by Cait London
MacGregor sighted a wagon in the distance and rode toward it, leaving her behind. When he returned, he gently took Jack from her. “They’ve got a meal we can share and a fire for Jack’s milk. The sheep will move on ahead.”
He studied Regina intently. “It’s a catwagon, loaded with whores. They have their own rules, but one or two would sell their souls for that piece of glass you’re carrying. One word from you, and they’ll peg you. Keep those eyes down, too,” he ordered grimly.
“Maybe it would be best if we went our separate ways. I could travel with them—”
He scowled down at her. “My wife traveling with whores? You think they’d take those woollies or the dogs?”
“I’m sure for a price, they’d allow—”
“For a price they’d sell you and the animals.”
The ten women ran to meet them, skirts flying and gathering blankets around them for warmth. “Lawsy me!” a large black woman cried out when he swung down from the horse. “Such a pretty little child. Indian baby, I’d say.”
MacGregor reached up and lifted Regina down, drawing her tightly against his length as they huddled behind the wagon to break the force of the wind. The canvas covering flapped and beat loudly against the high staves of the wagon. He handed Jack to the woman. “My son. He’ll be needing his milk warmed, then we’re heading out.”
“I’ve got plenty milk, right here,” the black woman said, opening her blouse.
“Can’t your woman feed that squawbaby?” a woman with bleached blond hair and an unbuttoned bodice asked. She moved against MacGregor, her white breasts jiggling slightly above the corset she wore over her stained red satin dress. “Can’t see much of her, but she looks like a Mexican-Indian breed. You hungry for white meat?”
She reached up and flicked the ruby in his ear. “That’s a nice pretty. Trade you that for a quick one right now.”
She thrust out her quivering breasts at him. “Bargain day, mister. Goldie is worth a hell of a lot more than that bauble.”
Tucked against MacGregor’s lean side, Regina shot a stare at the blond woman.
“Indeed,” she muttered before his hand tightened threateningly on her waist. The flat of his hand urged her breasts against his flat belly, the movement bringing her thighs around his hard one. MacGregor’s thigh moved intimately against her with a rhythmic, sexual intimacy overlooked by the women.
The thought that women came fluttering around him like bees after honey angered her. Taking a deep breath, she ducked her head, frowning. She didn’t want other women touching him; she trembled with fury and despised the bitter emotion.
When she tried to ease away, he held her closer, his thigh continuing the stealthy nudging. Trembling with frustration, Regina’s softness began to dampen, despite her anger. In desperation she let her hand slide to his lean backside and pinched him hard. MacGregor grunted and glared down at her, allowing her a few necessary inches of freedom.
Another woman with bright red hair and painted eyes chewed her small black cigar. She eyed MacGregor from hat to worn boots. “Fancy ain’t had no man since last night, mister. Your woman best drag you away fast ‘cause you look like a whole lot of man to these hungry women. Bet you could sweet talk a woman right slick out of her drawers in one shake of a cat’s tail.”
“Huh!” Regina snorted.
MacGregor leaned back against the wagon, cupping his coffee in his hands. Looking very arrogant and male, his long legs in a wide stance, he glanced down at Regina’s averted face. “My woman keeps me happy,” he drawled.
She glared up at him then.
“Scrawny little thing, ain’t she?” asked a big woman with jet-black hair as she handed Regina a bowl of hot beans and a tin cup of coffee. The odor of strong perfume used to cover an unwashed body filled the air as she reached past Regina to pour whiskey into MacGregor’s cup.
“A man likes whiskey with his food. I like it anytime. Like my men anytime,” the black-haired woman said, pushing a dirty strand of hair back. “Mister, have you married a half-grown child? Can’t she talk? Or maybe your squaw is too good to mix with the likes such as us,” she called belligerently, the wind throwing the words back in her face.
MacGregor stood away from the wagon, scanning the sheep who had begun to move again. A full head taller than any of the women and rawhide lean, he stretched to his full height. One woman sighed and another reached out to stroke his broad chest. His hand moved quickly, removing her touch like an unwanted, clinging weed. “She’s got the infirmities. We’re moving out.”
The woman glanced at Venus, gnawing on a bone. “Sickly-looking dog, too. Mister, for such a man, you picked two unhealthy specimens.”
“I do love a big, rough man,” another woman cooed softly, her hand running up and down MacGregor’s arm. “You’re a mighty lucky woman, missus,” she cooed. “Hell!”
The tip of Regina’s bridal knife slid across the back of her hand, the light scratch seeping with blood.
MacGregor caught Regina’s wrist, then took the knife and slipped it into his belt. He grinned down at her, all male arrogance. “My wife wants me all to herself.”
“Knife-happy savage,” the woman bawled, holding her hand.
“Now, sweetheart, watch that temper. You have me all to yourself tonight,” MacGregor drawled to Regina, his grin widening.
Regina gritted her teeth and nodded, tugging her cap lower. The black woman handed Jack to her. “You’d better rest a mite, mister. We been doing a land-office business right out here in the middle of nowhere. Got plenty of beans, cornbread, and whiskey to spare. Mariah Jones is my name, and I kin whup any man-dog in two territories.”
She nodded at Jack, who alternately nursed and fretted. “That baby is sick. ‘Course, being a breed, they can live on scrub brush and cactus juice.”
Beside Regina, MacGregor’s tall body stiffened, and he threw his coffee at the woman’s feet with two silver dollars. “We’re heading out. I’ll take those boots you’re wearing for my wife.”
Taking care, he lifted Regina with Jack in her arms to the pony. In a quick glance she saw the fury in his eyes, felt the way his fingers trembled as they brushed Jack’s flushed cheek. His lips tightened as he looked up at her.
In that instant Regina knew that he’d kill to protect his child. She knew, too, that Jack needed her to survive.
Against her breast, Jack mewed softly, his black eyes meeting hers for a moment before he dozed. She tightened her arms around the baby, adjusting him into his sling.
This was her moment of choice.
“I’ll take care of Jack,” she agreed huskily. “Until he’s better.”
For an instant his hand wrapped around hers, and something strong, yet tender passed between them.
“You’ll do, Violet,” he stated roughly, patting his son’s glossy black hair and adjusting the pouch sling. “You’ll do just fine.”
Gently, MacGregor folded the cotton blanket around her and his son, then tucked the folds beneath her bottom and legs. With deft motions, he slid her moccasins off and replaced them with the boots. The women peered from the shelter of the wagon, and the wind carried their comments to Regina. “Now, that’s a man... got cold eyes... gunslinger for sure... takes care of that squaw as if she was a high-falootin’ lady.”
That night Regina watched MacGregor tend his son in a deserted adobe-brick hovel. She gnawed on dried meat and sipped her tea, which MacGregor had brewed in a small tin bucket. When Jack had been changed and fed, MacGregor held him close, his expression tender. “There now, Jack. Soon we’ll be home, and you’ll be warm and sassy.”
Easing back against the adobe bricks, MacGregor grimaced slightly, then turned his shoulder carefully to the wall. In the shelter of the wall with the night cold and quiet around them, MacGregor placed his son on his thighs. He glanced at Regina, wrapped in a blanket. “Come here. You need tending.”
She didn’t want to see the dark fires burning in his eyes, nor feel his need of her in the
night.
“Come here,” he repeated softly, delving into his saddlebags. “The wind burned your face. You need salve.”
She didn’t want to go to him. Didn’t want to acknowledge how tired and worn she’d become. But somehow she was next to him and his fingers were soothing salve on her cheeks. Tucking her against his side and drawing the buffalo robe around them, MacGregor rocked her gently.
“Nothing is going to happen to Jack,” he said quietly after a moment. “We should hit my place tomorrow or the next day.”
“Did you want those women?” she asked sleepily.
He chuckled, the sound richly intimate in the night. “Used to as a boy. But now I like honey kisses and the smell of cinnamon. Purple eyes staring down at me with silky hair all around, black as a raven’s wing.”
Regina dozed off for a moment, her head resting against his shoulder, then looked up. She wanted to comfort him, to ease the pain he held so closely inside. “He’ll be fine.”
“Uh-huh. Go to sleep now,” he said, urging her to slide down next to the wall.
She awoke before dawn and lay listening to the sheep and the horses graze. Jack lay in the crook of his father’s arm; MacGregor’s pistol lay next to him.
Needing time alone, she stoked the dying embers of the fire. She could leave them now, take her horse and the sheep, and ride south, following Pierre.
Then Jack cried softly and MacGregor’s deep voice soothed him sleepily. Regina frowned as she watched the flames catch on the dry sage branches. She’d come to love Jack, and now the baby needed her.
Perhaps for a time, MacGregor’s protection was essential to her survival. Jack cried again, and she listened intently to his discomfort. Then, standing slowly, she motioned for Laddie to take the flock toward MacGregor’s mountains.
They reached the foothills of the mountains at nightfall. At dawn MacGregor began breaking a trail to his cabin in the knee-deep snow.
Jack had just begun to cry in earnest for his dinner when MacGregor, the horses, and mules passed over a small rocky ridge and disappeared. The sheep had moved easily behind Je t’aime, and Laddie kept them in a close formation in the mists.
“Home,” MacGregor said quietly as they stared down at a log cabin. Built low to the ground and covered with a sod roof, the small building perched next to a stand of aspens and pine, an alpine meadow spreading out before it. A small creek, dammed by beaver, fed a large pond glistening in the last sunlight. A herd of deer slid into the shelter of the forest, and antelope poised for flight, watched them cross to the house.
In minutes MacGregor started a blazing fire in the hearth and had unpacked the animals while she held Jack. Small and musty smelling, the cabin had a rough table, two stools, and cots. A woman’s torn lace corset, discolored by dust and smoke, was nailed to a chinked log wall. Various stone jugs, wooden bowls, and iron pots were stacked on the shelves.
MacGregor glanced at Regina, who still stood watching him. In another quick movement he snatched the corset from the wall and tossed it into the fire.
“Trappers have been using my place. Now that I’ve got a marriage paper in my pocket, they’ll stay away.”
He took his son, preparing to feed him. “It’s small and snug.”
He nodded to the two cots laced with heavy rope. “I’ll make a bigger one for us tomorrow.”
Regina managed to walk to one cot and ease down carefully while Venus whined and settled by the fire.
She slept heavily and awoke to the sounds of MacGregor talking to his son. “She’s a fine one. Hot-tempered and strong as rawhide, and she’s a lady.”
He held the baby on his lap, bathing Jack’s thrashing limbs with soapy water. Regina stretched and yawned, aware that he’d slipped her jacket and boots away during the night. “I am famished.”
“Stew is in the pot. You’ve slept right through the afternoon, just like Jack,” MacGregor said, dressing his son carefully. The lines in his face had deepened, and there was a slow, rough edge to his voice, as though he badly needed sleep.
While she slept, he’d cleaned the cabin and had carried in wood. Jack’s cloths were strung around the fire, the cans of food and bags of staples neatly placed on the shelves. Laddie and Venus chewed on meaty bones near the fire.
Standing slowly, Regina lifted her shawl from the back of a chair and draped it around her. She needed something of home snuggled close and soft to her, her hands stroking the vivid red-and-purple pattern as she walked to the fire and sank down between the dogs.
Watching the flames, she tried to remember what had clawed at her as she slept.
MacGregor stood at her side, his height filling the small cabin. “Better eat.”
When she continued to stare at the fire, he crouched beside her and tugged at the rawhide thong binding her braid, working the strands free. MacGregor traced the shape of her ear. “You dreamed about that black woman, Mariah. Screamed out her name and another—Jennifer.”
“Mariah?” she asked softly, the name flickering, taunting her like an elusive feather. Then he handed her a bowl of steaming food and her china cup of tea, and the name went sailing away into the smoke.
“Jack is sleeping. I’ll see to the stock,” MacGregor said quietly, easing his coat sleeve up his injured arm. “The sheep and goat are bedded down in a half shed. The way the wind hits the valley, there should be some grass left for a little while.”
Regina placed her bowl aside and began lacing her leggings. “I’ll want to see my flock. They’ve had a hard time of it.”
“And you haven’t?” he asked quietly as he waited by the door.
When she passed, MacGregor caught the shawl beneath her throat and drew her to him. “I didn’t make our marriage bed today,” he said, watching her closely. “I’m asking you to mate with me on the floor tonight.”
His fingertip rested over the rapid pulse in her throat. “You took me like lightening and thunder last time, rode me too fast. This time, I’ll know just how fast you move when you’re wanting.”
Regina ran out the door, leaving her shawl in his hands.
MacGregor was too big and moved too fast, she decided later as the winter winds began howling around the cabin. In the distance a coyote howled, and Laddie lifted her head, listening intently.
When Jack had quieted for the night, MacGregor inhaled deeply and rubbed his shoulder once more. She glanced up from petting Venus to see him grimace.
“Damn lead. Taking its own sweet time to work out this time,” he muttered, the firelight running across the high ridges of his cheekbones and coloring them with reddish tones.
Regina rubbed her hands together, studying them. “I’ll take it out.”
“What would a woman like you know about lead and meat?” he shot back at her.
“You have little choice. I can take it out,” she returned.
“You’re a lady. You’ll faint dead away, useless as—”
She smiled tightly. “We shall see, won’t we?”
Rising to her feet, she slipped her knife from its sheath. She poured Scotch into a cup and dipped the knife in it. After placing his knife in the coals, she turned to him. “Strip down.”
Watching her warily, MacGregor eased his leather shirt off and sat on a stool. Regina eased his red underwear from him, noting the bloody stain on his shoulder. His forehead was hot against her palm. “You’re running a fever, MacGregor,” she said quietly.
The wound had festered, his dark skin inflamed and puffy. When her fingertips probed for the hidden bullet, he stiffened and groaned slightly. “Lead works out.”
“Not this one.” Regina cleansed the area gently, locating the bullet, then took up her knife.
“Damnation,” he swore softly as she probed beneath the bullet, working it from the band of muscle with the tip of her knife. She caught the lead pellet in her palm and dropped it onto the table, then began cleaning the deep tear in his skin.
“What happened to your back?” She ran her fingertips across
the scar ridging his shoulders.
MacGregor lifted the Scotch bottle to his lips and drank heavily before answering. “The priests loved whipping the sin from themselves. When they finished, they started on the half-bloods, including me,” he said between his teeth.
For the first time she’d picked a stone up from his past and turned it over to find his pain. Reaching out to stroke his hair, Regina closed her eyes and remembered her painful childhood. Somehow, his head rested against her breasts, and MacGregor sighed as he nuzzled the soft curve.
She stroked his head and neck, wanting to soothe away his pain. “Your wound is bleeding badly, my dear. I’ll have to cauterize it.”
He nodded. “Do it. Burn it with Old Hugh. Do it, then let me rest against you. God, I’m tired.”
The Bowie seared his skin, the odor of burning flesh filled the air. Regina quickly salved the area and wrapped it with a strip of her clean cotton petticoats. MacGregor allowed her to tug his boots off and strip him while he stood.
He lifted his good arm and placed his hand on her cheek. “I could use one of those foolish kisses now, Violet.”
Standing over her, he’d never looked more vulnerable, more needing of her comfort.
“Do as you’re told and you’ll get one when you’re settled down for the night,” she returned, aching to hold him.
“Now.” He leaned down waiting, eyes closed. She raised on tiptoe and brushed his lips with hers. “There, now, MacGregor, that’s a good man....”
His eyes opened suddenly, looking deeply into hers. “Lay with me tonight, Violet. Hold me like you do Jack when he’s hurting.”
Wrapping around her, his ache mirrored her own, frightening her. “But you’re a man, fully grown.”
“I’m needing you tonight, woman. Haven’t ever asked a woman to hold me before,” he answered tightly, straightening. Looking arrogant and proud in his fever, she knew he wouldn’t ask again.
“Very well. You settle down on the pallet in front of the fire, and I’ll check on Jack.”
He was asleep when she slid beneath the heavy blankets, dressed in his long cotton shirt. Taking care not to touch him, she lay looking at the fire. MacGregor shifted his tall body, his hand reaching out to find her breast. Slowly his fingers closed around it, caressing the softness gently. In his sleep he eased downward to rest his head on her chest.
