Mittman, Stephanie (16 page)

"You're
gonna want them to follow us away from
your parents' ranch, aren't you?"
she asked. She'd played the decoy before, once or twice, in her work. But never
for such high stakes. And never without some kind of fail-safe system to ensure
her safety as well as that of the child she sought.

"I
won't let anything happen to you," he promised. "Think you can be
brave a little longer?"

Brave?
Did he really think she was being brave? She stored the compliment away in her
heart and tried to stay with the matter at hand. Later, when they went to
sleep, and she heard the howls of the coyotes and the screeches of other wild
things, she might just pull out his compliment to keep her warm.

"And
after the Tates aren't a threat to you anymore," she asked, "then
what?"

Sloan
leaned back, his hands behind his head, a wide grin of white teeth separating
the dirty blond mustache from the dirty blond beard.

"Ah,"
he sighed. "Then my life starts again. Can't break horses anymore, I'll
admit that, but I can still rope and ride worth a damn and drive cattle better
than any two men my size."

"And
Ben? You've got someone to watch Ben?" The thought was harder to swallow
than the meat. It was getting harder and harder to imagine turning this child
over to someone else's arms. She'd done it enough times before, but this wasn't
her professional life, and this time she knew it was going to hurt as almost
nothing had hurt her before.

He
nodded. How many times was she gonna ask him the same damn thing? Hadn't he
told her his ma would take the kid? What did she think he was gonna do? Leave
him by the road somewheres? What did she expect him to do? Keep him strapped to
his damn back for the rest of his life?

"You
ain't eating."

"I
ain't... I'm not hungry."

"Prairie
dog is kinda an acquired taste, at best," he conceded. "Once we get
to town you won't need to stay with us anymore, you know." He watched her
arms tighten around the baby. He was going to have one heck of a time
separating those two, that was for sure.

She
fed the child a few strips more and then sat with the bone in her hand as if
she wasn't even aware it was there. Her eyes were off somewhere in the sky, and
he wondered what she was thinking about.

"So
where are you really from, Sweet Mary, and how'd you wind up at the Tates'
place? Took me four months to find that little hole in the wall. You can't
expect me to buy that you just got there by some accident."

Her
eyes never left the sky. When she spoke, Sloan got the impression she spoke as
much to herself as to him. As if she was trying to keep things straight in her
own mind, or maybe she was just sticking to her story, he wasn't sure. She
didn't seem to be saying it for him, that much he believed.

"My
name is Mary Grace O'Reilly. I was born in New York in 1966. I grew up in a
little town called Roscoe, whose one claim to fame is that they have a diner on
the main road. My father and mother, good Irish Catholics, had two boys before
I was born, and six more children after me. I spent the better part of my
fifteenth year with my grandmother in Watertown. I left home when I was
eighteen."

New
York. Well that would account for a lot. No wonder things like spiders and
snakes got the better of her. And the gunshot. She'd probably never even heard
a gun go off till she traveled west.

"That
when you came to Arizona?" Except for the year of her birth, he wasn't
having any trouble with her story so far. Of course, the year was a problem, a
big one.

She
shook her head.
"I
traveled a lot for about a year, looking for answers I was sorry I found."

The
baby fussed in her arms. Without even looking down, she managed to give him her
knuckle to chew on. Why they were developing that habit eluded Sloan, but he
didn't want to interrupt to ask. In the last five minutes he'd finally got the
woman who was risking her life for his son to tell him something about herself.
He wasn't going to stop her now when she was so close to the end of her story.

"And
then?" he prompted.

She
rose and stretched her back. Then she pivoted and held the baby pointed away
from her, guessing right that he would be making one of his frequent yellow
fountains. She'd mastered a way of getting him to drink from the canteen and
the water came out about as fast as it went in.

"Then,"
she said tersely, her voice suddenly signaling the end of the intimate
conversation, "I moved to L.A., took a job, and devoted myself to my
work."

"L.A.?"

"Los
Angeles. In California." She looked for him to acknowledge there was such
a place. Hell, everyone knew about the City of Angels. Why, since they finished
the railroad, there had to be upward of fifty thousand people living there
between the oil derricks and the mines. He nodded at her to indicate even a
cowboy like himself had heard of it.

"So
how'd you come to be in the Arizona Territory on Mason Tate's front porch?"
Damned if he'd give up now.

"I
was looking for a child who was being kidnapped by his shitheel father. I fell
into the dried-up riverbed, only it wasn't, and—" she raised one hand,
palm up, "—here I am."

"I
guess you found him."

"Who?"

"The
child whose papa was kidnappin' him." He gestured toward Ben.

Mary
Grace shook her head and smiled. "No," she said. "Actually, I
didn't find him at all."

The
fire was dying out, and he could see Mary Grace beginning to shiver. Her
clothes were wet from bathing Ben, and she was hugging him to her body for
warmth.

"I'll
put some more wood on the fire," he said. "You think you can find
your way back to the pool yourself?"

She
nodded.

"Well,
go ahead then. Leave Ben with me and take the blanket."

"But
Ben..."

"Ben'll
be fine. He's got the fire, he's got my shirt, and he's got my body if he needs
more warmth than that." He'd taken to wearing the sling all the time, and
when she handed him the naked infant he slipped him right in. Then he
unbuttoned his shirt and closed it around the baby, encasing the child in both
his father's shirt and his warmth.

"Don't
forget the soap," he called after her, and she waved. He watched until she
faded out of his vision and blended into the darkness before he remembered the
fire needed more wood.

He
wandered over to a crop of trees and found a few sticks that would burn. She
sure was an odd one, his Sweet Mary. She was willing to put up with about the
worst conditions he'd ever seen a white woman manage to cope with—sleeping on
the ground, eating whatever he could forage, riding all day behind him on the
horse, all of it with hardly a complaint.

He'd
known only two kinds of women in his life. Those that would, and those that
wouldn't. On the whole, he much preferred those that would. In addition,
there were
those that would for a few bucks if there wasn't one around who'd just settle
for a smile. But there were plenty that gave it away, too, at least to him.

Of
course, that was before Harlin Tate left his calling card all over Sloan's
body. If Mary Grace's reaction to seeing just his chest was any indication,
he'd better be prepared to shell out a pretty penny for any favors that might
come his way. And then there was the awkwardness of it all. He didn't even want
to contemplate that.

From
all her shyness it was clear that his Sweet Mary didn't fall into the same
category as most of the women he knew. She was what he called a forever woman.
Make love to them once, and they expected you to love them forever. And before
you got in their drawers, you had to promise them forever. And if you weren't
really careful, you'd wind up stuck with them forever.

He
thought again of the woman who was taking care of his son. Oh, she was a
forever woman all right, but not in the way he'd always taken it to mean. She
made him wonder what it would be like to come home at night to a family that
belonged to him. She made him think about tomorrow, and the next day, and even
next year. She made him long for the other children he might never father, and
she made him ache to try.

Dear
God, but it scared him! This wasn't the time in his life to be thinking about
women, forever or otherwise. Maybe after he'd taken care of the Tates, got his
revenge, and sowed a few more oats, then he might be ready to settle down with
Ben and some woman. Sure would be nice to see that little fellow grow.

While
he scrounged for wood, Ben fell asleep. When he'd found enough to get them
through the night, Sloan made his way over to the pond to check on Mary Grace.
He'd meant just to call out to her, but with Ben
asleep he thought it better
simply to slip though the rocks and see that she was all right.

For
a moment he stood just inside the natural doorway, taking in the sight. She had
washed her clothes first, and they hung from a small tree that had defied the
odds and grown from a crevice between two boulders. Wet from head to toe, she
had come out of the water to pick something off the ground. The soap, he
supposed.

He
watched soundlessly as the moon shone off her wet body and set her aglow in the
darkness. She was magnificent, and he cautioned himself to go slowly with her.
He supposed he was just confused, what with suddenly having a son to worry
about and her on top of that. Sometimes he felt as protective about her as he
did about the boy. And something told him she was more scared of him crawling
on her than another tarantula.

Her
skin was smooth, unlined even when she bent over to reach the soap. An ugly
bruise marred her back, no doubt the result of his pulling her up onto the
rocks when the flood threatened.

He
thought of the other women he knew and imagined the haranguing he'd have
received if he'd been so careless as to cause one of them any injury. As she
slipped back into the water and swam gracefully toward the other side, he
tucked his head against his chest and eased out of the baby's sling. Poor Ben
was so tired he didn't even stir.

Sloan
laid him carefully on the rocks, making sure he could keep an eye on the
sleeping child while he allowed himself the luxury of a soak in their private
tub. He slithered out of his pants and entered the water in his long johns.
Once submerged to the waist, he pulled the underwear off and tried to wash it,
aware that Mary Grace was watching him carefully from the other side of the
small lake.

She
kept herself hidden, the water up to her chin, and all he could see clearly was
her wet hair shimmering in the moonlight. But he knew what treasures lay buried
beneath the surface of the water, and it was enough to make him grow hard with
longing.

He
swam up near her, not close enough to frighten her, and asked for the soap. He
held his underwear in front of himself in spite of the darkness and the deep
water. Whether it was for her sake or his own that he kept himself covered, he
wasn't sure.

She
told him that the soap rested safely on the shore once again. She'd been afraid
she'd lose it in the water, and she wanted the luxury of using it again in the
morning. Would they have time? Her attempts at a normal conversation amused
him. If he was nervous, she was twice so.

The
harder she tried to seem at ease, the more her hands flew to her hair, wiped
water out of her eyes, hugged her own arms. And with each movement his own
feelings grew bolder. When she lifted her arms, her breasts nearly escaped
their protective waters. When she hugged herself, the empty space between her
breasts became brazen cleavage, all the more provoking because she had no idea
what she was doing to him, no intention of doing it, and no escape from the
results.

"I
brought the soap," he said slyly. "It seems only fair that you share
it with me."

"Of
course," she said, not understanding. "I told you it's on the rock
over there."

"Would
you get it for me? It's hard with my leg."

"Oh!"
She moved closer to the shore and realized the water was quickly getting
shallower. She was too nervous to pay any attention to his movements.

"Have
you got it?" he whispered by her ear. She jumped at his nearness, her
slippery body crashing up against his, knocking his feet out from under him. He
tried to right
himself, grabbing for a handhold and coming in contact with her nakedness.

Thinking
he was in danger of drowning, she reached out a hand to him and tried to steady
him. Instead, he held her hand and swam backward, dragging her into the deeper
water with him, pulling her closer against him.

"The
soap," she wailed, having lost it in the struggle.

"I'll
find you more tomorrow."

"Ben.
Do you think he's all right over there? I think I'd better check him."

He
didn't let her go. He pulled her closer to him, his manhood brushing first one
leg and then the other.

"I'm
not a very good swimmer," she said, backing away from him slightly.