Cherish (37 page)

Over the next few days, Race worried ceaselessly about when the ruffians would make their move. He had expected them to do it right away, and the waiting wore on his nerves. Staying close to the cabin, leaving work undone, constantly afraid for Rebecca’s safety. It made him a little crazy.

He finally decided that enough was enough. Just because his usual work had been pretty much curtailed didn’t mean he couldn’t put this time to good use. He had a wife whose self-confidence had taken a beating and who was afraid of her own shadow. Teaching her how to take care of herself and fight back might go a long ways toward making her feel less vulnerable.

Overriding Rebecca’s objections, Race forced her to learn how to handle guns, starting with his rifles, then working on her aim with a pistol after she became fairly proficient with the larger weapons. She didn’t like it. Given her upbringing, firearms represented evil, their only permissible use for hunting game, and that being a man’s
pursuit. But Race insisted, making her target practice for several hours each afternoon out by the barn, relentless and exacting in his role of teacher. Taught to mindlessly obey her husband, Rebecca acquiesced, albeit unenthusiastically. Race didn’t care. She was becoming a fair marksman, and he was convinced that, sooner or later, the ability would not only bolster her confidence, but might even save her life.

On the evening of the fifth day of weaponry instruction, Race sat her on the rocker, handed her a screwdriver, a rifle, and a Colt .45, and said, “Take ’em apart, clean ’em, and put ’em back together.”

She gaped at him. “Surely you jest!”

He crouched next to her to supervise. “Get after it. You ain’t goin’ to bed until they’re clean as a whistle, completely reassembled, and reloaded.”

“I can’t!”

“There ain’t no such word. Do it.”

It took her three hours, but she did it, and he saw to it that she did it well. Race rewarded himself for a lesson well taught and her for a lesson well learned by steering her over to stand by the bed and removing every stitch of her clothing.

When he started unlacing her chemise, her cheeks turned a pretty pink. “Race, the lanterns. You forgot to turn them out. It’s like broad daylight in here.”

He smiled and grasped her wrist to turn her arm inner side up. Tracing the network of blue veins beneath her skin with a fingertip, he said, “The first time I ever noticed those little squiggly lines, they reminded me of the lines on a trail map, and I wondered if they was all over you.” Reaching the bend of her arm, he bent to kiss the tender skin there. “I’ve noticed since that they ain’t everywhere, but what ones you got, they lead to some real interestin’ places. And guess what?”

“What?” she asked faintly, shivering at the way he kissed and tasted her sensitive skin.

“I love to follow new trails and see where they take me.” Straightening, he resumed his attack on her chemise
lacings. “I gotta leave the lamps lit to see where I’m goin’.”

“Oh, no…”

He touched a fingertip to her lips. “You just lay back and close your eyes, darlin’. You got a bad habit of interferin’ in my manly business. It ain’t wifely.”

“Race, it’s embarrassing. I’m not going to—” She sucked breath as he opened the chemise. “I’m not going to display myself with the lamps all burning.”

“Sure you are.”

“It’s unseemly.”

“Not to please your husband.”

“It’s unladylike.”

“You’re the finest of ladies the rest of the time. But I don’t want you to be one in my arms, darlin’. I just want you to be all mine.”

He leaned slightly to see as he touched the outside swell of one breast. “See there?” he whispered. “Followin’ this trail”—he traced the faint blue line of a vein—“just look where it’s gonna take me.”

She gasped and closed her eyes. “I can’t.”

“Darlin’, there ain’t no such word. I thought we just went through that.”

Grasping her by the shoulders, he pressed her down onto the bed and joined her there, then proceeded to follow every trail on her. At the end of each, they both found paradise.

Peace. Race lay with his disgustingly unladylike and very nude wife wrapped around him like a baby opossum. Occasionally Blue snorted in his sleep or the fire embers popped. Otherwise, the cabin was silent, the sense of contentment that surrounded him as warm as a down-filled quilt. It was so easy to forget at moments like this that a threat to Rebecca’s safety lay beyond these sturdy walls, or to believe that anything unpleasant could touch them. Yet lingering at the back of his mind, Race never completely forgot. He didn’t dare, for this precious girl he held in his arms counted on him to protect her.

A sudden pounding on the door made Race jerk. Usu
ally when he was summoned unexpectedly from bed, the only person Race had to worry about dressing was himself. But this time, he had only just grabbed his pants when he flung them back on the floor and started tearing through the bedding to find Rebecca’s chemise. Blinking like a little barn owl, she was sitting up in all her bare-breasted glory. For reasons beyond him, he didn’t want anyone to come in, see her hiding under the quilts, and guess she was lying there, stripped stark-naked. That was silly, of course. It wasn’t as if every man out there didn’t know he had made love to her. Rebecca’s three-day blushing spell had pretty much erased any doubts about that they might have had.

“Just a minute, Pete!” he yelled.

Out of necessity, Race had long since developed the ability to wake up clearheaded and alert. Grogginess could get a gunslinger killed faster than you could spit and yell howdy. But the same couldn’t be said for Rebecca. She just sat there, looking a little limp in the spine, with a confused expression on her face. Race grabbed one of her boneless arms and stuffed it through the armhole of her chemise. By the time he got the garment completely on her and drew the front together, she was beginning to come more awake.

“Can you lace yourself?”

“Who is it?” she asked dazedly as she bent her head and applied herself to the task. “Is that Pete hollering?”

Race threw on his trousers, kicked the rest of Rebecca’s clothing under the bed, and rushed to the door, raking his fingers through his hair en route. Pete and Trevor McNaught stood outside.

“The bastards is slaughterin’ the cattle,” Pete bit out. “You best hurry.”

Race nodded, pushed the door closed, and wheeled back the way he had come. As he hurriedly finished dressing, Rebecca pelted him with questions, the last of which put him on the spot.

“It’s them, isn’t it?”

Race met her gaze as he bent to tie down his holsters.
“They won’t get to you this time, darlin’. I give you my word.”

Her face drained of color. “Pete said for you to hurry. You’re leaving me?”

She looked so panicked that Race crouched and cupped her face in his hands. “Rebecca, darlin’, listen to me. All right?” She clutched his wrists and nodded, her eyes dark with fear. “I ain’t really gonna leave you. You understand? It’s you they’re after. They figure you’ve got that money stashed away somewheres. I had a choice of leavin’ you here to go after the bastards, or waitin’ ’em out and lurin’ ’em in. I picked this way because it’s the least risky for you. You understand? We’ll make it look like we’re leavin’ you alone—to get ’em to move in where we can take ’em. But I won’t ever be far off. No matter what happens, I don’t want you gettin’ real scared. God as my witness, I’ll die before I let one of ’em touch you.”

“You’re using m-me as b-bait?”

He truly hated the way that sounded. “Sweetheart, you gotta know I’d never do it if I wasn’t sure I could keep you safe.”

She nodded, but the terror in her eyes told him she feared he might fail.

“Trust me,” he whispered. He pushed up and went to take the newly cleaned Colt .45 from the gun rack above the mantle. When he returned to her, he laid the gun beside her on the bed. “For just in case. If one of ’em gets close to you, shoot him.”

She looked as if he’d just asked her to fornicate with him in the barnyard while everyone watched. “Oh, Race. I-I don’t think—”

“That’s the trick, not thinkin’. It ain’t like you’d ever harm anyone by choice. But you gotta right to defend you and yours. Them men are mean snakes, darlin’. Your God knows that, and He ain’t gonna hold it against you if you protect your sweet self.”

As far as Race was concerned, that ended the conversation. He kissed the tip of her nose. “Come bolt the door after me. All right? Then finish gettin’ dressed. I’ll be
back as soon as it’s over. And after that, you ain’t never gonna have to feel afraid like this again.”

If ever Race had doubted she had grit, she proved him wrong then. Never a word of protest. No pleading with him not to leave her. He knew damned well she’d been having a tough time during the day when he left her alone in the cabin. This had to be one of the most frightening moments of her life. But she followed him to the door as he had asked, and when he turned to kiss her, she stood with her shoulders back and her small chin lifted, clearly determined not to fall apart.

“I love you, darlin’,” he whispered as he kissed her.

She caught his sleeve just as he started to slip out the door. “Please, don’t get hurt,” she cried shakily. “Promise me.”

That was a promise he might not be able to keep. “I’ll do my best.”

Deathly quiet…Somewhere way off in the distance, rifle shots echoed in the darkness, but in the vicinity of the cabin, there was no sound. Rebecca found the silence more terrifying than if she’d been able to detect some sort of noise. No wind. No creaking of Race’s fir tree just outside the kitchen window. Nothing. It was an unnatural silence—eerie and spine-chilling. Knees drawn to her chest, she held the Colt .45 wedged in the crease of her lap, her thighs pressing it against her abdomen, the hammer spur poking her in the navel.

There was a certain irony in the hiding place she’d chosen. She was huddled behind the wood stove. The fire still smoldered in the grate, making her uncomfortably warm. It seemed better than sitting out in the open, though, or hiding under the bed. No one would think to look behind a hot stove. Would they?

She had no idea how long Race had been gone. An hour? The fire in the fireplace had been burning brightly when they’d been awakened by Pete’s pounding on the door. Now it was nearly out. That was the only means she had of gauging how much time had passed, and since she’d never paid much attention to how long the fire
lasted, it didn’t give her much to measure by.

Every once in a while, an ember in the wood stove’s firebox would pop, nearly scaring her out of her skin. When she jumped, Blue would lift his head from his paws and peer up at her. Even though the heat was nearly unbearable where he lay beside her, he stayed, panting occasionally to cool himself. He thought he was overly warm? He lay beside the stove, not behind it. She was the one who was about to cook.

Silly hound. He probably looked at her and thought,
Silly woman
. And she had to concede the point. Sitting behind a wood stove on the floor and partially baking her knees wasn’t exactly intelligent.

More rifle shots. Rebecca leaned her head back against the log wall behind her and counted the reports.
Seven
. Pete had told Race the ruffians were slaughtering cattle. Was a steer going down with every one of those shots? The thought made her feel sick. She had done nothing but bring Race Spencer bad luck since he’d first clapped eyes on her.

She made tight fists, thinking of the money stashed under his bed. Whether he liked it or not, she was going to insist on paying him back for all of this. It was only right. What was left of the church money she’d send on to Santa Fe. There would still be plenty for the brethren to buy their livestock, equipment, and the necessary seed to put in their crops next spring. In the letter she sent with the money, she would explain all that Race had done in their behalf and all that he’d suffered in the process, and they would understand why she’d felt it necessary to make restitution.

A sudden crashing sound made Rebecca leap. Blue shot up onto his haunches and snarled. She grabbed him by the ruff.
Oh, God
. She wasn’t sure from what direction the noise had come, but it sounded as if someone was trying to break in. Terror constricted her chest. More beads of sweat popped out all over her body. She flattened herself against the wall, her staring eyes bugging from their sockets.

Crash
! This time she heard wood splintering. Someone
was trying to break in a window or the front door. The sound came from the front section of the cabin. The stove blocked her view. Were they inside?
Oh, God, please…not again
. Race had promised.
Promised
! Where was he? They were going to get to her! Where was he?

The
kaboom
of a gun exploded in the night. Immediately thereafter she heard gunfire all around the cabin. Running footsteps. Shouts.
Kaboom—kaboom
! Blue started to bark and tried to lunge away from her. She clung frantically to his ruff, afraid he’d attack someone and get shot again.

“Quiet, Blue! Shhh. They’ll hear. Shhh.”

The dog settled back, snarling low in his chest. Rebecca had started to shake so badly that she could barely hold on to him. More gunfire. She closed her eyes. Tried to pray. The words that had once come so naturally to her were now beyond her reach, as was the faith that had once sustained her. Race said there was a God. If so, where was He? Why wasn’t He protecting her? She’d been good. All her life, she’d been so good. Doing for others. Praying every day, on her knees more times than not. Avoiding evil. Reading the Bible. Where was God? Where was Race? Why, when she needed help, was there never anyone?

Her breath started to come in shrill little pants. The veins in her temples felt as if they might rupture from pressure.
Suffocating
. Race wasn’t going to come. Where was he? Where was he? Please, Race. Come back. I need you! They’re going to get me.

Images of the blond ruffian’s knife flashed in her mind. She imagined one of his cohorts creeping toward her, even now, a knife clutched in his hand, the blade glinting like dark death in the faint glow from the fireplace. Something creaked. A board? Shrill whistling sounds erupted from her as she fought frantically to breathe.