After the Ashes

by Howe, Cheryl

  He glanced at her over his shoulder. The expression on Lorelei’s face was one of deep thought. Slowly, she raised her gaze to his and unhooked the satin vee bordering the neckline of her gown. The dress parted not even an inch, but it was enough to reveal the soft, round tops of her breasts, and her corset’s lace trim. She looked even more nervous than before.

  Braddock straightened, unable to stop staring. “Don’t start this again, Lorelei. Quit offering something you don’t intend to give.”

  “I’m desperate.”

  He let his boots drop to the floor. She sauntered toward him, stopping much closer than before. At some point she’d peeled off her gloves, and her smooth, pale hands fascinated him. With shaky fingers she unbuttoned the trouser button he’d hastily redone. He inhaled sharply when her warm knuckles grazed his stomach.

  “My father died just before the war. My two older brothers were killed the year after that. I buried my mother not two months ago. I’m not going to lose Corey, too.”

  She took a breath that lifted her breasts, and unfastened another button of his trousers. Her hand brushed lower on his belly, making him feel lightheaded as all his blood rushed to meet her slender fingers. She looked up at him.

  He saw desperation and determination in her shiny blue eyes. They said she’d been through hell and back, and she’d get through this, too.

  “You don’t want to do this, Lorelei.” He encircled her wrist with his fingers but didn’t pull her hand away. “Even if he is your brother, he’s not worth it.”

  His words tasted bitter. If Lorelei’s claim was true, her actions were all the more pathetic and Corey’s all the more despicable. Sullivan would destroy his sister in the process of destroying himself. Braddock’s rusty conscience protested against being a part of it. His body disagreed.

  Lorelei moved her hand, with him still holding her wrist, and unbuttoned the third button of his trousers. Two remained, but he knew she wouldn’t have to go that far. His body already swelled in response to her touch. He closed his eyes to block out the sight of her pale hand against his darker skin, fought the strong desire to feel her small fingers fold around him. If he didn’t do something soon, he wouldn’t have to wait much longer.

  He gripped her under her arms and tossed her onto his bed. Before she could untangle from her skirts, he came down on top of her, balancing his weight on his elbows and his knees.

  “How many men are you willing to fuck to save your brother?” He reached between them and squeezed her leg above the knee, then slid his hand up her thigh. “I’m not the only man after Corey. There’ll be more. Is that the kind of life you want, Lorelei? Is Corey worth spending your life on your back?”

  She didn’t push him away as he expected. Instead she remained motionless, letting him move his hand all the way up to the crotch of her thin cotton drawers. He came so close to cupping her between her legs, he could feel the moist heat.

  Believing the damp cloth had anything to do with desire for him would be his ruin. Stopping might have been impossible if it weren’t for the tears filling her eyes.

  “I don’t know what else to do.”

  Braddock eased his hand from underneath her skirts and discreetly pulled them back down to her ankles.

  “I can’t let him hang,” she continued. “I promised I’d take care of him. I’ve always taken care of him.”

  He rolled away from her and got off the bed quickly, keeping his back to her. “It’s not going to work this time. There’s nothing you can do.”

  He refastened his pants. His heart knocked against his chest while the fire in his groin battled his good intentions. Knowing he was a bastard didn’t stop his body from howling with unfulfilled lust. He increased the distance between them, retreating to the far comer of the room.

  As much as he wanted to tear Sullivan apart for mistreating his sister, Braddock knew he himself wasn’t any better. Maybe he was worse. While Sullivan used Lorelei to save his own hide, Braddock was only toying with her, trying to find out how far human beings would go for each other. He hated how far he’d sunk. So low he didn’t even recognize himself anymore.

  He hung his head, but a familiar tingling on the back of his neck brought him out of his self-recrimination. The sensation was one of danger. He slowly turned.

  “Keep your hands away from your body.”

  Braddock raised his hands where she could see them.

  She sat on the bed, her legs curled underneath her, pointing his pistol at him. The sure way she cocked the hammer warned him that she knew how to fire a gun.

  “You want to be a murderer too, Lorelei? You want to hang next to your brother?”

  “We’re going to talk about this until you see reason. Sit in that chair,” she ordered.

  “You mean until he gets away. He won’t get away, Lori.”

  More tears welled at his words. She swallowed hard to keep from letting them flow. “Don’t call me that. Sit in that chair and be quiet.”

  Braddock sighed. He’d survived four years fighting a bloody war and six years chasing down the devils bred by it—all without a scratch. This little slip of a girl didn’t have what it took to bring him down. He lowered his hands.

  “Uncock the gun before you hurt yourself.”

  “I know how to shoot.” Only the heightened pitch of her voice betrayed her panic. He doubted she had ever pointed weapon at another human being.

  “I imagine you do, but you won’t.” He eased toward her.

  During the war, a rebel could jump out of the bushes and aim a rifle straight at his heart, but somehow the shot would go wild and some young recruit would take the slug, lose a leg. Once a ball whizzed by Braddock’s ear and hit the regiment’s drummer boy. After they buried him, Braddock learned he was only thirteen.

  He took another step toward Lorelei. He’d suspected his fate before the war, of course. Back then he had thought he was just lucky. Now he knew it wasn’t luck but a curse. Watching everyone around you die was a living hell.

  He continued his advance, his muscles bunched, ready to lunge for her if she tried something stupid. He didn’t want her to get hurt and bleed all over her pretty pink dress.

  “Stay back.” She brought her other hand to the gun. She focused all her energy on keeping a bead on him. All she had to do was contract one small muscle in her finger, and someone was going to die. Unfortunately for her, Braddock knew it wouldn’t be him. He stopped when the bed met his thighs.

  She shoved the gun out in front of her. The barrel came within an inch of touching the center of his chest. He wrapped his fingers around steel warmed by her sweating palms. When he gently pulled the pistol from her, she didn’t give the slightest resistance. In fact, she was careful to keep her finger away from the trigger. Poor Lorelei, she really did have a good heart. A fatal affliction out West.

  He uncocked the pistol and slipped it back in its holster, then buckled the belt around his waist.

  “Don’t do that again. You point a gun at a man and he doesn’t ask questions. It’s a sure way to get killed.”

  She stared down at her empty hands.

  He buttoned his shirt and tucked it in his pants. He retrieved his saddlebag and boots, then sat in the straight-backed chair to finish dressing. Lorelei remained eerily silent. After he pulled his pant legs over his boots and tied the rawhide thongs of his gun belt around his thighs, he could no longer avoid her.

  “I’ll take you back to the ranch.”

  “Please don’t hurt Corey.”

  He ran his hand over the back of his neck. He had asked the barber to make sure not to trim his hair any shorter than the top of his collar. Last time he’d had his hair cut, the back of his neck burned. It felt like the man did a good job. He glanced at Lorelei. Damn.

  “All right,” he said on a long sigh.

  “All right, what?”

  She hadn’t budged from the bed, and it didn’t look like she intended to unless he said what she wanted to hear.

 
“I’ll try to keep that brother of yours in one piece while I find Mulcahy. If he helps me, maybe I can do something for him.”

  She crawled off the bed, smiling for the first time. “Thank you, Mr. Braddock.”

  He cringed at her gratitude. “But you have to do something for me.”

  “Anything. I’ll do anything.” As if she’d suddenly realized the implication of her pledge, a blush spread up her neck and across her cheeks. She averted her gaze but didn’t take back her words.

  He gritted his teeth. “Not that. Don’t ever again try to seduce me or any other man to save your brother.”

  “I won’t. I promise.” Her enthusiastic nod dislodged a dark curl that fell across her pale shoulder and over the top of her breast.

  He had to glance away to keep from staring. “That’s not all. You have to stay out of this. Don’t try to help your brother. I’ll do what I can for him, but this is his mess. You can’t fix it.”

  “I can’t promise that.”

  The firmness in her voice forced him to glance in her direction. He was thankful, she had straightened her clothes. “You want me on your side or don’t you?”

  “I do, but—”

  “But nothing. That’s the way it is.”

  He gathered his gear. He wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight in this room, not with her sweet scent all over the place. As soon as he took Lorelei home, he’d pick up the trail of her rotten brother.

  “If he comes to me, I can’t send him away,” she said.

  “You don’t have to send him away. Just don’t defend him or talk to anyone for him.” Braddock moved toward the door, saddlebag over his shoulder, rifle in his hand. He paused to turn down the lantern.

  “I’m not going to hand him over if someone comes to the door asking for him, if that’s what you mean.”

  He stomped down the hotel’s narrow steps, not knowing what he’d meant. Or why he even cared. “Fine. Just don’t go looking for trouble.”

  “You have my word, Mr. Braddock.”

  He could hear her small, light steps behind his. This country would eat her alive. And how that had become his problem was something he didn’t want to consider.

  ***

  A light burning inside the adobe signaled their approach to the ranch. Lorelei tugged on the old mule’s reins. Was Corey still there? Unfazed by her efforts to slow him, the mule kept his pace, lurching the buckboard forward in painful jerks. The tail of Braddock’s horse swished ahead like a beacon.

  At least the dark saved her from having to look into Braddock’s face and remember the way he had touched her—or the way she had exposed herself to him. Her bold act had made her unexpectedly feverish. She relished the way it had made her feel as well as his reaction. She was thankful her mother’s reprimanding voice had seeped past the yearning of her body to properly shame her into tears. Still, his nearness relieved her even if it reached out through the space between them, keeping her in a constant state of agitation.

  Without his guidance, she’d never have found her way back to the ranch in the dark. She hoped the dangerous combination of gratitude and desperation wasn’t all that urged her to trust him with her brother’s life.

  Lorelei yanked on the reins with all her weight, but the mule continued to plod forward. Her brother wasn’t a killer. He’d never pointed a gun at another living thing. He didn’t even hunt. Unfortunately, some of what Braddock had told her about the robbery, especially the cheating at cards part, sounded all too much like her mischievous brother. His pranks were no longer boyish, but dangerous.

  Braddock stilled his mount and waited for her to catch up.

  “I can make it the rest of the way on my own,” she said.

  “I’m sure you can. Take it nice and slow, Lorelei. I’ll be right behind you.”

  The moment the buckboard rolled into the yard, Lorelei jumped down in a cloud of pink taffeta. She beat her rustling skirts into place, then listened for Corey. The call of crickets echoed across the empty landscape in rhythm to the beating of her heart, but there was no hint of her brother’s presence. Silently Braddock dismounted beside her. He had a pistol in his hand.

  “You won’t need that.”

  He laid a finger across his lips and leaned over until his mouth was next to her ear. “Just in case it’s not Corey.”

  She nodded, but her confidence evaporated with his words. The reminder that other men were looking for her brother chilled her more effectively than the idea of Corey waiting behind the weathered door with a Springfield rifle. If a lesser of two evils existed, Braddock was it.

  She crept onto the rickety wooden porch, willing it not to creak. Braddock shadowed her movements, his pistol cocked.

  The door stood slightly ajar. She pushed it open. What she saw made her stop and straighten. The place had been ransacked.

  She rushed inside with Braddock on her heels. All the drawers of a pine wardrobe sagged open. Lorelei’s few possessions spilled over the edges and onto the floor. The red checked curtain beneath the dry sink hung askew, revealing that the few supplies she had bought were gone. She turned in a half circle to surmise the damage but stopped abruptly when she noticed her black beaded purse carelessly tossed on the bed.

  The quick prayer she said was futile. If the intruder had found the purse… She sank onto the bare, straw-stuffed mattress. He had even stripped the bed. A scribbled note lay next to the bag. IOU, luv, C. She checked the purse anyway. The silk lining gaped back at her, empty. The purse had held less than fifty dollars, but the money was all she had left in the world. Not enough to get Corey far. She didn’t dare think of what the loss meant to her.

  “What happened here?”

  She crumpled the note in her fist and tried not to sound like her last shred of security had been severed. “Corey needed a few things.”

  “So nobody came and carried your brother off? He did this?” The slight sneer that tugged at Braddock’s top lip as he surveyed the damage made her want to flinch.

  “He was in a hurry.” With as much dignity as she could muster, Lorelei drifted to the open drawers and started folding her collection of tailored gloves, suddenly finding her favorite things as worthless as they really were.

  She rescued the lithograph, the only one ever taken of her entire family, from the dirt floor. She wiped the cherished picture with a wad of pink silk from her dress. What good did the tin do her if she couldn’t eat or sell it?

  “I’m taking you back into town.”

  She tucked the lithograph in a drawer, unable to gaze upon the faces that stared back at her.

  Braddock touched her shoulder and she turned. She blinked, surprised at how dry her eyes felt. The hot wind that constantly blew across the yard seemed to have sneaked inside and snatched away her tears.

  “I’ll be fine here.”

  He took off his black felt hat and tossed it on the table. “Yeah. You look real fine.” He braced his hands on his hips. “Let me put you up in the hotel in town.”

  “This is my home.” She almost choked on the words. She was starting to despise this barren place. “This is where I’ll stay.”

  He nodded and walked out the door.

  Lorelei’s chest hollowed as she watched him disappear. He took the air with him, and she could no longer breathe. How was she going to survive? At least back home she could forage for dandelion greens—even shoot squirrels at the toughest of times. Out here, dust and rock sprouted in place of the bluegrass she’d taken for granted. Lizards darted around the yard in abundance, but she couldn’t see eating them even if she could catch one.

  For the first time the fire to trudge on dimmed in Lorelei. She’d picked herself up too many times. Knowing Corey would need her had sustained her after her mother’s death. But clearly she could do nothing for him. She gravitated to the table in the center of the room. She touched it to steady herself, though she yearned to sink to the cool dirt floor.

  Braddock strode back through the door, a large wooden box in
his arms. Without looking at her, he piled sacks of dry goods onto the table.

  “I hope you like beans and rice, because you got a lot of them.”

  She watched him, unable to speak. He had woken the owner of the only store in town before they set out for here. When he had loaded his purchases in the back of her wagon, she had been too preoccupied with worry for Corey to pay much attention. She swallowed her desperation, trying not to blatantly covet the food. She could live off of his supplies for a good six months. God knew she had survived on less.

  “The shopkeeper must have charged you a fortune after you woke him and made him open the store just for you. ”

  “He owes me a favor.” Braddock headed for the door. “There’s just a few more things.”

  “Don’t bother. I can’t pay for any of this. You’ll have to take it back.”

  “I’m not taking it back. I got the supplies for you.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  He shrugged. His usually penetrating gaze jumped, looking for a place to land. “I don’t know. I needed things for myself and I thought you might need some things, too.”

  She laughed, but her eyes filled with tears. “I guess you could say I could use a few things.”

  “Good. Now you have them.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Braddock.”

  “Don’t call me that. I feel like I’m back in school.”

  She folded into a chair, relief weakening her knees. “What’s your name?”

  “Just call me Braddock.” He escaped out the door before she could question him further.

  Lorelei sorted through sugar, flour, coffee, cornmeal, and a large quantity of dried beans and rice, but she didn’t mind having so much of the same thing. In fact, she could kiss him. She instantly banished the thought and its appeal. Even Braddock’s generosity would not make him the kind of man that she should let slip past her defenses, however weak they were.

  He strode back through the door, a roll of blankets under his arm. The flannel bundle he tossed onto the bed appeared well worn but thick and comfortable.

  “That’s yours,” she said, standing. “You’ll need it.”