Frontier Woman (14 page)

“Yes, she can,” Creed agreed.

They laughed together, and Creed realized how much he genuinely liked Cricket’s sister.

Cricket had forgotten about Bay and Creed as she strode toward the house, planning the best way to explain to Rip what had happened last night. It would be easy to place the blame for everything on Jarrett Creed. After all, if he hadn’t taunted her she would never have entered the cantina in the first place.

Weak, Cricket. Very weak excuse. She had no one to blame but herself. She should have gone home when Rip asked her to join him. She’d assured him she’d be along shortly, and then she’d played monte for another three hours—waiting for Creed to come back to the cantina, she admitted.

Cricket was surprised to discover Rip sitting in one of the two huge rockers that graced the lower gallery porch. She almost hadn’t noticed him, he sat so still. He rose as she approached, and she checked surreptitiously to see if it was apparent she’d come from the bachelors’ quarters. No, she could just as easily have been coming from the barn.

“Where have you been? I looked everywhere for you last night.”

Cricket hadn’t expected her father to know she hadn’t come home last night, or to meet her at the front door and question her about where she’d slept. “I was out,” she mumbled, moving past him into the large open hallway just inside the door.

Rip followed, towering over her shoulder and lumbering after her like a grizzly reared up on its hind legs.

“Where were you?”

How was she going to answer that?

“None of your business,” she tried.

Rip slammed the door behind him, then pulled his leather belt from around his waist and folded it in half.

“Where did you spend the night?” he roared.

Rip’s tirade brought Sloan down the stairs. She quickly appraised the situation and said from the bottom step, “Does it really matter? She’s home safe now.”

“Stay out of this, Sloan,” Rip warned. “I asked you a question,” he repeated to Cricket. “I want an answer. Now.”

At that moment Bay opened the front door. She saw the belt in Rip’s hand and almost ran back out again. She looked quickly over her shoulder and saw, to her relief, that Jarrett Creed was right behind her.

“Creed’s here for breakfast,” she said, throwing the front door wide.

Even though Cricket had warned him, Creed was still appalled to see the belt in Rip’s hand. The mammoth man seemed not to mind at all that Creed would witness him disciplining his daughter.

“Some problem?” Creed asked, a note of warning in his voice. The space was large, but with the five of them crowded in, Rip was going to hit more than Cricket if he raised the belt. Not one of them moved, however, to get out of his way.

“Don’t interfere, Creed. This doesn’t concern you.”

“You’re going to whip your daughter because she was robbed?”

“What? Say that again?”

“Cricket was kidnapped by two Mexicans who were after a little more than the prize money she won yesterday. I saw what was happening and managed to rescue her, but the bandidos got away with her
días de toros
purse and her horse. Surely you can’t blame her for that.”

Rip listened to Creed’s explanation with narrowed eyes. “So you brought Cricket home.”

“Yes, I did,” Creed confirmed, his eyes steady on Rip’s.

Rip turned back to Cricket, suspicion simmering under his demand, “Where did you sleep?”

“I found her in the loft of the barn,” Bay supplied.

Rip wheeled on Bay, and she seemed to shrink before Creed’s eyes. “I looked in the loft,” Rip said. “She wasn’t there.”

“She was,” Bay argued back, her words coming in breathy spurts. “Under the hay. In the corner. Really.”

Rip grabbed Cricket’s chin in his hand and pulled her face up to look at him. “Next time you say you’re coming right home, I’ll expect to see your backside in bed the next morning. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes,
sir
,” Cricket replied belligerantly.

Rip strapped his belt back around his waist as he headed for the dining room. “Now let’s get some breakfast. I’m hungry as a she-bear in spring.”

Creed could feel the tension ease in each of the three girls as they followed their father, exchanging glances that spoke volumes of questions and answers, rebukes and explanations.

“I looked for you last night,” Sloan whispered to Cricket. “Where were you?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she whispered back.

“We have to talk,” Sloan said. “I have something important I need to discuss with you.”

At that moment they arrived at the dining room and Cricket hissed, “Same here. After breakfast?”

“Sure.”

It amazed Creed that Rip had accepted Bay’s flimsy, made-up story, and that he hadn’t asked Cricket to confirm or deny it. Surely, from what Creed had said, Rip could deduce where Cricket must have spent the night. But Cricket’s father hadn’t pressed the issue, and before Creed even asked “Why not?” he knew the answer to his question.

Rip didn’t want to confront the most logical answer—that Cricket had spent the night with Creed. Creed didn’t wonder any longer where Cricket had acquired her ability to simply ignore unpleasant realities.

Still, it was plain Rip had been worried about his daughter. He wasn’t the uncaring father Creed had accused him of being. He’d threatened Cricket with punishment, but out of concern, and by accepting Bay’s excuse he’d given himself a valid reason to forgo whipping Cricket.

Creed followed the unusual family into the dining room and filled a plate with the sumptuous fare provided. He sat at the table and ate in silence, but he was doing some fast thinking. Someone had to forestall Cricket’s attempt to go after the Mexicans. He didn’t trust Rip to do it, so he broached the issue himself.

“I think I’ll take some time off from my work here and go after the two Mexicans who robbed Cricket,” he announced.

“That sounds reasonable,” Rip agreed.

“I’ll go with you,” Cricket said.

“I work alone.”

Cricket wasn’t about to be deterred by Creed’s rejection. “Then I’ll go by myself.”

She watched Creed’s fist clench around his fork.

“You’ll only get in my way. I’d rather you stayed home.”

She stopped chewing when he looked to Rip for support. Surely her father wasn’t going to side with Creed.

The big man’s chin slipped to his chest, and his lips pursed in thought. He turned his fork around and around in his hand. The last thing he wanted was Cricket in Jarrett Creed’s company. It was a safe bet she’d spent the night with him last night, but he’d looked into Cricket’s eyes and found no feminine awareness there. He’d swear she was still untouched as a woman.

He’d never worried before that Cricket might give herself to a man before she was safely married to Guerrero’s son. But something special happened between Cricket and the Ranger every time they got together, and now was not the time to be taking unnecessary chances. Rip lifted his chin. He stabbed a forkful of fried eggs and stuffed it in his mouth as he announced through the food, “You stay home, Cricket. I’ve got things for you to do.”

Creed’s relieved sigh was interrupted by Cricket’s sharp retort.

“It was
my
stallion and
my
money that got stolen. I was the one who got knocked on the head and thrown off a galloping horse. I’m not going to sit home while this blade-nosed Ranger takes care of
my
business.”

“You’ll do as you’re told,” Rip ordered.

“Like
hell
I will!”

“Like hell you
will!
”

It was the same argument they’d had a hundred times. By the time they got to this point Cricket knew she was but a hairsbreadth from having her way. Only this time, the Ranger interfered.

“You’re staying with your father.”

The quietly spoken words struck like a thunderbolt, interrupting the oft-rehearsed scene. Neither of the two characters was prepared for Creed’s cold certainty.

“I won’t,” Cricket cried.

“Will you excuse us, please?” Creed said. “Cricket and I need to talk.”

Cricket was so disconcerted by Creed’s suggestion, she didn’t think to object. At Rip’s hesitant nod, Creed came around the table. Cricket eyed him like a coiled rattler, as he waited for her to stand.

“Is there a place we can speak privately?” he asked.

“You can use my office,” Rip volunteered.

“Follow me,” Cricket said. Her anger at this point greatly overrode any other emotion. She wondered why Creed wanted to speak privately with her, but she was sure it boded no good.

They stepped into a room as raw and rugged as the frontier. It was clear Bay’s gentle influence had not trespassed here. The distinctive smell of leather emanated from the heavy tomes in the bookcase on one wall. Cricket immediately dropped into the smooth rawhide seat of the largest of three cedar chairs near the fireplace. She hoped to give herself a measure of authority by taking Rip’s traditional place, since it was positioned for power. However, Creed never sat down in one of the two opposing chairs.

He walked over and stood looking down at her from his over-six-foot height, his feet spread wide and his fists perched on his narrow hips, his shoulders back and his chin jutted forward. It was an altogether intimidating posture, and Cricket swallowed hard and reminded herself that she’d never allowed a mere man to intimidate her.

“I don’t want you with me when I go after those Mexican bandits. I don’t want you to follow me. In fact, I don’t want you to leave Three Oaks at all while I’m gone.”

Cricket laughed, but it came out as a harsh bark. “What makes you think I’d do anything you asked me to do?”

“I’m not asking. I’m telling. Don’t leave Three Oaks while I’m gone.”

Cricket had to look up so far to see Creed she had trouble swallowing. There was an easy solution to that problem. She stood up, mimicking his aggressive stance. It helped because she didn’t have to look up so far, but now she stood less than a foot away and could feel the tension of coiled muscles, the threatening strength of a man who would not be denied. Except Cricket didn’t know the meaning of the word no.

“You’re way out of line, Ranger,” she said. “No man tells me what to do.”

“I’m not just any man,” Creed said, reaching out to caress Cricket’s cheek with the knuckles of his hand. “I’m your lover.”

Cricket flinched but held her ground. “I fail to see how that changes anything I’ve said so far.”

“I have an interest in seeing that nothing happens to you, Brava.”

“Why is that?”

“My babe may be growing in your belly.”

Cricket gasped as her hands flew to her abdomen. Of course. She’d forgotten all about that. She struggled to remember everything Sloan had told her four years ago. Was that all it took? One time? Was she going to have a baby now?

Creed had taken desperate measures to solve what he considered a desperate problem. He was making choices for Cricket again, but he didn’t think that could be helped. There wasn’t any way he was going to have her tagging along with him or even behind him. She belonged home, safe with her family. He’d get back her money and her horse a lot quicker if he didn’t have to worry about her well-being the whole time he was doing his job.

“You need to take care of yourself until you find out for sure one way or the other,” he said.

Cricket thought about it for a second and flushed when she realized how she would know “one way or the other.”

“I don’t want to have a baby,” she said, her lower lip thrust forward mulishly.

Creed’s large hands came up to cover Cricket’s, which were still on her belly.

“Don’t be upset, Brava,” he soothed, “that’s why God made women.”

Cricket stepped back from Creed and looked him straight in the eye before she spat, “Well, God can just think again. I’ve got plans of my own!”

She was gone from the room before he could think of a suitable response to that.

Chapter 10

CRICKET LEFT THREE OAKS WITHIN MINUTES AFTER stomping out of the study. She stopped only long enough to tell Sloan their talk would have to wait, to grab necessary supplies and weapons, and to saddle a horse, before she was on her way with Rogue at her side. Cricket figured the two bandits had gone south along the Atascosito Road, which ran through Victoria to Goliad, both of them towns populated by
tejanos
. She followed the blaze-marked trail, so confident she would come across some sign of the two Mexicans that she spent the time planning exactly how she would retrieve her stolen possessions.

Several hours later, Cricket’s hunch was rewarded when she found the campfire where the two men had spent the past night. They’d camped in a stand of cypress near a stream. There were butts from several cigarettes smoked down to just one inch, exactly as Clemencio had smoked his in the cantina, and remnants of some personal items from her saddlebags, which had been used and discarded.

“See anything you recognize?”

Cricket whirled, drawing her Colt Paterson at the same time, but didn’t fire because the mellow Tennessee voice registered in the few seconds it took her to complete her turn.

“You always walk up behind strangers like that?” Cricket demanded, surprised and irritated to find Creed barely a foot away from her. His Comanche upbringing had made him stealthy, she conceded, but she wasn’t going to admire him for a trait which made it possible for him to sneak up and frighten her like that.

“You’re hardly a stranger.” Creed closed the distance between them until the bore of her gun rested against his iron-hard abdomen. He seized her chin with one hand, while the other snaked around her nape so his thumb rested on the pulse at her throat.

“This is no place for a woman, Brava,” he said, his face inches from her own, his breath fanning her mouth. “Not even a woman like you.”

Cricket could feel her blood pounding as his thumb began to move in slow circles on her neck. She tried to jerk her head from his grasp, even grabbed the wrist holding her chin with her free hand, but it was like struggling against stone. His hold tightened inexorably, then gentled the instant she stopped resisting it. The gun was the only thing that kept them apart, and Cricket could feel the muscles in Creed’s belly fighting back against the pressure she applied.

“I could blow a hole in you so big a horse could walk through it,” she hissed.

“Why waste a bullet? Why not let your wolf rip out my throat?”

Although she couldn’t move her head, Cricket’s eyes quickly searched left and right for Rogue. Where was he, anyway?

The Ranger whistled shrilly, and the wolf came bounding into sight. He loped over to Creed and Cricket and sat down expectantly between them, his tongue lolling from his mouth.

“Little trick I taught my first pup,” Creed said with a mischievous grin. “Works on wolves, too, I discovered.”

Cricket’s face flushed with chagrin. How dare he steal her wolf’s allegiance! She closed her eyes, since Creed’s grip wouldn’t allow her to turn her head away and she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing that she appreciated the almost impossible feat he’d accomplished. Rogue had been tolerant of others, but he’d obeyed no one but Cricket. That is, until Jarrett Creed had stuck his arrogant nose in where it didn’t belong.

When she recovered her composure Cricket opened her eyes. “I’m not going home,” she said between clenched teeth, “until I get back what was stolen from me.”

“I thought not.” He sighed heavily.

She felt him assessing the madly racing pulse under her ear for another moment before he abruptly released her and stepped back.

“All right. We’ll go together.”

Cricket stood for a moment with the gun aimed at Creed before it dawned on her what he’d said. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “If this is some kind of trick . . .”

“No tricks, Brava.” He held his hands up to show they were empty. “Let’s get this over with so we can go home. I’ll fetch the horses.” He turned from her and disappeared into the stand of cypress.

Cricket stuck her Paterson back in her belt, her brain searching madly for the reason Creed had agreed to let her go with him. Of course there was no way he could make her go home, and he must know that if he took her back she’d only steal away again. But why bother to ask her to join him. Why not just go on by himself?

Creed reappeared momentarily with both their horses. “Ready?”

“I thought you worked alone,” Cricket said as she mounted, still not trusting his easy capitulation.

“Who would want to work alone when he could work with a lovely creature like you?” he replied, smiling as he settled into the saddle leather. Creed kicked his chestnut and headed south, leaving Cricket to follow him or not, as she pleased.

Cricket wondered why she followed him, even as she did. She wasn’t sure what it meant to be a
lovely creature
. It didn’t sound like a compliment, but because it wasn’t exactly an insult, either, she decided not to make an issue of it. She could understand the Ranger’s need to be alone. Normally she would rather be alone, too. She could also understand why he didn’t want them to ride together, since they always seemed to end up arguing. Still, you never knew what would happen when you dealt with bandits. And two guns were better against two bandits than one.

They rode for several hours in silence and surprised each other with how well they got along. They both kept an eye on the trail, and it took no spoken word to change their course, only a meeting of their eyes, or a nod, or a simple gesture.

Cricket fought against the growing thread of admiration for Jarrett Creed which spun itself like a web around her. So what if he could track like a Comanche? So what if he rode as easy in the saddle as a Mexican vaquero? So what if he could spend the entire afternoon beside her, yet leave her free to enjoy the vast solitude that was untamed Texas? He was still a man who’d treated her like a woman. For that alone, he was to be despised.

So why didn’t she despise him? It was a mystery she thought she might unravel, if she could only find a place in the skein to start.

In the end, it was Creed who finally broke the silence between them.

“Did Rip always treat you the way he does now?”

At Cricket’s confused expression he explained, “I mean, did he always treat you like a boy, let you wear pants and ride mustangs and shoot a gun?”

“I don’t ever remember things being any other way,” Cricket said tentatively. “My mother died when I was born. I don’t remember her at all. If I ever needed anything, I went to Sloan, and if she couldn’t help, then to Rip.”

“So what do you think about the life you lead?”

“It satisfies me.”

“Does it?”

“Why wouldn’t it?” Cricket demanded.

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

“I have Rip’s approval, and that’s what matters to me. The rest of the world can go hang, for all I care.”

She bristled at Creed’s disapproving snort.

“Why do you call him Rip? Why not pa or father?” he asked.

Cricket shrugged. “I don’t know. I just always have.” She could see from his frown that Creed didn’t like that answer, either, but she didn’t have a better one. “What do you call your father?”

“Which one?”

Creed’s retort brought Cricket’s head around with a snap. “Which one? Do you have more than one?”

She could see Creed struggling to find an answer before he spoke.

“I called the man who sired me pa when I was a small boy,” he began. “Then I was captured by the Comanches and adopted by a mean sonofabitch named Crooked Trail. I called him
ap’
—that’s Comanche for father—to his face. Behind his back, I called him . . . other things. When I was seventeen and my natural father found me, he was only another White-eyes. Now they’re both dead, and the problem doesn’t arise anymore.”

“Did you hate them both so much?”

“Let’s just say I don’t have much use for fathers.”

Cricket heard the bitterness bared by the harsh edge in his voice. “I love Rip,” she said quietly. “I love him, and I respect him. He’s the most important person in my life.”

“And he plans to sell you to the highest bidder,” Creed shot back.

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing. Just mouthing off when I shouldn’t be.”

“Hold on a minute. You can’t make a statement like that and pretend you didn’t. Rip would never do such a thing.”

“What does your father have planned for your future, Cricket? Sloan gets Three Oaks. Bay gets to be Sloan’s right-hand
man
. What about you, Cricket? What do you get? Has Rip told you what he’s got in mind for his youngest daughter? Are you ready to be a wife?”

“I already told you I’m never getting married.”

Creed barked a laugh. “Guess again. Rip’s busy arranging a marriage for you right now.”

“You’re lying!”

“I never . . . not about this. Rip is making arrangements right now for your marriage to Señor Guerrero’s elder son.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Marriage is the last thing Rip would suggest for me. He never said anything . . . we never talked about . . . about marriage. He’d never make me do something I truly didn’t want to do.” Cricket recognized the desperation in her voice, but added, “He wouldn’t.”

“Rip can and will do anything he pleases. Look at you. You’re manipulated by your father like a puppet. He pulls the right strings, and you respond. But he’s got the strings all tangled, Cricket, and he’s pulling in directions you just can’t go. You can never satisfy Rip, because no matter how hard you try, you can’t be his son . . . only his daughter. And daughters get married, Cricket, to rich
hacendados
who—”

“No! No! No!”

Cricket held her hands over her ears because what Creed said was too frightening to hear. She’d discounted Bay’s warning about Rip choosing husbands for his daughters because she’d been sure it wouldn’t apply to her. Her father was pleased with her. He loved her. She was his favorite, and he’d do anything for her. And she’d do anything for him except . . . He’d never ask her to marry some rich man he’d picked out for her, because he knew she’d never make a good wife. The whole idea of marriage was so . . . so wrong.

She wouldn’t let Creed’s bald-faced lie shatter her sense of well-being. She didn’t believe Jarrett Creed. She wouldn’t believe Jarrett Creed. She couldn’t believe Jarrett Creed.

But deep, deep down, she did believe him. How often had she cursed being female, because it robbed her of the ability to be the one thing she knew her father wanted most in life—a son. But hadn’t she done everything,
everything
Rip had asked her to do? Wasn’t she the next best thing to a son? How could Rip even think she would be willing to accept the role of wife to some man? Why, she didn’t know a thing about being a wife.

Cricket’s chin quivered, and she swallowed hard over the lump that had risen in her throat. When Rip made up his mind, the deed was as good as done.

But to be Cruz Guerrero’s wife? How could she ever . . . ? How would she know . . . ? She couldn’t do . . . !

Why hadn’t she talked to Rip sooner? Why hadn’t she confronted him the moment Bay had mentioned he planned to choose a husband for her? The answers to those questions told more about her relationship to Rip than Cricket cared to admit. She’d found excuses to avoid the confrontation with her father because she’d been so afraid he’d do what he’d threatened despite her feelings on the matter. Now her worst fears were coming true.

Cricket choked on a sob. She
never
cried. She used her rage to cover her fear, attacking Creed. “Just because you hated your father don’t expect me to hate mine. Because I won’t. No matter how black you try to paint him I won’t hate Rip. I won’t! I won’t! I won’t! I won’t!”

Each primal cry came closer to a sob of defeat, and Cricket wouldn’t allow Jarrett Creed that satisfaction. She whipped her horse into a gallop, leaving Creed standing in the choking dust raised by her precipitous escape.

Creed resisted the urge to chase after her. He would give her some room, keep his distance from her, until they’d each regained a measure of the peace the quiet wilderness could bring to the soul. In a while, Creed nudged the chestnut into a trot. Why had he bothered to argue with her? What business was it of his how Rip Stewart raised his kids? So what if Cricket adored the man? So what if she refused to admit she couldn’t be her father’s son? So what if Rip was going to marry her to some Spaniard who wouldn’t understand her? He didn’t care about her one way or the other.

He squinted up at the ruthless Texas sun, then out over the plains, shimmering with the relentless heat. He and Cricket might each find peace in the wilderness, he thought, but there was no comfort there.

For she was hiding from the truth.

And so was he.

Cricket rode hell-for-leather away from Creed, her thoughts racing as wildly as the powerful gelding beneath her. She’d never looked too deeply at her relationship with Rip because she’d always known he loved her best. Was there only one piece of candy left? She got it. Was there a special mustang among those recently captured? She got it. Was there anything new, special, the best? She got it. She’d never questioned the price she paid for that favoritism. She’d never had any reason to question it.