RenegadeHeart

by Madeline Baker

  As promised, he took over the domestic chores and Rachel saw a side of him she had never dreamed existed. He waited on her as if she were a princess. He cooked her meals, changed the linen on her bed, laundered her clothing, including her underwear and stockings, changed the bandage on her ankle, swept the floors, and washed the dishes.

  Some nights he rubbed her back, his hands gently kneading her shoulders and back and neck. She reveled in the touch of his hands, warm and soothing through the material of her nightgown. Other nights he brushed her hair until it glistened like spun gold. His nearness thrilled her, filling her with excited tremors as he drew the brush through her hair, his breath warm upon her neck. Sometimes she wished he would take her in his arms and kiss her, but he never did.

  Each morning there was a gift on her bedside table when she woke up: a bouquet of brightly colored flowers, a book of poetry, a box of candy, a bottle of fragrant perfume. When she tried to thank Tyree for his thoughtful gestures, he denied having anything to do with the gifts.

  “Where did all these things come from then?” Rachel asked. “There’s no one in the house except you and me.”

  But Tyree just shrugged. “Maybe you’ve got a secret admirer,” he suggested, and refused to discuss the matter further.

  One afternoon, he surprised her by carrying her outside and serving her an elaborate lunch under the shade of the old oak tree that grew alongside the house. Another time he served dinner on a blanket spread in front of the fireplace.

  Rachel looked at Tyree through eyes filled with wonder, unable to believe that this was the same man who had cold-bloodedly gunned down Job Walsh, the same man who had been willing to steal her virginity to humor six Apache warriors. She remembered how, when he had first arrived at the Lazy H, he had refused to do any work at all. He wouldn’t mend a fence or help with the cattle. Still wouldn’t, Rachel thought, confused. And yet he didn’t seem to mind playing nursemaid for her and that was really odd, because most men, especially a man as virile and untamed as Tyree, would have handled housework awkwardly at best. Even Clint, who was a gentleman through and through, was self-conscious around ailing women, and totally out of his element where even the simplest domestic chores were concerned.

  But what surprised Rachel the most about Tyree was the fact that he made no advances toward her and she could not help wondering if, deep down, some latent sense of chivalry prevented him from taking advantage of her while she was unable to defend herself.

  She recalled how, late one night, they had talked to each other, really talked to each for, without malice or sarcasm. She had hoped to learn something about Tyree that would unlock the mystery of his past, but he had adroitly sidestepped all her questions. Looking back, Rachel could not remember how they got on the subject, but before she quite knew what was happening, she was telling Tyree of her hopes and dreams, how she longed to marry and raise a big family. Strong boys and beautiful, accomplished girls who would marry and raise families of their own, children who would subdue the land and bring civilization to the wilderness.

  “It’s all I’ve ever really wanted,” Rachel had admitted shyly. “To be a wife and a mother, to have what my parents had before my mother died. But what about you, Tyree? What do you want out of life?”

  Tyree had stared into the fireplace, his eyes intent on the dancing flames, his brow furrowed and thoughtful. Slowly, he shook his head. “I don’t have any dreams,” he had said quietly. “Not anymore.”

  Rachel had stared at him, bemused. No dreams? How could anyone, man of woman, live without dreams or hopes for the future? She thought about the Lazy H. If not for the hopes and dreams of her father and mother, the ranch would still be an empty stretch of uncultivated ground, untouched and unloved.

  “Surely there must be something you want out of life?” Rachel had insisted. “Some goal that sustains you, some vision of the future that gives you hope and a reason for living?” She shook her head, not understanding. “Some dream to strive for?”

  “Dreams are for fools,” Tyree had retorted bitterly. “Or for the very young.” He had been that young once, he thought, not wanting to remember. Red Leaf had been his dream, his hope for the future.

  “Dreams are not for fools!” Rachel had exclaimed. “My father is neither a fool nor a child, but he still dreams of the day when the Halloran name will stand for something in this part of the country.”

  Tyree’s grin was melancholy as he muttered, “Sometimes I think I’m older than you and your old man put together. Hell, the best thing a man in my line of work can hope for is to grow a little older every day.”

  Rachel had wanted to argue with him further. Somehow, it had seemed important to make Tyree fight back, to make him admit that somewhere under that practical, hardheaded exterior there lurked a vision for the future.

  But she never got the chance to probe further, for Tyree suddenly picked her up and carried her, protesting, to her room, putting an abrupt end to their conversation.

  Rachel had stayed awake a long time that night, thoughts of Tyree crowding her mind. He was such a strange man. Not that she was an expert on men by any means. Far from that. But even in her limited experience with the opposite sex, she had learned that most men retained a boyish quality deep down inside. Her best friend’s father loved practical jokes. Candido loved to wrestle or play tug-of-war. Even her own father was still a boy at heart. But there were no boyish qualities in the man known as Logan Tyree and she wondered if he had ever played or danced or sung, or laughed out loud just because he was glad to be alive.

  Carefully, she slid out of bed and hobbled to the window overlooking the front yard. As she had suspected, Tyree was there, pacing up and down, a cigar clamped between his teeth. What did he think about as he walked restlessly back and forth? What was there in his past that weighed him down so heavily?

  She watched Tyree until her eyelids grew heavy and she went back to bed to sleep, and dream of a tall, dark man with brooding amber eyes and a cynical grin.

  Rachel had been in bed a little over a week when her best friend, Carol Ann McKee, came to call. Carol Ann was a pretty girl with curly auburn hair, mild brown eyes, a quick smile, and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her turned-up nose. They had been close friends ever since Carol Ann’s family moved to Yellow Creek eleven years ago.

  The minute their hellos were over, Carol Ann dragged a chair close to the bed and blurted, with very real concern, “Rachel, my dear girl, how can you stay in this house alone with that dreadful man?”

  “What dreadful man?” Rachel asked, forgetting that she, too, had once thought of Tyree as some kind of ogre.

  “Why, Logan Tyree, of course. I insist you come and stay with me until your ankle is better.”

  “Carol Ann, I’m fine.”

  “Don’t you know who he is?” Carol Ann asked in a hushed voice. “What he is?”

  “Of course I know. But he’s all right. Really. He’s taking very good care of me.”

  Carol Ann looked doubtful. She had heard stories about Logan Tyree, about the men he had killed, the women he had abused. She had been in the crowd the day he had winged Brockton. People were still talking about that. Brockton hadn’t been very well liked, but he had been a resident of Yellow Creek, and the townspeople didn’t take kindly to strangers riding in and taking shots at the local citizens. For all that, no one had been sorry when Brockton left town.

  “Carol Ann, I’m fine. Really,” Rachel insisted. “He cooks for me and everything. Even cleans the house.”

  “He cooks!” Carol Ann exclaimed, practically choking on the words. “And cleans house? Mercy,” she laughed. “Who would believe it?”

  “Well, it’s true, though I wouldn’t spread it around town if I were you. But he can be very nice when it suits him.”

  “He doesn’t look nice to me. In fact, he scares me to death. He hasn’t tried to…you know?”

  “No,” Rachel answered firmly. “He hasn’t.”

  �
��Well, personally, I’d be afraid to be in the same room with him,” Carol Ann said, shivering at the mere thought. “He has the coldest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

  Everything Carol Ann had said about Tyree was true, Rachel mused when she was alone again. Tyree didn’t look very nice. And he did have cold eyes. But he continued to treat her as if she were made of glass.

  She was almost sorry when the doctor pronounced her well enough to get out of bed.

  Chapter Eight

  The list in Rachel’s hand grew longer and longer as she went from cupboard to cupboard, absently jotting down the things she needed from the store in town: sugar, salt, flour, pepper, a case of peaches, some hard candy for her father, a horn of cheese, a bolt of cotton cloth, thread, dried apples, coffee. She added other items as they occurred to her, yet all the while it was Logan Tyree who filled her thoughts.

  More and more he was on her mind. Why was he a gunfighter? What events in his past had shaped him into the kind of man he was now? What an enigma he was, changeable as the wind. Now cold as ice, now considerate and kind. She wondered if he had ever been head-over-heels in love with a woman, or tasted the bitter tears of sorrow.

  Nights, while she waited for sleep to come, his swarthy face danced before her eyes: the mouth cynical, the eyes cold, almost cruel. It was a strong face, one that revealed little warmth, little emotion. There seemed to be no softness in him, no place for tenderness or compassion. And yet she knew that to be untrue, for he displayed infinite patience with the gray mustang, and he had certainly been considerate of her own wants and needs during her recent convalescence.

  Rachel grinned as she thought of the gray stud. Her father had ordered the horse put down as soon as he learned about Candido’s broken leg, declaring he would not have a rank stallion on the place, but Tyree had asked if he could work with the bronc for a few days, and her father had reluctantly agreed.

  Rachel had spent several hours watching Tyree work with the wild stallion. He was a beautiful horse. Predominantly gray in color, with three black stockings, a black mane and tail, and the spotted hindquarters that denoted Appaloosa blood.

  While admiring the stud, Rachel could not help but notice that, in his own way, Logan Tyree was also a beautiful animal. He often worked without a shirt, exposing skin as brown as an Apache’s, and powerful muscles that rippled in the sunlight. The sight of his naked torso did peculiar things to the pit of her stomach. Sometimes, watching Tyree, she suddenly felt warm all over. So many muscles, she mused and could not help remembering the unyielding strength of his arms around her the night of her father’s birthday party. Occasionally, as now, she thought how nice it would be to feel those arms around her again. Sometimes she could not help wondering what it would have been like if she had surrendered to the longing in his eyes.

  Tyree and the stud—they drew her eyes like a magnet, making her heart pound and her blood race. They were a perfect match, both headstrong and wild, both wary and distrustful of people. But, little by little, the man was winning the mustang’s trust and affection.

  In the days that followed, Tyree discarded the harsh curb bit in favor of a light hackamore, and Rachel noticed that he never wore spurs when working the stallion. Tyree seemed blessed with endless patience, never raising his voice, never striking out at the horse when it failed to respond, never resorting to force or fear.

  Rachel watched, fascinated, as Tyree taught the gray to rein right and left, to slide stop, to back on cue, to break into a full gallop from a standing start, patiently coaxing the skittish stallion to respond to hand and heel and voice. And always he spoke to the horse in that strange, soft tongue.

  Once the gray had learned the basics, Tyree taught the horse to go to its knees on command, to come at his call, to cut a cow from a herd, to stand ground-tied for as long as necessary.

  It was hard to believe that a drifting gunslinger could succeed with the horse where a top hand like Candido had failed, but it was true, nonetheless. Within a matter of weeks, Tyree had turned a rank bronc into a well-mannered saddle horse that anyone on the ranch could ride, though Rachel thought the gray worked a little better and stepped a little higher when Tyree was in the saddle.

  Scowling, Rachel pushed Tyree from her mind and settled her thoughts on Clint Wesley. Almost as tall and broad as Tyree, Clint reminded Rachel of the prince in a fairy tale, with his sun-bleached blond hair and mild blue eyes. Clint’s mouth was wide and honest and never curled down in that mocking way that Tyree’s did. His face was open and honest, hiding nothing, not an impassive façade that shut out his thoughts and kept the world at bay.

  Going to her room, Rachel stood before the mirror, brushing her hair until it was soft and shimmering. Tying the heavy golden mass away from her face with a crisp white linen ribbon, she slipped out of her work garb and donned a light blue cotton dress that had a scoop neck and short sleeves. It was Clint’s favorite, and if luck was with her, she just might run into him while shopping in town.

  She was humming softly as she skipped down to the barn. Her father was waiting for her there.

  “Mornin’, Pa,” Rachel said cheerfully.

  “Mornin’, daughter.”

  “Isn’t it a lovely day?”

  “Yeah, lovely,” Halloran replied absently. “Listen, Rachel, I don’t want you driving into town alone this morning.”

  “Why not?”

  “I saw smoke in the hills awhile ago. Could be nothing. Could be the ‘Paches are on the prod again.”

  Apaches! Rachel’s face paled a trifle as she recalled her last encounter with Indians. Perhaps she shouldn’t go into town after all.

  “You can take Tyree with you,” Halloran decided. “You’ll be safe with him.”

  “Tyree!” Rachel wailed in dismay. “Can’t I take Candido? Or Cahill?”

  “No. Tyree’s the only man on the place who isn’t doing anything just now.”

  “He hasn’t done anything in weeks,” Rachel pointed out sourly. “Why is he still hanging around here anyway? We could hire two wranglers for what it’s costing us to keep him here.”

  “Rachel—”

  “All right, Pa, I’m sorry. Where is he? I’m ready to go.”

  “Right here,” Tyree said, materializing out of the barn’s shadowy interior. “Nice to know you’re so happy to have me along.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “Want me to drive?”

  “I can do it,” Rachel said curtly, and scrambled into the buggy.

  “Suit yourself,” Tyree drawled, unperturbed by her obvious annoyance. Climbing into the buggy, he stretched his long legs out in front of him and hooked his thumbs in his gunbelt.

  They drove in silence for several miles. Tyree seemed totally relaxed and at ease, and yet Rachel could not help feeling that he was aware of every rock and tree and rabbit they passed. Glancing his way, she noticed his eyes were continually moving over the countryside and she supposed, correctly, that it was his constant awareness of everything around him that had kept him alive so long.

  “You gonna marry that badge-toter?” Tyree asked after awhile.

  “Maybe.”

  “Has he asked you yet?”

  “No.”

  “He will. He looks at you like a love-sick bull calf.”

  “He’s a fine man!” Rachel cried defensively. “And I’d be proud to be his wife. He’s kind and honest and loyal, and not just a…a—”

  “No-good saddle tramp like me?”

  “That’s not what I was going to say,” Rachel replied sullenly.

  “It’s exactly what you wanted to say,” Tyree said with a grin. “Wesley’s the knight in shining armor and I’m the dragon.”

  “Oh? And what does that make me? The wicked witch?”

  “Of course not,” Tyree said smoothly. “You’re the beautiful princess.”

  “Oh, good!” Rachel exclaimed enthusiastically. “That means I get to marry the handsome knight.”

  “Not in my fairy tale,” Ty
ree objected gruffly.

  “How does your story end?” Rachel asked, wondering why it was suddenly so hard to speak.

  “The dragon slays the handsome knight and carries the princess off to his lair in the mountains.”

  Grimacing, Rachel said, “I think I like happy endings better.”

  “My ending is happy.”

  “Yes, but only for the dragon.”

  Tyree’s hard amber eyes pierced Rachel’s like twin daggers. “Maybe for the princess, too.”

  “I doubt it. There can be happiness only when like marries like.”

  “How do you know we’re not alike?”

  Tyree’s soft reply sent shivers down Rachel’s spine. Flustered, she stammered, “Because…because I…we could never—” Unable to think of a suitable answer, she stared ahead at the road. Her stomach was doing crazy flip-flops, and her mouth was dry as dust. Imagine, being married to Tyree… She sighed with relief as the town came into view, but her hands were still shaking minutes later when she drew the team to a halt at the General Store. She hopped out of the buggy before Tyree could assist her.

  Tyree followed Rachel into Thorngood’s where he stood against one wall, arms folded across his chest like a cigar store Indian while Rachel made her purchases. Rachel willed him to go away and let her shop in peace, but he seemed quite content just to stand there, watching her, like a cat at a mouse hole.

  The other customers in the store made a wide berth around Tyree. His reputation was well-known, and his shootout with Brockton was still being talked about from one end of town to the other. Rufus Thorngood kept a wary eye on Tyree, as if he feared the gunman might draw his weapon and rob the cashbox. Rachel’s smile was weak as she thanked the Thorngoods and stepped outside, Tyree close on her heels. They were standing at the buggy, waiting for their supplies to be loaded, when Clint Wesley joined them. Tyree frowned. The marshal looked properly official in black Levi’s, crisp white shirt, and shiny tin star.