Audrey and the Maverick (4 page)

Hell’s Gulch was a welcome sight to Audrey after the long hours on the rough trail road. At contrast to its name, it looked like a paradise in the early afternoon sun. Situated in a lush, flat valley at the foot of the Medicine Bow Mountains, its prairie was awash with spring flowers, coloring the fields in wide swaths of white, purple, and yellow flowers.

A sprawling, three-wire fence demarcated McCaid’s ranch. Judging by its length, they had to have been traveling along his property line for the last two hours of their trip. When they pulled onto the property at an open gate, Audrey felt her stomach tighten into a knot. What would the conditions be like out here? McCaid had a house under construction—she knew because of all the supply wagons that had rolled through town last year. Was the house finished yet? Where would she and Amy stay?

Coming over a slight hill, Audrey could see several corrals, a covered wagon, and a couple of buckboard wagons. Off to one side was a small white house. A large, open tent canopy covered the space between the house and a scattering of tables and benches. Farther out was a big fire pit with several wooden benches situated around it. Audrey looked across the encampment, seeing it was as she feared: not another woman was in sight.

There was a long low building, which Audrey assumed was the bunkhouse. Between it and the cookhouse were several white tents lined up in three neat rows. Would she and Amy have a tent of her own? Would they have to sleep among the men? Or would they be sleeping in the open air? She brought a coat for both of them, but hadn’t any spare blankets to bring from home. She wasn’t outfitted for a truly rustic existence.

Before McCaid could even draw the wagon to a stop, several of his men trotted over. Audrey helped herself off the wagon, not waiting for McCaid or any of the men to assist her. She lifted Amy down while McCaid walked around the wagon and unloaded her satchel. He seemed tense, which only increased her nervousness.

“Franklin, this is Miss Sheridan, from town, and her daughter, Amy Lynn. She’s come out to cook for us,” McCaid said to a balding, friendly faced man.

“Oh.” Franklin looked from McCaid to Audrey and back again. “Oh, I understand. Cook for us, huh? We weren’t expecting you to bring a woman back with you—I mean, a cook. Well, we expected a cook but not a woman.” He drew a breath as color painted his face. “Have you told Jenkins?”

“It came up at the last moment. I don’t think he’ll be too upset—he never took to cooking anyway.”

“True enough. Well, I guess they should take the cabin over by yer tent.” Franklin pointed to a tiny structure that Audrey had not yet noticed on the crest of a nearby hill. “What ’er you slack-witted hombres staring at? Come introduce yerselves to Miss Sheridan and her little girl,” he barked to the crowd of men gathered behind him.

A half dozen men filed by, tipping their hats to her. Some looked happy to see a woman, some none too pleased. She recognized a few from town. Audrey’s throat ached from Kemp’s roughness. She tried to ignore the appraising gazes that strayed to her bruises, but couldn’t help wondering if her whole neck was black and blue.

“Let’s go see the cabin,” McCaid said over his shoulder as he took off with her satchel in hand. His stride was too fast for her to match with Amy in tow. When she caught up with him at the doorway to the cabin, he pointed back toward the opposite end of the camp.

“That’s the chuck tent and cookhouse. While you get settled, I’ll let Jenkins know you’re taking over the cooking. Check in with him when you’re ready. Your duties will start with breakfast.”

He entered the small cabin, and Audrey followed him. There was little room to spare inside the tiny space, especially with McCaid standing in the middle of it. A small bed was pushed against one wall, below the only window. There was a front door and a back door, a woodstove, and a small table with two chairs. A couple of shirts hung on pegs on the wall near the table. Here and there cracks in the wooden walls let in bright slivers of sunlight. The wood floor was dusty, the walls were cobwebby, and the window was opaque with grime.

“Whose cabin is this?” Audrey asked, wondering whom they were putting out.

“It’s an old hunting shack that came with the land.” He set her satchel down on the bed, stirring up a cloud of dust. “The boys are up before dawn each morning. Jenkins, the current cook, feeds them at dawn, noon, and six, but you can learn more when you talk to him.”

Audrey followed him to the door, none too anxious to be in the cabin. “How many men are there?”

“A dozen ranch hands, give or take a few. Depends on how many are in camp, not on watch or out with the herds. Add in the construction workers and you’ve another dozen or so.”

At the doorstep, he turned around so abruptly she almost ran into him. He stared down at her, his expression uncomfortably intent. “Let me make one thing perfectly clear, Miss Sheridan. I don’t want you stirring up trouble among the men. Now and then you may go back into town for a weekend. What you do with your free time when you’re there is your business. When you’re out here, you’re on my time. I’m paying good wages to these men to build my house and keep my sheep alive, not to be fighting over you.”

Audrey felt the sting of his assessment. It wasn’t exactly accurate now, but it soon would be. She didn’t try to defend herself. “Good day, Mr. McCaid.”

McCaid’s gaze dipped to Amy Lynn, who stood behind her, a hand fisted in Audrey’s skirt, her enormous eyes watching him. His gaze slowly lifted to Audrey’s face. He regarded her for a tense moment, a muscle bunching in his jaw. He lifted his hat and gave her a nod. “Good day, Miss Sheridan.”

Amy Lynn pressed against her thigh as they watched McCaid’s retreating back. Audrey touched her foster daughter’s shoulder. “It’s all right, baby.” She looked down at Amy and smiled reassuringly though her hand shook as she smoothed a lock of hair from her daughter’s pale face. “We’ll be fine here.”

It took several hours to clean the small cabin. Audrey hauled the small mattress outside and beat the dust out of it. She retrieved a bucket under the table, then went in search of the river she heard nearby. She found some large, smooth rocks at its edge and managed a rough rinsing of the linens. She spread them out on bushes near the river to dry in the sunshine, then returned to the cabin with a fresh bucket of water. Taking one of the abandoned shirts to use as a washrag, she set about scrubbing the cabin’s surfaces.

Soon the interior gleamed, and she turned her attention to the outhouse a dozen yards behind the cabin. She made sure it was cleared of cobwebs and spiders and clean enough for her and Amy to use. She brought the mattress back into the cabin only after a lengthy airing and a close inspection to be sure it was free of bedbugs and other critters left over from the cabin’s last occupants. Once she had reassembled the bed and unpacked their few belongings, she was ready to face the rest of the camp.

The day had been warm, but evening was settling in, and the nights were still quite cool this time of year. She gathered up their coats, took Amy’s hand, and headed off toward the cookhouse. Men had begun congregating around the fire pit as they awaited supper. She ignored their curious looks. Judging from Franklin’s remarks earlier, she had no idea whether her meeting with Jenkins would be friendly or confrontational, but she hoped it would go well. Stepping into the warm interior of a large open room, she found an older man stirring a pot steaming on one of two enormous iron stoves.

“Mr. Jenkins?” Audrey addressed the man, pausing off to one side of him. He slowly, stiffly, turned to her. He looked her up and down once, his weathered face wrinkled into a frown, his bushy brows nearly meeting in the middle.

“I reckon you’re the new cook.”

“I am.”

“You ever cook for a few dozen men?”

“No.”

“You ever cook before?”

She smiled patiently, intent on overlooking his grouchy demeanor. “Of course. Could you show me around your setup here? I’d like to get my bearings before the morning meal.”

He made a noise that sounded like a cross between a growl and a groan, then hung up the long metal spoon. Turning, he spotted Amy Lynn. He stood for a long moment, just staring at the little girl, who happened not to be hiding behind Audrey’s skirts. Amy Lynn returned his frank perusal unflinchingly. Audrey smiled inwardly. If this crusty old man didn’t frighten Amy, she couldn’t let him frighten her either.

“This is my daughter, Amy Lynn.”

Jenkins shook his head and stepped around the two females. “First a woman, then a kid. Next you know, we’ll have a camp full of women and ankle biters running underfoot, confusing things. It ain’t right. It just ain’t right, if you ask me,” he muttered under his breath. “Ain’t nowheres a man can just be a man.”

He walked over to a bank of cabinets and turned to her. “Ye’re standin’ in the chuck house. I got it all outfitted. Everything has a place and everything in its place.” Jenkins quickly showed her around the room. “You got yer spices here, yer flour, oats, cornmeal, and such dry goods here. Yer pots are here. The boys’ plates and cups and whatnot go here.”

Audrey was impressed. Cabinets, drawers, and cubby-holes covered two full walls. Jenkins wasn’t much taller than she was, so there were freestanding steps set by each wall so that the upper compartments could be reached. There was a long worktable in the middle of the room. And in the far corner was a narrow bed.

“Do you live here, Mr. Jenkins?”

“That I do. Besides the food supplies, we got a stack of rifles and ammunition. I stay here to keep an eye on things.” He paused, giving her a narrow-eyed look. “You ain’t takin’ my bed, are ya?”

“No. We’re staying at the cabin on the hill.”

He nodded, relieved, and walked to the open door to point at some things that Audrey could not see. “There’s a smokehouse over there by the bunkhouse, and a keeping house at the river. I’ll show you those tomorrow. We got a chicken coop too. That corral over there has our milk cow. She’ll be moving to the barn as soon as it’s done.”

Audrey was stunned. This was no temporary encampment, but a growing, functioning ranch. It was almost as if McCaid intended to live here throughout the year. That could only be trouble for Defiance, having a permanent sheep farm so close—especially with McCaid running it. He and Kemp would not get along. A part of her felt bad for McCaid. He was trying to build something nice here, but Kemp would never let him succeed. She wondered how long before McCaid folded the operation and went back East. She wondered if he would even survive his folly. A lot of men, less green than he, had ended up with a bullet in the back for daring to run sheep in the Territory, let alone take on a man like Sheriff Kemp.

“So, you got questions, girl?” Jenkins asked, drawing her out of her musings.

“Not yet. May I help with supper? Shall I put some coffee on?”

Jenkins made a face. “I guess you could do that. I woulda done it, but I been jawin’ with you.”

It took a bit of work to find the coffeepot, water, beans, and bean grinder, but she soon had a pot cooking on the stove. Outside, beneath the chow tent, she set out the tin plates, cups, and forks on one of the tables, then put some butter out for the biscuits Jenkins had in the oven. Soon an endless line of men filed by to have supper dished out for them. When they had all been fed, she filled her own plate. She frowned down at the meat and bean stew, wondering if it tasted as bad as it smelled. She took two biscuits, then chose a quiet spot for her and Amy to sit.

Sampling the stew, she knew it was as she feared. The beans were too hard to chew, and the meat was stringy and greasy. She mashed the beans as best she could and blew on a spoonful to cool it before feeding Amy. Amy made a face, her little nostrils flared, but she opened her mouth for more. Food was a scarce enough commodity that, even at three years old, Amy knew better than to turn away anything even slightly edible. Audrey and Amy both ate a few more bites, but only enough to dull their gnawing hunger. Audrey tried to butter one of the biscuits, but couldn’t break it open. One bite proved it was tougher than hardtack.

For the first time since this whole fiasco began, Audrey began to feel hopeful. If this was the food these men were used to eating, her cooking would surely be a welcome change. After all, cooking had never been difficult for her—it was affording the ingredients that had limited her. In this rough camp kitchen, there was an abundance of foodstuffs for her to pick from. Tomorrow, she would start the day with flapjacks. Maybe there was some sausage or bacon in the smokehouse.

The only thing missing in the middle of all this abundance was the rest of her foster children. An ache settled in the middle of her chest. She would do what she had to do to protect them. If it meant seducing Mr. McCaid, then so be it. But if there was another way to occupy his time for a month, she would try to find it first.

Julian lay atop his bedroll late that night, too restless to sleep. Crickets serenaded one another with their raw, relentless chirping. Stretched out on his back, his head resting on his knitted hands, he listened to the quieting camp. The fires were banked, but he could hear them crackling, hissing. Those of his men still awake talked in lowered voices. An occasional rumble of laughter rippled into the cool night. The air smelled of wood smoke and melting snow from the nearby mountains. It was fresh, virgin air, air unbreathed by a thousand other people.

A stiff breeze rustled the canvas of his tent. Julian sighed and gave up the wait for sleep. He tossed his tent flap open and went outside. Bare-chested, he felt the night air slip around his skin like a cool silk robe. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his pants, rocking back on his heels to gaze up at the stars. There were millions of them, almost too many to distinguish constellations. He looked at his camp, where his permanent crew slept in the bunkhouse, now completely dark. The construction workers were in a dozen or so tents organized in neat rows like a garrison of soldiers, which wasn’t surprising. The tents were army surplus—as were many of his men, veterans from both sides of the war.

He looked at Audrey’s cabin as eyes the color of the wild sage drifted to his mind. Frightened, angry, sad, resigned, she seemed incapable of hiding her thoughts. A heat spread through him, raising gooseflesh where his warmed skin met cool night air. His body tightened as he remembered kissing her in the rain, holding her against him when he’d caught her in the alley, remembered their dance a year ago when his friend Sager was courting Rachel. Why hadn’t he been able to get her out of his mind? Who was she, really? Why had leaving Defiance caused her such angst?

Audrey rolled to her side on the narrow bunk, trying not to awaken Amy. She missed her bed. She and Amy slept together at home too, but her bed was much larger, meant for two adults. It had been her parents’ bed. As children, she and Malcolm had slept in bunk beds in the small back room. Dulcie was the first to join their family. It took her years to recover from the wholesale slaughter of her family. She’d been found, more dead than alive, under her family’s overturned wagon where she’d hidden for three long days. Then came Luc, then Mabel the year Audrey’s parents died. Then Kurt showed up. Shortly after that, Sam, the saloon proprietor, had begged her to take Amy Lynn, who was the daughter of one of his working women.

Malcolm had to build a second set of bunks when Colleen showed up. Last year, Joey arrived. And Tommy was their latest addition. Malcolm still slept alone in his upper bunk, but all the other kids doubled or tripled up in theirs, Luc and Kurt in one, Dulcie, Mabel, and Colleen in another, and Joey and Tommy in the last. Every one of the children had come with a sad story—death of a parent, neglect, and for some of them, abuse.

Audrey sighed and rolled over once again to lie on her back, nudging Amy aside. Her little family was popping at the seams. Something would have to change. But what? And how? Her friend Logan Taggert had set up an account for her at the bank before he went East. But when the bank closed, that income was lost.

So many people had left town that her laundry business had all but dried up. With the increasing number of hoodlums the sheriff brought in, she would no longer be able to protect her family from the bad side of life. It would thread its way into their lives, into their home. She would lose them to the corruption that was the lifeblood of Defiance.

Audrey sighed. She was overtired and distraught about leaving her family, her mind too awake to settle into sleep. She got out of bed and found her shawl. It was late; she didn’t think anyone would be about. Opening her front door, she peeked outside. Everything was silent, except the breeze. Drawing her shawl about her shoulders, she went outside.

Her cabin was on a slight rise outside the main encampment, affording her a bit of privacy. The cool evening air felt nice. Audrey lifted her face and shut her eyes, letting the breeze wash over her. Something would change in her life; she would find a way to support her family. She was stuck here for a month—enough time to make a plan.

The sound behind her of a man clearing his throat made her spin around.

McCaid.

His tent was only a dozen yards or so from her cabin. Off to the side as it was, she hadn’t seen him when she looked out of her front door. She thought about a quick retreat; she wasn’t decently attired. But then, nor was he. Good heavens, he was half naked. He faced the camp; the faint glow from the fires illuminated his bare, hairy chest. Audrey had seen Malcolm bare-chested before, but her brother’s torso in no way resembled McCaid’s. Her brother was lanky, still boyish, his arms more bone than muscle.

McCaid was enormous.

His shoulders were wide, his arms made of rippling layers of muscle on muscle. His nipples were small and dark and puckered in the cool night breeze. His ribs were covered with slabs of muscle that flowed, one ridge into another, down to a flat, narrow belly.

His suspenders hung limply by his thighs. His hands in his pockets drew his pants lower on his hips, revealing inches of his white linen undershorts below his navel. Audrey’s heart started to beat hard, unnaturally.

Were all men made like this? Did Jim look like this beneath his apron and vest and shirt? She doubted it, because he was leaner in the arms and had a round paunch of a stomach. Perhaps Paul or Hammer, Kemp’s thugs, looked like this, but they had short, squat necks making them appear as if their heads just sat on their shoulders, like boulders on a cliff.

Audrey’s eyes moved up McCaid’s chest, to his neck. It was a nice neck, strong and corded, his jaw well defined. There were twin hollows in his cheeks that gave him a hard-edged appearance. His lips were made with lush curves that, even as she looked, curled up at one end. Her eyes flew to his, and her mouth dropped in abject horror as she realized how boldly she had been examining him. His eyebrows were dark angles above his eyes, and as she watched, he drew one upward.

“Have you looked your fill? Shall I turn around now?” he asked, spreading his arms.

Speechless, mortified, Audrey could only shake her head. Vehemently. Then she turned her back to him, wishing she could die on the spot and vanish. Or that he would. Or that she simply had never come outside tonight. She couldn’t just run inside her cabin; it would only make it worse when she faced him tomorrow. What to do now?

“What nefarious thoughts keep you wakeful tonight?”

Audrey wasn’t certain what he meant by nefarious, but given the context, it couldn’t be good. “What makes you think I think nefarious thoughts?”

“Besides the way you were just looking at me?”

“Oh, goodness. I’m so sorry.” The wind further agitated her, expanding the voluminous folds of her nightgown like a bell, then sucking the air out and slapping the material about her legs, this way and that. There was a bench behind her, set against the wall of her cabin. She backed up to it, not willing to turn around and risk seeing McCaid again. She sat down and pulled her knees up, folding her legs and tucking the white linen of her nightgown under her feet. She wrapped her arms around her calves and rested her chin on her knees, making herself as small and covered as she could as she stared unseeingly at the encampment before her.

“Do you mind if I sit here as well?”

“It’s your bench,” she answered with a shrug, not looking at him. She wished he would go away, wished her body wasn’t humming with a need to touch him—a need that had nothing to do with the sheriff’s directive.

“So it is.” He settled at the opposite end, no more than a foot from her.

Resting her cheek against her knees, she let her lashes mask her gaze as she looked at him. He was leaning back against the rough clapboards of her cabin. His hands were folded loosely in his lap, his long legs open and bent at the knees.

This would be a good time to start her seduction. How did one begin such a thing?

She would have to touch him. She could run her hands up his arms, feel his corded muscles. Or she could start at his chest, comb her fingers through the dark hairs there. She wondered what they felt like.

“If you keep looking at me like that, Miss Sheridan, I warn you I will take you up on what you’re offering.”

Quickly she turned away, pressing her forehead into her folded knees. It was bad enough to be forced to seduce him, but to discover she wanted to do it was indefensible. The moment stretched into an awkward silence. Audrey hoped he’d get bored and leave her alone.

“I’m a pretty good listener, Miss Sheridan, if there was something you wanted to say.”

“I have nothing to say to you.” It was true. And it was not. Logically she wanted him to leave, but her heart ached for her broken life and yearned for help resolving her situation. Through no volition of her own, words came tumbling out on a disgusted sigh. “I’m twenty, nearly twenty-one. I need to find something to do with my life.” She looked at the camp in front of her, not daring to look at him again.

“Ah. The eternal, coming-of-age question. What are your options?”

“I’m not exactly marriage material.”

“Because of Amy Lynn?”

Amy Lynn and the other children. These thoughts were raw inside her. It hurt to talk about her situation—to McCaid, of all people, who was wealthy and strong and could face the sheriff without fear. “Yes,” she whispered.

“It seems that in a frontier town like Defiance, where women are not in plentiful supply, a man would overlook your past.”

She knew he thought Amy Lynn was her own child—she hadn’t corrected his misperception. There was no point in trying to convince him she lived a moral life; in a very short while, immorality would in fact be her reality.

“Perhaps, but I have yet to meet such a man. Defiance has a sad shortage of good men. No, I will need to find work.”

McCaid reached over and took her hand. She tensed, watching him examine it in the shadowy darkness. He spread her fingers, rubbed the pad of his thumb across her skin to feel the texture of her palm. She was too stunned to pull away from him. Her hands were lye-burned from her laundry work, her skin red and chapped, her fingers as calloused as his.

“What of the laundry you take in? Is there enough business there?”

“No.” Her voice was a whisper. “Not anymore. Defiance is dying.” Her hand burned in his touch. She pulled away from him.

“I can see you aren’t a stranger to hard work. You could take a position with a family, perhaps as a governess or house servant.”

“There aren’t any families who can afford to hire help in town. And with Amy, I can’t take a live-in position.” Not to mention her seven other foster children.

“Tell me you can cook,” he said, his hard mouth lifting in a lopsided grin.

“I can cook.”

“Better than Jenkins?”

“I would have to try pretty hard to cook as bad as Jenkins.”

“Well, there’s one thing you can do.”

“A lone woman cooking for a bunch of men is just not done.”

He sighed. “Each of us has to do what has to be done to survive. Your parents are gone, I take it?”

She nodded. “Since I was seventeen.” She looked at him, then looked away. He was watching her, his eyes dark in the murky light. “I thought about becoming a seamstress.”

“That’s something. Do you like sewing?”

“I do. I made the dress I was wearing earlier. And all of Amy Lynn’s clothes. And this nightgown.” And all the clothes Malcolm and the kids wore.

“Well, now we are getting somewhere. What stops you from becoming a seamstress?”

“I’m only one person. I don’t have a staff. I can’t turn work out fast enough. Maybe if I had one of those newfangled sewing machines, I could go it alone. But I don’t have references or a history of work a customer would find reliable.”

“As it happens, I’m in need of a seamstress for my house here. Could you sew curtains and drapes?”

Audrey straightened, facing him. “I could.”

“If I bought you a sewing machine, you could take the material I’ve ordered and get my windows covered?”

“I could. Of course. It would be easy.” Hope leaked into her soul. Maybe this was the way she could distract him for a month—involve him in the preparation of drapes for his new home. Maybe she didn’t have to surrender her body to him at all. “But I can’t cook for your men and sew for you, both.”

“Then I will hire another cook. I have to anyway, since you won’t be staying beyond a month.”

Audrey studied his face. Knowing what she did of men, she couldn’t help being suspicious. “Why? Why would you help me? What do you get out of such an arrangement?”

“I get to know that there’s one less criminal prowling the streets of Defiance.”

That had a ring of truth to it. And it was an option that was sustainable, one that didn’t involve selling her body or her soul. With McCaid as a backer, she could find enough work to sustain her. Laughing, she threw her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly as she thanked him. Gradually, she became aware of her body touching his, his warmth enveloping her, his thick, muscled arms wrapped around her. Her legs on the bench, her hip touching his, her chest to his, he held her as tightly as she held him. She belatedly remembered wearing only her nightgown and he only his skin.

This was a mistake. Breathing became difficult, not because he held her too tightly, but because she didn’t want him to let go. A heat took flame in her body, a yearning long ignored at last feeling itself heard. She’d wanted to be in his arms, to be held like this, to feel his heart hammering against hers ever since their dance last summer. She’d wondered what it would be like to feel his face buried in the bend between her shoulder and neck, to feel him breathe the scent of her skin, as he was doing. She spread her fingers and dug them into the thick, silky hair at the back of his head.

His sideburn and then the rough stubble on his cheek rasped along her skin as he lifted his head. His lips brushed her chin. Audrey gave in to the urge to arch against him and pressed her breasts against him. He gazed down into her eyes. Never had she been looked at so by such a man. She could see, even in the darkness, faint lines feathering the outer corners of his eyes. He smelled of horse and wool, leather and soap, an intoxicating mixture that Audrey knew she would never forget.