Lynna Banning Read online

  “You didn’t.”

  “Then I hope you won’t dwell on what just…occurred between us.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it,” Ben lied.

  “I was just so glad to be alive, and safe, that I lost my head.”

  Ben nodded, his chin brushing the top of her head. “Sure, Jess. Happens all the time.”

  She jerked away. “All the time?” Frost tinged her words. “You mean this has happened before?”

  Ben gazed down into eyes so green and hard they shone like polished agates. “No,” he said truthfully.

  “Oh.” The silence lengthened. Ben remained motionless, his hands at her waist.

  The pull of the tension between them drove all rational thought from her mind. She didn’t want him to move. She wanted him to—

  “Time to mount up,” he said quietly.

  “Yes.”

  “Should reach town by afternoon.”

  Jessamyn hesitated. “Yes,” she said again.

  Ben chuckled. “I’ll bet my spurs you’re dying for a hot bath.” He made no attempt to move away from her.

  “Cora’s probably heating the water right now,” she murmured. “But after crossing the river back there…” Her voice trailed off. She did long for a bath in Cora’s cozy, savory-smelling kitchen. But just the same, she hated this journey to end, hated the adventure—all of it, right down to Ben’s heart-stopping kiss—to end.

  She wrenched her mind away from the glorious experience. She thought of Papa, of his life out here in the West. He must have had plenty of excitement in this rough, untamed place. He’d written in the Wildwood Times about some of his adventures. His editorials were full of fascinating events and places, captured in vibrant detail.

  She’d do exactly the same, she resolved. She had to focus on her newspaper, not on Ben Kearney. She’d work hard, make every issue of the Wildwood Times sparkle with interesting vignettes, move her readers to tears with heartfelt descriptions of people and events in Douglas County.

  But to do that, she had to get her mind off the man who still held her in his arms. She had to ride back to town and set some type.

  She spun on her heel and made her way to the gentle gray mare waiting patiently beside Ben’s big-boned gelding. Without looking at Ben, she hooked her toe in the stirrup and hoisted herself up into the saddle.

  For the next hour they rode in tense silence, following the snakelike course of the river. They skirted fences enclosing green alfalfa fields and rolling pastureland so lush it looked like dimpled velvet. Eventually, they picked up their original trail. Side by side they drew inexorably closer to Wildwood Valley and civilization.

  Part of Jessamyn rejoiced at their return. She wasn’t a horsewoman, she was a newspaper editor. She had her notes, and her ideas for her lead stories, and she itched to get to work. Another part of her longed to just keep riding beside the tall, quiet man who had coaxed her body into aching response just a few miles back.

  Now his touching her, kissing her, seemed unreal, like a dream she must have fashioned out of relief and exhaustion. She gave herself a mental shake, then settled into the memory again. Real or not, she knew she would never forget the feel of Ben’s warm mouth on hers, his shaking fingers laced in her hair.

  She shivered with delight, and an odd sense of loss swelled inside her. She snatched off Frank’s hat, tossed her hair loose in the hot sunlight. She wanted to see that same expression kindle in Ben’s eyes—that indefinable look of hunger tinged with fear. She cast a covert glance at him.

  Ben’s attention was not on her. Instead, his smoke blue eyes focused on something far off in the distance, ahead of them. With a swift intake of breath, Jessamyn followed the direction of his narrowed gaze.

  Riders. Two of them, judging by the size of the dust cloud kicked up by their horses.

  And coming fast.

  “Wait here,” Ben ordered. He spurred his mount forward to meet the two men at a jog in the trail. Pulling the gelding up short, he raised his hand in greeting.

  Jeremiah touched two blunt fingers to his hat brim. “Got trouble, Ben.”

  Silas Appleby glowered at him from under his Stetson. “Forty more head gone, just like that!” He slapped his leather gloves against his palm. “Forty head! Goddammit, Ben, whoever took ‘em must have known you were gone. I’m positive it’s those Indians.”

  Ben sat back in the saddle and pulled one knee to rest on the saddle horn. Leaning over it, he eyed the angry rancher. “Positive, are you?”

  “Damn right! I wanted to round up a posse, but your deputy threatened to put me in jail if I so much as opened my mouth.”

  Behind the sandy-haired rancher, Jeremiah shrugged his broad shoulders, his palms turned up.

  Ben shook his head. “It’s not Indians, Si. I’ve been in their camp the past two days. Not one of them’s been rustling any cows from around here.”

  Jeremiah grinned. “That railroad fella’s in town again,” he said after a moment. “Larsen, remember? He’s talkin’ posse, too.”

  Ben lifted his hat, wiped the sweat from his forehead with his shirtsleeve and raked a hand through his hair. “Larsen’s worried about his investment.”

  “Well, hell, Ben,” Silas retorted. “So’m I! All tallied up, that makes near a hundred head taken right under my nose!” He rolled a cigarette with shaking hands, offered it to Ben and started on another. “I’m not stupid, Ben. And I’m not blind. How the devil—”

  “Don’t know how, Si,” Ben interjected. “Might have an idea as to who, though.” He watched the rancher’s eyes come alive with interest.

  “Yeah?” Silas exhaled a puff of blue smoke into the dusty air.

  Ben studied Silas’s freckled face. “Yeah. Could be somebody right here in the valley.”

  The rancher’s eyes widened. “What? Why, that’s crazy. Why would—”

  He stopped short as Jessamyn rode up on her mare. He touched his hat. “Ma’am.”

  Ben didn’t like the light that flared in Silas’s eyes as he took in the tumbled mass of wavy hair sheathing Jessamyn’s shoulders. The rancher gazed at her like a moonstruck puppy.

  Jeremiah moved over to make room for her mare. “Miss Jessamyn. You’re ridin’ pretty good now.” His dark eyes twinkled. “I expect Ben kept you pretty saddle-weary.”

  “Yes, he did, Jeremiah. But I did learn to ride, didn’t I?”

  The deputy chuckled. “You surely did, Miss Jessamyn. Look mighty fine on a horse now. Just like a fine-trained Carolina lady.” He shot a quick look at Ben, engaged in a heated exchange with Silas Appleby. “Yessir, mighty fine.”

  “Jeremiah, the truth is, I learned a lot more on this trip than how to ride.” She smiled at the deputy. “And none of it was easy.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Seems like nothin’ worthwhile in life ever comes for free.” A somber look passed over his face, then he chuckled again. “Come on. Miz Boult’s got a hot supper waitin’ for you. We been expectin’ you for the last day and a half.”

  The deputy pulled his horse abreast of Ben’s gelding. “Ben, didja see Walks Dancing?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t talk to her much, though. Black Eagle keeps a close watch on her.”

  “She married yet?”

  “Not yet. Soon, though. The chief’s getting on in years. He needs sons, grandsons to follow him.”

  Suddenly serious, Jeremiah shook his head. “Yeah. Like I figured. Thanks, Ben.” He turned his mount toward town.

  Jessamyn fell in beside him, only half listening to the continuing dialogue between Ben and Silas Appleby. She couldn’t wait to get home, breathe in the wonderful scents in Cora’s kitchen, run her hands over the polished mahogany banister, the cool, smooth sheets she knew Cora would have put on the bed in her yellow-papered bedroom. Her own bedroom. In her own house. Pride and gratitude for the gift Papa had left her bubbled in her breast.

  And her newspaper. After a bath and some supper, she’d walk over to the Wildwood Times office and start composing her firs
t story. Provided, she admitted to herself, she could concentrate on the words long enough to make coherent paragraphs. The story was already sketched out in her notebook; all she had to do was refresh her memory and follow the outline she’d written down.

  She sucked in a shaky breath and kicked the mare into a canter. All she had to do was stop thinking about Ben Kearney, stop remembering the low, rumbly sound of his voice, the unsettling male scent of his body, heavy with horse sweat and pine soap.

  She rode out ahead of the three men. If Ben disturbed her, well, then, she’d have to find something to take her mind off him. Publishing her first edition of the Wildwood Times should do just that. No matter how compelling his presence, Ben was merely an attractive but transitory interest.

  Her newspaper was her whole life.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Child, child!” Cora Boult pulled Jessamyn into a bosomy hug. “If you don’t look a sight!”

  “Oh, Cora, it’s so good to be home. And I’m so hungry!”

  “’Course you are. I’ve got a nice stewed…” The housekeeper hesitated at Jessamyn’s quick intake of breath.

  “Chicken,” she finished.

  “Oh, thank God,” Jessamyn murmured.

  “Say, what’s the sheriff been feedin’ you, anyway?” Cora huffed. “You look positively peaked.”

  “Don’t even ask,” Jessamyn managed.

  The housekeeper grinned. “If you say so. Say, lookee there, on the table.”

  Jessamyn swept her gaze to the bouquet of pearly pink roses jammed into one of Cora’s glass canning jars. She bent to sniff the fragrant blooms. “Oh, they’re lovely. Bathwater must be a special elixir for your roses. They smell extra nice—spicy, like vanilla cookies.”

  “Ain’t any roses I grew, honey. Gus, down at the livery stable, brung ‘em. Said they was ‘Male Mason,’ or somethin’ like that.”

  “Malmaison,” Jessamyn pronounced.

  “You know, I think Gus is kinda sweet on you.”

  Jessamyn started. “Sweet on me! Whatever for?”

  Cora propped both hands on her ample hips. “For courtin’, that’s what. You want to stay an old—a maiden lady all yer life?”

  “I never thought about marrying,” Jessamyn said slowly. “All my life I’ve planned to run a newspaper.”

  “Humph. ’T’ain’t natural. I never seen Gus take roses to anybody else before. Don’t make no nevermind that he runs the livery stable, he’s a fine man, Gus is. He was an officer in the Union army, you know. That’s how come he lost his eye. Don’t never mention it, though. He likes horses, is all. When he first rode into town he didn’t like how the blacksmith was treatin’ the animals, so he up an’ bought the place. Paid cash, too. You listening, child?”

  Jessamyn sighed. “I’m listening, Cora.”

  “Anyway, he’s been here in the valley ever since. And I never saw him take anyone roses before.”

  Cora moved about the kitchen, continuing her recitation as she clattered pot lids and iron spoons, but her voice faded from Jessamyn’s consciousness. She didn’t want to think about roses or Gus or anything beyond filling her growling stomach and settling herself at Papa’s big oak desk over at the newspaper office. She especially didn’t want to think about courting.

  “Yes, Cora,” she said absently. “Mmm-hmm. And roses… Yes, lovely.” One thing in particular she didn’t want to think about was Wildwood Valley’s tanned, longlimbed sheriff.

  “…are you?” Cora finished on a question.

  Jessamyn started. “Am I what?”

  Cora drew herself up. “Are you gonna eat your supper in them duds, or are you wantin’ to get back into proper petticoats again?”

  Jessamyn had to laugh. She gave the older woman a quick hug and planted a kiss on the lined cheek. “It doesn’t matter. I’m so hungry I could eat stark naked!”

  At the housekeeper’s startled expression, Jessamyn unhooked her wide leather belt and pulled the rumpled red shirt free of the waistband. The moment she began to unbutton the plaid garment, she thought of Ben. Her fingers stilled.

  Ben certainly wasn’t courting her, as Cora termed it. The sheriff had barely tolerated her for most of their journey together. It took days for him to even be civil until the end, and then he’d…

  She closed her eyes at the memory of his hands moving over her back, the taste of his mouth. Maybe she didn’t want a man to come calling, bringing her roses and making polite talk. All she wanted was Ben Kearney to kiss her again.

  She snapped open her eyelids. She’d die before she’d admit such a thing to Cora, or anyone else. It was unsettling enough to acknowledge it to herself.

  By the time Jessamyn arrived at the front door of the Wildwood Times office, darkness blanketed the town’s main street. Even Charlie’s Red Fox Saloon was unusually quiet. Maybe, she reasoned, because it was Friday, and the ranch owners and cowboys who caroused with boisterous abandon on Saturday night reined in their high spirits until then. Or maybe their wives—the ones who had wives—insisted their menfolk accompany them to evening prayer meeting.

  The sound of singing rose from the painted clapboard church at the far end of town, floating on the soft June air. Jessamyn hummed along as she unlocked the office door, propping it ajar to enjoy both the hymns and the warm, honeysuckle-scented breeze.

  “Rock of ages, cleft for me…” She lit the oil lamp, draped her blue paisley shawl over the desk chair and ducked into the back room where sectioned type cases lined the wall behind the wide, slanted worktable.

  Her pulse tripped. She couldn’t wait to compose her story, lay the completed type stick into the frame and lock it up. But first she had to get the words down on paper. She turned toward the desk. With deft fingers, she tied a starched work apron over her blue striped gingham skirt, then searched her pocket for the notebook she’d filled on her journey into the mountains. Settling herself at her father’s battered desk, she flipped the pad open.

  Merciful heavens! Jessamyn stared in dismay at the pages of fuzzy, water-washed writing. She’d carried the pad in her shirt pocket all during the trek with Ben. Now, after her unplanned dunking while crossing the river, she couldn’t decipher one single word.

  She snapped it shut and groaned aloud. All her notes— visual impressions of Black Eagle and the Indian camp hidden high in the mountains, all Ben’s thoughtful, careful answers to her probing questions—gone. Washed away by the river’s swift current.

  Dumbfounded, she stared at the ruined pages. She’d have to start from scratch, draw on her memory to re-create her story.

  Close to despair, she bent her head. After a moment she slid open the top desk drawer, closed her fingers around a thick pencil. If she worked all night and through tomorrow, she might still be ready to go to press on Tuesday.

  Her thoughts churned. She sat motionless for a long minute, then drew in a deep breath, smoothed a sheet of scratch paper onto the desk top and began to write.

  Sheriff Kearney On Trail Of Cattle Thief Douglas County Sheriff Benning Kearney suspects the cattle thief raiding Wildwood Valley herds is in league with someone supplying illegal firearms to the Indians. Kearney concluded this following a recent trip into the Calapooya Mountain country….

  She finished the paragraph and read the final sentence out loud. “It remains for Sheriff Kearney to unravel the mystery, but one thing is now clear. Identifying the thief is only a matter of time.”

  Jessamyn sighed in satisfaction. Bustling toward the composing table, she reached for her type stick.

  Ben lifted his niece’s small frame out of his saddle where she’d sat the past quarter mile and set her carefully on the bottom porch step of his brother’s ranch house.

  “Go on in now, Alice. Tell your mama I’ll be along to supper after I feed old Blackie here and wash up at the pump.”

  The child bolted up the steps, and the door slammed behind her. Ben shook his head.

  A part of him—a part he barely recognized it was so ruste
d over from years of denial—longed to share in the easy laughter and affection between two people who loved each other.

  He’d had to force himself to saddle the gelding and ride out here today. The painful contrast between his brother’s full life with the woman to whom he’d pledged his life and Ben’s own existence—that of a hardscrabbling soul trying to find itself again, as Jeremiah put it—was all too sharp.

  Sunday nights after supper at the Double K Ben slept badly, tossing on the hard, narrow cot behind the sheriffs office until Jeremiah grumbled about being awakened.

  “You don’ need this, Ben,” the deputy always observed. “You need a woman—a permanent kind of woman. You gave up on Miss Lorena back home, but you’d best get on with your life pretty quick now, or it’ll be too late. No sensible woman wants a burned-out ol’ soldier with a busted heart on his sleeve.”

  Ben swore out loud just thinking about his deputy’s oftrepeated litany. Hell, he’d worked hard to “get on with his life” after the war. After Lorena. When his right arm had stiffened up from the wound near his shoulder, he’d taught himself to eat and write, even shoot left-handed. Over the years, he got to where he could put a bullet between a man’s eyes at twenty yards.

  But let a woman get close? Never again. In the first place, he was old. And tired. At thirty-six, after years surviving on battlefields in the South and then in Dakota, he was burned out. He didn’t have an interest in courting a woman.

  Or the courage.

  A calico queen he could tumble into bed and forget the next morning. A lady was another matter. For one thing, he’d never met one he could stand listening to more than an hour. Charlie’s calico girls didn’t talk much. They did what was needed, and that was that. The act might be pretty perfunctory, but it was safer than getting tangled up in the clutches of some clinging vine.

  Like Lorena. Damned spoiled and self-centered. He hoped she was happy with the rich carpetbagger landlord of a husband she’d married after he left. He wondered if she would tie up another man’s heart, and his confidence, and make mincemeat out of them, too.