Rebel Outlaw Page 5

  He shook his head. Collar-length hair, brown and sun streaked, dipped across his forehead. It brushed his cheek, obscuring one of his dimples.

  “I reckon your grandfather would have a thing or two to tell me on judgment day if I let you freeze to death.”

  “I’m leaving.” She lifted her chin, clamped her jaw tight and prayed that she looked firm...resolute. “If you try and stop me, I’ll scream.”

  “Have it your way.”

  All of a sudden he lunged at her, scooped her up and dumped her back on the bed. Before she could let out a screech, he’d climbed in beside her and wrapped her tight in his embrace.

  “If you scream, you’ll scandalize Grannie Rose and Aunt Tillie.” He arched his brows. His eyes conveyed a searing blue challenge.

  He was a devil, and no doubt about it. His thigh crossed her hip. He hugged her bosom close to his chest with his big open hand pressing the small of her back. Heat and temptation curled about her in a sinuous wave, brushing her hair, her belly and twining down her legs.

  “I’ll bake you a cake if you get out of my bed.” She offered her proven weapon, but he shook his head.

  “Got all the sweets I want right here.” He touched a lock of her hair and gently pulled it. It twisted about his finger, gleaming in the soft lamplight. She’d yank it free but she was stuck.

  “I’ve got a deal for you to think about,” he murmured, and let her hair go slack on his finger. “You promise to sleep in the house and I’ll get out of your bed.”

  She could refuse... But did that mean he’d stay here all night making her feel... Never mind that.

  He was the devil, all right, and charming enough to whisk the bloomers right off her if she weren’t careful.

  “If it means that much to you, I’ll stay.” She made sure her voice sounded good and grudging.

  He eased out of the bed and took the warmth with him.

  “But only this one night,” she clarified.

  “Guess that means I’ll meet you here in bed tomorrow night and every other one you try and spend outside.”

  “You ought to be locked up. You’re just a crime short of being a criminal.”

  For whatever reason, her insult made him laugh and mention the Travers way again. He kept on laughing, too. She listened to the disturbing timbre of his voice while he walked down the hall then descended the stairs.

  A gust of wind hit the window, shook it like a fist. She snuggled into her pillow grateful to be in her bed with her blankets over her. What made her think that she could survive outside with the cold weather coming on?

  Pride in all its foolishness, she reckoned. Still, she wasn’t ready to let go of it entirely. Self-respect counted for something.

  That meant in order to save face she’d have to act out some sort of objection to remaining in the house. She only hoped the price was not beginning each night in bed with Colt Travers.

  “How great a folly is it to lie to one’s own self?” she asked the wise old owl who circled the night sky beyond the window.

  * * *

  A couple of things had kept Colt from getting more than a few moments of sleep last night.

  He walked across the yard in the predawn listening to the crunch of his boots cut the crisp, quiet morning. He thought about those two things.

  One of them was the barn, big and red in the distance setting on top of the rise of a gentle green slope. It had been a long time since animals had lived in it. William had sold off the stock when he became ill.

  Colt had been sorry as hell to learn of his friend’s passing. But because of William’s eagerness for him to have the place, he didn’t feel guilty for taking it over.

  They had discussed his plans for the horses on those quiet nights they had shared by the fire. If folks could reach down from eternity, he figured William was walking beside him, as excited as he was for the revival of the ranch.

  Too bad he couldn’t tell him that a dozen horses, the parents of many to come, were waiting for him at a ranch only a day’s ride away. He would bring them home in plenty of time to settle in before the first snowfall of the year.

  He only had a week to get the barn ready for them. It would be a challenge, but one he had never really hoped to have. If it hadn’t been for William, he would still be sweating for the railroad with only the next payday to look forward to.

  A side door of the barn opened then closed. The second reason he hadn’t slept last night was now stepping out into the dim light of dawn.

  Holly Jane lifted her face to the morning breeze. Her chest rose and fell with the deep breath she took.

  Because of her, he hadn’t wanted to doze. Each time he closed his eyes he dreamed of her plush little body wriggling in his arms and the sweet brown gaze of a virgin blinking at him with her first stirring of sexual interest. He’d been around women often enough to know when this was the case.

  The trouble was, his interest had stirred right back. He’d bet the farm that William hadn’t intended him to seduce his granddaughter.

  Apparently, Holly Jane hadn’t noticed him walking toward the barn. She reached down and patted Lulu on the head, then turned and took the path that led to the bridge, then the lane that went to Friendship Springs.

  It took some effort not to laugh and alert her of his presence, but hell and damn, the pig wore a bow of the same blue dotted fabric as Holly Jane’s dress. The bow bounced in the piggy ear in time with the sway of Holly Jane’s skirt.

  Since Holly Jane didn’t see him watching, he looked his fill. She wore her hair loose this morning; it shivered over her back, catching the first rays of sunshine.

  A raccoon rustled out of the bushes and waddled up to her. She patted its head. Then the pig touched noses with the critter.

  “What the hell, Bo Peep?” he murmured. He’d never seen anything like that.

  He shook his head. Maybe when the time came, he wouldn’t have to go through the sweat of rounding up his herd, he’d just ask Holly Jane to give them a whistle.

  He swung the big barn door open wide then stepped inside. Sparkling dust motes chased each other in the dawn light that began to peek through the wood slats.

  Five stalls lined one wall, and he would add two more to the wall opposite. He meant to have his mares deliver in the safety of the barn rather than on the open land.

  A flock of fat hens pecked at seed in a dim corner. Holly Jane must have fed them before she went to work at The Sweet Treat.

  Smack in the center of the flock was Sunday dinner. He could nearly taste the crunch of a fried wing right now.

  With more work to be done than time to do it, Colt set himself to the task of making the barn his own.

  In no time, it seemed, Aunt Tillie came by to bring him the noon meal.

  He sat beside her on a bale of hay and gobbled down a hunk of bread with blueberry jam spread all over it.

  “How’s Grannie Rose this morning?” he mumbled around the bite of crust.

  “Mind your manners, boy.” Aunt Tillie slapped his wrist.

  He grinned at her and winked. He didn’t ordinarily eat with his mouth full of food, but his aunt needed someone to fuss over.

  “Considering she saw an alligator in the flower garden this morning, she’s doing well.”

  “Is she getting worse, do you think?” It hurt, watching his grandmother’s mind falter.

  “Sometimes, maybe. Other times she’s as sharp as the both of us combined. She still understands when I tell her that the unreasonable things she sees are in her mind...and the main thing is, Colt, she’s happy.”

  “What about you? Will you be happy here?”

  She didn’t speak for a minute. She sighed then smiled at him.

  “Thank you for bringing us here. It’s paradise compared to the viper pit you too
k us out of.”

  “Too bad Holly Jane had to lose the place for us to get it.” He did feel bad about that.

  “Your grandmother heard you last night when she got out of bed to use the chamber pot,” Aunt Tillie arched a brow at him. “Once you marry the child, she’ll feel at home again.”

  “I ain’t getting roped and tied,” he said between bites of an apple. “Especially to Little Bo Peep.”

  “Bo Peep, is it? You seem defensive, Colt. You always call people names when you want some distance... Rose said you kidnapped her according to the Travers way... You said those very words.”

  “It was late, and she wasn’t kidnapped. I just brought her in from the cold so her granddaddy won’t haunt me.”

  His aunt laughed. She stood, kissed the top of his dusty hair and walked out of the barn.

  He wasn’t comfortable with the way she kept on laughing all the way out into the warm afternoon.

  He set to work, rucking out stalls and repairing broken boards. Working up a good sweat ought to get his mind off matchmaking old ladies and back where it belonged, ankle-deep in straw and dried-out manure.

  * * *

  It had been six days since the Travers family had taken over Holly Jane’s home and, she had to admit, the world had not ended. In some ways life had improved.

  For instance, because Colt had spread the word that the ranch belonged to him, she was able to sit beside the spring in Town Square without a single suitor pressing his suit.

  She closed her eyes and felt the bliss of fall sunshine kneading her shoulders. She listened to the spring’s bubbling water and a bird chirping in a tree that shaded the porch of The Sweet Treat.

  Not only were things different for her in town, but at the ranch, as well. When she returned this evening, the house wouldn’t be cold and empty. A fire would already be laid in the hearth. Grannie Rose would be laughing about the monkey she had seen poking about the garden and wasn’t it a shame that she was the only one who could see the amusing little creature.

  Aunt Tillie would be preparing dinner, and the welcoming scent would greet her as soon as she stepped onto the bridge.

  If only Colt weren’t there to tease her with a grin that meant more than a friendly “How do you do?” With any luck, he’d be working late in the barn getting ready for the horses he was bringing to the ranch.

  If not for his disturbing presence, life would be pleasant, easy as a cloud passing though the sky on a summer day.

  Because of his high-handed behavior, she had been forced to put on a grand show of defiance, of independence. In the end, though, when it came to a choice between a cold sleepless night outdoors and her warm bed... Well, pride be hanged.

  She’d played the game with Colt the first night and the second, with her shivering at the carousel and he toting her back inside.

  It hadn’t taken long to discover that Colt Wesson was not a man to toy with. He possessed weapons that made her want to fall into his arms...to wrap herself around him and do...something... And it was far from proper.

  She could only hope that when she went home this evening he wasn’t sitting in Granddaddy’s fireside chair polishing a saddle or reading the Friendship Springs Gazette. What she would enjoy most was chatting with the old ladies until bedtime without having to constantly be glancing in Colt’s direction to see if he was glancing in hers.

  Oh, phooey! Holly Jane set all thoughts of the blasted man from her mind and snuggled deeper into her peaceful moment of sunshine and soothing sounds. Really and truly, she felt content for the first time since Granddaddy’s passing.

  She still intended to buy back the ranch, but for today she was happy to sit in the sunshine and feel good.

  A gunshot rang out from the north end of town, shattering her reverie. All around her, shutters banged closed, and folks ran for the nearest open door.

  It could only be the Broadhowers and the Folsoms at each other again. The only thing to do was hide from the stray bullets being fired. It would be good to have a town marshal who would not cower under his desk. But that was not the case. She supposed they were lucky to have a lawman at all. Because of the Folsoms and the Broadhowers, no one wanted the job.

  She snatched up Lulu and turned in time to see Colt running down the boardwalk. Midstride he snatched up a pair of little boys who had been playing marbles. With one child under each arm, he ducked inside The Sweet Treat.

  She dashed in behind him, closed and locked the door.

  “Get under the table, boys,” she said, then grabbed a plate of cookies from the counter and slid it under with them.

  Lulu scrambled in after the children.

  Colt grabbed Holly Jane by the waist with both hands. He shoved her against the wall that separated the outer room from the kitchen then pressed her against it with his body tight enough that she could count his slow, steady heartbeats. That had to mean he could feel her quick and erratic ones.

  With any luck he would think she was trembling for fear of the men terrorizing the street. He wouldn’t know that she was used to them disrupting the peace.

  What she wasn’t used to was being breath to breath with a man...this man in particular. The scent of his skin, so warm and manly where his pulse throbbed in his neck, is what made her heart loop-de-loop.

  A pair of angry voices cut the air only a block away.

  She felt Colt’s muscles flex and stretch against her bosom and heard the whisper of steel against leather as he drew the long knife from its shield.

  “Get under the table with the boys,” he whispered in her ear. “Don’t come out until I get back.”

  “You can’t go out there!” She reached for the front of his shirt and snagged a button, but it slipped through her fingers.

  He opened the door a crack then nodded his head toward the table, ordering her to get under it.

  Since Colt, the newcomer to Friendship Springs, was the only one to have the courage to stand up to the town bad boys, she would cooperate.

  She got down on hands and knees, lifted the tablecloth and crawled in beside the boys.

  “We always like taking shelter with you, Miss Munroe,” one of the boys said through a mouthful of cookie crumbs.

  “Don’t that stranger know to wait ten minutes after the last shot to go outside?” said the other.

  “He’s new in town. I reckon nobody told him that.”

  A yip of pain from beyond the door had the boys looking at each other, eyebrows raised in surprise. Heavy-footed boot steps stomped down the boardwalk.

  Two minutes later the door opened and Colt peeked inside.

  “You boys go along home now.”

  “But it hasn’t been ten minutes.” They looked at the plate of cookies then at Holly Jane.

  “Fill up your pockets and run along.”

  Colt stepped inside as the boys passed by him, both his hands hidden behind his back.

  “You got an old rag, Sunshine?”

  Holly Jane got one from the kitchen then gave it to him. He wiped a smear of blood from the blade.

  She gasped and he shrugged.

  “Wasn’t as bad as it looks.” He put the knife in its sheath and shoved the bloody cloth in his pocket. “Just gave the fool a knick on the wrist to make him drop his gun.”

  “Folsom or Broadhower?”

  “Don’t rightly know. The one who was pointing his gun at me. Doesn’t matter, really.”

  “It might— The Broadhowers are meaner than the Folsoms.” Holly Jane let out a sigh and then brushed a streak of hair away from her mouth. “You might have been killed.”

  He laughed. “Nice to know you care, but those fools were clowns. It was clear as air that neither of them know one end of a six-shooter from the other.”

  “That may be, but they might get lucky.
.. And now you’ve made enemies of them both.”

  “Pick me out a cake for Grannie Rose and I’ll walk you home.”

  “I can’t close up yet. It’s only three o’clock and I’ve still got sales to make.”

  “I’ll take that pie and all the cookies in the case and we’ll be on our way.” He reached in the pocket of his shirt, then handed her ten dollars.

  “That puts me closer to buying you out, thank you very much.”

  “Not sellin’, Sunshine. Not for a million dollars.”

  Chapter Five

  The walk from town was short, the path gentle and flat with big trees to keep the sun off and rustling leaves to listen to.

  Even so, Colt figured Holly Jane would be safer if she rode a horse. When he picked up his herd, he’d give her one that was gentle but smart and fast.

  Just because the Folsoms and the Broadhowers were leaving her alone for the time being, didn’t mean that they would forever. It might not take long before they figured out that, while marrying Holly Jane would do no good, kidnapping her might. Ransom could be a powerful tool. He’d learned that and more growing up.

  Could be that Grannie and Aunt Tillie weren’t safe, either. He’d give up his ranch for any one of them if it came to the worst, but there were some Folsoms and Broadhowers who might not live to enjoy it.

  “What makes those two families hate each other so much, anyway?” he asked, while they walked beneath leaves that flashed their fall colors in the breeze.

  He walked slowly, enjoying the warm afternoon and watching light and shadow flit across Holly Jane’s fair-skinned face.

  Lucky thing his hands were full of cake and cookies since there was something about being alone with her that made him feel like wrapping her up in his arms and kissing her.

  Odd, she wasn’t the kind of woman who normally stirred his blood. Too innocent and dewy. What would she see when she looked at him? A criminal, no doubt, like the rest of his kin.