Authors: Sarah McCarty
That shot hit home. He didn’t have much to say to that, and she
didn’t have much follow-up, which just left them sitting there on their
respective bedrolls, side by side, on their honeymoon with nowhere to go. As the
minutes passed, so did Caden’s anger. Her touch on his arm, the slide of her
fingers down the inside of his wrist, her fingers meshing with his before giving
a gentle squeeze polished off the last of it. He squeezed back. They did all
right when they weren’t talking.
“Maddie—”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t start talking. Don’t start hating me.” She made a
cutting motion with her hand. “Just don’t.”
“I don’t understand why you did what you did.”
She shrugged. “If it helps, neither do I.”
He sighed and put his arm around her shoulder. She jumped as he
pulled her to his side, sitting as stiff as a spinster. As if she didn’t know
what to do, what to make of it. Of him. And probably she didn’t.
“Haven’t you ever cuddled with a man before, Maddie?”
Her hair rustled against the cotton of his shirt as she shook
her head.
Shit. “Never?”
“I never had a beau.”
A beau. A quaint term for what for most was part of growing up.
He thought of the firsts that came with a beau—first grown-up dress, first
courtship. First kiss. First love. First broken heart.
Truth was, he didn’t have much contact with above-stairs girls,
but enough of them married and left the business that they had to fit romance in
there somewhere. “No one ever came calling? Wanted to take you out?”
She shook her head again. He couldn’t imagine it. Prostitute or
not, some man must have wanted Maddie.
“No one?”
She sat as stiff as a board under his arm. As if each word were
glass dragging across her tongue, she whispered, “Men don’t cuddle whores.”
She’d come to a lot of conclusions about what men did and
didn’t do over her eighteen years. There was a time when he’d told himself she
was too young for him. Now he wasn’t so sure. That much bad living left a woman
with scars too deep for a younger man to handle.
“Maybe that’s true, but I didn’t ask about whores. I asked
about you.”
She shrugged and looked down. “It’s one and the same.”
He tipped her chin up. She still managed to avoid his gaze. He
didn’t let that deter him. “No, it’s not.”
She grabbed his wrist, holding on tightly. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
She shook her head. In her eyes he could see the glint of
tears. “Please don’t make fun of me this way. I know you’re mad, but please,
don’t pretend you see me as I’m not.”
See her as she wasn’t? She was begging him not to humiliate
her. Son of a bitch. How had he let things get this bad?
“I’m not trying to upset you, Maddie.”
“I know. You’re just working it out in your mind.”
“Working what out?”
She clasped her hands in her lap. “The fact that you don’t have
to worry with me. It’s all right.”
“What’s all right?”
She shrugged. “Whatever you want to do.”
She thought he was working around to giving in to his baser
instincts. He tried to imagine that. What it was like to sit with a stranger and
watch him decide you didn’t deserve respect. That you were there for his use,
however he saw fit. To do with as he saw fit.
“Maddie—”
She cut him off. “All men do it. Even the decent ones.”
He guessed it could be difficult for a man looking at Maddie’s
sweetness to be all right with releasing the animal in him. But he bet they all
managed.
“They’re the worst.” She shrugged. “It just takes them a little
longer.”
“For what?”
She looked away. He could actually see her withdrawal.
“To do whatever it is they want to do. Sexually.”
He’d called her a whore to her face, then argued with her when
she said she wasn’t worth anything because he’d expected her to see herself as
something. Yet her whole life she’d sat waiting to be shown the opposite.
Fuck.
From the time she was eight, she’d been learning that lesson.
With every customer the madam had sent up, she’d been taught she was worthless.
He tried to imagine her at eight. How sweet and innocent she’d have looked. How
innocent she’d have been. It was all too easy to imagine that. What was hard was
imagining any man looking at her at that tender age and seeing a woman.
“But they always gave in, didn’t they?”
She nodded. He caught her chin on his finger and focused her
eyes back to his. It wasn’t as easy as usual. She was ashamed. “You give me
their names and I’ll handle it.”
“There’s nothing to handle. They paid their money.”
And bought her soul.
“Give me their names, Maddie.”
Her whisper was barely audible. “I don’t remember them
all.”
“Then give me the ones you do.”
They’d have to have been real memorable for her to hold their
names close.
“Jasper Mason.”
One name, just one, but said with such hatred he didn’t ask if
he was a happy memory. “What does Jasper Mason look like?”
She glanced up, her eyes big with doubt, as if she’d long since
accepted no one would ever fight for her. “You’d kill him for me?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“You don’t know what he did.”
“I know.”
Her hand slid across her lap, fingertips skimming material and
skin, touching his fingers, sliding up over his hand, encircled his wrist before
settling against the inside, connecting them in a tenuous grip. “He’s evil.”
“Describe him to me.”
“Tall, a little shorter than you. Long blond hair, light blues
eyes and a bushy mustache.” She shuddered as if assaulted by a bad taste. “He
always carries a quirt. His horses are always marked up.” Again she looked away.
“He liked me.”
“Did he use that quirt on you, Maddie?”
She didn’t answer. He didn’t need her to. A man who marked his
horses wouldn’t hesitate to mark a woman. He cradled her cheek in his hand,
pulling her against his chest. Holding her close, thinking of all those years
she’d needed him and he hadn’t been there. Thinking of her at Culbart’s, needing
him again.
“You don’t want me now.”
There was only one way to respond to that small-voiced
statement.
“I always want you. Why do you think I stayed away from Hell’s
Eight so much?”
She didn’t look up. “Because you’re restless.”
He snorted. “Wanting you made me restless.”
She shook her head. “It’s not the same.”
He kissed the top of her head and debated how much to confess.
He finally settled on everything. “I have the same baser instincts as every
other man, Maddie, but I want you to understand something.”
“What?”
He tipped her chin up, not saying a word until her gaze met
his. “When I look at you, I don’t see a whore.”
She blinked. “But you do see a traitor.”
Hell, did he? “I don’t know what the hell I see you as, Maddie,
but it’s not a whore and it’s not a traitor, and that pisses me off.”
“Why?”
Such a simple question to raise such turmoil in him. “Because I
used to know exactly who you were, and I was comfortable with that.” The insight
came out of nowhere, but as soon as he said it, Caden realized that it was the
truth. He wasn’t mad at Maddie for being caught up in circumstances that she
couldn’t control. He wasn’t mad at her for her past. He was mad at her because
she wasn’t who he’d decided she should be, and he didn’t know what to do with
her.
“I’m still your wife.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“You can change that, though, right?”
“I expect so.”
Silence for a bit and then, “So you don’t have to be mad at me
for that.”
“No. I don’t have to be mad at you for that.” He could barely
see her in the dark, and he had a feeling now was a really good time to be able
to see Maddie’s eyes.
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I don’t want you mad at me.”
“Why did you follow me, Maddie?”
“Because I don’t belong to Hell’s Eight, either.”
That was news.
“But you were safe there.”
She nodded. “Yes. And Tia and Desi and Ari and Bella and
everybody have been very kind to me, made me very strong, taught me what I need
to know.”
She played with the ruffle on her pantaloons.
“But?” He let his finger drop from her chin to her shoulder,
his palm naturally cupping the curve.
“Now I know who I want to be. I know how I want to be. I just
don’t know where I want to be it.” It should have been said with tension.
“You sound excited.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I am.”
She scooted off his lap to kneel before him. It was an
unconsciously seductive pose his cock fully appreciated. “Caden, my whole life
I’ve been locked in a room, locked in a name.” She shook her head. “I’m not
locked in anymore. Tia says I can be whatever I want. Bella says I can do
whatever I want, but I don’t even know what there is
to
want.”
“You don’t have to risk your life in Indian country to find out
what you want, Maddie mine.”
“I know now. I just didn’t think any of this would happen. I
was just going to follow you, catch up.” She shrugged. “Have an adventure.”
“If I’d known you were back there, you would have been
safe.”
She shook her head again. “Culbart’s men just came out of
nowhere. One minute I was alone on the trail and the next they were all around
me.”
He caught her chin on his finger again, drew her face back to
his, shifted more so that the faint light from the fire rippled across her
features.
“Did they hurt you, Maddie?”
She shook her head. “No.”
A man could take that no at face value unless he knew a woman’s
past.
“Did they touch you?”
“Not really.”
“There’s a whole lot of room for wrong in that ‘not
really.’”
“They dragged me around a bit by the arm, put me on a horse
behind somebody else and rode back to the ranch.”
“And what happened when you got there?”
She looked at him and her eyes went blank. “Culbart threw a
welcome-home party. It was very sweet of him. I haven’t seen Uncle Frank in
ages.”
Fuck. He was going to kill Culbart. A party? What kind of
party?
“That’s nice, Maddie.”
“It was.”
He could believe she was totally lost in her pretending unless
he looked down at her hands. Her short nails were digging into her skin.
Whatever was going on in her mind wasn’t as pleasant as a welcome-home party
thrown by a loving uncle.
“Maddie.”
“Yes?”
“Come here, honey.”
He opened his arms and in a heartbeat she went, her hands
slipping around his neck, her chin going instinctively to his shoulder as if it
belonged there. Hell. She fit his arms as if she belonged there. He held her
close, feeling the tension inside her draw tighter.
“I’m glad you liked your party.”
That tension started to dissipate. Maybe there were times it
wasn’t so bad to go along with her delusions. He rested his cheek on her hair.
She felt so small in his arms, so soft. A woman who’d gotten shit her whole life
but deserved love. He waited a good ten minutes before she relaxed. That was
because, he realized belatedly, that was how long it’d taken to feel safe.
Shit.
“I’m ready,” she whispered against his throat.
It was his turn to blink. “For what?”
Her fingers went to work on the buttons of his shirt. “For our
wedding night.”
He was dog tired, and from those circles under her eyes, so was
she, but she was ready to do her duty, let him give in to his base nature, let
him do whatever he wanted. He remembered the way she said that. The disgust for
those men, the loathing for herself.
He stilled her hands.
“Well, I’m ready for something else.”
Ace was right. Maddie was sweet and she’d never had a choice.
But she was his wife. A man owed his wife a hell of a lot more than a choice. He
owed her passion. Security. Tenderness. Respect. Love.
“Would you be terribly hurt, Maddie mine, if instead of—” He
waved his hand. What word did a man use that wasn’t crude?
“Fucking?” she asked.
He winced. “I’m sorry I used that word with you.”
“It’s all right.”
No, it wasn’t. “Ah, Maddie, come here.”
He pulled her close and then leaned sideways, taking them down,
her on top. As she lay there stiff as a board, he grabbed the blanket and pulled
it over them. The night air was fast cooling. With pressure on the back of her
head he tucked her face into his neck. She didn’t resist. Not then and not as he
dragged her thigh over his and her arm across his chest and settled his head on
the back of a rolled-up blanket he was using as a pillow.
“What are you doing?”
“Going to sleep.”
“You don’t want to—”
“Give in to my baser instincts? No. But let me know when you
want to make love.”
She didn’t have a thing to say to that then or an hour later,
but when her breathing evened out and her body relaxed as she finally drifted
off, he didn’t care. A woman only slept in the arms of a man she trusted. Caden
brushed his lips over the top of her head, tangling his fingers in her hair,
holding on, matching his breaths to hers, smiling as he fell asleep.
CHAPTER NINE
T
HEY
WEREN
’
T
ALONE
.
Caden came awake instantly, his senses straining to catch any
clue as to what had awakened him. Beside him, Maddie dozed. Across the fire he
could see Ace, from all appearances still asleep. From the angle of the moon,
they were three hours from dawn. Sliding his free hand under the blanket, Caden
pulled his revolver clear. There was a blankness of sound to the north end of
the campsite. Even the crickets were quiet. Whatever the threat was, it was
located there.
“Ace,” he whispered under his breath. If Ace weren’t awake, he
wouldn’t have heard the call.
The response was immediate and just as soft. “I’m on it.”
Years of working together hunting bounties had made Ace and
Caden a team. Caden heard him slide out of the bedroll. A shadow amid shadows.
Caden eased Maddie’s arm from across his chest and slipped out from under his
own blankets. When her eyes opened, he covered her mouth with his hand. She
jumped and instinctively struggled. He shook his head. When she was fully awake,
he placed a finger over her lips, and bringing his mouth to her ear, he
breathed, “Don’t move until I tell you to.”
She nodded, eyes big.
Caden eased back, careful not to snap any sticks or otherwise
give away his location. He knew Ace was doing the same. It could just be a bear.
The intruders could be Indians or claim jumpers. There was only one way to find
out. He knew Ace was working his way around the right flank of whatever was out
there. Caden’s job was to cover the center, draw them in. Only this time Maddie
was in the center. Confident no one lurked by the fallen log, Caden crept back
to Maddie. She’d pulled on her dress. They’d talk about that later. After giving
her another sign to keep quiet, he motioned her behind him. Shielding her with
his body, he backed them into the shadows. With a touch to her shoulders, he
indicated she should lie down beside the log. It was the best cover he could
find.
Clearly terrified, she propped herself up on her elbows and
mouthed,
What is it?
He kissed her quickly just because. “Push up tight to that and
wait for me. And this time
don’t move.
”
She scooched down. He could barely make out the glint of her
eyes in the dark. Satisfied, he nodded. The log wasn’t perfect, but it would be
some protection if bullets started flying.
The crickets stopped chirping over to the left. Ace had gone
right.
With one last graze of his knuckles down Maddie’s cheek, Caden
faded back into the night. He was willing to bet his last dollar that an attack
like this was perpetrated by white men. He smelled them before he saw them, the
acrid scent of stale sweat and whiskey broadcasting the accuracy of his guess.
He slipped his knife from its sheath and set it between his teeth before
grabbing the young sapling in front of him and pulling it back. The man walked
like a bull in a china shop, twigs crackling under his feet, scuffing his boot
along the ground. Not a professional killer, then. More likely a claim
jumper.
Shit.
He was hoping to have more time. The man was just a darker
shadow among the shadows. Caden let the sapling go. It made a rustling sound
before it slapped the man in the face. With a shout he stumbled back, arms
flailing. Caden jumped him before he could recover.
Someone yelled from across the campfire, “Did you get ’em,
Burt?”
Caden drew the knife across the man’s throat, feeling skin and
tendon give. Blood spurted. Burt wasn’t going to be answering anyone. He let the
man drop and moved on, picking his quarry from the darker shadows moving between
the trees.
Panic started among the attackers at Burt’s lack of response.
They started calling to each other, giving away their position. There were four,
maybe five of them. All scared. Wanting contact to bolster their courage. They
were in the wrong profession. A man who went hunting at night couldn’t count on
safety in numbers.
The man looking for Burt called out again, fear pitching his
voice an octave higher. The yell ended midshout. Caden smiled and wiped the
knife blade on the dead man’s pants. Ace was doing his part. Ducking back into
the shadows, Caden leaned against a tree and studied the situation. The claim
jumpers had the campsite surrounded. Which meant they were all around Maddie. He
remembered the terror in her eyes, her trust when he’d tucked her away. Fuck.
She’d better keep put. She’d be fine as long as she kept put.
Like a voice from a bad dream, one of the claim jumpers called
out, “Stranger.”
He supposed “stranger” was him. Instead of coming out, he
started working around toward that voice.
“Come on out.”
Like hell.
“Do it now, stranger, or your lady friend’s going to have
another hole in her.”
Maddie! He kept silent.
“You thinking I don’t have her? Give your man a shout, sweet
thing.”
He heard Maddie cry out in pain. A high-pitched sound that
brought him up straight. And then there was the sound of a man grunting in pain
and Maddie’s panicked “Run, Caden!”
She was fighting them to give him time to escape? Who the hell
asked her to do that! As he pushed away from the tree, Caden heard the distinct
sound of a fist connecting with flesh.
“Maddie,” he whispered, knowing what that sound meant.
The next sound he heard was a groan.
Goddamn... Maddie!
“If you don’t want me cutting off one of her pretty little
fingers, you’ll come out now, mister.”
“I’m coming.” But not that fast, and not without buying Ace as
much time as he could.
“I’m going to start counting,” the claim jumper warned.
Caden walked through the woods until he reached the clearing.
It was just a few steps. He could see Maddie standing in the firelight, her
shadow blending with another, her yellow skirts wrapping around his legs. She
was holding her cheek. He could see the darker stain of blood on her jaw. Rage
flared hot before settling into icy resolve. Just five minutes ago, she’d been
asleep in his arms, her soft breath blowing over his skin, and now she was in
the arms of scum, scared out of her wits. It was the way of things out here.
Survival was for those who had the strength to maintain their position, and
Maddie didn’t have any strength at all. She depended on him and he’d failed her.
He wouldn’t again.
“Did you find out his name, Maddie?” he asked, keeping his
voice calm.
She shook her head.
“Drop your guns, mister. Right there in the dirt.”
He never dropped his guns in the dirt. Caden bent down and
slowly placed his revolver on a rock. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll add him to the
list anyway.”
“And that knife, too.”
What was the guy, a cat? He could see in the dark?
Caden set the knife down beside his revolver.
“Now stand up and put your hands over your head.”
It was a plus they hadn’t shot him on sight. He did, tucking
them behind his neck.
“What do you want?”
The man was holding Maddie by her chin and throat, practically
lifting her off the ground without a care to her comfort. He was going to pay
for that.
“Well, we came for the gold, but now we got us a bonus. He’ll
pay extra for her alive.”
“Who?”
“None of your business.”
“Someone sent you here for my wife but not my gold?”
“He wants both. But we’re not fools. The gold’s ours.”
Who the hell was “he”? “There is no gold.”
“Don’t play dumb. We checked around. Rumor has it there’s a lot
of gold here.”
“Rumor has it there’s a lot of gold everywhere.”
The knife sheathed between his shoulder blades grew heavier and
heavier with every moment. His fingers twitched with the need to grab the hilt.
It would be so easy to kill the leader, just let the blade fly. Except the way
Maddie was wiggling, he couldn’t risk the shot.
He brushed his fingers over the hilt. In time. “Maddie,” he
drawled, getting her attention. “Let me handle this.”
She slowly subsided. The leader pulled her higher. Caden
waited. Sooner or later the man would mess up. “If you let her go, I might let
you live.”
It was an outright lie. That man was going to die as painfully
as Caden could arrange. Nobody came into his camp and threatened his woman and
tried to take his property.
The man laughed, his rotted teeth showing behind his overgrown
beard. “Hardly. I haven’t had anything this sweet in ages.”
More shadows came out of the dark. One, two, three, four. They
were definitely outnumbered.
“No sense putting up a fight. You’re a bit outnumbered.”
So he was, but of those shadows that came close to the fire,
none of them was Ace.
“I’ll ask again. What do you want?”
“And I’ll tell you again. The gold and the woman.”
“There is no gold.”
“Come morning, we’ll be finding that out. Gordon, come hog-tie
this man.”
A lean man whose stench was bigger than his body came over, gun
trained on him, and grabbed him by the arm, yanking him forward. Caden pretended
to stumble, going with the push. It never hurt for the enemy to believe you were
weaker than you were. Gordon shoved him up against the nearest tree.
“Stand there.”
Caden stood.
“Check him for weapons first.”
The man checked his boot tops and pulled out a knife. He
checked out his other boot and pulled out a derringer. He ran his hands up his
sides, checked his pockets and pulled out assorted necessities. He checked his
wrists, found nothing.
“Next time you go hunting in the dark, you might want to grab
your gun belt.”
“I’ll remember that.”
They grabbed his hands, put them behind his back up against the
tree. The knife between his shoulder blades bruised the bone. Carelessness, pure
carelessness not to check to see if he had one at the top of his back as well as
the bottom, but he wasn’t going to lecture them on it. Instead of tying his
hands behind his back, the man punched him in the gut. Nausea pounded through
his stomach right along with the pain. He didn’t have to fake doubling over and
gagging. That was real enough.
“Leave him alone!” Maddie called, struggling in her attacker’s
arms.
His “Be quiet, Maddie” ended with a grunt as Gordon brought his
fist down on his back.
Maddie did no such thing. She clawed at the man’s hands,
snapping at his arm with her teeth, her hair flaring about her face as she
fought like a wild thing.
“Keep still, bitch, or I’ll put a bullet in your lover.”
She froze with that particular stillness about her that told
him she was slipping away. Fuck. No telling what Maddie was going to do when she
slipped away.
Caden watched as Maddie changed before his eyes from terrified
woman to confident seductress. The transition was eerie in its seamlessness.
“Did you gentlemen come to have a good time?” she asked in a sweet, sultry
voice.
The gentleman didn’t answer her. He knew why. He was having the
same what-the-hell moment.
“There’s no need to be rough on the other patrons. There’s
plenty to go around.” Reaching out, she stroked her fingers down Alan’s
beard-roughened cheek. “I can handle all you’ve got.”
A tall, skinny man with a hooked nose backed up. “Christ,
you’ve got one that ain’t right in the head. I ain’t touching no crazy woman.
They’re cursed.”
“You’re a chickenshit, Skeeter, to give up pussy over
superstition.”
“Fuck, I’ll touch that any way she comes, right in the head or
not,” the man restraining Caden called out.
“You’ll wait your turn, Gordon.”
“I’ll take Skeeter’s.”
“You’re not going to take anything, Gordon, until you tie that
bastard up.”
Gordon grabbed up the leather strings from his belt. “Shit.
Don’t start without me.”
“I’m not waiting.”
Alan grabbed Maddie’s breasts through her dress and squeezed
hard. Skeeter grabbed at Caden’s wrist, missing the first time because he was
watching what his friends were doing rather than Caden.
“You like that, huh?” Alan squeezed again. Maddie moaned and
melted into his hands.
“Oh.”
Just that.
Oh.
But Caden was
willing to bet every man’s cock jumped.
Alan let her go and laughed over his shoulder at Caden.
“You came out of the woods for a goddamn whore?”
Caden snarled under his breath, “I came for her.”
“Must be a damn good lay. Open that dress, let me see those
titties, pretty.”
Maddie smiled a seductive smile and turned around. Every eye
was upon her. Caden just needed their attention to slip a bit further.
As if she heard his thought, Maddie started to sway, just a
little, as if there was music in the night that only she could hear. Her fingers
toyed with the ties on her camisole. The strings slid though her fingers in a
silky glide that made a man think of those fingers on his cock.
“Of course.” Maddie started unbuttoning her bodice without an
inch of modesty or hesitation. Caden had a glimpse of the woman he’d accused her
of being. He didn’t recognize her. She took a step to the side, turning so
slightly all he could see was her back, but that little seductive sway as she
was unbuttoning was damn potent and he could only imagine what the rest were
feeling. As much as he needed their attention diverted, this price was too high.
And then he noticed something else. That little move put her directly in the
line of fire. She was sacrificing herself for him. Again.
“Goddamn it, Maddie.”
“I’ll be with you in just a minute, Caden. I just need to take
care of these gentlemen first. They seem very... hungry.”
The filth spilling from her mouth in that sweet singsong voice
made Caden want to puke. Maddie shrugged and the dress fell off her shoulders,
revealing her undone camisole beneath. She hadn’t had time to button it back
up.