Daisies In The Wind (25 page)

Hell, he wondered suddenly, had she really
thought about him—what did she say—a thousand times since that
first day?

She’d been just a bratty kid then. No, he
realized with a jolt, she’d been a young, impressionable girl. He’d
never thought about it that way. But, looking back, he could see
how it had been. He’d been barely twenty at the time and must have
cut a romantic enough figure to her eyes, romantic enough to
inspire a budding young woman’s silly fancy.

And she’d nourished it all these years. Only
to come face-to-face with him here in Powder Creek—and then what?
She’d found sharp disillusionment, that’s what. The object of her
dreams and memories was ten years older and considerably toughened
by life. He had nearly thrown her out of his town. She’d discovered
that he’d married someone else and had a kid.

So her girlish dreams had died a quick death,
right?

But then he remembered all those things she
had said in the cool, misty darkness behind the schoolhouse, when
she was too tipsy from huckleberry wine to think about what was
pouring out of her. Rebeccah Rawlings still had feelings for him,
however she behaved outwardly. Were they just cold leftovers of
those feelings of long ago, those girlish imaginings, or was it
something more? Something deeper, truer?

It didn’t matter. He had to stay away from
her, as of right now. Or at least as of the morning. He wouldn’t
leave her here alone tonight—he had given his word. But come
morning he’d have to put a stop to seeing her, and kissing her. Why
the hell had he been doing all that kissing anyway, he wondered
angrily. He’d known from the moment she’d landed in town that she
was nothing but trouble—and he was right. Now she was luring every
two-bit outlaw this side of the Mississippi to Montana because of
some deed to a silver mine she may or may not have.

Rebeccah Rawlings was pure, unadulterated
trouble. Wolf frowned at her sleeping form as she curled a hand
beneath her cheek. Clarissa had caused him enough trouble to last a
lifetime. Now he needed someone steady and uncomplicated and kind,
someone who would help him give his son a calm, happy home.
Rebeccah Rawlings, with her wild past and starchy airs and
mysterious enemies, was the last woman he needed in his life—or in
Billy’s.

But now the hell of it was he’d have to find
a way to protect her—and stay away from her at the same time. He
couldn’t afford to encourage any schoolgirlish fancies she might
still be clinging to. But he couldn’t leave her to stand alone
against those low-down buzzards who were swarming down on her
either.

Give her no encouragement, he told himself,
slipping his hand free of hers. She murmured in her sleep and
rolled onto her back, throwing an arm carelessly above her head, an
innocent, defenseless posture.

Wolf reached out and smoothed a lock of hair
from across her eyes. How could anyone who looked so sweet, so
utterly, angelically beautiful when she was asleep, be so
disagreeably tart-tongued and difficult when she was awake?

It doesn’t matter
, he told himself.
You’re steering clear of her, remember? There’s Nel you’ve got
to patch things up with, and don’t forget about Lorelie
. Yet,
though he enjoyed the company of both women, and found them each in
their own way attractive, intelligent, and warm, neither excited
him the way Rebeccah Rawlings did. Neither had her wit, her
stinging tongue, her stubbornness, her furious independence. Or her
courage, Wolf realized slowly. She’s been terrorized by outlaws
over this silver mine for a while now, but she’s never asked for
help. Never even spoken of it to a soul.

“Brave girl,” he said softly, touching her
cheek with a tentative finger. She was soft and smooth as silk, and
his loins suddenly ached as he gazed at her.

Not since Clarissa had any woman stirred such
powerful feelings in him.
Damn it, I don’t want this
,
something in him shouted. But part of him couldn’t stop looking at
her there in that candlelit room, in a cabin in the middle of
nowhere as the night crawled by and a bullfrog croaked outside the
window, and Rebeccah Rawlings reached out in her sleep to needily
clasp his hand.

Morning sun sparkled through the window and
splashed honeyed light across the floor, the rug, and the bed. The
air was fragrant with pine. Fresh and invigorating, it pranced in,
blowing through the window on a boisterous autumn breeze, while a
magpie chattered noisily in the spruce tree, and from the yard came
the sounds of someone chopping wood.

Rebeccah pushed herself from the murk of
sleep and groaned. Her head hurt. Her temples throbbed. And her
mouth felt as if she’d been chewing wet sand.
What’s happened?
What’s wrong with me? And who’s outside, chopping wood?

She tried to sit up, grunted, and fell back.
Gritting her teeth, Rebeccah tried again and this time managed to
swing her legs to the floor. She stayed there a moment, getting her
bearings, and trying to sort through the layers of gauze clogging
her brain.

The dance. The schoolhouse. The wine. A man
named Chance. And Wolf Bodine.

The last thing she remembered was dancing the
waltz with Wolf Bodine.

Oh, God, what did I do?
Did I get
drunk?

Somehow she tottered across the room to the
window, stumbling over the rag rug along the way and stubbing her
toe on the floor.

Moaning as the sunlight assaulted her eyes,
she squinted out at the large figure chopping wood behind the
cabin.

It was
him
.

He was bare-chested, wearing only boots, the
tight-fitting trousers he’d worn to the dance last night, and his
gunbelt. A faint sheen of sweat glistened across his wide,
dark-bronzed chest and midriff as he hefted the ax over the logs
again and again. Muscles rippled in that magnificently honed body.
Oh, Lord. Rebeccah gripped the window ledge and swallowed hard. He
was as beautiful as pure sculpted rock.

He had already accumulated a hefty stack of
wood, enough to last a fair portion of the winter, Rebeccah guessed
dazedly, but her racing thoughts immediately shifted from the wood
to a more pressing question: Why was he here? And why couldn’t she
remember anything past the moment when he was twirling her around
the schoolhouse floor?

Rebeccah had an uneasy feeling about all
this. She stiffened when Wolf glanced over, saw her at the window,
and set down the ax. To her consternation he began strolling toward
her.

“You look like hell,” he remarked, pausing
outside the window to regard her through narrowed eyes.

She fought not to stare at that sturdy chest
lightly matted with crisp, coppery hair. “What are you doing on my
property, Sheriff Bodine?”

She thought she detected a glint of rich
amusement in his eyes, but all he said was, “You invited me. Matter
of fact you insisted I stay on your property last night—all
night.”

“I ... did?”

“Yep.”

Dismay filled her lovely face. Wolf couldn’t
help the grin that twitched at the stern lines of his mouth.

“I figure that after playing nursemaid,
guard, and wood chopper, you at least owe me breakfast,” he
informed her casually.

Now, why the hell did I say that? Get the
hell out of here. Ride away while you still can
. But he
couldn’t. Looking at her, talking with her, was destroying all his
good intentions.

Even with a hangover she looked like an
angel. Her hair tumbled softly around her face and drifted anyhow
across her shoulders, giving her a sexily mussed-up look that made
him itch to run his hands over her. Her eyes looked larger than
ever in the paleness of her face, and her lips trembled ever so
slightly with the aftereffects of the wine. But she was now drawing
herself up straight and tall, fastening her dignity around her like
an iron corset, and her words bit out at him like springing
vipers.

“You have a number of things to answer for,
Sheriff Bodine, and I expect you to explain yourself fully at
breakfast. But you’ll have to clean yourself up and dress decently
if you’re going to sit down to a meal at my table.” And she yanked
the window shut and then the curtains with a vicious tug, leaving
him to stare at nothing but crisp blue lace.

“Fair enough, Miss Rawlings,” Wolf muttered
to himself as he headed toward the stream. “But don’t expect me to
answer any more of your questions than you did of mine.”

By the time Rebeccah had performed a hasty
toilette, tugged on a denim skirt and scoop-necked Mexican blouse,
and brushed the tangles from her hair, the sun was riding well up
in the sky and Wolf Bodine had disappeared. As she threw bacon and
eggs in a pan and cut thick slices of bread, she wondered if he had
gone home.

“I hope so,” she said out loud, but knew that
she was lying to herself. She wanted to confront Wolf Bodine
face-to-face and to question him about what had happened last
night. But that’s all she wanted. Just the answers to some
questions. Then he could leave and, as far as she was concerned,
never come back.

Rebeccah had a queasy feeling she had
disgraced herself at the dance. Now the townsfolk would really talk
about Bear Rawlings’s daughter—they’d probably call her a no-good
drunk.

And Wolf? Heaven only knew what cause she had
given him, as well as the others, to scorn her.

Why had she ever gone to that stupid dance?
Why had she ever come to this lonesome, run-down cabin in Powder
Creek?

Just in case Wolf was still there lurking
around the premises somewhere, she set two places at the table. She
brewed coffee, set out a bowl of wild strawberries, and snatched
the pan of sizzling eggs and bacon from the stove just as the
kitchen door opened and Wolf looked in at her.

“Am I presentable enough, ma’am?” he drawled,
with a quick grin that made his dimples deepen.

“You’ll do, I suppose.”

In truth he would more than do, but she could
barely risk a peek at him. His skin glowed from the cold waters of
the stream, his burnished hair was slicked back off his face, and
he was wearing the snug-fitting shirt he’d worn to the dance last
night. If she’d thought he was handsome in her memories, based on
that one fleeting incident in the hideout in Arizona, the reality
of Wolf Bodine’s appeal was far more devastating. An electric
magnetism seemed to draw her gaze to him anytime they were within a
hundred yards of each other, and now to have him here in her
kitchen, sitting down to breakfast with his hard, gray gaze
studying her, his long legs stretched out beneath her table, took
its toll on her composure.

She bustled around the kitchen, serving the
food, pouring the coffee, delaying the moment when she sat down
next to him. Her knee bumped his as she slipped into her chair. She
jerked away as if scalded by hot coffee.

“Take it easy.” Wolf nonchalantly picked up
his fork. “There’s no need to be jumpy.”

“Who says I’m jumpy? I’m just curious. How
... did you happen to spend the night ... here?”

“I told you. You invited me, Rebeccah.”

“Why would I do a thing like that? It doesn’t
make sense. Where did you sleep?”

He shook his head mockingly. “Don’t you
remember?”

“If I remembered, I wouldn’t be asking!”

To her fury, he calmly forked some eggs and
bacon into his mouth, swallowed, and reached for his coffee.

“Well?” she demanded at last, and nervously
gulped down half a cup of black coffee, forgetting to add
sugar.

“Well, what?”

“Aren’t you going to tell me what happened
last night? I want to know everything, from the moment we were
waltzing until I woke up this morning.
Everything
.”

“Too bad, sweet Rebeccah.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I have questions too. Questions you’ve
refused all along to answer. Maybe it’s about time we worked out a
deal.”

She gaped at him. A deal. “Why, you low-down,
conniving, snake-in-the-grass—”

His hand shot out across the table to grip
her wrist, silencing her. Outside the window birds twittered
loudly, but inside there was only the sound of their breathing.

“Rebeccah, tell me about the silver
mine.”

She drew in her breath. “It sounds like you
already know about it.”

“Not enough. Look, the time for you and me
playing games about this is past. Fess Jones showing up here trying
to cut you up like a butchered steer was no game. And this hombre
Neely Stoner”—he paused as pain flitted across her face—“It sounds
like he’s planning to come after you too. I want to help you,
Rebeccah. But I can’t, not unless you give me the lowdown on these
hombres and that mine they’re after.”

“Why do you want to help me?” she countered,
aware that his fingers were scorching her wrist. She couldn’t tear
her gaze from those long-lashed eyes that were fixed on her with
such determination.

“Because I care about you.” Damn, why had he
said that? Her face lit with something—hope, happiness, warmth—and
a ruby blush of color stained her cheeks. Wolf could have kicked
himself. “You’re a part of this community,” he went on quickly,
keeping his tone cool. “You’re my mother’s friend, my son’s
teacher, and it’s my duty to protect every citizen in Powder
Creek.”

Duty? His mother’s friend? His son’s
teacher?

Something died in her, something she hadn’t
even realized had been alive. But it had—for one brief, glorious
moment a wildly joyous hope had quivered to life. But it was dead
now. As it should be. She felt deflated, empty, flat and colorless
as the plains of Kansas.

“I see,” she said.

“Then tell me about the silver mine,” he
urged relentlessly, and she could no more read the expression in
his eyes than she could touch the moon.

But she told him. She pulled free of his
grip, leaned back in her chair, and as the eggs and bacon grew cold
on her plate, she related the tale of how Neely Stoner’s hired
ruffian had accosted her in Boston, demanding the deed and the map
to the silver mine. It was the first she had ever heard of such a
thing, but the man had made it clear that Bear Rawlings was reputed
to have acquired, through fair means or foul, a vast silver mine
with deposits as rich as the Comstock Lode in Virginia City. No one
knew where it was located or where the deed was, but Bear Rawlings
had possession of both, had been keeping them secret for years, and
was rumored to be saving the mine as a gift for his daughter.