Autumn Lover (11 page)

“Hunter Maxwell,” she said. “Of Texas.”

He nodded curtly.

“Thank you, Hunter Maxwell.”

“For what?”

“Defending my honor.”

“I wasn’t defending a flirt’s honor,” Hunter said bluntly. “I was defending discipline. Lack of respect like that can undermine an outfit faster than bad food.”

Anger curled through Elyssa.

“Didn’t like being called my fancy man, huh?” she asked with false sympathy.

The flat line of Hunter’s mouth was all the answer a bright girl needed.

Elyssa ignored the warning.

“Ah, well,” she said. “You’ll get used to it,
fancy man
, just like I got used to being called Sassy.”

W
ith a sigh and a discreet knuckling of her tired back, Elyssa straightened from the kitchen sink. Baking for eleven extra men was hard work, especially after a day riding the rumpled, tawny grasslands and rugged piñon forests of the Ladder S.

The first day after the men arrived, Hunter ordered Gimp to take over the bunkhouse cooking. Wisely, Hunter continued to eat in the ranch house. Gimp was a decent camp cook, but the old man’s skills didn’t stretch to baking edible bread. That job fell to Penny and Elyssa.

Because Penny hadn’t shaken off the lingering summer ague, the work of mixing and kneading the endless loaves had been taken over by Elyssa. She also had tried to do all the laundry and cleaning, but Penny refused, saying she had to be good for something.

“How are you feeling tonight?” Elyssa asked Penny as they finished cleaning up the kitchen.

“Better, thanks. That herb tonic you fixed for me seemed to help.”

“Such a face you made when you drank it,” Elyssa teased.

Penny smiled despite the queasiness that had plagued her for several weeks. She smoothed her hands over the
faded calico of her dress and looked at her work-scuffed boots.

“That tonic tasted like boot blacking,” Penny said.

“Truly? Since when have you been sampling Hunter’s army boots?”

Penny giggled and shook her head.

“Honestly, Sassy, you’re as unsquelchable as a puppy.”

“If Ah had been the squelching kind of child,” Elyssa drawled, imitating the slow rhythms of Morgan’s speech, “my sainted cousins would have squelched me so thin you could read newsprint through me.”

“Watch out, or Hunter will do it for them,” Penny said absently.

Elyssa shot the other woman a quick glance, but Penny didn’t notice. The lines of strain around her mouth and eyes became more pronounced each day.

Waiting to be driven from your home by bankruptcy or raiders wore away at a person’s soul.

“Oh, Hunter is more bark than bite,” Elyssa said.

“Don’t you believe it. That’s one hard man.”

“Maybe. Yet he smiles more now than when he first came here. Have you noticed?”

“No.”

“Well, I have,” Elyssa said.

Penny’s hands smoothed over her skirt and apron again.

Frowning, Elyssa watched the haunted, grieving expression settle onto Penny’s face once more.

“It’s not the ague wearing you down,” Elyssa said softly. “It’s waiting for the Culpeppers to attack, isn’t it?”

A shake of Penny’s head was her only answer.

“Then it must be Bill,” Elyssa said.

A sheen of tears appeared in Penny’s soft brown eyes.

“He hasn’t been here but once since you came
home,” Penny said. “He took one look at you, saw Gloria, and could hardly bear to sit down and visit for more than two minutes.”

“He wasn’t seeing my mother,” Elyssa said dryly. “He was seeing red. He was furious that I wouldn’t sell him the Ladder S.”

Penny said nothing.

“Hasn’t Bill come here when I was out on the range?” Elyssa asked.

“No.”

“Odd.”

“Is it? There’s nothing for him here.”

The bitterness in Penny’s voice scraped Elyssa’s already too taut nerves.

“Bill had no right to expect me to sell my home, even to him,” Elyssa said flatly.

A shake of Penny’s head was her only answer. It wasn’t so much disagreement with Elyssa’s words as it was a gesture of hopelessness.

“Are you sure Bill hasn’t been here while I’m gone?” Elyssa said.

Penny’s hands clenched in her apron for the space of two heartbeats, then relaxed.

“I’m sure,” Penny said tonelessly. “Why?”

“Nearly every time I go past Wind Gap, I see fresh tracks heading between Ladder S and B Bar land.”

“You must be mistaken.”

The tightness of Penny’s voice and the slight trembling of her hands told Elyssa that the subject was painful for the older woman. Elyssa started to pursue it anyway, then sighed. No good would come of causing Penny more pain.

“Ah, well, it hardly matters,” Elyssa said gently. “The kitchen is clean, the lamps are full of golden light, and I feel like dancing.”

Elyssa held out her hands and smiled.

“Come on,” she coaxed. “Dancing makes the world lighter, didn’t you know?”

After a moment of hesitation, Penny smiled in return and took Elyssa’s hands.

Elyssa curtsied amid a sigh of pale green silk and golden petticoats. Then she began singing a sprightly waltz. Soon both women were swirling around the kitchen, laughing, until Elyssa’s pure contralto became husky and breathless. Penny became breathless, period.

“Enough,” Penny gasped, laughing. “It’s all I can do to stand upright!”

“Are you certain? Dancing alone isn’t as much fun.”

“I’m certain.”

Shaking her head, laughing, Penny lowered herself into one of the wooden chairs that ran along the kitchen table where they ate every day. Then she looked beyond Elyssa and saw Hunter standing in the doorway, watching with no expression on his face and quicksilver eyes that burned.

“You might try Hunter,” Penny said. “I doubt that he would get breathless after a few turns around the kitchen.”

Elyssa spun around so quickly that her skirt lifted and fluttered like an exotic butterfly. Then she whirled completely around once, twice, and waltzed up to Hunter. She curtsied deeply, rose as gracefully as a dancer, and held out her hands to Hunter.

“No,” he said.

“Why not?” she challenged. “Surely a man as co-ordinated as you are can’t be intimidated by mere music.”

“I lost the habit of dancing during the war.”

Hunter looked past Elyssa to Penny.

“However, ma’am,” he said to Penny, “if a waltz makes
you
smile like that, I’d be glad to attempt a turn or two around the kitchen with you.”

The words went over Elyssa like ice water. Hunter’s refusal cut her as the haughtiness of aristocrats never had.

In England she had become accustomed to being snubbed by men because her fortune was lacking. Or worse, she had been pursued because titled men thought the funny little Colonial would be an easy conquest.

Elyssa had hoped it would be different in America.

It wasn’t.

“By all means dance with Hunter,” Elyssa said softly to Penny. “I wouldn’t want to interfere with your pleasure.”

Before Penny could answer, Elyssa turned and went out through the back door into the autumn night. Cool air swirled as she shut the door behind her.

Penny gave Hunter a speculative look.

“Since you no more want to dance with me than with the milk cow,” she said crisply, “why turn Elyssa against me?”

The surprise on Hunter’s face told Penny that he hadn’t thought of his actions in that way.

Hunter said something impatient under his breath and raked his fingers through his clean, collar-length hair.

“I’m trying to break Sassy of flirting,” Hunter said after a moment.

“Why?”

Again, Hunter was surprised.

“You could do a lot worse than Elyssa,” Penny said calmly. “She is the sole owner of the Ladder S, young, healthy, pretty, and obviously smitten with you.”

Hunter’s mouth turned down in a grim line.

“She’s smitten with anything in pants,” he said curtly.

“No. Men are smitten with
her
. It’s hardly unexpected. She has her mother’s looks.”

“I married one pretty little flirt. It’s a mistake I’ll never make again.”

Sighing, Penny closed her eyes. For a few moments she looked much older than her thirty years.

“Men,” she said. “Why did God make them in the first place?”

“I could say the same about women.”

“Yes, I suppose a man would.”

Penny’s eyes opened. There was a sorrow and disillusionment in them that made Hunter wince.

“What about Bill Moreland?” Hunter asked, changing the subject.

The shock on Penny’s face was as clear as her wide, dark eyes.

“What do you mean?” she demanded.

“I heard you two talking about Bill. How he used to come here but doesn’t anymore. How he wanted the Ladder S and Elyssa.”

“He wanted Gloria.”

“Maybe he did, once. From what you say, he’s got Elyssa on his mind now.”

Penny’s fingers clenched in her skirt. Hearing Hunter speak her worst fear aloud was like having a knife turning in her soul.

“I know how it can be when a neighbor gets an itch for a girl,” Hunter said flatly. “If she’s a little flirt in the bargain, you can be damn certain that itch will get scratched no matter what it costs everyone else.”

The dismay on Penny’s face told Hunter that she was afraid he was right.

Well
, Hunter told himself sardonically,
that explains the web of ghost paths between the Ladder S and the B Bar
.

Just like the paths between my ranch and my neighbor’s back in Texas, paths made by two people meeting in secret
.

The explanation for the web of trails through Wind Gap didn’t make Hunter feel any better. The thought of Elyssa sneaking away to shiver and cry out with passion in another man’s arms nettled Hunter in ways he didn’t want even to think about.

Someone really ought to teach that little flirt a lesson. From the looks of those footpaths, she already has one lover—why the hell do some women have to seduce every man in sight
?

There never had been an answer, no matter how many times Hunter had asked. To this day he didn’t understand why Belinda had pursued men as relentlessly after marriage as she had pursued Hunter before.

“I’m sorry,” Hunter said to Penny. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I know you’ve been under the weather lately.”

Penny smiled wanly.

“Don’t worry,” Hunter added in a gentle voice. “Morgan and I will fix those Culpepper boys for you. No one will take your home away.”

Again Penny smiled, but the lines of strain on her mouth didn’t ease.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Hunter said, “I’ll be checking on the horses. Lord knows we’re desperately short of mounts. If someone leaves a door or a paddock open, we’ll all be afoot.”

“Of course. Good night, Hunter.”

“Good night, ma’am. Rest easy. Those Culpeppers won’t make a move until all the work has been done for them.”

“What?”

“They might snipe at the boys from time to time, but the Culpeppers are raiders, not ranchers. They don’t know one end of a cow from the other.”

“Then why do they want the Ladder S?”

“They’re being hunted for what they did after the war.”

Though Hunter’s expression didn’t change, there was a quality to his voice that made Penny glad her name wasn’t Culpepper.

“They’ll wait for us to round up all the cattle and break the horses,” Hunter said.

“And then?”

Hunter smiled slowly. It wasn’t a warm gesture.

“Then the Culpeppers will make a bad mistake,” he said. “So sleep easy, ma’am. We’re weeks from any shooting.”

Hunter turned and went outside. He expected to find Elyssa in the barn, fussing over Leopard. In the time he had been on the Ladder S, he had discovered that she often went to the stallion when something upset her.

And Hunter had no doubt that Elyssa was upset. He had seen a turmoil in her eyes that belied the coolness of her words when she left the kitchen.

The barn was dark and empty but for Bugle Boy and Leopard. Hunter lit a lantern and walked down the wide center aisle. The stallions had their heads over the stall doors as though they were carrying on a silent equine conversation with each other.

Bugle Boy nickered at Hunter in greeting. Leopard lifted his head, sniffed audibly at the man’s scent, and returned to hanging his head over the stall door.

Hunter talked to both horses for a few moments before he checked the feed and water in each stall. Though it wasn’t necessary, he brought more fresh water, hay, and grain to both animals, for both had been worked hard in the past week.

Leopard accepted Hunter’s presence in the stall without a fuss, even when Hunter ran his hand down the stallion’s sleek, muscular neck.

“Maybe Sassy is right about you,” Hunter said softly.
“Maybe you only fight if a fight is offered.”

After a final pat to Leopard’s spotted hide, Hunter blew out the lantern and left the barn. Though his voice had been gentle with the horses, his expression at the moment was savage.

Sassy must have run off to dance with her lover
, Hunter thought bitterly.

A full moon poured light over the land, caressing the darkness with a thousand subtle shades of silver. The beauty of it squeezed Hunter’s heart.

Once he had courted Belinda beneath a moon like this.

And many times she had betrayed him beneath the same ravishing light.

Which one of those faint paths did Sassy take
? Hunter asked the night silently.
And where will he meet her? On B Bar land or on Ladder S
?

For a time Hunter stood motionless in the moonlight. In his mind he went over the faint web of paths that began out beyond the kitchen and herb gardens. Though no one path stood out, together they bound the Ladder S and the B Bar as surely as a spider’s web.

A man sitting on the ridge above Wind Gap could look out over all of those vague trails. The full moon would offer plenty of light to a sharp-eyed watcher.

Won’t she be surprised when she finds me waiting up on the ridge for her to come back
?

Then I’ll tear a strip off of her for risking everything just for some slap and tickle with her lover
.

With long, impatient strides, Hunter walked the length of the barn. Once he was behind the barn, he skirted the large kitchen garden and headed down the row of fruit trees that shielded tender garden plants from the cold winds of spring. To his right House Creek seethed and foamed musically, a liquid counterpoint to the elegant silver light of the moon.

Hunter was so certain of his goal—and Elyssa’s—that
he almost missed seeing her. She was walking away from him, down one of the long rows of the herb garden. She looked ethereal, a woman spun from moonlight and pale silk, a silver wraith that left no trace of her passage on the ground.