Explaining Herself Read online

His breath rasped from his chest, the rush of his blood nearly deafening, and what he felt—

  What he felt. . .

  He'd been safer feeling nothing, because this was just too much. Soft hair and skin and lips and tongue and starched, white dress and round, warm curves—and that was just from her. The sensations that surged up from inside him, past the discomfort where her fingers had clutched at his wounds, past the ache he'd never admitted, deep in his chest. . . past the needs that had surged up from inside him were hungry and greedy and debased.

  It was far too much, so he only let himself feel numb. He'd learned long ago how safe numbness could be. He could think through numbness. And what he thought was, I've been trying not to let myself do this?

  For a reporter, Victoria Garrison wasn't always terribly observant.

  "I have to go," he murmured, rolling onto his heels. He didn't know where. He didn't care. He just had to get away from this, his latest and most monumental mistake.

  He had to get away from her before he destroyed her.

  "Go? Don't be silly. I'll just let you keep your hands closed from now on. Now that I understand. I agree— of course we can't be doing this. We hardly know each other, and even if we did, there's a right way and—"

  She blinked, looking startled, but he didn't know why. She looked down at her lap and seemed to notice the bits of willow mulch stuck to her skirt at knee level. She brushed futilely at them, forging on. "If you were to call on me, then maybe . .. well. . . Not that I'm assuming you would want to court me. But certainly, that's the only time something like this should ever happen again. Assuming it could happen, with a chaperone, even if we were allowed, and I doubt we would be. On the one hand, I'd think I'd be embarrassed to behave so ... so ..."

  Ardently? Graciously? Irresistibly? he thought.

  "Well, to kiss a man like that with someone looking on. Except maybe Duchess."

  The dog, sitting beside her, cocked its head with a worried expression. Laramie glared at it. Did it realize just how miserably it had failed in its duties?

  "But I guess we should be embarrassed even without someone looking on, shouldn't we? It's amazing how quickly I started to forget, well. . . everything."

  Laramie stood and swayed unsteadily. He had to go. Now.

  "Is that even normal?" demanded Victoria Garrison, tipping her head entreatingly up toward him. With her hair half down, it made for a strange image—an enchanting image, here in the grove, against the rush of the creek. "Is that normal, to stop thinking and just.. .just. .."

  Dark or not, he could see her blushing. Had he allowed himself to feel, he might discover he was blushing too.

  He must never allow himself to feel again.

  "Not that I assume you would know," she added quickly, with a fetching little laugh. "I thought you seemed to, well, understand what. .. and ... but that doesn't mean ... well, does it? Not that you have to answer so personal a question. I'm just curious. You may have noticed that about me."

  He'd also noticed that she was still talking!

  How could she be talking to him after how he'd treated her? How he'd almost... almost...

  Clearly it was her way of comforting herself.

  Clearly he'd left her with a great need for comfort.

  Laramie had to swallow, twice, before he could even manage two more words. "I'm sorry."

  Then he turned and strode from the grove as fast as he could. Willow leaves snapped across his exit, like a whip.

  "Where are you going?" called Victoria.

  Keep walking, he told himself. The kindest thing he could do for her, for himself, was to stay the hell away. He would quit the job with her father—he wasn't making good on it anyway, hadn't found the rustler. He would stay someplace else until...

  Until he was finished in Sheridan.

  But it wouldn't be that easy; she was following him. "Wait! Don't be sorry—or if you have to be, let me be sorry too, but at least stop and talk to me. You haven't even heard what I found out about Sheriff Ward!"

  Laramie's pace slowed.

  Keep walking, he urged himself even as his next step faltered, even as he glanced over his shoulder, against his will, toward a flash of shadowed white. Get away from her. Now. She's more important than your vendetta.

  But she was not.

  Clearly, she was not. Because despite what felt like his final dregs of decency, Laramie stopped and turned, and he waited on the path for her and her dog to catch up.

  When she did, casually pulling pins from her hair so that it spilled evenly across both her shoulders, Laramie's hands remembered its softness. They longed to feel those locks again, to feel even more of her. Given too much chance—

  No, if Victoria Garrison really mattered to him, he would tell her good-bye, right now, and mean it. Instead Ross asked, "What about the sheriff?"

  If for no other reason, this was why he must never behave so familiarly with her again. Because God help him, even a sweet beauty like Victoria Garrison wasn't more important than vengeance. And that made Laramie no better than the man he hunted.

  He'd waited for her.

  Something that felt like panic eased when Vic saw Ross standing in the path, his hands loose at his sides, his gaze steady—waiting. He wasn't leaving her after all. Not yet.

  He'd stopped to hear Sheriff Ward's secret.

  If only for that, Victoria would love Evangeline Taylor forever. "He's corrupt."

  Ross stared at her, his haunted eyes showing no surprise. That was disappointing.

  "He's corrupt," she repeated, in case he hadn't understood. "He takes bribes! Can you imagine it?"

  She never would have thought she could want to simply touch someone as badly as she wanted to touch Ross—to make sure he was all right, to silently ask if he thought she still was. Her fingers ached for wanting him, almost as much as her mouth did. But she and Ross must not behave that way again.

  She made herself stop several feet from him and linked her hands behind her. But instead of exclaiming "You must be crazy" or "How do you know?" Ross just said, "Yes."

  'Yes?" He really wasn't the most forthcoming man in the world, was he? Except when it came to kisses.

  Victoria squared her shoulders and tried not to think about kissing. 'Yes, you can imagine it?"

  'Yes," he agreed with her. "I can imagine it."

  Oh. "Well, I have a friend whose mother—well, word is that he charges the, umm, working girls to do business. It's illegal for them to do ... what they do." His eyes were widening on hers, so she glanced away, toward the creek. "But he lets them, for a fee. And really, if something is legal it should be legal, and if it isn't, then it shouldn't be. Right? I do realize that some foolish laws exist—not that those laws are foolish, of course ..." Oh dear.

  Victoria did not approve of what little she knew about prostitution, but the memory of touching her tongue to Ross Laramie's mouth—of how quickly she had started to forget, well, everything in his arms—flustered her with thoughts about not casting stones.

  Still, little though she respected the idea of women renting out their bodies for money, or men paying for it, she saw a gaping disparity between that and the immorality of a lawman demanding money to look the other way.

  When she peeked, Ross was still staring, wide-eyed.

  She wanted to know what he was thinking badly enough to not say anything for what felt like forever.

  It did not work. He just kept on staring.

  Finally she asked, "What?"

  "How do you know this?"

  Hadn't she mentioned the friend with the fallen mother? "I talk to people."

  "You talk to the wrong people."

  She cocked her head. "Oh. You think she's mistaken?"

  Ross spun away from her, shaking his head. "No!"

  So he must mean—oh! "For mercy's sake, Ross, I haven't been talking to those women myself! Just to someone who hears things." More things than she'd ever expected. "I thought you would know what to do about it." />
  "Do?" he repeated, bowing his head over one fist.-

  "About what I know. It's not right!"

  "No." His agreement relieved her; she'd known she could trust him! "But it's none of your business."

  Or perhaps not. She put her hands on her hips and circled him, so she could see his face. Not her business?

  Wasn't it her town? Wasn't she a woman too?

  He shifted his weight, coiled and balanced as ever.

  She noticed, again, the big gun hanging off his left hip. "This sort of thing happens," he told her. "Everywhere."

  'You're defending him?"

  His eyes widened again. "No!"

  "Good. Because it's indefensible. What I would like to do is write a newspaper article about it, but that would be difficult. I can't exactly interview fallen women." Nellie Bly might—but Nellie Bly hadn't had to live in Sheridan, Wyoming. With Victoria's father. "And I doubt Sheriff Ward would admit anything to me. But I can't just do nothing."

  Evangeline had even said Ward abused the women who couldn't pay.

  'Yes," insisted Ross Laramie softly, meeting her gaze. 'You can. You should not be involved in any of this."

  Victoria caught her breath. "Any of this? Oh, Ross, do you think he's taking graft from other lawbreakers too? Like the rustlers!"

  Ross blinked, clearly startled. "From the rustlers?"

  "If Sheriff Ward demands bribes to allow one crime, why wouldn't he do the same for another?" Then she remembered why not. "Unless his father hardened him against rustling."

  "His father," repeated Laramie, his interest so tangible she could almost feel it burning in him.

  It wasn't as enjoyable as him holding her, kissing her—but for now, she would take it. Until she could convince him to pay a call on her, what else could she do? So she savored the drama of her next announcement. "I found out that the sheriff's father was murdered by a rustler."

  Strangely, that was the news that made him go pale.

  Working cattle was a slow process, done right. Riding the Circle-T's south pasture that next week, meeting with ranch hands and examining heifers' hooves, gave Laramie plenty of time to think about Victoria Garrison.

  And about him being a murderer and a rustler.

  He'd already felt sick, the other night by the creek— sick at his obscene loss of control, sick with wanting to lose control again. And once she mentioned Bram Ward's father that way, murdered by a rustler, he'd felt heartsick as well.

  No matter how much he admired Miss Garrison, and no matter how familiarly she'd behaved with him, he could never change that he was that killer, that rustler.

  At a sharp whistle, Laramie looked up. He spotted Nate Dawson waving a hat at him, one slow arc, and reined his gelding patiently in that direction.

  Riders who moved fast around cattle only spooked them, and spooked cattle weren't easy to work. Maybe a fellow should work folks the same way. It would better justify that he'd been in Sheridan two weeks now and still had no idea who had seduced his sister, who had betrayed his family.

  Slow and steady. He'd waited almost a dozen years for this. A few more weeks, even months, wouldn't change things. He could live with the guilt of not keeping his vows a while longer, as long as he stayed away from the boss's daughter.

  Kissing Victoria, holding her, he'd been able to forget killing. It shamed him now that he'd wanted to forget.

  That, the memory of her in his blood, he wanted to.

  Laramie made himself focus on the two heifers and five steers grazing some ways from Dawson's roan. He was no closer to finding the bastard who'd ruined Julie than he'd been when he got here. But at least he understood cattle—and bad men.

  "The dun-colored cow," directed Dawson, as Laramie eased his gelding closer to the knot of cattle. The animal lifted her head to watch his approach, while the other critters ignored him. "I remember thinkin' she was favorin' her right-front, some weeks back, but she moved quick enough when I got close. Next time I saw her, she was fine."

  Laramie dismounted with a creak of leather and walked toward the cow. It turned to amble warily away from him.

  Dawson, still on horseback, roped her in one toss. As if resigned, she stopped, even widi the rope slack. Still, Laramie made quick work of checking her hooves for burn scars, then her udder to guess when she'd lost her calf.

  "You're right," he called, straightening. "She's been hotfooted."

  "What kind of sorry son of a bitch burns a mama between the toes so's she can't follow her baby?" protested Dawson.

  Laramie lifted the rope off the poor old girl's neck, scratched behind her furred ears with his leather-gloved hands, then returned to Blackie. "That's four so far."

  "Four on the ranch?" asked Dawson.

  "South range." Mounting, Laramie dug a folded piece of paper and a pencil stub from his pocket and drew another X on his roughly sketched map. In the last few days, he'd narrowed his search to the west range, in the direction of the mountains.

  It wasn't the revenge he wanted. But, as Victoria had pointed out, Bram Ward might just be in cahoots with the rustlers, turning a blind eye. If so, maybe Laramie could get a lesser form of revenge on the sheriff who grated on him so badly, by finally exposing him for the low-down rustler the Wards had always been.

  He might not kill the man, like he would kill whoever had betrayed Julie. But this was a start. It was something he could manage. And he was being paid to do it.

  Besides, Victoria wanted him to.

  Laramie tried not to ponder that part too closely.

  Dawson was still sighing over the cow. "Bad enough to swing a wide loop. But to torture animals in doin' it..."

  Now, that was interesting, and Laramie glanced up from his crumpled bit of map. "Rustling's rustling." Wasn't it?

  Dawson looked startled by the low proclamation. That reminded Laramie that, though they bunked together, he was still the hired gun. Dawson was the honest hand.

  "I'm not defending the one," the honest hand now insisted. "But it's still a different thing from t'other."

  Like Victoria's opinion on graft being worse than prostitution. A lot of folks around here had an interesting habit of weighing crimes.

  When Blackie's head came up suddenly, and Dawson's roan followed suit, Laramie saw someone riding nearer who, he guessed, would see things in black and white—whether they were talking about rustling or the man's daughter.

  Dawson rolled a cigarette while they waited for Garrison to reach them. "Boss," greeted the hand.

  "Boys." Laramie got the feeling Jacob Garrison had been calling his hands "boys" long before his hair had turned white. His steady gray eyes, in the shadow of his black Stetson, slid from Dawson to Laramie—and lingered on Laramie. "Keepin' busy."

  His voice didn't go up at the end, but Laramie recognized it for a question, all the same.

  This couldn't be the man Julije had given herself to. Surely, even eleven years ago, he'd been too old for her!

  It was Dawson who said, "Laramie here was just lookin' over another hotfooted heifer."

  Garrison's solemn expression didn't change. His eyes shone with something like anger, though. Over the theft, or the purposeful injury to the animal? "Who is it?"

  Laramie shrugged. Anybody could burn a cow.

  The boss's eyes narrowed, as if to ask what he was paying Laramie for if not to find the rustlers.

  Laramie thought about kissing the man's daughter by the creek—and carefully maintained his poker face. "Workin' out of the foothills," he offered instead.

  Garrison nodded as if he'd figured as much—but hadn't wanted to hear it, all the same. The foothills offered too many good places to hide.

  Dawson said, "Boss, that's where Miss Laurel and that Marmaduke of hers have their horse ranch. I don't like to think what she might do if she comes across some rustlers."

  Garrison said nothing.

  "I could ride out there and give her a warnin'," Dawson offered, and Laramie wondered just how deep the cowhand
's concern for the married Miss Laurel went.

  "I'll go," announced Garrison, and looked back at Laramie. "In the mornin'. You'll come with me."

  It had been two weeks since the rancher hired him. Laramie guessed the boss would want an accounting sometime.

  He nodded, wishing he knew how to get his own accounting. Have you always been faithful to your wife? Do you remember a young immigrant girl, hanged herself over ten years back? How well did you and your son know her?

  Like trying to hurry cattle, questions like that would only scatter what he needed to learn.

  He wasn't Victoria.

  But when Laramie led Blackie up to the pretty ranch house's picket fence, after breakfast the next day, Victoria was the first Garrison out the door—and she was wearing an extra-long riding skirt and leading a child by the hand.

  He hadn't seen her since the Friday before—since he'd all but mauled her and she'd somehow forgiven him. She looked pretty as the morning, her eyes shining, her lips smiling to show barely crooked teeth, her curly brown hair drawn back in a frothing ponytail.

  "I'm coming along!" she announced happily.

  Holding her gaze, Laramie couldn't begin to corral all the things he didn't know how to say to that. How'd you talk your father into this? What about your job? Why would you even speak to met

  During his silence, Victoria led the smaller girl, also brown-haired, to the fence where he stood. "So's my sister, Kathryn. Kitty, this is Mr. Laramie."

  The younger girl wore spectacles, which gave her a fragile look. Or maybe she'd already been fragile, and the spectacles just emphasized that. Laramie felt particularly aware of the weight of his hip holster, almost embarrassed by it, even if they were riding into rustling territory.

  From inside the house, an incredible howling started up—but Victoria just kept walking. After some hesitation, Laramie followed, leading his gelding. "That's my sister Elise. She's upset because she can't come along."

  "She was naughty." Kitty reached a little hand toward Blackie's muzzle. "You have a pretty gelding."

  The howling from the house stopped abruptly, and the little girl's eyes widened behind her glasses, as Laramie quickly asked, "Would you like to ride him?"

  Why he said it, he didn't know. But the way Vic flashed an appreciative smile at him, he felt glad he did.