by T. S. Joyce
A cold stone just thawing from winter settled in my gut. I’d almost been ravaged by a wolf so I’d seen the animal to blame for the killings. Dryly, I said, “That sounds just like what you did to the Indians. It seems you’ve missed one.”
I turned for the house but there was a warning in the sheriff’s voice. “Oh, we didn’t miss him. He’s just become very cunning at hiding.” He stared levelly at Luke before he turned and led the men back down the road.
A chill started in my arms and worked its way up my neck. What was he saying? I knew it had to mean something, some secret they were hinting at, but all I saw was a man holding a pail of milk. He couldn’t kill cows like a wolf. The sheriff would do best to organize a hunt and find the real culprit.
Luke grabbed my hand. “You done good.”
I spun on him. “If you’ve got secrets, I understand. I kept mine for reasons, and you’ve got your reasons too, I know it. Don’t get me hurt over them, though.”
“I won’t hurt you.”
“I’m talking about others.” My voice dropped to an anguished whisper. “Don’t you hurt me over your need to keep secrets. Trust me, it’s better when you own them.”
His green eyes searched mine and his mouth opened like he would confess his soul. But he didn’t. Instead, he walked past me toward the house. “I ain’t got no secrets to share, woman. Wish I did so you’d leave off about ’em.”
“Luke Dawson!” I screeched. I had nothing else to say, I just wanted to scream his name so when he threw his free hand over his ear and hunched toward me, I had enough satisfaction to make up for him dancing around my questions.
“What?” he snapped.
For lack of anything better to say, I smiled cheerily. “If you want me to cook you dinner tonight, I need meat.”
His narrowed eyes were nothing shy of suspicious. “I said I’d hunt this morning didn’t I?” He lifted his face to the sun. “It’s too late for deer to be moving and I don’t really feel like beef all the sudden.”
“Will you take me fishing with you?”
His chin dropped and his eyebrows disappeared under his hat. “You want to go fishing?”
Honesty was the best policy. “I want to spend time with you, and my best chance to do that is if I go fishing with you.”
A slow smile took over his face and filled his eyes. “If you saddle your own horse, you can go.”
“Take my eggs in, then. I need a head start.”
Chapter Fourteen
Kristina
I managed to wrestle Rosy’s saddle on. Thankfully, I’d been able to do it before Luke walked into the barn. I didn’t need his ribbing at the ungraceful way Rosy spun to the side and just about pressed me on my backside in the hay. I was in the middle of tightening up the cinch when he strode through the door in a plain shirt and thin, cotton pants over his boots.
The sunlight was behind him and he walked with the confidence of a capable man. His face was dark, but still his eyes shone such a bright color, they seemed to glow in the dusty light of the barn. He stopped so close to me, the warmth of his body brushed my skin and my insides opened up in ways I’d never experienced before. He was going to kiss me and it would be the first that meant anything in a long time.
He leaned closer with a delicious smile and I closed my eyes in wait, lips throbbing with the want to touch them to his. When nothing happened, I opened one eye to find him checking how tight my cinch was. Embarrassed, I spun away from him as burning heat crept into my cheeks. The last mortification I needed was for him to see me blush over him. Infuriating man.
I was a saloon girl and one highly sought after if my earnings said anything. I hadn’t a problem with men throwing themselves at me and paying me handsomely for it, so why was it so hard to pry some warmth from my fiancé? He seemed like a man who enjoyed the company of a woman. I could nearly smell the strength and virility permeating from him, so why didn’t he want me?
He placed his hands on my waist but it only maddened me. “I don’t need your help,” I snapped.
His hands went up in surrender and he saddled his horse in the back stall while I tried and tried again to hoist myself up in the stirrup. In desperation, I dragged Rosy closer to the gate and climbed it to get a better angle. Success. It hadn’t been pretty, but it got done.
“Don’t you need a fishing pole?” I asked him. I was no expert, but unless I was mistaken, fish didn’t just jump in a bucket.
“We do it a little different around here,” he said before kicking his horse into a gallop.
If I wanted any chance to keep up with him, I was going to have to push Rosy faster than I’d ever gone. Holding on for dear life, I kicked her and the response was instantaneous. Luke was right. This horse had been born to run.
Trees whipped by and Rosy jumped over logs and rocks that graced the thin trail toward the sound of rushing water. Flushed and breathless, I pulled her to a stop when we reached a gently rolling river. The countryside was hilly and long grass waved like ripples in the water itself. Yellow and purple wildflowers dotted the lush landscape and I pulled Rosy toward a giant shade tree near the water. The sun was high in the sky and my heart pounded with the exerted energy of the race. Luke took the make-shift reins from me, then led both horses to the meadow behind us where they munched grass in companionable silence.
When Luke returned, he pulled his shirt over his head. “Avert your eyes,” he said halfheartedly.
Like hell I would. Instead I crossed my arms and leaned against the giant tree to enjoy the show.
“You know, most ladies would look away.”
“I’m not most ladies.”
His eyes dared me to look and he stood to his full height and waited as I raked my eyes down the length of his shirtless body. I’d known he was a well fashioned man from the way he filled out his clothes, but I hadn’t an idea just how tight his musculature was. He looked like one of those Greek gods I’d seen in a picture catalogue once. His arms were big, but not overly so, and they led to well-muscled shoulders that had tanned in the sun. His chest begged for my fingers to trace the taut outline and his flat stomach tapered at the waist and disappeared into his loose fitting pants in a way I found truly tantalizing. I’d never been so desperate to see more of a man.
My breath trembled slightly but he couldn’t know that. He wasn’t close enough to hear. A naughty smile touched his masculine lips and he backed slowly away from me until he was in the water.
I arched my eyebrow. “I said fishing, not swimming.”
“The way I fish is a little of both. My Da taught me and my brothers to catch them with our hands. Come over here and I’ll show you.”
The low hung branch behind me gave a tiny complaint under the weight of my elbows. “I can’t.”
“Well, why not?” His grin was growing wider by the moment and he splashed a handful of water in my direction.
“I told you I could shoot, sir.”
“Yeah?” He splashed me again. “What’re you gonna to shoot me with?”
I cocked my head and waited. The look of realization on his face made my insides dance.
“Wait,” he said. “You telling me you have a gun on you?”
“Yep. You want to see it?”
He stood as straight as a razor while tiny waves lapped at his hips. “Yes,” he breathed.
The roots of the tree were aged and gnarled and I set my booted foot upon the highest one. Slowly, careful never to take my eyes from his face, I slid the hem of my dress up my leg. Higher and higher it went until it reached my thigh where a red garter holster nestled my Derringer. It was a tiny one-shot that fit perfectly into my hand with a detailed ivory grip and a floral etched hammer.
Luke inhaled sharply and dropped down into water up to his chin. “Where’d you get that puff pistol?” he asked in a very nonchalant tone.
“From a regular client. He said every good whore needed one. He was a wealthy man, and gifted it to me the last time he came to visit. Does it bot
her you?”
The water rippled as Luke shook his head. “You know how to use it?”
I wouldn’t tell him just how well, as he didn’t need to know the number of hours I’d spent practicing. Or that one day I planned on my little Derringer being my sword of light against the woman who’d taken everything from me. My heart didn’t harbor revenge, so Luke shouldn’t think that it did. It only harbored a calm knowledge that someday, in some way, justice would come to Evelynn French. Instead I told him, “I can shoot well enough.”
“Come here,” he said quietly.
“Now, Mr. Dawson, a lady can’t go swimming with a man she hardly knows in her finest dress.”
“I don’t care about the dress and you know me just fine.”
I frowned. He might not care, but I did. I only had two dresses, besides the one I whored in, and they were my prized possessions. Besides my Derringer, they were the only material things with any meaning to me. Saucily, I repeated his words. “Avert your eyes.”
“Hmm mm,” he said and kept right on watching.
Fair enough. I untied my apron and lay it across the tree branch before slipping out of my dress. I had my thickest cotton shift on underneath and left that secured snuggly to my body. It was sleeveless and came up to my knees but he’d just seen much more of my leg a moment ago, so I didn’t fuss over that much.
“It’s cold,” I complained as my toe graced a lazy wave.
Something akin to a growl rumbled from Luke’s throat, throwing my tiny hairs on end. Before I could retreat, he was out of the water with little care to splashing me and I was scooped up in his arms. He dragged his feet through the waves as he took me deeper and the shock of the cold against my bare legs and arms made me gasp. I squirmed and exclaimed, “Luke!”
“Give it a second and you’ll get used to it,” he rumbled next to my ear.
We hung there, frozen in the moment and closer together than we’d ever been. I clung to him with my arms around his neck and his breath tickled my throat where his jaw was nestled. The temptation to feel his face against my neck was too great and I leaned in just enough to touch my skin to his lips. My breathing was ragged, but it could’ve been from the cold. His lips moved against the tender skin of my throat as he kissed it. And by the time he’d left a trail of burning fire up to my mouth, I was clay in his capable hands. I held him closer and turned, ready for the connection I’d been hoping for since the day I saw his alluring profile in town.
His kiss was warm and so sweet, it melted the hardened parts of me that’d gotten used to not really feeling the adorations of a man. Where I had expected violence, I instead received an unexpected tenderness. He sucked gently on my bottom lip and to my great embarrassment a groan escaped my throat. I hadn’t even forced it. It bubbled forth like he’d drawn it from me.
He paused at the sound but then his hand cradled the back of my head and he parted my lips with his, deepening the kiss. My body floated downward into the water as his arm released me, and when I was vertical, he pulled me to his chest with a grasp so strong it was shocking. If I didn’t stop us, I’d give him everything—every little piece of me right here in the running river. Never again would I have a chance to do this right.
“Luke,” I gasped, but he’d moved his lips to my collar bone. The sun was so bright as I threw my head back, I closed my eyes to save them. “Luke, please,” I tried again. His hand moved to pull my shift to the side but I held it still with my own. “I want to be more.”
His body tensed and he stopped. “What do you want from me, woman?”
I kept my eyes closed against the disappointment I knew would be swimming in his face. I’d fold if I saw it. “I don’t want to just be a whore to you. I’ve had a mind to do this right and I aim to.”
He didn’t say anything so I cautiously opened my eyes. He still held me against him and his hand brushed my back rhythmically in a distracted manner. The green in his eyes had faded and left some other lightened color I couldn’t put a finger on in its place. They seemed to glow from the inside out and I blinked my eyes, once. Twice. It had to be a trick of the sun reflecting off the water or something. But as the color stayed, I frowned and stroked his face with my dripping finger.
“Your eyes,” I whispered.
He turned away as if I’d burned him and I went under. He was much taller than me, and while he’d been standing on the rocky bottom, my feet had been floating far above it. Gasping as I swam to the surface I made my way to shallower water. “Luke Dawson!” I yelled when I was able.
He was already some distance off with his back to me. The river ran around him like a protruding boulder was in its midst. Immovable and accepted, the water parted for him and continued its journey downstream. His back glistened with tiny water droplets and his hair was wet from where he’d apparently submerged himself while I was floundering for a footing. The grass swayed in a dance around the river and the sky was so blue it looked like some painting that belonged in a fancy city gallery. He looked very lonesome standing there all by himself. It struck me that maybe he’d grown up a lonely soul because of some demon he wrestled within himself.
My heart reached for him and I let the current pull me closer. The skin of his back was smooth and tense under my hand. “Hey,” I said softly. “You don’t have to hide. Not from me.”
When he turned, his eyes were back to green. Maybe my eyes looked a strange color too in the sun soaked water.
“I respect you wanting to do this right. I’m going to town tomorrow to send word to the circuit preacher again. I don’t know what’s keeping him, but we’ll find out, okay?”
“Can I come, too?”
His hands were strong and enticing as they found mine under the water. “You want to see Trudy?”
I nodded until the water lapped at my chin.
His gaze was steady. “I have to tell you something.”
This was it. This was the moment he’d let me in.
“Trudy’s going to have a baby.”
Well, that wasn’t at all what I’d expected. Granted, I hadn’t any earthy idea what he was going to say, but this certainly hadn’t been in the realm of possibilities.
“What? Why didn’t she say anything?”
“I don’t think she knows yet.”
“Then how do you know?” I asked with an odd sense of wrongness churning in my stomach.
“I can just tell these things. When she realizes, she’ll share her excitement with you. You’ll be her confidant while she grows, and you’ll get feelings like you want the same experience. It’s like boys with pistols. The first boy in our school to be gifted a pistol from his pa was Blaine Green and he had the rest of us clawing our eyes out to get one.”
“You’re afraid Trudy’s pregnancy will give me baby fever?” I couldn’t see the problem. “Why is that a bad thing?”
“Because I don’t want children, Kristina. Not just now. I mean, I don’t ever want children. I’ve never wanted them and never will. I won’t be a man you can talk into it either. I want you to think about it really hard before we go in front of a priest because it means you’re committing yourself to a childless life.”
Something ached deep inside of me. I’d never once in my life thought about children or being a mother, but him telling me he’d never give me one was a loss I wasn’t equipped to deal with. I would never hold a child with his green eyes in the cradle of my arms. I’d never feed his babe at my breast. Never would the noise of children echo in our home.
“Is it because I’m a whore?”
Emotion roiled within the depths of his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about why’s and why not’s.”
“You don’t think I deserve a reason? I don’t deserve an answer when my friends look at me with pity years from now, and wonder what’s wrong with me? When they talk in hushed whispers about what a failure of a wife I’ve been because I couldn’t even give you a child. You don’t think I deserve a weapon against that gaping hole you’ll shove me into?�
�
His mouth was set in a grim line but he said nothing.
Anger was a whiplash against my skin. “Fine. I suppose that’s the catch then isn’t it. I get to bed a fine and handsome man and fall under his protection, but I won’t have the whole family.” I fled the water as fast as my dragging legs could go. “What with my past, why did I ever expect to have some perfect ending?”
I needed to escape before I cried. That would be the push that sent me over the edge if he got the satisfaction of seeing me cry over him. I shoved my feet into my shoes and threw my dress and apron over my shoulder before I turned. “I’ll marry you still, Luke Dawson, because damn you, you made me love you before you enlightened me of your rules.” I stomped off in the direction of Rosy with the back of my hand pressed to my eye like it would help keep the tears inside of me.
Why was I so emotional over something I didn’t even know I’d wanted? Never had the thought occurred to me that I’d want a child with any man. Not after seeing the darkest parts of them. But then Luke had come and cared for me, saved me, touched me, and all the sudden, him taking this away felt like a betrayal.
I thought he’d give me anything. The assumption was so stupid because no man I’d ever met had been honorable, but Luke was. The treacherously hopeful corners of my heart thought he would find a way to fix everything. What a fool I’d been. He didn’t want a child with a saloon girl. He didn’t want a child who would bear a whore’s blood running through his veins.
My fury helped to hoist me up onto a grazing Rosy in one motion. I gathered my clothes in my lap and nudged the red-hided animal away from the prying eyes of that insensitive man. The wind whipped through my wet hair and raised gooseflesh on my skin as it caressed the moisture on it. The sound of the lonesome breeze comforted me and dried my eyes.
Maybe he was right.
What chance did the child of a whore have in such a cruel world?
