CHAPTER TWELVE
IT WAS TOO much to hope he’d be able to enjoy some peace and quiet. The front door opened. Light spilled onto the porch. Sitting in a shadowed corner, watching the stars populate the sky, Luke silently willed whomever it was to move on. Luck was not with him.
Sam paused in the doorway, a bottle and glasses in his hand. He looked left and then right. There was no hope he wouldn’t spot him. The man was like a bloodhound. Sure enough, Sam headed straight for him.
“That’s an awfully long face for someone who was sparking out behind the barn earlier.”
Luke stroked the cigarette he’d pulled from his pocket. It would taste damn good right about now. “A little quiet seemed right.”
Sam set the whiskey decanter and glasses down on the floor. Grabbing one of the wooden chairs, he tugged it around and sat down. Stretching his arms above his head and yawning, he asked, “You going to smoke that?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
Sam leaned over and snatched it out of his hand. “Hey.”
“I didn’t promise to quit.”
Pulling a sulfur out of his pocket, Sam struck it on the side of the table. Before he could set it to the smoke, Luke snatched it back.
At Sam’s inquiring look, Luke pointed out the obvious. “Doesn’t make it any less mine.”
“You always were a possessive son of a bitch.”
“Said the pot to the kettle.”
Sam smiled. “Only about a few things.”
That was true. There never really was any telling what Sam would care about, but when he cared, God help the one who threatened it.
“So what has you sitting out here rather than sparking with your lady? Besides a bad case of frustration.”
Luke grunted and put the unlit cigarette between his lips. “The fact that women have no idea what they want.”
Sam picked up the glasses and passed one over. “Have a drink.”
A drink didn’t sound bad, but a smoke sounded better. “Why?”
Picking up the decanter, he motioned to the cigarette. “I can’t sit by and watch you break a promise for the first time in your life.”
With a cock of his brow, Luke held out his glass. Sam filled it. “So we’re drinking to preserve my honor?”
Sam leaned back in the chair and took a sip and closed his eyes. “It’s as good a reason as any.”
He had him there. Sighing, Luke tucked the cigarette back into his pocket. “It was probably too stale to enjoy anyway.”
Without opening his eyes, Sam asked, “How old is it?”
“Three months, two weeks, four days and about six hours.”
That got a crack of an eyelid and a sideways glance. “Not that you’re counting.”
“Nope.” The first sip of whiskey burned in a good way. He remembered back to the first time he’d tasted it. That had been with Sam, too. But then he’d coughed and choked and, in effort to pretend it wasn’t burning a hole in his throat, taken another sip, only that one went down the wrong hole. The man they’d bought the whiskey from had had a good laugh. Until Sam knocked his teeth down his throat. Luke remembered the all-out brawl that ensued afterward and took another sip. That had been a good evening.
“Now what are you smiling at?”
“I was just remembering that night you introduced me to the joys of whiskey.”
Sam smiled. “That was a fun night.” He finished his whiskey in one swallow. “Right now, I’m missing those days. A good fight takes the edge off.”
Luke touched his glass to Sam’s. “Bella will be fine. Tia will take care of her.”
“That’s what they say.”
But Sam didn’t fully believe it. Luke understood that. He probably wouldn’t, either, if he had so much on the line. He also understood that Sam needed something else to think about right now. “Now, if Tia and Bella can just poke some sense into Josie.”
Sitting up, Sam poured another drink. “What’s the problem?”
“Either the woman doesn’t know what she wants, or I don’t know fiddly-squat about women.”
Sam shrugged. “I’ve found if you pretend they’re horses, they’re not quite so confusing.”
Horses? “Somehow I don’t think you’ve shared this theory with Bella.”
“I phrase it differently with her.”
“I bet.”
Settling back into the chair, Sam cradled the glass in his hands. “It’s like that smoke you’re saving. Sometimes what you want just isn’t good for you.”
“Josie’s good for me.”
“There’s always the possibility that you’re not good for her.”
It was Luke’s turn to toss back his drink and let it burn. “The damn woman doesn’t know what she wants.”
“Yeah, that’s what Bella said.”
“You’ve been talking about this with Bella?” He didn’t know how he felt about that.
“I talk about everything with Bella.”
“Everything?”
Tapping his fingers on his glass, he confessed, “No, not everything. Not lately. I don’t want her to worry.”
“What’s going on?”
“You remember Tejala.”
It wasn’t really a question. Who could forget? The bandit had ruthlessly ruled this area for years. Somewhere along the line he’d decided the crowning feather in his cap would be to own Rancho Montoya. To do that, he needed Bella as his wife, something he figured he’d accomplish by kidnapping her.
But no one took what was Sam’s or Zach’s. Hell’s Eight and the Lopez men had ridden to get her back. The battle had been vicious and ugly, but in the end, Bella returned to her home. And Sam stopped resisting the best thing in his life and married the woman.
There’d been relative peace for the last year or so, but from Sam’s expression, the peace was over. “I know damn well Tejala hasn’t come back. When you kill a man, he stays dead.”
“Yeah, he’s dead, but killing him created a hole and now someone new has come to fill his place.”
“That’s usually the way it goes. Does this one want Bella, too?”
Sam shook his head. “No. He doesn’t think he needs Bella to take Rancho Montoya.”
That sounded ominous. “Is that a relief?”
“Not in the least. Bella is safer when she has value.”
He had a point. “So what is it about this new bandito that’s got you worried?”
Picking up the decanter, Sam refilled Luke’s glass. His chair creaked as he sat back. “He’s organized, Luke. Tejala, to put it bluntly, was loonier than a rabid coyote, so I could almost count on him going crazy now and then, but this one?” Sam shook his head. “This one is methodical. He plans everything out and sticks to his plan. His band is loyal. And while he’s not a sadistic asshole like Tejala, he’s ruthless in going after what he wants. He’s even picked off a couple of my vaqueros.”
Luke knew Sam well enough to know what that meant. “So now it’s personal.”
“It’s always personal when somebody touches what’s mine.”
Kel came from around the house, strolled up the steps to sit before Sam. They looked at each other as if they spoke a language only they could comprehend before Kel lay down by the chair.
“I swear that dog can read minds.”
“Bella says so.”
A second later, Luke became aware of another scent blending with the aroma of his whiskey. He sniffed. Cedar mixed with...lavender? It didn’t take a genius to find the culprit. “Did that dog get a bath?”
Sam nodded. “Yup.”
“Who the hell is brave enough to do that?”
“Surprisingly enough, Bettina. She’s very meticulous about what comes into her house. A couple months after she realized he wasn’t going anywhere, she relented, under the condition he be brought up to her standards. And that meant flea baths.”
Luke looked at Kel. “Poor bastard.” Kel licked his paw and flopped on his side. Luke swirled the liquor in his glass. He really didn’t want any more, but wasting good whiskey was a crime. “Was Kel agreeable?”
Sam chuckled. “Not at first. I wasn’t sure whether Bettina was going to lose an arm or Kel was going lose a leg, but in the end, they worked it out.”
The scent was building. He waved his hand in front of his face to dispel it. “Is that camphor?”
“I don’t know what she puts in the shampoo, but it does the job. He doesn’t scratch and Bettina doesn’t gripe.”
There could be beauty in compromise, but Luke wasn’t sure he could handle any more of Hell’s Eight changing. His world was already tilting on its axis.
“Is that what you’re going to do with the bandits? Find a compromise?”
Sam set his glass of whiskey on the floor. Kel lifted his head, snorted to clear his nostrils after getting a whiff of the spirits and flopped back down. “I’m going to find them. And then I’m going to kill them and their damn leader. What else you do with that kind of folk?”
It was a relief to hear. Sam was still Sam. “Not a damn thing.”
Sam sighed. Luke could feel his frustration. “But it’s going to have to wait until Bella has the babies. I can’t risk leaving them here alone.”
“Do you honestly think a few bandits are going to be able to defeat the great Sam MacGregor?”
Sam snorted. “You might’ve made me out to be real fancy in those books of yours, but I’m human like anyone else. There’s always a chance the bad guy will win. You know that. I know that.”
Yes, he did, but it was shocking to hear Sam “Wildcard” MacGregor say it. “Since when did you start admitting it?”
“I always knew it to be true. I just didn’t care. But now I have Bella.”
“And you care.”
“More than is healthy.”
“I’m not sure about that.” Luke had always thought Sam needed a healthier sense of self-preservation, and if Bella was what it took to for him to finally get it, Luke was all for it. That wasn’t change. That was common sense. “Well—” he set his glass on the floor, too “—we’re glad you’re still around.”
Sam chuckled and propped his feet up on the railing. “Thank you, I think. Time for a change of subject. How are the Eight doing?”
How best to answer that? “They’re...stabilizing. The Comanche have been pushed West. San Antonio is growing like a weed and life has become more...settled.”
“That must be driving you crazy.”
How had he known? “What makes you say that?”
“You’ve always been there, Luke. For every one of us, you’ve been there. But I’ve noticed where you really like to be is where the excitement is.”
“True. There isn’t a lot of excitement around Hell’s Eight anymore. We’re chasing horses instead of bandits, exploring our options in cattle rather than exploring new frontiers...”
“You ought to join me at Rancho Montoya. Plenty of excitement for a man out here.”
The front door opened. Ed paused on the threshold before spotting them. “Is this a private party or can anybody have a drink?”
“There’s nothing private on the Rancho Montoya,” Sam said. “That’s the first thing I learned. I learned it the hard way, too.”
“What exactly constitutes the hard way?” Ed asked.
“I went to make love to my wife in what I thought was a private location. Turns out, a lot of the vaqueros had to look the other way.”
Luke couldn’t stop laughing until he thought of the garden shed. “Damn, I’ll keep that in mind.”
“There’s been a time or two you all almost caught me and Tia,” Ed volunteered.
“No. No. No.” Luke held up his hand. That was an image he didn’t want in his head. “This is a conversation we don’t ever have.”
Ed laughed and picked up the decanter. “Tia’s not in her grave, you know. She’s a fine-looking woman with a youthful mind.”
Sam took the whiskey bottle away from Ed. “If you’re going to drink my whiskey, we don’t talk about that stuff.”
“Fair enough. While I go get a glass, why don’t you two change the subject?” The door opened and closed behind him.
Sam looked at Luke. “I’m never getting that image out of my head.”
“A scrub with lye soap might help.”
“Nothing will help.”
Ed came back, took one look at their expressions and shook his head. “Don’t be such wimps.” Holding out his glass for Sam to fill, he continued. “You’re going to be a father, Sam. Eventually your children will grow up and leave, but until then, are you not going to touch your wife?”
“Oh hell no.”
“Then don’t be a hypocrite.”
Damn. That reality hadn’t ever crossed Luke’s mind. Nor Sam’s from his expression. Luke shook his head. “Making love to your wife is going to get a lot more complicated, Sam.”
“I’ll manage.”
“That’s the spirit,” Ed said. “The one thing we men are good at is managing that sort of thing.”
He cut Luke a glance. “Though some of us need more practice.”
There was no doubt to what he was referring. His tryst with Josie had been found out. “Dammit. Does everybody know?”
“Well, some of us are guessing,” Ed said. “But from the way Josie came running in here, her hair in disarray, her dress all buttoned wrong, it can’t be too far off the mark.”
“For your information,” he informed them, “I was a goddamn gentleman.”
Ed shared a conspiratorial look with Sam. “In his way, I’m sure.”
“Uh-huh.” Sam didn’t bother to hide his grin. “By the way, Bella wants me to remind you that Josie is a guest in her home.”
Here they go. “You can tell Bella the reminder is unnecessary.”
“She disagrees.”
Maybe he’d put that whiskey down too soon. Bella was like a dog with a bone when she found something irritating.
“Then I’m grateful she’s bedridden and isn’t at liberty to follow me around expressing her disagreement at will.”
Sam chuckled. “That Bella is a damn good judge of character.”
“I don’t need a judge right now, thank you very much.”
“On that she agrees. What she says you need is to find your cojones.”
“I can back him on that,” Ed interjected.
“It’s Bella’s opinion that when it comes to romance, a man can’t let a woman lead.”
They were ganging up on him. Luke glared at Sam, who had the gall to look innocently concerned. “How much can she know about women if she says that? After all, she led you on a merry chase.”
“In some ways, yes, and others, no.”
“In which way was it no?”
“Bella is much younger than me. She was innocent, sheltered—”
“And hell on wheels,” Luke added.
“Yes, that, too. When it came to personal things between us, physical things, I was definitely in charge. But when it came to making me see that she was a woman who knew her own mind, she was in charge.”
“And there’s your problem,” Ed put in. “Josie doesn’t know her own mind. From what I heard from Jarl, her mother made life tough for her growing up. She either spent her time in church repenting for the fact that she was born a bastard—”
“That was her mother’s sin,” Luke countered.
“Or avoiding reminding the town she existed. It was a public shame to her mother to have a child out of wedlock. I don’t think she ever forgave Josie’s father for that humiliation.”
“So she took it out on Josie?”
Ed shrugged. “I don’t think she’s a bad person. According to Jarl, Josie’s family had some status in the community before her mother humiliated the family with her pregnancy. And she’s been trying to regain ground ever since.”
Which explained why Josie walked around looking like she wanted to apologize for her existence. “Damn.”
Sam shook his head. “How much shame can they foist on a child?”
Ed swatted a fly away from his face. “You’ve been back East, Sam. You know how it is. Rules laid upon rules laid upon rules, and everybody jockeying for position based on how well they follow them.”
He nodded. “I much prefer it out here.”
“Yes, well, we have our rules, too, but they’re more flexible.”
“And by the way, Luke, Bella says if you get Josie pregnant, she will waddle out of bed and hunt you down.” Sam paused for effect and then added, “She’s got a brand-new shotgun.”
Luke did not fear Bella, but his impulses when it came to Josie? Those could lead him right past his best intentions. He threw back his drink. He was beginning to understand how a good woman could change a man. “I’m only going to say this because I’m drunk and y’all are wasting a whole lot of effort beating a dead horse—”
“Fire away,” Ed interrupted.
“Josie wants a friend.”
Ed’s “Ouch” coincided with Sam’s “Nothing wrong with that. Bella is my best friend.”
Luke looked at Sam. “Her exact words were, ‘Why did it have to be a husband or lover? Why couldn’t it be friend?’”
Ed nodded. “That makes sense. I imagine to somebody who grew up the way Josie grew up, feeling isolated and unwanted without anybody having her back, friendship would be very important.”
Damn. The picture Ed painted was not the cheery happy childhood he wanted to imagine Josie’d had.
“Jarl told you this?”
“He spent time with Josie’s mother for a bit. He grew fond of her.”
“He couldn’t help her?”
“There was only so much he could do. You know those stuck-up bitches back East don’t even let their children play with bastards in case the taint is contagious.”
Luke hadn’t known. Unlike Caine and Sam, who went back East every couple years, he never did. He liked his wide-open sky and the freedom of adventure too much to leave them. Even for a short time.
“Society back there can be unbending,” Sam agreed. “To the point it’s possible Josie doesn’t know what love looks like.”
Luke sighed. “There is that.”
And where he was supposed to go with that was something he hadn’t figured out yet. Sam poured them all another round. Luke accepted it, but didn’t drink. His world was pleasantly fuzzy around the edges. For a moment, silence reigned. An owl hooted in the distance. A breeze ruffled the shrubs in front of the porch. As if reading his mind, Sam sighed.
“Bella loves it out here.”
Luke did not envy Sam in having to deal with Bella’s forced confinement. “What did the doctor say about her condition?”
Sam grunted. “That she’s pregnant.”
Luke snorted. “I was looking for a delicate way to ask how things are actually going.”
“Since when did you get delicate?”
“Since I got surrounded by women.”
Sam forced a laugh. The harsh edge hurt Luke to hear. He’d never seen Sam like this. He usually charged toward problems. Leaped over barriers. It spoke to the severity of the issue that this one had him sweating.
“They’re worried they might come breech. There’s been some bleeding. And they’re big babies.”
“You’re a big man.” Luke wanted the words back as soon as he said them. This wasn’t anybody’s fault.
“Yeah.” Raking his hands though his hair, Sam confessed in a hoarse whisper, “I could lose her.”
“Damn, Sam.” Luke didn’t know what else to say. No wonder Sam had sent for Tia.
Ed slapped Sam’s knee. “You won’t. You’ve got Tia here. Add in the doctor and Bettina and that’s a whole lot of experience at one birth.”
“How can Tia help?” Luke asked.
Sam rubbed his jaw. “There’s an operation that can be done if things go bad. The doctor has never seen it done, but Tia has.”
“An operation?”
Sam didn’t mince words. “Apparently, they can cut the babies out of her.”
Luke’s stomach heaved. “Son of a bitch.”
“If it’s safer than giving birth, I’m going to demand he do it.”
Luke would, too. “Where is the doctor?”
Considering how meticulous Sam was when it came to Bella, Luke was surprised the man wasn’t parked and waiting in Bella’s room already.
With another rake of his hand through his hair, Sam sighed. “He’s on his way. I couldn’t spare the men to fetch him earlier. It would leave the ranch vulnerable, but as soon as Zach got back, I sent Guillermo out with a fresh guard.”
“And he’ll stay here?”
“You can bet your bottom dollar his ass isn’t leaving until Bella delivers. I’ve just got to get him here before she goes into labor.”
“Doesn’t she have a couple months?”
Ed sighed and topped off the glasses with the last of the whiskey. Luke’s too-full glass spilled over his hand. “Twins often come early.”
Sam nodded. “Tia says the twins are restless. Bella says they want to meet their father.”
Luke doubted Bella knew how much that prospect terrified his friend. He wasn’t sure Sam could go back to a life without Bella.
“Tell her to cross her legs and keep them put.”
“How many men did you send for the doctor?” Ed asked.
“Twenty good men.”
“How many do you still have here?”
“Thirty.”
“The last time I was here, you only had thirty total.”
Sam shrugged. “Civilization’s been pushing into the West, taking up the land. Indians and whites alike have been fighting over the scraps.”
“Has there been trouble?”
“One of the things I like about living out here is there’s always trouble. It keeps a man on his toes.” Sam finished off his whiskey in three quick swallows.
Luke took a more cautious sip of his.
Ed raised his glass at him. “You might want to ease up on that liquor, son.”
He cocked a brow at his friend. “It’s been a long time since anyone’s been able to tell me how much to drink.”
Ed shrugged. “I heard Josie wants to get out and take some pictures.”
“Josie can just cool her heels until I’m ready to take her.”
Ed looked at Sam. Sam looked at Ed. The hairs on the nape of his neck lifted. Reaching over, Sam relieved Luke of his glass. “Josie might cool her heels waiting for you, but Zach isn’t likely to abide it.”
“What in hell does Zach have to do with anything?”
“He volunteered to take her out at first light. He said something about watching the flowers greet the sun.”
“Josie offered to cook him breakfast in payment,” Ed added helpfully.
The depth of his anger caught Luke by surprise. “Fuck that.”
Sam smiled that taunting smile of his and took a sip of Luke’s whiskey. “I feel obliged to mention, I’m going to be damn annoyed if you try to kill my foreman because he wants to spark a pretty woman.”
Damn. Sam and Ed were enjoying this entirely too much. “Then prepare to be annoyed, because if he touches Josie, he’s dead.”
“Josie is a free woman,” Ed pointed out.
“Only in her mind.” Luke recognized the emotion churning in his gut. Jealousy. He was jealous.
“If you’re aiming to be her friend, it’s not your place to get in the way of her happiness,” Sam pointed out.
Luke yanked his Stetson down over his eyes, shielding his expression. “Then consider me a piss-poor friend.”