Tangled Past Read online

  Someone had to warn Mr. Campbell and his friend they were going to be attacked. Maybe if they left earlier or took a different route, they could avoid it. Once the back door closed, and Walt and Josiah had both retired for the night, Sarah rolled from beneath the covers. She crept down the stairs, careful to keep to the side where the wood planks wouldn’t creak as much, and avoided the third stair from the bottom that creaked no matter where she stepped on it. After a moment’s indecision, she decided to go out the front door—it didn’t squeak on its hinges the way the one in the kitchen did. She paused by the coat rack and grabbed her cloak, then fumbled in the dark to find her boots and tug them on.

  The half moon hung low on the horizon, leaving the yard in shadows that hid her as she picked her way across the rocky ground. Once she was inside the barn, she had to rely on the few slivers of moonlight breaking through the gaps in the barn boards to light the way. She stopped when she heard a low murmur in one of the corners. Sounded like their guests had decided not to sleep in the loft but in one of the empty stalls.

  “Stop squirming.” Amusement tinged the voice of the man called Jackson. “You’re gonna end up with salve on everything.”

  “I can’t help it. It’s cold.” There was a pause. “I sure wish you’d let me go after that Jed fella. I woulda liked to have seen him eating my boot leather. It weren’t right what he said about her.”

  She stifled a sigh. Walt had never batted an eye when someone insulted her. In fact he usually joined in with sharply honed insults that he’d know would hurt her. Yet here were two strangers ready to defend her even after she’d attacked them. What would it be like to be part of a family who supported you like that all the time?

  “You fancy her, don’t you?” Jackson’s voice interrupted her fantasy.

  “Yeah, I do. She’s pretty. All that hair black as crows’ feathers, and those big brown eyes of hers. What’s not to love about a gal who packs a mean punch to protect her horses?” Merciful heavens, most men, and some women, found her hair and her Indian traits disgusting. Yet this man liked that about her? If she hadn’t already liked him, his comment sealed the deal. She wrapped her arms around her to stop herself from bursting into the stall to hug him.

  Jackson’s laughter was more of a deep rumble, like thunder in the distance. “Or a mean shovel.”

  He just had to bring that up, didn’t he? She must have looked like a wild-eyed hellion. Especially when they’d bought Bandit fair and square.

  There was a moan and a sigh, following by rustling hay. Were they going to sleep? Maybe she should come back in the morning. But that might be too late.

  Would they believe her? What if they didn’t? What if they did and went charging in to confront Josiah and Walt?

  “You want to warm your hands? That particular part of my anatomy ain’t fond of ice, thank you,” Jackson said.

  Nope, they weren’t sleeping, but what they were doing, she had no idea. She gnawed on her thumbnail, only half paying attention to their words.

  “Sorry. Guess I ain’t warmed up from washing yet. The water was danged cold.”

  What if they go to the sheriff and he finds Walt has been involved in other robberies? Or Josiah? They could be sentenced to hang.

  There was a rustling noise followed by a sigh. One of them, Sarah couldn’t tell which, made a hmming noise, then the barn fell silent again.

  You have to tell them at least to be careful. Or to take a different route home. If Walt does ambush them, if he kills them, you’ll never be able to live with yourself.

  Sarah took one step forward, only to stop when Nate spoke again. “She sure can cook too. Not that you’d know it from the way Walt ate. She might as well have poured his portion in the danged pig trough the way he slurped it up.”

  “Yup. Talking of eating…I got something you can eat.” Jackson chuckled, a pleasant sound that warmed Sarah’s chest in a most peculiar way. It was chilly out, but not enough to make her nipples harden beneath her cloak.

  All thoughts of warning them flew out of her head. Curious as to what they were talking about, she crept forward until she could peer into the stall. While most of the stall was in shadows, thin wedges of moonlight sliced through several holes in the walls high above, illuminating where the two men lay. They’d pulled their bedrolls together. Supporting himself on one elbow, a shirtless Nate faced Jackson.

  Parts of her body she’d never been aware of before pulsed deep inside her as she watched Nate undo Jackson’s shirt buttons. He spread the fabric wide, revealing a hard chest and flat stomach. His fingers played with one of the dark pebbled nipples, flicking it between his thumb and forefinger.

  Oh! Oh my. She pressed her hands to her mouth and took a step back. Josiah had lately taken to quoting passages from the bible to denounce her mother’s adultery. Some of the passages had mentioned men touching men, talked about such behavior deserving death. Without thinking she leaned closer, unable to look away. How could such tenderness be a sin?

  Would a man do that to a woman too? Under the cover of her cloak, her own hand mimicked Nate’s, tugging and playing with the hard bud of her breast. Her knees weakened, and she leaned against the stall wall. Oh dear heavens, what would it feel like if a man touched her there instead of her doing it to herself?

  Nate’s hand disappeared beneath the cover. Jackson moaned, hips arching up and hands fisting at his side. “Oh, fuck, Nate, I’m not going to last long if you keep that up.”

  The cover fell away, revealing Nate’s hand encircling Jackson’s erection. He pumped up and down along the shaft, his thumb moving over the bulbous head. Dear God, she’d never seen anything so…scandalous. So beautiful.

  Sarah didn’t think she’d moved or made a sound, but Jackson jumped up from the bedroll and stared at her as if she’d shot a pistol. She whirled and raced for the door. He grabbed her before she could get out of the barn.

  “How long have you been here? What did you see?” His words cracked through the air like a whip.

  She opened her mouth but didn’t know what to say. For a woman, she was tall, but he topped her by half a foot. A sliver of moonlight slanted across his face, accentuating the sharp planes of his cheekbones while hiding his eyes in shadows. The light also highlighted his lack of clothes, the broad expanse of chest, and flat belly, a body finely honed by hard work. Her gaze lowered, drawn to his still-rampant arousal. It suddenly occurred to her how stupid she’d been, walking into the barn, alone with two men who could do whatever they wanted to her with no one to stop them.

  “Damn it, what did you see?” He shook her, not so it hurt, but hard enough that her cloak fell to the ground.

  “Nothing. I swear.” She closed her eyes, reminding herself that it wasn’t her he lusted after, but another man.

  Footsteps crunched outside, headed toward the barn. He released her as he ducked his head around the door. His expression was grim when he returned; he grabbed her forearm and dragged her into the stall, swinging the door shut with his foot.

  “Stay quiet,” he commanded in a furious whisper, yet she instinctively knew the fury wasn’t directed at her. He was angry that she’d caught them, true, but more likely he was angry at himself, she realized, possibly even afraid she’d denounce them.

  Light. Whoever was coming must be carrying a lantern. They’d find her. Here. In a stall with Jackson. Who was most decidedly naked though his arousal had softened. It wouldn’t matter that she was still untouched by a man when they found them together. Josiah had been looking for a way to get rid of her, and here she’d handed him the means on a platter. She could tell the McLeods that these men weren’t interested in her but knowing her father’s sense of justice, these men would end up strung up by their necks, and she’d still be abandoned at a brothel as soiled dove.

  “I saw her go into the barn, I swear.” Walt’s voice floated through the crisp night air.

  She cast about, searching for somewhere to hide.

  “Ha! Here’s her cl
oak!” Triumph filled Walt’s voice. “See? I told you Jed was telling the truth about her sneaking into the barn.”

  Jackson cursed under his breath; he shoved her into the darkest corner and trapped her against the wall. She shrank into the corner and made herself as small as possible. Despite her efforts to make no trouble, was she about to find herself abandoned, forced to work as a streetwalker to earn her next meal?

  The stall door swung open and her father stood there, lantern in hand. “I know Sarah’s with you, Kellar. I can see her nightdress behind you.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Jackson stepped aside. Josiah’s eyes narrowed, their blue cold and assessing. “Walt, fetch the preacher. Now.”

  Chapter Two

  Preacher? Hellfire! Jackson cursed, both fate and Sarah. Damn it, he and Nate knew it was too dangerous to be fooling around when there was a possibility someone would walk in on them. Out on the trail with only the cows and horses for company or in the privacy of Nate’s home, they could let their guard down but not here. They deserved to get caught for being so danged rash.

  A strangled sound came from the corner of the stall. McLeod swung the lantern in that direction, his eyes boggling when he spied Nate standing there. “You whore! You were with two of them at the same time?”

  McLeod swung a meaty fist in Sarah’s direction, but Jackson deflected it into the wall before it connected. From behind them, he heard the sound of a pistol cocking.

  “You want to hit someone, you can hit me or Jackson,” Nate growled. “Not her.”

  “She’s mine to discipline.”

  Discipline. Yeah, he had a good idea of the type of discipline Sarah had endured from McLeod. From her half-brother too.

  Jackson shook his head. “If you’re gonna force her to marry me, then she’s mine now.”

  McLeod’s lip curled. “She ain’t yours until the preacher says she is.”

  Sarah rubbed her arms where he’d held her. Damn it, had he hurt her? “I just came out to say good-bye to Bandit, that’s all. Nothing happened, I swear.”

  Nothing she’d better talk about, or else he and Nate might find themselves swinging from the barn’s rafters right soon.

  Josiah’s glare turned from Sarah to Jackson and raked downward. Thank God his erection had flagged as soon as he’d spied her. “Nothing happened? I find you in your nightdress in the same stall with one man who’s buck nekkid and another man with only his britches waitin’ his turn, and you think I’m going to believe nothing happened? You’re getting married as soon as the preacher gets here. Then I can finally wash my hands of you.” Glaring at Sarah, he pointed out of the stall. “Get your bee-hind in the house. Now.”

  Sarah ducked as she slipped past him, as if she expected to be cuffed. Or worse. But McLeod didn’t move until after she’d darted out the barn door. Then he shouted, “And start packin’, ’cause you ain’t spending another night under my roof.”

  “Proves she’s her mother’s daughter down to the bone, don’t it?” Jed leaned a shoulder against the stall door behind Josiah. “Ready to spread her legs for whatever man comes sniffing around.”

  “I’ll do right by her, McLeod, but Sarah told the truth.” Jackson held up a hand to stop the older man from speaking. “Nothing happened between us. I give you my word. I’ll be taking her virginity in our marriage bed.”

  “You’re lucky I don’t shoot you both and bury your bodies where they’d never be found.” McLeod’s lip curled in a sneer. “If Jed here hadn’t seen her come out here on her own,” Josiah continued, “I mighta thought you two had kidnapped her. Even so there’s not a judge in the land who’d convict me.”

  Why had Jed been watching the barn? Or was he watching Sarah? Perhaps Sarah was lucky they’d been here too, or Jed may have used the opportunity to force himself on her. If he hadn’t been the reason she’d slipped out to the barn in the first place. No matter which way he played it, they were lucky the male McLeods hadn’t been the ones to discover him and Nate together.

  “You don’t have to marry her. I will,” Nate said quietly.

  Jackson glanced at Nate. It really was the answer. Nate had a house, not to mention his land. Three thousand acres would support a good sized family.

  McLeod raised one eyebrow and seemed to be considering it for a moment, then shook his head. “I found her with him, and he’s the one who’s naked as a jaybird. You at least still had your trousers on. I’d not ask a man to raise another man’s brat like I had to. ’Sides, I expect Sarah and Kellar here will suit each other better.”

  Since they’re both half-breeds—Jackson heard the implied insult.

  McLeod took a deep breath and focused on Jackson. “I expect you to take her off my land as soon as the preacher’s done hearing your vows. I don’t want that girl back here again. She’s been an embarrassment to me long enough.”

  “You can count it.” Oh, yes, he’d be putting as much distance between him and the McLeod ranch as he could, and as fast as if his britches were on fire. Of course he’d be accompanied—and by a wife of all things.

  Jackson maintained his guard until McLeod was out of sight, then he snatched up his trousers with a curse.

  A hand on his forearm stopped him. He looked up to see Nate more serious than he’d ever been since he’d known him. “I meant it, Jack, I’ll marry her. I know you…” He glanced away. Even in the dim light the splash of color rising in his cheek was plain to see. “I know you don’t want to get hitched to a woman.”

  His fingers curled into a fist out of reflex. “You know I’ve been with women before. What the hell did you think me and Lavilda Taylor were doin’ the nights I stayed over at her place?”

  “I just…” Nate looked away, his nostrils flaring. “I thought maybe it was a show. To fool people.”

  Now if that weren’t the pot calling the kettle black. He couldn’t stop his irritation from venting. “Is that the reason you courted Eliza Owens last fall?” He lowered his voice to a hiss. “To prove to yourself you could still get off without my dick up your ass?”

  It was a low blow and he knew it, so he didn’t bother blocking Nate’s punch. Or the next. The third one he deflected. As he’d expected, Nate’s whole body followed the swing. He stepped in and caught his friend in a headlock, then whispered in his ear, “I ain’t any different from you, Nate. It don’t matter to me if it’s a woman or man I’m with. Same as you.”

  Nate sagged against him. “I figured…”

  “You’ve been telling yourself that you were with me because I made the first move that first time, haven’t you? That you weren’t the pervert in this relationship, that you were under my power or somethin’? Because it wasn’t your idea?”

  “No.” There was no conviction in his tone.

  “We both know you’d been watching me for months before I finally approached you.”

  Nate twisted from his grasp so Jackson let him go. “I know what I did. What I am.” He walked to the barn door and stared at the house, its yellow kerosene lamplight deceptively warm and cheerful against the dark November sky.

  Was he wishing he’d been the one caught with her? Forced to marry her in the morning? Or did Nate doubt Jackson would be a good husband, considering what they’d been doing? Yeah, he’d been wondering that himself.

  Nate stared across the shadows of the yard. Would McLeod be going after Sarah, beating on her for sneaking out to the barn? He sure as shooting had been angry. Would Sarah tell McLeod what they’d been doing?

  Images of Sarah decrying them, of the McLeods and their farmhands turning on them, raced through his mind. The skin on his neck prickled as he imagined the noose being placed around it. His arms and legs twitched at the thought of being forced to straddle a horse or stand on a box, while the rope was flung over a tree branch or barn rafter. Of the rope snapping when whatever held him up was kicked from under him. Of the noose tightening, strangling him.

  He’d seen the bodies left hanging by lynch mobs with vulture
s and crows picking at the eyes of the corpses, been sickened by the stench of flesh rotting from the bones in the damned Texas heat.

  The drapes in the downstairs of the house hadn’t been drawn. With the kerosene lantern still lit, Nate watched McLeod pour himself a whisky in the kitchen. He was more troubled that there was no sign of Walt or his buddy Jed. A shadow fell across the curtains on one of the upstairs windows, a silhouette of a feminine form, her bodice pulled tight as she reached for something. The image disappeared as she snuffed the light, the window a black rectangle in the dormer.

  Would she try to get out of the marriage by telling McLeod what she’d seen? How the holy hell could they explain it so they wouldn’t end up swinging from the rafters come morning?

  “I’ll try to be a good husband to her, if that’s what you’re worryin’ about.” Jackson had come to stand beside him and stared up at the window too.

  He met Jackson’s gaze for a moment before slowly nodding. “I know you will.”

  “We both knew it would end up like this.”

  Bet you figured it would be me who’d get hitched first. Ma would have been pleased to see him settling down, even if it was to a woman with Indian blood. Until her dying breath, Ma hadn’t given up her quest to find a woman who would keep him in line and give her grandbabies. She would have defended Sarah at church against the women who would whisper the sordid details of her mother’s indiscretions. Maybe Miss Martha would stand in her stead.

  “If I could change McLeod’s mind, I would.” Jackson sighed. “You’d be better for her, no question about it. I ain’t got nothing to offer a woman ’cept for my hat, my saddle and my horse.”

  It took all of Nate’s strength not to touch him right now, but he had a feeling if he did they’d both shatter. He rubbed the back of his neck instead in a futile attempt to ease the impending headache he knew would soon hit. “You and Sarah will do fine. You’ll…do fine.”