Devils on Horseback: Gideon, Book 5 (10 page)

“The cornpone is burning.”

His observation was like a bucket of ice water on a hot day. She gasped and reached for the pan, only to have him grab her arm.

“No need to burn yourself. Use the rag.”

Shaking, she accepted that he’d saved her from a nasty injury. Her own stupidity left her careless. With a grateful, weak smile, she used the rag to pull the pan from the side of the fire. It wasn’t too burned, just crispy on the bottom. With efficiency born of familiarity, she sliced it up and placed it on the tin plates, giving him two-thirds of it.

“I said I wasn’t hungry.”

She rolled her eyes. “And I don’t rightly care. You need food to keep going, and I ain’t letting you get the vapors ’cause you haven’t eaten.”

His mouth twitched as if he was holding back a laugh, but he didn’t protest again. He took the plate, then, using the same rag, he grabbed the pot and poured himself coffee. This time when he sat across from her, the tension between them had eased enough to where the little hairs on her arms didn’t stand up anymore.

“I made one bedroll.”

She glanced at it. “I saw.” In fact, she was wondering why but wanted to see what he would say without asking him.

“Is that acceptable to you?”

She shrugged. “It makes no never mind. It’s a bed, which is better than shivering under a tree with just leaves to keep you warm.” As soon as she said it, she glanced at him to see his reaction. Chloe hadn’t meant to let that slip. He looked startled.

“It surely does.” He took a bite of cornpone, chewed and swallowed before he spoke again. The man had stellar table manners. “You’ve slept under a tree before, then?”

Well, she had to admit it. After all, it was she who brought it up.

“Yep.”

He nodded, and she was pleased he didn’t ask her for details. That’s when it hit her. He didn’t ask because he knew how it felt—an unspoken bond she hadn’t expected. This soldier from the south had likely endured things he would never admit to. It surprised and intrigued her, but she didn’t pursue questioning him about it. He’d done her the same courtesy.

They ate the rest of their meager dinner in silence. The sounds of the night surrounded them, soothing her frayed nerves, and surprisingly, when she finished eating, she was sleepy. She had thought it would be hours before she felt tired enough to sleep. The day had been long and fraught with worry and stress, and it all weighed down on her. Before she could stop it, a jaw-cracking yawn hit her.

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Tired?”

“No.” Then, damn it, she yawned again.

“Me neither.” He surprised her by picking up the supper dishes. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

Chloe stared after him, watching his lean-hipped swagger until the darkness swallowed him completely. Gideon was dangerous to her heart, and she knew it. If she were honest with herself, he had set himself a nice spot deep in her heart already.

She sighed as she rose to her feet. Granny wasn’t here to talk to and help figure out the tangled mess inside her. Something told her Gideon was the perfect man for her, but she didn’t want to fall in love yet. She had to take care of her family. They always came first, no matter what. Her own feelings for Gideon Blackwood would have to be second.

With a heavy heart, she crawled into the bedroll and was asleep in a blink.

Chapter Six

Chloe was just a lump beneath the blanket when he returned. He wondered if she were playing possum, but then heard a soft snore and realized she was asleep. Gideon shook with exhaustion. Every bone and muscle in his body was sore as if he’d been beaten during the day. It was definitely an emotional beating, if not a physical one. A day of ups and downs, absolute lunacy in the purest sense of the word.

He set the dishes down, added a couple more logs to the fire to keep it going for a while, then turned to the bedroll. Perhaps he expected her to look young and innocent in her sleep. But she didn’t. Chloe’s hair was splayed out like a fan, sparkling red and gold in the firelight. Her lips were slightly parted as though waiting to be kissed. The shirt gaped open as she lay on her side, revealing the barest hint of the curve of her breast.

Blood surged into his dick, and he hardened in seconds. He forced himself to take deep breaths and not to touch her until he was more in control of himself. She was a slip of a thing, beauty in an unconventional wrapper. After all the women his friends had fallen in love with, Gideon had expected to find a simple woman to live a quiet, happy life with.

He held back the snort with great effort. His experiences with Chloe had been nothing short of a disaster, yet he was drawn to her. There was a bond there, one that grew stronger with each passing hour. He hadn’t intended on falling in lust or love with a traveling smart-mouthed, short woman from Virginia, but damned if both hadn’t happened.

Gideon sat down to take off his boots, then crawled in next to her, careful to stay above the blanket. His body still throbbed with the need to touch her, and the clean scent emanating from her side of the bedroll made it worse. He rolled over and gave her his back, but it didn’t help. His dick knew exactly where she was.

“Tell me about where you came from.” Her words startled him.

“Jesus, woman, I thought you were sleeping.”

“I was, but I sleep light. Had to learn to.” She was right, of course; women traveling alone could not afford to sleep heavy or risk their safety and perhaps their lives for it. “Tell me about where you came from.”

He felt peevish enough to be difficult. “You first.”

A small fist landed on his shoulder. “You’re a hard man, Gideon Blackwood.”

This time his chuckle was a strangled grunt. “You have no idea.”

After a moment, she started speaking. “I grew up in the middle of Virginia, not too far from West Virginia. My parents had a tobacco farm, and we scraped by on what we had. Granny is my daddy’s ma. She lived with us after Mama died. I must’ve been about two, so I don’t remember much before she was there.” Her voice was soft and melodic, amazingly calming Gideon’s over-stimulated body. “I have, I mean had a brother. He was two years older than me, and we were best friends growing up. We climbed trees, caught frogs, went swimming in the pond out back. Heck, I was eight before I realized I wasn’t a boy like him.”

“That explains a lot.”

The fist thumped his shoulder again. “Hush up or I won’t keep talking.”

He swallowed back the words that threatened to pop out of his mouth. After all, if she wasn’t talking, he’d be kissing her. He’d already vowed not to bed her again, but it was a damn hard vow to keep.

“Adam was a good brother, I think. He would tease me like big brothers do, but he let me tag along with our cousin Tobias when they went fishing. Then they enlisted together, and I ain’t seen them since they left. My daddy died a year later, leaving me and Granny behind. We held on to the farm, but the world around us fell to pieces.” She sighed long and hard. “We decided to head to Texas to live with Granny’s sister. Right before we headed out, I found the girls hiding in a broken-down barn on their farm. Their mama had died at least a week before. Poor things.”

She didn’t describe what she’d found, and he didn’t want to hear it. There was no need to explain since he could picture what the little moppets had endured. The war had destroyed the childhood of every American youth.

“What happened to your brother?”

“I don’t know what happened to him, and like I told you before, he wasn’t on the death notices. I looked every damn day for two years. I like to think he died a hero in battle, that way I don’t have to think about him and Tobias dying alone in a ditch.”

Gideon turned over. Her face was a pale oval in the meager light. “If you loved them, they couldn’t have died alone. You were in their hearts.”

Her eyes widened, and he was shocked to see they were suspiciously wet. “Thank you for that.”

His own throat grew tight at the raw emotion in her voice. He knew that kind of pain well, lived with it for five years, denied it every day too. Chloe was all kinds of trouble for him.

“Now it’s your turn.”

He grimaced and took her hand, which was soft and small in his. She rubbed the back of his hand with her thumb. It helped him start talking.

“I was born in Georgia, the only child of a cotton plantation owner and a Southern belle from one of the oldest society families in the state. My father was always disappointed in the fact I didn’t want to run the plantation or follow in his footsteps. He tried charming me to take over for him, and when that didn’t work, he tried force.” Gideon had to pause and swallow back the old bitterness before it spilled out over Chloe. “I had everything money could buy, including tutors, clothes, horses and cigars. The one thing I didn’t buy was friends. My cousins Zeke and Lee were there, along with Jake. I know he’s actually my half brother, but Pa never admitted it. He was a tough son of a bitch who fathered bastards on the help and denied them. But I knew from the moment I met him that Jake was his—we have the same eyes. Then there’s Nate. He’s not related by blood, but he grew up with us, son of the town drunk. The one thing we had in common was being failures in the eyes of our fathers. No matter how much we tried, we could never please them.”

“It don’t matter what your daddy thinks. It’s what you think that’s important.” Chloe was a tiny philosopher.

“I can say that out loud as many times as I want, but that doesn’t mean I can accept it.” He blew out a breath and chased away the ghosts riding his back. “My friends were my family, both by blood and by bonds stronger than it. We enlisted together too, and somehow we were all alive when the war was over.” Gideon thought back to the day they left to fight and how confident they all were. Naïve, stupid boys.

“Alive, but not?”

He closed his eyes and forced back the dam of emotion she threatened to smash to bits
again
. It took him a minute to be able to speak, and his voice had grown huskier.

“We left Georgia for Texas. We had nothing left at home but death and destruction. Tales of a new life, a new start, tempted us. It took a hard year of traveling, working, breaking our backs for nothing, starving until we thought we’d made the biggest mistake of our lives. Then we found Tanger, a town in worse shape than us, if you can believe it.” He chuckled at the thought, true as it was. “It was like the town was waiting for us to get there, and we just kind of fit together like puzzle pieces. We’ve been there two years now, and I don’t think I’d want to live anywhere else. It’s home.”

“Then why did you leave? You had someplace else better to get to?”

Her question hit him like a rock to the chest. Why was he leaving the place he’d finally found? Tanger was
home
. Visiting Nate was always a good trip to make, but he had run from Tanger, and his friend’s ranch was the nearest to escape to.

The truth tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop it. “I was running from myself.”

Chloe didn’t press him for more. “As much as I hate to say this, I’m glad you did, or I’d be alone. I reckon you might throw that back in my face, but it’s said now.”

Gideon hadn’t considered what would have happened to the Ruskins if he hadn’t been there. If he had still been in Tanger, Chloe would be alone, with no one to help her get her family back. Heck, she could even be dead, since whoever took Granny and the girls might have gotten rid of the smart-mouthed hostage. He didn’t want to think about the possibilities. He had to accept that something had sent him to find her.

The thought made his heart hiccup.

His brain told him there was no such thing as fate or being sent by an unseen force. As an ex-soldier, he believed in what he could see and touch, yet he did rely on his instincts. They’d saved his life more than once. That conflicted with his common sense. The thoughts whirled around in his head until he had to press his hand to his temple to stop them.

What he did know was that he accepted his responsibility for Chloe and her family. Exactly what that meant, he didn’t want to know. He had to stop questioning why, or he might really go loco.

He saw her shiver in the near darkness. Without asking permission, he pulled her close, tucking her against him like they were a pair of spoons. She fit perfectly, he was startled to note, and their combined body heat stopped her shivering. Gideon settled the blanket over both of them, and to his surprise, sleep claimed him.

* * * * *

She woke suddenly, but she wasn’t scared or startled. For the first time she could remember, Chloe was warm and safe, protected. She’d slept beside Granny most of her life since there wasn’t a whole lot of room at the farmhouse. During the trip to Texas, she became used to sleeping with the two little girls pressed on either side of her. Yet none of those experiences made her feel like she did waking up wrapped in Gideon’s arms.

Since she’d met Gideon, nothing had been familiar, emotionally or physically. She’d felt things she’d never imagined, experienced things that set her flying to the stars and crashing to the earth. Up until this point in her life, there hadn’t been much she could rely on, but she knew in her heart she could count on him. This stranger, this man who happened to be in the same place at the same time, had changed her life in a few short days.

It was a sobering thought and one that made her pull away from the cocoon of his arms. She had no right to be there, no future with him, no matter how much she might wish it. After they found Granny and the girls, Gideon and Chloe would be strangers again. This experience would seem like a dream, one she could replay in her mind for the rest of her life.

His scent filled her with each breath she took in. It was a pleasant, manly smell she could definitely get used to. Her behind was snuggled up against his man parts, and although they weren’t hard, Chloe’s body stirred from the sensation of just touching him. She didn’t expect that, yet given her wanton behavior on the wagon, she should have. The man drove her to be a hussy, and damned if she didn’t like it. However, finding her family was more important than scratching her itch to make love with him again.

Make love
. It wasn’t quite an apt description of what they’d done, but it felt right to her. Chloe had never been attracted enough to a man before to want to do more than kiss him. And now she wanted to yank his trousers down and do all kinds of amazing things over and over. She knew it wasn’t right, and even as her body heated at the thought, her mind pulled her back. Chloe swore her nipples complained at the craving for his touch and his tongue, not that he was hers to lose.

Pitiful as could be, she extricated herself from his arms and shivered in the cool morning air. She’d forgotten she was wearing only a man’s shirt. As she was padding barefoot toward the creek, she stopped in her tracks. Last night she’d left her dress and underthings on a bush by the water to dry. They were now draped over another bush close enough to the fire to have dried completely. The man would never stop surprising her.

She took her clothes and went down to the creek to wash and piss. A mist hung over the top of the gentle water, giving it an eerie look. A shiver shot straight up her spine, and she hugged herself to stop it. What was she afraid of? There wasn’t anybody around, and Gideon was sleeping twenty feet away. The feeling persisted though, and she rushed through cleaning up and yanked on her clothes. They were a little stiff from being cold, but at least they were clean and dry.

A small regret niggled at her. She shouldn’t have left him lying there asleep and alone. If Granny were there, she would have told Chloe to follow her heart and be with him again. But Granny wasn’t there and that was the reason Chloe hadn’t followed through with the urge to be with him. She had to find her family, rescue them from whatever monsters had taken them. It was war, and she had to be a good soldier.

A twig snap brought every nerve ending to life. It didn’t come from the direction of the wagon, so it wasn’t Gideon. She crouched down, reaching for the knife in her boot, only to realize she was still barefoot. Her boots were with Gideon. She was unarmed but surely not helpless. Chloe searched the ground for a sturdy branch. No chance she would give up without a fight. She wrapped her hand around the thickest stick she could find and waited. Her heart pounded as the twig snap turned into footsteps, stealthy ones to be sure, but she could hear them. Gideon had taught her that—to stop and listen in utter silence. She’d thank him later, if she was still alive.

The steps grew closer and closer, pausing, then restarting. She was going to stand up and start screaming like a wild woman if whoever it was didn’t get on with it. Finally they stopped just five feet from her hiding place. She gripped the stick, her breath coming in short, soundless gasps, then stood.

She raised the stick and swung with all her might, only to recognize the back of Gideon’s head just seconds before she knocked him on his ass.

“Jesus Christ, Chloe,” Gideon howled as he clutched his head. “What the hell are you doing?”

She threw the branch and dropped to her knees. “Oh shit, Gideon, I’m sorry.” She reached for his head, but he batted her hand away. Chloe told herself not to be hurt by the gesture. After all, she’d just conked him. Hard.

He glared at her. “When you didn’t come back to the camp, I thought something had happened to you. Hell, woman, did you have to hit me so hard?”