Without Words (25 page)

“Now calm down,” the marshal said. “Whatever happened, the lady don’t look hurt.”

“She’s bruised and scared. Do you only protect women in this town from attacks that leave open wounds?”

“Now, you know that’s not the case, but I know those boys, and I know they didn’t mean any real harm. You heard them. They were just teasing. You can’t tell me you never teased a girl when you were that age.”

“Believe it or not, I made it from grass to hay without ever attacking a woman.”

“There’s no call to make things sound like a crime instead of high spirits. I know you have to take extra good care of a wife like Miz Sterling, but I don’t believe those boys did more than a little mischief, and you’re not going to convince anyone else in this town it was more than that either.”

Bret lowered his voice to a harsh growl. “Then let me convince you of this. Either you keep those high-spirited mischief-makers locked up until my wife and I are long gone from this town, or I won’t be responsible for what happens to them. Maybe I’ll just tease them a little. Maybe I’ll beat them senseless, and maybe my spirits will run so high I’ll make them disappear.”

“Now, you don’t want to be making threats....”

Placing one hand on Hassie’s back, Bret ignored the marshal and guided her out of the office, slamming the door behind him so hard the windows rattled.

Hassie touched his cheek and mouthed. “I’m fine.”

“I never should have let you go there alone. I should have fed them to Gunner instead of bringing them here.”

She smiled and gave his cheek a pat. He could almost feel the anger draining away at her touch. “You have a very bad t-e-m-p-e-r.”

“Believe it or not, there was a time I was known as easygoing.”

Her eyebrows rose in disbelief. “Gunner still needs food.”

“He does. Let’s go see if his plate’s still there or if something ran off with it.”

A
T LEAST NOW
that all the payments for Robert Doosey were resolved, they’d be leaving in the morning. Hassie didn’t want Bret to end up with a price on his own head for murdering boys like the ones who had attacked her, and he had been in a towering rage, every bit as impressive as what he’d been like back in Werver.

He’d frightened her then. Today her wild relief at the sight of him was unadulterated. When he held her, the comfort erased every bad feeling. If only the marshal had waited another ten minutes—or an hour—before showing up, she could have stayed in Bret’s arms that much longer.

The pleasure of pressing against the warm wall of his chest, feeling his arms around her, and drawing in his scent with every breath was unlike anything she’d known before. Except waking up in bed with him, cuddled in close.

Back at the hotel, she changed to her pink dress and began repairing the collar on the green. When Bret’s knock sounded on the door, she answered eagerly, hoping they were going to take Gunner for a walk before supper. Bret had other ideas.

“Here, I bought you a present, and I’d better not see it on your of list of expenses.”

A gun. Hassie regarded the small revolver, snug in its own holster, unhappily.

“It’s called a pocket revolver because of its size, and it’s a small caliber like my boot gun.”

He must have recognized the blank look his words inspired. “That means even though it’s small, it won’t have as much kick as my .44,” he said, patting the gun at his hip. He threw a box of ammunition on the bed. “We can practice a little later.”

“I do not want a g-u-n.”

“The whistle didn’t work very well. You need it.”

In her opinion the whistle had worked fine. Bret had heard it, hadn’t he? She picked up the slate, not wanting to deal with the limits of his sign vocabulary right then.
“I will never shoot a person.”

His mouth tightened, expression impatient. “Do you think those boys were teasing?”

“No.”

“Do you think they wouldn’t have hurt you?”

“No, but I could not shoot them.”

“Most of the time you wouldn’t have to shoot anyone. Showing it would be enough, and you don’t know what you might do if things get desperate enough. Humor me and carry it. Strap it to your leg, put it in a pocket. Just carry it.”

She nodded reluctantly, took the gun, and put it beside the box of ammunition.

Bret sat on the bed. “Suppose right now we practice something else. Show me how you would tell me about my temper if I knew the right signs. For that matter, show me g-u-n.”

His forearms rested on his thighs, and he flexed his fingers as if getting ready to play an instrument. How could anyone not love him?

The thought froze Hassie in place until he looked up at her, questioning. She wanted to touch his face again, burrow in against his shoulder.

Her hands moved slowly, demonstrating the signs. Her mind raced full speed, considering her new discovery. She had just skipped right over fanciful illusions and landed in heartbreak territory.

They practiced signing until mid-afternoon and took Gunner for a long walk afterward. Happy to be out of the shed under any conditions, he fought the rope less than usual. Or maybe he was getting used to it.

Still unenthused over her new present, Hassie shut her eyes and pulled the trigger on the small revolver until Bret sighed and gave up. She put the nasty little thing back in its holster hoping never to take it out again.

Since the railroad man had authorized payment of the Doosey reward, they could leave in the morning. The trail of the army deserter they had followed to Silver Creek was too cold to try to pick up now, but Bret would find something else in the next town or the next. There wouldn’t be any more trouble with those boys in that short time, and Gunner could soon be free.

Come supper time, Hassie dug into her roast chicken with enthusiasm and was considering apple pie when Bret pushed her chair several feet across the board floor with a boot on the bottom rail. “Get over by the wall and stay there,” he said.

Too stunned to move, she sat and watched as James Quentin, a big, well-padded man enlarged by anger, swaggered up to their table, followed by his less impressive, smirking son. The two of them loomed over Bret as he sat at the table, and Bret shrank before them, sinking deeper in the chair.

“Hassie!”

She scrambled up and retreated to the wall.

Quentin leaned over, hands on the table. “Who do you think you are, manhandling my son and his friend, making false accusations, trying to tell the marshal how to do his job.”

“Your son and his friends assaulted my wife.”

“We didn’t do anything of the kind,” the son said. “We heard she was a dummy and wanted to see if we could make her squeak a little. We were just funnin’.”

“You heard my boy. I want an apology to him and to me. Now.” Quentin brushed back his coat, rested his hand on the butt of the pistol at his waist. His son grinned and did the same.

Bret erupted from the chair so fast, neither of the Quentins had time to draw the pistols under their hands. The muzzle of the big American revolver stopped inches from Quentin’s forehead, the smaller boot gun smacked the son, jerking his head back, and leaving a round red mark between his eyes.

“I’m guessing the reason that whining piece of snot you sired has no respect for women is you didn’t teach him any. If you want him in one piece tomorrow, you take him back to that cell, lock him in, and be glad that locks me out.”

Quentin and his son had gone white, the spots on the son’s face stood out like blood drops on snow. He backed away and ran.

“You’ll be sorry about this,” his father managed before turning and walking out with more dignity.

Bret returned Hassie’s chair to its position and beckoned to her. “How about some pie?”

All around them people who had gone quiet began talking again in subdued tones.

Hassie sat and watched Bret scrunch down again to put the boot gun back in place, then spelled a word they should never have to practice, her brows raised to make it a question. “Ambush?”

“Wouldn’t put it past him. We’ll leave before first light.”

Hassie managed not to sigh. Considering how many towns they’d been in, having to leave two in the dark wasn’t really that bad. So long as they weren’t starting a habit.

A
STRANGE CONTENTMENT
filled Bret as he finished a last cup of coffee. When he’d reined up beside the small creek gurgling nearby, he’d only intended a short break for a noon meal. At least six hours of good light for travel remained in the day.

Six blazing, enervating hours. After chilly nights and cool days heralding autumn, summer had returned to this part of Colorado with a vengeance. Today the horses had settled into an enduring plod within an hour of setting out. By the time they stopped here, Gunner had been lost behind them for an hour. When he caught up, tongue beet red and hanging halfway to the ground, he ignored their food and plunged straight into the creek.

Gunner’s solution to the unnatural weather was too good not to imitate. Besides, Bret enjoyed the way Hassie hid behind bushes to bathe and kept her underclothing on too. Modesty times two.

Afterward she always pulled on one of her dresses and spread her wet undergarments on bushes to dry. Nothing could induce him to tell her the way the sun turned the green dress into a translucent cloud around her. Yes, indeed, that green dress was his favorite.

They sat now in the shade of the cottonwoods along the creek. Her nipples, still peaked after the cold bath, showed perfectly through the thin cloth. Bret’s blood hummed through his veins with a pleasant tingle at the sight.

Intent on making Gunner a necklace of odoriferous weeds mixed with wildflowers, Hassie had a small vertical furrow between her brows. The tip of her tongue showed pink between her lips as she concentrated.

Bret shifted a little, moved a leg to block her sight of his lower body in case she looked up. Between what he could see now and what he anticipated seeing shortly, his condition was moving beyond pleasant to obvious.

As her hair dried, one inky tendril after another drifted on the air, lighter than the damp mass loose down her back. The memory of the silky feel of her hair in his fingers and under his cheek aroused him further.

Four year of war, six since then. For ten years, guilt always tainted the simple pleasure of watching a woman, left him sleepless and wrung out if things went further. His mind knew he didn’t owe another man’s wife fidelity because he loved her, but his heart had never accepted it and punished him for every lapse.

He searched his feelings now, probed the old wounds and found the pain but no guilt. Old feelings for Mary cast no cloud over new and different feelings for Hassie.

He wanted the laughter. He wanted the feeling of partnership that rose from sitting side by side sorting through wanted posters or sneaking Gunner into a hotel room. He wanted to keep her safe and make sure she never had to experience anyone like the Restons or Quentins again.

When she held up the finished circle of the necklace and smiled at him, Bret smiled back. Flowers on that scruffy mongrel were ridiculous, but that was something else he wasn’t going to tell her. She claimed the weeds discouraged pests, and he had to admit Gunner had stayed miraculously flea-free all season.

She arranged the bushy wreath around Gunner’s neck, rose, and moved into the sunlight. Her body had filled out nicely these last months, but her figure was still lithe, not voluptuous. High, firm breasts, slim waist, and of course the heart-shaped rump nothing disguised.

Long legs moved gracefully under the skirt, legs he wanted wrapped around his, wrapped around his waist. Because he wanted that too, wanted her under him, on top of him, beside him, against walls....

The scorching sun might stop her running but not the way she gloried in moving freely over the prairie. Arms outstretched as if to catch the very air, she whirled, bent, and tried to entice Gunner to give up the shade. The dog resisted. Bret came to his feet as if pulled by invisible strings.

W
HEN
B
RET ROSE
to his feet, Hassie dropped her arms, expecting him to beckon, wanting her to change back to trail clothes and saddle Brownie. They could cover many more miles before sunset.

If the look on his face didn’t warn her he had something else in mind, his purposeful stride did. She backed away, still bent at the waist from her futile attempt to lure Gunner out of the shade. Something flickered in Bret’s eyes, something as different as his expression. Her breath caught. She spun, ran, dodged when she heard him close behind her.

The tap on her shoulder was distinct, but only a tap. She looked over her shoulder and saw him standing still, bent over, hands on thighs, a challenge on his face now. Laughing, she went after him. Gunner finally gave up the shade and joined the game, barking and getting in the way.

Bret was quick. She only caught him because of Gunner’s interference, and by then they were both out of breath, gasping in the hot air.

“Now that you’ve caught me, what are you going to do with me?” he said.

He was still clean shaven from a visit to the barber shop before they’d left one more small town this morning, no beard blurring the lines of his face. His gray eyes were locked on hers and anything but cold. She wanted to place her palms flat on his heaving chest, kiss him, and taste the salt.

Keeping her hands curled in her skirt, she reached up and gave him a chaste peck on the jaw.

“I have a better idea.” He pulled her close. The heat from the day and their game changed to something deeper. Her arms slid around his neck, her fingers combed through his hair.

She anticipated the kiss, expected hard pressure on her mouth and an invading tongue. Instead his lips brushed hers as lightly as butterfly wings before settling more firmly. Her arms tightened. So did his.

Her body molded to his, chest to chest, belly to belly. Her quickened breath matched the rhythm of his. His mouth caressed hers, played against hers. His teeth tugged gently on her bottom lip, and she opened for him, not invaded at all but joined. His tongue teased until she tried to imitate. From the sound he made deep in his throat, she succeeded.