Texas Love Song

by Jodi Thomas

  She jerked away from him, pulling the blanket around her as she stood. “How dare you!” she screamed as she stumbled backward.

  Sloan plowed his hand into his own hair and tried to get his brain to work. Another few minutes and he would have done what Alyce had talked about. He would have bedded McCall.

  “Alyce!” McCall shouted as she shoved her hair from her eyes. “Bring me a gun!”

  “McCall” Sloan stared at her in shock. She looked like an angry warrior searching for a knife to scalp him. “McCall, I was just…”

  She pulled the blanket closer. “Don’t tell me what you were doing. I’m fully aware of the fact that you were raping me. I plan to kill you and leave your body for the buzzards to feast on. Alyce! The gun!”

  All the words Sloan knew were logjammed in his mind. “I hadn’t planned…I didn’t mean to…I was only doing…”

  “Spare me, sir. I’m no virgin you stumbled across after a battle. I know what you were trying to do.” She looked down. “Where are my clothes? What have you done to me already?” She raised her voice one notch above her hysteria. “Alyce, bring me the gun!”

  Sloan stood. “I thought you were enjoying it as much as I was.”

  McCall was so angry she forgot about the blanket and stormed at him.

  She was so beautiful he forgot to duck.

  The blow almost knocked him down.

  “I told you I’m dead inside. Dead! Do you understand that? What makes you think I’d welcome you on top of me?”

  Sloan rubbed his jaw. “Well, asleep you’re not dead. You may have thought you were dreaming, but you were sure enjoying the dream. You can tell yourself you’re dead all day, but that body responding was very much alive to my every touch.”

  McCall pulled the blanket up. “You touched me!”

  “You know I did.”

  “Where?”

  “Everywhere, just about.” Sloan wasn’t going into detail about where he’d touched her. Not while she was in a killing mood. “You were sick with the fever. I had to bathe you or you would have died.”

  McCall’s voice lowered to a deadly level. “You call fondling me and lying atop me taking care of my fever? Rather odd nursing.”

  Sloan felt an embarrassed flush climbing up his collar. “Well, no. That just happened. Before I was bathing you with a rag to keep you cool and trying to get tea down you. I had to hold you most of the past two nights to keep you warm.” He was so tired he wasn’t even making sense to himself, so he knew he had no hope of convincing her.

  “And why were you touching me just now? To heat me back up?”

  “No, I…”

  “You were what?” she snapped. “Trying to keep me warm with a blanket of your body? Or breathing heat into me with your hot kiss? Or were you sucking on my skin to pull heat from me?”

  “Alyce!” Sloan yelled. “Bring the woman the damn gun so she can shoot me. I’m tired of arguing with her.”

  They both opened their mouths to scream the old woman’s name again, then both suddenly stopped.

  McCall stomped in anger and dropped the blanket as she turned her back to him and began lacing up her camisole. “I’ll get the gun myself. Alyce must have gone deaf. I can have you dead and buried before she answers.”

  “Why turn around?” Sloan figured if he was already sentenced to death there was no harm in asking for a last request. “I’ve already seen you—and felt you rather thoroughly, for that matter. You might as well let me watch you dress now.”

  “I’ll shoot you in the legs and let you watch yourself die.” McCall didn’t turn around. “I’ve never been handled so. I can still feel places where you kissed my body.”

  “What places?”

  McCall shot him a stare that was meant to wound. “Murdering you is too peaceful a way to allow you to die after what you did. You know very well what places.”

  “So you do remember.” At this point he didn’t care if she shot him as long as he could take the memory of her in his arms with him to the afterlife. “Then you must know you were enjoying every touch, every kiss.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “I thought I was dreaming. All I want to recall now is the way you will look bleeding from several bullet holes.”

  “You were loving the way I caressed you,” Sloan teased. “Every time my fingers tightened, you—”

  “I was not.”

  “You were moving against me, begging for more,” he whispered, figuring if he was about to be shot he might as well enjoy the last few minutes of life. “Your nipples got so hard every time my hand—”

  The panful of water flew toward him.

  Sloan ducked.

  “Every time, time and again, as my fingers—”

  McCall’s fist swung.

  Sloan ducked this time and grabbed her around the waist, pulling her against him so she couldn’t swing again.

  “You were so soft,” he whispered against her hair, knowing his words were making her madder. “The softest things I’ve ever felt, or tasted.”

  “And you, sir, are no gentleman to mention such a thing.” She fought to hit or kick him.

  “Things,” he corrected as she struggled. “There were two, as I remember. No woman in all of time could have tasted as good as you did.” He pinned her still against him and whispered, “The feel of you moving against me almost drove me mad.”

  McCall’s words were whispered between clenched teeth. “I hate you with every drop of blood in me.”

  “I thought you couldn’t feel?” he whispered again, so near her ear his cheek brushed hers.

  “I was wrong. I hate you and what you did to me while I was asleep.”

  “You felt the same need I did, McCall. You wanted me to touch you. In your dreaming, you were begging for more. You’re more angry with yourself than me.”

  “No!” she screamed and struggled free of his arms. “I only want you dead and out of my life. I’ve never been so dishonored. If my father or the major were alive, they’d kill you for me.”

  Sloan reached between the wagon wheel’s spokes and pulled his Colt from its holster. “Then shoot me. But I didn’t do anything you didn’t want me to do. And I wasn’t dishonoring you.”

  McCall took the gun and raised it to his chest. As she braced herself for the kick, the sound of footsteps, running fast toward her from somewhere beyond the curtain, reached her ears.

  “Mrs. McCall!” Winter shouted. “Mr. Sloan!”

  Sloan turned and lifted the curtain as Winter fell into the area. McCall lowered the gun to her side so the boy wouldn’t see it.

  “Come quick!” he said between gulps of breaths. “Miss Alyce took us all down to the stream at sunup. When it got light, I saw a full band of Apaches camped not a mile from us.” He stood and held his side. “And they’re dressed for war.”

  Sloan grabbed his coat and tossed it to McCall, then lifted the rifle from the wagon seat.

  As McCall slipped into his coat, he took the Colt from her hand.

  For a second their gazes met. Fiery anger mirrored the spark of passion still in his eyes.

  Slowly her finger moved from the trigger. She whispered, “I’ll kill you later.”

  Eight

  SLOAN CROSSED THE shallow creek bed and slid through the mud behind Winter until they could just see over the far bank. A half mile down, near a bend in the creek, a dozen young braves waited as if for a signal. A few were tending their horses, but most just stood watching the far horizon.

  “They’re breaking camp,” Winter whispered. “I’m the one who spotted them when Miss Alyce told us to wash up this morning.”

  Glancing at the boy, Sloan doubted he’d washed in days, maybe even weeks. His hair was starting to resemble roots growing out of his head, and his face looked as if it had been layered in brown war paint.

  Winter and Sloan watched as the Apache mounted.

  “They’re traveling too light to be hunting,” the boy whispered. “If they were after game, they’
d have a few packhorses for the meat.”

  Nodding, Sloan watched silently.

  “You think they might be tracking that troop of soldiers we saw the other day?”

  “Maybe,” Sloan mumbled. “But if they are, they’re far behind the army and they seem in no hurry. If they were trying to make up time, they’d have left at first light, not full sunup.”

  “Maybe they’re hunting us?” Winter whispered.

  Sloan shook his head. If the Apache had been after the wagons, they’d have taken them by now. There was a chance that the war party hadn’t noticed the wagons, but more than likely a scout had seen them and thought Sloan and his little band were not worth the trouble. To the fearless Apache, two wagons of women and children must seem no more bother than gnats.

  Reminding himself they were past the hundredth parallel and all Indians would be considered hostile by any army, Sloan checked his Colt. This was the land where both soldiers and braves thought of life as cheap and both sides kept score in body count.

  “We going to fight, mister?” Winter’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “I never did have much fondness for Apache. I’ll stand with you to the end.”

  Sloan smiled, knowing the boy was just repeating a phrase he’d heard someone say. “They’re not bothering us,” Sloan whispered. “I see no need to bother them. It’s not worth risking your life.”

  “But we’d fight them if they come?”

  “Not unless we had to,” Sloan corrected. “There’s not much in this world worth fighting for, or dying for. I’ve seen men fight over words and die over which flag flies in a field. In the end, they all thought they were right, and they were all just as dead.”

  Winter looked at Sloan and raised his chin slightly. “When I’m a man I’ll fight for what’s mine. No one will take anything away from me, I’ll have a camp that only a man with a death wish will enter unwelcomed.”

  Sloan nodded once. “You do what you think is right, Winter. That’s the best any man can do. But don’t make a lot of noise about what you’ll do someday. Do what has to be done and be finished with it. Don’t waste any time telling folks what you’re going to do or making tales out of what you did.”

  “I’ll remember that, mister,” Winter promised. “But could you tell me what we are going to do now? If we’re not going to fight and die, I need to get some food. Hunger’s been wrestling my stomach for an hour.”

  Sloan smiled and acted like he didn’t hear the slight crack in the little boy’s voice. “We’re going to crawl back across that creek and get the others. If they do come, we can defend ourselves better back at the wagons.”

  Winter nodded. “I’ll lead them.”

  “And I’ll follow when everything is safe. Until then, I think I’ll stay here. If I should yell out or fire a shot, you make the others run as fast as they can to the wagons and don’t look back.”

  “Mister?”

  “Yes.” Sloan glanced at the boy, already several feet away.

  “I’m glad I didn’t slit your throat when I had the chance.”

  “So am I,” Sloan answered, thinking that he now had one less person who wanted to kill him.

  After several hours, Sloan watched the Apache disappear to the east and guessed that the children were safe. The scouting party might be looking for war, but they seemed willing to leave him alone. If he were guessing, he’d have said they were waiting for something or someone who never showed up. But what, or who, would meet a band of warriors out here in the middle of nowhere?

  He stood and walked slowly back to the wagons.

  When he was within ten feet, Winter appeared at the entrance to their makeshift fort. “Are they gone?”

  “Yes,” Sloan said and noticed the disappointment in the boy’s eyes. “You weren’t looking to fight, were you, son?”

  “No.” Winter kicked at the rocks. “Mrs. McCall just told me that I had to go down to the creek and take a bath if we were safe. I was kind of hoping we were still in a little danger.”

  Sloan laughed. “A bath wouldn’t hurt you much.”

  Winter shot him an angry stare. “It wouldn’t do you any harm either, mister.”

  Sloan looked down at his muddy clothes. The boy was right. He’d been so worried about the Apache he’d forgotten about how much dirt he must have collected crawling around the creek bank. “Tell you what,” he winked at Winter, “you take a bath now, then I’ll leave you on guard here at the wagons while I take one later.”

  Winter smiled. “Agreed.”

  The boy ran off toward the creek as Sloan moved into the light of the campfire. Alyce handed him a cup of coffee, and one of the children gave him a plate of food. He could see McCall moving about in her little space between the wagons, but she didn’t look at him.

  He smiled, thinking how she’d react if he asked if he could sleep beside her again tonight. His shoulders felt tight from waiting for the bullet he’d half expected she’d fire all day. He guessed the only thing keeping her from shooting him was the fact that gunfire might draw more attention than they wanted right now.

  He waited several minutes for her to look in his direction, or come close enough so that he could talk to her, but she never did. Winter returned, his hair dripping The boy looked several shades of brown lighter and his hair was brown, not black as Sloan had thought.

  Winter stationed himself at the entrance to their camp. Crossing his arms, he stared at Sloan. “It’s your turn now. Be sure and take some soap.”

  Sloan wanted nothing more than to curl up on the ground and go to sleep, but he’d told the boy he’d bathe. He guessed Winter cared more about being left in charge than about anyone else’s cleanliness, so Sloan would keep his word.

  Grabbing one of the blankets to use as a towel and his only clean set of clothes, Sloan moved away from the warmth and toward the creek.

  McCall watched him go out of the corner of her eye. She’d made a grand effort to not look at him, but he’d never been out of her line of vision since he’d returned.

  She’d spent the day alternately wishing him dead and worrying about his safety. By now she’d come to the conclusion that she was completely mad. Never had anything upset her so. Her life had always been black or white, right or wrong. Sloan had introduced gray.

  While the children bedded down, McCall lifted the rifle from its resting place on the wagon seat. She’d lived all her life by rules. Rules never broken. Rules never compromised. Infringements never tolerated. The voices of her grandfather, her father, her husband were clear in McCall’s mind. She had to take action.

  Silently, she moved through the darkness to the creek.

  The air was cold against her cheeks. The moon full and bright. Tears bubbled in her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall. She had to complete her mission, no matter how painful. If Sloan had been right…if he hadn’t been raping her…then she had felt something—and McCall had sworn never to feel anything good again.

  She slowed and shoved a stray strand of hair from her eyes. What did it matter? she wondered. Had he attacked her or made her want to live again? One was as bad as the other. If she were alive again, she’d have to feel, and if she felt she’d only be hurt. No one was ever going to hurt her again. She’d already lived her lifetime of hurt, and now all she wanted to do was feel nothing.

  “A good soldier does what’s right without feelings being involved,” she reminded herself aloud.

  As she neared the creek, she saw Sloan standing in waist-deep water. His hands were in his hair, scrubbing. Pale soapsuds haloed his head as McCall raised the rifle.

  The first shot hit the water a foot from Sloan, and he dove backward. A second seemed even closer, as he swam toward a tree that sloped along the shoreline. A third shattered the bark of his hiding place.

  Then silence.

  McCall jerked at the rifle’s handle, but the weapon jammed. Frantically she worked, trying to make the lever shove the next bullet forward. But the darkness and her panicked fingers didn
’t cooperate. Despite all her days with her husband, she’d handled a rifle very little. She could take a handgun apart in the dark, but a rifle had always been a bother, too heavy to hold for long and bruising her shoulder unless she held it just right. Suddenly, she wished she’d taken the time to learn.

  Tears streamed down her face. Frustrated, angry tears that blurred her vision.

  A twig snapped behind her and she heard the loose, rocky ground being scuffed.

  McCall turned, preparing to face an angry Sloan. She’d use the rifle as a club if she had to.

  But before her eyes could focus on the form behind her, a fist slammed into her cheek, shattering the silence with its impact and sending stars across her brain. The useless rifle fell away as she closed her arms around her face for protection.

  Another blow struck with no more warning than the first. McCall tumbled into the grass and rolled along the incline leading to the creek. As she rolled she could hear someone storming toward her, grabbing at her clothes, trying to pull her back.

  She shoved herself further, fighting away from each grasp.

  A low voice swore as huge hands grabbed her by the throat and stopped her flight.

  “I’ll teach you to shoot at me!” he yelled as the shadow jerked her to him and raised his hand in anger once more.

  McCall screamed and jerked with all her power away from the hand that swung toward her.

  His fist grazed her cheek, missing its mark by a fraction of an inch. He twisted his hand around the material of her blouse, ripping the buttons and seams as he pulled.

  “Stand still and take it!” he grumbled. “I’ll show you what I do to trash who try to kill me! You’ll be wishing you were dead soon.”

  McCall’s feet slipped on the wet grass as she fought to break free. The shadow’s hand raised again to deliver another blow, and this time his hold was too strong to pull away from.

  Closing her eyes, McCall fought at the arm that gripped her with one hand while she tried to deflect the coming blow with the other. She bit down hard on her bottom lip as her own scream exploded inside her.

  Suddenly, the fist was loosened from the material across her chest. She opened her eyes in time to see her attacker being pulled backward by another.