Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WayWard Wind (4 page)

"Why aren't you married?" he asked.

She lowered her attention to the bottom button of her borrowed shirt and plucked at it. "Daddy has always discouraged suitors," she said. "I don't think he wants me to ever marry."

"Doesn't that seem unnatural to you?" he inquired.

"The Double D has been in our family for generations," she said. "A husband might demand rights Daddy isn't willing to give. He wants to keep it in the Dalton family."

A strange light entered Harper's eyes. "But if you die without issue, where does that leave the ranch?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I'm sure he's made arrangements, but hasn't seen fit to share them with me."

"Will you be able to run the ranch once he kicks the bucket?"

"I've been trained to do just that," she replied crisply.

One dark brown arched upward. "Aye, how is that?"

"I do the bookkeeping for the spread already and I know the workings of the ranch inside and out. I can tell you down to the last calf how many we have on the range, what the market value is and how to dicker with a potential buyer or breeder," she answered. "If need be, I can help with the branding and inoculations as well as the dipping." She glanced down at his gun. "I also learned to shoot when I was little girl."

"You learned to shoot," he echoed in a disbelieving tone.

She nodded. "My father desperately wanted a boy but had to settle for me. I went everywhere with him until I was fourteen and my mother decided I needed to go to boarding school." She smiled. "Mama didn't think being able to fire a rifle and hit a moving target was a very ladylike thing to do."

"Yet you don't ride," he said. "Why is that?"

"I've never felt comfortable around horses," she admitted. "I got thrown when I was about five or so and broke my arm in several places." She rubbed her arm. "It hurt like the dickens so after that I was terrified of the beasts and Mama refused to allow Daddy to make me take lessons because of my fear." She sighed. "One day, though, I'm going to have to get over that fear and learn to ride. I can't have my foreman driving me all over the ranch in a buckboard."

"With fancy lace parasol extended above your perfectly coiffed hair," he said with a smirk.

She smiled at his remark. "Don't forget the picnic basket with wine and cheese and a good loaf of crusty bread alongside a plump apple or two."

Harper turned his head toward the cave entrance. "It's stopped raining."

She glanced that way. "So it has," she agreed and got to her feet, shaking out her wet skirt. "Are we to leave now?"

"I don't know about you but I'd like some clean, dry clothes and a decent meal. I've provisions at the cabin," he said as he stood. "We'll have a good supper."

"Provided banditos haven't made off with your supplies."

"I have someone watching the place," he told her. "Not many people around here will mess with Snake."

She shook her head. "I imagine not with a name like that."

He went to his horse and led it back toward the entrance as she kicked sand into the campfire and folded his blanket, then handed to him. As he rolled the blanket and secured it to his saddle and strapped on his saddlebags, she retrieved the two plates from outside, dumped the water from them, and then used her damp skirt to dry them off as best she could.

"You're taking this pretty well all of a sudden, wench," he commented.

"What?" she asked.

"Your abduction."

"You've already done your worst, haven't you, Sloan?" she asked, her head cocked to one side. "I mean you—you ...." Her face turned red.

"I fucked you," he said as he led his horse outside.

"Yes, you did," she muttered, but didn't seem particularly upset about it to his way of thinking. If anything, she was looking at him as though she expected it to happen again--which he had no doubt it would if he kept to his plan.

"There are worse things than fucking a woman, Peyton," he said as he climbed into the saddle then held out a hand to her to help her up.

"Such as?" she asked, putting her foot in the stirrup to lever herself behind him this time.

"I really could sell you to a brothel or loan you out," he said as she put her arms around his waist. "Share you with my friends."

"You could but you won't," she said as she settled against his back.

He twisted his head to the side to look at her. "What makes you think that?"

"You're doing this to get back at my father so the chances are good you intend to send me back to him eventually," she said as he kicked the horse into motion.

"Aye," he said, "with a little Harper growing in your belly. That should piss him off royally."

Chapter Two

If he thought his words would shock or hurt her, he was wrong. He felt her lay her cheek against his back and tighten her grip around his waist as they rode. Of course that could have been because he had set his mount to a fast gallop, but something told him it wasn't. He could feel her warm breath through his shirt and it made his cock as hard as steel, something he just simply didn't understand.

As he neared the cabin, he slowed the horse and took out his six-shooter, lifting it to fire two rounds into the air, waiting to the count of five and firing one more.

"Are you letting that Snake person know we're here?" she asked.

"Aye," he said and drummed his heels lightly against his mount. "She'll be less likely to shoot first and ask questions later."

He felt her sit up straight behind him. "She?" was her instant query.

Harper set the horse to a fast trot and they entered a copse of trees behind which sat a weathered cabin that looked deserted but as he reined in, the click of a rifle made him turn his head to the left.

"How's it going, Snake?" he inquired, throwing a leg over the horse's head to slide to the ground.

"I could be better," came the reply, then an older woman dressed like a man sauntered from around the side of the cabin, a rifle held in the crook of her thin arm. She hawked up a wad of phlegm and spat it on the ground, wiped the back of her free hand across her mouth. "See you accomplished your goal."

Harper held his arms up to Peyton. "That I did."

Peyton leaned toward him, allowing him to help her down from the horse. She kept eyeing the woman standing by the cabin. She'd never seen anyone like her.

"What the fuck she staring at?" Snake asked. Chickens were weaving in and out between her legs as she strolled forward. She kicked out to scatter them.

"She tends to do that," Harper said. "Ignore her. She doesn't mean anything by it."

"Don't like to be stared at," Snake stated with eyes narrowed. She turned her head and spit again. "Don't like it one goddamned bit."

"Neither do I, but she isn't doing it as an insult," he told the older woman as he untied his saddlebags and slung them over his shoulder, lifted the rifle from its scabbard.

"Know you don't like people gawking at you, boy." Snake sniffed. "Know why, too."

Harper nodded. "Aye, well, keep the knowledge to yourself, then." He started toward the cabin.

"Want me to unsaddle the brute for you?" Snake asked him.

"I'll take care of it later. Why don't you start supper for us?"

"Humpf," Snake snorted. "Like I ain't got nothing better to do than put food in your belly, boy."

"I can cook," Peyton said, preferring not to eat anything the old woman with her dirty hands might set before them.

Harper turned his head around and looked down at her to arch a brow as she followed him up on the wobbly porch.

"I can," she told him, chin up. "I'm a good cook."

"Okay," he said with a shrug.

"Did you fuck her yet?" Snake asked and grinned viciously, revealing stained, pitted teeth when Peyton flinched.

"What do you think?" Harper asked.

"Think she most likely needed it," Snake chuckled. "And I know you did."

Peyton's cheeks were burning as she entered the cabin, expecting it to be dirty and cluttered. She was amazed to see the spotless condition of the building and the cleanliness with which it was obviously kept.

There were two full-sized beds pushed to one side of the large one-room cabin with a couple of rocking chairs, sitting before the stone hearth. There was a table and four chairs on the other side of the room where a wood burning stove, pie safe, and a counter with a water pump arched over a porcelain sink.

"Washroom is over there," Harper told her, pointing to a large screen in the corner of the room. A large copper washtub, a sink with another water pump, and a water closet were behind it.

"This is a pleasant surprise," she said, having thought she'd be forced to make her toilet in the woods beyond the cabin.

"Boy likes his little conveniences," Snake commented as she came through the door and plopped down in one of the rockers. "Guess spending five years without 'em took its toll on him."

"I imagine prison does that to a man," Peyton replied.

"Told you 'bout that, did he?" Snake inquired. She was filling a corncob pipe with tobacco as she rocked.

"Can you make rabbit stew?" Harper inquired.

"Yes," she replied.

"I'll fetch you one," he said, heading for the front door.

"Best clean it for her, boy," Snake suggested. "She don't look the type to do her own skinning."

Harper made no reply as he left.

Peyton went through the cupboards and bins in the kitchen, continually surprised at how well-stocked and neat everything was. She took out jars of canned tomatoes, spices, found potatoes, onions, and some carrots and began peeling and quartering the vegetables.

"Where'd you learn to cook, girl?" Snake asked as she puffed away on her odorous pipe.

"From watching Lucinda, the woman who has cooked for my family since before I was born," Peyton answered. "I loved helping her and my mother didn't discourage it."

Snake snorted. "I wouldn't think your old man would have approved of such."

Peyton glanced at the old woman. "Do you know my father?"

A mean look appeared in Snake's rheumy eyes. "All too well."

"May I ask how?" she asked as she washed the vegetables and dropped them into a blue enameled pot.

"Was there when he murdered the boy's parents and his brother then stole the Harper land," Snake replied and there was a hard edge to her voice.

Peyton's hand stilled while she was adding salt to the pot. She slowly turned to stare at Snake. For a long moment she held the old woman's steady gaze and knew Snake was telling the truth. She came to sit down in the rocker beside Snake. "When was this?" she asked quietly.

"Nigh on to seven years ago," Snake replied. She clenched the pipe between her teeth, speaking around the obstruction. "Don't hear you denying your old man would do such."

Peyton was sitting on the edge of the rocker, her back ramrod straight, hands clenched in her laps. "Nothing my father does surprises me, but I've never heard anyone accuse him of murder before."

"Well, he didn't do the deed himself," Snake said. "Wouldn't dirty his hands with the like, but he ordered it done. He was sitting right there on that fancy roan of his when the boy's home was torched with his parents and little brother still inside."

"They died in the fire?" Peyton asked, her face pale.

"Died when they come running out and was shot down like dogs on the roadway," Snake snapped. A noxious cloud of smoke circled the woman's white head. "The boy and me would have died, too, had we been there."

Peyton blinked. "Are you a relative of his?"

Snake's slow smile held no humor or pleasantry. "I'm his ma's ma," she said. "His nanna."

Absorbing that information, Peyton sat back in the rocker with her hands curled around the arms. "Where were the two of you when the rest of his family died?" she asked.

"The boy and me had gone into town for supplies," Snake said, her eyes taking on a deadly sheen. "We came back to the cabin in flames and the bodies of our kin lying in their own blood. We knew who'd done it. Knew Jacob Dalton had come calling whilst we was gone. After Sloannie done the burying, he went looking for Dalton."

"You say my father took the Harper land. How did he do that?"

Snake took a long pull on her pipe then blew the smoke out. "They was waiting for the boy," she answered. "Set him up, they did. Dalton knew Sloannie would call him out and so he sent one of his untried hands to go up against the boy, knowing full well Sloannie would outdraw that little peckerwood. Even back then, Sloannie was a dead shot, as quick as greased lightning." She guffawed. "'Course, he's even faster now."

"There was a gunfight," Peyton said, "and Sloan won."

"Hell, yes, he did!" Snake hissed. "That little peckerwood hadn't even cleared leather before Sloannie shot him smack dab in the middle of the chest. Trouble was, though, that when the sheriff arrive, Dalton's men swore up and down that Sloannie shot the peckerwood down in cold blood." The old woman snorted with disgust. "Sheriff didn't believe it for a minute and when he heard what had happened to our kin, he was inclined to let Sloannie go."

"But that didn't happen."

"No," Snake spat. "It didn't. Dalton bought himself a judge and that judge said it was manslaughter and Sloannie wound up in a cage in Missouri and the ranch got sold to Dalton for pennies on the dollar."

"What happened to you? Where did you go?"

Snake shrugged. "Don't make no never mind where I was, girl. Let it suffice to say, I survived. It was a good thing the boy had some idea of where to find me when he broke out of that hellhole, though. Good that we hooked up again."

Peyton drew in a breath, her eyes wide. "He escaped from prison?"

"You don't think they just opened the door pretty as you please and told him to sashay out, now, did you?" Snake scoffed. "'Course he escaped else he'd still be sitting in there."

The sound of a rifle shot reverberated outside and Peyton jumped. Another shot quickly followed.

"Boy done bagged him a couple of hopalongs," Snake said with a chuckle.

"So the law is looking for him," Peyton said softly.