Tucker's Claim

Some men liked their women plump and soft, some liked them curvy. He’d decided, about two minutes after Sally Mae touched him, that he liked willowy blondes. He’d been in a rage—angry at life, indulging his temper on an equally big man who was in an equally big snit when she’d walked into the saloon, stepped between them and started to lecture them on the foolishness of fighting. He’d had to deck the bastard when he’d hauled back his arm, ready to flatten her. Then he’d had to listen to her lecture him all the way to her house, half-lit, keeping his steps steady because he knew if he tripped she’d try to catch him, and with her delicate build she’d only end up pancaked beneath him. She’d ranted at him in that quiet way she had as she’d gathered her supplies, as if her wild opinions had weight.

He’d sat and listened, breathed her scent, and as he looked around her cozy kitchen later, the longing had hit him with the force of a blow. Had things been different—his mother white or his father Indian—his blood wouldn’t have been mixed and he could have had a home in either the white world or Indian, but as it was, he didn’t fit anywhere except Hell’s Eight. He certainly didn’t fit here, but he’d wanted to. For the first time since his family and town had been wiped out by a Mexican raid when he was sixteen, he’d wanted to fit somewhere other than Hell’s Eight. And when Sally Mae’s hand had settled on his bare arm in an offer of pure comfort, for that brief moment in time, he’d wanted to fit here.

In the months since that night, the need kept creeping back. Didn’t matter how much he told himself Sally Mae was a good woman. Not the kind a man trifled with, he couldn’t shake the belief that she was meant for him. For however long he could tickle her fancy. Since that moment she’d touched him, he’d been biding his time. He was good at that. It made him a good Texas Ranger. A good horse trainer. He eyed the gentle thrust of Sally’s breasts beneath her demure lace collar. A damn good lover.

The music resumed a lively beat. Sally’s toe kept time. He bet she danced with the same inherent grace underlined with an innate sexuality, as she did everything. She was the only woman he knew who could make stitching a wound a sexy event. A smile tugged on the corner of her wide mouth. Probably too wide for beauty, but Tucker liked the generous way she smiled. It reflected the generosity of her spirit. He liked the way her nose wasn’t some small bit of nonsense, too. Straight and narrow it complemented the strength in the rest of her features.

Truth was, a moment spent studying Sally’s face revealed a lot about the woman’s personality. Including how stubborn she was. Just look at the set of her chin. More than one person had tried to get her to move back east after her husband had been shot, but she’d refused politely. When pressed, she’d just ended all argument with a simple statement that she wouldn’t be run out of her home. And when the suggestions had started that she needed to remarry, she’d been just as blunt. Her husband had been a good man. She’d mourn him properly.

The town had backed down. Which had been pure foolishness, in Tucker’s opinion. Texas wasn’t a place for a woman who believed God lived in everyone and turning the other cheek beat a beating when dealing with a threat. Tucker would have put her ass on the next train east, bound and gagged if he’d had to. Sally Mae was too fine for life alone out here. Green to the difficulties she faced, green to the reality that she’d have to marry again. Green to the danger she faced from him. Hell, she’d even pointed out that with a Texas Ranger living in her barn, how much of a threat could there be? Completely missing the connotation people might put on that. Completely missing how right they’d be to speculate on his interest. He did want her and he intended to have her.

On a sensual sigh, she smiled and settled further against the porch wall. Alone in the dark, apart from the town, the way she always was, even though she tended to the townspeople with an evenhandedness a preacher couldn’t fault, taking care of good and bad alike, losing all caution under a sense of dedication. Lately, even more so. As if driven to prove something only she understood. Which was another reason he was still here and not out following the latest lead on what had happened to Ari, Caine’s wife’s sister, why he’d turned down Sam and his new fiancée’s invitation to make his home off Hell’s Eight at their comfortable ranch. He grimaced. He was a glutton for punishment, that was for sure, but someone had to watch over the widow when her common sense took a hike. Like last week when she’d taken in Lyle Hartsmith after he’d been knifed in a bar fight.

Lyle Hartsmith was a real no account, an outlaw with no morals and no allegiance, and if there was any justice in the world, the wound would have killed him, but there was no convincing Sally Mae of that. In her eyes, the prairie rat was one of God’s creatures and entitled to care. And that was the end of it. So Tucker was here cooling his heels, keeping an eye on things, making sure she didn’t take on more than she could handle, feeding a hunger that could go nowhere while he paid back a debt she wouldn’t acknowledge he owed. He shook his head. Who the hell had said that with age comes wisdom? He was thirty-one, and from all recent signs, getting dumber by the day.

The fiddler dropped into a slow, popular tune and Sally’s smile changed, becoming sad and just a little bit lost in the memories the song evoked. No doubt, of her dead husband. Tucker wanted to resent the man for having Sally for his wife, but he couldn’t. Jonah had been a good man who’d deserved better than he’d received. And he’d been stolen from Sally the same way Tucker’s life had been stolen from him when he’d been sixteen—in a hail of bullets and with no warning. He knew the sense of shock left by that kind of murder, the feeling that there was nothing left to hold on to. His parents might not have been the best, but they’d been better than the nothing that had remained when the Mexican soldiers had finished annihilating his small town.

A thinning of Sally Mae’s lower lip told him she was biting it. To hold back sobs? Hell, the night was too beautiful for tears. Especially Sally Mae’s. He stepped out of the shadows, drawn by her sorrow and the need to alleviate it. Drawn by his lust and his hunter’s instincts. Drawn by the desire to make this moment in her life better than the memory that consumed her. It took only three steps to get to the bottom of the stairs. He held out his hand, looked up and asked, “May I have this dance?”

There was a slight start to reveal her surprise, but Sally Mae didn’t move away from the wall, and she didn’t open her eyes, but her smile changed. Softened. She really was in a mood tonight.

“That would be scandalous.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “So was taking a notorious outlaw into your house, but I didn’t see you balk at that.”

Her right eye cracked open. “In that, I didn’t have a choice.”

His instincts perked. His blood thickened with the slow course of desire. “And now you do.”

He didn’t expect her to take his hand, and she didn’t, but her other lid opened and the gaze with which she weighed him was as keen as anyone’s, even Caine’s. And Caine had a wicked ability to take a person’s measure. It’s what made him the natural leader of the Hell’s Eight.

“I find I am at a fork in the road of my life, Ranger McCade.”

His heart beat faster and his senses sharpened. “Forks can be good.”

She closed her eyes again and took a slow breath. The way a person did when they were thinking. “True, but only if one can discern the difference between an opening and temptation.”

She had him there. “An opening?”

“An opportunity provided by God to grow.”

“And without this opening you can’t dance with me?”

With her eyes closed and the moonlight catching on her hair, she looked like an angel he’d seen in a book he’d stolen as a child.

Her eyes opened and he changed his mind. No angel looked that earthy.

“It means I must decide the source of thy temptation for me.”

“As in good or bad?”

“Yes.”

Placing his foot on the bottom step, he grazed his finger over her knee. The practical wool of her skirt did nothing to dim the impact on his senses. “Then I vote for bad.”

Her lids flickered and her lip slipped between her teeth. “Why?”

He smiled, holding her gaze, his pulse kicking up. She wasn’t fighting him. “Because I can make being bad…very, very good.”

Her breath caught. Exhaling, she confessed, “Such is what I suspect, which simply makes my decision that much harder.”

The flush on her cheeks destroyed the last of his good intentions. Sliding his fingers to the back of her knee, he curved his palm over the point. “Want me to make it easy for you?”

Sally’s expression shifted. An element he didn’t recognize enriched the speculation as she ran her gaze over him. The glance, rich in feminine knowledge, burned along his desire, as it traveled from the top of his hat to the toes of his boots, neither of which were courting clean. “Would thee be willing?”

The lack of disapproval in her summation only goaded his anger with the message it sent. He’d been here often enough to recognize the signs. She wasn’t looking for proper from him, just a few illicit moments in bed that she could hug as her sexy little secret on cold winter nights. He dropped his hand and stepped back. “Is your bed getting so cold that you’re lowering yourself to invite a savage into it?”

She blinked and slid off the rail. It was easy to read the emotions chasing across her expression this time. Horror. Affront. Anger. And then pity. “Thee do not think much of thyself.”

That wasn’t true. He thought a lot of himself, he just didn’t think much of how other people saw him. “Thinking on changing me?”

With a cock of her head, she acknowledged his displeasure, then she shrugged. “I’ve been thinking on many things.”

“Like what?” He didn’t trust that too-calm way in which she observed him.

“Like the fact that thee are a good man, as well as being a very big temptation.”

He might be a temptation, but he wasn’t good. And she damn well knew it. “Have you been drinking?”

“I don’t believe in drink.”

She didn’t drink, she didn’t dance and she didn’t believe in violence. “What do you believe in?”

She didn’t answer right away, just studied him with her big gray eyes to the point that he was beginning to feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. And then in that regal way she always moved, which spoke of confidence and commanded respect, she descended the steps. When she reached the bottom one, it was natural to hold out his hand, natural that she place hers in it, natural that he continue to hold it as she took that last step that brought her directly before him. Her fingers curled around his. Her hand was cool and dry. She wasn’t nervous about dancing with him. “I believe in choice.”

And this close it was easy to determine why. There was a touch of alcohol on her breath. Someone had spiked the punch. Sally Mae probably wasn’t in command of all her faculties. A decent man would have escorted her back inside to the dance. But he wasn’t a decent man. He was Tucker McCade, known more for his brawling skills than his scruples. In short, he was no better than he had to be.

“Then I’m glad you’re choosing me.”

Her head cocked to the side as he pulled her in. “Thee are lying.”

Yes, he was. What with Sam just having left with Bella, Tucker was more conscious than ever of what would never be his. A woman to love him for what he was. The way Bella loved Sam. The way Desi loved Caine. But tonight, he was in the mood to pretend that it could be, and with Sally Mae. He drew their linked hands up and to the right, guiding her into his arms. The top of her head tucked under his chin as if it belonged there. “Do you care?” he asked against the silk of her hair.

“Not tonight.”

“Good.”

“Thee are holding me too closely.”