Wicked Wyoming Nights (6 page)

“I don’t think she likes your red handkerchief,” Cord hollered to Sturgis with the barest hint of a smile. That must have been the case, for the cow kept her baleful eye so firmly fixed on Sturgis, Royce was able to deploy around and wade to shore. “Do you hobble her?” Cord asked, mounting his horse.

“N-no,” Eliza answered with shaking voice. “S-she g-grazes where she c-can.” Cord took her a few hundred yards away and joggled the rope off her horns. Free again, the ungrateful beast trotted away, shaking her head at the men who had rescued her.

“You’ll never be able to go into town looking like that,” Cord said when he got a look at the bedraggled pair.

“I can wash out your clothes,” Eliza offered. “You can wait in the house until they’re dry.”

Sturgis and Royce vacillated, torn between common sense and a desire to put as much distance as possible between themselves and this disastrous female.

Thanks for the offer, Miss Smallwood,” Cord said, amusement dancing in his eyes, “but it seems they have a mind to walk back.” However, it was impossible to trudge twelve miles in their boots, dripping mud and water the whole way, so the boys moved off toward the cabin, dejection showing in every line of their bodies.

Eliza burst out laughing the minute the cabin door closed behind them. It was the one who twisted her tail like a windup toy, like she would moo and give milk.”

“She wasn’t much help, Cord commented, his eyes crinkling in merriment.

“Then she floated like she was already dead,” Eliza wailed helplessly.

A handful of muddy clothes sailed through a narrowly opened door and landed on the porch with a wet plop; suddenly Eliza became aware of Cord’s nearness, and a tightening in her chest put an end to her laughter.

“You really don’t have to wash those clothes.”

“It’s the least I can do after my cow behaved so badly. They did look so nice.” She felt the need to be doing something, and she hurried to gather up the muddy garments.

Minutes later Eliza had the clothes in hot soapy water, but her sense of ease had vanished. She had washed her uncle’s clothes for years, but she no sooner pulled a pair of underwear out of the tub than she was badly jolted by the reality of the boys’ physical presence. Theirs was not an impersonal male body she had known since birth, they were strangers, young and virile, and they were in her cabin stark naked! The clothes seemed to burn her fingers, and she hurried to hang them up, hoping Cord wouldn’t notice her shaking hands.

Eliza wasn’t fearful of Cord, but she was conscious of him in a way that was wholly different from her awareness of any man before, and she found this far more unsettling than ordinary fear. She could understand her uneasiness around the boys, but she couldn’t even begin to unravel the inchoate mass of feelings about Cord that was turning her brain to mush. It was as though she was being lured onward by something that shocked and fascinated her at the same time.

Never before had she been so vitally aware of a man s physical presence, nor could she remember feeling this tug of physical attraction. Now the sheer power of it literally took her breath away. She felt helplessly caught in the toils of something she didn’t understand but which exercised an irresistible attraction over her.

Cord eased the situation by carrying water to the house for the boys’ bath, but once the clothes were hung up and the last of the dirty water dumped into the ditch, Eliza couldn’t avoid his nearness.

“You know, I still don’t know your name.”

“It’s Elizabeth Smallwood,” she replied blushing, “but I’m never called anything but Eliza.”

Eliza timorously raised her eyes from the ground. He certainly was handsome. She didn’t know that she’d thought about it before, but there was no doubt in her mind Cord was her ideal. He was big and powerful, and she felt sure he could protect a girl if he wanted to, yet there was something about him that was vulnerable, something that made her feel he was not quite unapproachable. He was looking rather stern just now, but somehow that drew her to him rather than scared her away.

“Miss Smallwood, those clothes will take some time to dry,” he said with slightly stiff formality, “and I’ve got business in town. Will you tell the boys to join me when they’re dressed.”

“No!” Eliza cried, plummeting from of her daydream with the suddenness of a child tumbling down a haystack. “They can’t stay … I mean, not by themselves … my uncle would be so angry,” she sputtered in a welter of half sentences.

“They won’t bother you again,” he assured her, puzzled by the alarm in her voice.

“You can’t leave them here.”

“But they’re only boys.”

“I couldn’t take … I mean, how will they get … they’re
naked
,” she finally managed to say, gesturing helplessly toward the clothes on the line. Cord smiled.

“I have a better idea. Why don’t you come with me and meet your uncle in town.”

“That would be even worse!” Now he really didn’t understand.

“Then we’ll wait under this tree,” he said, and led Eliza to a bench built around the trunk of a large cottonwood. Settling himself on the ground, he picked up a piece of wood and took out his knife. “What made your uncle decide to come to Wyoming?”

She spoke haltingly at first, but as the minutes passed and Cord continued to whittle quietly, asking just enough questions to keep her talking, she lost her nervousness and began to speak more easily. Her face lost some of its tautness when, laughing at some of her own stories, she told him of the years when her aunt was alive; he understood some of her uncle’s dislike of cowboys when he learned his wife and son had died of scarlet fever brought to Kansas by Texas drovers. It was some minutes before she was calm enough to continue, but Cord whittled silently, allowing her plenty of time to compose herself.

“After that Uncle was too unsettled to stay in one place.”

“You must be a great comfort to him.”

“Uncle Ira doesn’t place much value on girls,” she said without rancor. “Some days I don’t think he even knows I’m here.”

“How could anyone not notice you?”

“He’d notice soon enough if his dinner was late,” she said in a funny, sad way. Cord stood up, sending a shower of thin shavings to the ground; in his hand he held a carved head of Eliza’s milk cow.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “It’s beautiful. How could you do it so quickly?”

“It’s just something I do.”

“But I was chattering all the while. Why didn’t you tell me to be quiet?”

“I like to listen to you,” he said simply.

“That witless cow doesn’t deserve to have her likeness made,” she said, unable to believe anyone would want to hear her talk.

“She’s your cow so you take it,” Cord said, holding the carving out to her. Eliza looked at him, then at the carving, and then back at Cord.

“Do you mean it?”

“Of course.”

“Are you sure you don’t want it for yourself?”

“I’ve got too many. Go ahead. Take it.” When she still hesitated, he took her hands and closed her fingers about the smooth wood.

It’s beautiful,” she sighed, looking up at Cord with a rapturous gaze that caused his pulses to beat a little faster. Could she possibly be the lovely, unspoiled girl she seemed?

“I wonder if the boys’ clothes are dry,” he said, turning his mind from a line of thought that was at once disturbing and intriguing. “They must be tired of being shut up in that cabin.”

Eliza didn’t hear him because Ira was galloping furiously toward them.

It’s only your uncle,” Cord assured her, startled by the fear in her eyes.

“He’ll be so angry.” The color was gone from her face. “You’ve got to leave at once.”

“But the boys—”

“There’s no telling what he’ll do.”

“It’ll be all right once he knows why we’re here.”

“You don’t understand. He hates cowboys.”

“He can’t be too mad, even if he is still angry about yesterday.”

It’s not just that. Uncle gets unreasonable if anyone even mentions cowboys.”

This was hard for Cord to understand, but he soon found Eliza hadn’t overstated the case.

As the horse thundered toward them, Ira slid to the ground and headed for Cord like a cow after its calf.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded furiously. “Isn’t Bear Creek enough for you, or do you want all of Johnson County?” He pulled Eliza behind him without taking his blazing eyes off Cord.

“I only stopped to pull your cow out of the lake.”

“You’re lying, cowboy. There’s no lake here.”

“The rain made one, Uncle,” Eliza said, trying to explain as she stepped from behind her uncle, but Ira pushed her back again. “I couldn’t have gotten her out by myself.”

“She was close to drowning when we happened by,” said Cord.

“What do you mean
we?
” Ira demanded, ignoring the muddy lake he couldn’t deny existed. “You trying to gull me that you aren’t alone with my niece?”

“The other two got covered with mud and I had to wash their clothes. They’re in the cabin.” Eliza pointed to the shirts, pants, and undergarments drying in the sun.

“Do you mean there are naked men in my house? You Jezebel!” Ira grabbed Eliza by the shoulders and shook her so hard she stumbled and struck her cheek against the bench. A second later Ira was lying on the ground with blood running from his mouth.

“Your niece has been in full view of the road the whole time we’ve been here,” Cord informed the dazed man. Then he Wendy removed Eliza’s hand from her face to inspect the ugly bruise, and his eyes blazed with an anger that would have caused his own men to quake. However, Smallwood was beyond heeding danger signals, and he leapt to his feet and ran toward the house. There was a momentary confusion of voices, men a shot rang out and the door almost exploded off its hinges. Royce and Sturgis, naked as the day they were born, hurtled out of the cabin. With a horrified gasp Eliza clamped both hands over her eyes.

Cord reached the house as Smallwood aimed his shotgun at their fleeing buttocks. Catapulting through the air, he encountered Ira just as the rifle went off, and they hit the ground with such bone-jarring force Ira was knocked almost senseless. Cord shook him like a dog with a rag doll, but his pungent curses bounced off Ira’s armor of fury. Realizing Ira couldn’t be reached with words, Cord picked him up, carried him over to the lake, and pitched him in headfirst. The shock of the ice-cold water cooled Ira’s rage with painful rapidity, and he rose to his feet, shaking his head to clear it.

Royce and Sturgis had only one thought in mind when they fled the cabin, to get out of the range of Ira’s shotgun, but once the threat of instant death was removed, they were horrified to find themselves almost on top of Eliza. Even though her hands were tightly pressed over her eyes, they scrambled for their still-damp clothes, scattering clothespins far and wide in their attempts to jump into their pants as they ran.

“Get back to the cabin,” Cord ordered. “I’ll keep him here until you’re dressed.” They looked like they’d rather enter the gates of Hell, but they had no choice unless they wanted to dress in full view of the road. Since they would have spent the rest of the day in the lake rather than be unclad when Eliza opened her eyes, they bolted back to the cabin.

“Are they gone?” Eliza asked in a quavering voice. Cord’s gravity deserted him, and he broke into a shout of laughter. Eliza didn’t know that fewer than a dozen people had ever heard Cord laugh, but she was too dazed to care; her uncle, muddy and humiliated, felt no amusement either.

“Get off my land,” Ira snarled, wiping the mud from his eyes, “and take those fools with you.”

“Well be off as soon as we can.” Cord glanced at Eliza, but didn’t speak to her. Her situation was difficult enough without his adding to it. “I’d see about putting a fence around that sink if you’re meaning to settle here. We get heavy rains right often.”

“I don’t give a damn what happens to that cow!” Ira bellowed. Cord shrugged indifferently, and fortunately for Eliza, who was looking ready to faint, the boys emerged from the cabin and made straight for their horses.

“Thank you for helping me,” she said, defying her uncle’s wrath. The boys mumbled their response without looking back.

“Good day, Miss Smallwood,” Cord said. He glanced uncertainly at her uncle before riding after the boys.

“I go to town to see about making a decent living, and what do I find when I get back?” stormed Ira. “You have one cowboy acting like he’s courting you and two more naked in the house. You couldn’t blame folks if they took you for a hussy.”

“I couldn’t let them go off wet and muddy,” Eliza protested, “not after they rescued my cow?

“You should have let the damned cow drown, you stupid girl,” he hollered, pushing her before him toward the house. “You quiver and shake every time I mention helping out in the saloon, yet you sit here talking to Mr. Big Britches just as bold as you please.”

Eliza tried to explain once more, but her uncle wouldn’t listen.

“Maybe if you pretend the customers are Stedman and his hands, you can curl up in their laps. That ought bring the cowboys from miles around. Now get inside and get my dinner ready.”