Authors: Sarah McCarty
“I can’t cook.”
The announcement dropped like a bomb into the banter. Everyone, including Caine, gaped at her as if she’d sprouted a second head. What could she say? That she’d been trained to instruct cooks, not to actually cook? She didn’t think that would have much relevance here.
“But you can learn, right?”
How hard could it be? “I suppose so.”
“Damn straight she can learn.”
“A woman who can’t cook is about as useful as tits on a boar hog.”
“Watch your language, Ed,” Caine snapped.
“Sorry, ma’am.”
Again the touch of Caine’s fingers. Again the demand she look at him. When she did, she found laughter lurked around his eyes and mouth. “You really might want to get on my good side now.”
“Why?”
“Unless you want to spend day and night in the kitchen, you’ll need an excuse to get out.”
“And you’re it?”
“No man’s going to argue with a newly married husband who wants his wife’s time.”
“So it’s be nice to you, or be a slave in the kitchen?”
His hand closed over hers. “Yup.”
She didn’t protest. “There’s always a third option.”
His eyebrow cocked up as he drew his fingertips along her knuckle in a slow tease. “What?”
“I could just be a lousy cook.”
The smile that had been lurking sprang to the fore. “Sweetheart, that won’t get you off the hook now.”
“Why ever not?”
“There’s a saying that hope springs eternal, and when that hope involves an empty stomach, it’s pretty much a bottomless pit.”
“There’s also the truth if you don’t cook, one of us will have to.”
She’d already reached that conclusion before Tucker pointed it out. She sighed. “Guess I’ll have to learn to cook.”
“Or just cozy up to your husband.”
She cut Caine a glare as the men immediately around them chuckled, understanding why Tia had stormed from the room. Men could be so frustrating. She pulled her hand from under Caine’s. “I’ll learn to cook.”
The snub didn’t even put a dent in Caine’s smile. He threaded his fingers through hers. “Well, I guess that just means I win all the way around.”
Desi expected Caine to jump on her right after dinner. She didn’t expect him to bundle her up in a quilt and carry her to the door.
“I can walk, you know.”
“We already covered that ground earlier.”
“I think we should go over it again.”
“Why?”
“Because if I think hard enough I can come up with a reason you’ll accept.”
“Sweetheart, you sure are grass-green when it comes to men.”
“I am not.”
He turned sideways to get them through the door. “Are to, if you think there’s any amount of logic that would have a man passing up the opportunity to hold a pretty woman in his arms.”
The way he said things actually made her want to go back to believing in fairy tales. “Why are we going outside?”
“Because there’s something I want you to see.”
“Can’t I see it in daylight?” She pulled the quilt closer as the cold air hit her cheeks. And in case he didn’t understand her complaint because of the bright moon illuminating the landscape in an ethereal white light she added, “When it’s warmer.”
“Nope.”
A nicker caught her attention. Two horses stood hitched to the rail. Beside them sat Boone. Other dogs stirred on the porch, hopeful expressions on their faces. Apparently everyone but Desi was looking forward to this.
“Oh, no. I’m not getting on another horse.” Her inner thighs still ached from the last two days.
“You don’t have to get on. I’ll lift you.”
She shook her head. The soothing effects of the bath had worn off. Just the thought of straddling a horse had her wincing.
“No.”
Caine paused at the horse’s side. Boone whined and thumped his tail on the hard ground. “Because you don’t want to go with me or because you’re still hurting in sensitive places?”
“What happens if I say both?”
“Nothing other than if you say different.”
Which meant she was still going. “Okay. The latter. I can’t ride, Caine.”
He set her down on the edge of the porch. “I took that into account.” He glanced toward the horses. “Tracker?”
“You all finally ready?”
“Yup.”
Tracker stepped out of the shadows and unwrapped the reins from the post.
She glared at Caine. “You said I wouldn’t have to ride!”
“Uh-huh.” Caine took the reins from Tracker and swung up into the saddle. “So I did.”
“Ma’am.”
Tracker was standing as if waiting for permission. She looked between him and Caine and then the impatient horse. If the porch wasn’t behind her she would have stepped back, her feet be damned. “I’m not riding that horse.”
“Sure enough you’re not.” Tracker caught her about the waist and swung her up and around, straight into Caine’s arms.
As he settled her in front of him, she tucked herself into a stiff ball of hostility. “You tricked me.”
Tracker chuckled. His teeth were very white in the moonlight. “You made it so easy, thinking the worst.”
Yes, she had. “Well that doesn’t mean you had to exploit my tendency.”
Caine pulled the thick quilt up from where it had slipped off her shoulder. “Out here any weakness is likely to get exploited, one way or another.”
Tracker swung up on his bay. “That is the truth.” He pulled his rifle out of the scabbard and rested it across the saddle horn. “Ready?”
Behind her, Caine nodded, the exaggerated shadow of his Stetson obliterating her view of the trail.
After commanding the dogs to stay, he set the horse in motion.
Desi had never ridden for pleasure at night. Even a night that was lit by a big Comanche moon. It made her nervous, but after a few minutes of Chaser following Tracker’s sure-footed bay, she started to relax. This wasn’t the first time these horses had taken this path up the mountain.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“I don’t care much for surprises.”
“Now that’s a shame.” Caine leaned forward, reaching to brush a branch out of their way.
“So why don’t you tell me where we’re going?”
“Because I happen to like surprises.”
“When you’re the one handing them out.” She hadn’t meant to say that aloud.
A glance up showed she’d dislodged another of his smiles. “That is the truth.”
Caine let the branch go once they were past. His hand dropped to her hip. “You okay?”
“I’m comfortable.”
“Are you still sore?”
The blush rose from her toes. She was going to kill him. Just as soon as she got over her mortification, she was going to kill him. She cut a glance at Tracker. She didn’t think he’d overheard. “Hush!”
Caine’s fingers curled around her thigh. “Are you…?”
If she didn’t burst into flames in the next two seconds it was going to be a miracle. “I’m fine.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Just the asking of it made the intimate ache surge to the forefront of her mind. She ducked her head into the quilt and whispered, “A little.”
The fingers squeezed. “A little more salve will help with that.”
“No.”
His chuckle vibrated against her side. “I won’t mind.”
She was sure he wouldn’t. “I would.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not respectable.”
“And you’re a respectable wife now?”
“Yes.”
“And that means I don’t get to have any fun?”
“Not like that.”
Chaser lunged up an incline. She grabbed at Caine’s chest, though his arm around her waist remained as immovable as always, holding her secure. When the horse settled back into a steady rhythm he said, “I can see I’m going to have to work on your definition of respectable.”
“My definition is fine. It’s your wants that are scandalous.”
“I’m a good man.”
“And you deserve a good woman.”
“Hell, where’s the fair in that?”
She relaxed a little as the horse fell back into a normal gait. “What do you mean?”
“Seems to me a man who spends his days being good deserves a scandalous woman in his bed.”
“You are so confusing.”
“And here I thought I was being about as plainspoken as a man can get.”
“Every man wants a proper woman to rear his children and care for his home.”
“Sounds dull as mud.”
“What?” She couldn’t have heard him right.
“I said, it sounds as dull as mud. No man in his right mind wants to come home to a saint.”
“You’re wrong.”
His right brow disappeared up into the shadow thrown by his hat. “Seeing as how I’m a man, I think I have the right of it, and I’m telling you right now, Desi Allen, the one man who deserves to come home to a scandalous woman is a good man. There’s just no better reward.”
She yanked the quilt around her shoulders, anger burning deep. Just because she was his wife didn’t give him the right to make fun of her. The conviction grew with every hard clop of the horses hooves’ over the rock and dirt.
“I’ll be over yonder keeping an eye on things,” Tracker called, wheeling his horse around, pointing to the edge of the trees.
Desi watched him go with equal parts dismay and relief. The former because no one knew better than her that this was a dangerous land and the reminder that they were away from the house made her nervous, and the latter because no matter how this marriage came about, she couldn’t help feeling that her fights with Caine were private and some distance allowed her to keep them that way.
“Desi?”
“What?”
“Look up.”
“Why?” She seemed to be always asking him that.
“Because you’re going to regret it forever if you don’t.”
She only did so because she couldn’t handle another regret in her life. And then she gasped, resentment crushed beneath wonder. They were on the edge of a cliff and before them, seeming to spread outward from their very feet was…the universe. The star-studded carpet stretched out in front of her, endlessly embracing the moonlit landscape below. Dark hollows wove between swells of granite that glowed with a ghostly edge above the single, sparkling ribbon of light that rippled through it all. It was timeless, breathtakingly beautiful. Overwhelming.
“See that?” She followed the point of Caine’s finger to the ribbon way off in the distance. “That’s the
She blinked. That was a lot of land to hold. The men were nothing if not ambitious. “Why are you showing me this?”
“Because you’re part of Hell’s Eight now, and I wanted you to know what that meant.”
As far as she could tell, it meant she was smack-dab in the middle of Indian land, living amidst a bunch of men tough enough to think they could actually make something of this wilderness. The knowledge left her not knowing which angle to address. She settled for the obvious.
“This is Indian land.”
“There are a few tribes that lay claim to it.”
She could hear the “but” in his voice. She brought it out into the open. “And they don’t object to you being here?”
“We don’t bother them if they don’t bother us.”
She was not naive enough to know there weren’t skirmishes. “And when they do?”
“We settle it.”
There was nothing in the inflection of his voice to infer anything. “You fight.”
“If it comes to that.”
She considered the magnificent expanse. No wonder Caine had refused to let her ride off on her own that first day. Desperation had blinded her to the reality of its vastness. It was a very dangerous place. “You would think there would be enough for everyone.”
“There is.”
“Then why do you fight?”
“Because some men can’t rest easy unless they have it all.”
But not him? She glanced at Caine from beneath her lashes. He was looking over the land, his gaze narrowed and his mouth set into a straight line. “And you’re satisfied with what you have?”
He shook his head before looking down. His eyes were almost black in the shadow of his hat brim. “Not by a long shot. We’ve got a start here, planted our roots, but before we’re done, Hell’s Eight will be known.”
“You already are.”
With a wave of his hand, he dismissed the legend that followed the men wherever they went. “For more than killing.”
She didn’t see how that was possible. The men of Hell’s Eight were bigger than life. The bogeyman took a backseat to them when a mother wanted to scare the mischief out of her kids. “What do you want to be known for?”