Warren’s chuckle travels through my back as he nods pointedly at Emmaline. “Well, I don’t claim to be the smartest of all my brothers, but I’d say it’d have to be at least around nine months or so, wouldn’t you, Sheriff?” Both men laugh before Warren caresses my face with a slow, lingering gaze. “Truth is, I’d been looking for Mara for months now, and it wasn’t until last night that fate was kind enough to let me find her. And just in time, too, because I got to see my little girl come into the world.”
I force a weak smile around my grimace. Good Lord, this man has such a flannel mouth. I don’t know whether to be worried that he can lie so smoothly or grateful that he’s doing it to keep his word to me.
“Glad things worked out for you, son. Seems just like yesterday when my own daughter was born. Nothing else like it,” Sheriff Palmer says gruffly. “Anyway, nobody else knows anything about Joe and Chance. If I had to guess, I’d wager their actions finally caught up with ‘em and they turned on each other. Serves ‘em damn right, the bastards.” His head jerks in my direction. “Sorry for thelanguage, Mrs. Shay. Should be minding my words in front of a lady.”
Mrs. Shay? And a lady? If he only knew I was the furthest thing from one. And I’m shocked at his feelings about Joe and Chance. I ease away from Warren, but his fingers grip my waist in a silent message to be still. Realizing I probably ought to respond to keep up the ruse, I stiffly nod in acceptance of his apology.
“Well,” the sheriff says as he gathers his reins, “keep a hand on your gun, Warren, in case we got a snake on the loose. A man needs to protect his own above all.”
“That he does. Now if you’ll excuse us, I need to get my little family home. We’ve got some sleep to catch up on after the long night we just had.” Exchanging a nod, Warren clicks his tongue and urges the horses to move again. “See you around, Sheriff.”
“They’re both dead?” I hiss under my breath. “And move your arm.” The weight of it is suffocating and altogether too warm.
His damned smile and arm don’t budge an inch. “Hold up now, wife. Everyone needs to see us together, and us just sitting side by side ain’t gonna cut it. So if you don’t want me touching you, you’re gonna have to touch me. Can you hold Emmaline and my arm at the same time?”
“Yes,” I grumble as we shift around. Wife. That’s going to take some getting used to. Damn it. Maybe it was better with his arm around me because now I can feel the power of his muscles underneath my fingertips as he slaps the reins again. He calls out friendly greetings to everyone, receiving felicitations and curious stares in return. I suppose it’s not every day they see a white man with an Indian woman and baby. When we reach the open road and a bit of fresher air, Isnatch my hand back and pat Emmaline’s little bottom to wipe away the remnants of his touch.
Setting the horses at a slow and easy pace, Warren wraps the reins around one hand and grimly begins his explanation. “I guess I’ll start from when Dove and Abner got kidnapped from the fair last night.”
“I know.” A fluffy cloud peeks over the tree line, and I fixate on it. Blue skies aren’t something I’ve seen much of in the last few years. Any kind of sky, really. But the dust-flavored air blowing up from the horses’ heels smells better than the air in that damn room. Better than unwashed men and their soured sweat. “Joe said Crowley bought us so he could start a brothel of his own. Chance must have helped in taking them.”
“Those cocksucking whoresons,” he swears, tensing so tightly and so suddenly that I lean away. “Hey, hey,” he soothes, noticeably affecting a calmer tone. “I’m sorry, Mara. It’s just that I...I wish they were all still alive so I could be the one to kill them this time.”
“So you didn’t…”
Warren gazes off into the distance as if recalling the events. “Nah, it wasn’t me, it was my brother Jed. Dove’s husband. I was there with him if he needed me, but when a man’s woman is taken from him, he wants to be the one to exact vengeance. It’s his privilege as her husband to make things right again.”
A privilege, he says. Not a duty or a burden. Would he consider it a privilege to do the same for me? Probably not since this isn’t exactly a normal marriage.
“And that’s just what he did,” he continues seriously. “A bullet to the head and heart for Joe and Chance. Probably an even worse death for Crowley.”
“Why worse for him?” The words snap out before I can stop them, but the thought of my rapists’ deaths has a thrum of glee warming my cold veins.
“Crowley was her father.”
It should shock me that a father would force his daughter into prostitution, but after the last few years, not much surprises me anymore. My own little girl—an innocent baby—scarcely escaped being born into a lifetime of it. This time, I don’t have to conceal my sneer. “I hope they all suffered miserably and pissed themselves in fear.”
Warren stiffens in realization. “Did they…hurt you?”
“They did.” I can almost feel their dirty touches just from thinking about it, but there’s no escaping the truth. Chance, not so much. But he did his fair share, the bastard. “May they all rot in hell.”
Muttering a curse, Warren yanks the horses to a stop and stiffly sits. My heart quickens in a rhythm I can’t control. This can’t be good. I scan his profile, observing his straight nose and pressed lips, but his shuttered expression doesn’t tell me what he’s thinking. There’s only one reason I can think of for a man to stop on an empty road like this, and it’s not good. Just as my eyes drop to his pants to see if I’m right, his head jerks to me.
But it’s not lust I see in his eyes.
It’s sadness.
For me?
I’m not sure if that’s any better.
“Names,” he says roughly, fingers twitching as if reaching for me. “Who else needs to die?”
“Names?” Scorn tinges my laugh at his naivety, however misplaced his supposed kindness is. “You want something that even I don’t know. It’s not as if they introducedthemselves with a handshake before shoving into me.” I’d love for all of them to die, but I know it isn’t logical.
“Mara, I—” He winces, words cutting off into silence, but his dark gaze never leaves mine. And it’s back again…that strange look he gave me as he carried me up the stairs yesterday. That strange look that pierces into me in the most unsettling of ways. But then a snorting cry erases the tension, and we both look down at Emmaline as she squirms in my arms. “What’s the matter, Little Bit?” Warren coos to her, softness spreading over his face. “You sleep good?”
“You don’t have to pretend to be her father when it’s just us.” I subtly bounce my tiny baby in my arms to soothe her, bracing myself against the pain in my core at the jostling movement, but her soft crying only grows louder and sends milk surging into my tender breasts. She’d nursed before we left, but the way her mouth roots against my chest has me thinking only one thing will satisfy her.
