AT FIRST LIGHT, Sam rode in a driving rain down to the stream about a half mile from town. Dawg ran alongside her horse, happy to be out for a run despite the rain.
Unfortunately, all Sam’s thoughts were of the marshal.
She hadn’t slept well. In fact she’d had little rest since his arrival. But she’d kept turning in bed. Wondering how it would feel to lie next to him. Wondering why her body was responding in such rebellious ways.
She’d checked on the marshal before leaving. He was sleeping, thank God. No dark eyes to probe straight to her core…
She stopped at one of the four cabins that had survived the fire and knocked on the door. A lanky old trapper in buckskins opened it. “Miss Sam, a pleasure for sure.” He led the way inside, inviting Dawg, as well. “Now, what can I do for you?”
She quickly explained what had happened three days earlier, though she suspected Burley had already told Jake everything.
“Can you and Ike watch the pass?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’ll take a turn at watching,” Jake agreed. “So will Ike. He’s out hunting now, but he should be back soon.”
“Burley will relieve you, too,” Sam said.
Jake snorted. “Can’t depend on Burley.”
“You can, if he says so,” she replied. “He feels really bad that he admitted to the marshal that Mac might be in town.”
Jake grumbled under his breath. “Damn fool.” Then he turned his attention back to her.
“You really leaving Gideon’s Hope?” he asked. “Archie said you plan to head north.”
“When Mac’s well enough. Maybe a week or so.”
“We sure will miss you. You and Mac and Archie. Even Reese, damn his soul. No one left to win what little gold I pan.”
“Come with us.”
“No, Miss Sam. Been in these mountains too long. When I die, I want to be looking at them peaks. Like they’re reaching up to heaven, they are. I can just follow them up.”
She loved the mountains, too, and would miss them bitterly.
“You shoulda gone ahead and killed that marshal,” Jake muttered. “Save you a lot of trouble. I ain’t got no use for most of them.”
Of course he didn’t. Jake didn’t like authority of any kind, which was why he and Archie got along so well. The mountain man had come to Gideon’s Hope seven years ago with a load of furs and a body racked with pneumonia. Archie had treated him with some of his Indian remedies, and Jake gradually regained his strength. He’d returned the next four winters. When most of the population left, he’d appropriated one of the few remaining cabins. Getting too old, he said, to live up in the mountains alone year-round.
He was in his seventies now, a thin, wiry man but still strong enough to stay in the mountains by himself for months. If he said he would watch the pass, he would. Ike had been his friend for a long time, and he, too, had settled in an abandoned cabin next to the stream, mainly, she thought, to look after Jake. Neither one of them liked people much, and Gideon’s Hope with its permanent population of seven suited both just fine. They hunted, fished and trapped. Archie was there if needed for healing, Mac to take a drink with and Reese to gamble with. No man needed more, he said.
It was a small ragtag group. Ike and Jake, Burley, Archie and herself. If an army of gunslingers came for Mac, the five of them would have a hard time fighting them off. But they had an advantage. They knew every inch of the area. They could always hide Mac in one of the abandoned mines carved out of the rock. Not particularly healthy for him, but better than being hanged or shot.
“I’ll go on up there now,” Jake said. He looked down at his feet. “Maybe you can leave a note for Ike. Tell him to meet me there.”
She gave him a quick hug and left. She’d offered to teach Jake to read and write, but he’d refused. Too old to learn new tricks, he always said. The rain had slackened slightly by the time she’d left a note in Ike’s cabin and stopped to gather moss from around the trees along the creek. She would need it for the poultices; her supply was running low. Behind her were more mountains and an overgrown trail that led east through a narrow and steep pass. It was the only way into Gideon’s Hope when the creek ran strong and deep as it did now. The pass was both their protection and their weak spot.
She stood a moment longer, drinking in the peace. She never grew tired of the view, especially in winter when the water glistened with ice and the trees with snow. But spring was grand, too, with its wildflowers and tender new shoots. Sometimes the landscape was so lovely it hurt.
She would miss it, but she also looked forward to a new adventure.
Sam went up to Mac’s room. She knocked but opened the door before anyone answered.
Archie gave her a tired smile and nodded his head toward the bed. Mac’s face was pale under its deep tan, but when she felt his cheek, it wasn’t as hot as it was yesterday.
“His fever went down this morning,” Archie said. “He’s still damned weak, but I think he’ll make it.”
“He’s conscious?”
“On and off. Mostly off. Still not making much sense. Muttering about your ma.”
“I’ll put some stew on. Just let me know when he wakes again.” She leaned over and touched Mac’s good hand, taking it in hers, willing her strength into him.
“The marshal?” he asked.
“I put the poultice on the wound last night. I checked early this morning and he was asleep. His breathing was ragged, but he wasn’t hot.”
He nodded. “Strong as a damned mule. Damn if I know what we’ll do with him.”
She wondered the same thing. “I think he might be on his feet faster than we thought.”
Archie muttered under his breath.
“I’ll make some biscuits for breakfast.”
“Naw, just some bread and that jam you made,” he said. “And coffee.”
“I’ll have it here in a minute.” She regarded Archie for a moment, then Mac, and her heart filled with love for both of them. They were all in danger. And the danger was downstairs in the form of a tall, taciturn man who set her whole being on fire.
She went over and gave Archie a rare hug. Clung to him, in fact. She couldn’t talk to him about what was going on inside her, but she could absorb his affection, the acceptance of who and what she was.
“I don’t know what I would do if I lost any one of you,” she said before stepping back.
“One day…” he started to say, but she darted out the door before he could finish. She didn’t want to hear about one day.
Her shirt was still damp, but she decided not to take the time to change it. Instead, she went directly to the kitchen and made coffee. She took one cup along with a plate of bread and jam up to Archie. Then she cut three more thick slices from the loaf and spread them with jam.
The marshal had been too weak to take anything but broth in the past few days, but she suspected that was changing.
She unlocked the door to his room and glanced inside. He was still sleeping. Or pretending to sleep. The sheet had fallen away from him.
She moved closer and put the food and coffee on the table. Then she studied him, particularly the scars she’d noticed yesterday. The war? How and when had he been hurt? His life obviously hadn’t been easy.
The sheet was tangled, and he’d taken off the shirt again, probably because of the heat in the small, stuffy room. There was no way of getting pants over his wound and the poultice, and he was magnificent in his nakedness. She reached down and covered him as well as she could, forcing herself to concentrate on his face. His face only.
She longed to make him smile. Even laugh. Don’t lie. She wanted more than that. She wanted him to touch her. Slowly. Seductively.
“Marshal?” She said the word softly. If he didn’t wake, she didn’t intend to rouse him. He needed rest.
He opened his eyes and rolled on his back. She didn’t know whether he had been feigning sleep or whether her voice had awakened him.
He didn’t reply. Instead he fixed her with that steady gaze of his. Waiting. He seemed to be a patient man. A man who waited for the right moment. A shiver ran through her.
“I’ve brought coffee and food.”
He moved up in the bed to lean against the iron posts. A muscle worked along his throat as he made the effort.
“How’s your leg?” she asked.
“Still hurts like hell.”
Well, she’d asked. She decided to ignore the answer. “Want some coffee?”
He nodded even as he regarded her with an unblinking stare. There was calculation in his eyes, although the side of his lips had a quizzical turn to them. The dimple in his chin appeared to be deeper. He took the coffee and held it in both hands as he sipped.
The bristle on his face was darker, a little heavier, and he looked more bandit than lawman. For a split second, she saw a simmering anger behind his dark eyes before they went blank. She remembered the image she’d had before of a wild animal waiting to pounce.
She prayed her face didn’t give her wayward thoughts away. Instead she concentrated on the fact that he was a marshal. And not just any marshal. She took a deep breath and tried to understand why it was catching in her throat.
Sam suddenly remembered the bread on the table. She practically stumbled over herself to hand the plate to him. He put it in his lap and balanced the cup of coffee in one hand. He picked up a slice of bread and bit off a large chunk, leaving jam smeared over his lips. For a moment, he looked like a lad, and she grinned at the incongruous sight.
He seemed perplexed for a moment, then he used his tongue to wipe his lips clean. Slowly. Seductively. Her pulse quickened and her legs felt boneless.
“I didn’t realize how hungry I was,” he said, taking another bite as something like satisfaction spread over his face, giving it life for the first time.
Something shifted inside of her as an almost palpable attraction leaped between them, filling the air with its intensity. Maybe Reese had been right. Maybe she had been here too long. Maybe she would have felt the same no matter who rode into their town.
But she really didn’t think so.
She glanced down and immediately wished he still wore the shirt. His shoulders were wide and his chest was corded with muscle.
Strength and power. And will. They were in his face, evident in the lack of emotion he showed. Drat him. How could he be so controlled when her stomach was churning and her heart rocked back and forth? She looked up to meet his eyes again. Nothing in them but a cool, calculating perusal, and yet she sensed danger, the way one senses the approach of a death-dealing storm.
When he finished, she took the empty plate from him. It was warm from his hands. “I’ll…I’ll be making some stew later,” she said.
“I’ll be waiting,” he replied. Invitation was in his voice, but she wasn’t exactly sure what kind of invitation it was. Maybe a cat’s to a mouse.
She tried to ignore it, tried to avoid his eyes, which seemed to focus on the still-damp shirt that clung to her. She removed the poultice from his leg and studied the wound. It was still seeping, but she saw no sign of infection. She was only too aware that he wasn’t looking at it; instead his eyes were fixed on her face.
“Looks like it’s beginning to heal.” Sam tried to make the words matter-of-fact, but she feared there was a breathless quality to them. “I’ll bring a fresh poultice later.”
“You like torturing people, then?” he said with a twist of his lips that belied the words.
“You can die, instead,” she offered amicably.
He mulled that over for a moment. “Not much of a choice.” He shrugged. “You can have your way with me.”
An innuendo. She decided to ignore it.
“Where’s the old man—Smith?” he asked suddenly.
The question took her by surprise. “Busy,” she said after a few long seconds.
“He was…so protective,” he observed. “I wonder why he’s leaving you alone with me.”
His voice was stronger than yesterday, although she knew from the muscle in his throat that every movement was an effort.
“I don’t think you’re going anywhere for a while,” she said. “Unless, of course, you want to damage that leg permanently. Maybe lose it.”
Speculation was still evident in his gaze. “I have to admit you’re easier on the eyes than Smith.”
She didn’t know how to reply to that.
“You didn’t say where he is,” the marshal persisted.
“He has better things to do than treat a marshal,” she replied, trying to keep her voice steady, not let him know how much he affected her. “And he trusts me. I’ve been assisting him for years.”
“So many talents,” he said. “I’m impressed. You can shoot. You can nurse. You can cook. You’re even a prison guard. What more do you do?” The tone was light, even bantering, but she didn’t miss the dangerous glint in his eyes.
“More than you’ll ever know about,” she retorted as the air grew denser between them.
“Maybe,” he said. Then, as he’d done before, he abruptly changed the subject. She wondered whether he’d felt the heightened temperature as she did. “Where’s that huge beast of yours?”
“Dawg?”
“Do you have another one?”
“Not at the moment.”
“What else do you do in this town besides look after an old man and the assorted marshals who wander in?”
“A lot of things, and you ask way too many questions.”
“I’m a curious man.” He smiled then. It was a crooked smile, but she detected a real one behind it this time.
“Sam?” he said. “It’s taking me some time to get used to that name. You’re much too…pretty for it.” The pretty word again.
She suspected he meant to throw her off balance, to discover something he wanted to know. Yet he said her name as though he was tasting the sound of it on his tongue, letting it linger in the air. “Sam what?”
She remembered what Jake had told her about not revealing any information. “Just Sam,” she said.
“Tell me more about Thornton.”
She shrugged. “He helped raise me. He protected me. And if there’s anything I can tell you, it’s that he would never, never hurt a woman.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Nothing else?”
She felt blood rising to her face. That he thought…
“He’s family. And a friend. If you know what that means?”
“A friend doesn’t use a friend to do his dirty work.” He was pushing for information again and not being very subtle about it.
“No,” she replied agreeably.
She saw the frustration in his face. She even enjoyed it a little, considering how he had rattled her last night.
“I heard that one of those two men he killed wounded him,” he said.
His words sent a chill through her. “Wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Why is his horse here, then?”
“If you believe anything old Burley says, then that leg isn’t the only thing that has a hole in it. Mac has several horses. He traded me that paint last time he passed through. He took a bay. It was faster.”
“What happened to your parents?” he asked, his voice suddenly softening.
“My pa was killed by a claim jumper when I was real young. My mother had no family, no place to go, so she stayed here. She cooked meals for the miners and did their laundry. She eventually opened a boardinghouse but died of pneumonia when I was eleven.”
“No other family?”
She shrugged. “Both of them were orphans.”
The marshal waited for her to continue.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to, and yet she needed him to know that Mac wasn’t the man he thought him to be. “After my mother died, the miners held a meeting and were going to send me to an orphanage. Mac and Archie wouldn’t let them do it. They sort of adopted me.” She purposely left Reese’s name out.
“So Thornton helped raise you,” he said, returning to the earlier subject.
“Some,” she said, unwilling to give him any more information.
He lifted a thick eyebrow. “He kept you here in the middle of nowhere. You…should be…” He moved slightly, then stiffened and she knew a wave of pain had just hit. He closed his eyes for a second. “Damn,” he muttered.
She waited, not saying anything. She wanted to do something to soothe the pain. She forced herself not to go closer.
Then his body started to relax slowly.
“I’m here because I want to be here,” she said softly.
“A ghost town these last five years? What about school?”
“Reese…” she started, then caught herself. “I learned from books,” she said.
“Reese?” The question was sharp, his eyes relentless despite the pain in his face.
She snapped her mouth shut. Would Reese be held accountable for being Mac’s friend? Or even for being her friend? She was an outlaw now, too. She’d shot a marshal.
Leave, she told herself. Leave now. But something kept her feet planted firmly where she was.
“How long since your family came here?” he asked again, obviously intent on finding out whatever he could. Looking for a weakness, she supposed.
He would find none in her, but there was no harm in this question. “Pa came here in 1858,” she said.
Dear God, but his eyes were compelling. She knew what he was doing. Information was a weapon.
“When did Thornton arrive?” he asked.
Thornton. Not Mac. Cal Thornton. That was how she first knew him. When he stayed in her mother’s boardinghouse. She’d already said too much. The marshal was good at extracting in formation. Very good. She’d never known exactly how Mac had got his reputation, or why he’d been wanted. They didn’t talk about that. She did know, though, that his past was the reason he’d never married her mother. She also knew he’d been a hired gun on and off. But she would never believe he’d killed a woman as the marshal claimed.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she defended Mac. “You’re wrong about him,” she said flatly.
“Then he should go back with me. Prove the accusations false.”
“You said he killed a woman. When?”
“Ten years ago.”
“How?”
“He was robbing a stagecoach.”
“Anyone see him kill her?”
“The guy who rode with him. Before he hanged. And the coach driver heard his name.”
“Ever consider he might have a reason for lying?”
“Doesn’t matter. Thornton rode with him. He’s just as guilty. And guilty of a hell of a lot more, as well.”
“You a judge as well as a lawman?”
His eyes grew even colder, if that was possible. “You aren’t doing yourself or anyone here a favor by hiding him.”
“Threats don’t scare me. They just make it more likely Mac will kill you.”
“Your…Mr. Smith said Mac wouldn’t like you killing me.”
“Me. He wouldn’t like me killing someone. Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t do it himself. He’s a ‘killer,’ remember.” Anger raised her voice, and she saw satisfaction deep in his eyes. He’d scored a small victory. He was pulling little nuggets of information from her, and she was allowing it. Turnabout was fair play.
“And you? Have you always been a marshal?”
“No,” he said.
“Then what?”
“A farmer,” he said softly.
“What turned a farmer into a marshal?”
“The war,” he said shortly.
“Reb or Yank?”
He searched her face again. “Does it matter?”
“Not really. That’s one reason my father and mother left Illinois. They wanted no part of it. All those men killed…homes destroyed… Mac’s home was one of them.”
His face tightened and his eyes were like black agates. That strange feeling kicked her stomach again. His gaze speared her as if he could see the very essence of her soul. “Mine was, too. I didn’t turn outlaw.”
His tone sent shivers through her. Harsh. Unforgiving. Relentless. There was no gentleness in him. None of the wry humor she’d glimpsed a few times.
“Maybe not, but it seems to me you’re as much a killer as you say Mac is.” She glared at him. “Are you always so certain you’re right?”
To her surprise, he shook his head. Then he added, with the slightest hint of a smile, “But more often than not.”
“I doubt that,” she muttered.
He ignored the comment and held out his cup. “Any water left?”
The pitcher was still on the table and she poured water for him. It turned brown from the remnants of coffee.
He took it and drank deeply.
She couldn’t keep her eyes from his face. From the lips that had covered hers yesterday. She could still feel them, and the reactions they had stirred in her. Damn him, why did he have to be even more appealing with the dark stubble on his cheeks. Maybe it was his confidence, even as a prisoner. He was a man used to being heeded and obeyed.
Go. Go. Go. Go.
But her legs didn’t move.
“Sam?”
Her name had never quite sounded like that before. The one syllable rolled lazily on his lips.
“Yes?” she forced herself to reply.
“I meant it when I warned you to leave. I wouldn’t like to see you hurt. If what you say about Thornton is true, he wouldn’t want it, either.”
She heard the doubt in his voice about Mac, and it spoiled any concern she thought he might have for her.
She walked to the door. “I’ll be back later with some stew and a fresh poultice for your leg.”
“It’s comforting to know you’re so interested in my well-being,” he said in a soft, dangerous tone.
“I’m not,” she replied. “I just don’t want you to die here.”
“Why? There’s plenty of places to bury a body.”
“I’m thinking about all of them at this moment,” she said.
He closed his eyes, but the left side of his mouth drifted up.
Damn the man. She didn’t understand why she was drawn to him. Or why she wanted to touch that hard face and make it soften.
“A little gratitude would be nice,” she said, knowing it was a mistake to linger. “Archie did save your leg.”
“He wouldn’t have needed to, if you hadn’t shot me,” he replied.
There was some justification in his words, she admitted to herself. But then he shouldn’t have come after Mac.
“Why are you so determined?” she asked. “It’s not just because Mac’s wanted. You’ve been looking for him for years.” It wasn’t exactly a stab in the dark. She’d detected something in his tone when he spoke Mac’s name. By the sudden chill in his eyes, she knew she was right.
He stared at her, and she wished she saw something in his eyes. The nothingness was frightening. Far more frightening than the anger or contempt. There was a very personal motivation behind his hunt, and it was deep and strong. She knew then that he would never give up.
She shook off the chill that ran through her and opened the door.
“Samantha?” His words stopped her and she turned around.
“Sam will do.”
“I like Samantha better.” His eyes suddenly seemed to undress her with a lazy sensuality, removing her clothes piece by piece.
Painfully exquisite sensations started to boil in her core. Sparks shot between them, live and biting. Intense. She knew she was losing control, floundering in depths she didn’t understand.
She saw surprise in his eyes, as if he, too, felt something he didn’t want to feel.
“You’d better go, Miss Samantha,” he said. His words were mocking, as if he knew exactly what was going on inside her.
She swallowed hard and followed his advice. A little too quickly.
Damn him.
She went into the small kitchen off the bar. She was shaking, buffeted by conflicting emotions. She feared him for Mac’s sake, but something in her was reacting to him in a way she’d never reacted to a man before. She was drawn to him as if she were a piece of metal and he a magnet.
She stirred the pot of venison stew hanging in the fireplace and added some water. She’d started it yesterday while the marshal slept and continually added water and spices, siphoning the broth for Mac.
Then she found the key to the marshal’s room and turned it in the lock. No ordinary man would be walking for another week, but she knew now he was not like other men.
He was an enemy. A danger to those she loved.
She shouldn’t care anything about him.
And, hell’s blazes, she didn’t.