Only Mine (15 page)

“How did you know my full name was Rafael?”

“It suits you.” Impulsively, Jessica touched Rafe’s sleeve. “Do take care of yourself. Gentlemen are uncommon anywhere in the world.”

“I’m not all that gentle, ma’am. But thank you.
You stay close to your husband. Real close. This town has an ugly feel to it right now. Reminds me of Singapore, which is to say it reminds this sinner of Hell.”

Rafe tipped his hat again and withdrew to the end of the store where harness was displayed. He reached for a long, coiled bullwhip. With smooth, almost invisible motions of his left wrist, he tested the whip’s balance and flexibility. Twenty-five feet of supple leather writhed as though alive beneath his skilled hand.

With a sigh at having lost a pleasant companion, Jessica turned away. She gave a longing glance to the Levis and shirt that Wolfe had discarded, but made no effort to retrieve them. She was still shocked by the primitive masculine possessiveness he had shown. She wanted to tell Wolfe that he needn’t be jealous of Rafe; she would rather have a single kind look from Wolfe than a week of kindness from Rafael Moran.

On the other hand, a bit of kindness from a stranger was better than no kindness at all.

Jessica went back to the dry-goods counter, found that Wolfe had paid for the purchases, and waited for the lanky teenage boy to gather up all the packages. The task would have gone more quickly if he had been able to keep his eyes on what he was doing rather than on the single tendril of mahogany hair that had slid out from beneath Jessica’s hat. The silky, subtle fire of the curl fascinated the boy, as did her light foreign accent and softly curving lips.

“Is everything all right?” Jessica asked finally.

Caught staring, the boy blushed to the roots of his badly cut hair. “Sorry, ma’am. I’ve never seen
anything like you outside of the fairy tale books Ma used to read to me.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” Jessica said, hiding her smile. The boy’s transparent approval was like a balm after Wolfe’s constant anger. “Here. Let me get the door. You have far too many packages.”

Jessica opened the door, caught a package that was teetering on the edge of falling, and gathered her skirts above her ankles to avoid the mud and manure of the street. She looked both ways, having narrowly avoided disaster earlier when a rider had gone racing through the streets at a dead gallop, whooping and swinging an empty whiskey bottle overhead like a sword in one hand while firing a six-shooter with the other. The performance would have been more impressive if the pony hadn’t stopped suddenly, sending the rider head over heels into the muck.

“Careful, ma’am,” the boy said. “The town has gotten real lively since word of gold came out.”

“Gold?”

“Somewhere up in those mountains. San Juan country.”

“That’s where we’re going.”

“Thought so.”

“Why?”

“Your husband paid in raw gold,” the boy said simply. “Bought horses at the stable with gold, too. Word went through here like wildfire.”

When they were closer to the wagon, the boy looked hesitantly at Jessica. “Tell your husband to be careful, ma’am. Gold brings out the lowest kind of devil in men. From what I’ve heard, Wolfe Lonetree is a bad man in a fight, but he’s only one man. I’d hate to see a delicate girl like you come to grief.”

Jessica looked at the boy’s pale brown eyes and saw that he was older in many ways than she had thought from his awkwardness around her. She suspected that frontier living cut short the innocence of childhood. The boy was at least six years younger than she was, but he had an adult’s understanding of the harshness of life.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “Wolfe will—”

“Well, what do we have here?” asked a rough voice, cutting across Jessica’s reassurances. “Mighty fine clothes for a town like this. Mighty pretty gal, too. Come here, sugarplum. Old Ralph wants a good look at you.”

Jessica ignored the man who was standing at the rear of the wagon, wearing a split riding coat, muddy clothes and a wide leer.

“Put the packages in the back of the wagon, please,” she said to the boy.

While she spoke, she climbed into the wagon seat. Beneath the cover of her flowing skirts, her hand closed around the buggy whip.

“Ma’am,” the boy said. His face was pale, his voice urgent.

“Thank you. You may go back to the store now.”

Jessica smiled reassuringly, wanting only to remove the boy from the reach of the men who were gathering around the wagon.

“Please go. My husband will be along soon. Perhaps you could see what’s keeping him?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Ralph’s hand shot out, but the boy twisted aside, evading capture. He sprinted for the stable, sending clots of mud flying with each step.

Jessica’s fingers tightened on the stock of the whip. She sat quietly, looking at the horizon, acting as though she were alone. The comments of the
men gathering around the wagon told her she wasn’t alone, but they weren’t saying anything she chose to overhear.

A heavy, dirty hand grabbed a fold of her hem.

“By God, I haven’t felt anything this soft since Atlanta. Bet it’s even softer underneath.”

Several men laughed. The sound was as coarse as the muddy street.

The few townspeople brave enough to walk past Main Street’s raucous saloon saw what was happening, but hesitated to interfere. The eight men around the wagon were heavily armed and drunk enough to be ugly without being incapacitated in the least. They made a formidable gang.

Nor was Jessica known to the townspeople as other than the wife of a halfbreed. It wasn’t a high personal recommendation in the raw frontier town, where Indians were thought to be worth a lot less than a good coon hound.

“A sawbuck says she’s wearing silk underwear,” called one of the men.

Ralph’s hand tightened on Jessica’s skirt. “Well, sugarplum, is you is or is you ain’t?”

That witticism sent one man laughing until he could barely stand without the help of the wagon.

“Come on,” Ralph said. “Show a little leg to the lads.”

Jessica ignored him.

“Look at me when I talk to you,” he snarled. “Any slut that lies down with a halfbreed should be damn grateful that a white man will even touch her.”

When Jessica felt her skirt shift, she wrenched the wagon whip free and brought its heavy stock down across the bridge of Ralph’s nose with all the force of her small body. Bellowing with rage and
pain, Ralph let go of the skirt and grabbed his face. Blood spurted between his fingers. Before Jessica could turn to face the rest of her attackers, Ralph grabbed her wrist, pulling her off balance.

There was a sound like a pistol shot, followed by a high scream. The grip on her arm loosened. From the corner of her eye, Jessica saw Rafe running toward her, wielding the supple bullwhip with lethal skill. As she watched, his left arm moved slightly and the long bullwhip leaped forward. The odd, pistol-like sound came again. Close to her, one of the attacker’s hats seemed to leap up and fell away in two pieces. Blood poured from a gash over the man’s eye.

Suddenly, the men were reaching beneath their coats.

“They have guns!” Jessica yelled.

She brought the buggy whip down as hard as she could on the closest man, but knew it wouldn’t be enough. There were five men left untouched, four more were running from the saloon, and they were all armed.

“Get down!” Rafe yelled.

Jessica ignored him, for she was too busy laying about with the buggy whip.

Rafe’s bullwhip sang out again, but this time it wrapped very gently around Jessica’s waist. The yank Rafe gave wasn’t gentle at all. It pulled her right out of the wagon and into his arms as gunfire erupted around them. Pressed between the side of the wagon and Rafe’s big body, Jessica saw little of the fight.

What she did see astonished her. Wolfe was down the street in front of the stable, two hundred yards away, and he was picking off men just as fast as he could lever bullets into the firing chamber
. Lead whined and crashed around the wagon. The withering hail of bullets sent the men scattering.

All that prevented every one of the attackers from being killed was the fact that Jessica was in the middle of the fracas.

“Son of a bitch, but that man can shoot,” Rafe said reverently.

A lull came in the firing.

“Jessi!” yelled Wolfe.

“I’m all right!” she called back.

“If I were you, boys,” Rafe said in a normal tone, “I’d see how far down into that mud I could get before Lonetree reloads.”

The wisdom of Rafe’s advice became apparent as Wolfe swapped rifle for carbine and opened fire again. The men who hadn’t fallen already threw themselves full length onto the soggy ground.

“Hang onto the wagon, ma’am,” Rafe said.

Blindly, Jessica grabbed the rough wood.

Rafe stepped back until he could see all of the men.

“Keep your heads down, boys, or you’ll lose them.”

It was the only thing Rafe said. It was all he had to say, for the whip in his hand was like a living thing, flicking restlessly over the fallen men, plucking at their hats and coats, nipping at fingers that crept closer to hidden guns. No sharp pistolsounds came from the bullwhip now, simply an unnerving hissing and seething as leather licked lightly over flesh.

One of the men moaned and crossed himself.

“That’s the idea,” Rafe said encouragingly. “Never too late for a man to get religion.”

Wolfe arrived at a dead run, carbine in hand.
Behind him came the boy from the dry-goods store, carrying the empty rifle. One by one Wolfe went to the frightened men, rolled them over with his boot, and memorized their faces. They stared back at him and knew they had never come closer to dying.

When the last man had been memorized, Wolfe stepped back. “If I see any of you near my wife again, I’ll kill you.”

Jessica looked at Wolfe and had no doubt of it. Even as she told herself she should be appalled, she wasn’t. She sensed she would have been brutally treated by men who knew nothing of her but her name and her sex.

“I’m counting to ten,” Wolfe said in a neutral tone that was more threatening than a shout. As he spoke, he began feeding cartridges into the carbine. “Anyone who is in sight when I’m finished had better be shooting. One. Two. Three. Four.”

There was a frantic scrambling as men came up out of the mud and stumbled down the street. Most were limping. Several could use only one arm.

One man didn’t move at all.

Somehow, Jessica wasn’t surprised that it was the man called Ralph who had died. Neither was Rafe. He looked from the mohonless man to Wolfe and nodded.

“Good job, Lonetree. You’re everything I’ve heard you were. But you’re still only one man and if s a long way to Cal’s spread.”

There was nothing friendly in Wolfe’s blue-black eyes as he levered a cartridge into the firing chamber and turned on Rafe.

“What the hell business of yours is it where we’re going?”

“R
AFE
is the paragon’s brother,” Jessica said quickly, stepping between the two men.

There was a tense silence before Wolfe spoke.

“Willow’s brother?” he asked, looking over Jessica’s head at the handsome blond man.

Rafe nodded.

A subtle change came over Wolfe as understanding began to sink through the adrenaline of battle. There was a visible lessening of the predatory readiness that had radiated from him when he saw Rafe standing so close to Jessica. For the space of several breaths, Wolfe looked intently at the big man who used a whip with chilling skill. Finally, Wolfe nodded slowly.

Jessica let out a slow breath and stepped aside once more.

“I should have guessed,” Wolfe said. “Same honey-licking drawl, same hair, same catlike shape to the eyes.” He smiled at Rafe for the first time, uncocked the carbine, and held out his right hand. “Willow’s a damn sight prettier, though.”

“I’d hope to shout.” Rafe smiled slowly and shook Wolfe’s hand. “I suppose you’ve heard this
before, but you’re one hell of a shot with a long gun.”

Jessica watched the two men shake hands and felt the last of the tightness ease inside her. Having Rafe and Wolfe eyeing one another as potential enemies had been like having knives scraping over her nerves.

“You’re the devil himself with that bullwhip,” Wolfe said, as he helped Jessica aboard the wagon. “Never seen anything like it. Are you a teamster?”

“I’m a jackaroo, among other things. That’s Australian for a cow chaser. They use stockman’s whips and heeler dogs down there.” Rafe paused and added, “Normally I travel alone, but I suspect we’re headed the same place, and too many people know about the raw gold in that poke of yours.”

Wolfe nodded slowly. “I usually travel alone, too, but with Jessica along…” He shrugged. “Frankly, I’d been wishing that Caleb or Reno was around. I’d be pleased to have a good man at my back.”

“You’ve got one.”

“Yes, I believe I do.” Wolfe grinned. “Climb aboard, Rafe Moran, and welcome.”

Wolfe gestured to the boy from the mercantile, who came running up with the gold-inlaid rifle.

“Lordy, mister, I ain’t never seen no shootin’ like that nowhere! And that bullwhip,” he said, turning to Rafe. “Lordy, lordy. Like to make me believe in the Devil.”

“Better to believe in God,” Rafe said. “The Devil has enough takers.”

Wolfe fished a ragged gold nugget out of his leather poke. “Thanks for coming to the stable after me. You ever need help, you put out word for Wolfe Lonetree. I’ll come running. Count on it.”

The boy flushed. “You don’t have to pay me, mister. I just was worried about the lady.”

“She’s a worry to us all.”

Jessica shot Wolfe a look, but smiled warmly at the boy.

“Son?” Rafe said quietly.

The boy tore his glance away from Jessica. Rafe flipped him a heavy silver coin. The boy caught it automatically.

“See that somebody reads over the corpse,” Rafe said, flicking the bullwhip in the direction of the dead man. “Too late to do any good, I suppose, but I’m told an immortal soul is a resilient thing and our God is a forgiving god.”

“That’s not what Preacher Corman says,” the boy muttered, hefting the coin.

“Get a better brand of preacher,” Rafe advised dryly. “Life is hard enough without black-coated vultures croaking over you.”

The boy snickered. “Yessir.”

The coin glittered and spun in a rapid arc as the youth threw it, caught it, and then pocketed it with a wide grin. He trotted across the street toward the mercantile, eager to share his adventure with the people who were watching from the safety of closed doors.

The wagon seat shifted and creaked as Wolfe climbed aboard. Jessica lifted the reins and the buggy whip, obviously preparing to drive them. Wolfe raised his black eyebrows in silent question.

“There were more men in the saloon,” she said simply.

Wolfe slanted a look at the building, nodded, and began reloading the rifle as he made room for Rafe on the wagon’s hard seat. When Rafe climbed aboard, the seat shifted and creaked again, complaining
loudly of having to carry the weight of two large men.

“If you can handle stock half as well as you handle that bullwhip, Cal will think he’s died and gone to heaven,” Wolfe said as Jessica turned the horse toward the livery stable. “He’s got Indians and a freed slave riding herd for him when they feel like it, and Reno helps out when he’s not haring after gold, but Cal is always short-handed. Come spring calving, you’ll look as golden as your hair.”

“Reno?” Rafe looked up from the whip he had been absently wiping clean and coiling. “Isn’t that the third man who knows the San Juans like the back of his hand? You and Caleb being the other two, so I’m told.”

“Reno knows the country better than I do. He’s uncanny about land. But I suspect you know Reno better by another name,” Wolfe said, amusement clear in his voice.

“Do I?” drawled Rafe.

“Matthew Moran,” Wolfe said succinctly.

Relief went visibly through Rafe. “Matt? He’s all right then? The last letter I got from him, he sounded like he had his tail in a real tight crack.”

“Reno’s doing fine now, except he’s a damn fool for gold.”

“Just like I’m a damn fool for distant horizons.” Rafe grinned. “The Moran men don’t housebreak worth a bucket of—” He stopped abruptly, remembering Jessica’s presence. “Er, spit.”

Wolfe smiled slightly. “No man does, until he finds a woman like Willow.”

The buggy whip hissed and snapped well above the wagon horse’s brown flank. Rafe’s gray glance touched Jessica appreciatively.

“Or like your wife,” Rafe said. “You handle
those reins very well, ma’am.”

Wolfe’s eyes narrowed and all softness vanished from his expression. Rafe felt the tension snaking through the man who sat beside him on the narrow wagon seat.

“The thing about a wanderer like me,” Rafe continued matter-of-factly, giving Wolfe a level look, “is that I can appreciate beautiful things without wanting to possess them. Possessions tie a man down. And nothing, no matter how rare or beautiful, will ever be as grand to me as the sunrise I haven’t seen.”

With a visible effort, Wolfe brought his anger under control. He knew it was unreasonable to respond so fiercely to Rafe’s simple appreciation of Jessica. Yet there it was, reasonable or not, and there it would remain until Jessica came to her senses and sought an annulment, freeing both of them from an impossible situation.

But until that moment, Wolfe fought to maintain a self-control that became more difficult every night, every day, every hour spent in the company of a girl he couldn’t have, would never take, and wanted until he lived on the breaking edge of rage at having to be so close to what must be forever beyond his reach.

“You’re very kind,” Jessica said quickly to Rafe, for she, too, had sensed Wolfe’s anger. “But no one can equal the para—er, Willow. I have a great deal of work ahead of me just to be an adequate Western wife.”

Rafe frowned. “You’re rather delicately made for that kind of hardship.”

“You and my husband have something in common. You both equate strength with muscles.”

“For good reason,” Wolfe muttered.

“For bad reason,” Jessica retorted. “Flowers are soft, frail, and, therefore, weak in your masculine estimation. Yet I will tell both of you fine, strong men something—the same storm that brings down a mighty oak does little more than wash the delicate faces of the violets living at the oak’s foot.”

Rafe looked away quickly, trying to conceal his amusement at Jessica’s quickness. It was impossible. He gave Wolfe a rueful look and shook his head, laughing softly.

“She’s got us, Wolfe.”

Wolfe grunted and looked around the muddy street one last time. No one was in sight. Wolfe hoped it would stay that way.

“I take it you’re going to see Willow?” Wolfe asked, turning his attention back to the big blond man who was watching him with a masculine sympathy that was laced with equally masculine amusement.

“I’m really looking for Matt, but I kept hearing about a Virginia lady who came out here last year with five fine Arabian horses. She was searching for her ‘husband,’ Matthew Moran.” Rafe shrugged. “I figured it had to be Willy. She’s the only girl I know with gumption enough to set out across wild country alone, just to find a brother she hadn’t seen in years.”

Wolfe’s face softened into a half-smile. “That’s Willow. They broke the mold when they made her.”

Rafe noticed both the affection in Wolfe’s voice and the shadow that drew Jessica’s face into unhappy lines. He lifted his hat, smoothed his bright hair with his hand, settled his hat once more with a jerk, and wondered if Caleb Black was a jealous sort of man.

“Sounds like you know Willow real well,” Rafe said to Wolfe after a moment.

“Well enough.”

“And Cal?”

Belatedly, Wolfe caught the drift of Rafe’s thoughts. He smiled thinly.

“Cal is the best friend I have. He’s as big as you are, he has as much give in him as a granite cliff, he’s greased lightning with his belt gun, and he loves Willow the way I never expected to see a man love anything, especially a man as hard as Caleb Black.”

Rafe’s eyebrow climbed. “How does Willow feel about it?”

“The same way Cal does, a love you can touch. Seeing them together makes you believe that God did indeed know what He was doing when He created man and woman and gave them the earth for their children.”

Jessica heard both the certainty and the subtle yearning in Wolfe’s voice. She didn’t know whether to weep or scream at the fresh evidence of Wolfe’s deep admiration for his best friend’s wife.

Wolfe didn’t notice Jessica’s taut, unsmiling mouth. His full attention was on Rafe, who was thinking over all that Wolfe had said, and what he had not said, as well. Finally, Rafe sighed and shifted his weight, making the seat spring complain.

“Glad to hear that,” Rafe said. “Willy was such a soft little thing. I was always afraid life was going to chew her up and spit her out in little pieces.”

“Chew up a paragon?” Jessica said tightly as she pulled the horse to a halt in front of the livery stable. “I doubt that, Rafael. Life would choke to
death on Willow’s perfection. Dead life is a paradox to make the head ache. Not to mention the stomach.”

At the last word, Jessica jammed the wagon whip back into its holder. When she looked up, Wolfe was watching her with veiled interest, measuring her anger. Abruptly, she knew she was simply sharpening a weapon he would turn on her at every opportunity. Yet even knowing that, she could neither stop the words nor diminish the deadly sweetness of her voice when she spoke.

“Would it be possible to stop singing the paragon’s praises long enough to get on the trail?” Jessica asked. “We’re making the townspeople nervous.”

“T
HAT’S
the damnedest rig I ever saw,” Rafe said, reining his horse alongside Jessica’s, “and I’ve seen a few odd things in my wandering life.”

Despite the bone-deep tiredness that gnawed at Jessica, she straightened in the sidesaddle and focused on Rafe, grateful to have something to take her mind off the wind.

Huge mountains rose all around the riders, their peaks invisible beneath a seething lid of slatecolored clouds. Climbing up in elevation was like riding back into winter. Wind took snow from the clouds and churned it into billowing veils of white. Wind pried at the snow on the ground, lifting particles of ice and turning them into a stinging, invisible rasp that scoured unprotected skin.

But most of all, the wind keened and moaned, prying at Jessica’s self-control to get to the nightmares beneath.

“Don’t they have sidesaddles in Australia?” she
asked quickly, unable to bear either the wind or her own thoughts.

“I didn’t see any, but I didn’t see more than a handful of white women, either.” Rafe glanced sideways at her. “Is it as uncomfortable as it looks?”

With gritted teeth and a stifled moan, Jessica shifted her weight, trying to settle the voluminous skirts of her riding habit more comfortably around the sidesaddle’s off-center horn.

“On a gaited horse, over level country, for a few hours at a time, it’s quite comfortable.”

“But old Two-Spot’s only ‘gait’ is a trot that would shake the change out of a man’s pocket,” Rafe finished for Jessica, “we’ve been riding sixteen hours a day for three days, and you look so worn I’d swear the sun would shine right through you.”

The wind flexed, twisted, and howled down from the pass ahead, carrying the icy promise of more snow.

“I don’t think the presence of sunlight is going to be a problem,” Jessica said, smiling briefly.

“All the same, when Wolfe comes back from scouting ahead, I’ll suggest that we make camp early tonight.”

“No.” The naked command in her own voice made Jessica wince. “I don’t want to be the cause of any delay,” she added more gently. “I’m stronger than I look. Truly.”

“I know.”

She gave Rafe a sideways look of disbelief.

“I mean it,” he said. “I wouldn’t have bet you could get through the first day, much less the last two. But if you don’t get more rest, you’ll have to be tied to that damn fool saddle by this time tomorrow.”

“Then that’s just what Wolfe will do. We have to get over the Great Divide before a real storm comes.”

Rafe’s mouth flattened beneath the light bronze beard stubble. He knew what was driving Wolfe. They had cut sign of other men headed for the pass over the Great Divide. In the last six hours, they had skirted areas where groups of men had camped in anticipation of the coming storm. The closer they came to the pass, the more likely it became that they would stumble over other men.

“Gold fever,” Rafe muttered. “Worse than cholera.”

“I doubt it. I’ve seen cholera go through a village like a scythe through a field of grain, leaving nothing standing, no adult living to bury the dead, and only a handful of children left alive to mourn.”

He stared at Jessica, surprised again. “You were one of them?”

She nodded. “I was nine.”

“Sweet Jesus,” he muttered. “How did you survive?”

Jessica smiled wearily. “I keep telling you. I’m not as fragile as I look.”