Her Sheriff Bodyguard

“Thought you said you knew how to ride.”

“I do know how to ride, but not like this. I ride sidesaddle.”

Hawk groaned again. It figured. Not only that, she looked too elegant. Too starched, somehow.

“Get down,” he ordered.

Her eyes widened. “Why should I? I just got up here.”

“You don’t look right. You’re too...clean.”

She dismounted so fast he caught his breath, then stalked up to him and propped her hands on her hips. “Too what?” she demanded. “Ladies are supposed to be ‘clean.’”

He didn’t answer, just scooped up a double handful of dirt and stepped in close. “Don’t scream.”

He emptied his hands over her shoulders and rubbed the dust in all over her shirt and jeans. Mistake number two. He tried not to register what his fingers were feeling. She hit at him, so he caught her wrist and pinned it while he finished the job.

“Well!” she said when he released her and stepped back out of range. “Now that I look completely disreputable, are you satisfied?”

“Not yet.” He snatched off her new-looking hat and crumpled it in both hands, then dropped it onto the ground and stomped his boot on the crown.

When he straightened, Fernanda handed over her hat, as well. He noted she was trying not to laugh. Caroline, however, was looking daggers at him. No sense of humor, he guessed

She struggled up into the saddle by herself this time and Hawk felt a tiny dart of admiration for her resilience. Most women would burst into tears if a man smeared dirt all over them.

He caught his breath as a wayward thought struck home. Maybe Caroline MacFarlane wasn’t like most women.

Well, hell. He mounted and lifted the reins. “Walk the horses single file. Señora Sobrano, you bring up the rear.”

“Si, Señor Hawk.” The smile in her voice told him something he hadn’t thought of before. Fernanda Sobrano might be Caroline’s valued companion, but she didn’t put up with the lady’s airs. Or her temper. All at once, the trek to Gillette Springs looked almost enjoyable. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about getting bushwhacked. Nobody would expect them to ride the forty miles to Gillette Springs when a stagecoach was available.

They headed south. He hadn’t gone five steps before Miss High and Mighty’s voice rose in accusation. “Sheriff, we are headed in the wrong direction. Gillette Springs is north of Smoke River, is it not?”

“It is. We’re taking a roundabout route, just in case anybody’s watching.”

That shut her up. He especially liked Fernanda’s half-suppressed snort of laughter.

He led them south for a mile, then circled back onto the old river road and eventually headed north on a little-used trail he’d found on an afternoon spent fishing.

The women were quiet for the first couple of hours, and when they stopped to water the horses at a spring, Hawk studied them. Fernanda grinned at him, dismounted and scooped water up in her cupped hands. Caroline tried it but soon gave up.

Hawk thrust his canteen at her. “Here.”

She took it without a murmur, tipped the metal container to her lips and gulped three big swallows. “Tastes awful, like metal,” she complained.

“It is metal. It’s my old army canteen.”

“Oh? Which army, Union or Rebel?”

“I’m a Texan,” he said, his voice tight. “Ought to be obvious.”

“Si, is obvious,” Fernanda said from the other side of the spring. “Yankee soldiers not polite like Señor Rivera.”

Caroline bristled. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with Yankee manners.”

“No? Hija, your manners could use some improvement sometimes.”

Yankee Lady flounced back to her horse and scrambled ungracefully into the saddle. Hawk noticed she was walking a bit stiffly. By sundown she’d be saddle-sore and even more bad tempered. He expelled a long breath. Good thing he’d brought plenty of whiskey.

They stopped before dark in a thick copse of beech and sugar pines. “We stay here?” Fernanda asked.

“Yeah. Gillette Springs is forty miles from Smoke River. We’re almost halfway.” He watched the Mexican woman slide easily off her mount. Caroline sat frozen in the saddle, her head drooping.

Hawk didn’t ask if she needed help dismounting; he just walked over, snaked his hands around her waist and pulled her off the horse. She staggered, then sagged toward him. He caught her shoulders to keep her upright, but her legs wouldn’t support her.

“Fernanda, get a blanket from behind my saddle and spread it over there.” He tipped his head toward a patch of thick pine needles.

“Si, señor.”

“There’s some liniment in my saddlebag. Bring that, too.”

The older woman nodded. When she’d spread out the blanket, Hawk scooped Caroline up in his arms.

“Put me down this instant,” she cried.

He gritted his teeth. “Unless you want to crawl to that blanket, just shut up.” He knelt and rolled her onto the square of Navaho wool, then sat back on his heels.

“Listen, Miss MacFarlane. I didn’t want to come along on this trip. I don’t want to be here now, soft-talking you into behaving like a civilized person. So unless you want to take your chances alone in the middle of this woods, shape the hell up!”

He waited for a response, then lowered his voice so only she could hear. “From now on, you say please and thank you and act like a lady. You get my meaning?”

She nodded and Hawk saw that tears glistened in her eyes. Well, damn. He rose quickly and tramped over to his horse. He couldn’t stand a woman’s tears.

Fernanda found the jar of liniment and held it up with a question in her eyes.

“Smear it on her backside,” he instructed. “And her thighs,” he added. To take his mind off Caroline’s anatomy, he busied himself unsaddling and feeding the horses, then dug a hole for the fire so it couldn’t be seen and started to unpack supper from his saddlebag.

It didn’t help one bit hearing Caroline’s responses to the Mexican woman’s ministrations with the liniment. “Oh, that feels so good. Do some more, here. And here.”

Hawk tried to close his mind off from her voice, but she moaned and sighed like a cat in heat. “Ah, yes, right there. Yes! Oh. Oh. More.”

He swore under his breath and walked away from camp. When he returned an hour later, Fernanda was grinding coffee beans. Caroline limped over with the coffeepot she’d filled at the stream. Hawk lifted it out of her hands so she wouldn’t have to bend over.

“Thank you,” she murmured. She wouldn’t look at him, but her voice sounded like she’d been crying. He caught his breath. Sure was glad she couldn’t see his face in the dark.

While they ate the simple supper of canned beans and tomatoes and hot coffee, he found himself watching her. She sat slumped against a boulder, her knees bent, obviously trying not to move much. He figured her back was aching in spite of the liniment.

What the hell was a delicate slip of an overcivilized woman like Caroline MacFarlane doing traipsing around the country making people mad enough to want her dead?

Tomorrow, he’d ask her. That is, if she was still speaking to him after today.

Chapter Four

My lady very angry today. I think is because riding on horseback make her hurt. She is frightened, but she not admit. Señor Rivera say nothing, not even buenos días, until he drink three cups of the coffee I make extra strong. And I listen to my lady complain about everything, the blanket she sleep in, the boots, the biscuits he make for our supper, everything. She is mad, I think, because underneath she feel scared.

Caroline had never felt so miserable in her entire life, not even the hours spent in dusty stagecoaches rattling through the wilds of Oklahoma and Texas. She was hot and sticky and her derriere hurt as if she’d been bouncing for hours on a pincushion. A pincushion made of hard leather.

It was all the fault of that odious man, Rivera. He was bossy. Rude. And ill-mannered. No matter how admiringly Fernanda gazed at the tall sheriff, the man was nothing but a bully with a shiny silver badge.

With distaste she surveyed their sleeping arrangements for the night. A single blanket apiece and a saddle for a pillow? How primitive. Even the Indians slept in tents, did they not?

Fernanda had taken the tin plates and spoons to rinse off in the stream; when she returned Caroline would ask her to hold up a blanket so she could undress in what limited privacy she could manage. She wondered with a stab of unease whether she would be able to get her boots off without bending over.

Rivera strode off to hobble the horses and she seized her chance. “Fernanda, hold up one of those blankets to make a screen, would you?”

“But you don’t need—”

“Just do it,” she hissed. “Quickly! Before he gets back.”

Her companion sent her an odd look but dutifully unrolled a square of striped wool and held it aloft. Caroline stepped behind it and started to undo her shirt.

“Hold it!” An unwelcome male voice stopped her midbutton.

“I am undressing, Mr. Rivera. Turn your back. Please,” she added as an afterthought. She couldn’t stand the thought that he would laugh at her. But the truth was she was, well, frightened. She didn’t know how to behave in a camp out in the wilderness with a man nearby.

“Not so fast. Out here on the trail we sleep in our clothes.”

“You may do just that, sir. I, however, will not.”

Before she could slip free one more button, he yanked the blanket out of Fernanda’s upraised hands and tossed it onto the bed of pine needles behind him.

“You hard of hearing? I said out here—”

“I heard you perfectly well. The question is, did you hear me?” She couldn’t continue undressing until he turned away. Caroline pressed her lips together and waited.

“Button yourself back up, lady. You’re gonna sleep fully clothed.”

“I—I cannot.” She would not let him see how uncertain she felt about sleeping out in the open. Next to a man. Most of all, she could not confess that her stiff denim jeans chafed the inside of her thighs, despite the liniment Fernanda had rubbed on earlier. Or that her sunburned neck smarted under her shirt collar. She needed to be free of anything that rubbed her skin.

“Like hell,” he muttered. The next thing she knew he had yanked her up like a sack of meal and dumped her onto the blanket closest to the fire pit.

“Ouch!”

He knelt next to her. “I’ll take off your boots so you won’t have to stretch. Give me your foot.” He turned his back, straddled her leg and began pulling off the leather boots.

How humiliating! With her foot in his control she could not wriggle away from him. Oh, she felt so out of place in the West. So incompetent. She hated not knowing how to do something as simple as taking off her own boots.

But the relief she felt when her boot came off overcame her urge to complain. Bliss! She flexed her toes and closed her eyes with pleasure.

“I think my boots are too small,” she said. “My heels are rubbed raw.”

“Not too small,” he countered. “They’re too big. That’s why they rub.” He took her foot in both hands and stripped off her sock.

“Blisters,” he muttered. “Hot damn.”

“Well it isn’t my fault,” she blurted out. “You were the one who insisted on horses. And boots.”

“Yeah, I did. Stop complaining. You’re alive, aren’t you?”

“Well!” She had never met a man so bad tempered and prone to give orders. She’d bet he’d been at least a colonel in the Rebel army. Maybe even a general.

“Fernanda,” he said over his shoulder to her companion. “You have an extra pair of socks with you?”

“Si. I have extra.” She rummaged in the small canvas bag he had allowed them and pulled out another bulky pair of boy’s socks.

“Your boots fit okay, señora?” he asked.

“Sí.” To demonstrate Fernanda executed a few dance steps, snapping her fingers over her head. “Fine boots, señor. Gracias.”

Caroline’s mouth fell open. She had never, ever seen Fernanda dance. Or even walk fast. Even in Texas, when Mama had hired the Mexican woman as a nurse, she had been the epitome of decorum. What had come over her?

That man, Rivera, had come over her, that’s what. Caroline sensed some unspoken connection between Rivera and Fernanda, but she could not imagine what it was. He was at least ten years Fernanda’s junior, and unless he preferred older women...

How reprehensible! The man was surely taking advantage of her friend.

She tried to yank her foot away, but his big hands held her fast. He massaged her toes, then her arch, and finally drew on the extra sock. Then he picked up her other foot and pulled off the leather boot.

“Tomorrow I’ll help you get your boots back on,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“There is absolutely no need,” she protested. “I have been capable of dressing myself since I was three years old.”

“Did you wear Western boots when you were three years old?”

She flinched. “Certainly not. I wore dresses, like any proper young girl.”

Without a word he dropped her foot, folded the boot tops over and slapped them down next to her saddle. “Good night, Miss MacFarlane. Use your boots for a pillow.”

“Good night? How am I supposed to sleep with just one blanket and a smelly pair of boots?”

He towered over her, then squatted on his haunches down to her level. “You sleep any way you like, Miss MacFarlane. You roll yourself up in the blanket, like a pancake. Personally, I prefer using my saddle as a pillow, but you suit yourself.”

She glared up at him. “I most certainly will not roll myself—”

He said nothing, just straightened to his full height and looked down at her. His eyes did strange things to her equilibrium.

“What if I get cold during the night?”

“You won’t. It’s the middle of the summer. Stays hot all night.”

“Oh.” Again she stuffed down the unwelcome feeling of incompetence. She should have deduced that about the weather.

“Do not worry, mi corazón, you will be close to the fire.”

Caroline bit her lip, hunkered down on the blanket, and pulled both corners up around her. Roll over like a pancake? How did one accomplish that?

She rolled to her left and felt the muscles in her back clench. She reversed direction, but the blanket wouldn’t cover her completely.

All at once the blanket was yanked out from under her and a hand settled on her backside. “Like this.” He tucked one edge under her back and rolled her over twice. The blanket snugged up tight around her body.

“Just like a tortilla,” Fernanda chortled. “Mi hija, pretend you are the molé sauce.”

In the next moment he slid his palm under her neck and stuffed her folded boots underneath her head. She clamped her jaw tight shut and watched Fernanda toe off her boots and roll herself up in her own blanket.

Rivera did the same. She noticed he had positioned both herself and Fernanda next to the fire; he slept on the outside.

Well, at least that was gentlemanly.

* * *

Hawk listened to the quiet breathing of the two women and hoped he’d dropped enough dry wood into the fire pit to last the night. Not that they’d need the warmth, but the flames would keep away predators. He drew in a careful breath. Coyotes, maybe. Not men.

He’d scouted the area around the camp and found no tracks but Red’s and those of the two mares. Maybe Fernanda was wrong about someone trying to kill Miss MacFarlane.

He closed his eyes and tried not to remember how Caroline MacFarlane looked with her shirt half-unbuttoned. A song sparrow twittered among the branches of a nearby alder. Funny how a bird’s singing could fill a man full of questions about his life. He wondered if his deathbed reflections about the decisions he’d made in his life would make it all clear someday. Then he snorted. He’d save his deathbed confession for when the time came.

He opened his eyes and looked up at the fat silver globe of a moon floating above the trees. Suddenly something startled the bird into silence, and the hair on his neck rose. He hadn’t heard a horse. Hadn’t heard a single footstep. Very slowly he sat up and reached for his rifle.

A shadow glided behind a thick pine trunk and he thumbed back the hammer. What would a man on foot be doing twenty miles from the nearest town? Maybe a renegade Indian, looking for food?

Or it might be that someone had trailed them, left his mount a mile or so back and sneaked up on the camp.

He got to his feet and crept forward toward the tree. If it was a man intent on harming someone, he’d bet that someone was not himself. Those who held grudges against him he’d left back in Texas, and besides, too much time had passed since his Ranger days. A Mescalero would have caught up with him by now.

He walked to within arm’s length of the pine, dug a pebble from his shirt pocket and tossed it off to one side. Nothing, not even an indrawn breath. He chanced a deliberately noisy step onto a dry twig. Still nothing. Then he moved so he could see what was behind the trunk.

Nothing but moonlight and tall trees. Either his imagination was working too hard or he was getting jumpy with two females on his hands. Or...

Then he heard the far-off thud of hoofbeats, and his blood ran cold. Someone had been here. On foot, and so quiet there hadn’t been even a warning nicker from the horses. He should have heard something. Anything. God, was he getting old?

He released the hammer, stalked back into camp and dropped the Winchester next to his bedroll.

“Señor?”

“It was nothing, Fernanda. Go back to sleep.”

“You lie, my friend. I hear the horse, too.”

“You’ve got good ears, señora.”

“Ay, that is true.” There was a long pause and then the Mexican woman’s soft voice spoke again. “I have learned to listen, señor.”

Hawk didn’t sleep. He didn’t even try, just lay awake with his thoughts and his doubts and his fears. Not for himself, but for the spirited, headstrong crusader who slept a short distance away from him. She was a damn fool of a woman, sticking her nose where it didn’t belong.

But he’d agreed to protect her, and he would. Stealthily he moved his bedroll as close to hers as he could get without waking her.

Tomorrow he’d teach her how to shoot his revolver.

* * *

“Señora, can you fire a pistol?”

“Sí.”

“A pistol!” Caroline spluttered.

“Sí. I carry a pistola always in my pocket.”

“What?” Her voice rose an octave. “Fernanda, you never told me that.”

“You never ask, mi corazón. Besides, I never tell you lots of things.”

Caroline struggled to her feet and immediately regretted it. Her legs felt stiff as new sofa springs. Nevertheless, she marched over to Fernanda, who sat placidly beside the fire pit eating the last of the biscuits. Before she could confront the Mexican woman, Rivera laid his big hand on Caroline’s shoulder and spun her toward him so fast it made her dizzy.

“There’s something I want to show you before we get started.”

“Oh? And what is that, Mr. Rivera? How to take off my boots, perhaps?”

A smile flickered. The first hint of any humor in the taciturn sheriff and a welcome change from that smoldering anger in his green eyes and the perpetual frown he wore. My goodness, what a sourpuss he was. He’d be nice-looking if his face were not so scrunched up.

“Nothing to do with boots,” he said in that maddeningly calm voice of his. Didn’t he ever get excited about anything? Even Fernanda’s impromptu fandango last night hadn’t cracked his impassive expression. He must have been a superb soldier in the War, imperturbable as a sphinx under fire.

She sniffed. “Well, what is it? Show me and let us be on our way. I have a speaking engagement in Gillette Springs this evening.”

He shot her a look. “I want you to learn to use a revolver.”

She sucked in a breath. “I beg your pardon? What on earth for?” The very thought of putting her hand on a firearm sent a shudder up her spine. Did women out West actually do such brazen things?

“For protection.”

“Yours or mine? No well-bred lady handles firearms.”

“No well-bred lady travels out West lighting fires under half the population without knowing how to protect herself.”

“Lighting fires? Well, I should hope so. For your information, Mr. Rivera, ‘lighting fires’ is going to be the salvation of womankind.”

He said nothing, just took hold of her upper arm and propelled her away from the fire. Fernanda fled to the stream with the empty tin cups and the coffeepot.

He slid his revolver out of the holster on his hip, spilled the chambered bullets into his palm and thrust the weapon at her, holding it by the blued steel barrel. She knocked it out of his hand onto the ground.

His eyes narrowed into glittery emerald slits. “Pick it up,” he ordered.

“I can’t. I am too stiff to bend over.”

“Then you shouldn’t have dropped the gun. I said pick it up.” He put one hand at her waist and the other at her back and jackknifed her body. She groaned through gritted teeth.

“Pick it up,” he repeated.

She scrabbled on the ground and managed to grab the long barrel, but it was heavier than she expected. She couldn’t lift it with one hand.

“Use two hands,” he ordered.

She pushed the weapon toward her other hand and grasped the handle.

“Now straighten up.” He bit the words out like firecrackers going off.

“You got me doubled over like this,” she said. “You can get me to straighten up.”

Too late she realized her mistake. He slapped one hand on her midsection, grasped her shoulder with the other and yanked her upright.

Her muscles screamed and she wanted to weep with frustration. She thought about stamping her foot onto his toe, but she knew she couldn’t lift it high enough.

“Now,” he instructed, positioning her hand on the gun. “Fold your fingers around the butt and slip your forefinger onto the trigger.” He laid his hand over hers and curled her fingers over the handle. She couldn’t hold up the weight, and the barrel drooped toward the ground.

“You right-handed?” When she nodded, he grabbed her left hand and pressed her fingers on the opposite side. “Hold it steady.”

“I am trying! It is too heavy for a woman.”

“Not too heavy for a crusader,” he said drily.

She glanced into his face. “You think I am a crusader?”

“Hell, yes.” He stepped behind her, brought both hands around her body and rested them under her forearms to steady her grip.

She didn’t like the feel of him at her back. Or the warmth of his arms around hers. Or anything. He smelled of leather and wood smoke and sweat. Well, she acknowledged, she probably smelled the same. He didn’t seem to mind, because he moved his jaw right up against her hair.

“Breathe in,” he said. “Now breathe out.”

She couldn’t. Not with him so close. Not without revealing how uneven her breathing had become all of a sudden.

He lifted her forearms and the gun barrel leveled off parallel to the ground. “Now sight down the barrel.”

“Sight? What does that mean, ‘sight’?”

He snorted. “Hell, lady, it means aim the damn gun!” With his chin he nudged her head down. “Look through those two little notches and point the barrel at something.”

She’d like to point it at him. Instead she swung the weapon toward a low-hanging branch.

“Now squeeze the trigger.”

She heard a metallic snap.

“Good. Now we’ll try it with a bullet.”

Patiently Hawk showed her how to crack open the chamber and slide the cartridges into the slots. She was a quick study, and that surprised him. He only had to show her something once. She was obviously intelligent. Probably had attended some fancy girls’ school, maybe even college.

When she’d loaded his revolver he instructed her about not swinging the barrel around but keeping it pointed down, then showed her how to release the hammer.