Chapter Ten

Brady faced the direction of the other bunk across the width of the room. The first sight that met his gaze when he awakened the next morning was Annie’s hair tumbling out from beneath the pillow under which her head was burrowed. The light from the window, gray though it was, illuminated her glossy, auburn waves cascading over the side of the bunk.

That mass of thick hair had him sucking in his breath. He could feel himself growing stiff down under his blanket. Releasing his breath, he turned his head away to the log wall. It didn’t help. He was still aroused, this time by the image of her seated across from him at the table last night.

There shouldn’t have been anything erotic about that vision that remained with him so clearly this morning. But there was. Maybe it had more to do with the emotions they had shared over the birth of the calf than anything physical about her. There had been a power in those emotions that had seemed to unite them. At least for those moments.

Except Brady knew that wasn’t altogether true. He’d been just as aware of her slim, womanly body. Or what he’d pictured her body would be like under all her garments. But then he always did that whenever she was anywhere near him.

This wasn’t good, he told himself. It never was. Not when he couldn’t have her. She’d made that clear to him on their way home the night of the dance.

What you need right now, Malone, is to move yourself out of this bunk and get your butt busy with something that will take your randy mind off of Annie Johnson’s soft flesh.

Obeying his advice, Brady tossed the blanket back, swung his legs to the floor, and pulled on his boots. His face itched with whiskers that needed scraping. He hadn’t brought his razor with him, but he remembered there was one on the shelf beside the sink. One of the hands stationed up here must have left the razor behind a couple of seasons back.

Mending the fire in the stove, he heated water and shaved himself, using the cracked mirror above the sink. He felt better after washing and toweling himself dry. Shrugging into his coat and cramming his Stetson on his head, he left Annie sleeping in her bunk and went out to see to the animals.

The snow had stopped, at least for now, but the sky remained overcast. The wind was still strong and bitter. A crooked mountain maple leaned over the top rail of the pen. He watched the wind lashing its leafless branches back and forth and knew that it would be too risky trying to start down the mountain this morning. They’d probably have to wait until tomorrow. That is, if the weather eased by then.

The sight of the tree had him thinking about the thick, upended slice of log near the other side of the pen. They used its flat surface to split wood for the stove. With the way the stove was eating wood, he would have to do that sometime today. But right now...

Boots crunching through the snow, Brady crossed the pen to the shed. Both horses and the cow and her calf seemed content inside the shelter. Needing to be fed, though. Except for the calf, of course.

Breaking up another thick skin of ice that covered the water in the trough, he climbed the ladder to the crib and forked down hay for the animals. He left them munching on the hay and returned to the cabin.

Annie was up and stirring a pot of breakfast oatmeal on the stove when he closed the door behind him, stomping snow from his boots. The aroma of coffee bubbling on another lid had Brady reminding himself to tell Annie she was a better cook than she gave herself credit for. But just now he couldn’t wait to get his coat off and at that coffee and oatmeal.

“How is the livestock faring?” she asked him over her shoulder.

“Fine. And, yes, your calf is flourishing.”

They seated themselves at the table where Brady sprinkled sugar over his oatmeal. She wanted to know about the weather. He gave her his report.

“No chance at all of going down the mountain today?”

“Afraid not.”

She grew silent. He realized while spooning oatmeal into his mouth that she hadn’t yet touched either her own oatmeal or her coffee. He would have asked her about that, if the solemn expression on her face hadn’t already told him the answer.

She was worried about being alone here with him for another day. Their closeness of last night no longer existed. Apparently not for her, anyway. What bothered him, almost angered him actually, was that she didn’t trust him.

“Annie?”

She started, as if he’d caught her in some forbidden reverie.

“What is it?”

“Nothing is going to happen here,” he assured her softly, “that you don’t want to happen.”

She nodded slowly, as if she weren’t altogether certain of that. That’s when he began to wonder if maybe it wasn’t just him but herself as well that she didn’t trust.

****

Was the day as long for Annie as it was for him? Brady asked himself. If so, she never complained about it.

They managed to fill the hours, restless though they both were. She took down the guitar and played it again, but with none of yesterday’s enthusiasm. He found a hatchet and went outside to the log pile where he split more wood on the block than they could possibly use. It helped him to rid himself of what he couldn’t deny was a sexual energy that needed to be released. Even if it was chopping wood.

Neither of them spoke of the tension that thrummed between them like a tight wire. When they did talk at all, it was of mundane things. The weather for one. There were snow showers off and on throughout the day, nothing serious but deserving comment. There was also the midday meal to be fixed and cleared away.

After the last pot was washed and dried, Annie had an inspiration. “Didn’t you say something earlier about there being prunes and flour in the cellar?”

“Did I? I don’t remember. But yeah, there are both prunes and flour down there. Both of them in tight jars.”

“Wouldn’t prunes swell into plums again if they were soaked in water? I thought I heard that somewhere.”

“I wouldn’t know, but it doesn’t sound right to me. Why? What are you planning?”

“I thought I would try my hand at making a plum duff for supper.”

“Whoa. That’s an ambitious dish, isn’t it?”

“We’ll see.”

“Did you ever make one before?”

“No, but my mother used to make them. I think I remember how.”

He brought up what she needed from the root cellar and asked her if she would like his help. She didn’t. She got busy with the plum duff. He had nothing to occupy his time except to pace the length of the cabin. That and hope that tomorrow they could get off this damn mountain.

He needed to return to the valley where he could put distance between himself and the woman he wanted and couldn’t have. No matter how strongly he yearned to sink himself into her alluring body and make her his.

The hours stretched into late afternoon. Dusk approached when Brady thought he heard one of the horses raising some kind of fuss in the shed. Probably nothing, but he needed an excuse to get out of the cabin, and this was as good as any.

“I’m going to check on the animals,” he said, dragging his coat off the peg.

Annie merely nodded. She had obviously heard nothing. Not wanting to worry her needlessly, he didn’t mention it. Taking his Winchester and a lantern with him, he left her with her swollen prunes and her hands covered with flour and exited the cabin.

The wind had dropped. That was a good sign. Maybe tomorrow they would have the weather they needed.

Head lowered, lantern lifted high, Brady circled the pen, searching the ground. If there had been some form of wildlife on the prowl, it hadn’t entered the enclosure. There were no tracks in the snow that shouldn’t be here.

When he reached the shed, the glow from the lantern revealed the cow and her calf huddled silently against the back wall. Jasper was also quiet, but the roan was snorting nervously.

Brady went to the horse. “What’s got you so spooked, Napoleon?” He placed his hand on the roan’s neck. “Whatever it is, it’s gone now. Maybe you just wanted to tell me there’s ice again in the trough, h’m? I’ll take care of it.”

He’d left the hatchet he’d used the last time to so effectively break the ice buried in the chopping block. He crossed the pen to get it, trading the Winchester under his arm for the hatchet. The flat surface of the block, which he’d swept clean earlier after the last snow shower, made a dry place to rest the rifle.

He was working at the ice in the trough when he heard it. A low, menacing growl from somewhere close behind him. Turning slowly, he peered through the thickening gloom. Nothing.

He saw it after he lifted his gaze. A mountain lion crouched on a heavy limb of the mountain maple that leaned over the fence.

How long had it been up there watching him? Shouldn’t he have noticed it before this? Maybe not, with his gaze on the ground and the animal’s gray coat blending in with the gray twilight. Not that it mattered at this point. All that did matter was Brady’s realization that he was in trouble.

Mountain lions made a practice of staying away from people. And only rarely did they bother livestock. This one had to be very hungry. Hungry enough to have selected the helpless calf as its easy prey. And all that stood between this big, powerful cat and its next meal was Brady.

He could have called himself every kind of fool for leaving his rifle out of reach, but that wouldn’t help him now. The only weapon he had was the hatchet. He was prepared to use it, but he feared it wouldn’t prevent him from a serious mauling.

The cat’s slowly lashing tale indicated it was determined to reach the calf. Its eyes glowed fiercely in the light of the lantern. Tightening his grip on the hatchet, Brady braced himself for its assault.

With muscles bunched, the lion sprang from the tree with a piercing yowl, its sharp claws extended. Those claws never made contact with either Brady or the calf. From somewhere off to the side, out of range of his vision, came a blast that echoed off the side of the mountain. The great cat tumbled in midair and came smacking down at Brady’s feet.

He didn’t need to kneel down to know it was dead. The flickering lantern revealed where the bullet had entered its head. It was one of the cleanest, most direct shots Brady had ever witnessed, and there was only one person on this isolated mountainside who could have fired it.

Holy saints! Annie! Annie had saved the life of the calf and maybe his as well!

Swinging around, he trained his awed gaze on her where she stood beside the chopping block, the stock of the Winchester still against her shoulder. Neither of them spoke.

In the long moment that followed, Brady was scarcely aware of the animals making a racket. All he was really conscious of was the magnificent sight of Annie standing there like some ancient, warrior princess. A warrior princess who had to be damn cold, he suddenly realized. She must have come away from the cabin at the first sound of trouble outside and hadn’t bothered with her coat.

“Annie,” he called to her, his voice deep with emotion, “go inside before you freeze. I’ll take care of the cat.”

She nodded, lowered the rifle, and returned to the cabin without a word.

Brady dragged the heavy mountain lion out of the pen and deposited it in the snow far enough away that its presence wouldn’t continue to alarm the animals. They were quiet now but still trembling with fear. They would be fine, though.

Collecting the lantern and the rifle, which Annie had left propped beside the back door, he stomped his boots on the stone step and entered the cabin.

He found her standing beside the stove warming herself, her hands over the heat of its surface. Ridding himself of the rifle and lantern as well as his coat, he went to her.

“The plum duff is a disaster,” she said flatly, her gaze fixed on the log wall behind the stove. “I had to throw it away.”

“You’re worrying about a plum duff after that performance out there? Annie, you saved both your calf and my miserable hide. Where in the name of all the gods did you ever learn to shoot like that?”

She lifted her shoulders in a casual shrug. “I told you back in Colorado I was a good shot.”

“Yeah, but I never imagined you had the skill of a gunslinger.”

“There’s nothing magic about it. I practiced every chance I got and with every kind of gun I could lay my hands on. That’s all.”

It wasn’t all. Why would a young woman, who had been scared of horses and loathed anything connected with ranch life, find it either desirable or necessary to be an accomplished markswoman? Brady intended to learn the answer to that mystery.

“Why, Annie? Why would you train yourself like that?”

“I had a good reason.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“I was on the move all the time. You know that.”

“So?”

“The West can be a dangerous place, lawless in some spots. I felt I needed to be able to defend myself.”

He shook his head. “I think you had a much stronger reason than that.”

“I don’t have time for this. I need to think about what I’m going to fix for supper.”

“Forget about supper. When we get hungry, I’ll bring up something from the cellar and fix it for us. Just now I’d like to know—”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Understand?”

“No, I don't understand.”

His persistence made her uneasy. He could see that. It was why she abruptly put distance between them. Crossing the room, she sat down on the edge of her bunk, head lowered as if she found something immensely interesting on the floor.

Although Brady should have probably respected her wish for privacy and left her alone, he was damned if he was going to let her retreat into herself. Not this time.

Dragging a chair behind him, he followed her to the bunk, swung the chair around, and perched on the edge of it. Leaning forward, hands on his spread knees, he confronted her with a direct “Let’s hear it.”

“We don’t have time for this,” she mumbled.

“We have all night.”

For a moment, she didn’t respond. When she finally lifted her gaze to meet his, he could see an anguish in her eyes so deep that it tore at his gut.

“Why should you care?” she said. Unlike her eyes, her voice was lifeless.

“Because you’re hurting, and I think you’ve been hurting for a long time. Because you need to tell someone. And because, if I haven’t always been your friend, I hope you know that I am your friend now.”

“Maybe,” she admitted.

“Annie, you can trust me. I promise that whatever you tell me is something I’ll never repeat.”

She thought about that for another long moment. “You won’t like it,” she warned him.

“I won’t judge you.”

“We’ll see about that.”

She hesitated again. Brady could sense that a decision of whether or not to confide in him was a big effort for her. When she made that decision, what came out of her sounded like more of a challenge to him than a confidence.

“Judd Halter.”

“Who or what is—”

“That’s his name. Judd Halter. The man I’ve been searching for. I finally caught up with him in Sweet Spot. That’s why I didn’t want to leave the place. I had reason to believe he was somewhere nearby. Turns out I was right, too. Remember the leader of the gang that tried to rob the train? That was Judd. That’s why I followed him into the woods.”

“You caused me to miss my aim when I tried to bring him down,” he reminded her.

“And you thought I was protecting him. That he was a lover from my shady past.” She laughed. A bitter laugh. “I was saving him, yes. I was saving him for a bullet of my own.”

“Why?”

“A simple question. Only it doesn’t have a simple answer. Because if you’re going to understand this, I have to go back a long way.”

“I like long stories.”

“Well, that’s what this one is.”

“Tell it.”

He waited for her to begin, but she was in no hurry. He watched the shifting expressions that crossed her face and wondered if she was remembering the events of an unpleasant past that was difficult for her to put into words. He knew he was right by all that followed.

“My mother was a good woman. She loved my father every bit as much as he loved her.”

She sounded as though it were important for Brady to believe that. He understood why when she went on.

“But after my father died and she lost his support...well, she couldn’t help being weak without him. That’s just how she was made.”

Brady could imagine what this admission cost the loyal daughter she had to have been. “Weak how?”

“She couldn’t seem to stand up for herself. It started with my grandfather. When his son went like that...did you know it was typhoid fever?” Brady nodded. “Anyway, he treated Mama like his housekeeper after that, not his daughter-in-law. He wasn’t nice about it either. Every time he turned on her with that nasty sneer of his, I wanted her to tell him just what he could do with his house and his meals that had to be exactly on time.”

Which Annie would have done without hesitation if she’d been Walter’s daughter-in-law, Brady thought.

“But Mama never said a word. She just took it.”

Which must have been a harsh lesson for Annie. No wonder she was so cautious about placing her faith in any man, including him.

“Until?” he prompted her.

“There was this drifter she met and fell in love with. I was too young to know the details, and they don’t matter. All I remember is how glad I was when we left the ranch and went off with him. I was wrong to be happy about that.”

“A mistake, huh?”

“He was no better than the others who came after him. They all used her and then abandoned her. There were so many I’ve forgotten most of their names. Mama just seemed to need a man in her life to depend on. And she was so beautiful they were all attracted to her.”

“And this all ended how?”

“With Judd Halter.” She spat out his name with a venom that had Brady almost flinching from the force of it. “He was the worst.”

“The medicine show,” he guessed.

“Yes, he had this medicine show. But you know about that. I was in my early teens when Mama met and attached herself to him. We traveled all through the West in his caravan. He wasn’t so bad at first. He was careful about that, because he needed Mama and her dancing to draw the customers so he could sell them his worthless remedies. All the usual junk guaranteed to cure baldness and stomach ailments and whatnot.”

“Which they never did.”

She shook her head. “No, but the customers came back for more. They did, that is, until business fell off. Judd blamed it on Mama. Said she was losing her looks. He was forever blaming her for something after that. I hated him for the vile way he treated her, but Mama just made excuses for him.

“Judd always drank, but when the business went sour he started to drink a lot. I went wild the day he turned on Mama and struck her. I got hold of a kitchen knife from the wagon and told him I would slice him up into little pieces if he ever hit her again. He just laughed and walked away.”

“Did he ever touch you?” Just the possibility of Judd Halter abusing Annie in any way had Brady wanting to hunt him down himself and punish him savagely.

“He knew better than to try it.”

That much at least was a relief to Brady.

“Don’t think I didn’t make every effort to get Mama to leave him. But no matter how much I begged her, she wouldn’t do it.”

“And you wouldn’t leave without her.”

“I couldn’t do that.”

No, being the kind of woman Brady had learned by now that Annie was, he knew she would never have considered leaving her mother with a man like Halter.

“But I never gave up pleading with her. Until it was too late for that. I was furious with both Mama and Judd when she told me she was expecting his baby. Furious with the baby, too. Only when she was born, I couldn’t do anything else but love her. She was the sweetest little thing I ever saw...”

Annie paused. There was a tranquil, faraway look in her eyes that Brady should have found pleasant. Instead, it made him uncomfortable. He didn’t understand that.

To this point, she had told her story with the emotion it deserved. But when she continued, the tone of her tale was mechanical, as if she couldn’t bear it otherwise. That’s when he did understand his discomfort. That’s when he knew what was coming was going to be very bad.

“Judd was better after the baby arrived, almost kind. I should have known there was something wrong about that. He said, now that he was a father, he had to do something to improve the business. There was this town in Nevada we hadn’t visited before. He said we would find fresh customers there. Said he’d heard about this shortcut to the place. It would mean crossing a corner of the desert, but he was sure that wouldn’t be a problem. We’d be there in no time.”

“And?” Brady urged when she paused again.

“The baby was only a few weeks old by then. I thought Judd’s plan wouldn’t be safe at all. That it was too risky with a baby that young, but Mama sided with Judd.”

“You were right, weren’t you, Annie?”

“Yes, I was right. But not at first. At first the route was fairly easy. Then after a couple of days into the desert it got rough, so rough the caravan broke down. That wasn’t all that broke. We had two horses to pull the caravan. One of them had a broken leg and had to be shot.”

“An accident that maybe wasn’t an accident?” Brady surmised.

“I think so. I think Judd knew that route wasn’t a safe one at all. That he might have fixed the caravan so it would break down. Even that the horse didn’t have a broken leg. That he just used that as an excuse to shoot the animal. He knew I was afraid of horses, that I wouldn’t get close enough to see for myself the horse had a broken leg. And, of course, Mama never questioned anything he said.

“Judd was that rotten, you see. It was his way of getting rid of both Mama, the baby, and me. But by the time I figured it all out, it was done.”

“Halter took the other horse and left you there, didn’t he?”

“In the middle of nowhere with nothing but sand and rocks. He promised he would ride back to Big Rock, the town we’d left behind us. Promised he would bring help as soon as he could.”

“And he never did.”

“That’s right. He never returned. I told Mama we couldn’t just go on sitting there waiting. That we had to do something to help ourselves. But she wouldn’t budge. She just kept saying that we had to be patient, that Judd would come.”

And Annie, Brady knew, would never have considered abandoning her mother and sister in that place and going off on her own to find help for them.

He listened to her voice become even more wooden as she continued.

“It was summer. The heat was terrible. No shade. And no water anywhere out there. So dry, so awfully dry.”

Brady could see it. A scorching hell that parched lips and throat. He could see it, and he could suddenly understand something that had puzzled him about Annie. Running streams. She had this odd affection for running streams of any kind. Only it wasn’t odd at all. After almost perishing of thirst, she must regard any presence of water as a precious thing never again to be taken for granted.

Oh, Annie, my poor Annie, what that bastard went and did to you.

“We had water and rations in the caravan. He left us that much. But not enough. The water didn’t last anytime at all. I couldn’t help Mama or the baby. I had to watch them die. Mama wasn’t strong after Virginia was born. That was the baby’s name, Virginia. She went first when Mama’s milk dried up. Then Mama died. She died still believing Judd would come back for her.”

Annie’s voice was dull now, as if what had happened was nothing but ordinary.

“I buried them side by side on the desert. I swore over their graves that, if I managed to survive, I would find Judd Halter. Whatever it took, I would find him and kill him.

“I took nothing but my guitar with me when I set out. Wasn’t that a funny thing to choose? I don’t know why. Maybe because somehow it made me feel I would make it.”

“You did make it.”

“Not on my own. I was unconscious when a band of Shoshones found me and took me back to their camp. I’ll forever be grateful to them for seeing to it that I lived. And for afterwards guiding me to Big Rock where Judd had gone.

“I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. Tried to imagine that maybe something happened to him on the way and that he didn’t get back to Big Rock. But I knew in my heart, even before they told me he’d been there and was gone, just what he’d done and why.”

Annie’s tone suddenly turned again, this time blazing with a white hot emotion.

“Judd Halter murdered Mama and their child. Yes, just as if he’d put a gun to their heads and pulled the trigger. Now do you understand why I have to find and kill him? Why, just before I put a bullet through his black heart, he has to hear from me why he’s going to die? I have to see the fear in his eyes and on his face. And only then, Brady...only when I know...”

The intensity in her voice wavered, then dissolved into silence. The ordeal of her confession, of sharing with him all that she had kept tightly hidden inside her for so long, was tearing her apart. Angry tears glistened in her eyes now.

Brady couldn’t bear to see her suffering like this. His need to protect and comfort her had him leaving his chair, moving over to sit on the bunk close beside her. When he put his arms around her, she tried to shove him away.

“No!” she said fiercely. “My mother may have needed a man in her life to lean on! But I don’t and never will!”

Brady hung on to her, doing his best to soothe her. “I know, sweetheart. I know how strong you are. But everyone at some point, man or woman, needs someone to lean on. It’s only human. Let me be that someone for you.”

He let her go on struggling while he held her tightly. Eventually, she gave up fighting him and sagged in his arms, her head dropping against his chest.

“It’s going to be fine, Annie. I’ll make it fine for you.”

He could hear her sobbing quietly beneath his chin resting on her hair, releasing years of fury and frustration. When she was finally spent, he lifted her face. The last of her tears streaked her cheeks. Head lowered, he began to gently kiss them away.

In the end, his mouth found hers. She didn’t resist him. Thank God for that, because there was no other way he could express all that he was feeling for her. He kissed her waiting lips with both length and passion. It wasn’t enough. He had to taste her as well.

She was ready for him, lips willingly parted when his tongue slid inside her mouth. To his relief and pleasure, she responded with her own tongue. Seeking and claiming each other in a blissful connection. A deep, timeless ritual of mating tongues that produced little whimpers from her, and from him a series of low groans that seemed to rise from his chest.

Not until he grew so rigid with desire that he feared he was about to lose all self-control did Brady realize it was time to exercise restraint. Now before it was too late, before he went wild with longing.

“Don’t stop,” she pleaded when his mouth reluctantly lifted from hers.

“I have to stop, Annie. You’re vulnerable, and if I don’t stop, I’ll end up taking advantage of you.”

She shook her head emphatically. “I don’t care. I’m finished fighting against something that was meant to be. We both want this, Brady. We both need it.”