Audrey and the Maverick (13 page)

“Who?” She feigned ignorance.

“Have you let him kiss you?”

Disliking this turn in the conversation, she tried to pull her hand free. His grip tightened, and he watched her struggle long enough to alarm her. He took hold of her arms and drew her against his body. She noticed his eyes had gone dark, tense.

“I think about you all day, all night. I wonder what you’re doing with him.”

“No.” Audrey tried in earnest to break free. His grip was unrelenting.

“The boys talk about you in the bunkhouse at night. McCaid’s Woman, they call you. They expect you’ll be increasing before the end of summer. They’ve put bets on it.”

Audrey gasped, horrified to hear what McCaid’s men thought of her. Of course, it wasn’t surprising; he’d claimed her as his woman. Even if he hadn’t, the sheriff had made it clear what she was supposed to be doing out here at Hell’s Gulch.

Hadley smiled. “I just want what you’ve given him. I was going to ask you to marry me, after all.” He hauled her against himself and tried to kiss her, but she turned away. He slapped her cheek, stunning her. Taking advantage of her momentary shock, he began yanking at her clothes, tearing her shirt free from her waistband.

Survival fired in Audrey’s mind. She punched his still tender leg and wrenched free of his hold, running blindly for her cabin. She’d almost reached it when she thought of its isolation; and with doors that didn’t lock, it would do little to deter Hadley’s advances. She veered around it, running for McCaid’s house. Twice she looked over her shoulder, surprised to see him fall back. His leg must not be as healed as she thought.

Her heart was thundering. She felt violently ill. She’d known Hadley for years. They’d played together as children. What had come over him?

She ran through the front gate at McCaid’s house, relieved to see light inside. Her cheek stung. She swiped the tears from her face and straightened her hair as best she could. She’d lost her shawl somewhere. She’d have to look for it tomorrow. Tugging her sleeves in place and dusting her collar, she marched up the steps and into Julian’s house.

She found him in the library, putting books on the higher shelves, his back to her. He did not turn to greet her. He’d been angry when she left with Hadley. She shouldn’t have gone, not when this was where she wanted to be.

The crates were opened and scattered about the room. Picking a spot at the opposite end from where Julian worked, she took up a handful of books and set them on a nearby shelf. Again and again she did this, the action cathartic to her shattered mind. Hadley had been her friend; she’d helped him mend after his terrible accident. What had happened to him? When had he become a monster? Had he always been one? The thought of him anywhere near her kids made her shudder. She stared blindly at a set of books she had just placed on a shelf, trying to find some composure. Her mother had always told her to focus on the good, to think happy thoughts.

Tonight, there just were none.

She missed her children. She missed her brother. She missed Leah. She even missed Leah’s half-blind wolf.

“Julian,” she asked, hoping her voice didn’t waver, “what makes you happy?”

Julian was not in a mood for polite conversation. He hadn’t been since he’d come to his house alone. And he sure as hell didn’t want to continue their conversation from last night about happiness.

“I don’t know.” He stared unseeingly at the spines of the books he’d just placed, trying to calm himself. She was here now. Now was all that mattered. It was all they had. He drew a breath. “I guess seeing a job to completion. Winning a difficult business negotiation.” A good, fucking bar fight.

He turned and looked at her, glad she had come after all, until his eyes caught sight of her disheveled appearance. Her hair was mussed, and her shirt was pulled nearly free of her skirt. She hadn’t been gone long, but long enough for a quick tumble apparently.

“Audrey, your shirt is untucked,” he snapped. She turned abruptly and looked at him. The light from the single lamp glittered on the moisture in her eyes. The rough outline of a man’s hand could still be seen on one cheek.

If Julian had been angry before, it was nothing compared to the rage that gutted him then. He threw the book he’d been about to shelve across the room with a vocal curse. Anger was all he knew, all he was.
Goddamn Hadley. Goddamn him to hell.
Julian tore his eyes away from Audrey as she hurriedly stuffed her shirttail back into her waistband. He drew a breath through clenched teeth.

This was not her fault.

He stared at the rows of empty bookshelves, trying not to hear her whispery voice as she’d asked,
“Julian, what makes you happy?”
How often did she have to replace bad thoughts with good ones? Was that how she managed her life?
“I want to be cherished.”
He looked back at her and could only get one word past the emotion choking his throat.

“Come.” He opened his arms to her. Not a heartbeat later, she was clinging to him. He wrapped his arms around her. Tightly.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered against the top of her head. “I’m so goddamned sorry. I shouldn’t have let you go tonight.”

“I didn’t want to. All day I wanted to come here. With you.” Her words were muffled, spoken against his chest.

“Me too.” He rubbed her back. She wasn’t crying, just quietly holding him. Her silence—her composure—was more unsettling than loud sobs would have been. He held her tighter, and tighter still, as if he could draw her inside himself. If they were one person, if she were part of him, she would be safe. He eased his hold, bending to capture her face with both hands.

“Audrey, give me the right to protect you. Please.”

She regarded him intensely, her beautiful sage-green eyes pale in the dim light. “Why would you do that?”

“Because you should be able to live without any more of these,” he said, softly brushing his thumb over her bruised cheek.

“You can’t protect me. No one can.”

“That’s not true. No one would dare harm you if they knew they would have to contend with me.”

“And what happens when you leave? I will be fair game for any man then, all the ones you held off. No, it is better this way. I don’t want to become dependent on you. On anyone. It is a false security.”

“When I leave, I can hire guards for you.”

She smiled then. “And what will happen when I want the attentions of some man? Perhaps someone who wishes to court me?”

Julian felt his rage resurface. He wished he could lock her away, keep her safe here at his ranch, hide her so no other man could have her. But that was no life for her. She should be a wife and mother. And be cherished. He could not deny her her future. “You would only have to tell my men that he is acceptable.”

She shook her head. “You see, that won’t work. I would have let Hadley in. He was a friend. I’ve known him for years. I trusted him. And still he did this to me.”

He led her over to the sofa and sat next to her, wrapping an arm about her shoulders. “Audrey, let me take you to Cheyenne or Denver or anywhere. I could set you up as a seamstress.”

“Julian, the very fact that you set me up in business would make it impossible for me to live there. Men do not settle proper women in new towns.”

“I could send you to the States. You said yesterday you wanted to go there. I could send you to my grandmother’s plantation in Georgia. She never goes there. No one does. We could say you are a distant relative of my brother’s wife.”

“No.”

Julian squeezed his eyes shut. There was one last option, one that left a bitter taste in his mouth. “Then let me find a husband for you. I know good men, men who would never lift a finger to harm you.”
Men who would cherish you.

Audrey looked up into Julian’s eyes. He was the one she wanted. No other would do. And being near him, possibly in his social circle, seeing him with his wife—it would destroy her. Living at his family’s estate would be agony too. She would always be watching for him, waiting for him, knowing all the while he would not come. She wanted the one thing he did not offer. She wanted him. Was he so blind?

“I am not your problem. I will see to my own life,” she answered. His eyes hardened. Before he could argue further, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed her face into the crook of his neck. Her heart beat against his. She drew in the faint spicy-sweet smell of him. Cloves. He must use a clove-scented shaving cream. She lifted her face, distracting herself with the feel of his newly shaved skin against her lips as she moved her mouth up his neck, below his jaw.

His breathing was shallow and fast. He was waiting—she could feel his anticipation. She lifted her head infinitesimally more. Her lips encountered the hard line of his jaw. Her tongue touched the texture of his skin there, tasting him. She ran her lips along the line of his jaw to his ear. She drew his lobe into her mouth, nibbling gently. She felt his chest expand as he sucked in a sharp breath of air. He did not stop her. He did not take over the caress. He kept still, watching her as she gave her curiosity full rein.

Looking into his eyes, Audrey could not tell where his pupils ended and the brown of his eyes started. They looked dark, desperate. With her holding him, an arm around his neck, their faces were almost nose-to-nose. She ran a hand up his cheek, across his sideburn, into his hair. It was warm and silky between her fingers. Audrey knew she played with fire, knew one—or both—of them would get burned, scorched by the desire they shared.

She had the uncanny sense that this encounter was hers to own, take it further or end it, the choice was hers. She drew his head against hers, bringing his lips to hers. Though he closed his eyes, his face remained taut, his nostrils flared. He followed her lead, opening his mouth when she opened hers, touching his tongue to hers when she put hers into his mouth, twisting to give her deeper access when she moved her head.

Audrey broke from the kiss. She licked his lips, using her tongue to trace the circumference of his mouth. She felt like a seductress, powerful enough to bend a man to her will, whole again after her frightening encounter with Hadley. Julian had given her herself back, she realized. She pushed his hair behind one ear and blinked the moisture from her eyes. He watched the path the tear made, watched and waited.

He was not smiling.

“I think I better leave now.” She looked into his eyes. “Thank you for being here. Thank you for this.” Still he did not speak, but that was all right with Audrey. There was nothing to say; she’d left him no options except to stoically accept her decisions. She pulled out of his arms and got to her feet, even as he came to his.

“I’ll walk you and Amy home. While you’re at my ranch, I can and will see to your safety, Audrey Sheridan.”

She smiled at his authoritative tone. She would grant him that much and be grateful for it.

Julian left Audrey’s cabin and went straight to the bunkhouse. It wasn’t late; light still shone in the windows of the long, low structure. Some of the boys were sitting around a table, playing cards. Others lay in their bunks in the double rows of beds. At the far end where Franklin had his own room, Julian could see him working at his desk.

Hadley was one of the boys playing cards. They were surprised to see him. A few put their cards down and stood up, seeing the look in his eyes.

“Hadley Baker, get your things, collect your pay, and get the hell off my ranch.”

Hadley came to his feet, warily eyeing Julian. The boy wore no gun belt, but Julian wouldn’t be surprised if he had a knife somewhere. The boys around the table looked confused.

“If that’s what you want, Mr. McCaid. I’ll go. Doesn’t seem like the wisest choice. There’s trouble brewing in town, and it’s headed this way.”

“You’re right about that. And I need men I can trust when it gets here.”

Franklin came forward, frowning. “Boss—what’s going on?”

Julian never took his eyes from Hadley. “Hadley’s leaving. Why don’t you tell the boys why, Hadley?”

“I don’t know why, Mr. McCaid,” he answered evenly. Julian knew the others were surprised, especially given how often Julian deferred to Audrey’s wishes when it came to maintaining Hadley’s employment. The men who had remained seated now stood and quietly moved away so that they weren’t standing between McCaid and Hadley.

“What went on between you and Audrey during your walk tonight?”

“That’s a private matter. It’s no concern of yours.”

“It became my concern when you hit her. She’s under my employ and my protection. You crossed the line, boy. You’re done. Get the hell out of here. Franklin, get his pay.” Julian turned to leave, regretting the matter was settled so peaceably. He wanted to make Hadley hurt. He wanted to tear the pretty bastard limb from limb and—

A faint sound, a hiss of movement, was all the warning he had as Hadley came at his back. Instinctively, Julian crouched and pivoted to face his attacker. Sure enough, he’d drawn a knife. Julian, the bigger of the two, grabbed Hadley’s wrist to keep the knife away and pounded his other fist into Hadley’s stomach. The boy doubled over, and Julian’s next punch laid him out on his belly on the floor, coughing and spitting blood. Something small and white hit the plank floor.

“You broke my tooth!” He sat back on his haunches and held a hand over his mouth as blood and spittle drained down his chin. “You broke my goddamned tooth!”

“That was for Audrey.” Julian glared down at him. “Maybe you’ll think twice before laying a hand on another woman. Get him outta here, Franklin.”

Julian stood on the ridge overlooking his camp, in almost the same place he’d been the night his month with Audrey had begun. They had only days left. Somehow, he had to convince her to stay. She wouldn’t be safe in Defiance—not with Jace’s war starting. As he considered his options, he became aware of a lone rider slowly coming up the front drive.

Jace.

Julian met him by the corrals. “I’m heading up to see Sager, but I wanted to swing by and tell you the chatter I’m hearing about your woman.”

“What about her?”

“She’s working for the sheriff.”

“Damn it, Jace. She’s doing no such thing.”

Jace held up a hand. “He threatened her children. He forced her to come out and keep you distracted.” He grinned at Julian. “Seems the sheriff doesn’t like the idea of facing the two of us.”

Julian ignored that. “What children? She only has the one daughter.”

Jace shrugged. “I’m telling you what was told to me. She’s an innocent, McCaid.”

“I’ve already figured that out.” Julian shoved a hand through his hair. “She’s no different now than she was when she came out here, except she’s one hell of a lot safer.”

“You better keep her here, then, ’cause the men in town are waiting on their turn with her, now the sheriff’s made her fair game.”

Summer’s heat had rolled in to the High Plains, sucking every living thing dry with its hot wind and blazing sun. The two stoves made the cookhouse feel like an oven. Audrey switched to cooking as much as she could over the open fire pit beneath the tent canopy, but sometimes the wind was relentless and forced her to work indoors.

She and Julian spent the next few evenings getting his library settled, after putting Amy to bed in one of the rooms upstairs. They brought in a side table and lamp from the parlor so that they could sit together on the sofa and read their respective books. He had put the books he considered inappropriate on the higher shelves—which left many of the lower ones bare.

They weren’t alone as they worked in his library; her impending departure crowded them like a third companion. Sometimes she would look up and catch him watching her, his expression unreadable, his eyes dark. Other times, she found herself studying him, memorizing everything about him, burning his image into her mind so that she would never forget him.

Tonight was such a night. They sat in the library reading. In two days, her month would be up and she would leave. Audrey kept her eyes on the novel in front of her, but what she really wanted to do was focus on Julian. He sat at the other end of the sofa, wholly unaware of her discomfort. His long legs were sprawled open-legged in front of him. He had rolled up his shirtsleeves, baring muscular, veined forearms. His large hand cradled the book he read.

Irritated with her wandering attention, Audrey turned on the sofa, leaning against the arm and curling her legs under her. She lifted her book so that it blocked him from her line of sight. Still, she reread the same page twice. None of it assembled itself into coherent words in her distracted mind. Sighing, she started at the top of the page and began again.

“What are you reading, Audrey?” Julian’s deep voice imploded her weak attempts to ignore him.

“A fascinating story about a young girl, younger than I am, who must make her way in the world.”

“What’s the title?”

“Fanny Hill.”

A strange choking sound came from the opposite side of the sofa. Audrey lowered her book to look at him.

“That is not an appropriate piece for you to be reading.” He set his book on the side table and reached for hers. “Hand it to me. We’ll find something else for you.”

Audrey pulled the book closer, confused by his reaction. “I’m enjoying the story so far, though it’s very sad. Fanny and I have much in common.”

“You have nothing in common with her. Nothing. Hand it to me.”

Shocked at his vehemence, Audrey stood, putting the book behind her. “No.”

He stood as well. “Yes.” He came toward her, and she retreated around the sofa.

“Julian, what’s come over you?”

He walked around the sofa, a murderous gleam in his eyes. She moved backward, circling around the sofa. Her heart beat with a violent hammering.

“That is not a good book for you. I don’t want you to read it.” He glared at her, the sofa between them.

“It was in the books I unpacked. I didn’t take it from those on your shelves.” She looked at the books he had declared off-limits to her. “Why, you have more books I can’t read than those I can.” She could have sworn a flush colored Julian’s face, but in the dim light, it was impossible to be sure.

“I had not planned on having mixed genders here. I thought this would be a male domain.” He started to walk around the sofa, but she moved in the opposite direction. Quickly he vaulted over the sofa, landing right where she was standing. She shrieked and ran away, only to be cornered against the wall with his arms braced on the shelves on either side of her shoulders, locking her in. She hid the book behind her protectively, laughing until she saw the blackness in his eyes. Slowly, so slowly, her laughter died.

“Give me the book.”

“No. I want to learn what happens. Fanny is independent, as I am. Perhaps there is a lesson I can take away from the story and avoid in my own life. That is why we read fiction, isn’t it?”

Julian could not explain his rage. Audrey—his Audrey—was no Fanny Hill. Her eyes dipped to his mouth, and his mind flashed back to their embrace in this room just days ago, an embrace he’d tried to put behind him ever since. But his faithless brain now trotted the memory out, reminding him what it felt like to have her gently explore his neck and face with her lover’s mouth. His cock grew hard, his balls tightened, and he was damned near lost.

“Goddammit, Audrey. You are nothing like Fanny. Nor will you ever be, do you hear me?”

She looked up into his eyes, her gaze wide, still innocent. “But I am like her, Julian.” Her voice was a throaty whisper, sad with the truth. “We both are alone in this world. We both must make our way by ourselves. Don’t you see?”

“You aren’t alone. You’re a mother. You have a brother. You have me.”

“I have no one to rely on, no one to share the burden of living with, no one for me to help, no one who will in turn help me. I am alone.”

Julian squeezed his eyes closed, trying to calm his raging blood. God, it was no use. He looked into her pale green eyes. “Fanny Hill was a prostitute,” he growled. “You are not.”

Silence. Julian kept his gaze from wandering to her heaving chest, to time the rise and fall there against his beating heart.

“But you would make me one.”

How quickly she caught on. “No.” He shook his head. “Never.”

“A thousand dollars for a summer with me. What was that, Julian?”

“I want to make love to you. I won’t deny that. I’ve wanted you since we met last summer, since I first held you in my arms.”

“It isn’t love when you pay for it, though, is it?”

Her words hurt worse than the horsewhipping that had scarred his back. They laid his soul uncomfortably bare. If he did succeed in seducing her, what would happen to her after this summer, after he was gone? His eyes lowered to her mouth, her chin, the long column of her throat. The neckline of her blue gingham dress was cut below her collarbone, but the bodice molded the generous curves of her breasts and hugged the narrow core of her ribs.

He touched his fingers to the top of her neckline, where a ribbon of eyelet met sun-kissed skin. He lifted his hand upward, pressing his thumb against the heartbeat in her neck. Up and down, he slowly stroked her skin. He thought he would die if he didn’t know her, didn’t take her body, didn’t have at least that memory to carry him through the cold, lifeless marriage he had consigned himself to.

And yet, if he gave in to his desires, if he seduced her, what would her life be like after him? As Fanny experienced, he would have opened a world of passion and desire to Audrey, a world she could all too easily satisfy, given the large supply of randy men in the area. Fanny Hill’s story had a happy ending, but would Audrey’s? Would he set her on a downward spiral that left her servicing men in a saloon like Sam’s, carelessly spreading her beautiful legs for the money she needed to live, to support Amy?

He drew his hand away from her soft skin. “It isn’t prostitution when a friend helps a friend with no expectation or understanding that sexual favors, or favors of any sort, are to be given in exchange.”

“No one gives without taking. I’m no fool, Julian.”

“
I
can give without taking. Please, may I have the book?” His voice was raspy, even to his own ears. He held his hand out, palm upward, and watched as she reluctantly placed the book in his hands.

He set it high on a shelf, out of her easy reach. His balls were so tight it hurt to move. He wished he had his coat to hide the bulge in the front of his pants that had become painfully commonplace when she was near. He stood immobile, letting his blood settle.

Audrey’s head lowered. She looked at her hands, now clasped in front of her. “You fired Hadley.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

He looked at the wall of books in front of him, feeling grim. He wished he had some means of getting her to trust him. There were no assurances he could offer her—at least none she would accept. Their lives moved on separate tracks. He wished he never met her. She stirred things up within him that he had not felt before, things he wished he’d never known about himself, things ripped from him that bloody summer, half a lifetime ago.

“You can’t leave yet, Audrey.”

“I have to.”

“There’s a war coming to Defiance.”

Fear clouded her eyes. “What kind of war?”

“Big and bloody, like any war.”

She grabbed his sleeve. “Julian, I have to get back to town.”

“Why?”

“I just have to go back. Please, can we leave tonight?”

Julian studied her, wondering at the secrets that crowded her gaze. “Not tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll take you in. We’ll pack up your household and move you out here. I’m not leaving you there. I know that you don’t trust me, but I’m not giving you a choice in this.”