One-Click Buy: September 2010 Harlequin Blaze

by Lori Wilde

  “I didn’t realize how hungry I was,” he said, taking another bite as something like satisfaction spread over his face, giving it life for the first time.

  Something shifted inside of her as an almost palpable attraction leaped between them, filling the air with its intensity. Maybe Reese had been right. Maybe she had been here too long. Maybe she would have felt the same no matter who rode into their town.

  But she really didn’t think so.

  She glanced down and immediately wished he still wore the shirt. His shoulders were wide and his chest was corded with muscle.

  Strength and power. And will. They were in his face, evident in the lack of emotion he showed. Drat him. How could he be so controlled when her stomach was churning and her heart rocked back and forth? She looked up to meet his eyes again. Nothing in them but a cool, calculating perusal, and yet she sensed danger, the way one senses the approach of a death-dealing storm.

  When he finished, she took the empty plate from him. It was warm from his hands. “I’ll…I’ll be making some stew later,” she said.

  “I’ll be waiting,” he replied. Invitation was in his voice, but she wasn’t exactly sure what kind of invitation it was. Maybe a cat’s to a mouse.

  She tried to ignore it, tried to avoid his eyes, which seemed to focus on the still-damp shirt that clung to her. She removed the poultice from his leg and studied the wound. It was still seeping, but she saw no sign of infection. She was only too aware that he wasn’t looking at it; instead his eyes were fixed on her face.

  “Looks like it’s beginning to heal.” Sam tried to make the words matter-of-fact, but she feared there was a breathless quality to them. “I’ll bring a fresh poultice later.”

  “You like torturing people, then?” he said with a twist of his lips that belied the words.

  “You can die, instead,” she offered amicably.

  He mulled that over for a moment. “Not much of a choice.” He shrugged. “You can have your way with me.”

  An innuendo. She decided to ignore it.

  “Where’s the old man—Smith?” he asked suddenly.

  The question took her by surprise. “Busy,” she said after a few long seconds.

  “He was…so protective,” he observed. “I wonder why he’s leaving you alone with me.”

  His voice was stronger than yesterday, although she knew from the muscle in his throat that every movement was an effort.

  “I don’t think you’re going anywhere for a while,” she said. “Unless, of course, you want to damage that leg permanently. Maybe lose it.”

  Speculation was still evident in his gaze. “I have to admit you’re easier on the eyes than Smith.”

  She didn’t know how to reply to that.

  “You didn’t say where he is,” the marshal persisted.

  “He has better things to do than treat a marshal,” she replied, trying to keep her voice steady, not let him know how much he affected her. “And he trusts me. I’ve been assisting him for years.”

  “So many talents,” he said. “I’m impressed. You can shoot. You can nurse. You can cook. You’re even a prison guard. What more do you do?” The tone was light, even bantering, but she didn’t miss the dangerous glint in his eyes.

  “More than you’ll ever know about,” she retorted as the air grew denser between them.

  “Maybe,” he said. Then, as he’d done before, he abruptly changed the subject. She wondered whether he’d felt the heightened temperature as she did. “Where’s that huge beast of yours?”

  “Dawg?”

  “Do you have another one?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “What else do you do in this town besides look after an old man and the assorted marshals who wander in?”

  “A lot of things, and you ask way too many questions.”

  “I’m a curious man.” He smiled then. It was a crooked smile, but she detected a real one behind it this time.

  “Sam?” he said. “It’s taking me some time to get used to that name. You’re much too…pretty for it.” The pretty word again.

  She suspected he meant to throw her off balance, to discover something he wanted to know. Yet he said her name as though he was tasting the sound of it on his tongue, letting it linger in the air. “Sam what?”

  She remembered what Jake had told her about not revealing any information. “Just Sam,” she said.

  “Tell me more about Thornton.”

  She shrugged. “He helped raise me. He protected me. And if there’s anything I can tell you, it’s that he would never, never hurt a woman.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Nothing else?”

  She felt blood rising to her face. That he thought…

  “He’s family. And a friend. If you know what that means?”

  “A friend doesn’t use a friend to do his dirty work.” He was pushing for information again and not being very subtle about it.

  “No,” she replied agreeably.

  She saw the frustration in his face. She even enjoyed it a little, considering how he had rattled her last night.

  “I heard that one of those two men he killed wounded him,” he said.

  His words sent a chill through her. “Wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  “Why is his horse here, then?”

  “If you believe anything old Burley says, then that leg isn’t the only thing that has a hole in it. Mac has several horses. He traded me that paint last time he passed through. He took a bay. It was faster.”

  “What happened to your parents?” he asked, his voice suddenly softening.

  “My pa was killed by a claim jumper when I was real young. My mother had no family, no place to go, so she stayed here. She cooked meals for the miners and did their laundry. She eventually opened a boardinghouse but died of pneumonia when I was eleven.”

  “No other family?”

  She shrugged. “Both of them were orphans.”

  The marshal waited for her to continue.

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to, and yet she needed him to know that Mac wasn’t the man he thought him to be. “After my mother died, the miners held a meeting and were going to send me to an orphanage. Mac and Archie wouldn’t let them do it. They sort of adopted me.” She purposely left Reese’s name out.

  “So Thornton helped raise you,” he said, returning to the earlier subject.

  “Some,” she said, unwilling to give him any more information.

  He lifted a thick eyebrow. “He kept you here in the middle of nowhere. You…should be…” He moved slightly, then stiffened and she knew a wave of pain had just hit. He closed his eyes for a second. “Damn,” he muttered.

  She waited, not saying anything. She wanted to do something to soothe the pain. She forced herself not to go closer.

  Then his body started to relax slowly.

  “I’m here because I want to be here,” she said softly.

  “A ghost town these last five years? What about school?”

  “Reese…” she started, then caught herself. “I learned from books,” she said.

  “Reese?” The question was sharp, his eyes relentless despite the pain in his face.

  She snapped her mouth shut. Would Reese be held accountable for being Mac’s friend? Or even for being her friend? She was an outlaw now, too. She’d shot a marshal.

  Leave, she told herself. Leave now. But something kept her feet planted firmly where she was.

  “How long since your family came here?” he asked again, obviously intent on finding out whatever he could. Looking for a weakness, she supposed.

  He would find none in her, but there was no harm in this question. “Pa came here in 1858,” she said.

  Dear God, but his eyes were compelling. She knew what he was doing. Information was a weapon.

  “When did Thornton arrive?” he asked.

  Thornton. Not Mac. Cal Thornton. That was how she first knew him. When he stayed in her mother’s boardinghouse. She’d already said too muc
h. The marshal was good at extracting in formation. Very good. She’d never known exactly how Mac had got his reputation, or why he’d been wanted. They didn’t talk about that. She did know, though, that his past was the reason he’d never married her mother. She also knew he’d been a hired gun on and off. But she would never believe he’d killed a woman as the marshal claimed.

  She didn’t answer. Instead, she defended Mac. “You’re wrong about him,” she said flatly.

  “Then he should go back with me. Prove the accusations false.”

  “You said he killed a woman. When?”

  “Ten years ago.”

  “How?”

  “He was robbing a stagecoach.”

  “Anyone see him kill her?”

  “The guy who rode with him. Before he hanged. And the coach driver heard his name.”

  “Ever consider he might have a reason for lying?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Thornton rode with him. He’s just as guilty. And guilty of a hell of a lot more, as well.”

  “You a judge as well as a lawman?”

  His eyes grew even colder, if that was possible. “You aren’t doing yourself or anyone here a favor by hiding him.”

  “Threats don’t scare me. They just make it more likely Mac will kill you.”

  “Your…Mr. Smith said Mac wouldn’t like you killing me.”

  “Me. He wouldn’t like me killing someone. Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t do it himself. He’s a ‘killer,’ remember.” Anger raised her voice, and she saw satisfaction deep in his eyes. He’d scored a small victory. He was pulling little nuggets of information from her, and she was allowing it. Turnabout was fair play.

  “And you? Have you always been a marshal?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Then what?”

  “A farmer,” he said softly.

  “What turned a farmer into a marshal?”

  “The war,” he said shortly.

  “Reb or Yank?”

  He searched her face again. “Does it matter?”

  “Not really. That’s one reason my father and mother left Illinois. They wanted no part of it. All those men killed…homes destroyed… Mac’s home was one of them.”

  His face tightened and his eyes were like black agates. That strange feeling kicked her stomach again. His gaze speared her as if he could see the very essence of her soul. “Mine was, too. I didn’t turn outlaw.”

  His tone sent shivers through her. Harsh. Unforgiving. Relentless. There was no gentleness in him. None of the wry humor she’d glimpsed a few times.

  “Maybe not, but it seems to me you’re as much a killer as you say Mac is.” She glared at him. “Are you always so certain you’re right?”

  To her surprise, he shook his head. Then he added, with the slightest hint of a smile, “But more often than not.”

  “I doubt that,” she muttered.

  He ignored the comment and held out his cup. “Any water left?”

  The pitcher was still on the table and she poured water for him. It turned brown from the remnants of coffee.

  He took it and drank deeply.

  She couldn’t keep her eyes from his face. From the lips that had covered hers yesterday. She could still feel them, and the reactions they had stirred in her. Damn him, why did he have to be even more appealing with the dark stubble on his cheeks. Maybe it was his confidence, even as a prisoner. He was a man used to being heeded and obeyed.

  Go. Go. Go. Go.

  But her legs didn’t move.

  “Sam?”

  Her name had never quite sounded like that before. The one syllable rolled lazily on his lips.

  “Yes?” she forced herself to reply.

  “I meant it when I warned you to leave. I wouldn’t like to see you hurt. If what you say about Thornton is true, he wouldn’t want it, either.”

  She heard the doubt in his voice about Mac, and it spoiled any concern she thought he might have for her.

  She walked to the door. “I’ll be back later with some stew and a fresh poultice for your leg.”

  “It’s comforting to know you’re so interested in my well-being,” he said in a soft, dangerous tone.

  “I’m not,” she replied. “I just don’t want you to die here.”

  “Why? There’s plenty of places to bury a body.”

  “I’m thinking about all of them at this moment,” she said.

  He closed his eyes, but the left side of his mouth drifted up.

  Damn the man. She didn’t understand why she was drawn to him. Or why she wanted to touch that hard face and make it soften.

  “A little gratitude would be nice,” she said, knowing it was a mistake to linger. “Archie did save your leg.”

  “He wouldn’t have needed to, if you hadn’t shot me,” he replied.

  There was some justification in his words, she admitted to herself. But then he shouldn’t have come after Mac.

  “Why are you so determined?” she asked. “It’s not just because Mac’s wanted. You’ve been looking for him for years.” It wasn’t exactly a stab in the dark. She’d detected something in his tone when he spoke Mac’s name. By the sudden chill in his eyes, she knew she was right.

  He stared at her, and she wished she saw something in his eyes. The nothingness was frightening. Far more frightening than the anger or contempt. There was a very personal motivation behind his hunt, and it was deep and strong. She knew then that he would never give up.

  She shook off the chill that ran through her and opened the door.

  “Samantha?” His words stopped her and she turned around.

  “Sam will do.”

  “I like Samantha better.” His eyes suddenly seemed to undress her with a lazy sensuality, removing her clothes piece by piece.

  Painfully exquisite sensations started to boil in her core. Sparks shot between them, live and biting. Intense. She knew she was losing control, floundering in depths she didn’t understand.

  She saw surprise in his eyes, as if he, too, felt something he didn’t want to feel.

  “You’d better go, Miss Samantha,” he said. His words were mocking, as if he knew exactly what was going on inside her.

  She swallowed hard and followed his advice. A little too quickly.

  Damn him.

  She went into the small kitchen off the bar. She was shaking, buffeted by conflicting emotions. She feared him for Mac’s sake, but something in her was reacting to him in a way she’d never reacted to a man before. She was drawn to him as if she were a piece of metal and he a magnet.

  She stirred the pot of venison stew hanging in the fireplace and added some water. She’d started it yesterday while the marshal slept and continually added water and spices, siphoning the broth for Mac.

  Then she found the key to the marshal’s room and turned it in the lock. No ordinary man would be walking for another week, but she knew now he was not like other men.

  He was an enemy. A danger to those she loved.

  She shouldn’t care anything about him.

  And, hell’s blazes, she didn’t.

  7

  JARED WATCHED her go, heard the key turn in the lock a few minutes later.

  He wanted to throw something, but there was nothing but the cup and a tin pitcher of water, and then he would be without. Dammit, she hadn’t listened to him.

  No doubt she thought he was lying. He wished to hell he was.

  Maybe he could talk some sense into the old man.

  Or maybe Thornton—MacDonald—was the reason she wouldn’t leave. Maybe he was nearby or due to be here soon. And where was the man called Reese? A woman and two old men—Archie and the stableman—alone, for God’s sake.

  He didn’t want her hurt. Despite the fact she’d shot him, he couldn’t avoid seeing the war being waged inside her. He was sure now that she hadn’t tried to kill him. She was too intent on saving him. She’d taken a hell of a chance in confronting him under those circumstances, and she’d tried to do what she could to fix his l
eg and alleviate his pain.

  She’d held a gun and shot well enough to have been taught by an expert. He had no doubt that the expert was Thornton. The outlaw must have told her that if she aimed a gun at someone, she had to be willing to kill. Thornton. She must care for him a great deal to do what she’d done—it so obviously went against everything she seemed to be.

  That notion ripped through his soul. Although she did her best not to show it, there was a gentleness—even tenderness—in her that made what she’d done a powerful testament to the bond between her and Thornton.

  He’d thought in the beginning she must be Thornton’s woman. Now he knew the outlaw had been a father-figure.

  It all fit. There was an innocence in her that touched something he thought firmly dead. She’d been completely unaware of how damn desirable she’d looked when she entered his room, a damp shirt and trousers pasted to her body and her hair swirling about her face in tiny ringlets. Another part of him had started to ache then. It made the pain of his wound minor in comparison.

  And when he’d kissed her last night…there had been no mistaking the shock in her eyes, and she’d responded so briefly with a mixture of instinctive need and curiosity that touched and fascinated him.

  This attraction was obviously new to her. And to him. For a moment last night he’d forgotten who and what she was. It had been a long time since he’d felt something more than a simple physical need for a woman. He’d seen too much tragedy and death not to barricade his heart. He hadn’t wanted to feel. Now was not the time to let someone tear down those barriers. But he had felt something. Then and now. She was such an intriguing combination of woman and girl. He discovered a new facet every time he saw her. She was smart and quick and competent in so many ways, and yet there was a beguiling naturalness about her.

  Now he knew at least part of her story. Losing a father, then a mother while still a child. Left orphaned in a lawless mining town with an outlaw as protector. Loving one, it seemed. He took a deep breath as the implication sank in. Nothing he’d learned so far fit the man he’d hunted all these years. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe this Mac wasn’t Thornton after all.

  None of it made sense to him. And he didn’t like things that didn’t make sense.