The Stranger

Caleb gazed at her numbly, feeling as if he’d been kicked in the face. Lord, why hadn’t he walked away while he had the chance? If she’d run him off the ranch with the shotgun, he’d have been fine with it. But her declaration of trust, however reluctant, had undone him. Guilt knotted his innards with a pain so physical that he wanted to double over and groan.

Part of him wanted to know more. Had Laura been able to get help? Had she gone to the law with descriptions of the three men? Were he and his brothers wanted for the crime? But this was no time to ask. He’d pushed her far enough.

“I’m right sorry for what happened,” he muttered, taking a bite of food that had lost its taste. “I’ll be glad to stay, and grateful for the work. But if I do anything to make you nervous, just say so. I’ll be gone in the time it takes to saddle my horse. Understood?”

“Yes, and thank you.” She nibbled at a biscuit, then set it back on her plate. Both of them, it seemed, had lost their appetites.

The silence in the darkening room grew long and heavy. Caleb was relieved when Robbie woke up in the bedroom and began to whimper. Laura flitted away from the table. Moments later he could hear her through the open doorway, crooning a velvety lullaby to her son. Caleb forced himself to finish the stew and biscuits on his plate. He had a hard day’s work ahead tomorrow, he reminded himself. And he certainly didn’t want Laura to think there was anything wrong with her cooking.

He was sopping up the last of the gravy when she came back into the kitchen. By now it was almost dark. She paused to light the lamp on the counter. The match flickered in the gloom; then the golden light flooded her face, making her look as softly beautiful as the Madonna Caleb had once seen in an old Spanish church.

“Just a bad dream,” she murmured. “I got him into his nightshirt, and he went back to sleep. There’s pie if you’re still hungry.” When Caleb shook his head, she added, “You must be tired. Will you need a lantern to lay out your bedroll?”

It was a clear dismissal. Caleb slid back his chair and rose to his feet. “I cleared away a spot in the toolshed before I came in,” he said. “I’ll be fine. But let me put the milk and butter back in the springhouse for you. It’s getting dark out there. Might not be safe for a woman alone.”

The words were out of his mouth before he remembered. He’d made the same offer on that long-ago day when Zeke had cornered her in the springhouse. If she’d accepted his help then, the tragedy might never have happened.

This time she nodded and fumbled in her apron pocket. “Thanks. I’ll give you the key to the padlock. You can leave it on the nail by the back door when you’re finished.”

Again those firm words of dismissal, making sure he knew that she didn’t want him coming back inside. Caleb understood her reasons all too well. Still, it pained him that she felt the need to speak.

The miniature brass key glimmered as she drew it out of her pocket. Caleb reached out to take it from her. For the barest instant, his fingers touched hers.

Her fingertips were as callused and rough as his own. But the warmth of her flesh went through Caleb like a flash flood of raw need. He had touched her before—surely he had—when they were tending to Robbie’s arm. But this time the awareness of her, of every sweet, womanly part of her, left him dry-mouthed and dizzy.

For that instant, the only thing on his mind was wanting more.

The clatter of the key, dropping to the tiles, brought him back to his senses. With a muttered curse, Caleb dropped to his knees and fumbled in the darkness under the table. Laura bent close with the lantern. He could hear the silky rasp of her breathing behind him. Lord help him if he didn’t find that key—

“Got it!” His hand touched metal. He clambered to his feet, his fingers gripping the key, pressing its small, cold shape into his palm. Laura’s eyes were smoky in the lamplight. She took a step backward, widening the distance between them.

“Sorry,” he muttered, jamming the key into his own pocket. “Are you sure you want to trust these hands with your precious milk and butter?”

She forced a weary smile as she thrust the milk jug and the covered butter jar into his hands. He’d be all right now, Caleb told himself. He wouldn’t be tempted to brush his knuckle along her cheek as he left, or to lay a too-casual hand across her shoulder. He couldn’t allow himself to touch her again; that much he knew.

“Have a good night’s rest,” she said, opening the kitchen door for him. “When I see you up in the morning, I’ll call you in to breakfast.”

“That’s right kind of you. I’m looking forward to more of your good food.” Caleb moved out into the twilight. The door closed behind him, then jerked open again, flooding the stoop with light.

“Close the door of the shed before you go to sleep,” she said. “We get skunks in the yard, looking for eggs and food scraps. One morning I even found a rattler in the corral. I killed it with the shotgun. They like warm places where they can crawl in and hide. Believe me, you don’t want one of those for a bed partner.”

Caleb gave her a nod. “Thanks for the warning. We had skunks and rattlers back in Texas, too. Some of them were the two-legged kind. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. And you’ll be safe with me here.”

This time, when she closed the door behind him he heard the sharp, metallic click of the bolt.

Enough light remained for Caleb to see his way to the springhouse, but night was falling fast. He balanced his burden against the wall while he fumbled with the lock, turned the key and released the hasp. The door creaked inward and he stepped into the shadows.

The hair rose on the back of his neck as the nightmare memories crept around him. Laura’s anguished screams echoed off the walls, ripping through his senses. He felt the awful snap of bone and his own sick helplessness as Zeke’s blade opened her beautiful face. His eyes recoiled from the glint of light on Mark Shafton’s rifle and from Noah’s dark bulk in the glare of the sunlit doorway. The air was thick and smothering like a foul hand clamped over his face, shutting off his breath. It was as if the fear and evil born in that dank place had taken on a life of its own. All Caleb wanted was to get out of there.

His hands shook as he replaced the milk and butter in the cool box and stumbled out into the night. His mother had warned him about the spirits that lingered in places where some awful event had occurred. As a man, Caleb had chalked her stories up to Comanche superstition—until now.

Laura went in and out of the springhouse every day, he reminded himself. Did the horror of the place haunt her as it had haunted him? Or had she managed to wall it off into some forbidden corner of her mind? Caleb’s jaw clenched at the thought of what she must have suffered and the courage it must have taken for her to stay here alone.

Filling his lungs with the cool evening air, he closed the padlock and hung the key on the nail beside the back door. Lamplight flickered through the window as Laura went about her work in the kitchen. Caleb pictured her small, quick hands, washing, wiping, putting everything in order for tomorrow. What would it feel like, he wondered, to stand behind her, wrap his arms around her shoulders and cradle her gently against him? He wouldn’t ask heaven for more—just holding her would be enough, feeling her warmth and smelling the sweet, clean aroma of her hair. That was what he’d missed most in the past five years. In most any town there were whores who could be had for a few dollars, but simple tenderness was beyond any price he could pay.

Frustrated, he turned away from the house and walked toward the shed where he’d laid out his bedroll. In the east a waning teardrop of a moon hung above the horizon. Clouds floated across its pitted face. The moon was scarred, and yet it was the most beautiful object in the sky. What would Laura say if he told her that?

But what was he thinking? He was a half-breed and an ex-convict. Even if his family’s crime could be rubbed out and forgotten, a woman like Laura wouldn’t be caught walking down the street with him.

He crossed the yard, keeping an eye out for skunks and rattlesnakes. His horse stood dozing in the corral. Its ears twitched as Caleb passed the fence. He could saddle up and go tonight, he thought. Maybe he’d ride south, skirting the foothills, all the way to Mexico. He could build a new life there, with his own little ranch and a fiery-eyed señorita who didn’t give a damn about his past as long as he bought her pretty things to wear.

But no, he had fences to mend, firewood to chop and ditches to clear. He had an injured boy who could still take a turn for the worse, and a brave, beautiful woman who could only do so much without his help.

With every day he stayed here, the risks would mount. But Laura needed him. And while she needed him, he wouldn’t leave her. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not until he could leave her safer, happier and better off than he’d found her.

Wispy clouds were streaming over the mountains. Dark against the indigo sky, they floated like tattered silk on the evening breeze. Caleb’s eyes traced the path of a falling star. He was bone tired, but something told him he wouldn’t get much sleep tonight.

In Laura’s window, the light had gone out.

Chapter Four

Laura lay with her eyes open, staring up into the darkness. Beside her Robbie curled in slumber, his splinted arm still resting on the pillow. Usually he slept in his own room, like the little man he was so determined to be. But tonight she wanted him near in case he woke up frightened or in pain. Tonight he was still her baby.

From outside in the yard, she could hear the light creak of the windmill in the nighttime breeze. She recalled how Caleb McCurdy had climbed up to replace the broken vanes with pine slabs he’d cut and shaped from logs in the woodpile. She remembered the sureness of his long, brown hands and the easy power of his body, a savage’s body, beautiful in its lithe, catlike way.

Watching him was like watching a dangerous animal. He had a brawler’s face, but the broken nose and the puckered scar across his eyebrow lent him a cynical, off-kilter expression that drew her eye and piqued her fascination. Laura had found herself wishing she could draw him out, learn more about who and what he was. But the secrets that blazed in those dark, intelligent eyes had warned her to keep her distance.

His whole way of moving and speaking was a study in tightly reined ferocity. Yet she’d never known anything from him except gentleness.

The man had been in prison, she reminded herself. And his self-confessed part in the robbery that landed him there had likely been played down for her benefit. He didn’t act like a criminal. But then, how was a criminal supposed to act? How would she know?

Restless, Laura turned onto her side and bunched her pillow under her head. She would be wise to watch his every move, she cautioned herself. Not only was Caleb McCurdy an ex-convict, he was also half Comanche. She didn’t know much about Indians, but Mark had warned her about half-breeds. They had the worst traits of the white race and the worst of the red, he’d told her. That was why decent folks didn’t like having them around.

Blurred by darkness now, Mark’s silver-framed photograph gazed at her from its place on the night-stand. What a handsome man he’d been—so bright and anxious to do well for himself. As a young bride, Laura had hung on his every word. Only in later years had she come to realize that, in many ways, Mark had been no wiser than she was. They’d been two innocents, little more than children, at the mercy of an untamed land and its people.

Laura twisted the thin gold band on her finger. Mark had been wrong about so many things. Had he been wrong about half-breeds, too?

With a sigh, she eased onto her back once more. Her arm slipped around the shoulders of her sleeping son. Robbie was her one sure, solid truth. His life gave meaning to every breath she took, every beat of her heart. All the rest was so much dust in the wind…even the tall, dark stranger who’d appeared like a phantom out of nowhere.

One day soon he would move on, and Laura sensed that she wouldn’t see him again. Caleb McCurdy didn’t strike her as a man who formed ties to any place—or to any person. He would simply ride away and never look back.

“What’re you doing now, mister?”

Caleb fitted a board into the empty slot and used his free hand to pick up a nail and press the tip into the soft pine. He didn’t mind the question at all. After the lonely years in prison, it was pure pleasure being tagged around the yard by a curious little boy.

“I’m putting new wood on your chicken coop so the skunks won’t get in and eat the eggs at night. Do you think that’s a good idea?” He picked up the hammer and sunk the nail with a few sharp blows.

Robbie watched him, wide-eyed. “Won’t the skunks get hungry?”

“They’ll find other things to eat.” Caleb glanced down at the nails scattered on the ground. “You can help me if you want. Pick up a few of those nails. When I need one, you can hand it to me.”

“You bet!” Robbie scrambled for the nails, eager in spite of his splinted arm, which Laura had cradled in a sling made from a faded bandanna. The boy had bounced back from yesterday’s fall. Except for some soreness in the arm and some awkwardness with the splint, he seemed to be doing fine.

Caleb accepted a second nail from Robbie and hammered it into place. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Laura hanging a muslin sheet on the clothesline. She’d had wash hanging out the day before, he recalled. Today she didn’t seem to have more than a small batch, just some bedding and a few dishcloths. Caleb suspected that the long process of boiling, scrubbing, rinsing, wringing and hanging was little more than an excuse to be outside where she could keep an eye on Robbie, and maybe on him as well.

He remembered the very first time he’d set eyes on her, standing in that very same spot, with yellow ribbons fluttering in her hair, so sweet and perfect that she’d reminded him of a brand-new store-bought doll just lifted from its tissue-paper wrappings.

Today she was dressed in threadbare calico, faded to a washed-out blue-gray that was worn almost colorless where the fabric strained against her breasts. Her sun-streaked hair hung down her back in a single braid, with loose tendrils blowing around her face. Her deep gray eyes were as luminous as ever, but they were framed by shadows of grief and worry. Laura Shafton was no longer a doll. She was a strong, capable woman who had stared death in the face and survived. A woman who could shoot a snake, skin a deer, chop her own firewood and raise a son with loving firmness.

In Caleb’s eyes, she was more beautiful than ever.

“Can you shoot a gun?” Robbie asked, handing him another nail.

“If I have to.”

“Will you teach me how?”

Caleb shook his head. “A gun isn’t a toy. You can learn when you’re older.”

“How old?”

Caleb drove the nail in with a half-dozen ringing blows. “Maybe thirteen or fourteen, if you’ve got somebody to teach you. You need to be strong enough to hold the gun steady. And you need to be smart enough to know when and what to shoot.”

“I’m strong and smart. My mama says so.”

“Maybe so. But you’re not old enough to shoot a gun.”

The boy’s lower lip thrust outward. “But what if bad men come around, like the ones that killed my papa? What if I have to shoot them?”

Caleb felt his stomach clench with a pain so physical that it stopped his breath. He knew the boy’s question needed an answer, but words had deserted him. A bead of sweat trickled down his temple. The sun had suddenly become too warm, its light so bright that it made his eyes water.

“Ka-pow!” Robbie aimed his imaginary pistol toward the corral and pulled the trigger. “Ka-pow! Ka-pow! Take that, you dad-blamed varmints!” Laura glanced around, an expression of concern on her face. The boy turned back to Caleb. “That’s what I’d do if bad men came!” he announced. “I’d shoot them all!”

Caleb found his voice. “I’ll tell you what, Robbie. Let’s finish nailing on these boards. Then maybe your mother will let me take you fishing this afternoon.”

“Fishing?” The round blue eyes brightened. “Can I catch a fish?”

“Maybe. I’ll show you what to do. The rest is up to the fish.”

“I’ll ask her now!” The boy spun away, then swung back toward Caleb, looking crestfallen. “But how can we go fishing? We don’t have a fishing pole.”

Caleb’s face relaxed into a grin. “Leave that to me,” he said.

Laura had agreed to let her son go fishing, but only on condition that she come along. Caleb seemed to get on well with the boy, but water could be dangerous. It would be all too easy for a man to become distracted and turn his back at the wrong moment. That aside, fishing would also be a useful skill for her to learn, one more way to put food on the table in times of need.

The problem of finding a pole and tackle had been solved when Caleb delved into one of his saddlebags and came up with a small canvas pouch. Inside was a coil of fishing line and an assortment of hooks and sinkers. All that remained was to find a long, stout willow with the right amount of flex and to dig a few worms from the garden. By then Robbie was dancing with excitement.

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