Fair Is the Rose (13 page)

"Have the rest of them been stripped?" Cain asked, ignoring her.

Kineson smiled. He looked behind him at the two gunmen coming down the path from the saloon. They were both holding piles of clothes. At the top of one pile was Mr. Glassie's verdigris suit.

"Left 'em with just their union suits."
Kineson laughed. "And there was a mess of gold in that old fellow's vest. Yes, sirree, he was spitting mad when I found it and took it away from him."

Christal was heartsick. Pete's father's money had been taken away. All their futures were drying up faster than commerce in Falling Water.

"Take off your petticoats, girlie," Kineson said, turning to her again. "We'll take them as well. Women's things fetch a lot more than men's out here."

"I will not," she spat. She had more to lose than just her modesty if she handed him her petticoats, and she vowed to keep them.

"I said take 'em off."

"I won't," she said, daring him to touch her.

"Take them off," Cain said behind her.

She spun and looked at him, hurt by his betrayal. For some strange reason, she expected him to stand up for her. But that was asking too much of an outlaw. Damning his soul, she faced Kineson again and said, "My possessions are mine and I'm keeping them. Stay away from me."

Kineson only laughed. His hands were on her in seconds, reaching beneath her gown to rip away her petticoats. She screeched in outrage, but before she could pummel him off her, he had her three petticoats in hand, each petticoat dropping gold pieces in the dust.

"What have we here?" Kineson said, picking up a piece.

Seven was certainly an unlucky number. For three years she'd worked to save seven ten-dollar gold pieces.
She done
without food in order to add to her stash because what drove her was stronger than even hunger: revenge. She was going to redeem herself and prove her uncle guilty, but she needed money to do it. Now she'd saved, only to see her seven precious gold pieces, sewn carefully into the hem of her petticoat, thrown to outlaws like worthless trinkets in a parade.

Past the point of caution, she ran to Kineson, desperate to fight and take her money back, but Cain held her back. Outraged that he would stop her, she raised her hand to strike him, but he gave her such a look, she felt as if a frigid wind had just passed by.

If she struck him, he would be forced to show his dominance in front of Kineson. He'd be forced to strike her back, and hard. Blinking back tears of frustration and anger, she lowered her hand. "That's all I have in the world.
Seven gold pieces.
Don't let him take it from me," she whispered, proud that she kept the tears from her voice.

"I know" was all Cain said. Kineson laughed and tossed a coin in the air, taunting her. Cain nodded for her to return to the fireplace. She stared at him for one excruciating moment, silently pleading for her gold; then she lifted her chin and walked away, refusing to let him see her devastation, or the tears that finally blurred her vision as she poked vengefully at the fire.

An hour passed as the men settled down to sleep. Kineson snored at the edge of the firelight. Christal watched him, fantasizing enormous wolves coming along and dragging him off. She should have been sleepy herself, but the tensions of the day wouldn't let her relax. She had no money now. Not a dime. She would have to begin all over again. The thought depressed her as no other. She supposed she should be grateful if she survived to have the chance to start over, but at that moment, having been stripped of every protection save the dark, brooding outlaw who sat next to her, she couldn't feel optimistic. Cain's protection was a tenuous thing at that. He could have saved her money for her. She knew he could have. The outlaws scurried away like roaches in daylight when he walked by; he had proved he could win dominance over Kineson, obviously Kineson's greatest fear. Yet Cain remained under the gang leader's orders.
And why?
Because he was as immersed in this gang as anyone, maybe more so.

Her gaze trailed to Cain, and she was shocked to find him staring at her. His gaze wasn't so cold in the dying firelight, his face not nearly so hard. He had a strange, taut expression as he stared, almost as if he was trying not to look at her, but was somehow helpless not to.

Her gaze met with his and held. She fascinated him, for whatever reason. Her past, which should have been unimportant to an outlaw, seemed to intrigue him. She could tell it by his questions, and now by his stare. Perhaps she was getting to him. It was playing with fire to think of becoming entangled with a man like Cain, but if she could gain his confidence, find a chink in his armor, she might convince him to see her side and assist her.

She looked down and noticed he'd been polishing his revolvers again. His energy in that matter was endless. It was as if he was always preparing for a showdown. She wondered if this unnerved the other gunmen.

She walked next to him and tried to draw him into conversation. "Those must be extraordinary guns for all the attention you give them."

"They're nothing a million men don't own." As usual, his answer was terse. He dropped his gaze to his task, appearing unapproachable and intimidating as he polished the unusually long bore.

"Those guns were Confederate issue, then?"

"Yeah."
He broke one and looked down the barrel.

"You take very good care of them. I suppose you've had them since the war. You must treasure them."

He glanced at her, disgust twisting his lips. "Out here a man doesn't treasure his guns, Mrs.
Smith,
he's a slave to them. I'm just a more diligent slave, that's all." He snapped the revolver closed. "Besides, Yankee-issue Remingtons are better than what I have."

"Why don't you have Remingtons, then?"

His disgust appeared again. "Why bother? A dead man doesn't know the difference."

She fell silent, unable to counter this indisputable fact.

After a long pause, he said, "What were you saving that money for?" He didn't look at her. He just continued polishing and oiling his revolver as if she weren't around, but she knew if she didn't answer, those eyes would finally look her way. The threat of his stare was enough.

"I was a schoolteacher saving to buy a house."

"I see," he said, clearly not believing her.

"It came from my husband."

"No." He looked up. "You had all that gold, yet you sold your wedding band?" He suddenly smiled. It chilled her. He had caught her in a lie and there was no way to extract
herself
. So she said nothing. Silence was better than stumbling around for answers.

"You hated him, didn't you?" he asked in an oddly needful tone.

It was her turn not to look at him. "Don't ask me any questions about my past unless you're willing to help

me
."

He glanced over at the sleeping men. Snores broke in tandem with the
whooh
of an owl. He looked back at her and their gazes locked. He seemed to want to say something, but somehow he couldn't. He glanced again at the men. She wondered if he couldn't trust that the other men were truly asleep and not listening. She wanted to ask him, but he put her off. He thrust his Colt into his holster and shook out his bedroll. Then he forced her down on it on the other side of the fireplace.

Trembling, she waited for him to join her, fearing his unexpected anger. But he didn't touch her. Instead he sat with his back against the warm fireplace stones and dug out a harmonica from his saddlebag. He began the tune to "Tom Dooley" and one of the men—Kineson, she thought—shouted to him, "Cain, you are somethin', boy! Playin' that harmonica! Why, if that were my woman, I wouldn't be playin'
nothing
but her!"

Men's laughter echoed from around the shaft of the chimney. Christal shivered. Cain began to sing.
Hang yo' head, Tom Doolah, Hang yo' head and cry,
You
killed Laurie Foster and now you're gonna die.
The words rang in her head.
Now you're gonna die.

Sunday came with a vengeance. Overnight a winterlike chill permeated the air and crystalline frost covered everything including the blanket they slept beneath. Christal dreaded leaving the warmth of Cain's body, but dawn was breaking over the mountains, coloring the faces of the opposite slopes long before darkness was erased and the sun actually peeked over the eastern hills. It was one of the strange quirks of the mountains. To find dawn, she'd learned to look west.

Though he lay against her back and she couldn't see him, she knew Cain was awake; not moving as if he, too, hesitated to part from the warmth of the bedroll. There were only two days left before the ransom was paid. Two more days of hell and captivity by the Kineson gang, two more days of intense contrary emotions for the man who held her beneath the frost-covered blanket. How it would end was the only question. She pondered the different scenarios, but of one thing she was certain. Cain wasn't going to let them hurt her. He'd taken too many risks, protected her too often, to let Kineson and his gang members slay her like a lamb once they got the ransom. She only wished she could be as confident about Mr. Glassie, Pete, and the other passengers' protection. Their futures were murky, but, in truth, all their futures were. Her fate really wasn't up to Cain. He couldn't control everything. In some ways, he was a captive himself, captive of the crime he had helped to commit.

A thin light streamed over the eastern peaks, barely melting the frost. Cain moved and she waited for the gust of cold air as he threw off the covers. The cold air didn't come. Wondering what he was doing, she rolled over and met his gaze inches from her own. He still lay on his side, one hand gripping his gun belt against his chest, the other tucked beneath his dark head.

He stared at her, so close that the whisper of his breath warmed her cheek. She was captured like a bird in a snare, finally seeing where the coldness lay in his gray eyes, how the color of his irises fractured into slivers of ice blue around the pupil, an effect that seemed to drain his eyes of warmth, yet, in turn, endow them with an emotion infinitely more compelling.
More dangerous.

She lowered her gaze, upset by the flare of unwanted longing. He was so near, a sigh could close the distance between them; bring them together, lips upon trembling lips in a kiss. And he wanted to kiss her, female instinct told her that. She knew that the thought of their kissing weighed as heavily on his mind as it did on hers.

She looked at his throat where the ragged scar showed above his bandanna. She wanted to feel nothing, but she was unnerved by the erotic rhythm of his pulse as it beat along one sinew of his neck. She lowered her eyes farther, this time refusing to acknowledge how the rise and fall of his chest touched another chord deep within her body.