Читать книгу Storming Paradise - Mary McBride - Страница 11

At nine o’clock the next morning Libby followed Shula, Andy, and a swaying mountain of luggage down the hotel stairs. As she descended, she was making mental notes of all the things she would not do to Shadrach Jones, including hitting, kicking and scratching. Her list of commandments was not only longer than the Lord’s mere ten, it was more specific, and it concluded with an adamant “Thou shalt not kiss him.”

As angry as Libby had been all night long—tossing and turning on the scrap of mattress Shula hadn’t claimed—she hadn’t been able to forget that kiss. Lord, how she had tried, thinking of a hundred reasons why she detested her father’s foreman. He was crude. A rude and impudent man. A bully who insisted on his own way and used his inordinate strength to get it, whether it was snatching neckties or hauling a woman out of a restaurant. He was exactly like her father during those final, violent years before her mother had taken her away from Paradise.

Worse, the big cowboy seemed to ignite some explosive part of her nature that Libby never wanted to experience again. “Thou shalt not scream or bellow like a fishwife.” “Thou shalt not slap, slug or sink your teeth into another human being.”

“Thou shalt not, shalt not, shalt not kiss him.”

She followed the luggage through the hotel door, out to the street where a big red-and-black coach was waiting. And leaning against it, like a leering footman, was Shadrach Jones. Libby’s breath hitched in her throat.

“Lord Almighty!” a voice exclaimed. “If it isn’t Miss Libby, all growed up.”

She turned to watch a wiry older man clamber down from the front of the coach, relieved to see a familiar, safe face. Suddenly she was able to breathe again.

“Eb, is that you? Oh, it’s good to see you.” Libby extended her hand.

Her father’s longtime employee spat out of the side of his mouth, grinned, then grabbed her hand and shook it with gusto. “Miss Libby. My, my. Don’t it just beat all how you’ve growed up.”

“You look the same, Eb. The years have treated you well.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” the old man said. “It’s prob’ly all the salt water I swallowed those years at sea with your pa. I’m just pickled, is all. Tickled to see you, too, Miss Libby. Now where’s that cute little redheaded sister of yours?”

“Right over there.” Libby pointed to where Shula was instructing one of the hotel porters in the proper handling of expensive luggage. Haranguing the poor boy, actually. Libby was surprised Eb Talent hadn’t noticed her first with all those red curls gleaming in the morning sunshine and her lilac dress ruffling in the gulf breeze.

When he did notice her, though, he said almost wistfully, “Ain’t she something?”

She was something, all right, Libby thought, as the old man moved toward Shula like a moth to a flame. Before Eb reached her, though, a second moth appeared. Hoyt Backus brushed past Libby with a brisk “‘Morning, Miss Kingsland,” then swooped down on her sister, and shouted, “By golly, if you’re not the prettiest thing I’ve seen in Texas since the day your mama left.”

It was no surprise when Shula went from stern luggage monitor to simpering princess in the next instant. And no surprise when she paused from basking in Hoyt Backus’s warm attention just long enough to call, “Oh, Libby, honey, as long as you’re just standing around, you’ll keep an eye on these hatboxes for me, won’t you?”

Libby sighed and added one more commandment to her growing list. “Thou shalt not think unkind thoughts about thy sister.”

At the sight of Hoyt Backus, Shad straightened up and pushed back the hat that had been shading his eyes. The fox was sniffing around the chickens again, and the foreman of Paradise didn’t like it one bit. He was briefly tempted to insert himself between predator and prey, but then—seeing the redhead’s slick smile and her long red claws—Shad decided he wasn’t exactly sure which was which. Anyway, he was in no mood to tangle with another Kingsland sister right now, so he yanked down the brim of his hat and glared at Miss Libby.

She looked like a dove this morning in her prim, dull-colored clothes. Except for the damn hat. Even that, though, paled in comparison to her sister’s. Lord, what a pair. He’d be glad when this day was over.

He was glad last night was over, that was for sure. It had been one of the worst nights of his life, sitting in a corner of the cramped coach, wet with sweat and shivering like a newborn calf, unable to shake off the dream that had seemed so real, unable to wake from the nightmare that had driven him from home twenty years ago.

If he’d slept even a wink, Shad wasn’t sure. His eyes felt like he’d spent the whole night riding drag in a dust storm. He hadn’t spent it upstairs at the Steamboat. That he knew for certain. Not with Rosa, or Nona or—dammit—Carmela.

And it was all Miss Libby’s fault. Miss Libby, who looked this morning as if she’d spent a prim and dreamless night between starched sheets. With her damn hat on.

He dragged his gaze to the kid who was standing close beside her. At least she didn’t dress him in fancy little French suits and pointy-toed shoes. Just the opposite, in fact. The youngster had a slightly unkempt look about him, especially the tousled hair that fell across his forehead. He would have expected Miss Libby’s boy to look polished, from his slicked-down hair to his spit-shined brogans.

Shad sighed. He didn’t know why that surprised him. Nothing a lady did should ever surprise him. They were never what they seemed, those finespoken, delicate, devious creatures. They could be all thin lipped, cool and demure one minute, then the next they were hot as whores. He liked whores better. They were honest. A man knew where he stood, or lay as the case may be.

Or didn’t lie, as was the case with him. But not for long. Six or seven hours by coach to Paradise, provided he could hustle these ladies along. Here’re your daughters, Amos. Then five or six hours back to Corpus on a fast horse. Back to Rosa, Nona and—Shad sighed again—Carmela.

Libby tapped a foot on the sidewalk. Their luggage was loaded now—most of it strapped to the top of the coach—but Shula was still batting her eyes and playing flame to that burly behemoth, Hoyt Backus.

She had expected any second that Shadrach Jones would be wrenching Shula away from her father’s former partner as he had done with her the night before, but the man was still slouched against the coach, apparently unconcerned. Possibly asleep for all she could see of his eyes beneath the low brim of his hat. His mouth she saw quite plainly, and that had a lazy slant to it, which brought to mind his kiss. Which set off the butterflies in Libby’s stomach once again.

“Why are we all just standing around here when the coach is ready to go?” she said with more than a little irritation, directing her gaze toward her sister. “Shula? I said…”

The redhead waved her off, continuing her animated conversation with Backus.

“Shula!” Libby snapped.

“Oh, all right, Libby. For heaven’s sake. Did you check inside the lobby to see that all of our bags were put outside?”

“No, I didn’t,” Libby said. She didn’t intend to,

either. Let Shula do without one or two of the twenty outfits she had brought.

“I’ll go,” Andy offered.

Libby instinctively reached out to stop her but then drew back. It was the first time since they’d left Saint Louis that Andy had seemed willing to be more than a few feet away from her. Taking that for a healthy sign, Libby nodded her assent. “Come right back, though,” she cautioned the child. With any other nine-year-old she might have added a warning not to speak to strangers, but considering that Andy hardly spoke to friends, she didn’t think it necessary.

She had barely turned toward the street, intending to tell her sister to stop her infernal chattering and get into the coach, when Andy was suddenly back, clinging to her skirt.

“I saw him,” the little girl sobbed. “I saw my papa. Don’t let him take me, Miss Libby.”

Libby knelt down and took the child into her arms. “Hush, now, Andy. Shh. You’re getting all worked up over nothing, honey.”

“I saw him.”

Shula’s perfume swirled around them. “What in the world’s going on, Libby? What in heaven’s name are you doing down on that dirty sidewalk?”

“Andy says she saw her father.” Libby’s worried eyes flicked up to her sister. “Just now. In the lobby.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Shula said with a snort.

Glancing toward the hotel’s front door now, Libby frowned. It wasn’t possible, was it? As far as she knew, John Rowan didn’t have the wherewithall to buy a ticket to the Saint Louis levee on a horse-drawn tram much less one all the way to Texas.

“I’m sure it was just somebody who resembled your father,” she told the little girl as she brushed hair from her forehead. “Your eyes were probably just playing tricks on you.”

“Little wonder, with all that hair falling over them,” Shula said. “Well, it’s time to go to Paradise. Libby, if you’d get up off the sidewalk, we could be on our way.”

Libby closed her eyes, seething as her sister flounced off to bid farewell to Hoyt Backus. She struggled up.

“Ma’am.”

A hand gripped her arm and suddenly Libby was on her feet, standing in the shadow of Shadrach Jones. His dark eyes scanned her face then lowered to Andy.

“Everything all right with your boy now?” he asked.

Libby blinked. “With my…?” He meant Andy, of course. And if she even began to explain, Libby realized, they’d be standing here till the sun came up tomorrow. “Everything’s fine now, Mr. Jones. Shall we go?”

A moment later his hands were on her again. He was lifting her like a piece of baggage into the coach.

“Up you go, sonny.”

The cowboy lofted Andy like a feather, before the child could even squeak. He followed then, and the roomy coach seemed suddenly small. Libby’s breath was failing her again, so she fussed with her gloves and her skirt before settling back with a sigh.

Shula’s head poked in the door. “Well, this won’t do at all, Mr. Jones.”

“Ma’am?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to move. I can’t ride backward. It makes me deathly ill. Tell him, Libby.”

Libby didn’t say a word. She was listening to the blood boiling in Shadrach Jones’s veins. Or was it her own? There was a brief moment of hard-bitten silence then, after which they all got up and exchanged seats.

Halfway to Paradise, Shad found himself praying—something he hadn’t done since he’d lived under the roof of his adoptive father, the Reverend Jones. Dear Lord, deliver me. From redheads who couldn’t ride backwards, couldn’t tolerate heat or dust or apparently silence. From the mute little boy who was stabbing him with his eyes whenever he thought Shad wasn’t looking. From the prim and quiet Miss Libby directly across from him.

He would have ridden on top with Eb, but he thought he could catch a few much needed winks inside the coach. Every time he drifted off, though, he’d jerk awake to another complaint from Miss Shula, to the boy’s gaze slicing away, to his boot heels hooked in Miss Libby’s dove-colored skirt.

When Eb pulled the horses up at the twenty-mile relay station, Shad opened the door and shot outside. Lord, it felt good to stretch. To breathe air that wasn’t scented with a perfume that reminded him of sodden leaves. To get away from them. All of them. Her.

He couldn’t stop thinking of the way she’d felt in his arms, of the way her stunned little mouth melted under his. As if she’d never been kissed before. As if he’d been the first. Which made no sense at all, considering the kid.

Shad scraped off his hat and slapped it against his leg. The hell with her. The hell with them all. “You got that lunch basket stowed up there, Eb?” he called to the driver.

“Right here.” Eb tossed the heavy basket down. “Don’t look like I’ll be breaking any records today, does it, what with the Captain’s daughters lollygagging so?” The old man clambered down to stand beside Shad. “Been so long since I’ve been around women, I’d pretty near forgotten just how dawdling they can be.” The old man shrugged then sauntered toward the men who were unhitching the horses from the coach.

“That wouldn’t be a lunch basket, would it, Mr. Jones?” Her voice came from just behind him. A soft, musical tone in contrast to her sister’s strident dramatics. Shad turned slowly and lowered his gaze to Miss Libby’s upturned face.

About to give her one more “yes, ma’am,” he suddenly changed his mind. “Hungry?” he asked.

Her eyes widened in surprise, as if he had asked her for her measurements instead. “No,” she said. “Not really. But I imagine Andy is. The poor child’s hardly eaten a thing in the last two days.”

“Andy. I expect that’s short for Andrew.”

Again she blinked. Anybody’d think he was mouthing indecent proposals, the way she kept being taken aback. All he’d done was ask a friendly question.

Her prim little mouth quirked into an unexpected grin. “Actually, Mr. Jones, it’s short for…”

Libby’s next words were drowned out by Shula’s screams as she came running, her lilac skirt rucked up about her knees. She pushed Libby aside in order to yank open the door of the coach and, without ceremony or dignity, hauled herself inside.

“Snakes,” she screeched. “If there’s anything I hate worse than spiders, it’s snakes.”

“Where’s Andy?” Libby asked frantically.

Shula aimed her chin out the coach window toward a nearby mesquite bush. “Back there.” She shivered. “I told the child to run. Especially when I heard that horrible rattle.”

Libby gasped and pulled up her skirt, ready to run.

Shad grabbed a handful of bustle and dove-gray dress. “Stay here,” he growled, tacking on an oath for emphasis before he strode to where the boy was standing. Still as a statue. Staring.

The snake was about as big as they came—seven feet of coiled muscle with a death rattle at one end and just plain death at the other. Death for a boy who didn’t weigh much more than a fifty-pound sack of grain.

“Don’t move, kid.” Shad’s voice was low and calm, unlike his mind, which was scrambling over options. Ordinarily he would have drawn his gun and put a bullet right between the rattler’s eyes. But he couldn’t trust the kid to stay still a second longer. He looked about ready to bolt right now.

Shad’s eyes swept the ground. He needed a pitchfork or a sturdy limb, but there was nothing within reach. Nothing but one of his own limbs. Well, hell. It had to be him or the kid. If he was lucky, the fangs would catch him on the boot. If he wasn’t…

Libby rounded the corner of the mesquite bush. The stillness of the scene was chilling. Andy like a tiny statue. Jones like a massive oak. The gray diamond-patterned snake rattling ominously and poised to strike.

“Do something.” She wasn’t sure if she had screeched the words or merely felt them searing across her brain, but a second later there was a flash of denim, a sweep of arms lifting Andy up and out of harm’s way as the snake snapped from its coil, struck, then went slithering away.

Libby struggled to release the breath she’d been holding. Andy was safe. She was safe. The big cowboy had her planted on his hip, holding her against him with one big, bronze hand splayed across her chest. But by the time that pose fully registered on Libby, it was already too late. Andy had already begun screaming in Jones’s arms—kicking, hitting, scratching, fighting for her very life. No longer afraid of the snake, the little girl was terrified of her rescuer.

“She’s asleep now,” Libby whispered inside the dim interior of the coach. They had pulled the side curtains down in the hope of calming the hysterical little girl. Finally, over Libby’s strong objections, Shula had poured a liberal dose of laudanum down Andy’s throat.

“I told you that would do the trick,” Shula said with a little cluck of her tongue.

Libby edged away from the sleeping child now, inching back one of the canvas side curtains to peer outside. “Where do you suppose everybody went?”

“Probably in the shade,” Shula said, lifting her damp hair from her neck, “trying to stay cool in all this heat.” She flicked her gaze toward Andy, then lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Not to mention trying to get away from all the crying and fussing.”

“She was terrified, Shula. Andy thought—”

“I know what she thought,” Shula snapped, “but it doesn’t make any sense. First she’s making up stories about seeing her father in the hotel. Then she’s convinced he’s way out here in the middle of nowhere, attacking her.”

“She’s confused,” Libby said.

“Obviously.”

“You’re a heartless person, Shula Kingsland.”

“No, Libby. I’m a hot person. And I want to get on to our father’s ranch. Why don’t you go find our driver.” She closed her eyes. “I’d go myself but that snake might still be lurking out there.”

If it was, Libby thought as she climbed out of the coach, she was going to catch it and then wrap it around her sister’s neck. She lifted a hand to shade her eyes against the bright noon sun. Eb Talent was stretched out in one of the few patches of shade the relay station had to offer. He got to his feet with some difficulty as Libby approached.

“You got that little one all settled down now, Miss Libby?” he asked.

“I believe so, Eb. We’re ready to continue on to Paradise if you are.” Libby’s gaze drifted around the relay station. “Where’s Mr. Jones?”

“Down by the creek.” The old man turned his head and spat into the dust. “We didn’t know, Miss Libby. Why, that little girl coulda fooled anybody. She don’t care much for men, I take it.”

“She’s had some rather nasty experiences.” Libby looked around again, noticing a thin line of cottonwoods against the intense blue of the sky. “Where is the creek? Over there? Shall I inform Mr. Jones that we’re ready to leave?”

“That’d be fine, ma’am. Save me some walking and some shouting. I’ll go on and make sure the horses are all set.”

On her way to the creek, Libby ran her fingers through the damp curls at the nape of her neck. She had taken off her hat, or rather Andy had knocked it off during her hysterics earlier, and at the moment Libby had to admit it felt good to be bareheaded and ungloved beneath the sweltering sun. There wasn’t a breath of breeze, still the leaves of the cottonwoods were shimmying up ahead. She could hear a faint ripple of water running over rocks as she approached, and she could see the long dark hair skimming the broad shoulders of Shadrach Jones as he sat, his back to her, on the bank of the creek.

“We’re getting ready to leave, Mr. Jones,” she said as she neared. “Before we do, however, I wanted to thank you and tell you how much I appreciate what you did for Andy.”

He angled around, cocking his head, squinting against the sunlight. One leg was bent, its denim covering rolled up past his knee. Two bright, bloodred lines were streaming down his calf.

Libby gulped in air, then let it out in a rush. “Good Lord! You’re bleeding,” she exclaimed as she sank down on her knees beside him. “Is it…was it the snake?”

He laughed. “He just clipped me a little. I did most of that damage myself just making sure all the poison’s out. It looks a lot worse than it is, believe me.”

She didn’t believe a word of that casual denial. On her knees, Libby edged closer to him. “We need to get that bleeding stopped,” she said firmly. “Do you have a clean handkerchief, Mr. Jones?”

“No, ma’am.” He pointed to the blood-soaked bandanna now lying in the dust.

Then Shad narrowed his gaze on her worried face. If she bit any harder on that lower lip, he thought, pretty soon she’d be bleeding, too. It dawned on him suddenly that she wasn’t wearing her hat, that her dark hair had a reddish cast out here in the sunlight. He didn’t know why that pleased him or sent a quick jolt of desire through him. The lady could be bald for all it mattered to him. What mattered, after all, was the fact that she was a lady. And he wanted no part of that.

“I’m fine,” he told her gruffly. “Save your mothering for your daughter, Miss Kingsland. I don’t need it”

“What you need is a clean bandage, Mr. Jones,” she snapped, “and if you’ll turn your back for a moment, I’ll provide you with one.”

The soft worry in her features had hardened to flint now, Shad noticed. Amos Kingsland’s stubborn fire burned in her blue eyes. “Turn my back?”

“Please. I need to tear off a strip of my petticoat.”

“Go ahead.”

“I will,” she said, “as soon as you redirect your gaze.”

“I’ve seen petticoats before, ma’am.”

“Not mine, Mr. Jones,” she countered sternly.

Biting down on a curse, Shad turned and stared off across the creek while he listened to assorted rustlings and then to one quick, decisive rip.

He jerked slightly at the cool touch of her hand on his leg.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she murmured as she wound the torn cloth around him. “That was a very selfless gesture, Mr. Jones. What you did for little Andy. I’m grateful to you.”

Shad didn’t reply. He was trying to concentrate on something else. Anything else. The way the creek eddied around the slant of a downed cottonwood branch. A bluebottle fly edging along the pull-strap of his discarded boot. Patterns of sun and shade. Anything but the soft, almost dazzling drift of her fingertips. Anything but those feathers and flames. He was thinking he much preferred the bite of a rattler. It did less damage in the long run.

“There,” she said, making a last little tear, giving a last little tug as she tied the bandage. “That ought to do, at least until we reach Paradise.”

Hallelujah. He could feel the sweat trickling down his side and he knew it had nothing to do with the sun overhead. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

He heard the dovelike swish of her skirts—those sacred, well-guarded petticoats—that meant she was getting up. He could almost breathe again.

“Oh. One more thing, Mr. Jones.” She was standing just behind him, her shadow spilling over him like dark silk. “I hate to ask after what you did for Andy, but I wonder if you’d mind riding the rest of the way up front with Mr. Talent? The poor child’s calmer now, but…”

“Glad to,” he answered quickly. God, how he was glad.