A cool gust of air fanned the flames in the fireplace, and she turned to see Tad burst through the door. "Ma! Chase let me feed his horse." Already pulling off his muddy boots, Tad looked like a boy with a new toy. "Did you know his horse's name was Blue? Just like my old lizard? Whew, it's really wet out there!"
Libby's glance went from her son to the tall man in the doorway. The stranger hovered near the opening, dripping wet, an uncertain look on his face. His saddlebags were slung over one shoulder. The Henry rifle was suspended in one hand, a bucket of mare's milk in the other. Was it her imagination, or had he gone suddenly pale? He had the oddest look on his face, she thought, one that made her feel suddenly self-conscious.
"Are you all right, Mr. Whitlaw? You look as if you've seen a ghost. Please come in and get warm."
He blinked, his lips parted as if he were forming a thought. But he simply nodded as he set the milk pail down and pushed the rickety door closed behind him. Rainwater dripped from his hat as he pulled it off and he mumbled an apology.
"Here," she said, taking it to place it on the stone hearth near the fire. "Come on, then, warm yourselves by the fire for a moment while I—"
All wagging tail and wriggling hind end, Patch hurried over to the foal lying on the slicker, to sniff and lick at the animal's muzzle.
"Oh! For heaven's sake, Tad," she said, "wipe Patch's paws before he christens ever surface in the house with mud." She knew Tad would not argue with her, grateful that she'd allowed the dog to stay in the warmth of the house tonight. No man or beast should have to endure what was outside that door on a night like this, she thought.
Her gaze moved back, discreetly to Whitlaw, whose soaked back was to her as he warmed his hands by the fire. He was tall, much taller even than he had appeared on his horse and built like a man used to hard work. His wet shirt clung to the strongly defined muscles of his back and upper arms. He was much bigger than Lee had been. Bigger and stronger, she thought. And now that he'd removed his hat, she'd been surprised to see that he was handsome, in a rugged sort of way, despite his tendency to glower at her.
She caught the curve of an unbidden grin between her pressed lips. Oh, dear. The sight of such masculinity sent an unexpected and unwelcome rush of heat through her. It had been a long time since she'd been aware of a man's physique in that way and she couldn't account for the jolt of awareness. What in the world was wrong with her?
She gave herself a mental shake and wrapped her arms around her wet son as he finished with Patch, who had rolled over expecting a belly rub. "So," she said, "you and Mr. Whitlaw have gotten acquainted?"
* * *
It took a second or two before Chase heard what she'd said. He was too busy taking in her transformation from half-drowned urchin to breath-stealing beauty. She'd shed her shapeless, wet clothes and traded them for a man's oversize flannel shirt which she'd tucked in at the waist of a dry pair of Levi's, cinched with a belt. He'd never seen a pair of denims filled out in quite such an appealing way. They hugged her long slender legs and the attractive flare of her hips. The sight sent his heart skittering along his ribs.
Her hair, waist-long, was the golden color of flax. She wore it in a loose, practical braid down the center of her back, out of her way, as if she were completely unaware of its splendor.
Her delicate face had been scrubbed free of the mud. She wasn't beautiful in the classic sense of the word, he decided critically. Her dove gray eyes were a touch too wide-set, and her bow-shaped mouth was too generous to be strictly beautiful. But there was the woman whose picture had seen him through the worst of his time in the army hospital after his injury. His fantasy come to life. He couldn't quite take it in.
Right now, he realized, she was frowning at him.
"Is it that you're not used to seeing a woman in trousers, Mr. Whitlaw? Or are you in the habit of staring?"
His heartbeat kicked back into rhythm. "I—sorry, ma'am."
Idiot. He should have just handed her the locket, collected his coat and headed back out into the storm. But he couldn't take his eyes off her. Idiot.
She turned to her son. "Tad, don't stand there dripping on the rugs. Hang your coat up on the coat tree." Almost as an afterthought, she reached out and ran the backs of her fingers down his cheek to soften her words. Tad grinned knowingly at his mother, then did as she asked.
She cleared her throat. "My... my husband will be back from town shortly, but you're welcome to warm yourself by the fire and have a bite to eat." At Tad's incredulous expression, she shot him a quelling look.
"Your husband?" Chase said.
"Yes. My husband will be—"
"I already tol' him, Ma," Tad interjected in a low voice, catching on.
Her eyes went toward her son, who sent her a helpless look. "You what?"
"I tol' him about the Yanks killin' Pa."
"Oh, Tad! How many times have I—? Oh, for heaven's sake, never mind." She flushed bright red and swallowed down the lump stuck in her throat as her eyes flicked up to Whitlaw. He was watching her, with an infuriatingly unreadable expression. She ran the pads of her fingers along one eyebrow. "All right," she admitted, "so there's no man coming through that door tonight. But my ranch hands will be back soon from town."
"You're not afraid of me, are you, Mrs. Honeycutt?"
The slightest uncertainty returned to her expression. "Should I be, Mr. Whitlaw?"
"I'm not particularly dangerous... unless you count what my muddy boots have done to your rugs."
A long pause stretched between them, until a fist-sized clump of wet sod fell with a punctuating splat into one of her water-catching bowls.
Then, she did the most unexpected thing. She laughed. It was a merry sound, girlish even. A sound that did things to him, inside. He couldn't help but smile back.
Still laughing, she said, "Mud on my carpets, Mr. Whitlaw, is the least of my problems, as you can plainly see."
He raised one brow at the ceiling, silently agreeing.
"We milked that old brood mare like she was a milch cow, Ma," Tad announced. "Mr. Whitlaw said I did a good job with the team. Said I hooked 'em up real good. Charlie didn't want to get all rigged up in this weather, but I settled him down." He beamed proudly at Chase. "I told ya I could."
Libby's gaze flicked up at the man, then back to her son. "I'm real proud of you. And I'll have to remember to thank Early for teaching you how to do it. Did you find Straw?"
Tad nodded, then smirked, rolled his eyes, and flung his arms wide dramatically to indicate Straw's state of consciousness. Or more aptly, the lack of it. Libby shook her head and tried to keep a straight face. Tad had a flair for making her laugh even when the situation wasn't the least bit funny. Straw's drinking problem was something she couldn't deal with tonight. And certainly not when he was facedown drunk in the bunk house. She'd just have to think about that tomorrow.
Tad hung up his coat, then made a beeline for the foal and dropped down beside it. "Chase said—"
"It's Mr. Whitlaw, not... Chase."
Chase shrugged. "It's all right. I don't mind. In fact," he added, looking directly at her, "I prefer it."
Libby felt heat creeping up to her cheeks. She turned back to her son and cleared her throat. "Sweetheart, you go get out of those wet things, before you catch a chill."
"But Ma—"
"No buts." She raised an eyebrow and pointed a finger toward his room. "You can see the foal after you get dry."
She risked a look at Whitlaw just as a bead of water tracked a slow, lazy path down the side of his face. Too late, she realized that she was the one staring now. Turning back to the foal, she said, "You can leave your gun there against the fireplace. You have no need for it in here."
"I should be going," he said, but he leaned his gun against the gingham wainscot.
She jerked a look in his direction, surprised. "Tonight? I mean, you can't possibly mean to go back out in that." She glanced toward the rain hammering against the glass panes of the wi
ndow.
He lowered his head, sliding the brim of his hat around in his long fingers. Libby stood, took his hat from him and set it on the bench, near the fire.
"I haven't even thanked you, Mr. Whitlaw, for what you did. Please. Have something to eat. Warm yourself. You can spend the night in my barn. It's quite comfortable in the loft. I wouldn't think of sending you off in this weather. And certainly, not without food."
"I'd be obliged," was all he said.
"Good." She turned and headed for the cupboard, where she pulled out a third bowl and spoon.
"You've made quite an impression on Tad," Libby admitted in as steady a voice as she could manage. The truth was, Tad had taken to him like grease to a pot. She made a mental note to teach her son not to be so trusting.
"He's a good boy. You must be proud of him."
"I am." She slid her hands into the back pockets of her denims and looked at the tips of her stockinged toes. "I'm sorry I was so short with you in front of him. I'm afraid the weather's gotten the best of my temper."
"You have nothing to apologize for. You were right. I was staring at you. But you must be used to that."
The compliment caught her off guard. Libby had never set much store in her looks. Looks didn't run a ranch. They didn't fill an Army contract, and they certainly didn't make the other ranchers take her seriously.
"Most of the men in these parts think I'm a little crazy," she said. "Why, you yourself called me that after knowing me all of two minutes."
Chase glanced around at the steady drip, drip, drip of the water leaking into her house.
Well, he had a point.
"How's the foal?" he asked.
"Warmer, at least," she answered, forcing her attention back to the foal. "We'll have to get her to eat soon or she'll—"
An involuntary shiver raced through him.
Blast it all! How could she have been so thoughtless? "Look at you," she said. "You must be freezing. I think I have some clothes you could change into while those things dry," she told him, turning toward a large pine chest in the corner. "They'll be a little short on you. They were my husband's—"
"No!" The word came out more harshly than he'd intended, and she stopped mid-step and turned back to him. He ran a rain-slick hand over his mouth and across the rough day-old stubble on his jaw.
"I mean, I have extra clothes of my own," he told her, lifting his saddlebags off his shoulder. "I would have changed in the barn, but it wouldn't have done me much good." He hooked a thumb toward the rain still battering the window. "I'd be obliged if you'd just show me where I could..."
"Of course..." The edge of her bottom lip disappeared between her teeth as she scanned the possibilities.
From what he could see, the house consisted of three rooms: this main room, which served as a combination kitchen and parlor; the bedroom Tad had just closed the door on, and one other room. It stood to reason that one was hers. He could see the dilemma in her eyes. A woman's bedroom is a private place, and he was a stranger. He shifted the saddlebags onto his shoulder again.
Tad came loping out of his room in time to save her from having to make excuses for propriety's sake. The boy's flannel shirt was buttoned wrong, and his feet were bare against the jerga.
"Tad," she said, with obvious relief. "Show Mr. Whitlaw your room so he can change; then you can come back and give me a hand with the foal."
Tad happily ushered Chase into his room, dodging the pots on the floor and the steadily dripping leaks.
As the door closed behind Chase, he looked around the small room. It was, like the rest of the house, poor but neat as a pin. A double bed with a trundle underneath took up one side of the room. A small dresser and washstand stood against the wall closest to the door. It wasn't a child's room. The bed was too large. He wondered if it had once been Honeycutt's and Elizabeth's.
Elizabeth. Over the past two years, he'd tried a hundred names on her in his imagination, but none had seemed to fit her as well as that one. He toyed with the sound of it on his tongue, remembering the way she'd said it. Proud, straightforward, as if she expected to be met on her own terms, not coddled because she was a woman.
Yet, beneath her tough exterior, he knew there lurked a vulnerable woman. He'd seen it in her eyes out there in the rain and again when she'd spoken of her son. It made him want to reassure her, protect her.
Chase let out a bitter laugh. Protect her from what? You? you crazy bastard? That will be the day when you have something to offer a woman like her.
Chase peeled off his wet clothing and pulled on dry garments. He gathered up the wet things and was about to open the door when his eyes fell on a wrinkled piece of paper, spread out flat, evidently with infinite care, on Tad's dresser. Moving closer, he recognized it for what it was—a letter from the Confederate States Army.
He went suddenly and sickeningly cold. He'd personally been responsible for sending enough of these letters to paper this room, but seeing it now in Honeycutt's own house sent an eerie feeling down his spine.
Hesitantly, he picked up the letter and read it:
24 JUNE 1864
Confederate States Army
Georgia 4th Infantry
Brigadier General John B. Gordon
Mr. and Mrs. Malachi Honeycutt Mrs. Leland Draper Honeycutt Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory
It is with sincerest regret that we inform you of the death of your son and husband, Leland Draper Honeycutt, Private, C.S.A.—4th Georgia Infantry, on the sixth day of May, 1864. His valorous sacrifice on the field in the Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia will be remembered with deep gratitude by the people of the Confederacy and all those who continue to struggle for the Southern cause.
Yours with deep sympathy,
Brigadier General John B. Gordon, C.S.A.
Georgia 4th Infantry
Carefully, Chase replaced the letter on the dresser where Tad kept it the way other boys kept boxes full of shiny rocks and secret treasures. Damn little for a boy to remember his father by, he thought. Damn little for a boy to hold on to.
Chase closed his eyes and took a deep steadying breath, surprised by the long-dormant emotions the boy and his mother stirred in him. He bit those feelings back ruthlessly. He had no illusions anymore about who and what he was. He'd come from nothing, and that's what he was headed back to. Only one thing had brought him here, and he'd put it off too long already. He'd tell Elizabeth about her husband after they got the foal straightened around. And then she'd show him the door.
Chapter 3
"You can hang your things over those chairs to dry, Mr. Whitlaw."
Chase glanced over at Elizabeth as he ducked down, coming through the low, narrow doorway of Tad's room. She was sitting on the floor, holding a cleaned-out glass bottle filled with milk, trying to coax the foal to take the makeshift burlap suckle into her mouth.
Chase spotted the carved pine chairs Libby had placed near the fireplace. He deposited his clothes on them, pulling one of his wet leather gloves from the pocket of his pants.
"Is that contraption working?" he asked, lowering himself carefully down onto the floor beside her. He clenched his jaw against the pain in his leg as he stretched it out straight.
Libby's eyes followed the movement for a fraction of a second, then returned to the foal. "No."
The word had a desperate quality that drew Chase's eyes back up to her face. Seeing her now, with the firelight playing off her cheeks, he thought again that the photograph in the locket hadn't done her justice. He wondered if the Reb who'd died in his arms knew what a lucky man he'd been.
Chase rested a forearm on his bent left leg and dragged his gaze away from her. "I'm not surprised. Burlap doesn't smell a whole lot like horse."
Libby flashed him a look. "If you've got a better idea, I'd like to hear it."
"As a matter of fact, I do. Got a needle?"
Libby narrowed her eyes. "A needle? What in the world for?"
"Do you want her to eat?"
"Well, that's—Of course, I do." She frowned at him, tossing her long braid over her shoulder.
"Then get me the needle."
Tad glanced from his mother to Chase, a stricken look on his face. "She ain't gonna die, is she?"
"No, darlin'." Libby's voice was firm as she rose to get her sewing kit. "She's not gonna die. We simply won't let her." She handed Chase the needle and unavoidably their fingers brushed; his calloused and strong, hers inexplicably trembling.
Libby's eyes roamed over the breadth of his shoulders as he turned to his task. She watched the way his muscles worked beneath the blue chambray shirt that clung to his still-damp skin. Heat surged unexpectedly through her, like the flash of a resin-fed fire. She blinked and backed up a step, glad his back was to her so he couldn't see the reaction he sparked in her.
But a wave of something sudden and... unbidden overcame her as she watched this stranger fill the empty space in her house, in front of her fire, feeding her foal.
Loneliness? The thought caught her off guard like a rogue wind eddy spinning across her parlor.
No. She wasn't lonely. She was too busy to be lonely.After all, she had Tad and the ranch. The hands. Early.
Oh, dear. She'd been alone too long. That was it. Simple. Years too long, she supposed. That's all this was.
Libby shook the thought away. This man, of all men, should not be eliciting such silly, useless thoughts and... and—
Tingling in her womanly parts.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the idea.
Oh, blast it all. So what if it did cross her mind, in a... carnal sort of way? It was just that. Carnal. And natural. She wasn't dead yet. She was young. It wasn't... longing she felt when she looked at him. Or loneliness.
Chase opened up the top of his leather glove and poured the warmed milk down inside it until it was half-full. Then he twisted the top and aimed the needle at the tip of the thumb. He was rewarded with a steady stream of warm milk.
"What do you say, girl? Hungry?" He rubbed the milky glove back and forth across the filly's mouth until she opened up to him and allowed him to slip the engorged thumb into her mouth.
Chase the Fire Page 4
