McCready turned just as she rushed at him. The next thing he knew he was shoved hard and landed on his butt. Her smug smile stung him, but it was the brushing motion that she made with her hands that infuriated him. His hand snaked out and grabbed hold of her ankle. Her startled cry was cut off as she landed beside him. McCready lost no time in pinning her in place with one leg thrown over hers.
“You’re fast, Maggie, I’ll give you that. But you’ve got to learn to keep your eyes on who you’re fighting with.”
“If I was a man—”
“Maggie, ah, Maggie mine, then this wouldn’t be half the fun.” His soft laughter slowly died. He took her mouth in a quick, hard kiss, but it wasn’t enough. “Maggie?” he whispered, not wanting her to stop him when need rolled like thunder through him. “Give me your mouth.”
A flash of Quincy’s shocked face when she had told him no more kissing and reinforced it with her fist crossed her mind. She was strong enough to push McCready away. If she wanted to…
A deliciously hot shiver walked up her spine. “Take it, McCready,” she whispered back, feeling the little flutters inside dance to a quickened tune.
“I only awaited the invitation.” He kissed her lightly, teasing her mouth with the barest touch of his own. But Maggie trembled against him, one of her hands clenching his shoulder, the other gripping his arm. Her mouth didn’t understand his lips’ demand to lead. It was as mobile as his own. Just as aggressive. Just as warm. She had told him to take, but Maggie was the one who was taking him deep.
McCready was no stranger to desire or women. He liked them. But Maggie stunned him with this scalding desire that made him want to lose himself in her. She parted her lips for the sweep of his tongue, and McCready felt the power of need down to his bone, tumbled along with emotions that tried to surface.
It was blinding curiosity that had Maggie clinging to him. She wanted to know why her body softened to fit the hard swell of his chest, the taut curve of his belly and the power of his thigh. And his taste … her mouth couldn’t get enough.
She quivered helplessly when his hand slid up her arm and shaped her shoulder before he cupped the back of her head. His fingers held her still, then angled her head up so that her mouth mated more fully with his. Her body wanted to curl around his, and she strained upward in a slow, rhythmic motion. She was losing herself in the scent and feel of McCready. Heat unfurled through her at an alarming rate. Maggie felt as if she had swallowed a pepper patch. She knew he would take everything that she was, everything that she had, and still demand more.
McCready licked the corner of her mouth.
Maggie’s eyes flew open, then narrowed. “Stop that.”
“Why, Maggie?” he asked absently, rimming the shape of her bottom lip with the tip of his tongue.
“I told you to stop, McCready. It’s … well, it’s wet.”
And shivery. And felt good. Too good
.
He tilted his head back to stare at her. “What’s wrong? Or is that another of your whimsical compliments?”
Maggie closed her eyes. “I don’t know. Is it?” She had heard of being in tight spots, but she was in a hard one. The floorboards beneath her wouldn’t yield, and McCready was as hard and unyielding on top of her.
“Maggie, I’ve never had a woman tell me how to kiss her before you.”
“Didn’t say that.”
With a rueful smile McCready slowly understood that she was afraid. “Do you want me to kiss you?”
Frustrated, Maggie looked up at him. “I didn’t say that.”
“Ah, I understand,” he murmured, then nodded. “What we deal with here is a woman’s fancy. Caprice … ‘Hard is my lot that here by fortune place—’ ”
“I’m the one on the floor, so don’t be whinin’ about hard. An’ no one put you here but you.”
“I must watch the wild vicissitudes of taste, but the truth, Mary Margaret, is that I’d rather be tasting the wildness of you.” He lowered his mouth and at the last second kissed her cheek.
“Stop mumblin’ things I can’t be knowin’.”
“Somewhere in there were a few of my favorite lines of Samuel Johnson.”
“All sounds like hog swill to me. Get up. I’ve made me choice. I don’t want to be kissin’ you.” She pushed him and knew that his moving aside had allowed her to stand up, for he stood right beside her.
“Then maybe this is something you will understand, Maggie. Since you can’t make up your mind about my kisses, I’ll do it for you. We’ll play, Maggie,” he promised. “I’ll chase you—”
“… an’,” she prompted when he didn’t finish.
McCready smiled and leaned closer to her. “And then you’ll chase me until one of us is caught.”
Maggie found herself backing away until the edge of the table stopped her. “Try it. Just try it. This O’Roarke can handle the likes of you, McCready.”
“If only you would, Maggie mine. It’s becoming an unbearable desire.”
Instantly Maggie was braced for battle.
The mere thought of stalking her now, of ruffling her belief that she could win, tempted him beyond anything else had in the last few years. But McCready knew the stakes he was playing for and turned his back.
She had dared McCready and won. Maggie wanted to crow. She had made him back down. But the flush of winning excitement drained just as quickly as it had come. Why was she suddenly feeling as if she had lost something? It was only McCready and them damn fancy words of his that were driving her mad. Those words and the wee ones and his evil whiskey.
Maggie glanced up at the shelf of books. She eyed the bottle on the table. McCready had plucked her up just like a miner grabbing in a stream for a nugget only to find it was fool’s gold, and he threw her off just as fast. The man needed his proud tail feathers trimmed.
It took the time of her heartbeat slowing for Maggie to figure out a way. And the best thing was, she said to herself, smiling, she wouldn’t need a knife to do it.
Unaware of the revenge being plotted, McCready presented Maggie with the opportunity to carry out her plan the next morning.
Maggie discovered that sometime while she slept, he—like the thief she had called him—had sneaked out of the cabin and barred the door from the outside.
The morning had brought second thoughts. The barred door chased them. There was no hesitation in her. She dragged the large wooden tub to the center of the floor, eyed its distance from the door, then decided she wanted it closer. McCready was not going to be able to miss seeing what she had done when he opened that door.
“Leave me locked up, will he?” she muttered as she set to work. “He’ll have to let me go after this. I can’t be fightin’ him an’ meself.”
Within minutes she surveyed her handiwork. And then began to worry.
McCready met Dutch in a ravine almost an hour’s walk from his cabin. The sun had already begun baking the earth. McCready’s cotton shirt clung damply to his skin. He had asked little while Dutch told him what had happened with Quincy, but he was angry by the time he finished.
“Why the hell involve Ryder again? The man proved he can’t be trusted. I told you Quincy would have to give up if there was nothing for him to find, didn’t I? And the hell with his threats. They’re as empty as he is. He’ll hang around to see if he can bribe Ryder again. But you didn’t think about the risk to Maggie, did you?”
Beneath his bushy brows, Dutch calmly watched him. “You finished?” he asked, putting the cap back on his canteen. McCready nodded. “You didn’t give me a chance to tell you what I hired Ryder to do. Believe me, I never forgot about Maggie’s life being in danger.”
“Dutch, I didn’t mean—”
“I’d hope not.”
“Go on,” McCready encouraged, impatient to get back to Maggie. She’d be furious that he left her locked in the cabin with the windows shuttered so she couldn’t escape.
“I told Ryder to dress in your suit and ride your horse out of camp this morning. He made sure that a few of the miners saw him. Since it was dawn, no one could have gotten a good look, so stop worrying that someone recognized him. I even lucked out with curious Cora Ann swearing that you were back at the Rawhider last night.”
“How?”
“Well, she heard Ryder and me in your room, and naturally she knocked, thinking it was you. I mumbled some to leave us alone, then opened the door to her. From the back Ryder looks a bit like you, and I made sure she didn’t catch more than a glimpse. She’ll tell everyone that it was you.”
Raking his hair, McCready paced in front of the rock where Dutch sat. “I still don’t see how this is going to get rid of Quincy.”
“Easy. If your head wasn’t filled with thinking about Maggie, you’d see how easy it is.”
“Leave my thoughts about Maggie out of this.”
“Sure, boss. Whatever you say. But Quincy had the place watched. I think it was Sonny. The other two couldn’t have been up to spending the night on their feet after I got done with them.” Dutch stopped and joined McCready’s laughter. He accepted his boss’s clasp on the shoulder as a sign that all was forgiven for his not following his orders to the letter.
“I would guess that I’m getting as touchy as Maggie,” McCready said by way of apology.
Dutch let it pass, anxious to finish. “Now, Ryder rode north to Santa Fe, and Quincy followed him. So you don’t have to stay locked up in the cabin. I’ll be back with the horses tomorrow, and you take Maggie home. Then we can sit and settle the matter of Pete’s claims.” McCready had stopped pacing. Dutch waited a moment, then added, “And we can’t forget that Maggie needs to be told the truth—”
“Maggie’s not ready to come back.”
“Oh? It’s Maggie that’s not ready? McCready, I’m ashamed of you. You never used to lie to me.”
McCready winced at the implication that he lied to everyone else. “I’m not … All right! I’m not ready to take her back. She still hasn’t told me about the claims. You know that Maggie won’t give her trust to anyone easily. I’ll need more time.”
“No offense meant, boss, but that’s a barrel of belly-rot. The only time you need is to see to your own—”
“Don’t say it, Dutch. Friends or not, I won’t take that kind of talk from you.”
“All right. I’m quiet.” Dutch held up his hands. “Step back and tell me what you think of my plan.”
“It might work. Only time will tell. Meet me here in two days. Quincy will either have been long gone or be back.”
“You’re sure that you don’t want me to bring the horses?”
“I can’t trust Maggie.” McCready didn’t tell him about her escape. No sense in having Dutch laughing at how easily she had fooled him. But it was a sore spot. “Did you bring Maggie’s clothes?”
“Couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t, Dutch?”
“When I say I couldn’t, that’s what I mean. I’ve had my hands full taking care of Satin. That dog misses her. She has to be coaxed to eat. Thankfully she doesn’t seem to tie eating that steak with me. I think she’s saving her revenge for you, boss.”
“Well, if everything works the way it should, that devil won’t have a chance at me.”
“Maggie giving you a …
hard
time?”
McCready stared at Dutch. There was no sign of malicious intent in his eyes, but McCready sensed that Dutch used the word deliberately. He refused to give him the satisfaction of responding to the goad.
With a shrug Dutch also let this pass. “Now, as I was saying, I’ve got to take care of the dog and listen to Cora Ann’s whining about where you are. Then, there’s the Rose. Without you her playing is suited to a five-dollar funeral. You got the best of this setup, McCready. You’ve only got to deal with Maggie.”
Only Maggie
. Dutch’s words lingered in McCready’s mind as he made the climb up to his cabin. If only he did have her.
As he got closer, McCready heard Maggie singing. He shook his head. Maggie was singing? Not cursing, not swearing, but singing. He couldn’t catch all the words, but he had heard that rousing tune sung by enough men to know that cheerful though her voice was, the song was a curse to him. It told the tale of a young man with gambling fever in his blood. He had lost all his earnings and told the men around him a sorrowful tale of needing money for the doctor for his darling gal. The men had never heard him cry over losing before, so they took up a collection before he reached the door. He blessed them and thanked them, clutching the money tight. And before a man could blink, he’d bet it all.
He paused in front of the door just as Maggie sang the last and heard her replace poor Johnny with his name.
“Poor McCready was a liar, what a liar he could be,
But with gambling fever in his blood, he’s a thief for all to see.
Those miners they was angry, those gamblers they was rough.
They gathered round McCready an’ strung him up.
Strung him, strung him, strung up sure enough!”
She didn’t have to sound so gleeful adding a resounding “Yahoo!” It was his gambler’s superstition that had his hand touch his throat when Maggie repeated the last line. She really was an Irish barbarian.
The thud of something hitting the floor forced him to throw off the bar, shove open the door, and rush inside, only to stop.
Maggie swirled around on the table. The chairs had been kicked over. McCready’s gaze fell to the wooden tub he’d nearly fallen into. The whiskey fumes hit him, but he stood his ground.
She knew he was back. A delicious shiver walked its way up her spine, and Maggie turned, very slowly, to find McCready just standing there. No, she amended, frowning. He wasn’t exactly standing still.
“You’re back,” she mumbled, leaning forward and bracing her hands on bowed legs to peer down at him.
“That’s right, Maggie, I’m back. Had yourself a little party?” He could kill her. It wouldn’t be impossible at all. There wasn’t a man in the New Mexico Territory—hell, anywhere—who would hold him responsible. He didn’t bother to count the broken bottle necks, for rising from the wooden tub were enough fumes to verify that she had smashed every bottle of his best whiskey.
Maggie blinked, trying to make him stay still. “Come to dance?” she asked, smiling crookedly at him.
“Up there?”
“For sure. It’s where me an’ the wee ones are.”
Her whispered confidence lost something with the series of hiccups she tried to hide. McCready, deciding he had better check to be sure, sent a searching glance around the empty cabin. “Maggie, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but there’s no one here. Just you. And me.”
A quick shake of her head sent the room spinning. “Oh, you can’t see ’em,” she whispered, holding one hand over her eyes and leaning dangerously over.
He was a man with a great deal of control, McCready told himself as he stepped close to the table’s edge and braced himself to catch her when she fell. He wouldn’t strangle her. Yet. But Maggie, lifting her head high, saw him and reared back.
“Go ’way, ’Cready.” To add force to her demand, she managed to stand straight.
“No, Maggie mine. I’m not leaving. Leaving you alone tends to set loose havoc. But I want you to tell me where the wee ones are.” McCready inhaled, trying to determine how much whiskey Maggie had drunk before she decided to break every bottle. She avoided the hand he held out to her, and afraid that she would fall and hurt herself, he dropped his hand to his side.
In a soft, coaxing tone he said, “Show me where the wee ones are, and I’ll get rid of them for you.”
“Here,” she answered, rubbing her belly in circles. “An’ down here.” Maggie dragged her hands over her thighs. “Your fault. You bring ’em out.”
“I bring them out? Don’t blame me for this.” McCready closed his eyes for a moment, groaning at the urge to replace Maggie’s hands with his.
Maggie started laughing. “You’re movin’.” She cocked her head to the side and covered her mouth with one hand to stifle the laughter. “Can’t fool me.”
Whatever anger he had at that second left him. How could he remain angry when she wore a lopsided smile and wagged her finger at him. “Maggie, I don’t want to fool you. I just want you to come down from the table before you hurt yourself.”
Even with the door open McCready felt the whiskey fumes getting to him. A twinge of guilt wormed its way inside him. He had not left the windows open so that Maggie couldn’t climb out and escape.
“Come to me, Maggie. I’ll help you.”
She eyed the four hands he held out and began humming the song she had been singing.
McCready edged around the table, trying to get his hands on her.
Maggie wavered back and forth, almost lost her balance, but managed to evade him.
Twice around the table was enough for McCready. He waited until Maggie had taken another turn and her back was to him, then leapt up onto the table, hoping it would hold their combined weight. “Maggie,” he whispered, “I’m—”
“I’m drunk.” Wide-eyed and solemn, she gazed at him over her shoulder.
“I know that, Maggie.”
“Do?”
He nodded. “Yes, I can see that for myself. Was this your idea of revenge because I left you alone or some whim you indulged?”
She lowered her head, trying to make sense of what he had asked. The only word she grabbed hold of was
revenge
. McCready wasn’t going to like knowing that’s why she broke his whiskey bottles. But he was wrong about why she did.
He touched her shoulder. “ ’Cready? You’re makin’ the wee ones dance.”
Holding one arm out to the side ready to catch her, he could only murmur that he was sorry, then asked, “Does it happen often?”
“When you’re near.”
McCready drew on the last store of his patience. “Then come off the table, and I won’t be near you anymore. The wee ones will leave then, won’t they?”
“I keep tryin’ to make ’em go.”
McCready knew it wasn’t a plea for help, but he jumped down and braced himself, then grabbed her wrist and pulled her off the table. He staggered as Maggie fell against him, but he managed to keep them both upright. Within his loose embrace Maggie sighed and flung her arms around him.
His destroyed stash of whiskey was forgotten. Maggie’s lips were pressing against his. Definitely more potent, and infinitely smoother, they pressed and parted, and he couldn’t help himself. He took her mouth, sweeping the whiskey-warm taste of her up and inside himself, hungry enough to forget that she didn’t know what she was doing.
Maggie knew the wee ones had somehow gotten hold of McCready’s whiskey. There could be no other reason for the seeping warmth that trickled from her breasts to her thighs. With a cry she freed her mouth and sagged against him. She closed her eyes but could still see McCready’s face. Into the whiskey-induced cloud came the certainty that no matter what she tried, nothing was going to get rid of the flutters that danced inside her the same way McCready’s fingers played on her back.
Not whiskey. Not kissing
.
The gold, Maggie
, a voice whispered.
You’ve still got the gold
.
McCready beat the feather mattress after he had cleared the wooden tub out of the cabin and put Maggie to bed. The tick, hanging on a rope strung from the corner of the cabin to the empty corral’s fence, took the punishment he longed to deliver to her bottom.
“Two damn days!” he yelled, taking another swing with the broom. “I had to tell Dutch to wait two days before he comes back.”
Sweat rolled down his face, and he used his forearm to wipe it away, having long since discarded his shirt. With a glance at the cloudless sky, he asked, “Did that woman have any idea of the strain she’d put on me without my whiskey?” He remembered her smug smile as he had tucked her in. “She knew, all right, she knew.”
Muttering to himself, he gripped the broom handle tighter. Suddenly he realized that even when Dutch met him in two days, the man wouldn’t know that McCready needed whiskey. His next swing split open the repair Maggie had labored over, and the feathers went flying. But he didn’t curse, he didn’t once swear. He dropped the broom and started for the open door.
Beating the feather tick no longer satisfied him.
The sight of Maggie, curled tight in the quilt on his bed, stopped him. Male instinct said she wanted him as badly as he wanted her. He couldn’t take his revenge with violence. Maggie would be expecting that from him, and what’s more, she would be ready to fight him.
His smile smacked of the devil’s own. “Mary Margaret O’Roarke, you’re not going to like how you will pay for my whiskey. But, I swear, pay for it you will.”
And as the long hours of the night crawled by, and Maggie blissfully slept on, McCready kept adding to his list of her sins, compounding the debt that she owed him.
“You owe me, Cornwallis!” Ryder shouted, banging his fist on the gleaming wood desk that belonged to Thadius. “I damn near killed that horse to get here an’ tell you what’s been happening in Cooney Camp. You’re the man with his hands in every bit of dirty laundry in the territory. An’ you tell me that I ain’t got money coming?”