Читать книгу Apache Fire - Elizabeth Lane - Страница 10

Rose stared at the man across the table, hoping she had misunderstood him but knowing she had not. His boldly stated words left her no room for evasion.

“Well, Rose?” He was beaming at her as if she had already said yes. After all, what woman wouldn’t jump at the chance to marry Bayard Hudson? He was handsome, well-to-do, and one of the most respected men in Arizona.

So why had her skin suddenly gone clammy beneath her robe?

She sensed his impatience, sensed the tension in him as his body poised to spring out of the chair and sweep her into his embrace. Rose thought of the dark stranger in the kitchen. Lives could depend on her getting Bayard Hudson out of the house as swiftly as possible.

“You’ve been very kind to me, Bayard,” she. murmured, staring down at the tablecloth. “But it’s far too soon. John has barely been gone four months. Out of respect for him, if nothing else, I should wait.”

“The man who was your husband and my best friend died last summer when that horse bucked him out of the saddle onto his head.” Bayard spoke sharply, making no effort to hide his impatience. “It was his body you tended for those last months, but it wasn’t the man we knew and loved, Rose. It wasn’t John.”

“Your breakfast is getting cold,” she said.

“Forget breakfast!” The chair legs grated across the tiles as he slid away from the table and strode around it to stand behind her. Rose stiffened as his warm hands settled onto her shoulders. “Dash it, but you’re tense,” he murmured, his strong, blunt fingers working her knotted muscles. “What’s the matter? You aren’t afraid of me, are you?”

Rose shook her head in denial.

“Then what—?”

She forced a tired smile. “Forgive me, Bayard. You just didn’t pick a good time to propose, that’s all. I’ve had a long night, and I’m not thinking very well.”

His hands continued to knead her shoulders, their motion slowing to a sensual caress. “You’re a beautiful woman, Rose,” he murmured, “too beautiful to be alone, without a man. Just say yes.” He bent close to her ear, his lips skimming her tousled hair. “You’ll never be sorry, I promise.”

Rose shivered, imagining Latigo behind the kitchen door, his sharp Apache ears hearing every intimate word.

“Rose, darling…” Bayard’s voice had deepened to a breathy rasp. His mouth nibbled a damp trail down the side of her neck as his fingers nudged aside the collar of her robe to expose the naked slope of her shoulder. “Do you know how long I envied your husband? How long I’ve wanted to—”

“No!” Rose spun away from him, toppling her chair in a spurt of nervous panic. The crash resounded like a gunshot through the empty house, freezing her in midmotion.

Bayard righted the chair, his expression as bewildered as a slapped child’s. Silence lay leaden between them, broken only by the ponderous tick of the grandfather clock in the entry. Little by little Rose began to breathe again.

“You are afraid of me,” Bayard said. “Rose, I swear I would never hurt you.”

“No, of course you wouldn’t.” Wanting only to have him gone, she molded her features into a conciliatory smile. “You’ve caught me off guard, that’s all. I’m honored by your proposal, Bayard, but I truly need some time to think about it.”

“I’ve waited a lot of years for you, Rose, and I’m not a patient man. All the nights I’ve lain awake, imagining you in my bed, in my arms…” He made a move toward her, then hesitated, realizing, perhaps, that he had said too much. “So when do I get my answer?” he demanded. “In a day? A week?”

Rose’s gaze flashed toward the kitchen door. It was open a crack, and she realized Latigo was not only listening but watching. She groped for a reply, anything that would placate Bayard and send him on his way.

“I was thinking of longer,” she hedged, already knowing what her answer would be but desperate for him to leave.

“A month, then. But don’t expect me to take it in good grace. I’m anxious, girl. Anxious to make you mine.”

“Shouldn’t you be getting back to your posse?” She edged toward the front hallway, praying he would follow her.

Still, maddeningly, he lingered. “I don’t like leaving you here with that half-breed Apache murderer on the loose,” he said.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, I’ll be fine!” Rose punctuated the words with a toss of her head. “A lone desperado would never take on a ranch this size.”

“Maybe not” He exhaled like an agitated bull. “But keep John’s big pistol handy—I know you can use it. If you see a stranger, don’t take any chances. Shoot to kill.”

“I hardly think that will be necessary.” Her eyes flickered toward the kitchen door.

“Is something wrong, Rose?”

Her heart convulsed for an instant. “No—no,” she answered much too quickly. “You caught me unprepared, that’s all. I prefer to look my best when people come calling, and I haven’t even combed my hair.” The laugh she attempted came out sounding like a nervous hiccup. “Off with you, now, I need to get dressed and start my day!”

Bayard stood his ground, his thumb absently rubbing the butt of his pistol. “Not until you kiss me goodbye,” he declared.

Rose struggled to ignore the sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. Right now, she reminded herself, the only thing that mattered was getting the man out of here before he discovered Latigo and someone wound up dead.

“I’m waiting, Rose.”

“You’ll go if I kiss you?”

“I’m a man of my word, sweetheart.”

Rose forced herself to stop thinking as she strode back across the room. She had meant to give Bayard a light peck, but his arms closed around her like the jaws of a trap. His full, wet lips captured hers with a force that pressed her spine into an arch, jamming his belt buckle hard against her belly.

“Rose…” He was panting like a stallion. Frightened now, she began to struggle, but he was a large, powerful man, and her twisting movements only served to heighten his ardor. “Rose…dash it, girl, if you only knew how long I’ve wanted you.” He kissed her again, his hands groping downward toward her buttocks. Rose could sense Latigo’s mocking black eyes watching everything from the kitchen doorway. She knew he could not help her.

For an instant she went rigid in Bayard’s arms. Then, as his hot palms slid lower, she gathered all her strength into one desperate, wrenching shove.

“No!” she gasped, twisting away from him and spinning free. “I’m not ready for this.”

“You were married to an old man, Rose.” He reached for her again, his face flushed, his lips damp and red. “It’s time you found out what having a younger fellow is like.”

“No!” Dizzy with rage and fear, she clutched the back of a chair, keeping it between them. “You have no right to touch me! You’ve insulted me, dishonored my husband’s memory. I want you gone!”

He took a step backward, startled by her vehemence. “Now, Rose, honey, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Get out, Bayard.” Her voice was flat and cold, her body drained of its emotional energy. “I’m sorry if I misled you, but I have no desire to marry you or anyone else. This ranch was John’s, and it belongs to John’s son. I intend to raise the boy here—by myself.”

His eyes bulged with the outrage of a man accustomed to getting his own way. “You’ll change your mind. I can make you change your mind. You’ll see.”

Rose tightened her lips, her silent glare saying more than any words she might have uttered. His voice faded, then rallied once more.

“You’ll find I don’t give up that easily,” he declared, retreating toward the entry hall. “Mark my words, Rose. One day you’ll come to me on your knees. You’ll kiss my boots, and you’ll beg me to marry you!”

When she did not answer, he turned and strode out the front door, closing it behind him with a bang.

Rose stood poker-spined, listening to the snort of his horse as he mounted and rode away. Only when the galloping hoofbeats had faded into silence did she slump, trembling, onto the chair.

“That was quite a performance, Mrs. Colby.”

Latigo had opened the kitchen door. He was on his feet, leaning unsteadily against the frame. His face was as gray as river mud. His right hand clutched the long, sharp kitchen knife she had used to slice the bread.

Rose glared at him, too unstrung to be frightened. “You can put that thing down,” she snapped. “Bayard is gone, and you’ve certainly nothing to fear from me!”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” He remained stubbornly where he was, his eyes glazed and feverish.

“Bayard told me you killed those two government men,” she said.

“So I heard.” His lips thinned as a shudder of pain passed through his body. “Now you’ve heard two versions of the same story. Which one have you decided to believe?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then why didn’t you turn me over to your hot-handed friend? He was packing a gun. It would’ve been easy enough to let him take me.” His pupils glittered like shards of black flint. Rose quivered as she forced herself to meet his gaze.

“I had to be sure,” she said. “If Bayard had taken you back to that posse, you would never have lived to reach Tucson, and I would never know if I’d done the right thing.”

“You…did right.” His speech had begun to slur. His hand dropped to his side, as if the blade had taken on the weight of a sledgehammer. “But under the circumstances, I’d say that you’re either very brave or very… very…foolish.”

The knife slid down his leg and clattered to the tiles. For the second time that morning, his body went limp, his knees buckled and, as Rose sprang from her chair, he slumped to the floor.

Sinking to her knees beside him, she eased him onto his back. A glance at his shoulder revealed blood seeping through the fabric of the old cotton shirt she’d found to put on him. The fall had most likely opened the wound, and he was already so weak from loss of blood that she feared for his life.

Feared?

Rose fumbled for his pulse, her eyes fixed on his proud Apache features—the sharp, high cheekbones, the bitter, oddly sensual mouth. This man was still her enemy, she reminded herself. If he died, she would be rid of him. She and the baby would be safe.

Her trembling fingers found the pulse point along the side of his neck. He was alive, but his flesh was clammy, his heart racing like the wheels of a runaway train.

Who was this man? What, if anything, did she owe him? Rose struggled to slow her pinwheeling thoughts and examine what she had heard.

It was possible that he had saved her husband’s company from an Apache massacre, she conceded. But what about the two government agents? The story about the white assassins was so preposterous it might as well have been a joke. Even his bullet wound could be explained in any number of ways. For all she knew, the dark-eyed devil was the world’s most convincing liar, and the price of trusting him could be her life and her child’s.

Was she harboring an innocent victim or a cold-blooded murderer?

Whatever Latigo was, Rose knew she could not turn her back and let him die.

He moaned incoherently as she jerked his shirt open to get at his bandaged wound. Stop the bleeding, that was her most urgent task. Then she would need to get him to bed and get him warm. Leaving him on the floor had been a mistake. The cold tiles, she realized, had chilled away his strength. But then, she had not been thinking clearly. She had been so afraid of the man, so unnerved by his fierce Apache features that even her thoughts had frozen.

Strange, she mused, how her fear had diminished now that she knew him.

Knew him?

The man had menaced her with a gun, Rose reminded herself as she ripped off the ruffled hem of her nightgown and wadded it against the seeping wound. He had arrogantly claimed that she was in his debt and told her stories that defied belief. No, she did not know this mysterious stranger at all, and she would be a fool to trust him.

But he would live, she vowed. He would live to tell her his whole story.

Off the kitchen was a small, unoccupied servant’s room with a bed. Rose stopped the bleeding as best she could. Then she picked up Latigo’s stockinged feet and slid his body carefully across the tiles. The isolated room had only one tiny window, high and securely barred. Its heavy door could be locked from the outside. When she was not tending to his needs, she could shut him in and feel safe.

But she would get the pistol and keep it close at hand whenever the door was open, she resolved. She could not afford to let Latigo get the best of her again.

She raced back to John’s office. There she took a moment to check on her sleeping son and retrieve the Peacemaker, which she thrust into the sash of her robe as she hurried back to the kitchen.

Panting with effort, she dragged Latigo’s body into the tiny room and turned down the bed. A beam of morning sunlight trickled through the window to fall across his inert legs. It was only then that Rose noticed his dust-caked cavalry trousers. Something fluttered in her stomach as she assessed his condition. Yes, she swiftly concluded, for the sake of hygiene and comfort, his dirty clothes would have to come off.

First she gingerly peeled away his remaining boot, then his threadbare stockings, resolving to burn them at first opportunity. Then, gritting her teeth, she bent over him to undo his belt buckle and the fastenings of his trousers. The uncivilized wretch had been bare skinned beneath his shirt. The lower part of him would likely be the same, Rose reasoned, steeling herself as she worked the stubborn buttons through their holes. But what could it possibly matter? After all, she was no longer a blushing schoolgirl. She had been a wife, a mother, a helpless man’s nurse.

“Do you do this to all your prisoners?”

His rough whisper jolted her like a swig of white lightning. Rose gasped as her startled glance met his eyes. Her hand flashed for the pistol. In an instant she had jerked the weapon out of her sash and was aiming it at his chest.

He grinned groggily. “You…won’t need the gun, Mrs. Colby,” he mumbled. “I’m not a man to object if a pretty woman wants to take down my britches.”

“I’m just trying to get you to bed!” Rose snapped, her cheeks flaming as his grin broadened. “But now that you’re awake, you might as well do the job yourself.” She edged backward, brandishing the pistol. “Go on. Get those filthy trousers off. Then climb between the sheets and stay there. If nothing else, I’ll see that you live to hang!”

“I’m touched by your concern.” His expression had hardened again. His right hand fumbled awkwardly—too awkwardly—with the first of four remaining buttons. A spasm of pain rippled across his face as he tried to reach downward with the arm on his wounded side. “Unfortunately,” he muttered through clenched teeth, “I happen to be left-handed.”

“Take all the time you need.” Rose thumbed back the hammer of the gun, ignoring his thinly veiled plea for help. Oh, she knew what he was thinking. Get her to come closer, then overpower her and grab the pistol. But this time she wasn’t falling for his tricks. This time she was the one in charge.

Cursing under his breath, Latigo managed to undo the first button, then the second. On the third, he hesitated. His eyelids drooped, then blinked open as if he were battling waves of unconsciousness. Was it a performance, designed to lure her into lowering her guard?

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “But it wouldn’t make any difference if you did get the gun. You’re too weak to go anywhere. You’ve proved that by passing out twice. You need me, Latigo.”

“Need you?” His eyes glinted sardonically. “A minute ago you were threatening to see me hang.”

“Did you kill those two government agents?”

“No.”

“If that’s true, you have nothing to fear from me.” Rose’s grip tightened on the pistol. Her hand was trembling, and she knew that Latigo had noticed.

“Nothing to fear?” His tongue moistened his dry lips. “How do I know there isn’t already a price on my head, and you’re just waiting to collect it? A widow woman, even on a big ranch like this one, could find herself in need of money—”

“Go on,” she interrupted icily. “Get those pants off.”

“Anything to oblige a lady.” A mocking smile flickered across his face. “But I’m warning you, don’t expect to see—oof!” His words ended in a grunt as he tried to brace himself on one elbow and inch his trousers down over his hips with his free hand. He was truly in pain, Rose realized, noticing the ashen ring around his lips as he sank back onto the floor. But she could not let herself feel pity for him. This man was a wild, wounded animal who could be every bit as dangerous as he looked.

“I’m waiting.” She willed herself to keep her gaze impassive, to keep the pistol pointed squarely at his chest.

He lifted his head, his slitted eyes chilling in their contempt. “It seems you have a choice, Mrs. Colby.” He spat out each word as if it were snake venom. “Either you can allow me to stand up and let gravity take its course, or you can trust me enough to get down here and give me a hand.”

Rose hesitated, every instinct screaming flight as the intimacy of the small room closed around her. “Get up, then,” she said. “But no tricks, not if you want to live.”

“You wouldn’t shoot me,” he said. “Hell, you couldn’t shoot anybody—a woman like you, soft, pampered—”

“Don’t bet your life on it!” Rose snapped in sudden fury. “You don’t know me! You don’t know anything about me!”

“And you don’t know much about me, either, lady.” He grimaced, clenching his teeth with the effort of hefting himself to his feet. “If you did, you’d put that big horse pistol away and—damn!” He staggered to his feet, one hand clutching the bedpost for support, the other holding up his unbuttoned pants.

“The trousers,” she said. “Get them off and get into bed before you end up on the floor again.”

“I’d advise you to turn your back. I may not dress as decorously as most men you know, and I wouldn’t want to offend your womanly—”

“Turn my back?” Rose’s sweat-slicked grip tightened on the pistol. She swallowed the dryness in her throat. “I’d just as soon turn my back on a snake!” she said. “Go ahead, I’ve seen a man before—and a better man than you, I’ll wager!”

The whites of his eyes flashed dangerously. Then without another word, he turned his back on her and let his trousers drop to the floor.

Rose stood thunderstruck, unable to avert her eyes from the full sight of him. She had tolerated her husband’s aging physique and grown used to it over the years. She had even come to accept his appearance as an example of the way any man would look without his clothes.

Until now.

Latigo’s naked body was as sleek as a cougar’s, tapering from powerful shoulders to a lean, sinewy waist. His long legs were crowned by high, taut buttocks, and his muscles flowed in feline curves, coiled strength beneath skin that captured the light like molten copper.

Rose’s hand slackened around the pistol. He was magnificent. Even with the ugly, bloodstained bandage marring his shoulder, Latigo, mixed-blood Apache and possible murderer, was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

“If you’re waiting for me to turn around—”

The edge in his voice shocked Rose back to reality. Her breath jerked. Her fingers seized on the pistol just in time to save it from clattering to the floor.

“Get into that bed.” The words emerged as a shaky whisper. “Go on, you arrogant, disrespectful, presumptuous—”

A small but piercing wail from beyond the kitchen ended her tirade. Her baby was awake and crying, and his needs pulled at her instincts with a power no mother could resist.

Latigo’s broad shoulders had tensed at the cry, but he did not turn his head. Rose kept her eyes on him as she backed warily toward the door. “Get into bed and rest,” she ordered. “I’ll be back later with something for you to eat, unless I decide you deserve to starve.”

A rough chuckle—or was it a growl?—rumbled in his throat but that was all. He was still standing next to the bed, his splendid back held rigid in an unspoken statement of disdain as Rose closed the door, slipped the bolt and fled on trembling legs to the sanctuary of her little son.

Latigo heard the bolt click into place. Then, giving in to waves of dizziness, he crumpled into the bed.

Crisp and fragrant, the clean sheets enfolded him like a shroud, their fineness one more reminder that he didn’t belong in such a place. He’d have been better off taking his chances in the desert At least he might have died in peace there, leaving his bones to be bleached by the sun and nosed by passing coyotes. Instead, here he was, caged and cosseted like a house cat, lying behind a bolted door, in a pretty white woman’s house.

Rose. That was the name that panting bull had called her. Rose Colby. She looked like a rose, all right, even smelled like one as she leaned over him, fragrance spilling from between her lovely, milk-swollen breasts. For all his weakened condition, it had been as much as he could do to keep from pulling her down on top of him and burying his face in that warm, satiny cleft.

Damn the woman!

Latigo’s vision swam as he lay on his back and gazed up at the small, barred window. He hated being closed in, where he couldn’t see the sky or feel the wind! He had to get out of here. And once he did, he vowed, he would die rather than let the whites lock him up in their jail.

Half in panic now, he raised his head and struggled to move his legs. They lay like inert slabs, defying all his efforts to rouse them. John Colby’s widow was right, he realized, sinking back onto the pillow in black resignation. He was too weak to go anywhere.

For now, he would bide his time, Latigo resolved. He would submit meekly to Rose Colby’s ministrations. He would allow her to feed him, to nurse his wound and to ravish his senses with her unsettling womanly presence.

But he would not lower his guard for so much as a heartbeat. Any slip—an open door, an unguarded moment—could be his key to freedom, and he would be ready to seize it. Get the gun, steal a horse and head straight for the Mexican border—that’s what he would do at first opportunity.

And heaven help Mrs. John Colby if she tried to stop him.