Winter's Touch (27 page)

She saw him many times throughout each day, yet there was always someone else about. Her father, her brother, Beau, Frank, Bess, Megan. Always someone.

Except two days ago when he had forgotten his leather work gloves. The men were mounting up to ride out and check on the cattle after breakfast when Carson had come back inside for his gloves. Bess and Megan had gone outside to wave them off.

Winter Fawn had heard the front door open and thought it was the girls returning. She had turned from checking Bess’s bread dough with a guilty smile curving her lips. She had learned from Bess one of the greatest delights of the white world—stealing a pinch of raw, yeasty dough while it was rising.

“The trick,” Bess had said with mock seriousness, “is to not get caught doing it.”

Now Winter Fawn had been caught. Not by Bess, however. By Carson.

He looked as surprised to find her there as she was to see him. He glanced from her fingers, which were still in her mouth, to the large bowl of dough on the counter, then back to her. “Caught you,” he said with a teasing grin.

His grin, as it always did, backed the breath up in her lungs. She tried to laugh at his teasing, but couldn’t quite manage it. Quickly she took another pinch of dough and held it out to him. “If you have some too, then you canna tell on me.”

As he walked toward her, his grin disappeared. He stood before her a long moment, staring into her eyes, holding her captive as if she were tied to him with braided rawhide. Slowly he leaned down toward her offered fingers. His lips parted, his mouth opened.

Winter Fawn held her breath and waited for that instant when his mouth would caress her fingers. Her heart pounded in anticipation. Her own lips parted, yearned for the taste of his.

Gently he closed his mouth over her fingers. With his tongue, he captured the dough and stroked it into his mouth. But he did not straighten and leave. He lingered, running his tongue over and around her fingertips, sucking on them, stealing her breath, all the while still holding her captive with those vivid blue eyes.

Then slowly, reluctantly it seemed, he pulled his mouth away and straightened. He brushed her cheek with one hand. “You’ve been working hard. How’s your side?”

“It’s…fine.”

His gaze lowered to her lips. He leaned toward her.

Winter Fawn sucked in a sharp breath. He was going to kiss her.

Outside a horse neighed, a man shouted. Megan giggled.

Carson straightened abruptly and moved away. “I forgot my gloves.”

He disappeared into his bedroom, then quickly left. Before he closed the front door behind him, he looked back at her. Just looked, that was all. But with such heat in his eyes that she nearly cried out and ran after him.

How dare him, she thought now, her fists clenched in the sheet. How dare he lead her on that way and make her think he wanted her as much as she wanted him, then treat her that night as if nothing had ever happened between them.

Something
had
happened between them. Something wonderful, that last morning on the trail, before they reached the ranch. He had given her the most precious gift of all, the gift of her own pleasure as a woman.

How could she want more from him, how could she care more each day for the man he was, the way he loved his sister and daughter? How could she be falling in love with a man who wanted her one minute, but not the next?

Two days after the storm, four days after he had gone back into the house after his gloves, and Carson was still unable to forget the pull of her.

He had had no intention of getting near her that morning. A smile, a word, that was all that was necessary. Yet he had been drawn to her as if he’d had no will of his own.

Or as if he had thrown out all common sense and let his will have it’s own way.

It was only physical, this need he felt for her. He had teased and tormented himself with imagining what it would have been like if they had made love that morning on the trail, if he had buried himself inside her instead of holding back.

He had to quit thinking about it, dammit. She was his guest. Her father was his friend. She deserved better than a roll in the hay, and that was all he really wanted.

Wasn’t it?

“You expectin’ any company, Cap’n?” Beau asked.

Carson hadn’t heard that particular tension in Beau’s voice since their last battle during the war. He looked up sharply and followed the man’s gaze. “No,” he said grimly, “but it looks like we’re about to have some.”

From around the bend in the bluffs to the east, a large gray cloud of dust boiled into the air.

“I make it around twenty riders,” Beau said, squinting at the dust cloud.

Carson grunted in agreement, then swore. Had Crooked Oak managed to track them here and gone back for more warriors? Damn.

“Beau, you and Frank take the barn.”

“Yessuh,” Beau said quickly, as if the war had never ended and Carson was still his captain.

“Innes, get Hunter and come to the house.”

“Aye,” he said slowly, eyeing the approaching cloud. “That I will, lad, that I will.”

Carson sprinted to the house. He burst through the door and reached for his rifle, which rested on pegs above the door.

“What is it?” Winter Fawn asked quickly.

“Company.” He glanced around, making sure all three girls were there. From the looks on their faces, he knew they realized he hadn’t meant
invited
company. Being raised during a war gave even Megan an understanding he wished he didn’t need to be grateful for.

His mind scrambled for the safest place to put the girls. Every room in the house had at least one window. He didn’t want them near a window. “I want you upstairs, but stay in the hall and out of the bedrooms.”

“Can we help?” Bess asked tightly.

“You can bring me the box of ammunition from the bottom of the wardrobe in my room, but hurry.” A glance out the front window showed the dust cloud was nearly at the bend.

Winter Fawn came to the window. “Is it Crooked Oak?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where are my father and Hunter?”

As if in response to her question, the front door burst open and Innes and Hunter rushed inside. Innes carried his rifle in one hand, ammunition pouch in the other.

“Hunter,” Carson said when Bess brought his ammunition. “Get the girls upstairs. Stay with them. Keep them in the hall and away from the windows.”

Hunter did not bother getting insulted over being sent to watch the girls rather than take part in the fighting. If that was Crooked Oak out there, Hunter wouldn’t mind putting a hole or two in him, but otherwise, he would not—did not think he
could
—fire on any of Our People.

“Come.” He took Bess by the arm and Megan by the hand and led them up the stairs into the short, dim hallway.

“I’m scared,” Megan complained with a whimper. “Is it the Yankees? Are the Yankee Bluebellies coming?”

Bess brushed a shaking hand over the girl’s hair. “No, honey, it’s not the Yankees. That war is over, remember?”

“I want to stay with Daddy.”

“You will be safer, and so will he,” Hunter told the child, “if you stay here and let him do what must be done.”

Megan slid to the floor and started crying, loud, racking sobs. “I want Daddy!”

Bess was scared too, and wanted Carson. She tried to soothe Megan, but it was Hunter who got through to the girl.

“Your tears are an extra weapon in the hands of your enemy.”

The statement was complex enough to give both Megan and Bess pause.

Megan sniffed and looked up at him as he crouched beside her on the floor. “My enemy? You mean the Bluebellies?”

Hunter shrugged. “Any enemy.”

“But a weapon is a gun or a knife,” Bess said. “A tear can’t be a weapon.”

“It can. If your enemy knows you are frightened and crying, he becomes stronger. It is what he wants you to do.”

Megan sniffed again and looked to Bess, who nodded. Megan looked back at Hunter. “But nobody but you and Bess know I’m crying.”

“If your father hears you, he will know. Your tears will hurt and weaken him, when he needs to be strong. He needs to know you are strong.”

The child’s face was pale, her eyes wide. “Oh. Am I strong?”

“Aye, you are.” He looked up into Bess’s eyes. “You are both very strong.”

Bess felt pride swell within her at Hunter’s praise.

Megan sniffled again. “Will you keep us safe, Hunter?”

Hunter looked down at the tiny girl solemnly. Her belief in him was humbling. “I will do my best, lassie.”

“Where’s Winter Fawn” Megan asked.

“She is downstairs.”

“I love Winter Fawn.” Megan smiled, her tears and fear forgotten for the moment. She reached up and patted Hunter on the cheek. “I love you, too, Hunter.”

Hunter felt his chest swell with pride that the little one and her sister should trust him so much.

Downstairs things were not so cozy. Carson glared at Winter Fawn. “Get upstairs with the girls.”

“I willna. Surely there is something I can do to help.”

“Dammit.” Carson took another look out the window, saw the dust cloud advance closer to the point. He glared back at Winter Fawn. “I will not have you taking another arrow or bullet meant for me.”

“Bullet?” Innes stiffened.

Winter Fawn ignored her father and glared back and Carson. “The bullet missed.”

“What bullet?” Innes demanded.

She glanced past Carson out the window and frowned. “That canna be Crooked Oak. He wouldna come riding in that way would he?” She looked to her father. “He wouldna be so bold or foolish. He would sneak up on us.”

Carson and Innes frowned and looked out the window again.

“Aye, lass, I think you’ve got the right of it. He wouldna chance losing so many men in such a direct attack. He wouldna shout his approach with such a cloud. He would sneak in over the bluffs and try to take us by surprise.”

Carson didn’t have to think long to realize Winter Fawn and Innes were surely right. But if not Crooked Oak, then who? The Cheyenne hadn’t been reported this far south in years. Utes would come from the west, not the east. The Navaho, if they broke free of the reservation, would come from the south.

Who, then?

Carson’s answer came a moment later when the first riders appeared past the point of the bluff. “Army.”

Carson had surrendered at the end of the war and taken the Oath in good faith. To him the war was truly over. But he couldn’t help his instinctive reaction at the first sight of all those blue uniforms headed his way. He gripped his rifle tighter and raised it toward the window.

Then he let out his breath and lowered the rifle.

The war was over. Had been over for a long time.

Behind him Winter Fawn sucked in a sharp breath. She, too, had an instinctive reaction to the sight of all that blue, and it was every bit as tense as Carson’s. “What do they want?” Blue coats inevitably meant dead Indians.

“Well I’ll be damned.” Carson startled them with a laugh. “Isn’t that just like her.”

“Who?” Innes leaned toward the window for a closer look.

“Girls?” Carson crossed to the foot of the stairs. “Girls, you can come down now. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Quickly he ushered everyone outside and pointed toward the advancing party.

“Yankees?” Bess said uneasily. “That’s your surprise?”

“Bluebellies!” Megan squeezed Carson’s leg with both arms. “Don’t let them get me, Daddy!”

Carson put his arms around both girls. “I had pretty much the same reaction, but I’ll remind you what I reminded myself, girls. The war is over. That’s our Army now. Those are our soldiers. And no, they aren’t the surprise. Look at that buggy. Ever hear of an Army with a fancy buggy like that?”

“Oh!” Bess covered her cheeks with her hands. “Oh, my stars.” Suddenly she was jumping and laughing with excitement. “Look, Megan! Look!”

“Who is that?” Innes asked.

“Innes, Winter Fawn, Hunter,” Carson said with a flourish, “you’re about to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Augusta Dulaney Winthrop.”

Megan squealed with delight. “Aunt Gussie! Daddy, it’s Aunt Gussie! She came, she came!”

They’d been wrong in their estimate of the number of riders involved in raising such a large cloud of dust. Rather than the twenty Beau and Carson had estimated, there were only a dozen. It was the buggy wheels that were responsible for the rest of the dust.

The troopers filed into the yard and the sergeant driving the buggy pulled it to a halt before Carson and the others. “Cap’n, suh!” The sergeant’s face split in a wide grin around a chaw of tobacco. “Uh, beggin’ your pardon, Captain Tucker,” he added to the Cavalry officer riding next to the buggy.

“Captain,” Carson said with a nod.

“Sir, I am ordered to deliver Mrs. Winthrop to the Dulaney ranch.”

“You’ve come to the right place. I’m Carson Dulaney.”

The officer nodded. “I’m Captain Tucker.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Carson offered. “You from Fort Reynolds up near Pueblo?”

“We are.”

“You’ve had a long ride. You and your men are welcome to get down and take your ease. There’s water in the trough or at the river for your mounts. Your men can refresh themselves at the well.”

“Thank you.” Stiff-backed, Captain Tucker gave the order and dismounted.

Carson turned back to the buggy. “Anderson, you old Rebel,” he said with a laugh. “I didn’t recognize you in all that blue.”

“Didn’t recognize you without your gray, either, boy.”

“I declare, if you two are quite finished,” said the woman beside the sergeant, “it’s been a long trip and I would like to get down.”

Anderson rolled his eyes.

Her eyes were Dulaney blue and twinkling, her hair, despite her forty-eight years, only thirty-some of which she would admit to, was glossy black. She wore it in a soft bun at the back of her head, and it showed off the pure, clean lines of her round face. She held her head at a dignified angle, but flirted with her twirling parasol.

Carson’s grin nearly split his face in two. “Yes, ma’am.” He rounded the buggy, grabbed her by the waist, and twirled her in a laughing circle.