Tried and True (Wild at Heart Book #1) (12 page)

“None of us did,” Shannon added.

“I did my best to get out of it.” Kylie gave them all an impish grin. “I managed to become an aide to my commanding officer. I worked more with my head than a rifle.” The smile faded. “I didn’t avoid it all, though.”

“As for being in close quarters with the men,” Shannon said, “I found most of them to be as modest as I was. We didn’t bathe really, and we slept in the same clothes we fought in. It was common enough for a man to slip into the woods to find a private place to . . .” Shannon glanced at Aaron, clearing her throat. “To find the necessary. I did the same, and no one thought a thing of it.”

Aaron looked between the three women, each beautiful in her own way. While Kylie was the prettiest by far, the others were fine-looking women. For some reason it seemed important for him to know what they’d endured, as if by listening to their stories he could somehow help them. But they seemed neither to want nor need his help.

“Oh, and I solved the little problem of Kylie staying on her own,” Bailey said.

“You found a housekeeper?” Hadn’t Gage Coulter just said there was no such critter around?

“Yep.”

“Where?”

“She should be at my place today.”

“A woman, out here?”

“Yep.”

Aaron looked at Kylie, who asked a bit nervously, “Well, who is it?”

“She’s an outcast from the Shoshone tribe.”

“An Indian?”

“Yep.”

“You’re going to let a strange Indian woman move in with Kylie?” Aaron asked.

Bailey rolled her eyes. “You’re from Pennsylvania, aren’t you?”

“Virginia.”

“Same thing. You know nothing about Indians. I do. I’ve gotten to know them, and most especially this woman.”

“You’ve only been out here six months, and most of that was winter and you spent it snowed in. You think you know more about Indians than I do?”

“Yep.”

Aaron was getting tired of Bailey’s
yep
. “How well do you know her? Is she dangerous?”

Bailey gave him a disgusted look. “You think I’d arrange this if I thought for one moment Kylie would be in danger?”

“Who is she?”

“Her name is Sunrise. I’ve known her since I moved in last fall. She’s been married to a trapper from up in the hills
for years and raised up a passel of kids with him, all grown now. But picking a white for a husband made her an outcast. Her husband died last winter, and she’s been living alone in a small cabin. I asked her if she’d come and stay with Kylie, and she said yes. She can help with everything. She can hunt and trap and sew. She chops wood faster than I do, and she’s a mighty tough woman. Sunrise can defend that cabin better than any of us.”

“Can I meet her first?” Kylie asked.

Aaron could see she was nervous. He didn’t blame her.

“She’ll be at my house when we get back. She’s bringing her own teepee, so you won’t have to find room for her in that puny cabin of yours.”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean can I meet her before I decide if I want her as a housekeeper?”

“I already told her she has the job.”

Aaron shook his head. Now he was going to have to ride back to Bailey’s. Then, because he wasn’t letting Kylie ride off with a stranger, Indian or otherwise, he’d probably just have to accept that he was gonna get roped into working at Bailey’s all afternoon and then ride with Kylie to her house and make his own decision about whether the new housekeeper would kill her in her sleep.

Confound it! He’d signed on as land agent. How had that turned into being caretaker to a bunch of women who couldn’t figure out how to dress and act and think like they oughta?

He had a job to do, a ranch to find and claim and build.

Instead, he was stuck baby-sitting these Wilde women.

H
ush up, Bert.” Myra’s quiet command as she entered the room cut through Norbert’s moans of pain and shut him up.

A week had passed since Bert had been shot and she’d put it off until now, but Myra finally admitted the wound wasn’t going to heal without stitches. And of course it was going to be her job to set those stitches. The thought made her want to empty her stomach.

Archie sat on the floor of the tiny bedroom. There was no furniture, only two pallets where Bert and Archie slept.

Archie was a hand at getting them into trouble, but as always it fell to her to get them out of it.

She got them home after Bert was shot.

She scouted around and slipped them upstairs in secret.

She fashioned a tight bandage on Bert’s arm and went to work before her absence was noted.

Now she was going to have to deal with this bullet wound.

Bert lay in bed. The first few days they’d gotten Bert and Archie out the door early so they could spend the day in the woods hunting, as they usually did, which kept Mama from asking questions. But the doctoring Bert needed could no longer be put off.

Myra threaded a needle.

“No.” Bert slid toward the wall. “It’ll heal up on its own. Just keep a bandage on it.”

Myra looked at the cut again, then at Archie. “Have you got it?”

Nodding, Archie pulled a small bottle out of his shirt pocket. Laudanum. “This’ll ease the pain.”

Bert’s eyes went to the bottle. He’d had a taste for such things as whiskey and laudanum from a young age. Archie liked a swig of it himself, though there was no money for it mostly.

Looking at the bottle, Bert glanced at Myra with terror, then back at the small bottle. He licked his lips. Slowly he extended a shaky right hand; his left was curled against his stomach as he tried not to move that arm. “Yeah, a swallow or two should help.”

“Good, ’cuz we’ve gotta leave the stitching to Myra. We don’t dare ask Ma for help. There’d be too much explaining to do.”

“Don’t take too much,” Myra warned. She loved her brothers, but had no idea what to do with either of them. “You’ll need the rest, and the wound’s gonna hurt for a while.”

Bert took a swig. Too long a swig, but Myra let him. It’d be best if the poor fool went to sleep for this, because there was no way he could be quiet. And if he made too much noise and was found out, they might all be arrested.

Bert handed the bottle back.

Archie waited until Bert’s eyelids got heavy and then finally fell shut. Myra looked at Archie, her eyes shifting between him and the bottle. “Good. There’s still plenty left.”

Archie nodded. “He’ll probably be noisy when he wakes up. The laudanum will keep him quiet. We still got us a chance of driving off the Wilde woman.” Archie sounded smug, which was a plumb stupid way to act with Bert lying there wounded right in front of him. “If we can run her off that claim, Myra, then you can jump in and homestead it, then make a gift of it, along with yourself, to Coulter.”

Myra ran her hand deep into her wispy blond hair. She knew she was attractive enough to snare a man. Weren’t half the cowpokes in town sweet on her? It was just too bad that one of the first men she’d laid eyes on when her stepfather Bo Langley had moved them to Aspen Ridge this spring was Gage Coulter. From the first minute she’d seen him, she set her cap for him and no one else. She thought there was a spark of interest in Coulter’s eyes when they’d first met, and she’d done her best to fan that spark into a flame, but he never asked if he could come courting.

She figured this was because of his being busy with the short summer season, and she was calmly waiting until the man made his interest known.

And then she heard the rumors about Kylie Wilde, a woman Myra didn’t even know was in the area, and Coulter’s interest in her homestead. Finally, Myra discovered the way to Coulter’s heart.

Snaring him shouldn’t be hard, seeing as how this was the West. Women were so rare, a man would practically
marry a copperhead if’n it wore a poke bonnet and could fry up decent corn pone. Myra had the bonnet, and she could cook better than decent.

If she married Gage Coulter, she’d take care of Archie and Bert, too. She’d see they got hired on with him. It stood to reason that Gage wouldn’t want the lazy louts around. But Myra was sure a wife could sway her husband.

She’d thought it would be simple to drive Wilde off, but they hadn’t figured on that land agent being there. And Myra sure hadn’t planned on the man firing back. Big war hero, Myra had heard. A man who was ready for trouble.

Their first try had failed, and Myra might’ve quit if Archie wasn’t so set on trying again. Archie had a mean streak, and if he got riled, Kylie might vanish and no one would ever think a thing of it. Indians, wolves—there were plenty of things that could be blamed.

Yet Myra would know her brother had done something terrible to Kylie. To stop that from happening, Myra needed to get her hands on that homestead. That’d be the safest thing for Kylie and the best thing for Myra.

She’d be a good wife to Coulter, too. All she had to do was figure out a way to make Kylie run.

Sunrise seemed like a steady woman. Not much of a talker, but when she spoke it was in clear, if accented, English, just as a woman would speak after years away from her tribe, one who’d been married to an English-speaking mountain man. And usually whatever she said needed saying.

Aaron helped set up the teepee and found the process
interesting. He decided he’d live in a teepee on his homestead while he got his cabin built.

Once Sunrise had finished, she said, “I hunt now.” She picked up her bow and arrows and slipped silently into the woods.

That left Aaron and Kylie alone in the cabin.

Aaron really needed to go. He hadn’t done a lick of work yesterday—not counting working like a slave for the Wilde women of course. And now here he was spending another day with Kylie, so he could make sure she was safe with her new housekeeper. Which she most certainly was. Except now Sunrise was gone.

“Are you going to be all right?” he asked.

Kylie shrugged, her eyes wide and worried. “Yes, except what if those men come back and try to burn me out again?”

Which meant no, she wasn’t going to be all right.

“I’ll stay until Sunrise comes back,” Aaron said, which was exactly the opposite of going, and he really should go.

“Someone is always taking care of me.” Kylie frowned. “I know I’m a disappointment to my sisters and pa.”

He really couldn’t go. She needed him.

“They can’t figure out why I don’t try harder to learn how to get on out here in the wilderness.” Kylie looked down at her fingers, twisting them together. “They wonder why I’m not content with frontier life. I can’t figure it out either, but it’s true. I hate the distance. I hate the hard work to do every simple thing. I had to throw a huge fit to get my stove.” She nodded at the small potbellied stove in her kitchen. “My family thinks I should be content to cook in a fireplace, and I should. Mostly I just can’t be happy living so completely alone.”

Out here where Aaron intended to stay forever.

Kylie looked up.

Aaron looked down.

Their eyes met.

The moment stretched on.

Considering Kylie wanted a life completely different from what Aaron had planned, it was a blamed-fool notion that made Aaron move closer, lean down, and touch his lips to hers.

A blamed-fool idea that felt better than anything Aaron had ever done in his life.

Aaron was having a stern talk with himself about just what a bad idea this was at the same time he slipped his arms around Kylie’s slender waist and pulled her against him. He tilted his head and deepened the kiss and quit berating himself to focus on kissing her.

“Stop! We can’t do this!” Kylie jerked away from him and pulled him right along with her, as her arms were still tight around his neck.

“You’re right. We can’t.” Aaron obeyed her, mostly, not as fast as maybe he should have, what with having to pry her arms loose and pausing to kiss her another time, or two, or three.

Kisses she returned enthusiastically. Honestly, the little woman didn’t seem to want to be let go of at all.

Finally, Aaron got away.

She covered her mouth, although it looked more like she was just touching her lips, remembering how it felt to be kissed and maybe holding that kiss close. With her eyes locked on his, she backed up until she hit the rocks
around the fireplace. That seemed to shake her a bit, and she crossed her arms.

And licked her lips, which were pinker than before and maybe a bit swollen. He studied them mighty close to be sure. He noticed too that her hair hung down in those streaked honey-brown-and-blond curls. It had definitely been tied up in a knot on her head. He had a vivid memory of the silk of her hair in his hands and just how slender she was at the waist.

Not a good enough memory, though. He’d like to touch her hair again. He’d pay better attention next time.

The kiss had gone on quite a while, yet at the same time it had ended far too soon.

“Aaron, we can’t be kissing like that.” Her eyes flickered to his lips.

“There are a lot of ways to kiss. If you don’t think we should be kissing like that, we could keep trying until we find a way you like.”

“Oh no.” Kylie shook her head. “I liked it just fine as it was.”

That seemed like an invitation to do it again. Aaron took a step toward her.

She held up her hand, palm facing him. “I’m not staying out here in the West, and you are. We can’t be together. I can’t let any man turn me aside from the life I want.”

“It was just a kiss, Kylie.” Aaron knew that for the lie it was the second it came out of his mouth. It wasn’t
just
a kiss; it was the finest kiss ever in the history of the world. What’s more, Aaron didn’t have one bit of doubt that they could improve on it.

Which annoyed him into saying, “After only one kiss,
it’s a little early to be talking about me turning you aside from the life you want.”

“It’s a little early for a lot of things. In fact, it’s ‘before a kiss should have happened.’” Kylie fluttered those beautiful dark lashes, and her starburst eyes flashed fire. “And now we’re firmly into ‘after it happened’ and settled entirely into ‘it’ll never happen again.’” She pointed at the door. “I think you should go.”

“What about the flaming arrows?”

Kylie quit pointing and covered her mouth again. From behind her hand she asked, “What are we going to do?”

Aaron had an answer to that he figured would only get him slapped. He tried to clear the fog from his brain so he could think about something other than stealing another kiss. He had to figure out a way to convince Kylie to stay in the West with him. Yep, way too early for a lot of things.

Then, under the guise of escape, he got an idea and looked out the window at the forest that came too close to her cabin. “I’m going to go start building you a chicken coop. That’ll keep me busy until Sunrise gets back. Have you got an ax?”

“I don’t have any chickens.”

“I’ll get you some. Then you’ll have eggs to eat.” Aaron needed to do some hard work. Chopping down trees would make a likely distraction.

Kylie pointed to a large wooden box in the corner near the front door. “Shannon made that, and it holds quite a few tools. That’s where I found the hammer and nails I used on the roof.”

Aaron remembered her dangling from the eaves and had a sudden desire to drag her home with him where he could take care of her forever, too early or not.

“I’m not sure what else they left me. There are some tools in the barn, too.”

“Don’t you chop wood and split logs?” Aaron headed for the toolbox, swung it open, and found an ax right away.

“I’ve managed to avoid it. Bailey seems to like swinging an ax for some reason, so she’s kept me in kindling.”

Aaron dragged the ax out and turned to Kylie. “I’m surprised she agrees to do it. She doesn’t seem like a helpful kind of woman.”

“I have to put up with some complaining, that’s for sure. But Pa wanted me to claim a homestead, although I didn’t want to do it at all. So they’ve done a lot to gain my cooperation. And besides, they’ve seen me chop wood. They know I’ll freeze to death without help.”

Aaron hefted the ax, looked over at sweet Kylie, who got people to do her work for her and mostly made them think she was doing them a favor. And now he was joining the group. The difference was that he knew this wasn’t women’s work, while the rest of her family didn’t have a brain in their heads.

Stalking out of the cabin, he went to swing the door shut when she put a hand on it, stopping him from closing it in her face.

“What are you doing?” He needed to put some space between them, and here she was following him.

“I’m always so lonely. I’m not going to sit in the house while a visitor is so close to hand. That would be a waste of your company.”

Aaron didn’t want her along; at the same time he didn’t want to let her out of his sight. “Come on, then. I see a couple dozen aspens that will give us enough lumber for
the coop, make your front yard larger, and allow a better field of fire. If I cut back the brush a little farther, those varmints who shot at you—if they try it again—will have to stay out of arrow range.”