Defiant, page 9
She kept a steady conversation going with Jeff, hoping that their taciturn dinner guest would eventually join in rather than glower.
Jake was sitting between Jeff and Wade Foster. Mary Jo saw Jeff’s hand creep down occasionally, and she knew he was sneaking bits to the dog. Wade Foster was conspicuously ignoring the dubious activity.
After a particularly loud gulp from Jake, her son glanced around innocently. “Didn’t I tell you that Ma’s the best cook in the world?”
Jeff had just uttered the last word when Jake emitted what sounded suspiciously like a burp. Jeff flushed.
Wade Foster smiled. It was the first smile Mary Jo had seen touch his face, and it was wondrous. The harsh lines seemed to fade, and the tanned skin around his eyes crinkled. And then those same eyes focused on Mary Jo, watching, waiting, glinting with a hint of amusement.
Mary Jo found herself holding her breath. She should scold Jeff, but she was too charmed by Wade Foster’s indulgence of her son’s disobedience.
“If you’re going to feed Jake at the table,” she finally said with pretend exasperation, “you had better teach him some manners.”
“Does that mean that I can—”
Mary Jo cut off his eager words. “No, it doesn’t. But I think it’s time you started teaching that animal to behave.”
Jeff’s face fell. “But I don’t know how—”
“Like a horse,” Wade Foster said unexpectedly. “Patience and firmness. He’s a smart dog. He’ll learn quick. He just needs to know what’s expected.”
Jeff looked at him. “Will you help me?”
Wade Foster’s smile faded, replaced by caution, then something like resignation. He nodded, and Mary Jo knew she had her answer. He would stay. For a little while, at least.
He turned his gaze on Mary Jo, and she was careful to keep her expression neutral. One flash of victory on her face, and he might change his mind. They had struck a bargain. An impersonal exchange of services for goods. Nothing more. Yet her heart thumped so loudly she was afraid he could hear it.
“When?” Jeff asked enthusiastically.
“We’ll start tomorrow,” Wade Foster answered.
Jeff grinned happily. “You’re staying then?”
Wade Foster hesitated. “Maybe a few days. I don’t want to take your mother’s room any longer.”
“Can we go fishing?”
Mary Jo nearly winced at the longing in her son’s voice. She knew he’d missed the Ranger station, the occasional fishing expeditions with Jeff and then once with Ty. Ty had even offered to teach her son to swim after Mary Jo had expressed fear about Jeff going fishing alone, but he’d never had the chance. Jeff wanted badly to learn, and Mary Jo couldn’t help. She didn’t know how to swim; neither her father nor Jeff had approved of women swimming. Indecent, her father had called it, though he hadn’t hesitated to teach her how to shoot.
Tensely, she waited for Wade Foster’s answer to Jeff’s question. He had glanced at his bad arm, and she knew he was thinking he wouldn’t be much good at fishing. She prayed silently that he wouldn’t dash her son’s hope.
“Let’s just concentrate on Jake now,” Wade Foster said.
Jake whined at the sound of his name, his tail thumping up and down on the floor like a military drum tattoo.
Jeff looked slightly discouraged. But the response wasn’t exactly a no, and Mary Jo relaxed.
After she finished the dishes, Mary Jo took a lantern and went out to the room in the barn. She had cleaned it thoroughly when they first moved here. It was small, more fit for a hired hand than a foreman.
She’d discovered that the previous owners had farmed rather than run cattle, but disaster after disaster had befallen them, the worst having been the death of their only child from snakebite. Three bad years of drought, and then an infestation of grasshoppers the following year had stolen the last of their stamina.
Mary Jo soon realized the future lay in running cattle, but she needed cowhands for that. This was open range; ranchers branded their cattle and then set them loose. She and Jeff didn’t have the combined strength to rope, hogtie, and brand angry half-wild animals.
She’d started so optimistically, only to hear, time after time, that sometimes apologetic, sometimes rude snort when prospective hands learned they would be working for her. Only Tom Raylor had agreed, and later she discovered everyone else had fired him because he was shiftless and careless.
How long would Wade Foster stay?
She opened the one window in the small room, to air it out. Tomorrow morning she would sweep and put fresh sheets on the bed. She couldn’t help thinking how small the room was for someone like Wade Foster. He dominated space; everything seemed to shrink around him.
She finally left, hoping that the object of her thoughts had retreated back into the bedroom for the night. She couldn’t think clearly when he was around; she had to avoid him as much as possible if she was going to make her plan work.
Mary Jo had brought a carrot with her. She broke it in fourths and fed a portion to each of the horses, ending with her own mare. Her husband had bought Fancy for her on her twenty-fifth birthday, and he had taken pride in the gift. He hadn’t been much for presents, so Fancy was special. She was surprisingly fast for her small size, mannerly, and sturdier than she looked.
The horse liked attention, caresses, and Mary Jo needed that at the moment.
She put her head to the mare’s. “Am I making a mistake?” she whispered, and received a soft whinny in reply.
“Big help you are,” she told the mare, then straightened her shoulders and left.
She was halfway across the yard when she saw Wade Foster. He was sitting on the corral fence, looking off in the distance, toward the mountains. The moon was bright and she could see the loneliness etched in his face.
It touched her heart. She knew loss and grief. But his ran so much deeper. She had Jeff.
She hesitated a moment, wondering whether she should intrude, then walked over to him. He didn’t acknowledge her presence, although she sensed he knew she was there.
Mary Jo looked up. The sky was crowded with stars, some seeming so close she could almost reach up and pluck one out. It was enchanting, particularly after the week of heavy storms and dark nights.
“It’s so peaceful,” she said.
His hand tightened around the railing, but he said nothing. Mary Jo felt awkward. Unwanted. She started back to the house.
“Mrs. Williams.” His voice was low, and she thought she heard a note of pleading in it. She turned back to him.
He hesitated. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and full of hurt. “You have a lot here, especially Jeff.”
“He keeps me going.”
Finally he looked at her. “I think you would keep going anyway.”
It was a compliment, pure and simple. Mary Jo felt pride welling up inside her, even though it wasn’t justified. She had endured, because she’d had to endure, not out of choice. “Sometimes, there’s nothing else to do, Mr. Foster.”
“Isn’t there?”
Mary Jo didn’t know how to answer. She changed the subject, instead. “Where will you go when you leave here?”
“It’s better if you don’t know.”
Distrust tinged his voice now. She felt as if he’d plunged a knife into her.
“I won’t betray you, if that’s what you mean.”
“Why shouldn’t you?”
“Why should you care, if you meant what you just said?”
“I don’t, not for myself. But there are others …”
“Indians,” she said flatly.
“People,” he corrected. “Human beings who know the meaning of loyalty and promises a great deal better than most whites,” he said bitterly.
Silence hung heavily between them, but Mary Jo wasn’t going to apologize. She kept remembering her sister.
“Hell,” he said. “Why should you be any different?”
She wanted to be. She suddenly didn’t want to be like all those others he regarded with such disdain. “Tell me about them,” she said.
He had turned his face away from hers. He had dismissed her as if she were nothing more than a bothersome fly. She had failed in an important way, and she felt that connection she’d had with him fading. He was willing it away.
She bit her lip. “Mr. Foster—”
His cold glare stopped her. “Not Foster, if I’m to be your almost brother-in-law. What was his name?”
Mary Jo felt uncomfortable, as if she were desecrating Ty. “Smith,” she said slowly.
He laughed, but there was no amusement in it. “That’s easy enough. I’ve been Smith before. I had a few other names, too. Curious, Mrs. Williams?”
“No.”
“Good,” he said, obviously not believing her.
She nodded, not sure how to respond. “Thank you for agreeing to stay.”
“You aren’t giving me much choice, are you, Mrs. Williams?”
“I think you’re a man who makes your own choices,” she shot back.
“Really?” He drawled out the word. He slowly put his two feet down on the ground and limped over to where she stood. “I think I’ll make one now.”
He leaned down, his good arm going around her, drawing her close, so close her body fit into his, and she felt every hard plane of his body. She looked up. She was tall, but he seemed to dwarf her.
His mouth pressed down on hers, and sensations ignited in her as his tongue seduced its way into her mouth. It was a hard kiss, demanding and challenging and defiant. Angry.
She knew she should pull away. It would be easy enough, as weak as he still was, yet her legs wouldn’t obey. Instead they inched nearer until she felt the swelling within his trousers, and she knew a yearning so deep and bittersweet that she didn’t know whether she could bear it.
Her lips moved against his, responding with an intensity that seemed to spur his own, and his tongue played inside her mouth, searching so masterfully that he awakened every nerve ending, sending ribbons of tingling warmth surging through her.
Don’t, a part of her screamed inside. He’s trying to frighten you again. But he wasn’t frightening her. He was awakening, stirring, bringing something long dormant alive again.
She felt herself tremble as his tongue gentled, as his lips caressed instead of plundered, as his need grew to match her own. Her arms went up around his neck, her fingers playing with tendrils of hair. He stiffened, as if startled by the gentleness, displeased by it.
And then his kiss grew hard again, his tongue withdrawing, and his mouth punishing, bruising. He was trying to hurt her, but it was too late. She had never really feared him, except for what he had done to her emotions, and he could never frighten her now. His need was as raw as her own, as achingly real.
She heard his groan, then the catch in his breath as he suddenly dropped his arm and let her go. He stepped back, his face unfathomable.
“Go inside, Mrs. Williams,” he said in a harsh voice.
“Mary Jo,” she corrected in barely a whisper. Then she turned and tried mightily to walk with some dignity back into her house.
She would always picture him there, tall and lean and alone.
So alone.
8
Mary Jo hesitated at the door. She was stunned by her own actions, confused by them. Humiliated to the core of her being.
Never had she responded to a man like that, or allowed such liberties. And Wade Foster was a stranger. A stranger with an outlaw past, present, and future. A renegade white man who lived with Indians, who had married an Indian woman. A drifter who would stay only long enough to get what he needed to leave.
She shuddered at the thought of Jeff and Ty looking down from heaven and seeing that shameless conduct.
She pushed back a strand of hair from her forehead. What was there in the stranger that touched a part of her she never knew existed?
It was dangerous as Hades, whatever it was. She needed to tuck it back where it belonged, behind the common sense she usually practiced, the discipline she had confined herself to.
She braced her shoulders. She could survive this temporary madness. For a few weeks. She would stay away from him, see him only when Jeff was around. She would work until she fell, so exhausted that she wouldn’t hear the wayward calls of her body.
Mary Jo took a deep breath, hoping her face was back to its normal color, and opened the door.
Jeff was reading in the light of the kerosene lamp, Jake at his feet.
Mary Jo had bought what books she could find for him. For herself too, if truth be told. She had a hunger for learning, for knowing everything she could, and she tried to kindle those same feelings in Jeff. Especially since he’d scoffed at the idea of going to college. According to him, a Ranger didn’t need that kind of education.
He looked up with a grin that had a bit of slyness to it. She suddenly wondered whether he had been watching, whether he had seen that kiss.
“Where’s Mr. Foster?”
“He needs some exercise,” she lied. “And time to himself.”
“I sure am glad he’s going to stay a while.”
Mary Jo wished she was just as glad. “Why don’t you take Jake outside, then get some sleep?”
“But it’s early.”
“We have a lot to do tomorrow. Go to town, spread the word we have a foreman and need some hands, then clean the room in the barn.”
“Why can’t he stay here? He can share my room.”
She shuddered inwardly at the thought. He would be near enough in the barn. Just the thought of what had occurred a few moments ago brought a flush to her cheeks. She hoped the light was dim enough to hide it.
“He’s a hired hand, Jeff,” she said, her tone sharper than she intended. Even Jake shook off his after-dinner lethargy and peered up at her with narrowed, puzzled eyes. “He won’t be here long.”
The excitement in Jeff’s face didn’t fade, and a wave of apprehension snaked through Mary Jo. She didn’t have time to emphasize Wade Foster’s temporary place in their household. Her son had already bounded up and headed out the door, Jake barking behind him.
That kiss had been a mistake.
Wade still tasted her. Would he always taste her?
He had intended to offend, to frighten, but instead had been burned himself, bewildered by the gentleness that inexplicably replaced the harsh attack he’d planned.
He couldn’t stay here. He’d been crazy to even consider it. Even if it weren’t for the damnable attraction between the woman and himself, he was too much of a danger. There had been too many wanted posters for him not to still be remembered.
No amount of hiding would ever get rid of those memories. Nothing would ever cloud the viciousness of those years. It had lasted longer than the war itself, starting years before and extending past the surrender. There had been no rules of war in Kansas or Missouri, none that anyone paid any mind to.
When would he ever look at the ground again and not see blood?
After all the horror, he had been given twelve years of life he didn’t deserve, eight of them lit by twin flames of hope, yet all the while shadowed by death, by a past that never left him.
And then that hope had been quenched when his wife and son died.
He wished they were, at least, in peace, that there really was a life up there in the sky with game running free and the breeze blowing fresh.
He wanted to believe that, but he’d stopped believing in any god when he was fifteen.
“Mr. Foster?”
Wade looked down at the boy standing there, the dog next to him. He wished like hell he could look at young Jeff Williams and not think of his own son.
“I’m really glad you’re staying.”
Wade unwound himself from the fence and set his feet on the ground. “I won’t be staying long, boy.”
“Long enough to teach Jake some tricks?”
No, something inside him screamed. He’d said he would stay, but he had broken his word before. Too many times. He’d said he would take care of Chivita. And there had been other promises, best not considered, best not remembered.
He looked away, across to the mountains; his mountains, his sanctuary. But they weren’t anymore. Never again. They too were bloodied now.
“Mr. Foster?”
“You don’t need me, boy,” he said. “Just time and patience. That dog’s a smart one. He wants to please. Just let him know what you expect of him.”
“But we do need you,” Jeff said earnestly. “Ma needs you.”
“You need me like you need the pox,” he said rudely. “My arm’s no good. I’m useless now.” He started limping away.
“You won’t change your mind, will you, Mr. Foster?” Wade pretended not to hear the boy’s plea.
He had changed his mind. A horse wasn’t worth the torment and danger of staying. Two more days and he could walk. He could live off the land; he’d done it before. He could probably still rig a snare. There would be berries, plants. Mary Jo Williams could keep her horses, her bargain. They would be better off without him.
He would be better off without them.
Wade kept walking, leaving the bewildered boy far behind, hating himself for disappointing the boy. But now was better than later, before the boy started to care.
He wanted to keep walking forever, away from the ranch house with its welcoming light from the kerosene lamps, the homey curtains, and the acceptance based on ignorance. One step, then another.
He stumbled, fell, his leg folding up under him. He cursed softly, listening to the words drift on the breeze, futile and weak.
Just as he had been after he’d buried his family in Missouri.
For two years Wade looked for their killers. He even went up into Kansas, changing his name and joining a group of violent free-staters to learn the identity of those responsible for that raid on his parents’ farm.
He’d learned to meld into the background, to keep his rage hidden behind bland eyes. That rage had continued to build as he failed to find the murderers. Then he began to consider all the free-staters his enemies. He had learned to smile at them, to drink with them, all the while planning their destruction. He had learned to be a liar, a thief, and a killer.
