Chase the Fire

by Barbara Ankrum

  Libby watched the process, aghast at her train of thoughts.

  "It's an old trick," Chase commented, angling a look at her.

  "You needn't gloat, Mr. Whitlaw. I'm perfectly aware that you succeeded where I failed. Again."

  As the foal drank, he lifted his gaze to her. Once more, she felt that strange sensation that he knew her. Or she knew him. But that wasn't possible. Was it?

  "Are you from around here, Mr. Whitlaw?"

  "No. Nowhere near here," he said, but didn't elaborate.

  "Because I keep having the strangest feeling that we might have met before... somewhere."

  His green eyes went forest dark and he turned back to the foal. "I don't think so," he said. The muscle in his jaw worked as he fed the foal. "You have help here, Mrs. Honeycutt? You really have a crew?"

  "I'm not sure I'd go that far. But I employ a few men. Yes." Such as they are.

  Chase dragged a palm across the day's growth on his cheeks. "I may be a stranger to these parts, but from my perspective, this land doesn't strike me as particularly forgiving, Mrs. Honeycutt. It doesn't allow for mistakes or inexperience. Without a man at your side, I imagine it can be downright belligerent."

  Libby drew herself up. "Are you saying that I need a man to survive here, Mr. Whitlaw? Because if you are—"

  "You're a widow. Alone. That makes you easy prey for every lawless character within a hundred miles of here."

  "Would you include yourself in that description?"

  "Me?" He laughed softly. "You think I'm bad? You were plain lucky when you met me."

  She laughed in reply. "How humble of you to say so. I don't know why you feel the need to point all this out to me. I'm perfectly aware of my situation," she told him, getting to her feet and crossing to the stove. "And, I might add, perfectly happy with it." The stew-pot cover clanged against the black iron stove, and she jammed a wooden spoon into the thick mixture. Outside, thunder rumbled long and low.

  "I just thought... maybe you have friends or family you could go to."

  "Naw," Tad interjected, reminding them both that he was between them. "Only Mr. Harper. He asked Mama to marry him."

  "Tad!" She shot the boy a frown.

  "Well, he did," Tad argued. "You said so."

  Libby looked back at Chase, to find him watching her. His mercurial eyes narrowed speculatively and an unreadable expression flicked through them. But the look was gone as quickly as it came.

  "As a matter of fact," Libby told him, "We don't have any other family. And even if we did, we still wouldn't go. This is our land. Mine and my son's. It's all we have. It may not be much, but it's ours and no one can make us leave. Not yet, anyway." She turned her back on him again and attacked the stew. "Now, if you're hungry you'd better wash up, because the only danger here tonight, mister, is that you're going to yammer your way out of a helping of my best jack-rabbit stew."

  Chase clamped his mouth shut and shook his head. His glance traveled down the golden braid that fell between her shoulder blades. She was the stubbornest woman he'd ever run up against, with more pluck than an entire roomful of hothouse-bred Baltimore debutantes.

  And she was right.

  Who in the hell did he think he was, coming in and telling her what she should do when he couldn't make heads or tails out of his own life? It was none of his business.

  So why the hell do I feel like it is?

  Chase finished feeding the foal and settled her back down again, before getting up himself.

  He massaged the stiffness out of his thigh while Libby's back was to him, then he headed for the sink where Tad was already elbow-deep in a bucket of water.

  Libby avoided looking at the stranger as he headed for the sink. She busied herself with putting the bowls of stew on the table. Then, retrieving the cloth-covered jug of milk from its cool nook in the thick adobe wall, she poured a glass for Tad.

  As she wrapped her hand in a towel and scooped the hot spider of cornbread from the oven, her eyes strayed to the man sharing space with her son at the sink. Whitlaw had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, past the corded muscles of his forearms, and was sluicing water over his face and across the back of his neck. It was a simple gesture. But, ridiculously, it sent a low, curling flutter to the pit of her stomach. He is handsome, she thought, looking away. Too blasted handsome for his own good.

  Or hers.

  The sooner he is fed and gone, she decided, the better I'll feel.

  Libby looked up to find him watching her. Rooted there, she could only stare as his eyes caught and held hers. He ran a wet palm down the moisture on his face, then shook the wetness from his hands. "Got a towel?"

  Libby blinked, then reached for a clean linen dishtowel on a shelf.

  "Thanks."

  He took the towel from her, and she heard the rough scrape of his day's growth of whiskers as he slid the cloth across his face. Flustered, she turned and finished setting out the food.

  The silence stretched between them as they ate. To her surprise, Whitlaw didn't attack his food the way the other men on her ranch did when she served them a meal. He didn't slurp, belch, or hold his fork as if his food were about to escape as they did, either. As much as his quiet manners pleased her, they struck her as oddly incongruous with the image of him she'd already locked in her mind. And that she found most irritating.

  "Mmm-mm, jack rabbit, you say?" Chase said breaking the silence as he savored a bite. "Tastiest I've ever had."

  "Have you ever had jack-rabbit stew before?" she asked doubtfully.

  He grinned around another mouthful. "Nope."

  She chuckled. "I suppose I should say thank you for all you've done for us tonight."

  Chase reared back in mock surprise and waggled a finger in his ear as if to clean it out. "Was that a kind word I heard?"

  Libby pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. "That was gratitude, Mr. Whitlaw. You've no doubt heard of it."

  "I just didn't know you had." His smile slid into a grin.

  "I give credit where credit is due."

  "That's good to know. A little bit of that might have come in handy out in the rain when you had that Smith Carbine pointed at my chest."

  She looked at her hands. "That was different."

  "It was?"

  "Of course."

  "How?"

  "I didn't know you. You were a stranger."

  "Ah... that's right." Chase replied, poking at the food in his bowl. "A desperado." With a force as inevitable as the pull of gravity, his gaze collided with hers. "And now?"

  "Now?" Her breath quickened and her cheeks became warm under his intense scrutiny. "Now you're in my house, feeding my foal, eating at my table. Still, I don't know who you are."

  "Chase Whitlaw—drifter," he replied with a half-grin. "Isn't that what you called me?" Chase jabbed a piece of meat on the tines of his fork and indolently popped it into his mouth.

  "Was I wrong?"

  His easy smile faded away. "No. Not particularly." Truth was, she'd hit painfully close to the mark. He was a drifter. With the temporary exception of Elliot Bradford, Chase had untethered himself from the bonds of his past—a past that couldn't be reconciled with his present, or, for that matter, his future. His past had left him with a dull aching void where purpose should have been.

  Libby pulled her gaze back to her own bowl. "I... I didn't mean to make it sound like name-calling."

  He shrugged. "I'm not partial to labels, regardless of who deals them out."

  She was plainly guilty of that and it stung to hear him say so. She'd been the object of just such mud-slinging herself in Santa Fe since she'd made it known she intended to keep the ranch going on her own. "We have that in common, then."

  "Do we?" His gaze lingered on her face.

  "Yes."

  "Imagine that." His voice was low and husky and it sent a shiver up Libby's spine. Outside, the rain splattered musically against the soaked ground.

  "Blue comes when Chase whistle
s for him, Ma," Tad put in when the two adults stopped talking.

  "Blue?" Distracted, Libby looked blankly at her son.

  "His horse. You-u-u know."

  "Oh, yes. Blue." Libby's eyes flicked back up to Whitlaw and found him still watching her.

  "Well, I seen—I saw—him do it," Tad went on. "It was really somethin'. Chase, you think you could teach me to make a horse come that way?"

  A muscle jumped in Whitlaw's cheek, and his expression tensed. "Well, I, ah—"

  "I'm sure Mr. Whitlaw doesn't have time for that, Tad. After all, he was on his way somewhere when we waylaid him with the foal." She glanced up at Whitlaw. "Were you headed for Jonas Harper's place? It's the only ranch around here for miles besides mine."

  He shook his head, then added thoughtfully, "Harper. That your fiancé?"

  "No." Libby replied a little too emphatically. She took a deep breath and tried again. "No. We're not engaged, for heaven's sake."

  "But he's asked you," Chase persisted.

  "Yes, but that doesn't mean..." A shutter dropped over Libby's eyes, and she pressed her fingertips against the bridge of her nose. "I don't know why I'm discussing this with you."

  "Why not?" Do you love him?

  "Why not?" she sputtered. Don't look at me that way! "Good heavens! Because I don't even know you, that's why."

  Chase tried to keep his shrug casual. "Just curious why a woman in your situation wouldn't jump at a proposal of marriage."

  Libby stiffened her shoulders. "I don't see any wedding band on your finger, Mr. Whitlaw. Should I ask you the same question?"

  "Touché," Chase acknowledged with a nod of his head.

  Suddenly, a log in the fireplace shifted, letting out two sharp pops that sent Chase's chair scraping against the table leg as his fingers closed around the gun at his hip and he nearly leaped to his feet. Sweat broke out instantly on his forehead and his heart hammered at his ribs before he recognized the sound for what it was. Across the table from him, Elizabeth Honeycutt and her son gawked at Chase as if he were mad.

  Christ! he swore silently, rolling his eyes shut. Will it ever stop?

  He braced his palms against the smooth wooden table, let his chin drop to his chest, and swallowed hard. "I'm... sorry."

  "It was only the fire," Libby said, as her gray eyes searched his face.

  Silent, Chase raked both hands through his hair and then slumped back down into his chair.

  As Libby watched the flush of embarrassment fade from his tanned cheeks, her anger evaporated, leaving behind confusion and a brief stab of pity. "Are you all right, Mr. Whitlaw?"

  A barely audible huff of self-deprecating laughter escaped him. "Yeah." He looked up through a fringe of dark lashes at her. "I didn't mean to scare you."

  "You didn't," he heard her say, and he could see she meant it. Though Tad regarded him with wide eyes, they were filled with curiosity, not fear. Libby asked none of the questions written so plainly on her face. And he offered no free answers.

  It was time for him to leave, time to finish what he'd come here to do.

  "Listen," he mumbled, standing. "I... I'd better be going."

  "You haven't even finished your dinner, and it's still raining out," Libby argued. "You're welcome to sleep in the hay loft or even the bunkhouse tonight if you want. There's an extra bed, and it's the least I can do, considering everything you've done for us."

  Her kindness caught him off guard. A flash of heat stirred Chase's blood as he looked at her. He was a bastard for wanting to stay, to prolong it, but it was too late to question his own motives for coming here. The locket he'd come to deliver suddenly felt like a lead weight in his pocket.

  "Yeah, stay, Chase." Tad's blond head came bobbing up between his mother and Chase. "You can teach me how to whistle in the mornin'."

  Chase shook his head. His heart pounded, and his mouth went dry as cotton. Reaching into his pocket, his fingers closed around the locket. "There's something I need to—"

  A loud rapping on the door stopped Chase mid-sentence. He looked questioningly at Libby. "Are you expecting someone?"

  "Not this early," she told him. "But if it were someone I didn't know, Patch would have announced him." Libby lifted the latch on the door and swung it open.

  The bow-legged cowboy in the doorway doffed his hat immediately and grinned around his droopy, graying mustache. "Evenin' ma'am."

  "Why, Early!" Libby exclaimed. "What are you doing back so soon? I didn't expect you until late tonight."

  "Well, with this here goose-drownder stirrin' things up, I thought I should get back here and see that everything was all right."

  She smiled warmly. "You're a gem, Early. Thank you. Come on in out of the rain. You must be soaked through."

  Early ducked to get his tall, lanky frame through the doorway, slapping his wet hat against his coat-covered thigh. He frowned when he spotted Chase near the scarred wooden dining table, and his questioning glance slid back to Libby.

  "Early, this is Chase Whitlaw. Mr. Whitlaw, my foreman, Early Parker."

  Early wiped his wet palm along his dry pants first, then offered it to Chase.

  Chase had learned, over the years, that one could tell a great deal about a man by his handshake. When he offered his hand to Libby's foreman, he wasn't disappointed by what he discovered.

  "Howdy," Early said, appraising Chase with a quick, curious once-over. "That your gray gelding I seen in the barn?"

  Chase nodded, releasing the other man's hand. "It is."

  "Good piece o' horseflesh," Early noted.

  Chase guessed the ranch hand to be on the shy side of forty-five, though his sun-weathered face made him appear older. A swath of pale skin above the sweatband line of his hat, indicated that he was seldom without it.

  "Mr. Whitlaw helped me to bring in this foal who'd been abandoned out by Piñon Flat," Libby explained, gesturing toward the sleeping animal.

  Early's scruffy blond eyebrows went up with surprise. "You was out in that gully-washer on yer own? Hell's bells, ma'am. I told ya it warn't a good idea to be out here on yer own on Saturday nights."

  She brushed the dust off the knee of her pants. "If I didn't let the men blow off some steam on Saturday nights I'd have a revolt on my hands. Besides, it wasn't raining when we rode out, Early," she said in her own defense. She didn't, however, miss Whitlaw's self-satisfied look. She took her foreman's coat from him as he stopped to examine the foal curled up on the floor.

  After she'd put a steaming cup of coffee in Early's hands, she filled him in about the foal, the missing mare, and the way Chase had shot the coyotes.

  "We never found the dam," Libby went on. "I'll send someone up to look for her tomorrow. My guess is she's already dead, leaving her foal the way she did."

  Early shook his head. "You was pure lucky to find that foal 'fore them coyote's got her, and luckier still they didn't decide to make a meal outta you. Where was Straw all this time?"

  Libby sent him a pointed look and he held up his hands. "Never mind," he countered. "You don't need to tell me. Straw's a good farrier, but he ain't got no tolerance for liquor." He looked back at Chase. "Obliged to ya fer helpin' out the way ya did, Whitlaw."

  Chase shrugged self-consciously. "I was just in the right place at the right time."

  "Lucky fer us." Early's friendly smile came as easily as did his territorial drawl. He took a pull off his mug of coffee and grimaced as it burned its way down his throat. "That kind of shootin' kin come in mighty handy around these parts," he speculated. "You as good on a horse as you are with a gun?"

  "I can handle myself," Chase replied, wondering where this line of conversation was leading.

  Tad's blond head bobbed up beside Early. "He can make a horse come by just whistlin'!"

  "Can he, now?" Early replied, ruffling the boy's towheaded mop of hair.

  "Where are the others?" Libby asked, steering the subject away from Chase Whitlaw. "Are they staying in town tonight?"

  "
Last I saw Bodine and Miguel, they was linin' their flues with forty-rod down at Conchita's, and Bodine was breakin' up the place." He hesitated, rolling his thumb across the top of his tin mug. "Nate and Wilson... they ain't comin' back."

  It took Libby a few seconds to grasp what Early was telling her. "Not coming back? You mean... they quit on me?"

  "'Fraid so."

  "Oh, my God." The loss seemed to tighten like a cord of drying rawhide around Libby's throat.

  Early's fist curled tightly around his coffee cup. "I tried to talk 'em out of it, Miz Libby, but they weren't having none of it. Wilson said..." He broke off.

  "What?" she prodded. "What did he say?"

  "Aw, hell. He said him and Nate was tired of the short pay they was gettin' here and tired of takin' orders from a... woman. Said you was gettin' a bad-luck reputation around these parts and they didn't want no more part of it."

  "I see." Libby's face flushed, as much with anger as mortification. She stared at her hands. "Is that how you feel, too, Early?"

  Early's brown eyes widened in his deeply tanned face. "No, ma'am," he answered earnestly. "No, it ain't. Hell, I say you're better off without 'em. No-account lackwits. There ain't no loyalty no more."

  "Did they say where they were going? Did they hire on at another spread?" she asked.

  The wrangler shook his head. "Can't say. They was being tight-lipped 'bout the whole thing. But I heard rumblin's that Les Bidwell's still hirin' over on the Pecos." He stopped again, gauging her reaction. "Word is they're takin' on men at Three Peaks, too."

  Her lips parted in surprise. "Jonas Harper's place? Why would he do that to me? You must be mistaken, Early. Jonas is a friend. He knows how much I need those men to get that order of horses together."

  Early looked at the muddy toes of his boots. "Stillwell and Harper got business on their minds first and last, ma'am."

  "You're wrong, Early," she told him flatly, refusing to believe that Jonas would go up against her, steal her men right out from under her. No. She wouldn't believe that of him. "As far as Nate and Wilson go, there's nothing for it but to go on."

  Early glanced up skeptically through the hank of blond hair that had fallen over his eyes. "If you're still meanin' to meet that army contract deadline, you're gonna need some more men."