by Mary McBride
“Give her another little taste,” Shooter said, leaning across Honey toward Gideon, reaching for the jug unsuccessfully, then letting his empty hand fall in Honey’s lap.
Gideon passed the crock to Charlie Buck on his right, then turned slowly back. His eyes were dark as the night sky, glittering with anger rather than stars. “If you want to keep that hand, boy, you get it off my woman. Now.”
Shooter glanced down at his errant hand, surprised, as if it had landed in Honey’s lap all by itself. He giggled nervously, lifting it from the folds of her skirt and wiping the palm along his pant leg. The boy drawled a long curse, then he rose unsteadily to his feet and made his way to the opposite side of the fire where he folded his legs and clamped his wayward hands under his armpits.
It seemed to Honey that she could almost hear an audible sigh of relief rise from the two Mexicans and the half-breed. Her own subsequent sigh was more of a chuff because just then Gideon leaned back against a rock and hauled her roughly onto his lap.
“What are you—”
“Be still,” he hissed at her ear as his arms clamped even more tightly around her.
From across the campfire, Shooter glared at them and muttered a string of spit-drenched curses until Dwight shot his elbow into the boy’s ribs. “Stealing from banks is one thing, boy,” the bearded outlaw said, “but you gotta learn right quick not to trespass in matters of the heart else you’re gonna find yourself with a fist in your face or a bullet in your brain.” His dark eyes met Gideon’s. “Ain’t that right, Gid?”
A pine log popped in the fire, sending a shower of sparks high against the dark sky. Honey could feel every muscle in Gideon’s body grow taut and then slowly release before he replied.
“That’s real sound advice, cousin. I hope your young friend there decides to take it.”
No one spoke. Not even Shooter. The men all stared into the flames uneasily. The tension was wire-tight until Dwight leaned back on one elbow, took a long swig from the jug, then slapped his knee and hooted.
“Damn but you always had you a way with women, Gid. Hell, I remember that time when Frank and I took you to that fancy house in Fort Smith. What were you then? Fourteen? Fifteen?”
From her perch on his lap, Honey felt Gideon shift his seat on the ground.
“I don’t think that’s such a good story, Dwight,” he said, “considering the company.”
Considering her virgin ears, Honey thought. Too useless to do anything and now too innocent to hear anything. Her curiosity and the mescal she’d swallowed combined to get the better of her. “The company doesn’t mind,” she said. “Tell us what happened in Fort Smith, Dwight.”
At her back she heard Gideon utter something between a growl and a sigh of resignation as Dwight leaned forward to begin his tale.
“Well, now, me and my cousin Frank decided it was high time Gideon got acquainted with the fairer sex.” Dwight raised a black eyebrow in Honey’s direction. “I ‘spect you catch my drift, Miss Logan.”
“Indeed I do.” But in spite of her reply, Honey was already regretting having given her permission to proceed with the story. Not only was the topic unseemly, but she found suddenly she didn’t want to hear stories about Gideon with other women. It was difficult enough to tolerate the idea that he had a wife someplace without having to listen to tales of his exploits with other women. The ones, as his cousin had so aptly put it, Gideon “had a way with.”
“Frank and me, we pretty near had to hog-tie Gid to get him through the front door of Miss Lizzy Dolan’s fancy house. The boy was shaking like a willow in a windstorm.” Dwight laughed. “You remember that, Gid?”
The reply was a terse and guttural “yup.”
“Well, we slapped a five-dollar gold piece in his quivering young hand and told him to choose a sweet young thing and take her on up the stairs, but before he had a chance, Miss Lizzy herself took young Gideon by the hand and led him up the staircase.”
The bearded outlaw paused to let out a long sigh. “That Lizzy. She was a redhead with the milkiest, whitest skin I ever did see. Woman had a body that would drive a preacher right out of his pulpit.” He lifted his hands to his chest, curving them. “She had these...”
Shooter’s eyes had widened perceptibly and the boy’s mouth gaped as he listened. Honey thought perhaps her own expression mirrored his.
“They get the picture, Dwight,” Gideon said, angling his head toward Honey to remind the outlaw of her presence.
Dwight snorted. “Yeah. Okay. Where was I? Well, there they went upstairs, redheaded Lizzy and shaky-kneed Gid. Frank and me, we sat downstairs and waited. And we waited. We sat there with our hats on our knees half the damn night till Frank finally sent one of the girls upstairs to inquire. Miss Lizzy sent her right back, saying young Gideon would be along in a day or so. Said we oughta just make ourselves right comfortable till then.” He snorted again and chuckled. “Hell, we got so comfortable, Frank and me, we robbed two trains and a savings and loan while we waited for Lizzy to let that boy come on back downstairs.”
The two Mexicans laughed quietly, whispered to each other in Spanish and nodded approvingly in Gideon’s direction.
Shooter glowered. “Hell, I don’t know why anybody’d want to spend his time with a damn whore when he could be out robbing a train. Don’t make no sense to me.”
It made complete sense to Honey, even though she had only the most vague and hazy notions of what might have been taking place upstairs in that fancy house in Fort Smith. The whole time Dwight had been speaking, Gideon’s fingers had been drifting up and down her arm, a feathering touch that stood her nerves on end.
She had tipped her head back onto his shoulder, angling her gaze in the hope of seeing one of his slow smiles, only to witness a faraway look in Gideon’s eyes as he listened to his cousin. It was that distant expression, Honey thought, that bothered her more than anything. Because he was touching her, here and now, and all the while his fingertips were bringing all of her senses to life, he was apparently reveling in the memory of some alabaster-skinned, redheaded madam in Fort Smith.
Shooter continued to scowl and to spit his protest. “I’d sure as hell rather be sticking up a train than sticking—”
“Shut up, kid,” the half-breed, Charlie Buck, warned him abruptly.
Suddenly Honey became aware of the eyes that had stopped staring into the flames and were staring now at her. Dwight Samuel’s eyes glittered above the dark mat of his beard, and the scar that sliced across his cheek glowed menacingly in the firelight. The Mexicans were staring at her, too, while they exchanged low, sibilant whispers.
In addition, Honey became intensely aware of the rise and fall of Gideon’s chest against her back, the hard tension in his thighs, the coiled power in his arms. She counted his heartbeats through her shoulder blade, his warm, even breaths on the side of her neck. And, even though she couldn’t see it, Honey could feel the chill of his gaze as it connected with each pair of eyes around the campfire.
Then Gideon’s hand moved—slowly—sinuously—sliding from her arm to her rib cage, then up, coming to rest just underneath one breast.
From the other side of the fire, Shooter’s eyes opened wide and burned hot as they followed the progress of Gideon’s slow hand. The other men’s gazes were dark and shuttered. Dwight Samuel’s mouth twitched in the black depths of his beard.
“Don’t s’pose you’re willing to share, are you, cousin?” the outlaw asked.
Honey, already barely breathing, held what wisps remained of her breath as Gideon slowly moved his hand higher. His warm fingers splayed out, one at a time it seemed to Honey and in slow, slow motion, until he engulfed her. Then, while the five men stared, Gideon grazed his thumb blatantly back and forth across her nipple. “Nope,” he said. The word was a low rumble in his throat.
The campfire crackled and shot sparks toward the night sky. For a long moment—one of the longest in Honey’s whole life—no one said a word. No one blinked. The ent
ire world, it seemed, and all of the eyes in it, focused on Gideon’s hand as it laid public claim to Honey’s breast.
At last Dwight coughed, slapping his hand on his knee. “Can’t blame a man for askin’” he said with a shrug, then he tipped the jug of mescal and took a long drink before he passed the liquor to Shooter. “Here, boy. You drink enough of this and pretty soon you won’t even know what a woman is, much less what one is for.”
The highly charged atmosphere around the campfire seemed to dissipate following Dwight’s remark. Valez and Cordera leaned back on their elbows, extending their boots to the fire. Shooter dug his head into his shoulder, ignoring everything but the jug of mescal. The night air itself seemed to grow cooler then, and Honey shivered beneath Gideon’s hand. He slid both hands around her waist, then lifted her to her feet.
“We’re going up the hill now,” he said, unwinding his long legs and rising. His gaze circled the campfire, pausing briefly on each man. He touched his gun briefly before he rubbed the flat of his hand over his belly. “See you gents in the morning.”
* * *
As Honey climbed the hill, away from the firelight and into the darkness, she was bewildered by her behavior. It wasn’t like her to keep silent when threatened, and yet she hadn’t said a word when those outlaws had ravaged her with their eyes, had regarded her with the same hungry intensity as five coyotes coming upon a defenseless doe. She had sat there—on Gideon’s lap, in the warm curl of his arms—and allowed him to be her savior, her protector. And she had allowed it, not simply because it was the sensible thing to do under the circumstances, but because she wanted his protection. Despite the danger of the situation, in Gideon’s arms Honey had felt more secure than ever before in her life.
His display had been a ruse, of course, meant to warn the outlaws to keep away from her. Yet Honey found herself wishing it were real. Ruse or not, his touch had set up a tingling in her nerves and had warmed her blood to the boiling point. If Gideon had only touched her to proclaim himself undisputed king of the goats, she decided, then she wanted to be queen.
His hand was warm on the small of her back now as he guided her up the hill, and when they reached the entrance to the mine there was only moonlight.
Gideon kept his hand on her back as he said, “You’ll be safe tonight. Nobody will bother you, bright eyes.”
Honey lifted her face to his. In the moonlight Gideon’s eyes were silver. Silver and soft and beguiling.
“Nobody?” she whispered.
Chapter Thirteen
Gideon couldn’t resist. He didn’t know how any man with any blood at all in his veins could have, though he damned himself anyway as he lowered his mouth to Miss Honey Logan’s inviting lips. She was soft and warm, sweet as her name. “Honey,” he breathed against her lips. She melted beneath his kiss, and a tiny, breathless moan escaped her. And when he circled her with his arms she felt boneless as a rag doll. But warm. So warm.
His head was swirling with the faint taste of mescal on her tongue and the fragrance of her hair. He’d spent the last few gut-chilling moments at the campfire proclaiming his right to this woman in order to keep Dwight and his randy cutthroats at bay. The woman had been his, all his, for all of them to see. And for a brief moment back there, as he was touching her, Gideon had believed it, too.
But she wasn’t his. Even as he drank from her sweet, deep mouth, he knew she wasn’t his. Maybe if she were still Edwina Cassidy, still just a simple bank teller. Maybe if her prospects were slim, if life were going to offer her nothing beyond hard work. If she were still his Ed. But she was Honey Logan, the daughter of one of the richest men in the territory. That meant her life held promises that Gideon Summerfield couldn’t keep.
He dragged his lips from hers, breathing hard as he held her soft, yielding body against his. If he had been a religious man, he would have been praying. For strength. For oblivion. For an end to his torture.
Honey was breathing hard as well. Her arms clung tightly around his waist, then tighter still until Gideon winced. Suddenly remembering his wound, Honey let go and took a small step back.
“I’m so sorry, Gideon. Did I hurt you?”
He drew in a slow breath, let it out even more slowly. “You didn’t. I’m fine.”
“Good,” she said, not totally convinced as she studied his face in the moonlight. If it wasn’t pain she saw in his expression, then what was it? Disappointment, perhaps? Or guilt? Married men, after all, weren’t supposed to be going around kissing other women. And she had invited his kiss just then. There was no doubt about that.
“It was my fault,” she said. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Ed,” he snapped, interrupting her, “it was nobody’s damn fault. It was a kiss.”
“Yes, but I shouldn’t have...”
Gideon lowered himself to the blanket, pulling her along with him. “You didn’t do anything you have to be ashamed of. And we’re not going to do it again, so just stop talking about it. All right?” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “Hell,” he said gruffly, “it didn’t mean anything anyway.”
“It meant something to me,” she said softly. “You mean something to me, Gideon.”
He stared up at the bright disk of the moon, so bright it diminished the stars.
Honey continued, her voice very low, hardly more than a whisper as she watched Gideon’s stern profile, edged by the soft light of the moon. “I know it’s wrong. I know I shouldn’t have feelings for a married man.” Her voice wavered. “But I do. Lord help me, I do.”
Gideon didn’t answer immediately. Lord help me, he thought as he gazed on high. “I’m not married,” he said at last.
“But Cora—”
“Is dead,” he said, cutting her off. “She took a fever a while back. In Texas. Dwight buried her. He buried my son, too.”
Honey rested her cheek against his shoulder. “Oh, Gideon, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. Don’t waste your sympathy on a whore who ran out on her man.”
“I wasn’t,” she said. “It’s you I’m sorry for, Gideon Summerfield. Sorry that you’ve had to lose so much. You deserve better. More.”
“You think so, bright eyes?” he murmured, unable to look into those bright, sea-colored orbs right now. They’d be shimmering like moonlight on a midnight sea. They’d make him forget who he was and what he had to do.
“I know so,” she answered softly.
It should have been so easy, he thought. This, after all, was what every man wanted—a woman, a mate who believed in him, in whose warm and misty eyes he could see himself as good and strong and even deserving of life’s best. It would have been so easy to turn then, to fit his arms around her fragile shoulders and tilt her head just so for his kiss, to adjust her body beneath his for his need. So easy. And so damn wrong.
For if Honey Logan believed he deserved more, he believed the same about her. She deserved more than he could ever offer her. His desires for her happiness and well-being far outweighed the physical desire he was feeling now. Bleakly, Gideon wondered if that was love. If it was, he thought, it was a fine joke on him. Having spent all his adult years believing the emotion was beyond him, to feel it now for a woman he couldn’t have was the darkest, grimmest joke he could imagine.
“Go to sleep, Honey,” he said, a bit more gruffly than he had intended.
“But I...”
The strain in his voice was evident now. “Just go to sleep.”
Honey curled up beside him on the blanket. Judging from his voice, she thought his side was probably bothering him more than he wanted to let on. She was tired, too, and wrung out from the tense situation around the campfire. But tired as she was, her mind couldn’t let go of what Gideon had just told her. Cora was dead. He wasn’t married anymore. He was free. Well, in a manner of speaking.
He was still a bank robber on the run. So, in fact, was she. But there had to be a way to solve that problem. Honey drifted into sleep, trying to figure it out.
/> “I just don’t understand him, Mama,” Zack Logan grumbled as he sat at the dining room table finishing his breakfast. “Or maybe I do. Maybe all those stories about Papa are nothing more than a lot of hot air.”
With two of her three youngest sons fed and dressed and sent off to school, Kate reclaimed her seat at the foot of the table. “Pass me the butter, please, Zack,” she said briskly. “And quit dawdling. You’re already late for school.” And don’t press this subject, she was thinking. Please.
The boy slid the covered dish in her direction. “My sister’s run off somewhere in the company of a thief. God only knows what’s happening to her, and Daddy’s acting like everything’s right and dandy with the world.”
Kate buttered her toast with deliberation. “Your daddy’s first concern right now is Isaac,” she said. She lifted her gaze to meet her son’s. “You might express a little more concern for the man whose name you bear, Zack. Seems to me you’ve hardly been in to see Uncle Isaac more than two or three times since he took ill.”
The boy slumped in his chair, fidgeting with his spoon. “I can’t stand seeing him that way. And anyway, Uncle Isaac doesn’t even know whether I’ve been in to see him once or two hundred times.”
“You don’t know that for certain,” Kate said, glad that she was still the only one who had guessed the true nature of the wily old man’s condition. “At any rate, your father believes his place is here with Isaac now.” She sighed before adding, “And I agree.”
“My father,” Zack snarled, “ought to be out hunting down that outlaw and getting Honey back, instead of wringing his hands and keeping watch in a sickroom like...like some old woman.”
Kate’s knife met the edge of her plate with a resounding clack. “And you, young man, ought to watch your tongue. I won’t stand for it.”
“But, Mama, he’s—”
“That’s enough, Zack. Leave the table now, please. If you’d like to stop in to say good-morning to your Uncle Isaac before you leave for school, I’d appreciate it and I’m sure he would, too. Otherwise, just go on.”
