Pieces of Sky (18 page)

Brady worked to keep his breathing even.

“He said he would come back the next day . . . and the next . . . and the next until I signed over the deed. Instead, I ran.” By the time she had finished, she was shaking again.

Stroking his fingertips over the hand that held his in a stranglehold, Brady tried to focus on her pain rather than his rage. “You’re safe now. I won’t let him get at you here.” He thought about that poster outside the sheriff’s office in El Paso, and wondered if it would be wrong to lure the bastard to the ranch. A word here or there, just enough to bring the sonofabitch—

“Rescuing me again, are you?” She gave him a wobbly smile.

He forced himself to smile back. “If you’ll lend me your umbrella.” It was a good thing she wasn’t a crier because she didn’t do a pretty job of it. Her eyes were swollen, her hair was a mess of tangles, and her nose was running. Yet unaccountably, he had an almost overwhelming urge to wrap her in his arms.

When he felt her start to rise, he tightened his grip on her hand, not ready to relinquish it before he made some response to all that she’d told him. But what could he say? Words wouldn’t change anything, wouldn’t make her pain or his rage go away.

So he gave her what he could. “You want me to kill him for you?” He wasn’t altogether sure how sincere the offer was, especially if he had to go all the way to England to carry it out, but it sounded good when he said it, and if a little bloodletting was what was needed to make her feel better, he would surely consider it.

She either laughed or hiccupped, Brady couldn’t tell which. Then she patted his arm with her free hand, a friendly gesture that told him she would be all right now. He wondered if he would.

“You’re daft. But you do say the sweetest things.”

“Just tell me where he is.” Now that she’d refused the offer, he felt it wouldn’t matter if he embellished it a bit.

This time she did laugh, and a welcome sound it was. “You. In England. I think not.”

“I could send Jack. He wants to go to Australia and that’s almost the same.”

She reared back. “It most assuredly is not. Australia is full of convicts.”

“And kookaburras.”

“Kooka-whats?”

Taking advantage of her distraction, he reached across with his free hand to tuck a drooping curl behind her ear. It pleased him she didn’t flinch from his touch. “Jessica,” he chided softly, using her name for the first time. “How could you ever think it was your fault?”

She looked down at the fist she clenched in her lap. “I should have stopped him. Fought harder. Done something.”

“You did exactly what you were supposed to do. You survived.” He pressed the tips of his fingers under her forceful little chin. “Look at me.”

When she lifted her head, he could see the hint of shame in her eyes and it awakened his fury all over again. “Someday you’ll face him.”

She stiffened. “No.”

“Yes. And you’ll take back all he stole from you. And you’ll never be afraid again.”

“No. I couldn’t.” It was a whisper, almost a plea.

“You could and you will. Because you’re Jessica Rebecca Thornton and you’re a woman to reckon with.”

Her mouth opened, closed, opened again. He could almost see her mind searching through memories and he knew the exact moment she found the right one.

“You heard,” she accused. “That day by the water trough when I found you dipping your nasty feet into the water.”

Brady lowered his hand to the armrest. “They weren’t nasty. They were hurt. There’s a difference.”

“At any rate, you have it wrong. It’s Jessica
Abigail
Rebecca Thornton.”

Brady knew that, but pretended he didn’t. He remembered everything about that day, and her most of all. “It’s late,” he said, making a dismissive motion with one big, suddenly clumsy hand. “If you’re through trying to guilt me out of my rocker . . .” He let the sentence hang.

“You’re dismissing me?”

“I’m sending you to bed before you goad me into doing something foolish. So yeah, I’m dismissing you.”

She bounded to her feet.

He let her get to the door before he spoke again. “And by the way . . .”

She froze, her back straight and stiff.

“You looked real pretty tonight.”

She hesitated in the doorway as if trying to find something objectionable in his words. Then finally she replied, “Thank you.”

He let her take another step. “No. Thank
you
.”

This time she turned to glance back at him over her shoulder.

Light from the sinking moon angled under the porch eaves to highlight her high cheekbones and make her eyes glitter like living stars. She looked so beautiful standing there, her hair in silvery disarray, her body round and ripe with life, for a moment he could hardly breathe.

“I like it,” he finally said in a strained voice. He waved a shaky index finger at that impressive, ever-growing chest barely hidden by a green scarf-thing. “It’s a wonderment.” He listened for her gasp, then added, “And one helluva fine-looking dress.”

A worthwhile sacrifice, he thought, listening to her angry footsteps stomp down the hall. She might be peeved, but at least she’d go to sleep thinking of him rather than that sonofabitch, John Crawford.

Nine

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?” ELENA AMBUSHED HIM IN THE kitchen before Brady could even pour his first cup of coffee.

He yawned, still groggy from the worst night’s sleep he could remember. Bad enough that with all these people in the house he had to share a room with Hank, who worked sums in his sleep, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what Jessica had told him, and all the fun things he wanted to do to that sonofabitch, Crawford. “To who?”

“Jessica. I saw you on the porch. She was crying. What did you do?”

“
Sí. ¿Qué pasa?
” Consuelo joined the attack, positioning herself at Elena’s elbow and armed with a wooden spoon.

A formidable duo. “Nothing.” He rubbed a palm over his bristly jaw, trying to wake himself up enough to figure out what they were talking about.

“Then why was she crying?”

Brady shrugged. “She was upset.”

“¿
Por qué?
”

“Ask her. She was the one crying.”

Apparently that wasn’t the answer they wanted. Consuelo whacked him with her spoon. Elena’s black eyes snapped with anger. “Brady! What did you do?”

“You think I hurt her?”

Elena crossed her arms, her mouth as pinched as a tailor’s stitch. Consuelo gave him the evil eye.

That finally woke him up. “Listen to me. Both of you.” He leaned down until the three of them were eye to eye to eye. “I did not hurt her. She was upset. If she wants you to know why, she’ll tell you. But it wasn’t because of me.” He glared at Elena. “You understand?”

She nodded.

He turned to Consuelo. “¿
Comprendes
?”

“
Sí, jefe.
”

He straightened. “Then get me my damn coffee.”

They did, and he went out onto the porch, where he enjoyed at least thirty seconds of blessed quiet before Elena came out, looking sheepish and wanting to talk. He didn’t, but bless her heart, she didn’t let that stop her.

Women, he’d found, needed to talk. And listening, or pretending to, was the price a man had to pay to maintain peace. It did little good to try and make sense of what they said. Like a puzzle with all the wrong pieces or a map drawn with false trails and missing landmarks, a woman’s mind was an unsolvable mystery . . . or at worst, an emotional quagmire that could suck a man down before he even knew he’d stepped off high ground. So while Elena talked, he kept his mouth shut and pretended to listen.

Until his mind registered two words in the same sentence: “Jessica” and “Ashford.”

He straightened in the rocker. “What about Jessica and Ashford?”

“Ah. Now he listens.” She gave him that smug superior smirk that women did so well. “I ask if you saw the way he watched her last night?”

“He was watching her?”
That sonofabitch.

“I watched also. But I watched you.”

Why would he be watching her? Absently Brady tugged on the corner of his mustache with his thumb and index finger, trying to remember if he’d even seen them together last night. He would have noticed. He’d noticed everything else—how much she ate, how her toe tapped time to the music, how pretty she looked in that fine yellow dress. It seemed he’d been so busy noticing her, he hadn’t noticed if anyone else was noticing her, too.

“When you are with her, you look different.
Contento.
Happy.”

That sonofabitch would be dust on the horizon by the end of the day.

“I think you care for her.”

“What?” He glanced over. “What’re you talking about?”

“It is good,” she went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “You have how many years now? Thirty-three? It is time you took a woman.”

Hell, he’d taken lots of women, but that wasn’t something he would ever discuss with Elena.

“And I think she cares for you, too,” Elena added.

That shocked him. He tried to think of something clever to say, something offhand and humorous that would show he regarded her comment of so little consequence he didn’t take it seriously. “She does?” he said instead, dumb bastard that he was.

Elena pounced like a cat on a June bug. “So you do care for her.” A statement, not a question. That smug look again.

“She makes me laugh.” That explanation had satisfied Jack. Maybe it would work with her.

Apparently not. “In what way?”

That was another thing about a woman. The simple answer was never good enough. In fact, it often triggered more questions. “It’s complicated. She’s complicated.”

“She is alone, Brady. And afraid.”

“I told her she could stay here as long as she wanted.” He hadn’t actually said the words but he’d implied it, which was almost the same.

Apparently he was wrong about that, too. “A woman needs more,
querido
.” A wistful longing clouded eyes so black Brady couldn’t tell iris from pupil. “She needs a hero. Jessica needs you, Brady.”

She’s got me,
he thought, remembering how he felt when she leaned into him last night.
And I don’t know what to do about it.

But he wouldn’t discuss it with Elena. Pretending he didn’t understand what she meant, he said, “Well, she needs something, that’s for damn sure. The woman’s beset. If the obvious problems weren’t enough, she’s got this . . . this thing . . .”

“Thing?”

He gestured to his throat. “With her breathing.” Adopting a look of grave concern, Brady elaborated. “One minute she’s breathing too much, then the next she’s not breathing at all. It’s disturbing. I have to remind her all the time—” At a choking sound he looked over to see Elena laughing. “What?”

“Oh, Brady.” Shaking her head, she patted his cheek as she might some dearly loved but woefully dumb little kid. “I think you take her breath away.”

“Really? I thought it was the asthma.”
Dumb, hell.
With a grin, he slumped back, feeling pleased with himself and enjoying his own wit, until Red rode into the yard, his horse lathered and his hat askew, yelling “FIRE!”

 

 

JESSICA AWOKE TO CHAOS—THE BARKING OF THE HOUND, horses thundering past, men calling out, and beneath it all, Brady’s deep voice shouting orders.

She rolled out of bed and rushed to the window, but dust kicked up by the horses was so thick she could scarcely see beyond the porch posts. Quickly she threw on one of her recently altered dresses and, without bothering with her hair, raced down the hall toward the sound of Brady’s voice.

She almost planted her face in his chest as she bolted onto the porch.

“Whoa, there,” he said, catching her before she fell down the steps. He gave that heart-stuttering grin. “You’re that glad to see me, are you?”

Realizing his hands still gripped her shoulders, she shrugged them away. “What’s wrong? I heard shouts. Are we under attack?”

“Maybe.” He looked her over. His eyes took on that studied look, darkening to a sharper, deeper blue. “I like your hair like that, all fiery and wild, like you just woke up from a long satisfying night.”

What was this fixation with her hair? “I did just wake up, you big dolt! Tell me what’s happening?”

Jack’s face appeared at Brady’s shoulder. “What’s the shouting about?”

“I told her I liked her hair.”

“That upset her?”

“Seems so.”

She felt like shoving the both of them back down the porch steps. Luckily Elena and Consuelo came to intervene.

Elena passed out two linen-wrapped parcels while Consuelo gave each brother a leather bag still dripping water. “Take other canteens also,” Elena instructed. “And cloth to wet and throw over your heads. And spare bullets.”

“Yes, Ma.”