd never met a bounty hunter before.

&n
bsp; "The beer would be an improvement," he said. Then, like a conjurer, he produced a silver dollar from behind her ear and held it tantalizingly before her. "Want to buy something nice for yourself, Roxanne? A pretty girl like you should have pretty things."

  She pulled her hand away, miffed. "It'll cost you more than a dollar if you want to go again. I ain't giving no discounts."

  "I only want to talk."

  The words were whispered, a seduction of their own. She looked into his ice-blue eyes and at the cool smile curving his mouth. He was nothing but trouble and good looks and, she gathered, accustomed to getting his own way. That element of danger only made him more attractive. She grabbed for the coin but he was faster and he snatched it back with a low chuckle.

  "Not yet. First you have to tell me what I want to know."

  "What?"

  He flipped the dollar with his thumb and sent it spinning into the air. "You meet a lot of men in your line of work. I'm looking for one in particular."

  Roxanne didn't often remember the men who sought her out. They passed through her life in twenty minutes and then were gone. But the man whose description she was listening to was one who'd stayed in her memory. He'd been another handsome one, and had come to her with an intense ache and carefully leashed emotions. He, too, had seemed dangerous.

  "Yeah, I remember him," she said, still watching the dollar. "He was here about three months ago, but I don't know where he went."

  After a moment, Rankin nodded. Satisfied with the information, he tossed the coin into her waiting hands. "You're lucky to be alive," he said. "The man's a killer."

  She tried to read his face but it was as blank as any gambler's with a winning poker hand. Then she shrugged. "Ain't they all?"

  Again he gave her that cool smile and smacked her backside. "Okay, you just made some easy money. Now back to work."

  "Five dollars, same as last time."

  "No, this one's free."

  "You're dreaming, mister," she huffed and sat up, reaching for a faded wrapper. "Why, I can't be giving my favors away."

  He pulled her back down to the mattress and tucked her beneath him, silencing her protests with a long, slow kiss.

  * * *

  The next evening Travis came up the back stairs, gripping his whiskey bottle by its neck. He saw Chloe was sitting at the kitchen table and he paused for a moment, taking in the scene. She'd dealt with the grief of her father's death and now, he hoped, she could put the bitterness behind her.

  It was a rare opportunity, the chance to look at her when her guard was down. The planes of her face were mellowed by the golden edge of the summer evening and he watched her while she absently ran her finger around the rim of her coffee cup.

  That haggard look she'd had when he first met her was gone. He knew her life hadn't been easy these past few years, but she'd held up. There was a spirit and strength in her that he admired and those qualities, for reasons that eluded him, made him feel reluctantly protective of her. And in spite of her plain dress and shawl, he saw the beauty and grace in her tall form he'd done his best to ignore since he got here.

  Her breasts were full and softly rounded. Her long waist flared to trim but generously curved hips, and she walked, he remembered, with graceful allure.

  At the sound of her sigh, he pulled open the door.

  Chloe glanced up. For the briefest moment, she didn't recognize him. All she saw was an attractive, lean-jawed man. Then she realized Travis had shaved.

  She had counted the hours of his recovery and the dollars in her strongbox with impatience, so anxious had she been to get rid of him. Though she'd eventually lost her fear of him, she'd considered him a cold-blooded scoundrel with no soul, no conscience, no heart. After all, who got sent to jail, choir boys? No, indeed. Prisons housed thieves and murderers, depraved maniacs. That she'd felt unwillingly attracted to him had been a source of great annoyance. But over the weeks her opinion of him changed. He'd helped her save her home and her initial assessment of his character no longer fit him.

  "Mind if I sit down?" he asked. Without waiting for an answer he pulled out a chair to settle next to her, resting the bottle on his knee.

  Grateful now for his company, she shook her head and tightened her shawl. It was a warm evening but she was cold. Then she said into her cup, "I have enough money now to make the mortgage payment. I'd like to thank you for everything you've done."

  She thought a shadow crossed his face. He leaned back and hooked a boot heel on the rung of his chair, stretching the other long leg out in front of him. "You needed a blacksmith. I needed a job."

  "I think my father would have liked you, at least the man he once was."

  "I doubt it." Travis knew she was unaware he'd followed her to the graveyard and he left it that way. It was too complicated otherwise, too many feelings and questions would be raised. He uncorked the bottle in his hand and held it over her empty tea cup. "Here, have a little."

  "Oh—I probably shouldn't," she said and self-consciously smoothed the skirt over her lap. She was very aware of his nearness, the clean male scent of him, of his strong, lean hand around the bottle.

  Her fluttery hesitation, so unlike her, amused and touched him. "It's okay, Chloe. Whiskey isn't the evil you think it is. Some people think money is evil, too. But they're just—things. The harm lies in the way they're used."

  "Well, maybe," she replied, partially convinced.

  "Come on, just a sip. It won't kill you. Nobody will know." He smiled slightly, his face kind, sympathetic.

  "I suppose it might be all right . . ." and he poured a small shot into her cup, then tipped his head back and took a long pull from the bottle. She watched the muscles in his throat work as he swallowed and imitating him, forced the fiery liquid down in one gulp. It burned a path to her stomach like boiling oil. She gasped and coughed and pressed her handkerchief to her mouth.

  He chuckled, thumping her on the back. "You're not supposed to slug it down like that. Sip it."

  She took a deep breath and let it out. "Whooh! How can you drink this stuff?"

  He splashed another dollop into her cup. "It serves its purpose now and then." He clinked her cup with the bottle. "Sip this time."

  So she did and it wasn't as bad. A false but welcome warmth spread through her limbs and loosened her tight muscles. "What purpose?"

  He waved his hand casually. "It's a cheap painkiller. You feel better, don't you?"

  Yes, she did. For the first time since she'd let herself accept her father's death, she stopped shivering. Somehow the horror of the past couple of days was blunted a little. The sharper edges were rounded off. She nodded.

  "Uh-huh," he agreed knowingly. He drank deeply again and poured one last drop for her. "A little more. You'll sleep better."

  She swallowed again. Travis crossed his ankle over his knee and cradled the bottle against his crotch. He slouched low, sitting on his spine, and she felt her gaze pulled to the bottle's resting place. And maybe it was a trick of the light or the whiskey—she wasn't sure—but Chloe suddenly realized that his shaved, healed face was very attractive.

  Now that the bruises and beard were gone, it was easy to see that thick dark lashes, as long as a woman's, framed his gray eyes, which could range in color from deepest slate to silver. His features were smooth and well-defined. His mouth, now she could see, was full and sensuous. Maybe that was why it felt so good when he kissed her.

  "You know, you're really handsome," she announced in a burst of alcohol-induced frankness, and then blushed at her own forward remark.

  He turned to look at her, a sheepish, full-toothed grin lighting his face, the first she'd ever seen on him. The total effect nearly took her breath as the whiskey had. Why, he was more than handsome. He was beautiful!

  "Not a mess anymore?" he teased.

  "Dimples!" she fairly shouted with uninhibited delight, forgetting to worry about how it sounded. "You even have dimples!" She leaned forward to put her fingertip to one.

/>   He grasped her pointing finger and held it, laughing openly now at her giddiness. He wouldn't have expected the Vinegar Princess to be so charming. “No more whiskey for you, you tenderfoot.”

  She wished he would keep holding her hand but he let go. How boyish and appealing he looked when he smiled! She’d never have guessed such a face lurked under the frowning, bearded mask she’d grown used to. Laugh lines crinkled around his eyes, making him look as young as he really was, and his straight white teeth were positively dazzling. And, she marveled, how much more at ease felt sitting with him than she ever had with Evan.

  They talked for a while about things both important and trivial, each feeling almost relaxed in the other’s presence. Chloe even gave Travis a brief outline of Misfortune’s history and the bonanza of gold that had been reaped from the placer mines surrounding the town.

  As her voice trailed off, she drained the last few drops from her cup. “This is a painkiller, of sorts,” she agreed, abruptly changing subjects, her tongue and curiosity loosened. “But what pain is it you’re trying to kill? Don’t you think it’s time you told me about yourself?”

  Travis gave her a sharp look and folded his arms over his chest, retreating into himself, every muscle tight. This was the first time she’d questioned him about his past. They’d been getting along so well, just sitting here in this comfortable kitchen. Why did she have to ask? If I tell her, he thought, she’ll probably throw me out into the road right now. But the whiskey had brought roses to her cheeks and softened the expression in her eyes, and he sensed her genuine interest.

  He breathed a long sigh. He’d kept all the bitterness bottled up for what seemed like an eternity while it ate away at him. He wanted to tell her, tell someone, but fear of her reaction coiled him up as tight as a new spring.

  “Maybe I can help,” she urged, and put her hand on his tense arm.

  Maybe, he thought, and was just light-headed enough to risk losing whatever respect she’d developed for him.