“Not my problem, señora. They’ve got a sheriff up there, name of Davis. Good man.”
“Is not a sheriff we need, I think. I think this someone follows us to kill Miss Caroline.”
“You mean someone is stalking her? Because she’s making speeches?”
“Si.”
“Then maybe she should stop making speeches.”
The woman gave him a long, considering look. “Miss Caroline, she will not stop. She cannot.”
“Then she’s not as smart as she looks.”
“Is not a matter of smart, Señor Hawk. Is a matter of pride. Her mother makes speeches before her, but she die from the lungs in Tejas. In Butte City. Miss Caroline say is her duty to continue.”
“Stubborn, too,” Hawk observed drily.
“Sí. But even when someone shoots at her, she does not give up. So now I ask you…”
“No.”
She didn’t even blink. “I know of you, señor. In Tejas you were a Ranger. I know such a man seeks to protect.”
“The answer is still No.”
She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “I ask you to protect Miss Caroline.”
“She needs a bodyguard, señora. I’m a sheriff now, not a Ranger. I don’t ‘protect’ anymore.”
“Your mother would not believe. Your mother would be proud.”
Hawk sat back and studied the woman across from him. Yeah, he’d have done almost anything to make his mother proud. But not this. This cut too close to the bone.
“Miss Caroline know you’re here?”
“Oh, no, señor. She would not like.”
“Then why—”
“Because I promise Miss Caroline’s mother to keep her safe.” Her keen black eyes held his. “This I cannot do alone. But you can do. Your madre would want you to do this.”
Hawk paused, then tossed back the rest of his whiskey. “Sandy,” he yelled.
“Yeah?” his deputy called from the jail cells.
“I’m riding out tomorrow morning.”
Sandy ambled into his office. “Where ya goin’, Sheriff?”
“Gillette Springs. Keep the peace here till I get back.” He gulped down the last of his whiskey and rose.
“Now, Señora Sobrano, let’s go on over to the hotel and make a plan.”
*
“Are you out of your mind, Sheriff?” Caroline clutched her blue silk robe about her and shot Fernanda a look of fury.
“Nope, just cautious.”
She advanced on him and poked her forefinger into his chest. “Well, let me tell you something, Sheriff. Caution is not going to win the vote for women.”
“Neither is getting yourself killed, Miss MacFarlane. Whoever shot at you tonight is probably still in the vicinity.”
“So?”
“So I don’t figure he’s going to give up.”
“I have traveled all over the West, from Colorado to Utah to Texas and now to Oregon. Yes, there are those who try to stop me, but I will not give up.”
“You don’t have to give up. You just have to be sensible.” He tossed the package he’d brought from the mercantile onto the bed. Fernanda pounced on it.
Caroline sent her a quelling look, but she was too absorbed in undoing the wrapping to notice. “What does ‘sensible’ mean, then, Sheriff?”
“Sensible means that I travel with you.”
“Oh, no you will not. I do not travel with men.”
“You will this time,” he said. “I’m taking you to Gillette Springs.”
Fernanda held up the clothes he’d brought with obvious delight. Jeans, boys’ shirts—one red, one blue—and boots and hats. Dreadful hats, like cowboys wore.
“I will not wear those garments!” Caroline announced.
“Yes, you will,” he countered. His voice sounded rusty, as if he didn’t talk much. Which was probably true, considering his manners.
“Si, we will wear them,” Fernanda chirruped. She held up the red-checked shirt. “This one for me.”
The man called Hawk nodded. “Now, listen up, ladies. Here’s what we’re going to do.”
Chapter Three
At eight o’clock sharp the stagecoach to Gillette Springs rattled up to the Smoke River Hotel and clattered to a stop in a cloud of dust. The driver climbed down and clomped up the steps and through the doorway, emerging a few moments later with a lady’s travel trunk over one shoulder. He lashed it on top, then ostentatiously tramped around to lean in the window.
“That all, miss?”
With a nod, he climbed back up into the driver’s seat and cracked the whip. “Giddap,” he yelled, and the contraption, empty of passengers, rattled off down the street.
From the second floor window of the hotel, Hawk stood next to Caroline MacFarlane, watching the dust dissipate in the morning air. He’d stopped the stage driver outside town and explained the ruse he planned; he knew Caroline didn’t agree with his idea. Agree, his father’s suspenders! Getting her to even look at the boy’s duds he’d bought had taken a stern lecture in his best military give-’em-hell voice and a flood of tears and pleading from Señora Sobrano. Miss MacFarlane was fighting him every step of the way.
“I’m going on over to the livery stable to bring the horses,” he announced.
“Horses! Excuse me, Mr. Rivera, but I expected, well, another conveyance to transport us. Surely you cannot expect us to ride horses to Gillette Springs?”
“I do. You do ride, don’t you, miss?”
“Well of course I ride,” she retorted. “Every well-bred lady in Boston learns how to ride. What a ridiculous question.”
“Señora Sobrano?”
Fernanda’s smooth olive-skinned face lit up. “Si,” she said with obvious relish. “I ride since I was a girl in Mexico.”
“Then get dressed, both of you. Meet me at the back kitchen door in twenty minutes. Whoever’s tracking you expects you to be on that stage. So, you won’t be on the stage.”
Caroline glowered at him as if he was the devil himself wearing spurs and a badge. She was a helluva lot more attractive without the scowl. He wondered how the even-tempered Fernanda Sobrano had hooked up with her? More than that, how did the older woman put up with this spoiled Boston beauty?
Hawk left them to get ready and went to get the horses. He saddled Red, his black gelding, then picked out two gentle mares for the women and had them saddled, as well.
But when he arrived at the back kitchen door, he got a shock.
Señora Sobrano had turned herself into a reasonable approximation of a somewhat-overweight adolescent boy in jeans and shirt and a pair of store-bought boots. But Caroline MacFarlane wouldn’t fool a blind man. Her jeans curved enticingly over a nicely rounded bottom, the blue-striped shirt outlined her breasts in no uncertain terms and curly tendrils of dark hair peeked from under the small black Stetson he’d picked out for her.
Hawk groaned aloud.
“What is the matter, Mr. Rivera?” Boston lady’s voice was crisp enough to fry bacon and those blue eyes of hers snapped with anger. Goddamn but she was one beautiful hunk of female when she was mad.
“Nothing,” he muttered. “Let’s mount up.” He laced his fingers together for Fernanda, then boosted Caroline up with a splayed hand on her behind.
Big mistake. The bottom part of her anatomy was warm and soft and so female it made his groin swell. God, he didn’t need this.
Once mounted, she sat the gray mare so stiff and straight she looked like a ramrod had been shoved up inside her shirt. He tried not to look at her breasts.
“Thought you said you knew how to ride.”
“I do know how to ride, but not like this. I ride sidesaddle.”
Hawk groaned again. It figured. Not only that, she looked too elegant. Too starched, somehow.
“Get down,” he ordered.
Her eyes widened. “Why should I? I just got up here.”
“You don’t look right. You’re too…clean.”
She dismounted so
fast he caught his breath, then stalked up to him and propped her hands on her hips. “Too what?” she demanded. “Ladies are supposed to be ‘clean.’”
He didn’t answer, just scooped up a double handful of dirt and stepped in close. “Don’t scream.”
He emptied his hands over her shoulders and rubbed the dust in all over her shirt and jeans. Mistake number two. He tried not to register what his fingers were feeling. She hit at him, so he caught her wrist and pinned it while he finished the job.
“Well!” she said when he released her and stepped back out of range. “Now that I look completely disreputable, are you satisfied?”
“Not yet.” He snatched off her new-looking hat and crumpled it in both hands, then dropped it onto the ground and stomped his boot on the crown.
When he straightened, Fernanda handed over her hat, as well. He noted she was trying not to laugh. Caroline, however, was looking daggers at him. No sense of humor, he guessed
She struggled up into the saddle by herself this time and Hawk felt a tiny dart of admiration for her resilience. Most women would burst into tears if a man smeared dirt all over them.
He caught his breath as a wayward thought struck home. Maybe Caroline MacFarlane wasn’t like most women.
Well, hell. He mounted and lifted the reins. “Walk the horses single file. Señora Sobrano, you bring up the rear.”
“Si, Señor Hawk.” The smile in her voice told him something he hadn’t thought of before. Fernanda Sobrano might be Caroline’s valued companion, but she didn’t put up with the lady’s airs. Or her temper. All at once, the trek to Gillette Springs looked almost enjoyable. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about getting bushwhacked. Nobody would expect them to ride the forty miles to Gillette Springs when a stagecoach was available.
They headed south. He hadn’t gone five steps before Miss High and Mighty’s voice rose in accusation. “Sheriff, we are headed in the wrong direction. Gillette Springs is north of Smoke River, is it not?”
“It is. We’re taking a roundabout route, just in case anybody’s watching.”
That shut her up. He especially liked Fernanda’s half-suppressed snort of laughter.
He led them south for a mile, then circled back onto the old river road and eventually headed north on a little-used trail he’d found on an afternoon spent fishing.
The women were quiet for the first couple of hours, and when they stopped to water the horses at a spring, Hawk studied them. Fernanda grinned at him, dismounted and scooped water up in her cupped hands. Caroline tried it but soon gave up.
Hawk thrust his canteen at her. “Here.”
She took it without a murmur, tipped the metal container to her lips and gulped three big swallows. “Tastes awful, like metal,” she complained.
“It is metal. It’s my old army canteen.”
“Oh? Which army, Union or Rebel?”
“I’m a Texan,” he said, his voice tight. “Ought to be obvious.”
“Si, is obvious,” Fernanda said from the other side of the spring. “Yankee soldiers not polite like Señor Rivera.”
Caroline bristled. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with Yankee manners.”
“No? Hija, your manners could use some improvement sometimes.”
Yankee Lady flounced back to her horse and scrambled ungracefully into the saddle. Hawk noticed she was walking a bit stiffly. By sundown she’d be saddle-sore and even more bad tempered. He expelled a long breath. Good thing he’d brought plenty of whiskey.
They stopped before dark in a thick copse of beech and sugar pines. “We stay here?” Fernanda asked.
“Yeah. Gillette Springs is forty miles from Smoke River. We’re almost halfway.” He watched the Mexican woman slide easily off her mount. Caroline sat frozen in the saddle, her head drooping.
Hawk didn’t ask if she needed help dismounting; he just walked over, snaked his hands around her waist and pulled her off the horse. She staggered, then sagged toward him. He caught her shoulders to keep her upright, but her legs wouldn’t support her.
“Fernanda, get a blanket from behind my saddle and spread it over there.” He tipped his head toward a patch of thick pine needles.
“Si, señor.”
“There’s some liniment in my saddlebag. Bring that, too.”
The older woman nodded. When she’d spread out the blanket, Hawk scooped Caroline up in his arms.
“Put me down this instant,” she cried.
He gritted his teeth. “Unless you want to crawl to that blanket, just shut up.” He knelt and rolled her onto the square of Navaho wool, then sat back on his heels.
“Listen, Miss MacFarlane. I didn’t want to come along on this trip. I don’t want to be here now, soft-talking you into behaving like a civilized person. So unless you want to take your chances alone in the middle of this woods, shape the hell up!”
He waited for a response, then lowered his voice so only she could hear. “From now on, you say please and thank you and act like a lady. You get my meaning?”
She nodded and Hawk saw that tears glistened in her eyes. Well, damn. He rose quickly and tramped over to his horse. He couldn’t stand a woman’s tears.
Fernanda found the jar of liniment and held it up with a question in her eyes.
“Smear it on her backside,” he instructed. “And her thighs,” he added. To take his mind off Caroline’s anatomy, he busied himself unsaddling and feeding the horses, then dug a hole for the fire so it couldn’t be seen and started to unpack supper from his saddlebag.
It didn’t help one bit hearing Caroline’s responses to the Mexican woman’s ministrations with the liniment. “Oh, that feels so good. Do some more, here. And here.”
Hawk tried to close his mind off from her voice, but she moaned and sighed like a cat in heat. “Ah, yes, right there. Yes! Oh. Oh. More.”
He swore under his breath and walked away from camp. When he returned an hour later, Fernanda was grinding coffee beans. Caroline limped over with the coffeepot she’d filled at the stream. Hawk lifted it out of her hands so she wouldn’t have to bend over.
“Thank you,” she murmured. She wouldn’t look at him, but her voice sounded like she’d been crying. He caught his breath. Sure was glad she couldn’t see his face in the dark.
While they ate the simple supper of canned beans and tomatoes and hot coffee, he found himself watching her. She sat slumped against a boulder, her knees bent, obviously trying not to move much. He figured her back was aching in spite of the liniment.
What the hell was a delicate slip of an overcivilized woman like Caroline MacFarlane doing traipsing around the country making people mad enough to want her dead?
Tomorrow, he’d ask her. That is, if she was still speaking to him after today.
Chapter Four
My lady very angry today. I think is because riding on horseback make her hurt. She is frightened, but she not admit. Señor Rivera say nothing, not even buenos días, until he drink three cups of the coffee I make extra strong. And I listen to my lady complain about everything, the blanket she sleep in, the boots, the biscuits he make for our supper, everything. She is mad, I think, because underneath she feel scared.
Caroline had never felt so miserable in her entire life, not even the hours spent in dusty stagecoaches rattling through the wilds of Oklahoma and Texas. She was hot and sticky and her derriere hurt as if she’d been bouncing for hours on a pincushion. A pincushion made of hard leather.
It was all the fault of that odious man, Rivera. He was bossy. Rude. And ill-mannered. No matter how admiringly Fernanda gazed at the tall sheriff, the man was nothing but a bully with a shiny silver badge.
With distaste she surveyed their sleeping arrangements for the night. A single blanket apiece and a saddle for a pillow? How primitive. Even the Indians slept in tents, did they not?
Fernanda had taken the tin plates and spoons to rinse off in the stream; when she returned Caroline would ask her to hold up a blanket so she could undress
in what limited privacy she could manage. She wondered with a stab of unease whether she would be able to get her boots off without bending over.
Rivera strode off to hobble the horses and she seized her chance. “Fernanda, hold up one of those blankets to make a screen, would you?”
“But you don’t need—”
“Just do it,” she hissed. “Quickly! Before he gets back.”
Her companion sent her an odd look but dutifully unrolled a square of striped wool and held it aloft. Caroline stepped behind it and started to undo her shirt.
“Hold it!” An unwelcome male voice stopped her midbutton.
“I am undressing, Mr. Rivera. Turn your back. Please,” she added as an afterthought. She couldn’t stand the thought that he would laugh at her. But the truth was she was, well, frightened. She didn’t know how to behave in a camp out in the wilderness with a man nearby.
“Not so fast. Out here on the trail we sleep in our clothes.”
“You may do just that, sir. I, however, will not.”
Before she could slip free one more button, he yanked the blanket out of Fernanda’s upraised hands and tossed it onto the bed of pine needles behind him.
“You hard of hearing? I said out here—”
“I heard you perfectly well. The question is, did you hear me?” She couldn’t continue undressing until he turned away. Caroline pressed her lips together and waited.
“Button yourself back up, lady. You’re gonna sleep fully clothed.”
“I—I cannot.” She would not let him see how uncertain she felt about sleeping out in the open. Next to a man. Most of all, she could not confess that her stiff denim jeans chafed the inside of her thighs, despite the liniment Fernanda had rubbed on earlier. Or that her sunburned neck smarted under her shirt collar. She needed to be free of anything that rubbed her skin.
“Like hell,” he muttered. The next thing she knew he had yanked her up like a sack of meal and dumped her onto the blanket closest to the fire pit.
Her Sheriff Bodyguard Page 2
