“I’m busy.” Eli tried to forget the captain stood there, but Charlie was no shrinking violet. There wasn’t a thought in her head she didn’t allow to escape from her mouth.
“You the new captain?”
Eli glanced up to see her peering at Hamilton as though he were being interviewed for the job he already had.
“Yes, ma’am.” The captain speared Eli with a glare.
“Charlie, this is Captain Hamilton.” A little devil took hold of his tongue. “Captain, this is Miss Charlotte Marie Chastain.”
Her eyes narrowed and her mouth tightened. She hated being called by her full name almost as much as she hated wearing dresses.
“Charlie. Just Charlie. Eli must’ve had a knock to his goddamn head.” She curled her lip at Eli. “What the hell has gotten into you?”
The captain’s eyes widened, no doubt at the amount of cussing coming from a female’s mouth. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Chastain.”
Charlie didn’t bother to acknowledge the captain’s polite words. She must’ve been on a tear and Eli contributed to her bad mood with no regret.
“Try to remember you have manners. The captain is new to the fort and is meeting everyone who lives here.” Eli watched her expression harden, but he couldn’t stop himself from chastising her. His day had now gone from bad to worse.
“Captain.” She touched the brim of her hat. “Eli, I was gonna ask you about hunting, but now I won’t. You’re a jackass.” Charlie stomped away, the outline of her hips and ass clear in the deerskin trousers she wore. Her generous curves haunted his dreams.
“I, uh, that was unexpected.” Captain Hamilton took off his hat and wiped his brow with a snowy white handkerchief.
“She’s never going to be anything but.” Eli gestured with the hammer at her retreating back. “Charlie does whatever she pleases, consequences be damned.”
“I can see that. She also has, ah, a colorful vocabulary.”
Eli shrugged. “Picked that up on the wagon train heading west.”
“She was a pioneer. That takes strength and fortitude.” The other man appeared more interested. Damn it.
“Her family left New York for the Oregon territory. Two of her sisters settled southwest of here. Her parents died and she and her sister Isabelle came to the fort to live. They’ve been here more than ten years now.” Eli didn’t want to tell tales about Charlie, but none of what he said was a secret. Anything else Charlie had confided in him wouldn’t be shared.
“I met Mrs. Bennett and her husband. He is quite a teacher, and I hear she has kept people at the fort hale and hearty.” The captain nodded to himself. “Good civilians are hard to come by in a military fort.”
“It wasn’t always military.” Eli didn’t want to continue the conversation, but the man had to be told the truth. “It was a trading post, started by trappers. The military came in recent and took over.”
Hamilton straightened his shoulders. “The military needs to take control in situations where our citizens are in peril. The Indians are hostile, Mr. Sylvester. We’re protecting our sovereign rights.”
The entire situation left a bad taste in Eli’s mouth. He was done talking. “I got work to do, captain.”
“Oh yes, yes, of course. Thank you for introducing me to Miss Chastain. It’s most appreciated.” Hamilton put his hat on and strode away, his blue uniform shining brighter than a peacock in the sun.
Eli was finally alone with his work. He was not, however, at peace. His thoughts returned to Charlie and to what awaited him at the end of his chores. A lonely Saturday night.
Charlie was annoyed. At everyone. At everything. After Iz tried to force her to wear a dress, drink tea and make nice with some ladies, nothing had gone right. Her day had been ruined. To make matters worse, she saw Gunther Becker unloading a wagon at the general store. The big man reminded her of all she tried to forget from ten years earlier. She resented him for staying at the fort even if he hadn’t spoken to her since his arrival. Guilty or innocent of any crimes, he was a walking nightmare from which she couldn’t escape.
She stomped all the way back to her cabin, then slammed the door for good measure, which Isabelle no doubt heard. It didn’t help her mood at all. Charlie had acted stupid and childish, and now she was mad. It was foolish, but sometimes she couldn’t help herself. She sat down hard in the chair Eli had made and crossed her arms.
Life used to be simple. She was not the same person she had been when she lived in New York. That girl had died somewhere on a snowy landscape in the Wyoming Territory. Dark memories bubbled up into her throat and she swallowed them back before they were allowed to escape.
In her mind she knew Isabelle was only trying to help her, but her temper seemed to have control over her. Charlie had taken pains to hide the worst of her anger. Occasionally it took hold of her like a fist, clenching so hard she struck out at the nearest target. Today, it was Iz, Eli and anyone else who’d crossed her path.
She blew out a breath, and just like that, her fury was gone. Charlie ran her hands down her face. She would have to behave herself and stop being rude to others. Her cussing had been bad for years, and she had stopped it most of the time. Her temper and her cursing were tied together like evil twins.
One of her secrets, something she didn’t share with most people, was that she loved to bake. She didn’t always have what she needed, but when she did, the act of making something delicious like bread or biscuits or the most heavenly treat, a cake, was pleasurable. She had sneaked a few cups of flour from Iz and she could make something. Perhaps it would help make her peace with things.
Charlie needed get back to the work she had to do, but she could finish it later. Cleaning a weapon could always wait a few hours. Decided, she stoked the fire in the stove in the corner and got to work baking. The feel of the dough between her fingers soothed her. The act of making something from a bunch of other ingredients fascinated her. She wasn’t a good cook, but she didn’t starve. Baking, however, she had a natural affinity for.
Over the last ten years, Charlie had taken great pains to keep her distance from most people. It wasn’t that she didn’t like them. She didn’t trust them. Very few folks were in her life and she liked it that way. Her sisters, their husbands and children, and Eli. No one else.
The thought of spending time with a man, a complete stranger, made her physically uncomfortable. She had no desire to get married or have children. She left that particular task to her three sisters. Francesca already had five sons, Josephine had two sons and Isabelle had somehow birthed three. So many boys! Strange for a family of four females.
If Charlie had a need to cuddle a child, she had ten nephews to choose from. No, she did not want to be a mother and spend all her time terrified something would happen to her child. The world was a dark place and danger lurked in all corners. Charlie was an expert at every weapon she picked up—no one could or would hurt her if she could stop them.
She liked her solitude and her independence. Her cabin, and her skills as a hunter, tanning hides and creating tools from bone, along with her loud mouth, generally kept people at a distance socially. Perhaps she’d built a wall, but it was hers to build and live behind.
While the biscuits baked, she worked on sharpening some bone into utensils. The soldiers in the fort didn’t much care for them. Her buyers were the women who worked in the mess hall, the soldier’s wives and the locals. She made a good living selling her wares, most times by request, but using the bones from the animals gave her extra income. Charlie didn’t need a man.
She pulled a pan of fluffy biscuits from the stove, their delicious aroma decorating the air. She sucked in the buttery scent and smiled. Who would have thought she would enjoy such a feminine activity? If she had her way, no one would ever know. Except Iz. And Eli. He wouldn’t tell, or she’d punch him senseless. Such was her relationship with
Eli. She would bring half the biscuits to him. It was a thing friends did for each other.
She looked around the house, but she didn’t have a basket to put the biscuits in. She had racks of antlers, a pile of skins, a barrel of jerky and not much else besides her few clothes and weapons. Normally she would eat what she baked, but she needed to bring these to Eli. She wouldn’t ask Isabelle because then Charlie would have to apologize and she wasn’t ready for that yet.
She puzzled over what to do since she also didn’t want people to see her with fresh-baked biscuits. They might start believing she was a regular female, and she couldn’t let that happen. Her leaving the fort depended on people accepting she was as capable as a man. Female skills weren’t important to “the plan”.
She took two small antlers and wove them together into a bowl-like shape, then put a clean rag around them, securing the cloth in a knot. It wasn’t perfect, but it would work. She placed half a dozen piping hot biscuits in the makeshift bowl, then looped the rag around the top to secure it closed.
Eli didn’t expect a treat and it was her way of apologizing for all the times she’d snapped at him. She took advantage of his friendship so often, she was surprised he remained her friend.
Elijah Sylvester was a unique man. He didn’t fit in with what people expected and that made him different. Charlie had known him from the day she’d arrived at the fort. They’d grown up side by side like a brother and sister. Two odd individuals amongst the rest of the population. It was no wonder they were drawn to each other. Eli was the one and only friend she had.
That thought stopped her as she stepped out of her little cabin. She had separated herself from everyone and everything purposefully. Charlie didn’t like to be around people and she took great pains to avoid them. No one understood that better than Eli. He wasn’t much for talking, but he was damn good at just being there, no matter what.
So what if she had only one friend? She didn’t want a dozen friends if they weren’t worth more than spit in the wind. Most people only did for themselves and not for others. Some had good hearts and did good deeds, but they were the exception. Charlie didn’t put herself into a position to find out if people were the good kind or the bad kind.
After putting her pistol on her hip, one knife in her boot and the other in the sheath on her back, she picked up the makeshift bowl and left. Charlie was never unarmed. Ever.
The fort was bustling with activity in the late afternoon. The air rang with the sound of a blacksmith’s hammer, horses whinnying, shouting and grunting from soldiers digging a hole, clucks of chickens in the coop and a few dogs barking. Normal life in the fort, but Charlie, she watched it all. She didn’t participate in any of the activities. Some people nodded at her as she passed. Others flat out ignored her. She didn’t take offense. When they needed her services, they would come see her.
With summer coming on, game would be plentiful and she would be busy for months. Today she would take some time to be with Eli and get out some frustration by hunting. He might need to do that as well, given how hard he worked every day at keeping the fort in shape while the soldiers rode him harder than the horses.
She walked around the side of the mercantile to the shed behind the building where Eli lived. The door was closed, but she knocked and walked in, her biscuits in hand, which fell to the floor when she was rendered speechless.
Eli was naked.
Chapter Two
Everything changed the moment she saw Elijah Sylvester naked.
Charlie should have knocked on the door again. She should have shouted to him before she entered his cabin. But she hadn’t. He was her best friend. They had spent time together every day for the last ten years. She couldn’t imagine what her life would be like without Eli at her side. As her friend, not as a man.
But now she’d ruined that friendship because of her impetuous actions—she walked in to find Eli naked, covered in soap. Although it was merely seconds, she lived a lifetime as she drank in the sight of the man she never knew beneath his ill-fitting clothes.
Soap bubbles clung to his body, accentuating golden muscles and sinew. Eli was tall and lean, but his form was built of elegant lines. How had he hid this from her for ten years? She’d never thought of him as a man, and now she would never think of anything else.
He ruined everything by revealing himself. Never mind that it was her fault or that he seemed as mortified as she was. He held a bucket over his head, presumably to rinse himself into the hip bath he stood in. His arms shook, as the water must’ve weighed a good bit.
He dumped the water over his head. The bucket clattered to the floor and he wiped the suds from his face. As he reached for the towel on the back of his chair, she moved closer to him, without thought. He jumped back and slipped on the wet floor, landing on his ass with a howl of pain, probably obtaining a few splinters in the process.
“Shit, Eli!” Charlie was right there beside him, inches away from his naked body.
Her heart stuttered and her thoughts scattered. She couldn’t look away.
“What are you doing here?” His voice was rough as sandpaper.
“I came to see if you wanted to go hunting tomorrow. I saw Big Buck.” She held out her hand. “And you’re naked.” She sounded like the village idiot. Her cheeks were hotter than a forge, burning up her face.
He scrambled backwards and got to his feet. She was painfully aware of how close she was to him. Close enough she could smell him, touch him—hell, she could kiss him.
Holy shit. What was wrong with her?
“I know I’m naked.” He snatched the towel off the chair, the end slapping her in the leg. She winced and made a face. She couldn’t decide to laugh or cry as he wrapped the towel around his torso. Unfortunately the thin fabric did not hide the body she’d seen in its full glory. “Why didn’t you wait until I invited you in?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t know you’d be naked.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Charlie, would you forget about me being naked?” He tightened the towel with a jerk.
“I can’t.” She stepped closer, her curiosity overcoming the ridiculous reaction she couldn’t control. “You’re not what I expected.”
“You need to leave.” He pointed at the door.
She reached up and ran her hand down his shoulder to his arm. “I didn’t know you had these under your shirt.” Her fingers traced the curve of a muscle. “Hell, I saw Mason without his clothes, but he didn’t have these. You hide yourself from people. It’s no wonder. The women would chase you if they knew what was under your clothes.” She touched the other shoulder and his small nipples pebbled to a point. Men’s nipples did that too?
“Jesus, Charlie. What are you doing? What are you saying?” He stepped back to put at least a foot between them. Her hand traveled with him, the heat from his skin almost burning her.
Her gaze snapped to his and her hand finally dropped to her side. “I don’t know.”
The moment stretched between them, the air crackling. Charlie managed to suck in a breath, but her chest was heavy. It was like breathing underwater.
“I’m sorry, Eli.” She shook her head. “I saw Big Buck and we’ve been chasing him for a couple years now. That damn elk is slippery and I wanted to tell you… And then I made biscuits.” She glanced at the floor, embarrassment roaring through her. “Shit. I’m sorry.” The last two minutes were the strangest of her life.
His eyes narrowed. “Wait, did you just apologize?”
She scowled at him. “Don’t act like I don’t apologize.”
He snorted. “It ain’t a word you know.”
“I don’t do it often, but I do apologize.” Of course she was lying. Both of them knew it. “I didn’t mean to barge in on you. It wasn’t nice.”
“You’re never nice.”
She huffed a frustrated breath—he was right, of course
. “Yes I am.” She fibbed again. “And I’m, uh, sorry about seeing you naked.”
“I reckon you got an eyeful you didn’t expect.” He stared at the floor, avoiding direct eye contact.
“I did. Um, do you want to go hunting?” He had gone with her many times over the years. Eli was a true friend, even if he was rough around the edges.
“Maybe.” He shrugged, although he looked like he wanted to run screaming from the cabin.
“I, uh, should let you get some clothes on so you can do whatever you were gonna do.” As she turned toward the door, she tasted disappointment on her tongue, bitter and unwelcome. “If you want to go hunting, meet me at the edge of the woods tomorrow at six.” Then she tossed the makeshift basket on the table and glanced back, sweeping his body with her scrutiny.
Shit.
The cool air had hit his wet skin moments before Eli had realized he wasn’t alone. He had stopped, frozen in place, while Charlie had stood in the doorway, her mouth open. Then of course, he’d fallen on his ass, which was not an unusual occurrence, but he generally wasn’t naked in front of her. He’d never been naked in front of her.
After working hard all day, he’d been hotter than hell, sweat-soaked and exhausted. While he should have gone and bathed in the river, the current was running strong and he didn’t feel like fighting it. He’d decided to wash with a bucket of cool water instead.
The last thing he expected was for Charlie to bust through the door. She’d looked as surprised as he was. His body had reacted to her nearness and his nakedness. Damned if his dick hadn’t hardened almost instantly. Her gaze had dropped and his balls tightened.
Somehow she hadn’t run screaming from the cabin, but he’d wanted to. Hell, he’d wanted a hole to open up in the floor and swallow him. She had only been there for two minutes, but it’d felt like a lifetime. Now that she’d gone, he sat down hard in the chair and put his head in his hands.
He’d loved her for so long, from the moment he’d seen her if he were honest with himself. At fifteen, she’d been a foul-mouthed, crazy-haired girl and he’d been enchanted instantly. Now, ten years later, she’d found him naked and the only thing that had been between them was a threadbare towel.
The Gem: The Malloy Family, Book 12 Page 2
