Child Bride (5 page)

Chase settled the Stetson on his head, letting it ride low in front so that the brim dipped even with his eyebrows. Equally dark hair swept over his ears and converged in a flurry of curls at the back of his neck. “I do some work for the Cattleman’s Association,” he said.

“You raise cattle?”

“No, nothing like that. I provide protection for the local ranchers.” Chase couldn’t see any reason not to tell her what he’d been doing since he settled in Wyoming. He was virtually certain by now that she wasn’t a reporter, and if she was who she claimed to be, there was all the more reason to let her know how dirty and dangerous his work could be. No woman he’d ever known wanted her man tracking down cattle rustlers.

“I guess you could call me a range detective. When a ranch needs extra security, they hire me to patrol the area, or stake it out if necessary. But mostly I track down rustlers with prices on their heads. That’s called bounty hunting.”

She looked genuinely surprised. “They still have rustlers in Wyoming? Have you caught many?”

“A few,” he said, glancing at the shotgun lying on the kitchen floor. He picked up the gun, emptied the shell from the chamber, and reinserted it in the magazine. “Got one today, but Bad Luck Jack doesn’t count. He’s meaner than a nest of rattlers, but he’s also dumb, which makes him predictable. He spends more time in the slammer than out.”

“Bad Luck Jack?” Annie said, laughing. “Doesn’t sound like much of a challenge for a tough hombre like yourself.”

“Hombre?” Chase winced. “What’d you do for entertainment in that convent? Watch B-westerns?”

“No, but I read a lot of western novels. My dad took a trunkload of them with him when he went to Costa Brava—and thank heaven he did. They were the only books we had other than his medical journals and my textbooks.” She indicated Chase’s hat and shotgun with a nod of her head. “Are you going somewhere?”

Chase shrugged. “I’ve been on a four-day stakeout, I’m fresh out of supplies, and you look like you could use some food. I was thinking about going into town to stock up, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out what to do with you.”

“Take me with you?”

She looked so hopeful. Chase almost wished he could. “Nope, that won’t work.” He’d purposely kept a low profile on his visits to town because he didn’t want to give the locals reason to get curious about him. A female stranger riding shotgun in his Jeep was sure to draw attention.

“Why don’t you get some rest,” he suggested. “There’s a shower if you want to take one.”

“Oh, yes!” she said, an imploring quiver in her voice. “A shower? That would be heaven.”

Chase had an involuntary flash of Annie Wells stripping and stepping into his makeshift shower. After their close encounter moments before, he knew better than to let his imagination take off in the direction of her shedding clothes. She was incredibly responsive, and he was no saint, especially where willing women were concerned. And yet, despite his concerted effort to banish it, the forbidden mental glimpse of her lithe, naked body created a hot spot in the pit of his stomach and raised goose bumps on his arms. It also gave him an idea.

“Take off your clothes, Annie.”

“What?”

He tipped the shotgun barrel toward the ripped-out knee of her jeans. “Those dungarees, your sweater and shoes—take them off.”

“Why?”

“You won’t be needing them in the shower.”

She brought a hand to her chest protectively. “Yes, I will,” she insisted. “In the convent we always bathed in our clothing—at the very least, our shifts. Nudity wasn’t considered proper.”

Chase didn’t know whether to chuckle or groan. She really was one for the record books. Not ten minutes ago she’d been ready to make babies with him. Now she wouldn’t even take off her tennis shoes.

“Okay, then,” he said, demonstrating what he thought was remarkable patience. “Take off everything but your shift, whatever that is.”

“What are you going to do?” she demanded, backing away from him as though he were some kind of psycho or rapist.

“Nothing like what you’re thinking,” he assured her. “I only want to make sure you stick around until I get back.”

“I won’t go anywhere, I promise.”

In Chase’s line of work promises were about as useful as rats in a bunkhouse. And unlike Bad Luck Jack, Annie Wells had proved to be totally unpredictable. No, until he’d had an opportunity to check out her story and find out exactly who she was, he didn’t want her going anywhere or talking to anyone. He could just see the tabloid headlines if those sharks got hold of her.
FORMER PENTAGON HERO STASHES AWAY CHILD BRIDE
. Even the local papers would have a field day with that.

Back in their glory days, when Chase and his former partners were rescuing POWs and terrorists’ hostages, they’d been made celebrities by the press. The media dubbed them “the Stealth Commandos” for their unorthodox methods of liberating American citizens, and the public’s response promptly made heroes out of them.

Since the three men were single and eligible, the paparazzi stalked them, hungry for news of their personal lives. Chase himself had been relatively free of the limelight since he’d retired to the wilds of Wyoming, but his former partners were still big news. Johnny Starhawk was a brilliant and controversial civil-rights lawyer, and Geoff Dias continued to run recovery missions.

No, Chase couldn’t take the risk of letting Annie out of his sight until he knew what she was up to. He had the feeling she was an undetonated minefield, just waiting for someone to tread on her.

“Chase—” Her voice was hushed again, as though she’d been caught whispering during a church sermon. “I thought of something. What about the other two men, your partners? Why don’t you contact them? They could tell you who I am.”

His partners? She had to mean Johnny and Geoff. “How do you know them?” he asked.

Her blue eyes were sparkling with anticipation, as though she’d found the solution to all their problems. “We met with them on the way to the border, don’t you remember? It was part of the plan, to discuss strategy. They’d found the scientists, and you’d found me. I even remember Johnny joking that you had the best deal.”

Chase wondered why he hadn’t thought of it. He didn’t recall the meeting, but his partners had mentioned it briefly when they’d visited him in the hospital. They’d said very little about the girl, but Chase had assumed it was because of the tragic way she’d died. Later on, since no official agency had been able to find any record of her, the incident was pretty much swept under the rug.

The whole episode had left a bad taste in Chase’s mouth. It had prompted his decision to retire, and then, in a dominolike reaction, that decision created a misunderstanding between him, Johnny, and Geoff. He hadn’t seen either of his partners in over four years.

“I’m sure they’d remember me, if they saw me.”

Annie’s voice broke into his thoughts, soft and eager. “They had an Indian guide with them,” she went on. “Only no one could understand him, so I interpreted. ... ”

Chase studied her as she recounted the story, searching her guileless features for any sign of deceit. The eagerness in her expression tugged at him, and he had to remind himself forcibly that the situation had been reversed only moments before. But she did have a way about her that made him want to abandon all his concerns, brave any danger, and gallop full tilt to her rescue. She
was
a land mine, he realized. And he was the idiot about to tread on her.

“At the very least they could verify who I am,” she pressed. “Then would you believe me?”

“Maybe ... ” He drew up the barrel of the gun as he spoke, letting it point lazily in the vicinity of her thighs. A smile, faintly bemused, drifted over his face as he considered her flushed cheeks and the quick rise and fall of her breasts. She was an eyeful when she was excited. Obedience, modesty, trust, and submission, he thought, remembering the list of virtues she’d mentioned. He would soon know which, if any, Annie Wells had learned.

“But that isn’t our immediate problem, is it?” he said, lowering his voice intentionally as he nodded toward her ragged sweater. “Come on now, Miss Annie. Don’t make me have to do it for you. Take off those clothes.”

“G
O AHEAD THEN
,” Annie said softly, dropping her clenched hand to her side. “Shoot me where I stand. Because I’m not going to undress at gunpoint. Not for you. Not for any man.”

The words felt good as Annie said them, as sure and steady as she could ever have wanted them to be. But she’d barely had a chance to savor her potent declaration when she realized her misstep. She’d forgotten to take into account his reaction.

The look that crossed Chase’s face at that moment would have given a corpse cause for concern. A corner of his mouth curled back in disbelief, and his black eyes narrowed to shimmering slits.
Anthracite,
she thought, aware that she’d finally come up with an apt description of his eyes. At the moment they looked hotter than the coals of hell.

“You’ve got it wrong, Red,” he said. “I wasn’t giving you a choice. Either you do the honors or I’ll do them for you.”

Annie’s heart was beating hard enough to knock her to the floor, but she held his gaze without flinching. “Pull the trigger then,” she said, raising her hands. “Shoot me and have it over with.”

He shifted the gun, and Annie gasped. But instead of raising it to his shoulder, he dropped the weapon to his side, resting the butt end on the floor like a soldier on guard duty. “You’re sure about that, Missy? You’re willing to die?”

She gave him the nod every cowboy understands, just the slightest inclination of her head. She could tell by his expression that he’d cocked an eyebrow, although she couldn’t actually see because everything above his hellfire eyes was covered by his low-riding Stetson.

“Would you like last rites?” His voice had gone dry as the dust coating his cowboy boots. “I’m not a priest, but I could hose you down or something.”

Annie breathed a little easier at his sardonic tone. At least he hadn’t put a bullet through her. Yet. “Last rites won’t be necessary,” she informed him quietly, lowering her hands. “I’m not actually Catholic. My parents were Episcopalians, I think. They never exactly declared themselves one way or the other, but they were quite progressive in their beliefs. My dad even brought in a local witch doctor as a consultant on occasion, to make our patients feel at home—”

“Annie!” He slammed the gun butt against the floor, and Annie started as though he’d shot the thing. All traces of amusement had vanished from his features. “Quit stalling and ditch those clothes, dammit.”

Dizziness swamped her as she shook her head. “No! Not at gunpoint.”

“Is this gun pointing at you, Missy?”

He did have her there, she realized. It was a technicality, but he had met her demand. He’d bent a little, and gut instinct told her that bending didn’t come easily to Chase Beaudine. Still it galled her that he felt it necessary to take such extreme measures.

“Oh, all right,” she said finally, impatience overriding her principles. “But this is so unnecessary. Where would I be going after traveling thousands of miles to find you?”

She yanked up her sweater and shift, and began to unsnap her jeans. “Go outside, will you?” she said, waving him toward the door. “Since you’re leaving anyway I’ll hand the clothes out when I’m done.”

Chase caught himself about to turn toward the door and stopped short.
Damn, if she didn’t have a bossy mouth on her.
Of all the virtues she’d been taught, apparently obedience hadn’t had the slightest effect. “Watch the sass,” he said, shooting her a black stare. “Or I’ll have you peel down to the skin.”

“I was planning to.” Her eyes held a flash of defiance, but her voice revealed a soft, husky quaver he would have called seductive in another woman.

He watched in taut silence as she worked open the metal snap of her jeans and began to inch down the zipper, releasing the tiny teeth one notch at a time. She was either stalling again or deliberately taking her time to torture him. Whichever it was, she had a natural talent for annoying him.

“You want me to finish that for you,” he warned, his hand tightening on the gun barrel, “just keep it up.”

She drew the zipper down angrily, exposing a triangle of pink skin. As she dug her thumbs inside the waistband of her jeans and began to pull them down, Chase felt an odd clutch of sensation in his stomach. She wasn’t wearing underwear! He was going to be seeing a lot more pink skin any minute now.

But instead of taking off the jeans, she left them hanging open, riding the rise of her slender hipbones, provocatively unzipped. And then, seemingly unmindful of Chase, she began to concentrate on unbuttoning her sweater.

Chase was anything but unmindful. It was one of the most riveting sights he’d ever been audience to. As her fingers worked open the tiny buttons, revealing creamy flesh and the promise of shivering female curves, he felt muscles deep inside him grab and yank tight, as if he’d been lassoed and jerked off his feet.

Sweet God in heaven. What was she doing? A striptease? The woman was fresh out of a convent, by her own account. “Annie, what are you—”

“I’m almost done,” she assured him, working diligently on the last of the buttons.

It looked as though she had on some kind of flimsy cotton camisole underneath the sweater, but that was it as far as Chase could see. Nothing else under there but the lush softness of a woman’s body. Her full breasts were being crowded by her efforts to undress, and the result was an abundance of peekaboo cleavage.

Chase winced at the explosive surge of energy in his groin. Did she have any idea what she was doing to him? In another damn minute he was going to have to excuse himself.

She looked up, her expression suffused with something that he might have called innocence if he hadn’t been getting suspicious about her motives.

“Am I going fast enough for you?” she asked.

She was going just fast enough to make him wonder if a man had ever been put out of his misery because of unrequited lust. If you’ve got a problem now, cowboy, he thought sardonically, what are you going to do when she’s naked? It was a moot question. He would never last that long.