But Dillon groaned. He’d been so busy dealing with his own surprise that he hadn’t had time to think about Abigail. Hell, she’d be madder than a skinned rattler.
Billy leaned forward slightly and lowered his voice even further. “You two shorely do make a purty picture, all snuggled up there nice and cozy.” He ignored the scowl Dillon directed at him. “And I was just thinkin’ how nice it’s gonna be to have such a purty lady around the Double B.”
“Nice?” Dillon raised his eyebrows in disbelief as he whispered his response. “Nice, hell. I doubt she can do one damn useful thing. All a woman like her does is complain and throw parties and expect to be waited on hand and foot.” He glanced down at Grace, and all he could see was the top of her head. “I’m gonna have to find her a husband, Billy.” That statement made him frown. “It won’t be easy, ’cause she’s sure to be picky as hell. He’ll have to have money.”
Billy frowned as Dillon turned his thoughts to the prospects for Grace. “Sounds kinda familiar,” he growled.
Grace shifted, and her hand rested over the bulge in Dillon’s denims. If she felt it stirring she gave no notice, but merely turned her face up so that Dillon could watch as she licked her lips and pressed her cheek against his chest.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. His face grew warm as he moved Grace’s hand back to his thigh. He couldn’t take much more of this. As if she knew, even in her dreams, that she was bedeviling him, Grace returned her hand to his crotch and lifted her face as she returned her head to his shoulder. The buttons at her neck had come undone, and exposed a slender white throat. A vein throbbed slowly, enticing, entrancing….
“Wake up, Grace,” Dillon said hoarsely. Maybe he was her guardian, but he was only human.
“Let her sleep,” Billy whispered, his wide grin back in place. “She’s exhausted, poor little girl.”
“Grace,” Dillon repeated a little louder as he repositioned her hand. “Wake up, honey.”
Grace’s hand moved again, this time to rest between his thighs, and she sighed contentedly…warm and safe and lost in deep sleep.
“Hellfire,” Dillon muttered as Grace’s warm breath brushed his throat. He took a deep breath and forcibly set her away from him, jarring her rudely awake. She shook her head, sending that long, dark hair about her shoulders and down her back. She blinked hard, three times, and looked directly into Dillon’s face. Those bluebonnet eyes were wide and still touched with sleep.
“Oh, I did fall asleep after all, didn’t I?” It was evident that Grace didn’t remember sleeping nestled against his chest, or tormenting him with her slender hand. She took a deep breath, and Dillon took no comfort from the fact that she appeared well rested and calm.
She gave him a small smile. “It doesn’t look like you slept very well, Becket.”
With a snort he turned away from her, took the hat from his head, and—to spare himself any further embarrassment—dropped in onto his lap.
Apparently they were to spend as little time as possible in San Antonio.
Becket was in a particularly foul mood, and he had been that way all day. He scowled on an irritatingly regular basis, and muttered constantly. A dark, stubbly beard shadowed his face, and it did nothing to soften his tough exterior. It seemed that even Billy was giving him a wide berth.
Grace realized that she was the root of his problems, the reason for his bad temper. She knew that because every time he looked at her he narrowed his steel gray eyes, and his mouth hardened. It was no wonder that he hated her. She had been foisted upon him and he obviously liked the idea as little as she did. It occurred to Grace that her father, who to her recollection had smiled as infrequently as Becket, must have had a sense of humor after all.
At the moment Becket was cursing under his breath as he attempted to tie her luggage to the top of the carriage. It was, Grace conceded, a fairly nice conveyance, with room for two on the driver’s seat and as many as four in the coach. It was painted a shiny black, and was embellished with a fashionable gold stripe.
The flat top was perfect for transporting luggage, but perhaps not quite as much as she had brought along.
“Do you really need all of this?” Dillon asked for the tenth time, leaning over to look down at Grace. She stood below him, her pale face turned up to him, her carpetbag handle clutched in both hands.
“Of course I do,” she said in a sensible voice. “Everything I own is in those trunks.”
Dillon tried to remind himself that what she said was true. That she had just lost her father and learned that he had left her penniless. But hellfire, nobody traveled with so much baggage. “Why don’t we leave a few of these trunks behind and have them delivered later by stagecoach?”
“No!” Grace’s horror was evident in her voice. “They could be damaged or stolen.”
Dillon grumbled, but he returned to his attempts to secure every trunk on the roof of the carriage. She was right. The baggage handlers could be mighty rough. But that wasn’t why he agreed. He agreed because he couldn’t stand to look down at her anymore. She hadn’t had an opportunity to change clothes or bathe or dress her hair in front of a mirror, and yet she showed none of the signs of neglect he knew he and Billy displayed. Even as she stood there with her hair pulled straight back in what would have been a much too severe style for any other woman, even as she looked up at him, wearing that slightly rumpled blue suit that matched her eyes, he remembered how he had awakened that morning: with Grace’s head against his chest and her hand in his lap.
It didn’t matter how attractive she was, or how attracted he was to her. His plans were set. If the cattle drive didn’t bring in enough money to pay off the loan his father had taken out six months earlier, Dillon knew he would have to marry Abigail and use her dowry to pay off the loan. Billy said that was cruel and heartless, but Dillon knew that was the way things were done. Marriages had long been a kind of business. It united warring families. Joined large tracts of land.
He had to save the Double B.
Besides, under the covers one woman was much like another. And Grace Cavanaugh wasn’t his type in any case. She was whiny and demanding, and too soft for life on a ranch. He couldn’t picture her tending the garden or rustling up enough supper for twenty or thirty men, or feeding the chickens or milking a cow. She was only good for preying on a man’s mind and spending his money.
“Becket,” Grace called, looking up from where she stood just outside the open carriage door. He ignored her, fastening down the final length of rope. “Becket!” she called more sharply, and he finally glanced down at her.
“What now?” he asked in a voice that betrayed his lack of patience.
Grace shaded her eyes against the sun as she looked up at Becket. Sweat dripped from his face and stained his blue shirt. His hat had been pushed back, and tendrils of sweat-dampened chestnut hair framed his face.
“You forgot one,” she said softly.
Becket wiped his face with the pass of one already damp sleeve. “I did what?”
“You forgot one,” she said a little more loudly, and then she stepped aside so that he could see the small trunk her skirts had been shielding.
The expression on his face said more than the stream of obscenities that came from his mouth. Her own face remained calm as she continued to look up at him. In fact, she was suppressing a smile.
Billy joined her, a parcel of supplies for their trip in his hands. “I think I got everythin’, boss. Enough jerky and hardtack to get us home if we don’t find nothin’ else. Coffee and some extra matches…”
“Toss me that trunk, Billy,” Becket ordered.
Billy ignored Becket’s sharp tone and dark scowl, and handed up the small trunk. With his usual broad smile he turned to Grace. “How ’bout that carpetbag? You want it up top, too?”
Grace unconsciously pulled the bag closer to her. She didn’t really know these men. What would they do if they knew what she carried in her bag?
“No, thank you,”
she said firmly. “I’ll keep this one with me.”
Becket jumped down from the top of the carriage. “Let’s get something straight, Grace,” he began harshly. “This is not going to be an easy trip. Billy and I will take turns driving, and we’ll likely do some traveling at night when the roads are good and the moon is bright.”
He placed his face close to hers and seemed to try to stare her down, even though she had said not a word. “We will sleep in the carriage or on the ground, and I don’t want to hear a word of complaint. I need to make good time and get back to the Double B. Tonight we’ll rest up in Clanton. There’s an overnight stop there, and we can clean up a bit and get a good night’s sleep.”
Grace was still trying to figure out why that last statement seemed to make him so angry, when he crossed his arms defiantly across his chest and growled at her. “And after that I don’t want to hear another word about private compartments or bubble baths.”
Grace lifted her eyebrows slightly. “I don’t recall that I ever mentioned a bubble bath. I only requested an opportunity to bathe as any civilized human being would feel the need to do. Perhaps that’s a foreign concept to you, Becket.” It was clear that she was growing angrier with every word she spoke.
Dillon watched the wariness steal over her eyes, and his lips hardened. It was true, he conceded silently, that the bubble bath had been his own fantasy.
He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. The bubble bath picture was back in his mind, as clear and sharp as if it were real. “I’m just trying to prepare you for what’s ahead, Grace. It won’t be an easy trip.”
“Thank you for the warning, Becket,” Grace said insincerely, ignoring his offer of assistance and taking Billy’s hand as the older man helped her into the carriage. For Billy she had a warm smile, Dillon noticed as he watched her step gracefully into Abigail’s carriage.
If he weren’t an honorable man he would leave her in San Antonio to shift for herself. Damned if she wasn’t a passel of trouble. Hell, she could find her own husband, or get a job as a…As a what? A governess to some rich man’s kid? Perhaps a tutor, if she was well educated. A schoolmarm? That thought almost made him smile. Almost. He had a sudden vision of Grace teaching a pack of unruly kids while she pranced around in her silk gowns and jaunty hats.
But he was an honorable man, and he owed Colonel Cavanaugh his life. Literally. This was the favor the man had asked in return, to see his daughter cared for. Dillon would honor that request, and find her a suitable husband. It wasn’t a task he looked forward to, but if she cooperated it shouldn’t be too difficult. Who wouldn’t want a wife who looked like Grace?
“You, Dillon Becket,” he breathed softly as he climbed into the driver’s seat to join Billy, trying to convince himself that a woman like Grace Cavanaugh held no appeal for him. Billy gave him a wicked and knowing smile, pale blue eyes twinkling in a leathery face.
“Shut up,” Dillon said in a low voice.
“I didn’t say nothin’,” Billy said innocently.
Dillon allowed Billy to take the reins, and he leaned back and closed his eyes. His life was going to hell in a handbasket and it looked, at the moment, as if Grace Cavanaugh was leading the way.
Beside him, Billy started to hum a bright song that definitely didn’t match Dillon’s mood.
Clanton was a poor excuse for a town, but there was a two-story building that served as hotel, saloon, gambling hall, and restaurant. There was a livery next door, and a general store that Dillon always avoided. The supplies were of poor quality and always overpriced.
Grace’s disappointment, as she alighted in front of the overnight stop, was clear in her eyes, but she said nothing. Dillon gave her a look that warned her not to. Her obvious reservations were not relieved upon their entrance to the building. It was late in the day, nearly dark, and the large room was filled with diners and gamblers and drinkers who lined the bar.
They’d not been standing in the doorway but a moment before every eye in the place was on them. Or rather, on Grace. Though her dress was modest, it was a fact that many folks in these parts, and in much of the West, thought that only whores wore silk. The fact that Grace was stunningly beautiful would only fuel the fantasies of every man in the room.
Disappointment was etched on Grace’s face as she surveyed the smoky room. She edged closer to Dillon, just a little. “Becket, they’re looking at me as though I were the last pastry on the baker’s shelf,” she said in a low voice.
Dillon left her in Billy’s able care, and located the owner of the place. The first thing he did was arrange for Grace’s bath. If she had the bath maybe she’d stop talking about it. Hell, maybe he’d quit daydreaming about it.
He and Billy escorted Grace up the stairs, Billy in front and Dillon behind. He knew without turning around that they were being watched. That Grace was being watched.
“You’ll need another dress,” Dillon said to the back of her head. “Something not so fancy. You got a plain calico in one of those trunks?”
Grace turned her head and glanced over her shoulder with the bearing and haughty air of a queen. “Good heavens, no,” she said softly.
Dillon grumbled under his breath. “Have you got anything out there that doesn’t make you look like a high-priced whore?”
Grace came to an abrupt halt there at the top of the stairs. “I beg your pardon?” she asked icily. “Would you care to repeat that, Becket?”
Dillon frowned at the back of her head. She hadn’t even turned around to look at him. “Not particularly.”
“The small green trunk with the brown bands,” she said almost sweetly, resuming her step.
Dillon followed her, allowing himself a small sigh of relief. He hadn’t meant to say it, and he sure as hell hadn’t meant for Grace to hear it. Lucky for him Grace seemed not to have taken the question the wrong way. She certainly wouldn’t hold his little slip of the tongue against him.
Grace closed her eyes and lowered herself even deeper into the warm water. The room was little more than a closet, and Becket had complained about the price of a fresh tub of hot water. But she was having her bath, and she was enjoying it.
The small green trunk rested against one wall of the tiny room, and Grace smiled as she stared at it and contemplated her plans for the evening. Revenge wasn’t a word she liked to use, but it didn’t seem fair for Becket to insult her and get off without learning a lesson.
A high-priced whore. She’d been tempted to slap his face then and there, but she had learned, over the years, that there were more subtle ways to get a man’s attention.
She’d done her best to behave courteously since leaving the train in San Antonio; she really had. Becket had been testing her temper for days, and she’d decided just that morning to try a different approach. She’d held her tongue, as best she could, but it hadn’t been easy. The man could irritate her with a single glance, a single word.
And this time he’d gone too far. Grace dipped her head back into the water, rinsing out all the soap. It felt so good to wash the grime and sweat off of her body. She’d never felt so unclean in all her life, and according to Billy the days on the trail ahead of them would be even worse. How was that possible?
When she dried herself with the questionably clean towel that had been provided for her, Grace removed the red dress from her trunk. She held it up and studied it closely, rubbing her fingers against the rich material. It was wrinkled, but there was nothing she could do about that. She hadn’t worn this particular dress in five years, since she’d been seventeen. That had been quite a memorable night.
Grace slipped her arms into the cool red silk, allowing the dress to drop over her head and fall into place. She’d filled out in the past five years, and the gown fit more snugly through the hips and across her breasts than she remembered.
When she looked down she saw an indecent amount of her own flesh, and for a fleeting moment she wondered if this was such a good idea.
She towel-dried
her hair and let it hang loose, parting it down the middle and tossing the heavy strands so that they fell straight down her back. There was not a hint of curl in those black locks. There never had been.
She tied the sash at her waist and smoothed the clinging silk over her hips. Doubts nagged at her briefly, and she made herself remember. High-priced whore?
Her hand was on the door handle when she remembered that Billy had been left guarding the door.
“Billy?” she called sweetly through the closed door.
“You ’bout done, Miss Grace?”
“Yes,” she answered. Poor Billy. He’d be shocked, but there was nothing to be done for that. “Why don’t you go on downstairs and order us some supper. I’m starving.” There was no response for a moment, and Grace added, “I’ll be right down.”
She grabbed the carpetbag and opened it, delving inside for the ornately carved box that held her most treasured possessions. She removed the lid and looked down at the array of gold and gems, the tangle of jewelry she had collected over the past five years. Her eyes fell to the piece she was searching for, a ruby pendant, and she grasped the chain between pale, slender fingers.
“All right, Miss Grace,” Billy finally answered. “But don’t you take too long.”
Grace smiled as she placed the pendant around her neck. The chain was icy against her flesh, and the ruby rested between her breasts, cold and hard.
“I’ll be right there, Billy. I promise.” She stuffed the carpetbag and its contents into the green trunk and closed the lid, locking it securely. With cold fingers she tucked the key into the sash at her waist, and fondled the ruby that rested close to her heart.
Chapter Three
Dillon leaned back in the wobbly chair and fastened his eyes on the stairs. He didn’t much like the idea of leaving Grace unattended in this place, even for a few minutes. Billy sat in the chair directly opposite Dillon’s, and he was already bending over his bowl of stew, a hunk of corn bread clutched in one hand as he balanced on his own less than sturdy chair. There didn’t seem to be a place to sit in the entire room that didn’t rock on at least one short leg.
No Angel's Grace Page 3
