Capture the Sun (Cheyenne Series) (19 page)

      
When Hawk only stared impassively, Krueger shrugged and went on in a businesslike manner. “So, we agree about the route the railroad should take.” He pocketed the documents. “I have every intention to talk with Herr Grossman and Herr Rogers about that tonight. What do you want for Squires?”

      
“No more stealing, Krueger,” came the level reply. “Pay him off and send him packing, or Kyle'll kill him. I don't want a range war, but if you keep after Noah's stock, you and I both know it's bound to happen.”

      
Krueger’s cunning face split in a smile of understanding. “Now I begin to comprehend. You want what our Chancellor Bismarck would call a balance of power between the Circle S and the K Bar, to protect your red interests.”

      
“That's right. If either of you takes all the graze in eastern Montana, every Cheyenne and Sioux—not to mention nester and sheepman—will be in danger. Just keep a snarling truce. I'll let you win this round; deal yourself in with the railroad.”

      
Hawk started to leave, then casually turned back and said over his shoulder, “But cross me with any more hired guns, Krueger, and I'll take a lot of embarrassing information about the railroad and the rustlers to the governor. Then I'll come after you.”

* * * *

      
Noah had dragged Carrie over to confront his bitch of an ex-wife, wanting to flaunt her youthful beauty in front of the older woman and to quell the titters in the crowd. People would have made him out to be a coward if he tried to ignore Lola and Krueger. Now, watching’ Carrie's irritatingly unsophisticated pallor and Lola's knowing smirk, he wanted only to extricate himself from the damnable situation. What in hell did Hawk and Krueger have to talk about? Dual alarm bells went off in his head.

      
“So, you are the third Mrs. Sinclair,” Lola said, arching one silvery blond brow in amusement.
 
“Really, Noah, your fourth bride will be young enough to be your granddaughter, I do believe.”

      
Noah bristled, tightening his grip on Carrie's arm unconsciously as he ground out, “Do attempt some veneer of civilization in public, Lola, as much as you may scorn it in private.”

      
Carrie cut into the high, trilling laughter of the blond. “In the first place,
Baroness
,” she fairly spat the title in contempt, “I won't be replaced by another wife. Secondly, I suspect you would like the age difference between you and your elderly Baron to be as great as it is between Noah and me.”

      
Lola's eyes turned from bright blue to whitened gray at the taunt about her advancing age. The nerve of this gawky carrot-topped child! “Yes, you are young, nearer his half-breed son's age than your husband's.”

      
“You would know more about Hawk than I would, from what I hear, Baroness,” Carrie shot back, remembering in disgust Frank's sordid tale about the immoral woman and recalling her hand on Hawk's arm earlier.

      
Surprised at Carrie's venom and ability to hold her own with Lola, Noah knew he must separate the two women before a disgraceful fight ensued. “If you will be so kind as to excuse us, Lola, Carrie and I must say hello to some old friends from Helena who just arrived.”

      
“I do wish the Baron congratulations—and good luck,” Carrie said as she glided off on Noah's arm.

      
“How did you know Baron von Krueger was so much older than Karl?” Noah was still uneasy with his wife's bursts of temper and assertiveness, as well as her continually surprising knowledge.

      
She smiled archly and said, “Just a lucky guess.” She knew only the younger sons of European nobility left home, while the oldest son inherited the title. How stupid they all must think her!

CHAPTER NINE

      
After the ball Carrie was plagued by dreams in which she saw Lola Jameson's malevolently leering face and watched her and Hawk in a torrid embrace that faded into one of herself with Hawk. Then the old childhood nightmare about the wolf and the bird of prey returned, more vividly than ever. Noah had slept the sleep of exhaustion, reinforced with too much whiskey, while she moaned and tossed in anguish.

      
The next day he had busied himself with various business contacts, telling her they would spend one more night in town. That night he resumed his attentions to her in bed. Since the fateful day when Hawk had caught her in the lake, Carrie had found herself shocked by her invidious comparisons between the body of her husband and his son. Noah's flaccid, sagging flesh repelled her more than ever. After the previous night and Hawk's compelling, gentle kiss, Noah's rough, unconcerned taking of her had been wrenchingly miserable. Woodenly she had endured it, beginning to perceive for the first time just how high a price she had paid when she signed over her body in marriage to Noah Sinclair.

      
Furious with her coldness in bed after all the spirit she had exhibited against Lola the night before, Noah again taunted her about her barrenness, even throwing her words to Lola back in her face. “Maybe I will need a fourth wife after all, Carrie,” he said.

      
As if to reinforce his threat, the following morning he informed her that he was going to have a physician examine her. He had proven he could have children, so obviously the fault must be hers. The implication was clear to Carrie as she sat shivering in their hotel room. If the doctor pronounced her unfit, Noah would divorce her and cast her aside, disgraced and penniless. Part of her was terrified, but another part of her rejoiced in the possibility of freedom from Noah's physical demands and unbending presence. Thus, she waited in fright and uncertainty in the hotel room.

      
When Dr. Phineas Lark arrived, his manner did nothing to reassure her. He was a short, pudgy man with small pig eyes recessed far into his head, giving him a perpetually myopic look. His squint took in a great deal and when he asked her to disrobe for the examination, Carrie felt unclean. He gave a curt order and left the room, giving her five minutes to comply.

      
Until now only Noah had seen her naked, she thought as she stripped. No, she realized with a sudden start of guilt, Hawk had seen and felt her unclothed body also. Oddly, that memory did not make her feel nearly as uncomfortable as the thought of Dr. Lark's pudgy fingers touching her. Noah waited outside the door, but his nearness did not reassure her at all. He was the originator of this new humiliation.

      
Lark was thorough. He prodded and poked at her, asking endless questions as she lay on the bed staring straight up at the cracked ceiling. She answered in monosyllables and he grunted in response, doing nothing to lessen her mortification or reassure her.

      
When he had finished the rather painful internal examination, he straightened up. “That is all, Mrs. Sinclair. You may dress.” He turned to leave.

      
Clutching the sheet, Carrie bolted up on the bed and said, “But—but what have you learned? Am I barren or not?” He was going to confer with Noah and not even do her the courtesy of telling her what he knew!

      
After her subdued and frightened reaction during the exam, Phineas Lark was surprised that she would suddenly show such spirit—such unseemly spirit. He would far rather discuss this with her husband, as was fitting. “Er, you seem to be in excellent health, Mrs. Sinclair. Your cycle is regular; you are strong and young. The birth passage might be somewhat narrow, but that should not impede conception at all.” He waited, irritated that he should have to deliver his report twice.

      
“Then I should conceive?” Carrie was not certain if she was happy or sad at the news. Pregnancy would keep Noah out of her bed, but in the end, it would be his child she would deliver. “How long might it take me to become... pregnant?” Using the word was embarrassing, but she wanted to know.

      
“That is difficult to say.” Lark certainly was not going to tell this bold chit of a girl that with an older man it often took longer because of the husband's problems! Lord, Noah Sinclair would have his hide! As it was, Lark would have a difficult enough time skirting the issue with him. If either of these two was unable to contribute to producing an heir for Circle S, it was far more likely the husband than the wife.

      
He whirled and fled the room, leaving Carrie feeling alone, confused, and defiled. When Noah came in, she was dressed, waiting for him to speak, hopeful the news from Lark would put him in a better humor. His brood mare was not defective after all.

      
Noah's face was a mask, grim and shuttered. “The doctor assures me you are in sound health, probably just not overly fertile. I might have known it would be some damnable inconclusive thing like that. If you showed a little enthusiasm in bed, if you wanted to conceive, it would probably help, but I know there's no use asking the impossible. I'll just work on it harder than before, my dear.”
      
With that acid promise he turned on his heel and departed, slamming the door.

      
Carrie was stunned. That, wasn't what Lark had said to her. What else had he told Noah? Did her revulsion for his touch keep her from quickening? Furiously, she grabbed up a pillow from the bed and threw it across the room. “So now he threatens me with his attentions, does he!”

      
They did not speak on the long ride home. After her ordeal in Miles City, Carrie was actually glad to see the white frame walls of the Circle S ranch house gleaming in the warm September sun. She felt a strange sense of peace and welcome. Feliz and Frank were here. As Noah strode stiffly up the front steps, Carrie greeted Frank and walked with him toward the stables, where the buggy team would be rubbed down after the long drive from town.

      
Sensing the leashed anger in Noah, Frank did not press Carrie for details of their quarrel. He knew from long ago all the twisted ways Noah Sinclair could punish a woman, and his heart ached for the bright-haired girl who smiled bravely at him now.

      
Finally, she spoke. “Well, Frank, I met Lola Jameson the other night.” At his look of goggle-eyed amazement, she had to laugh in spite of herself. “Yes, she's back, now the Baroness von Krueger, married to that cattleman's titled elder brother. I suspect he must be doddering, at least seventy.”

      
Frank chuckled-with her. “I reckon if’n he's ole Karl's older brother, yew might be right. Wall, since th' Baroness's gettin' up there herself, they jist might suit.”

      
Carrie's eyes danced. “That's what I told her.”

      
His jaw dropped. “Whut'd she say?”

      
“Plenty before that, not much after.” Then Carrie's look darkened abruptly. “You were sure right about her fascination for Hawk. She couldn't keep her claws off him.”

      
Frank detected more than disdain in her manner, but if it was jealousy, he would never mention it. In the past weeks he had watched the tension between the two young people undergo a dramatic change, and he feared what might eventually happen. Despite the danger, he did not want to see Hawk leave so soon after his return. Damn, there was no solution.

      
Unaware of his sympathetic gaze on her, Carrie continued, “You were right about the women in town, too—all the fine ladies who'll sneak off to the stables with him but not be seen in public with him! Hypocrites, the lot of them!”

      
Just then, Hawk and Kyle rode in, dismounting and leading their horses into the area where Carrie and Frank talked.

      
“So, it's all settled up. Krueger'll take keer o' them railroad fellers, and I loose thet varmint Squires.” Kyle's voice carried through the musty air of the stable.

      
Hawk started to reply, then caught sight of Frank. Carrie was hidden behind the wooden stall divider, a curry comb in her hand, grooming Jingles, one of the matched blacks of the carriage team. She looked at Hawk while he was unaware of her presence. Once more he was the tough frontiersman, clad in buckskins, wickedly armed with gun and knife. Even the barbered hair did not matter. He looked dangerous and cunning, savage. Still she recalled the gentleness of his hands on her, then shook herself in anger.

      
“Evenin', Hawk, Kyle,” Frank said, shrewdly putting together the pieces of their previous conversation. “Treed ya a skunk, huh? Jist see ta it thet it don't soak ya good afore ya loose it. I reckon yew 'n' Krueger made a deal. I ain't interested in th' details. Onliest thing I hope is thet ya don't get shot. Thet Kraut's pure mean.”

      
Kyle grinned. “So'm I, Frank, so'm I.” Whistling, he led his buckskin toward a stall at the end of the stable, spying Carrie as he passed her place of concealment.
      
“Well, purty lady, how's town 'n' all them fancy folk?”
      
Carrie stepped out and smiled uncertainly as she returned Kyle's greeting, feeling Hawk's scowl. Damn him, he still did not trust her motives with Hunnicut!

* * * *

      
That evening at supper the air was thick with tension. While Carrie was upstairs dressing, Noah and Hawk had begun an argument that would carry into the dining room. When she entered the parlor for their usual predinner drink, both men seemed to grow more agitated in her presence.

      
Hawk poured a glass of sherry and handed it to her, scowling wordlessly.
He is still in a sulk over Kyle
, she thought peevishly.

      
Noah watched the silently antagonistic exchange, wondering if it was Frank or Feliz who had told her about Lola and his son. It rankled like a raw sore that she should know of his humiliation by that whore. Perversely, he blamed the boy as much as the woman. In grim humor he thought that Carrie would never be attracted to any man, much less the sullen, dangerous-looking half-breed in the parlor.