by Texas Lover
The problem was, her aim wasn't improving.
Shae had tried to help. He accompanied her every few days to give her suggestions, but his patience would inevitably wear thin, and she wound up feeling clumsy, foolish, and a trifle stung by his exasperation. As fond as she was of the boy, she had to concede that Shae was no teacher.
Rawlins, on the other hand, was smiling at her. Smiling kindly, in fact. The expression was in such contrast to his recent roguery that she wondered what he could possibly be thinking. After all, she was a woman with a gun. In Cincinnati, females with firearms were considered no better than floozies.
"Aiming isn't so hard," he said affably. "It just takes practice. You don't want to rush a shot. That's the secret. Right now, you're anticipating the recoil. And that makes you jolt before your bullet clears the muzzle."
She considered this analysis. It sounded reasonable.
"If what you say is true, then... how do I correct the problem?"
"Here. I'll show you."
Two strides brought him to her side. He seemed even taller standing scant inches from her shoulder. She felt her pulse leap, and it was all she could do not to flinch when he drew his gun and dumped out the bullets.
"See?" Turning, he extended his right arm on a line with her target. Now his broad chest faced her own. "Nice and relaxed, an easy pull." He demonstrated a few more times, clicking empty chambers.
It was amazing what one noticed when one was under duress, Rorie decided. She could scarcely keep her eyes on his trigger. Her gaze kept stealing toward the unfastened button at his neck, where red gold hairs peeked out. She noticed the way his shirt, a faded cornflower blue, hugged his ribs and accentuated the leanness of his waist. She indulged in a shy glance at his gun belt and the way it wrapped his hips like the arms of a lover.
The indecency of such a thought made her insides flame, so she hastily raised her eyes. His arm should have been safe to observe, except that all its rippling musculature bore testimony to a supple strength, one that no doubt stemmed from long hours of cattle-roping and log-splitting. Or whatever else young men did on ranches near Bandera Pass.
She found herself wondering more about him. Studying his profile, she decided he was handsome. Not in the classical, almost beautiful way that Shae was, but in a rugged, robust manner. His attraction went far deeper than physical good looks. There was a magnetic energy about Wes Rawlins, something that emanated from the core of his being and twinkled like starshine in his eyes. That something reminded her of laughter. And youth.
And all the other things she secretly missed in her life.
"...the slow and steady way. You try it this time, ma'am."
She started. He'd been speaking, and she hadn't heard a word. Not a word! What was the matter with her, letting a young man disturb her concentration so?
"Go on," he said. "Give it a whirl."
His tone was encouraging, but his gaze was all business. The contrast between his manner and her thoughts made her feel ridiculous, and a bit deflated.
"Thank you," she said primly. Rorie, for shame. You're acting like a randy old woman!
Determined to nip her inappropriate behavior in the bud, she moved away and took her stance. Her arms were more rested now, and when she fired, she managed to strike the barrel. Splinters flew into the air. The bottle trembled.
"Better," he said. "But try not to grip the gun butt so tight."
She nodded. Shae had given her the same advice.
Focusing all her concentration, she fired her last shot. The bottle actually jumped. She had come no closer to shattering it, though.
"Foot." She grimaced and started to pull out more bullets.
"Never mind that. Come back over here."
She eyed him uncertainly, but he waved her forward, still clearly bent on his lesson.
"Are you locking your knees?" he asked. "I can't tell."
A new warmth crept up her neck. He'd been staring at her skirts!
She hastily shook her head.
"Good girl. Now all we've got to do is get you to stand still. Let's try something. Hold out your arms, like you were taking aim."
She bit her lip and obeyed.
"Good." He stepped behind her. "Your bead's on target. Now go ahead and pull the trigger."
The barrel clicked.
"See how your muzzle's jumping up?"
No, she hadn't. She was too worried about what he was doing—or going to do—behind her.
"But the gun's lighter without the bullets," she protested weakly, glancing over her shoulder.
"Doesn't matter. You're still trying to compensate for the kick. Here. I'll show you."
Before she could stop him, before she could even think to protest, his arms circled her shoulders and his chest fused to her back. She was so stunned by this intimacy—this audacity, she corrected herself sternly—that she was rendered speechless when he clamped his hands over hers, holding them prisoner around the butt of her gun.
"See this?" He pushed her arms up, out of alignment with the bottle. "This is what you've been doing."
"Mister Rawlins—"
"Now this," he continued, fitting his finger over hers and squeezing the trigger, "is what you want to do. Feel the difference? See how your elbow takes the shock after you fire?"
Her heart, which had nearly catapulted out of her chest when he'd all but embraced her, was now slamming painfully against her ribcage. He held her so firmly, so steadily, she couldn't have broken free if she'd tried.
Her perverse side resurfaced then, noticing curious things. There was the warm, off-key rumble of his baritone in her ear, and the way his breaths teased an errant strand of hair, spreading shivers from her neck to her toes. She couldn't help but note how snugly his arms wrapped her shoulders, and the pleasant, if scandalous, heat that pooled between her buttocks and his thighs.
A woman with a less hardy constitution might have fainted dead away at such a trial, but Rorie had always disdained displays of weakness.
"I see precisely," she replied in her best no-nonsense voice. "You may release me now."
"Why don't you give it a try first?"
Was there a hint of amusement in his tone?
"Very well." Unable to see his face, she couldn't verify her suspicions.
Obeying his directions, she fired, reasoning that the sooner she could satisfy him, the sooner she could flee with her last shred of dignity intact.
A strange thing happened, though. With his arms as buffers, she realized he was right. Each time she pulled the trigger, her spine butted ever so slightly against his chest. Shae had never mentioned she'd developed this bad habit.
"I'm... not recoiling quite as much now, am I?"
"Nope. You're squeezing that trigger like a professional lead chucker now."
It was high praise indeed, she thought, judging by the burgundy warmth in his voice.
"Here." He pulled his left gun, the loaded one, from its holster. "Try it with bullets."
When he passed the weapon to her, their hands brushed. His touch was electric, shooting tiny sparks through her limbs. She felt her stomach flip, and told herself that his gun was to blame.
Tentatively, she wrapped her fingers around the cool walnut-inlay butt. The gun was a work of art, a custom-made piece. The butt itself had been designed for the hand that used it most.
Forcing such distractions from her mind, she aligned the gunsight with the bottle. His Colt was weighted differently. She didn't know much about six-shooters, but she suspected his Peacemaker was balanced better than her old Smith & Wesson.
She hesitated, uncertain once more.
"You can do it, Aurora," he said quietly. "Go on. Just like before."
He was still behind her, around her, his heat flowing through her. The sensation was unnerving—and strangely comforting. She realized then just how much she wanted to strike that bottle. She wanted to do well, really well, and not just for the sake of the children.
Releasing a ra
gged breath, she focused. She relaxed. She did everything he had instructed her to do.
And when at last she pulled the trigger, she forced herself to stand like stone.
The bottle exploded into a hundred pieces.
"I did it!" She laughed, spinning toward him, so excited that she nearly danced. "I did it, Wes!"
"You sure did."
He smiled, and she caught her breath. For a moment she stood spellbound, absolutely dazzled by the coppery shimmers that sparked like fire in his hair. In that instant, with the rays of morning ablaze around him, he looked like Apollo stepping out of the sun.
"Want to try again?"
His voice had turned husky. She felt rather than heard it, and a wave of tingles gusted over her skin.
"Uh..." She realized, to her embarrassment, that she was staring. "I don't have another bottle."
"Too bad." He cocked his head, and his eyes, peridot green now with a trace of wistfulness, seemed to delve past all her pretenses. "Another time, then?"
She nodded, still too dazed to command herself.
He chuckled, retrieving his Colt. With a speed and a flare that appeared second nature, he spun the .45 over his forefinger and into its holster. She felt her heart trip, then it sank to her toes. Clearly, she'd been nursing false hopes.
Her Apollo was a gunfighter.
Chapter 4
After retrieving his gear and breaking camp, Wes set off a half hour later toward the Boudreau homestead.
Only he didn't do it at Aurora's breakneck pace.
The woman had gotten a burr under her saddle again, he mused. Over what, he wasn't certain, considering he'd been about as fine a gentleman as he knew how to be. After all, he'd taught her how to shoot straight, hadn't he? And he'd kept his peace while she'd tried to gun down half the county's chokecherry trees.
Wes shook his head. Maybe he was an idiot for teaching her how to defend her children with a Peacemaker. After all, town gossips would like him to believe she'd conspired in Boudreau's murder. But after seeing her ineptitude with a gun twice in two days, he doubted whether she herself could have shot down a renowned deadeye like the sheriff.
There was the possibility, however, that she could have masterminded a conspiracy to kill Boudreau. Wes had no doubt she was clever enough for such a crime, even though she didn't lie particularly well. Her blush gave her away every time.
In fact, her blushes made her appear too damned vulnerable and appealing for his peace of mind.
The woman was an enigma, that was certain. Part ferocious mother, part wide-eyed innocent—and part murdering Jezebel? The puzzle pieces just didn't fit. If she'd conspired to kill Boudreau, what had been her motive? According to the less discreet people he'd talked to in Elodea, Aurora had flaunted herself as Gator's mistress, serving openly as lady of the house after Mrs. Boudreau's death. Had Aurora and Gator had a falling out? Had he threatened to throw her and her orphans into the wilds?
Wes had a hard time believing even a desperate Aurora would murder to keep a roof over her children's heads. Still, he'd heard of stranger things happening in the heat of passion. Maybe her priggish style of flirting was a clever ploy to throw him off her trail.
He almost laughed aloud. Surely she wasn't that accomplished at scheming.
Amused by the absurdity of his thought, he began to hum, and then to sing:
Come you midwestern girls, listen to me,
Don't lose your fair heart to them Texas boys.
When they go a'courtin', they make a great noise,
Wear old leather coats, patched-up holes in their drawers.
They ain't got much grace, and they sure got no poise,
Those wild, unruly west Texas boys.
As Two-Step trotted up the drive, Wes's rusty singing was accompanied by the sound of steel striking wood. He sang his last note with raunchy gusto, and Shae paused in his work to make a face.
"You're late, Rawlins."
"Reckon I am."
Shae climbed to his feet, balancing himself on the barn's sloping roof. He wore the look of a busy man who'd just decided his day was going downhill.
"You got some kind of explanation?"
"Oh, I always have an explanation."
Shae grimaced, and Wes had the sneaking suspicion that his young boss was more irritated at him for showing up than for being late.
"Would this explanation of yours have something to do with a whiskey bottle?"
"Well..." Wes dismounted and pushed back his hat with his thumb. He couldn't very well lie. " 'Fraid so," he said solemnly, trying not to smirk at the memory of Aurora, stomping her foot after every missed shot.
"Miss Aurora doesn't like drinking."
"Is that a fact?"
"A genuine fact, mister. So if you're thinking about cutting your wolf loose each night, you'd best turn around and head back where you came from."
Wes hiked an eyebrow. Now that had to be the third attempt since sunrise to steer him clear of this spread. He supposed he could put Shae's mind to rest by confessing he hadn't touched a drop of whiskey for over eleven months.
Bad things always seemed to happen when he got cork high and bottle deep. The first time, when he was sixteen, Zack and Aunt Lally had been kidnapped by outlaws and their Bosque County ranch had been burned to a cinder while he'd been staggering around the local saloon. That night had been the worst one of Wes's life.
Of course, that evening a year ago, when he'd gotten drunk enough to punch out Cord's lights had certainly run a close second. Tarantula juice had a nasty way of sneaking up on him. Wes had made the decision to avoid it, but he doubted whether Shae would believe him.
"Much obliged for the warning, Shae. I'll keep my wolf leashed and muzzled for now.
"On second thought"—he anticipated his next clash of wits with relish—"I should probably go apologize to Miss Aurora before I muzzle anything."
He turned to lead Two-Step toward the corral.
"Rawlins!"
He glanced up. Sunlight glinted on metal, distracting him from the boy. Against the weather vane, within an arm's reach of Shae, leaned the double-barreled Whitney.
"I'll be watching you," Shae said grimly.
Wes steeled himself against his rising annoyance. Did the boy always pack a scattergun when he worked? Or was the weapon a precaution born of guilt... and fear of capture by lawmen?
"Fair enough, Shae." Wes matched the boy stare for stare. "But just be sure, while you're watching, you don't let the real badmen sneak by."
Feeling somewhat vindicated, he unsaddled Two-Step and turned him loose inside the fenced-off pasture, where the Sinclairs' few barn animals had been temporarily relocated.
True to his name, the gelding danced around Aurora's nag, two goats, and a disgruntled-looking heifer to claim the sweetest, most tender clover for himself. Wes watched the rascal fondly for a moment before it occurred to him that no children were in sight. He wondered with wry amusement if Aurora had whisked them into the storm cellar again. After all, he was prowling the grounds once more.
"There's an ax near the woodpile up by the porch," Shae called from his bird's-eye view. "You can start by breaking up some of these rotted timbers."
Wes nodded, hiding his smile as he slung his saddle over the corral's top rail. It looked as if he was going to get his opportunity to snoop sooner than he had expected.
Hooking his thumbs over his gun belt, he strolled up the drive, whistling as he went. Although his stride was long and leisurely, his gaze darted into every shadow, registering information about his new employers. He deduced from the struggling magnolia, with its freshly spread and watered fertilizer, that someone cared a great deal for the tree.
He noticed the clattering tin-can sentinels around the vegetable garden and the fresh nibble marks of the rabbits that had apparently overcome their fear of the noise. He suspected Aurora was waging a losing battle.
A busted chain hung from the porch roof, where the fallen swing must have swung.
Wes wondered if the wood shavings that had been swept so neatly behind the cane seat had been hidden or simply forgotten by the small-footed person who had left a print there.
When the fluttering of clothes on a rope caught his eye, he noticed several junior-sized shirts and trousers, but nothing that suggested a man lived and worked there, except, perhaps, for the colorful quilt with its wedding-ring design. Boudreau's, he wondered, or Aurora's?
Once again, Wes found his curiosity piqued by the anomaly that was Aurora. She had admitted to having a husband. So where was the man? Had he run off or passed on?
Forcing his thoughts back to his work, he found the ax exactly as Shae had described it. However, Wes was far more interested in the aroma of something sweet wafting from somewhere inside the house. A sweetness like pecan pie, to be exact. Now when had Aurora had time to bake a pie?
An unbidden vision of Aurora, flushed and dusted with flour, appealed to him almost as much as the prospect of filling his belly with a hot, fresh slab of his favorite treat. He tossed a sideways glance at Shae. The boy was watching him like a hawk. Wes's contrary side surfaced, and he grinned, waving gaily. Turning the corner, he disappeared from Shae's sight.
With the instincts of a bloodhound, he sniffed out those pecans, tracking them to an open window with fluttery white muslin curtains. He wasn't disappointed. Four heavenly pies lay cooling on the sill. Only Aurora wasn't guarding them. Instead, a formidable-looking black woman stood by the window, a rolling pin held primed and ready in her fist. Wes recognized her as the woman who'd herded the children into the storm cellar the day before.
He edged another step closer and flashed his most engaging smile. " 'Morning, ma'am."
The woman looked him up and down. A bit on the short side for her ample girth, she was, nevertheless, a faded beauty with two keen brown eyes sharp enough to bore through a man. Wes thought she resembled Shae with her high cheekbones and long-fingered hands, but since she was at least thirty-five years the boy's senior, she was less likely to be Shae's mother than his grandmother.
