Foxfire Bride (22 page)

"If I play one more game of chess, my head is going to explode." Fox rubbed her temples. "You couldn't let me win just once, could you."

"Now, Missy, you wouldn't like that. When the time comes that you beat me, you'll be glad the win is real."

"How are you feeling?"

"Stiff and sore. Mighty glad for the sun. Good enough that we don't need to lose another day on my account."

Fox didn't attempt to conceal a long hard examination. The swelling on Peaches's forehead and the left side of his face had diminished some. His cuts had scabbed over nicely, and she was no longer anxious that a fever would get him. But she knew he wasn't feeling up to snuff because he let her fuss over him. Peaches hadn't objected when she went to the trouble of cooking fried eggs just as he liked them instead of scrambling as usual. And he'd let her wash his clothes. That concession both amazed and worried her.

"You'll have to ride one of the mules," she said, wishing there was more spark in his eyes. "We can get rid of some things, redistribute the rest among the other mules." The ordeal in icy river water had worsened his congestion. She didn't like the sound of his cough.

Peaches nodded, turning a wooden knight in his hand. "I think Rebecca would be best for riding."

"We'll get you another horse as soon as it's possible."

"I've been thinking."

"Damn, I hate that as much as you hate it when I do some thinking."

They smiled at each other then Peaches said, "I was thinking about what my last request would have been if I'd had a chance to make one."

Fox's smile vanished. "I don't want to talk about that kind of thing, so stop right there."

"My deathbed request would be that you forget about killing Hobbs Jennings."

"Damn it, Peaches, that's not fair! I'm not going to promise that and you know it."

"You would deny a man's deathbed wish? Now, Missy, that ain't right."

She slammed the chess pieces into the box. "If you asked that of me on your deathbed, I'd want you to die in peace so I'd lie to you and make the promise. Is that what you want? Me going to hell for lying to a man on his fricking deathbed?"

"I don't want you getting yourself hanged over something that happened a long long time ago."

"I'm still paying for what Hobbs Jennings did to me. Every single damned day. Look over there." She nodded toward the willows where Tanner sat in the shade cleaning his pistols. "No matter what happens here," she smacked her fist against her heart, "me and Tanner agree to part ways in Denver. We both know I can't fit into his world. But I could have if Jennings hadn't stolen my inheritance!"

With her inheritance, she would have grown up in the same rarified world as Tanner. She wouldn't have to remind herself how to hold a fork, fancy manners would come automatically. She would own pretty lady clothes and know how to wear them right and be comfortable in them. She'd know how to talk to men like Tanner, would know what interested people of culture and refinement.

"Things are what they are," Peaches said quietly. "Killing Jennings ain't going to turn back the clock and put things right. Killing him isn't going to change anything except how long you live."

"I know it's too late to change anything," she said, standing and pulling her hat brim down to shade her eyes from the sun. "What I want is punishment. I want him to pay for stealing my mother's money and for throwing me away and robbing my future." She couldn't bear to look at Tanner, so she stared down at the chessboard on the short range grass. "Don't go asking me not to kill Hobbs Jennings on your deathbed."

"Deathbed requests aren't supposed to be easy. That's the whole point. If the request was an easy one, a person wouldn't have to wait for his deathbed to ask."

Fox looked around for Hanratty and signaled him to come and play checkers with Peaches. When Hanratty ambled toward them, she shoved on her blue sunglasses then wandered toward the laundered clothes she'd draped over the willows to dry in the sun.

"I've been waiting for you to finish your chess game," Tanner said, sighting down the clean barrel of his pistol.

"I didn't see you there," she said, as if she wasn't practically standing on his shirttail. She looked down at the array of weapons lined up near where he was sitting. "That's my rifle."

"I cleaned it for you." When she didn't say anything, Tanner squinted up at her, sunlight sharpening the craggy angles of his face. "This is part of my pursuit."

"Oh. Well then, I suppose it's all right." She thought a minute. "But don't get in the habit of messing with my belongings."

"I also picked you some flowers." He held out a bouquet.

Frowning, Fox considered the blossoms. She didn't know diddle about flowers. A rose she would have recognized, but these were tiny pink blooms and a spiky blue thing that she'd seen for years but had never given a thought to.

"Cleaning my rifle would have been enough." She didn't know what to do with the wildflowers.

"It seemed two gifts were appropriate for an accelerated pursuit." A smile curved his mouth. "And I have something else for you." Standing, he pointed to the ground. "Sit down, I'll just be a minute."

Fox looked back at the camp. No one lingered near the fire, it was too hot today. Hanratty and Peaches sat with heads bent over the checkerboard. Jubal Brown was out on the range among the animals, checking cuts and scrapes.

A huge white sky curved overhead. Spring sunshine spilled across the range tinting an awakening earth in tones of gold and green. The smell of sun-dried laundry drifted from the willows, and a drone of insects hovered above the splash and spray of rushing water.

Fox sank to the ground and folded her legs Indian-style, appreciating a perfect day warm with the promise of pursuit. On a day like this, something good ought to happen.

Tanner emerged from the willows carrying a jar with string tied around the lid. "Ice water," he said, smiling in triumph. "Or almost. The jar's been in the stream for two hours."

Laughing with pleasure, Fox took the cup he poured and tasted, holding the cold water on her tongue. "Wonderful!"

Tanner handed her a handkerchief. "It's clean."

"Thanks." After dipping the handkerchief in her cup, she pressed the cold cloth to her face. "Oh Lord. That feels so good. But I don't have anything for you."

"I don't expect anything. I'm the one doing the pursuing."

"I've been thinking about that. How long does the pursuing part go on?"

"It can continue for years," he said with a smile.

"Years?" There were things in the refined world that, in honesty, Fox had to admit she didn't cotton to. Women were not allowed to drink liquor, smoke, or cuss for instance. And now there was this business about courtships going on for years. "We don't have years." According to Fox's calculations, they had a few days more than two months before they rode into Denver. "We're getting off to a slow start as it is."

"We're on an accelerated schedule." He cleared his throat. "May I say you look particularly lovely today, Miss Fox?"

She stared then fell back on the range grass, laughing. "My braid's unraveling, I'm sweaty, and my clothes are sticking to me. My boots haven't seen a lick of polish since we left Carson City." She smiled up at the sky. "But I'm liking this so far. Say something else."

"Your hair is a beautiful sun-kissed red, and you have adorable ears." He grinned at her.

"My hair's a mess, and one of my ears is missing a bullet-size chunk!"

"I am particularly enchanted by the dew on your swanlike throat."

"It's sweat!" Laughing helplessly, she rolled over and pressed her forehead against the grass. "Swanlike throat, my fanny."

"Speaking of which how is the fanny beautification project progressing?"

Something very like a giggle slipped out of her mouth, shocking her. "I haven't been working at it very long, but it feels like everything is improving nicely." Now that she'd added more area to grease, she must reek of bacon. "I hope you like the smell of bacon."

"Actually," he looked up at the sky as if he was considering. "I'm beginning to find the scent of bacon very arousing."

"I don't know if I believe that, but it's nice of you to say so." At this moment, Fox would have given the earth to own a bottle of perfume. She sat up and smiled. "I think I like this silly talk."

Oh Lord, he was handsome, sitting there with sun glowing on his jaw and on the arrow of skin inside his opened collar. He was tan now, his face and hands darker than hers. Which meant that Peaches's sun protection salve was working. But she forgot about that as she sank into the golden brown of his eyes. She could have stared into his eyes for the rest of the day without speaking another word. No man had ever looked at her quite like Tanner did, as if fascination lay in the curve of her cheek, as if mystery sparkled in her eyes and interesting whispers waited just inside her lips.

Tanner poured more cold water into their cups. "Tell me about you. Start at the beginning." When Fox arched a dubious eyebrow, he smiled again. "Learning about each other is part of the pursuit."

Well, he was the expert when it came to the rules of pursuit. Fox wet her lips and tried to concentrate on something besides the way he held his mouth, with just a sliver of teeth showing. "The beginning. I was born in San Francisco."

He looked up. "I was born in San Francisco."

"Really?" Delight widened her eyes. They had something in common after all. And since Tanner was only a couple of years older than Fox, they must have been in San Francisco at the same time. Surely that meant something significant. "Did your family live in the city?"

Tanner nodded. "On one of the hills overlooking the bay."

"We did, too! I wish I could recall the address, but I was too young. I don't remember. I wonder if we lived close to each other." He didn't dispute her claim, but she saw a blink of doubt. "I know. You're thinking your family was rich and mine wasn't. We wouldn't have lived in the same area."

"The houses on the hills are very large," he said gently.

"So was ours." Her chin came up. "What you don't know is that my real father was a man of substance. He was in shipping. He died when I was little and I don't remember him." Tanner's expression was polite. He didn't believe her father had been rich. Fox drew a breath and continued, wishing they hadn't gotten into this subject. "When my mother remarried, we moved to a house that was even bigger than the first one." She stared, daring him to say anything. "That's the truth. There were servants, too. In both houses."

"That's pleasant," he said after a long pause.

"I'm telling you, my mother inherited a lot of money from my father. It was a fortune."

"I see."

But he didn't believe. "And she already had money from her parents. My mother was filthy rich."

Tanner's gaze ran slowly from her raggedy hat to the frizz of unraveling braid to her floppy oversized shirt to the men's trousers cinched at the waist with a length of thin rope and then to her old scuffed boots. "Are you going to tell me that you have a fortune stashed in a bank somewhere?"

"No."

His doubt set her anger on fire, because now she had to explain. She wished she had a big glass of whiskey to help her address an area she didn't like to talk about. Unable to stay seated, she pushed to her feet and stepped over the row of weapons that Tanner had cleaned.

"I should have inherited a fortune, but I didn't, even though my mother left her money to me with my stepfather as my guardian. But my stinking thieving stepfather didn't want to manage someone else's money, he wanted my mother's fortune all for himself. So, the day my mother died, my stepfather sent me to my mother's cousin, and he announced that both my mother and I had perished. With me dead, he inherited my mother's money."

Tanner frowned, squinting up into the sun. "That's theft. Why didn't the authorities arrest him?"

"No one knew what he'd done. I was six years old. I didn't know he had announced that I was dead, too. All I knew was that I had to go live with my mother's cousin, Maude Wilson. My stepfather told Mrs. Wilson that my mother had appointed her as my guardian. He also told her there was no money left. All the cousin got was me."

She could hardly bear to spit out the words. The spring day disappeared and what she saw was a little girl standing on a porch with her heart pounding and a stern angry woman staring down at her.

Tanner stood and slipped an arm around her waist. "Let's go for a walk."

His hand burned through the material of her shirt, as hot as an iron. A crazy notion entered her mind that if she raised her shirt, she'd see the mark of five fingers scorched on her skin. And if he raised his hand two inches, his thumb would brush the side of her breast. Her knees went weak and she stumbled.

"My life was easier than yours." They walked beside the stream, skirting the willows, stopping occasionally to look at the flooding stream. "My father sent me to Boston when I was ten. He was preparing to remarry and decided it was a good time for me to visit my uncle. I lived there during the school years. At any rate, I didn't see my father during his second marriage. Didn't see him again until after the woman died. I spent that summer in San Francisco."

"Were you ever hungry?" Fox asked curiously. "Did you ever worry about getting shoes that fit?" She doubted it, but asked anyway.

"No." His hand tightened on her waist. "I've had a privileged life. Which I took for granted until I became an adult and saw more of the world."

Fox tried to imagine the opulence and plenty that lay behind his words, but her imagination didn't stretch that far.

"My mother's cousin had a houseful of children of her own. The last thing she needed was an orphan on her doorstep. She provided the basics, but it wasn't in her to do better."

There was no point mentioning that Fox had been little more than a servant in her cousin's house. That kind of detail sounded like whining.

"But I met Peaches there," she said, brightening, trying hard to focus. His hand, hot on her waist made it hard to think. "Finding Peaches was the best thing that ever happened to me."