Apache-Colton Series

by Janis Reams Hudson

  Serena wasn’t as shocked as she probably should have been by Kali’s advice, yet the thought of deliberately trying to ensnare Matt made her uneasy. “But Kali, that’s not love, that’s lust.”

  Kali threw back her head and laughed. “Of course it is.” Then she sobered and lowered her voice. “He already loves you, silly. He’s loved you all your life. You’ve just got to make him forget he’s always thought of you as his sister. Believe me, you get a rise out of him a couple of times and he’ll forget all about wanting to be your brother.”

  “It sounds so…calculating.”

  “Calculating as hell, honey. But if you felt this way about some other man, one you hadn’t been raised with, I’d be willing to bet you’d go after him with everything you’ve got to get him to notice you.”

  The lone horseman, concealed by brush and mesquite on a hill overlooking the house, watched as the whore from the Last Chance drove the wagon onto the road back to town. The other woman—Colton’s sister—stood in the dust, the wind whipping her skirt back against her legs, and watched the wagon until it was out of sight.

  He rubbed his right thumb along the fingertips of the same hand, more from habit than for feel. The tips of his fingers felt nothing beyond a slight pressure. Feeling and texture had been burned away long ago.

  What a stroke of luck to have the sister show up. Now there they were, all alone down there, a sick, injured drunk and a helpless girl.

  If the fire in town had worked, the sister wouldn’t matter. It had been, he admitted with a fond smile, his best fire ever. But Colton had gotten lucky. Instead of burning alive, or at least breaking his neck escaping the flames, the bastard had only broken his leg. Now the sister could be useful.

  Not yet, though, he cautioned himself. Not yet…but soon.

  Chapter Five

  Serena delayed going back inside the house as long as possible. She gave the horse and goat fresh water and more feed. She turned the chickens out into the minuscule enclosure built long ago for that purpose and gave them water.

  You’re in love with him, aren’t you?

  Am I?

  Don’t lie.

  But—

  No buts.

  It’s true.

  Yeah, and it’s crazy. It’s absurd. It’s…wrong.

  It’s not wrong, damn it. It’s…

  Hopeless?

  Hopeless.

  Serena took a deep breath and cursed herself for having such ridiculous thoughts. The entire subject was beside the point. Matt would always see her as his little sister.

  The goat bleated her objection to Serena’s lack of attention.

  “Shut up, or I’ll make you go fix Matt’s dinner.”

  The goat bleated again.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  With a smile pasted on her face, Serena forced herself back into the house. Matt needed food.

  The interior was dim compared to the outdoors; it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. When she approached Matt’s bed, she stumbled over his discarded crutches. She picked them up and leaned them against the wall out of the way, then discovered blood on the lower half of one. “Matt?”

  He lay with one arm across his eyes, the other across his stomach. Both fists were clenched tight; his jaw muscles worked furiously. His coffee cup, still full, sat beside the bed.

  Without another word, Serena knelt and pulled the blanket back from his injured leg. Blood seeped out around his stitches and the swelling was worse.

  “Damn it, Matt, why didn’t you tell me?” She set about tending his leg, probing the swollen flesh to make sure the bone was still in place.

  Matt stiffened. “Where’d you learn to talk like a gutter rat, girl?”

  “From a certain older brother, who shall remain nameless.”

  “You must mean Pace. I know I never use words like that.”

  “Ha. The fifteen minutes Pace has on me does not qualify him as an older brother. If the shoe fits, Matthew.”

  Now that she was finished poking around on his leg, he lowered his arm from his eyes and looked at her. “Am I still a brother to you, Rena?”

  Serena sat back on her heels. “Don’t be silly,” she said with a nervous laugh. “You’re talking about what Kali said. Forget it. We’re still the same two people we’ve always been.”

  “Are we?” he shook his head and stared at the ceiling. “I don’t think so. The one you used to call brother, the one you used to tag along behind, he’d never have gotten himself into a mess like this.”

  Serena wanted to argue, but couldn’t. He was right.

  “And that little bright-eyed, beautiful girl, the one he used to call his princess…” He lowered his gaze and looked at her. “Your eyes are still bright, and you’re more beautiful than ever, but you’re not my little princess anymore, are you? You’re all grown up now. And the tables have turned.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It used to be me, looking after you, taking care of you.” He gave a wry grin. “Now it’s the other way around.”

  “It’s only temporary. You’ll be back on your feet in no time.”

  “And then what? Do you drag me home by my ear?”

  “I didn’t come here to drag you home. I came because I thought you needed me.”

  Matt sighed wearily and closed his eyes.

  “It’s okay to need someone now and then, you know,” she told him.

  “Can we talk about something else?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t care.” He opened his eyes and studied her. “How about why you aren’t married yet. You’re what, nineteen? Most girls your age are married with a couple of kids already.”

  Serena laughed and rolled her eyes. The tension was easing. “And just where, I ask, am I supposed to find a man that you, Pace, Mamma and Daddy think is good enough for me? I hear the president is already taken.”

  “Come on.” A teasing smile curved Matt’s lips. “It can’t be that bad. Whatever happened to that Maichak kid, Willy? He used to hang around you all the time, if I remember correctly.”

  “Oh, he hung around me all the time, all right. But only so he could catch a glimpse of Angela every chance he got. Any time she was around he forgot I was even alive, and you know it.”

  “I remember that. He used to blush and stammer and knock things over whenever she came in the room. I used to want to throttle him.”

  Serena giggled at the memory. “You nearly did that time he spilled his tea down the front of Angela’s dress, then kept trying to help her wipe it off.”

  Matt laughed and groaned. “I remember that. I threw him out of the house.”

  “And Angela got mad at you.”

  “That’s putting it mildly. She lit into me something fierce for putting my boot to the seat of his pants.”

  Serena’s smile mellowed. It was good to see him laugh again. If he could remember Angela with laughter, then he would heal.

  “Whatever happened to him?” Matt asked, still smiling.

  “His father sold their store in Tucson and they opened a new one in Prescott. I guess they’re still there.”

  “Are you sorry?”

  “Of course not. You were right when you called him a kid. He was nice, but he was just a boy. I don’t intend to get serious about a boy. I’d much rather find a man.”

  The tension sprang up again between them then like a visible thing, without either one of them understanding why.

  It was three long, awkward days before Serena finally slit open one leg of Matt’s pants to make room for his splint and allowed him out of bed. She would have preferred him to keep that leg immobile for another several days, but the enforced idleness was making him irritable. And that was putting it mildly.

  Every time she got near him with a bowl of broth or a cup of milk, he glared. When she changed the bandages on his leg, he refused to look at her. When she tried to get him to talk, he mumbled one-word replies at the most. He was restless, short tempere
d, and sick to death of lying on his back. She offered to massage his back to ease the stiffness, and he reacted as though she’d proposed something totally indecent. When she tried to get him into the tub so she could wash his hair, he flatly refused.

  Matt took the pants eagerly and waited until Serena left before kicking off the blanket and struggling into them.

  Finally. Pants.

  With his crutches, he hobbled outside for the first time since Kali’s visit and sank down onto the chair Serena had brought for him. The sun and wind felt good, helped clear the cobwebs from his mind.

  Serena came around the corner carrying a pick. The hefty wooden handle and shiny, sharp blade looked out of place in her delicate hands.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “We’re almost out of firewood.” She approached a mesquite bush and eyed the ground until she located a section of long, black root partially uncovered by the wind and recent rains.

  “You can’t pry that thing up. That pick is bigger than you are.”

  “Well, you can’t pry it up either, and we need wood for cooking.” She hacked at the gravelly ground next to the exposed root. Once she worked the point of the pick beneath the wood, she would have to pry the root from the ground, then cut it up with an axe if it didn’t break into small enough lengths on its own.

  Matt flinched with each whack. “You’re going to hurt yourself. Why don’t you just ride into town and get someone to come out here? I’m sure Kali knows someone who’d be willing to pry and cut wood for a small fee, or even a meal.”

  Serena ignored him and continued hacking away at the ground. The morning sun burned through her blouse and warmed the back of her head. Her hair kept falling in her face. She stopped long enough to braid it and let the breeze dry the sweat from her brow.

  A few more swings and she was finally able to work the pick beneath the root. Now for the fun part—prying the root from the ground. Already her shoulders ached and her hands felt raw. How was she ever going to finish?

  Mesquite roots were hard but brittle, and they held heat nearly as well as coal. With the pick beneath the root, Serena pulled back on the handle with all her might. The soil gave up the root without too much struggle. She moved the pick down the loosened section and pried again. This time the ground wasn’t so cooperative. She had to use all her strength to pry even an inch of root loose.

  Then the inevitable happened. Just when Serena had nearly all her weight on the pick handle, the brittle wood snapped. She fell flat on her rear.

  Matt tried hard to hide his laughter. After all, she could have been hurt. It was obvious, however, by the disgusted look on her face as she struggled to rise, that the most serious damage was to her dignity.

  “Are you, uh, all right?”

  “Don’t you dare laugh,” she warned with narrowed eyes.

  “I wouldn’t,” he protested, holding both hands in the air. “I swear.”

  Serena’s expression suddenly changed from chagrin to alertness. Matt watched curiously as she scrambled up and ran into the hut. She was back a moment later and set a bucket down beside him. “There’s a rider coming.”

  Matt looked from her to the road, then to the bucket. She nudged aside the rag that covered the bucket and revealed his Colt. Just then Matt picked out the sound that had alerted her. A hoof striking stone.

  He looked at her with surprise and admiration. “Apache ears?”

  She shrugged, Matt smiled, then both turned toward the spot where the road to town emerged from the brush.

  The lone rider kept his horse at a walk as he entered the clearing. “Mornin’, folks.” He drew his Roman-nosed dun to a halt. A fine layer of gray dust covered his black hat, morning coat, pants and boots, muting the starkness of his white shirt. A neat, black string tie held his collar tight against his throat while a shock of sandy brown hair fell from beneath his hat brim toward laughing gray eyes.

  “I was up on the ridge,” he said, pointing to the east, “just takin’ a look around, when I spotted you folks down here.” He nodded toward the pick in Serena’s hands. “If you don’t mind my sayin’ so, looks like you could use some help there, Miz Colton.”

  Serena jerked, startled. “You know my name?”

  “Sure do.” He grinned and dismounted.

  “I know you,” Serena said, recognition striking her. “You were in the, ah, Lucky Lady, I believe it was, seated at the bar.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He doffed his hat. “Name’s Caleb.”

  Serena smiled and extended her hand in greeting. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Caleb.”

  “No mister—just Caleb.” He tossed his hat onto his saddle horn, then took her hand in both of his and placed a gallant kiss on her knuckles. “And the pleasure’s all mine, I assure you.”

  Serena forced her smile to remain in place. She’d met her share of harmless flirts before, and this man was definitely a flirt. But there was something lurking in the depths of those gray eyes that bothered her and sent a clamor of warning along her spine. Something far from harmless.

  She shook her head slightly and dismissed the feeling. It was just her imagination. “This is my brother, Matt Colton,” she said by way of introduction.

  Caleb rushed forward to extend his hand to Matt. “Don’t get up. I can see you’ve had a bit of bad luck.”

  Matt shook the man’s hand, a puzzled expression on his brow. “Have we met before? You seem familiar.”

  “We never actually met, but we’ve passed each other on the street a time or two, I reckon. You’ve probably seen me in the Lucky Lady, if you ever go there.”

  “That must be it. I’ve been there once or twice.” The burning question in Matt’s mind now was, what in the hell had Serena been doing in the Lucky Lady? But he’d save his question for later. He didn’t want to start an argument in front of a stranger.

  “I can see by your leg that you’re not up to choppin’ wood, Colton. I’d be obliged if you’d let me do it for you. It just doesn’t seem right letting a pretty little thing like your sister get blisters on those soft hands trying to do a man’s work.”

  All the time he spoke, Caleb was removing his coat and rolling up the sleeves on his white shirt. By the time he finished, he was no longer looking at Matt, but was staring into Serena’s eyes like a lovesick calf.

  Matt didn’t know whether to laugh or groan.

  “Why, thank you, Caleb.” Serena batted her lashes at him.

  Matt nearly swallowed his tongue. He’d never seen Serena bat her eyes in his life.

  “I don’t know how we would have managed,” she told Caleb, “if you hadn’t come along.”

  Brother, was she laying it on thick. There wasn’t a thing in the world Serena couldn’t do when she set her mind to it. She was probably the most self-sufficient female in three territories. Matt knew, because he had help teach her.

  “Don’t thank me, ma’am,” Caleb said. “It’s my privilege.” He smiled down at her and took the pick from her hand, then turned his back and started to work.

  Serena dared a glance at Matt and nearly choked when she saw him trying to strangle his own laughter. She rolled her eyes toward heaven and shook her head.

  Caleb worked tirelessly prying up black lengths of mesquite root and cutting them into smaller pieces of firewood. Serena fetched a pail of cool water from the well and offered him a drink from the dipper. He accepted gratefully.

  “Are you from around here, Mr. Caleb?” she asked.

  “Just Caleb, ma’am, and no, my family’s mostly scattered around. I guess we all call Tennessee home, although the only one left at the old place is Ben.”

  “Ben?”

  “Yes’m. My older brother, Benjamin. He’s tied to the land. Couldn’t get him off that farm with dynamite. The rest of us, we sorta just wandered off from the place. Got itchy feet, you might say.”

  “Is your family a large one?”

  “Naw, not really. The youngest, we all chipped in together and sent hi
m back East to school. The oldest of us boys came out West several years ago.” He dropped the dipper back into the pail and returned to chopping wood.

  Serena smiled at his use of the word boys. Caleb looked to be near thirty, around Matt’s age.

  “He got killed here awhile back,” Caleb said.

  “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  Caleb stopped and smiled softly at her, transforming his otherwise plain features into what Serena considered handsome. “That’s all right,” he murmured.

  In practically no time at all, Caleb had a respectable sized stack of firewood piled up next to the door of the adobe. Serena urged him to stay for dinner, but he politely refused, saying he had business in town. He made his good-byes, obviously preoccupied with whatever that business was, and rode off.

  And business was exactly what had Caleb so preoccupied. The business of Serena Colton. Damn. He hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t expected to like her.

  But what man could look into those pale blue eyes and not fall for her? And that hair. All that thick, glorious black hair, with that narrow white streak at her temple. He’d never seen a woman with a streak in her hair before. He had found himself wanting to release that confining braid and run his fingers through her hair and kiss the place where that streak sprouted.

  Goddammit. He wasn’t supposed to like her. She was only supposed to be a tool. A means to an end.

  He’d just have to revise his plans. That was all there was to it. There was no reason why he shouldn’t be able to figure out a way to keep her once she’d served her purpose, was there?

  Caleb began to relax. Sure, he thought. He just had to find a way, that was all.

  The dust from Caleb’s departure hadn’t yet cleared when Matt pulled himself up on his crutches and followed Serena into the house.

  “That was nice of him, wasn’t it?” Serena asked over her shoulder as she preceded him indoors.

  “Real nice,” Matt said sarcastically, remembering the way the man had practically drooled over her. “I’ve just got one question.”