Daisies In The Wind Read online

  Think!

  Rebeccah knew she couldn’t reach the derringer under her pillow. Not before he could stop her. Her lips felt cracked and dry. She tried to figure out a plan, though the pain in her jaw and head hurt so badly, it dulled her senses.

  “Well?” Jones prodded, poking her side with a finger. “You kin talk now. Where’s them papers?”

  Rebeccah met his squinting, feral gaze, trying to sound more calm and assured than she felt while flat on her back with a slimy killer kneeling over her. “I already told the other man Stoner sent—I don’t have any papers to any mine. And I know nothing about a map.” She forced herself to stare earnestly, innocently into those cold, vicious eyes, forced herself to speak slowly, though her heart was thumping. “Mr. Jones, if I had what you want, I’d give it to you. I would. But Bear never mentioned any mine to me. Neither did his solicitor. Don’t you see? It’s all rumor. There’s nothing to it. So, please—go away and leave me alone.”

  He hit her again, even harder than the first time. The room exploded into prisms of red and black and dazzling white. Pain rocked through her jaw, sharp as a sledgehammer. There was a buzzing in her ears.

  “You’re lying.” She heard Fess Jones’s snarl as if from a great distance. “I’m counting to ten!”

  Little whimpers of pain tore from her lips.

  “One! Two! Three ...”

  Rebeccah fought to clear her throbbing head. Think ... damn it ... think. He’s stronger and meaner than you are, but for God’s sake, he isn’t smarter.

  “Eight, nine ...”

  With effort she moved her lips. Her jaw splintered with pain. “The papers ... are in a strongbox,” she whispered. “It’s ... hidden under the floorboards. I have the key ... in my reticule. I’ll get it.”

  “Don’t you move, girlie. None of your tricks. I’ll get it myself.” He eased off the bed and circled the room with his eyes until he made out her reticule propped on the chest of drawers. “You’d better be tellin’ the truth.”

  When he reached the chest, she lunged, diving under the pillow for the gun, but he threw himself back on her before she could draw it out to fire. Though she kicked at him, he wrenched the gun from her fingers and slapped her backhanded, sending her tumbling off the bed.

  “You were lyin’ to me, weren’t you? You greedy little slut! I’ll teach you to lie to ol’ Fess Jones.”

  The knife came from nowhere, glittering in his hand. On her knees on the floor, Rebeccah drew in her breath. Fear gut-punched her. She shinnied away, against the wall, and staggered unsteadily to her feet.

  Jones laughed at the terror on her face and the trembling of her body. He whipped the knife back and forth in a zigzag motion. “You’re goin’ to be real sorry you didn’t tell me the truth, Reb Rawlings,” he chuckled. “I’m goin’ to cut up that purty face of yours first, and then you’re going to hand over them papers.”

  He moved toward her, grinning. Rebeccah, trapped like a rabbit in her corner, began to scream.

  * * *

  A scream.

  Wolf’s blood turned to ice as the horrible sound tore from the cabin and through the chill air of the yard. He was inside the darkened cabin in an instant, and following the sound of the second scream. He burst through the bedroom door like a cannonball.

  Then two things happened at once.

  Fess Jones threw his knife, Bodine drew his Colt, and gunfire thundered through the Rawlings ranch house.

  When the explosion died away and the gun-smoke cleared, Fess Jones lay crumpled on the floor, emitting a horrible gurgling gasp. His body twitched from the bullet lodged in his heart, his chest gushed blood, his eyes stared in unseeing agony. And then the twitching stopped, and Jones went still.

  Rebeccah slumped against the wall, her palms clinging to it. She dragged her gaze from Jones’s body and looked at Wolf Bodine. He nonchalantly pulled the knife from his shoulder and tossed it to the ground, seemingly oblivious of the blood spurting from his wound. In the faint, silvery moonlight she saw the calmness of his expression as he trained his Colt .45 on her.

  “Talk.”

  5

  “You’re bleeding!”

  She started forward, but the harshness of his voice stopped her. “Stay where you are.”

  “You need help—”

  “You’re wrong. I need answers, Miss Rawlings. What the hell were you and this hombre up to? Were you double-crossing him in some kind of dirty scheme? You’ll answer my questions either here or in a jail cell. It’s up to you.”

  Rebeccah refused to look at the hideous thing on the floor. If she did, she might get sick, and she’d be damned before she let Bodine see her retch her guts out. “You’re loco!” she cried, shooting him a look of disgust. “Go ahead and shoot me, Bodine, but I’m not going to let you bleed all over my rug. It’s the only one in the cabin, and I happen to like the color, so do you mind? It’s bad enough I’ll have to scrub his blood from the floor.”

  Bodine’s eyes narrowed as she strode across the room, muttering all the while.

  “Come sit on the sofa, for God’s sake, and let me bind up that shoulder for you. And put your silly gun away. I’m not armed, you know. If I was, do you think I’d have let that snake get near me?”

  When she reached his side, moonlight caught her face, and Wolf saw for the first time the ugly welt swelling red and tender across her cheek.

  “Looks like you’re the one who needs some help,” he said sharply. “How badly did he hurt you?”

  She put a finger to her cheek, remembering, and then winced. “He only hit me a few times. But he was going to use that knife on me when you came in.”

  Something fierce and gut-wrenching slammed tight inside of him at the thought of what might have happened if not for his son Billy’s sharp eyes. A stroke of luck had brought him here tonight—nothing more. He glanced with contempt at Jones’s corpse.

  “The filthy coward. You ought to put some liniment on that bruise.”

  “You’re the one who needs doctoring, Sheriff,” she reminded him coldly, tugging on his good arm as she led him out to the parlor. “Sit right there while I heat some water and get the salve. And don’t ask me any questions, because I can’t answer them and minister to you at the same time,” she threw over her shoulder as she disappeared into the kitchen.

  He didn’t know what to make of her. The ragged little wildcat who’d spit in his face in that Arizona shack had grown into a startlingly beautiful and amazingly self-possessed woman. As she boiled water, sponged at the two-inch gash the knife had slashed in his shoulder—a gash no more serious than a flesh wound—gingerly applied salve, and then cut up strips of a clean, thick towel to wrap it, he had an opportunity to study her. He was struck by her delicate, serious face, by the solemn concentration in her eyes as she worked, and by the way the thin pink nightgown hugged the delectable curves of her body. His shoulder throbbed a little, but he ignored it, focusing instead on the soft, flowery scent of her (was it lilacs?) as she sat beside him on the old sofa; on the luxuriant tumble of her midnight hair, glistening in the lamp light; on the gentle way her fingers slid across his injured arm.

  What business did this woman have with the likes of Fess Jones?

  Wolf couldn’t help being suspicious of her. He had learned to be suspicious of women, especially beautiful and clever ones, and from his own observations Rebeccah Rawlings possessed both of those qualities.

  Yet he sensed something in her, something that didn’t quite fit. He frowned as she finished binding the wound and sat back to study her own handiwork.

  “Got any whiskey?”

  “Whiskey? Why? Do you feel faint?”

  “No, ma’am,” he drawled patiently. “Thirsty.”

  “Well,” she said doubtfully, studying his calm, bronzed face as he leaned against the horsehair sofa, looking the picture of strong, manly health, “I haven’t come across any whiskey. I could make coffee,” she offered.

  “I wouldn’t want to put you
to any trouble.”

  “Oh, it’s no trouble, Sheriff Bodine,” she replied, rising and staring down at him as he lounged on her sofa, “as long as in return you get rid of that ... thing in my bedroom for me.”

  He nodded. “Deal.”

  Suddenly she noticed his gaze was no longer trained upon her face but was traveling slowly along her body, across her breasts, shifting down to her hips.

  With a cry of chagrin Rebeccah suddenly remembered she was still wearing only her nightgown. Somehow being beaten and nearly cut into little pieces by Fess Jones had made her completely forget that she was wearing little more than a thin gown of cotton and lace that barely skimmed her ankles, while Wolf Bodine wore boots, pants, shirt, vest, guns, badge, and a Stetson.

  “My, God,” she breathed in dismay, and backed away toward the bedroom. A vermilion flush spread upward from her neck, setting her cheeks aflame in the lantern light. “How dare you ... you despicable ... why didn’t you say something?”

  “Do you think I’m loco?” he asked softly, but his eyes held approval along with the amusement. “I was only admiring how handsomely you’ve grown up.”

  “Don’t you dare ogle me or laugh at me,” Rebeccah warned, fleeing toward the bedroom door. She paused at the threshold, clearly steeling herself to enter the room containing the dead body, but after throwing one indignant glance back at the tall man on her sofa, she dashed inside.

  It took only a moment to discard her nightgown and pull on the man’s breeches and blue-and-green flannel shirt she had purchased at one of the larger towns along the stagecoach route, figuring that if she was going to work on the ranch, she’d need something besides dresses. She fastened the shirt’s buttons with shaking fingers and didn’t look once at Jones’s body. Tying her hair back severely with a green ribbon, she stalked back to the parlor once more, leaving the long ends of her shirttail hanging out.

  Funny, in her daydreams she had imagined herself reunited with Wolf Bodine in a confection of lavender silk and lace, all frills and beads and ribbons, and now here she was, deliberately dressing like a man, hoping to make him forget about her embarrassing state of near undress a few moments ago.

  Life never seems to go according to plan, she decided grimly, as her small, bare feet padded across the floor. She refused to look at Wolf Bodine as she crossed directly to the kitchen, but she could feel his gaze on her.

  It seemed to be burning into her backside.

  Well, there is nothing the least bit indiscreet about what I’m wearing now, so let him look all he wants, she thought rebelliously.

  She has no idea how adorable she looks, Wolf decided as Rebeccah Rawlings stamped past him without a glance. She must have inherited her mother’s looks, he concluded, because there was nothing of Bear’s heavy jowled face, stocky, powerful build, or shrewd black eyes in his daughter. Only his stubborness and orneriness, Wolf guessed—and possibly his lawlessness.

  He had to find out what Fess Jones had been doing here with her, besides beating her and trying to kill her. Wolf had a feeling deep in his gut that Jones wasn’t the only outlaw about to descend on his peaceful little neck of the woods, thanks to Miss Rebeccah Rawlings.

  He tried to ignore the fiery pain in his shoulder as he mused on the circumstances that had brought him back here tonight. He’d gone home as usual, trying to think of nothing but enjoying his supper with Caitlin and Billy. He’d tried his damndest to avoid thinking about the irritating Miss Rawlings, until Billy had come tearing out the door the moment Wolf had reached the gate.

  “Pa, Gramma wouldn’t let me come get you—she said I had to stay right here—but I saw him ... I saw him, Pa! That fellow on the Wanted poster you got last week from Dodge City—Fess Jones!”

  Wolf had swung down from Dusty and knelt beside Caitlin’s flower garden to stare intently into his son’s excited face. “Slow down, Billy. Are you sure about this?”

  “Sure as anything. You know I’ve got a good eye, Pa,” Billy reminded him, his gray eyes shining with excitement.

  It was true. Billy frequently visited Wolf at the sheriff’s office, where he was fascinated by the collection of rifles, the locked box of ammunition, the big brass ring of keys to the cell, the safe, and all the locked cupboards. But he was most intrigued by the Wanted posters tacked to the corkboard beside the window. He had an amazing memory for a child, and he could recite the mathematical tables and how to spell hippopotamus, and he could name the states in which an outlaw was wanted and for what offenses faster than most folks could remember what they’d eaten for breakfast.

  “Tell me where you saw him, then,” Wolf ordered, and Billy took a deep breath.

  “I was fishing in the creek, sitting there real quiet like, and all of a sudden I saw someone riding right through the trees on the other side. Well, he stopped when he saw me. Pa, for a minute there I was mighty scared. The way he stared at me—he looked about as mean as a hungry coyote in an open chicken coop.”

  Wolf glanced up and saw his mother standing in the doorway, her work-worn hands motionless at her sides. Caitlin’s iron-gray hair was bound up as neatly as usual, and her nearly sightless blue eyes gave no hint of her feelings, but her mouth was set and grim within her lined face, providing the one visible sign of her concern.

  “Go on,” Wolf told the boy quietly, setting a hand on his bony young shoulder. “Did he hurt you, son? Scare you? What did he say?”

  “Nothing, Pa. He just looked at me, real long and slow, like he’d like to roast me over a campfire and eat me for dinner—that kind of a look. I was too scared to move. But Sam started growling deep in his throat, and he looked ready to spring. For a moment I thought Fess Jones was going to shoot him.”

  As if understanding, Billy’s big red dog, Sam, nosed his way into the conversation, wriggling between Wolf and his son and resting his nose on the lawman’s broad shoulder.

  “Good boy, Sam,” Wolf said, and stroked the dog’s head. “Billy, are you going to finish this story, or do I have to expire with suspense?”

  The boy laughed. He enjoyed being the center of attention—in that way, and no other, Wolf decided, he was like his ma.

  “He stared at us real long and slow, like I said, and then dug his spurs into his horse and kept riding. Never said a word.”

  “Which way did he go?”

  “That way, toward the Peastone place. Think he’s planning to hole up there and wait for some pards to come join him? Maybe he’s going to rob the bank in Powder Creek like he did in Lucasville. Maybe—”

  “Maybe you should go wash up for supper. Gramma’s looking mighty hungry to me.”

  “Aren’t you coming in, Pa?”

  “No. But save me some of your Gramma’s pie.” Wolf had stopped the boy with a tug on his sleeve. “You did good, Billy. Real good. I’m proud of you.”

  And Billy had flushed with pleasure.

  If he hadn’t run into Fess Jones and recognized him, I wouldn’t be here right now, Wolf reflected, wincing as he flexed his shoulder. And Miss Rebeccah Rawlings would probably be dead.

  It had been too dark to pick up Jones’s trail at the creek, but he’d headed back to the Peastone property, taking the less-used route from the borders of his own land, creeping up toward the house from the rear, hiding in the trees and brush, waiting and watching.

  He’d seen Rebeccah Rawlings venture out—stupid woman—to fetch water from the stream, had watched her lug it back to the cabin in the dark. He’d caught glimpses of her through the rear cabin window, whisking a broom around. But no sign of Fess Jones. And then about an hour ago a figure had skulked up to the cabin on foot. From his hiding place Wolf surmised that Jones must have left his horse hidden in the brush up the road. He’d made his way noiselessly toward the cabin, opened one of the windows, and crawled in.

  Wolf had crept closer, but waited. Waited and wondered—until he heard that scream.

  “Do you like milk or sugar in your coffee, Sheriff?”

  “Neither on
e.”

  He watched her as she handed him the cup, so ladylike, so distant, then settled herself down on the sofa as far away from him as she could get. That suited him just fine. The only thing that had brought him back to this cabin tonight was business. He had no desire to pursue even remotely friendly relations with Bear Rawlings’s daughter.

  She was up to her pretty little nose in something crooked, Wolf knew it. He just hadn’t figured out what her scheme was—yet.

  The coffee was good, hot and strong. He drank deeply, then set the cup down and leaned back against the creaking springs of the sofa. “It’s time for our little talk, Miss Rawlings. We’ve gone through all the motions of civility. Now I want some answers.”

  “We can’t always get what we want, Sheriff Bodine, can we?” she replied, her hands clenched tightly in her lap. Her coffee sat on a crate beside her, untouched, ribbons of steam still rising from the tin cup. “I wanted a good night’s sleep, peace and quiet, a chance to acclimate myself to my new home. But I didn’t get it. That man broke in here in the middle of the night and attacked me. What kind of a town do you run, Sheriff Bodine, where a vicious person like that can accost innocent women in their homes?”

  Wolf came to his feet in a surprisingly fluid motion for such a big man. He stalked toward her and yanked her up off the sofa with his one good arm. Ignoring her gasp, he pulled her close, so close he could feel the pounding of her heart and could see the quiver of her lips as she reacted to his nearness and the strength of his hold on her. He let her feel his strength, not hurting her but making sure she recognized that he could do so if he wanted to.

  “No more games, Miss Rawlings. No more stalling. You’re not an innocent woman. Fess Jones didn’t just happen to pick on you. He came here because of you—and I want to know why. What low-down dealings are you up to, and who else can I expect to turn up in my town hatching some dark and dirty business?”

  Rebeccah knew she couldn’t break free. Even using only one arm, he was far too strong for her. But she would be damned before she’d tell some lawman the kind of trouble she was in and ask him for help. Let him think the worst of her! She didn’t care. She’d rather fight off a wagonload of desperadoes than come bawling to Wolf Bodine for help.