Her Sheriff Bodyguard (11 page)

Chapter Sixteen

S
upper was agony. Caroline had not realized how much she distrusted people, especially people sitting close together around a kitchen table. Especially males. The other member of Ilsa Rowell's boardinghouse had lived there for the past seven years, but he was still a man, and a stranger.

Elijah Holst was older, bearded, with snapping blue eyes and a paunchy waistline, but no matter how kindly he looked at her, or how gently he spoke, she felt herself pulling into her shell. Unable to think of a thing to say, she sat staring at her plate.

“Might not look like it,” Elijah was saying to Fernanda, “but these here fingers are talented.” He held out both wrinkled hands for her inspection.

“
Si
? What can your ten fingers do that mine cannot,
señor
?”

“Oho!” Elijah grinned at Billy, Ilsa's son, who sat next to Fernanda gobbling his supper. “Tell 'er, Billy. And don' leave nuthin' out.”

Twelve-year-old Billy dumped more mashed potatoes onto his plate and passed the crockery bowl to Caroline. “Well, let's see, now. Old Elijah—”

“Hold up, son!” Elijah snapped. “Ain't ‘old' a'tall.” Billy dropped his head to hide a grin. “Yeah, well,
young
Elijah there sets type over at the Sentinel office. Printer's devil, Miss Jessamine calls him.”

“Damn—Darn right,” the old man exclaimed. “Faster 'n a greased pig with them type sticks.”

“And he makes pretty good sugar cookies,” Billy added.

Elijah stared at the boy. “‘Pretty' good? You mean damn—uh, darn good, don'tcha? You sure gobble up enough of 'em.”

Caroline watched the exchange and tried to talk herself into eating at least some of the food Ilsa had heaped onto her plate.

“Where is Uncle Hawk?” Billy asked suddenly. Caroline wondered the same thing. She'd hardly seen him since this morning. Was he avoiding her?

“Hawk is over at the sheriff's office,” Ilsa said quietly. “He'll eat his supper later.”

Elijah attacked another chicken drumstick. “Not hardly anythin' of interest happenin' for the newspaper to take note of. Da—Darn near fell asleep on my stool this afternoon. Miss Jessamine let me go home early.”

Caroline caught Fernanda's eye and breathed a sigh of relief. No news meant no trouble. And no trouble meant no one was stalking her; no one here was intent on doing her harm. She wondered if she would ever be able to calm her jangled nerves, even in a household as orderly and peaceful as Ilsa's.

With half an ear she listened to “Pass the peas” and “More coffee?” and then Fernanda's humming while the Mexican woman scrubbed the plates and cups at the sink. The other ear she kept cocked for the hooves of fast-moving horses or gunshots or... She didn't know what, exactly, just something that would shatter the quiet on this balmy, peaceful summer evening.

She busied herself wiping the plates and stacking them in the sideboard while Billy and Elijah bent their heads together over a checkerboard.

Ilsa made a fresh pot of coffee, and when the dishes were done, Caroline carried a mug out onto the front porch. Fernanda stayed inside; Billy had promised to teach her how to play checkers.

She perched on the top porch step and wrapped the yellow seersucker skirt about her knees to hide her bare feet. Tomorrow she would have clean socks and she would try the boots on again. She knew her blisters would hurt, but she couldn't go barefoot every day.

The air was soft and flower scented, and the breeze through the walnut branches cooled off the heat of the day. It was quiet. Tranquil.

Then why,
why
did she feel so uneasy? There could not be a house safer than the one where the sheriff lived. The town was pretty, the few streets were tree-lined, the buildings nicely kept and the flowers... She drew in a gulp of honeysuckle-scented air. Oh, she did love the flowers.

Mama always had flowers, roses and peonies and bright scarlet poppies in the fall. She wondered why Ilsa's backyard was so stark, just bare dirt, with the one walnut tree next to the unpainted fence. Maybe she could plant—but, no. She would not be here long enough to see them bloom. Lost in thought, she sipped her coffee until heavy boots came up the steps.

“Supper over?” Hawk asked. He settled himself beside her and used his thumb to shove back his wide-brimmed hat. She wished he hadn't; those green eyes of his bored into her and made her chest feel tight. She started to hitch over to make room but he snaked out a hand and caught her arm.

“Stay. I don't bite.”

“Yes, I realize that, but—”

“But I do kiss,” he murmured. She heard gentle laughter in his voice. The memory of his mouth on hers still made her stomach flip-flop; under the lawn shirtwaist her heart began to thrum.

“Yes, you did miss supper,” she said to change the subject. “But there might be some cold chicken left.”

He shifted his gaze from her face and studied the lower porch step. “Yeah. Most often I do miss supper. Ilsa always saves something for me.”

“She is a good cook,” Caroline offered.

“Wasn't always,” Hawk said. “Grew up spoiled. Couldn't even boil coffee.”

“Well, she certainly can now.” She gestured at the mug clutched between her hands.

“Yeah. I taught her.”

“You? Not her mother?”

“Nope. Our momma had money. And servants, when sis was little.”

“And you did not?”

“Sure as hell didn't. My father was Momma's second husband. He owned lots of acres, but it was a pretty hardscrabble ranch. By the time I came along, Ilsa was grown and gone and...” He stopped and stared off at the purpling hills in the distance. “She married too soon.”

“What happened?”

“She was widowed pretty young. I didn't much like the guy she married, but I was too young to do anything about it. And then a horse rolled over on him. After the funeral, Ilsa came out to Smoke River to scratch out a life for her and Billy. It was tough going until she opened the boardinghouse. Still tough going.”

“She works hard, I notice.”

“You'll also notice she lives pretty close to the bone. Billy helps some. And I do.”

“Is that why you came to Smoke River? To help your sister?”

“Partly. Town needed a sheriff. I needed to get out of Texas. And sis, well, she needed me. Boardinghouse doesn't bring in a lot.”

“Fernanda and I should be paying her rent.”

“You are. I'm paying it.”

“But I can afford—”

He turned toward her. “You're gonna need your money, Caroline. Think a minute. You don't get paid for making your speeches, do you?”

“Well, no. I have never needed money. Mama had some. She even had enough to pay Fernanda. And when Mama died, I inherited it.”

“You ever wonder how long that money's gonna last?”

She didn't answer. Instead she pulled her skirt tighter around her knees. Too late she saw her bare toes peeking out from under the yellow seersucker skirt. Before she could tuck them back under her skirt, Hawk saw them.

“Whoa. What happened to your shoes? Boots, I mean?”

“My shoes are in Washington, thanks to you. I packed them in the trunk the night we left. My boots are under the bed upstairs.”

“Blisters, huh?” Hawk tried not to smile. Caroline's bare toes were arousing, but right now he didn't want to think about the effect they were having on him.

“Um...”

He bent forward and grabbed one of her ankles. “Let's see.”

Billy rattled the screen door behind them. “Uncle Hawk? You hungry?”

“You bet I am.”

Caroline tried to jerk her foot out of his grasp but his fingers closed around her ankle.

“Billy, bring me some of your ma's foot salve, will you?”

“Hawk,” she murmured. “Put my foot down.”

“Not hardly,” he said softly. “Opportunities like this don't come along every day.”

“You will scandalize the boy!”

“'Bout time, I'd say. Kids grow up fast out here in the West.”

She stopped wriggling. “Is that what happened to you?” She made her voice as severe as she could manage. In the silence the screen door whapped open and Billy stepped through and slipped a tube of something into Hawk's free hand.

“I'm beatin' Elijah at checkers.” He disappeared back into the house.

“Now,” Hawk said, “come here.”

“Hawk, no.” She tried to yank her foot out of his grasp.

“Relax. I'm not going to kiss you, just smear some of this stuff on your blisters. Now hold still.”

She gave a little squeak but stopped struggling. His hand pushed her petticoat up and her breath caught. “Oh!”

“Yeah, you've got some blisters.” He uncapped the ointment, squeezed some onto his forefinger, and spread it over her heel. “Feel good?” Again, his voice held a smile.

She didn't seem to have enough air in her lungs to answer. The touch of his fingers on her skin was exquisite. Breath snatching.

He smoothed and caressed his hand over her skin and she bit her lip to keep from moaning aloud. Never had a man touched her like that. It was—it was—delicious. Unnerving. She never wanted him to stop.

“Sure got quiet all of a sudden,” he said.

Caroline swallowed. “I am...thinking.”

“Yeah? What about?” He released her foot and lifted the other one.

Oh, heavens, don't even ask!
“N-nothing.”

“You make a lousy liar, Caroline, you know that?”

“Yes. I mean no. I was thinking about your sister's backyard.”

He nearly dropped her foot. “What?”

“Do you think she would let me plant some flowers back there?”

“Flowers, huh? You like flowers?” He traced his finger around and around her ankle.

“I do, yes. Roses, especially.”

He wrapped her entire foot in his warm, strong hand, and she felt her cheeks heat. Her whole body was bursting into flame. All at once his motion stopped, but he did not release her.

“You feel like slapping me?”

“N-no.”

“How come? I'm touching you.”

“You are not frightening me.”

“Yeah?” He captured her gaze and she found she could not look away.

“You care to tell me what I
am
doing to you?” he breathed.

“Hawk,” she whispered, “this is scandalous.”

His soft laugh surprised her. “You said that before. God, I thought maybe you didn't notice.”

This time Caroline laughed. “Oh, I noticed all right. I am surprising myself.”

“Good.” He drew in a careful breath. “I'm afraid to ask whether you're wearing any underclothes.”

“Hawk!” She smacked the hand cradling her foot. “How dare you ask me that?”

“Easy.” He lifted her coffee mug out of her fingers, then grabbed her hand, folded it into a small fist and covered it with his own. “Been thinking about it all day.”

She jerked and tried to stand up, but he wouldn't release her. She aimed her palm at his cheek, but he ducked.

With relief Hawk noted she was half sputtering and half laughing. He dropped her foot, grasped her elbows and pulled her up. “In what way are you surprising yourself?”

She smoothed down her skirt. “I have never...I have never wanted to be this close to a man.”

Hawk held his breath for a good half minute. “And?”

“And,” she said, her voice so soft he could scarcely hear it. “I—I find that I am liking it.”

He felt like kissing her, but he didn't want to push his luck. He wanted to touch her all over, hold her, not like he'd done when she was scared or crying, but like a man does when he holds a woman in his arms. When he wants her.

His guts turned into cement. Oh, no.
No
,
by God
. He wasn't going to touch her. And he'd try like hell not to want her. One thing led to another, and before he knew it he'd be in love with her, and he knew he could never, never risk caring about a woman again. He had scars so deep inside from when Whitefern was killed he'd never even come close to probing anywhere near them.

“Uncle Hawk,” Billy called from behind the screen door, “Ma says come eat now or go hungry.”

Caroline shoved him toward the boy. “Go. Fernanda made apple pie for dessert.”

Apple pie? What the hell did that have to do with temptation?

Maybe everything. It was all craving, right? It was all about hunger. And, oh, boy, right about now he had more than a man-sized load of that.

Just what he was going to do about it was a question he couldn't begin to answer.

Chapter Seventeen

“Y
ou goin' to the big competition today?” Across the breakfast table, Elijah's blue eyes rested on Caroline with a question.

“Well, I—”

“Sure she is,” Billy said, his mouth full of oatmeal. “Uncle Hawk's gonna beat ever'body.”

“Beat them, how?”

Elijah snorted. “He's gonna outshoot all those fancy-ass ranch hands that thinks it's a big deal to plug a rattlesnake at ten paces.”

She cringed inside. “You mean it's a contest of firearms?”

“You don't much like guns 'n' shootin', do ya, missy?”

Like it! She hated even the thought of firing a gun. What if Elijah knew she had shot and killed her own father? What if Ilsa knew?

She wondered if Ilsa could fire a gun. Her pistol rested in the bottom bureau drawer upstairs, wrapped up in her jeans, and she knew Fernanda always carried hers in the pocket of her voluminous black skirt.

At the moment the two women were out in the backyard, hanging men's denims and shirts on the clothesline. “No, Eli, I think I will not attend the competition.”

“C'mon, Miss Caroline,” Billy begged. “I bet Hawk'd want someone else rooting for him besides me and Eli.”

She wanted to watch him, it was true. She wondered if he was truly as good a shot as Billy seemed to think.

A shiver crawled up her spine. When Hawk sprang the trap he'd talked about, could he really keep her from getting killed?

“Where will this contest be held?”

“Out in back of the jail,” Eli supplied. “In a big empty field. Lotsa room for spectators. I kin walk ya on over there after breakfast.”

Half an hour later, Caroline and the old man set off down the street. Despite two pairs of clean socks and Hawk's application of salve the night before, she winced at every step. Boots, she decided, were most definitely not for ladies.

Billy danced ahead along the board sidewalk, but she was grateful for Elijah's halting gait. “Rheumatiz,” he confessed. “Slows me down.”

She didn't mind in the least. It gave her a chance to study the downtown area in more detail than she'd been able to on her first visit, when she had spoken to the townspeople about women's suffrage and Hawk had thrown his body over hers when someone shot at her.

Now she noticed the businesses along the main street, Ness's Mercantile with bushel baskets of peaches displayed in front, Poletti's Barbershop, Uncle Charlie's Bakery. Even a dressmaker. Self-consciously she looked down at the worn seersucker skirt Ilsa had lent her. Soon she would need her own clothes.

Eli steered her through a narrow alley between the jail and a livery supply shop and they emerged at the edge of a huge sunbaked field of tall grass, already thronged with people. Caroline hesitated. What if someone...?

As if he could read her mind, Eli patted her arm. “Now don't you worry none, missy. Hawk's got his deputy and the Federal marshal, Matt Johnson, watchin' over ya.”

She recognized the lanky blond deputy, Sandy, who had walked over from the jail after breakfast just that morning for a cup of Ilsa's coffee. Eli pointed out the tall marshal standing off to one side of the field. Sunlight glinted off his leaf-shaped badge but his hat rode so low his face was obscured. She hoped his eyes were sharp.

“An' that's not all,” Eli continued, guiding her to a shady spot under a spreading maple tree. “Yonder's Rooney Cloudman, an' standin' next to him is Colonel Wash Halliday, the feller he used to track for in the army.”

Caroline studied both men. They carried rifles, as did all the contestants, but she noted that Rooney, an older man in a weather-worn Stetson, kept his index finger curled around the trigger of his weapon. Colonel Halliday, tall and rangy with a touch of gray in his mustache, held his rifle loosely at his side, the barrel pointing toward the dry grass. The colonel was bareheaded, she noted. In fact he was the only man in the entire crowd without the wide-brimmed hat men out here in the West seemed to favor.

She searched for Hawk and found him near the marked-off firing line, deep in conversation with a whip-thin, dark-skinned man with eyes that missed nothing.

“That's Jericho Silver,” Eli said. “Useta be the sheriff afore Hawk came. Now he's the district judge. Man's a fine shot. Jericho's gonna make it tough for Hawk to win. When Jericho's not competing,” Elijah added, “he'll be guarding.”

“Guarding? You mean me?”

Eli snorted. “Hell's tail feathers, girl, you think Hawk's gonna let you wander around town without someone watchin' out for ya?”

Caroline said nothing, but a warm feeling of being protected flowed over her.
Hawk was watching out for her
. And he had friends who were doing the same.
I know everybody in town, and I can get help from men I trust.

“Eli, if I wanted to visit the dressmaker tomorrow, would one of Hawk's friends mind accompanying me?”

“Count on it. Hawk ain't lettin' ya out of his sight, one way or t'other.”

The warmth in her chest blossomed.
I owe you my life, Hawk Rivera. Thank you from the bottom of my heart
.

The first competitors arranged themselves in a ragged line halfway across the stubbly field, about fifty yards from the target, which was a playing card nailed to a tree stump. A queen of hearts, Caroline noted. When Hawk or the marshal or Colonel Halliday stepped up to the firing line, she noted that the other four men either kept their gazes riveted on her or continuously scanned the swelling crowd. Still, she felt vaguely uneasy.

“Eli, do you know everyone in town?”

“Sure do. Why?”

“Do you see anyone here you don't recognize? A stranger?”

His sharp blue eyes studied the onlookers gathered under the maple tree and in the open field beyond where the target was set up. “Nope. All Smoke River gents. An' ladies,” he added. “That there's Maddie Silver, the one with two babes in that push-cart thingamabob with wheels. Colonel Halliday's wife, Jeanne, she's standin' next to Maddie. Billy's half-sweet on her daughter, Manette.”

“I am not!” Billy grumbled from behind them. “Teddy MacAllister is sweet on her. She's stuck up, always talkin' French. He can have her for all I care.”

Eli surreptitiously bumped Caroline's arm. “What'd I tell ya?” he murmured. “Sweet as molasses candy.”

Caroline studied the girl in the crisp white pinafore. Had she ever been that young? Had anyone ever been sweet on her?

Instantly a crushing blackness descended.
Papa
. Papa had ruined her, had driven away her innocence, her belief in everything that mattered. Her father had destroyed something inside her just as surely as she had killed him that awful night back in Boston. She shuddered and shut her eyes tight.

“What's the matter, girl?” Eli intoned. “You see somethin'?”

“N-no. Just a—a bad memory.” The instant the words left her lips she went cold all over. Except for Hawk, she had never told anyone about her father. Somehow even thinking about what had happened made it real all over again.

Oh, God, she would never be normal. A man, even one as strong and understanding as Hawk Rivera, would never be able to get close to her. She would always, always react with an instinctive need to fight him off.

“Watch now, missy,” Eli urged. “They're startin' the competition.”

Part of her couldn't watch. She hated the sound of gunfire. Hated the knowledge of what a bullet could do. But another part of her couldn't keep her eyes off Hawk as he strode forward to the chalk line in the dirt. He thumbed back his gray hat, raised the rifle and held it steady for so long she found herself holding her breath.

Fire it. Just pull the trigger and get it over with.

Unconsciously she felt for the pistol she'd stuffed into her skirt pocket before leaving the house. Hawk had made her promise to carry it with her wherever she went, even out to the backyard to hang up wet laundry.

She noticed a gangly girl about twelve, dressed in an ill-fitting gingham dress, circling behind the crowd and devouring Hawk with avid eyes. “That's Noralee Ness, the mercantile owner's girl,” Eli volunteered. “Sets type for the
Lake County Lark
. She's got it kinda bad for Hawk, I guess. Makes big mooney eyes ever' time he walks past.”

“Isn't she a little young?”

“Ain't no right age to fall in love, missy. Hawk'll tell ya that.”

“Oh?”

Elijah clammed up.

Intrigued, Caroline turned to him. “What is the right age, Elijah?”

“Ain't my place to speak of it,” he muttered. “He'll tell ya hisself when he's ready. Or...”

“Or?” she prompted.

“Or he won't.”

What was “it”? she wondered. She watched the girl, Noralee, press her back against the tree they were all standing under, her adoring gaze on Hawk's tall form at the firing line. She felt halfway sorry for her, wearing her heart so blatantly on her sleeve.

Hawk put a bullet a scant inch from the heart in the center of the card, wiped the sweat out of his eyes with his shirtsleeve, reloaded and sent a second shot smack through the first hole.

“Off your game a bit, Hawk?” Jericho Silver said with a laugh. “Audience never bothered you before.”

“Doesn't now,” Hawk said.

“No? Then how come you keep looking over at that tree behind us? Someone you tryin' to impress?”

“Shut up, Jericho.”

Jericho chuckled. “Thought so. Gal in the yellow skirt, right? Real pretty.”

“Never gave her a second thought,” Hawk lied.

“Thought that once about Maddie, too. Damn dumb thing for a man to do.” Jericho stepped up to the firing line, shouldered his rifle and put another hole squarely through Hawk's.

“She the one you're protecting, right?” Jericho said as he reloaded. He shot again, this time drilling a mark an inch the other side of the bull's eye.

Hawk didn't answer. Jericho Silver knew everything that went on in Smoke River, which farmer was quarreling with what rancher, who was stealing someone else's woman, who was watching who's back. He knew Jericho was watching his, same as he watched Jericho's when the need arose. The man wasn't the Smoke River sheriff any longer, but he was a damned reliable friend, even if he was the town judge.

“How long is she going to be in town?” Jericho stepped aside to let Wash Halliday take his position.

“Long enough to catch the bastard who's trying to kill her,” Hawk growled.

“Got any leads?”

“Not a damn one. I told you, it's someone who hates the idea of women getting the vote.”

“I felt that way once,” Jericho said in a conversational tone.

“Yeah? What changed your mind?”

“Maddie. And that set of law books she gave me for a wedding present. What about at night?” Jericho went on with no change in inflection.

Hawk jerked. “What about
what
at night?”

Hell. All kinds of things went on at night when it came to Caroline. His thoughts circled and backtracked, remembering the scent of her hair; the softness of her skin; her trim, tiny little ankles; and the way her eyes went wide when she was thinking. Or
said
she was thinking.

Jericho clapped him on the shoulder. “I mean who's guarding her at night while you're sleeping?”

“Sandy. And Rooney Cloudman. She's watched twenty-four hours a day.”

And night. Goddamn, in the evening he couldn't stop looking at her across the supper table and he couldn't stop thinking about her at night from the time he crawled into his bed at the opposite end of the hall until the rooster crowed and he went over to the jail to relieve his deputy.

“Does she know?” Jericho asked quietly.

“Know what? That she's under surveillance?”

“No, you damn fool. That you're in love with her.”

Hawk whirled on the man. “Jericho, I've never slugged a judge before, but so help me—”

“Watch it, Hawk. Here she comes.” With a laugh Jericho sauntered off toward his wife and their twin boys.

Caroline was smiling. Lordy, he wished she'd stop. Her lips looked like ripe raspberries and he couldn't take his eyes off them.

“Is it over? Did you win?”

“No and no. That's only the first round. Didn't you see?”

“Well, some. I found it difficult. The noise of the guns, I mean.”

Hawk stared at her. “But you came to watch m—” He caught himself. “The competition. Did you think it wouldn't bother you?”

Caroline looked away. “I came to watch you, Hawk. I forgot there would be so much gunfire.” Her voice had a little tremor in it. How she wished she could hide it. She didn't
want
to be frightened around him.

But she was.

He grasped her arm and walked her over to where the slim, dark-skinned man and his wife stood. “Maddie, have you got any cotton?”

The attractive young mother looked up. “Cotton? You mean like a cotton ball? I will look in my bag. But first, introduce me to your companion. My goodness, for a sheriff, you have the worst manners!”

Hawk gestured awkwardly from Caroline to the young woman. “Caroline, meet Maddie Silver. Yeah, I need a cotton ball.”

Maddie sent Caroline an amused look and rummaged in the large mesh bag she was carrying. “Don't tell Jericho,” she whispered as she pressed a wad of cotton into her hand, “but I use a bit of this in my own ears at night when the twins...” She sent Caroline a wide smile.

“Come visit me, why don't you?” Maddie glanced at Hawk. “It's perfectly safe. I am a Pinkerton agent.”

Caroline gaped at her until Hawk drew her off behind the thick tree trunk. “Stuff your ears full of this, Caroline. Just don't tell Eli you can't hear what he's rambling on about.”