Wanted
Page 39
“Hell, I don’t even like him.”
She smiled. “Did you ever think about the fact that you both have bay horses, which are very much alike? His is Damien. Yours is Dickens.”
“Bays are common.”
“Or the same quirk of the lips.” She put her hand up to where his lips did that. “Not quite a smile … more like acknowledgment.”
He looked at her suspiciously. “I’ve never seen him …”
But she interrupted. “Or dimple?” Her hands roamed to the dimple in his chin, deep like a cleft.
He tried to catch her finger in his mouth, but she was too quick. “Even your eyebrow lifts in the same way.”
He lifted it now. Her hand moved up to it, her fingers massaging the area around his eyes.
“You’ve been paying too much attention to him,” he said suspiciously.
“Only because he resembles you,” she said. “In some ways.”
She earned a slight grin. “Thank you for that, at least,” he said.
She leaned against him and snuggled inside his arms. “Is it so bad, finding a brother?”
“Hell, anyone but him.”
“Whitey Stark?” she asked innocently.
“Almost anyone,” he amended.
His arms went around her, gathering her close to him. She snuggled deeper. “He might have been your brother in any event,” she said. “He and Lori are in love.”
“That’s an indecent thought.”
She looked up at him, trying to gauge his expression. Lori, after all, was apparently no blood relation to either man.
“My … brother marrying my sister,” he explained. He’d realized tonight the depth of Morgan’s feeling for his sister, in that farewell kiss, in the sacrificial act itself. Nick ran his fingers down Beth’s hair. “She’ll always be my sister. Since she was little more than a babe, she always came to me with her hurts. So did Andy.”
“Nothing daunts her, does it?”
“Sometimes I wish it would,” Nick said. “She always just plunges into life. Into trouble, more likely. Trouble like Morgan,” he grumbled.
Beth smiled to herself. Just talking seemed to have sapped some of the tension from Nick. He seemed almost reconciled to the fact now, if not pleased by it.
She twisted her head until her mouth was just inches away from his. “I wish I was more like her,” she said wistfully.
“Ah,” Nick said, “this from a lady who tried to run a ranch herself in the midst of Indians, who struck out at night all on her own. You have your own share of grit.” His voice ended in a whisper, or more of a sigh, just before his lips met hers.
And then there was no more Morgan and Lori.
There was only Beth and Nick, and the night.
The sheriff in Pueblo was anything but a happy man when wakened from a deep sleep in one of the jail’s empty cells. He eyed Morgan’s stubbled face, his dusty clothes, and his obviously well-used six-shooter with dislike. Even the Ranger’s badge made little impact. Then his gaze moved to Ford Nesbitt, who was standing next to Morgan, handcuffed. His frown deepened.
“Why in the hell didn’t you come here when you first came into town?” he asked Morgan. “That’s usual courtesy.”
“I wanted as little attention as possible,” Morgan said. “I knew these two were looking for us.”
“Well, apparently they found you,” the sheriff said dryly. He was a tall, lean man with hard eyes. Morgan instantly judged him as one of the good lawmen. He’d seen his share of bad ones.
Morgan nodded and related the recent events, starting with the kidnapping of Lori.
“Where’s your prisoner now?”
“With his family outside of town.”
The sheriff’s brows furrowed together. “Trusting sort, are you?”
No one had ever called Morgan that before. He grinned suddenly. “No, but this is rather an unusual case. He quite possibly saved my life.”
“Well, it’s your business, I guess, but I don’t want any more trouble in my town.”
“There won’t be. I want to prefer kidnapping charges against Nesbitt here. Lori Braden will be here in the morning to sign anything you need.”
“Where is she now?”
“The Trader’s Post Hotel. I need to find a doctor for her.”
The sheriff looked at his face, the stiff way he stood. “I’d say you need one, too.”
Morgan shrugged.
“Your business,” the sheriff said. “Doc Simpson is in the building across the street. I’ll take care of Nesbitt here and send someone after the undertaker for the other one.”
“Thanks,” Morgan said.
“Next time come to me first,” the sheriff said, “and have the lady in here in the morning.”
The doctor spent about thirty minutes with them at the hotel, bandaging several cuts on Lori and taping Morgan’s ribs, one of which the doctor suspected was cracked. He took one look at the battle-scarred body, including the new scar on his left shoulder, and shook his head. “How and why you’re still alive must be one of God’s wonders.”
“You’re not the first to think that, Doc. Thanks.” He gave the man a five-dollar piece and closed the door behind him. They were in Lori’s room, Morgan having taken a second room next door. He’d brought the doctor directly to Lori, and then stayed to have his own wounds attended.
It was time to go. He knew it. Lori was grateful to him now, and he didn’t want gratitude. She was vulnerable. Hell, he was vulnerable. For the first time he could remember, he was vulnerable to a woman, to another human being. Dammit, though, he couldn’t turn the knob in the door. Those great golden eyes of hers were asking him so many questions, and he didn’t know how to answer them. Not until he got things settled with Nick.
Go! His mind screamed the order, but the rest of him paid it no mind. His heart, his body was obeying another call, a more elemental one.
“Don’t go,” Lori said. “I really need … you tonight.” He saw her tremble and thought of what she’d gone through in the past few hours. God knew what Whitey had said and done, and then she’d spent hours worrying about him, and about Nick.
“Just hold me,” she said. “Just hold me for a little while.”
He drew his arms around her, feeling her tremble. “You’ve had a hell of a day, haven’t you?”
Her hand traced his chest, the new burn scar, the bandages around his chest, old wounds. “It looks as if you’ve had a lot of hell of a days. You don’t take very good care of yourself.”
“No,” he agreed, liking the feel of her hand on his skin, as if it were trying to soak up old pain. But now there was a new piercing pain that had nothing to do with physical wounds. He wanted her. Cracked ribs and all, he wanted her. He had come so close to death again tonight, and now he wanted everything he’d had so little of in his life. He wanted to touch and be touched. He wanted to know that someone cared whether he lived or died.
Christ, when had that need become so strong, so compelling, that he would forget everything else? And then he wondered how he had so barricaded his soul all these years that it hadn’t mattered before. Now the barricades were down, and he felt raw and exposed inside. And needy. So incredibly needy. It scared the hell out of him.
The urge to sweep her up, to take the life and love she offered was so strong, he felt himself shake with the power of it. But that innate honesty in him wouldn’t permit it. She had to know what he suspected. But when she looked up at him with those damn glowing eyes, as if he were ten feet tall and three times a hero, the words stuck in his throat.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
What was soaring inside him dropped to the ground, like a shot bird. He didn’t want goddamn gratitude.
He forced himself away, forced harsh words, directed his eyes at the first glimmers of dawn filtering through the window. “I didn’t do anything I wouldn’t do to protect any prisoner in my custody. No one takes a prisoner from me. No one,” he said with added emphasis.
Love. The word crept into his consciousness, warm and beguiling and invasive. But foreign. New. Difficult, no, impossible, to accept, to believe. He started to say something, but she put her fingers to his lips and stopped him. “I never met anyone like you before,” she said. “That rock-hard integrity that won’t give an inch, no matter what. I couldn’t believe it for a long time, that it was real.”
Morgan tried to say something, to deny the sense of her words. He was stubborn, pure and simple, nothing more. But her lips stopped his words. Convincing, willing him to believe the unbelievable. He knew he was unlovable. No one had ever loved him.
She must have seen the disbelief, the doubt, in his eyes. “You asked me to trust you, and I was … foolish not to,” she said slowly. “Now I’m asking you to trust me, Morgan. I know I don’t have any right … not after everything that …” Her voice broke off. Morgan heard the guilt in it, the regret.
“Don’t,” he said. “You had no reason …”
“I had my heart. I just wouldn’t listen to it.”
“I’ve never believed in thinking from the heart,” he said gently.
She shook her head. “That’s not true. You told me that once …” She was remembering his tale about that prisoner, the one he released to tend his wife and who had almost killed him.
“I learned better that one time,” he said.
“And now?” she asked.
“I don’t know if I can,” he said, but he knew differently. He’d been thinking with his heart for the last few days—one reason he had got them all into so much danger.
Your father died because of a woman. A Ranger can’t have attachments. Callum’s words haunted him. A Ranger was what Morgan was. What he had always been. He never even questioned it before, never thought of anything else.
“Try,” Lori said. “I want some of that heart. I think it’s a lot bigger than you want to believe.”
Christ, she already had it, had the whole blasted thing. That was the hell of it.
“Morgan?”
He focused.
“Stay with me now. Don’t … leave.”
He brushed back a curl from her face, the lovely face that was so bruised. And he knew he couldn’t let her go. Not tonight. Not with the fear still in her eyes. Not with the love there. Not with the hope.
There was still the question of Nick. But he quieted even that thought now.
He drew her to the bed, lying down with her, his hands running over her arms, then her face, lightly. He felt her flinch once and knew that her body was as bruised as his own. Still, passion flared as they kissed, that passion that had been between them since that first kiss in Laramie. Neither of them were in any kind of condition to make love, though his manhood didn’t seem to understand that. He felt it swell with hunger, but he was determined to control it. She needed safety now. Caring. Not more confusion.
He gentled his kiss, fighting himself as he did so, fighting his need for her, knowing her body was fragile and her emotions even more so after the last few days. “Sleep,” he whispered.
“Don’t go away,” she said again, sleepily, and he realized how tired she must be, how close to the edge.
“I won’t.”
“Ever,” she demanded.
But he was spared an answer as her eyes closed and she sighed contentedly. He watched for a long time, the golden eyelashes over those fine eyes, the honey-blond hair tumbling across his chest, the softness of her cheek against his skin.
And then he too went to sleep, wondering about the miracle in his arms.
Or a dream to disappear in the bright light and reality of day.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Lori woke up in Morgan’s arms. Light was streaming through the window, and she wondered what time it was. Her body was stiff and sore, and she started to move, then stopped. He needed all the rest he could get. So she concentrated on watching his face.
She had never seen it at rest before. The severity was gone. The harshness. Long dark lashes covered those dark-blue eyes, which were always so watchful. She longed to touch that face. He’d been so gentle last night, so careful not to hurt her.
But he’d not said anything about love. And why should he? She had shot him, run from him, mistrusted him, and finally nearly gotten him killed.
His eyes flickered open, and he smiled at her lazily. “Hummm, you feel good,” he said.
“So do you,” she said.
He smiled wryly and stretched, groaning a little as his bruises made themselves known. “I might feel good to you, but not to myself. I don’t think …” He stopped suddenly.
Lori did what she’d been wanting to do since she woke. She touched his mouth, traced the hollow of his cheek, feeling the rough beard stubble. “Don’t think …?” she prompted.
But he set his jaw stubbornly as his hand felt his own cheek, and he winced. “I must look like the devil.”
She grinned. “You do.”
His eyes were still sleepy, lids half covering a deep, rich, amused blue. He shook his head. “It’s unfair. You’re still so damn pretty.”
Lori felt anything but. She knew her face must still be swollen. Her hair was a mass of uncombed curls, and her clothes … well, less considered the better. She stretched out against him, not wanting to lose that contact, that intimacy.
He moved away quickly, but not before she felt his response to her body. He sat and pulled on the shirt he’d been wearing. She barely remembered he’d taken his bedroll into another room last night.
“I’m going to get a shave and a bath,” he said. “I’ll have some water sent up for you. And then we’d better get you back to your family before your brother appears with a shotgun.”
Stunned by his abruptness, she just nodded, swallowing hard against disappointment, emptiness. He stood there a moment, his eyes shadowed, dark, wary again, and then he opened the door and left.
It was one of the hardest things he had ever done, leaving her this morning, and he wasn’t sure whom he was doing it for—Lori or himself.
He looked over at her. She was silent as she rode next to him. She had been silent since he’d returned to the hotel room, bringing coffee with him from downstairs. He’d also managed to scavenge some bread and meat.
Morgan had found a barber and a bathhouse and had indulged in both, letting the heat drain some of the soreness from his body. But it couldn’t drain the other pain. The pain of wanting something so much he couldn’t think around it. He had wanted her so damn bad this morning, but the specter of Nick kept interfering. And his badge. He had caused her enough grief and injury already. Even if she still cared for him after knowing about Nick, could she ever be happy as a Ranger’s wife? He was gone three quarters of the year, sometimes more. And she’d made it clear more than once she had little use for lawmen.
Morgan kept trying to tell himself it was only the extraordinary circumstances that had her believing she loved him. He had to give her time to discover that. No matter how damn much it hurt now.
He tried to shake the thought from his mind, to discipline his thoughts as he had so many times before. His hand reached into his pocket and found the object he’d just purchased at the general store. It probably wouldn’t even be appreciated, and it had taken a goodly portion of what little money he had left. They still had a long way to go to El Paso, though once in Texas he could stop at a Ranger station and wrangle some additional funds.
Lori glanced at him. She had directions to the camp. “I think we turn here,” she said, and Morgan saw her biting her lip as if to keep from saying more. He wanted to reassure her, God, how he wanted to do that. He wanted to reach out and just touch her, damn it. But he knew if he did that, he would d
o more. He would say things he had no right to say. Not now.
So he just nodded, turning Damien along with her mare. Christ, it was going to be a long trip to Texas if she went with them. Even now, he throbbed with an all-too familiar need for her. If there was some way to … prevent it, but after the last few weeks he doubted any effort on his part would keep her from accompanying them. He’d never met a woman with so much damn determination, so much grit. Any other woman would be swooning in bed for weeks after what she’d suffered last night with Whitey.
A brightly painted wagon soon became visible through some trees. Lori prompted her mare into a gallop, and Morgan followed behind, watching as she came to a stop and dismounted, taking quick steps to a striking looking woman standing next to a fire with Jonathon Braden. Morgan stopped, watching as she hugged the woman and then Jonathon, and feeling like the outsider he’d always been.
Suddenly, Nick appeared on foot next to him, his face inscrutable as it had been the first days of his capture, before the simmering anger and hostility had taken over. But something was different about him, perhaps in the very controlled rigidity of his features.
“We need to talk,” he said, and his voice was strained. Tense.
Morgan nodded and dismounted, tying Damien to a sturdy scrub. He found himself falling in step with Nick, allowing him to lead them away from the camp to the banks of a river. Cottonwoods and pines crowded the bank, and Nick found one, leaning against it as Morgan had so many times as he’d watched Nick and Lori. Now Nick studied him with an intensity that told him Nick knew, or suspected, they might be brothers.
Daniel!
Nick suddenly turned away, picked up a stone, and skipped it across the water, watching the circle form and then fade away. “I feel like that circle,” he said suddenly. “There and then not there.” He turned to Morgan, and his eyes were no longer inscrutable. They were filled with a kind of pain Morgan knew he couldn’t understand. But he felt it. Just as he had felt so many other things with Nick. A stabbing loneliness, bewilderment that the world Nick knew had been turned inside out.