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Tally sat in one of the chairs at the dining table between the kitchen and parlor, admiring the braided rag rug that covered much of the floor. Kavanagh stalked in a slow circle like a beast in a cage.
Beth rushed into the room with a pitcher, spilling water on the kitchen floor. “Father’s home,” she announced. Kavanagh paused by the fireplace and lifted his head, nostrils flared.
“He always knows when supper’s ready,” Mrs. Bryson said with an indulgent laugh. She opened the stove’s heavy door and pulled out a pan of biscuits, perfectly browned. “Get the butter, Beth.”
The girl hurried to obey, and a few moments later a big man with salt-and-pepper hair strode into the cabin. His face was damp, and he wore much-patched but clean clothing, as if he’d made some effort to make himself presentable for his guests. Tally got to her feet and took his offered hand.
“Miles Bryson,” he said, nearly crushing her fingers. “Glad to have you, Mr. Bernard.” He looked over her shoulder. “Mr. Kavanagh.”
Sim nodded without moving from his place by the hearth. Tally smiled all the wider. “I hope we aren’t putting you to too much trouble, Mr. Bryson.”
“Not at all.” He released Tally’s aching hand, joined his wife by the stove and gave her a hug about the shoulders. “Mrs. Bryson loves to show off her cooking.”
“Now, Miles.” She feigned affront, but her eyes gleamed with pleasure. Beth arrived with the butter and began to set the table. The plates were china, chipped but lovingly preserved from some former, more genteel home. Soon the table was piled high with a crock of savory stew, a plate of biscuits and a steaming pot of coffee.
Kavanagh still hadn’t moved, and Tally was about to risk calling him when he sat down next to her. Bryson took the head of the table, and once Beth and Mrs. Bryson had finished their serving duties, they sat in two of the three remaining chairs.
Bryson bowed his head, and his family did the same. Sim stared at the ceiling. Tally lowered her eyes to the table’s painstakingly polished surface, reciting the prayer through stiff lips. If Mrs. Bryson had any notion of who was sitting next to her innocent daughter…
“Amen,” Bryson murmured. Without another word he dug into the food, passing bowlfuls of stew to Tally and Kavanagh before serving his family. Mrs. Bryson watched Tally expectantly until she took a bite and made the appropriate noises of satisfaction. Kavanagh ate with single-minded attention and never once looked up from his plate.
Tally found it hard to swallow, though the food was as good as anything Miriam made at home. Beth’s curious glances were more shrewd than those of her parents. Maybe she’d guessed something was not quite right about “Mr.” Bernard. But Kavanagh earned her most fascinated stares, and it was all Tally could do not to shout a warning.
Stay away from men like that, ma bonne fille. Wait and find a boy your own age. Don’t throw away what good fortune has given you….
She pushed her plate aside and patted her stomach. “Ma’am, I don’t think I’ve tasted anything quite so fine in years. If he were more of a talker, I’m sure Mr. Kavanagh would say the same.”
Kavanagh looked up from his cleaned plate. His pale eyes settled first on Tally, then quickly moved to Beth and Mr. Bryson. “Good,” he said.
“Your friend does talk, Mr. Bernard,” Bryson said with generous good humor.
“Tal,” Tally said. Bryson offered her and Kavanagh a pair of pipes, which both declined. The homesteader lit his own and settled in one of the rawhide chairs in the parlor. Tally took the other, while Kavanagh crouched on his boot heels beside the fireplace.
Bryson smiled through his full beard. “Beth has told me something of why you gentleman are in the canyon. I did meet a man fitting the description you gave, Tal, but he was in a hurry to be on his way.” He tamped the tobacco in his pipe. “You’ve been following him from Tombstone?”
Tally saw no harm in telling him at least part of the truth. “Our ranch is in Cold Creek Valley, in the southern Chiricahuas,” she said. “My brother left to buy cattle from some ranchers in the north Valley two weeks ago, but he disappeared, and we learned that he’d come up here…supposedly to look for ore.”
“You must be his younger brother, from the looks of you,” Bryson said. “I’m sorry your kin has given you trouble.”
“I’m worried that André…might have gotten lost up here. That’s why I hired Mr. Kavanagh to track him in the mountains.”
Kavanagh muttered something under his breath. Pans clanged in the kitchen. Bryson puffed on his pipe. “Have you been with the army, Mr. Kavanagh?” he asked.
Kavanagh glanced at Bryson without interest. “From time to time.” Bryson’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “Army scouts are notoriously taciturn men, Tal. The best of them hardly ever make a sound, let alone indulge in idle conversation.”
“So I’ve learned.” She felt Kavanagh’s stare and shifted in her seat. “Our foreman went looking for André a week ago,” she said. “He’s a former Buffalo Soldier with the Tenth Cavalry, very tall—”
“I’m afraid I didn’t see such a man. I’ve heard good things about the Tenth, though. Formidable fighters.”
They drifted onto the subjects of army movements, the Apaches and cattle prices. Tally let Bryson do most of the talking, while Kavanagh kept his thoughts to himself. Eventually Mrs. Bryson and Beth joined them, pulling chairs from the dining table.
“Will you tell us about Tombstone, Mr. Bernard?” Beth asked eagerly. “Is it as wicked as they say?”
“Now, Beth,” Mrs. Bryson reproved.
Mr. Bryson chuckled. “You’ll have to excuse our daughter, Tal. She’s heard too many fantastic stories.” He set down his pipe. “Willcox is wild enough for us. I’d like to hear more of your ranch, and how you find the south end of the Valley. There aren’t too many of us here, but more will be coming every day now that the Apaches have cleared out. If not for the rustlers—” He glanced at Beth and thought better of that subject.
Tally asked Mrs. Bryson about the quilt on the wall, which led to an innocuous conversation about fabric and sewing. Tally listened with the polite incomprehension of any typical male. After Beth and Mrs. Bryson retired, Bryson asked Tally for general news of the Valley and its residents.
Tally had little to tell him. She’d spent most of her days deliberately sequestered at Cold Creek, working the cattle and letting André deal with the outside world. If Bryson found her ignorance strange, he didn’t let on. He showed Tally and Kavanagh the plain, neat room they would share for the night.
“You’ve done Ida a heap of good by praising her cooking,” Bryson said. “She gets a little lonely in the canyon with only Beth for company.” He lit a kerosene lamp and set it on a table near the door. “You men are welcome here any time.”
“As you are at Cold Creek,” Tally said, glad that Bryson would have no cause for such a visit. She thanked him again and closed the door to the room, her heart beating unpleasantly fast in the heavy silence.
Kavanagh was sitting on the wood-frame bed, pulling off his boots and stockings. The moment of truth was at hand.
Tally turned and leaned against the door, folding her arms across her chest. “Can I ask you a question?”
Kavanagh arched his back in a bone-popping stretch. “When did you ever need my permission?”
“Why were you so rude to the Brysons? Is it because two of them are female?”
He looked at her with an expression of genuine surprise. “You still expecting pretty manners from me, boy? I thought you’d been disabused of such notions.”
“I hired you to do a job, and I’m prepared to pay the price. The Brysons don’t know us, but they’ve been generous hosts. The least they deserve is the respect due decent people.”
He got up from the bed and strolled toward her with a lazy air of tolerant amusement. “You gonna fire me because I was disrespectful to them decent, proper folk out there?”
She edged away from the door. “Fortunately, I don’t think they’ll hold it against you. They trust instead of judge, and I admire them for it.”
Kavanagh stopped in the middle of the room and cocked his head. “Took a liking to that little filly Beth, did you, boy?”
“Not the way you mean.”
“She’s wild for a little freedom, ain’t she? How well d’you think she’d make out in Tombstone?”
Tally balled her fists. “Her parents take care of her. They love each other. You never had that kind of family, did you, Kavanagh? A sister, a brother to look after, or who looked after you.”
“No.” The denial cracked like a thick oak branch snapped in a storm. “I never had a family like that.”
She met his stony gaze, swallowing the knot in her throat. She could see the pain he tried not to show, pain she saw only because she had become so accustomed to discerning the motives of men.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s none of my business.”
He seemed not to hear. “I had a mother and a father and half brothers. We never lived together.”
Mon Dieu. Was he implying that he was a bastard? In the West that was not so terrible a thing as in the cultured East, but it would have marked him. She felt the compulsion to match his confession with one of her own…. Madness, just like the fact that they were here together, alone in this room.
“My father left my family when I was young,” she said.
His gaze returned to hers. “That’s a damned shame, boy,” he said, only half-mocking. “Your ma raise you and André?”
“She worked hard.” Tally stared longingly at the washstand, with its fresh water and clean towels. She was desperate to scrub the dirt from her face, remove her hat and let down her hair. That wouldn’t happen tonight. “You go ahead and get some sleep, Kavanagh. I’m going to check on the horses.”
She started for the door. Kavanagh was there first. “You’re a lousy liar,” he said conversationally. “Why are you so afraid of being in this room with me?”
“I’m not afraid.” He was barely four inches away, nearly touching her chest to chest. “I just like my privacy.”
He leaned closer. His breath stirred the fine hairs at her temples. “I’ll just bet you do.” His gaze dropped to her lips. “You ever been with a man, Tally-boy?”
She jumped straight up and scrambled sideways, clumsy with shock. It wasn’t possible. She would have known. She’d met men like that before—the New Orleans brothels catered to every taste, no matter how eccentric. But Kavanagh had spoken of his angel Esperanza. He had known women. Yet there were all those comments about baths. Perhaps he was equally partial to both….
She didn’t have time to think. She snatched the hat from her hair and pulled at the braids. Her hair tumbled loose about her shoulders.
“I’m not a boy, cochon, so keep your hands to yourself.”
CHAPTER FOUR
KAVANAGH LAUGHED. He laughed so loud and hard that Tally was afraid he would wake the whole house. She charged, pushed him to the far wall beside the bed and pressed her hand over his mouth.
“Taisez-vous, dérangé!” she hissed.
He gripped her wrists and pried her hands from his face. His mouth came down on hers, lips barely open, as if he meant to bruise instead of caress. Just as suddenly, he released her. She scrubbed at her mouth while he withdrew to the bed and stretched out full-length, head pillowed on his wrists, bare feet crossed at the ankles.
“Now that’s done,” he said. “Unless you want more of the same.”
Tally stared at him without comprehension. Good God, she had utterly failed with him in nearly every respect. And he was laughing at her. He was laughing.
She leaned on the wall and caught her breath, lungs straining against the bindings that held her breasts flat. “How long have you known?” she demanded.
“Since we met.” He yawned and snapped his teeth like an animal. “I knew it’d have to come out sooner or later. Just a question of when.”
She thought quickly back over every encounter she’d had with the folk in Tombstone, the woman in Turquoise and the Brysons. “How is it that you guessed when no one else has?”
“I see things that are hidden,” he said. “I’m very good at it.”
“So you’ve been playing with me.” She smiled, picked up her hat and laid it on the table. “I’m sure it’s been most amusing.”
“You were playing games, not me,” he said. “Are you afraid of men, or is it just that you wish you had a little more between your legs?”
Tally pronounced her most elegant curse. “I wouldn’t be one of your sex for anything in the world. And as for being afraid…” She leaned over the foot of the bed. “I’ve known how to protect myself since I was fifteen.”
He propped himself up on his elbows and stared pointedly at her chest. “Maybe it ain’t fear. The devil knows what you’re like under that getup. Maybe you’re just scared no man would want you.”
How she longed in that moment to prove just how much men had wanted her—still wanted her, whenever they saw her as she was, as she could be. But he was still playing like a cat with a mouse. He was testing her for weakness. Men did not make her weak.
“Maybe,” she said, “I don’t want them.”
He wet his lips, and she shivered at the memory of his mouth on hers. Cochon. She should have hit him. And there was the .44 at her hip….
“How old are you—Tal?” he asked, interrupting her fantasies. “What’s your real name?”
“A lady never reveals her age,” she said. “And Tal is good enough for me. I don’t need fancy things. Only my freedom.”
“Freedom to ride around wild without any of the proper folk knowing about it?”
Heat rushed into her cheeks. “It harms no one. I work the ranch like my brother, like our hands Bart and Federico. I have no children and no husband to tend.”
He leaped up from the bed and crossed to the washstand, wetting one of the towels. Tally guessed his intent but refused to run. He bathed her face with surprising gentleness, wiping away the accumulated grime. He whistled softly.
“You clean up real nice,” he said. “My guess is that ugliness ain’t your problem.”
She took the towel from his hand and returned to the washstand. Her own face, framed by golden hair, stared back at her from the oval mirror. “I have no problem,” she said, “as long as people leave me alone.”
Kavanagh’s reflection joined hers. Solemn, not mocking, not cruel. “Why?” he asked. “You thought if I knew what you were, I’d hurt you. Did a man hurt you, Tal?”
The caressing note in his voice set her swaying like a willow in a high-desert wind. Oh, yes, he was very good at finding things that were hidden. But he had said she was a lousy liar, and that meant he, too, could make mistakes. She had become very good at lying with absolute sincerity.
“I’ve seen what men can do to women,” she said, meeting his eyes in the mirror. “I prefer to keep myself unentangled.”
He lifted a strand of her hair in his calloused fingers. “We’re two of a kind, ain’t we, Tal? I’ve got no use for women.”
“Except Esperanza.”
His eyes narrowed in anger and relaxed again. “You never loved a man?”
“Never.”
“You were always safe from me.”
“I couldn’t be certain of that. If I dress as a man, it means I expect to live in a man’s world. No special favors.” No being lusted after because of how I look. No lying under some smelly, sweating pig who can’t or won’t be true to a woman of his own. No more hypocrisy.
“You told me never to touch you the way I did in Turquoise,” she said. “Now I’m telling you the same thing. Never touch me again.”
To her secret amazement, he backed away, hands raised as if to ward off attack. His mouth curled in a smile. “I don’t plan to,” he said. “That was just to prove that there ain’t nothing between us but business.”
Because he’d kissed her and felt nothing. He was a wonder, a marvel—true to his dream of one woman and not even tempted by such intimacy with another. Her opinion of him kept changing, and she wanted no more than to flee this house and breathe the sweet night air until her head was clear of this constant spinning.
“I believe you,” she said slowly. “God knows why.”
“You’re a religious one, are you, Tally-girl?” he asked, heading for the door. “Say a few prayers for me.”
“I doubt my prayers would do you any good.”
“Maybe not.” He pointed his chin toward the washstand. “Clean up. I’ll be back in an hour, Tally-girl.”
“Kavanagh! Don’t call me Tally-gi—”
He walked out of the room and closed the door behind him. Tally felt her way to the bed and sat down with a thump. Perspiration prickled along the back of her neck, and she realized what she had denied every moment of the past ten minutes.
She’d been terrified. Only part of that fear had been of Kavanagh himself. The rest had come from her utter lack of control, her mistake in underestimating a man she should have known was more dangerous than she could imagine.
Moving with short, sharp jerks, she unbuttoned her waistcoat, unbelted her gun, pulled off her shirt and unwound the bandages underneath. Her breasts ached. She slipped off the men’s britches and the suspenders that held them up around her waist. Layer by layer, she stripped down to her skin and stood naked before the washstand. She used two of the towels to bathe her body, combed out her hair until it was free of snarls and tangles, and unpacked her spare shirt from her saddlebags. She counted every minute she spent in the room.
When she was dressed again, she took the basin and refilled it from the pump between the cabin and the barn. Laundry flapped in the night breeze, but she caught no sight of Kavanagh.
She met him at the door of the bedroom. His hair was damp and his face clean. He looked her over and gave a short nod. “Good. I’ll sleep in the barn tonight.”
“No special favors, Kavanagh.”
“Be a damned waste if that bed don’t get some use.”
Not a hint of innuendo shaded his words. Tally relaxed. “All right. You take it for three hours, and I’ll take it after that.”
“After I dirty up the sheets? I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. You go first.”
“You’re a stubborn tête de mule, Kavanagh.”
“Whatever that is, I’ll take it as a compliment.” He touched the brim of his hat and turned to go. She made a move to stop him. He froze.
“Why?” she asked. “You don’t like women. You don’t trust them. Now that you know what I am—”
He turned around, towering over her, though she wasn’t small or in the least bit delicate—except in the minds of the men who’d wanted her to be so. “If you was a regular woman,” he said, “I’d leave you here and forget about your brother.”
“I suppose I should take that as a compliment.”
“Take it how you like,” he said. “You keep up with me the way you been doin’, and we won’t have no dustups between us.”
She watched him stalk down the hall and out the front door. The bedroom seemed strangely empty. She took off everything but her shirt and lay down, stiffly at first, trying to catch Sim’s scent on the sheets. It was almost too faint to be noticeable. She concentrated on the sounds of crickets and a whip-poor-will in the nearby meadow until exhaustion claimed her. Once she woke, briefly, to the sound of a distant wolf’s howl.
Dawn sifted through the thin muslin curtains. Tally swung her legs over the side of the bed and pulled on her pants. Kavanagh’s saddlebags were gone.
She finished dressing in haste, torn between annoyance with Sim and delight at the rich scent of frying bacon. There would be fresh eggs, perhaps flapjacks, as well, and she found herself ravenous.
With her saddlebags over her shoulders, she left the bedroom and entered the living area. Mrs. Bryson had the table set for breakfast. Beth brought a pail of fresh milk from the barn. She smiled at Tally.
“If you’re looking for your friend, he’s outside with my father,” she said. She flushed a little, glancing aside at her mother.
“I hope you slept well,” Mrs. Bryson said. She carried a frying pan of eggs to the table and slid them onto a platter.
“Wonderfully,” Tally said. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Mr. Kavanagh said he wanted to let you rest up for the day ahead. He must have been out with the horses well before dawn; he’s already helped Mr. Bryson repair the corral fence.” She bustled back to the stove. “For a man who doesn’t talk much, he can certainly make himself useful.”
Indeed, Tally thought. “I’m afraid I haven’t been.”
“Never mind that. The men should be in shortly.” As she’d predicted, Bryson and Kavanagh arrived a few moments later, sharing the silent camaraderie of men who’ve labored together. Kavanagh hardly glanced in Tally’s direction. Bryson invited his guests to sit, said grace and served the meal.
Tally watched Kavanagh out of the corner of her eye. He hadn’t spent any part of the night in the bedroom, but the Brysons didn’t realize it. Her secret was safe. When breakfast was finished, Bryson saw her and Kavanagh out to the barn. The horses stood saddled and ready.
“You be careful up there,” Bryson said, passing Kavanagh a bundle that Tally guessed must contain fresh food. “No Apaches as far as I know, but still plenty of places to get into trouble. I’ve been hearing wolves lately.”
Kavanagh seemed to take the warning in the spirit it was intended. He swung into the saddle. “We’ll get by.”
Bryson gazed up at the sky. “I’d swear it’s going to rain. Not that I’m complaining, mind you—rain in the dry season is always welcome. But I hope it doesn’t interfere with your search.”
Tally followed his gaze. She hadn’t considered bad weather to be a factor in finding André, but Bryson was right. Clouds had gathered sometime in the night, and the look of them boded a rare late-spring rain.
She concealed her worry and gripped Bryson’s hand. “Please thank your wife and daughter for their hospitality.”
“That I will. You’re welcome any time. Good luck.”
She tipped her hat and mounted Muérdago. With a last wave, she reined east along the canyon that curved deeper into the mountains. She let the gelding pick his path, since there was really only one way to go and her thoughts were otherwise occupied. Kavanagh rode beside her, easy in posture and expression.
What had he said last night, after he’d kissed her? Now that’s done. A chore to be gotten out of the way, an irritating distraction vanquished. Certainly nothing bad had come of it, except a little wounding of her pride.
So why couldn’t she let it go, as he did? Was it anger she felt, that a man had bested her…or something else entirely?
“How did you sleep?” she asked casually.
“About as well as you.”
“You left the bed to me all night. You’re in danger of being mistaken for a gentleman, Kavanagh.”
He cast her a grim, searching look. “I’m no gentleman, and you’re no lady. That’s the bargain.”
She knew that he meant he had no expectations of her except that she do her part to find André. Kavanagh didn’t know what a precious gift he’d given her—the gift of equality and respect.
She wondered if he would accord his Esperanza such a privilege.
Morning light cast long shadows in the canyon. The gain in elevation along the watercourse brought more pines interspersed with oaks. The forest closed in on either side of the path; red fox squirrels flashed bushy tails in warning. Clouds continued to gather in the southwest, thicker and darker than before.
The first notched pinnacles appeared just as the horses rounded a sharp bend in the arroyo. Red columns, many joined in wall-like ramparts, others standing alone, towered above the trees. Some were shaped like strange animals or birds or gesturing men. Deep joints, like miniature slot canyons, ran between them.
“We’ll see a lot more of those,” Kavanagh remarked, deftly guiding his stallion over a bulging mass of rocks. “This broken terrain was what made the Chiricahuas so good for the Apaches trying to escape the army. Wasn’t easy for men to pursue on horseback.” He glanced at the lowering sky. “Don’t worry. I’ll find him.”