My Desperado (7 page)

Examining the room further, Travis stopped his gaze as his attention snagged on a curled feminine form that slumbered by his bed. It was her! Travis closed his eyes and swore in silence. Why was she here? She should be long gone by now, halfway to Philadelphia, or wherever the hell it was she came from.

He opened his eyes. She was slumped in a nearby chair, close enough for him to touch her. Her hair was braided again, but coiled now atop her small head, which rested against the padded wing of the floral fabric.

Her pale, scathed hands were lax in slumber. Her dress was not noteworthy, but her face... There was something about her face that made his chest ache to look at it. It was heart-shaped, with a shallow, delicate dimple in the center of her chin, and a dark peak of hair extending just a smidgen of an inch down the middle of her forehead. Dark, thick lashes rested over her hidden eyes, and her strawberry-tinted lips were slightly parted, exposing small, even teeth as she exhaled softly.

"Rachel." He breathed the word without realizing, and the woman scowled, her hands fluttering gently as she drew herself quickly from sleep.

He knew the exact instant when she came fully awake, for her lovely, dimpled jaw dropped slightly and her eyes opened to enormous widths.

Her eyes! They were not honey brown as he'd imagined, but were an unearthly shade of silver-blue, like the mountain sky after a heavy rain.

"Mr. Ryland." She breathed his name almost like the prayers Rachel had taught him as a child. Travis felt the words quiver like a well-aimed arrow in his gut.

She was a dark-haired angel, like a faded memory so dear he dared not pull it out for scrutiny.

"Mr. Ryland." Her small hand touched his arm with gentle slowness. "You're awake."

Travis was unable to answer her for his insides twisted into knots of hopeless mush.

"I feared..." She stopped and studied him. Her delicate face was so close to him now, her hand feather-light on his hale arm. She smiled, the expression tremulous, making Travis feel as if he were falling like an axed lodgepole sliding toward oblivion. "But you'll be fine now. I know it."

He needed her. Like no one else. Like he hadn't needed anything for years. Her very presence spoke to him, begged him to be a better...

No! Travis squashed his soppish longings and remembered the school of survival with well-rehearsed practice. Never become attached. Never become involved.

"Where the devil, am I?" he asked, his voice rumbling low and gravelly through his parched throat.

She blinked twice and drew her hand away, caution returning to her mesmerizing features. "We're in New Prospect." She stood slowly, her back straightening. "At Lacy MacTaggart's...establishment."

"A whorehouse?"

He felt her retreat, though she didn't move, and an empty place near Travis's heart twisted while his mind nodded in smug satisfaction.

"A dance hall," she corrected stiffly.

"How far from Silver Ridge?"

"I don't know. It took me all night to—"

"Why didn't you get the hell outta here like I told you to?" he snapped.

She watched him, speechless for a moment, and then, "I couldn't leave you," she whispered softly.

His heart wrenched at the words, threatening to spill him back into living nightmares, but he'd learned to survive and survive he would. "Why the hell not?" he demanded gruffly.

"Because..." She wrung her hands, her expression worried. "I just... couldn't."

"Damn it, woman! I told you to ride east, and if you'd had the lick of sense you was born with, you'd still be riding."

"You were hurt."

For an instant he could think of nothing to say, then, "Life hurts, lady," he growled. "And I don't need no woman to go getting me killed." He sat up. His head pounded and swam dizzily, but he ignored the swirl and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

One cotton sheet became tangled between his thighs, pulling all the blankets askew, so that they stretched out over his crotch and one hip, saving him from absolute nudity. "Where're my pants?"

Katherine's gaze caught on his bare legs, skimmed to his bare hip, skittered up his flat, bare abdomen, over the sloping planes of his bare chest, to fall on the relatively safe terrain of his face.

She could find no words.

His deep blue gaze latched angrily onto hers. "You told me you was a soiled dove! Don't look so damned shocked! You ain't even seen the best part yet."

She mouthed something inaudible and kept staring.

"Hell," he snorted. "You might as well have taken a peek at the rest of me so you could at least answer my questions instead of standing there like a beached trout."

Her mouth moved again, as if she were trying to speak.

He leaned closer, listening intently, but there was nothing to be heard, so he scowled, shook his head, and grunted. "Damnedest whore I've ever met. Worthless as tits on a boar."

"Worthless!" The word came out on a gasp of utter outrage. "Worthless!"

He watched the fire flood back into her eyes and felt the relative safety of her anger. Her dark brows had drawn down slightly over her unusual eyes, and her nostrils flared with righteous rage. "I brought you here at great personal risk. I could have been killed." She bent slightly at the waist, glaring at him. "Killed!"

"But you weren't, were you, lady?" he asked caustically, canting a look up and lowering his brows in an attempt to dim the throb in his temples. "And you might notice who took the bullets." He raised a palm to his forehead, trying to quiet the war drums there. "What the hell have you been doing to me? I feel like I've been doctored with a broad axe."

She stepped away one pace, taken aback by his stunning lack of appreciation. "You have the manners of a Mongolian warmonger."

"A...Mongolian what?" he questioned dubiously as the room tilted again.

"Ghengis Khan!" she snapped. "You and he would have gotten on famously."

"I take it that's an insult," he said weakly, not daring to look up lest his head split.

"It most certainly is!"

"Is that the best you can do?" he snorted, chancing a glance about the room.

Katherine drew herself up even straighten "If I chose, I could scorch the hair right off your chest with my verbal assaults."

He was silent for a moment. "Why don't I have a shirt on?" he asked curiously, just now noticing that detail. "You women needing to see a real man? Not that I mind. But you needn't be sneaky about it. If you're interested, just ask and I'd be happy to—"

"You conceited, braying pain in the...the..."

"Out of the mood now, are you?" he asked, finally looking up and wincing at the pain in his temple.

"You... You..." She searched for the perfect insult, but it kept eluding her, though her hands were motioning now to assist her thoughts.

"What?"

"You..."

"Jesus!" he spat in irritable impatience. "I could die of hoof-and-mouth before you managed to come up with a single respectable curse word. And I'd like to wait around, lady. Really I would, but I don't have the time. Seems I got me a small army of men after me because of your stupidity. So I'm leaving!" He rose to do just that. The blankets fell away, baring him to her gaze.

But she failed to notice.

"Leaving?" she gasped.

"At least you can hear," he intoned evenly. "Where're my pants?"

"You think you're leaving?"

"God, woman, you're making me crazy." He turned, flashing her with his nudity and searching for his clothing. "Just get me my belongings and we'll..."

"Get back on the bed!"

Her tone sounded deadly serious, and Travis turned around slowly.

The open end of a revolver glared at him from the palm of her steady hand.

"Take one step toward that door and I'll blow your brains out."

"What the devil kind of nonsense is this?"

"I dragged you out of the river when you where drowning. I gave you the blankets when I was freezing and exhausted. I walked from here to nowhere in my bare feet so you could ride. I'm not about to let you get yourself killed now."

Travis scowled, trying to figure this new twist. He cocked his right leg to ease the pain in his thigh and laced his arms across his bare chest. "Let me get this straight. You don't want me to get killed, so you're threatening to blow my brains out if I leave?"

Katherine shuffled her feet, a bit uncomfortable with the inconsistency of her words and intentions. She bit her lip, shifted her weight, and considered her next move. "That's right," she said, deciding to go with her original statement.

"Lady." He shook his head. "You're about one bean short of a full pot."

He took a step forward.

The sound of the revolver cocking seemed loud enough to blow out the windows.

Travis froze.

Katherine smiled.

The door opened softly, and Lacy MacTaggart stepped in. "What's all this, now?" she asked quietly, placing her fist on well-padded hips and looking at Katherine.

"He said he was leaving. I said he wasn't," she said matter-of-factly, her lips pursed in anger.

For a fraction of a second Travis thought he saw the shadow of a smile on the older woman's hardened face. "So you thought you'd shoot him, Katy, lass?"

"He's an ungrateful—"

"Aye, I know, but most men are," Lacy shushed, then firmed her voice and turned her eyes to Travis. "You. Get back in bed."

"I ain't got no hankering to lie around till a lynch mob shows up. Funny thing about me," Travis growled.

"Can I shoot him?" Katherine asked grimly, wetting her lips.

"Not yet. Listen, Ryland," warned Lacy gruffly. "I've spanked better men than you, so get back on that bed before—"

The scream in the hallway immobilized the room for a fraction of a second, and then Travis was barreling toward Katherine in all his naked glory.

But before she could do so much as consider shooting, the gun was in his hand and he was flattened against the wall, staring at the door with the intensity of a wolf on the prowl.

The room was pitched into silence, then, "Bernard," Lacy called evenly, not taking her steely eyes from the naked man with the gun.

"Yes ma'am?" Bernard answered timidly from the far side of the door.

"Quit pinching Garnet."

"Yes ma'am," was the meek response.

Footsteps tiptoed down the hall. Silence came again. Lacy held out her hand, palm up. "You're under my roof only because Katy is a friend of a friend," she explained solemnly. "You make trouble and you'll find yourself out on your bare ass. Understood?"

Travis felt the sharp dip of the room. He knew he was in trouble, but held tenaciously to consciousness by the edge of his stubborn fingernails.

"Understand?" she asked again.

He nodded once, the movement almost sending him to the floor as he handed her the gun.

"Get him decent and get him to bed," Lacy ordered, holding the revolver casually as she turned toward the door. She stopped, hand on the door latch. "And next time, Katy, lass. Shoot first. Talk later."

Chapter 7

"I'm sorry, lass. It's Friday. All my girls will be busy tonight."

"Oh." Katherine stood like a small child, with her hands clasped behind her back, her collar buttoned primly to her chin. "Of course. I'll see to Mr. Ryland myself."

Lacy MacTaggart leaned back in her padded chair and nodded. "That'll need doing, too, I suppose, Katy. But it's not what I was speakin' of. We'll be needin' the beds, lass. Unless you're considering putting yours t' profitable use."

"Oh!" Katherine breathed, realizing the other's meaning. "No! I mean..." she sputtered, bringing her hands forward to wring them in front of her faded, borrowed gown. "It's not that there's anything wrong with what you do. I mean... what the girls do... Of course, maybe you do it too, but..." she jabbered.

"Katy, lass." Lacy shook her brightly dyed head. "Just say what's on yer mind."

Katherine bit her lip, drew a deep breath to steady her nerves, and nodded solemnly. "You've been so very good to me, Miss MacTaggart. I won't forget it. And I'll pay you back as soon as ever I can."

"Sounds like you're going somewhere."

Katherine nodded. "We'll have to leave."

"You can't move him yet, lass. Not if you want him to keep that leg."

"But I don't see what else we can do."

"There's space for the both of you in his room."

"His room!" Katherine gasped.

"It's all that's available."

"But then I'll have to take him—"

"He wouldn't last a day with one leg," Lacy said solemnly. "I've seen his kind before. He'd sooner die."

Katherine knocked once on the portal, hugging the bandages to her chest and holding the pitcher with one hand as she pushed the latch and stepped inside.

Travis was lying on his side, facing her, his expression grave. "How long have I been here?"

Katherine lifted her chin, feeling her heart thump repeatedly against the wall of her ribs.

"It's Friday. We arrived Wednesday morning."

He narrowed his eyes, his left arm curled beneath his head. It looked powerful and broad and naked. "Three days, two nights. More than enough time for the hungry wolves of Silver Ridge to find us."

Katherine bit her lip. "No one knows we're here."

"No one?" He raised his brows at her, his expression more than dubious.

"Just Lacy's girls."

"Just her girls."

"And Bernard."

"Bernard," he repeated flatly.

"And..." She winced, realizing, perhaps for the first time, how precarious their safety. "And Daisy—of course."

"Of course."

His gaze bore into hers, which she dropped rapidly.

"I'm sorry." The words slipped out.

He said nothing, letting the music from below punctuate the quiet, then, "For saving my life?"

She raised her eyes with a snap. Although his shoulders were broad and powerful, he looked helpless and needy. "No." She shook her head, knowing her denial as truth. "For bringing you here."

Her words were little more than a whisper, a whisper he felt down to the very core of his soul. He knew he should draw back behind the curtain of arrogant sarcasm, but she looked so sweet and earnest. There were a thousand things he thought to say—not one of which he spoke. "You need to leave, lady. Head east. Before they find you."