Each Time We Love (6 page)

Savanna exchanged a look with Bodene, who grimaced and
shrugged his broad shoulders. His own rifle still shoved between
Micajah's shoulder blades, he said thoughtfully, "I've never killed a
man in cold blood before, but I suppose there's always a first time."

"Now look here!" Micajah bit out half angrily, half fearfully.
"I've done right by you—didn't I let Sam go?"

Bodene smiled grimly. "Only because you didn't want to get a
hole blown through you." He shoved the rifle deeper into Micajah's back
and continued acidly. "And if I hadn't been here, God knows what you
might have done… I've a good mind to shoot you anyway."

"Now, Bodene, you know you don't want to do that," the outlaw
replied quickly. "Why, we've known each other since you were just a
boy—I didn't mean no
real
harm." An uneasy smile
crossed his face. "And Savanna's such a tempting baggage, you can't
honestly blame me for losing my head a little."

Savanna snorted and said through gritted teeth, "Try something
like this again and you
will
lose your head—I'll
put a bullet through it!"

"And if, just by chance, she were to miss," Bodene added with
soft menace, "you can be sure I would hunt you down like the dog you
are and I wouldn't
miss!
Do you understand?"

"'Course I understand!" Micajah replied testily. "Think I'm a
fool? I just don't understand why you all are going on about it!
Nothing happened!"

Disgustedly Savanna said, "Oh, shut up, Micajah! Drop the
knife and get the hell out of here before I change my mind!"

The knife clattered to the floor and Micajah was out the door
in an instant. Picking up the fallen weapon, Bodene said quietly, "Hell
be back, you know that, don't you?"

"Yes, and I'll say it for you—next time I might not be so
lucky," Savanna muttered, not meeting his eyes. She wasn't about to
admit it, but this recent attack by Micajah had scared her. If she'd
had any doubts about the extent of his mulish infatuation, it was now
glaringly obvious that he just wasn't going to give up; he was going to
keep trying, and one of these days… Savanna shivered. If Bodene hadn't
been there, it might have ended very differently than it had, and she
was miserably aware of that unpleasant fact. Because of her own
stubbornness, Sam might have died, and it didn't bear thinking about
what she would have suffered at Micajah's hands. Bodene was right—there
was no use letting her pride destroy her.

She glanced resolutely over at her cousin. "How long do you
intend to stay?" she asked reluctantly.

"As long as it takes to convince you to stop being a
muleheaded little fool!" he snapped, the obstinate thrust of his jaw
very apparent.

Her eyes traveled over to Sam, and meeting his dark,
compassionate gaze, she knew the decision that she had to make.

Savanna couldn't remember a time when Sam and his two sons
hadn't been part of the household. While Elizabeth had been busy
tending the tavern, since his wife had died years before, it had been
Sam, in between helping Elizabeth, who had watched over all the
children and seen to their needs.

Savanna and Bodene had grown up playing with Isaac and Moses,
who were just a few years older than Bodene. Elizabeth had been there
for soft hugs and gentle kisses, but Sam had been their main parental
figure. He'd been a kind tyrant, fair but implacable about what he
expected from them, and his hand had warmed their bottoms on more than
one occasion. As Savanna had gotten older, her mother had explained
that Sam and his children were actually
owned
by
Davalos; that since he was gone so often and he didn't want them lazing
around, he had ordered them to stay with her and earn their keep.
Savanna had been appalled, and when Davalos had died, giving Sam his
freedom papers had been one of the most satisfying acts of her life. In
the intervening years he had repaid her a thousand times with his
unstinting loyalty.

A tender expression suddenly crossed her face. If it hadn't
been for Sam's volunteering to accompany her when she had decided to
leave Campo de Verde, she doubted that she would ever have been able to
accomplish all that she had—or that Elizabeth and Bodene wouldn't have
forcibly restrained her from setting off totally on her own. Neither
Elizabeth nor Bodene had been happy about the situation, but with Sam
willing to go with her, most of their arguments had evaporated. While
she had been recklessly determined to make O'Rourke's Tavern a success
all on her own, there had been many a time that she had been grateful
for Sam's solid, reassuring presence, and there had been times without
number when Sam had come up to her while she had been intent upon some
backbreaking task and said softly, "Well, now, missy! It looks as if
you could use some help. There is no cause for you to be working
yoreself into the ground when I'se around. Didn't I tell yore mama that
I'd look after you just as I alwus done?"

There were many desperate situations that Savanna could have
endured, but she wouldn't be able to live with herself if Sam were
badly hurt or killed because of her. Straightening her slim shoulders,
she flashed a rueful look at Bodene. "I'll need a few days to get
things organized. There's an old trapper friend of Sam's who might be
willing to move in and take over everything until I decide what to do
with the place, but he has to be found and that might take a while."

Bodene relaxed for the first time since he'd left New Orleans.
Smiling warmly at her, he said softly, "It doesn't matter how long it
takes, just as long as you and Sam come with me."

Savanna's decision to leave O'Rourke's Tavern was not quite
the instant capitulation that it appeared— she had always feared that
one day she would come up against a situation over which she had no
control, and Micajah's unwanted attentions certainly were that! She'd
known when she'd struck out on her own that she was attempting the
impossible; that it would not be the life her mother wanted for her,
nor would it be a comfortable life, free from danger and brutal
difficulties, but she'd been prepared for that. After all, hadn't she
grown up watching her mother struggle desperately to keep all of them
in the bare necessities? Surely she could do better unencumbered by two
children. Savanna had also been grimly confident that no man would ever
hold her in the same demoralizing enchantment that Davalos had wielded
over her mother.

With little more than sheer nerve, some desperately needed
luck and a lot of obstinate determination, she'd headed back for the
only home she had known—Crow's Nest—only to discover that Crow's Nest
and Stack Island no longer existed. The island and the small tavern,
which Elizabeth had sold for a meager sum when the news of Davalos's
death had reached them, had disappeared beneath the Mississippi River
in a tremendous earthquake that same year. A resolute tilt to her chin,
Savanna had turned her back on the past and crossed the river,
searching for somewhere else to start up another tavern. She'd found
what she was looking for in this deserted old homestead and, by sheer
grit and guts and with Sam's help, had turned it into a passable
business. It was not an easy life she had chosen, perhaps not even the
life she wanted, yet she took a stubborn pride in it. But life on the
wilderness frontier of Louisiana was relentlessly hard for
everyone—especially for a woman alone and for a young woman who looked
like Savanna…

Studying her features in a small spotted mirror that night,
Savanna sighed.
She
didn't think there was
anything remarkable about the stunning clarity of her aquamarine eyes,
or the elegant shape of her high cheekbones, or even the lush fullness
of her provocatively curved mouth. As for the luxuriousness of her wavy
red-gold hair, which only emphasized the milky fairness of her skin and
the darkness of her brows and long lashes, well, she didn't think very
much of it either! Actually, she hated the color of her hair, wishing
instead that she had been endowed with hair as black as Bodene's and
eyes that were a plain, unremarkable blue. And what there was about her
shape that roused the unwanted interest and pursuit of men like Micajah
Yates utterly baffled her— after all, she was formed just like any
other woman, she had exactly the same parts and they were precisely in
the same places!

Impatiently putting down the mirror, Savanna turned away and
walked toward her bed. If Yates and others like him would only leave
her alone, she and Sam would do just fine. But no! There was something
about her, something about the tall body that she took for granted,
something about the voluptuous curves that she secretly despised that
made her the angry, unwilling target of the lusts of so many men who
crossed her path.

It wasn't, Savanna argued with herself as she slid into bed,
as if she ever
encouraged
any of their advances!
Painfully aware of what a man had cost her mother, she had sworn never
to let that happen to her. Savanna didn't like men very much, all they
represented to her was heartache, trouble and tears, and she'd never
met one who had stirred the least little tremor of excitement within
her breast. Not one.

In the darkness she smiled—not so surprising when she lived in
a society where someone like Murdering Micajah was considered quite a
catch! Unfortunately, she didn't expect that the men around New Orleans
were any different, except for being cleaner and richer and perhaps
better-mannered. Tears and trouble, every last one of them! And she'd
happily die a spinster before she'd let even one of them breach the
defensive wall she kept around her emotions—which was going to make
living with her mother exceedingly difficult.

She grimaced. It wasn't surprising that, considering the
disaster of her own life, Elizabeth was firmly convinced that Savanna's
happiness could only be attained by marriage. Of course, even Elizabeth
would admit that not just
any
man would do for
her daughter, but one of the reasons, once she'd gotten over her grief
over his death, that Elizabeth had been so delighted with the contents
of Davalos's will had been because it allowed them to live, as she had
said, "with a much better class of people, dear. Respectable people,
honest
people!" Smiling mistily at a highly indifferent Savanna, Elizabeth had
trilled on, "I know that because of our unfortunate circumstances you
won't have the marriage opportunities that should have been your right,
but, darling, there are all sorts of very nice men—shopkeepers and even
some hardworking farmers—who would deem themselves
very
lucky to have a wife like you!" It had been shortly after this
conversation that Savanna had left home.

Fidgeting restlessly under the light covers, Savanna twisted
and turned, wishing violently for sleep. She was not looking forward to
returning to Campo de Verde—not that she didn't love her mother. It was
just that the thought of Elizabeth's gentle scheming to find her a
respectable husband made Savanna squirm with dread. That, and all the
boring, dull, ladylike occupations that Elizabeth seemed to feel were
required of women. Incredible as it seemed, Savanna much preferred the
desperate struggle to keep the tavern going and the occasional facing
down of dangerous rogues like Micajah to the stultifying domesticity
that her mother embraced with such unbridled enthusiasm. It was only
the growing fear of
not
being able to win against
men like Murdering Micajah that was driving her back to Campo de Verde
and a fate she viewed with deep misgivings and despair.

It was odd, Savanna mused wearily, that her mother, who had
lived such an unconventional life, should now yearn so hungrily for all
the trappings of respectability. Imagining the dull, stupefying
sameness
of the days that stretched before her, for just a second she considered
telling Bodene in the morning that she had changed her mind, that she
couldn't possibly return to Campo de Verde. Suddenly, though, Sam's
pain-filled face flashed before her eyes and she sighed. No. She'd have
to go; it was the only way to make certain that Sam came to no harm,
and that was the most important thing—that and keeping out of the
clutches of Murdering Micajah! She grinned slightly as she recalled
Micajah's chagrined expression when Bodene had shoved the rifle into
his back. After today, it was highly unlikely that Yates would continue
his unwanted pursuit of her, and, certain she had seen the last of him
for a very long time, Savanna didn't waste any more time speculating on
the outlaw. Which was most unfortunate!

Smarting from having been humiliatingly bested by
Savanna twice in less than a month, Micajah put several hasty miles
between himself and O'Rourke's Tavern before he deemed it safe to stop.
The notion of doubling back and trying his luck again did cross his
mind, but the memory of Savanna's deadly expression above that long
black rifle made him think better of it—that and the knowledge that
Sullivan was also there. If it hadn't been for Sullivan… A vicious look
crossed his face. One of these days he was going to have to teach that
interfering bastard a lesson, and when he was done, he'd teach Savanna
what a
real
man was like!

Thoughts of vengeance, along with an unpleasant spell of bad
weather, kept him company during the three-day journey up to Natchez,
and by the time he had sighted the majestic bluffs overlooking the
Mississippi River which signaled the end of his journey, Micajah was
wet, hungry, uncomfortable and in a decidedly foul mood. Leaving his
exhausted horse at the livery stable, he immediately set out in search
of some liquid comfort.

Natchez was actually two cities. On a high, tree-covered bluff
towering above the river was situated the elegant town inhabited by the
wealthy planters and respectable merchants and their families. There,
along the jessamine-shaded streets, was to be found a charming mixture
of Spanish and American architecture, iron grillwork and vaulted
corridors mingling with arcades of slender columns and wide galleries.
But on the narrow clay shelf nearly two hundred feet below the bluff
near the river lay the "other" city—Natchez-under-the-Hill. And if the
town above was noted for its wealth and elegance,
Natchez-under-the-Hill had gained fame as a haven for every kind of
vice imaginable.