The Loner (5 page)

The sweet spring breeze moved through the grass, too, and the nightbirds called back and forth. Beside the barn, the horses grazed, the sounds of their movements muffled by its thickness. This was a good spring, with just the right amount of rain.

The Nation needed that. It needed good crops this year and it needed freedom from the outlaws that were keeping it in turmoil. Arresting this girl was his job.

Black Fox closed his eyes and tried to breathe in rhythm with the whispering leaves. The roaring, sleepless aching in his head didn't belong in a night like this.

And neither did a hanging for a girl who'd suffered such an injustice.

Get a grip, Vann. You already had evidence she was at the scene of the murder. What difference does it make that she had reason to kill that deputy?

He opened his eyes and tried to put his mind in some other place but it kept jumping back to The Cat. She lay quiet now, her breath coming lightly as if she'd fallen asleep. She probably had. She was bound to be exhausted after losing so much blood.

He
was exhausted and there wasn't a nick on him. He was certainly too tired to suffer any interference or to think what to do about it if it occurred.

It was a rotten piece of luck that Willie and his friends had picked this night to come to his house to sleep off a drunk. And even more rotten that they'd seen The Cat's horse.

Maybe they'd not make the connection that she could be The Cat. Maybe they'd forget, not think of it again, and not mention it to anyone. Maybe he'd be able to get her to Fort Smith without anyone's noticing them on the trail.
That
should be his focus now, not whether she could possibly be innocent in spite of her mark on the tree.

In spite of her hatred for lawmen.

It would be a miracle, though, if no one paid them heed. People—people who were sober—were bound to see them and notice the little dun horse.

A girl showing a mass of red, curly hair would never make anyone think of The Cat, but the horse would. Its size and speed were invariably mentioned in every tale of The Cat's bravery.

He needed to take Cathleen to Fort Smith on a different mount.

He would like to haul her in a closed-up buggy, but there was no chance of that. To stay off the beaten trails, they'd have to go horseback.

And he'd have to watch her every second. No matter how much she objected, he'd have to tie her to him when they slept.

Don't you dare tie me to you again. I won't stand for it.

That thread of panic in her voice, just under the surface of the bravado, had been truly pitiful. It had torn at him to hear it, for she was a helpless creature, caught in his trap, and she knew it.

He whirled on his heel and left the room. Sometimes, because they were stretched so thin over so many large, turbulent districts, a Lighthorseman had to serve as arresting officer, judge, and jury. But this time, even if the case hadn't been the murder of a white man, and a federal deputy marshal at that, he would do no more than arrest her and take her in.

How could he judge her? His mind knew she was guilty and his heart would not stop hoping for proof she was innocent.

He'd never been like this before. He felt as if
he'd turned into two people living in the same skin.

 

The sunshine pouring in through the open window woke Black Fox with its heat. He opened his eyes to its light, dancing brightly in the auburn curls of Cathleen's hair.

As always, he was instantly awake and alert, so without thinking he knew who she was and why she was there. Yet he didn't move. She was lying very near him, with her head turned so that all that cloud of red/gold hair glittered only inches from his face.

He took a deep breath of its scent. It smelled of sunshine and cedar trees after a rain. And a little of dust and gunpowder.

Sometime during sleep he had unknowingly slung his arm across her pillow above her head. Some of her hair spilled onto his blue sleeve, some appeared to be under it.

Still, he didn't move.

It was a strange thing to wake with a woman in his bed. There was an unfamiliar companionship in it. Even though she was under the covers and he was on top of them, they lay on their sides, spoon-fashion, as if ready for their bodies to come closer and fit together. His free arm lifted and reached to brush back her hair so he could see her face.

So he could touch her. The urge was so powerful it was hard to ignore.

He jerked his hand back and rolled away from her, swinging his feet to the floor all in one motion. He was Black Fox Vann, Lighthorseman. He didn't caress a woman prisoner, he did
not
.

Even though before this was all over, half the Nation would be thinking that he had done so. Willie and Swimmer were bound to tell Tall John and Bras they'd seen a woman in his bed, and four rowdy boys, drunk or not, were way too many to keep such a secret. There was no hope of escaping some curious visitors before Cathleen was able to ride. He heaved a long sigh.

Then he set his jaw in rebellion against his own resignation. He was still himself. He was still Black Fox Vann, whose life was the law. One quick kindling of desire for his captive didn't change that and neither did her sleeping in his bed, no matter what anyone said about it.

He reached for his boots, grabbed them both in one hand, and stood up.

“Black Fox?” she said, her voice soft as a mist in the warm air behind him.

“Here,” he said.

“Thanks for not tying me.”

The gratitude in her voice made him feel like a lowlife longrider for
ever
having done such a thing.

“I…intended to stay awake,” he said, without turning around.

“But you slept?” she said drowsily.

“I dozed.”

Which was a big, fat lie. He'd slept so deeply he was rested.

Eager to get away from her questions, he walked in his sock feet around the foot of the bed and headed for the door into the kitchen. But before he reached it, he glanced at her.

She lay on her back, looking up into his face with her green eyes as soft as her voice. Her hair blazed against the white pillow.

“Dozed so hard you snored,” she drawled, her eyes twinkling and her luscious mouth curving into a faint smile.

Even with his habitual dignity threatened, he couldn't help himself. He felt a smile ghosting over his lips, too.

“That must've been the horses snuffling in the pasture that you heard,” he said.

He'd meant it as a teasing reply, but his voice took on more warmth than he'd intended. A camaraderie.

She laughed. The low, sweet chuckle reached out and wrapped around him.

“You can't blame it on them,” she said. “That was enough noise for a whole
herd
of horses.”

She scooted up against the pillow then, wincing from pain. A fine sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead.

“Do you still hurt as bad as you did?” he asked.

“No, but I still feel like I've been bucked off and
stomped,” she said. “You can quit watching me. Right now I couldn't jump up and run away if you took after me with a gun.”

“Don't try to fool me, now,” he said lightly. “I know you're a tricky one.”

She smiled weakly, then the smile faded and for a long moment they looked at each other without saying a word. He wanted to go to her and wipe the sweat away from her brow. He wanted to say something else that would make her smile again.

He wanted to lie back down beside her.

Cathleen found herself looking up at Black Fox, wondering at the look in his eyes. It made her feel like another person, a girl without a care in the world, a girl who wished he would come closer. It made the other half of the bed feel hollow beside her. It made her wonder what he was thinking about her.

Because he
was
thinking about her. That much was clear.

It might be distrust, with him trying to see into her mind and find out if she planned an escape or not. It might be a trick to get her to say something.

Yet it didn't seem to be.

It might destroy all her defenses if she didn't watch herself every minute because right now it was making her realize how dismally lonely she was. How alone she had been for many, many months now.

It was a friendly kind of look.

She slammed that thought away and tried to pull her thoughts together. She
wasn't
some other girl. She was The Cat, an outlaw, and this man was a Lighthorse. He was her enemy. He had captured her and he believed she'd killed a man. He was not going to turn her loose, no matter how he looked at her or how she felt when his eyes searched hers this way.

She needed to make him go away.

“I told you I'm not able to get out of this bed,” she snapped irritably. “You don't have to stand there and watch me.”

“I will if I want to,” he said.

He didn't say it mean; he spoke absentmindedly, as if he weren't quite aware of what he said. The searching had turned to a faraway look in his eyes—he was looking through her, all the way past her now, thinking about something else entirely. He might as well be trying to read something written on the floor beneath the bed for all he saw of her.

She wondered what had taken his attention from her. She wanted him to look at her, really look at her again.

And that thought scared her more than anything else. It was insane. All she needed to know of his thoughts was what he might do to prevent her escape.

When she pushed up to sit higher against the pillows, the nightshirt bunched into a hard knot
under her bottom. She couldn't pull at it without starting the pain again.

“I told you not to undress me,” she said, feeling her color rise—along with her temper—as she imagined him doing it. “I told you not to take off my jeans and boots. You're a
man
. You had no
right
.”

That
brought his thoughts back to her. He looked at her, really looked at her again, his eyes full of surprise and then as much anger as a nest of hornets.

“Don't be ridiculous,” he snapped. “You've got bigger things to worry about than who sees you naked.”

“It's more who
handles
me naked that concerns me,” she said stoutly.

She did feel embarrassed, yes, but mainly she felt scared. She was used to the hard, sharp edges of anger and revenge turning around and around inside her. Or the high, hot flares of excitement and intense concentration pushing against cold fear when she made a raid or ruined a bootlegger rendezvous.

Now she had strange, turbulent feelings attacking her and no names for them. They were growing stronger by the minute as she looked at Black Fox Vann.

Drive him away. What she had to do was drive him away and put the wall between them again.

“You can rest easy,” he said, his tone filling with
sarcasm. “All I've handled is your wound—when you were
bleeding
to death.”

“Just keep your hands off me,” she said, her voice trying to taper off from exhaustion.

“Don't worry,” he said, in that same sardonic tone. “I'm no Tassel Glass. All I wanted was to save your life.”

“You have no
right
to save my life,” she said, sudden new anger pushing strength into the words. “You're the one trying to take it. I'd rather bleed to death than hang.”

A terrible look sliced across his face, as if her words had cut him like a blade.

“
You're
the one who took your own life when you killed Donald Turner,” he said. “And you'd better remember that, Cat.”

“I didn't kill him, Black Fox,” she said. “And
you'd
better remember
that
. You'll be the death of an innocent person if you take me in to Judge Parker.”

She thought she saw a glimmer of doubt in his eyes before he turned away.

“I did not kill Donald Turner,” she said, from between her teeth, clenched now against the pain in her shoulder. “And if you're anywhere near the kind of lawman that people say you are, you'll go looking for whoever
did
kill him.”

He refused to reply to that. In fact, he spoke quickly, as if to change the subject.

“You say you're not able to get up,” he said
sharply, as if calling her a liar, “but you surely have to. I can help you use the…accommodations under the bed so you won't have to go all the way to the outhouse.”

“No, thanks,” she said, just as sharply. “I can manage.”

“I'll help you stand up…”

“No,” she snapped. “Just go and close the door.”

That, apparently, made him mad. He strode across the room and into the kitchen, closing the door behind him with a smart slap.

Narrow-eyed, Cat stared at it. Now they were enemies again.

And she wasn't quite sure how she felt about that.

S
he threw back the covers and, moving slowly, sat up, swung her feet off the side of the bed, felt underneath the edge for the lidded chamber pot, and pulled it out. By being very careful with every movement she made, and using the edge of the bed as support, she managed to use and replace it without causing a great deal more pain in her shoulder. At least not unbearable pain.

It was true that she was sore all over but it actually made her feel better to move around. She needed to be as active as she could so she'd be ready when the time came to escape.

An idea hit her. Maybe she should annoy Black
Fox as much as possible so he'd be wanting to get away from her. Surely she could make him leave her alone for a little while, from time to time. If he could get into that habit, then one of those times he'd come back and find her gone. This new, hopeful scheme made her smile to herself.

Besides, she desperately did need to wash up. It galled her to ask him for any help at all, but it would serve both those purposes if she did.

“Black Fox?” she called.

She thought she hadn't spoken loudly enough, but he heard her and knocked on the door.

“Cat?”

“Come in.”

He swung the door wide and left it that way.

“Would you please bring me some water to wash my hands and face?” she said. “And some elm twigs so I can make a toothbrush?”

Instead of the annoyance she had hoped for, she caught a glimpse of sympathy across his face.

“You're suddenly full of plans,” he said speculatively, as if wondering just how helpless she really was.

“I feel dirty,” she said. “After breakfast, maybe you'd help me take a bath.”

The shock in his eyes came and went as quickly as the sympathy had, but she saw it. He shrugged and leaned back against the doorjamb in a sure, careless gesture that, for some reason, made her heart skip a beat.

“For somebody who's so loathe to have a man touch her that she can hardly bear for him to save her life,” he said wryly, “you're bold as brass. Have you forgotten that
I'm
a man?”

The question was so preposterous it made her laugh.

“No,” she blurted, “I couldn't forget
you're
a man if my mind left me completely.”

Then she turned red as a summer sunset.

“I…I mean, uh…I
meant
help me by bringing water and towels,” she stuttered. “I can wash myself.”

She could barely talk and she could hardly think at all because her imagination had leapt to life, making whole scenes of Black Fox bathing her. She could see him bending over her, his broad shoulders blocking out the window light and making a small part of the world for them alone. His dark gaze fixed on hers while he caressed her with those big, strong hands, his rough palms slipping over her soapy, wet skin.

“Will you not need any soap?” he drawled.

Cathleen pushed the vision away and really looked at him again, standing there leaning against the doorjamb with his gaze resting on hers. Honestly, though, that didn't help a bit.

“Well…” She had to stop and swallow hard. “…yes. I will…need soap.”

Her breath caught in her throat. Her blood surged faster through her veins.

Those dark, dark eyes of his were looking right into her mind and seeing what she was thinking. She would swear that was true.

His beautiful mouth curved up on one side in a lazy half-smile.

“Good decision,” he drawled.

He was teasing her again, and it made her feel strangely warm inside. No one had talked to her very much, much less teased her, in a long, long time.

She narrowed her eyes in mock anger.

“Are you saying I
need
soap?” she asked.

And then she smiled at him in that same, slow, lazy way. She didn't intend to, but she did.

“I'm saying you look like the best thing that ever happened to that old nightshirt of mine,” he blurted.

Shocked, she stared at him, the blush rising in her face again. He stared back, looking as startled as she felt. Yet his gaze lingered on her an instant longer, as if he were memorizing her face.

“I'm going to the smokehouse,” he said, and without another word, he turned and left her.

Cathleen tried to leave him, too, in her mind. She needed to start thinking about the best way to escape when she got strong enough, but she kept smiling to herself and remembering what had just passed between them. Black Fox had said more than he meant to say, which she was sure didn't
often happen to him. For an instant there, he had looked as astounded as a dismayed little boy.

Because he was lonely, too, she thought. The insight struck her like a lightning bolt. He was no more accustomed to talking to women than she was to talking to men.

Somehow, that touched her. And so did what he said.

He didn't mean to say it, but he thinks I'm pretty.

A little thrill of happiness ran through her. She pushed it away.

They needed to forget about this attraction between them and go back to acting like what they really were, which was enemies.
Mortal
enemies. At least on her side of it, the situation was mortal.

She had to stop this smiling and teasing with him and hold onto her plan to irritate him so much that he would want to get away from her as often as he could. There was no question that she could do that if she set her mind to it.

If she didn't pay attention and keep her eye on what was reality instead of what her imagination could conjure up, she wouldn't even live to regret it. Her mother had warned her that a handsome, sweet-talking man could lead a girl down the road to perdition.

If she didn't get a grip on her feelings right now, this handsome, diffident lawman with the rare and mysterious smile would lead her, not down
the road to perdition, but straight to the hangman's noose.

 

Cathleen barely managed to keep that attitude all through breakfast, since Black Fox behaved in a totally un-enemy-like way. He did everything her best friend could've done—-if she'd ever had a best friend—-and he did it all without being asked.

He brought her a twig toothbrush and water to clean her mouth both before and after the meal, he put honey on her hot, cooked oats (the only food he had to go with the smokehouse bacon) for her. She was glad that they ate mostly in silence, she in bed and he at the kitchen table.

However, when he remembered about her bath and started preparations for it without her even reminding him, her resolve began to slip away. Never, since she'd been big enough to help herself, had anybody taken her desires to heart.

It had been hard enough to think of him as her captor when he brought her food and smiled when she said how good it looked or when he came back to take away the empty dishes and remarked how glad he was that she'd been able to eat. But now, with him heating water and bringing her soap and towels, a clean shirt of his and the soap she told him was in her saddlebags, she lost her resolution completely.

Her plan to annoy him was failing, since she
didn't even have to ask him to do anything. And he wasn't irritated in the least to help her, only solicitous of her needs. He even carried in a small table from the parlor and put it beside the bed to hold the pan of water.

“This is very near a dream,” she blurted. “I never had anybody wait on me hand and foot before. Much less a man.”

“Gotta get you well,” he said, “so then you can do the work and I can lay around in bed.”

The light, easy way he said it sounded as if they'd been friends forever. It sounded as if he liked her.

Then he put a hand behind her good shoulder to help her sit up. For some reason, the gesture made a hard, quick lump form in her throat.

“Can you manage for yourself?” he asked. “If you tear that wound open, it'll set the healing back a long time.”

“And we can't have that, can we?” she said, but the bitter bite she tried to put in the words wasn't there. She just sounded sad and tired instead. “We've got to get on the trail to Fort Smith.”

He didn't reply to that. He simply helped her the rest of the way as she carefully sat up and swung her feet off the side of the bed. She was dizzy. Not a whole lot, but definitely dizzy.

“If I spill that pan of water, it'll be a terrible mess,” she said. “I'm not going to try to wash my hair.”

“Go ahead and bathe,” Black Fox said, “then I'll help you with your hair.”

He paused at the door just before he closed it.

“Put that shirt back on until we're done,” he said, the teasing grin playing on his lips again. “I might accidentally get your fresh one wet.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and said, “Is that a threat? Are you wanting a water fight?”

“Depends on how good you feel,” he said. “I wouldn't want to take advantage of a wounded woman.”

He closed the door behind him and she smiled in spite of herself. At that moment, she decided to give up her plan altogether. She might as well enjoy his company until she escaped.

But when she was clean and lying across the bed on her back with her hair hanging off, when Black Fox was pouring fresh, warm water through it into a bigger pan on the floor, bending over her just like in her imagination, “enjoy his company” was too weak to express what she was feeling. He was sweeping her against her will into an even better dream.

He leaned over her and reached for the chamomile soap she liked. It felt almost like an embrace as his big body surrounded her.

It felt almost like a safe, warm place.

“Hmm, smells good,” he said, and drew in a deep breath of the soap's scent.

He started rubbing it between his strong, wet
hands and she watched him. She couldn't help it. She couldn't help wondering what it would be like to have his hands on her.

“Nice soap for a girl on the run,” he said wryly.

“If you're asking where I got it, Mr. Glass furnished it to me.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Good of him, wasn't it?”

“Would be if he knew about it,” she said.

“Now I'm compromised as a Lighthorseman,” he said, “using stolen property right here in my own house.”

“Think of it as Tassel's charity to the poor,” she said. “It's the only luxury I ever took for myself.”

“Did you take luxuries for other people?”

“Sometimes,” she said defensively. “Mostly for children.”

She could hardly remember what or for whom now, though. Her old life was beginning to feel like a dream and this dream was beginning to feel real. Black Fox's nearness was filling her senses and stilling all her memories.

He lifted her head in his hands in a gesture that ran all through her and made her take a deep, deep breath. Then he began to work the soap into her hair.

Every move he made was rhythmic and gentle, yet every one sent his touch flowing into her blood and along the length of her limbs. Even her wound somehow felt better.

“Tell me if I'm too rough,” he said.

“No,” she murmured, “you're not.”

You're wonderful, this is heavenly.

Then his big palms moved in and cupped her head and his strong, calloused fingertips found her scalp. He began to move them, slowly and surely, making small, tantalizing circles all over her head. He began to loosen every muscle she had and soon she was melting into the bed.

Her eyes drifted closed in spite of her wanting to keep looking at him, even though he wasn't even meeting her gaze anymore. The breath she had slid right out of her body and she wasn't sure if she could take another.

“Have to get you clean,” he said, beginning to pull the soap through the length of her hair. “Might even be a bird's nest in here, who knows?”

She meant to giggle but all she could do was smile.

“More likely to find a stray bullet,” she said lazily, “judging from the smell of gunpowder in it.”

His hands were mesmerizing her. No one had ever washed her hair but her mother. And no one had touched her in so long a time.

Tears sprang up behind her eyelids. She had forgotten what it was like to be touched—gently—by another person.

Even as she had the thought, though, she knew
it was a false comparison. This was nothing like her mother washing her hair when she was a little girl. This was nothing like any other person's touch to her.

A heat was starting to build and spread throughout every inch of her body. Was this desire?

“You'll do,” he said. “No wonder your hair smells like powder. I couldn't believe it when you started firing.” He was referring to the gunfight at the cave.

She looked up into his dark eyes.

His fingers slowed in their circling, but they seemed to reach for her more.

“I was scared they would kill you,” she said.

He brushed some soap from her temple as she closed her eyes. For one long heartbeat, he let his hand linger against her cheek. At least she thought he did.

She couldn't know anything for sure or think about it, either.

All she could do was float beneath Black Fox's hands.

“Why would you care if they killed me?” he asked.

His tone was idle but there was something in it that made her open her eyes. He met her gaze and held it as if he really wanted to know.

“Like you told me out there, I knew you'd protect me,” she said seriously.

They couldn't seem to look away from each other.

Finally Black Fox picked up the pitcher of rinse water and moved to the side so he could pour it through her hair without splashing it onto his legs. Gently, he sat on the bed and leaned over to cradle the back of her head.

His face hovered close, very close, to hers. She wanted to touch his cheek like he'd just touched hers. No, she wanted to trace the aristocratic shape of his cheekbone with her fingertip and draw it down along the hard, chiseled line of his jaw.