Sam’s Creed (18 page)

With a chaste kiss to the end of her nose, he set her back on the chair.

“Makes what easy?”

He didn’t answer, just scooped up his hat and sauntered out the door. Whistling. Whistling! She grabbed the pillow off the bed and threw it at his back. It missed. His chuckle floated down the hall.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to hope. She could not do either.

Movement in the doorway snapped her gaze up. Sally Mae stood there. Despite treating the outlaw, Kell and Sam, her hair was still in place in a neat bun at the base of her skull. She bent and picked up the pillow.

“Men can be infuriating, can’t they?”

Isabella sighed. “Sam more than most.”

Sally hesitated in the doorway. “May I come in?”

Isabella stood and tightened her sash, pulling the top closed. “Of course.”

Sally put the pillow on the bed and sighed. She ran her hand over her immaculate hair. “This is awkward.”

“Then you must just say it.”

“I know who thee are. Thee are the woman Tejala has been searching for and—”

Isabella sighed. “You want me to leave.”

“Dear heavens, no!” The woman’s shock was genuine. “I wanted to offer thee refuge.”

The small house was hardly the fortress that would be required to repel Tejala. “Why?”

“Edmund Burke once said, ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.’”

“You are not a man.”

“That doesn’t mean I will stand by and let a man drive a woman out of her home and do nothing.”

“Even though you are a woman?”

“Rather than a man?”

“Yes.”

“My religion does not hold men above women.”

An interesting concept. “What else does your religion teach?”

“That all people carry the seeds of God in them and have the power of choice, that it is our duty to help where we can, and that it is wrong to do harm to others.”

“And this is why you helped the outlaw?”

Sally sighed. “Yes, though sometimes doing what’s right is harder than it should be.”

She just bet. “Tucker said you were a woman of principle. He admires you.”

A blush tinged the pale cream of the other woman’s cheeks. “I bet he said a lot of other things along with it.”

Isabella didn’t lie. “He does have a sense of humor.”

Sally frowned as if she were annoyed, but Isabella didn’t miss how her gaze went out the window to the backyard where Sam and Tucker were talking. Nor did she miss the wistful hunger disguised by the brusque tone as she grumped, “It needs adjusting.”

“Maybe he just needs the touch of a good woman.”

“Maybe.” Sally shook her head. “But it would take a very brave woman.”

Said the woman who’d offered her shelter from the most feared
bandido
in the territory. “I think you are a very brave woman.”

Sally blinked and then smiled sadly. “But not the woman for him.”

Isabella wasn’t so sure.

“T
hat girl has a passel of trouble riding on her heels,” Tucker said, resting his shoulder against the trunk of the big elm in the back of the boardinghouse and looking up at Isabella’s bedroom window.

Sam finished rolling his smoke before tucking his makings back in his pocket. “Not as much as Desi had.”

“Trouble enough.” He took a draw on his cigarette. “Did you have any luck with those leads on Ari?”

“None panned out. How about you?”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “I never knew there were so many blond whores until I started looking for one.”

Sam knew exactly what he meant. “I’m going to hate to bring the news back to Desi.”

“For sure that will break her heart.”

“Yeah.”

“So what are you going to do about Isabella?”

Sam struck a sulphur on the heel of his boot. “As soon as I get her settled back at her mother’s, I’m going after Tejala.”

“Taking on Tejala will be a big job for one man. The man’s crazy. Word is the pox is eating his brain.”

Sam lit his cigarette, took a drag, and shook out the sulphur. “It’s got to be done.”

Tucker leaned back against the tree. “That doesn’t mean you have to be the one to do it.”

“I’ve kind of warmed up to the idea.”

Tucker smiled and blew out a stream of smoke. “I get that impression.”

“Bella won’t be safe as long as he’s alive.”

“She’d be safe enough back at Hell’s Eight.”

Tapping the ash off his cigarette, Sam glanced through the window across to Bella’s room. Through the sheer curtains, he could see her and Sally Mae talking. It was a very homey scene, one that made him hunger for the permanence it implied. “That’s assuming I can get her back to Hell’s Eight alive.”

“If you’re planning on eventually taking her back to Hell’s Eight, aren’t you taking a chance taking her home to her momma? I heard her mother favors the alliance with Tejala.”

“Her mother can favor all she wants. Isabella will never marry that piece of shit.”

Tucker shrugged. “Of course, there’s always the possibility after Tejala’s gone that a pretty little thing like Bella isn’t going to want to marry up with a geezer like you, either.”

Sam closed his teeth on the stub of his smoke. That was more likely than not. “I know.”

“I was joking.”

“I wasn’t.”

Tucker snorted. “You’re shitting me, right?” He waved his hand toward the house. “That woman wants to marry you more than anything in this world.”

“I know she thinks that now, but once the danger’s gone and she makes up with her mother, she might reconsider.”

Tucker swore and flicked his cigarette through the air. The glowing end carved a thin red path through the descending dark before it hit the ground and smoldered. “You want her, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then why the hell are you setting her up to have a choice?”

“Because it’s only fair.”

“Fuck fair. She wants you. You want her. Take that as a sign and grab some happiness for yourself.”

Sam cut Tucker a glare. “The way you grabbed up Sally Mae?”

Tucker’s expression closed up tight as a drum. “That’s different.”

He just bet. “How so?”

Striding over to the cigarette butt he’d discarded, Tucker ground it into the dirt with the heel of his boot. Dust puffed up in a small violent cloud. “She’s white. I’m Indian. She’s Quaker. I’m not. She’s a pacifist. I’m a gunslinger.” Tucker’s expression remained impassive as he turned back. “Go ahead, pick one and work with it.”

“That’s a heck of a lot of differences.”

Tucker motioned to the upstairs window. “And yet the only thing standing between you and Isabella is your own stubbornness.”

“And about ten years.”

Tucker shook his head. “You’re your own worst enemy sometimes, Sam.”

“Maybe.” He dropped his cigarette by his feet and snuffed out the butt with the toe of his boot, grinding it down into the dirt. “Or maybe I just don’t want to wake up a year from now to an empty bed and a whole bunch of regrets.”

“That’s why you slept with her?”

Sam sighed. There wasn’t much he could keep from Tucker. “No, that was weakness, pure and simple.”

“It’s not weak to love someone.”

“I keep telling myself that.”

“But…?”

One thing about being to hell and back with someone, they tended to understand. Without a lot of preface he cut to the truth. “I’ve been having dreams.”

“About Texana?” he asked, naming the town they’d grown up in, the town that no longer existed.

He nodded. “It always starts three days after the army left.”

“The day your mother died.”

“Yeah. In the dream I walk up to her, but when I pull the hair back, it’s Isabella’s face I see.”

“Damn it, Sam. How many times do I have to tell you. What happened to your mother wasn’t your fault. Nothing could stop that infection.”

But maybe he could have stopped the rapes that caused the infection. If he hadn’t gone back in to get the deck of cards his father had bought him, she wouldn’t have come back for him. She wouldn’t have been trapped in the house. She might have gotten away. “I know.”

Tucker sighed. “Now why don’t I believe you?”

Probably because he was lying through his teeth. “I have no idea.”

Blowing out a breath, Tucker clapped his hand on his shoulder. An unusual gesture for Tucker. He wasn’t a demonstrative man. “I can’t do your thinking for you, Sam, but I can tell you this. If Sally Mae were Isabella, and I were you, I’d grab her up and every bit of happiness I could and to hell with the consequences.” His hand dropped to his thigh.

Sam glanced over. “You would, huh?”

“Shit, yes.” His fingers curled into a fist. “We just don’t get so many chances for happiness that I think it’s worth throwing one away.” His silver eyes met Sam’s. “Whether it’s for the best of reasons or for the worst.”

It was damned uncomfortable having a man look into your soul, having that man be your best friend, knowing he not only understood your pain but shared it, and then realize that while he knew it could work out for you, it would never work out for him. Not only did it make him ache like a son of a bitch, it was humbling.

“You’ve got a real way with words, do you know that?”

Tucker’s lips twitched at the corners in a parody of a smile. “I save them up for special occasions.”

“What makes this a special occasion?”

“Shoot.” The arch of his brow was eloquent. “There isn’t a lady in or out of the territory that hasn’t set her cap for you. It’s gotten to the point where the ladies won’t even give a man the time of day until they know you’re not available.”

“And that’s cause for celebration?”

Wry humor painted Tucker’s grin with the edge of sadness. “Sure is. When word gets out that you’re taken all those mourning ladies will need consolation. And there will be plenty of men ready to give it.”

Sam laughed despite himself. “And you’re planning on being one of them?”

He shrugged. “I imagine I’ll work my way up to it.”

And pigs would fly tomorrow. Tucker wouldn’t be consoling anyone. Not until he got over whatever it was he felt toward the widow Schermerhorn. Tucker didn’t play around. When he came in from his solitary excursions, he did seek company, but it was never with a whore or a young innocent. And it was never a case of a different woman in every town. For him there always had to be at least an illusion of more than bodies satisfying a need. “You could always just steal Sally Mae away.”

“The thought did cross my mind.”

“But?”

“She’d consider it an act of violence and never forgive me for it. Sally Mae is real big on choice.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.”

Sam leaned back against the tree and watched the night fall in a curtain of black velvet. Crickets picked up their chorus. Cicadas joined in in a deafening symphony. Tucker settled in beside him and watched the half-moon struggle to clear the hills.

“Are you really going after Tejala?”

“He killed Isabella’s father, choked her almost to death, chased her from her home, put a price on her head, what the hell do you think?”

“I think that would be a yes.”

“That’s how I saw it.”

“You want some company?”

“I wouldn’t mind.”

“When are you heading out?”

“Tomorrow afternoon I’ll take Isabella to her mother’s down by Montoya. I see leaving from there by early afternoon.”

“You’ll have to double back this way to get to Tejala’s stronghold.”

“I heard he was holed up in Catch Canyon.”

“That was the word.”

“I’ve got some stuff to get together here, but—” he pointed to the southwest where Sam could make out the jutting outline in the faint light of the half-moon “—how about I meet you out by the fork in the river at the base of that ridge by nightfall?”

“That’ll work.” He tipped his hat back. “Do you by any chance have a bottle tucked out in the barn?”

Tucker always had a bottle stashed away. Not because he was much of a drinker, but being part Indian and looking his heritage, frequenting saloons could be more trouble than it was worth. “Of course.”

Sam glanced up at the window. The light went off. He pushed off the tree. “Well in that case, how about we check on it just to make sure it’s not getting lonely?”

“Can’t hurt.”

But it probably wasn’t going to help. Sam sighed and fell into step beside Tucker. It was going to be a long night, but at least tomorrow he’d start to put things right. And from there, he’d just have to see.

Isabella had been gone for six months and topping the rise above her home she could see that nothing had changed. She pulled Sweet Pea up. The Montoya ranch spread across the valley in a neat organized sprawl with the fortress that was the hacienda in the middle like the crown jewel of her father’s dream.

Breeze did a little sidestep as Sam pulled up beside her. “Very nice.”

“My father had big dreams.”

“Looks like he realized them.”

“In part. Unfortunately, he never had a son to pass them on to.”

“There was just you?”

“Sí.”

“So your mother favoring Tejala has more to it than just wanting to be safe?”

Isabella nodded. She loved her mother very much, but that didn’t make her blind to her faults. “My father was a third son. He came here to build a future.”

“And got a damned good start on it.”

There was a strange note in his voice. She looked around the ranch with pride. “Yes, he did. However for my mother coming here meant giving up all position, all society. That was hard for her. She loved the parties and her social life.”

“It’s a hard life for a woman out here.”

“Things grow better. More families come. More community builds.”

“And as the woman with the biggest spread, she gets to be queen bee?”

She nodded. “This is very important to her. She cannot return to Spain except to live as the reclusive widow on the charity of her family. Her life is here now. What she wants is here now.”

“But she needs to hold the ranch to hold her position.”

“Yes.”

“She’s a wealthy widow, she shouldn’t have any trouble finding a husband.”

Isabella couldn’t look at him.

Breeze shifted his feet in response to the tension creeping into Sam’s body.

“Bella?”

There was no hope for it. She was going to have to tell him. It was unfair. He already held so many marks against her.

“The ranch does not go to my mother.”

His sigh as he kneed Breeze closer cut to her heart.

“Let me guess, you inherit the whole kit ’n kaboodle?”

She ran her finger along the seam of the leather gloves Sally had loaned her.
“Sí.”

“I always figured there had to be more to the story of why Tejala wanted you.” His finger curled under her chin, lifting it. “So why didn’t he just marry you when he had the chance?”

“Marrying me does not get him the property.”

“How does that work?”

She tried to jerk her chin free. The movement was checked before it really got going by the shake of Sam’s head. It was her turn to sigh. She narrowed her gaze and set her shoulders. “If I tell you, you are not allowed to hold this as an excuse to decline my suit.”

“You don’t tell me what to do.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “If you do not agree, I will not say.”

“Duchess, men do the courting and men set the limits.”

She pushed his hand out from under her chin. “Ha! I’ve been courting you since first we met.”

That half smile she hated played about his lips. “Is that how you see it?”

“Yes, and you have not been running very hard.”

To her surprise he smiled. “You might want to ask yourself why that is.”

“I have often.”

“And?”

“I do not have an answer.”

“I do. Do you want to hear it?”

Her stomach dropped to her toes. She didn’t trust what he would say when he smiled like that.

“No.”

His eyebrow quirked. To her surprise, he let the subject drop. “Then maybe you’d better answer my original question.”

She copied her mother’s most haughty look. “An honorable man does not resort to blackmail.”

He hooked his hand behind her head and kissed her hard, puffs of his laughter striking her lips as he pulled back, letting her see the humor in his eyes. “I never said I was an honorable man.”

No, he hadn’t. He hadn’t needed to. He wore his honor easily, displayed it in everything he did. And as much as she feared how he would respond to the fact that she was a wealthy woman, she owed him the truth. “The ranch does not transfer unless I approve the man I marry.”

He blinked and slowly drew back. “Son of a bitch, your father hog-tied your mother, didn’t he?”

She nodded. “He worried for me.”

“So he gave you all the power he could.”

She nodded, tears burning as she thought of the way he died. “He did not think it would go the way it did. He died protecting me.”

“I’m sure he did not regret it. Tejala must be spitting bullets.”

“He is not happy with my ‘stubborn nature.’”

“But I bet your father is sitting proud in heaven watching you.”