Читать книгу A Cowboy's Heart - Liz Ireland, Liz Ireland - Страница 10

Chapter Three

Paulie whistled four notes of “Oh! Susanna,” keeping her eye on Will’s ramrod-straight back. For the past four hours he’d been riding ahead of them, and was wound tighter than a pocket watch. Though so far their journey had been completely uneventful, Will was ever-alert, tense. She was just waiting for some part of him to snap.

“‘I Gave My Gal a Penny Candy!’” Trip guessed.

Paulie sent him a sidelong glance. “Honestly, Trip, you’ve got a tin ear.”

He looked offended. “It’s you that’s got a tin whistle.”

She whistled again, this time five notes. Their old game cut down on the endless monotony of the day-long ride, but every once in a while she thought she caught Will glancing back at them, annoyed.

He looked close to madness already, in Paulie’s opinion. “Land’s sake, Will, don’t get your dander up. It’s just a song.”

“Well, it’s a damned irritating one.”

They stopped long enough for Oat to catch up with them. For the past few miles he had been trailing farther and farther behind. Paulie had begun to wonder whether the old man might be hoping that they would leave him so far in their dust that they would forget about him entirely and he could then go back to his safe house and warm his old toes by a fire.

Right now, he just looked startled to find the three of them huddled together. “Night Bird?” he asked anxiously, trying to guess the reason for the holdup.

“No,” Trip answered. “Just ‘Oh! Susanna.”’

Will’s exasperation was bumped up another notch. “We need to be concentrating on the landscape—not some damned song. Now let’s get going.” He whirled and spurred his horse into a canter.

Paulie exchanged glances with Trip and blew out a breath impatiently as Will rode ahead of them once again.

“I wonder what’s eatin’ him,” Trip said.

As if anyone had to guess! Paulie felt angry just thinking about how torn up inside Will must be over Mary Ann’s disappearance. Frankly in her opinion, Mary Ann just wasn’t worth all this fuss. She still had her doubts about Mary Ann’s being spirited off by Night Bird. It didn’t make sense. For one thing, they said Mary Ann had always been scared of being abducted by Night Bird, and in Paulie’s experience, the thing you’re afraid of happening hardly ever does. It’s the things you didn’t expect that sneaked up and changed your life for good.

She kicked her horse into a gallop. In no time at all, she raced up alongside Will and skidded her little bay gelding, Partner, to a quick stop.

Will didn’t appear glad for the company. “Don’t you ever stay quiet?” he asked.

Paulie tried not to take the remark to heart. In better days, Will had always seemed to enjoy jawing with her. “Don’t you ever plan on acting civil again?” she shot back. “I swear, you roam around for months at a time, clear off to Kansas, then you ride back in and start barking orders at us like you’re paying us money to take them.”

Her tart response brought a sheepish shrug.

“Maybe I do stay away too long,” he said. “I know I did this time. But I’m back now, and I’ve decided to settle down.”

Paulie didn’t know if she felt like dancing or weeping. It all depended on where Will planned on setting himself up. “You thinking of staying in Possum Trot?”

“Probably not.”

“Well then, where?”

“That depends on Mary Ann.”

For a moment, all she could do was stare at him. What was he talking about? He didn’t look at her as if he’d said anything odd; he wasn’t looking at her at all, in fact. Just staring straight ahead, his expression faraway yet strangely determined.

“Mary Ann!” Paulie cried. “Have you gone crazy, Will?”

His face remained stony. “Nope.”

“She’s married, Will!”

“Oat doesn’t love Mary Ann.”

“Oat, Mary Ann’s husband, is riding just in back of us, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“He didn’t want to come,” Will insisted.

“But he did.”

“He had to talk himself into it.”

Paulie rolled her eyes. “So would anybody with any sense, Will! It’s because we’re going after a killer.”

“A killer who has Mary Ann. His wife.” He turned his dark eyes on Paulie, his expression softening. “You were more resolute than that old toothless husband of hers, Paulie.”

“That’s because—” She was about to say, because I was so worried about you. But she couldn’t. She’d already lied and told him that she was only coming along because she and Mary Ann were friends. And he’d believed her! Which just proved that something in the man’s mind had shook loose.

“Because you care about Mary Ann,” he finished for her. “You see? That proves my point. Oat doesn’t care about his wife even as much as her friends do.”

“Oh, Will, you can’t be sure of that.” Although she felt fairly certain that Oat wasn’t a head-over-heels newlywed, she hated to see Will eating his heart out over a woman who didn’t deserve him. And even more to the point, who wasn’t even available.

And, she admitted to herself shamefully, who wasn’t herself.

“You heard him talking, Paulie. He said he just lost her—the way a man would talk of misplacing his fountain pen. And it was almost as if he was hoping that she was lost.”

Paulie had sensed the same thing. But she hated to think it. Because if Oat gave up on Mary Ann... Oh, it was selfish of her to want Will for herself—not to mention hopeless—but she couldn’t help it. As long as Oat was married to Mary Ann, Paulie at least stood a tiny chance of making Will appreciate her. “He’s married to her, Will.”

“Marriages don’t always last,” he said tersely.

Paulie couldn’t believe her ears. “Will, you’re talking crazy!” She’d thought all along that he looked half-crazy, but even so she’d had no idea that thoughts like these had been running through his head. And as he spoke, it didn’t even seem as if he wanted to wed Mary Ann; instead, it was almost as if it were something he had to do.

He shot her a look that had a hint of desperation in it. “You can’t imagine what I feel, Paulie.”

If only he knew! Maybe she would never work up the nerve to tell him about her own experience with unrequited love, but she could keep him from hatching these unrealistic plans.

“You know what your trouble is?” she asked him.

“No, but I’m sure you’d love to tell me.”

She ignored the barb. “You’ve got an overworked sense of responsibility. When you’re sheriff, you feel responsible for the whole town. I bet when you’re out on the trail, you feel like you personally have to account for the fate of every one of those beeves. But I’m telling you, Will, Mary Ann is not your problem.”

He shook his head. “You don’t understand. When Gerald was dying I told him I’d look after his daughter.”

“Things are different now. Gerald couldn’t know that Mary Ann would one day up and marry Oat and you don’t know that the two of you would be any better off together than Oat and her are,” Paulie pointed out.

“What do you think I should do—leave her with a toothless old man who obviously makes her unhappy?”

“How do you know they’re unhappy?”

“Oat himself said they fought all the time,” he insisted, his jaw set stubbornly.

“So do all married people. I think if you respected Mary Ann at all, you’d trust her to make her own decisions.”

Will shot her a keen glance. “You’re Mary Ann’s friend. Has she ever spoken to you about me?”

Paulie hesitated. “No, she hasn’t.”

“Not even before she ran off with Oat?”

Paulie couldn’t help feeling a sharp stab of guilt. “She doesn’t tell me everything, Will,” she admitted, though even that was a pale reflection of the truth. Mary Ann could be thinking about Will twenty-four hours a day, and she wouldn’t know about it.

He let out a ragged sigh, then looked at her, his brown eyes full of kindness. “I guess it’s good you came along after all. You always did know how to put me in my place, Sprout.”

She revelled in the pet name almost as much as she resented it. Why couldn’t Will think of her like he did Mary Ann, not just as a kid?

He shook his head. “I suppose I’m still a little confused over why Mary Ann would marry Oat to begin with.”

Paulie remained silent. The whole world was confused on that paint.

He shot her a patient glance. “I guess it’s a little silly to be discussing all this with you,” he said. “I doubt you’ve ever fallen in or out of love.”

The words rubbed Paulie’s fur the wrong way. Why was Will blind to the fact that she’d been crazy about him for years?

Probably because he was so stuck on Mary Ann he couldn’t see anything else!

Or maybe because he just didn’t have the slightest interest in her. That was an annoying—though highly likely—possibility. Paulie knew she could never even be a substitute for Mary Ann. She didn’t know the first thing about batting her eyelashes at a man, or flirting. Heck, the only time she’d ever worn a real grown-up long dress in front of Will, he’d said she looked like she’d been sick.

Sick! At the mere thought, she felt her dander rising all over again. Never been in love? How could he just assume such a thing?

“That just shows how smart you are!” she said tartly. “You don’t know the first thing about me, Will!”

He turned to her, his eyes wide with surprise. “Well, have you?”

Now that she’d started, she wasn’t going to back down. “If you must know, I have,” she said, tossing her head back defiantly. “Deeply in love.”

“Who?” he asked.

She blinked. “Who what?”

“Who is the object of all this love you claim to have stored up?”

This wasn’t something she was prepared to confess. Especially not to Will. Especially not when he asked her using that sarcastic tone. “None of your business.”

He looked at her skeptically. “Is it somebody I know?”

Clearly he didn’t believe her—a fact that made Paulie spitting mad. Men had so little imagination! Just because she owned a bar and wore men’s clothes, was it impossible to comprehend that she had feelings just like every other woman in the world?

“I’d say you know him pretty well, Will Brockett,” she said. “In fact, sometimes I think it’s the person you care most about in the world!”

She tapped her horse’s flanks and wheeled around. Will attempted to stop her. “Paulie, wait—”

She kept going, though, hesitating only long enough to holler one parting shot over her shoulder. “And for your information, I’ll whistle whenever I want to!”

Will sat apart, with one eye on the others and the other watching for signs of trouble. Trip and Paulie were splayed out near the glowing warmth of the fire, rattling on as usual. Oat was close to them, sitting up but half-asleep. Occasionally the old fellow would jolt awake again, especially when Trip or Paulie happened to mention something about Night Bird.

“I wonder if we’ll ever find him,” Paulie said.

Trip shook his head. He was always more sure of himself when he was on the ground, where there was nowhere to fall to. “I imagine if’n we do, it’ll be down in Mexico. They say that’s where he lives, ’cause the law won’t follow him there.”

“What about the Mexican law?” Paulie asked. “Mexicans can’t like having a renegade Comanche running loose any more than we do.”

Trip scratched his head. “They say Night Bird is part Mexican himself—the son of a captive woman from a border town.”

Oat’s eyes snapped opened and he bolted upright, his hand reaching down for his gun. “Night Bird?”

Trip chuckled. “We were just talkin’, Oat.”

“We’ve haven’t seen or heard anything,” Paulie assured him.

Oat shook his head with such force that the bulbous end of his nose quivered. “When Night Bird comes, you won’t hear him.”

The three exchanged anxious glances.

Will decided to put his two cents in. “If that were the case, then we might all just as well go to sleep.” They looked back at him quizzically. “No man is invisible. If Night Bird comes, one of us will see him.”

“Those three railroad men didn’t see him—they were all three armed and none of them looked like they had even had time to reach for their guns,” Trip said.

The story of the three men who had been ambushed by Night Bird had been through so many versions that it was hard to know exactly what had happened. Most people seemed to want to believe that Night Bird silently appeared and disposed of his victims as easily as an owl swoops down on a mouse.

“I wonder what would turn a man so mad that he’d take up thievin’ and murderin’ that way,” Trip said.

“Having your land stolen out from under you would make you a little bitter, too,” Will told him. He bore little sympathy for Night Bird, but he thought he could understand what could turn a man so wrong.

“What land did that Indian ever own here?” Trip asked.

Will nodded toward the horizon. “We fought a war to win this land from the Mexicans, but we just took it from the Indians and expected them to be happy about being nudged up to less desirable parts.”

“We wouldn’t have nudged anybody if they’d just left us be,” Trip argued.

“But we were the trespassers, and then we expected them to abide by our laws—not their own.”

Trip looked disgruntled, but said nothing more.

“I guess Will’s right,” Paulie said, turning back to the fire. “Maybe we’re lucky there’s only one Night Bird, not thousands.”

“Thousands!” Oat cried, startled by the very idea.

Will kept his eyes on Paulie. He was surprised that she would take his side after their scene earlier in the day. She had seemed so annoyed. In fact, since he’d come back, she’d been more moody than he could remember her ever being. Especially with him.

Of course, he’d been moody, too, but he knew the reason for his own odd behavior. He was perplexed and torn up over all that had happened with Mary Ann. But could what Paulie said be true? Was she really in love? And with whom?

He’d been pondering those questions all afternoon. He had to hand it to her; her little revelation had completely distracted his mind from brooding about Mary Ann.

Paulie’s being in love seemed so unlikely! Yet why not? She had to be over twenty now. But who? Who could she have fallen for?

For a while he thought perhaps Paulie might have developed a yen for Dwight Jones. That would have made sense. Though he’d been a widower for half a decade, Dwight was still fairly young, and his mercantile probably made a decent profit He and Paulie were practically the only people in Possum Trot proper, too. Dwight was the shy, anxious type, though Lord knows, in that empty town and with his booming voice, the man could sit and sing love songs all day to Paulie across the street in the saloon without even having to leave his store.

But the more he thought about it, the less likely a love relationship developing between Paulie and Dwight seemed. Dwight was completely devoted to his wife’s memory. The woman had run his store and his life; Dwight still only stocked what his dear Pearl had approved during her tragically short lifetime. And he never stepped foot in Paulie’s place, because Pearl had been a devout temperance lady. That was the clincher. Given Dwight’s devotion to Pearl’s memory, he would never take up with a woman who not only sold liquor, but was not above taking a gulp or two of the stuff herself on occasion.

So that took care of Dwight.

For a brief moment, Will had even considered the possibility that Oat was the object of Paulie’s affection. She saw him often—or had when he’d been her whiskey man. From that angle, he could see a certain logic to her becoming dependent on Oat. And perhaps that’s why she had developed a closeness to Mary Ann, because she wanted to see more of Oat...

But just one look at the old fellow, slumped against a tree, with his mouth hanging open and snoring loudly, made Will dismiss this notion. One woman falling for Oat’s questionable charms was amazing in itself; two would be entirely incomprehensible.

Trouble was, there were so few people Paulie saw on a regular basis, every possibility he winnowed out left the field exponentially smaller. He’d never heard her mention any of the other men who lived around the area. Furthermore, when he’d arrived at her saloon that morning, it seemed she had been expecting someone.

For a brief, crazy instant, he wondered if it could even be himself. But what were the chances that she’d known he would be coming home in time to gussy herself up for him? After all, she said she had been practicing doing her hair. And she hadn’t exactly welcomed him with open arms; not after the first moment, at least. She’d seemed almost angry with him at times. Not at all flirtatious, like all the other women who had even the slightest interest in him had behaved. Besides, he and Paulie were just old friends. Very good, old friends. That was how he was most comfortable thinking of her.

So who was it?

He glanced again at her, cracking wise with Trip by the fire, and the obvious hit him with the force of an avalanche. Trip Peabody!

Of course. It made perfect sense! Trip had been one of her father’s cronies, and since her father’s illness had lived in the room behind the saloon. Paulie was financially independent, but she had probably turned to Trip for advice innumerable times. Trip wasn’t even too bad-looking...

But he was about twenty years older, and practically everybody south of the Red River knew Trip was in love with Tessie Hale.

Wasn’t he?

Will frowned, thinking about that very morning, finding both Paulie and Trip dressed up in stiff, unfamiliar clothes. A stiff dark suit...a wedding dress. Trip had been drunk. That was odd in itself. Then there was the eternal question of why Trip hadn’t ever actually asked Tessie to marry him.

Maybe Trip’s affections were more divided than he let on.

Will felt a twinge of sadness for them all if this was the case. But especially for Paulie. She deserved better than to be stuck in some unhappy love triangle, running around in her mother’s old dresses trying desperately to be something she wasn’t. He wondered whether Trip might even have taken advantage of her youth and innocence...

A flash of anger so sharp welled in him that he sucked in his breath. He pushed himself to standing and walked away from the group.

Paulie was in love with Trip. For some unfathomable reason, he didn’t want it to be true, but the idea made too much sense to ignore. The two of them enjoyed talking, laughing, and playing games—like they’d been doing this afternoon. They were always together, and they shared some of the same rough ways in dress and manner. Will had to concede that there was no better man on earth than Trip Peabody, and yet...

Paulie deserved better.

Damn. Maybe he was just unhappy with all the men women picked to pin their affections on these days. He had no call to care one way or the other who Paulie chose to fall in love with. He’d never even given the possibility a thought before now that she might even be of an age to fall in love. She’d always seemed like a tomboy to him. A figure of fun, good for a laugh or someone to talk to.

But the fact was, he did care who she fell in love with. Couldn’t imagine himself not caring.

“What are you doing out here?”

At the sound of a voice, Will nearly jumped out of his skin. He pivoted, tense, only to come face-to-face with Paulie herself, who stood blinking up at him.

“Did you hear something, Will?”

He swallowed, noticing for the first time how fetching her green eyes really were. He could well understand how Trip might fall for. Paulie. “No, why?”

She lifted her narrow shoulders in a shrug. “I saw you over here, pacing, then I came over, only to find you nervous as a cat. Is something wrong?”

Nothing except that he felt a fierce new protectiveness for the young woman standing in front of him. “Actually, I was thinking about you.”

Her eyes grew as round as saucers. “Me?”

He nodded, trying to look at her closely in the darkness. Would she try to hide the truth about Trip from him? Or, more important, would she let him know if Trip was pressing his attentions on her unwanted? A young woman in her situation might feel indebted to the older man, might even allow herself to be coerced into something she wasn’t ready for. He hated even suspecting such a thing of Trip, but he felt he owed it to Paulie to find out the truth.

“At least you weren’t wasting your time,” she joked approvingly. “What, exactly, were you thinking about me?”

“Well...” He wasn’t sure how to start. “I guess I owe you an apology for what I said this afternoon, for assuming that you’ve never been in love.”

She looked down at her feet and dug her toe into the dirt. “Oh, that.”

“I guess I forget sometimes that you’re all grown up.”

Her head snapped up, and though it was dark he could have sworn that two bright red stains appeared in her cheeks. “Oh, shoot!” she cried, shaking her head. “About what I said this afternoon, Will—about being in love. I didn’t mean it, really.” She stopped, flustered. “Well, no, I did mean it, but, I mean...”

He kept his gaze locked with hers as her words sputtered out like a dying fire. His heart went out to her, trying so hard to cover up now that the cat was out of the bag. “I know you have a secret, Sprout.”

Her cheeks grew redder. “You do?”

He nodded. “You don’t have to keep it from me anymore. In fact, you can tell me all about it, if it would help.”

She hesitated, looking extremely doubtful. “Will, I’m not sure you’re ready to hear what I have to say.”

“Why not?” he asked. “It’s only fair. I told you all my woes with Mary Ann and you helped me, you really did. I’d like to do you the same favor, if you’d care to tell me.”

She shook her head. “I’m not certain where I could even begin...”

He tried to help her out by giving her a starting point. “Are you sure it’s love and not something else?” he asked, trying to keep his tone big-brotherly.

She blinked. “What else could it be?”

He bit his lip. Despite her rough exterior, she was so innocent, so sheltered in her own way. He hated to think of some man taking advantage of that innocence. “This man you said you cared about... Maybe you feel an obligation, because this person is an old friend.”

Her lips parted and she gasped in a breath, indicating his words had hit close to the truth. “I don’t think it’s an obligation, Will.”

That, at least, was a good sign. “Then, you feel as if you would go to him of your own free will, without any thought of what you might owe him, or how long you’ve known him?”

“Of course...I mean, I don’t know.” Paulie looked confused. “What do you mean by ‘go to him?”’

Will wasn’t quite sure how to explain. “Well, have you kissed this man?”

“Oh, sure!” she said, then her brows knit together. “Well, you know, he gives me a peck on the cheek every once in a while. That what you mean?”

“No.”

She blinked. “Well...how many kinds of kisses are there?”

He smiled. “A couple.”

“Oh.” She thought about this for a moment. “Well, what kind in particular are you trying to find out about?”

Will hesitated. She looked so anxious, so sweet. The poor thing had grown up without a mother, and since she was fifteen, had been deprived of a father as well. The least he could do was show her what kind of kisses to watch out for.

Of course, it didn’t escape his notice that Paulie had very kissable lips, now that he put his mind to studying them. Or that she looked willowy and almost fragile beneath her bulky clothes. Why, he could probably encircle her waist just with his two hands.

He stepped forward slowly and tilted her chin upwards with his knuckle. Her eyes were two liquid green pools as they looked up at him. “Do you really want to know?”

She nodded her head eagerly.

He smiled, then bent to press his lips against hers. At first contact, she let out a gasp of surprise, but soon she relaxed and slowly began to experiment, pushing against him with more pressure. Then, when he moved his hands around her waist and pulled her a fraction closer, she threw her arms exuberantly around his neck and attached herself to him like a snail on a cistern.

But she sure didn’t feel like a snail. Paulie might look like a stick figure, but her body felt rounded and warm, womanly. He ran a hand down her back, feeling each gentle swell of her vertebrae beneath the soft flesh underneath her cotton shirt. In response she nestled herself even more tightly against him.

Will groaned at the desire she was so unknowingly stirring up in him. He hadn’t expected that, but there was no mistaking the tingling sensation below his belt she had so guilelessly created.

He pulled away and looked down, smiling stiffly. Her own eyes, once they fluttered open, were wide and luminous as she stared dreamily at him. There was no mistaking that this must have been her first kiss.

“Well,” he said, relieved. “I guess Trip isn’t the wolf I worried he was.”

Paulie’s dreamy gaze turned to a gawk. “What?”

He grinned. Poor thing. She was still too embarrassed to admit the truth. “You don’t have to be timid about it. I know your secret, Sprout.”

“What in tarnation are you talking about, Will?”

“About you...and Trip.”

Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes grew buggy. “Trip!” she said in a voice that would have been a shout if her throat hadn’t been so strangled. She looked anxiously over at the sleeping man to make sure she hadn’t awakened him by yelling his name. “How on earth... What made you guess...?” She didn’t deny it, though.

So it was true.

He shrugged. “I suppose it would be obvious to anyone who has eyes.”

She looked horrified, and he guessed he could understand. She was probably afraid people would say mean things about her falling for such an older man. Like all the talk he’d heard about Mary Ann and Oat. And in Paulie’s case, people probably would say she had snatched Trip away from Tessie Hale.

Her hand flew to her lips, and she continued to stare at him, stunned for a few moments.

“I won’t tell,” he promised her.

“No!” she cried insistently. “You can’t! I mean, please don’t!”

“But I want you to know, if you need to talk, you can come right to me.”

“Oh...thank you,” she murmured. Her cheeks looked so dark, they were probably ablaze. “I’d better...better get back to the fire.”

He sent her a sideways grin. “You sure it’s the fire you want to get back to...and not Trip?”

Her face crunched into a mortified expression, and she twirled on her heel and scampered off toward their makeshift camp.

Will chuckled softly as she retreated. He was sorry she was so embarrassed; still, he was glad they’d had the conversation. He wouldn’t want to think that he had abandoned Paulie in a time of need. The only trouble was, his little kissing demonstration was lingering in his mind—and in his senses—longer than would seem proper for such an innocent little lesson.

He went back to his own bedroll apart from the others and sighed, leaning back and looking up at the stars for a while. He supposed it was just all this business with Mary Ann that was making him feel so restless. And yet, when he closed his eyes, it wasn’t Mary Ann’s face that he saw. It was Paulie’s, her green eyes round and moist. Such pretty eyes—it didn’t seem he’d ever really noticed them before. He remembered holding her body against his. He’d expected her to be all pointy bones and awkwardness, but instead all the awkwardness had been his as he’d found himself holding a woman with soft feminine curves in his arms.

Suddenly, Will shot up to sitting, his heart beating like thunder. He took a deep breath, and shook his head as if to clear it. What a crazy day this had been! And now, he was beginning to think that he was crazy. It was almost as if he...as if he found Paulie desira—

He swallowed, not even completing the outlandish thought.

That couldn’t be so. It just couldn’t.

Could it?