Authors: Sarah McCarty
No, it didn’t. “Tia did declare the cake fair game after the
first serving.”
She bit her lip, revealing white teeth and the slight gap
between the top front two. She always tried to hide that gap. Personally he
thought it too appealing in a far too sexual way. Maddie wavered, clearly torn
between the two things she wanted. Caden took pity on her. Maddie wanted that
cake, and right now he needed to give her one last thing because it might be a
while before he saw her again. By the time he came back, she might be more
grounded in this world. Maybe even married. He resisted the urge to stroke his
fingers over the freckles sprinkling across her cheekbones.
Caden put his champagne glass on the potting table beside him.
“Go get your cake, Maddie.”
Still she hesitated, looking up at Caden with those leaf-green
eyes, her fear in her gaze. “You won’t leave before I get back?”
“No.” He’d be leaving tonight, though. It was time for him to
go.
“Best hurry,” Caine prodded.
Maddie frowned at Caine. She looked like a kitten challenging a
cougar as she ordered, “You won’t tell him bad stories? He doesn’t sleep well
when you do, and he needs his rest.”
Shit, she made him sound downright feeble. Something that
wasn’t lost on Caine if the smile tugging at his lips was anything to go by.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Caden turned Maddie toward the crowd gathered at the cake
table. “Go, Maddie, before there’s none left.”
She did, lifting her skirts and showing an indecent amount of
ankle in her haste to beat Tucker to the cake. She had pretty ankles.
“I’m not even going to ask how she knows how you sleep,” Caine
stated with an arch of his brow.
And he wasn’t going to tell. Caden folded his arms across his
chest. “I haven’t been messing with her.”
Caine dismissed the challenge with a wave of his hand. Whiskey
sloshed in the cut-crystal glass he held. Caden remembered when they used to
drink it straight out of the bottle. “Hell, I know that, but that woman has a
powerful affection for you.”
“She’s like a child.”
“Maybe when she first got here. But have you noticed lately
she’s more here than there?”
“She’s healing.”
“Desi says she’s forgetting.”
Caden took one of the glasses from Caine. “How the hell does a
woman forget being forced to serve men from childhood?”
“A woman who knows how to escape into make-believe?” Caine made
a slashing motion with his free hand. “How the hell do I know?”
“Then, why are you bringing it up?”
“Because Sally Mae told Desi that I should.”
Of course she had. Caden sighed and swirled the whiskey in the
glass. “Life was a hell of a lot easier before we had women cluttering up the
place.”
Caine’s whole expression softened as he looked over at his
wife. Blonde and petite, her curly hair temporarily confined in a knot, Desi was
the love of Caine’s hard life and he was hers. If ever two people fit together
like pieces of a puzzle, it was Desi and Caine.
“I happen to like the clutter,” Caine drawled.
Caden bet he did, but the Miller men didn’t have that kind of
heart luck. They were treasure hunters, adventurers, trailblazers. Caden took a
sip of whiskey. The only thing the Millers brought women was loneliness and
disappointment. “I know.”
“You really going to try to salvage that gold mine of Fei’s?”
Caine asked.
Caden swallowed the whiskey, savoring the burn. That was more
like it. Enough whiskey could cauterize any wound. “Yup.”
“Sam said Fei blew it to hell and gone.”
Caden shrugged. There were ways around that. “Just presents
more of a challenge.”
“A hell of a challenge for one man.”
Caden smiled and took another sip. “Since when did Hell’s Eight
shy away from a challenge?”
“Never.” Caine swirled the whiskey in his glass. “Is that what
has your feet itching? No more challenges for you here?”
There were plenty of challenges at Hell’s Eight. Just because
they’d staked their claim didn’t mean there wasn’t someone who was going to try
to take it.
His father’s face flashed into his mind. Frozen in time.
Remember who you are...
He’d done his duty by the Hell’s Eight and Tia. But now it was
time to do right by his family.
“More like a promise I’ve got to keep.”
“What promise?” Caine asked.
“Nothing that involves you.”
“If it involves you,” Caine countered, “it involves Hell’s
Eight.”
Caine’s loyalty to those he considered family was all
encompassing. Caden drained the glass and set it beside the delicate champagne
flute. Such elegance where before there had been none. He turned away. “Not this
time.”
“The hell you say.”
He met Caine’s gaze squarely. “I do.”
“At least let Ace or Luke go with you.”
Caden could see Maddie scooping up her piece of cake. Saw her
smile at Tucker shyly as he pretended to grab for it. Inside, something twisted,
revealing a touch of...anger? He pushed the feeling aside.
“You can’t spare the hands.”
“We can spare what you need,” Caine said.
Caden knew the state of the ranch as well as anyone. Knew the
threats against it. They’d just expanded. Every man was necessary. And now with
the cavalry being pulled back East to deal with the discord there between North
and South, they had to add the renewed threat of Indian attacks to the mix. “Too
many people would draw attention.”
“Two is hardly too many,” Sam cut in, coming up beside them, a
whiskey glass in one hand and a bottle in the other. Behind him was Ace. “Hell,
it won’t even get the job done. Remember, I saw the place after Fei blew it up.
The woman is thorough.”
Caden knew he’d eventually need help, a lot of it likely, but
right now, he didn’t want it. “I need to do this on my own.”
“Because of that promise you made your da?” Ace asked, his dark
hair flopping over his brow, giving him the look of a devil-may-care no-account.
Until you looked a little lower and saw his eyes. No one that had any ability to
take a man’s measure could mistake the coldness and purpose that shadowed his
light brown eyes. Ace could cut a man’s throat with the same aplomb with which
he could perform those card tricks he liked to show off. And with a smile on his
face. Not that Ace enjoyed killing, but if it was necessary, he didn’t have any
qualms about settling a score. Caden sighed, noting Tracker and Shadow making
their way over, too. This had all the makings of a well-intentioned ambush.
Shit.
“Did someone send out an invite I missed?”
Sam smiled. “Nah. This is more of an impromptu party.”
“What promise did you make to your da?” Caine asked, with that
tenacity that marked everything he did.
“Nothing.” Caden glared at Ace. Of all the Hell’s Eight, he was
closest to Ace, which had resulted in a drunken confession about his father many
years ago that should never have been made. Ace merely shook his head.
“Don’t get your tail in a twist. You’re a grown man. You get to
be as foolish as you want.”
“The hell he does.”
“Let it go, Caine,” Caden ordered.
“The hell I will.”
Sam leaned in and poured more whiskey into Caine’s already
quarter-full glass. “Drink that.”
“Shit, if I drink that, I’ll be drunk.”
Sam shrugged and offered Ace the bottle, before saying, “At
least you’ll have an excuse for spouting nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense. That gold mine is in the middle of Indian
country, and Culbart isn’t going to be any help if anything goes wrong out
there.”
That was true. The mine wasn’t the only thing Fei had blown to
hell and gone. When Fei’s father had sold her cousin Lin to Culbart, Fei had
taken matters into her own hands. A lot of dynamite had been blown to rescue
Lin. Which meant the only white man close enough to come to Caden’s aid at the
mine wasn’t going to be feeling that friendly toward a Hell’s Eight man. Caden
mentally shrugged. He’d faced tougher odds.
“Culbart’s a hard-ass, but no one has ever accused him of being
stupid,” Ace said. “If Hell’s Eight calls for help, he’ll be there. He can’t
afford to be that friendless with that ranch of his smack-dab in the middle of
Indian country and tensions rising the way they are.”
“Besides, I thought some of the problems with Culbart stemmed
from the fact the man thought Lin was being kidnapped?” Caden asked.
“He’s got a point, Caine,” Ace offered. “Like the man or not,
truth is Lin came to no harm in Culbart’s care, and any man worth his salt would
go after a woman stolen from his care, even if it was one of us who did the
stealing.”
Caine frowned and took a large swallow from his glass. His
green eyes narrowed. “The man still has an ax to grind. He lost good men in that
‘misunderstanding.’”
“It would have been easier if Fei had bargained a bit before up
and taking off with her cousin,” Sam interjected wryly. “Might have saved on the
grinding.”
“Culbart didn’t leave her much choice,” Caine drawled, taking
another sip. “He’d lost good money in the deal. Holding on to Fei was his best
chance of getting it back.”
Ace shook his head. “Or so he thought. Fei did a good job
covering her pa had gone bat-shit crazy. You can’t totally blame Culbart.”
Caine cocked a brow at Ace. “You sound as though you like the
bastard.”
Ace shrugged. “I do. He’s tough as nails, but he’s got a strong
sense of right and wrong.” He took a drink of whiskey. “Not to mention an
interesting sense of humor.”
“When the hell did you ever see his sense of humor?” Caden
snapped, impatience rubbing his temper raw. He wanted to go, not sit here and
discuss Culbart’s good qualities.
“When Caine here sent me to set Culbart straight.”
“You were supposed to intimidate him,” Caine countered.
“I decided to socialize first.”
Caden shook his head. Leave it to Ace to turn an enemy into an
ally.
“I wouldn’t say he’s a friend,” Ace continued, “but he’s not
hostile.”
Caden straightened. He was doing this, and to hell with Culbart
and to hell with argument. If that ruffled feathers along the way, then too bad.
“Well, if Culbart still has an ax to grind, let him grind it.”
“Goddamn it, Caden,” Caine snarled. “Why do you have to do this
now when we’re spread so thin?”
Because he did. Turning on his heel, Caden walked away, not
answering, pushing past Shadow and Tracker, ignoring the surprised lift of
Tucker’s brow. As he reached the garden gate, he heard Caine say, “Would someone
tell me about this promise?”
“It’s personal, not important,” Ace responded with a blatant
lie for which Caden would owe him.
“It’s important enough that the man who never breaks promises
is breaking one to keep it.”
Ace swore, “Shit.”
Maddie. Caine was talking about Maddie. Caden had promised her
he wouldn’t leave the party before she got back. Caden saw her out of the corner
of his eye, standing slightly apart from the others, smiling and watching the
dancers, looking as pretty and as inviting as sunshine after a storm. Saw Luke
head her way, and swore. She’d get over it. He shoved the gate open and kept
walking. As the gate slammed closed behind him, he heard her call his name, the
surprise and disappointment nipping at his feet in a tone he’d heard his mother
use too many times.
Fuck.
He was his father after all.
CHAPTER TWO
H
E
WAS
LEAVING
. Maddie stood, tucked half behind a flowering pear tree,
looking at the buds amid the leaves, feeling her hopes fade even as the trees
blossomed. New pears that she’d come to think would signal a new beginning for
her. In a few months those small, nondescript bulges would be fruit. She’d
planned on picking that fruit for Caden, but he was leaving. Leaving her.
Leaving Hell’s Eight. Without even a goodbye. To her, at least.
Just like everybody else she’d ever cared about. The man she’d
thought was her father. Her mother. Her friends. They’d all left. And she’d
stayed, just as she was staying here because she always hoped things would get
better. Ever since she’d made the decision to take Tracker up on his offer to
come to Hell’s Eight, she’d been clinging to some sort of hope. Hope that life
for her could be better. That she could be loved. That she’d have a husband. A
home. Children.
And yet here she was, standing among strangers, treating them
like friends, mooning over a man who couldn’t see her as woman or whore.
Watching him say his goodbyes to others, bracing herself for his absence, for
the awful not knowing if he was alive or dead for weeks on end. She shivered,
the cold, sick feeling digging into her stomach. She loved Caden so. But beyond
a smile whenever she came into his presence and an occasional offhand endearment
that meant nothing, he didn’t know she was alive. But that didn’t change the
fact he was her heart and he was leaving. Or that she hated it.
The protest started at the edges of her mind, subtle yet
insistent, gathering strength like a storm chasing across the plains, gaining
volume as it got closer. The howl dissolved to voices from her past, some kind,
most of them cruel, telling her what to do, how to do it, as if her pain was
nothing. As if
she
was nothing. The urge to slip
away deeper into the foliage until she disappeared clawed at her nerves.
She dug her nails into her forearms, letting the pain drive
back the cacophony. Caden was a strong man. He respected strong women. All the
women of Hell’s Eight were strong. Sally Mae with her pacifist beliefs, healing
ways and defiance of convention. Desi with her fiery spirit. Ari with her
gentleness that belied an inner strength that didn’t ever let her quit. Bella
who was just pure life. Fei with her purpose and drive. Those were the type of
women that Caden admired. That was the kind of woman she needed to be.
She looked over to where Tia stood beside her Ed, the mantilla
on her head fluttering in the breeze, catching the smile in her eyes. Tia, who’d
lost her husband and her children, and yet had taken on eight young boys, wild
boys, hate-filled boys, and turned them into men to be admired. Why hadn’t God
sent her a Tia?
She licked her lips and looked to where Caden had disappeared.
Maybe the good Lord hadn’t sent her a Tia when she was a child sobbing into her
pillow at night, but He’d given her an escape. But now He was taking that away,
and she couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t coincidence that as her escape
into fantasy stopped being effective, her love for Caden grew. She was meant to
come to Hell’s Eight. She truly believed that God sent her here. But she didn’t
believe he sent her here to be alone. He sent her here for Caden. For though he
was restless and distant, part of the whole yet somehow apart from it, he was a
man who needed love, who needed gentleness, and she’d waited her whole life to
give her love to someone. It didn’t matter if he recognized it or gave it back.
She’d waited her whole life for someone to love. And now he was leaving.
She shook her head. She couldn’t let it just happen. She heard
a noise beside her. She looked up. Bella stood there, for once without her
handsome blond, blue-eyed Sam, her belly rounded with child, her smile full of
that life that gave Sam purpose. Maddie had spent a lot of time studying what
attracted these men to these women and what kept them moving. And for Sam it was
Bella’s spirit that he cherished.
“You hide again, Maddie.” It was both an accusation and a
question, spoken in Bella’s melodic accent that made music of her words. Even
the exasperated ones.
Maddie shrugged. “I’m watching to see what needs to be
done.”
Bella shook her head. “There is only one thing you watch, my
friend.”
As always, Bella’s use of the term “friend” made her jump
inside. Maddie had never had a real friend. She’d been kept alive after her
birth for a purpose. For a long time she’d dreamed it had been to be loved, but
as the years passed, the truth had become clear, and she’d learned to stop
smiling at others and to stop believing. Though the women of Hell’s Eight were
kind to her, she never felt comfortable with their caring. She was a whore. She
might have run from her life, but all the offers of friendship in the world
couldn’t remove the stain. It was easy to pretend that wasn’t true, protected
here at Hell’s Eight. Here the world couldn’t touch her, but someday she’d have
to leave. And when she did she wanted to be just like Bella. Confident. Sassy.
Always ready with a quick response. Never hiding.
But she wasn’t like Bella. Not yet. She didn’t have fire. She
didn’t have family. She didn’t have beliefs. She’d been a child lost and now she
was a woman lost, but she was going to find her way. The padre said God didn’t
put people on this earth with no purpose, which meant she had a purpose, too.
When he’d first said it, it’d been a unique idea she couldn’t understand. But
over time she couldn’t forget it, and slowly it had grown on her and taken root.
Until now, finding a purpose
was
her purpose.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Bella smiled and glanced over to the gate Caden had just passed
through. “It is easy to see where your heart lies.”
Maddie licked her lip, feeling that stab of fear deep inside.
To love something was to lose it, to cause its death. Instinct had her reaching
for make-believe, but she couldn’t find that hazy place where real and
imagination blended as easily as they used to. Ari said it was a good thing.
Maddie wasn’t sure.
“Hearts and flowers are so pretty at weddings.” The slip into
nonsense was only half-faked. It was always so much easier to act as nothing
when you felt like nothing.
Bella sighed and folded her arms under her ample chest, resting
them on her belly. “You will try this nonsense with others. I know you are not
loca.
”
Maddie wished she knew that. “Are you so sure?”
Bella shook her head. “There is more to you than nonsense,
Maddie.”
Maddie blinked. No one had ever said that to her before.
“I am sweet thighs and soft breasts and pleasure for a man.”
She’d heard that so much it was rote.
Bella snorted. “You’re passion and temper, and when you find
your feet, the only man that will find pleasure with you is the one that you
choose.”
“You think I’ll get to choose?”
Bella, always so insightful, always so blunt, touched her hand,
causing Maddie to jump again because no one ever touched her. Touching was bad,
painful, death.
“Sí.”
She pulled her hand away, immediately feeling bad. She liked
Bella. Bella just smiled.
“You are Hell’s Eight now, Maddie. You are not nothing.”
“Tracker just brought me here.”
Bella smiled and looked at the big man talking to Ed. The wind
caught his hair, exposing the deep scar on his cheek. “Something brought us all
here.”
To Maddie, Tracker was a scary man with that scar down his face
and those big muscles and that dark skin, but to Ari he was her sun and moon,
which just proved gentleness lived everywhere. Maddie clung to that. Caden
wasn’t as big as Tracker, but his hands were strong enough to bruise, break
bones.
Bella grunted and put her hand to her stomach. “I swear if this
child doesn’t stop kicking me I’m going to let his daddy raise him.”
Maddie looked at Bella. “You carry a girl.”
“How do you know?” It was uniquely Bella that she didn’t
dismiss the thought, just asked if Maddie was sure.
It would be tactless to say she’d seen so many pregnant women
over the course of her eighteen years in a whorehouse that she knew how a woman
carried. So Maddie just shrugged instead and said, “Some things a woman just
knows.”
Bella’s brows lifted, and she made an eloquent motion of her
hands. “See?
Ya está
. When you don’t stop to think
about how you are going to be received, you say what is on your mind.”
“A woman should be seen and not heard.”
Bella snorted. “Idiots should be seen and not heard.”
Maddie couldn’t help but flinch any more than Bella could help
her immediate apologetic touch on her hand. Bella was always touching. It didn’t
bother Maddie so much anymore.
“I am sorry, Maddie. You know I do not think you are an
idiot.”
So many did, though. Her glance cut to the path Caden had
taken. Bella’s gaze followed hers but she didn’t let go of her hand this time,
just gripped it tighter when Maddie tugged.
“Maddie?”
“Yes?”
“Do you believe the truth I always tell?”
Maddie nodded, used to Bella’s grammar. It was actually pretty
the way she spoke, clear yet a little off-kilter, like a unique music played
beneath the words.
“I believe you.” She tugged at her hand again. Bella gripped
tighter.
“Do you believe that I would never do anything to hurt
you?”
She nodded again.
“Do you believe I am not conventional?”
Maddie nodded. “I believe all that you tell me. You are a good
person. You would never lie.”
Bella snorted. “Good people lie all the time. So do I. I would
to save someone I love, but I would not lie to someone I love for no
reason.”
Maddie understood that. “Yes.”
Bella shook her head. “I will speak plainly now, in words I
want you to hear.”
Maddie grabbed a branch of the tree and braced herself. Only
bad things started that way.
Bella took a step around until she faced her, her stomach
touching the folds of Maddie’s skirt. Maddie wanted to run and hide, but it
didn’t really matter what she wanted. Bella was determined to have her say, and
she could see Sam searching for his wife. Soon he would be here. Maddie
preferred not to deal too closely with the men of Hell’s Eight. It wasn’t that
they were bad men; they were just men, and men made her uncomfortable.
“I’m listening.”
“Forgive me my plain speaking, but you are in love with
Caden.”
Maddie flinched, clenching the branch in her hand, the leaves
tearing and sending a slightly fruity scent into the air. “A man like that isn’t
for me.”
Bella snorted. “He’s a man like any other who needs a woman to
love him.”
“He has his pick of women.”
“And you could have your pick of men.”
Maddie shook her head. Only the naive believed that. “I am used
goods, fit for the bed and nothing else. No man would want me.”
Bella’s nails dug into her wrist. “You will not speak such
words again to me. You are my friend. You were there for that time Sam went away
and my dreams were bad. You sat with me and made me tea. You run around this
place like you are nothing, doing everything, supporting everyone, making sure
that Sally Mae had what she needed for the wedding, organizing, finagling—”
“I am good at trading,” Maddie interrupted.
“Trading, then. But everything you do supports those that you
love. You are a strong force in the background making everything possible. You
have changed so much here at Hell’s Eight since you have come and yet you see
none of this. You see yourself as nothing, as bed sport only.”
Maddie looked away. Bella’s finger under her chin yanked her
face back.
“If you want Caden, this thinking needs to stop. You need to
believe in who you are. You need to believe in the strength that kept you alive
all these years. You need to believe in that part of you that makes you the one
woman he smiles at whenever you are near.”
Maddie hated the hope that sprang to life in her chest, hated
it yet clung to it.
“You don’t know—”
Bella shook her head. “No. I do not know anything for sure, but
I know when you are around Caden you smile, and I know when Caden is around you
he smiles. This does not determine the end, but to me it seems a good
beginning.”
She could see Caine and Ace arguing, she assumed about Caden.
No doubt Caine didn’t want him to leave. Caine thought he had a lot of power
over the men, but her Caden was a stubborn man, and she understood more than
Caine that Caden was also a man who needed to make his own way.
“What would you have me do? A knight doesn’t look for a
princess among the garbage.”
“My Sam had no use for me when he first met me.”
That
Maddie couldn’t believe. “You
are Sam’s princess in the tower.”
“I was Sam’s pain in the—” Bella smiled and tapped her behind,
leaving the word unsaid. “He thought I was too good for him, that he would only
bring me trauma in my life. He denied our love, our attraction and our potential
for joy.”
“But you’re together.”
“Yes. We are. But I had to chase that man across half the state
and I had to fight for him.”
“You can’t make someone love you. Sally Mae told me this.”
“And Sally Mae is right. But you can stop someone from running
away from the way they feel long enough for the truth of their feelings to catch
up to them.”
Who did Bella think she was, preaching such hope to the
hopeless? She had no right. “Maybe I’m just too stupid to understand such a
thing.”
Bella let go of her hand and took a step back. “Maybe you are
too stupid to be with a man like Caden, who has everything except the softness
he needs. And maybe you are too stupid to know what is right and wrong and how
it should be between a man and a woman. And maybe you are just too stupid for a
lot of things because you foolishly believe all the wrong people told you.”
Bella made a slashing motion with her hand. “But I do not think so. I have seen
how you have changed. How you have grown, so when I tell you this, know that I
am speaking to Maddie the woman who has become part of Hell’s Eight, not Maddie
who sees herself of no value. It is time for you to leave here.” She motioned
toward the gate. “Time for you to follow your heart.”