“Like what?”
“Do you have a mother, Maddie?”
She shook her head. “She...died.”
“She never spoke to you of marriage and what to expect?”
Maddie shook her head and blushed. Oh, dear God, this woman wasn’t going to talk to her about sex, was she?
“I’m not...afraid of my husband.”
It was Lucia’s turn to blush. She pulled off another piece of bun and quickly put it in her mouth, chewing it thoroughly before she responded. She was clearly choosing her words carefully.
“I don’t mean between the sheets. But what happens between a man and a wife out of bed. I’ve watched you, Maddie, and you have something to prove. I remember when I first married Antonio, there was so much that was suddenly ‘us’ I felt like I was losing who I was.”
“I can’t lose what I don’t have.”
“What do you mean?”
“I grew up differently, without a family. I was never allowed to make any decisions.”
“But this is normal for young girls.”
“It was extreme in my case, and if I don’t know who I am outside my marriage, how can I know who I am inside it?”
“Ah, I suspected this was the case. It’s easy to forget, when you worry about losing yourself, in a marriage that which you gain.” Lucia took another step forward and patted Maddie’s cheek and smiled gently.
“You don’t lose yourself in a marriage, Maddie. You gain your other half.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SHE GAINED HER better half.
Maddie was so absorbed in the concept that it took a good ten minutes after Lucia said good-night for her to recognize that uncomfortable, clammy feeling was creeping over her skin again. As if eyes were upon her. Secret eyes. Evil eyes. She hadn’t felt them at all when Caden was here, but as soon as he was gone, it was back. She needed to get control.
Feeling stupid, she yanked the kitchen curtains closed. Standing in the middle of the kitchen, she waited. The feeling didn’t go away. Darn it, she didn’t have time for this. The last of the dishes needed doing. And her bed needed making. Both the front and back doors were open to let in the air. She could close the front, but the back had to stay open until the oven cooled down; otherwise she’d roast.
Licking her lips, she wiped her hands on her apron and quickly closed the front door and turned the lock. She stepped back and she wondered at the futility of her actions. The lock wasn’t even as strong as the ones that had been on the whorehouse’s door. Of course, those were meant to keep girls in, but studying her front door, the lock didn’t look strong enough to keep a mouse out.
Maddie shook her head at her foolishness and unlocked the door, forcing herself to take a step outside and look around. She was her own woman, dependent on no one. There was nothing unusual, just the peaceful goings-on in the street past the alley, her cat chasing a bug in the patch of grass just off the front step. It was a calm summer night and she was being foolish. Besides, Lucia had just left and she would have said something if she’d seen anyone lurking about.
Shaking her head again, Maddie stepped back into the house, closed the door, debated a second and then threw the lock. If she was her own woman, she shouldn’t be ashamed to lock the damn door if she wanted to.
She took a step back toward the kitchen, her eyes locked on the door. The hairs on the back of her neck lifted. On the next step she bumped into something that shouldn’t have been there, someone who shouldn’t have been there. Her scream was cut off by a hand over her mouth, her struggles ended by a knife against her throat.
She closed her eyes. Not so foolish after all. It was little comfort.
“Hello, Maddie.”
It took her a minute to place the voice. Dickens. As he dragged her back into the kitchen, the heat from the oven hit her hard, wrapping around her body, bringing the acrid scent of her own fear to her nostrils. On the next breath, she drowned in the stench of his, only he wasn’t afraid. He smelled of hate and sweat.
“I came to collect what’s owed me.”
Insanity. Dickens. He was Frank’s man.
“Did Frank send you?”
“Culbart and I parted company.”
“He fired you.” It was a shot in the dark that hit home.
He yanked her back, shifting his grip to her mouth. “Over you, you fucking bitch. We’ll add that to your tab.”
There was only one thing he could think she owed him. He turned, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw he closed the back door and locked it. Wild laughter rose as she realized instead of keeping the danger out, she’d locked the danger in with her.
Sweat popped out over her body, at her temples, dripping down her cheeks. Fear constricted her lungs. She opened her mouth, trying to suck in a breath, but his hand smothered the effort. His thumb pressed up under her nostrils, restricting how much air she could even inhale. Despite the knife, she had no choice; she had to struggle and she felt the sting of the cut and blood drip to join the sweat.
He changed the angle of the knife and pointed the tip up under her chin.
She held still, terror building on terror.
“Good girl.”
She wanted to kick him in the balls.
“I’m going to let go of you,” he told her, “but if you think I can’t throw this knife faster than you can scream, you just give it a shot.”
She believed him. When he took his hand from her mouth in a quick, efficient movement, she didn’t move, just stood there staring at him as he stepped around in front of her. Light from the lamp caught on the blade.
She brought her hand up to her throat. The cut was a small gap in her skin, but it was too easy to think of it being so much bigger. She stared at his knife. That was her blood on the blade. She’d been close to death before, but it had never felt this real.
You gain your other half.
Lucia’s words came back to her. She was just beginning to figure things out and now she might be losing everything.
“Why are you here?” Her voice was a dry rasp of sound choking off in the middle.
Dickens smiled and took his hat off and set it on the back of the chair.
“You owe me. Back at the house, you tricked the boss man into taking you off the table, but I’ve had a hard-on for you ever since. Dancing around, acting like you’re better than the rest of us. Just a split tail that belongs on her back, and I want what you stole from me.” He motioned with the knife. “My time between your thighs to start.”
“You want to make love.”
“I don’t make love with whores.”
She knew that. And it should be easy to give him what he wanted, to unbutton her dress, shrug out of it, to lie on the bed, spread her legs and go to that place where everything was good and he didn’t exist.
“I think I’d rather die first.”
“That’s a bit dramatic even for a whore.”
“I think this is a bit dramatic for a cowhand.” She motioned with her hand, indicating his knife, the room, the situation.
“Well—” he took a step forward, unbuckling his gun belt “—if I were just a cowhand, maybe it would be, but I have plans, big plans, and you weren’t supposed to leave before I got them going.”
“All this because you want to have sex with me?”
She thought of the weeks where she’d felt someone’s eyes upon her. He had to have been stalking her from the beginning, following her, watching her, studying her. It made her skin crawl.
“Have you been watching me?”
“Yes.”
The buckle came undone. He placed the gun belt over the chair. A little leap of excitement inside as she realized how close the weapons were. She licked her lips. Just an arm’s length away.
“Are you crazy?”
“Nope.”
He said that so calmly she was convinced he was. Only crazy people denied it in a flat tone like that, as if they’d long accepted what was inside them so much so that it was
normal.
Only crazy people that lived with themselves long enough to feel that it was normal said no in a voice like that.
She took a step back.
“That’s a step in the right direction.”
And she realized he was looking at the big bed Caden had bought. She shook her head. No. She wouldn’t lie with him there.
His hand in the middle of her chest sent her spinning back. She caught the bedpost to stop herself from falling.
“Get out of those clothes and on that bed.”
“You don’t want to do this,” she told him.
“The hell I don’t. I told you I’ve had a hard-on for you since the first time I saw you.”
“Caden will kill you.”
“Caden ain’t gonna do shit.” He waved the knife. “Get out of those clothes.”
He was fumbling with the buttons of his pants. She tried, she really tried. She’d been in situations like this before and a man’s tensions eased once he reached his release—sometimes they had to beat you a bit before they left, but they always let their guard down once they came. It was almost like a game.
The light caught on the drop of blood bright on the blade. Her blood. She looked into his eyes. And her stomach sank. Dickens wasn’t playing.
She dug her fingers into the bed coverings. Her eyes stuck on that knife, her mind whirling. There had to be something she could do. Some way to distract him. She had to keep him talking. “You said there was something else.”
“I want the gold, Maddie.”
Oh, dear God. She didn’t have any gold.
“I don’t have any gold.”
“Your husband does and I want to know where it is.”
“What makes you think he told me? I’m a whore.”
“The man rode into the Fallen C for you. That means you meant something to him. A man tells things to a woman that matters.”
“Maybe some men...”
He grunted a deep sound that could have meant anything.
She looked around the room for a weapon. There was nothing. The tiny oil lamp on the stand wouldn’t even make a dent in Dickens’s skull. She had no way to defend herself.
“Take off that dress.”
She touched her throat, slid her fingers down the V to the next button. He licked his lips the way she’d seen a man do, full of greed and lust. His eyes narrowed. It should be so easy to unbutton those buttons, expose her breasts, lift them up in an offering bound to distract him. She’d done it so many times, for so many men. This was just one more time. But she couldn’t work the button, and the rage that swelled inside all but choked out the fear. Clutching the material in her fist, she spat, “Go to hell.”
He didn’t even bat an eye. “I’m sure we’ll both get there eventually.”
He took a step forward, the knife in his hand pointed up. She pressed back against the bed. He smiled and pressed the blade flat against her stomach.
She gritted her teeth. “Fuck you.”
“That is the plan.”
She closed her eyes, biting back a sob. Words were the only weapon she had, and the ones she was throwing sounded more like jokes than threats. But since she couldn’t come up with anything else to say, she clung to her defiance. She wasn’t a whore. She was Caden Miller’s wife. If she died, she would die an honorable woman.
Whatever you had to do to survive, that’s just what you had to do.
Maybe back then that was true. But not now. She wasn’t doing this. She took a step to the side. Dickens blocked her by taking a step of his own. The knife tip slid up the front of her dress.
“Get on with it.”
She shook her head. “If you want me naked, you’re going to have to make it happen yourself.”
“Putting on airs now that you’re married?”
“No.” She was being who she was. Finally.
He reached out. She slapped his hand away, getting a small glimmer of satisfaction when he looked shocked. Her satisfaction was short-lived. He backhanded her across the face. Stars exploded behind her eyelids. She went tumbling backward onto the bed, right where he wanted her.
She waited for him to come down over her. They always came down over her, thinking they’d won once they had her on her back.
He laughed and climbed up over her.
“Nothing worse than an uppity whore.”
And there was nothing worse than a man who thought being male entitled him to everything. Lashing out, she sank her nails into his face, going for his eyes, ripping down his cheeks. She wanted him to holler and scream, like she was, to maybe alert somebody, anybody, that she was here and that she was in trouble, but all he did was grunt and grab her wrist in one of his hands, blocking the other with his elbow as he pressed his forearm across her throat.
Instinct told her to grab his hand, but she’d been choked before. Her strength was nothing against his. Her only defense was to keep striking at his soft spots. His eyes, his balls, his throat. Opening her eyes, fighting the urge to gasp for air, she lashed out again at his face with her free arm, this time striking with her thumbs for his eyes. She grazed one, not the direct hit she wanted, but it was enough.
He jerked back and released his hold on her. She rolled to the middle of the bed. He lunged after her. She jumped for the floor but he caught her skirts just as she launched. He yanked her back. Anchored by her skirts, she fell face-first over the foot of the bed, smashing her hands into the floor and upending the bed stand. The oil lamp shattered into shards around her fingers. Maddie watched the oil spread over her clean floor as she dangled there, wheezing for breath and managing, finally, to drag past her terror, in one, two, three breaths. The fourth she let out in a scream she hoped was loud enough to wake the dead.
Somebody had to hear her. And if they heard her, someone had to care. She was Maddie Miller. Baker, wife. She was someone.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Dickens grabbed her hair and hauled her back up, clamping his hand over her mouth. Her back arched. It was an impossible position, a defenseless position. In the next instant she was flipped over, and once again she was on her back on the bed. The bed Caden had sent. The bed they were going to make love in. Her marriage bed. Dickens wasn’t going to take her on her marriage bed. She’d die first.
Opening her mouth, she sucked in a breath to launch another scream.
“Oh, no, you don’t.”
His hand closed around her throat like a vise, clamping the sound within. Her face heated and her eyes bulged, but he didn’t loosen his grip. “You keep doing that and I’ll fuck you as you suffocate.”
He meant it. Caden. She screamed his name in her mind. She’d sent him away to find herself and he’d gone, giving her what she’d needed. Oh, God, she’d been so selfish, thinking she couldn’t be herself with him. Sending him away. Hurting him.
Caden.
Another prayer couched in a silent scream. She didn’t want to think of him finding her like this. From a distance she heard hollow gasps. Pain in her shoulder and the back of her neck savaged her control. There was the sound of cloth tearing. So much distraction, but she reached for the image of her pond in her mind. The image wouldn’t form, so she reached for something stronger and found...Caden. Feature by feature she built his face in her mind, from his beautiful eyes to that lower lip she loved to nibble on.
“Goddamn fucking bitch.”
It was getting harder to move, harder to focus. Darkness was bleeding over Caden’s face. No! It was a cry from her heart. As futile as all the others. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the blackness from the beauty. Caden was her one good thing and she wanted to hold on to him, whisper his name with her last breath.
“Wake up!”
Dickens shook her. She knew he shook her because she could feel her body’s disjointed motion, almost as if she was bobbing on waves. Her hand flopped out. Pain lanced up her arm. She’d been cut. How odd—the world was black yet she could still feel pain. She moved her hand. The pain in
tensified. Sharp. The stray thought entered the void. There was something sharp by her hand. Glass...a weapon. Yes!
With the last of her strength, she slashed upward, using his voice as a guide, striking for his eyes, those horrible, ugly eyes full of lust. She hated the way men looked at her, hated the way he looked at her. It was only beautiful when Caden looked at her because he never saw her as a piece of meat he was going to buy. Caden looked at her as though she mattered.
Her hand connected with something soft, giving before slamming up against something hard. There was a scream. Agony in her palm. Agony in the scream. Agony in her heart. It was everywhere.
Dickens fell off her.
Run! Get up! Run!
The voice inside her screamed at her, but she couldn’t move, the life choked from her. All she could do was lie there and wheeze, hoping to get enough oxygen back inside so that her mind could function before Dickens recovered. Oh, dear God, let me recover first.
From the front door came an explosion of glass and splintered wood. Maddie opened her eyes. For a second everything was too bright, too much, but then she saw the silhouette of a man—broad-shouldered, lean-hipped, with an arrogant tilt to the chin she’d recognize anywhere.
Caden.
She wanted to warn him about Dickens, out of sight on the other side of the bed. Though her throat worked, she couldn’t make a sound. She heard the soft glide of metal over leather.
“Maddie!”
She heard Dickens shift position. No. No. No.
She did the only thing she could think of. She just rolled right off the bed. Dickens was on the floor. If God was in his heavens, she’d land on him.
She did mostly, but she hit the floor, too, the wood slamming into her ribs. She heard Caden swear, heard a shot ring past her ear, then a thud.
Oh, God. Was that what a bullet sounded like when it hit flesh?
She was wedged between Dickens and the bed, his shoulder pressed against her back. She pushed for all she was worth, trying to get on top of him, to block him. He elbowed her off. She grabbed his arm, her wrist screaming a protest when he jerked.
“Fucking bitch! Get off me!”
Caden's Vow Page 27
