Anita Mills (10 page)

“Oh—yeah. Well, at least I think I can fix that.”

“I don’t see how.”

“I guess it’s my fault it’s gone.” Before she could lose her temper again, he went on to explain, “Since there’s nowhere to replace your dress out here, the sheriff’s wife offered to try cleaning the worst of it with a little fuller’s earth and baking soda water.

Knowing how upset you are over ruining your clothes, I didn’t think anybody could do much more harm to it, anyway, so I told her to go ahead and see if she could improve the looks a little.”

There was no figuring him out. Every time she thought she had assessed him right, he did something wholly unexpected. “You’re having it
cleaned
?” she asked incredulously.

“I know it’s not going to look like you’d want, but it ought to be a damned sight better than it was. But in case it isn’t, the last crew back tonight is supposed to be bringing your bag in.” Passing his palm over the stubble on his face, he added ruefully, “You’re not the only one inconvenienced by this, you know. I figured by nightfall I’d be bathed and shaved and looking to scare up a good game of poker in Columbus. Now I’m going to be spending the night cooped up in here with you glowering at me, thinking as soon as you let that guard of yours down, I’ll be expecting to take liberties with you. Well, I won’t.”

“If you get up off that floor, I’ll scream loud enough to wake the dead,” she warned him. “I won’t care what anybody thinks of me.”

“I’ll cut you for the bed,” he offered.

“You’ll do what?”

Leaning over, he retrieved a worn pack of cards from his coat pocket. While she watched, fascinated, he shuffled them expertly, then held out the whole deck in his palm. “Go ahead—pick one.”

“You want me to take a card? Just any card?”

“Uh-huh.”

Curious now, she reached out and pulled one from the middle of the stack, then turned it over. “It’s a five.”

With his left hand, he slid one out and held it up. “Jack of Spades. Well, my darling Elizabeth,” he announced blithely, “it looks like the bed is mine.”

“Now that’s not fair! I’ve never gambled on anything in my life, and you know it!”

“You just did—and you lost.”

“I don’t even play cards,” she protested. “We never had any in the house.”

“They go up in value, starting with the deuce and winding up with the ace. Two, three, four, five, six, seven—”

“I can count, Mr. McCready,” she snapped.

“Eight, nine, ten, Jack, Queen, King, and ace,” he went on. “My knave of spades is higher than your five, and in a cut, the higher card wins. I’ll take the bed, and you can have the covers on the floor.”

“I don’t suppose we could try that again?” she asked hopefully. “If I’m going to gamble, I ought to at least know what I’m doing.”

“It’s based on luck, not knowledge.”

“Then I should have known better,” she muttered. “I don’t have any luck.”

A loud knock interrupted them, then a voice called through the door, “Missus Muh-Cray-dee, I done got y’all’s gown.”

It was Matthew who opened the door. The thin blond girl looked up, taking in his bare chest, and her whole face broke into a smile. “Y’all’s the mister?” she asked, simpering.

“Uh-huh.” Turning to Verena, he murmured, “I believe your dress has arrived, my dear.”

The girl’s gaze shifted to her, and the smile faded abruptly. “It ain’t all out, but it’s near as Juana could get it.” Her eyes raked Verena from head to toe. “Guess y’all ain’t been missin’ it none, huh?” she added knowingly, nodding toward the wrinkled quilt on the bed.

“I hardly think so,” Verena responded, coloring. Then, thinking perhaps that that didn’t sound quite right, she added, “He just got here.” No, that sounded even worse. “And it’s broad daylight.” Mortified now, she gritted out, “Just leave it on the bed, and I’ll pay for the cleaning as soon as my things arrive. I’m afraid I left my purse on the train.”

“I’ll take care of it, my dear,” Matthew said, digging into his pocket. Taking out a silver dollar, he flipped it to the girl, who caught it saucily, then promptly hustled herself out of the room. As he closed the door behind her, he looked across the narrow area to Verena, and as one eyebrow went up, one corner of his mouth curved downward. “If you think it’s got to be in the dark, you sure don’t know much about seduction, do you?”

Her face beet red now, she retorted, “No, of course not—nor do I care to learn.”

“I know.”

The way he said it didn’t sound quite right to her ears. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“When I first laid eyes on you, I figured you were a plum ripe for picking.” Cocking his head slightly, he sobered. “On closer inspection, you’ve turned out to be downright green.”

“And sour?” she asked sweetly.

“No—just green. And,” he added, sighing, “I’ve never been a man to pluck the green ones.” Going back to the chair, he picked up the napkin and held it out to her. “While I wash up, you go ahead and eat. Then we’ll get out and about while there’s still a little daylight. Go on—it’ll give you something to do besides watch me take my clothes off.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m going to wash up.”

“Not while I’m in here, you aren’t—and I don’t intend to leave.”

“Suit yourself.” Leaning over, he unfastened the hasp on his bag, opened it, and took out a folded shirt. Holding the garment up, he shook it out, surveying the wrinkles with resignation. “If Jean-Louis could see this, he’d probably cry over it.”

“Jean-Louis?” she repeated, momentarily diverted.

“My tailor.”

“You’ve got a tailor,” she muttered. “And I suppose you’ve got a diamond stickpin, too.”

“Jean-Louis uses only the finest French cambric and sews as fine a seam as a Parisian modiste—makes the best shirts in New Orleans. There’s an art to shirtmaking, you know. And no, I don’t have a diamond stickpin—not anymore, anyway.”

“I hope you lost it gambling.” Seeing his hands move to his waist, she demanded, “What are you doing?”

“Fixing to wash up.”

“Oh—no, you’re not.”

“Well, I’m sure as hell not putting clean clothes over a stinking body,” he countered. “You don’t have to watch, if you don’t want to. Just turn that chair around, and you won’t see a damned thing. Give me five minutes, and I’ll be cleaned up and all my offending parts will be covered enough to suit you.”

“Right now, everything about you is offensive, Mr. McCready,” she said with feeling. “You have no decency, no morals, and moreover you—”

As he unbuttoned the first button on his pants, the scathing words died on her lips. Averting her eyes, she stumbled over her own feet in her haste to turn the chair around. Picking up the food, she then sank down, facing a rough-plastered wall. Not daring to look up, she untied the napkin.

“By the time you get that eaten, I’ll be about done,” he promised her.

He’d brought her three pieces of golden crusty chicken—two thighs and an odd-shaped, unfamiliar piece. As she looked at it, she was too hungry to resist. Venting her anger on it, she tored into a thigh with her teeth.

“When you get to the pully-bone, don’t break it.”

“The what?” she managed with her mouth full.

“The funny-looking one. When you’ve got all the meat off the bone, you hold one end and somebody else takes the other, then you both pull until it breaks. Whoever winds up with the longer part gets good luck.”

“Well, I—” She looked sideways, and the way the light angled into the mirror, she could see Matthew McCready. He didn’t have a stitch on anywhere.

When her sentence abruptly ended, he swung around, affording her her first complete view of the male animal. “Something the matter?”

Mortified, she ducked her head. “No—nothing— nothing at all. I don’t know what I was going to say. It—it wasn’t anything important, anyway.”

It was then that he noticed the mirror above the small dressing table. “Why, Miss Verena, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he murmured.

“If I’d wanted to see you, I wouldn’t be sneaking peeks at your reflection, Mr. McCready,” she countered acidly. “I would have simply turned around and stared you up one side and down the other. But I didn’t—and I won’t. In fact—” She stood up, and taking care to keep her back to him, she edged toward the bed, where she snatched her gown, then pulled it over her head. “I don’t know where I’ll go, but as soon as I find the comb Mrs. Goode lent me, I’m leaving. I don’t care what anybody thinks—I’m not spending another minute in here!”

The comb sailed over her head and landed on the bed. Grabbing it, she fairly dived for the door. As her hand closed around the knob, she heard him ask, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

She looked down to where the bodice of her dress gaped open. “Oh.” Her face red-hot, she hastily fastened the small buttons.

“That, too—but I was meaning these.”

She wasn’t about to turn around. “What are they?” she snapped.

“Your shoes. Unless you want to tickle your feet with splinters, you’d better wear ’em. Here.” He sent them sliding across the floor.

Bending down, she scooped her black high-tops into her arm, then wrenched the door open and plunged through it. Stopping in the small, narrow hall, she put the comb between her teeth, balanced herself against the wall, and forced first one foot, then the other into her shoes. As she bent down to tighten the laces, she could hear voices carrying around the corner, and she froze.

“Gib ain’t gonna like it, but that Howard woman ain’t nowhere.”

“Yeah. I knowed she wasn’t on that train.”

“If I didn’t have a stake in this, Lee, I’d be going home and leavin’ him to figger it out.”

“You think the sheriff suspects anything’s up?”

“Naw. I told him what I told ’em at the last place—I said I was just a-following the railroad, hopin’ to find her. He told me less’n there was a warrant or something, there wasn’t much he could do exceptin’ watch for her.”

“What’re you gonna tell Gib?”

“Same thing you are—there still ain’t no Howard woman on that train. Hell, except’n’ the sick one and the one with a passel of kids, there ain’t no women between fifteen and forty on it.”

“Well, I don’t care what he says—I ain’t goin’ around askin’ no more. He can start doin’ some of his dirty work hisself.”

“You quit, and he’ll cut you out. Sure as anything, he’ll cut you out.”

“I don’t like messin’ up a woman, Charley. And that’s what it’s going to come to, I know it. Way I look at it, once he’s done with ’er, he ain’t letting ’er go. It’ll be just like it was with that damned lawyer. Coyotes’11 be diggin’ up her bones.”

Having already heard more than enough, and afraid of encountering them, Verena crept on her hands and knees back to her room. It wasn’t until she could feel the doorknob that she dared stand up, and when she did, she all but dived through the door.

“It sure didn’t take you long to miss me,” McCready murmured sardonically.

“Don’t say anything—don’t say anything at all.” Still holding the doorknob, she leaned her head against the door and listened. But there was nothing more to hear. Finally, deciding they must’ve gone the other way, she let go.

She was obviously pale and shaken. Curious now, he came up behind her. “What’s the matter?”

She gulped air. “There were two men out there— they were hunting for me.”

“Did you get a look at them?”

“No, of course not. If I had, I don’t think I’d be here right now.”

“Your long-lost brothers again?”

“I wish you’d quit saying that,” she snapped. “I don’t
have
any brothers, long-lost or otherwise.”

“All right, then. Were they the same ones from the train station?”

“I didn’t see the ones at the train station,” she reminded him, “but they must surely be. Judging from what I overheard, one of them told Sheriff Goode I was his sister, anyway.”

“I don’t suppose they happened to say why they’d want to lie about you, did they?”

“You don’t believe me.”

“Of course, I believe you. For some unknown reason, two fellows claiming to be relations of yours are scouring East Texas for you. Makes sense to me, I guess, if that’s the story you want to stick to.”

“There’s no reason on earth why anyone would want me,” she declared behind him.

“Besides the obvious, which, if they got to know you, might not be nearly so obvious to them,” he murmured, retrieving his gun from its holster. Easing past her, he held it close to his side as he nudged the door open. While she held her breath, he kicked the door wider, then sprang into the narrow hallway with the gun cocked, ready to fire. The area was deserted. She followed close behind him.

“Where were they?”

“Down that way—just around the corner.”

“Yeah, well, it looks like they took off,” he said, lowering the Colt. “I suppose you want me to go looking for them, don’t you?”

“You can’t go anywhere like that.”

“You didn’t give me time to get my pants on. But I am covered, in case you didn’t notice.”

He had his half-buttoned shirt on, and it came well below his hips, but his legs and feet were bare. He ought to look ridiculous, but he didn’t. He was too tall, too broad shouldered, too dangerously handsome. Looking into those dark, nearly black eyes, she found herself almost speechless.

“I’ve still got to shave and get the rest of my clothes on,” he went on smoothly, “but I’ll be ready to go out by the time you finish tying your laces and fixing your hair. Maybe if we take a look around, we can find out just what it is they’re up to. I’d like to get another look at ’em, anyway.”

“I don’t want to take a chance on meeting them.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t frighten easily, Mr. McCready, but I think somebody named Gib wants to kill me.” As his eyebrows went up, she nodded. “The exact words I overhead were ‘Once he’s done with ’er, he ain’t letting ’er go.’ ”

“You’ve read too many dime novels, my dear,” he declared.

“Will
you listen to me?” she demanded furiously. “He also said the coyotes would be digging me up just like they did some lawyer. That is exactly what I heard out there.”

As he looked at her, his eyes narrowed for a moment as he reconsidered. There was no mistaking her fear. He took a deep breath and exhaled it before he decided, “All right. But first you’d better fess up.”