Intimate Strangers (Eclipse Heat Book 2) (18 page)

A flicker of irritation crossed her face. “How much are you willing to do in order to resume this marriage?” she asked tartly.

He wanted to tell her the marriage had resumed the moment she’d stopped his hanging in Eclipse. Instead he said, “Anything.”

She said decisively, “Then when we return to Eclipse, we’ll get whatever legal documents are necessary and visit the bank to establish my identity. When that’s done I want to transfer the money in Lucy McKenna’s account to Double-Q funds.”

“I don’t want your money,” he growled, incapable of holding back his protest.

“In the future, I don’t want you to hide ranch troubles from me,” she ignored him, listing another change.

“Why would you want to worry about cows and bad weather?” He hid his smile.

Lucy’s eyes sparkled with determination as she fixed him with her stare and delivered the final blow. “You will run water lines to the kitchen, hook up the bath fixtures in the bathing room and allow me to make needed improvements in the structure of the house with
our
money in
our
home—the place where we will live together the rest of our lives.”

“If I have time,” he agreed, drawing her hand to his lips.

She frowned at him, warningly. “If you don’t have time, I’ll hire a carpenter you approve, or a builder, or someone. But…”

Her nose wrinkled as she tried to think of any wiggle room he might claim later. Finally she said, “It’s this way or no way, Mr. Quince. We’re together or not. If you didn’t want a rich wife, you shouldn’t have married me, but you did. All or nothing, Quincy. Make up your mind.”

“You drive a hard bargain.” He grinned at her and held up his hands in surrender. “I get your money. You get cow patties and bad weather. I guess you know best.”

“And water piped to the kitchen,” she reminded him. “And the bathing room.”

“And the bathing room,” he teased her. But he wasn’t playing when he said, “Together forever, Lucy.”

It was near daylight and the hotel started to come to life. The clatter of pans warned them before the chef emerged from the kitchen brandishing a chopping knife.

Ambrose pulled some greenbacks from his pocket and threw a stack down on the table before hurrying Lucy back to the room. Though he wouldn’t have changed a thing, he viewed his actions in the kitchen as insane. A killer who’d painted a bull’s-eye on Lucy lurked somewhere near. There’d be no more sneaking to private places in the hotel.

Inside their suite, Ambrose pulled Lucy close for one last kiss before the day started.

When he released her, she stood with one hand resting against his heart and the other on his shoulder. She reached up, stroking the stubble on his cheek. “You need a shave,” she whispered.

He grinned shamefacedly at the red chafing he’d left on her chin and neck.

Hamilton was awake and impatient. Never one to be reticent, he took in Ambrose’s expression and said, “It’s about time.”

Lucy hurried in to check on Roberta, leaving him to face Alex too. “I guess you and Ma made up, huh?”

Ambrose nodded at both of them and changed the subject. “I think we need to get Lucy and Brody the hell out of here, now. Hamilton, you can stay behind and bring Miss Harris on when she’s fit to travel. Meanwhile, Alex, we’ll sneak your mother and sister out of town without a fare-thee-well to anyone. By the time the folks hunting Luce find out she’s gone, we’ll have a big head start and make it to the Double-Q land where we can protect ourselves better.”

The men were all in accord about what needed to be done. But Alex pointed out, “Ma’s not going to leave her friend without a dustup.”

Ambrose assumed getting Lucy to agree was the stumbling block. When she emerged from the sickroom, he said, “We need to get Alex and Brody back to the Double-Q. It’s not safe here for them or for you. You agree?”

Lucy nodded as though she’d already come to that conclusion and started gathering things for the trip home. It was decided they’d stay in the suite the remainder of the day, then Quincy and Lucy would dine, pretending they were staying for at least one more night.

After dinner, the four Quinces would meet Hamilton in the alley where he’d wait with horses. He’d agreed to stay behind and arrange a wagon and team to carry Roberta to the ranch as soon as the doctor gave the go-ahead.

Ambrose and his family would leave town quietly. Once it was daylight, they’d follow the trail that crossed Indian country, cutting two days off their trip.

It was a risky plan, but so was staying put when there was someone ready to gun down Lucy in front of her family.

* * * * *

They slipped silently out of town during the night. Alex and Brody saw it as an adventure. Lucy saw it as a passage through hell, because much of the country they’d travel was arid and desert-like. Panic claimed her when Ambrose led them away from the trail into the vast wasteland.

He must have sensed her terror because he rode close to her and reached over from time to time to pat her leg encouragingly. She kept the Winchester ready, afraid to turn loose of it even when she bedded down at night. All but Brody shared watch.

Late on the seventh day of their journey, they rode onto Double-Q land the back way. Climbing the bluffs overlooking the ranch, they circled around to Hamilton’s cabin. Lucy steadied herself with the thought that it had been a long time since she’d had a home to come back to.

Though grateful to be in any cabin, Brody made her laugh when she looked at the one room with a bed and a chair and pronounced, “Uncle Hamilton needs a wife.”

Ambrose smiled.  “You’re right, Brody, he does.”

First thing, Lucy looked around for a tub. She needed to wet her skin and soak water into her pores. Surely Hamilton bathed, since he never appeared dirty. Ambrose, seeing her searching gaze, left the cabin, returning with a drying cloth and a piece of soap.

He said, “I bet you’re ready for a bath.” She must have looked as desperate as she felt, because he stopped teasing and said almost gently, “Come on, honey, I’ll show you where you can get clean.”

Brody piped up and said, “I want to get clean too, Pa. I’ll show Mama where the spring is.”

Lucy could see that Ambrose had had other plans that didn’t include an eight-year-old daughter, but Lucy was glad he’d not be accompanying her. She wasn’t ready to show him or anyone else the scarring that marred the parts of her body hidden by clothing.

She hurried behind Brody and they climbed up the bluff to the rocky area behind the cabin. As soon as she saw the bubbling sulfur water, she understood why Hamilton had built where he did. It was glorious. His own hot bath whenever he wanted it. A circular lip of stone hung over the edge of the pool of water, creating a natural swimming hole heated year-round.

Brody hurried out of her clothes and jumped into the water before Lucy reached the rocky outreach beside it. Lucy disrobed down to her chemise, unstrapped her knife, folded her dress and laid her gun on top where it would be handy.

Then she slid into the water beside Brody. It was heaven as she felt her parched skin sucking up the moisture. The moon shone across the water, casting a silver reflection as it bathed them too. The smile in Lucy’s heart matched the one on Brody’s face.

When they had both washed their hair and scrubbed their skin free of the red dust that coated everything, they climbed out and scrubbed their filthy apparel, then they wrapped themselves in the blankets they’d carried with them and headed back to the cabin.

Brody was full of questions as she bounced along.

“Mama, the day they almost hung Pa, you cut the rope with one shot. How’d you learn to do that? Who taught you? Can I learn? Will you show me how? When can we start?”

Lucy answered her somberly. “I taught myself to shoot, and I expect you to learn too. I think your Pa will want to do the teaching. You ask him, and if he doesn’t have time, you and I will set up some targets and practice by ourselves.”

The truth was that this family thing was getting complicated. For three years, Lucy had been alone except for Roberta and the cowhands she’d cooked for.

Now there were two children and a man who seemed to be watching her every moment of the day and demanding her time. She hadn’t adjusted to it all quite yet.

She and Ambrose had come to an agreement in Wichita. What he didn’t understand was that she really didn’t know him. As far as she was concerned, she’d known him one summer and had accepted his lovemaking for two wrong reasons—pleasure and safety.

Lucy pondered it a lot. She didn’t begrudge Ambrose his marital relations and was prepared to do her duty, even enjoy it. If their times together on the trail ride had been an example, she looked forward to coupling.

But she had a feeling that Ambrose now expected everything to go back to what it had once been. Only from what she had learned about what had once been, that wasn’t good enough. Brody and Alex deserved better than parents who squabbled like children.

Night had fallen as she bathed and she followed her daughter, retracing their steps back to the cabin. Ambrose and Alex waved at them, still outside with the horses in Hamilton’s lean-to shed.

Lucy wondered why they didn’t hobble the horses, leaving them outside. When Ambrose motioned for mother and daughter to join him, Lucy gathered her blanket more securely around her and walked to the bluff where her husband and son waited. Ambrose murmured softly, “Something I want you to see.”

He led her up the rise to the edge of the bluff and then slid his arm under the blanket, pulling her closer as he pointed at the band of horses below.

“Your stallion,” Alex said eagerly. “I’ll catch him for you, Ma, and we can go ahead with your plans to raise a Morgan mix for ranch work.”

Lucy smiled with pleasure at her son’s offer at the same time Ambrose frowned in surprise. “Well, son, like your mother, you’ve always had an affinity for horses.”

Lucy watched the horses, mesmerized by the stallion, neck arched, tail a banner in the wind, prancing and snorting around his mares.

Chilled suddenly, she shivered, struggling to regain an elusive thought. In three years she’d remembered nothing, but now she stood gazing down on a herd of wild mustangs and for a moment, the future and past were one, and the ghost of her father and his dreams seemed to live in her son.

She pushed hard trying to bring it back as a fierce pain knifed through her head so hurtful she almost cried out.

“There he is, sweetheart. That’s the get of the wild mustang you’d picked to breed your fancy mares. Your father brought his dream all the way from Boston, and you came with him.” Ambrose squeezed her again, roughly hugging Lucy against his side.

He continued his story. “Alexander McKenna heard about a wild band running in this area and when I saw you I offered my help finding it. We rode over the land ’til one afternoon the three of us stood on this rise and saw the wild band. This stallion looks just like the one your pa was after. Something else, isn’t he?”

Ambrose was trying to tell her something, but looking down at the band of horses, instead of being warmed by the shared memory, Lucy felt an awful ache in her heart. Turning away, she hurried back to the cabin where she curled up on the bed with Brody and pretended sleep.

Madness pounced when her exhaustion betrayed her. Lying there in the moonlight she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the sights coming at her but she couldn’t hold back, arching to throw off an unknown weight, her hands clawing at the material binding her and her voice breaking loose from the muffling gag as she screamed for deliverance from pain. The sounds of her terror echoed on and on through the night

Ambrose came off the floor with his gun in hand when the screams started. Lucy crouched with her hands on her head, rocking back and forth, mumbling and whimpering in between her piercing howls of terror.

She’d had her knife hidden away someplace because she brought it up in front of her, both hands holding it in front of her belly, ready to defend or kill, whichever came first.

Ambrose said, “Brody, ease on off the bed, honey. Your mama’s real sick. Alex, take your sister on outside now.” He didn’t take his eyes off Lucy but she didn’t see him, lost someplace inside her head where she was remembering.

When Alex got Brody out of harm’s way, Ambrose wrapped one of the blankets around his arm and edged toward his wife, talking to her as he would a crazed animal. He could smell her fear clear across the cabin.

“Lucy, it’s me. Give me the knife, honey, before you hurt yourself.” When he moved to the left, she turned to face him, to the right, she did the same. She was seeing someone but not him. “Be easy, sweetheart, I’ll not let them hurt you. Come to me now. Come to me.”

Her eyes were glassy and he didn’t think she could even hear him. He lunged and grabbed hold of her wrist, twisting the knife loose. She tried to gut him with it, shoving upward with all her strength.

When he knocked it to the floor and wrapped the blanket around her, binding her with the material, she let out one final shriek.

“Quincy, where are you?” Before she slumped into unconsciousness in his arms, she moaned, “God, just let me die.”

He carried her out to the stoop and sent the children back into the cabin while he held her and rocked her. He was afraid to turn loose of her for fear she’d wake and try to hurt herself or one of the children by mistake.