Claudia Dain Read online

  "I ain't convinced o' that, an' even if it was true, then someone should warn her about them other gals who was walking out with the wrong sort."

  "Then warn her," Jack said, pushing past him. "I ain't stoppin' you. I'm trying to warn her myself."

  That left Powell speechless long enough for them to leave him behind.

  Anne was more flustered and embarrassed than she had ever been in her sheltered life. And Jack knew why.

  He waited until they were about fifty yards from her fence before he asked her, "Do you think I did it?"

  "No" was her first response and then she frowned down into the dirt. "I mean, I don't think so." She looked sideways at him to see if he was offended. He didn't look it.

  "Go ahead, say what you're thinking."

  She hardly ever heard that. In fact, she never did. No one ever encouraged her to say what was on her mind, because if they did, there just might be a tussle. No one went looking for a fight, except maybe a bounty hunter.

  "It's just that, well, people seem to think you might be the one... though there's no proof of it. Is there?"

  He shook his head. "No, there's no proof it was me."

  "But then, there doesn't seem to be any proof that it isn't you."

  "That's right," he said easily, looking down at her, the wide brim of his hat leaving his face in full shadow. "It could be me. I could've killed them gals. They got mixed up with the wrong sort of a man and got killed for it. You think about that now," he said.

  "If you'd done it, you wouldn't be talking like this."

  "How do you know? You know how a killer talks? How he puts you off his trail? How he builds your trust, strand by strand, until he's got a rope thick enough to strangle you with?"

  She backed up, suddenly edgy. His face was shadowed and his voice had gone dark.

  "You think you can save your life by backing off a step? Why, I can lay hold of you any time I want, Anne. All I need do is reach out."

  He pulled her to him by the back of her neck, his palm rough and warm against the soft skin of her nape. She tripped toward him, reluctant, yet coming on. Unable to stop. Maybe even unwilling.

  "How you gonna save yourself now, Anne?" he said softly.

  She could see his eyes now. They were cold blue, but the pulse in his throat beat hot. He was cold and hot and she didn't know whether to run or stay.

  Was this how those girls had felt just before the air had been shut off, the need to breathe rising up so strong that only the hand of their killer had been stronger? She felt the rise and fall of her breathing, forced and heavy with Jack standing so close. And still she didn't move away.

  "You come toward me and you're coming toward death," he said. "Can't you see that?"

  She couldn't see anything, anything but him. Her breathing came fast and hard, as if she were trying to save up for when she couldn't breathe anymore. For when he kissed her.

  She stared up at him and she didn't see death in him. Not a bit. She watched his mouth, studying the slant and shading of his lips, the clean white of his teeth, the dark shadow on his upper lip where his beard would be the thickest. But she didn't see death.

  "Lord, you're a bigger fool than I am," he breathed. "Back off, Anne. You got a pinch of sense, you'll back off."

  She did have sense. She'd made up her mind long ago to have sense. She wasn't going to be the kind of woman who needed a man. She wasn't ever going to be that big a fool.

  But she didn't back off.

  Jack let loose of her neck and took hold of her hand.

  "That's it," he said. "I'm going to teach you how to drive a man off. And you're going to do it, too. No back talk."

  Back talk? She followed him obediently to the livery, where he picked up Joe and rented a mare for her. She didn't even say a word when he rode with her out into the wide silence of the prairie.

  Maybe she was as big a fool as he'd named her.

  * * *

  They were only a few miles out of town, but they could have been fifty miles from anywhere. The sun was high and the wind cool, but it was sunny and there was no sign of rain, so there was nothing to complain about. April in Kansas could be troublesome. The prairie stretched out all around them, a golden green sea of emptiness, the only sound the stirring of the wind in the long grass.

  They were alone. He was armed. He was mad. And she still wasn't afraid.

  She was ripe for killing. He was going to make sure, here and now, that she stayed alive.

  "Take my six-gun. It's heavy and there's no way to carry it polite-like, but it does the job," he said, handing it to her, empty of cartridges. He wasn't a fool to hand a woman a loaded pistol.

  "Why?" she asked, holding her hand out and taking the gun.

  "Because you're going to learn to shoot, that's why."

  "I am?"

  "Yeah, and we're starting today," he said. "I'd give you a rifle, but I know you'd never carry it." Plus, the killer would be up close and a rifle was no good for the shooting she was going to have to do.

  "I don't need to learn to shoot."

  "The hell you don't," he muttered. "You take this gun and you do what I tell you. You do what I tell you and you just might come through this alive."

  "You don't need to cuss at me," she said.

  "Glory, is that Anne taking me to task? You just might survive if you learn to fight back a bit," he said, his smile hard.

  She smiled slowly and then looked down at the gun in her hands. It looked mighty big in her grasp. That was good. A nice, big bullet would come firing out of that barrel.

  "It's heavy," she said.

  "Yeah, but you'll get used to it since you'll be carrying it all the time from now on."

  "I couldn't possibly carry this all the time."

  "Yeah, you could and you will. I do. I don't have a problem with it."

  "Well, it's your job."

  "And now it's your job to keep yourself alive. Don't make me name you a slacker. This is one job you'll do well."

  "I'm not a slacker."

  "Good, then this will be easy for you."

  She looked up from the gun and stared into his eyes. He could read her confusion and it pulled at his gut. He looked down, ignoring his guts and everything else.

  "You know what those girls all had in common, Anne? They were pretty, they were looking for a man, and they were unarmed. I can't help your being pretty, but I can take care of arming you."

  "I'm not looking for a man," she said softly.

  He jerked his head up to look at her. "No? You do a good job of acting the part."

  She just looked at him, her blue eyes soft with shame.

  "What?" he asked.

  "Nothing," she said, lowering her gaze.

  He wasn't going to hunt that rabbit now. It might have been that she wasn't looking for a man, that they just came after her without her doing anything to herd them in. She was pretty enough to get that from a man. Hell, he'd been ready to follow her after that one look on the platform when he'd rolled into town. But that wasn't the problem now. He had to teach her to kill the man who came after her before she got killed herself. That's all he was about. He wasn't going to spend time with her doing anything, thinking anything, else.

  Yeah, and when did he get to be such a good liar?

  "You know what a gun is for, Anne?"

  "Of course. It's for shooting." She held the gun down at her side, the metal buried in the folds of her skirts.

  "Hell, no," he said. "It's for killing. A gun was made to kill. You remember that. You pull this gun, you shoot to kill. Don't you ever pull it out and not pull the trigger. Don't you ever leave it unloaded. An unloaded gun won't help you. Might as well carry a hammer. Understood?" He said it harsh and he meant to be harsh with her. She had to toughen up. She was so soft, she was going to die of it.

  "Yeah," she said, sticking her nose up in the air. That was good. He wanted to get her back up some. Looked like he was doing a good job of it.

  "Good. Now
, we'll try some dry-firing, to get you used to the idea. Then we'll put in some rounds."

  "Fine," she said.

  She was looking at him hard, like she was trying to work herself up into a burst of anger. All to the good. Now, if he could only get her not to apologize for it later.

  "Lift it up," he said. "No, don't hold it straight-armed; you don't have the strength for it. Bend your elbow, turn your body sideways, makes you a smaller target."

  She did it, but she looked stiff, the gun an awkward thing she held away from herself. Had he ever looked like that? He couldn't remember.

  He'd been carrying a gun for as many years back as he could count. He felt as natural holding a gun as breathing; in fact, it was because he was so good with a gun that he was still breathing. It was a hard world and a man had to be hard to get along in it. He knew that. How was it that Anne was still so soft in a world so relentlessly hard? He couldn't figure it, but he was going to fix it. He wasn't going to have her death on his soul or carry the image of her broken body in his mind for the rest of his days. No, sir. He was going to save her by teaching her to save herself. That was the best way. It was the only way. He wouldn't be around forever and she'd have need of the skills he could teach her.

  "Go ahead and pull the trigger. Try not to move the gun," he said.

  She pulled the trigger and the gun wiggled in her hand like a snake she'd caught up.

  "You're moving the gun," he said.

  "It's heavy!" she said, lowering it.

  "You won't notice it after a while, that's a promise," he said, standing beside her and taking the gun from her hand.

  "I don't need a gun," she said, looking up at him. Her eyes were the blue of the sky after a long winter. She had oatmeal-colored freckles on her nose and along her hairline. She looked like a girl headed for trouble and he was a man who had a habit of chasing trouble. But he wasn't going to chase her.

  He wasn't going to kiss her.

  Yeah, he was turning into a first-rate liar.

  "What do you need, Anne?" he asked, his mouth inches from hers. "'Cause I ain't got nothing to give you, Lord knows."

  "I don't need anything," she breathed. "Not a gun. Not you. Not anything."

  "No? Not anything?" he said, inching down toward her mouth. Her lips were pink as penny candy, soft and warm. "Not even a kiss?"

  "No," she whispered.

  "You sure about that?"

  He touched his mouth to her temple, trailing his breath down the soft ridge of bone that made her cheek, toward the gentle mound that was her mouth. Her lips opened and she sighed, the air brushing against his ear.

  His hands came up, skimming her torso, sliding up over the swell of her breasts. She rose into his hands and sucked in a hard breath.

  "You sure, Anne?" he breathed against her mouth, his hands on her breasts, feeling the weight of her, the heat that came through her clothes to burn his hands.

  He wanted her. He'd wanted her from the moment he saw her, her sky-blue eyes staring at him as he laid hard hands on an outlaw. He wasn't for her. He was too rough, too close to being an outlaw himself, for him to get anywhere near her soft innocence.

  Yet here he was, with his hands on her and his mouth on her and all his thoughts circling like dirty crows in the clean blue sky of her. He wanted to blame her for letting him get too close, but it was him. He was to blame. He couldn't make himself walk away from her. She would have to be the one to do the walking and he'd have to make her see that that's just what she should do.

  His hands slid up to her throat and her eyes closed as she tilted her head back for the kiss she thought was coming. He almost did kiss her. He almost gave in to the sweet vulnerability of her exposed throat and softened mouth. But he didn't. He didn't kiss her. He gave her something else. Something he prayed she wouldn't ever forget.

  He pressed his hands to her throat and tightened his grip, the feel of her pulse hot and strong under his fingertips. He could feel the life in her slowing as her eyes flew open, wide blue in the shock white of her face.

  "What you gonna do, Anne?" he whispered, his voice coming harsh from the back of his throat. Her breath was flattened by the strength in his hands; he could feel her dying and he watched her as she tried to pull away.

  "Not enough," he said, staring down into her eyes. "Not near enough. I got you good. How you gonna get loose of me? How you gonna save your life?"

  "Stop," she said on a squeak.

  "Make me," he said, feeling the heat of her, the pounding of her heart, the flutter of panic just beneath her skin.

  She pushed against him. He didn't move. It was nothing, two little hands without any weight behind the push; she couldn't shove him off.

  "I'm too strong for you," he said. "Or you're too weak. Either way, you're mine."

  Her eyes were going red and she was tearing up. He wouldn't let it stop him. She had to understand just what it was she was facing. He was death. Anyone under heaven could see he was death and danger and aching solitude. There was nothing else to him. There was nothing else in him.

  "Fight me, Anne. Take your life out of my hands. Fight back," he urged, giving her enough air to breathe, giving her the will to fight.

  She kicked him. He grunted. It was a good solid kick, but his boots took the worst of it.

  "Kick me in the knee. Kick hard. Try to make it pop," he said.

  She did and she missed.

  Her hands came up and pried at his thumbs, trying to pull him off. His hands were stronger than hers by a long mile; she wouldn't get him off that way.

  "Use your thumbs," he said on a growl. "Try to take my eyes out."

  She did, she did try, but he turned her in his arms so that he held her from the back, her arms trapped beneath his. She couldn't reach his eyes. He had her good and there was nothing she could do about it.

  "What do you want?" he whispered against her ear.

  "Let me go!" she whispered.

  "Hell, no!" he breathed, taking in the warm, sweet scent of her. "What do you want?"

  She was crying, but she was still fighting him, kicking and twisting, her hair tumbling down, covering where he had his hands on her. But he still held on. He still had her.

  "The gun!" she said on a choked sob. "Give me the gun!"

  "Damn straight," he said, letting her go.

  She backed away from him, her hands to her throat. First smart move she'd made since he'd met her. Why it bothered him, he wasn't going to consider.

  "You got a man on you and you want to get him off? You need a gun," he said. "You don't wait, you don't think, you don't wonder. You just flat-out pull that gun and shoot him. He comes in close, you press that barrel to his middle and you fire."

  Her tears hung like rain on her cheeks, wild and soft, but she was nodding. Accepting. Believing.

  "I don't care how heavy that gun gets. I don't care if you know him or not. I don't care if he comes on you from behind and you never even see his face. You pull that gun and you fire. You fire until you got nothing left but air in those chambers. You empty that gun into him. You got that, Anne? Understood?"

  He could feel the weight of something rising up in him and he swallowed it down, blinking it off and away from him. He had nothing to give her but this. He'd protect her if he could. If he couldn't, he'd give her the means to protect herself. That's all. That's all he had.

  "You all right?" he asked, taking a step near her. She backed up a step and he let it stand.

  "Yeah," she said. Her voice sounded soft and high, like she was fixing to cry.

  "I didn't want to hurt you, just scare you," he said, taking off his hat and hitting it against his leg. "How'd I do?"

  "You did good," she said and he could hear the smile in her voice, though her face was still wary. That was good. Being wary was always good.

  "Yeah, I scare lots of folks. It's about time you joined the herd," he said, smiling back at her.

  "You want to scare people?" she said, walking toward her mount
, not taking her eyes off him, keeping her distance. Smart.

  "Yeah, certain people," he said, walking parallel to her, keeping the gap between them open and wide. "Makes it easier. They don't fight so much."

  "I thought you liked to fight," she said.

  "I don't like it. It's just that I don't mind it. Fighting has its uses."

  "Like what?"

  He shrugged and put his hat back on. "Like keeping the outlaws away from the innocent. I'll fight for that. It's worth a bruise or two."

  "I guess," she said, looking down at the prairie grass at her feet.

  "Anne?" he said, stopping. She stopped and looked at him. "Some things are worth fighting for. You need to figure out what those things are."

  She blinked and let out a soft breath and then she smiled. "Well, until I do, how about showing me how to fire that gun?"

  She got the hang of it pretty quick, once she got over the noise of the explosion when the hammer hit the rim. Turned out, she was a pretty good shot, when he could get her to keep her eyes open.

  "Don't worry so much about aiming, just point and shoot." Anything she'd be shooting at would be right close to her, but he didn't want to hammer that point in too hard. "And empty it, don't leave bullets for him to fire at you. You fire one shot, he gets the gun out of your hand; then he's got five to pump into you. Don't do him the favor. Let him use his own weapon, don't make it easy for him to use yours."

  "All right. I get anybody in my sights, I'll keep firing until there's nothing more," she said. "I'm going to be real ruthless, I keep spending time with you," she said, grinning, holding the gun like it was a thing she was afraid to touch. Yeah, she looked real ruthless, all right.

  "Yeah, you can form your own gang of outlaws; then I'll come hunting for you."

  Her smile wavered and then fell. "I think I'd like that."

  "What? You going to turn outlaw?"

  "No," she said, shaking her head slowly. "You hunting for me, coming after me."

  Damn.

  "No, you wouldn't like that," he said, trying to figure a way to make her believe it. "Nobody wants a bounty hunter on their trail."

  "Not a bounty hunter," she said, her voice a mere whisper. "You."