Love's Bounty

by Rosanne Bittner

  “Whore can mean a lot of things. In a lot of ways she’s quite a nice lady.”

  “Lady?” Callie walked as fast as she could behind him. “The thought of sleeping with a man who’s not my husband and who doesn’t even plan on marrying me makes me want to puke! How can you call somebody like that a lady?”

  He stopped and turned again, whisking her into an alley. “Watch what you say. People can hear you, and most men around here know Lisa.”

  “I’ll bet they do!”

  Chris put his hands on his hips, a look of obvious irritation on his face. “Look, you haven’t been around enough to be judging people. You have a lot of growing up to do first.”

  “If that’s considered growing up, I’ll stay just the way I am, thank you.”

  “Fine. That’s your choice. Just don’t be so ready to judge other people. You just remember you hired me to do a job, and I intend to do it. I didn’t ask for your opinion about me or my friends, and none of it should matter to you. So quit hounding me with all your questions, and quit judging people by their environment or what they might do for a living. While you’re with me, your job is strictly to help me find the men you’re after. What I do otherwise is not your business, same as what you do isn’t any of my business. Got that?”

  Callie felt both angry with herself and embarrassed. She’d insulted a friend of his. That was stupid. She hardly knew the man, so why did it matter anyway? He was right about that part, and if she kept making him angry, he might change his mind and not help her.

  She closed her eyes and sighed. “Yes, sir. I’m…I’m sorry I insulted your woman friend.”

  “Thank you. Now let’s get those supplies.”

  He turned and walked away, and Callie followed, realizing when they reached the supply store that Mr. Christian Mercy was damned efficient. He had a list all ready for the store clerk—bacon, flour, beans, tobacco, cigarette papers, plenty of ammunition, blankets, medicines, bandages, peppermints, coffee, a couple of pans and a coffeepot, matches, gun oil, saddle wax, towels, a few bags of oats for the horses, soap, extra boots—size eleven.

  “What size boots do you wear?” he asked her.

  “Six.”

  He ordered those too, letting her pick a pair out while he continued with the list. Dried fruit, baking soda to clean their teeth with, slickers, extra hats. Again Callie picked out her own. Creams for Callie. It surprised her that he’d thought of that. She tried on a long duster, a warm leather jacket with fleece lining, a woolen scarf, some whiskey—“for washing wounds,” he told her, as though he felt he needed to assure her it wasn’t for drinking.

  The list went on. Items were wrapped. Callie gave Chris ten dollars for her share. The store owner agreed to have the items taken over to Luke for packing onto the mules. Within an hour the shopping was finished and they left the store. Luke walked Callie to the hotel, stopping at the entrance.

  “We should be all set. Go on up to your room and clean up. Get something to eat and get some rest. Stay out of the streets, understand? I don’t want to have to worry about you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He tipped his hat and walked off. Callie watched after him, feeling suddenly very alone, scared, and anxious. Damned if she didn’t feel like crying again. She marched into the hotel and up to her room, thinking how this might be the last night for a long time that she’d get to sleep in a real bed. What disturbed her, and for no good reason, was the fact that Christian Mercy would be sharing his bed with someone else tonight.

  The heck with eating. She suddenly had no appetite.

  Chapter Ten

  Callie found it impossible to sleep. Being in a strange town, staying in a hotel for the first time, the noise in the street below, all combined to prevent her eyelids from closing. Every time she heard men talking and laughing, she couldn’t help wondering if one of them was Chris. In the distance she could hear piano music, women laughing. Was one of those women Lisa? Did he care about her, or was what they would end up doing just a plain old animal act with no feelings?

  She wished she understood things like that. It made her stomach turn to think that a woman could sleep with men for no reason other than to make a man feel good. That was bad enough. The hardest thing to understand was how men like those who attacked her mother could get pleasure out of taking a woman unwillingly, giving her pain and humiliation. Were all men capable of that? Surely not, or all women would be in constant danger. Then again, if Chris needed a woman like that Lisa to satisfy whatever it was that drove men to do such things, then how safe would she be traveling alone with him for days or weeks, him being unable to get that same pleasure?

  She rolled to her side. She hadn’t even undressed yet. She wished she had someone to talk to about these things, about the horror she’d experienced watching those men rape her mother, about her guilt over being too afraid of the same thing happening to her to come out of that wood box, even though there would not have been anything she could do. She stayed there for her mother’s own peace, but the guilt of it tore at her heart.

  She didn’t understand men. She didn’t understand sex. She didn’t understand her own feelings of guilt and hatred…or even this terrible need for revenge. Yes, that was natural, but to go to such means to get it, to give up her pa’s beloved ranch, to spend everything she had, travel alone with a bounty hunter she still hardly knew, risking rape or death or being stranded in unknown country…what had she gotten herself into?

  She sat up, feeling restless. She went to her open window and leaned out, watching two men ride past on horses. A wagon clattered by. Lordy, living in town sure was noisy. Night on the ranch was dead still except for the occasional yip of a coyote. She couldn’t help wondering if Chris was still up, wondering what the woman called Lisa looked like. Did she look a little like his wife perhaps? Maybe that was why he was attracted to her.

  Curiosity got the better of her. Chris had given strict instructions for her to stay off the streets after dark, but the way she was dressed, if she piled her hair under her hat, who would know that she was a girl? Besides, she could keep to the shadows. Not only did she want to make sure Chris was where he said he’d be, but maybe she could peek through a window and study the men inside the Watering Hole. She just might spot someone who looked familiar. No matter what old Luke said, that didn’t mean some of the men she was looking for couldn’t possibly have ridden into town that afternoon and didn’t go to the stables first. They hardly seemed like the kind who would care about their horses.

  She got up, turning up her oil lamp and winding her hair into a knot on top of her head. She pinned it with combs and stuck her hat on her head, then quietly went out. She tiptoed down the stairs, glad to notice the desk clerk was asleep in his chair. Quietly she opened the outer door and left.

  Staying close to the wall, Callie walked the full block and a half to the Watering Hole, which she could see across the street from her. Taking a deep breath, she headed across the street, stepping through drying mud and trying as best as she could in the dark to avoid stepping in horse dung. Two men walked toward the tavern from another direction, and she quickly ducked between two horses tied in front. The men stepped through the swinging doors, and Callie moved away from the horses and darted under the hitching post and up the steps. She leaned against the outside wall near the doors.

  The piano music from inside was very loud now. A woman began singing a song about someone named Kathleen. Callie moved closer to a window and peeked inside.

  “Lordy!” she whispered.

  A woman sat on top of the piano, wearing a green, low-cut dress with black feathery trim. The dress came only to her knees so that the whole bottom half of her legs showed. Her blond hair was twisted up on top of her head, and it was decorated with glittery combs and black feathers. She wore black shoes with a high heel and black mesh stockings.

  Her singing voice was beautiful, the prettiest Callie had ever heard.

  To that dear home beyond the sea,
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  My Kathleen shall again return;

  And when thy old friends welcome thee,

  Thy loving heart will cease to yearn.

  Where laughs the little silver stream,

  Beside your mother’s humble cot,

  And brightest rays of sunshine gleam,

  There all your grief will be forgot.

  Such pretty words, and sung with such feeling. But when Callie followed the woman’s gaze, it went right to a handsome man sitting at a table smack in front of her.

  “Christian Mercy!” she muttered. Why on earth did she feel jealous at the way those blue eyes of his moved, his gaze drinking in every inch of the pretty woman? And she was doing the same, looking him over as though he were something delicious. How could a woman flaunt herself that way? And how could she actually want a man?

  Her lips moved into a sneer of disgust, but her thoughts were quickly interrupted when someone jerked her by the back of her pants and a strong arm came around her, gripping her across the breasts.

  “Hey, boy, you gettin’ yourself a good look at a pretty woman?” came a gruff voice.

  The words were followed by laughter, and whoever held her swung her away from the window.

  “Let go of me!” Callie screamed. She began kicking backward, aiming for the man’s shinbones.

  “Hey! Hey!” the man growled, jerking her to the side. The movement caused his hand to come across her breasts. “Jesus!” he hollered, letting go of her. She started to run, but a strong hand caught her arm and jerked her back, this time locking both his arms tightly around her from behind so her arms were pinned. “It’s a girl!” the man declared.

  Callie did not have a chance to see the man’s face, but now she could see two other men in front of her, standing close, their faces fairly distinguishable by the light filtering out from the tavern.

  “A girl?” one of them asked, grinning.

  “What’s under my hand sure says so,” the man holding Callie answered with another laugh. He felt her breasts, and Callie kicked and screamed as hard and as loudly as she could. The kicks seemed to have no effect, and her fight caused her hat to come off. Her hair came tumbling down, and a stream of profanities poured out of her mouth.

  The three men began hooting and laughing louder, and one of the others took a turn at feeling her breasts. She bent her head down and bit hard, causing the man to yelp like a wounded hound.

  “Mr. Mercy!” Callie screamed as the man holding her began carrying her toward an alley. “Mr. Mercy!” She knew she had to yell as loudly as possible to be heard above the piano and singing and the general noise inside the tavern. She wasn’t sure Chris heard her until from seemingly nowhere she heard the click of a six-gun being cocked. The gun was right beside her head, the barrel laid against her abductor’s cheek.

  “Let her go,” Chris said calmly.

  The man holding her froze in place. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Doesn’t matter. You’ve got hold of my little sister, and if you don’t let go in three seconds, the back of your brain will be splattered against the next building.”

  Callie could hear her abductor breathing hard. He released her, and she quickly moved out of the way. “Kill him, Mr. Mercy! Kill him!”

  The other two men ran off, and Chris lowered his gun.

  “Sorry, mister,” the man who’d grabbed her told Chris.

  Chris gently released his gun hammer into place. “Get the hell out of here.”

  “He assaulted me!” Callie protested. “He did an indecent thing with me, and he was dragging me off—”

  “Shut up!” Chris told her, still glaring at the man who’d grabbed her. “Go on. Get going before I change my mind.”

  The man, who Callie could now see was very stocky and bearded, glanced at her first. “Sorry, ma’am. We was just gonna have some fun, tease you a little. Nothin’ more.” He turned and walked off into the darkness.

  Callie shuddered at the memory of him touching her, something that brought back all the ugliness of her mother’s attack. “You should have shot him!” she told Chris.

  He shoved his gun back into its holster and walked closer to her. “I should shoot you and save myself a lot of headaches! What the hell were you doing here? I told you to stay off the streets!”

  “I decided to come down here and have a look inside the tavern, see if there were any men in there who looked familiar.”

  “There was someone familiar in there. Me! You sure you weren’t just spying on me?”

  Callie struggled not to cry. “I have a right! I’m paying you! Don’t forget that!”

  Chris leaned down slightly to talk right into her face. “You’re paying me to find your mother’s killers! That’s it! Anything else I do is my business! Your business is to do exactly what I tell you. If you can’t follow orders, we’re through, right here and now! You can take the next coach back to Rawlins! You go back to your room and you decide! I’ll be there in the morning for your answer!” With that he turned and walked back to the tavern doorway, where the pretty blond woman stood waiting with a grin on her face. She moved her arm around Chris’s waist, and he put his arm around her as they both went back inside.

  Callie gritted her teeth in anger and jealousy. “Little sister, he calls me!” she grumbled. She turned and marched back toward the hotel. “Little sister!” She went inside the hotel, slamming the door to wake up the desk clerk. She marched upstairs and into her room, where she promptly broke down into tears. She never felt so miserable and embarrassed and lonely and confused and angry and strangely frustrated in her life.

  “I hate you, Christian Mercy!” she sobbed.

  Chapter Eleven

  “That was your new client?” Lisa asked Chris.

  Chris watched her undress, wishing he could enjoy her in the fullest sense, the way he’d enjoyed Valerie, the kind of enjoyment a man got from the woman he truly loved, the woman he wanted to impregnate because she would be the perfect mother for his sons and daughters.

  Daughters…God, would this pain ever go away? The heavy weight in his heart seemed to pull a little harder every time he thought of his little Patty-girl, hurting, needing him.

  “That’s her,” he answered Lisa, drinking in her lovely breasts, her round, firm bottom. “She’s going to be a pain in the ass, I’m sure.”

  Lisa laughed lightly, a laugh as pretty as her singing voice. “She looks like she’s thirteen or fourteen years old.”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Really? You sure she’s telling the truth?”

  Chris, already naked, rolled onto his back as Lisa took the pins from her hair and let the blond locks fall. “I never considered that.”

  “Well, you’d better.” Lisa came over to the bed and moved onto it, leaning over him to kiss his cheek. “What if you start getting ideas after traveling alone with her for a while? You don’t want to go bedding a kid.”

  Chris couldn’t help his own laughter then. “No worry there. Number one, that freckle-faced little spitfire is the last female who would stir me into anything; and number two, she already told me that if I make any advances she will, as she put it, ‘shoot me dead.’”

  “Shoot you dead?” Lisa laughed more, and Chris couldn’t help joining her. “Is there some other way to shoot someone?” Lisa asked.

  “Shoot me wounded, maybe.”

  Lisa laughed harder, but Chris could not deny the slight bit of guilt he felt for the laughter. He knew how much poor Callie was hurting inside, how she’d probably cry if she knew he was talking about her. The worst damned part was a little piece of him did have feelings for her, feelings he couldn’t even explain yet. He couldn’t decide if they were fatherly, brotherly, friendly, or something else. Good Lord, what if she wasn’t eighteen? He felt the hole he’d dug for himself getting even deeper, and he pulled Lisa over on top of him. “No more talk about Callie Hobbs,” he told her. “I want to concentrate on a real woman.” He ran his hands along her slender thighs. “And I
want to drink in every inch of you.”

  Her laughter turned to a sly, seductive grin then, and she leaned over, offering him a ripe pink nipple. “Then I’ll stay right here, where you can see all of me, while I give you your pleasure, Mr. Mercy.” After allowing him a taste of her fruits, she raised herself up and settled on top of him, rocking rhythmically as she took his thoughts to more pleasurable places than bad memories and doubts about helping a crazy kid named Callie Hobbs.

  For the next several minutes there was only this pleasure to think about. Might as well get this out of his system. Heaven only knew how long he’d be on the trail with—

  No, quit thinking about her. The problem was, he’d always traveled alone before, so he could stop and see women like Lisa anytime he wanted. He couldn’t do that with that doggone kid along, watching his every move, let alone the fact that most of the time he wouldn’t dare leave her alone. Callie Hobbs was going to be nothing but a headache the whole time. She’d already gotten herself in trouble, and they hadn’t even left yet. He’d had a good urge earlier to turn her over his knee and spank her like a five-year-old who’d disobeyed. But then, he never would do that. He’d never laid a hand on Patty. If she’d lived, she probably would have been spoiled so rotten, she’d be unbearable…and he would have loved every minute of spoiling her.

  Dammit! Enjoy the moment. It was ridiculous thinking about all these things when the prettiest whore in Wyoming was gyrating on top of him in a way most women wouldn’t know how. He thrust himself upward, allowing himself to enjoy her every move, toying with her breasts while she threw back her head and groaned in her own pleasure.

  It had been a long time for him, and in minutes it was over. He rolled her over and nestled his face against her neck, smelling her perfumed hair. “Sorry. I’ll take longer next time.”

  She ran her fingers lightly through his chest hairs. “You know I understand. Out here, single men go long and far between…but then, so do a lot of married ones.” She laughed and moved her hand to run it along his hard-muscled arm. “You sure you weren’t thinking about that freckle-faced spitfire, as you call her?”