"Dammit, you can just wait until morning!" Jamie said irritably. He
stood, tossing the last of his coffee into a bush.
Then he strode away, disappearing into the darkness. Tess cast a quick
glance toward Jori.
"What's the matter with him?"
Jon shrugged.
"I don't know. You'll have to find out yourself." He stood and
stretched.
"Ladies, I suggest an early night."
"He's gone off on his own!" Tess said indignantly. "He's taking first
guard," Jon said softly.
"I'm going to bed," Dolly announced.
"Tess, now you come, too."
Jori was dragging his saddle and blanket to the fire. He stretched out
and closed his eyes, setting his hat over his face. Dolly headed for the
wagon.
Tess hesitated, then decided to go after Jamie.
She heard Jon rise as she moved into the bushes, and she swore softly,
certain that he would follow her. He did. But before he could reach her,
a hand snaked out for her, catching her arm, swinging her around. She
tossed back her head and met Jamie's angry eyes. She wrenched free from
his grasp.
For safety's sake, she took a step backward.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
"Looking for you."
"I told you not to run around in the dark!"
"But you" -- "Miss. Stuart, from now on, you're taking orders from me.
And from now on, you listen. And if I hear one more crack out of you
about my being a Yank just like von Heusen, I'll tan your backside until
it's the color of a Comanche. Are we understood?"
"No!" she snapped indignantly.
He took a single step toward her. In the near darkness, his eyes seemed
to glitter with a menacing light.
She decided that she wasn't going to tempt fate any further that
evening.
She didn't think he made idle threats.
She turned and fled.
Jon was standing not far from the camp fire. He had seen her reach
Jamie.
She slowed her pace as she saw him. She smiled pleasantly and wished him
good night. "Good night, Tess," he told her.
She crawled into the wagon. Dolly was already softly snoring. Tess
unhooked her shoes. Closing the cover of the wagon, she stripped down to
her chemise and pantalets. She crawled into her bunk, closed her eyes
and made every effort to sleep. Her heart was still pounding, and she
didn't know if it was with vexation or excitement. He wanted her
property, not her person, she reminded herself. Then how could he seem
to insinuate so much that seemed sensual when they talked about dry
land? And then, of course, he could change so quickly. Lose his temper
over simple words when he could tease so long himself. She didn't
understand, but he was occupying more and more of her mind. And more and
more of her heart.
It was light when she awoke. Dolly was already up. Tess quickly slipped
into her dusty brown dress for the second day on the trail. She tied her
shoes and slipped from 115 the wagon. She could smell coffee brewing
already, and something was cooking in a frying pan.
She could hear voices by the fire. Jori and Dolly, she determined. She
started around the wagon then held Still.
Jamie, bare-chested, in only his boots and jeans, was shaving. His
mirror was leaning against the steps at the front of the wagon, his
shaving mug was on the second step, and he was wielding a straight razor
against his cheeks.
Apparently he caught sight of her in the mirror. He nicked himself and
scowled deeply at her. She should have walked by. She could not. She
smiled, enjoying the sight of him so. He had wonderful shoulders, broad
and very bronze. He was nearly as dark as Jori, with powerfully bunched
muscles in his arms and chest, and hard, unyielding ones at his lean
waist. She swallowed suddenly. She'd seen lots of men bare-chested. The
hands often stripped off their shirts after a long day and doused
themselves with water at the troughs. Jamie Slater's chest was
different. She couldn't look at him and wonder if the herd was doing
well. She looked at him and wondered what his flesh would feel like
beneath her fingers.
Maybe he read her mind. Maybe her thoughts were obvious in her eyes.
They were still locked with his in the mirfof.
She prayed for motion then and she managed to move her feet and hurry
past him to the fire. "Fish!" she said delightedly.
"Freshwater fish, just wonderful," Dolly supplied happily.
"Jon, you're wonderful!" Tess claimed.
"Oh, I didn't catch these. Jamie did," he told her casually.
Dolly passed Tess a plate.
"I'm taking a walk to the brook with a few of the utensils. I'll be
right back." "Thanks, Dolly," Tess said. Dolly winked. Jon smiled at
Tess as she hungrily ate her fish.
"Coffee?" he asked her.
"Please." He handed her a mug, then said something about finishing the
harness.
She was left alone with a beautiful, early morning sun and the delicious
food and coffee. She set down her plate and took a long swallow of
coffee.
She closed her eyes, inhaled the aroma and felt the heat. When she
opened her eyes, Jamie was standing before her.
"Miss. Stuart, you might want to hurry along a little. The rest of us
have been up a while now, and I'm ready to ride.
We can make Wiltshire by tomorrow if we keep moving." She gazed up at
his newly shaven face. All the planes and angles were handsome, smooth
and rugged all at once-- masculine ... and still belligerent. It was
war, she thought.
She sighed softly.
"Why, Lieutenant, I, at least, am fully clothed.
And I do promise that I can finish this coffee and the fish before you
can be dressed and ready to ride."
" Then let's see it, huh?"
He started to walk by her.
"Oh, Lieutenant," she called. "What?"
"You're bleeding, sir. There seems to be a--a gash right at the tip of
your chin. Have you been Shaving long, sir?"
"Longer than you've been wearing a corset, Miss. Stuart. A whole lot
longer," he told her pleasantly. That time, when he stepped by, she
quickly leaped to her feet, finished her coffee and, as quickly and
delicately as possible, peeled the last of her fish from the bone. She
glanced over her shoulder.
He was buttoning the last button of his shirt.
She cast the last drop of coffee and bit of food into the ashes of the
camp fire and raced for the steps to the driver's seat of the wagon.
She made it just as he rode up on his roan.
"I won," she told him.
"At best--and that's if I'm in the mood to be cavalier-- it was a tie,
Miss. Stuart."
"At best for you, Lieutenant."
He smiled.
"Half of your acreage, Tess."
"A quarter."
"That remains to be seen," he told her, riding close.
"But then, a lot of things remain to be seen, don't they?" He nudged
Lucifer and rode to the rear of the wagon.
&
nbsp; "Jon, you ready?
Where's Dolly?"
"Here, here, I am coming, I do declare, the rush you boys get yourselves
into! I was just down at the brook, cleaning up the pans, and there you
are, riding off without me."
"Dolly! We'd never ride off without you!" Jamie promised her solemnly.
"Never," Jon echoed.
"But times awastin', Dolly," Jamie said.
"And suddenly, I'm just darned eager to reach Wiltshire."
Dolly climbed onto the wagon. Tess lifted the reins against the mules,
and they were under way again.
By late afternoon of the following day they had reached the outskirts of
Wiltshire. Then Tess gave the directions to her home, a large ranch
outside of town.
Tess held the reins. As the house came into view, she saw Jamie pull in
on his big roan and stare. He glanced her way.
"That's it? That's your--ranch?"
"That's it."
He started to laugh suddenly, looking at Jon. Then he spurred the roan
and raced toward the house. Tess flicked the reins and hurried after him
with the rumbling wagon. The house was magnificent. Joe had put years
and years of work into the sprawling, two-story ranch house. There were
two large barns to the left and a large red carriage house to the right.
The vegetable garden, lush with summer, could be seen behind the house.
The paddocks, stretching before and behind, seemed to go on forever.
Horses, her uncle's prize thoroughbreds, roamed in the paddocks, the
yeaifs foals seeming to dance alongside their mothers.
Tess knew about the weathered paint on the fine old house, however.
Since the war, nothing much had been done. They had considered
themselves lucky to hang on to the property once the battles had ended
and the dust had died down. There were floorboards on the blue~-gray
porch that needed to be mended, and Tess thought that if Jamie Slater
looked long and hard at the velvet drapes in the parlor, he would see
the material was old and fraying.
In the past few years, all their efforts had gone into their battles
with von Heusen.
She drove the wagon hetwcen the paddocks toward the house. Jamie and Jon
were far ahead of her. They'd reached the clearing before the house, and
Jamie was turning around on the huge roan, looking at everything around
him.
He was still amusd. A--and pleased.
He must have thought I was a potato farmer and that he bartered himself
for a few dusty acres! Tess decided. Well, he should be pleased.
The front door burst open as the wagon reached the clearing. Hank Riley,
Joe's foreman, came hurrying down the st~s, followed by Janey Holloway,
who had worked for them since Tess had begun to work at the paper. Hank
was as tall and skinny as a young oak sapling, with a weathered face so
browned and crinkled that he sometimes looked like an Indian. Janey was
young and plump and pretty, with sandy hair and soft gray eyes.
Jane stared from Jamie to the wagon, then screamed with joy, clutching
her heart when she saw Tess. Hank didn't make a sound. He came hurrying
down the steps of the porch and over to the wagon and reached right up,
catching hold of Tess and swinging her down. He lifted her up and swung
her around again, a smile crinkling his face to 119 even greater depths.
"Tess! The Lord be praised, but that man told us you were dead!"
"I'm not dead, Hank, I'm fine." Hank had set her down. Jane was crying
softly.
"Jane!" Tess took the young woman in her arms to comfort her.
"It's all right! I'm here. I'm alive, I'm well!"
"Oh, Miss. Tess! Miss. Tess, it's just so wonderful to see you! He said
he was coming back tonight~ and at first we thought that you were him
coming back a little early. He had the sheriff with him, you see, and he
said as how everyone had heard that both you and your uncle had been
killed in an Indian raid, and that the land would go up for public
auction. Hank and me and the hands were to clear out. Well, the hands
could stay on until the actual auction, but" She paused, gasping for
breath.
Hank, casting a curious glance toward Jamie and Jori, continued the
story indignantly.
"He said that since Jane and I might think ourselves too close to the
family, we'd have to get out before we started stealing property from
the deceased!"
"He--who the hell is he?" Jamie demanded, dismounting.
Hank frowned, not about to answer the question until he had a signal
from Tess.
"Well, Miss. Tess, I'll answer him about who the hell he is--once this
fellow tells me who the hell he is himself!"
Jamie's eyes narrowed, and his face started to look like thunder.
"Hank," Tess said quickly.
"This is Lieutenant Jamie Slater, he's with the cavalry. And Mr. Jon Red
Feather..
Hank, they've been gracious enough to see me home"--" Then Joe really is
dead," Hank said miserably.
She nodded.
He swallowed hard, looking into the distance.
"I'd kinda hoped, seeing you and all ... Then he really did get it from
the Indians."
"No. From von Heusen."
"Him again," Hank muttered.
"He--him," Jamie interjected.
"Axe we, or are we not, talking about von Heusen all the way around
here?"
"Of course!" Tess stated firmly.
"You mean to tell me," Jamie said, striding toward Hank, "that this yon
Heusen has already been here, telling you that the property is going to
go up for public auction in lieu of being granted to legitimate heirs?"
"Yep, something like that."
"Just like a vulture," Jon commented. "Well, he'll be back," Hank
promised.
"Soon enough.
You'll get to meet him."
Dolly, still on the wagon, cleared her throat.
"Oh, Dolly!" Jamie exclaimed apologetically. He hurried around to help
her down. Dolly smiled and took Hank's hand firmly.
"I'm Dolly Simmons, Hank. Nice to make your acquaintance. And you, too,
young lady. Jane, isn't it?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"A fine name, a fine name. And I'm mighty parched. Perhaps we could go
inside and have ourselves a sip of something."
"Yes, let's!" Tess said.
She started for the house. Jon dismounted and looped his pinto's reins
around the hitching post in front of the house.
Tess was halfway up the stairs before she realized that Jamie hadn't
moved.
He was still standing with the roan's reins in his hands.
"Jamie, come in, please," she said politely. A bit distantly
perhaps--they were still involved in their fierce, personal battle.
"We'll see to the wagon later. Hank and the boys will help."
He shook his head, looking at Hank, not her.
"That the trail to follow into town?" he asked, pointing toward the
road.
"Yep, that's it."
"Where's the action congregate around here?" Hank was smiling but
curious.
"Why, the Bennington saloon. The best card games in town go on there,
the best whiskey flows there, and the best girls" -- He paused, glancing
quickly toward the ladies.
"Well, Lieutenant, the best entertainment in town can be found there,
too."
Jamie nodded. Smiling at Tess, he told her, "I think that I'll take a
ride in."
"Now?" she demanded. The best entertainment in town! Von Heusen was
expected at the house, and he was about to ride off to enjoy himself
with a dance-hall gift! "No time like the present."
"But von Heusen is going to come here!"
"I don't want to meet Mr. yon Heusen. Not just yet." He swung up on his
horse and glanced at Jon. Tess tried hard to follow his gaze. Something
passed between them, like cons of words, and yet it all happened in a
few seconds.
Jori was staying with her. And still, she was furious. Jamie was
demanding half her land and he wouldn't even stay around to meet his
adversary.
"Lieutenant, if you head into town, perhaps you should stay there for
the night," she snapped. They all stared at her. She had to control her
temper.
She had to quit caring.
He grinned, "Why, Miss. Stuart, do you think there'll be enough there to
keep me occupied all night?"
"I imagine, Lieutenant, that that is entirely up to you. Do what you
feel you must."
She turned her back on him as quickly as she could. He was a free man,
she thought furiously. He could do whatever he wanted to do, drink
himself silly, consort with whores, gamble his life away. He sure as
hell wasn't going to do it on her property, though!
He was going to do it, though. He didn't even enter the house, but
turned and rode away. Tess tried very hard to look back, not to let
anyone see that her eyes had misted with her are and frustration.
Damned Yank. Damned Yank.
"It's a nice place you've got here," Jon complimented as they entered
the house.
"Beautiful!" Dolly exclaimed.
It wasn't exactly beautiful, Tess thought. But it was nice, and it was
livable, too. The parlor into which they entered was vast, and it was
combined with a big dining room that held a heavy carved Mexican table
that could seat fourteen for dinner. To the left of the dining area,
against the rear wall, was the broad staircase that led to the second
floor.
Nearer the door was Joe's desk, on a dais, perched on a cow skin. His
large wing-chair was behind it, and two heavy leather chairs were
situated before it. There was a spittoon in the corner for those who
felt they absolutely must chew tobacco. In the center of the room, on a