Adrienne deWolfe (22 page)

God help him. What was he thinking? If kissing her had been a mistake, seducing her would be a downright sin. Rorie deserved a man who could give her more than a reputation. Even if he'd come clean before she ran into the house, telling her he was a Ranger, he couldn't in good conscience make a losing proposition seem attractive. This Ethan Hawkins had acreage and a couple hundred head of steers. All Wes had was... Two-Step. And a badge that made homesteading next to impossible.

He mentally kicked himself. He wasn't ready to hitch himself to one woman's bedpost. For Rorie's sake, he should be glad Ethan Hawkins was. He should be glad she had a serious suitor who was good to her orphans.

Unfortunately, the idea of Rorie kissing some stranger kept sticking in his craw. Maybe it was because he didn't like to lose.

Turning, he winced at the chafing of his jeans and gingerly plucked the denim from his pecker. Come to think of it, he didn't like to start what he couldn't finish, either. The devil take the woman for kissing him like she had wildfire in her veins. Schoolmarms were supposed to be tame and demure, completely unworthy of a two-story climb.

But if he ever needed to make that climb, his wicked side reminded him, her bedroom was the first window on the right.

Somewhat cheered by the thought, he turned to wade through the puddles between the sweetheart tree and the barn.

Chapter 10

That night was a restless one for Rorie. She spent half of it dreaming of flower-bedecked tropical islands where a red-haired pirate stole her kisses beneath lush green leaves.

The other half of the night, she strained her ears above the cracks of thunder, worrying she might not hear the stealthy sound of footsteps in the hall, wondering what she would do if she did. Every time a crossbeam groaned or a floorboard creaked, she shrank beneath her quilt and watched her door in a mixture of anticipation and dread. But the knob never turned; he never came; and she had to congratulate herself weakly that something she'd said must have stirred his conscience.

Either that, or he'd only been bluffing, and she'd never been in the least bit of danger of being debauched.

The thought was terribly deflating.

Wes didn't sleep much, either. The storm wasn't what bothered him—he thought it nice to have a roof over his head during one—and Shae's handily placed scattergun caused him amusement, not alarm.

He'd been kind of amused, too, when Topher, waiting impatiently for Shae to doze, had sneaked down from their bunks to crawl into his bedroll. The boy had demanded ghost stories, and Wes had obliged, whispering into his ear for a good hour or more before the little rascal tired enough to snuggle under his arm.

No, sleep evaded Wes mostly because his imagination broke loose, running wild with the taste and feel, the scent and touch, of Rorie. To his secret shame, visions of Fancy usually occupied his fantasies, so he wanted to believe his change of appetite was progressive. Instead, he had the nagging suspicion that he'd traded one impossible craving for another.

He tried to tell himself Rorie's appeal came from being unattainable, but the words just wouldn't ring true. He was drawn to the fire that smoldered under all her refinement, and not just her sexual fire. Rorie had proven herself passionate about many things: politics, the rights of women, homeless children, oat-sowing Rangers...

He winced at that thought.

Maybe it was just as well the storm had kept him from unveiling his badge. Now more than ever he needed to prove the merits of Rangerhood so she would trust him and help him find Gator's killer. Unfortunately, he had a long way to go to show her he wasn't like Bill Malone.

Determined to be on his best behavior the next morning, Wes set out to win back the points he had lost. But Rorie, greeting him with cool serenity at breakfast, didn't look twice at him through the meal.

An hour or so later, she breezed past him at the well, nodding and smiling as if she were a queen on royal business and he was an infatuated nuisance standing in her way.

That put him in a sod-pawing mood.

By lunchtime, she had politely snubbed him two more times, and when he cornered her afterward for an explanation, she laughed off talk of their kiss, telling him not to trouble himself, since she'd "quite frankly forgotten all about it."

That put him damned near the end of his rope. He didn't kiss just any woman, by God, and when he did, he made sure she remembered it.

He was debating whether to give Madam Schoolmarm a biology lesson she'd never forget, but Nita burst through the kitchen door, wide-eyed and breathless.

"Miss Rorie, Topher's been in a fight!"

Rorie started, breaking free of Wes's wolfish glare. She frowned as she turned to the child. "A fight? But who—"

"Danny Dukker," Nita panted. "Down by the fishing hole. Topher took his puppy. You better come quick, 'cause Danny said he was sending Creed to lick Topher!"

Rorie's shoulders snapped back, and her eyes flashed like gunpowder.

"I assure you, Nita, Creed Dukker will not lay a hand on Topher. However," she added darkly, "I may."

Wes's wounded pride dissolved in a flood of concern for Topher, and he followed closely as Rorie headed for the yard.

The first thing he noticed was that Abraham, Sarah, Merrilee, and Nardo had rallied around the boy like soldiers defending a flag. The next thing he noticed was Topher's split lip and the triumphant, albeit belligerent, gleam in his eye. He clutched a baby hound dog like a badge of honor to his chest, and only Merrilee was given permission to pet it.

"I didn't do nuthin' wrong," Topher said the minute Rorie halted before him.

"That's right, Miss Rorie," Sarah said fiercely. "Danny Dukker started it. He called me and Abraham woollyheads—"

"And me a smelly old bean eater," Nardo said.

"And Merrilee a feather duster," Sarah finished. "And then he kicked over our can of worms—"

"And broke Merrilee's fishing pole over his knee—" Nardo chimed in.

"And that's when Topher hit him," Abraham said in his older, wiser eleven-year-old's voice. "It was a fair brawl, if you ask me, seeing as how they're both the same age and size."

Rorie gazed down at them all in a mixture of exasperation and motherly concern. "And what did you do to provoke these attacks?"

"Nothing," they said in righteous unison.

Only Merrilee had remained silent throughout this elaborate defense. Rorie had apparently noticed it, because she fixed her judge's stare next on the Indian girl.

"Is this true, Merrilee?"

"Yes, ma'am, but..." She raised troubled eyes to Rorie. "Danny was crying when we found him."

Everyone fidgeted, looking a trifle guilty, except for Topher.

"Why do you suppose Danny was crying?" Rorie asked more gently.

"Who cares?" Topher said. "Danny Dukker's a stinker."

"That will be quite enough of that, Topher," Rorie chided.

Wes hid his smile.

Standing in a neutral position between the children and the grown-ups, Nita asked, "Can Topher keep the puppy?"

"Yeah, can I?"

"Well, I don't think—"

"I won him fair and square." Topher's chin jutted out, and he looked to a higher authority for support. "You'd let me keep it, wouldn't you, Uncle Wes?"

"Well..." He glanced at Rorie, who was glaring a warning at him. He repressed the urge to chuckle and, squatting down before Topher, reached to pet the puppy. "Sometimes a man has to fight for the honor of his woman," he said. "And sometimes he has to fight to protect his home and family. But I don't know of any time when it's right for a man to hit another man to take something that doesn't belong to him, like a fishing pole... or a puppy."

Topher pouted. "I did it for Merrilee."

"I'm sure you did, son." He gave the boy's shoulder a squeeze. "But keeping that puppy would be kind of like stealing. And you don't want to be any low-down, lizard-tailed thief, do you?"

"No," Topher said sullenly.

"Good man." He released the boy's shoulder and rose.

Shae chose that moment to join the group. "I hear there's been some trouble."

"Nothing Topher couldn't handle," Wes said, tousling the boy's hair.

Topher started to grin, and Rorie shook her head.

"That's just going to be the beginning if Creed rides out here," she said.

"Don't you worry any about Creed," Wes told her. "I'll take care of him."

Shae's expression was darkly forbidding. "This isn't your fight, Rawlins."

"Who said anything about a fight?" He lifted the dog from Topher's arms. "I'm just taking this puppy back to town."

Rorie bit her lip, and trepidation replaced the anger in her gaze. "Wes, you don't know how Creed can be. Or his father."

"That's right, Rawlins," Shae said. "They're my kin. You don't: have any quarrel with them."

"And that's exactly how it's going to stay," he said firmly. "The Dukkers have no reason to lock horns with me, but things could get mighty contentious if you ride up to their back gate. Besides, there're some personal items I'd like to purchase at the general store. Since we're running low on nails, I'll pick up a box of them too."

Shae didn't look convinced, but Wes was determined to take advantage of this opportunity to ride into town. Fortunately, Rorie took his side in the argument.

"Wes is right, Shae," she said. "After the fistfight you and Creed had on Monday, I really think it would be best if you let Wes handle this matter. There's no reason why it can't be resolved peacefully."

"Except that Cousin Hannibal doesn't wear his gun belt for ballast," Shae muttered.

In the end, Wes had his way. The children gathered around him and Two-Step to say good-bye to the yawning puppy, which he'd snuggled under his vest. Shae surrendered a gold piece for the nails, which Wes interpreted as a sign of the boy's growing trust in him. Then Rorie edged closer, touching his sleeve.

"Be careful, Wes," she said, her big eyes glimmering with concern.

In that moment, Wes felt absurdly boyish. The wound to his pride was repaired, and his flagging spirits soared. There wasn't a man on God's earth who could have pulled him back down—or so he thought, until he made his long overdue return to Elodea.

Hannibal Dukker's likeness stared out at him from windows in every business on Main Street. The poster pictured him smiling like a snake oil salesman above the slogan "Clear the Coloreds From the County—Elect Dukker Sheriff."

Wes got a blood rush at the very idea. What the county really needed, he thought angrily, was someone to clear out folks like Dukker. Thank God C. J. Jackson, a cattleman up near Bandera Town, had thrown his hat into the election ring.

Reining in before the telegraph office, Wes dismounted and reached inside his pocket for his badge. A sick feeling settled in the pit of his stomach when he found it missing. Juggling the puppy to his other arm, he slipped his fingers inside his vest once more and searched the lining for his star. No badge. Nothing.

"Confound it." He glared down at the hound, which gazed up at him with its big puppy eyes and wagged its tail in innocent response. The little mongrel had started fussing on the trail, and Wes had needed to stop more than once to let it do its business. Now he wondered if the dog might have knocked his badge out of his pocket. He didn't much like the thought of his good-luck tin star lying in the middle of the prairie for a buzzard or ground squirrel to snatch up.

Then another, more sobering thought hit him square between the eyes. He hadn't seen his badge since that morning, when Topher, whooping like an Indian, had pounced on him to wrestle. He groaned inwardly. What if his badge was lying in Shae's bedroom somewhere?

"Ranger Rawlins, how good to see you again," a sweet voice called behind him.

Starting guiltily, he turned to find Lorelei Faraday strolling toward him from the general store next door. She broke into a surprised and delighted smile when she spied the dog in his arms.

"Why that's the Jenkins' puppy! Little Harold has been going from door to door, asking about it for the last three days." She reached a hand toward the furry head and was rewarded with a friendly lick. "Wherever did you find it?"