Reese (6 page)

Mary studied the two boys. They were only repeating what they'd heard at home, despicable as it was. In years past, any child who spoke like that to a teacher would have been thrashed. Mary had never seen the necessity for physical violence in her classroom, and she wasn't going to start now, even with the Sutton twins.

Instead, she resorted to the stern voice that had served her well over the eight years she'd been teaching, "Do your sums, boys. Immediately."

"No. If you're no better than a harlot, then we don't have to listen to you. And neither does anyone else."

They stood. So did the rest of the class, but as they filed toward the center aisle, they bumped into one another when the Sutton twins stopped dead.

Reese lounged in the doorway. Dressed in black once again, his Colts gleamed in the afternoon sun. How had he entered without her hearing a thing?

His green gaze flicked to Mary, and the fury she saw there revealed he'd heard at least the last part of the exchange. When he pushed away from the door and stalked into the room, the nervous shuffling of the children warred with the thunder of Mary's own wildly beating heart.

"Sit," he murmured.

No one moved.

"Sit, sit, sit!"

The children scattered.

"Is there a problem, Miss McKendrick?" He kept moving toward the front of the room, his boot heels tapping slowly, like the ticks of a clock in the depths of the night.

She glanced at the children. All eyes had gone wide and were trained upon Reese. "Nothing I can't handle."

He reached the head of the room, turned, and leaned against her desk. How was it he seemed to fill the building? Neither she nor the children could look anywhere but at Reese.

"Really? Seemed to me your charges were having a bit of a problem with today's lesson." He fixed his eyes on Jack. "Is that so?"

"No, sir."

Reese switched his gaze to Frank. "And you?"

"Not me, sir."

"Hmm. I must have been mistaken. I thought I heard the word
harlot
." The children gasped. "But that couldn't be correct, because no gentleman would use a word like that in front of a lady, now, would they?"

No one answered.

"Would they?" He didn't raise his voice, but the repetition of the question rolled like thunder through the stillness in the room.

Ten heads shook frantically. Reese's smile was thin. "I didn't think so." He flicked a hand at the door. "Go."

They all ran for the door. "Stop!" Mary shouted. She did not have the ability to make everyone listen with a murmur and a glare, but her shout got through, and they did stop. "We have a reading lesson to complete before day's end."

A collective groan swept the class. They all glanced at Reese. He shrugged. "Sit"

They sat. Mary moved to the front of the room. Reese kept lounging against her desk like a great black cat. When he didn't move, she went about her business, listening to each child read the lesson. The teaching of reading was a challenge in a room with five different grade levels, but she managed. Mary always managed.

As she passed Reese on her way to the other side of the room, a harsh, wavering sigh made her glance at him sharply. At first, he seemed completely relaxed, until she peered closer and observed the white lines about his mouth, then heard the tap-tap of his boot. When he raised a hand to pull his hat lower, Mary could have sworn his fingers trembled. She tilted her head so she could see his face beneath the shadow of the black brim and discovered him staring at the children as if they were trolls come out of a dark forest.

"Reese?"

His gaze flicked to hers, and for a minute he resembled a trapped beast. "I'll wait on your porch," he said, and fled.

What was the matter with him?

* * *

Reese reached the safety of Mary's porch and sat on the bench against the wall. He'd broken out in a cold sweat at the first word from the mouth of a boy who looked too much like—

A pain shot through his belly; Reese doubled over with a moan. The murmur of voices from the street in front of the school forced him to straighten, clamping his lips to keep the agony from spilling out. Two Rock Creek matrons stared at him as if he'd done something obscene. He nodded at them, thumbed his hat, and they hurried on their way.

Reese stood then moved toward the door of Mary's cabin. He could not sit on the porch, for all the world to see, and lose what was left of his mind. He needed privacy, and he needed it now.

He tried the door, swearing when it swung open with ease. Didn't the woman know about locks? But if she did and she'd used one, he'd be on his knees on her porch. Reese kicked the door shut behind him and fell to his knees in Mary's front hall.

"Just a minute," he assured himself, pressing his hot, damp forehead to the cooler plank floor. "In a minute it will go away, and I'll be fine."

Memories whirled through his mind—faces, names, the agony of the innocent, and the voices of the dead.

"Shit!" This hadn't happened in so long, he'd hoped it wouldn't happen again. The others had never seen him like this, and they never would if he could help it. The men he'd collected would have no tolerance for weakness—even less than Reese did.

How long he remained there on his knees, Reese wasn't sure, but the voices of the children calling good-bye to Mary brought him back to himself, to the small house, to little old Rock Creek. A shudder racked his body. The shivering increased, causing every muscle and bone to ache.

With a willpower born of his past and dredged from the depths of his self-control, Reese focused on the here and now—the rough plank beneath his cheek, the scent of linseed oil on wood, clean, quiet air that held not a hint of smoke or a trace of screams.

* * *

After Reese practically ran from the room, Mary rushed the children through the rest of their lesson, dismissing them early, even though she should have made them stay late. But she couldn't keep her mind on their primers, and from the number of pronunciation mistakes, neither could they.

Most days, after the children went home, Mary swept the floor and planned the next day's lessons. Today was not most days. The floor could stay dirty, and she could teach tomorrow without a plan if she had to. What good were eight years in a classroom if she couldn't?

She left everything where it sat and stepped outside. Reese wasn't on the porch as he'd promised, and for a moment her heart seemed to stop. Whatever had made him go pale as a pillowcase might have made him bolt too. She'd still have five men, but she was afraid those five without Reese would be worse than El Diablo in the end.

Mary ran across the small bit of brown grass and dirt separating the school from her cabin and burst through the front door. The place was as silent today as it was every day when she came home after school. But regardless of how lonely she felt here, this was
her
place. She'd never had one before.

"Reese?" she called, mortified when her voice shook.

"Here."

If she hadn't been listening with all her heart and soul, Mary wouldn't have heard the single, soft word from the next room. Her shoulders sagged in relief. She took her time shutting the door then drew a few deep breaths before she joined him.

He appeared as ridiculous in her parlor as he had sitting on the green couch at the hotel. Standing at the front window, he peered through a small crack in the drapes. He'd rolled a cigarette and held it in his fingers as if to smoke. But no flame reddened the tip, and the thin white band only served to emphasize how dark, how sizable, his hands were—those hands that she'd imagined all over her, all night long.

Mary cleared her throat, and Reese started as if he hadn't known she was there, which was absurd, since he'd called her in here. She wished she could see his face, discover what was the matter, so she moved closer. But when he glanced at her, she could see nothing past the shadow of his hat.

"Would you remove your hat in the house?"

Her voice sounded prim, even a mite snippy, but Reese yanked his hat from his head and, with a single flick of his wrist, sailed it onto a chair. "Better?"

"Thank you."

She could see his eyes now, but despite her agreement to his question, she didn't feel better. Those eyes were still as green as her favorite dress, but they'd gone as cool as moss and as hard as stone.

The two of them stared at each other, and the house that had always seemed too big for one old maid suddenly seemed too small for the same old maid and the man in black. Perhaps because Mary had never been alone with a man in her life. What did one do?

"You wanted to see me?" He rolled the cigarette between his fingers, the movement slow, soothing, seductive. Mary couldn't take her eyes from those nimble fingers that smoothed around and around the nub of his cigarette. "Miss McKendrick?"

"Hmm?"

"Was there something you wanted from me?"

She forced her gaze from those hands to his face, and the lines about his mouth reminded her of why she'd run from the schoolroom without finishing out the day. "What's the matter with you?"

"Me? Nothing."

He placed the cigarette in the pocket of his black vest, too polite even to ask if he could smoke in her house. How had a Southern gentleman become whatever he was? Outlaw? Mercenary? Leader of a gang with guns to hire?

He presented her with his back and stared at the fading light. A storm was coming, and from the way the sky had darkened, it was coming fast.

"I think you're lying, Reese. Something about the children bothered you. You want to tell me what it was?"

"No."

He didn't sound angry or sad or frightened. He sounded as if he'd refused a second glass of punch at the Autumn Harvest Ball. Drawn closer against her will, close enough that her skirt brushed his leg and she could see that he was still trembling, Mary wanted to touch him, but she didn't know how.

Thunder crashed, still in the distance, but not for long. He started, shook his head, and gave a chuckle of self-derision.

"You don't like storms?" she asked.

He lifted one shoulder, then slowly lowered it, raised his hand, shoved his hair from his eyes, then rubbed his palm along the back of his neck as if it ached.

"The noise." His voice was so low that she had to lean closer to hear, and her breasts brushed his back.

He spun around. Her hands came up to brace herself against his chest, but he grabbed her wrists before she could touch him and held them away from him.

"I told you not to touch me." The eyes that had been cold went hotter than the approaching lightning.

She licked dry lips. "I'm not touching you; you're touching me."

"Well," he drawled in the voice that had haunted her nights since the first time she'd seen him, half-naked in Dallas. "That's different, then."

He yanked her into his arms, and as the thunder drifted closer, grew louder, he kissed her. Heat in her belly, fire in her breast, the man was a danger to all she'd been taught was right and true.

First kisses should be gentle, sweet embraces between couples yet children. If there had ever been gentleness in Reese, it was gone, and Mary couldn't say she was sorry. She wasn't a child, and neither was he.

He was a hard man. Harder still were his hands on her shoulders, his mouth on hers. At first, she just let him kiss her, not knowing what else to do. If this was not just her first kiss but her
only
kiss, she did not want it to end too soon. Then his tongue ran along the seam of her lips, and the sensation made her gasp, a sound of both shock and desire awakening.

He tasted of desperation, a flavor she knew well—the salt of tears, the tang of fright. Her hands, which he'd released, hung at her sides, clenching, unclenching, wanting something but afraid to grasp anything.

The line she walked between need and dread was a fine one. A single step to either side and she would be lost. So she kissed him back as best she could, but she touched him not at all.

The nimble fingers that had rolled the cigarette unrolled her hair from its pins before she knew what he was about. Then he filled his hands with the curling mass and held on tight as thunder rolled into town, at war with the toll of the church bell.

Chapter 4

Reese was lost—in her, in himself, in them. He'd made the memories go away by sheer force of will, but the thunder had brought them back, and when she came near enough to touch, he'd lost his leash on the demon inside.

Instead of howling and screaming and telling her everything, he'd kissed her. Stupid fool. From the clumsy way she kissed, he could tell she'd never been kissed before. Now he would always be her first. Women didn't forget things like that.

As she got into the spirit and
kissed
him back, he wondered if he'd ever be able to forget this kiss, or her, either. But as suddenly as the embrace had begun, it ended when Mary tore her mouth from his.

"The bell," she gasped, and stepped back.

His fingers caught in her hair, and she winced at the pull. Disentangling them, Reese felt like a schoolboy with his first girl.