raced beside the stagecoach, firing over his shoulder. He looked just as untamed and dangerous now.
“Stop that damn thing.”
Chin up, she cracked the reins again.
One of these days somebody was going to teach her to listen, Jake thought. It might just be today. He judged the timing and rhythm, then leaped from his horse into the wagon. Surefooted, he stepped over onto the seat, and though she fought him furiously he pulled the horses in.
“What the hell’s got into you, woman?” He scrambled for a hold as she shoved him aside and tried to jump out.
“Take your hands off me. I won’t be handled this way.”
“Handling you is a sight more work than I care for.” He snatched his hand out of range before she could bite him. “Haven’t you had enough scratching for one day? Sit down before you hurt yourself.” “You want the blasted wagon, take it. I won’t ride with you.”
“You’ll ride with me, all right.” Out of patience, he twisted her into his lap and silenced her. She squirmed and pushed and held herself as rigid as iron.
Then she melted. He felt the give, slow, easy, inevitable. In her. In himself. As her lips parted for his, he forgot about keeping her quiet and just took what he kept trying to tell himself he couldn’t have.
“You pack a punch, Duchess.” He drew her away to rub a hand over his chin. “In a lot of ways. You want to tell me what that was for?”
She pulled away, furious that she’d gone soft with just one kiss. “For assuming that I was jealous and would fight over any worthless man.”
“So now I’m worthless. Well, that may be, but you seem to like having me around.”
She did her best to straighten what was left of her dress. “Perhaps I do.”
He needed to know it more than he’d imagined.
Jake took her chin in his hand and turned her to face him. “You change your mind?”
Again she softened, this time because she saw the doubt in his eyes. “No, I haven’t changed my mind.” She drew a long breath. “Even though you didn’t come back and you’ve been to the Silver Star to see Carlotta.”
“You sure do hear things. Can’t imagine what you’d know if you lived closer to town. Stay in the wagon.” He recognized the look in her eye by now.
“Stay in the wagon, Sarah, until I get my horse tied on. I’ll just catch you again if you run.”
“I won’t run.” She brought her chin up again and stared straight ahead. When he’d joined her again, she continued her silence. Jake clucked to the horses and started off.
“I like to know why a woman’s mad at me. Why don’t you tell me how you know I’ve been to Carotta’s?”
“Alice told me.”
“Alice Johnson?”
“That’s right. Your friend Carlotta nearly beat her to death.”
He brought the horses up short. “What?”
Her fury bounded back and poured over him. “You heard what I said. She beat that poor girl as cruelly as anyone can be beaten. Eh’ helped Alice get out of town. Then she walked the rest of the way to my place.”
“Is she going to be all right?”
“With time and care.”
“And you’re going to give it to her?”
“Yes.” Her eyes dared him. “Do you have any objections?”
“No.” He touched her face, gently, in a way that was new to him. Abruptly he snatched his hand back and snapped the reins again.’ ‘You went into the Silver Star to have it out with Carlotta over Alice.”
“I’ve never been so furious.” Sarah lifted a hand to where Jake had touched her. “ Alice is hardly more than a child. No matter what she did, she didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.”
“Did she tell you why Carlotta did it?”
“She didn’t seem to know, only that she must have made some kind of mistake. Alice did say that Carlotta was in a temper after you had been there.”
He said nothing for a moment as he put the pieces together. “And she took it out on Alice.”
“Why did you go? Why did you go to Carlotta? If there’s something you…” She hadn’t any idea how to phrase it properly. “If I don’t know enough about your needs… I realize I don’t have any experience in these matters, but I-” She found her mouth crushed again in a kiss that was half hungry, half angry. “There’s never been anyone else who’s known so much about what I need.”
He watched her face clear into a smile. “I went to see Carlotta to tell her I don’t care much for having my name used as a reference.”
“So she took it out on Alice, because Alice was the one who’d come to talk to me.” Sarah shook her head and tried not to let her temper take over again. “Alice only told me what Carlotta wanted her to tell me. It didn’t work the way she’d planned, and Alice paid for it.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
Sarah linked her fingers again and set them in her lap. “Is that the only reason you went to Carlotta?” “No.” He waited for the look. The look of passionate fury. “I went for that, and to tell her to stay away from you. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that you were going to go and bloody her lip.”
“Did I?” She tried and failed to bank down the pleasure she felt at the news. “Did I really?”
“And her nose. Guess you were a little too involved to notice.”
“I’ve never struck anyone before in my life.” She tried to keep her voice prim, then gave up. “I liked it.”
With a laugh, Jake pulled her to his side. “You’re a real wildcat, Duchess.”
Chapter Twelve
Jake learned something new when he watched Sarah with Alice. He had always assumed that a woman who had been raised in the sheltered, privileged world would ignore, even condemn, one who lived as Alice lived. There were many decent women, as they called themselves, who would have turned Alice away as if she were a rabid dog.
Not Sarah.
And it was more than what he supposed she would have called Christian charity. He’d run into his share of people who liked to consider themselves good Christians. They had charity, all right, unless-they came across somebody who looked different, thought different. There had been plenty ‘Of Christian women who had swept their skirts aside from his own mother because she’d married a man of mixed blood.
They went into church on Sundays and quoted the Scriptures and professed to love their neighbor. But when their neighbor didn’t fit their image of what was right, love turned to hate quickly enough.
With Sarah it wasn’t just words. It was compassion, caring, and an understanding he hadn’t expected from her. He could hear, as he sat at the table, the simple kindness in her voice as she talked to the girl and tended her wounds.
As for Alice, it was obvious the girl adored Sarah. He’d yet to see her, as Sarah claimed her patient wasn’t up to visitors. But he could hear the shyness and the respect in her voice when she answered Sarah’s questions.
She’d fought for Alice. He couldn’t quite get over that. Most people wouldn’t fight for anything unless it was their own, or something they wanted to own. It had taken pride, and maybe what people called valor, for her to walk into a place like the Silver Star and face Carlotta down. And she’d done it. He glanced up toward the loft. She’d more than done it. She’d held her own.
Rising, he walked outside to where Lucius was doing his best to teach an uncooperative Lafitte to shake hands.
“Damn it, boy, did I say jump all over me? No, you flea-brained mongrel, I said shake.” Lucius pushed the dog’s rump down and grabbed a paw.
“Shake. Get it?” Lafitte leaped up again and licked Lucius’s face.
