Authors: Beth Williamson
He nodded. “
Oui
. You don’t need me to tell you that.”
Her father opened his arms and she threw herself into his embrace. His warm, familiar scent surrounded her and she buried her face into his shoulder. He ran his hand up and down her back as she shook with emotions she didn’t want or need to complicate her life.
He asked no questions, another reason she loved her father. No matter what, he didn’t push his daughters into being something they weren’t. He was an artisan, a man who could take a chunk of wood and create a beautiful piece of art. Yet his best work was done as a father.
“Ah,
ma petite
, you feel things so deeply. You fight against yourself too much.” He kissed the top of her head. “Someday you will put aside your fears and find what you look for.”
She sighed against his shoulder. “Papa, I hope you are right.”
“You need to let go,
lapin
. A wise young woman told me that once.” Although she couldn’t see his face, she knew he was smiling.
He hadn’t called her “bunny” in at least ten years. The childhood nickname warmed her from the inside.
“I am glad you listened.” She had been the driving force behind leaving New York behind.
“So am I.” He breathed in deeply. “The air is so clean here,
lapin
. I know it has been hard, but I believe in your dream. Our dream.”
Her eyes pricked at the sincerity and the love in her father’s voice. “
Merci
,
Papa.”
He took her shoulders and held her away from him, his eyes suspiciously bright. “No,
lapin
, thank you for showing this old man there is something more than living in a small house in Brooklyn. I had a dream when I left France and I let it go for too many years. You reminded me what it meant to find my dream again.”
She smiled, feeling infinitely better after having spoken to her father. He had a way of making sense of her jumbled thoughts. Her father was the person she wanted to be, strived to become.
“Now go finish your chores, Frankie. We are leaving very soon.” He turned away from her, leaving behind a feeling of being loved.
When she returned to readying the oxen, it was with a lighter heart and a stronger sense of right. She had made mistakes, that was an understatement, but talking with her father reminded her she had made some good choices as well. Only good things awaited.
Declan Callahan rode nearly round the clock for three days, pushing himself, and the horse, beyond exhaustion. When he rode up the small knoll and saw the circle of wagons, a jolt of energy raced through him.
If he was lucky, this was the wagon train he chased, the one led by Buck Avery. If it wasn’t, then he was well and truly a dead man. He had no time to be chasing another direction and another group of settlers. This had to be them.
He’d had time to consider how he would explain his presence. Although Declan was poor and had taken more than a few blows to the head, he wasn’t stupid. Wagon masters hired men to help the fools in their prairie schooners, but also to protect them. No doubt they had guns and knew how to use them.
Since he needed to be as believable as possible, Declan had stopped to clean up the day before. He’d also put on the relatively clean shirt, the only other one he had. Truthfully, he could use a real bath, but he hoped he had lost most of the New York grit.
As he rode up to the wagon, he hoped like hell he was in the right place. A shadow moved from behind a wagon, morphing into a man with a rifle in his hands. Declan tipped his hat back and tried to look trustworthy, even if he wasn’t sure what exactly that did look like.
“Evening, stranger.” The voice was anything but friendly. “Something I can help you with?”
Declan touched the brim of his hat. “I was looking for Buck Avery.”
“He’s busy. Something I can do for you?” The man stepped into a bit of light thrown by a campfire nearby. He was a big son of a gun, large enough to take on Declan and give him a good challenge.
“Name’s Declan Callahan. I was told Buck needed good men for the wagon train but missed you leaving Independence.” He dismounted, waiting for a bullet to slam into him. It didn’t, so he let out the breath he’d been holding as quietly as he could. “I rode hard to catch up. I needed the job.”
A short pause. “You Irish?”
Declan told his hackles not to rise. It was a question, not a challenge to crack him across the face. “Yes. I came from Ireland with my parents when I was five.”
Another pause. “I can appreciate that. Name’s John Malloy. My father came over from Ireland before I was born.”
Declan’s shoulders relaxed. A fellow Irishman was always a welcome sight. “Can I talk to Buck, then? I surely need a job.”
“You carrying a weapon?”
“Just a rifle. Don’t have a pistol, but I can manage one if you have one for me to use.” Declan wasn’t going to mention the knife strapped at the small of his back. That weapon he would not give up.
“Leave the rifle. Tie your horse off and follow me.” Malloy didn’t wait for Declan to respond.
Declan wasn’t insulted. He was used to being a man who took orders. One day he might be his own man and be the one commanding others. But for now, he would follow Malloy and do what he needed to. Truth was, if he didn’t deliver the girl, he’d signed his death warrant. He would have to disappear, give up everything he’d built the last three years in the Five Pointers. If they ever found him after that, well, he would have been glad to drown himself than face what the gang did to those who betrayed them.
They walked into the circle of wagons. Fires dotted the darkness, sending yellow and orange dots of light into the sky. He blinked against the brightness of the flames, keeping his gaze on Malloy’s back. They walked through some tall prairie grass until they reached a well-worn wagon with the largest fire. At least a dozen men sat around smoking, sucking on cups of coffee, whittling or chewing on a stick. They varied in ages from a young snot-faced boy to a man older than dirt.
Declan nodded. “Evenin’, gentlemen.”
“Buck, this here’s Declan Callahan. He was looking for work and missed us in Independence.” John spoke to a man seated on the opposite side of the fire.
Buck Avery was a big man, possibly bigger than Declan, and his gaze was as sharp as the knife he whittled with. “That so? I don’t know a Declan Callahan. Who sent you my way?”
Declan took off his hat. “Mr. Gunderson at the livery in Independence. He knew I was looking for a job and thought I could work the wagon train for you.”
Not necessarily an entire lie, but a fabrication. Gunderson had given up information, not that he’d wanted to.
Buck got to his feet, knife in hand. Declan’s body was on instant alert, ready to pull his knife from its sheath. He would go down swinging.
“I don’t need another hand.” Avery held his gaze, assessing and probing. Declan didn’t blink.
“If it’s all right with you, I’ll travel along just in case you change your mind.” Declan shrugged. “I won’t go back to Independence. There’s nothing for me there.”
He waited, expecting Avery to tell him to go to hell or worse. If he was able to stay for at least a day, he would find her and he could go back to New York with the girl. The Chastains had to be with the wagon train.
“I don’t object to you riding alongside the train. Another gun might be handy.” Buck pointed the knife at Malloy. “He can bunk near you. It’ll keep your tent empty of anything but you.”
The men around the campfire all chuckled at Buck’s pronouncement. Everyone except John. His jaw tightened, along with his fist, but he didn’t respond to the strange taunt.
“Thank you, Mr. Avery. If you change your mind about hiring me, I work cheap and I will do just about anything.” Declan was at least telling the truth about that. There wasn’t much he hadn’t done for money. When he started with nothing but the clothes on his back and his wits, there was no place to go but up.
John turned around and walked away. Declan nodded to Avery and hurried to follow Malloy. He would try to find out more in the morning about the settlers and narrow down which wagon held the Chastain girl.
Declan smiled into the darkness. He’d found her.
John made one more circle around the perimeter of the circle of wagons. All was quiet and Callahan had been the only thing stirring in the darkness. He slung the rifle on his back and rounded the curve that would lead him straight to his tent.
He ran smack into a female body, then fell right on his ass. She’d been all soft womanly curves but strong enough to remain standing when he plowed into her.
“Holy hell, lady. What are you doing out here in the dark?” His tailbone had landed on a rock and damned if he didn’t have pain shooting straight up his back.
“I did not realize I needed your permission,
Monsieur
Malloy.”
It was worse than he thought. He’d run into the one woman who had him tied in knots.
“Frankie. Does your Pa know you’re roaming around alone?”
She sucked in a breath, he was sure, of outrage. “I do not need permission to take a walk. From anyone.”
“You need a keeper.” He got to his feet and wiped the dirt of his backside.
Then she pushed him and he landed right back where he started. She jumped on him, straddling his body with her legs and proceeded to punch the snot out of him. Her hard little fists slammed into his jaw, cheek and forehead.
John swatted at her hands, his jaw stinging from the blows she’d landed. “Frankie, what the hell are you doing?”
“I am tired of your boorish face and the way you treat women. How dare you kiss me and then propose to that, that
woman
?” Her voice was thick with emotion, but he couldn’t tell if it was anger or hurt.
She was a wildcat, hissing and pelting him with her tiny, hard fists. He didn’t want to hurt her but he wasn’t going to allow her to keep beating on him either.
“Stop!” He grabbed her wrists, stopping her movements. “I didn’t propose to her, dammit.”
She stopped her efforts to yank her arms from his grasp. “What?”
“You heard me. I didn’t propose to her. Hell, I don’t even like her.” He sighed, the fear and anger from the engagement making his stomach churn. “She hid in my tent naked and then waited for her father to appear. I either lost my job and the ranch I plan on starting with the money from it or face a shotgun in my belly.”
“She tricked you?”
“Females are the most perverse creatures. Yes, she tricked me. I still don’t know why she’d want to marry a poor cowhand like me. Hell, I ain’t educated and all I know is horses and living outdoors.” He became very aware of the female body on top of his, the heat from her center, square on his. Her scent, one of lemon and woman, washed over him.
In only seconds, the strange situation turned into a sensual one. His dick throbbed against her backside. There was no way she didn’t feel the hard-on knocking at her door.
“Perhaps she found you handsome.” Frankie still straddled him, her body growing warmer by the second.
His pulse notched up even faster. “You think I’m handsome?” He didn’t know what to think about Frankie—she didn’t reveal much about her feelings, but she did let every thought in her head fly off her tongue. She had kissed him back too.
“You are not entirely unpleasant to look at.” Her voice had a breathy quality to it.
“High praise, darlin’.” He shifted beneath her and she made a funny sound in her throat. It almost sounded like a growl.
She leaned, her hair brushing against his cheek. Her hair was unbound. His pulse thundered as he reached up and touched it. Soft and slippery, her locks slid through his fingers. He brought it to his nose and inhaled.
His dick hardened to painful proportions, jammed up against her body. He thrust a little, enough to ease the ache. She gasped and wiggled, which made the painful erection worse. He wanted to push inside her, sheath himself within the soft hot folds of her body. It was almost irresistible, the pull to make her his own. To brand her.
“You’re still sitting on me.”
She sighed, her breath gusting past his cheek. “I know. It is wrong, but I cannot seem to make myself move.”
John could hardly believe she felt it too. The hard, elemental pull between them was strong. He thrust up again and she gasped. Her mouth landed sideways on his and she kissed him as hard as she’d hit him minutes earlier.
He closed his arms around her, pulling her down until she was flush against him, breast to breast, groin to groin. John’s brain ceased functioning and his body took over. She was heaven in his arms, soft and warm against his achingly hard self. He deepened the kiss, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, exploring her teeth, her tongue and her lips. She met him stroke for stroke, her passion burning brighter than the stars.
John grabbed her ass and pressed her down. Sweet mercy, she was so hot. All he had to do was unbutton his trousers and slide her skirt up until he reached the slit in her drawers. Then he could plunge into her honeyed heat.