Devils on Horseback: Nate (4 page)

Time to close the ranks and protect themselves. Even if that meant against Nate, the first man to make her heart flutter. Too bad she had to nearly shoot his head off. He’d not likely be forgiving of that particular sin, and she wasn’t about to go running into his arms.

She sighed as the five men disappeared on the horizon, then she realized they were headed for the herd—and her fourteen-year-old brother. Eliza leapt to her feet and onto Midnight.

“Hiya! Go, go, go!” She hunkered down low, racing through the trees. She had to beat them to the herd to protect them and Daniel. Branches slapped at her face as she flew past, the cuts stinging and some oozing blood down her cheeks. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered except for family.

Elisa burst into the clearing where Daniel sat watching the placid herd. A few lowed at her as she galloped past. He saw her coming and met her halfway across the field. Daniel had the look of their father, with dark brown hair and green eyes, and a build that sat long and lanky on an adolescent body. The promise of a man to come made him appear like a puppy whose paws were too big for its thin body.

“Riders coming. Push the herd back toward the north end of the house. We’ll stop them with the cattle they came here to steal.”

“Are you sure?” He eyed the fat bovines uncertainly.

“Of course I’m sure. Haven’t I taken care of you for the last three years? Listen to me, Daniel Taggert. If you want to save our ranch, our family and our lives, we need to move.
Now
.”

She pulled Midnight around and headed for the right side of the herd and started urging them forward. Luckily, Daniel listened to her and pushed the herd from the left side.

Within five minutes, they were moving at a good pace, not panicked or uncontrollable. A herd of longhorns two hundred head strong was enough to stop anyone. As they rounded the bend near the forest, Elisa caught a glimpse of the five riders in the distance. They reined in their horses and watched as the cattle headed toward them.

Obviously they hadn’t dealt much with longhorns or they would’ve moved immediately. A brief hiccup of guilt surfaced, but Elisa blew it away on the wind. They were playing a deadly game with her family’s lives and future, she’d play by the same rules.

* * * * *

“Shit.”

“Is that your girlfriend I see pushing a herd of longhorns at us?” Lee scowled at him. “What is she, a demon from the bowels of Hades?”

Nate squirmed in his saddle, wishing he could start the day over again. “Could be. Right now I’d say we need to get out of the way so we don’t get trampled by them.”

He could see Elisa on one side of the herd, on the other he assumed was her brother. They deliberately moved the cattle to stop the Devils from reaching them or her brother. He’d underestimated Elisa Taggert. She was a sharp opponent. Razor sharp.

The sound of eight hundred hooves moving toward them vibrated in Nate’s chest. The sheer power of even such a small herd was not lost on him. He hadn’t any experience with large animals except horses and milk cows, nothing like the horned beasts coming straight for them. The rest of his friends appeared as shocked as he was. They turned and galloped away from the cattle.

Nate could almost hear Elisa smiling and his frustration knew no bounds. No doubt the rest of the Devils would let him know how displeased they were with the results of their first day’s outing. Nate’s stomach roiled and bile crept up his throat. He hated not being in control and if there was anything Elisa did to him, it was threaten his control. Of everything.

“Smart girl,” Gideon shouted.

“That’s an understatement,” Jake piped in. “If you’re done with her, Nate, let me know. She’s my kind of girl.”

“Shut up, fool.” Lee shot Jake a dirty look. “Nobody needs to be in that girl’s drawers.”

“So says you.” Jake winked.

“Gid, can I kick his ass?”

“Lee, give it a rest. Geez, can you not be angry for two minutes? Let’s swing around back to the house and talk to her father again. At least we know she won’t shoot at us while she’s busy with the herd.” Gideon looked at Nate. “Not an auspicious beginning.”

“I realize that. I don’t know how things got so… I didn’t intend…” He groped for the right words, but couldn’t find them. It felt like an army of ants had landed on his skin and were busy biting the hell out of him.

“I know.” Gideon glanced back at the herd. “I expect we’re not the first men to be confounded by that woman, otherwise O’Shea wouldn’t have hired us.”

Sounded like the gospel truth to Nate, but it didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

They rode back in silence to the house, but when they arrived, the old man was gone. A quick check of the house did not reveal his whereabouts. It seemed that the Taggerts had won the first battle, but the war had just begun.

Chapter Four

When the Devils arrived back at their camp, dirty and beyond frustrated, they had company waiting for them. Unwelcome company.

Captain Elliot Nessman stood next to his thoroughbred horse, his blue Army uniform blinding in the bright sunlight. His narrow face and pointy nose had always reminded Nate of a weasel. Nessman’s tactics during their brief imprisonment under his command had solidified that opinion. Although he’d released them after the treaties had been signed, Captain Nessman had made it his God-given duty to put them back behind bars again. Legally or illegally.

Lee cursed under his breath. Gideon shushed him and shot a telling glance to Zeke. Without a word being exchanged, Zeke led Lee toward the stream, away from the volatile situation.

Gideon was the first to break the silence. “Captain Nessman, I didn’t know they let your kind into Texas.”

“I asked for the duty. You see, it’s people like me who will make this country safe from marauders such as yourselves.” The crisp Boston accent sounded just plain wrong in the south.

“What business do you have with us, Captain?” Nate didn’t think the day could get any worse. Boy how he’d been proved wrong.

“Always the gentleman with manners, eh, Marchand? It just so happens that we had a complaint of squatters ‘round here. Look who I found squatting. My favorite group of confederate raiders.” He spread his arms. “I’m sure you have permission to be on this land.”

“As a matter of fact, we do, Captain. We are under the employ of Mr. Samuel O’Shea. You are more than welcome to confirm that with him at his ranch.” Nate pointed to the north. “It’s approximately one half hour due north. I’m sure you’ve heard of Mr. O’Shea.”

Nessman’s demeanor changed from cocky to angry in the blink of an eye. “I don’t believe you.”

“That’s unfortunate, because it’s the truth.” Nate felt a certain measure of satisfaction that they’d trumped Nessman’s ace.

Nessman threw himself up onto his horse a bit clumsily; the beautiful horse shied and pranced at the movement. “I’m going to confirm your story today. I will be watching you and every movement you make. You step one toe out of line with the law and I’ll have you in a federal prison before you know what happened.”

“Of that I have no doubt.” Gideon watched the captain with a schooled expression.

“You and your Devils on Horseback are bound to break the law sooner or later. It’s in your blood,” Nessman sneered.

“Just as being an ass is in yours,” Jake mused.

“Shut your mouth, you petty thief.” Nessman turned his steed toward the north. “You will be seeing me again soon.”

Gideon raised one eyebrow. “Thanks for the warning.”

With a final nasty look, Nessman rode off into the Texas morning, leaving behind more destruction than he knew.

“What a fantastic morning we’ve had.” Nate dismounted with a leap. “Now all we need is a skunk in camp and the day will be complete.”

“I think the skunk just left,” Jake quipped.

Gideon and Nate both chuckled, the tension diffused somewhat.

“At least Lee wasn’t here to get into a fistfight with him.” Nate knew Nessman would throw Lee in jail the moment he swung the first punch.

“Nessman’s going to make this job harder than we thought. Especially knowing how hard Elisa Taggert is going to make it.” Gideon met Nate’s gaze. “We’re going to need to discuss strategy.”

“I agree. Let’s get Zeke and have some dinner.”

Like a well-trained troop, they all performed their assigned duties without being asked. Jake got water and made coffee, Lee built up the fire, Zeke prepared the food, Gideon cooked it and Nate distributed it. They’d done it a thousand times before. Now it was done without the urgency, but still with the deliberate actions of soldiers.

The only advantage of how they’d lived the past four years was the way they savored each bite, each experience, each taste of life. When at war, every moment might be the last, so they’d learned to snatch it and hold fast. Nate wondered if there was ever a time when he didn’t think the world was mad and he the only sane one in it.

Shaking off his melancholy thoughts, he gave each man their portion of food and coffee. Then it was time to put their heads together, so they talked as they ate, discussing how best to get the Taggerts off their land. Zeke, of course, came up with the best plan of action.

“I have a feeling Miss Taggert has a very big soft spot. We just need to take advantage of it.” Zeke nibbled on the ham biscuit. “We need to separate them. The girl’s weakness is her family. Once we remove the brother or the father, then she’ll be more willing to surrender.”

“Surrender? It sounds like a war.”

“It is war, Nate. It’s us or them. I choose us.” Lee stared at him with a dare in his gaze.

“I choose us too which is how we got this job in the first place, Lee. All I’m saying is, before we resort to battle tactics, let’s try to talk to them first.” Nate didn’t want to cause the Taggerts irreparable harm, not even to feed his empty belly.

“We already tried that,” Zeke offered. “That girl of yours didn’t seem too willing to talk, neither did her bullets.”

“She’s not my girl.”

“So you didn’t kiss her?” Jake raised his brows. “You’re slipping.”

“She kissed me.” Nate was getting exasperated. He pulled his collar aside to show them the scab from her little knife trick the night before. “This isn’t a love bite. Her knife is as sharp as her mind.”

“She cut you?” Gideon examined the wound more closely.

“No, more like tried to get me to talk.”

“Hmm, some tactic. Kissing and pricking with a knife. Should’ve known kissing the prick would’ve worked.” Jake grinned like an idiot.

“Okay, let’s focus on the Taggerts, not on my prick.”

They all laughed, and Jake nearly knocked over the coffeepot from the hot rock beside the fire.

“Do you think she’ll talk to you alone?” Gideon wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

Zeke nodded. “That sounds like a good idea.”

Although Nate wanted to argue the point, it
was
a good idea. He and Elisa had a kind of…relationship, for want of a better word. Perhaps she would listen to reason.

Nate dismounted half a mile from the house and walked the rest of the way, leading Bonne Chance. He hoped Elisa would see that he meant no harm, particularly since he tied a white cloth to his saddle horn. He’d been running over and over what he was going to say to her, yet it was a jumbled mess of words in his mind.

“You can stop right there, Nate.” Her voice, as expected, came from the direction of the trees.

“I just want to talk.”

She snorted. “Are you kidding? After the way you showed up at my house this morning and threatened my father?”

That did it.

“For your information, I didn’t threaten anyone. You shot at me, ruined my hat, then tried to kill me with your herd of longhorns.” Nate didn’t get angry often, but when he did, he had a hard time reining it back in. “In fact, you didn’t even give me a chance to tell you
why
I was at your house. You simply took it for granted that I was there for nefarious reasons. You’ve been the aggressor here, Miss Taggert, not me.”

Twenty feet ahead, Elisa appeared atop her big black gelding, her rifle pointed at the ground. She licked her lips and cleared her throat.

“So what do you want?”

“Exactly what I wanted earlier. To talk to you.” It wasn’t a lie at all. He did want to talk—about the Taggerts vacating the land they sat on.

“About what?”

“I’d rather talk, not shout. Do you think you could pick a neutral spot for us to sit down and speak like civilized human beings?”

“Why do you always talk so fancy?” she grumbled.

“My father was a schoolteacher. I chose to take after him and be educated.” He hadn’t meant to tell her that, but done was done.

“Meet me by the stream near your camp in an hour. We’ll talk.” She disappeared back into the trees before he could answer.

“Confounded woman.” Nate threw himself onto his saddle. “All she does is give orders and shoot at people.”

Nate was glad she’d agreed to talk to him. It would be a blessing if the Taggerts agreed to leave without bloodshed. Nate didn’t want to be the cause of any more deaths in his lifetime, particularly his own.

Elisa watched as Nate arrived at the stream. For some stupid reason, she considered it their spot since it was the second time they’d met there. It annoyed her that she even thought of it as “their spot” since there was nothing between them.

In broad daylight, there was no hiding how incredibly handsome the Frenchman was. He had thick dark hair that sat in waves on his head, and the blackest eyes she’d seen on a white man. However, what really fascinated her were his hands.

Nate had the most beautiful, graceful hands she’d ever seen, with long fingers and wide palms. Nothing in Elisa’s life had been graceful, not even herself. But Nate, when she’d seen his hands move, the word just popped into her mind. It fit him and made her realize that for all the daydreams she’d had of the man, he was far beyond her reach. No graceful, proper-speaking gentleman would ever want a foulmouthed country gal with dirt under her fingernails and calluses on her hands.

She didn’t want to startle him, so she rattled the bushes a bit before stepping into the clearing. He glanced at her outfit, but didn’t say a word. No doubt comparing her to all the southern belles he’d grown up with.

“So talk.” Elisa sat down with her legs criss-crossed and her father’s Colt pistol in her hand, cocked and ready. Her knife was strapped to her waist within easy reach.

“Hello to you too.”

She waved her hand in the air. “No need for formalities.”

“It wasn’t a formality. It was courtesy.”

“Something a lady would do then?” She narrowed her gaze.

“No, something anyone would do to be polite.” He straightened his dark coat and she followed the curve of the fabric across his wide shoulders.

“All right, then, hello, Nathaniel Marchand, my friends call me Nate, but you’ll answer to Lieutenant.”

When he smiled, it stole her breath. Like a witch’s spell, the effect of his beautiful white teeth resonated through her. She hoped to God he couldn’t see that her body had grown so rigid, she was afraid she’d shoot herself.

Sweet Mary and all the Saints. Nathaniel Marchand was more than trouble. He was her downfall.

“Hello there yourself, Miss Elisa Taggert. I’m pleased you offered to speak with me this afternoon.”

“Uh, yeah, all right.” Blithering idiot. She cleared her throat in an effort to rein in her out-of-control body. “What do you want to talk about?”

“As you know, my associates and I have a business, D.H. Enterprises. We were recently hired to assist some folks with relocating their homestead.” He pulled at his collar and she saw his Adam’s apple bob. “I was hoping you could see your way to, ah, helping us.”

Elisa shook her head to blow out the confusion—she had to focus on his fancy talk. “Assist what folks?”

“A family.”

She got up on her knees and crawled toward him, the gun heavy in her hand. “What family?”

He glanced at the weapon, then back up at her face. “Ah, a local family.”

“That bastard hired you to get rid of us, didn’t he? I knew it!” A burst of red ran across her vision. “All this fancy shit of yours and what was it for? To confuse me?”

“No, of course not. I just wanted to t—”

“I’m done talking, Marchand, and I’m sure as hell done listening.” She stuck the barrel of the gun against his throat. “You stay the hell off Taggert land or I won’t miss that pretty head of yours next time.”

“You think my head is pretty?” He blinked rapidly as beads of sweat rolled down his forehead.

“You know you’re a handsome man, so don’t act all stupid about it. I aim to see how handsome.” Elisa’s impulses always got the best of her. The urge to see him, all of him, was too much to resist. Her body took over and her mind was powerless to stop it. “Now strip.”

“Strip?”

She pushed the barrel deeper into his flesh. “Strip.”

He didn’t move so she decided to “assist” him. With a wicked grin, she pulled the knife from its scabbard and sliced off two of the buttons from his shirt. The small patch of olive-toned skin made her mouth water. She couldn’t wait to see the rest of it.

“I can slice your throat open or shoot you and be away in seconds. Your friends will never find out who killed you. Your choice. Strip or I’ll make sure there are only four of you Devils.”

The idea of making him strip seemed ludicrous when it popped out of her mouth, but now her nipples pebbled with the idea of seeing Nate Marchand in the flesh. All the flesh. Her body pounded with anticipation and arousal. Nate looked murderous as he bent sideways to pick up the buttons she’d sliced off and put them in his pocket. The barrel of the gun slid against his skin, leaving a pink line on his throat.

When he started unbuttoning his shirt, she sat back and watched the show. The barrel of the pistol never wavered, but Elisa shook with the fierce need to touch all that she saw. Acres of maleness covered with a fine sprinkling of dark hair on his chest. Scars, too many to count, marred his skin.

After he removed his jacket and shirt, she swallowed hard.

“Now the pants and boots too.” Her voice had become so husky, she almost didn’t recognize it.

“What is the purpose of this?”

“I want to see you naked.” It was the truth, at least part of it.

Apparently she’d shocked him though because his mouth dropped open and that’s when she noticed the bulge. His trousers seemed to be much tighter than they had been earlier. In fact, he looked about ready to pop one of his own buttons.

“Let me see you.” She stood and gestured at his remaining clothes. “I need to see you.”

His gaze never left hers as he slowly removed his boots, socks and finally his trousers. He must have abandoned wearing drawers or he didn’t have any left, because Nate Marchand was naked beneath the gray cloth. Amazingly, proudly naked with an erection that would rival a horse’s.

He was blessed with a long, thick staff that jutted from a nest of dark curls, cupped by a pair of bollocks that made her fingers twitch to touch them. Her pussy throbbed with an awareness it had never before known. Elisa had images of her shedding her own clothes and lying down in the sweet grass with Nate.