The Redhead and the Preacher: A Loveswept Historical Romance

by Sandra Chastain

  His hand froze in midair. “I was going to examine your knee.”

  “My knee is fine.”

  His face showed obvious displeasure. “I thought you lost your purse.”

  “I did.”

  “You apparently have an unending supply of coins. Is that why you wanted to bring your travel case along?”

  There was no arguing with the truth. Macky decided that admission to his charge was the only way she’d stave off being forced to tell him about the bank robbery.

  “Yes. Are you going to steal my money?”

  “No. I’m going to build a second fire. Then I’m going to find us something to eat. Then what I want to do is—”

  But he didn’t move. In her attempt to step back, the greatcoat had parted, exposing two bare legs that went on forever.

  Macky’s lips parted, making a small circle as she gasped.

  Bran’s pulse quickened as he imagined capturing those lips, sliding his hands along those legs, exposing those breasts. For a long moment they stared at each other, only a shaky breath away from touching.

  This time it was the shrill cry of a bird ruffling the tree limbs that broke the silence.

  “What I want is … be rid of you,” he said in a voice so hoarse that she could barely hear him. “Before …”

  The air was tense. Macky could hardly breathe. She felt a trembling in her limbs that had nothing to do with the cold. Half of her was burning, half shivered. She’d never felt such odd sensations before.

  Gathering her senses, she said, “But a preacher wouldn’t—”

  “No? Maybe I’m not a preacher. Suppose I’m something else? A gunfighter, maybe.”

  “Should I be afraid of you?”

  “Yes,” he said as he stood and moved away. “Maybe you should.”

  Chapter Five

  Bran stopped from time to time and inclined his head as though he were listening. Macky could tell that he was worried about the fire drawing attention to their campsite, but, like him, she didn’t see that they had a choice. Dry clothing was necessary and the sooner the better.

  He started a second brush pile several feet behind the first one. “Two fires will heat the air faster,” he explained as he lit it. “Keep them going. I’ll get food.”

  “What about the jerky?”

  “We need something more nourishing. Save the jerky for tomorrow when we’re walking.”

  When Bran returned he was carrying a tin bucket, rescued from the water’s edge where some earlier travelers had dropped it, and another rabbit that he set to roasting on a spit over the fire. The bucket, placed in the second fire, soon sent the aroma of coffee into the night air. Macky’s stomach started a fresh round of protesting. She wasn’t sure she’d ever satisfy her hunger again.

  When Bran finally cut strips of meat from the rabbit she reached for them eagerly, burning her tongue in her haste to eat. “How do we drink the coffee?” she asked. “We have no cups, unless you have another bottle in your pockets.”

  “There are other ways.” He headed downstream and she heard the rustle of brush followed by a splash. When he returned he was carrying a curved limb from which a newly grown offshoot had been twisted out.

  Then he enlarged the knothole left by the branch with a knife, using a rough stone to smooth the inside. After rinsing the crude dipper once more, he scooped up some coffee and handed it to Macky.

  “Where’d you learn how to do that?”

  “The Indians. I lived with them after my family died. They taught me many things.”

  “What happened to your family?”

  Bran took the dipper back and refilled it. He looked down at the murky liquid, swirling it around as if he might be seeing things, things that made his expression turn hard and cold.

  She didn’t think he was going to answer when he finally said, “River pirates. They raided our farm one night, stole the money from a year’s work, then killed my father, my mother, and my sister. Then they burned the cabin. There was nothing left.”

  As if it were responding to Bran’s sad story, a coyote let out a low moan in the distance, only to be answered by a second animal far away.

  “Is that how you lost your eye?”

  He swallowed the coffee in one long gulp, then refilled it and handed it back to Macky. “Yes. The leader of the gang thought he killed me, too. He laughed. I’ve never forgotten the sound of that laugh.”

  She blew on the steaming liquid. There was more, but Macky could tell he wasn’t ready to share everything. She had the feeling that not many people knew as much as she. Pushing back her natural need to sympathize, she asked a less painful question. “Which tribe did you live with?”

  “Choctaw. In Mississippi, until they were driven west.”

  “Driven?”

  “Herded like cattle,” he said, his stark face not showing any signs of emotion. But his eyes couldn’t hide the pain.

  “But you went with them, didn’t you? Why? You were a white boy.”

  “Army offered to send me to a white family. I liked the Indians better.”

  Though Macky knew little about the man, she had the firm conviction that if he started something, he saw it through. “I don’t know much about the various tribes,” she admitted, hoping to draw him out. “We lived in Boston where there were only immigrants. What were the Choctaw like?”

  “They became my family. They were good to me.”

  That was it. They were family and they were good to him. That was all that mattered in a child’s world. Not the suffering of the tribe, nor what her father had described as inhuman cruelties inflicted on the Indians. “What happened to them?”

  This time he didn’t answer. After a long silent moment he stood and turned her skirt over so that the other side would face the heat. “Still wet. It’ll be dry by morning.”

  When he knelt beside her, Macky tried to sidle away.

  “No, being close will keep us warm.”

  “But …” She tried to protest, then realized that he wasn’t listening. He smoothed the ground, then lay down on his side, pulling her tight against him.

  “Mr.… Bran … Preacher—whatever you are, I don’t feel right about this. I’d prefer to sleep apart.”

  “Then you’re going to be cold.”

  He started to pull his greatcoat away, exposing her legs and lower body to the cool air. He was going to leave her without cover. What kind of man would do that?

  The answer was simple. He’d given her a choice and he’d abide by her decision.

  “Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll just cover myself with my skirt.”

  She sat up, reached out for the garment, touched the still-damp fabric and let it go. For a moment she felt tears well up in her eyes. Everything had gone wrong since Papa died. Everything. Now she was going to freeze to death out in the middle of nowhere, that or sleep with a man who had her stomach playing leapfrog with her lungs.

  She let out a deep, ragged sigh, folded her arms across her knees and leaned her forehead against them. All the money from the Promise Bank couldn’t help her now. As if to remind her of how helpless she was, the eerie scream of a wild animal rent the night silence.

  Unconsciously, she shifted closer to Bran who, by now, seemed to have gone to sleep without showing any further concern for Macky. As the fires began to burn down, the air between them cooled.

  Macky added more brush, then took an unemotional look at her plight. She couldn’t help herself or poor Jenks if she froze to death. If lying close to the preacher would provide additional warmth, then that was the sensible thing to do.

  Except for the money. A man wouldn’t have to have much sense to feel the padding beneath her shirts and Bran was a smart man.

  Making up her mind, she stood up, draped her wet skirt around her, and dashed into the bushes along the creek. Quickly she hid the money behind a log, then returned to the fire where she dropped to the ground and scooted beneath the greatcoat, planting her back against her tormentor’s. />
  Without a comment, he turned, gathered her into his arms and pulled her close, covering the lower part of their bodies with his coat and their upper bodies with her father’s.

  “What in hell?” He sat up. The woman’s bottom was covered with a soggy mass of wet cloth.

  “What? What’s wrong now?”

  “Take those wet things off.”

  Macky shook her head. “I will not. And they’re my—my undergarment.”

  “And they’re wet. Off. Take them off and then we’ll try again.” He lay back down and closed his eyes.

  Macky squirmed. This wasn’t working out. The wages of sin were upon her and she didn’t need a preacher to tell her. Finally, with the threat of freezing to death at hand, she shimmied out of her drawers and flung them alongside the skirt, then crept back under the coats.

  If Bran had said a word she would have hit him with his Bible. He only opened his arms and resettled her inside them. The fire warmed her feet and his body offered a cozy little burrow for the rest of her. He even provided his arm as a pillow.

  She could feel his strong thighs pressed against the back of hers, his body buffering her from the cold, his arms folded across her providing warmth and a sense of protection.

  Giving a last reluctant sigh, she closed her eyes. She could do this, she decided. By morning her clothes would be dry. The sun would warm the earth and they’d get to the way station.

  Bran knew the exact moment the girl relaxed and started drifting into sleep. And he knew that he wouldn’t be so lucky. Her hair tickled his nose. With her bare bottom pressed intimately against him, and her legs—dear God what legs—rubbing against his own, he was going to have a long night.

  Suddenly she wiggled again, arranging her body so that they were completely touching. He trembled with the need to plunge himself inside her.

  “Are you cold?” she asked, rousing herself sleepily.

  “No—yes.”

  “Can I do something to help?”

  “Yes! Stop wiggling your bottom and go to sleep!”

  She grew very still, fighting the urge to move against him.

  It was very hard not to, especially when she could feel his heart beating against her. But she didn’t know what else to do and she knew that she was keeping him from resting.

  Finally, a long time later, she fell asleep. Once, Bran thought he heard a horse gallop by, but it kept going. When the sky began to lighten, Bran rose to build the fire back up again. He’d only fallen asleep once. And when he woke to find his hand beneath her shirt, holding her breast, he’d stilled his movement, but he’d found it difficult to let her go. For the rest of the night he simply held her, like a father might hold a child, comforting, nurturing.

  Damn it, he didn’t want to feel like that. He didn’t want to feel responsible for her safety. He’d never been able to protect the people he cared about. He hadn’t been able to stop the deaths of his own family, nor that of his Choctaw brother. Caring sealed their death warrant. He had no intention of caring about this woman.

  In the state of half-sleep he allowed himself, he argued that keeping the girl warm was only a matter of survival. But by morning he couldn’t ignore that he was as hard as a stallion in the middle of a herd of fillies. He hurt and he knew if she awoke and found him throbbing against her, she’d be frightened.

  He pulled away, covered her with his coat, and left the camp.

  Macky had been having a wonderful dream. Everything about her had been alive and warm. She’d felt strange new feelings, feelings that made her want to tighten her muscles and release them. She pressed herself against the pleasurable warmth that was touching her.

  That hot feeling took over her. Her body felt as if it needed relief, but this time it was different. Her very skin seemed to burn and twitch and her private parts were trembling with fire.

  Then, suddenly the pressure disappeared and she knew that she was alone. “No,” she whispered, wishing the dream would return. She didn’t want it to go. She didn’t want to wake. She moaned, then burrowed beneath the duster, seeking the return of warmth. Moments later she came suddenly awake.

  “Bran?”

  But there was no answer.

  Macky heard the sound of fire crackling dry brush. Her skirt was lying across her feet, dry and still warm from the fire. And she was alone.

  Quickly she climbed out from beneath Bran’s coat and shimmied into her drawers. Before he returned she reclaimed the money she’d hidden and packed it beneath her shirt. She lay back down and pulled the coat back over her.

  Sometime later, Macky heard the spit of water dripping into the flames. She opened her eyes to see the tin bucket back in the midst of glowing coals.

  Bran was squatting beside the fire, adding fresh water to their coffee beans from the night before.

  The night before. Her heart skipped a beat as she remembered how they’d slept, how he’d put his arms around her. She’d shamelessly pressed herself against him, seeking his warmth. And he’d held her, keeping her safe, while making no demands. Whoever this man was, she trusted him.

  “Good morning, Bran,” she said, brushing sand from the back of her arms and Fanning her fingers through her tousled hair.

  “Maybe. Need to get to the station. Without trouble.”

  She glanced around, grateful to see that he was focused on the fire, then stepped into her skirt and stood up, fastening the button at the waist. “Is something wrong?”

  “Out here without a horse? Guess not.”

  The beard on his face was even heavier, making his already dangerous-looking face even more forbidding. “I never knew a preacher to talk so little. Are you always so pessimistic?”

  He cut a sharp glance at her. “Yes.”

  “No joyful noise from you, huh?”

  “ ‘A fool’s mouth is his destruction.’ ”

  “Or, ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.’ ”

  “Proverbs?” he questioned, with reluctant admiration in his mind, if not his voice.

  “Nope, Alexander Pope. Which translates roughly to ‘you may talk like a preacher, but you could be a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” ’ Aesop’s Fables.”

  Bran couldn’t think of a proper response. If she’d been lovely in the dark, she was even more appealing with the flush of their exchange on her face. She ought to be frowning. Instead she was smiling, her mouth challenging like some temptress. Her green eyes were a soft emerald color in the sunlight; they’d match the leaves of the willow trees in summer. And they were teasing him.

  In spite of her dowdy clothing and the fact that she was alone, his independent traveling companion had a quick mind that had been used for more than just womanly chores. She was becoming more and more intriguing.

  “Drink your coffee,” he said, dropping the dipper in her lap. “We have a rough walk ahead of us.”

  Remembering that one brief lapse the night before, Macky understood that the light of day had turned them back into strangers. She took the dipper and filled it with the strong coffee. She wished for some honey to sweeten it. She wished for a smile from her stern companion or at least a word to suggest that they were friends.

  But it wasn’t to be. The coffee was bitter as sin. She didn’t know yet what the man was.

  Morning burst across the prairie like Macky’s childhood memory of a saffron veil over one of her mother’s sky-blue hats. The thought made her smile. Her steps came a little lighter and for just a moment she found herself humming.

  Bran, leading the way, fell back a step, allowing her to come alongside him. “Always this cheerful in the morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “They called you Trouble. Why?”

  “It was my father’s name for me. I always seemed to get into something. I was never content until I did everything my brother did. Then later … well, it was good that I had learned.”

  “Undaunted” was the word for his companion. She’d taken everything that had happened in stride and made t
he best of the situation. Her attire might be outlandish, but it couldn’t hide her beauty and her strength. He had the feeling that nothing stopped her.

  Even spending the night in the wilds with a stranger.

  “What did your brother do?”

  Bran watched the light go out in her eyes.

  “He cheated at cards. Another gambler shot him.”

  “And your father?”

  “My father had a bad heart. The land and the town finally killed him. He was all I had left.”

  Thinking about her brother and her father seemed to take away her brief flare of optimism. Macky shaded her eyes and peered across the flat brush-strewn landscape. When she squinted he knew she’d seen the thin, snaky trail of smoke visible in the distance.

  “Look, smoke! Is it the way station?”

  “Could be the way station. Could also be Indians, or even the outlaw that got away. Best we take care.”

  Macky slowed her steps. Now that they were nearly there she wasn’t sure that she was ready for what might be ahead. In spite of the risk, the danger, there was something invigorating about having survived.

  From the time she rode into Promise, her life had changed. She’d become a bank robber, climbed on a stage, and been shot at. Now she and a devilishly handsome man were heading across a windblown prairie toward an uncertain end with an outlaw on her trail.

  “Are you worried, preacher man?”

  “I’m always worried, especially when I’m with a pretty woman who doesn’t know the meaning of fear.”

  Pretty woman? Macky didn’t know whether it was the unexpected compliment or that the man had uttered a full sentence of conversation that stunned her into silence. She had known few men in her life and none of them had ever referred to her as a woman, not even Papa. To Papa she was Trouble. To Todd she was just Sister, and to the town she was that wild girl. But never woman and never pretty.

  She pulled her jacket tighter, covering her confusion.

  Bran considered their approach, worried about what they’d find ahead. Often robbers hit the way stations. For all he knew the outlaws had circled around and were waiting for them.