The Mavericks (9 page)

Suzette pulled herself up into the driver's seat and untied the reins from the brakes. “Are you coming?” she asked when Josie still hadn't moved.

Josie stalled a moment longer before turning and climbing into the wagon without a word. Suzette slapped the reins and called, “Giddyaup!” She smiled to herself when she remembered that Zeke and Hawk's ranch wasn't far from Tombstone. She had a feeling Josie had finally met a man who could get past her formidable defenses. Suddenly she was more eager than ever to reach Tombstone.

“Are you done complaining?” Hawk asked Zeke. They were seated on the ground under the shade of a sycamore tree, leaning against the trunk. Hawk gazed up at the light filtering through the canopy overhead, watching the five-pointed leaves as they rustled in the barely perceptible breeze, occasionally allowing a shaft of sunlight to reach the ground. They had paused to allow the horses to drink and graze a few minutes. Zeke had taken the opportunity to fill Hawk's ear about Josie.

“I haven't complained all that much,” Zeke protested.

It amused Hawk to see his cynical brother so worked up over a woman, but it worried him as well. Zeke pretended to have a thick hide and not care about anything, but Hawk knew he cared about some people very deeply. He hoped Josie wasn't going to be one of those people. “Every time you open your mouth you talk about Josie. Even the horses are probably tired of hearing her name by now. I don't see why she bothers you so much if you dislike her.”

“It's her ingrained belief that no man can ignore her, that every man who sees her can't keep his hands off her.”

Hawk shrugged. “All beautiful women are like that, especially the ones who make a living being attractive to men.”

“She's not that beautiful.”

Hawk wasn't about to let Zeke get by with that piece of fiction. “Don't be stupid. She is, and you know it.”

Hawk had to admit it was a pleasure to look at a woman as beautiful as Josie, but he'd felt much more
comfortable around Suzette. She wasn't so beautiful or so perfect that she couldn't be touched. Besides, there was something about Suzette that said she wanted to be touched, that she wanted to be close to him, that she was as aware of his physical presence as he was of hers, and she wasn't afraid to admit it.

Zeke got up and moved away from Hawk. Hawk was sure the only reason Zeke had walked away was that Hawk had forced him to admit Josie was beautiful. He was unable to be still, unable to keep his mind on anything except Josie for more than a few minutes.

“I don't know why she gets under my skin,” Zeke said, “but everything about her irritates me. I tell myself it doesn't matter, that I'll never see her again, but it doesn't make any difference.”

“I don't know why you're getting so upset. It's not the first time you've been attracted to a woman. Or have you forgotten Rosie? I think the other one was called Tess.”

“This is different,” Zeke said as he paced back and forth among the trees. Occasionally he would bend over to pick up a dead branch, then break it into tiny pieces before tossing it away. “They actually liked me. Josie can't stand the sight of me.”

Hawk wondered if his feelings for Suzette were any clearer. And how did she really feel about him? Lots of women had flirted with him. Sometimes they thought it was exciting to be with an Indian—maybe it was their expectation of danger. Their interest seemed to be mostly because he was a novelty. No woman had ever been interested in him as a man. Certainly none had ever helped him with his horses. There was nothing flashy about Suzette. She was quiet, steady, genuine.

“I can't understand why she works in a saloon if she hates men so much,” Zeke said.

“What else could she do? You certainly can't believe she'd work as a maid or a dressmaker. Can you see Josie putting up with some demanding rich man's wife?”

Zeke chuckled. “She'd probably throw the woman out of the shop.”

“Not the way to build a successful business. Now let's get our horses back on the trail. That ranch isn't getting any closer with us sitting on our butts.”

Hawk got to his feet, brushed the debris from the seat of his pants, and ambled toward his mount, which was cropping grass in the bright sunlight. He caught up the reins and led the horse to the river for a drink. As the animal sank its muzzle into the clear water, Hawk wondered where Suzette and Josie were now, if they were making good time, if they were close behind, if they were safe. In his own way, he was just as bad as Zeke. He'd had a couple of relationships with women in the past, but no woman had affected him the way Suzette had.

Unfortunately, the timing was all wrong for him and Zeke. They'd decided they were too old to get married. They knew they were too different to fit into normal society, so they'd bought a ranch a good distance from any town, where they could live alone and raise their horses. They had a good plan, and the first phase would be complete when they got these mares to their ranch. Now was not the time to start thinking about a serious relationship, certainly not with a woman who made her living as a singer and dancer. Their brother Sean had been lucky when he married a woman who
owned her own saloon, but Hawk couldn't expect the same thing to happen twice within the same family.

“You ready, or are you going to stare into space all day?”

The sharp edge of Zeke's voice brought Hawk's thoughts back to the task at hand, getting the mares to their ranch before they started dropping their foals. A gentle tug on the reins and his mount raised his dripping muzzle from the water. Hawk led him out of the riverbed and up a sandy bank. “Want to trade places? You've been eating dust all morning.”

“Nah. If it weren't for the dust, I'd be thinking about Josie all the time.”

“Forget about Josie, and concentrate on the changes we need to make to the ranch house. I hope you remember all those carpenter skills you said you learned when you were a slave.”

“I haven't forgotten
anything
about being a slave.”

“Just be grateful Isabelle adopted you. None of us had much to live for before she found us,” Hawk said.

Thinking of how Isabelle had changed his life forever caused Hawk's thoughts to wander back to the years he had spent growing up as part of that cobbledtogether family of orphaned misfits. Despite their differences and the inevitable fights with his adopted brothers, it was the only time in his life he felt like he really belonged. “Do you ever think of going back to Texas?”

“Sometimes. How about you?”

Hawk gripped the saddle horn but didn't raise himself into the saddle. “Sometimes. I miss that bunch.”

But things had changed in the years since they all worked with Jake and Isabelle on the ranch. Practically
everybody was married. The Hill Country was overrun with children who called Jake and Isabelle their grandparents. Now Zeke and Hawk had virtually nothing in common with their brothers and sisters. Whenever the family got together, everyone was talking about children inside of five minutes.

“Me, too,” Zeke said. “But I don't miss Isabelle telling me I ought to get married before I'm so old nobody will have me. I love that woman, but I can't take her looking at me with those sad eyes.”

Hawk swung into the saddle. “Did Jake tell you he's saving some land for us?”

“Yeah, but I told him we'd already bought a ranch.”

“Isabelle's never going to be happy until she's got us all within shouting distance.”

Zeke swung into the saddle, guided his mount toward Hawk. “The last thing she needs is two crusty, cranky bachelors in the middle of all that connubial bliss.”

“I tried to make her understand we'd be happier by ourselves.”

Together, they rode toward their small herd. “Did she believe you?”

“Isabelle never believes anything she doesn't like.”

Zeke chuckled again, but Hawk heard the same softness in his voice that all the orphans had when they talked about the determined, vibrant woman who'd changed their lives.

“That's how she gets everybody to do what she wants,” Zeke said.

Hawk's sharp whistle brought the mares' heads up from where they were grazing. Within moments they had formed a line behind Dusky Lady. A second whis-tle
started them moving down the trail toward the ranch. Isabelle wouldn't get what she wanted this time, because neither Zeke nor Hawk was the marrying kind.

Thoroughly tired of her own company, Josie climbed onto the wagon seat next to Suzette. The desert landscape was monotonous, but it was better than her own thoughts. Occasionally they came to a treelined trickle of water that emptied into the San Pedro River, but mostly they crossed dry washes bordered by sagebrush, mesquite, ironwood, several kinds of cactus, and an occasional cottonwood. The slopes rising to the mountains on both sides of the river were covered in juniper. Pine, fir, and spruce farther up teased her with promises of cool temperatures and deep shade, but they passed each mountain without pausing. Tombstone lay to the south.

“You've been in a strange mood all day,” Suzette said to Josie. “Want to tell me what's bothering you?”

“Pay no attention to me. You know I get out of sorts when I can't have a hot bath. And I can just feel my skin drying out in this sun.”

Josie had spent most of the morning inside the wagon trying to sleep. She hadn't been tired, just trying to escape thoughts that kept nagging at her. She couldn't decide whether thinking about Zeke or the rocking of the wagon had been responsible for her being unable to doze, but the result was that she was in an even worse mood than when Zeke had stalked off earlier that morning.

“I've known you too long not to sense your moods.
You've been thinking about your attraction to Zeke,” Suzette said.

“Then you know I don't want to talk about it.”

“It might be better if you did. At least it'll stop festering inside.”

Josie didn't want to tell anybody what was bothering her. She couldn't believe it was Zeke, just about the last man on earth she'd ever expected to think about for more than five minutes. What was worse, she couldn't even figure out what it was that made her think about him. He was rude and bossy. He didn't give her credit for being able to do anything by herself. And when she got angry at him, he got just as angry at her. He'd even walked away and left her standing.

“I know it's Zeke,” Suzette said. “What I don't understand is why.”

“Do you think I do?” Josie snapped, angry that Suzette knew and had forced her to face the truth.

“He's a nice man. Attractive, too.”

“I don't agree, but that's not the point.”

“I know how your father treated you and your mother, but you shouldn't let that turn you against all men. A couple of men who came to the saloon were really interested in you.”

“I wasn't interested in them.”

“Maybe not, but what if you fall in love with Zeke?”

“I'm not insane,” Josie exclaimed. “I'll never fall in love with any man, but certainly not a man like Zeke.”

“I like him.”

The wheel bounced over a stone causing Josie to grab on to the seat to keep from tumbling out of the wagon. “Then
you
fall in love with him.”

Josie didn't like all this talk about falling in love. She wasn't sure anybody ever really did fall in love. A man wanted a woman to cook, take care of his house, his physical needs, and have his children. No love there. A woman wanted a husband to provide for her, protect her, and father her children. No love there either, just two people depending on each other for their own benefit. Mother Nature had planned it so it was practically impossible for men and women not to marry. And to make sure it happened, she'd created this illusion called love, a kind of mental breakdown that removed common sense and replaced it with a belief that a woman
wanted
to belong to a man,
wanted
to be his virtual slave.

“I thought you didn't believe in love,” Suzette said.

“I don't.”

“Then how do you account for your interest in Zeke?”

“I can't, and that's what's making me so angry.”

Josie moved her leg to keep it from being brushed by the thorny arm of a catclaw bush. She couldn't imagine why any man would want to live in a desert, especially when it was covered in cactus and thorny bushes. To say nothing of the dirt, the snakes, and the killing heat. Drops of perspiration rolled down her back.

“I think it's because he doesn't treat you like some delicate piece of porcelain or worship your beauty.”

“I'd be in a fine fix if men didn't appreciate my looks. How would I earn a living?”

“I don't know. But I still don't believe you like them falling all over you.”

“You're my best friend. You're supposed to believe
what I say.” Josie hated it when she sounded sulky. It made her feel like a child.

“I'm also supposed to tell you when you're fooling yourself, and you're doing that now if you don't believe you like it that Zeke can keep his head while he's looking at you.”

Josie looked at the various cactuses they were passing and tried to interest herself in identifying each kind, but how was it possible to care if one cactus was called a prickly pear and another a cholla when they were all covered with thorns and all you wanted to do was stay away from them? Men were a lot like a cactus. Some were round barrel cactuses, some prissy pin cushions, some wiry ocotillo, and some majestic saguaro. But all were thorny, stiff, unbending. “I know I like it when men look at me on stage. But maybe you're right—I
don't
like it any other time.”

“You can't have it both ways.”

“Our act has never caused me any trouble I can't handle.”

“I'm not talking about our act. I'm talking about you not being able to stop thinking about Zeke, any more than I wager he can stop thinking about you.”