California Caress Read online

  Before she had noticed his presence, Drake had been treated to the gracefully fluid movement of enticingly long limbs. Watching the chestnut-haired beauty reminded him of watching a fragile leaf skimming the ground, wafted by an autumn breeze. Now that she had spotted him, though, her movements were tight, strained, and awkward. Knowing it was his presence that caused her discomfort brought a satisfied smile to his lips.

  Drake took a puff of the cigar and released the smoke in a long, slow exhalation.

  “Hello to you too,” he said, as his gaze raked her body.

  Her fingers were long, he noticed as she turned to drape another candle to dry, the nails well-tended, although her hands were slightly red and work-roughened. For a woman with large bones, she had a nicely turned wrist, tapering into a creamy forearm. The tanned flesh there was exposed by the peach-colored sleeves she’d turned up to just below the elbows. His gaze narrowed on the gentle curve of her waist, and though he couldn’t see her hips beneath the coarse folds of her dress, he imagined they would be lean, as would her legs, muscled from long hours of hard work.

  Occasionally, she would send him a heated glance from the corner of those large, velvet brown eyes. The movement drew his gaze there, and to the rosy blush of her cheeks. She had a square face, with a short, pert nose that belied the hard set of her jaw. Her forehead was wide, but softened by the whisper chestnut curls that dared escape the thick, silky plait draping a broad shoulder.

  With a ragged sigh, Drake threw the cheroot to the dirt and crushed it out with this heel. Pushing himself away from the door frame, he entered the cabin.

  A fire crackled in the hearth, adding to the late afternoon heat. The air was thick with the scent of tobacco and laced with the odor of melted tallow, strong coffee, and freshly baked bread. Of them all, he found the last two aromas most welcoming.

  Hope strove for an appearance of unruffled calm. Inside, she was trembling like a leaf. Her every move was followed by those daunting eyes, ever every breath scrutinized by his piercing glance. She felt trapped in a cage, studied and examined like some rare breed of bird.

  “Is there something I can do for you?” she asked in sudden annoyance. Drake had helped himself to the bench across from her, and the sound of wood scraping against the floor as he casually settled himself down did nothing to ease her tension.

  “I think you already know the answer to that.” He found a certain sense of satisfaction in the way her cheeks abruptly drained of color.

  The candle she was taking from one of the branches slipped from her fingers and fell to the cloth. The fragile stick of half-hardened tallow broke like a twig snapped in two.

  Hope picked up the broken candle and set it aside, reaching for the next. She tried hard to ignore the way her fingers were trembling, but it wasn’t easy. It was even harder to meet his penetrating gaze, but she did that, too. “Do I?” she asked as she again dipped the thickening wick.

  Drake looked at her long and hard, even after she had torn her gaze away. His intentions in coming here had, oddly enough, been honorable. He’d been drunk when they’d first made the deal, and he’d regretted his harsh words in the morning. Putting aside the way she’d rankled him before the fight, he’d come to tell Hope that, and to give her the chance to renege on a deal he had belatedly realized was unfair.

  Doubt pierced his soul as he noted the girl’s rigid stance. A suspicion nagged at the back of his mind, refusing to be denied.

  She wasn’t going to pay him, he realized suddenly. Worse, she had never had any intention of paying him. The bitch!

  White hot anger churned through his blood. The intensity of the reaction surprised even Drake. It wasn’t that she would have the audacity to go back on their deal that bothered him. Hadn’t he come here to give her just that opportunity? No, it was the thought that she had been willing to let him think she’d go through with it that galled him no end.

  He wouldn’t let her get away with it, he decided abruptly, not stopping to question his decision. Two minutes ago he would have let her back out without a fight. But now that he’d discovered her deception, he decided he’d rather die first. Paying up was no more than the spoiled brat deserved! She’d regret playing him for a fool.

  “What time can I expect you tonight?” Drake asked, his voice as deceptively smooth as a glass of carefully aged brandy.

  She gasped, her trembling fingers hesitating as she pretended to let the melted liquid drip off a thickened wick and back into the kettle. It was nothing short of a miracle that the candles didn’t slip from her suddenly cold, sweat-dampened fingers. Her teeth nibbled a full lower lip as she carefully draped the wick over a branch.

  “I—I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.” She didn’t look at Drake. She didn’t dare. He would see the lie mirrored in her eyes, Hope was sure of it.

  “Think about it. I want to know what time to expect you.”

  “I—I don’t know,” she shrugged helplessly. “Sometime after supper, I guess.”

  She almost knocked over the candle tree as she reached out for another wick. Frazier’s lightning-quick reflexes saved the labor of half a day’s work.

  “Make it before,” he said, righting the wooden contraption and rising to his feet. With a fist still leaning against the tabletop to support his weight, he leaned forward and ran a fingertip suggestively down the smooth line of her jaw. The edge of his fingernail stroking her flesh sent a shiver curling up Hope’s spine. “And don’t be late. I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

  Every instinct she possessed screamed for her to pull away from the confusion of his touch, but the sea-green gaze was daring her to do just that. Swallowing hard, she gritted her teeth and endured the caress, putting her indignation into a haughty glare. Drake’s lips curled into a lazy smile as his hand dropped away.

  She watched as he lifted one sinewy leg, then the other, over the dented oak bench. His arrogant stride carried him to the door, and Hope was sorely tempted to throw the kettle of scalding hot tallow at his retreating back. She couldn’t do that, of course. She couldn’t purposely put someone through the torturous healing of burned flesh—even someone like Drake Frazier—no matter how badly she wanted to. Still, the temptation was undeniably there.

  Drake stopped when he reached the open door, gazing up into the clear, cloudless blue sky. To Hope’s mounting frustration, he didn’t bother to turn around when he curtly informed her, “Tell your father to find someone else to cook his breakfast in the morning. You won’t be home until after dawn. Maybe later.”

  Pulling another cheroot from his pocket, he stuck it between his teeth, unlit, and rounded the corner. He was safely out of sight by the time a cast iron skillet crashed into the door frame.

  It’s suppertime, Hope’s mind teased her as she toted the cleaned kettle, now filled with aromatic stew, to the table. Had Frazier realized she wasn’t coming? she wondered.

  The men eyed the kettle greedily, their hunger enhanced by a hard day’s work and the tantalizing aroma of freshly baked bread. She had no more than set her burden down in the center of the table when all five men rose and reached for the ladle. Two hands reached the metal spoon first. Old Joe met Kyle’s angry glare over the pot.

  “Will you two please stop?” Hope muttered in exasperation, as she took her seat beside her father. “I could have sworn I fed you this afternoon, yet here you’re acting like a pack of starved wolves. There’s enough for everyone, but no one’s getting a drop if one of you doesn’t put down the ladle.”

  Kyle, grudgingly bowing to age, sat down with a grunt and plucked up a slab of bread to slake his hunger. Smearing it with a glob of freshly churned butter, he chewed on it as he watched Old Joe heap his plate with the coveted stew.

  Suppressing a smile, Hope reached for a slice of bread and cast a glance to the end of the table, at Kyle’s twin. “Where were you two this morning? I would’ve thought a stampede of wild horses couldn’t keep you away from a fight.”

  “We w
as there,” Lyle replied. He pushed a strand of curling red hair from his brow and wrinkled his freckled nose. Although the twins were only a year younger than she in age, to Hope they looked hardly old enough to be out of short pants. “Bart warned us to keep an eye on the Swedes.”

  Before anyone could beat him to it, Kyle stood and took the ladle Old Joe set next to the kettle. “Yeah, lot of fun that turned out to be. I was standin’ behind Big Sal, and I couldn’t see a thing.’

  “I did,” his brother said, tapping his spoon against the table as he impatiently waited for the ladle to be passed his way.

  Kyle scowled. “ ‘Course you did, you was on top of my shoulders. Prob’ly had the best view of anyone. ‘Cept for him.” He nodded to Luke, who was buttering himself three thick slices of the rapidly dwindling loaf of bread.

  “I ain’—” Luke looked at his sister, who frowned. “I’m not complaining. I could see everything, not that there was much to see. The fight was over before it started.”

  “Good thing, too,” Old Joe grumbled from around a mouthful of stew. The twinkle in his eye told Hope the meal was good. It was the only thing by way of compliment she would get from him. “Lord knows where we’d be now if we’d lost.”

  Bart stood and ladled a healthy portion of the stew over the slices of bread that covered the bottom of his plate. “Upstream, probably,” he said, as he passed the ladle to his daughter.

  Hope handed the ladle to Lyle. As always, she’d wait until all of the men had helped themselves before dishing out her own smaller portion. It was silly, she knew. There was always plenty to go around, she saw to that, but old habits die hard.

  “What on earth would we do upstream?” she scoffed, as she began spooning stew onto her plate. “We’ve already seen color here, and it looks rich. You said so yourself.”

  “A flake here or there doesn’t amount to more than the food on this table,” Bart drawled. The twins nodded in agreement, while Old Joe threw them all a speculative glance. “What we need to find is a vein. A good, thick vein. Then we’ll really see some color.”

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky, Pa,” Luke replied. A drop of gravy trickled down his chin, and he wiped it away on the back of his sleeve. “You said we gotta have some luck sometime.”

  “Hmph!” Bart Bennett scowled darkly. It was going to take a whole lot more than luck to rebuild Lake’s Edge. It was going to take cash, cold, hard cash. And if they didn’t get some of it damn soon, then there wouldn’t be any property back in Virginia to save. According to the letter he’d received the week before, the plantation was to be auctioned in less than three months. The last year had been a waste of time. Traipsing from camp to camp, always one step behind the rich claims, always settling for the ones that panned only enough flakes and dust to carry them to the next dead end. It would all be for nothing if Lake’s Edge was auctioned off. All for nothing.

  “Have you heard from Mr. Farley?” Hope asked, noticing her father’s sudden lack of appetite.

  Bart sent his daughter a sharp glance, wondering how she knew, with such uncanny certainty, where his thoughts had drifted. “Now, why would I have heard from him?” he said evasively, taking a bite of the meal he suddenly had no taste for. “We’ve got no money to pay him. I’m sure he has better things to do with his time than draft a letter to this godforsaken place.”

  Hope put down her spoon and sent her father an even gaze. “Bradford Farley is more than our attorney, Papa. He’s your friend. He would have written to tell you if Lake’s Edge had been sold.”

  “Well, he hasn’t.” Bart wiped his mouth on the napkin he’d insisted his daughter make out of one of her old, mint green skirts, then slammed the square of cloth on the table beside his half-finished meal. His chair scraped the floor as he rose to his feet.

  Hope watched in confusion as her father stamped to the door, while the others feigned acute interest in their food. Even Luke pretended not to notice their father’s sudden unwarranted anger.

  “Where are you going?” she called as he wrenched open the door. It banged against the wall. What had she said to cause such hostility?

  “Out,” he barked. Grabbing his hat from the peg near the door, he jammed it on his head and sent his daughter a hot glance from over his shoulder. Turning to leave, he came an inch short of running headlong into Drake Frazier’s rugged chest. “And what the hell do you want?” he growled. Not waiting for an answer, he sidestepped Frazier and disappeared into the shadows of dusk.

  Hope’s heart nearly stopped as she watched the gunslinger step into the cabin like a man who had frequented the place regularly. Conversation came to an abrupt halt as everyone turned, in unison, to cast their guest cautious glances. Old Joe’s spoon stopped midway to his mouth as his bulging eye shifted from Hope to Drake, then back again. Of them all, he was the only one to notice the way the girl’s cheeks drained of color, or the way the small vein in her throat throbbed frantically beneath the pale flesh.

  The look Drake sent her made Hope swallow hard. The piece of bread she’d been chewing went down her throat with all the ease of a chunk of cotton, and with just as must taste.

  “Frazier!” Luke cried with all the warmth of a long lost friend. He was the only one excited about their savior’s presence. Hope could happily have kicked the daylights out of her brother’s shin and had her feet not felt suddenly encased in lead she might have done just that. “Come on in and have a seat. There’s lots of stew if you’re hungry, and my sister makes a great stew. Best you’ve ever tasted, I’ll bet.” He preened, sending Hope an innocent smile. For the life of him, Luke couldn’t figure out why his sister looked so mad.

  “Yeah, Frazier,” Old Joe grumbled, now that the invitation had been extended. “Come on in and pull up a seat.”

  Drake strutted to the table, and Hope noticed that this time no holster was attached to the black leather belt riding low on his hips. She was staring, she knew, but it couldn’t be helped. Her gaze was perversely drawn do that sinewy thigh, and no amount of will could budge it, until Drake lazily slid onto the bench beside her.

  “How you doing, Joe?”

  “Not bad.” The bulging eye scrutinized the gunslinger carefully.

  “Been a long time. Two years?”

  Old Joe nodded. “Yup, ‘bout that.”

  Hope ignored the conversation. Why did the only available spot have to be the one her father had just vacated? her mind raged.

  The twins’ spoons clattered to their plates. Distaste shimmered in their matching hazel eyes as they focused on Drake. Kyle mumbled under his breath. The two stood and strode to the door, both retrieving their hats.

  “We’ll be at The Button,” Lyle grumbled as they disappeared in Bart’s wake, with Kyle slamming the door loudly behind them.

  “Friendly guys,” Drake said as he took Bart’s plate and scraped the remains of her father’s dinner onto what was left of Kyle’s. Seemingly unfazed by the rude departure, he ladled a goodly portion of the stew onto the plate, then let his eyes settle on Hope.

  A tingle of uneasiness rippled through her body, and no matter how she tried to ignore its presence, she was excruciatingly aware it was there. As though it were not bad enough to have his body within touching distance, the muscular length of his thigh was now pressing intimately against her own. All semblance of logical thought abandoned her.

  Hope shifted her attention, and was immediately captured by his piercing gaze. It’s after suppertime, those eyes were saying. Was it her imagination, or was there a flicker of frustration in those eyes as well?

  “A spoon?” Drake said, his voice deep and cynically husky as his warm breath fanned her upturned cheek.

  Hope pulled her gaze away and concentrated on pushing the stew around her plate, segregating the carrots and potatoes. She inclined her head toward the counter that held the utensils. “Get it yourself, you’re not crippled.” God, but she hated the way her voice came out as a throaty whisper!

  “I’d rather you got it
for me.”

  His voice was thick, dripping with hidden challenge. To Hope, that voice seemed to say, “You didn’t show up when I told you to. Now I intend to see you humiliated for keeping me waiting.”

  Taking a deep breath to control her anger, Hope slammed down her spoon and climbed over the bench. Glaring angrily at Frazier, she found a clean spoon. It crashed onto the table next to his plate with enough force to make the handle of the kettle rattle.

  Luke kept eating as though nothing had happened. He’d seen his sister’s anger before, and he wanted no part of it. Following the twins to The Brass Button was an idea that looked better by the minute, but he couldn’t let Hope’s stew go to waste; she’d never forgive him.

  Old Joe was having a very different reaction to Drake Frazier’s presence. In fact, his bulging eye stared at Hope quite peculiarly.

  In all the time he’d been with the Bennetts, never once had he seen her fetch a spoon for one of the men—until now. She’d made it clear from the beginning that she was nobody’s maid, and that if one of the men wanted something he’d best get it himself. Yet here she was fetching a spoon for Frazier like she was... well, like she was his woman. It wasn’t right, he thought. It just wasn’t right.

  Hope glared at Frazier for a second, letting a string of curses run temptingly close to her tongue, then plucked the half-finished slice of bread from her plate and retreated to the rocking chair near the fire. The old wood groaned as she plopped onto it, but she barely heard it over the clank of Luke’s spoon scraping up the last mouthfuls of stew from his plate.

  Except for a curious glance over his shoulder, Luke ignored his sister’s inexplicably sullen mood as he sent Drake a complimentary smile. “You fought good today,” he said as he folded a slice of bread in half and stuffed the whole thing in his mouth.

  Drake fingered the bruise swelling on his jaw, partially concealed beneath a coat of fresh stubble, and returned the big man’s smile. The cut on his cheekbone had dried to a thin, jagged line that wasn’t as easily hidden.