Mustang Annie (7 page)

Damn it, why was this happening? Why was this sense of losing control creeping up on her now? First the memories of Sekoda, then this awareness of Corrigan, now the resurrection of her granddad. . . .

Why this sudden feeling that her past and her present were about to collide?

Wade Henry came up beside a few minutes later, knelt, and swished his plate in the water. “You okay, Annie?”

“Fine. Why?”

“You wash any harder, you're gonna scrub the tin off that plate.”

Her hands stilled instantly.

“Dogie didn't mean no harm. He's just curious about you. I think he looks to you as some sorta hero.”

A hero? Her? He'd be better off idolizing Jesse James. She resumed scrubbing. “Yeah, well, one of these days he's gonna ask questions of the wrong person and land himself six feet under.”

Henry didn't deny the truth of that. Around them, the cicadas had begun their prenocturnal songs. In her younger years, she used to love listening to the sound. She remembered sitting on the front stoop with Grandad, making up stories about the locusts.

“Why didn't you come to me after your grand-daddy died?” Henry asked quietly. “You know I would have taken you in.”

She lifted her gaze to his wrinkled, sun-beaten face, and they shared a look born of a past that refused to rest. Everything Clovis James had been and had done had shaped her into the woman she was, and though she couldn't find it in her heart to resent him since he'd done his best raising her, she often wished things had been different.

She stared into the murky red surface of the watering hole. She tried to see in her reflection what Corrigan saw, but all that appeared was a hollow-eyed, gaunt-cheeked outlaw. “I thought about it once or twice.” Or a hundred times. “Reckon I didn't know where to find you.”

“As you can see, you didn't have to look far.”

Annie turned away, hating the gentle censure. Even if she'd known Henry had been so close, she'd never have gone to him. Never would have dragged him into the life she'd chosen for herself—a life he'd left long before she'd entered into it. He'd been given a second chance and he'd made something of it; she'd been given a second chance and had it ripped away from her.

Deep in the distance, a grumble of thunder warned that it wouldn't be long before the skies opened up and let loose with a good soaker. They finished washing their plates in silence, then returned to camp. The men had already begun unloading crates, barrels, pots and pans and assorted cooking equipment from the flatbed wagon, and were stacking them in a horseshoe shape nearby.

Annie's suspicions toward Corrigan continued to haunt her. She wished he'd just tell her what in hell he was planning, why he was being so . . . amiable, because the not-knowing was driving her mad. The only thing that kept her from jumping on Chance's back and high-tailing it out of here was the possibility that she might be wrong—that she might be letting her own fears color her judgment. If Corrigan was playing straight with her and she fled prematurely, she'd be leaving behind her only chance for freedom.

“Well, g'night fellas,” Dogie exclaimed, hitching up his britches in a boastful manner. “Reckon I'll be staying all dry and cozy while the rest of you slugs get to sleep in the mud.” He started for the wagon.

Flap Jack snagged him by the back of his coat. “Oh, no ya don't. You got low rank in this outfit, pup. I'll be the one sleeping in the wagon.”

“Why should
I
be the one getting wet?”

“You could use a little waterin', ya scrawny little sprout. It might make you grow.”

“Why, you—”

Dogie charged at Flap Jack, lowering his head like a raging bull. Flap Jack's broad hand to Dogie's forehead kept the little scrapper at arm's length. His fists flailed like paddles in a wild current, never making contact with the burly man holding him in place.

“Knock it off, boys,” Corrigan commanded. “Annie's sleeping in the wagon.”

Flap Jack and Dogie snapped upright in surprise, then their heads ducked, as if in shame that they'd forgotten a female existed among them. Never had Annie felt so conspicuous—or so resentful of misplaced manly honor. How was she ever to have the respect of these men if Corrigan insisted on giving her special treatment all the time?

Still, she might have been touched by his care for her comforts if she hadn't spotted Wade Henry just then, lowering himself gingerly onto a crate. It didn't take a medical man to see that all their traveling was taking its toll on his aged body. “No, Annie isn't.” She approached the stoop-shouldered man and knelt on one knee. “Wade Henry? You okay?”

“Oh, shore. Comin' rain is just makin' the rheumatism act up. I'll be fit as a fiddle once the weather clears.”

“I want you to sleep in the wagon tonight.”

“No, Annie. Your heart is in the right place, but I can't take your bed. It wouldn't be right makin' a woman sleep out in the rain.”

“Don't worry about me; I'm not made of sugar. Come on.” She hooked her arm through his and helped him to his feet. “Let's get you settled.”

He resisted with a strength that belied his feeble stature. “No, Annie, it's a matter of honor for a man to put the welfare of womenfolk first.”

“I can take care of myself,” she interrupted.

“I know, but . . . sometime's all a man's got left is his pride. Even if I wanted to, Ace would never put up with it. I think it might be on account o' his mama dyin'.”

Annie drew back in surprise. “His mama is dying?”

“No, she's already gone. Died in some sort of accident years ago, but some things stay fresh up here”—he tapped his finger to his temple—“and in here.” He patted his heart. “I think he blames himself because he wasn't there to stop it. It does something to a man's innerds when he can't protect his own.”

Somehow her mind couldn't wrap itself around the fact of Corrigan even having a mother, much less losing her. She did understand pride, though. Sekoda had been proud, and she'd seen what it had done to him when they'd stripped it from him. And by disagreeing with Corrigan in front of his men, she'd been no better. “Well, you leave Corrigan to me.”

She left Wade Henry sitting next to the tailgate and strode past the rest of the men, who were dishing up the stew Wade Henry had cooked while they'd unloaded the wagon.

“Corrigan, I need to speak to you.” Aware of his men's curious attention, she grit her teeth and added, “Privately.”

She turned her back on his wicked grin and led him a short distance away from their audience. “I want Wade Henry sleeping in the wagon.”

His grin disappeared. “I've already decided who will sleep where.”

Any sympathy she might have felt for him over the loss of a parent vanished at his unhesitating answer. “Damn it, he's too old to be sleeping in the rain.”

He turned away from her. “Boys, let's finish getting this wagon unloaded.”

Annie glared at him, every nerve and muscle in her body quivering with fury. “How can you be so heartless?”

He twisted back around and looked at her through eyes as flat and unreadable as a block of stone, giving no clue to his thoughts. And yet, Annie sensed a struggle going on inside him. If he gave in to her, he'd lose face in front of his men—partly because she was a woman, partly because he would be showing preferential treatment toward Henry, a hired hand. If he didn't, he looked inhuman toward an old man.

“You're fond of him, aren't you?” she asked.

“Of course I'm fond of him. He was like a second grandfather to me.”

“Fond enough to make a wager?”

Not another one. . . . “What kind of wager?”

He searched their camp, then pointed to a keg a hundred feet away. “If you can rope that barrel, he sleeps in the wagon. If I rope it, you sleep in the wagon.”

A glimmer of admiration was born in that instant. He'd found a way to save face and still respect her wishes, for they both knew her skill with a rope far exceeded his. “What if we both rope it?”

“Then we keep throwing until one of us misses.”

Chapter 8

A
nnie got Wade Henry settled beneath the bed of the wagon in a rawhide hammock normally used to carry firewood or prairie coal just as a thick layer of pewter clouds rolled in. Then, with a heavy heart, she headed toward the tailgate.

She couldn't believe she'd missed. She never missed! Because of one stupid slip of the lariat, an old man was forced to sleep under the wagon instead of inside it. Sure, he'd be elevated out of the mud and muck, but nights got cold on the plains, and with rain coming. . . .

She glanced at the wagon bed, then at the elongated mounds scattered about the ground. The few crates that had been salvageable were stacked in a half circle and the oilskins spread over them to make a lean-to, but it was pitiful shelter at best. Damn Corrigan. Why should
she
get to sleep inside the comfort of the wagon when everyone else was forced to sleep out in the elements? What made her so special?

Nothing, that's what.

With sudden decisiveness, Annie grabbed her own slicker and bedroll and headed toward the horses. She didn't know who was more surprised—Corrigan or her—when she stumbled over him. He sat against a tree trunk near the watering hole, his legs stretched out in front of him. Rain rolled off the brim of the hat tipped low over his eyes and onto the shoulders of his slicker.

“You aren't planning on sleeping out here, are you?” Annie asked.

He took a deep pull of the cheroot cupped in his hand. “Someone's got to keep watch. It would be just my luck that the stallion would try and filch a couple more of my horses tonight.”

The remark had her suspicions surfacing once more. If the entire scheme to catch his horses was an act, it was a damned convincing one. He could be sleeping behind the windbreak with the shelter with the rest of his men. Or even in the cooney, instead of Mr. Henry. Corrigan was the boss, after all. Yet here he was, willing to give up his own comfort for those of his men.

And for her.

“You best get bedded down,” he said, crushing out his cheroot.

Annie pushed aside the stab of guilt. He was right; morning came early. Clutching her slicker and bedding, she headed for the opposite end of the string of horses, as far from Corrigan as safety would allow. No sense in giving any of his men the wrong impression, should any of them wake up in the middle of the night.

Somehow it didn't surprise her when Corrigan came up behind her a moment later. “Annie, what do you think you're doing?”

A flick of her wrist sent the layer of slicker and quilt rolling open across the ground. “Bedding down.”

“Out here?”

“I am not sleeping in that wagon when everyone else is stuck out in the rain.”

“The hell you aren't. We made a deal, Annie. Now get your little fanny in the wagon.”

She whirled on him and planted her hands on her hips. “Stop telling me what to do. I'm not one of your lackeys.”

She saw his temper rise like mercury in mid-July heat. “Either you get into that wagon or I'll put you there.”

“You and who else?”

She should have known better than to challenge him; the instant the words flew out of her mouth, she regretted them. But no power on earth could take them back before Corrigan reached her.

He tossed her over his shoulder so quickly she had no time to prepare. Momentum folded her over his shoulder; bone and muscle dug itself into the tender spot between her ribs; her head swam from the swift motion of flying through air. Despite her struggles, she couldn't free herself of the iron tight grip around her thighs. “Damn it, Corrigan! Put me down.”

“Not on your life.”

Annie continued to demand he let her go. He ignored her. Pounding on his back with her fists had about as much affect as hitting a steel keg with a feather. He slipped and slid down the slight slope next to the barracks, then regained his footing and strode without pause to the wagon, where he flipped up the canvass and dumped her inside.

A second later, he climbed in after her. The already cramped space shrank even further. Annie sat up and glared at him as he settled his frame against the tailgate. “What do you think you're doing?”

“Making sure you stay put. I wouldn't put it past you to sneak around me after I fall asleep just to prove some dumb point—and the last thing I need is for you to get sick on me.”

Her hands clenched into fists. “We are not sleeping in this wagon together, Corrigan.”

“Oh, yes, we are. Me on this end, you on that end. Keep arguing with me about it and I'll lay on top of you.”

Annie didn't make the mistake of thinking he was bluffing.

Furious, she climbed across the wagon bed as far from him as the close confines would allow. Overbearing brute. God, she hated him.

Annie busied herself with spreading her soogan along the floorboards. Though the old canvas above was ripped and torn, it would give her more protection than the slicker she'd planned on huddling inside.

As she listened to Corrigan peeling off his wet clothes, she hoped he wasn't taking everything off. Sharing her quarters with a man was one thing—sharing her quarters with a naked man quite another.

He settled down with a sigh that made Annie grip her pillow and clench her eyes shut. Outside, the storm built. Wind rocked the wagon, raindrops splattered against the canvas, lightning sizzled across the sky; flashes of it glowed through the coarse white covering stretched over her head.

She knew Corrigan was watching her; she could feel it. The heat of his gaze chased off the chill seeping through the cracks of the side boards.

Annie brought the blanket up tighter over her shoulders and tried to ignore his presence. Easier said than done, though. The air seemed thicker, the heat seemed hotter. And there was some-thing about the darkness that made the senses more acute. The scent of him, warm and musky, rose above the dampness of the rain and the staleness of the dust. The sound of his breathing spun a circle of intimacy, reminding Annie how comforting it could be, having a man beside her after a tough day or a lonely night. And she remembered the glory of being able to turn to the man beside her, feel his body pressed against hers, let his hands chase the loneliness away . . .

Thunder crashed above them, making Annie flinch in surprise.

“If the storm bothers you, I don't mind you snuggling up to me.”

She pushed back an image of the two of them tangled together. “No thanks.”

“Afraid you might enjoy it?” he teased.

That's exactly what she was afraid of. “I'm afraid
you
will.”

“Don't you doubt it for minute.”

Annie refused to rise to the bait. She had no wish to engage in any sort of conversation with him, much less one with sexual undertones. Maybe if she pretended sleep. . . .

“What's that scent you're wearing?” he asked softly.

She looked at him over her shoulder. He'd clasped his arms behind his head, and the heat of his stare had the air around her crackling. “It's saddle oil.”

“No, the other. The flowery one.”

Her lilac soap? “Why?”

“It's nice.” Silence fell for a moment. Rain pattered on the canvas like little feet.

“There is nothing more evocative than the scent of a woman, did you know that?”

Wonderful. Now she wouldn't be able to use her favorite soap without worrying that it got him excited. Sarcastically she replied, “I suppose if you say it, it must be true. After all, you're the expert, aren't you?”

“You know what they say—practice makes perfect.” She caught a flash of white teeth in the darkness. “It starts with a look—the kind that makes her feel as if no one else exists.”

His soft, slightly accented words made Annie's breath catch in her throat.

“Then sound—a whisper of her name in the darkness.”

She could almost hear it; the whisper of her name. . . .

“Scent comes next. Sometimes soft and alluring, other times musky and potent. And touch. The heat of a hand on flesh. Lips against lips. The heart starts beating, fast and furious—” He turned his head, looked pointedly at her breast. “Just like yours is now.”

Her gaping mouth shut with a snap. He was right, damn him; her heart rate had tripled. She crossed her arms over her front and flopped onto her side, not trusting the darkness to hide the perking of her nipples from his view. Damn him. He'd done it on purpose, tried seducing her with words. “You think you know so much about women.”

“I know what they want, and I know how to give it.”

It wasn't a boast, just a simple statement of fact that had the power to kindle a fire in the pit of her stomach. “And what does she get out of it?”

“She gets to feel needed. Cherished. Desired.” Each word fell in tempo with her heartbeat. “Think about it, Annie.

She did. In excruciating detail. Worse, she had the picture of him wading in the creek to help her. All that muscle. All that power. All that . . . utter and absolute
maleness.
And it could be hers with a crook of her finger. She could hardly remember the last time the blood in her veins felt so hot. “Is bedding women all you think of?” she demanded.

“Bedding you is all I can think of.”

Even if she could think of a reply, Annie wasn't sure she could utter it. The timbre of his words made her feel as if she were the most desirable woman on earth. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, and her heart galloped in her chest. For despite the lightness of his remark, she detected a seriousness that both disturbed and aroused her.

“You don't believe me?”

This is not a conversation she wanted to have with him. It made her remember all the things she'd lost, all the things she missed. The touch of a man, the warmth of his embrace, the sensual connection of two people sharing a mutual need. “I think you'll do or say anything to get what you want from any woman handy.”

“Your opinion of me grows more flattering by the day. Tell me, who gave you such a low opinion of men?”

“Who gave
you
such a low opinion of them?”

“What's that supposed to mean?” he asked, sounding confused.

Annie realized that she wasn't quite brave enough to answer. So he was strict with the men who worked for him. So he wasn't as patient and tolerant a teacher as Sekoda had been. Who was she to judge him? “Never mind. Let's just get some sleep.”

She rolled onto her side and crunched the blanket beneath her head. What kind of fool was she, anyway? Seduction could just be part of Corrigan's plot to deceive her, and here she lay with him nearby, letting him stir up forgotten memories, letting him weaken her with his words, letting him rouse longings inside her that she'd buried four years ago. . . .

Damn him for making her want to feel like a woman again.

 

As always, Brett awoke long before the rest of his men. Whistling an aimless tune, he dropped sourdough batter into a dutch oven they'd found in the wagon. He replaced the lid, then crouched near the fire with his hands clasped around a cup of Arbuckle's and waited for the biscuits to bake.

He couldn't say what had put him in such fine spirits. A dismal gray sky hovered over the plains, yet the bright glow of success warmed his insides. Annie would deny it to her last, but he knew damn good and well that she'd been sexually aware of him last night.

Just as he'd been aware of her. Hell, visions of her racing that mustang had haunted him the entire day. She'd looked glorious—her color high, her blues eyes glittering, her hair tousled from the wind. He'd never wanted to be a horse so bad in his life. If she looked half as glorious in the throes of passion as she had racing the wind, he wasn't sure he'd survive it.

It amazed him that he'd been able to resist rolling across that wagon bed and pulling Annie into his arms. Though it had taken every ounce of control he could muster, he'd managed to keep his distance, even at the cost of another night of misery.

Woo them. Win their trust
.

Brett knew better than anyone that the two went hand in hand. And if he kept playing his cards right, he'd have her in his bedroll by the time they found the herd.

“Aw, dadburn it—Dogie!”

Brett glanced behind him and saw Flap Jack sitting on his bedroll, pouring what looked suspiciously like last night's leftovers out of his boot.

“Damned young pup,” the tracker grumbled. Catching sight of Dogie, he dashed into the rain in his stockinged feet, stood in the lean-to's entryway, and shook his boot in the air. “When I get my hands on you I'll take a switch to your tail end!”

Brett shook his head and sighed. Sometimes that boy could test the patience of a monk. Then he found himself grinning. He sure kept things interesting, though.

“
¿Qué es ese olor?
” Emilio asked, his nose curling.

Brett's attention shot toward the Dutch oven. “Aw, damn it, my biscuits!” He grabbed the lid, then wrenched his hand back with another curse when his fingers met the hot cast-iron handle. The lid clattered into the fire. Sparks and bits of prairie coal sprayed up, then filtered back down into the kettle.

Emilio and Flap Jack joined him in staring down into the oven at the mounds of dough, scorched around the bottom edges, doughy and sunken on the top.

Flap Jack looked at him. “Canned peaches and hardtack again, Ace?”

Brett grimaced. Five men and one woman in this outfit, and not a damned one of them knew how to cook. “Come on—let's get these supplies gathered up and covered with the tarp before we head out. Someone will be coming back for them sooner or later.” He'd make inquiries in Sage Flat over who the wagon belonged to, so he could pay for what they'd used. In the meantime, the least they can do was see that the rest didn't spoil.

He bent over and, wrapping his shirt around his hands, lifted the Dutch oven off the fire.