Rides a Hero sb-2, Page 2

  "Yes. I will. I can shoot."

  "The bad guys, Shannon. Not just some poor farmer in a gray uniform."

  "Cole, I have fed and cared for the Rebels passing this way."

  "Yes, you have. But not with a great deal of pleasure."

  "You make me sound cruel and unreasonable—"

  She saw a strange light of pity in his eyes as he answered. "I don't think that, Shannon. The war has done things to all of us."

  But he shook his head as he walked away, and she could tell that he really did think she was heartless. He knew that she could never forgive what had happened, even now that the South had been broken. She would never, never forget Robert Ellsworth, his gentle love, his simple honor. Nor could she ever forget his death. She had seen him buried. He had never been laid out in a proper wake, for there had not been enough of him left for the undertaker to prepare. The brutality had made her hard, and very cold.

  Cole was wrong, though, if he thought she could no longer feel. She could still feel way too much, it seemed at times. But it was so much easier to be cold, and it was easier to hate. Cole was wrong if he thought she would kill just any Rebel soldier, but she could very easily gun down the men who had so callously gone out and brutally slaughtered Robert and his men. She thought she could have faced it if Robert had died in battle, but what the bushwhackers had done to him had been worse than murder.

  Cole was disappearing around the corner, and she longed to call out to him. She did love him, even if he was a Rebel. He had saved Kristin and Shannon from certain rape and probable death, and he was as dear to her as her blood brother, Matthew. But she didn't call out. It wasn't something she could explain.

  Cole's first wife had been killed by Kansas jayhawkers, yet now he seemed to have come to terms with life. Maybe Kristin had taught him forgiveness. But Shannon didn't know how to forgive, and it wasn't something she thought she could learn. She just knew that she still lived with the anguish of the past, and she could not put it behind her.

  For Cole's sake, though, she would bite her lip and hand out water to the Rebs heading home. This was Missouri; most of the state was Confederate. She might have been a Rebel herself, since the ranch stood on the border between Kansas and Missouri, and the McCahys actually had leaned toward the South at first. But then Pa had been murdered. Matthew had joined up with the Union Army, and everything that followed after that had conspired to make Shannon an avowed Yankee, through and through.

  But that didn't matter now.

  Over the past days they had been handing out water and meals to boys in blue and to boys in gray. She reminded herself that Matthew was still out there somewhere. Maybe some Reb girl was giving him a cup of water or a piece of bread.

  Shannon had handed out water and hot soup without a word. She had bandaged up Rebs, just as she had done on the day when the two cavalry units—Matthew's Federals and the Slaters' Confederates—had joined forces and beaten Zeke Moreau's marauders. For Matthew's sake, she cared for the weary soldiers who passed the house. Somewhere out there, he would be wandering the countryside. And Cole's brothers, too. Perhaps some young woman was being kind to them.

  Shannon hoped that someone would deal gently with Jamie.

  But if Malachi passed by some strange farmhouse, well, then, she hoped they gave him salt water!

  Both Cole's brothers were Rebels. Jamie she could tolerate.

  Malachi, she could not.

  From the time they had first met, he had treated her like a bothersome child. She didn't know quite what it was that lurked between them, she only knew that it was heated and total and combustible. Every time they met, sparks flew and fury exploded.

  She tried. She tried very hard not to let him creep beneath her skin. She was a lady. She had great pride, and tremendous dignity. But Malachi had the ability to strip her quickly of both. She would be pleased with her composure and the calmness of her temper, but then he would say just one word and she would lose all poise and restraint and long to douse him with a pail of water. And when she lost her temper at his needling, he would taunt her all over again, pleased that he had proven her to be a child, and a brat at that

  Not so much now, she assured herself. And it was true. She had grown colder since Robert Ellsworth had died. No one could draw much of a reaction from her anymore.

  She thought Jamie might return soon. But Malachi wouldn't.

  Malachi had probably thought to join up with General Edmund Kirby-Smith and fight to the bitter finish. But even Kirby-Smith had surrendered now. Maybe Malachi would head for Mexico, or for Central or South America. Good riddance to him. It was difficult to forget the last time they had met. It had been on the day when all hell had broken loose, when Moreau's band had been broken. Even then, in the midst of chaos, Malachi had managed to annoy her. In the thick of it all, he had ordered her around and they had very nearly come to blows. Well, she had slapped him, but Kristin and Cole had been there, and Malachi had been forced to calm his temper. Shannon hoped the Federals had picked him up and placed him in a prison camp. It would be good for him to-cool his heels for a while. He was going to have to accept the truth.

  The Confederacy was bested and broken, and the Glorious Cause was lost.

  It was over.

  But not yet ended. Some drifter was crawling around in the stables.

  Shannon didn't stop to think a moment longer. She stepped back through the doorway to the entry hall and plucked one of the Colts from its crossed position. She reached into the top drawer of the secretary beneath it for the shells and quickly loaded the gun.

  "Kristin! Cole! Samson, Delilah, someone!" she called out.

  But the house was silent. Where were they all? She didn't know. She was on her own.

  Shannon slipped back onto the porch.

  The colors of the night were growing darker, deeper and richer. The sky seemed to have turned a deep purple; the land itself seemed to be blue. The outline of the stables stood black against the horizon, and the two loft windows looked like dusky, evil orbs, staring at her menacingly.

  Her heart was beating hard, she realized. The coldness remained near her spine.

  She should not be afraid. She had been under attack in one form or another several times now. She should have learned courage.

  She was still frightened.

  But not frightened enough that she would sit like a wounded lamb and wait to be assaulted, she assured herself. No, she would turn the tables. No honest man skulked and loitered in stables. No sincere fellow, Reb or Yank, hid, waiting for the coming of darkness.

  She raced from the porch to the paddock, then paused, breathing fast. She listened intently, and heard nothing, but still, she knew. Someone was there. She could feel it in the air now. She could sense the danger.

  She leaned against the paddock fence. She was good with a Colt. Damned, deadly good. Cole claimed that she could hit the eye of a fly from a distance of a hundred feet, and that wasn't far from the truth. As long as she held the weapon, she would be safe.

  Don't ever tarry, Cole had warned her once. Make your decisions quickly. And if you decided to shoot, shoot to kill.

  It shouldn't be too hard, she thought. She had lived through so many years of hell; she had grown up under the fire. In the world she knew, it was kill or be killed, hurt or tortured. She could manage any situation. She always had.

  Shannon drew in a deep breath and pushed away from the paddock fence. Where was Cole? He had been born with a sixth sense. He should have known that there was trouble by now, yet he wasn't here. She couldn't depend on Cole. She had to depend on herself.

  Shannon raced for the door to the stables. It stood as dark as the windows in the coming night, gaping open like a dark pit.

  And she could feel the evil lurking and waiting inside.

  She gritted her teeth and carefully flattened herself against the paneling by the stable door, then swiftly, flush against it, she stole inside.

  The darkness was complete. For several
long moments she stood where she was, her heart thundering, her ringers like steel around the Colt, her breath coming too fast and seeming to rasp more loudly than a twister. He would hear her, she thought. He would hear her, and find her.

  She forced herself to be calm; she was not as loud as she thought. But she had to adapt to the darkness, or she would accomplish nothing.

  One horse whinnied and a second one snorted. She tried to envision the place with light. The stalls were large and well constructed; there were fifteen of them across from her, but only nine of the horses would be in their stalls, for the men were still out on the range after the cattle. The tack room was to her immediate right, and to her left was a pile of fresh hay and the grain bags. There was more hay up in the loft above her head.

  She caught her breath suddenly, barely daring to breathe.

  That's where he was—in the loft.

  She wasn't in a very good position if the intruder lurked right over her head.

  She cocked her Colt and sank low to the floor, then began inching toward the bales of hay. They could provide her with some cover, and make her position a mystery in this stygian darkness, too.

  But even as she moved, she heard the soft, careful shuffling above her. A board creaked, and then the building was still again.

  Shannon waited.

  There was no further movement. Time seemed to tick on endlessly.

  All of a sudden she realized what she had to do. Move the ladder.

  She ran for it with an impetuous burst of speed, determined to capture the intruder atop the loft.

  "Hold!" a voice commanded.

  She ignored it and continued racing for the ladder, then wrenched it away from the opening. It rattled to the ground, leaving no means of escape from the loft above.

  A shot rang out. It whizzed high over her head and was imbedded into the wall far behind her. Was it a warning shot? Or did the man in the loft have extremely bad aim?

  She shot back, aiming for the voice. She heard a low rasp of swearing, and knew then where her target was.

  If you shoot, she had been warned, shoot to kill.

  She had seen blood and death in wanton numbers…

  And still she hesitated. The man was trapped in the loft. What could he do?

  Even as she asked the question of herself in silence, the answer came to her, and in a most unexpected manner.

  He leaped from the loft like a phantom in the night and landed softly in the hay.

  Shannon screamed, whirling around and lifting her Colt, aiming toward the bales of hay. She could not see him. He had landed hard, but he had rolled in a flash, and now he hid behind the many bales.

  She took aim and fired at the first bale. The shot exploded, loud and crystal clear, in the night.

  Why had nobody come from the house? Surely they had heard the shots. But perhaps the noise was muffled by the barn walls and the hay.

  And neither could she seem to hear anything from the house or from beyond the stables. She was pitched into a desperate world where she was on her own.

  No noise had come from the intruder. No thud, no cry, no gasp of fear or anger or dismay. There was nothing at all.

  Had she killed the man?

  Shannon stepped forward, moving as silently as she could upon the earthen floor. She moved slowly, pausing with each step. She must have killed him. She heard nothing, nothing at all.

  She took another step toward the hay, peering around the side of the tied bale. There was nothing there. She thought she heard something from the stalls. She swung around and realized that it was only the horses moving restlessly.

  Then she sensed a movement in the corner. But that was impossible. No one could have gotten by her, not even in the darkness…

  It was a mouse in the corner. A mouse, and nothing more. She had shot and probably killed the intruder, and he lay there, somewhere in the hay.

  Shannon moistened her lips and tried to still the fear that swept along her spine. She still sensed danger. He wasn't dead. He was hiding, lurking in the darkness. She wanted to shriek and scream and turn and flee in terror. She didn't dare. She had to find him before he found her.

  She turned once again and hurried to the next stack of hay, piled higher than the first. She looked to the rear and each side of it…and then a rustle came from just above her head.

  She inhaled and jerked back, looking up, trying to aim her Colt. It was too late.

  He leaped upon her.

  They fell to the ground together. Shannon's Colt went flying through the darkness. He fell hard upon her and she was assailed with the scent of leather and fine pipe tobacco. His hard-muscled arms held her and a wire taut body covered her. A scream bubbled and rose within her.

  His hand clapped hard over her mouth.

  "Stop," he hissed.

  She interrupted him with a savage kick.

  He swore in the night, but his hold went slack.

  She shoved against him with all her might, and found her escape. She leaped to her feet and dashed toward the door, inhaling for a loud, desperate scream.

  "No!" The voice thundered behind her. He caught her by an elbow, wrenching her around. Her scream died in her throat as they crashed to the ground again. This time, he held her with force. He thrust his frock coat back and straddled her prone and dazed form. Shannon lashed out madly with her fists, thudding them furiously against his chest.

  "Stop it, Shannon!"

  His use of her name did not register in the raw panic that had seized her. She had not come this far to be raped and murdered in her own stables. She gasped for breath to scream again and raked out with her nails, seeking his eyes.

  "Stop it!" He caught her wrists and pulled them high above her head. She started to scream, and he secured her with one hand, clamping the other hard over her mouth. She bit him. He swore in a white rage, but did nothing more than grip her jaw so hard between his thumb and forefinger that she could scream no more for the pain that it caused her.

  "For the love of God, will you stop it, brat!"

  She froze. She wondered how it was that she had not recognized his voice until he used that particular term.

  Malachi!

  Malachi Slater had come home.

  CHAPTER TWO

  She stopped struggling and looked up at him. The moon must have come out, for some light was now filtering into the stable. He leaned very close against her, and she began to make out his features.

  They were handsome features. She would grant Malachi that much. He was a striking man. His forehead was high and broad, his eyes were large, cobalt blue, sometimes nearly as black as the darkness that now surrounded them. His mouth was full and well defined, his jaw square beneath the gold and red sweep of his mustache and beard, and his nose and cheekbones chiseled in strong, masculine lines. He was a tall man, made lean by the war, and made hard by it, too.

  With his face so close to hers, she realized that his beard was not so neatly clipped as it had always been before. There were shadows beneath his eyes. The rough wool of his Confederate uniform was tattered and torn in many places, and the gold braid, the insignia of his rank in the cavalry, was nearly worn away.

  She should have known him much sooner. They had tangled often enough. She knew the strength of his arms and the deep tenor of his voice, and the bullheaded determination of his anger. She should have known him.

  But he was different tonight. He was still Malachi, but more fierce than ever. Tonight, he seemed brutal. Tension lived and breathed and seethed all around him.

  "You gonna be quiet now, brat?" he asked her harshly.

  Shannon gritted her teeth. She could not begin to answer him. The gall of the bastard! He had known that it was her. He must have known that it was her from the moment she had entered the stables, and he had knocked her down and dragged her around—twice!—and had no apology for it.

  She squirmed hard against him, fighting his hold. His hand pressed more tightly upon her, his breath warmed her cheeks, and
she felt a new wave of his ruthless determination.

  "Well?" he repeated. His teeth flashed white in the darkness as he smiled with a bitter amusement. "Shannon, are you going to be quiet now?"

  He lifted his hand from her mouth. Her lips felt bruised and swollen from his casual disregard.

  "Quiet!" she said, and her tone was soft at first, deceptively soft. She knew she should use some restraint. At the best of times, he had little patience with her.

  Well, she had no patience with him. Her temper ignited like a fuse. "Quiet?" Her voice rose, and then it exploded. "Quiet? You scurvy, flea-ridden son of a jackass! What the hell do you think you're doing? Get off me!"

  His lips tightened grimly and his thighs constricted around her hips.

  "Miss McCahy, I'll be happy to do so. Just as soon as you shut that lovely little mouth of yours."

  "Get off!" she whispered furiously.

  "Shh!"

  He was too close to her. His eyes were like pits of blue fire boring into hers, and she was acutely aware of him as a man. He leaned so close that his beard brushed her face. His thighs were hot and tight around her, and his arms, stretched taut across her as he maintained a wary grip upon her wrists, were as warm and threatening as molten steel.

  "Malachi—"

  "Shannon, I am waiting."

  She closed her eyes and ground her teeth. She waited, feeling her heart pound, feeling the seconds pass. Then she smiled with savage sarcasm, but remained silent.

  Slowly, he eased his hold. He released her wrists and sat up. He still straddled her hips, but he was no longer pinning her with his touch. Shannon tried counting to keep her smile in place. She longed to explode and shove him far, far away from her.

  And still he kneeled there. He crossed his arms over his chest, and watched her through narrowed eyes.

  She waited. She could stand it no longer.