Autumn Lover (15 page)

The affection in Elyssa’s voice when she spoke of Bill did nothing to improve Hunter’s temper. She might respond to Hunter the way dry grass responds to a torch, but every time she spoke of Bill Moreland it was clear that she was besotted with him.

A man who was robbing her blind.

“Well, Sassy,” Hunter drawled, “it sure seems that a whole lot of Ladder S cows have taken a notion to sift through the grasslands over onto B Bar land. And not one of those cows has wandered back.”

“As Mac was so fond of saying, ‘Cows and wimmen is plumb notional critters.’”

The tone of Elyssa’s voice plainly said that discussion of Bill Moreland and Ladder S cows was closed.

Hunter kept on talking.

“Bill was half-right,” he said. “They’re notional as all hell.”

Elyssa didn’t ask whether Hunter was talking about cows or women. She knew she wouldn’t like the answer.

“Not cows, though,” Hunter said. “Cows have more common sense than women.”

“As women have more common sense than men, that means men—”

“Ha!” Hunter interrupted.

“Ha, yourself. Did you ever hear of cows going to war?”

“Hell, no.”

“Or women?” Elyssa added sweetly.

For an instant she thought she saw Hunter smile. But she must have been wrong.

The silence that followed her retort wasn’t broken all the way back to the Ladder S ranch house.

H
unter woke up as he had so often during the war—in a wild, silent rush. Yet he neither sat up nor changed the pattern of his breathing. Instead, he lay motionless with his eyes slitted. To anyone prowling around close by, there would be no difference in Hunter’s appearance.

After a few moments Hunter was certain that no one was in his room. Nor were the dogs barking out by the barn or the bunkhouse.

The night was absolutely quiet. Everything looked as peaceful as the moonlight pouring through the window at the side of his bedroom.

Yet Hunter was certain something was wrong.

With a single, feline movement, Hunter was out of bed. He yanked his pants on and then kicked into his boots while he was buckling the six-gun and holster around his hips. Ignoring his hat and shirt, he crossed the bedroom, stood to the side of the window, and looked out.

Nothing was moving anywhere along the road to the ranch. Nothing stirred in the yard. In the corral near the barn, horses stood three-legged, dozing in the moonlight that was pouring through a break between thunderstorms.

Water puddles gleamed in the yard. Water dripped from the house eaves and the cottonwoods. Spun silver clouds piled high and frothed across the sky. Lightning flickered on the shoulder of the mountains. Thunder muttered and rolled sleepily.

Hunter eased open the window. A faint sound came through the crack.

A horse snorting. Muffled hoofbeats.

Quickly Hunter’s head turned toward the sound.

Leopard was pacing his paddock fence. His coat gleamed in the shifting silver light. The stud was snorting and tossing his head.

Suddenly the stallion stood stock-still, his neck stretched and ears pricked.

Leopard was watching the garden intently.

For an instant Hunter wondered if Elyssa had stolen off to her favorite haunt again. Then he dismissed the idea.

Hunter knew he would have awakened if Elyssa had tiptoed down the hall outside the room. He woke up every time she turned over in her bed, a bed that was less than two feet from his own, for all that there was a wall between them.

A glance at the angle of the moon told Hunter that it was too early for Gimp to be up and moving around, readying breakfast for the hands. Cooks got up well before dawn, but this was early by any standard.

Swiftly Hunter crossed to his bedside table. A flick of his thumbnail opened the big gold pocket watch that had been his father’s.

Three o’clock.

Nothing but coyotes, wolves, and their human counterparts prowled at this hour.

Where the hell are the dogs
? Hunter asked the night savagely.
God knows they bark fit for raising the dead when strangers are around
.

Maybe it’s Elyssa out there after all
.

Hunter went to the wall where the head of his bed was pushed snugly against the rough wood. Ear to the wall, he listened intently.

What came back to him was what haunted him every waking moment he lay in bed. Soft breathing, a sigh, and the intimate rustle of linen sheets as Elyssa turned over in bed.

Desire shot through Hunter.

He ignored it. He was getting very good at ignoring his body’s insistent hunger for an unsuitable girl; he had had plenty of practice lately.

Too much practice. Beneath the denial, desire grew with every day, every minute, every breath.

With an impatient curse at his unruly sexuality, Hunter grabbed his rifle. He levered a round into the firing chamber on the way out of the bedroom. Moving quickly, lightly, Hunter ran down the hall to the stairs.

As always, the stairway creaked and popped with every step he took.

Elyssa was right about that
, Hunter thought with faint humor.
Even a cat couldn’t sneak up these stairs
.

Experience had taught Hunter that the front door didn’t squeak when it was opened. The kitchen door did.

Hunter went out the front.

A cold wind was blowing fitfully. Hunter faded into the shadows beneath the eaves. He moved swiftly, silently, to the back side of the house.

Night air was chill against his bare chest. The wind tasted of rain. Hunter didn’t notice the cold of the stormy autumn night. His attention was fixed on the kitchen garden.

The ground is too white
, he thought.
Even moonlight shouldn’t make it that pale
.

Within the whiteness a shadow moved.

A man.

If the dogs had been barking, Hunter simply would have raised the rifle and dropped the intruder where he stood. But the dogs hadn’t sent up an alarm, which meant that Hunter couldn’t be certain the man was an intruder.

The wind will cover any sound I make
, Hunter thought, measuring the distance to the barn and from there to the garden.

But there’s no cover between here and the barn. That moonlight is too bright for me to be running around in
.

The hombre out there might not be as choosy about who he shoots as I am
.

There was no way for Hunter to approach the garden without coming out of cover. Nor could he get close enough to identify the man unless he did.

Hunter waited for the space of five breaths, hoping that one of the boiling, windswept clouds would veil the nearly full moon.

The clear sky between the storms didn’t change enough to make a difference. The huge autumn moon flooded light over everything.

Damn
!

Shifting the rifle to his left hand, Hunter sprinted across the open yard, heading for the dense shadows along the barn. Every step of the way he expected to hear the distinctive metallic sound of a rifle or six-gun being cocked.

It didn’t come.

Breathing lightly, soundlessly, Hunter vanished into the deep shadows along the side of the barn. He began easing to the back of the building. From there he might be able to see well enough to identify whoever was taking a predawn stroll through Elyssa’s garden.

Something moved behind Hunter.

He spun, drawing his six-gun as he turned.

When he saw the black and white dog following him,
he holstered the gun with a swift movement.

Vixen. Why is she following me rather than whoever is out there
?

The dog’s tail waved in silent greeting. In the moonlight and wind, Vixen was almost invisible but for the gleam of her alert, watchful eyes.

The wind shifted, blowing from the garden toward the barn.

Hunter stared at Vixen. If the intruder was a stranger, the dog couldn’t miss smelling him now.

Vixen looked expectantly at Hunter.

Whoever is out there isn’t a stranger to the Ladder S
, Hunter decided.
Why doesn’t that make me feel better
?

Probably because Bill Moreland isn’t a stranger
.

A curt motion of Hunter’s hand dismissed Vixen.

The dog looked disappointed at being deprived of a moonlight romp between storms.

Hunter gestured again.

Reluctantly Vixen turned and trotted off to the garden. The collie moved with the confidence of an animal that doesn’t expect any nasty surprises to be waiting in the darkness.

Well, that ties it. Whoever is out there is known to the dogs
.

Only one way to find out for sure who it is. And what the hell he’s up to
.

Just as Hunter started for the garden, he caught a pale flash of movement at the corner of his eye.

Someone was sprinting across the patch of moonlight between the house and the barn. It didn’t take but an instant to see who it was. The feminine grace and cascade of pale hair could belong only to one person.

Hunter propped the rifle against the barn and waited. He didn’t have to wait long. Elyssa was a fast runner.

With no warning Hunter’s arms snaked out of the dense shadows and snatched Elyssa from the moonlight.
One of his hands clamped over her mouth, shutting off her instinctive cry. The other arm clamped around her body.

She was wearing silk. It was cold to his bare chest. Then the heat of her radiated through smooth cloth, sinking into him like a blow.

“Quiet,” Hunter breathed fiercely into Elyssa’s ear. “Not one sound. Understand?”

She nodded.

The motion sent the silvery softness of Elyssa’s hair spilling over Hunter’s bare hands. His breath came in with a barely audible hiss, as though he had been burned.

He felt like he had.

“Stay right here until I call for you,” Hunter said in a voice that went no farther than Elyssa’s ears.

She shook her head in disagreement.

“Yes,” Hunter countered in a very low, very hard voice. “I don’t want to shoot you by mistake.”

Elyssa hesitated. Then, reluctantly, she nodded again.

Hunter lifted his hand from her mouth, bent to retrieve his rifle, and handed it to her.

“There’s a round in the chamber,” he murmured.

As before, his words were a mere thread of sound.

She nodded her understanding.

“Don’t shoot me by mistake,” Hunter said.

“How about on purpose?” Elyssa retorted.

But her voice was as soft as his.

Hunter’s brief smile was as white as moonlight. He bent and gave Elyssa a swift, fierce kiss, surprising both of them equally.

Then he was gone.

Anxiously Elyssa stared into the cloud-tossed night. She knew that Hunter was out there, a shadow among racing cloud-shadows, but she couldn’t see him.

Nor did she know why he was here. She knew only
that the sound of his footsteps going down the stairs had awakened her instantly.

That was hardly surprising. The sound of him shifting position in bed often awakened her…assuming she had been able to get to sleep in the first place. Being just scant feet from Hunter all night, every night, had an unsettling influence on her body.

Not to mention her dreams.

Hunter checked over his shoulder several times to see if Elyssa was keeping her promise to stay put. When he realized that she wasn’t following him, he let out a soundless sigh of relief.

Unlike the herb garden, the kitchen garden was a thicket with many places for a man to hide. Pole beans, pea vines climbing on a big trellis, corn plants that stood higher than a man—there was a lot of cover for an intruder.

There was cover for Hunter as well.

Silently as moonlight itself, more quiet than the fat raindrops that had begun to fall, Hunter sifted between rows of corn. Without even being aware of it, he merged his outline with that of the tall plants around him as he moved.

Hunter had done the same thing so often during the War Between the States that it was second nature to him now. But during the war there had been an army of blue uniforms surrounding him.

Now there was only the night and a single man-shadow out there among the shades of darkness.

Motionless, Hunter stood and listened to the night and the ragged storm.

Nothing came back to him but the restless stirring of the wind and the spatter of raindrops against the garden plants.

Slowly Hunter crouched and ran his hand over the too
white ground. Sitting on his heels, he brought his fingertips to his mouth and licked lightly.

Salt.

You son of a whore
, Hunter thought coldly.
Wait until I get my hands on you
.

The wind shifted like a woman turning over in bed. At the far end of the garden, pole beans rustled.

But it wasn’t leaves stirred by the wind. It was a man drawing a bead with his six-gun on something pale that stood within the shadows of the barn.

Elyssa
.

“Get down, Sassy!” Hunter yelled.

As he yelled, he drew his six-gun. He was off balance, trying only for speed and surprise. Before the shots ever left the six-gun, Hunter knew they would miss the target.

All he hoped was that the other man would miss, too.

Shots split the night, a man cried out, dogs erupted into barking, cowhands yelled from the bunkhouse, and Hunter cursed in the kind of words that could etch granite as he reloaded.

“Sassy! Are you all right?” Hunter yelled.

“Yes!”

“Stay there! Make sure none of the men shoot until they can see what the hell they’re aiming at!”

Hunter didn’t wait for Elyssa’s answer. He just ran flat out between the cornstalks, chasing the shadow he had sensed disappearing down the garden rows.

Before Hunter reached the edge of the garden, he heard the sound of a horse running hard. The drumroll of hoofbeats faded rapidly into the wind and rain.

“Son of a
bitch
,” Hunter snarled.

Barking wildly, Vixen burst from between hills of squash vines.

“Oh, shut up!” Hunter said in disgust. “The time for barking is long past.”

Chagrined, Vixen fell silent.

“Colonel?” called Morgan. “You all right?”

The choppiness of the words made it clear that Morgan was running toward the garden.

“I’m fine,” Hunter said. “Tell the men to swap their guns for shovels and lanterns.”

Morgan broke through the last rows of corn, looking around hopefully.

“We having a burying?” Morgan asked.

“No,” Hunter said in disgust. “The son of a bitch got the garden, damn his black soul.”

“What?”

“Salt,” Hunter said succinctly.

“Mother of God,” Morgan said.

His eyes widened as he looked at the destruction of the garden written in trails of white running down the furrows. Cursing steadily, Morgan lit the lantern he was carrying and lifted it high.

White gleamed back at him from all directions.

Rain started to come down harder. Salt began dissolving before Hunter’s eyes.

“Get those shovels over here now!” Hunter yelled.

A chorus of agreement came back through the gathering rain.

“Hunter?” Elyssa called. “Where are you?”

“Get back to the house,” Hunter ordered. “You’ll catch your death of cold in this rain.”

A few moments later Elyssa appeared at the edge of the garden. She leaped from furrow to furrow with the grace of a deer, running toward the lantern light. She burst into the yellow circle around the lantern.