Beautiful Bad Man (25 page)

“I’ll find it and turn it loose,” Cal said. “Don’t try going back for it.”

They all reined their horses around and left faster than they’d come. Cal watched until they were small in the distance. By that time his heart had almost slowed to normal. He finally dared look at her.

“I told you to stay in the house.”

“And let them arrest you? They’d shoot you before you reached town and claim you tried to escape. What did you give me the rifle for if not to help?”

He couldn’t answer the question, but whatever he had given it to her for, climbing out a window and sticking it against the back of a gunman with a cocked pistol in his hand wasn’t it.

“If you’re going to do things like that, I’d better show you how. You don’t want to get that close to an armed man.”

“If I wasn’t that close, I couldn’t hit him. I might hit you.”

“We better work harder at fixing that.”

“Do you think we can?”

Something worrisome swirled around in his head. Something other than the sound of Early whining and scratching at the soddy door. Cal knew he should go back through the window, take down the bar, and let the dog out. He’d do that once he dealt with Norah.

All he had to do was decide whether to yell at her until she dissolved to the ground or hold her so hard the result would be the same. What could possess a woman to do a thing like that?

He cleared his throat. “We need to renegotiate our partnership agreement.”

A squint-eyed, suspicious look was her only answer.

“We need to get rid of that obey part.”

She dropped the rifle in the dirt in a way that made him flinch and kissed him in a way that made him forget the gun.

S
HE SHOULD BE
able to take the fizzy, light-headed aftermath of trouble faced and conquered in stride by now, Norah thought. Trouble was her husband’s middle name.

For baking she still had to build a fire in the stove that combined with summertime heat and humidity to make every minute in the house miserable. Today she barely noticed and gave in to the urge to dance as she carried her golden bread loaves to the table under the ramada to cool.

Caleb sat there, working on her rifle. He’d already polished the brass frame on the old Winchester. Now he was oiling the stock. The source of that rifle and of the extra pistol he’d also brought home should bother her. It didn’t.

Sometime in the last months her ideas about right and wrong had expanded. She still believed everything she always had. She’d just added two truths — anything that could hurt Caleb Sutton was wrong. Anything that kept him safe was right.

“If I damp the fire in the stove, is a cold supper all right?” she asked.

“You bet. Anything cold sounds good. In fact as soon as I’m done here, let’s go swimming.”

Swimming? Norah had never been swimming in her life. “I can’t.”

“Sure you can. It’s not like you can drown in the creek.”

It did sound good. When she fetched water, she bathed her face, let water trickle down the neck of her dress and cool her until it dried. Sometimes she pulled off her shoes and stockings and dangled her feet in the water, but swimming?

“What if they come back?”

“Right now the sheriff’s on the V Bar C reporting to his master. Even if Van Cleve has his next move planned, it won’t come today. We’re as safe right now as we’re going to get until it’s over.”

He didn’t look particularly perturbed at the thought of how long it would be until the troubles were over, and Van Cleve’s pet sheriff obviously didn’t bother him any more than Van Cleve did. All of them bothered her.

“What if someone comes. The Carburys could come for a visit.”

“Early warns us, and we scramble out of the creek and into our clothes. Stop worrying and go round up some towels and a blanket and clean clothes for after.”

After what, Norah thought, although she had a pretty good idea. “I’m not taking off my clothes outside in broad daylight.”

He grinned a wicked grin. “Would you take them off outside at night?”

“Of course not. Caleb....”

“If you don’t get what we need, I’m going to drag you down to the creek without towels, dry clothes, or anything else and throw you in. I should have held on to that obey power a little longer.”

In the time it took her to gather the things he wanted from inside the house, sweat trickled down her neck from her hairline. More rivulets ran between her breasts and along her spine. She would leave on her chemise and drawers, she decided. If he did what she thought he was going to do she would just — look to her heart’s content. Out of the corner of an eye.

He took most of the bundle in her arms from her, and they walked to the creek side by side. Early jumped in and began playing doggy games in the water while Norah fussed nervously over where to leave each item they’d brought. Caleb ignored her and sure enough, starting with boots, began pulling off every stitch he had on.

Norah fumbled with the buttons on her dress, undid them, and stood staring at the ground, hotter than ever with the embarrassment flushing through her. Soon she saw her husband’s long, narrow bare feet toe to toe with her still shod ones.

He tipped up her chin. “You’ve seen it all before.”

“Not, not....” Not like this in bright sunshine with the sound of the dog splashing and the creek burbling and birds singing. How could being naked make him seem bigger, his shoulders wider, his eyes a darker brown and hair brighter? “I can’t do this.”

“You don’t have to. Close your eyes, and I’ll do it.”

After he pulled her dress over her head, she found balancing with her eyes closed surprisingly hard. She had to hold on, and the feel of his sweat-damp skin gliding over firm muscle quickened her breath, started that hollow emptiness growing low inside.

Her shoes. One stocking. The other. Her bare toes curled into the warm earth, and he straightened, giving her a lingering kiss before unfastening the ties of her single petticoat.

She’d given up wearing a corset in weather like this long ago and couldn’t decide whether to be sorry or glad as she stood in her drawers and chemise. “Please. I need.... Let me keep these on.”

“Your choice. They don’t hide much, and they’ll hide less when they’re wet.”

Holding his hand in a death grip, she eased down over the side of the bank into the water, gasping and trying to reverse course before she got knee deep in the cold water. Caleb picked her up, carried her to the middle of the stream, and fell back into the water, taking her with him.

Norah shrieked as they went down, struggled free, and ended up sitting in no more than two feet of water. “It’s freezing.”

“That’s why we’re here, remember? Cooling off.”

“I’m cool. I’m getting out.”

“You are not behaving like a woman who climbs out a window and shoves a rifle barrel in a man’s back. Give it a minute and you’ll get used to it.” With the words, he sent a spray of water over her. “You haven’t even got your hair wet.”

She hadn’t, and her hair still hung in a sticky, sweaty mass. Tentatively, she lowered her upper body into the water, tipping her head back until cool water soaked through to her scalp. It was heaven.

Caleb surged beside her. “Let your weight keep you in place and lean back just enough to float a little, like this.”

Imitating him, she bobbed in the slow running creek water and laughed at the sensation of the water flowing over her, pulling and trying to move her downstream. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you? You come in to supper sometimes with your hair soaked.”

“Yup.”

“But you never brought me before.”

“Before today I would have had to really drag you, and you wouldn’t be arguing for the sake of it.”

He was right. Rather than admit it, she changed the subject.

“Tell me about your mother.”

“So you think you’re going to pry all my secrets out of me?”

“Sooner or later.”

“What about your secrets?”

“Mine aren’t interesting.”

“I’ll trade you. One for one, my mother, your scars.”

Unlike Caleb, Norah never rose from bed unclothed, but she ended most nights with her night dress crumpled on the end of the bed, and in this hot weather.... The scars were something she could tell him about.

“All right. Was your mother the one who called you Caleb?”

“She was, and she was like you other ways.”

His hand closed around hers, warm and strong in the cold water. “She was good inside. She did what she had to in the night, and she’d never have done it except for me. In the morning, she’d be there, all the paint scrubbed off, her hair done plain and pretty, wearing a respectable dress like that gray thing Tindell bought you.

“She’d sit me down and teach me letters and numbers when she was so tired she could barely hold her head up. She kept me away from what was going on and the other women as much as she could.

“Her dream was that I’d learn enough to be a lawyer or a banker, but she knew I couldn’t go to the school in town. When she’d taught me as much as she knew, she made a deal with one of her customers. He was an educated man, and she gave him something extra — for teaching me after.”

“Something extra?”

“Men pay women for a lot of things. The uglier it is for the woman, the more they pay.”

“Oh.” She didn’t want to know more about that. “You hated him.”

“I hated them all.”

“Have you ever paid for a woman?”

“Yes, isn’t that twisted?”

She shook her head, feeling the water moving through her hair. “No more than any other man who does it, I guess. What did she die of, consumption?”

“A customer beat her to death.”

She tried to sit up and couldn’t, struggling against the water and her awkward position. Caleb slid an arm under her and pushed. She met his expressionless dark eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about. You didn’t do it. The hardest part was that nobody did anything about it. Like your husband in a way. The sheriff could have found out who did it if he tried, but he didn’t. They buried her the same place they buried beggars and suicides and that was that. Whores get killed all the time, and nobody cares.”

“Is that why you — you went wild and that’s why — those women?”

“Ah, that’s another secret, and it’s your turn. Those scars on your back are because of me, aren’t they?”

“No, they’re because of me. Because I was my father’s spoiled pet, and I thought that meant nothing I could do would ever make him angry enough to discipline me with more than a harsh word. He whipped me that night. Not that badly either. He used a switch from the bushes by the creek instead of his belt, but the skin broke in a few places and the cuts festered. By the time they healed, I had scars.”

“I count five.”

“That wasn’t the bad part. I mean it was, it was shocking and humiliating, and it hurt. The bad part was Papa never felt the same about me after that. He felt I betrayed him, and he ignored me whenever he could. When I was old enough for beaus, he warned every man who looked at me that I’d need a firm hand because I was spoiled and willful.”

She hesitated before telling the worst part. “I never felt the same about him either. I thought he was a good man, willing to do what was right no matter what. He is a good man, but he’s weak. That night he would have gone along with the others knowing they were drunk and wrong.”

“He couldn’t afford to make enemies out of men who would be his neighbors. Out here, starting with nothing, he knew he’d need their help.”

“It didn’t do him any good, did it,” Norah said. “He still failed.”

“Would you have done it if you knew what it would cost you?”

“I don’t know. I think I would, but it’s easy to say that now, isn’t it? There. That’s my secret. Tell me about those women.”

He was silent so long, eyes closed, floating back in the current, she expected him to cry off their bargain, but he spoke eventually.

“A man owned the brothel. His name was Tinker. The women gave him part of what they earned, more than they kept I expect. After my mother was killed, he told me I had to start earning my keep. He had me sweeping and washing and hauling. I missed the books, but other than that I didn’t mind so much.

“My mother’s room went to another woman, but I had a bed of my own up on the top floor, and sometimes if I got up early I could sneak outside for a while. There were boys a few streets over who didn’t mind having a whore’s son join their games now and then. It made them feel wild and brave, I guess. It went on like that for a while.”

He sat up, shaking water from his hair, and met her eyes. “Whores aren’t all the same, you know. Some are like my mother. Some are so beat down it’s like nobody’s inside, and some are pure mean. A lot of them don’t like men much, and you can’t blame them. The woman who replaced my mother was one of the mean ones, and before long she realized there was a scrawny little boy in the place nobody gave a damn about, and she could take it out on him for every ugly thing some man ever did to her.”

Norah wanted to touch his face, kiss him, and didn’t dare. “Did she hurt you?”

“Not at first. At first, being eleven years old and male, I kind of liked satisfying my curiosity, and it felt good enough, but it got to where she wanted what I wouldn’t or couldn’t do, and then she got ugly. And she made friends with this other woman, Rosie, and started bringing her along to hold me down. I told Tinker, and he said keeping the women around there happy was part of my job.”

“So you tried to run away?”

“I started stealing food from the kitchen and was getting ready when Tina and Rosie brought a friend with them one night, a man.”

“Tinker?”

“No, a customer. They said it was time I started to really earn my keep.”

He paused as if for her to say something, but Norah was too bewildered by things beyond her ken to say anything. He smiled that controlled little smile at her.

“There are men who will pay to do things to boys.”

She just stared in horror. “They.... He....”

“No,” she heard the satisfaction of a boy who had won over tremendous odds in his voice.