Wild Burn (11 page)

“I—”

Del cut him off by raising the barrel of the gun from chest height to align with the bridge of Matthews’s rather flat nose. “Unless you’re about to say ‘I’m sorry, Miss Tully, for ever saying such vile things about you, and in front of little children no less,’ I’d recommend closing that rude trap of yours.”

Matthews’s lips thinned.

“Captain.”

That was twice now that Moira had used his former title, and he’d bet his hat she did it purposefully. “Miss Tully?”

She moved to stand next to him, angling her body away from Matthews and the sheriff so she was speaking directly to Del and Del alone. “I don’t need to hear an apology from him.”

“Well, I do,” he growled, his gaze roving over her from head to toe. Her hair, sleekly coiled at her nape and covering her injured ear, shone like brilliant fire in the sun, and he wanted to reach out and run his hand over it. It looked like satin, would feel like silk, and he remembered how cool and thick it had been gripped between his fingers that night in his room.

Her round face was paler than normal, her freckled cheeks missing their usual blush. She almost always blushed around him, he’d noticed, but she wasn’t now. Now, she stared at him with serious eyes, big and blue and defensive and weary, and he was so very angry because he didn’t know how to fix it except by beating Matthews into a pile of broken bones. Which he suspected wouldn’t soothe her quite as much as it would him.

Christ, but it was exhausting having feelings. He almost wished he could return to his previous state of perpetual emotional numbness. He was much more familiar with that.

He repeated himself, hoping she’d understand why. “I need him to apologize.” He turned his attention to Matthews, raising his voice. “And if he doesn’t want to pay a visit to Doc Browne, he’ll do so. Now.”

“He’s a prejudiced bully, Captain,” Moira countered, as if Matthews and Nelson didn’t exist. “What he says doesn’t matter. What he thinks doesn’t matter. Not to me.”

The sheriff cleared his throat, suddenly deciding to join the repartee. “Miss Tully, a word.”

“I’m not inclined to give one, Sheriff.” She didn’t bother turning around, keeping her pretty gaze locked on Del. His skin grew tight under her regard, but he met her eyes squarely, praying she could see in his the promise to handle the situation. To protect her. To reassure her. To get her that damned apology and find out what caused the need for one in the first place, though he had a fairly good idea it was about the three Cheyenne children in her classroom.

“Miss Tully, you have to understand—”

It was then Del learned that Moira didn’t like being told she
had to
do anything. She whirled on Nelson, her sturdy taupe-colored skirts snapping around her legs. “We had an agreement, Sheriff. If Mr. White Horse and I could convince the tribe to send their children to my school, then I would teach them. We are fighting for integration, and you,
you
, promised to support us in any way you could.”

“That’s just it. I can’t support it.”

“Why?” Her voice was biting, bitter. “Because Mr. Matthews here is a bigoted wretch?” She didn’t seem to care that the man in question was listening silently to every word, his face turning redder by the second. “Doesn’t your word mean anything to you, Sheriff?”

Nelson scowled. “Course it does. But what’s more important here, Miss Tully?” He lowered his voice, though it still reached both Matthews’s and Del’s ears. “That the man who pays the wages of most of Red Creek gets what he wants concerning his son’s education, or that a few Indians learn two plus two?”

Even as disgust roiled within Del’s chest, he watched Moira throw back her slender shoulders and lift her sharp chin. “You’re a coward, Hank Nelson.” Having cut him neatly down to size, she marched up the steps and disappeared into the schoolhouse.

Incensed, the sheriff shot a mean look in her direction, one that almost had Del switching his aim toward him instead of Matthews. There was hate in Nelson’s gaze, different than the entitled disdain darkening Matthews’s expression, and hatred was always dangerous. But Nelson was already stomping off toward the jail, tugging the brim of his hat low on his head as he went.

Which left only Del and Matthews, and the firearm between them.

“Crawford.”

“Matthews. Your boy one of Miss Tully’s students?”

“Up until this minute, yes.”

Del shook his head at the man’s arrogant tone. “Three Indian children are not going to keep your kid from learning.”

Matthews’s lip curled. “It’s an affront. Having those dumb animals sit side by side with my son—it’s an affront, I tell you.”

“Whatever you think, come tomorrow morning, your boy will be in that classroom. You understand?”

“Not if
they
are there,” Matthews shot back. “I’ll have her sent back East first, and get a teacher in here who knows better than to test my generosity.”

Del arched a curious brow. “You pay her wages?”

“I… No.”

“Who does?”

“The…territorial superintendent. The treasurer, actually.”

“But not you.”

“No,” Matthews grated, a vein pounding to life at his temple.

“So you can’t fire her.”

“Oh, I could. I—”

“You
won’t
fire her.” Not on Del’s watch. Moira and her job both would be safe and secure from the likes of Matthews and the sheriff while he was around. “And your son will be in school tomorrow.”

“Oh?”

“Don’t see anyone else lining up for the
privilege
of teaching your brat.” He paused. “And if I hear even the whisper of disrespect coming from him, he’ll get a thrashing but good.”

“Everyone…everyone knows Miss Tully doesn’t hit the children,” Matthews sputtered.

“I know.” Del lowered his gun, sliding it back into its holster, though he let his hand rest at his hip. “Which is why I’ll be the one doing the thrashing.”

“You lay a hand on Irwin, and I’ll—”

“Remember what Miss Tully said, about me being a good shot?” Del stepped forward until only a handful of inches separated them. “Seeing as you ‘hired’ me, I reckon you know what I’m capable of. Don’t test me, Matthews. Your mouth today already earned you a place on my list.”

“You’ll regret this, Crawford.” But the man made a wide berth around Del as he headed for the main street.

“Doubtful.” Del waited until Matthews was out of sight before exhaling. What a mess. What a stupid mess he’d made of things, with what was evidently his new boss and the sheriff, both.

He glanced toward the open, shadowed doorway of the schoolhouse. “Worth it,” he whispered, then sighed and walked into the building.

Removing his hat and setting it on a nearby desk, he waited a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the dimly lit interior. It was a decent-sized square room, the walls planked in smooth, unstained gray wood. Two glass-paned windows were on the walls to his left and right, and straight ahead of him was the front of the room, with a teacher’s book- and paper-covered desk, and behind it a black cast-iron stove in the corner and a large blackboard, across which were scrawled several words in dusty white chalk.

The lesson for the morning had been on sentence structure, apparently.

But he didn’t see her, and there was only the one door. Tension gripped him by the throat as he worried where she could have disappeared to. “Moira?”

“Up here.” The voice came from behind the front desk.

After hurrying up the middle aisle, he rounded the corner of the desk and looked down. There she sat, her back to the built-in drawers of the heavy desk, the wide circle of her skirt pooling beneath her bent knees. Her head was tipped forward, obscuring her expression from his view, her shoulders drooped and her hands lay listlessly in her lap.

The tension moved from his throat to his chest and squeezed. Hard.

He crouched down next to her, resting on the balls of his feet. “Hey.”

She didn’t look at him. “Hullo.” Her voice was raspy and strangely muted. Almost as if…

He reached forward and tucked a finger beneath her chin, lifting her face toward him. Yup. She’d been crying.

Damn it.

He sucked in a breath. “I don’t know how to make it better,” he admitted in a quiet rush, brushing his thumb over her damp cheek. “I want to make it better, and I don’t know how.”

She chuckled, a thick, watery sound. “I have to ask…” Humor laced her voice even as she sniffled loudly, a sound no Savannah belle would’ve been caught dead making in mixed company. “Do you just whip out that gun of yours at every opportunity, or only on special occasions?”

Chapter Thirteen

“Special occasions,” Delaney answered promptly. She could see he was attempting a certain gravity, but his lips twitched with humor. “And for some reason especially when you’re in the vicinity.”

“Aren’t I the lucky girl?” She sniffled again, embarrassed to have been caught crying over a blowhard like Jacob Matthews. She wished she could bury her face in her hands and rub away the splotchiness she was certain covered her cheeks, but Delaney’s warm, calloused finger beneath her chin prevented her from doing anything other than stare up at him.

He looked so…concerned. It was an expression she hadn’t yet seen on him, not even when he’d shot her. His brow was furrowed, yes, but the manner in which his pale eyes danced over her features, as if memorizing each freckle and cataloguing each swiped-away tear, made her skin tingle. His lips were compressed, and the little lines left at the corners of his eyes by the sun crinkled slightly the longer he studied her.

She moved her hand to his wrist, meaning to push him away. Instead, her fingers curled around tendon and bone, coarse hair brushing against her palm. She trapped his strength and, oddly, drew her own from it. “Thank you for the rescue.”

He shrugged, but a hint of pink flagged his sun-browned cheekbones. “I owed you.”

“You did?”

His lips quirked again. “Moira, honey, I shot you. I’m gonna owe you ’til the day I die.”

Her face went hot at the endearment. She liked how the word rolled off his tongue, the smooth twang of his Georgia-boy roots like honey itself over her senses. She liked it too well. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, I know.” His thumb gently caressed the spot just left of the corner of her mouth. “But you don’t look all that fine now.”

She rolled her eyes and squeezed his wrist once before letting go. He took the hint and dropped his arm to rest on his knee. “Silly of me, to get worked up over a bunch of stupid words.”

He shook his head and twisted his torso briefly to shuck his coat, then set it on the floor beside him. Taking a seat on the floor facing her, he propped his legs in front of him and let his forearms dangle atop his bent knees. “Nothing silly about it. I may not have heard everything, but what I did hear was terrible.” He sighed. “And because he didn’t say it, I will—I’m sorry for those stupid words, Moira.”

“Oh, don’t—”

“I’m sorry that bastard said what he did, and that he didn’t apologize for it. Can I do anything to make it better?”

He’d never before been so verbose, and some of the hurt inside Moira, left over from Matthews’s verbal stabbing, faded away. Del had pulled a gun—which appeared to be habit for him—on a man threatening her. He risked the displeasure of the sheriff, not to mention the ire of his employer, to demand an apology. For her.

That safe feeling she tended to experience around him grew and shifted, shifting from something grateful into something tender and…and
reaching.
It wasn’t quite yearning, or longing, but it entwined with a sort of basic need that sent elemental desire for him humming along her nerve endings. “You don’t want Matthews working against you. Not in Red Creek.”

His shoulders rose and fell in a casual shrug, the muscles in his upper arms momentarily straining against the dark gray fabric of his shirt, and he lifted a hand to shove his fingers through his hair. “You didn’t seem to mind taking him on.”

She mimicked his shrug and slouched lower against the desk drawers, as low as her corset allowed. “Until today, I thought we were on polite terms. But after the filth he spewed…he made himself my enemy.”

“And as he’s yours, he’s mine.”

There was a finality in his voice that had her meeting his gaze sharply. “Don’t do that, Delaney,” she warned. “You already have enough danger on your plate.”

He smiled briefly, a flash of white teeth in his dark beard. “Too late.” The smile disappeared. “If he gives you any more trouble, you tell me.”

That sounded vaguely like a command. “Delaney—”

“Please.”

Well, how was she supposed to say no to him now? The gentleness of his polite words were such a contrast to the evil of Matthews, just minutes before, that she could do nothing but heave a resigned, worried sigh and bite her lower lip. “All right. I’ll tell you if Matthews troubles me again.”

“His son too.”

“Irwin? Why?”

He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Because I kind of said I’d thrash the boy if he sassed you over what his father did.”

An incredulous laugh bubbled up. “You did? Oh, Lord. And to think I was this close to taking a ruler to him this morning.”

“You were?” His broad shoulders relaxed beneath the confines of his braces. “But you told me you don’t strike the children.”

“And I don’t,” she assured him, plucking absently at her skirts. She’d forgone a crinoline that day in favor of a heavier, simpler work dress that didn’t require any stiffer undergarments. “Irwin simply informed me his father would have me removed from this post the day I brought Indian children to the school. Then, when he attempted to leave to go tattle, we had a…difference of opinion. I very nearly resorted to corporal punishment.” Remembered frustration tightened her chest. “I’ll admit I was relieved I didn’t need to.”

“Anytime you need someone to wield your ruler, let me know.” He combed his fingers through his hair again. “Brawn to your brains.”

She smiled at that, a little surprised to realize how comfortable she’d grown with him, embracing the strange but pleasant ease she felt in his presence. “I think you have far more brains than you let on, Mr. Crawford,” she teased, then finally gave in and scrubbed her hands over her face, wanting to eradicate any trace of upset.