California Caress (14 page)

“Let me go, you idiot, you’re breaking my arm!” she hissed.

“I’ll break more than that if you’re trying to welch on our deal.”

Drake dropped her arm. Hope, not expecting to be released, was forced back a step by the momentum of her struggle. Her arm ached from where his fingers had been. She rubbed the bruise that would probably be blue come morning, if not sooner. Her cheek stung from the memory of his breath.

“I was doing the dishes, Mr. Frazier,” she replied tightly, her eyes averted to the sack of flour. “How was I supposed to know you’d be offended at the sight of a woman scraping plates? Besides,” she let her gaze wander to the makeshift wooden counter as though searching for a weapon, “now that there are real women in town, I thought one of the girls at The Brass Button would be more your style.” There was a knife on the counter. A knife that still had a piece of carrot peel clinging to its dulled steel blade.

If there had been a back to this goddamned uncomfortable excuse for a bench, Drake would have leaned back and smiled. So, she thought she knew his style, did she? He’d see about that. Crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned his elbows on the table top, and sent Hope a piercing glare. “And how would you know anything about my—ahem—‘style’?”

She flushed and looked away. “I’ve heard rumors.” She shrugged, her gaze clashing with his. “I know what kind of man you are.”

“Do you?” he drawled. The deep crease between his golden brows announced that he was not amused. “Do you really?”

“Yes,” she answered, her voice as hard and flat as her expression. “It doesn’t take a genius to know what kind of man agrees to the kind of deal I offered you, at the price
you
set. That tells me more about you than any of the sordid rumors floating around Thirsty Gulch.” She smiled, but the expression lacked sincerity. “You know, a southern gentleman would have agreed to the deal and declined payment. A northern gentleman would have agreed to the deal and taken the cash.”

Drake chuckled when Hope paused for effect. “Which leaves me—?”

“No gentleman,” she finished before he had the chance. His chuckle was snatched from the air as though it had never been.

The smile was back on his lips: cold, calculating, contemptuous. Hope suppressed a shiver, as well as the feeling that she might have pushed her luck too far this time. She’d made a mistake in speaking her mind without a weapon to back up her words. The error belatedly clicked in her mind with all the force of a hammer being cocked. She might have just made the biggest mistake of her life, and made it with the most ruthlessly dangerous man she’d ever met.

“Well, now, sunshine,” he said on a sigh, the smile still in place, “you may be right. But a deal
is
a deal. And gentleman or not, I intend to see that this one’s honored.” He fingered the bruise on his cheek as his eyes narrowed on Hope. “I think I deserve it,” he paused, “don’t you?”

Yes,
she thought, with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach,
he does
. Drake Frazier deserved to be paid for his services. It was a pity she couldn’t pay him quite the way she had promised.

Dread quickly gave way to fear, and fear to panic, as she watched Drake slip each sinewy leg over the bench. His piercing eyes never leaving her, he reminded Hope of a bloodthirsty predator cornering its weaker prey. Would he toy with her, like a cat would a mouse? she wondered. Or would he skip the preliminaries and go straight for the jugular?

Drake rounded the table, his strides long and purposeful. It was the sound of his boot heels, a sharp thud on the scuffed plank floorboards, that finally prompted Hope into motion.

With a strangled cry, she hoisted her skirt and bolted around the opposite side of the table. She was farther from the gun, but closer to the knife. Her backup option just might pay off. The grin that tugged at Frazier’s lips told her that he thought her move a foolish one. And why shouldn’t he? With the exit at his back, and the only obvious weapon yet to be reached, he had every reason to be confident.

That confidence seeped into his voice, lacing his words with husky arrogance. “Where are you going to go, Hope? Even if you made it outside, I’d catch you before you cleared the woods.”

“Maybe,” Hope shrugged, nibbling at her lower lip as she fought the temptation to measure the distance between herself and the knife. The gunslinger was watching her too closely. If she risked so much as a glance in that direction he would glean her intent and stop her before she reached the counter.

“Definitely,” he corrected with a cocky grin. “You can bet on it.”

Instinct, goaded by the man’s infernal arrogance, made her reach out and seize the top plate of the stack. It was heavy, that plate, molded out of good solid tin. She hurled it at Frazier’s golden head without a second thought. Her eyes widened in disbelief as he sidestepped the flying projectile and snatched it from the air before it could hurt him. Hope waited, breathless, wondering if he was going to throw it back, knowing her reflexes were not that good.

Drake gauged the weight of the plate in his hand, his gaze flickering between an object that had the potential to be a deadly weapon, and the woman who had hurled it at him. “That wasn’t very smart, sunshine,” he admonished, setting the plate aside.

If Hope had planned for him to chase her around the other side of the table, she was sadly mistaken. First, Drake did not look like he was going to
chase
her anywhere, so much as he was going to stalk her like a dog sniffing out a wounded fox. Second, he was rounding the table on the side nearest the counter—
and the knife!

He closed in another step. Two more and he would be around the table entirely. Already he had the advantage of distance, whereas Hope’s only advantage was that of surprise. He would expect her to run away from him, not toward him. With any luck, the suddenness of her action would throw him off guard just long enough for her to reach the counter. A split-second pause, that was all she would need.

Taking in a deep gulp of air, she dug her fingers into the coarse fabric of her skirt, and ran for all she was worth. The floor slapped at the booted soles of her feet and her braid bobbed against the small of her back. Her heart drummed so loudly in her ears that she could barely hear the muttered curse as it passed Drake’s Frazier’s lips when he guessed her intent.

Swearing at his own stupidity for not having seen the knife before, Drake flew after her. As Hope had intended, she had taken him completely off guard. Unfortunately, his reaction time was not as slow as she would have liked.

Hope was quick, but Drake was quicker. She had no more felt the smooth wood of the counter top beneath her fingertips, before it was cruelly snatched away. An arm shot out from nowhere and wrapped itself tightly around her waist, pulling her back until she collided with the brick wall of his chest.

The air rushed from her lungs, and the tightness around her middle wouldn’t let her draw more. She pulled at the arm, trying to loosen its hold. When that didn’t work, she stretched out her arm and reached for the knife, at the same time pulling up her foot and sinking her heel deep into the shin behind her.

Drake grunted, a warm rush of air in her ear. His hold loosened but did not fall away. Hope stretched as far as she could and felt the knife’s handle graze her fingertips. She was dragged back before her fingers could wrap around the handle.

“Let me go, you jackass!” she screamed, throwing a wild punch over her shoulder. The fist hit nothing but air. She threw another, this one over the other shoulder. She was rewarded with the feel of her knuckles smashing into Frazier’s ear before her wrist was captured in his free hand. He forced her arm down so it crossed over the other, making them both useless.

Tears of frustration blurred her gaze, but Hope refused to give in to them. Nor would she give in to the infuriating power of the man behind her. With her hands pinned, she used the only thing left: her feet. Time and again her heel sank into a shin, a muscular calf, or when she was very lucky, a rock hard thigh.

Her struggles seemed to have little effect. In fact, the more she fought, the tighter the arm around her waist became. Drawing in breath became increasingly hard and it wasn’t long before the room began to spin in sickening circles before her eyes. Blackness reared up from the floor, threatening to envelop her in its velvety folds. She resisted it, but only barely.

Reluctantly, she ceased her struggles and melted back against the gunslinger’s chest. His hard shoulder pillowed her head and she could feel his heart drumming beneath the thick, rippled flesh of his shoulder blade. The sweet rush of his breath tickled her ear, fanned her cheek and neck. His grip had loosened enough to allow her deep, healing gulps of air.

“Are you done fighting?” he asked, his voice oddly gentle as his breath stirred the wisps of hair clinging to her jaw.

“No,” she panted, her own voice trembling as she shook her head. She had expected to hear mockery in his tone, perhaps a sarcastic hint of victory as well. There was none, and the lack of it confused her, “Let me go, Drake,” she pleaded, her words stronger now that the air had had a chance to work its magic. “Please? I’ll pay you. I’ll even have Papa increase your share in the mine. How does half of the profits sound? Three quarters? My God, you can have the whole damn thing, just let me go and forget our deal.
Pleeease....”

The last was a ragged, broken whisper, filled with desperation—and something else. Drake scowled. Was it terror that shaped her words? It was the same tone he’d heard when she’d first come to him with the deal, when he’d suggested he preferred a different form of payment. He was again struck with the feeling that her reluctance went beyond virginal innocence. He couldn’t help but remember how she’d acted with the other men. She laughed, she joked, she returned their stares. But not with him. With him she acted like a child who’d just woken up to find her worst nightmares come true.

With hands that were gentler than Drake ever dreamed they could be, he eased her around. Her shoulders were squared with pride, but she kept her eyes lowered. Cupping her chin, he tilted her head up so that she had no choice but to look at him.

“I don’t want your money,” he said softly, momentarily laying aside the irony of those words. He could feel Hope trying to pull away from him, but he refused to let her slip from the circle of his arm. Nor would he release her chin. Instead, he turned her head back when she would have looked away. “And I don’t want your claim. Not all of it, anyway.”

“I know what you want,” Hope replied flatly. Swallowing hard, she fought the urge to run. Where would she go? She couldn’t run from this man, at least not very far. Hadn’t he already proven that?

“What I want is an explanation,” he continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “First, I want to know why you would come to my room, solicit my help, and agree to a deal you had no intention of honoring.” His voice lowered to a husky whisper. “Then I want to know why you can’t honor it. Mind you, I want the truth—if you think you’re capable of it.”

Hope stiffened and her lips thinned into a tight, hard line. “I didn’t have a choice,” she said, tilting her chin away from his grasp as a spark of defiance flared in her eyes. “Believe me, if there had been another option, another man I thought could beat Larzdon, I would have taken my business somewhere else. Unfortunately, my father decided you were our best bet.”

“So you decided to take a gamble and hope that the despicable Drake Frazier, that good-for-nothing gunslinger, would live up to his reputation, is that it?” Drake chuckled. It was a cold, mirthless sound. “I’m flattered.”

“Don’t be,” she spat. Slapping his hand from her chin, she slipped from his grasp. She was surprised when he let her go so easily. “I didn’t like the idea any more than you did. But, like I said, I had no choice.” She took a deep breath and pushed on, determined to end this confrontation as soon as possible. “As for ‘payment,’ well
my
offer was for one hundred dollars.
You’re
the one who insisted on more.”

“And
you’re
the one who agreed to it,” he reminded her coldly. Reaching out, he let the tip of his fingers stroke the smooth line of her jaw.

Hope pulled back, more from the odd, tingling sensation the touch evoked than from the contact itself. “Not by choice!”

“Ah, so you
were
forced then,” he nodded, crossing one arm over his chest. That muscular forearm pillowed the elbow of the other arm as he lazily stroked his chin with the tips of his index finger and thumb.

He was mocking her, she realized, though she didn’t call him on it. She didn’t dare.

“And where did they hide the gun, sunshine?” he asked, a sly grin pulling at one corner of his mouth. “In your underdrawers?”

“That’s pretty low, Frazier. Even for you. What do you think, that they threatened my life and forced me to come to you that night?” she demanded tightly. Her eyes narrowed angrily as her hands balled into useless fists at her sides. “My own father? My brother? My friends? Think again. Your life may be ruled by the wrong end of a rifle, but not mine.” She tapped an index finger against her temple. “Unlike most of the women in Thirsty, I happen to have a brain in here. And what’s more, I know how to use it. What they suggested that night made perfect sense. Everything would have been fine if you’d taken my first offer.
You’re
the one who complicated things by not taking the money.”