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Authors: Gem Sivad

Tags: #Romance, #Historical, #Fiction

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BOOK: Breed True
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Before anyone could answer, the front door banged open and rowdy drunkards filled Comfort's Boardinghouse. It quickly became the scene of a milling crowd determined to add to the developing story about the death of the gambler.

Several of the men at the front of the mob had other concerns. Teddy James had been her dead husband's drinking-and-carousing buddy, not to mention his partner in mutual scamming and thieving projects.

"Jewel, you need to come back to the Golden Eagle tonight. Frank had obligations we need to discuss." He leered at her familiarly, as if the last time she'd been near him, she hadn't slapped his face.

At least his girth blocked those who pushed from behind. "Hurry on over here, Jewel. I can't hold this mob back for much longer. The Kiowa half-breed knifed Frank, and the people of the town are fixing to get justice for your man."

If the mob hadn't been a real threat, it would have been funny. When Teddy said
your man,
Jewel wanted to ask,
Which one?
Instead, she looked toward Grady Hawks.

But it was Hamilton Quince who answered. "Don't know of any Indian hanging around town, do you, Judge?"

The question was caught and answered by Conklin as though rehearsed. "I came over for dinner with you and your lovely wife, and stayed for a meeting with those now present. I've not seen any strangers in town."

The judge avoided lying adroitly, and Jewel shifted her attention back to Teddy James fast enough to see his frown.

"Judge, we know for a fact that Sheriff Potter pulled that fancy knife that belongs to Hawks out of Frank's chest."

Hiram Potter spoke up. "How do you know that, Teddy? I didn't see you or any of your cronies around when Mrs. Rossiter and I found her husband. Maybe you need to come on over to my office if you've got information."

In a seemingly friendly bear hug, Sheriff Potter turned the saloon owner and half pulled him from the door and to the outside, where Jewel could hear him calming down the mob.

"There are no murderers at Comfort's place, gentlemen. I brought the widow here to clean up and catch her breath before she has to face tomorrow." Several of the men called out offers to put her up, but Sheriff Potter shushed them and added, "Teddy, here, was making some dangerous and mistaken allegations, weren't you, Teddy?"

Potter continued as if the man had agreed. "First off, there aren't any Indians hanging around the town tonight. I'd know. Secondly, you fellas are causing a mite of disturbance here at Comfort's house." His observation was amiable as he pulled the saloon owner in his wake.

"Comfort was entertaining Hamilton Quince and Grady Hawks, as well as Judge Conklin and Mrs. Rossiter when this all happened." Jewel was pretty sure that the choke-hold the sheriff had on Teddy James was enough to silence his dissent.

Hiram Potter's voice boomed as he directed the crowd. "I'd take it kindly if you'd all go home now. If you've got information, like Teddy does, come on over to the jail, and I'll take your statements."

Jewel watched the crowd disperse at Sheriff Potter's blanket invitation to visit the jail. As one danger receded, a second, much more threatening, reminded her that she had a new husband.

"Julie Hawks." His voice was a whisper of sound in the room, but it raised the gooseflesh on her arms and the fear in her heart.

She shouldn't have agreed to the scheme, but her best option at the moment seemed limited to a man she didn't know. "My name is Jewel. I don't go by the other."

But she spoke to his back, and he paid her no attention as he headed toward the door, clearly intending for her to follow.

*

Grady didn't trust the woman the distance it took to get from one side of the room to the other, but that didn't seem to matter to his cock. He'd had to turn away from her to hide the swollen log in his pants.

He could feel the gaze of his new bride on his back, and his shoulder blades itched as he imagined her getting ready to stab husband number two.
Jesus, what did I just do?

But he didn't have to look behind him to know why he'd jumped at the chance to maneuver the widow into marriage. When he'd seen Jewel Rossiter in town for the first time, four years before, he'd been stunned by her looks.

Like his father, her hair was the color of good whiskey. Her skin was pale and fine, with cheeks that were blushed with a peach color. He'd wanted to know her that day and had set out to make it happen.

Even then he hadn't liked her name.
Jewel
. It had seemed to him something a loose woman would call herself. He was glad to know her given name was Julia, even though his new wife had removed all doubt that she was for sale.

And not a two-penny whore, either. She just sold me a year or so of fucking rights,
plus a baby, in exchange for good range land with water access.

Grady Hawks scowled at the thought of diluting his Kiowa blood with the mercenary white woman; at the same time his dick, now hard for her, didn't give a rat's ass what her motives were.

On first glimpse of her, four years before, she'd seemed lost, scared, and adrift. He'd lingered in town after his father had driven the wagon home, stalking her.

Even after she'd checked into the seedy hotel at the end of town, he'd still waited around, hoping to get another glimpse of the exotically beautiful girl.

She'd been sweetly innocent then. He'd still been spying that evening when she'd braced Frank Rossiter, and he'd witnessed the blow she'd taken when the gambler used his fist on her.

Grady had reacted by instinct, yanking the jackass outside with the intention of beating him to death. It wasn't till the girl he'd followed all day had intervened, half carrying the worthless gambler to the wagon she had waiting, that he realized she was a married woman. And on top of that, she was married to the bastard who had punched her.

It should have been a bucket of cold water dampening his interest, but he'd still listened when gossip about her came round. She'd disappeared from Eclipse after that night.

But around the time Grady's father had been killed, the saloonkeeper, Teddy James, mentioned the gambler was back in town. The saloon owner had claimed that for a price, the gambler would share her.

Red hair or not, Da would have had a fit over this match.

It didn't matter. Grady thought about her pragmatically. She would do for his purpose. He needed to get a son upon a white woman.

He'd already figured that by marrying an Eclipse ranch daughter, he'd temporarily secure his stance in the county—but he didn't trust any of the locals enough to give a white woman's relatives a strong claim on Hawks Nest. That would just invite a bullet in the back, leaving a new-made widow ready to take over.

This woman had no relatives to protect her or steal from him. She would do. He'd have to watch and make sure no other males covered her until after she caught. Then—

his face was grimmer than usual—then she could be on her way.

The hard years had taken their toll on her beautiful features. Lines marred her forehead and pinched a groove on either side of her nose, giving her an almost feral look.

A wolverine.
Grady saw her as the fierce animal, avoided by prey and predator alike.

Today he'd come to meet with Hamilton Quince. The territory was overrun with crooked land agents stealing Texas out from under white and Indian alike. When he'd received a message from Quince, calling for him to ride into Eclipse for a cattleman's meeting in town, he'd almost smiled.

He'd been here longer than most and sure as hell qualified as a cattleman, owning the second largest spread in the territory as well as the water rights needed by all. But since his father's passing, there had been few invitations to the Eclipse Cattlemen's meeting.

He'd arrived at Comfort Quince's Boarding House in late afternoon, tying up discreetly in the back. Other ranchers drifted in and out, giving him a stiff nod before they spoke to Quince.

According to Hamilton, the land grabbers were after the water rights that made the two ranchers allies. If today's meeting was intended to give him a heads-up, it had turned into more than that.

During the afternoon, he'd known that he'd left himself too vulnerable, with so many white men giving him questioning looks, like he wasn't one of them. For most of them, the suspicious glances weren't a real threat, and Grady knew it.

But when the sheriff brought Jewel Rossiter and Grady's stolen knife to the boarding house, it was obvious he'd been set up. The woman was so recently widowed that she had her husband's blood on her hands, and it was the same blood coating the blade of the murder weapon. When it was apparent that one or the other of them was intended to be found guilty, he'd seen a solution to two problems.

He needed a white wife, and she needed someone to keep her out of jail or worse—

Teddy James' brothel. He'd watched Comfort Quince escort the woman to the bathing room, and he'd stepped into the alley and signaled for his friends who'd ridden to town with him.

He'd asked Dan, Rowdy, and Navajo to find out what had transpired. When Dan had knocked on the back door of the boarding house and told him about the babies the gambler had left at Ma Siler's place, he'd been sickened. To have even a brief association with a woman who would abandon her children to the care of the slattern was unpalatable.

But he'd sent the men riding to retrieve the children to get them away from the old harridan more than for Jewel Rossiter's sake. His cousin, Dan, brought a canvas sack of clothes found in the alley near where the gambler had been struck down and figured that they belonged to the gambler's wife.

Grady subdued his distaste, reminding himself that the fact of her children proved Jewel Rossiter was fertile. It should be enough for him. He didn't expect to see the pedigree of the mustangs he caught and bred, he just used them to strengthen his thoroughbred stock. It would be the same with the gambler's woman.

Whatever mischief had been planned for the two of them would be set back by their alliance. That irony didn't escape Grady as he heard her footsteps, hurrying to keep up with him.

When he stepped outside into the alley, she was one step behind. "My children," she managed to say to his back, before he raised the lantern in his hand, and she saw Rowdy with his arms full of sleeping babies.

"You got them back for me." Grady was jealous of the smile she sent Rowdy. It was the first of its kind he'd ever seen on her face. She would have pushed Grady out of her way had he not stepped aside.

But it pleased him to see her reach for the babies, settling each close in her arms. So Frank Rossiter had lied. This woman was a true mother. That was suddenly more important to him than it should have been.

He looked with interest as she settled the two bundles closer, oblivious and indifferent to the men who watched as she clucked and crooned and checked the babies, who both continued to sleep.

Half a minute later, he scooted her toward the mounts. Navajo Leonard and Dan Two-Horse waited silently, appreciating her beauty until Grady glared at them. Even thin as a rail, bruised from hard blows, and wearing torn, bloody clothes, the woman was a fragile picture of female perfection. It didn't surprise him that his friends admired her looks. It did surprise him that he cared.

Her canvas bag they'd found stashed in the alley lay across the withers of the horse Dan rode. She headed for that mount, but Grady stopped her and turned her to the gentle mare Dan led. "My satchel." She nodded at the tattered bag expectantly, and waited until he moved it to her mount.

When Grady lifted her to the saddle, he expected to have to fight her for one of the bundles, but she settled into the saddle, handing one of the babies to him while she arranged her blanket in a crisscross loop held tight by her belt.

Then, she snuggled the baby on her arm into the first pouch she'd created and reached to him for the other. He watched her arrange the second child in her improvised carrier, then take up her reins and nod.

She seemed oblivious to the men, and she hunched, crooning, over the babies as he led her mount into the plateaus that climbed toward Hawks Nest Ranch.

Chapter Six

Comfort Quince turned to her husband as the door closed behind the last of their visitors. Grady Hawks and his new wife had started the exodus home. Nothing in her graceful posture indicated anything but relief that they were alone. Comfort had spent a lifetime learning to mask her emotions—until she'd met Hamilton Quince and finally found a man she could love. He knew how much she wanted a baby and that she was devastated by this setback. She'd already assembled a layette of clothing and decorated one of the upstairs bedrooms. Her husband knew that her calm acceptance of the night's loss was a sham. "That's it, then." She sighed tiredly.

"Not necessarily, sweetheart," Hamilton assured her. "Married doesn't make the gambler's widow a good mother. Jewel Rossiter may say she wants those children now, but how long will that last when she's trapped up on that Godforsaken place alone with half the Apache nation?"

"She loves them, Hamilton." Comfort was no fool. She wanted those baby girls like she hadn't wanted anything else for a long time. Hamilton knew that, and he would act accordingly unless she stopped future actions right now. "I know what it is like to be desperate and alone. I don't think she's what you implied."

She scolded her husband's insult to Jewel Rossiter. "Her hands are not the hands of a prostitute. She's been doing hard work. Her hands showed it." Her own soft hands clenched as she added, "I want you to promise me you won't bother that woman again. It was not meant to be, and I won't steal a good mother's children to fill a void in my life."

Hamilton Quince wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his embrace.

"Have I told you lately how much I love you?"

Comfort's pensive gaze lifted to meet his. "Many times, but I never tire of hearing it anyway. I adore you." She smoothed the material of his shirt as she repeated softly,

BOOK: Breed True
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