Kit Gardner (22 page)

The ladle clattered to the stove as Jessica spun toward him with hands planted on her hips. “I’ll tell you what staggers the imagination, Avram. Your insisting you know best for
my
son. And your complete lack of regard for Stark.”

Avram blinked furiously from behind his fogging lenses. “
The man is an outlaw!
There’s no hiding from the facts. You saw him handle his weaponry. A man like that should be prevented from owning a firearm.”

Jessica set her teeth. “He drove that gang from town before they could do anyone harm. You know very well he saved us.”

“Try telling that to the sheriff,” Avram countered with a smug curl of his upper lip. “As we speak, he and several of the other menfolk are deciding whether Stark should pack his musty saddlebags and leave our town in the peace it has enjoyed for years. It is no slight coincidence that no riffraff outlaw gang ever breached our boundaries before Stark set his boots on our boardwalks.”

Jessica gasped with outrage. “
What?
Why, just yesterday, the railroad was to blame for that gang, was it not, Avram? Indeed, and was it not just yesterday that the sheriff offered Stark a post as deputy?”

Avram shrugged. “I suppose even the best of lawmen have lapses in judgment from time to time.”

Jessica felt her lungs fill near to bursting as her thoughts flew. Her eyes narrowed upon Avram. “Something changed his mind since yesterday. Did you, perhaps, happen to speak with the sheriff, Avram?”

Avram’s black brows rose innocently. “I suppose in passing I might have spoken to the man. I’m a busy man, Jessica.”

An invisible but mighty weight pressed against Jessica’s chest, trapping all air, and half her voice. “Y-you’re responsible.”

Avram looked duly affronted. “
Me?
True, I’m not overly fond of that Stark fellow—”

“Your grievance has nothing to do with him,” Jessica said slowly. “It’s what his being here means to me, to restoring the place. Look at you, Avram. You can barely keep the triumphant tone from your voice. How your chest puffs up with smugness. Indeed, in victory you betray your guilt.”

“Now see here, my dear,” he began gently, reaching a hand toward her, which she swiftly swatted aside.

“Get out of my house,” she railed, flinging one arm to the door. “Now.”

“By God, I shan’t be thrown from this moldering farm twice in as many days!” Avram barked, his face bathed with sweat. “It’s an outrage!”

“What did you say?” Jessica asked, with deceptive softness.

Avram shoved an index finger skyward in his vehemence. “I said it’s an outrage that—”

“Who but I has sought to throw you from this farm?”

Avram’s mouth opened and closed precisely three times, enough to allow color to suffuse his sallow cheeks. “Why, nobody, my dear. You misunderstood.”

Jessica nearly choked on the obvious lie. So, last night Stark had found it necessary to throw Avram from the barn. Though Logan hadn’t yet spoken to her of it, she instinctively knew, given Avram’s recent behavior, that he’d had ample motive. What scheme had Avram hatched and sought to carry out in the deepest hours of night, without her knowledge? A scheme involving Stark, a scheme that he had soundly thwarted, and for which Avram now seemed determined to make him pay?

Seized by a blinding rage, she had to turn about and grasp the edge of the stove to keep herself from clawing Avram’s eyes from his bloated head. “Avram, I’ve been thinking a good deal about postponing our wedding.”

“You what?”

“However, I’ve had a sudden change of heart.”

“You always were a reasonable woman, Jessica.”

“Precisely. That’s why I shall never become your wife, Avram. In fact, I’m feeling so reasonable at the moment, I’m wondering why I ever consented to marry you in the first place. Now if you would please leave, Avram, and save yourself some embarrassment.”

Halsey sucked in a huge breath. “Listen to me, Jessica,” he crooned, his touch upon her arm enough to make the bile rise in her throat. “All this steam has obviously muddled your brain. Or perhaps Stark has swayed your thinking. He deserves neither your loyalties nor your trust. And if you think I would allow such a man to come between us another day, you’re forgetting who I am, what we mean to one another, and the implicit trust you’ve laid in me as your future husband to take care of you. To know what’s best for you.”

Her skin crawled beneath his fingers. How he twisted the circumstances to suit his purpose! Had he forever been so capable of coercion? And why had she
again
failed to see it?

“My head has begun to ache, Avram,” she said through her teeth, the steam swimming before her eyes. She could barely trust herself to face the man without losing all semblance of control. “I’m afraid I won’t discuss the matter any longer.”

“Of course, my dear. We shall talk later...at the town social. I shall come for you this evening around seven—”

“No. I’d rather you didn’t, Avram.”

“Yes, of course. As you wish, my dearest. Trust me, another day shall not pass without my putting your troubles to rest.”

She barely waited for the door to close behind him. Then, with a strength she’d never before displayed, she heaved the enormous boiler from the stove and dumped it into the sink. The two pots full of vegetables followed. She didn’t give her ruined vegetables another thought. Merely paused to snatch up a straw hat before she fled the house and set off at a brisk walk down the road to Twilight.

* * *

“Ya want me ta wrap all the rest o’ this up real nice in brown paper, Logan Stark?” the young brunette behind Ledbetter’s counter asked in her deep drawl, her tongue wrapping eagerly around her lips. She leaned her forearms on the counter, pointedly dipped her eyes to his crotch, and again licked her lips in a manner that made Rance supremely grateful for the counter that separated them. “I can do some downright nasty things with my hands,” she purred, eyes slanting provocatively up at him. “An’ bow tyin’ is the least of ‘em.”

Purposely avoiding her sultry gaze, he hefted the sacks of flour and sugar onto one shoulder. “No thanks,” he replied, snatching the wrapped parcel from the counter and under his arm before her little fingers could grab it back. With a curt nod, he flashed her a quick grin of thanks, which only served to dilate her pupils and set her breasts to heaving.

Damned nubile young women seemed to be swarming all over town today. He’d had the same problem with the blacksmith’s lusty redheaded daughter when he took Jack to be reshod. On his way from the smithy, he’d been all but swarmed by a giggling gaggle of young women with more on their minds than just a simple midday stroll. And now this Ledbetter chit. In the past hour, he’d received no fewer than three invitations to this evening’s town social, and twice as many lewd propositions detailing precisely what he could expect if he ventured into the open prairie after dark with an eager young woman.

This hero thing was starting to get on his nerves. With a bounty hunter or a pack of outlaws he felt more than capable of dealing, but ravenous, husband-seeking women?

“Logan Stark. Just the man I wanted to see.” In a rustle of crisp taffeta, Sadie McGlue glided into the store. Her face lit with a radiant smile until her eyes flickered behind the counter. She blinked several times, then inclined her head, tilting her plumed hat so that the feathers wafted in the hot breeze. “Why, Constance Ledbetter, hasn’t anyone told you that salivating is quite gauche for a young girl barely out of diapers? And close your mouth, dear. If you for one minute think I’m going to let you get your sticky little fingers on Logan Stark, think again.” Her eyes twinkled as they settled once more upon him. “Oh, no, I’ve my own plans for him, though little good it will do me. Or you, Constance. Men like Mr. Stark here have their minds made up about what they’re going to do, long before we females can even begin to use our wiles upon them. Isn’t that so, Logan?”

“Something tells me Hubert never had a chance, ma’am,” he replied, immediately warming to Sadie McGlue’s banter.

“Well, that’s Hubert. And regrettably, delightful though he is, Hubert is not you.” She laid a gloved hand upon his arm, her tone dropping to a soft whisper, all mischief fleeing her eyes. “How are you faring?”

A sliver of warning shot through Rance. “Fine, ma’am,” he said evenly. “Should I be otherwise?”

Sadie raised her penciled brows. “No. Of course not. Foolish men always get ridiculous ideas into their heads, and it’s up to us women to talk the sense back into them. Just idle gossip, is all. Forget I even said anything.” Her smile again wrinkled the doughy folds of her heavily powdered cheeks. “Shall I expect to see you at this evening’s social? Or do you intend to break my heart?”

“Never that, ma’am,” he replied with a warm smile. “I’ll make it a point to be there.”

Sadie’s fan snapped open and flapped heatedly over her bosom. “Like I told Hubert. A man that charming can’t be the sort folks like us would run off.”

Instinct prickled along the back of Rance’s neck. “Ma’am?”

“Leave it to me, Logan Stark. Only a woman knows what to do when men are all puffed up and determined to show they’re men.” Sadie peered close to the counter, plucked a hard candy from a glass jar and popped it into her mouth, her glare daring Constance Ledbetter to say otherwise. “So, what about Jessica, Logan Stark? Will Reverend Halsey be accompanying her this evening?”

His teeth met, despite the blithe look he managed to achieve. “I suppose he will, ma’am.”

For some reason, the way Sadie McGlue looked at him and sucked on her candy made the heat climb from his open collar clear up his throat. “I see” was all she said, with a slight tip of her lips he chose to attribute solely to the candy’s sugar.

After bidding Sadie McGlue good-day, Rance located Christian just as he tried to clamber atop a perilously high stack of canned goods.

“Did you get it?” Christian asked as they headed down the wooden boardwalk toward the blacksmith’s.

Rance frowned. “Was I supposed to get something besides flour and sugar?”

Christian rolled his eyes almost entirely up into his head and continued his half skip, half jump gait alongside Rance. “You didn’t forget.”

“Check my pocket.”

Christian’s brows dived into a frown. “It wouldn’t fit in your pocket.”

Rance shrugged and lengthened his stride.

Not a moment later, a grubby hand wriggled into his pocket.

“Logan!” the child cried, waving the peppermint stick he pulled out. His small tongue curled out of his mouth as his impatient fingers tore at the wrapper. Poking the candy into his mouth, he tilted his face up to Rance once more. “You
did
remember to get it, didn’t you, Logan?”

The earnest appeal in the child’s voice sliced like the finest blade through Rance, the tone so like Jess’s. “I got it,” he replied softly, drawing the wrapped package from beneath his arm.

“Mama’s gonna love it!”

Rance felt his lips curve upward at the thought. Yes, it was all he could do not to envision the many ways Jess would show her appreciation.

“Logan, you’re walking too fast.”

“Just anxious, is all,” Rance muttered, half to himself, and then his boots all but froze beneath him with his next step. Beneath the shadow of his hat, his gaze riveted upon the very tall man in the long black duster paused not twenty paces farther along the wooden boardwalk. Rance didn’t have to look any closer than the dusty black Stetson pulled ominously low over those slitted eyes to recognize the congealing in his gut for what it was.

No. Not now.

He’d met the man only once, several years before, over a nightlong game of faro in a Wichita gambling house, but he’d never forgotten the way those lifeless, half-hooded eyes had looked when Rance beat him. Rumor had it he’d never been beaten before at faro...by any man who lived to tell the tale. The same dead eyes now scanned Twilight’s peaceful, sun-dappled thoroughfare with the precision of a hawk intent upon a kill. One shoulder leaned against a wooden post. One silver-spurred boot rested lazily upon a hitching rail, where a large black horse stood tethered. A toothpick worked from one corner of his mouth to the other. And at his hips nestled the matched pair of ivory-inlaid revolvers that had put more than a score of innocent men in pine boxes.

No other bounty hunter or hired gun hungered for the kill like Black Jack Bartlett. Little wonder lawmen statewide had devoted their careers to landing Bartlett in jail, without success. Little wonder Cameron Spotz had hired him on to find Rance.

The black Stetson turned, and Rance looked into the deeply shadowed face of death.

T
he instinct to feel cold steel in his palm grew almost painful when Rance met Bartlett’s squinty-eyed stare. Trouble was, his arms were filled, and his gun he’d left in his saddlebags, with his horse, at the blacksmith’s. And then there was Christian, skipping along beside him, happily sucking on his peppermint. Like it or not, his desire to protect the child ran far deeper and far more potent than any instinct for his own survival.

He kept his stride deliberate and casual, his gaze unchallenging, yet as unwavering as any man with nothing to hide...until Bartlett shoved the toothpick to the corner of his mouth with a roll of his tongue and turned his gaze once more to the street. Rance knew better than to allow himself the slightest relief. Nothing good or bad could be read from Bartlett’s response. He might have recognized him. He might not have.

And yet his boots suddenly seemed to spring a touch lighter against the wooden boardwalk, perhaps because he knew Bartlett was searching for a long-haired, bearded gunman, not a shorn and shaven farmhand with a child at his side. As for Bartlett remembering him from that faro table...

Some part of him hoped he would. Yes, a very big part of him suddenly realized that he had far more to gain from confronting Cameron Spotz and his gun Bartlett than he’d ever imagined he would. Perhaps because for the first time in his life he found himself with far too much to lose to run from it now. Hell, he’d been running most of his life, rankling as the thought was. But a man with no ties could call himself a loner and a drifter only so many times and still fool himself, when the grim reality of it was that he was hiding like a scared rabbit, even allowing himself to remain a man wanted for murder. Just another excuse to keep running. Run or be hanged. Damned unspoken law. But better to nurse a decades-old desire for vengeance for his parents’ wrongful deaths than to allow anything or anyone to get their shackles around his soul. Yet somewhere along the way, his vengeance had become a prison, his ability with a gun his only comfort, his only ally—until he’d taken Frank Wynne’s life. Until Jess.

“This way,” he muttered to Christian, directing the child across the wide street toward the blacksmith’s before they reached Bartlett. They paused as a wagon rumbled past. Rance nodded to the driver, then continued on, returning several young ladies’ eager greetings.

And Black Jack Bartlett watched them until they disappeared inside the blacksmith’s barn.

* * *

Why she’d allowed Avram to ride off back to town in his plush curricle
alone,
Jessica would never know. Pride was a vicious thing, particularly when exercising it meant
walking
the two miles to Twilight in blistering heat. She supposed women more cunning than she, and just as proud, would have recognized folly for what it was and endured Avram’s company the few moments more it would have taken for him to deliver her to town. But she’d never professed to have an ounce of cunning, and folly and she had become faithful friends in recent years. Besides, the thought of sitting beside Avram
anywhere,
even for the sake of her feet, made her want to retch.

And in some perverse way, she supposed, she viewed this trudging over unforgiving prairie in this heat the least penance to pay for continuing to be played for a fool.

Her breaths came swift and shallow, and her pace had slowed considerably since she’d first stalked off down this road, full of stubborn pride and grim determination. Perspiration weighted her gown and soaked the limp curls falling like a heavy blanket down her back. Waves of dust billowed over her in merciless succession, snaking into her throat with her every breath. Heat swallowed her up, radiating from the sun-parched earth in great, endless waves. Still, she willed one foot in front of the other in steps that grew heavier and heavier over the deeply rutted trail.

She had no choice. She had to get to Twilight. Who but she could convince the sheriff that Logan Stark wasn’t a dangerous man? Avram, pious pillar of the community that he was, couldn’t have convinced them so quickly to run him out, not now...now that she’d finally found him.

She heard the buckboard before she could distinguish it from the rippling, dusty horizon. One hand shot out in reflex, a terrified croak spilling from her parched lips, so certain was she that the buckboard would somehow run her down. And then the great black beast Jack plunged into her wavering vision, skidding to a halt directly before her.

“Stark...” she rasped, sure now that the world was tilting beneath her feet in skewed waves of billowing heat.

“What the hell? Woman, are you crazy?”

“Stark...” The word came out in another long slur. She blinked, unable to focus upon the broad-shouldered bulk that leapt from the buckboard and moved swiftly toward her. “Turn the wagon around, Stark.”

His big hands grasped her shoulders and gently shook her. “Damned foolish woman, are you trying to kill yourself in this heat? You must be two miles from the farm.”

The untempered urgency in his voice stoked the most pleasurable warmth deep in Jessica’s soul. Her palm sought the rugged visage swimming before her eyes, and finally found one beard-stubbled cheek. A wavering smile parted her lips. “Kill myself? Heavens, no. Why would I want to do that? I simply need to get to town. You have to take me there.”

“The hell I do,” he growled, sweeping her from her feet and striding to the wagon. “Damned stubborn female, nothing you could get in that town is worth heatstroke, or worse. And you know it. You’re going nowhere but home.”

“No,” she croaked, licking her parched lips and valiantly seeking to reason with him. The truth seemed the best course at the moment. “A-Avram has convinced the sheriff to run you out. I must talk to him before he gets the whole town provoked. They’re sure to form one of those awful vigilante groups and come and force you to go—”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he told her, and the mere uttering of those words seemed to dismiss such a probability. And then, as though she weighed next to nothing, he lifted her up onto the seat, then settled his bulk close beside her.

Her fingers curled into the leather seat. “Stark, you don’t understand. If I don’t convince the sheriff otherwise—”

“Put your head between your knees before you faint,” he ordered. One broad hand wrapped about the back of her head and pushed her face into her skirts.

Blood rushed to her temples, ringing ominously in her ears. “I’ve never fainted in my life,” she felt compelled to add, regardless of the queasiness settling in her belly as the buckboard jerked into motion. A moan that belied that fact slipped from her lips before she could snatch it back. And then a tiny hand worked itself into hers upon the jostling seat.

“Don’t worry, Mama. Logan and me will take care of you.”

Confidence, pride and an undeniable tenderness rang in her son’s voice. A great lump formed in Jessica’s throat. “I know you will,” she replied softly.

At some point along the way, Jessica slipped into a half sleep, stirring once when Stark lifted her from the wagon, and then again when cool air washed over her fevered skin. Some part of her realized that she lay upon her bed sheets, and that Stark’s fingers were stripping her sodden gown from her. She could voice no protest, trapped as she was in this heated fog. Words remained half formed upon her tongue. Her limbs responded with a sort of drugged delay, and then as though weighted with lead. She drifted into half sleep again, only to awaken to Stark’s warmly hushed voice murmuring, “Open for me, love.”

His thumb brushed over her bottom lip, and she opened her mouth in response. Cool water spilled into her throat, and she gulped ravenously, heedless of the droplets plunging down her neck and chest. She forced her eyes open. In the dim light, he loomed over her, filling her vision. Concern etched grim lines deep into his gloriously handsome face.

Had her hand not weighed so much, she would have caressed the lean cheek, assuaged all those lines.

Gently he eased her back upon the sheets and laid a cool, wet cloth over her brow. With a tenderness she’d never thought a man capable of, he pressed another wet cloth to the racing pulse at the base of her throat, then swept it across her shoulders, down her arms, again and again, until the feverish heat left her blood and she slipped into an untroubled slumber.

* * *

Jessica surged awake. She stared at the crack meandering through the ceiling overhead and listened to the even beating of her pulse. Her skin felt cool and dry beneath her fingertips, despite the white coverlet drawn clear to her chin. Though her room was dark, the shades drawn low, instinct told her she should not be abed at such an hour. Besides, the grumbling in her belly could not go ignored much longer, particularly with the aroma of something cooking in the air.

Sweeping the coverlet aside, she eased herself up and slowly swung her legs over the edge of the bed. No spinning room. No rushing sounds in her ears. The fevered heat had subsided. Her nose twitched. Something smelled suspiciously like biscuits baking.

Who the devil was baking biscuits in her kitchen?

Mouth watering, she braced her hands on the bed and pushed herself to her feet. Her camisole and pantalets clung damp and cool against her skin and tangled heavily between her legs. Save for her hair spilling in loose riotous curls over her bosom and down her back, she might well have been naked, for all the transparent cotton concealed. A blush heated her cheeks at the memory of Stark bathing her skin free of fever, of his hands moving with dizzying familiarity over her as he removed her gown. Even in a near delirium, she had responded to his touch.

“And where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Her head snapped up at the harsh rasping of his voice. For some reason, when her gaze met Stark’s, she suddenly envisioned what it might be like to be a helpless fox caught in a trap. Perhaps because his broad-shouldered bulk filled the doorway, blocking out all else, making her feel too small, too vulnerable. His expression might have been chiseled from rock, lips tight, jaw deeply hollowed, brows drawn together in their habitual scowl. His eyes blazed with warning even as they moved over her in a slow caress. His shirtsleeves were rolled clear to his elbows, revealing his muscled, generously furred forearms and the long-fingered hands clamped against his thighs. And his butter-colored shirt was as damp as her camisole, and plastered against the wall of his chest. A weakness stole through her, and she clawed at one bedpost with a hand that trembled.

“I—I’m hungry,” she said softly, her voice dying when he growled something and in two strides swept her up into his arms. He turned to the bed, obviously intent upon depositing her there. But then he paused. Jessica sensed more than heard his breath catch, perhaps because hers did, as well, the moment those arms caught her high and close against him. She stared at the thick column of his beard-stubbled throat. His entire body seemed rigid as a steel beam. She knew neither of them breathed.

Time hung suspended. Jessica slowly lifted her eyes to his. She’d never thought to find such delight in the boldness of a man, in desire so profoundly and unabashedly displayed. The mere idea of a man’s carnal thoughts had forever embarrassed her; the mysteries of a male body, the terror it would surely wreak upon her tender flesh, had only stoked terrifying images. The marriage bed had held no pleasure for her, only pain, save for the child born of it. And her body had always been something she had merely fed and clothed.

But not with Stark. His passion didn’t provoke fear or embarrassment. Beneath his eye, her body had become an instrument of seduction, her awareness burgeoning daily of the power of her every move, every gesture, every slight smile, and its devastating consequences upon Stark. His bold masculinity, the irrefutable evidence of her effect upon him, brought a rosy glow to her skin, not one of shame, but one of desire. To lie thus in his arms, all but bare to his passionate regard, felt as natural as she could imagine or hope. And she ached with a longing as old as time to feel every taut male fiber of him pressing her deep into this bed.

She watched his lips part and his eyes darken to molten bronze as the peaks of her breasts tightened and thrust against the damp cotton. And when he bent his head and pressed his face to the lush curves swelling above the camisole, she could only close her eyes with deeply felt pleasure.

Dimly she was aware that he’d lowered himself to the edge of the bed. Languid heat rippled through her when he filled his palm with her breast and his thumb brushed over the nipple, until the nub was distended and aching.

A breath shuddered through her, and then came the swelling of that deep ache, a painful awakening of her soul. Reservation fled on a wave of abandonment, and she arched her back, offering herself to him.

His breath played hot and harsh against her throat, and then his fingers molded the back of her head and forced her gaze to meet his. “Only an animal would take you now,” he rasped. “Besides, when I do, your son won’t be in the next room. I’ll want to take my time. All night, if I so wish it. Even then—” His gaze dipped to her breasts, and his jaw tightened with obvious restraint. “I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of you, Jess. Maybe because it feels like I’ve wanted you for a lifetime. Now get back in that bed and rest.”

She allowed her lids to droop over languid eyes, and parted her lips in a soft pout, her arms remaining staunchly locked about his neck. “I’m not tired. Truly, I’m fine. Just famished, is all.”

His eyes narrowed upon her lips. “So am I, sweetheart.” And then, in one supple movement, he deposited her on the sheets and snapped the coverlet clear to her chin, as though he dared not tempt himself a moment longer.

“What’s for dinner?” Jessica asked, feeling smug as a cat in cream. And as powerful as a lioness. Very much aware that Stark drank in her every movement, she fluffed and stacked the pillows, then sat back against the headboard, coverlet drawn only to her waist, arms folded demurely in her lap.

Rance watched the glitter light her eyes, the secretive curve flirt with her lips, and wondered what the hell he’d created. His loins knew precisely what he’d created: the most sensual, passionate, ripe and rosy woman he’d ever imagined. She was like a sweet, plump peach, all soft, downy curves begging to be tasted and plundered. Sweet torment. His eyes followed one thin strap as it slid just off her shoulder. His mouth parched. Her skin glowed with a luminescence all its own, and he tasted it again upon his lips as his gaze plundered the lush curves of her breasts, and his mind recalled the lavish nest of blond curls nestled between her white thighs.