To Tame a Wolf

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.”