CHAPTER TWO
Olivia stood in the shadows, her heart thumping like mad. She heard the other man’s voice and Brody’s deep response. He was in trouble.
She had not come unarmed out into the wild; even now the pistol pressed against the small of her back. She’d shot it a few times, at coyotes and such, but never at a human being. However, she would protect the ranger, even if he was an ass; the man didn’t deserve to be murdered like poor Margaret.
She was glad she’d worn her cowhide riding boots with the soft soles. One of the hands had made them for her as a birthday surprise; Lorenzo had nursed a crush on her for years unfortunately. But lucky for her, he was a wizard with cowhide and a needle. The boots were sturdy and quiet as a mouse when she walked. She crept toward the door, keeping to the gloom, and pulled the pistol out. The weight of the weapon was unfamiliar, but she gripped it firmly. Her father had taught every one of his children how to shoot every weapon they had. Texas was no place to live without knowing how to take care of yourself.
She reached the edge of the door and peered through the crack. The ranger was on his knees in the tall grass, his hands on his head. Two men stood in front of him; one had a rifle, the other a shotgun, both pointed at Brody’s head. She could squeeze off one shot before they reacted, but which one should she aim for?
“You’re snooping around where you don’t belong, Armstrong. Some people don’t like that and they send people like me to stop you.” The greasy-haired one was skinny, with dirty brown trousers and a gray shirt. His hat was even dirtier than his hair, which seemed impossible.
The other stranger was bigger, a barrel-chested man who would be harder to take down with one shot.
She stuck the barrel through the crack in the door and closed one eye. They were at least fifteen feet away, but if she aimed carefully, she could hit the skinny one holding the shotgun. She sucked in a shaky breath and cocked the pistol.
“I’ll stick you in there with her and you can rot in hell together.” The man raised the shotgun.
Olivia fired.
She fell back, right onto the broken crates. The boom was so loud she couldn’t hear anything but the ringing in her ears. She scrambled to her feet and looked outside in time to see Brody fighting with the bigger man. The skinny one was on the ground and she knew her shot had been true.
She loaded another bullet in the gun as quickly as she could, then stepped out of the shack. Without being closer, she couldn’t hit the other man without risk of hitting the ranger. The skinny man screeched when he saw her, blood covering his chest. He spat a bloody gob at her, but she jumped back, her eyes wide and her heart in her throat. She had done that, shot the man in the chest and now he would die because of her. But there was no turning back.
No matter what, she could not go back to who she had been two minutes before.
Olivia walked closer to the two men wrestling on the ground. The big man had Brody beneath him and was beating his face with meaty fists. She picked up Brody’s gun and pressed it to the back of his head.
“Let him up or he’ll be picking pieces of your brain out of his hair for a week.” She hardly recognized her own voice. It was full of grit and rage.
“You best back up missy or I’ll fuck your eye sockets after I kill him.” The man’s voice was colder than anything she’d heard before. He kept right on punching Brody, whose face was a bloody mess.
“One more chance, mister. Let him go or I’ll kill you.” Her palm was wet with fear, but she kept her hand steady, the trigger cocked.
“Fuck you.” The man swung around to grab her leg, but she jumped back and fired.
The man’s head exploded in front of her. Blood, brains and bone sprayed in a gruesome cloud all over the grass, and Brody.
“Oh, you kilt us both, you bitch.” The skinny one had crawled to his shotgun. As he fumbled to aim it at her, Olivia crouched down and fired off another round, stopping him cold.
She dropped to her knees, then to her elbows until she pressed her forehead to the ground. The smell of dirt and grass filled her nose, temporarily blocking out the iron stench of blood and gunpowder. Brody put his hand on her back.
“Hell, Liv, you just saved my ass. I never thought you would be armed or could kill two men.” He sounded impressed, which at any other time might have pleased her. For now she just kept her eyes closed and focused on not vomiting.
“Let me have that.” He pried the gun from her hand and disappeared for a few moments. The sound of water hitting the ground reached her and she realized he was wiping the gore off his face. In another minute, he pressed a wet cloth to her face. “Here, just try to relax.”
Relax? She’d just killed two men. Killed them. Olivia had never thought she would have to kill one person in her life, much less two men in two minutes. The wet cloth felt good against her face and thank God, it didn’t smell like blood.
When she finally got control of herself, and was sure she wouldn’t cry in front of him, she sat up. He crouched beside her, his cold blue eyes assessing her.
“I guess I’ve got a partner now.”
She stared at him, wondering exactly what she had gotten herself into. Eva knew Olivia had left to follow Armstrong, but no one else knew where she was or what she was doing. The impulse to follow the ranger had now turned into something else altogether. She had killed for him and their lives had become inexorably linked. There would not be a time in either of their futures when they would not have this moment embedded in their memories.
Olivia shivered in the slight breeze that brushed against her damp cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
Brody’s grin would have knocked her to her knees if she hadn’t already been there. The man was stunning without smiling, but with it, he was lethal to her equilibrium.
Perhaps it was due to her brush with death, or her growing infatuation with him, but she impulsively grabbed him and pressed her mouth to his. His lips were softer than she expected and they stayed that way as she put her heart into convincing him to kiss her back. Her tongue lapped against the seam of his mouth, needing, wanting more. He groaned low and deep in his throat before he pulled her flush against him and his tongue plundered her mouth.
Sweet heat spread through her body, making her nipples pop and her pussy throb.
To her consternation he pulled back, breathing hard, his lips wet from the kisses. “Shit, woman, do you want me to take you in a field full of blood?”
Olivia put her hand over her mouth, horrified by her actions. What had she been thinking? Death had turned her into an idiot, making her do things that made absolutely no sense to a normal person.
“I-I’m sorry. I just ... I don’t know.” Her mouth felt strange, adrift without his.
He ran his hand through his hair. “Killing makes a man think of living. I guess the same is true of a woman. Sometimes folks just need to feel alive.”
Oh, she felt alive all right. More than alive; she was pulsing with the need to join with him. Embarrassed by her desires, she simply nodded and got to her feet before he realized just how close she’d come to losing all her inhibitions.
The words he’d spoken just before their kiss finally sank in and she realized what he’d said.
“Partner?”
“That was before you made all the blood leave my head.” He took another minute before he rose. She realized he was fighting to tame an erection, one she’d been responsible for.
“Oh, well, I’m sorry about that.” She shrugged unrepentantly.
“I did say you’d be my partner.” He peered at her, the cold stare of the ranger firmly back on his face. “But you’ve got to keep it to business only. We can’t be jumping into each other’s britches. That kind of distraction could get us killed.”
Olivia understood his logic, but that didn’t make it easier to accept. How was she going to control her wild attraction to him?
“Agreed.” She walked back to the shack to retrieve Benjy’s coat and the rest of the canned food. They could use it on the trail. “Where are we going?”
“We need to find a man named Sanchez. He is our lead to Stinson’s outfit.” Brody kept his gaze moving, constantly scanning the horizon for movement. “Where is your horse?” He picked up his hat from the ground where it had fallen, then wiped it on the grass. She didn’t want to watch, knowing he was getting rid of the last vestiges of the gore from the stranger’s head.
“Right near yours.” She’d ridden her mare, the quarter horse that had been her eighteenth birthday gift from her father.
“Is it fast?” He started searching the men’s bodies, taking their weapons and whatever else he found.
Olivia had no right to be shocked; after all, the men would have done the same thing to them. They might have even raped her before killing her. Yet taking from the dead left a bad taste in her mouth.
Of course, the men wouldn’t have been dead if it wasn’t for her. She had no call to cast stones.
“Yes, she’s a good horse.” Olivia wrapped the canned goods in the small brown coat, keeping her calm by remembering the jacket had no blood on it. Benjy was alive when he’d lost it.
“A mare?”
“Don’t go judging Mariposa until you see her fly.” She followed him as he walked toward the woods where the horses were. The man had a swagger that distracted her, again. She focused on the woods instead, anything to keep her mind off her attraction to Brody.
“Mariposa, huh?” He snorted. “Figures I pick a woman for a partner and she has a horse named ‘butterfly.’ Somewhere God is having a laugh at my expense.”
Olivia ignored his jibe and kept walking. He didn’t know her horse and therefore couldn’t possibly judge her. Mariposa had heart.
When they arrived at the horses, he eyed the mare but didn’t say anything else. Olivia was so glad to see Mariposa, her silly eyes pricked with tears. She swallowed the huge lump in her throat as she carefully put the coat and cans into her saddlebags.
By the time she was done, the ranger was on his horse looking down at her.
“We’re going to have to have rules if we’re going to travel together.” His gaze was unblinking. “First rule: Don’t make me wait for you.”
He kneed his horse into motion, leaving her standing there, mouth open, and temper rising. Olivia threw herself into the saddle and went after him. There was no way he was going to leave her behind.
Brody rode in silence for the next hour. He wasn’t ready to talk to his new partner, to face the reality of what had just happened. He’d let his guard down because of her, yet she’d saved him by killing two men. If he hadn’t lived through it, he wouldn’t have believed it. He’d thought Olivia was a spoiled rancher’s daughter with a sharp tongue and a stubborn streak a mile wide.
Now he realized that beneath the exterior she showed the world, Olivia had a spine of steel and more guts than most men. She should have been hiding in the shack while he dealt with the men. Yet she hadn’t and without her courage, it might have been his brains decorating that field back there.
She was also perceptive, smart and observant. Her skills put her far above many men who might want to be a Texas Ranger.
She must have been thinking about what had happened as well because she didn’t say anything. It was a blessing to have quiet. Their partnership might not be too bad after all.
They came upon a stream and he pulled his horse to a stop. She, however, kept riding. Brody realized he could either call her back or wait until she realized he wasn’t beside her. He decided to let her keep going.
The paint eagerly lapped at the water as he watched her riding away. She had an amazing seat on a horse, which showed him she had lived on a ranch all her life. Her ass was nicely shaped too. He should not be noticing her at all, much less staring at her hind end.
“Olivia.” He was surprised to find himself calling her.
She pulled the horse to a stop and looked back at him. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer, waiting for her to ride back to him. Brody wasn’t one to talk much and he wasn’t going to change for her.
After apparently wrestling with herself for a few moments, she rode back toward the stream. Her jaw was set tight enough that he thought he heard her teeth grinding together.
“It would have been nice if you had told me you were stopping.” She dismounted with grace, even though she was clearly annoyed. Another positive feature he wouldn’t tell her about.
“Stop leading and you would have noticed.” He refilled his canteen and splashed water onto his hair. There were still bits of gore stuck there. He hadn’t put his hat on yet because he didn’t want it to smell for the next five years. The water was clear and he felt better just having rinsed his hair. If Olivia hadn’t been there, he might have stripped down and jumped in.
“I wasn’t leading. I was riding beside you.” She came up beside him. “I thought you said I was your partner. Is this how you treat a partner?”
He wiped his hands on his pants. “Don’t know. I never had one before.”
She waited exactly one minute before she opened her mouth again. He wanted to groan. Did the woman never shut up?
“You’ve never had a partner before? Don’t most rangers have a partner?” She wiped her hands clean in the stream as she chattered. “I guess you fought in the war. Wasn’t there anyone you had at your side?”
The memory of his brothers was sharp and bittersweet. He didn’t know her well enough to tell her about his life or his loss. It wasn’t her business.
“You talk too much.”
She put her hands on her hips. “You talk too little. How can we be partners if I don’t know anything about you?”
“You know enough. I’m a ranger and I uphold the law. That’s it.” He hung the canteen on his saddle and did a quick check of his horse’s hooves.
Olivia stuck her face right in his. “No, that’s not enough but it’ll do for now because you’ve agreed to be my partner.”
He snorted at her. “Your partner? No, Miss Graham, I’ve allowed you to be my partner. Don’t forget that.”
Olivia didn’t speak after that but he could almost hear her yelling at him in her head. The woman had too much passion for her own good. He liked his women meek and quiet. She was neither—quite the opposite actually. If he’d had to pick a partner, she wouldn’t have been it. Rangers never let anyone get under their skin, but she could probably accomplish that task.
The idea that he was stuck with her until they finished the investigation hadn’t really sunk in yet. It could take weeks, possibly even a month.
And he was stuck with Olivia Graham until then.
Brody let his decision wash over him as they rode. She was going to be helpful, but at what cost? His sanity more than likely. Then there was the attraction he’d been fighting since the moment he’d seen her three months earlier. Those apple-sized breasts, that beautiful skin and eyes, and her hair. He’d had dreams about her soft, brown hair, about how it would look spread out on a pillow.
It was stupid to spend his time fantasizing over a woman he could never have. When he’d signed up to be a ranger, he’d never expected to have a permanent woman in his life. It had been he and his brothers for so long, he didn’t remember how soft women were or how good they smelled, until Olivia. She’d showed him what he’d been missing and he resented her for that, whether or not it was her fault.
A sharp snap in the woods beside him surprised him. How long had he been woolgathering? Foolish man. He dragged his attention back to the task at hand. Bluehound had told him about a man named Sanchez, the one remaining member of Jeb’s gang who was still in the area. From what the half-Indian had said, Sanchez was heading to Mexico real soon. Finding the man and interrogating him was important.
“Are we close?”
At first, Brody didn’t answer. He almost asked if she wanted to be close to him, but caught himself before he said something so stupid. Then it dawned on him she was referring to their quarry, not their relationship. If he’d had less control, he might have even blushed.
“Yep. A couple more miles, just over that rise.” He pointed to a small hill ahead. “There is no way to sneak up on him, so we need to wait until he leaves and follow him.”
“Why wait?” She turned and grinned at him. “I’ll ride up and pretend I need help. Does he know your face?”
“Well, no—”
“Good, then you can be my dumb husband.” She pointed at the rifle. “Keep that on the other side so he doesn’t see it. I’ll have my pistol in my pocket. We can convince him to tell us whatever we need to know. If he doesn’t tell us, we make him.” The feral gleam in her eye made him pause to consider her plan.
It was better than waiting until the man left. After all, the information could be wrong. It could be hours before Sanchez left, maybe even days. Was he prepared to wait that long? Not if her plan could actually work.
“I’ve been told he has a mean streak. The one thing he loves more than a good lay is a bottle of whiskey.” He wanted to shock her, to make her consider what she was doing before it was too late.
“What if I act the wanton, maybe a traveling whore, and you my houseboy?” She frowned at the horizon. “Convince him that I would trade time in his bed for traveling money.”
Brody pulled his horse to a stop and stared at her. “You’re going to turn yourself into a whore to get information ?”
She glanced back at him. “No, of course not. Once he’s distracted by my, ah, offer, we can tie him up and make him tell us what he knows. Won’t that work?”
Damn, it just might.
“You’ll need to look a little looser.” He glanced at her chest, trying to avoid focusing on those perfect tits. “Unbutton until you’re showing skin. Put your hair down too. Do you have any face paint?”
She shook her head. “No, but if we find some berries I can make my lips red, maybe even rub some on my cheeks.”
“That would work.” He looked around. “Do you know what the bushes look like?”
“Do you mean we’re going to do this?” Her eyes sparkled in the mid-afternoon sun.
Brody thought about all the reasons he should say no, but there weren’t any. “Yep, let’s do it.”
Olivia looked triumphant. “If Matt saw me now, he would try to paddle my behind.”