Authors: Sarah McCarty
She was panicking again. She couldn’t afford to panic. Desi made her next breath slow. It didn’t lessen the sound, but it gave her a focus for the adrenaline charging through her limbs. The footsteps came closer. She formed a picture of Jack in her head, building each detail with precision, paying special attention to his height. As she heard his gun bang against the outside of the cave entrance, she opened her eyes.
Jack’s shadow entered the cave first. A sinister stretch of black that crept up the wall. His foot followed next, then his body and then his scent. Rank like the rest of him, suiting the evil that was so embedded inside him. He didn’t turn or focus anywhere but where he’d left her. Time slowed as he stepped past her. He brought up his revolver and pointed it to the corner where she’d piled the clothes.
Desi snuck behind him, soundlessly whispering Caine’s name, which had become her talisman. With unemotional precision Jack pulled the trigger. Noise exploded in the cave as he fired into her clothes with a dispassionate disregard that it would be her life he was taking.
Fury erupted from deep down. She reared up on her toes and brought the rock down with all her might as more explosions ripped through the cave, along with her name. Jack jerked and crumpled as something whizzed by her side and pinged off the rock behind her. The sound of the gunshots faded, but not the sound of her name. It lingered in her ears and in her heart in a harsh masculine echo. She blinked past the tears of relief welling and peered toward the back of the cave.
Caine. He stepped out of the dark shadows like an avenging angel. Gun at the ready, he moved soundlessly across the floor. On the next step, light caressed his face, highlighting the three-day growth of beard and the lethal tension in his face. “Step away from him, Desi.”
The order was given in that flat, deadly voice with no warmth to let her know what he was thinking, what he thought about her.
Desi stepped back. Rock pressed against her back. And still Caine advanced. He kicked the gun away from Jack’s reach. With a foot, he pushed him over.
Desi gasped and put her hand over her mouth to hold back her stomach as blood poured from him in a river. Caine had shot him through the heart.
The small breathless sound brought Caine’s attention back to her. His eyes ran over her from head to toe, stopping along the way at her neck, the ropes dangling from her waist, the blood on her wrists. His expression spasmed in a way she couldn’t understand before he pointed to her feet. “Stay there.”
Two strides and he was at the cave entrance. In rapid succession, he fired off three shots.
He turned back. She flinched from the coldness of his glare. The move set off another olfactory reminder of what she’d done. Humiliation chased away relief. It didn’t matter why she’d done it. She did not want Caine to see her this way. “Keep back.”
Caine stopped. She could ask anything of him in that moment, and he’d give it to her. She was alive. He stood there and absorbed that fact. As he stood, he memorized everything about her, the shaking in her upraised palm, the wildness in her eyes and, worse, the humiliation that had her gaze dodging the directness of his.
It took his last reservoir of strength to subdue the need to snatch her up in his arms. She’d been through a trial. She was hurt, outside and maybe inside. If she needed a minute, he’d damn well give it to her.
“James, Carl and Bryan are dead.”
She blinked. “How?”
“Dynamite.”
He expected her to ask for an explanation. Instead, she just stood there and said, “Oh.” He clenched his hands to fists as a drop of blood welled at the abrasion on her neck. He watched it swell until it got too heavy and then dripped down her neck, following the path of the drops before, bleeding into the thin white lawn of her chemise.
He’d promised to protect her and he hadn’t. He didn’t blame her for not wanting him near.
“Did he hurt you, Desi?”
Her chin came up. “What if he did?”
“Then I want to go back in time and kill him all over again. Real slow like.”
He wanted to do that anyway.
“And me? What about me?”
“You I’m taking home and tying to the bed.”
“I’ve had enough of being tied up.”
She eyed him warily as she brought her hand down and rubbed her wrist. The one the bastard had broken. The one Jack had tied.
“Then you’re just going to have to suffer being wrapped in cotton wool, because I am never going through this again.”
“I was the one who was tied up by some evil monster who likes to see people suffer.”
He closed his eyes slowly, accepting the weight of the truth in her words, the blame.
“He killed Boone.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“I saw the knife.”
“It’d take more than a shoulder wound to keep Boone from coming after you.”
Her smile was shaky. “I told you he was special.”
“Yes, you did.”
“You’ll have to make it up to him for misjudging him.”
“He can have steak every night for the rest of his life.”
Why the hell were they talking about the dog? He took another step forward, drawn by the need to hold her, to know she was real and unhurt, that she hadn’t strangled to death in one of Jack’s specialized knots. Her hand came back up.
“Don’t.”
He stopped, letting pain sear his soul. He’d broken his promise to her to keep her safe. He didn’t deserve anything more. Another trickle of blood chased the previous. He watched it with morbid fascination, barely, just barely able to honor her request. “Why?”
He needed to hear it, needed that salt rubbed into the wound, needed all the pain she had to vent. Though there’d never be enough to make up for his failure, it was better he bear it than she.
“I’m dirty.”
“Jesus.” She couldn’t think that. He wouldn’t let her convince herself of that. “You get that right out of your head, right now. No matter what happened, there isn’t a more pure woman walking this territory than you.”
She blinked and then with a grimace, waved away his assumption. “He didn’t touch me like that.”
Relief collided with exasperation. If Jack hadn’t touched her, then Caine didn’t understand her problem. She wrapped her arms around her waist and shivered, the haunted shadows in her eyes calling to him. She need to be held. And he needed to hold her with an ache that wouldn’t stop. “Then why in hell am I standing over here?”
It came out harsher than he intended. So harsh he didn’t initially hear her response. He had to ask her to repeat it. She did, with her head down and a flush covering her torso.
“I smell.”
He blinked. She expected him to care that she’d picked up a few odors through her ordeal? He took a step closer and she scooted away, hand up, face averted. The cold stone skimmed her back and she shivered. She was going to freeze to death if he didn’t get her covered. Caine would force the issue if he had to, but he hated to after all she’d been through.
“Explain.”
The gaze she cut him was resentful. “He tied me up so I had to stay bent over or strangle.”
“Jack’s hanging truss.”
“You know about that?”
“Yes.”
She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, casting him a glance from under her lashes while a flush rose up her chest. “I don’t think he cared which way I died. I think he just wanted me to suffer.”
A woman shouldn’t have to live knowing there were men like that in the world. “He did.”
She stared at her toes. “I refused to give him the satisfaction.”
“That’s my girl.” He wanted to touch her so badly, wipe the blood from her neck and kiss the tears from her cheeks. “I’m not going to be patient much longer, Gypsy. I need to hold you, so if what you got to say needs saying before I hug you tight, you’d best be about it.”
She fingered her wrist. Her expression was anguished, pleading for his understanding. A flush rose to her cheekbones. It tore his heart out that she thought there was anything she needed to do to survive that he’d hold against her.
“There’s nothing you can tell me that I’m not going to applaud. Whatever you had to do to stay alive, I’m backing it one hundred percent, so there’s no need to worry.”
Those fingers rubbed faster, fingering the old break. He took a step forward. Her eyes flew wide. She tried to take a step back but she’d boxed herself into a corner. Her lower lip slipped between her teeth as she searched for options.
“The only place you’ve got to run is into my arms.”
She shook her head and took a deep breath. “The ropes were made of rawhide.”
He nodded, waiting for the rest.
“The kind of rawhide that stretches when it gets wet.”
She looked hopeful, but he wasn’t getting it.
Her grip on her wrist was brutal, smearing the blood, leaving white dents. “I had to urinate on the ropes.”
He blinked. “What?”
“It was the only way.”
If a hole had opened up in the floor at that second, he was sure she would jump through it while he just stared at her in wonder. He’d buried three outlaws and one seasoned Ranger who’d fallen victim to that bastard. Hardened men, knowledgeable about survival, and not one of them had had the wits to get free of the hanging truss, their expressions in death mirroring the helpless horror of their battle. But his prim little greenhorn wife not only had the mental wherewithal to figure out a way, she’d had the fortitude to see the job done.
He closed the distance between them in two long strides, ignoring her “Oh, no” and upraised hand. He hooked his hand behind her head and pulled her to him, kissing her hard and hot, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, absorbing her start, her taste, the sheer wonder of her. She squirmed for all of two seconds, until he hooked his hand under her butt and lifted her the rest of the way into his embrace, not ending the kiss, letting her kick her feet for as long as it took her to realize he didn’t care. He was never letting her out of his sight, out of his arms again.
He tilted her head for a better angle, needing to be deeper in her mouth, in her heart, in her soul, pulling her closer, offering her his heart, his soul, her freedom. Whatever she wanted. The rush of emotion was too wild to contain, breaking over the dam of his restraint, bursting through him on a brilliant wave of understanding that crashed against his reality, rupturing with soul-deep certainty against the softness of her lips in a hoarse whisper. “Goddamn, Desi, but I love you.”
A
good man deserved a scandalous woman.
Caine had told Desi that once and she’d scoffed, but as Desi slipped inside the warm barn she realized the truth in those words. A man did deserve a woman who put him first, a woman who matched his passion in bed and out of it, the same way every woman deserved a man who saw her as beautiful, worthy and smart. The way Caine saw her.
Caine was everything her father had warned her against growing up—out for all he could get with no respect for propriety or a woman’s delicate sensibilities, demanding in bed and out of it. Elementally protective, brutally honest. Caring. Special.
In other words, exactly what she wanted. And he had the crazy idea that if he pushed her away, she’d get a sudden hunger for the empty life she’d led before and catch the next stage back east. That was never going to happen. She’d been home since the first touch of her feet on Hell’s Eight land. It’d just taken her a bit to realize it.
She shooed Boone back, stealing herself against his big eyes and drooping wrinkles. Closing the barn door quietly behind her, pausing for her eyes to adjust to the gloom, she braced her hand on the wall as she tugged her skirt out from under her feet. Without the proper undergarments, the bottom hung too low, something she hadn’t considered when she’d launched this plan. If she made it to Caine without making a fool of herself by tripping over the hem, it would be a miracle.
Arranging her skirt decorously about her bare thighs, she looked around. Golden streams of sunshine filtered through the slats in the wall, highlighting the lazy drift of dust motes between her and her destination. She straightened the lace collar of her new shirtwaist, her fingers lingering on the luxury. It wasn’t the finest lace she’d ever worn, nor the most intricate, but it was fast becoming the most cherished. Simply because Caine had given it to her.
Two stalls down, a horse’s hooves stomped with nervous fervor—probably the new mustang they’d brought in, the one Caine was so determined to tame. That horse was crazy, unlike her sweet, placid Lily, who was more inclined to droop than walk. She had yet to see that horse on more than two legs. If it wasn’t kicking, it was rearing, lashing out against captivity without compunction, unfazed by any kindness extended to it.
She jumped as something hard landed against wood, the sound snapping like a pistol shot out of the interior. Immediately thereafter, Caine’s deep drawl rumbled out of the shadows, rising and falling on a subtle cadence, soothing the fuss to quiet. She shook her head, walking toward the commotion. As determined as the horse was, it didn’t stand a chance. Caine wasn’t one for letting a case of the stubborns get between him and a good thing.