Texas Gold

“I’d say he needs some training in order to qualify as a bona fide watchdog,” Max said dryly. “I didn’t even have to coax him with the bits of bacon I brought with me.” He slid his hand into his jacket pocket and removed his handkerchief, where remnants of what had probably been his breakfast lay wrapped.

Wolf transferred his attention to the bacon, one ear lifting, the other at half-mast, and Max laughed—an exuberant sound, Faith thought, as though he had not a care in the world. And maybe he didn’t, after all.

He’d ridden into the yard unchallenged, had dismounted and tied his horse to the hitching rail, and then made an instant ally of her much-touted watchdog. His glance was accusing. “You tried to make me believe your defender would eat me alive.”

“Obviously, I failed in his training,” she said quietly. “But—”

Her attention caught by a movement behind him, she shifted the rifle swiftly, her finger squeezing the trigger with a practiced movement, her aim on target.

At the sound of the blast the dog yelped and scampered to one side, but Max was immobile, his eyes narrowing as they remained trained on her face. “Was that a warning of sorts?” he asked.

She shrugged, as though the matter was of little importance. “I didn’t want my dog bit by a rattler.” And then she motioned with the rifle barrel toward the ground to Max’s left. The snake’s body twitched in its death throes, and she thought Max’s jaw tensed as he surveyed the remains.

“I suppose I should thank you,” he murmured, and then looked up at her. “Or was it only your dog you were concerned about?”

“I think you can figure that out for yourself,” she said, rather pleased by the effectiveness of her shooting skill.

“Well, at least your watchdog likes me,” he added, and then smiled slightly. “I remember—”

“I know,” she said quickly. Even the small pooch he’d brought home to her after their honeymoon had much preferred Max’s attention, given a choice.

He rose now and faced her, his eyes narrowing as he assessed her, skimming her clothing, lingering a bit as he examined her face, paying particular attention to her eyes. “You didn’t sleep well,” he said finally.

“I never sleep well when I’m in the midst of a problem.”

“Have you solved it with your tossing and turning?” he asked. He stepped across the expanse of ground between them and reached up to brush the lavender shadows beneath her eyes. She jerked away from the gentle touch. It was a less than subtle reminder of his effect on her.

“I don’t think you made any headway, did you?” he asked quietly.

“If you were a more agreeable man, it might be a simple matter,” she said, already aware that he was neither agreeable nor given to simple solutions. Not when it came to having his own way. Max was stubborn and possessive, and in this dispute she doubted he would give up easily.

“I consider myself a decent fellow,” he told her, his smile an obvious attempt to charm her into good humor. “The lawyer in town was very helpful. I suppose I should tell you that I stopped by to see him this morning.”

“Really? And what did he say that put you in such a good mood?”

“Oh, that I had the law behind me, should I decide to make demands on you.”

“Demands?” She felt her heart stutter a bit and then begin beating again, albeit at a more rapid pace than was its habit. “Are you thinking of taking me to bed, Max?”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Did I say that?” And then he smiled, a grin that reminded her of Wolf at his friskiest. “Does the idea appeal to you?”

“You know better. I left you and my responsibilities as your wife a long time ago. So far as I’m concerned, our marriage is over. If you force the issue, you’ll have a fight on your hands.”

His grin evaporated, and his hands snagged her waist, drawing her toward him. “I don’t think you stand a chance of winning that sort of battle, sweetheart, even if I were to offer the challenge. You forget, I’m close to a hundred pounds heavier than you, almost a foot taller, and even though you’ve toughened up considerably over the past three years, I’m relatively certain I could have you in your bed in less than five minutes.”

His voice lowered as he held her captive and leaned to touch her lips with a fleeting kiss. A kiss she felt her hungry mouth return, lingering against his for a heart-shuddering moment before he eased away, looked down at her and smiled. “Not that I’m going to do such a thing.”

She thought his dark eyes grew shadowed then. “Mind you, I didn’t say I wouldn’t like to,” he amended. “In fact, I can’t think of anything that would give me more pleasure than to spend the whole day in your bedroom.”

“Really?” she asked, her voice splintered by a loss of breath, her lungs finding it difficult to draw in a full measure of air as she recovered from the brief meeting of lips that had managed to rock her equilibrium.

Her knees felt weak, her breath caught in her throat with a shudder, and she stepped past him without awaiting a reply and walked toward the chicken coop, where her hens awaited their morning meal. Doing the ordinary, simple tasks that were her daily routine seemed the route to follow right now. She’d given Max the response he wanted, had fallen on him like a woman deprived, and had managed to embarrass herself in the process.

Now she would feed the hens and gather the eggs and ignore his presence. Hopefully, the man would give up and be on his way. The thought of being involved in another confrontation with her neighbor made her cringe. She was a woman more than capable of tending her own affairs, and getting her benefactor and his wife involved in this mess was not to be considered.

“Can I help?” Max asked, following at her heels as she opened the gate to the chicken yard.

Leaning the rifle against the fence, she looked up at him. “If you don’t mind chicken poop on your shiny boots,” she said dryly. “There’s a pan just inside the door, hanging on the wall. You can be in charge of gathering eggs. Your best bet is to get the job done while I’m feeding the hens. You’ll save yourself getting all bloody that way. My hens don’t take to strangers.”

“That’s what you said about the dog,” he reminded her, glancing back to where Wolf lay in the shade, watching the ritual of tending the chickens take place.

“Wolf’s a traitor,” she said, dismissing the pooch with a wave of her hand.

“Don’t write him off too readily,” Max told her, opening the door to the coop. “Given the right circumstances, he’d be a loyal defender. He just sensed that I wasn’t a threat to you.”

She turned to look over her shoulder at him. “Aren’t you?” And then she dipped her pan into the barrel of feed and scattered it across the chicken yard, shaking the pan to call her flock.

“While you’re looking for something to do, you might dispose of that rattler,” she said, delighting in his look of distaste.

He’d done as she asked and then headed for the barn, where he put his energy into cleaning stalls, a chore Faith had been certain he would try to avoid, given the resultant boot cleaning involved once the work was complete. Her memories of Max involved knife-edged creases in his trousers and gleaming leather shoes and boots, plus a tendency to always appear well-groomed, even when he rose from her bed.

She, on the other hand, had usually felt like a well-used dishcloth, limp and still warm from his kisses and the profusion of caresses he was wont to include in their sessions in the darkest hours of the night. Quiet in his retreat, he’d left her yearning for his arms on those nights when he slept in his own room, and she’d never been able to bring herself to join him there.

Max called the shots. And she’d allowed it. Prim and uneasy with the marriage relationship, unwilling to approach him with any degree of eagerness, she’d been what her mother-in-law had been prone to speak of as “an ideal wife, who knows her place in her husband’s life and in society.”

And wasn’t that the saddest excuse for marriage she’d ever heard. Yet it had been, for a while, an experience she’d cherished.

She shivered, forking hay from the loft, where the temperature hovered above sizzling and pretty close to sweltering. The man was a piece of work, trying to fit himself into her life, as if he had a right.

But after all, hadn’t the lawyer in town told him as much? Faith leaned on the pitchfork for a moment, wondering what else the lawyer had had to say during that early morning chat. Surely Max had not mentioned his inclination to claim his marital rights. If he had, and if she were to ever face Mr. Handle in town, it would be a most humiliating experience. Probably the discussion had concerned Max’s right to drag her back to Boston with him.

It could be done, of that she was certain. Women were at the bottom of the heap when it came to surviving conflict in the relationship between husband and wife.

“You going to stay up there all day?” Max called from the bottom of the ladder.

She jerked, almost dropping the pitchfork on top of him, and then lost her balance. Tossing the sharp-tined weapon aside, she fell back, lying flat, looking upward toward the barn ceiling. Truly not one of her better moments, she decided, rolling to her knees and rising to stand on the uneven bed of hay.

“Are you all right?” Max’s head appeared through the hole in the floor, followed by his shoulders as he lifted himself from the ladder to stand before her. “Here, let me give you a hand.” He reached to steady her, and laughed outright.

“Your hair is a mess,” he said, plucking wisps of hay from her braid and brushing bits and pieces from her sweaty brow. The movement of his hand slowed, then ceased altogether, and in a hushed moment, he touched her lips with his index finger.

“Faith.” It was a whisper of sound, and she glared up at him, unwilling to be so readily coaxed by his gentle approach.

“I’m fine. Go on down. I’ll toss enough hay down for the next couple of weeks and then pile it in the corner. It saves me climbing into the loft more than twice a month.”

“It’s nice up here,” he said, looking off into the shadows, where a bird had built a nest and was busily fluttering on the edge, feeding her young. “If it wasn’t so blasted hot, I’d enjoy lying back in the hay and talking for a while.”

“You’d be talking to yourself,” Faith said, lifting her pitchfork from the hay and stabbing it into the pile she’d so recently occupied. Hay fell through the opening, scattering on the barn floor beneath, and she lifted another layer, sending it after the first.