Desert Angel (14 page)

“Thank you … for everything.” Her voice was so filled with emotion that there could be no mistaking her gratitude.

“Go feed my son, March,” Jim replied gruffly. “And come back down if you want to.”

“I think, if you don’t mind, that I’ll just go on to bed.”

“All right, it’s been a long evening for you. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Jim watched her walk away, the baby clutched lovingly in her arms. Yep, he decided, he’d made the right decision, but damn, it sure was going to cause some excitement when word spread. He expected that a few of his own men would be the first to cause trouble.

A wicked grin crossed his face as he decided that he would tell the whole story to Breed. That was one man few would want to cross. One look at the ice in those silvery eyes, and anyone with the common sense of a cactus would turn around and head the other way.

Jim was unaware of the expression in his own blue eyes, but anyone seeing it at that moment would have thought more than once before saying anything about her in his hearing. He wasn’t a man looking for trouble, but he was the one who would finish it.

NINE

“Woman, what in hell are you doing?” Jim dropped his hat and spurs on the kitchen table, and watched as March struggled to lift a heavy cast-iron pot from the hearth.

March jumped in surprise, the heavy lid of the dutch oven barely missing her bare foot as it clanged to the brick floor. Eyeing the layer of fine ashes that coated the tops of the golden biscuits, she turned to Jim with a look of disgust.

“I hope you don’t mind ashes with your biscuits. I’m sure jam would be tastier, but you’ll have to settle for what you get.”

“You’ve got it hot enough in here to cook them on the tabletop.” He looked meaningfully at the merrily burning fire, exaggerating slightly about the temperature of the room, since the spring mornings were still cool.

Picking up the pan, March carried it to the work counter and blew gently at the tops of the biscuits. Most of the ash drifted away, but some clung stubbornly to the warm dough.

“Do you know of another way to cook?” Pushing the hair from her flushed cheeks, she turned the hot bread onto a plate and carried it past him to the table.

It was bad enough that she had overslept, taking the time only to pull on the dress she had worn the day before, then rushing to get breakfast started. Now she felt foolish with her bare feet peeking out from beneath the hem of her skirt, and her hair hanging in a golden snarl down her back. She had intended to get a filling breakfast on the table and escape to her room before Jim got downstairs. So much for good intentions!

“Why don’t you try the stove?”

“Stove?” March halted in mid-stride.

“Stove — that black thing over against the wall.” Looking at the large black cabinet on legs, she felt her cheeks tinge with embarrassment. Of course, it was a stove, she thought, mortified that she hadn’t recognized it sooner.

“You have seen a stove before, haven’t you?” Jim watched the expressions cross her face, and wondered why he hadn’t realized that all of her cooking was done in the fireplace.

“They had one at the cafe,” she admitted. “But it didn’t look much like that one. It was red and a whole lot bigger.”

“They cook for a whole lot more people.” Jim moved to the stove and opened the fire door. The kindling he had put in several days earlier was still there. “Come here, and I’ll show you how it works. It takes a little getting used to, but you’ll like it once you get the hang of it.”

March watched with fascination as he told her how to regulate the heat, how to adjust the damper, and when to add more wood. It seemed amazing to her that an entire meal could be cooked without bending over a fire. The heat was evenly distributed, so that nothing would be overcooked on one side, while still raw on the other.

“It’s getting too hot to be cooking over an open fire.” Jim reached up and playfully tugged at her tangled hair. “And it would be a sin if this got in the way and was singed.”

“Too late.” March held out a strand that was scorched and discolored by the heat.

Jim reached up and captured the shriveled tendril. Unconsciously rubbing her silky hair between his fingers, he stared down at her and suddenly wished that she was younger … or older … or as ugly as the old maid schoolteacher who had delighted in whacking the back of his hands with a ruler every time he had done something she didn’t approve of, which was most of the time.

But she wasn’t. She was beautiful with hair of gold and stormy gray eyes. Her skin was lightly tanned by the sun, giving her a healthy dose of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her voice was as soft as a new morning, and her mouth was made for smiling … or kissing.

And she was nearly nineteen, old enough …

The harshness of her childhood hadn’t removed the innocence from her expression, or dulled the sparkle of life from her eyes. Her too small dress emphasized the body it sought to hide, needlessly reminding him that she was a woman … and he was a man.

I should have sent her away while I had the chance,
he thought, his grip unknowingly tightening on her hair.
I should have given her some money and put her on the train in Tucson. She’s trouble just waiting to happen.

March watched his eyes darken, as she tried to free her hair from his painful grasp. She couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking, and prayed that he hadn’t changed his mind about letting her stay on at Falling Creek. In spite of her audacious decision to become a lady of the evening, she knew that she’d never have the determination to see it through. But without an education or any real work experience, there was nothing else she could do to support herself.

“Please let me go.” Her quiet plea snapped Jim from his thoughts. He saw the fear in her eyes, and realized that he had wrapped her hair firmly around his hand. Carefully releasing it, he watched as she backed away from him.

“I’ll … I’ll have your breakfast ready in just a few minutes.” March pushed her hair over her shoulders and bent to retrieve a skillet from a shelf.

“I’ll eat at the bunkhouse.” Knowing that he had frightened her, his voice was harsh with regret.

“But it will just take me a few more minutes.”

Jim looked at the golden brown biscuits, smelled the inviting aroma of the bubbling coffee, and noticed that her dress pulled snugly against her milk-engorged breasts.

“I’ll eat at the bunkhouse,” he repeated, forcing himself to pick up his hat and spurs. Damn, she was going to be trouble.

“Is something wrong?” She thought that the expression on his face resembled someone in pain, and worried that he might be sickening with something. “Do you feel poorly? Does your stomach hurt? Are you suffering with a fever?”

“No, ma’am, I’m not sick.” Jim plopped his hat on his head and grabbed his spurs. He didn’t like the direction his thoughts had taken, and he had to get away from her before he said or did something that would offend them both. “I don’t have a fever, my stomach is growling with hunger, and for a man near to starving to death, I feel just fine. I’m just not hungry for ash biscuits or that brown water you call coffee.” Turning, he grabbed his jacket from the hook by the back door and stamped out of the kitchen. The gentle morning breeze cooled his thoughts, and as he slipped on his jacket, he inhaled the sweet fragrance of the new day.

He scanned the horizon in each direction, alert for anything that looked out of place. For as far as he could see, the land was his, and there was no place on earth he’d rather be. He intended to spend the remainder of his life on the Falling Creek Ranch, and now that he had a son, he knew that his labors wouldn’t be in vain.

The few men who hadn’t travelled north with the herd were beginning to rustle around, nodding quiet greetings as he passed. In the past Jim had always gone on the cattle drive, but the members of the new ranchers’ consortium had voted to share the duties, and each year different owners would go on the drive. That way no one man would have to be gone for several weeks in the spring, and then again in the fall to see to the safety of his herd. Jim had sent the majority of his men to help out, but had kept enough on the ranch to continue its day-to-day operations.

He spied Breed and decided that now was the perfect time to tell his foreman about March. As word spread there would be more than one saddle tramp looking for a good time, and Jim had no intention of letting March be frightened by a woman-hungry drifter.

“We need to talk before you head out,” he said as he watched Breed saddle his horse. “Let me grab a cup of coffee first.”

Breed nodded, lightly tossing the heavy saddle onto the back of his Appaloosa stallion. “I’ll wait.”

Jim headed for the bunkhouse and the thick brew that waited, looking forward to the start of a new day.

March left the biscuits on the table, pulled the coffee from the fire before it could become as thick as mud, and climbed the stairs to the room she shared with Jamie. Moving quietly so that she didn’t disturb the sleeping baby, she found her stockings and shoes and a comb for her hair. Since he would sleep for at least another hour, she had time to make herself a little more presentable and enjoy a quiet breakfast.

Back in the kitchen, March sipped at her coffee as she forced the snarls from her hair. Twisting it deftly into a knot at the back of her head, she secured it in place with two long sticks that her brother Jan had whittled for her and had given her as a present on her last birthday She tried not to dwell on the fact that they were the last gift she would ever receive from her oldest brother; the final gift from her family After nursing Jamie, March washed some of his dirty towels and hung them out to dry. With the baby sleeping peacefully on a quilt in the shade, she took advantage of the quiet to work on the skirt she was making. Finished except for the hem, the polished cotton fabric was the same deep green as the forest that had sheltered her family for so many months in Colorado. Memories engulfed her and tears made her vision waver. The sound of the younger children’s laughter seemed to fill her ears, then intermingle with the memories of their whimpers as the winter winds blew and hunger clawed at their empty bellies.

No longer delighted with the skirt that had brought such bitter images to mind, she put it aside as tears made her vision waver. Resting her head on the back of the chair, March looked up to the clear blue sky. Soon it would be summer and almost unbearably hot. Already the late afternoons were hinting at the heat that would become a daily reality.

She would spend the summer in the coolness of the house, with plenty of water when she was thirsty and shade from the sun when it was at its peak. She couldn’t help but wonder if June had shoes to protect his feet, or if little September would spend the summer covered in a rash because of the heat. Were they hungry? Did they have a safe place to sleep? Did Mama still cry herself to sleep each night, trying desperately to hide the sound of her weeping from the others?

Standing abruptly, March carried the skirt inside and laid it across a chair. Grabbing the sling she used to hold Jamie, she picked up the sleeping baby and cradled him securely against her chest.

Anger grew as she thought of Jim’s dissatisfaction with her coffee, and his look of disdain as he explained the workings of the stove. Sure, he liked his coffee thick, she thought, but he’d never had to go without because there was no money for luxuries like coffee or tea or sugar. Who could worry about trivialities, when faced with the very real concern of whether or not there would be enough food for even one meal each day?

Who would spend money on something like a stove, when there was a child who needed a pair of shoes so that he didn’t have to worry about cactus thorns or poisonous spiders? Who could take pleasure in having rugs on the floor or pictures on the wall, when a child might die because there was no money to pay for a doctor when he got sick?

And why was she the one who would have a soft bed to sleep in and plenty of food to eat, while her little brothers and sisters suffered because of the selfishness of a father too lazy to provide for them?

She would have allowed her father to sell her body time and again, if it had meant that her family would have the bare necessities of life. But she knew from past experience that the money would have been spent on whiskey and gambling, rather than food and clothing.

Knowing that there were no answers to her questions, March stepped off of the porch and headed toward the noise at the corral. After a lifetime of always being surrounded by her family, she was suddenly desperately lonely Kissing Jamie’s soft cheek, guilt overwhelmed her as she wondered why she had been given heaven, while her family was still suffering hell.

March was unaware of the appreciative male glances that watched as she approached. Most were respectful, a few were openly admiring, and a couple leered blatantly. One pair of silver eyes filled with all of the warmth of a winter blizzard, watched not the woman, but rather for the reactions of the other men. The two whose gazes were so filled with lust that they were aware of nothing beyond the bulge beneath their own belt buckles, would be gone before the sun began lowering in the sky. The others would be given a warning; only one. Breed never gave anyone a second chance.

Feeling secure surrounded by so many, March never gave a thought to the fact that her presence might be unwelcomed. She smiled as the men tipped their hats and then turned their faces back toward the action in the corral. Instinctively aware that she must tread carefully until they became accustomed to her, she stopped beside Hank and smiled warmly at the old man. “What’s everybody looking at?”