by Candace Camp
A small noise of loathing and denial escaped her lips at the thought, and Slater woke up. He saw the fear on her face, and it surprised him. He hadn’t seen fear in her, even when bullets were flying all around them, or when she was helping the doctor clean his bloody arm. “What is it?” he asked, his voice still low, but stronger than before.
Victoria shook her head, embarrassed that she had awakened her patient and that she had let Slater, of all people, see her doubt and anguish. “Nothing. I’m sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep.”
He frowned. “What is it? Tell me.”
“Nothing, really. I was just thinking about Amy and wondering what’s happened to her. How we’ll ever find her.”
Tears sparkled in her blue eyes, turning them even brighter and more vivid. It wrenched Slater’s gut to see the tears, and that surprised him. He had thought himself immune to a woman’s tears. “Don’t worry. I’ll find her. I’ll get her back for you. It’s a promise.”
Victoria swallowed down the sobs that threatened to rise in her throat. She would not break down in front of him. The last thing a sick man needed was someone weeping and wailing all over him. Despair never made anyone feel better. She blinked and summoned up a sketch of a smile. “Of course you will. I’m giving way to weakness.”
“You’re tired. You’ve been taking care of me all by yourself.”
“Mrs. Miles helped me.” How odd, Victoria thought; they were having a normal conversation, without any rancor.
“How long has it been?”
“Since you’ve been feverish? This is the second day.”
“We didn’t get very far, did we?”
She shook her head. That wasn’t a good way for him to think. “Since you’re awake, how about more soup?”
He grimaced, but allowed her to help him up and feed him. When he was done, he slid back down in the bed and let Victoria tuck in the sheets around him. Her clean, flowery scent teased at his nostrils, and he fell asleep smiling.
Once more Victoria curled up in the chair, and this time she dozed off, too. She came to with a start and found herself face to face with Slater, who was sitting up on the side of the bed, the sheet draped somewhat precariously around his waist. Victoria came to her feet, concerned. “What is it? What’s the matter? What are you doing?”
“Watching you sleep. I started to get up, but I realized I didn’t, uh…” Slater glanced down at his lap.
Victoria’s face flamed with color. “Your clothes. Of course. I doubt they’re dry yet. I can check.” She started for the door, grateful to have an excuse to leave the room until her blush died down, but his voice stopped her.
“Where are my guns?”
“What?” She turned around.
“My guns. The Peacemakers and the carbine.”
“What a thing to be thinking of now.” Victoria rolled her eyes, her embarrassment chased away by exasperation. “The carbine’s downstairs, and I brought your gun belt up to the room with us.”
“Where is it? I want it,” he said insistently.
“For heaven’s sake. Are you planning to shoot me?”
The ghost of smile touched his lips. “Not unless you drive me to it. Which is not entirely unlikely.”
Victoria sighed and crossed to the dresser. She couldn’t imagine why he had to see his guns, but as long as it would keep him quiet…
She came back to the bed, holding out the gun belt, doing her best not to think about Slater’s nakedness beneath the sheet. “I can’t understand why you want them. We’re in a house, with people around. We’re safe.”
He shrugged. “I’ve found it’s not wise to assume you’re safe in any situation. I like to have these within reach.” He took each revolver from its holster and checked the chambers.
Victoria watched, one eyebrow raised. “Did you think I’d stolen your ammunition?”
“I wouldn’t put anything past you,” he retorted, his voice teasing. “But I always check. It’s safer. I’ve stayed alive this long by not leaving room for mistakes.”
He buckled the belt and hung it over the bedpost above his head. “Damn. I feel like I’ve been out breaking horses all day.”
“It’ll take a while for you to regain your strength.”
He shot her a sideways glance. “If you’re going to try to make me eat more of that soup, forget it.”
Victoria chuckled. “All right. Though, if you want to get your clothes back. . .”
Slater snorted, but amusement lurked beneath his words. “Resorting to extortion, huh?”
Victoria just crossed her arms and returned his gaze blandly.
He sighed. “All right. Get the damn soup.”
“Well, at least you’ve recovered your usual vocabulary,” Victoria said primly as she started out the door, and she heard him chuckle behind her. The little exchange with him raised her spirits, and she went down to the kitchen humming.
As she expected, their clothes were still flapping on the line, so she dipped up more soup while she answered Mrs. Miles’s questions about Slater’s condition. Mrs. Miles offered to take over the chore of watching him, but Victoria refused. She didn’t want to turn the task over to someone else.
She returned to Slater’s room, and he ate some of the soup, though this time he insisted on feeding himself. Strangely, Victoria found that she rather missed doing that for him. He went back to sleep soon, and Victoria walked to the bed and stood looking down at him. She couldn’t keep a smile from curving her lips.
He no longer looked deathly ill, just a little pale beneath his tan. With his face relaxed in sleep, he seemed younger, more handsome. When he was awake, there was a fierceness in his expression, a power that kept one from noticing his good looks. Idly, Victoria traced the curve of his mustache with her index finger. She wondered what it would feel like to kiss him. Did the mustache tickle? It didn’t feel wiry, as she had expected. In fact, it was almost soft.
His lips twitched, and her eyes went to them. She remembered how they had felt against her fingers when she had dampened them. She remembered the way they had closed around her fingers, his tongue licking the moisture from her skin. Something hot and sharp curled through her abdomen. She shouldn’t have thoughts like this about Slater. About any man, really. But especially Slater. He disliked her. She disliked him. Didn’t she?
She was no longer sure. They had disagreed about almost everything before he fell ill, and she suspected that as soon as he was well, they would disagree again. Still, she felt a closeness to him, a bond that had been forged during the long hours when she had struggled to save him. She had worked and worried and even prayed for him. And she had sensed that they were pulling together, paired in an intense effort. She hardly knew him, yet because of what had happened, Victoria was connected to him in a way she wasn’t connected to men she had known all her life.
Slater slept through the rest of the afternoon, not even waking when Mrs. Miles brought up their clean clothes. Victoria laid Slater’s shirt and trousers over the footboard of the bed and changed out of Mrs. Miles’s skirt into her own. It was both unnerving and somehow exciting to undress in the same room with Slater, even though he was sound asleep. But she was eager to get back into her own clothes.
The tantalizing odors of dinner began to rise from the floor below. Victoria was hungry, and she felt a trifle edgy, too, from being in the room all day. She glanced at Slater to make sure he was sound asleep, then went downstairs. Mrs. Miles was putting supper on the table, and the two men were washing up. They turned at her entrance and smiled.
“I’m glad you decided to eat with us. Mr. Slater’ll be fine for a while without you.”
“That’s right. You worry about him too much.” Dennis came closer, drying off his hands. His eyes swept down her, and Victoria was shocked at the positively licentious expression in his eyes. She glanced nervously at his mother, wondering if she had noticed. She was glad that the woman was here. She was also glad th
at Slater was on the mend and they wouldn’t have to stay much longer.
Nathan joined his brother. “Be dark soon,” he said, apropos of nothing that Victoria could determine, convincing her more than ever that he was not quite right in the head.
But his mother seemed to understand him, for she shook her head firmly. “After dinner, Nate.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Victoria guessed he must have been promised some kind of treat after it got dark, but she didn’t inquire. Dennis’s look had made her uneasy, and she would just as soon not get involved with anything concerning either brother.
Everyone was strangely quiet throughout supper, even Mrs. Miles. Victoria’s unease grew. She didn’t know what was wrong, but she sensed that something was up, something… secret. She wished that she hadn’t decided to come downstairs for supper. She should have stayed in the room with Slater and eaten from a tray, as she had earlier.
After the meal she helped Mrs. Miles with the dishes, but she was glad when the chore was finished and she could escape to her room. She glanced around and caught sight of Dennis disappearing up the stairs. She gave Nathan and his mother a halfhearted smile.
“I’ll go up to my room now. Thank you for supper.”
Mrs. Miles shook her head. “No.”
“What?” Victoria looked at her, puzzled.
“I said no, you can’t go to your room.”
“Why not?” She couldn’t understand what the woman was talking about. It was such a strange thing to say, and her tone was peremptory, almost commanding, not at all the hearty, friendly way Mrs. Miles usually talked.
“’Cause Den’s got something to do up there.”
Victoria waited. The woman said no more. They stared at each other. Victoria realized that Mrs. Miles looked different, too. The smile that had been so constantly on her lips was gone, and without it her mouth was a hard, straight line. Her eyes were hard, too.
The vague sense of unease that Victoria had felt all evening burst into full flower. There was something wrong here. Victoria whirled and started for the stairs, instinctively running toward Slater. Mrs. Miles clamped a hand around Victoria’s arm and jerked her to a halt.
Victoria turned. “What’s the matter with you? I’m going to see Slater.” She tugged in vain against the other woman’s grip. Mrs. Miles was bigger and stronger than she was. “Let me go!”
“I said you ain’t goin’ up there.”
Above their heads a gun suddenly blasted. Victoria froze, staring into Mrs. Miles’s eyes. “Slater!” She began to struggle furiously. “Slater!”
Chapter Nine
Victoria fought wildly, clawing and kicking at her captor, her only thought to get to Slater. Mrs. Miles held on with both hands and called to Nathan for help. The man wrapped his arms around Victoria from behind, lifting her off her feet, and walked back with her to the far side of the room. Victoria’s arms and legs flailed ineffectually, and she screamed with frustration and rage.
“Put me down! What have you done to Slater? Let me go! Slater!”
“He’s dead,” Mrs. Miles told her dispassionately. “Be thankful the boys wanted you, or you’d be the same.” It was her tone, even more than her words, that chilled Victoria. There was no heat, no anger, in her, only a businesslike calm.
“What do you mean?” Victoria stopped struggling and stared at the other woman in shock.
“Den and Nate wanted to have you, so we’re lettin’ you live. We got no use for your husband, ‘cept for his horse and things. So he’ll go the way of the others.”
“The others?” Cold gripped Victoria’s stomach.
“Sure. Den told you we get a lotta visitors, and we’re always happy to take ‘em in.” A cold smile curved her lips at her own humor.
“You kill them? You kill the people to whom you offer hospitality?”
Mrs. Miles’s smile broadened. “Only when I figure they can’t be traced to this house. It was clear from that gunshot wound in your fella’s arm that you two are on the wrong side of the law, so I don’t reckon anybody much’ll be missin’ you. I don’t like to put us in danger. That’s why I was hopin’ he’d die natural-like, from the fever. You’d have gone along with the boys easier, too. Now it’ll take you a while to calm down and face up to what you have to do.”
“Ya mean we gotta wait, Ma?” Nathan asked plaintively
His mother grimaced. “I didn’t say that, boy. Soon as Den comes down and has his turn with her, then you can.”
“Ah, Ma! Why does he always get his pick? You let him have that fancy Mexican saddle last month, too. He’s your favorite. You always let him have everythin’.”
“You hush up! That ain’t the truth, and you know it. Den asked for it first, that’s how come I let him have it. An’ he saw this girl first, too. He’d been hankering for her for hours ‘fore you ever even saw her.”
Victoria stared at Mrs. Miles in horror, unable to speak. She couldn’t believe that this woman, so friendly and ingratiating before, was now calmly talking about giving Victoria to her sons.
“Do you mean—” Victoria gasped when at last she was able to recover her voice “—do you mean to let them rape me?”
Mrs. Miles gave a dry, mirthless laugh. “Happens to all of us, honey.”
“But how can you? You’re a woman, too! You’re their mother!”
She shrugged, obviously unmoved by Victoria’s plight. “They want you real bad. I practically had to peel ‘em away from the peephole this morning when you was bathin’. An’ if they want it, I get it for ‘em. See, I like to keep my boys happy. I’d do a lot worse to keep ‘em home and content.”
Victoria shuddered, appalled. This woman was evil through and through. How could she have let herself be so deceived? There must have been signs that the Miles family was not what it seemed, but she had failed to see them. She had been foolishly trusting, and Victoria knew that in part it had been because she had felt helpless out there with Slater sick. She had been scared, and glad to have an older woman shoulder the responsibility. She had wanted to believe in Mrs. Miles, and that had made it awfully easy to do so.
Mrs. Miles saw Victoria’s involuntary shudder, and she chuckled. “Don’t worry. We ain’t gonna kill you, even when the boys tire of you. I reckon a pretty thing like you will draw the men. Practically any man passin’ by will want to spend the night when he sees you.”
Victoria straightened, and her eyes flashed fire. A cold rage swept through her, wiping out her fear. “If you think I’ll go along with this, you’re sadly mistaken. There are worse things than dying.”
“And my Den knows how to do most of ‘em. You’ll go along, sooner or later.”
“You’d better think again. You’ll regret this day as long as you live.”
“Brave words, missy.”
“It’s a lot more than words. That man up there, the one you killed? He’s a Texas Ranger. They won’t rest until they find the people who killed him. Maybe nobody’s caught on to you before now, but you’ve never had the whole of the Texas Rangers looking for you.”
“Sure.” Nathan snorted. “Sure he’s a Ranger. And I’m George Washington.”
“Well,” a soft voice drawled behind them. “I never realized President Washington was so ugly and stupid.”
Everyone whirled toward the voice. Slater stood halfway down the stairs, leaning against the rail. He wore no shirt and his feet were bare. His face was washed-out, and one hand gripped the banister tightly. But in the other hand, one of his Colts was leveled at Mrs. Miles.
“Slater!” Victoria gasped, astonishment mingling with the relief in her voice.
He smiled. “What’s the matter, darlin’? Surely you didn’t think I couldn’t take a worm like that, even if I’d been on my deathbed.”
“I should have realized,” Victoria replied a little breathlessly.
“Now,” Slater went on, “unless you want to see your Ma’s blood all over th
is floor, boy, I suggest you let go of Miss Stafford.’
“Ma?” Nathan’s voice quavered a little, like a child’s, and he looked over at his mother.
Mrs. Miles looked into Slater’s eyes. “Do it, son.”
“Wise decision.”
Nathan’s arms relaxed, and Victoria scooted away. Slater’s carbine had been set in the corner of the room, and she hurried to pick it up, carefully staying out of Slater’s line of fire. She checked to make sure it was loaded, then aimed the gun at Nathan. No matter how miraculously Slater had been able to outshoot Dennis Miles, she knew he was too weak to hold Nathan and his mother at bay for long single-handedly. He might slide to the floor in a faint at any moment.
“That’s my girl,” Slater softly praised Victoria’s move. “I’ve always favored a woman who knows what to do and how to do it.”
“Where’s Dennis?” Mrs. Miles asked, and her eyes were dark pits of fear.
“If he’s the one you sent up to my room with a gun, he’s lying on the floor with a bullet between his eyes,” Slater replied bluntly.
“No! No!” She shrieked, and her face contorted. “Not my boy. Not Denny!” Suddenly she moved, startling them all. She ran to the gun rack on the wall and jerked down a rifle. She whirled and lifted it to her shoulder, aiming at Slater.
For an instant Victoria was too surprised to move, her responses numbed by the shocks she had received this evening. But she saw Slater’s instant of hesitation, and instinctively she fired. The sound was deafening.
Mrs. Miles screamed and fell, her finger jerking on the trigger. The rifle blasted a hole in the stairs below where Slater stood, and fragments of wood flew. Stunned, the other three occupants of the room stared at the inert form on the floor.
“Lord.” Slater’s voice was so low that Victoria could barely hear it. He looked at her. “You saved my life. I couldn’t pull the trigger for a second—I’ve never shot a woman.”
