Dorothy Garlock (30 page)

Johanna put her arms around him. “Ben, thank you for letting me wear Anna’s brooch. It means a lot to me that you think I was worthy of that honor. Oh, Ben!” She hugged him tighter. “You’re so much like my papa. And, Ben . . . I love you.” She kissed his cheek and saw tears come into his eyes. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve embarrassed you!”

“Not a bit,” he said hastily. “Not a dadgummed bit! I just can’t believe my luck, is all.” His seamed face broke into a bright smile.

“Luck had nothing to do with it, Ben. You’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever known. And you’re a tired one, too, so be off with you. I’ll clear up and leave some food on the table for Burr.” She walked with him to the door and watched his slow progress down the hall. A small glow of light shone from the partly open door of old Mack’s room, and Johanna prayed that the old man wouldn’t decide to come back to the kitchen now that Ben had gone.

Johanna was fixing bread and butter and meat for Burr when she heard his voice outside the back door. She fought the impulse to flee to her room upstairs, and then to still the trembling of her knees when she heard footsteps coming down the hall.

“Whom were you talking to?” she managed to say lightly when he appeared in the doorway.

“Mooney. I told him to get some sleep. Luis and I have been to the Indian camp, and from the looks of things they’ll not ride in on us tonight.” His voice was husky, as if his throat were caked with dust.

“I’m glad of that.”

Burr took the teakettle from the cookstove and poured hot water into the washbasin, then ladled in several dippers full of cold water from the bucket.

“Are you afraid?” he asked just before he scooped water up with his two hands and splashed his face. He did this several times before wiping it dry with the neatly folded towel he took from the rack.

“Of course. I’d be a fool not to be,” Johanna replied tartly.

“You don’t trust your husband to keep you safe, eh?” He looped the damp towel over the towel bar.

She turned her back on him and took a plate of food to the table. She wanted to look at him, but she didn’t dare, afraid he might read in her face her newly discovered feelings about him. She brought his coffee and sat down at the table. He caught her arm as she turned to leave.

“Sit down, Mrs. Calloway, and talk to me.” His soft voice evoked even more confusion within her.

She pulled her arm away. “In a minute.” Her tone was sharper than she had intended.

Fumbling with the pans on the stove gave her a few minutes to collect herself. When she could delay no longer, she poured herself a cup of coffee and returned to sit at the opposite end of the table. Burr stood, reached for her cup, and set it down on the table next to him.

“I’m not going to pounce on you, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I’m too goddamn tired.” He glared at her with red-rimmed eyes.

Johanna sat down beside him. Her knees brushed his thigh and she quickly moved them away. She glanced at his face. He did look tired.

“Did you get any sleep last night?”

He lifted his head, and his eyes searched her face. Johanna bridged the awful silence that followed by sipping her coffee. She realized the reason for his surprised look. It was the first bit of personal, civil conversation she had directed to him.

“Not much. Luis and I drove the horses up and spent the rest of the night moving wagons to use as blockades in case of an attack.”

She cleared her throat nervously. “Do you do this each spring and fall when the Apache come through?”

“No,” he said honestly. “We haven’t taken this many precautions for a long time. We always drive the herds from the lower valley, leaving a decent amount for them to steal. It’s horses they want.”

“I heard you bringing them in last night.”

“We’ve got a good strong corral over next to the cliffs and they’d have to go past here to get to them.” He talked quietly, then fell silent.

The silence dragged on while he ate. He was hungry, Johanna noted, and was pleased she had prepared a satisfactory meal in spite of old Mack’s disruptive presence.

Not until his plate was empty did he speak again. “I meant to tell you about Ben adopting Luis and me, and giving us his name, but every time we talked the fur would fly and I’d forget about it.” He grinned, and small lines appeared at the corners of his eyes. His hair was almost silver against his tanned face. It was sun-bleached, Johanna realized.

Johanna got up to refill his cup. “It doesn’t matter. I was surprised, that’s all.” She could feel his eyes on her while she poured the coffee.

“It happened a long time ago, and I don’t think about it much.”

“I can understand that, but . . . why do you call yourself Macklin? I’d think you’d prefer to use your legal name, Calloway.”

“One reason I use Macklin is because I don’t have to, thank God! The other reason is because it gripes the hell out of the old man. I guess I’d be legally an Englebretson, if Ben hadn’t adopted me.”

“Well, it’s all right with me,” she said with a deep sigh. “I’d rather be Mrs. Calloway than Mrs. Macklin.”

“Glad to hear it.” He grinned devilishly. “I thought you might be disappointed not being Mrs. Macklin of Macklin Valley.”

“I didn’t want to be
Mrs.
anything,” she said tartly, and could have bitten her tongue the moment she said it, for she was sure that with her sharp words she had put an end to their first civil conversation.

She had.

“I know,” he replied sarcastically. “God knows you’ve told me often enough.” He sat at the table, shoulders hunched, and rolled a cigarette with not quite steady fingers.

Johanna glanced at his bent head.
Is this the way it’s going to be for the rest of our lives?
she asked herself.
Will all our conversations end this way? Down through the years when we are old, will we still be snapping at each other? He’ll not make the first effort to change the pattern. All he knows to do is to hide behind sarcasm and that devil-may-care attitude. If the pattern is to be changed, I’ll have to be the one to do it, and I must do it . . . for my own sanity, and for Bucko’s sake.

“I’m sorry, Burr,” she said quietly. “I shouldn’t have said that. Circumstances that neither of us could control have forced us into this marriage. What’s done is done, and no amount of wishing will change it. Our lives will be unbearable if we’re constantly bickering. And . . . we have Bucko to consider. I’m willing to make the effort to be amicable if you are.”

He looked up and pinned her eyes with his. “Suffer in silence, eh?”

“I don’t mean that,” she said patiently. “I promised Bucko that we’d . . . be a family—”

“He told me. You’re going to be his mama.”

Johanna’s face reddened, but she refused to turn her eyes away. “You don’t approve?”

He shrugged. “Whatever is best for Bucko is all right with me.”

“There will be times when we’ll have to discuss . . . certain matters.” Johanna was determined that they come to an understanding.

“Like what?”

“Well . . . such as food supplies, and clothes . . . and birthdays, Thanksgiving—”

“Birthdays?” He looked at her as if he didn’t know what she was talking about. Then he said, “Tell Codger. He’ll take care of it.”

Her temper flared. “I’ll not tell Codger! I’ll tell you, and we will discuss it.”

“All right. But I don’t see—”

“Then you agree that we must have some semblance of harmony between us?” she insisted.

“Sure, why not?” he said flippantly.

Johanna turned away. The knife in her heart pierced deeper. She had tried. She asked herself if she had the strength to keep pecking away at this impossible situation. There was no answer.

She cleared the table and put away the food. Burr sat quietly, his arms on the table and his long legs stretched out in front of him. He watched her, but his gaze was not as disturbing as old Mack’s had been. Finally, when she had done everything she could find to do, she turned and faced him, her nervousness intensifying. He had removed his neckerchief and his shirt was open, revealing an expanse of brown chest. Johanna froze as his eyes bored into hers, sending a message she was not too confused to interpret. She had hoped that he would not insist she sleep with him tonight, but she could see now that it was a futile wish. He was a man who took every single thing he thought he was entitled to take, she could see that clearly now.

As before, Johanna took refuge behind cool hauteur.

“Excuse me,” she said and started for the door.

When she went to pass him, his arms snaked out and she was hauled off her feet and onto his lap. It happened so suddenly that she hadn’t time to make a sound of protest, and his mouth was on hers before she could resist. He kissed her deeply, again and again, holding her tightly against his hard, unrelenting chest. His lips were hard at first, then softened and moved even more demandingly as his tongue darted forth to trace hotly the outline of her mouth before compelling her lips to open. He molded her to him as if she were a missing part of him and kissed her mouth, her eyes, and her cheeks with insatiable hunger.

“Little silver fox,” he muttered against her mouth. “You’re soft and sweet and smell like a . . . woman.”

Startled by his words and totally defenseless, Johanna could do nothing but submit. To her horror, she found that she didn’t want to resist, and a moan began deep within her and slowly rose to her throat and caught there when she felt his hand free her breast from the tight bodice of her dress.

“I knew it would be like this—that you’d feel good against me.” His whispered words came from someplace near her mouth, and then his hands and his lips became bruising.

A wave of sexual desire swept her. She wanted to yield, to cast the last vestiges of restraint from her mind and body and let him carry her away again on the flood of his passion and give him all that he needed to satisfy the hunger in him.

“Hmmm . . .” He rubbed his nose against her cheek. “Who’d’a thought that behind that beautiful face and icy stare there’s a hot little woman just aching to be loved.”

The murmured words and the roughness of his hands as they flipped up her skirt and stroked her bare flesh set off a warning bell in her brain. She had given in to her body’s demands that night in his room, and he had humiliated her. It wasn’t going to happen again. Sex should be an act of love, she thought wildly. The coming together of a man and a woman should be something to cherish, to hold sacred, not merely to gratify the carnal desire like an . . . animal.

She tore herself free from his embrace. She knew instinctively that she’d never make it out the door, so she ran to the fireplace and rested her forehead against the broad mantel. She leaned there, her heart racing, her stomach churning. Her lips felt bruised and tortured and she was mortified that she had lain in his arms like a wanton and let him caress her as he would a whore. She was humiliated by her desire. With shaking hands, she restored order to her clothing and her hair.

Johanna tensed as she heard his footsteps on the stone floor and flinched when she heard his mocking voice.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” he hissed angrily. “You’re my wife, goddammit!”

She did not move from the hearth. He came up behind her and pulled her around to face him.

“I said, what the hell’s the matter with you? What did you expect?”

To her horror, huge tears suddenly welled up in her eyes, and despite her desperate efforts to stop them, they started to roll down her cheeks.

“If you ever come at me like that again . . . I’ll kill you!”

It was seconds before he took the import of her incredible words. Then he asked in a disbelieving whisper, “You’ll what?”

“I’ll kill you!” she sobbed. “I mean it. I won’t be manhandled as if I were a . . . were a whore!”

Seconds of silence passed while he glared at her. The look on his face clearly stated that he didn’t have the slightest idea what she was taking about.

“What did you expect?” he said again, and this time there was no harshness in his voice.

The eyes that locked with his were tear filled, but her gaze was steady and her head tilted in a gesture of defiance. She jerked her shoulders from his hands.

“I expected . . . tenderness!”

The puzzled look that crossed his face was genuine.

“Tenderness?” he questioned, and then his expression changed to one of exasperation. She held her chin up and her eyes looked straight at him while his eyes roamed her face. Finally he said with disgust, “Tenderness!” and started for the door, his broad back a blur through her tears.

In the seconds that followed, Johanna heard a bellowed curse from old Mack’s room. Burr paused, a questioning look on his face, and then the sound of a shot and the impact of the bullet as it pierced the wall to strike the storage cabinet. In one swift movement he sprang to the light and squelched it.

“Stay down and back . . . away from the fire—” he commanded and bolted for the door.

E
ighteen

J
ohanna stood frozen for a second.

“Burr! Burr!” She wasn’t sure if she said his name or not as fear for him surged hotly through her and lent wings to her feet. Unmindful of his command, she raced after him. When she reached the hall she saw him fling open the door to old Mack’s room and disappear inside. She ran down the hall and peered in from the doorway.

The glow from the lamp on the bureau illuminated the room, and what she saw made her gasp with horror. Old Mack lay on the bed, the handle of a knife protruding from his chest. He was writhing in agony, his gnarled hands pulling at the handle. Burr stood at the foot of the bed, gun in hand, his eyes roaming the room. The only sound was the weird creaking of the rope bed as the old man’s considerable weight shifted as he attempted to rid himself of the torturing knife. Burr shoved his gun back into its holster and went quickly to Mack. He pried loose the frantic fingers, pulled out the knife, and let it drop to the floor.

“Oh, my God!” This wasn’t happening! This couldn’t be true! Johanna was nearly sick to her stomach.