Autumn Lover (16 page)

“Damn it, Sassy…!”

Elyssa ignored Hunter’s protests.

“Are you certain you’re all right?” she demanded
breathlessly. “There were so many shots.”

Even as Elyssa asked, she looked Hunter over carefully. In the lantern glow, each ridge and swell of muscle was etched in golden light and emphasized by black velvet shadows. Hair as dark as night reflected fugitive sparks of light with every breath Hunter took.

Elyssa forgot to breathe. She had never thought to put the words “man” and “beauty” in the same sentence. But after looking at Hunter, she understood what had driven Michelangelo to create
David
.

Hunter looked like that. Intelligent. Powerful. Beautiful.

And very male.

The intense approval Hunter saw in Elyssa’s eyes as she looked at his body made his breath shorten. Suddenly he was very much aware of the fact that he was half-naked, bathed in lantern light, his skin sleeked by rain.

And if she kept looking at him like that, he was going to embarrass himself in front of the men.

“I’m fine,” Hunter said coldly.

“I heard shots,” Elyssa said.

The huskiness of her voice set blood to beating visibly in Hunter’s neck.

“He wasn’t shooting at me,” Hunter said.

“Who was he shooting at, then? Is everyone all right?”

Hunter didn’t answer. He didn’t like to think about the ice that had condensed in his gut when he realized that Elyssa was the intruder’s target.

“Hunter?”

“Everyone’s fine.”

“Who was he shooting at?” Elyssa persisted.

“You,” Hunter said roughly.

Elyssa’s eyes widened. Her breath came in with a swift, broken sound.

“Maybe he thought she was one of the hands,” Morgan offered.

Hunter looked at Elyssa. She was slender as an aspen, her pale hair was whipping in the wind, and she was wearing a long silk wrapper. The wrapper was tied around her waist, emphasizing the feminine curves of her body. Wind lifted the wrapper’s hem, revealing and then concealing the creamy curve of Elyssa’s calves.

Raindrops had made dark marks on the silk. Wet silk clung to her breasts. Her nipples were gathered against the cold and the rain.

“The shooter would have to be blind to mistake Sassy for a man,” Hunter said huskily.

“Amen,” Sonny said reverently from the darkness just beyond the reach of lantern light.

“I’ll second that,” said another voice.

“Same here,” came a third voice.

“Me too.”

“Yo.”

“Amen, Lord. A-
men
.”

Hunter’s expression became fierce. Coldly he glared at the men who had gathered at the edge of the lantern light to agree with him that Elyssa looked very female indeed.

“Quit standing around with your bare faces flapping in the rain,” Hunter snarled.

The men jumped.

“Mickey, get the manure cart,” Hunter said. “The rest of you men start shoveling salt. Move!”

A chorus of yessirs and a flurry of shovels answered Hunter.

“I’ll leave the lantern for you, suh,” Morgan said.

Hunter nodded curtly.

Men dispersed into the darkness. Lanterns blossomed like exotic flowers throughout the garden. The cowhands, who under most circumstances despised all work
that couldn’t be done from horseback, shoveled dirt and salt without a single complaint.

No man was foolish enough to take on Hunter when he had that look in his eye.

Not even Mickey.

Belatedly Elyssa understood what Hunter had said.

“Salt?” she asked. “What salt?”

“The salt that son of a bitch left in the garden furrows,” Hunter said.

Elyssa made a low sound, as though she had been struck. She tried to breathe, but couldn’t. For the first time she looked away from Hunter to the ground.

Ragged lines of white looked back at Elyssa from furrows on both sides of the one where she stood.

“Salt?” she whispered.

Hunter nodded. Then, realizing that Elyssa hadn’t seen the gesture, he spoke aloud.

“Yes,” he said. “Salt.”

“Are you c-certain?”

The trembling in Elyssa’s voice went into Hunter like a knife. He looked at the fingers of his left hand, wishing that he had been wrong.

Tiny white crystals winked back at him in the lantern light. He lifted his hand, tasting again anyway. Just to be sure.

Salt.

“Yes,” Hunter said. “I’m sure.”

Unable to believe, Elyssa grabbed Hunter’s hand and lifted it to her mouth. Her tongue flicked out. The taste of salt spread across her tongue.

There was no doubt.

Elyssa dropped Hunter’s hand and turned her head away from his too knowing eyes. A tremor of suppressed emotion went through her.

My garden…my refuge
, she thought wildly.

Oh, God, who would be so cruel
?

Blindly Elyssa stared off into the darkness beyond the lantern light, fighting tears. Hunter already thought of her as a girl. She was damned if she would prove it by crying in front of him.

Emotions Elyssa refused to give way to made her throat ache. A sheen of moisture grew in her eyes.

The sound of dirt and salt being shoveled frantically came through the night. It was as though giant rats gnawed at the garden around the golden circles of light being cast by many lanterns.

While the men worked, the storm kept increasing. Before they could shovel up all of the salt, much of the garden would be ruined, and with it the very earth itself.

“Sassy?” Hunter asked after a time. “Are you all right?”

There was no answer.

Hunter wanted to take Elyssa in his arms. He wanted to give her what comfort he could.

But that was impossible. He couldn’t trust himself to touch her in any way at all.

His fingertips felt as though they had been scorched by flames. With every heartbeat he could feel the sleek heat of her tongue on his skin as though it was happening all over again.

Hunter wanted Elyssa until he could barely stand up.

I shouldn’t even be looking at her
, he told himself bitterly.
That silk she’s wearing looks like it’s dissolving in the rain as fast as the salt
.

With every instant Elyssa stayed out in the storm, more of the creamy silk wrapper clung to her body.

Her nipples seemed to gather rain. Wet cloth shaped them. They stood proudly against the silk, as taut as though they had been loved by Hunter’s mouth.

Judas Priest
, Hunter thought, caught between anger and violent desire.
She’s enough to make a bishop weep
.

“Go back to the house,” Hunter ordered, his voice harsh.

Elyssa turned her face up to him. She looked bleak and vulnerable in the same instant.

“Was it a Culpepper?” she asked, her voice trembling.

“Sassy—”

“Was it?” she interrupted.

This time Elyssa’s voice was as harsh as his.

Hunter drew a deep breath and thought fast. He didn’t want to go into the identity of the intruder. He didn’t like thinking about good old “Uncle” Bill, the man who was likely Elyssa’s lover.

Almost certainly Bill was the man who had drawn his six-gun and sighted down its barrel at Elyssa.

But girls were notoriously blind about men they loved. That was the only explanation Hunter could think of for Elyssa’s blindness about Bill.

“Well?” Elyssa asked impatiently.

“No,” Hunter said. “It wasn’t a Culpepper.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“The dogs.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The dogs didn’t bark,” Hunter said curtly.

“Maybe the wind was wrong for them to catch his scent.”

“Vixen smelled the intruder when the wind shifted.”

“And?” Elyssa asked.

“She didn’t turn a hair.”

“I can’t—” Elyssa’s voice broke.

Hunter waited, not knowing what to say. He didn’t want to be in the position of pointing the finger at Elyssa’s lover. If it came from him, she would reject it.

Let her figure it out
, Hunter advised himself.
Shouldn’t take her long
.

Rain came down harder now.

Elyssa swallowed and tried again to speak.

“You must—” she said huskily. She cleared her throat. “You must be mistaken.”

“Did you hear the dogs barking?”

“No. But maybe it was one of the new hands. Someone who is working both sides of the street.”

“He rode off on a horse.”

“S-so?”

Hunter glared at Elyssa. The rain was coming down so hard now that there was more wet silk on her than dry.

“Morgan!” Hunter yelled.

“Yo!”

“Any hands missing?”

“No, suh!”

“How can he be sure?” Elyssa hissed. “He didn’t even take time to count!”

“He didn’t have to.”

“Why?”

“Because I told him to keep track of the men we don’t know,” Hunter said in a clipped voice. “He’s the last one asleep in the bunkhouse and the first one awake.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” Hunter interrupted impatiently. “Go back to the house. You’re not dressed to be out here.”

“And you are?” she retorted.

“
Hell and damnation
.”

Out of patience, Hunter snatched Elyssa up like she was a child and set off through the rain toward the ranch house. Every step he took proved that she was no child. She fit against him the way only a woman could.

By the time Hunter reached the house, he was certain that an imprint of Elyssa’s breasts was branded against his skin.

F
reshly picked vegetables were heaped in baskets, kettles, bins, and boxes all around the kitchen. Elyssa and Penny were all but dwarfed by the mounds of garden produce.

The day had dawned clear and hot, a return of summer in autumn. The sunstruck land radiated heat back up to the empty blue sky.

Inside the kitchen it was steamy from the canning that had been going on since well before dawn.

“At least the herb garden was spared,” Penny said.

“Only because Hunter ran him off before he could finish,” Elyssa said. “Morgan found bags of salt piled up, just waiting to be used.”

“Funny that the dogs didn’t bark.”

Elyssa said nothing.

She had spent the night lying awake, alternating between wrestling with the identity of the intruder and the memory of how Hunter had looked bare to the waist.

Neither thought had made her sleepy.

Penny gave Elyssa a sideways look, wondering at her silence. Then Penny returned to studying the pumpkin’s rich orange skin. Though she had a brush in her hand, she hadn’t the wit or the will to use it at the moment.

The identity of the intruder was very much on Penny’s mind.

“It must have been one of the new men,” Penny said. “The dogs wouldn’t bark at one of them.”

“Hunter thinks not.”

“Really? Why?”

“Morgan’s job is to keep track of them.”

“He might have slipped up,” Penny said.

For an instant Elyssa closed her eyes. The thought that Bill was the man who had destroyed her beloved garden ate like acid at her soul.

Who else could it be
? she asked herself silently, desperately.

Who both has reason to punish me and is known to the dogs
?

No answer came but Bill, the one answer Elyssa couldn’t accept.

“Perhaps Morgan was mistaken,” Elyssa said.

But the tone of her voice said that she didn’t think so.

“Or the dogs might have missed the scent,” Penny said firmly. “The wind was blowing the wrong way. He was downwind of the dogs.”

Elyssa said nothing.

“Well, that explains it,” Penny said. “The dogs just didn’t catch his scent.”

“Vixen did. She trotted off toward him.”

Abruptly Penny stopped scrubbing the small pumpkin. She had been mostly pretending anyway. When she looked up, her dark brown eyes were angry and haunted.

“You think it was Bill,” Penny said accusingly.

“Did I say that?”

“You don’t have to! He’s the only man the dogs know who wasn’t at the ranch last night.”

Silence was Elyssa’s only answer.

“You’re wrong!” Penny said, her voice rising. “He
wouldn’t do a low thing like that! He’s not—”

The kitchen door slammed behind Hunter, cutting off Penny’s defense. Hunter’s arms were full to overflowing with burlap bags of carrots, onions, potatoes, and apples. Some would be canned. Most were destined for the cellar beneath the house.

“Who’s wrong about what?” Hunter asked mildly.

“Elyssa is implying that Bill salted the garden,” Penny said. “She’s wrong. He’s a kind and decent man.”

Hunter didn’t say a word.

“Well, he is!” Penny said.

Spots of color flared on her otherwise pale face when no one agreed with her.

“I know him better than anyone alive,” Penny said, “and I say he wouldn’t do anything like that!”

“Whiskey changes a man,” Hunter said finally.

“No,” Penny said flatly. “Bill wouldn’t do a vicious thing like that no matter how much he drank!”

“Don’t take on so,” Elyssa said, sighing. “The garden was a delight, but not really necessary for our survival.”

Hunter remembered the sheen of tears he had seen in Elyssa’s eyes when she looked at the garden. He knew she was telling only half of the truth.

The garden had been a rare source of peace and pleasure for Elyssa, a gentle place in a land that could be very harsh on women.

Knowing that he hadn’t been able to protect it angered Hunter unreasonably.

But then
, Hunter reminded himself sardonically,
her murderous lover has an edge in that department that I don’t. He knows the ranch—and its mistress—a hell of a lot more intimately than I do
.

Penny looked at Elyssa for a long, tense moment. Then Penny bit her lip hard enough to leave marks and
went to check on the glass jars that were boiling merrily, supported by the wire canning rack. The sands in the little hourglass had just run through.

“Let me get that,” Elyssa said quickly. “You’re distracted and haven’t felt well and the rack is heavy. I don’t want you to burn yourself.”

Before Penny could object, Elyssa brushed past her. The pot holders in her hands were big, thick, and stained with long use. The contrast with Elyssa’s orchid silk afternoon dress couldn’t have been greater.

Hunter reached around Elyssa from behind and snatched the pot holders from her hands. The rosemary scent of her hit him like a blow.

The scarf holding back Elyssa’s hair was a confection of gauzy silk whose purple depths heightened the silvery gold paleness of her hair. The smooth, fine-grained skin of her nape made a sensual contrast to the scarf, which had been tied peasant style at the back of her head.

I wish I could break her of wearing silk and satin around the ranch
, Hunter thought savagely.
It’s pure hell on a man
.

“I’ll take care of the jars,” Hunter said.

Caged between the heat of the stove and the power of Hunter’s body, Elyssa froze.

“You don’t have to,” she said. “I can—”

“Don’t be foolish,” Hunter interrupted, his voice curt. “Where do you want the jars?”

“On the table. Thank you.”

Hunter lifted a rack from each huge pot and put it on the long, scarred wooden table. Glass steamed and dried instantly.

Quickly Penny and Elyssa filled the jars with green beans, added salt and water, and screwed down the lids. Normally Elyssa would have added onion or garlic or herbs to the beans, but there was nothing normal about this canning session.

Today they were canning everything they could, no matter if it wasn’t at the peak of ripeness.

Once the dissolved salt in the garden reached the plant roots, there would be no ripening. The garden would die. Then vegetables would rot, unless they were picked quickly and canned immediately.

While Elyssa and Penny went to work on the canning jars, Hunter surprised both women by calmly beginning to scrub the smallest potatoes, preparing them for canning. The larger potatoes would go in the root cellar, along with the bigger onions, carrots, turnips, and the like.

Elyssa screwed down the last lid and lifted one of the racks of jars. Before she had it more than an inch off the table, Hunter’s arms shot around her and took the weight. She made a startled sound that went no farther than Hunter’s ears.

“I’ll take that,” he said. “You chop up some more beans.”

Elyssa wanted to be as matter-of-fact as Hunter was, but her voice wouldn’t cooperate. The feel of Hunter’s arms around her was literally breathtaking, despite the fact that he was simply being helpful.

Then Elyssa looked over her shoulder and saw Hunter’s quicksilver eyes. The desire in them was as naked as the power of his arms caging her.

“I—I can’t,” Elyssa whispered.

“Can’t what?”

“Cut up green beans.”

“Why not?”

“We just did the last batch.”

“What about peas?” Hunter asked.

Elyssa licked her lips nervously.

The sudden narrowing of Hunter’s eyes as he watched her tongue was as clear as the too rapid beating of the pulse in Elyssa’s neck.

“Then maybe you better duck under my arm and shell peas,” Hunter suggested softly.

“Peas?”

“Little round green things. They come tucked close together in little green pods. Remember them?”

At the moment Elyssa was lucky to remember her own name. All she could think of was how Hunter’s mouth had felt against hers, how he had tasted, how sweet his breath had been.

“If you tease me by licking your lips again,” Hunter said low and hard, “I swear I’ll back you up against the table and give you exactly what you’re begging for.”

A flush climbed Elyssa’s cheeks. She ducked beneath Hunter’s arm and went to the sink.

Blindly she began cleaning out a pumpkin. Great handfuls of the sticky center plopped heavily into a colander that stood in the sink. The pulp hit the colander so hard it rattled on its three metal legs.

“Do you want to save those pumpkin seeds for planting?” Penny asked Elyssa.

“What?”

“The pumpkins seeds.”

“Oh. Them.”

Elyssa looked at the pumpkin seeds as though they had just grown in the sink. The creamy, slightly pointed ovals were plump, obviously ripe.

“Save them for next year’s garden,” Elyssa said.

If there is one
.

For a moment Elyssa was afraid she had spoken her doubts aloud. When no cool retort came from Hunter, she let out a silent breath of relief.

Behind Elyssa, Hunter set one rack of full jars in a huge kettle, then put the other in a similar kettle. He added more wood to the stove. Afterward he went back to scrubbing potatoes as though he had never breathed Elyssa’s scent and felt pure fire in his veins.

Sonny came up to the kitchen door. Leafy stalks of dill overflowed his arms. Beets dangled from his fingers, which were clenched around the red-streaked green of the tops.

“Miss Elyssa?” he called out.

She sighed and stretched her back subtly. But she was smiling when she turned toward Sonny.

“Come in,” Elyssa said. “Set the dill on the table and the beets in the sink.”

Sonny approached her slowly. He was so busy looking at the orchid silk of her dress and the tendrils of flaxen hair that had escaped her chignon that he ran right into Hunter.

“Uh, sorry, sir.”

Hunter gave Sonny a look that was both impatient and sardonically amused.

“That’s all right,” Hunter said, “but I’d take it as a personal favor if you would stand on your own feet from now on. Mine have their work cut out as it is.”

Sonny looked down, saw that he was indeed standing on one of Hunter’s big feet, and backed off hastily.

“Uh, sorry. Truly am,” Sonny said.

Hunter sighed.

Hurriedly Sonny put the beets in the sink and the herbs on the table. He stumbled several times because he was looking at Elyssa when he should have been watching where he was going.

“How are the cucumbers coming?” Elyssa asked.

“Three bushels so far,” Sonny said eagerly. “Maybe four in all. Little fellers, all of ’em.”

“Good,” Elyssa said. She smiled wearily as she thought of the long hours stretching ahead. “Everyone likes pickles.”

Sonny smiled as though he had been given a month’s pay. Then he just stood and watched Elyssa, who had turned back to gutting pumpkins.

“Sonny,” Hunter said.

It was all he had to say. Sonny jumped and left the kitchen as though his heels were on fire.

Elyssa cleaned pumpkins and scooped out pulp and tried not to think of Hunter. She was fairly successful until Hunter came and stood alongside her at the sink. With swift, strong motions he worked the pump. Water gushed out over the mound of pumpkin fiber and seeds in the sink.

From the corner of her eye, Elyssa watched while Hunter separated seeds and pulp with surprising deftness.

“You’re good at that,” she said.

“You sound surprised.”

Wisely, Elyssa changed the subject.

“We already have more than enough seeds for next year,” she said. “You don’t need to bother with the rest.”

“Why let the ripe ones go to waste?” Hunter asked. “They’re good eating.”

Elyssa blinked.

“I beg your pardon?” Penny asked, turning to Hunter.

“I learned to eat
pepitos
when I was in Texas,” he said.

“What’s that?” Elyssa asked.

“Roasted, salted pumpkin seeds,” Hunter said. “My vaqueros loved them.”

Elyssa looked at the mess in the sink with new interest.

“Truly?” she asked.

Hunter nodded. Then he smiled.

“Of course,” he added, “they put enough chili powder in with the salt to set fire to the baking tin.”

“We have chiles,” Elyssa said.

“Saw them.”

“You didn’t pick any.”

“You don’t like chiles?” Penny asked.

“Love ’em.”

Elyssa looked at Hunter, lured by the laughter buried in his voice.

He was still smiling. It gentled the lines of his face, making Hunter so handsome to Elyssa that she couldn’t help staring at him.

“Then why didn’t you pick the peppers?” Penny asked.

“Only have one set of gloves,” he said succinctly.

“Oh. The juices,” Elyssa said, frowning. “They burn.”

“Hotter than the devil’s breath,” Hunter agreed. “Darned shame that Mickey drove off your vaqueros and the Hereras are too busy to garden.”

“I have quite a few gloves,” Elyssa said. “I’ll pick them.”

“No need,” Hunter said easily.

“I don’t want them to go to waste.”

“They won’t. Mickey is harvesting the little devils.”

Elyssa tried not to smile.

It didn’t work. She knew that Hunter was punishing Mickey for his treatment of the vaqueros.

“Did you tell him not to rub his eyes?” Elyssa asked.

“Twice. Once when I put him to work. Again when he started bleating that his eyes hurt.”

“Maybe next time he’ll listen,” Elyssa said.

Hunter shrugged. “Doubt it. That boy makes a stump look real bright.”

The mound of cleaned pumpkins grew.

“Dear me,” Penny said after a time. “Do we have enough spices to make pie filling of all that?”

“I’m thinking about pumpkin chutney, pumpkin relish, and dried pumpkins,” Elyssa muttered. “Soup, too.”

“Chutney.” Penny smiled despite the sadness that came to her face along with the memories. “Gloria loved chutney.”

“So do I. I’ve never made it with pumpkin, but…” Elyssa shrugged.

“It should work,” Hunter said.

“Do you think so?” Elyssa asked, surprised.

“Sure. Most recipes were invented when a cook had too much of one thing and not enough of another. Pumpkin chutney shouldn’t be any different.”