Beautiful Bad Man (15 page)

“Always have.”

“Maybe we should call it Ears.”

“That would be telling.”

“Early then, for early warning.”

“That’s good. If anyone asks, tell them your people admired Jubal Early, and we named it after him.”

He didn’t expect Norah to recognize the name of the crusty old Confederate, but she did.

“I’m sure General Early would be honored.”

T
HE ROAD THEY
had first taken out of town wasn’t in bad shape. The one Caleb turned onto after that hardly qualified as a road. When he left the ruts to follow faint tracks over unmarked prairie, the ride smoothed out again, and Norah relaxed.

“How do you know the way?”

“Ogden’s delivered now and then. He gave me directions.”

A cluster of ramshackle buildings came into sight seconds before a pack of dogs raced from behind the buildings, barking, snarling, and snapping. They looked intent on eating the horses still alive and on the hoof.

Terrified, Norah choked back a scream and held on for dear life. The horses had enough spirit left to throw up their heads and attempt to run.

Caleb cursed in soothing tones and held them, his voice barely audible over the din. A shrill whistle sounded. She looked up from the slavering pack of dogs to see a figure by the buildings.

The dogs turned into a friendly, tail-waving escort. The horses calmed, and Norah turned on Caleb angrily. “You knew that was going to happen, didn’t you? You knew, and you didn’t warn me.”

“Ogden said the dogs ran out and greeted visitors and Quist would call them off. He didn’t say it was that bad. Maybe he was getting even over the price of the wagon.”

She studied the side of his face, but gave it up. In time she might learn to detect signs of a lie in those hard lines, but today she never would.

Getting down into that panting, hairy mass of dogs held no appeal. Neither did sitting in the wagon behind nervous horses tied to a hitch rack that didn’t look as if it could hold a sick pony. In the end she decided to stay close to Caleb, which meant taking her chances with the dogs.

“What do you two want?”

Josiah Quist was not someone Norah would be willing to meet on her own, even in town. He stood unmoving on the decrepit stoop of his house, dark eyes full of suspicion glaring from a face hidden by his gray-streaked full beard and wild tangle of long hair. The dogs looked cleaner.

“We need a dog,” Caleb said. “Young, a good watch dog.”

“You think I’d let someone with horses in that shape have one of my dogs?”

Caleb’s hands went to his hips. Instead of explaining, he was going to meet belligerence with belligerence. For heaven’s sake, did he plan to shoot this strange old man over a dog?

Norah tugged his sleeve. “Let me talk to him,” she whispered.

“Don’t you dare go begging this crazy old coot for one of these curs.” At least he lowered his voice.

“Do we want a dog, or don’t we?”

“No begging, and no throwing around twenty dollar gold pieces either.”

“Try to look like a man who just got married who at least
likes
his wife.”

She stepped past him, pretending the growling sound behind her came from one of the dogs.

“Mr. Quist, I’m Mrs. Caleb Sutton, and this is my husband. We only bought the wagon and team from Mr. Ogden yesterday. He’s the one who told us about you. Please look at my husband’s saddle horse behind the wagon. That’s how you can truly see how he cares for livestock. We would take good care of a dog.”

Quist stepped down and walked around the wagon. Every dog in the pack pushed at the others trying to get closer to the man.

Norah noticed the way his hands automatically touched each hairy head that came within reach. He stopped a few feet from the horse and took a good look. Caleb’s saddle horse was an undistinguished bay gelding, but he was in good condition and everything from the way he was shod to the shine of his winter coat attested to good care.

“What’s his name?”

Norah turned to Caleb, hoping he either had a name for the horse or enough sense to make one up forthwith.

“Forest.”

“Huh. What you want with a watch dog?”

“We live a day to the west,” Norah said. “I get nervous out there alone. Even though Indians aren’t a problem any more, I worry, and Caleb can’t be there all the time.”

Oh, blast it, was she already turning into a liar too? No. Absolutely not. She did get nervous. Caleb couldn’t be there all the time. She had never wanted a dog and didn’t believe one would be much use, but she wasn’t claiming she wanted the dog. Was she?

Quist stared as if he could read her thoughts, did the same to Caleb, dove into the pack and emerged seconds later carrying a large, hairy black and white bundle. “His mother’s as good a watch dog as there is, and he’s like her.”

The bundle was a dog young enough his paws still looked too big for him. Caleb took him from Quist and hoisted him up eye to eye. Black ears tip-tilted at different angles over a face white except for the ring around one eye. Splotches on his body suggested a paint can had been knocked over near him.

“He’ll do.” Caleb looked at Quist. “How about some help with dog food?”

The old man nodded, and Norah watched the puzzle who was her husband hand over five dollars for the strange-looking mongrel.

They left Quist’s place with the dog tied on top of the supplies. Norah said nothing until they were back on the town road, heading in the right direction for home.

“You told me not to pay for a dog, but then you did.”

“I didn’t pay anything. He’s a crazy old man who takes in every stray dog he hears about and does without to feed them. He gave us the dog, and I gave him enough to help him out a little without offending his pride.”

The difference was too subtle for her. She changed the subject. “Is your horse’s name really Forest?”

“It is.”

“Did he come from a place with lots of trees?”

“No. Nathan Bedford.”

Nathan Bedford Forrest, the extraordinary Confederate cavalry general that would be. General Jubal Early. “Where exactly did the Suttons come from?”

“Indiana.”

If she asked, she wouldn’t understand the answer. If he gave one. “I think Mr. Fleming always gave his teams plain names. These two were probably Bob and Tony, something like that.”

Caleb pointed to the horse on the left. “Jeb.” To the one on the right. “Stonewall.”

More Confederate generals. “Your Uncle Henry was a Union man.”

The corner of his mouth curled up. “Not enough to put on a uniform, but enough to rant about it between Bible verses.”

Norah smiled, pleased to have figured one thing out. If only figuring out the rest of him would prove so easy.

T
HEY ARRIVED AT
the soddy with enough light left to unload the wagon if they hurried, and they hurried. Cal tied Early out of the way.

“Can’t let him off the rope until he knows he lives here.”

“What about coyotes?” Norah said.

“Can’t let him off the rope until he grows into those paws then. At least not at night.”

Cal watched her examining the house for signs of damage or changes. He’d told her he hadn’t damaged anything, hadn’t he?

She frowned at the wood in the box he’d made but said nothing. His battered coffee pot and frying pan sat atop the stove, and she touched them lightly.

“I won’t have my pots and pans until we get them from the Carburys tomorrow,” she said, sounding wistful.

“You’re tired. Let’s finish that loaf of bread from the bakery with butter and jam and that’s enough for tonight.”

“Not that tired,” she said shyly, her words full of double meaning. “We have a dozen eggs. We can have fried eggs with our bread. Do I need to waste an egg on Early?”

“Two.”

“And I can warm water enough to wash in the metal basin. I’m glad I left that.”

She bent to rummage through the boxes of provisions, and Cal studied the way her rump swayed under her skirt. He as good as owned her now. He could use her or abuse her in any way he wanted, and she’d have no recourse except to run.

They’d spent less than half a dozen hours in each other’s company these last months and most of that arguing. How could she trust whatever tenuous thread bound them from that night so long ago enough to do this?

She should know better than to trust him at all. She should be afraid of that part of him that resented having to marry her to get the land. Hell, she should be afraid of him period.

She’d loved Hawkins enough to grieve almost to death over him. That probably explained everything. She needed a man, and one she’d never feel that way about would strike her as safer.

Disturbed by his own thoughts, he returned outside to unload the feed and other supplies in the shed and take care of the horses.

Buttered bread, jam, and eggs fried the way Norah did them were a feast. He had to admit to looking forward to her cooking three times a day instead of his own.

Rejecting the urge to just throw her on the bed and satisfy himself, Cal decided to give her time alone in case there were preparations wives made.

“I’ll take the dog out and make sure he’s empty for the night. Walk him around a while.”

“I’ll leave the basin close the stove to keep the water warm and set out washing things for you right here on the table.”

The high color on her cheeks wasn’t from the stove, but her eyes were shining and voice calm. Hawkins had probably given her expectations of husbands. Cal had no intentions of competing with a dead man who had already won.

The wind had died to what would be a breeze in spring, but the temperature had only plummeted lower. He walked without attention to direction. His ghosts appeared, hazy presences bearing him nothing but ill will. The false, high laughter of whores swirled around him.
“You’ll like it, honey. You know you will”

Jake Kepler’s bellowing laugh drowned them out.
“Get drunk. Have a woman.”

Having a woman meant paying, lying, and cajoling. Having a woman meant a burst of pleasure and relief and — nothing.

Around Norah, the calculated indifference he’d felt toward women all his life disappeared. She provoked temper and impatience and desires that had the ghosts howling with glee. He shoved them back down in the dark place they’d escaped from.

Early whimpered, pulling back on the rope. Cal stopped and looked around, spotting the faint light from the house in the distance.

“She already knows there’s a lot wrong with me, just not how much. After all, you’ve known me less than a day and you’ve figured it out.”

A few soft words and the young dog stopped pulling and followed him back to the house.

The lamp glowed on the table, the wash things set out as she’d said. In the shadows by the bed, he could only see the back of her head and the outline of her form under the blankets. He stripped and washed, carried the lamp to the bedside table and doused it.

Lifting blankets, he encountered the smooth texture of sheets. She’d thrown some of his money around wisely. He slid in beside her, the desire to mount her like an animal, drive himself deep inside, and thrust with crazed abandon pounding in his head and blood.

She turned, touched his cheek, with a tentative hand, the other light on his shoulder. “You were a long time.” Her voice was low and husky, her body soft and vulnerable.

Oh, damn. Hawkins wasn’t even one of Cal’s ghosts, and he’d end up laughing with the ones who were tonight.

Her hair was as long as he’d imagined and as soft. It slipped and slid across his palms and curled around his wrists. He ran his fingers along the sides of her jaw to her temples, into the silken mass, cupping her head in his hands as he kissed her.

First a light brush of lips, a test. Then a real kiss, holding her, sliding his tongue along the seam of her lips. She gasped, and he took advantage and slipped inside, caressing the insides of her lips and along her tongue. Her willing but hesitant response gentled him. Whatever Hawkins had done, he hadn’t kissed her much.

She tasted of the same cinnamon-flavored tooth powder he’d used minutes ago, a good taste as unlike whiskey or tobacco as possible. She smelled clean, no trace of cloying perfume, stale sweat, or other men. He left her mouth, ran his tongue behind her ear.

“Caleb!”

In the sound of his name he heard surprise, delight. Small flashes of light exploded behind his eyes, and the night changed.

Nothing before now mattered, for her, for him. He wanted her to want as fiercely as he did, to feel as much pleasure, more. Woman, wife, the Girl, Norah. He kissed her face and her eyelids, feeling the same flutter he’d watched that morning as she slept.

She had some long soft thing on, and it had to go. He yanked at it.

“Wait.”

She had it off in seconds, and her arms welcomed him back to her, hands kneading his back, exploring, caressing.

He reached her breasts, closed his teeth around a nipple and used his tongue. She arched to him, one hand moving to his hair. Soft sounds of her pleasure blended with his own groan.

A little longer. He could hold on a little longer and give her something. He stroked her belly, his mouth still at her breast until her fingers digging into his back told him she needed more.

Massaging, testing, he cupped her sex with one hand, kissed down across her belly. She was a stranger to this. Almost beyond thought or ability to know anything outside his own raging need, he knew no one had given her this before. The sound of her pleasure filled his head as the feel of it rippled in the belly muscles under his lips and jerked against the hand curved between her legs.

No more. The fever in his blood wouldn’t wait for her to recover or for another word or kiss or touch. The way she opened to him, legs hooking around his as he drove into welcoming, wet heat intensified the pleasure, the almost unbearable relief.

Prolonging anything would be impossible, and he didn’t want to. He gave in to his own greedy lust as he’d first planned, thrust as deep and hard, finished as quickly.