Winter Fire (23 page)

“We've had some shovel work here,” she said, “but so far it's only been Moody's men and a Culpepper.”

Hunter looked toward his brother. The sudden sharpness in Hunter's features reminded Sarah of Case.

“The Culpeppers are close by?” Hunter demanded. Case nodded.

“All we heard about were the two in Spanish Church,” Hunter said. “Is Ab here?”

“Only until I get him in my rifle sights,” Case said. “Then he's on his way to hell.”

“Any more Culpeppers?”

“All of them, except for the one I killed a few weeks back.”

“What happened?” Hunter asked.

“He and two of Moody's boys thought they'd flank us by coming around from behind the cabin after the moon set,” Case said.

Morgan shook his head.

“I heard two tone-deaf owls hooting at each other and went out hunting,” Case continued.

Sarah's mouth flattened. The terror she had felt for him that night was something she would never forget.

“Case was still hurting from his wounds,” she said roughly. “The Culpepper nearly got him.”

“Which one was it?” Hunter asked.

“Not Ab,” Case said succinctly. “One of the man's fingers was missing. Last time I was close enough to count, Ab had all ten of his. It was probably Parnell.”

Hunter settled his hat with a quick motion of his hand.

“All right,” he said. “We'll worry about taking care of them after we've rested.”

“Taking care of them?” she asked.

“Nothing to worry about, ma'am,” Morgan said. “Just some unfinished business from down Texas way.”

“There are only four of you, counting Ute,” she said. “There are at least a dozen of those raiders.”

“More or less,” Case said. “One or two of Moody's men have just slipped out in the night. They don't like Ab.”

“When did you last count the raiders?” Hunter asked, looking closely at his brother.

“Two days ago. Fresh tracks going out. None coming in.”

“We'll have our work cut out for us,” Hunter said.

His voice and expression said that it wouldn't be the first time.

Sarah looked at each of the men in turn, opened her mouth to ask a question, then closed it. Whatever she said wouldn't change the determination she saw in each face.

Nor could she argue with their conclusion. Having raiders for neighbors was like having a nest of rattlesnakes under the front porch. Sooner or later someone would get bitten.

Fatally.

“Eat your supper,” she said to Case.

“Would you bring some up for Hunter and Morgan?” he asked. “We've got a lot of planning to do.”

“It will keep,” Sarah said. “They need rest more than they need a lot of talking. Both of them look like horses
that were ‘rode hard and put away wet,' as Ute would say.”

Hunter smiled slightly.

Morgan laughed and glanced sideways at Case.

He wasn't smiling, much less laughing. He was watching Sarah with a combination of wariness and some other, indefinable emotion in his eyes.

She smiled at Case with more teeth than sweetness. The smile changed when she turned to the two weary riders.

“Just follow the trail down,” she said. “I'll go ahead to warn Ute and Lola so you don't get shot.”

“Lola?” Morgan said. “Would that be Big Lola?”

“Once. Now she's just plain Lola.”

He smiled. “I take your meaning, ma'am. This Ute—is he a sawed-off little hombre of few words and less nonsense?”

“That's Ute,” she said.

“Be damned,” he said. Then, hastily, “Excuse the language, ma'am.”

“Don't worry,” she said in a dry voice. “I only expect parlor manners in the parlor.”

“I never thought I'd see either of those two alive again,” Morgan explained. “Heard Ute was killed by a posse. After that, Big—er, Lola disappeared.”

“Sarah pulled Ute out of the same kind of hole I was in,” Case said. “He thinks the sun rises and sets in her.”

“Understandable,” Hunter said. “A man thinks very kindly of a woman who saves his life.”

“Your brother doesn't,” she said tartly to Hunter, “so don't worry about him. His view of the world is as savagely clear as ever.”

Case didn't show the irritation that surged through him at her words. Nor did he show the desire that dug spurs into him each time the wind shifted and he caught the elusive fragrance of roses and woman.

The scent of Sarah haunted him.

Don't think about it
, he told himself harshly.

It would have been easier not to breathe.

Morgan looked from Sarah to Case and cleared his throat.

“How much longer are you on sentry duty?” he asked.

Case looked away from Sarah with a reluctance that he couldn't quite conceal.

“A few more hours,” he said.

“I'll take the rest of your duty,” Morgan said, stretching.

“You're more tired than I am.”

Morgan grinned. “Hungrier, too. I figure the supper I eat up here will be bigger than whatever Hunter leaves for me down there.”

“I'll stand over him with a shotgun,” Sarah said. “It's share and share alike in my house.”

“I'm just funning,” Morgan said, chuckling. “The colonel would go without his own rations rather than have one of his men go hungry.”

He turned to Case.

“Ride on down with your brother,” Morgan said. “He's having a hard time believing you're still alive.”

Case hesitated, then nodded. “Thanks.”

“What's your danger signal?” Morgan asked.

“Same as Texas, except the all clear is a hawk's cry. Sarah is fond of them.”

“Chicken-killing devils, every one of them,” the rider muttered.

“Once you meet Sarah's orange rooster, you'll be cheering for the hawks,” Case said. “Come on, Hunter. Let's get the horses.”

“I'll get your supper out of the rocks,” Sarah said to Morgan. “I'm afraid it's cold.”

“Ma'am, as long as I don't have to kill it before I eat it, I won't complain.”

By the time she emerged from the brush with his supper, Case and Hunter were back. They were leading six horses. All of them showed signs of having been ridden
hard and long. Dried sweat stiffened the coats. Lines of white showed where the horses had sweated and dried, sweated and dried.

One of the horses was a big stallion that had the same clean lines and deep chest as Cricket. The others were mustangs with a little hot blood mixed in.

Hunter swung up on the stallion with a catlike ease that reminded Sarah of Case.

“I'll go first and warn Ute,” she said, turning abruptly toward the trail.

“No need for you to walk,” Hunter said. “Bugle Boy is a gentleman. He won't mind carrying double.”

“If she rides with anyone, she'll ride with me,” Case said curtly. Then, hearing his own tone, he added, “Bugle Boy looks worn out.”

Hunter's black eyebrows rose. It was clear that his brother felt protective of the pretty widow.

Some might even call it possessive.

Case's whistle cut the air. Cricket came trotting up from his hiding place farther down the trail. Saying nothing, he untied the reins from Cricket's neck. Then he turned around to help Sarah mount.

She was gone.

“She took off like a scalded cat,” Hunter said. “Guess she doesn't cotton to the thought of riding double.”

Case shrugged and told himself that he wasn't disappointed.

But he was. He had been looking forward to the scent and feel and sweetness of having Sarah in his arms once more.

His hunger didn't surprise him.

The hurt he felt that she had run from him did.

We have to settle this
, he decided.
Tonight
.

The thought sent a shaft of sensual anticipation through him.

Just talk. Nothing more
.

He told himself that every step of the way down the trail.

He wasn't sure he believed it.

“
I
'm sorry
,” Sarah said. “Someone will have to stand. I don't have enough chairs for everyone.”

“I've done enough sitting lately,” Hunter said, smiling. “I'd just as soon eat standing up.”

While she served supper, Conner looked from Hunter to Case and back, shaking his head.

“Talk about two peas in a pod,” he said. “Hunter's eyes are gray instead of gray-green, but if you shaved Case and put a smile on his face for once…”

Hunter's smile was almost sad.

His brother didn't smile at all.

“Mind your manners,” Sarah said.

Conner grimaced.

“Ute taught your brother good gun handling manners,” Case said neutrally.

“Praise be,” she muttered. “The amount of shooting that's been going on around here lately, it's a wonder I'm not wrapping him up like a puppy that's been sniffing around a beehive.”

A dull red appeared on her brother's cheekbones.

“Ease up on the spurs,” Case said. “Conner is doing a man's work and doing it well.”

Sarah spun around and looked at Case directly for the
first time since he had been in such a hurry to get her off him and fully dressed.

“Conner is my brother, not yours,” she said, biting off each word. “Stay out of it.”

“No.”

Hunter's eyebrows shot up. He hadn't seen that stubborn look on his brother's face since before the war.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked with icy politeness.

“You heard me,” he said. “Conner is man-sized and doing a man's work. He doesn't need to be tripping on your apron strings every time he tries to take a step on his own. Right now we need a man, not a boy.”

She went pale. She opened her mouth, prepared to rip a strip off his hide.

“It's all right,” Conner said quickly to Case. “My sister and I have been through a lot together. She's used to fussing over me and I'm used to worrying about her.”

Swiftly she turned on him. When she saw the calm self-possession in her brother's eyes, her anger faded. She gave him a smile that threatened to turn upside down and went back to dishing stew.

Hunter let out a silent breath of relief.

Case changed the subject.

“How is Elyssa?” he asked.

A smile transformed Hunter's face.

“More beautiful than ever,” he said. “You'll be an uncle again before autumn.”

The look on Case's face was indescribable, pain and pleasure and the kind of relentless regret that wore a man's soul thin as a shadow.

“More children?” he said neutrally. “You're a braver man than I am.”

“Or a bigger fool,” Hunter said. “But I'm a damned happy man, either way. Being with Elyssa makes the sun shine twice as bright.”

Sarah remembered what Case had told her, that a cer
tain kind of loving between a man and a woman made the sun brighter.

He was talking about Hunter and Elyssa
, she realized.

Conner looked between the two men.

“Why does a man have to be brave to have children?” he asked. “It's women who go through the birthing.”

“Children die,” Case said.

He didn't say any more.

Neither did Hunter.

Sarah cleared her throat.

“Eat your supper before it gets cold,” she said, shoving a plate beneath Conner's nose.

He didn't have to be told twice to eat. He stood and shoveled in food with impressive speed.

Again, Hunter let out a silent breath. It was one of the few times he had ever heard his brother refer directly to the death of his niece and nephew.

Without quite looking at Case, Sarah put a plate of food in his hands. He and Hunter started to eat. They weren't as fast as Conner, but they cleaned their plates very quickly.

When Sarah refilled the plates without sitting and eating anything herself, Case looked up.

“Where's your supper?” he asked.

“I ate earlier.”

He didn't believe it. With startling speed he grabbed her wrist and shoved his plate back in her hand.

“Eat,” he said curtly. “If you get any thinner, you won't have to open the door to leave. You'll just slide out through the chinks in the logs.”

She tried to give the plate back to him.

“I've got corn to grind,” she said.

“I'll grind it.”

“You've got enough to do with sentry duty and teaching Conner to shoot and making bullets and getting firewo—”

“
Eat
.”

Sarah opened her mouth to argue.

Case shoveled in a fork loaded with food.

She made odd noises and tried to talk anyway.

“It's not polite to talk with your mouth full,” he said calmly. “How many times do you have to be told?”

Conner choked noisily. At breakfast he had been given a lecture on the same subject, using exactly the same words.

Case whacked the boy on his back.

“Better go to bed,” he said to Conner. “You're due on the rim at midnight.”

“Let him sleep,” Hunter said quickly. “Morgan and I can stand our turn.”

“Thank you, but no,” Conner said quickly. “You've had a hard ride. We can start dividing up guard duty tomorrow night.”

During the Civil War, Hunter had learned to measure boys Conner's age and even younger. Though he had dark circles under his eyes, they were clear and alert. He was nowhere near the end of his strength.

“All right,” Hunter said. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome, sir.” He grinned and looked slyly at his sister. “How am I doing?”

Laughing, wanting to cry instead, Sarah looked at her brother with wide, misty eyes.

“You're doing fine,” she said, her voice slightly husky. “You always do. I'm just slow to notice.”

“You've got better things to do than pat me on the back for acting my age,” he said matter-of-factly.

A tear slid from the corner of her eye.

“You're wrong,” she whispered. “There is nothing more important for me to do.”

Conner made a startlingly fast move that ended with her lifted up to his eye level.

She made a surprised sound and tried to keep the plate of food she was holding right-side up.

“Conner Lawson!”

“That's me. Your one and only little brother.”

“Thank the Lord. What would I do with two of you?”

“You'd have twice as much fun.”

Grinning, he hugged her close and spun around quickly.

Case rescued the plate on the way by, then steadied her when Conner put her down.

“Good night, folks,” the boy said on the way out the door. “Tell Lola to wake me for my watch.”

Like Case, Conner was sleeping in the brush in back of the cabin. Though neither man mentioned it, each was afraid that the Culpeppers would sneak up that way again.

“That's a good young man you've raised,” Hunter said.

Sarah smiled almost sadly.

“That's more due to him than to me,” she said.

“I doubt that.”

“Ask Case. He thinks I'm a terrible mother.”

Hunter's eyebrows shot up.

“I said no such thing,” Case said evenly.

“Huh,” she said. “You just keep pointing out that I'm strangling Conner on my apron strings.”

He started to argue, muttered something under his breath instead, and looked to Hunter for help.

His brother smiled in open amusement and said not one word.

“Here,” Case said, handing the plate of food back to Sarah. “Exercise your sharp little teeth on this.”

“Are you saying my stew is tough?” she asked sweetly.

“Ju-das
priest
,” he exclaimed.

She turned to Hunter.

“Short rations of sleep make your brother testy,” she said. “Have you noticed? Now, if he would just trust me to stand guard, he would get more sleep.”

Hunter stroked his mustache and tried very hard not to smile. He almost succeeded.

“Whose side are you on?” Case demanded of his brother.

“Whoever is holding the plate of food.”

“Here,” she said, handing Hunter the plate. “Eat hearty. I've got corn to grind and wool to spin.”

“I said I'd grind the corn,” Case said.

Hunter smiled and then began eating. Fast. He could tell when a storm was about to break.

“You need sleep,” Sarah said curtly to Case.

“And you don't?”

“I'm not nearly as testy as you are.”

“Says who?”

Case turned to his brother, who was heading for the door after polishing off the last morsel of stew.

“Hunter?” he said.

“Good night, children.”

The cabin door closed firmly behind him.

“Where is he going to sleep?” she asked.

“Out back with the rest of us.”

“Do I smell that bad?” she asked.

He blinked. “What?”

Tears stung the back of Sarah's eyes. Case's speed in getting rid of her after they had made love still stung.

Get dressed before you catch a chill
.

Blindly she turned and reached for the stew pot, which was hanging over the fire.

What's wrong with me?
she raged at herself.
I never cry, but now I cry every time I turn around
.

“Lately everyone is running from me like I tangled with a skunk and lost,” she muttered.

Her hand closed around what she thought was the wooden grip on the pot handle. Instead, it was part of the cast-iron trivet itself, searing hot from the fire.

“Damnation!” she said, letting go quickly.

She shook her hand and gripped it hard to ease the sting.

“What did you do that for?” Case asked.

“I'm an idiot, what else?” she snapped.

“Hell, you're no more an idiot than I am. Let me see.”

Warily she flexed her hand, but she didn't hold it out for his inspection.

“It's fine,” she said. “Just singed, that's all.”

Case looked at the lines of strain etched around her mouth and felt helpless, which only made him more angry. His left hand flashed out and wrapped around her wrist.

“You're so damned stubborn you wouldn't tell me if you'd burned yourself to the bone,” he said, pulling her hand toward his chest. “I'll just take a look for myself.”

“Who gave you the right to—”

“You did,” he interrupted curtly.

“When?”

“When you invited me into your body.”

She flushed scarlet and then went pale. She tried to speak.

Not one sound came out.

With a tenderness that brought more tears to her eyes, Case opened her hand. There was a faint red mark across the base of each of her fingers.

He made a sound as though he had been the one burned. Then he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed each small mark.

She shivered and made a faint sound at the back of her throat. The feel of his breath and the gentle brush of his beard against her palm brought back every intimate memory she had been trying to forget.

Especially the end, when he couldn't even bear to look at her.

Get dressed before you catch a chill
.

“Don't,” she said raggedly. “Don't do this to me.”

He looked up. His eyes were like green river pools, clear, yet with shadow currents moving deep within.

“Am I hurting you?” he asked.

“Not yet.”

“Did I hurt you before?”

“Yes,” she said starkly.

“When I was inside you?”

She closed her eyes and turned her face away.

“Honey?” he asked. “Did I hurt you?”

“Not…then.”

He bent over her hand and breathed kisses against her skin.

“When did I hurt you?”

“Afterward. When you couldn't wait to get rid of me.”

His head came up fast and hard. She wasn't looking at him. She was looking at the floor, thoroughly ashamed.

“I don't know what I did to disgust you,” she whispered.

“You did—”

“No,” she interrupted desperately. “Don't tell me. It doesn't matter. It won't ever happen again.”

“It shouldn't,” he agreed.

Yet even as Case spoke the words, something deep inside rebelled savagely at the thought of never again sinking into Sarah's sweet, searing fires.

A tear slid down her cheek and caught in the corner of her mouth.

He bent and stole the tear with a kiss.

“Don't,” she said, trembling. “I can't take it again.”

“Sarah,” he whispered against her lips. “My sweet, passionate, innocent Sarah. You didn't disgust me. I would sell my soul to be inside you again.”

Her breath came in hard.

“Then why…?” she whispered.

“That's what it would cost me to be your lover. What little is left of my soul.”

“I don't understand.”

He tipped up her face with his hand. Then he kissed her with a tenderness and hunger that left both of them breathing raggedly.

“I don't know if I can explain,” he said.

She simply watched him with eyes that were a mirror of his own. Hurt and hunger, passion and dark regrets.

“I went to war when I was fifteen,” Case said. “I dragged Hunter with me.”

She bit her lip. The self-disgust in his voice was so strong she could almost touch it.

“My brother was married to a useless little flirt,” he continued. “They had two small children. Ted and Emily.”

Despite his neutral voice, she sensed how hard it was for Case to talk about his niece and nephew. She wanted to tell him to stop.

But even more she wanted to understand the darkness at the center of his soul.

“Hunter didn't want to go because of the kids, but Belinda and I talked him into it.”

“Your brother doesn't strike me as the kind of man who is easily led.”