Happily Ever After in the West Read online

  With an effort, he refocused on her hands, then moved his gaze to her mud-smeared face. She scrambled to a standing position, looking mad as a hornet.

  Matt stood, as well. Toe to toe, they stared at each other.

  “Why are you ordering me around?” she spat at him. “I hate to be ordered around like a child.”

  “How come you’re all fluffed up like a banty chicken? I’m trying to help you!”

  Ellie turned her back on him, facing her wagonload of students. At the sight of her mud-streaked face, they burst into laughter. How humiliating! And Mr. Johnson’s deep-toned chuckles just added to the insult. She felt hot all over, not from the relentless sun, but from embarrassment. Keeping her head down, she marched to the front of the wagon, swung herself up and plopped her bottom on the bench. She had scarcely drawn a breath before Mr. Johnson settled his long length beside her.

  “Stop acting like an old-maid schoolteacher,” he intoned. “I’m doing you a favor. The mud will protect your skin from the sun.”

  “I— It is just that I am a bit self-conscious with it smeared all over me.”

  “Well, don’t be,” he growled. “Besides, it’s not smeared all over you.” He chuckled low in his throat. “I did think about it, though.”

  Instantly he ducked his head. “I mean, you look beautiful, mud or no— Oh, forget it.”

  Ellie gasped. Did he really think she was beautiful?

  “Listen, Miss Stevenson, there’s a good resting place up ahead, a river, plenty of trees. I think we should hole up there for the afternoon. Rest the horses, replenish our water supply.”

  “My destination is Gillette Springs, Mr. Johnson.”

  “We’re not going to make it to Gillette Springs unless we stop and rest.”

  “We? Who is ‘we’?”

  “You, me and those five kids in the wagon. I’m going with you.”

  “Why?”

  Matt groaned. “Damned if I know. I guess because you need help. Now, close your mouth and don’t argue.”

  “You are probably right,” Ellie acknowledged. “I am hot and sticky and tired, and my students are the same. You are correct, Mr. Johnson. We do need help. About that, I will not argue.”

  “Thanks,” he murmured drily. He wouldn’t tell her the real reason—that Royce was heading straight for Gillette Springs. Matt figured his quarry was out of coffee and tobacco and that’s why he’d changed directions. He had to delay Miss Blue long enough for the killer to load up on supplies and move on.

  He swung down from the bench and remounted his gelding. Might be best if he didn’t get too close to Miss Blue for a while; his jeans still felt too damned tight.

  By the time the wagon pulled off the road and into the woodsy area by the river, it was late afternoon and Ellie was so sun-baked and frazzled she felt like screaming. Despite the mud, the skin on her forehead and the backs of her hands burned like fire. Boston, even on her most picked-on-by-Mama days, was never like this. Oregon, she was discovering, was a different kind of hell.

  She felt off balance around Mr. Johnson. His eyes missed nothing. In fact, she thought with a flutter of something in her belly, he looked at her with a gaze so penetrating she felt naked. Worse, when her eyes met his, an odd recognition of something zinged between them.

  Did she imagine it? She found it hard even to breathe when he was near, not because of the scent of horse and sweat, but because…because the unhurried, catlike way he moved his body made her ache in places she had never ached before. Private places. Places her mother had never, ever mentioned.

  The wagon bumped to a stop beside a shallow bend in the river. The water looked so cool and inviting she felt like ripping off her dress and diving in headfirst.

  Mr. Johnson sidled his horse close to the wagon bed, where her students lay sprawled in various positions, panting in the heat.

  “Listen up! Anybody want to go swimming?”

  A chorus of yesses rose into the dusty air. Even Ellie murmured a quiet “Oh, yes, please.”

  “Okay. Everybody strip off the top layer of your duds and follow me.” He started toward the river, dropping his gunbelt and then his denim shirt as he walked.

  The children tumbled out of the wagon, tearing off boots and pinafores and aprons with eager fingers. The Ness twins shed their matching pink dresses, leaving their slight forms clad only in thin camisoles and floppy bloomers. Teddy MacAllister flung off his plaid flannel shirt and splashed into the water in Johnson’s wake.

  Ellie sat on the wagon bench, nervously plucking the sweat-soaked bodice of her dress away from her skin. She was hot and sticky and she longed to splash cool water all over her body, but she couldn’t, not in front of Mr. Johnson. She just couldn’t.

  “You coming?” he yelled.

  “No. Y-yes.”

  “Take off your dress, like the twins did.”

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly.”

  “Hell, yes, you could possibly,” he shouted at her. “Just shuck your skirt and petticoats. Maybe your blouse, too, if you’re wearing something underneath.”

  “Of course I’m wearing something under—”

  His rich laughter stopped her. “Scared, huh?”

  No, she was not scared! Shy, perhaps. Not scared. She climbed down from the wagon and with trembling fingers stripped off her skirt and petticoat, then unbuttoned her blouse the rest of the way and shrugged it off. Lifting her head high, she marched to a deserted spot farther up the riverbank and waded in.

  Did he really think she was beautiful?

  The children romped in the water, splashing each other, belly-flopping and screaming with delight. Absorbed as they were, they paid not the slightest attention to her.

  But Matt Johnson watched her for a long minute, then twisted away and plunged into the deepest part of the river.

  Chapter Five

  Matt knew instantly that he should not have teased her. Half-undressed, she was stunning—willowy and gently rounded every place he tried very hard not to look at. He dived underwater and swam until he ran out of air, then surfaced and shook the droplets out of his hair. He was far enough away now that she paid no attention to him. And she had moved upstream, thinking she could not be seen. But she was wrong. He could see just fine.

  So he watched. Couldn’t help himself. And the wetter she got, the hotter he felt. Her soaked camisole plastered itself to her breasts and he caught his breath. They were luscious as ripe peaches. Her bloomers clung to her bottom and outlined…well—he swallowed hard—they outlined everything, including the enticing triangular patch of dark hair where her thighs joined.

  While her students romped in the shallow part of the river, she sank up to her neck in the deeper water, then dunked her head under. When she brought her face up, the thick braid down her back was unraveling into a glorious tumble of thick, mahogany-colored waves.

  Oh, man. Oh man oh man oh man. He had to turn away to adjust his wet trousers, and when he twisted around again she was gone. Thank the Lord. He didn’t want to see her any more until her wet underthings dried out. He swam a few yards and waded out onto the riverbank. The sooner he got a fire going, the sooner Miss Blue’s smallclothes would dry.

  Within ten minutes he had a blaze going that threatened the low-hanging branches of the nearest sugar pine tree. He turned his backside to the flames and watched steam rise from his trousers.

  One by one, the children gathered around the fire, shivering and grinning. He wondered where Miss Blue was. He stalked over to his discarded gunbelt, buckled it around his hips and bent to retrieve his denim shirt. Loosening the leather laces at the neck, he worked it over his head onto his dripping torso. When he opened his eyes, there she was!

  Fully dressed in her blue shirtwaist and skirt. But… His belly tightened. If her underwear was drying on a huckleberry bush somewhere, that meant she had nothing on underneath! Her skirt clung to her long, slim legs, and—his mouth went dry—he could see her nipples clearly through the fabric of her
blouse.

  Matt groaned. Even when he shut his eyes he could see them, her perfect, small rose-tipped breasts. He forced himself to look away. It was going to be a long, uncomfortable evening.

  The MacAllister boy turned from the fire and cocked his head. “Mr. Johnson?”

  “Yeah, son?”

  “You’re making groany noises. Does your belly hurt?”

  “Nope.” But another one of his organs sure did. He was swollen and hard and sitting down right now in these tight jeans would be downright painful.

  The brown-eyed seven-year-old edged closer. “Mr. Johnson? How come you’re smiling?”

  Matt jerked as if he’d been nipped by a scorpion. “Just thinking about, uh, something.”

  All at once he realized he hadn’t thought about that bastard Royce for a full seven hours. Half a day. Felt kinda good not being angry and churned-up inside. Being able to draw a breath that didn’t make his chest hurt with that eaten-up feeling he got in his gut whenever he thought about Royce.

  “I’m hungry,” said a small voice at his elbow.

  Matt knelt down to the girl’s level. Manette, he remembered. “Me, too, Manette. What should we do about that?”

  “I think we should cook some supper and eat it. There’s some more cans of food in the wagon.” She slipped her warm hand into his.

  “Okay, partner, let’s go have a look.”

  Ellie stepped out from behind the sprawling huckleberry bush where her camisole and bloomers lay drying to see Manette and Mr. Johnson pawing through the cans in the back of the wagon. Her fists clenched. What business did that raggedy man have inspecting their meager supplies?

  “Mr. Johnson! May I speak with you?”

  The tall man raised his head and thumbed his hat off his face. “Sure. What about?”

  “In private,” she said without smiling.

  “Oh. Well, Manette and I were just choosing some supper vittles. Could it wait?”

  “No, it could not. As a matter of fact, it concerns our supper.”

  He bent toward Manette. “Be back in a minute, honey.”

  “No, you won’t,” the girl piped. “Miss Stevenson usually talks a long time.”

  Ellie flinched. Good heavens, did she really? Was she boring her students?

  Mr. Johnson jumped down from the wagon bed and moved toward her with his long-legged stride. She tried to look at his face, but again his hat was pulled so low his expression remained hidden. His mouth, however, was curved in a smile.

  “What’s up, Miss Stevenson?”

  Ellie pursed her lips. “We cannot remain here overnight. We haven’t enough food to—”

  “You can’t lose another day, is that it?”

  “Precisely. The children’s parents will expect—”

  “They’ll expect their kids to be kept safe and sound,” he interrupted. “Whether they’re hungry is secondary.”

  “But I promised to take them to Gillette Springs, not dillydally another night by this river.”

  “You can’t go on to Gillette Springs right now.”

  She propped her hands on her hips. “Why not?”

  “Not safe, that’s why. There’s, uh, a dangerous man in town.”

  “I don’t believe you. What makes you think so?”

  “His name is Randall Royce. He’s a killer, and I know he’s in Gillette Springs because I followed his trail.”

  Her voice hardened with disbelief. “And just how do you know he’s a killer?”

  “I know he’s a killer because he shot my little brother. Luke was still a kid. He tried to stop Royce from stealing one of our horses, and Royce shot him. I’ve been tracking him for the last four years. Started in Texas, but he’s been moving north.”

  “Why you? Why isn’t a federal marshal chasing this man?”

  He gave her a speculative look. “Well, ma’am, the truth is a federal marshal is chasing him.” He fished a well-worn silver badge out of his pants pocket and flipped it over so Ellie could read the engraving on the back. Matthew L. Johnson, U.S. Marshal.

  Ellie stared at him. This shaggy-haired, disreputable-looking, blunt-spoken man was a U.S. Marshal?

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Doesn’t matter if you do or don’t, Miss Stevenson. What matters right now is that we—you, me and your students—have to stay put for tonight, and we might want to eat something while we do it. Now, I’ve got flour and bacon fat in my saddlebag and I make real fine biscuits. What do you say?”

  Ellie said nothing, just peered up under his hat brim to catch a glimpse of his eyes. A glint of amusement shone in his gaze, but when he saw her watching him, it faded into two calm, calculating gray-green chips of marble.

  That look sent a tremor through her chest. It wasn’t fear; it was fascination. The man might be halfway good-looking with a haircut and a shave. And a smile.

  What on earth was she thinking! He might be a marshal, as he claimed, but even if he was, she didn’t trust him one smidgen. Maybe he was just a bounty hunter? Or a killer himself, looking to even up a score? Maybe he’d stolen that badge from a real marshal…except that his name was engraved on the back. Maybe he’d robbed the real marshal and assumed his identity?

  She gritted her teeth. All right, maybe he was a marshal, but he was a rough, unkempt know-it-all just the same. She didn’t feel safe around him.

  Oh, yes, you do! You feel perfectly safe around him. What you feel around him is more like attraction than fear.

  What nonsense! She was nothing but a lonely, gullible female whose head was turned by a man’s admiring look. “Mr. Johnson—”

  “Matt,” he interjected.

  Ellie raised her chin. “Mr. Johnson, when will it be safe to enter Gillette Springs?”

  “Tomorrow morning, I reckon. Royce should have cleared out by then.”

  “But, if you are chasing him, why don’t you ride on into town and capture him tonight?”

  He raised his head and pinned her with those hard green eyes. “Because that’d leave you and these children out here alone. Unprotected. And,” he continued, holding her gaze, “because I’m not going to capture him. I’m going to kill him.”

  Ellie’s hand flew to her mouth. “But you can’t! That’s murder!”

  Matt looked away. “Yeah, it is. Used to make me feel good just thinking about it. Doesn’t anymore. I just know I have to do it.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I promised my pa.”

  Speechless, Ellie stared at him. In his eyes she saw determination and anger and the desperate look of a man caught in a trap of his own making.

  “Could you not give it up?” she ventured.

  He snorted. “You crazy? I’ve spent years busting my butt in the saddle tracking that bas—tracking Royce. Why should I give it up now?”

  “Because,” Ellie shot back without thinking. “There might be better things to do with your life.”

  The strangest look came over his face, a deep hunger of some kind. His gaze softened for an instant, then turned back to stone.

  “Yeah, there might be, but I swore to get Royce. Besides my father, I swore it to myself.”

  Ellie looked straight into the man’s eyes. “You are not playing a marshal’s role in this,” she said evenly. “You are playing God.”

  He didn’t respond at first, just stared at her with eyes like green ice. “Never looked at it like that before,” he growled. “But you’re wrong.”

  “How old was your brother Luke?”

  “’Bout the age of Teddy MacAllister over there. He’d have been nine come Christ—” His voice went hoarse.

  For a long minute Ellie could not think of one sensible thing to say. Or even one comforting thing. At last she drew in a resigned breath.

  “Mr. Johnson—Matt—we would be pleased to share your real fine biscuits.”

  Chapter Six

  Teddy MacAllister hung at Matt’s elbow, watching him mix up flour and bacon fat until it turned into a
pebbly mixture, then adding a dash of saleratus and another of salt. The boy had dogged his every step for the past hour, and somehow it made Matt feel good inside. Teddy was a lot like Luke—quiet and intelligent.

  The twins, Noralee and Edith, dressed in their matching pink frocks now that their underclothes were dry, clamored to help as well, carrying tins of water to dampen the biscuit mix in the crockery soup bowl Matt always carried in his saddlebag. Manette and her little friend Sarah perched on a nearby boulder, dipping their bare toes in the river mud and giggling.

  “Dumb girls,” Teddy muttered under his breath.

  Matt had to laugh. “Don’t like girls too much, huh?” Matt sent one twin off to find two flat stones.

  “Aw, they’re okay, I guess. Noralee can hit a tree stump with a cow pie at fifty paces.”

  “And,” the thin-faced girl interjected with a shy smile, “I can sew and make bread and pick apples. Do you wanna marry me?”

  “Heck, no!” Teddy bellowed. “I don’t care if you can fly, I ain’t marryin’ you or any other girl.”

  “Aren’t,” said a low, clear voice from the opposite side of the crackling fire. “You aren’t going to marry her.”

  The boy screwed up his face. “Well, I’m not! Ever!”

  “Nobody’s pushing, son, so don’t work up a sweat over it.”

  Miss Blue raised her arm and Matt glimpsed a can of tomatoes in her hand. “Would you want this?” she called.

  “Sure.” Surreptitiously he studied her chest. Apparently her smallclothes were dry because her nipples no longer showed through her blouse. That meant she had her lacy bloomers on, too. He heaved a sigh of relief.

  But when she stepped around the fire and pressed the can of tomatoes into his hand, his pulse kicked up anyway. Way up.

  “Thanks,” he murmured. Every inch of her except for her face was covered up in chaste blue muslin, but her dark hair was loose and tumbled. Heavens. She was a fine woman, but she made him feel funny inside. Lonely-like.

  At that moment, Edith returned lugging two flat river rocks. Ellie planted herself next to Teddy and watched Matt push the sticky biscuit dough into a ball. “How about some canned corn?”