Remember Me (Defiant MC) (9 page)

“I’m pleased to meet you, Desi.  I’ve never heard that name before.” 

The boy peered at her merrily from beneath a cap of shiny black hair.  “My full name is Desiderio.  You don’t look like a teacher.” 

“I don’t?”

“No,” he said honestly.  “You’re too pretty.” 

Annika blushed and James chuckled.  “Well I thank you for the compliment.  And I hope your parents will soon enroll you at the school.  We can discuss where you are in your studies when the time comes.” 

Desi frowned and looked at James with obvious uncertainty. 

James cleared his throat uncomfortably.  “We’d best be getting on our way.  Mrs. Swilling won’t take kindly to holding supper on account of our lateness.”

After bidding the de Campo boy a pleasant evening, they drove for a few moments in silence.

Annika thought about the expression on the child’s face when she mentioned his education.  “Why won’t Desi be attending the school?”     

James shifted in his seat, looking uneasy.  “Carlos de Campo and Alvi Garcia have been seeing about land for the building of the Mexican school.  For Desi and the other children.”

“Mexican school?” she exclaimed.  “The child spoke perfect English.” 

James nodded, focusing on the road.  “He does.  He was, after all, born in the Territory.” 

“Are you telling me that boy will not be permitted to sit in my classroom?”

James Dolan turned to her then with a frank expression.  “Is it so different back east, Annika?”

She recalled the stories of her parents, who had been among the earliest of the waves of Scandinavian immigrants.  They had faced their share of hardships and prejudices.  Even after her father had bled for Union blue there were still those in Crawford who referred to him as ‘that damn Swede’.  But as far the Larson children went, they were Americans.  They were never forbidden from
participating in the usual activities of life.  Annika was not foolish; she knew what the difference was.  Over two decades after her country had torn itself to pieces in large part to settle the question of who had rights and who didn’t, there was still this divide over the color of people.  Perhaps there always would be.

She sighed and settled into the buckboard, not caring if her posture was incorrect.  James gave her a sympathetic look but chose to leave the subject alone. 

Autumn was far different in the desert.  Instead of the smoky descent of a colorful season, the land remained rugged and largely brown.  Shadows of the approaching evening fell across their path as bawdy laughter punctuated by furious shouting rang from the saloons on Contention Way. 

They passed an establishment which appeared even more crowded and raucous than the rest of them.  The crudely drawn words ‘The Rose Room’ hung above the door which swung outward as they passed, discharging two dusty men with pistols hanging unabashedly from their hips. 

A flutter of fabric caught Annika’s eye and she looked up, realizing that the building was unique in that the second floor was not a façade.  A flimsy staircase spiraled up the side and a shallow balcony extended across the length.   It looked to be unfit for human occupation but the three women who stood on it were unperturbed, cooing and calling ribald words into the street as they flaunted their indecent attire. 

“Bordello,” James explained softly, seeming embarrassed. 

“Yes,” she answered with a trace of wonder in her voice.  “I assumed so.”  After all, she was twenty two and not completely unworldly.  She had realized such places existed.  Furthermore, she knew they were popular with men, even those who had wives at home keeping their beds warm. 

A few seconds later James responded to Annika with alarm, reigning the horses in and reaching for her elbow.  She had gasped out loud, a common response when confronted with the unexpected.  There, lounging casually in the shadow of the bordello, stood Mercer Dolan.  He tipped his hat and offered her a grin, visibly entertained at the sight of her riding beside his brother. 

James noticed Mercer and nodded in his direction.  The two men regarded one another silently for a long moment.  Annika had four brothers of her own.  Occasionally they fought and carried on with irritable childishness, even in adulthood.  But there was an intensity between the Dolan men she had never seen among her own siblings.  Perhaps it came from being orphaned and alone so young.  Or perhaps their temperaments were hopelessly contrary, leaving them to fight silent battles which saw no winner. 

James Dolan broke the gaze first and urged the horses ahead.  As they left the bordello behind Annika chanced a look back at Mercer.  He was standing rigidly in the same position, one leg crossed over the other, hat perched jauntily, pistol hanging dangerously on his hip.  One of the soiled doves of the establishment, a painted brunette, emerged and addressed him in a petulant voice.  He ignored her, holding Annika’s eye until she turned away, shaken, and faced straight ahead with James driving by her side. 

The Swilling home was indeed fine, especially for these parts.  Mrs. Swilling must have spent a pretty penny on the lavish crystal and gloriously detailed wall hangings which cluttered the interior of the two story Victorian.  The stately home occupied a large piece of property just beyond the dust of Contention Way. 

The Swillings employed a housekeeper, a pretty redhead who spoke with the musical accent of Ireland.  Annika learned her name was Mollie from the way Mrs. Swilling barked the word every thirty seconds.  As she watched Mollie serve food and scramble to meet Mrs. Swilling’s
expectations, Annika was grateful to have a more independent livelihood.  One which required less of others’ bidding. 

Mr. Swilling was round and piggish looking.  He didn’t respond to anything his wife said and ignored Contention City’s new schoolteacher completely, conversing solely with the men.  Harriet Swilling delighted in exasperating her mother
with her bad manners but Annika could not help but smile back into her mischievous freckled face. 

Annika was introduced to the mayor, Mr. Albert Townsend and his mousy wife, Abigail.  Mr. Townsend greeted her politely but there was a grim coldness in his eyes which was unsettling.  The quiet conversation of the men centered around the mine and local politics.  Annika tried to listen discreetly but Mrs. Swilling kept interrupting with some silliness or another. 

As Mollie quietly bustled around throughout the course of the meal Annika tried not to observe how even in the wealthiest home in town, the water still contained a layer of brown silt which sank to the bottom of the glass.  It would take some getting used to. 

Harriet clapped her hands when Mollie brought a towering angel cake into the dining room.  Annika accepted a piece, feeling mildly guilty when she reflected how the poor mining families who had stopped by the schoolhouse would be enjoying no such luxury.

While she carefully savored the bites of angel cake, the growl of a name caught her ears. 

“Cutter Dane.”  Mr. Swilling had said it with the tone of an uttered obscenity. 

“Cutter?” she asked with surprise and the men stared at her. 

Mr. Townsend was irritated by the feminine interruption to their conversation.  “Yes, Miss Larson.  No doubt his name has the sound of poetry to the eastern tenderfeet who believe the pulp garbage written about him.” 

“Albert,” James frowned. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Annika firmly told the mayor of Contention City.  “I only thought his name sounded vaguely familiar.”

James was watching her.  “As you gentlemen know, Miss Larson was accosted on her travels by The Danes.”

“How dreadful.”  Mrs. Swilling fanned herself with a linen napkin as if the thought of Annika’s brush with danger was too much for her.

James continued as if she hadn’t spoken.  “Miss Larson, the name Cutter Dane may ring familiar due to his violent deeds in the Territory.”  He smiled grimly.  “Easterners like to make heroes out of horse riding thieves and murderers.”  

Crumbs fell into Mr. Swilling’s beard as he spoke with his mouth full.  “Ebson reckoned he wasn’t present with the other Danes during yesterday’s robbery, though I’m sure he’s enjoying the fruit
s of that crime today.”  He swallowed and took another bite.  “Cutter Dane is a big man.  Would seem almost too big to sit a horse.  And twice as vicious as the worst scoundrel in the Territory.”

The mayor was wrong.  The man’s distinctive name wasn’t known to Annika by way of any lurid dime books.   It was familiar for another reason. 

“And I won’t hear no goddamn argument about it or you’ll be facing Cutter.” 

Those was the warning issued by Mercer Dolan when he
’d stopped her assault at the hands at one of the other Danes. 

James Dolan was still watching her with the cool gaze of a seasoned lawman.  “Dane still walks because nothing’s ever been pinned on him officially.  The law,” he said, looking around with raised eyebrows, “is somewhat uneven in the Territory.” 

“Is it?” Annika asked quietly, thinking of Mercer. 

As the evening ended and the Swillings’ guests prepared to depart, Annika was again reminded of the difference between Crawford and Contention City.  The hour would have been considered late by the standards of the sleepy Crawford dairy farmers.  Yet the town’s main street, Contention Way, was a rollicking chaos of lurching, troublesome men and the occasional ill-reputed woman. 

“Payday,” James said through clenched teeth, holding his rifle across his lap and issuing steely glares in every direction.  He was obviously a man who commanded respect because none of the rough characters cavorting about seemed eager to answer his scowl. 

James must have seen the blank expression in Annika’s face.  “Payday at the mine,” he explained, “translates into an excuse to drink until the belly rebels and
also seek out other…ah… entertainments,” he finished delicately. 

“I see,” she answered, clinging tensely to the seat as a pair of disreputable-looking men leered at her underneath the balcony of The Rose Room.  As to Mercer Dolan, Annika wondered if he was included in the number of Contention City men seeking out ‘entertainments’ that evening. 

“Where does he live?” she asked abruptly.  James gave her a sharp glance and her face flushed but she couldn’t gracefully back away from the question.  “Mercer, I mean.  I don’t imagine he lives with you.  Does he?” 

James Dolan looked at Annika with an expression crossed between suspicion and regret.  She was sorry for the sad realization on his face.  Yet Mercer had somehow crawled under her skin, no matter how she tried to deny it. 

“No,” he said slowly and with some bitterness.  “He does not.  Lizzie keeps a room for him, no matter how long he is absent or what kind of trouble he finds.”

Nonetheless, James was a gentleman.  When he deposited her safely at the schoolhouse there was not an ounce of bitterness in his manner as he bid her a nice evening and promised to follow up with a carpenter in town about the remainder of the school’s furnishings. 

As he drove away Annika stared after him, wishing he was the brother whose face haunted her, whose body she wanted to feel.  Then she scolded herself silently for her own silliness.  Annika had not come to the Territory to find a husband.  It was no easy task for a woman to make her way in a country which awarded her a fraction of the rights of a man.  No, she did not even want a man, not really.  Yet even while the thought crossed her mind she knew it to be untrue. 

As she lit the lantern and began to undress she was occupied with thoughts of Mercer Dolan.  If he were to cross her threshold just then she feared she did not have the resolve to stop the hard urgency she felt between his legs as the most primal aspect of his manhood searched for an opening.  She would let him take what he wanted. 

Her breathing ragged, Annika sat there in her shift for a long time, listening to the rustling mysteries of the night.  She wished every sound brought him.  And then she immediately prayed that it didn’t.

Contention City, Arizona

Present Day

The door was unlocked and she must have been used to coming and going at will, yet she knocked anyway.  As she beat a nervous staccato on the front door and waited, Maddox knew why; she had seen his bike in the driveway.  Yet he didn’t move from the couch.  He sat in mute stillness. 

When the front door of his father’s house opened, the only girl he
had ever loved walked through it.  She was not as slight as she had been at eighteen.  She had grown into a full woman’s body.  Her black hair was pulled into a ponytail and she wore a pair of dark frame glasses which made her appear younger. 

Gaby merely looked at him, not shocked, not frightened.  She was waiting for him to set the tone. 

“Gabs,” he said quietly and for the space of a long breath she closed her eyes.  It was what he used to call her.  He guessed no one had called her that since. 

She swallowed.  “Hey, Maddie.” 

Mad crossed one leg over his knee and grinned.  He could play this casual.  “So what the hell is new, Gabriela?”

Her eyes narrowed.  She wasn’t fooled by his easy tone.  Nothing about this was easy.  “You see your father yet?”

Mad’s smile dropped and he stood.  “Of course.  Why the hell do you think I’m here?”