In a Cowboy’s Arms

by Janette Kenny

  “I was born on a dirt farm in West Virginia. My pa was a sharecropper when he wasn’t working the coal mines.” That was another memory that had stuck with him–his pa reeking of coal dust.

  “If Daisy remembered that, she never mentioned it,” she said. “She’d been told her folks had died.”

  “That’s a damned lie. Ma died birthing our baby brother, who died as well, but before she did, she had me lift Daisy on the bed so she could kiss her.” His throat felt thick and dry as he remembered her doing the same to him and gaining his promise to always look out for Daisy.

  An odd expression played over her face. “That must have been horrible for you.”

  “It was.”

  “Where was your pa?”

  “Off with his brothers in the mine.” Though looking back he wondered if that was true.

  He took his hat off and fiddled with the brim, needing something cherished to hold onto when he longed to drive a fist through a wall. You’d think he’d have forgotten the pain and fear and resignation in his ma’s voice, but it was clear as day.

  That woman had trusted that her husband would come home like always and know what to do. He’d fetch the doctor or the midwife. Either would have known what to do.

  “I shouldn’t have waited for Pa to come home.” He shook his head and eased up his punishing hold on his hat. “I should’ve fetched the doctor myself.”

  She stared at him, and he had the feeling she was looking clear to his soul. “You were just a boy.”

  But he’d felt much older with the responsibility foisted off on him. He flung the hat on the bunk to avoid destroying it and strode to the tiny morning stove with a clap of thunder dogging his steps.

  “I promised Ma I’d take care of Daisy. I failed her.”

  “How can you say that? You were put in an orphanage. They’re the ones who separated you and Daisy.”

  He hung his head and listened to the rain pounding down on the tin roof like he had thousands of times. It’d rained like this the day they took Daisy away, yet he’d heard her screaming for him over the sound of the storm.

  Some memories didn’t leave. They just turned into nightmares, riding through the mind like mavericks.

  “I was nine when they sent Daisy west. I begged them not to. I promised I’d get a job or apprentice or anything they wanted of me if they’d just keep her there at the orphanage.” When they had refused to listen to him, he’d tried to go after her, and he’d ended up getting the beating of his life.

  “You can’t blame yourself because they put your sister on an orphan train,” she said.

  “Yeah, I can. I couldn’t stop them from hauling Daisy off, but if I’d escaped right then instead of six months later, maybe I’d have found her.”

  He could have convinced Reid and Trey to run away sooner. But he hadn’t tried. Just like his pa hadn’t tried to keep his family together, preferring to raise hell instead of raising his children.

  “You have to know the chances of finding Daisy are slim,” Maggie said, voicing the fear he dreaded facing.

  “I know.”

  Six months ago he’d thought he was closer to finding her. But except for Maggie’s recollection of the last place she’d seen Daisy, he was right back to searching in vain for her.

  Dade checked the small stove for wood. The fact it’d already been banked told him this shack had been used recently. Another traveler looking for shelter? An outlaw?

  Whoever had stayed here hadn’t been gone too long.

  He lit the kindling, and the dry wood caught in no time. It might be summer, but they’d need the fire to keep the chill off and cook a meal.

  He needed the chore to get a grip on himself too. He’d said more than he’d intended, but at least she wasn’t pressing him for more. Nope, Maggie Sutten was curiously quiet.

  With a low fire going, he rose and turned to her. She still looked miserable sitting there on that hard stool.

  He took in the shack and grimaced at the dust coating everything. The bunk had a straw mattress that’d seen better days. He wouldn’t be surprised if field mice had made a home there.

  Carefully as he could, he scooped up the filthy mattress and the rags that served as blankets. He tossed it all in the corner away from where he aimed to bunk, then paused a moment to look out the small window.

  The black clouds that had swept down from the mountains were now north of here. They’d missed the worst of the storm, but the rain that was still coming down would have made riding miserable.

  Make that more miserable for Maggie.

  He closed the window shutter and faced her. “What hurts the worst?”

  “I’m not sure.” She offered up a pained smile. “My legs ache, but so does my back.”

  He figured as much and knew that a good rubbing down with liniment would go a long way toward relaxing tight muscles. Problem was he’d have to do the rubbing in. The notion of touching her bare backside and legs got his temperature, and more, up.

  “You took a good jarring, what with this being your first time spending hours in the saddle.” He grabbed her bedroll and made short work spreading it out on the bunk. “It’s not the softest bed, but stretching out will ease your backache.”

  “Where will you sleep?”

  He heard the note of panic in her voice and grimaced. Damn, did she fear he’d pounce on her now that they were alone?

  He wouldn’t, even though the notion of sleeping with her in his arms had been on his mind far too long. What a helluva fix to be in.

  “Thought I’d bunk down in front of the door,” he said, turning his attention to the provisions he’d brought in. “That way we won’t have unwanted visitors walk in on us.”

  “Oh. That’s a good idea.” Out of the corner of his eye he caught her squirming on the rough stool. “If the rain has let up, I need to step outside for a moment of privacy.”

  Her flushed cheeks told him her need was pressing. “I’ll take a look around the shed first, then leave you to it while I put on supper.”

  “Thank you.”

  The rain had lessened to a sprinkle, and the temperature had dropped, but neither helped to cool him down. Nothing would as long as he was confined in that shack with Maggie.

  Why the hell hadn’t he thought of this before setting off? What made him think that he could ignore her allure as a woman?

  As the old saw went, he’d made his bed and now he could lie in it. Problem was he wanted to do just that with her.

  He checked the area around the shack and found a natural shelter that butted up to the lean-to for the stock. It’d do for now and afford her as much privacy as one could expect out here on the Colorado plains.

  She was waiting at the door when he returned. “Head around the back,” he said.

  She pushed past him and scampered around the corner of the shack, leaving her faint lavender scent in her wake. He shook his head and strode inside, determined to be noble if it killed him.

  He’d packed canned tomatoes, tinned meat, and beans. Not elegant by any stretch but it’d keep body and soul together.

  First though he needed coffee. He filled the old tin pot with water from his canteen and set it on the flat stove to heat, but his thoughts strayed to Maggie.

  He should’ve staked out a place for her comfort on the trail, but he hadn’t thought about her needs at all. Nope, his soul concern was putting miles between them and Placid. Then he had wanted to find shelter before the storm.

  Traveling with a woman was a whole new experience. He’d have to consider her needs as they traveled.

  Hell, there were probably a slew of other things that she’d need that he hadn’t thought of. Problem was that he hadn’t spent much time alone with a woman–except when he was paying for a lady’s company.

  They’d had Mrs. Leach at the Crown Seven, but she was a crusty old gal who’d worked in a brothel when she was young. She knew how to deal with men of any age and could handle herself in any situation that he’d s
een thrown her way. She surely didn’t need a man’s help around the house or in getting to town.

  Maggie was totally different. From what Doc had told him and what little he’d gleaned from her, she’d spent her life cooped up in Harlan Nowell’s mansion with his crippled daughter.

  She didn’t know how to ride a horse. He doubted she could handle a team either. On the forays she’d made with Nowell’s daughter to Manitou Springs, they’d taken the train. As far as he knew they’d only ventured off the straight route the few times she’d visited Placid.

  In short, Maggie Sutten was helpless when it came to fending for herself. She was used to folks doing for her.

  The door opened, and she stepped inside, walking like an old woman instead of a young vibrant one who had clipped down the boardwalk like one of Reid’s spirited fillies. She made it to the bunk and eased down, but moaned softly doing it.

  Yep, she was hurting now, and she’d continue to be miserable until she got used to riding astride. He didn’t have time to go slow with her either. As long as Allis Carson was dead-set on finding her, they had to keep moving as fast as they could.

  “Coffee?” he asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  He poured the steaming brew into a tin cup and handed it to her, debating if he should question her now about Harlan Nowell. If she’d tell him why the Silver King was going to such lengths to find her.

  Maggie hadn’t told him all of it. He was sure of it.

  For now they both needed food and rest, in that order. He’d get the truth out of her eventually.

  Tomorrow they’d reach La Junta, but they couldn’t take the train east. That would leave a trail a blind man could follow.

  Their only course was to head northeast to Kansas and Wakeeney. If the cattle pens Maggie recalled weren’t there, they’d simply follow the tracks east until they found them.

  After that, it was anyone’s guess how long it’d take to find Daisy. This journey to find his sister took Maggie farther away from Colorado and Allis Carson. It kept her with him for a month, forcing him to mind his manners and ignore his baser needs. That alone wouldn’t be easy.

  But he’d promised her and Doc that he’d take her to St. Louis, the place where his own life had changed one cold wintry night. The place where the defiant boy he’d been gave up searching for his sister to become one of Kirby Morris’s foster sons.

  Now he was coming full circle. Even living on the Crown Seven, he’d felt like a part of his life was missing. He was sure he’d feel complete when he found Daisy.

  Maybe, just maybe, he’d find himself.

  Maggie had never eaten such poor fare in her life, but even if it’d been a fine steak with all the trimmings, she doubted she would’ve appreciated it. She was just spent.

  All the worries she’d had about being alone with Dade faded under the strain of her exhaustion. She wanted to curl in a ball and sleep, which she did as soon as her belly was marginally filled.

  But peace eluded her in sleep.

  She woke in the dead of night, gripped with terror from her very real nightmare of Whit dragging her into the shed. She inhaled the musty scent of earth and his spicy cologne that was branded on her memory, still troubled that he’d planned to have his way with her.

  She sat up, buried her face in her hands and stifled a moan. By sheer dint of will she’d fought him off and escaped, but the memory of what almost happened still tormented her.

  “Hurting?” Dade’s voice came out of the secret-laden darkness to startle her more.

  “I had–” A nightmare, she nearly said, then thought better of it. “A cramp in my legs. It came and went like lightning.”

  That wasn’t a total lie.

  She’d fallen asleep, plagued by intermittent cramps and twinges, but none had awakened her. She stretched and just felt sore, which wasn’t as draining as the pain.

  The fear gripping her was another thing all together. Would she ever be free of it? She didn’t know.

  “That’s it,” he said. “Just muscle spasms?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m fine now.”

  Or she would be once she pushed those memories from her mind again. Talking about that dark day in her past would serve no purpose other than to satisfy Dade’s curiosity.

  He was silent for too long, and she worried that he’d press her for details. Details he deserved to know.

  “Get some sleep,” he said at last.

  She tried to, but the night crawled by. Guilt over using Dade seemed to grow with each passing minute.

  She was very much aware of each breath Dade took. If she called out to him, she knew he’d come to her.

  Before she did, she had to tell him why she’d run away. He had to know that just by helping her escape, he’d made enemies of two powerful men.

  She had to give him the choice to get out while he could, or fall deeper into her nightmare with her.

  Chapter 13

  Sometime after she’d finally dozed off, a muffled thump outside brought her wide-awake again. She lay still as death, listening. It came again, louder. Closer.

  The door shook but held.

  She bolted upright and lunged from the bunk, desperate to run. To hide. Someone was trying to get in. The bounty hunter?

  With only one door leading into the shack, they were trapped. She backed toward the corner, her gaze locked before the door where Dade had spread his bedroll. The old fears bubbled up in her until she was shaking.

  “Shh,” Dade said, slipping an arm around her waist and pulling her back against his chest so he could whisper in her ear. “Get behind the door and don’t make a sound.”

  She shook her head, not wanting to venture that close to the unknown. But Dade carried her there anyway and set her down.

  He pressed a kiss to her cheek, and she wanted to cry at the tenderness in that brief gesture. Then he stepped into the shadows again, and she pressed her back to the wall and hugged herself.

  The door to her right rattled again, and she bit back a startled cry.

  “State your business,” Dade said, his voice crackling like a whip in the darkness.

  The rattling stopped. “My business? Hell’s bells, you’re in my cabin, and I want you to get out of it.”

  Dade chewed out a low curse and strode to the door. Surely he didn’t believe this man who sounded older than time. It could be the bounty hunter tossing out a lie just to get them to open the door.

  And Dade was about to do just that.

  She stepped in front of him and pushed his hand from the catch. “Don’t. It might be a trap.”

  “More likely it’s the truth.” He pushed her hand aside and lifted the catch.

  Maggie held her breath as the door swung open. A swath of light stretched across the shack’s floor. It didn’t seem possible that dawn was breaking already.

  She heard a shuffle at the door, but she couldn’t see anything more than Dade’s back through the crack in the door.

  “You alone?” a man asked, his voice sounding scratchier this close.

  “Nope,” Dade said. “You?”

  The old man snorted. “I’ve been alone for nigh on ten years now. That coffee I smell?”

  “Not much more than dregs now,” Dade said.

  “That’s more than I’ve had the past week. You gonna let me in my shack?”

  To her surprise, Dade stepped back and granted the man silent admittance. The old man hobbled straight to the stove and the promise of coffee, reeking of sweat and a musty odor that was similar to the one she’d first smelled when she entered this shack.

  That alone convinced her that the old man called this hovel home. She took in the place in a whole new light. The bunk she’d thought hard and dirty was all he had to rest his tired bones on. The makeshift stool served as his only chair. And his mattress... Her gaze lowered to the heap of cloth and stuffing that Dade had tossed aside so she wouldn’t have to sit on it.

  She stepped out from behind the door just as D
ade unhooked the shutter and flipped it open. More light filtered through the grimy window, enough to see details now.

  The old man was about her height, but the sack coat and baggy trousers he wore kept her from telling if he was fat or lean. His slouch hat had seen better days too.

  He set the coffeepot down and faced them. “She your missus?”

  “Sister,” Dade said.

  The old man nodded and took a sip of coffee. “Figured as much since you ain’t sleeping with her.”

  So the old man was more observant than she’d thought. What other attributes could he be hiding?

  He bore watching, and judging from Dade’s rigid stance he was doing just that. “You put your horse in the pen?”

  The old man shook his head. “Ain’t got one.”

  “How’d you get here then?”

  “Rode shank’s mare,” the old man said, and slapped a hand on his thigh and laughed.

  He walked here? From where?

  “You been in Walsenburg?” Dade asked.

  “Pueblo.” The old man finished off the coffee and set the cup down, his gaze flicking from her to Dade. “I head up there once a month or so to see a friend, if you know what I mean.”

  Dade coughed, or was that a muffled laugh? “You lived around here long?”

  “Since they laid the tracks from Atchison to Santa Fe,” the old man said.

  “Were you a railroad roustabout?” Dade asked.

  “Nope, a bridge monkey before I fell and hurt my leg,” the old man said. “Railroad ain’t got any jobs for a cripple.”

  She watched him hobble to the lone stool with renewed empathy and wished there was something she could do to ease his affliction now. But she had hoped for the same for Caroline and learned at a young age that nothing could be done to stop the ill effects of arthritis or similar pain born from injury.

  “How’s your memory of the race to lay rails west across Kansas?” Dade asked.

  The old man smiled, revealing gaps in his teeth. “Like it was yesterday. Hell, I worked on every damn bridge on that line.”

  “You recollect any cattle pens built along the Kansas Central that were similar to what they had in Abilene?” Dade asked, and she realized he was trying to narrow their search for the place where Daisy had been taken off the train.