Cherish

by Catherine Anderson

  The words seemed to hang there, echoing like the blast of a shotgun. How come, he wondered, at times like this, the God’s honest truth always came out sounding like a lie?

  “I had a real bad headache, is all,” he rushed to add, “and I just laid down to try and get shut of it. I reckon I fell asleep.”

  Race wasn’t sure what he expected. Some kind of reaction, at least. For her to look at him, maybe? Instead, she just continued to huddle there, arms shielding her head. He had a bad feeling she was so scared that she wasn’t hearing a word he said.

  And wasn’t that a fine kettle of fish. On his best day, he wasn’t exactly gifted at putting a shine on words.

  “I must’ve got chilled during the night,” he said, as much to himself as to her. “In this country, it can get colder than a well digger’s ass along about dawn. In my sleep, I reckon I went burrowin’ for warmth under the quilts.”

  Nothin’. Just that terrible shaking. Frustrated, he raked his fingers through his hair, encountered tangles, and damned near jerked the strands out by the roots. The sting brought tears to his eyes. He blinked and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

  In his mind’s eye, he pictured her waking up this morning and realizing a man was in bed with her. He doubted she had any recollection of what had happened yesterday after the attack on her traveling party, which meant she had no idea who he was or how she’d come to be in his company.

  The thought brought his head up. No recollection? If she remembered nothing save for the killings, she probably thought he’d been involved.

  Even when he was scrubbed up, clean-shaven, and wearing a fresh shirt, Race knew he had a look about him that made strangers leery. He had always laid it off on his coloring, the dark skin and eyes, the high cheekbones, and the blue-black hair that marked him as a breed. There was also the distinctive way he wore his guns so low on his hips, the stamp of a gunslinger. In this country, folks had a healthy fear of both Indians and gunmen, especially ladies, and this girl had more reason than most.

  Of all the dumb things he’d ever done—and he’d pulled some good ones—falling asleep beside her took the prize.

  Race pushed to his feet. At his movement, the wagon jounced slightly. The girl gave a startled squeak, pushed off on all fours like a frog in a hopping contest, and grabbed hold of the rough half-wall behind the driver’s seat. When she threw up a leg to crawl out, Race nearly leaped after her. But then he thought better of it. That would only frighten her more.

  Even if she got outside, she wouldn’t go far. The surrounding area was crawling with his men, for one thing, and she wore no shoes to protect her feet. The grassland that stretched forever in all directions was chock-full of burrs and stickers. There was also the fact that he had longer legs, which made the outcome of any footraces between them a sure bet in his favor.

  As he anticipated, she poked her golden head out the front opening of the canvas, saw all the men milling about, and froze with one knee hitched up over the seat, the hem of her nightgown riding high in back to reveal her calf and ankle. He’d never seen a leg so daintily made. Her ankle bone looked about a third the size of his.

  For some reason, seeing that leg drove home to him what a hell of a fix she must think she was in, outnumbered and outflanked everywhere she turned, by men she thought were cold-blooded killers.

  “Sweetheart, don’t be afraid. You got no call to be. You’re safe here. Me and my men won’t harm a hair on your head, I swear it. As for the killin’ of your people, I didn’t have nothin’ to do with it, and neither did they.”

  Her breath coming in shaky rasps, she turned to look at him. Her expression caught at his heart. Fear. Hopelessness. Defeat. She slid off the wagon seat and sank to the floor, her back pressed to the wall, her slender body once again drawn into a protective huddle, arms locked around her bent knees. Her small face was so bloodless that he could scarcely tell where her white cotton nightgown left off and her skin began. Under her blue eyes, dark circles stood out in stark relief against her pale cheeks, and her soft, full lips were tinged with purple.

  He searched his mind for some way—any way at all—to reassure her. The way she looked at him made him feel too big for his skin. Six-three in his bare feet, he stood a head taller than most men. To someone of her slight stature, he knew he had to seem huge. There had been countless times in Race’s lifetime when he’d had cause to wish his legs weren’t so long or his shoulders so wide, but never more so than now.

  Barely aware of his movements or the thoughts that ran through his mind to prompt them, he folded a leg under himself to sit down, hoping he might seem less intimidating that way. Then, very slowly so as not to startle her, Race unbuckled his gun belt. Bless her heart, she was shaking so hard, she looked incapable of standing, let alone making a run for it. As she followed the movements of his hands, a look of stunned disbelief crossed her face.

  Never taking his gaze off her, he folded the ends of the gun belt around the holsters, then leaned sideways to lay the weapons on the pallet, putting them as close to her as his arm would stretch. He followed the guns with his sheathed knife. Then he scooted away, the seat of his britches rasping on the floorboards, until his back met with the wall.

  She stared at the weapons for a moment, then looked back at him, her expression indicating that she thought he’d gone plumb loco. And maybe he had.

  He smiled slightly. “I got only one request,” he said in the gentlest tone he could muster. “If you decide to shoot me, aim true. Gettin’ gut shot ain’t real high on my list.”

  Her gaze darted back to the guns, and she stared at them for several long seconds, as if she couldn’t quite believe he’d laid them there, unguarded and within her reach. That made two of them. He couldn’t quite credit it either. At this close range, she wouldn’t have to aim; just pointing the gun in his general direction and pulling the trigger would get the job done. And wouldn’t that be a hell of a note? Race Spencer, shot dead by a slip of a woman who’d probably never touched a sidearm in her life. Folks would talk about it for years to come.

  Not that he was all that worried. If he was guessing right and she was a cheek turner, killing went against her religion. Besides, he seriously doubted she had what it took to shoot someone. Three things had kept Race alive to see the ripe old age of thirty: being able to draw a gun faster than a man could spit and holler howdy, having the sense to choose his battles, and being a good judge of character. There was a gentleness in this young woman that ran bone-deep. He couldn’t say for certain what it was about her that led him to believe that, only that he did. Enough that he was willing to bet his life on it.

  “Like I said, you got no call to feel afraid.” He inclined his head at the weapons. “You’ll notice I put ’em closer to you than to me. In these parts, it’s what we call a show of good faith, a layin’ down of arms so folks can feel safe while they parley.” At her blank expression, he quickly added, “Parley means to talk things out. And I reckon I got a heap of talkin’ to do. Now that I ain’t wearin’ my guns, I’m hopin’ you’ll feel a mite more inclined to listen. You reckon?”

  A fair hand at reading people’s eyes, Race was starting to get a little worried. There was nothing in her expression to indicate she was getting the gist of what he was saying. Not a good sign. It occurred to him that maybe she didn’t understand English.

  “You ain’t one of them Dutch folks, are you?” While riding shotgun on the Santa Fe Trail, Race had, on two different occasions, escorted an all-Dutch caravan from Missouri to New Mexico, never understanding a word said to him the entire trip. “Please, darlin’, tell me anything but that. An expert at dealin’ with babblers, I definitely ain’t.”

  Still looking bewildered, she continued to stare at him. He leaned slightly forward over his knees, touched two fingers to his lips, and then swept his hand outward, making the Indian sign for talking. “English. Comprende?” Her blank look told him she didn’t know any cowpen Spanish either, which was the o
nly other language he knew, save for a smattering of Apache and Cheyenne. Damn. “Come on, darlin’. Don’t tell me you don’t know English. ’Cause, I’m tellin’ ya, if you don’t, we’re eyebrow deep in a fine fix!”

  With a suddenness that startled him, she lunged for his guns, her long nightgown hanging up under her knees as she scrambled across the floor in a frenzied crawl. Race made no move to stop her. If he was misjudging the girl, then he’d die for his mistake. But he honestly didn’t believe she had what it took to shoot him.

  As a safety precaution, he kept a chamber in each Colt empty and the cylinder latch locked. It was a damned good thing. Otherwise, she might have hurt somebody, who being anybody’s guess. Never had he seen anyone handle a weapon so back-ass-wards. First off, she frantically tried to jerk one of the Colts from its holster without unfastening the strap, pointing the gun every which way in the process.

  Under her breath, he heard her whispering, “Oh, God—oh, God—oh, God!”

  Unless he was hearing wrong, she was calling on the Almighty in good, old-fashioned English. Just to be sure, he narrowed one eye and said, “It clears leather easier if you undo the strap.”

  She threw him a startled look, then renewed her attempts to withdraw the weapon, fumbling at the strap with frantic fingers. She had understood him; that much was plain.

  After jerking the Colt from the holster, she clutched it in both hands, the force of her grip on the pearl butt turning her knuckles white. Then, still hampered by the nightgown, she hobbled about on her knees to face him and take aim. Sort of, anyhow. She was shaking so badly, the barrel weaved, not only from side to side, but up and down, which damned near made him dizzy trying to keep track of it.

  His gaze colliding with hers midway along the gun barrel, Race relaxed against the wall, drawing up one knee to support his arm. “Can I offer you a couple of friendly pointers?” He inclined his head at her unsteady aim. “Find yourself a firing rest. Weavin’ like that, you couldn’t hit a bull in the ass with a handful of banjos. Sit cross-legged with your elbows propped on your knees.”

  Her lips drew back from her teeth, her lungs rasping as she took rapid, shallow breaths. “I-I’ll shoot you, mister.”

  Even spouting threats, she had a sweet voice, soft and distinctly feminine. He smiled slightly.

  Evidently misinterpreting the reason for his smile, she rushed to add, “If you’re under the gross misconception that I won’t, you have another think coming. I shall, and without any compunction whatsoever.”

  Race had never heard anyone spit out so many highfalutin words. He was surprised she didn’t get her tongue tied into knots around them. Compunction? He rolled that one around in his head for a minute, trying to figure the meaning. Given the gist of all else she’d said, he decided it must be a fancy word for “error.”

  “That’s heartenin’. Like I said, I got a dread of bein’ gut shot.” Knowing as he did that the gun wasn’t even cocked, he struggled not to smile. “I’ll tell you what. How’s about you sittin’ back and keepin’ a bead on me while you hear what I got to say. Then, if you still wanna shoot me, you can empty the gun tryin’, and if I ain’t dead enough to suit you by then, I’ll help you reload.”

  “I have no interest in hearing your pathetic fabrications!” she cried, her voice going even shriller. “You’re a horrible, conscienceless creature who doesn’t deserve to be called a man. A black-hearted, lowlife scoundrel!”

  A sob caught in her chest. He searched her gaze. She was trying to summon the courage to kill him. He’d seen murder in the eyes of too many men to mistake it now. Confident the gun wouldn’t fire, he watched her in a detached sort of way, wondering if he’d misjudged her, after all. She was mighty scared, and panic could push even a gentle person to violence.

  He’d thought never to see anyone tremble more violently than she had been a minute ago. But as she tried to tighten her finger over the trigger, her arms began jerking as though she’d been taken with fits. Fresh tears welled in her eyes.

  Those eyes. Looking into them, Race felt his heart break a little. Shattered. That was the only word to describe the expression in them. Like pretty blue glass, broken into a thousand fragments and washed with raindrops. Ruined dreams, destroyed innocence, desperation, and a growing terror as she realized she couldn’t bring herself to kill him.

  “Ah, honey, don’t…” His voice rasped like a fingernail over the backside of silk. “I told you, I ain’t gonna harm you. Just put down the gun.”

  She didn’t believe that he meant her no harm. He could read that in her eyes as well.

  Before Race could anticipate what she meant to do or try to stop her, she turned the gun on herself. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Point-blank at her temple, the barrel snug to the side of her head. Pulling the most awful face he’d ever seen, she hunched her shoulders, closed her eyes, and tried to draw back on the trigger. When the curved metal refused to budge, her eyes fluttered open, the expression that moved over her face a mix of startlement, bitter disappointment, and panic. She glanced at the gun, evidently realized it had to be cocked, and hooked her thumb over the hammer spur. Fortunately, the cylinder latch was still locked, which prevented the mechanism from working.

  Race launched himself at her, seizing her slender wrist just as she reached with her other hand to feel for the latch. Fortunately for her—and also for him because he would have carried the guilt of her death to his grave—he was able to twist her arm and aim the gun at the floor as he tackled her.

  Nonetheless, it had been close. Too damned close. Fear robbing him of caution, he wrestled her none too gently to the pallet, his longer and more powerful body pinning her to the quilts, his hands vised on her wrists. Pressing on the nerve below the heel of her hand, he paralyzed her fingers, enabling him to shake the revolver from her grasp.

  She sobbed, bucking and twisting as she fought to escape his hold, but Race was having none of that. He’d learned his lesson, and a bitter one it was. The girl might not have it in her to kill him, but she wouldn’t hesitate to kill herself. He had laid the sheathed knife on the pallet as well, had no idea where it might have gotten kicked during their tussle, and wasn’t about to turn loose of her to find out. Not when she was in this frame of mind.

  She had more staying power than he would have guessed, straining against his greater strength until her face went shiny with sweat. And long after he felt her muscles begin quivering with exhaustion, she refused to give it up. Finally, though, utter exhaustion claimed its victory, and she went limp beneath him, her surrender followed by an ear-piercing shriek that startled him so, he damned near turned loose of her.

  The cry made his blood run cold, reverberating in the air and cutting clear through him. It was laced with pain that went too deep for tears, and as it trailed away into silence, she screamed again, and then again, each burst of sound weaker than the last, until the cries gave way to gut-wrenching sobs.

  Race moved the gun beyond her reach, then caught her wrists in the grip of one hand, gathered her close, and sat up. Still sobbing, she hid her face against his shoulder and tried to escape his hold.

  “Sweetheart,” he whispered, “it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

  He kept seeing her, coming around on her knees to face him, a gun almost bigger than she could handle clutched in her fists, her arms quivering as she waged war with her conscience. He hated using his strength to hold her against her will, but he was afraid she might hurt herself if he turned her loose.

  “You need any help in there?” Pete called from just outside the wagon.

  Hell, yes, he needed help. But he doubted any of his men could provide it. What the girl needed was a woman to tend her, someone she could trust. Only there wasn’t another woman for well over a hundred miles. He tucked his boot heels under his rump to sit cross-legged and positioned her more comfortably on his lap.

  “I got it under control,” he called back to Pete.

  “You sure?”

  Ta
king measure of the situation, Race touched his free hand lightly to her hair. “Positive. Thanks, anyhow.”

  Her exhausted sobs caught at his heart. He knew by their sound that she was remembering things best forgotten. Her mother, her father…He wished he could wipe what had happened from her mind. But that wasn’t the way life worked.

  To his amazement, she continued to strain against his hold, even though he could tell she was weary. Deciding to use a favorite horse-gentling tactic, he kept his arms braced against her just enough to restrict her movements, playing her out and whispering to her all the while. He was only dimly aware of what he said. Comforting reassurances, mostly, which soon began to sound like nonsense because he repeated them so many times.

  Explaining how he’d come to be in the arroyo yesterday evening. Telling her what had occurred afterward, about the killers returning, the ensuing gun battle, and his men arriving in the nick of time to save their hides. Promising her that he’d never hurt her. That she was safe. Assuring her that he was sorry—for not reaching the arroyo in time to stop the killing, for not knowing how to help her afterward, and for doing a damned fool thing like falling asleep beside her and scaring her half to death.

  At some point—Race wasn’t sure exactly when—she stopped resisting his hold on her, and once she did, he let go. She sank against him then, her face buried in the hollow of his shoulder, one of her fine-boned hands curled in a loose fist over the front of his shirt. Still beset by residual sobs, she jerked slightly every few seconds, soft huffs of breath snagging in her throat.

  For an instant, the years fell away in Race’s mind, and he remembered how good it had felt to be rocked in his mother’s arms when he’d been a small child—surrounded by her warmth, knowing he could fall asleep and that she would keep him safe. His throat tightened at the memory. He had lost his mother when he was only seven, and after that, there’d been no one who gave a damn. There still wasn’t, and it was a mighty lonely feeling.