Nan Ryan (27 page)

Well, if he didn’t care, neither did she! Mollie dropped her hands to her sides, threw back her shoulders, and walked directly toward him.

Squinting in the half light, Lew watched her, but it was too dark for her to see the tortured expression that came into his eyes. Everything about him suggested complete repose, a negligent attitude, totally uncaring and uninterested.

That’s the message Mollie received, and it hurt. It also made her angry. So when she reached her clothes, she didn’t pick them up. She stepped right over them and stopped directly in front of him.

She stood so close he could have easily reached out and touched her. So close that her firm, high breasts—their rosy crests puckered from the cold—jutted provocatively above him. She was so close the golden triangle of curls between her pale thighs, beaded with water and dripping tiny rivulets down her long legs, was exactly at his eye level. So close, he could see a tiny mole on the inside of her right thigh.

It was a Mexican standoff.

Mollie was determined to get a rise out of this unfeeling, bloodless man. Lew was just as determined that this ruthless renegade woman would not get under his skin. The clash of wills was almost tangible in the still night air.

Lew was only human and standing before him, seeming somehow nakeder than naked, was a shameless bitch who was so breathtakingly beautiful he itched to yank her to him and bury his face in her bare, flat belly.

But he’d die a celibate monk before he’d let her know it.

Mollie, feeling Lew’s eyes glide hotly over her body was touched by their heat and seized with the insane desire to feel the heartless bastard’s warm lips touch her as well.

But she would have cut out her tongue before she would have admitted it.

Finally Mollie knew that she was the undisputed victor when Lew’s eyes closed and ordered irritably, “Put on your goddamned clothes, outlaw.”

The thrill of triumph was fleeting
.

Before Mollie could pick up her clothes, Lew had risen to stand uncomfortably close. His eyes met hers squarely, but she couldn’t read the expression in them any more than she could read the set of his mouth. He loomed tall and menacing before her. The threat he exuded and the black stubble of beard covering his lower face was reminiscent of another time, another man.

Wishing she hadn’t behaved so foolishly, Mollie trembled. Here she stood, naked and vulnerable, before a vengeful bounty hunter who had no more regard for her than the Texas Kid. And the Kid had tried to rape her.

Lew shifted and Mollie winced.

Bending from the waist, Lew picked up her clothes and handed them to her. “I’ll lay out our meal in the main dining hall while my lady attends to her toilette,” he said, smiling easily again, his teeth flashing starkly white against the black beard.

Mollie’s unease quickly changed to irritation. She snatched her clothes from him and held them before her. Looking pointedly at his unshaven face, she said acidly, “Indeed? Why not eat your meal on all fours like the other animals?” She turned and walked away.

Moments later, dressed and hungry, Mollie sat down before the small campfire Lew had built. Inhaling deeply of the sweet-scented smoke from the ocotillo wood, she waited eagerly for supper, foolishly hoping that the evening’s menu might be different from the past three days.

It wasn’t.

“Dinner is served,” said Lew and held out a tin plate with the usual jerked beef, stale bread, and cold beans.

Sighing, Mollie dispiritedly took the plate. She looked at the unappetizing fare, made a face, and felt her empty stomach rebel. She impulsively flung the plate away. It sailed through the air, losing its contents in flight.

“Ah, too bad,” said Lew. “You were expecting quail in aspic with champagne?”

Then he grinned, took up his own plate and began to eat heartily, sighing and rolling his eyes as though he had never tasted anything quite so tempting.

Mollie wanted to strangle him.

The next day she again wanted to strangle him as they rode across parched arroyos and long-dry washes under a broiling afternoon sun. The blazing heat of the lowland summer had spread to encompass the high desert. She was miserable and thirsty and her face was painfully burned. Hot gusts of wind stung her eyes and chapped her lips. Squinting, she looked at the dark man riding alongside her.

His face, throat, and forearms gleamed with perspiration, yet he didn’t appear to be the least bit hot. He rode slouched in the saddle, relaxed and comfortable. Apparently Lew Taylor was like the resilient saguaro cactus—impervious to wind and sun alike. Damn him for not suffering!

Abruptly Lew’s squint-eyed gaze swung around to her. “Want to stop and make camp, outlaw?”

“What would make you think that?”

A sardonic gleam came into his blue eyes and he grinned. “You look like you can hardly stay in the saddle.”

“I can outride you any day, bounty hunter,” she said, squaring her tired shoulders. “Don’t forget who I am.”

His smiled vanished. “There’s no danger of my ever forgetting who you are, outlaw,” he said, and Mollie saw the ridging of his jaw as he turned his attention back on the trail ahead. He took off his hat, wiped his forehead on his shirtsleeve, and replaced the Stetson, pulling the brim low over his eyes. “If you’re not tired we’ll push on until sundown. I’d like to make Prescott in a couple of days.”

It was the first mention he had made of Prescott. Mollie immediately felt her pulse quicken. In busy Prescott she might get the chance to escape. People in the West hated bounty hunters more than they hated outlaws. Maybe she could persuade someone to help her elude her cruel captor.

Keeping her voice well modulated, she said, “Are you planning to stop off in Prescott?”

He nodded almost imperceptibly. “A good friend of mine lives in Prescott. I thought we might take a couple of days to rest and replenish our supplies before heading up into the rough country.”

Mollie could hardly conceal her excitement. A couple of days! Anything could happen in a couple of days. Her thoughts racing ahead, she tried to imagine what Lew Taylor’s friend would be like. Cold and heartless like him? Or a kinder, more understanding man who—appalled by Lew’s plans for her—might become her ally?

Mollie no longer felt tired. She could ride until sundown. She could ride forever now that Prescott was her goal.

Forty-eight hours later Mollie and Lew topped a gentle rise and saw, spread out below, the community of Prescott. The bustling little town, resting in a vast bowl of gray volcanic rock and surrounded by tall green pines, looked good to them both. They rode forward, skirted the large army settlement of Whipple Barracks, and headed for town.

The square was surrounded by false-fronted buildings. They rode past Bates’s Dry Goods store, Clem’s Barbershop, an assay office, and a couple of hotels. And down past the stage office, a string of rowdy saloons stretched down Gurley Street.

Following Lew’s lead, Mollie turned her mount after passing the governor’s log mansion. They rode in silence up dusty Walpi Street. Six blocks from the square, nestled among huge gray boulders at the town’s edge, a freshly painted white frame house with bright red shutters was set apart from its neighbors.

“This is it,” said Lew, pulling up.

The first thing Mollie noticed was that all the window shades were drawn although it was not yet five in the afternoon. How odd. While Lew tethered the horses to the hitching rail at the edge of a small, well-tended yard, Mollie stared at the house, wondering at the eccentricity of the man who lived there. Then she told herself she was being foolish. The drawn shades obviously meant that the gentleman was not at home. She was sure she had guessed correctly when Lew, not bothering to knock, led her inside.

Blinking, Mollie looked curiously around. Her eyes grew wide and her mouth rounded into an O. Everything was red. Everything. Wine red rugs on the floor. Rose red wallpaper. Blood red velvet settee and wing chairs. Dark red damask window curtains. Even the miniature Italian-style fireplace was of pinkish red marble.

The reds blurred as Lew took her arm and guided her through the sitting room, down a darkened hallway, and to a spacious bedroom. A red bedroom. In the open doorway he released her.

Speechless, her eyes adjusting to the shadowy light, Mollie stared, thunderstruck, as Lew crossed the room to a huge four-poster bed hung with red silk. On that canopied bed, a female lay sleeping on sheets of shimmering red satin. The slumbering woman wore a revealing scarlet lace nightgown that barely concealed a voluptuous body. Riotous locks of flaming red hair spilled across the red pillows and around milky white shoulders. A sleeping mask of red velvet covered the woman’s eyes.

Mollie blinked in shock when Lew unceremoniously took a seat on the bed, leaned down and kissed the sleeping woman squarely on the mouth. Mollie’s hand lifted to her own mouth as confusion, anger, and jealousy overwhelmed her.

She fully expected the sleeping woman to scream and lash out in fear at the impertinent intruder. The woman in red did nothing of the kind. Instead she smiled dreamily and said in a sleep-heavy voice, “One more, darling. I’m not quite certain.”

Lew kissed her again.

Bare fleshy arms then went around his neck and hands with long red painted nails twined in his dark hair. Mollie watched, appalled, as they kissed.

Finally Lew lifted his head and the woman licked her wet, red lips, laughed huskily, and said, “Lew!” She snatched off the red sleeping mask, flung it to the floor and sat up, eagerly wrapping her arms around his neck. “You irresistible devil, I’d know that sulky, sexy mouth anywhere!” She embraced him warmly, then pulled back a little, saying, “Let me look at you, darlin’.” She smiled into his eyes, then shook her head, and sighed. “My God, you’re so damn handsome it’s sinful. Ain’t no man alive supposed to be so downright pretty. What do you say? Let’s turn old Clint’s picture to the wall and you climb in bed with me.” She hugged him again.

Mollie didn’t realize that she was frowning so fiercely until the red-haired woman, catching sight of her over Lew’s shoulder, abruptly pushed him away, and said, “Damn, Lew, I didn’t realize you had your little sweetheart with you.” Beckoning to Mollie, she said, “Stop your frowning and come on over here, honey. There’s no call for the jealousy I see in your pretty eyes. Why, Lew and me, we’re just old friends. I was teasing about that bed stuff. Come on over here.”

Mollie didn’t budge. Unreasonably angry, she said, “I am
not
his little sweetheart and never was!” She turned to storm out.

“Hold on, outlaw!” Lew was off the bed and across the room with the swiftness of a cat. He caught her and, holding her by the belt, said over his shoulder, “Cherry, we’ll be in the kitchen. Come on out and I’ll introduce you two.”

Three hours later Mollie, fresh from a bath in Cherry’s big zinc tub, sat at the table in the red-walled dining room. Despite the abundance of good food spread out before her, she sullenly picked at her plate, her appetite missing. Twenty-four hours earlier she would have walked over broken glass for this meal of thick, juicy steak, pan-fried potatoes, string beans, buttered carrots, fresh baked bread and creamy butter, tea with ice chunks, and hot peach cobbler.

But now she was tempted by none of it. She had not recovered from the shock and disappointment of learning that Lew’s friend was not some kind, understanding man who might help her escape. The friend was a painted woman who lived in an all-red house and was obviously so crazy about Lew she would do anything for him.

Mollie could tell by the way that Cherry looked at her that Lew had told the redhead everything. Not that Cherry’s glances held any censure. What they held was pity, and that burned Mollie up. The idea of a woman who made no bones about the fact that she had once been an Albuquerque prostitute feeling sorry for her, Mollie Louise Rogers, was highly insulting.

Mollie pushed her plate away and folded her hands in her lap. Lew and Cherry, seated across from each other, ate and drank and laughed with great zest. They had been laughing all evening, and it was getting on Mollie’s nerves.