Rebel with a Cause

by Carol Arens

  Without a word he tugged a strand of hair out of its neat coil of curls. He sifted it through his fingers, and then loosened another.

  In silence, he freed her whole coiffure from its bindings. The heavy mass lay across her breast, the ends curling up at her waist.

  He picked up a tress where it sloped over her bosom and rubbed it between his thumb and finger. His big tan knuckle brushed her breast. Under her shift, her nipple twisted up as tight as a puckered kiss. A sensation that she could only liken to yearning reached to her belly and lower. She had the indecent impulse to sit on his lap and spread her knees wide.

  How odd...and pleasant.

  "My mother..." His voice seemed to catch in his throat. "My mother used to wish she had a daughter with hair this color. She never did, but she always told me if she did she'd tie it up in pretty, lacy ribbons. Ma put great store in ribbons."

  She knew she ought to say something, but couldn't imagine what.

  "My mother does, too," she said at last, then felt like a fool. It sounded as though she had boasted that she had a mother, a very alive mother with ribbons, while he did not. "I'm sorry, Zane. That wasn't the right thing to say at all. What I meant was--"

  "Shush." He pressed his wide, calloused thumb to her lips. "I know what you meant, and thank you. If it hadn't been for you, I would have nothing left of my mother. You are the single person in this world who knows what that ribbon means to me."

  She sighed against his thumb then turned her head to free her mouth. "But if I'd stayed in the room like you wanted me to, the ribbon would not have been in danger."

  "True." He laughed softly then touched his forehead to hers. "But if you had stayed in the room you wouldn't be the adventurous woman I have come to--"

  "Evening, folks." The marshal's voice filtered through the fog before his portly figure appeared in the mist. "Just making my nightly rounds."

  "Everything here is as peaceful as can be, Marshal Brody. Only the frogs are jumping," Zane said.

  "And all due to your lady." The marshal nodded at Missy. "This would be one hell of a miserable night if the bank had gotten robbed."

  "I like to help when I can," Missy declared.

  "This is one adventure you can count on being immortalized in a dime novel," Zane said.

  His reply didn't sound like sarcasm and he was still smiling. She didn't dare hope that he now approved of her calling, but it was a night of wonders.

  "Is that so?" the lawman asked. "Are you a writer, Miss Devlin?"

  The night, it seemed, could not get any finer. To be able to answer him, "Yes, I am," was pure bliss.

  He looked at her for a long, silent moment, seeming to scrutinize her face.

  "You look familiar to me, Miss Devlin, I can't quite place..." He bit his upper lip in concentration. "Have you visited Foggy Johnson Creek before?"

  Beside her, Zane grew suddenly stiff, his fingers clenched in her hair, tight enough that she nearly yelped. His smile vanished like a campfire being doused by a water bucket.

  "I'm new to the West, Marshal." She turned her face to frown at Zane, who was beginning to grind his teeth together. "But if you've been to Bos--"

  All at once Zane yanked her to her feet, his fist clamped around her elbow. "It's late," He announced. "We've got an early start in the morning."

  With only a mumbled farewell to Marshal Brody, he spun her about and hurried her away from the creek.

  She tried to turn to say goodbye but Zane kept her in front of him so that she could not even look backward. All she could do was wave her hat to the side in an improper farewell.

  "I'll be up all night trying to think of where I've seen you," the Marshal called, but Zane had already whisked her around the corner with a grimace that would stretch to the moon and back.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Well before daylight Zane tapped on Missy's door. A thud bumped the other side...Muff on the defense. His yapping screeched up and down the hallways, sounding like a pack of miniature wolves bent on predawn mayhem.

  Two rooms down, a man opened his door. He peered through gray eyebrows, stabbing Zane with a bushy glare.

  "What's the fuss?" he grumbled. "There's folks who like to sleep at night."

  Apparently, unlike Zane, Missy had been one of the blissful dozers. When she opened the door a full minute later, her eyes were still washed with dreams and her hair tangled over her shoulders in a sleepy golden mess.

  "What are you doing just opening the door like that?" He tried not to glance down but she had been sleeping in her shift and it didn't cover much.

  "If you didn't want me to answer, why did you knock?" She rubbed her eyes and covered a yawn. "Quiet, Muff."

  Missy scooped the dog up and pinched his muzzle shut with two fingers.

  "Here, let me take the scamp." He reached out. Muff was growing fast. When he'd first seen him, the pup could fit in a coat pocket. Now he might have some trouble napping inside Missy's saddle pack.

  Missy handed over the dog but arched her eyebrows in surprise. Maybe he'd never asked to hold the mutt before.

  "Get dressed. We're leaving," he grumbled, but it took some effort. A grumble used to feel the most natural thing in the world.

  "Now?" Missy looked toward the window. Fog pressed against the glass so thickly that there was no clue as to the hour. "What time is it?"

  It was nearly four-thirty, and Zane hadn't slept a wink.

  Last night, the marshal had been a thought away from recognizing Missy from the wanted poster. First thought on waking, he might. Waiting for daylight to get out of town might be too late. Even though the lawman might not want the reward, he had knowledge that Missy didn't need to know just yet. Not until Zane admitted that he had wired her brother.

  "It's time to go, is what time it is."

  "All right." Missy shrugged...she stretched.

  Even in the dark he saw more of her than was decent. "I'll wait for you in the hall."

  He stepped out and closed the door. Leaning against it, he took a deep breath. Behaving in a "decent" manner toward his partner was becoming more difficult by the hour.

  "What's come over me, dog?" He stroked the small white head and received a lick on his thumb for the effort. "What was that for?" Had the mutt somehow picked up on his change of heart?

  Something had shifted inside him. He wasn't laughing out loud any longer--the marshal had blown out that candle when he'd nearly recognized Missy--but still, the cloud that had shadowed him since childhood had lifted, and the dog had noticed.

  What that meant to his future, he couldn't say. If Missy had a part in it, he didn't know that either.

  What he did know was that he needed to get her away from Foggy Johnson Creek. Far too much attention was focused on Missy. A week or two ago, he would have been ready to hand her off to the first decent person who was ready to take her home. Now, something had changed and he didn't know what it was or how to deal with it. The only thing he did know was that he was taking Missy away from here.

  He didn't know why, he didn't know where. He only knew that hours of lost sleep had convinced him that he had to do it.

  * * *

  A half mile outside of Foggy Johnson Creek, the fog dissolved. Missy sat in Daisy's saddle watching the stars blink across the sky. Apparently, daybreak was still some time away.

  She yawned then turned in her saddle to look back at the town. Foggy Johnson Creek, her hotel room and her cozy bed had vanished. In their place was a giant pillow of fog.

  "The Curse of Foggy Johnson Creek," she murmured. Soon, she would write a fascinating chapter about it.

  Zane rode ahead of her, his posture easy on his big black horse. An entire book would be required to portray him.

  The cheerful Zane that she had glimpsed so briefly was gone and a version of the sober Zane had returned. Something had changed, though. While she had been with this Zane for less than an hour, she noted that he was as likely to smile as to frown.

  At the start
of their acquaintance, his big, bold self had captivated her. Last night, his cheerful change of mood had delighted her. This morning a new man had emerged, one who was, most likely, the true Zane Coldridge. From the beginning she had loved him, but this new man was one she could make a future with, if he could only see it.

  Without a doubt, she was tied up in a love knot that would never be undone. It bound her to him. Unless her man came to understand this, the knot would tangle her up...strangle her even.

  "Did you see that?" Zane asked in a near-reverent tone.

  "See what?" She had been too absorbed in watching Zane's back roll with the gait of his horse to notice anything else. Whatever Zane had seen in the predawn could not have been half as interesting.

  "A star shot across the sky." He pointed his finger straight up then traced a line down toward the horizon. "I can't recall ever seeing one so big."

  "You never can predict what magic you might see when you open up to the possibilities."

  He shook his head and glanced back. Where a week ago she would have seen a scowl on his face, she now saw interest in his eyes, sprinkled with a dose of reluctance to be sure.

  "It's all natural phenomena, darlin'." He shot her a grin. "Nothing more."

  She snorted and earned a mental picture of her mother's frown of disapproval. A lady never snorted. A lady always deferred to a gentleman's opinion.

  Missy snorted again. She was not cut out to be a lady, in spite of her mother's best efforts to make her one.

  "You swallowing dust?" Zane's question was punctuated with a rumble of laughter.

  "Ace's hooves are stirring up enough to choke me, if you must know."

  She urged Daisy forward so that she walked nose-to-nose with Ace. Within a minute Daisy had fallen back, walking placidly behind what she clearly believed to be the dominant male.

  "Smart animal you purchased," Zane commented. "She knows her proper place."

  "Her proper place is back in the stable, having dreams of her morning oats." Missy yawned hugely, with as much drama as she could muster so early. "Why did you drag me out of bed before the birds? The world wouldn't have ended if we had eaten breakfast before we left."

  This time it was Zane who snorted. Then he cursed under his breath.

  "What was that?" Missy asked.

  He turned in the saddle, fixing her with a glare. "My eighty percent of this outfit says we needed to be on the trail early."

  "My twenty percent wanted to stay in bed, if that means anything at all."

  "It doesn't." All at once his scowl slipped to a grin. "Not when it comes up against my eighty."

  With his point made, he turned around with his face set toward the horizon, which still did not look as though dawn was about to spring over it.

  She closed her eyes, trying to take an upright doze. Daisy would follow along after Ace like a proper female so there was no need to chart her course. Mother would be pleased with Missy's new horse.

  And so the morning passed and then the afternoon, with Missy following behind Zane and conversation limited. She had lost interest in the bold shape of his broad back some hours past and now entertained herself with identifying mythological gods and goddesses in the shifting shapes of clouds that built a black mass toward the evening horizon.

  "Oh, my word, I just spotted Neptune!" She pointed to a morphing figure in the clouds. "Maybe we'll get some rain."

  Zane slowed Ace and let her catch up. "It looks like rain for sure, but what has a planet got to do with it?"

  "Not the planet, the Greek god of the sea. Same as Poseidon."

  "Looks like my uncle neglected that part of my education," he said then shot her a wicked smile. "And the ladies had other things to teach."

  "Were you a good student, then?" Curse the blush that heated her face. "Paying attention to your instructors and...and completing assignments?" Drat, it was difficult to seem worldly with cheeks as red as sin.

  "I was a wicked student."

  Zane reined in Ace and let the distance close between the horses. He touched her cheek, brushing aside a hank of hair that blew across her face.

  The sun slipped below the bank of clouds, leaving behind its crown of golden rays. He lifted her chin with his thumb and kissed her. Butter and sugar simmered in a pot would not have been half as delectable. His mouth lingered long and tender. Morning bristle where he hadn't taken the time to shave prickled her lip. When he ended the kiss, lips parted from lips in a slow pull. Maybe he couldn't stand the separation any better than she could for he swooped in for one last peck.

  "I drove the ladies mad with my stubbornness. If any of them had known Greek gods, they wouldn't have had the patience to teach me. They just about had to nail my pants to a chair to get me to learn reading, writing and sums."

  "They never made you go to school?"

  "Even if there was a school, and I don't recall there being one, it wouldn't have welcomed Maybelle's boy."

  "Suzie and I had a governess and a private tutor. Between them, they made us learn every boring thing they had probably been forced to learn."

  "We couldn't be from two more different worlds." Zane stared at the gold-and-red streaks of clouds melting into sunset. "It's like you're fire and I'm ice. I wonder if it could ever work for us, darlin'?"

  "It doesn't take higher education to know what happens when fire and ice get together, Zane Coldridge." While she watched, a star glowed into view. "The ice takes the fire's heat and they bubble and boil into one."

  "So they do." He looked at her with an expression she could not read, for all her studies. "We'd better find a place to set up camp."

  * * *

  The lightning storm was too far west for Zane to hear the thunder, but that small relief did not keep him from worrying. Violent weather had a way of covering a lot of ground in a hurry.

  Missy sat close to the campfire, writing in her journal. Twisting flames cast red-and-gold highlights in her hair where it fell across her back, loose and wavy. He was glad that she didn't braid it the way many women did before retiring.

  She glanced up, silently watching the show on the horizon.

  "I've never seen a storm like this," she said. "In Boston they aren't nearly as grand." With a small hitch of her shoulders, she bent her head over her journal and continued to scribble across the page.

  They wouldn't be. This disturbance was extreme even for the wilds of Nebraska, and he'd seen many of them over the years.

  Typically, lightning would flash and thunder would boom, big and loud, but pretty normal for springtime. This storm sat on the horizon like a huge flickering lamp, with the sky never going fully dark between thunderbolts. Closer to it, the rumbling would probably sound like a battle of cannons.

  If the weather shifted this way, things could get dangerous in a hurry.

  "You ever seen a twister, darlin'?" he asked, forcing the strain from his voice. That was what he feared most about the events to the west. Right now the air was still and the thunder too far off to be heard, but he'd seen things change from one breath to the next.

  She glanced up with a smile. "Not yet."

  The blamed woman looked as though she were hoping for one, another adventure to write down in her copybook.

  "Same for a prairie fire, I expect," he said.

  This time she looked at him with a frown. He hoped she had more respect for raging flames than for killer winds. The hullabaloo in the distance could easily cause either one.

  "Not that either." She dipped the tip of her pen in the ink bottle. "I did watch Mr. McNulty's carriage house burn down right outside our parlor window. Suzie and I nearly made it out our front door to get a better look before Edwin caught us and locked us in our bedroom. It was quite a thrill to see since no one was injured. Not even the mouse that ran out the barn door only a step ahead of the McNultys' cat."

  No need to get her opinion on the flood that might swamp them in a few hours. She had lived through one of those and claimed the outcome to be ma
gical.

  It was true that folks should have perished in the Flood of Green Island and no one had, but even with his new outlook on life, the concept of magic lay beyond his mental grasp.

  "You worried, Zane?" Missy asked. At last he detected concern in her expression.

  "Hell, no." He sat down beside her and gathered Muff onto his lap. The pup began to gnaw on his thumb, but in a friendly way. "I've been through a dozen storms like this and worse."

  It was a lie, but it sounded reassuring, even to him.

  "I'm, maybe, a little nervous," she admitted, then scooted closer to him and snuggled next to his chest. He wrapped his arm about her shoulder and pulled her tight.

  "Nothing to be worried about." He tried not to stiffen at the sudden gust of wind that howled along the ground and stirred up a wave of prairie dust.

  "Tell me a story about you and Suzie, something that no one else knows. What horrible thing did you sweet pair of hellions get away with?" He wanted to know, to picture her, a child, at her mischievous best. If her voice drowned out the sound of the wind rustling across the earth, so much the better. "Don't spare a sordid detail."

  She was silent for a moment, tapping the tip of her pen on her journal page. A smile played at the corners of her mouth. She sighed and shrugged her shoulders.

  "Surely, you can think of something," he urged.

  "Mostly, we got caught... Let me think."

  She gave him a smile so sweet that, for half a second, he believed he had misjudged her, that she had grown up an angel, a picture of proper decorum and her mother's shining star.

  "The best thing we ever did without getting caught had to be the mouth-inking."

  "Mouth-inking! Spill the details, darlin'. I won't sleep a wink if you don't." A flash of distant lightning brightened the mischief in her smile. Edwin Devlin must have led a hell of a life.

  "First of all, it was in a worthy cause. Almost everyone who ended up with a black mouth deserved it for what they were about to do to poor little Desmond Thornton."