The Tracker (5 page)

The girls at the Silver Slipper liked to dress up fancy but none had come close to looking like this woman. She possessed an air of quality and breeding that only came with real money.

Ellie looked at her own hands. Chapped by the wind and callused from work, they were not even remotely delicate. And her red hair, tied back at the nape of her neck, wasn’t flat and smooth like the woman’s. It curled into little ringlets when it rained. Her dress—a hand-me-down from the minister’s wife in Butte—was two sizes too large and stained with grease.

Ellie flipped the picture over. “Crystal, 1872” was written in bold, black lettering.

Crystal. A pretty name.

She smoothed her fingertip over the image. There was more to the marshal than she’d first thought. He’d clearly lived a very different, refined kind of life.

Suddenly, Ellie felt very plain and very aware that she was the daughter of a whore. She’d never wear a fancy wedding dress or sit for a portrait. Silly to sit here and dream of the impossible.

She replaced the picture in the book and set about doing her chores.

D
EMONS CHASED
N
ICK
into the fiery depths of hell. Or so he thought as he pushed the sheets and blankets away from him. Stifling heat seared his lungs and made it difficult to breathe. Sweat drenched his body.

As he battled to hang on to rational thought, Crystal stepped out from the darkness. Her flowing white hair draped her slender shoulders and her white transparent gown hugged her lush curves and teased her trim ankles. She was as stunning as he remembered and her smile as bright as a thousand stars.

Crystal.
She was his wife and he loved her.

He held out his hand to her. Ah, if given a second chance he’d have spent more nights dancing with her, more afternoons making love to her and more mornings listening when she spoke. She leaned close to him, pressing her breasts to his chest. He could smell the lavender in her hair. “I love you,” she whispered.

“I love you,” he said. His body grew hard and he wanted to take her in his arms and make love to her.

But as he pulled Crystal close, time shifted and she vanished.

Out of the mists stepped his brother Gregory. They’d served together in the army, fought enemies together and drunk together. But Gregory was no friend. His older brother with the smiling green eyes had betrayed him with his wife.

Nick called out to Gregory. “Traitor. Animal. If I see you again, I will kill you.”

Gregory laughed, his eyes glistening in the light. Nick watched his wife kiss Gregory as only lovers do.

Nick fisted his fingers. Outrage at the betrayal, still as fresh as an open wound, singed his veins.

Cool fingers brushed the hair from his forehead. “Shh. Shh.”

Nick pried his eyes open and looked up through the haze. A woman with skin as pale as snow and hair as vibrant as the setting sun stared down at him. She smiled. He knew her, but from where he could not say. Her eyes were the color of green fields.

“What happened to me?” he said.

“You are safe. You must drink.” She held a spoon up to his mouth and poured cool water into his mouth. The water trickled down the side of his face to the pillow.

“No!” He felt as if he were drowning.

“You must drink. It will break the fever.” Again she held the spoon to his mouth. This time a bit of water seeped through his lips to his swollen tongue. It tasted refreshing. The next time she brought the spoon to his mouth, he opened his lips a fraction.

“That’s good,” she coaxed.

“Where am I?” he asked. He swallowed, his throat as dry as dust.

“You are safe, Marshal. Don’t worry.” She cradled his head in her hand and raised a cup to his mouth. The cool water soothed his parched throat and dry lips.

Why did she call him marshal?

The question was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t manage to speak the words.

His hand slid down his hip to where his gun normally hung. He realized the weapon was gone. He always had it with him, even when he slept. Without it he felt naked, vulnerable.

What the devil had happened?

Anger goaded him to sit up. The fire in his leg forced him back against the pillows. His eyelids felt very heavy.

Gregory, Crystal and finally the redheaded siren started to drift away. Sleep clouded his mind.

He didn’t want the redhead to leave. He had to tell her something. But as hard as he tried to remain awake, the waves of sleep washed over him.

So many details escaped him, but one point was clear in his mind.

He and the siren were running out of time.

B
Y DAWN
of the third day, the marshal’s fever showed no signs of letting up. He continued to thrash and to call out to the woman named Crystal.

Red-orange light streamed through the window as Ellie moved across the cabin with a basin of fresh water. The baby still slept and she was careful not to make noise.

Water sloshed on Ellie’s hands as she set the bowl beside the bed. She glanced down at the marshal. His olive skin remained sickly pale. She laid the back of her hand against his forehead. So hot.

She pulled clean cloths from her frayed apron pocket and sat on the edge of the bed. He murmured something she couldn’t understand as she dipped a rag in the cool water and wrung it out. Gently she dabbed the cloth on his forehead.

She’d worked so hard to save him these last two and a half days. But fear of the hangman’s noose no longer drove her. Pride had kept her going past exhaustion.

This man would not die. And she would win.

After rinsing the cloth in the water again, she pressed it to his cheek. Immediately his head turned toward her. His eyes remained closed and he mumbled more words that made no sense.

Ellie wiped his face, moving the rag over his strong jaw covered in a thick mat of dark stubble. She brushed his black hair off his forehead.

Even in sleep, his full lips curved down into a frown. He reminded her of the bare-knuckle boxers who fought in front of the saloon when the circus came to town.

He was so different from the boy she’d seen in the picture. What had happened to change him so?

Despite her better judgment, her curiosity about the man grew each day. She took the few clues she had to his past and wove story after story to explain how he’d ended up in Montana so far from his wife. He spoke of Crystal often in his sleep. A beautiful wife, a sound education and a marshal’s badge. None of it made sense.

She continued to wipe his neck and chest. Keeping his body cool would be critical. If she could have, she would have dunked his entire body in cold water to break the fever.

She glanced at his torn pants. She’d left them on these last couple of days, but the time had come to
strip him down. She chewed her lip as she stared at his belt buckle.

“Oh, for pity’s sake, Ellie,” she said. A girl born and raised in a brothel, she had seen her share of men in all states of undress. And she’d heard the girls talk about their customers, often laughing as they compared their attributes. But as much as Ellie had seen and heard, she had never
touched
a naked man.

She set down her cloth. “How bad can it be?”

Ellie pulled a sheet over his legs and covered his more private regions. She reached under the sheet for his belt buckle and unfastened it. The marshal’s flat belly rose and fell with each breath. Coarse hair brushed her knuckles.

She moved to the foot of the bed and grabbed his pant legs. She started to pull. The pants didn’t move. She tugged harder. Nothing.

Ellie blew a stray curl off her face. “I don’t suppose you could lift your hips?”

Unconscious, he didn’t respond.

Ellie moved to the middle of the bed, reached under the sheets and grabbed his waistband. His skin was warm beneath her fingers. Keeping her gaze averted, she tugged. The pants started to slide down his hips. So did the sheet. Then the pants caught on the bandage.

She dropped her gaze.

Her cheeks flamed.

This man was well constructed. The girls at the Silver Slipper would have done their best to attract his attention. They’d have called him a Handsome Devil.

She covered him with the sheet and gingerly worked his pants off. She tossed them on the floor.

Without warning, his arm captured her wrist and he pulled her against him. Her lips were but inches from his. Then he lifted his lips to hers.

He tasted salty and sweet and soft and hard all at the same time. Smoldering embers in her body ignited. Heat spread from the core of her body through her limbs. She relaxed into the kiss and savored the taste of his lips and the feel of his body.

“Crystal,” he murmured, his eyes closed. His hand dropped away.

She pulled back, feeling a thousand times the fool.

Here she sat kissing a man who not only belonged to another woman, but who had brought nothing but trouble to her life. Lord, but she was a pitiful, weak-willed creature.

She rose from the edge of the bed, wanting nothing more than to put distance between them.

At least he’d been asleep when they’d kissed. He wouldn’t remember a thing.

If only she could forget.

O
VER THE NEXT FEW DAYS
, Ellie fell into a routine. She cleaned the marshal’s wound, drained it and watched for gangrene, which blessedly never showed.

Early in the morning of the sixth day, the marshal’s fever had eased a little. It looked as if his body would fight off the infection. He would live.

This realization fostered a new set of worries. What if she couldn’t convince him that she didn’t have Frank’s gold? Would he take her to jail? Could he take Rose away? He’d already proven himself hardheaded and single-minded.

Gathering the logs she’d just split, she walked up to the porch and inside the house. The door to his room remained ajar, as she’d left it. The sound of his deep, even breathing filled the house.

She set the logs in the box by the fireplace and then, wiping her hands on her apron, looked down into the cradle at Rose. Since the marshal had taken over her room, she’d moved the cradle out to the main room. At night, she slept on a pallet by the cradle so that she’d be close to the marshal.

The floorboards creaked behind her and she whirled around. The marshal stood in the center of the cabin, buck-naked. He leaned heavily against the wall, careful to keep the weight off his injured leg.

Her gaze darted from his wild eyes to his well-muscled chest. She didn’t dare look any lower.

Her womb tightened and a hot restless feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. She remembered their kiss and heat rose in her cheeks.

“I want my gun!” the marshal shouted.

Shocked back to her senses, Ellie snapped her mouth shut. Color flooded her face.

“Gun!”

The marshal squinted at her.
“Pistol.”

Her mind cleared. “Oh.”

In a low growl full of menace, he repeated himself. “My gun, Ellie.”

She lifted her chin, but held her ground. “No guns at the coach stop. It’s Miss Annie’s policy.”

The marshal took a step toward her.
“Gun!”

Rose started to cry. Ellie scooped up the baby. She glared at the marshal, all traces of desire gone. “You can’t have your gun,” she said, as if speaking to a child. “When you’re ready to leave, I’ll give it to you.”

“Damn you, woman, I’m in no mood to argue.” He pressed his fingers to his temple as if talking hurt. “There are men who’ll kill me if they catch me defenseless.”

She lifted an eyebrow, unmoved. “Is that supposed to scare me?”

“They’d also kill you and that baby of yours just for fun.”

A cold chill snaked down her spine. It had been
a fluke she’d hit him. If there were others, she might not be as lucky defending herself and Rose.

“You will be safer
with
me armed,” he said, as if he’d read her thoughts.

She suspected he was right. With Rose cradled close to her, she went to a chest behind the dining table. “It’s in there.”

He limped to the chest and retrieved the gun. He snapped open the chamber and turned the cylinder. Satisfied his gun remained loaded, he snapped it closed.

“Anyone else come by the stop since I’ve been here?”

“No. Frank Palmer might not find me out here.”

“He will.” He closed his eyes for a moment.

She kept a respectful distance. Injured predators could still move quickly. “I told you I don’t know anything about the gold.”

He swayed. “He doesn’t know that.”

Her next retort died on her lips when she noticed the red stain on his bandage. “You’re bleeding.”

The marshal glanced down. Neither the blood nor his nudity seemed to bother him. “A little blood doesn’t matter.”

She laid the baby in her crib. “You don’t have an ounce to spare. It’s a wonder you didn’t bleed to death.”

“I’m fine.”

Stubborn, stubborn man. She wrapped her arm around his waist. He felt as hot as a fritter.

He gave her a good bit of his weight. “If it weren’t for Frank Palmer headed this way, I couldn’t care less if you passed out. You’re easier to deal with when you’re out cold. But I need you healthy so that you can keep my baby and me alive.”

He touched his bandage and grimaced. “Woman, anyone ever tell you you’re a pain in the ass?”

She guided him back to his bed. “More times than I can count.”

When he sat back down on the bed, he was pale and his white bandage—which she’d only just changed—was stained crimson.

“You’ve gone and torn one of my nice, neat stitches, mister,” she murmured.

He ground his teeth as if he were in pain. Few men could have risen from the bed at this stage of the healing process, let alone walked. He lay back against the pillows and she lifted his feet onto the bed before covering him with a sheet.

Taking scissors from her basket, she knelt beside the bed and uncovered his wounded leg. “I went to a lot of trouble to save your life and I’d hate to see my efforts go to waste.”

Her saucy tone had his eyes narrowing. “You’re the one who shot me.”

She shrugged. “I told you to stop.”

Gingerly, she worked the tip of the scissors under the gauze. She could feel the marshal tense and suspected if she did anything threatening, he’d act.

“Would you relax? I feel as if I’m ministering to a wounded bear. If I were gonna kill you, I’d have done it long ago.”

He released the breath he held. “I am relaxed.”

“You’re back is about as stiff as one of these floorboards.”

He grunted.

Her cutting complete, she slowly peeled the fabric away. She leaned closer to get a better look at his leg.

“I think you’ve only ripped the top stitch. If I bandage the wound tightly enough, and you stay in bed, the bleeding should stop.”

“I feel like I’ve been run over by a herd of buffalo.”

“You’re lucky to be alive.” She took a jar from her basket and scooped out some ointment. She probed the wound with her finger. “By the looks of things, I’d say I did a good job patching you up.”

“Am I supposed to thank you?”

Slowly she started to spread the ointment over the wound. “It wouldn’t be out of line.”

“You’re joking,” he grumbled.

“No.”

She wound a smaller bandage around his leg. Her breasts grazed his knee as she reached around his leg to wrap the bandage. The touch sent a thousand prickles down her spine. It was one thing to nurse a man when he was out cold, but quite another when he was awake and staring at her.

She stepped back, her cheeks flushed. Lord, but she was acting like the silly girls she used to watch giggling by the schoolhouse.

The marshal saw the color in her cheeks. “You don’t make sense.”

“What do you mean?”

His gaze bore into her. “You shot me and then took better care of me than most doctors.”

She felt color creeping up her cheeks. “I’m not a cold-blooded killer, Mr. Baron. If you’d told me you were a marshal, I wouldn’t have shot you. And the idea of hanging for murder doesn’t sit too well with me.”

“There’s more to it than that.” He captured a stray curl of hers between his fingers.

Caught off guard, she didn’t know how to react. He was out of line, still slightly feverish, and yet she
wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and rub her cheek against his callused hand.

“You know, from the moment I first saw you, I’ve wondered what your hair would look like down.”

The rawness in his voice stunned her. No man had ever made her feel more alive.

“If I were healthier, I’d want you in this bed with me.” His voice was like raw silk.

The idea of lying beside him made her core tighten. She moistened her lips. A lady likely would be outraged and would tell him to mind his manners. But she didn’t know the first thing about being a lady.

“Do you know what I’d do to you if you were beside me?”

Ellie couldn’t speak as her cheeks flamed. The thought that this man wanted her scared and excited her.

He chuckled. “I’ve never seen a whore blush.”

Whore.
His bluntness shattered the moment.

Embarrassed and ashamed, she pulled away. She was acting like a whore. Anger nipped at her insides. What had she thought? That he’d wanted more than just sex. Her romantic notions were beyond foolish.

Men like the marshal took what they wanted and then moved on. She’d seen his kind a thousand times.

“What’s wrong?” he said. “A tumble would do us both good.”

She’d never felt cheap before, but she did now. “No thanks.”

He looked genuinely confused by her shift in demeanor. “I’ll pay, if that’s what’s bothering you.”

“Keep up that kind of talk, mister, and I just might shoot you again.”

N
ICK HAD NOT
wanted to fall asleep, but he did shortly after Ellie had changed his bandage. He didn’t wake until midday. Sweat covered his body, but his mind had cleared and his fever had broken.

His entire body hurt. He wanted nothing more than to lie in bed. He needed sleep. He needed to take it easy.

But as he lay staring at the door that separated his room from the rest of the cabin, he was very aware of the silence. He didn’t hear Ellie or the baby.

He’d spoken to Ellie—said something that had made her mad—but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what it was.

Alarm kicked his senses into high gear. Could Ellie have left with the baby?

He tried to reason the thought away. But an overwhelming sense of unease gripped him.

And then he remembered that when he’d been feverish, he’d offered to buy an hour of her time. She’d
not been pleased. Damn. What the hell had gotten into him?

“Ellie!”