Harlot (Bartered Hearts 2)

He stared at her for a long moment, his gaze traveling her face until he seemed to find something that reassured him. “What about dinner?” he asked.

The question so surprised her that she managed a hoarse laugh. “Dinner?”

“I’ve been on the trail a while. I’d love dinner and maybe a bucket of water to clean up.”

She shook her head.

“That’s all I’m asking for, I promise. For now.”

What did that mean? She needed to send him away. She needed him gone and never coming back so she could find some way to forget him, forget what she’d done, forget the life she’d given up. But her mouth wouldn’t form the words to make him leave. Her body refused to step out of his reach. She could smell the trail on him, horse and sweat and dirt, and even that was sweet to her stupid, stupid heart. How could she make him go?

She pushed the words past her tight jaw. “You can stay for dinner.”

His wide shoulders lost some of their tension. “Thank you.”

Backing up, she turned and fled toward the kitchen. He followed. “You’ll need a bath.” She gathered up a rag and soap and a towel to drop into a pail. “The creek’s only a quarter-mile to the west if you cut through the trees. It curves around. Water’s nice and cool in the shade.” She shoved the pail at him.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Dinner is string beans and a rabbit,” she muttered. “Bill shot it this morning.”

“Perhaps I could set a couple of snares on my way to the creek. Should get you another rabbit by tomorrow.”

“If that makes you happy.”

He watched her until heat flamed in her face. “I think it might,” he said. Then he turned and moved away from her, and she could breathe.

She should have sent him away. All she’d wanted was peace, and now her heart was awake again when she’d needed it to sleep forever. But she still closed her eyes and thanked God that he was back.

Chapter 12

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Caleb floated in the still pool of the creek bend. The lye soap had removed even the most stubborn of the trail grit, and if his skin stung in a few places, at least he was truly clean.

He watched a fat little cloud glide across the patch of blue visible between cottonwood leaves, and he tried to tell himself that he couldn’t want what he wanted. He’d tried to tell himself that a hundred times in the past week. A thousand. Yet what he always wanted was Jess. As much as she’d hurt him, it had hurt a hell of a lot more to imagine never seeing her again. He loved her. He’d never stopped.

Did it matter, what she’d done with other men? The things he’d done with other women hadn’t changed his feelings for Jess. Those things had been separate, barely even real. Surely that’s what it had been like for her, as well.

If he could forgive her, could she forgive him?

He rose up and shook the water from his hair, picking his way over slick stones to the rock where he’d set the towel. The fabric was thin and tattered, reminding him again that Jess wasn’t the pampered young girl he’d fallen in love with. She was different now. A woman. Damaged and roughed up the same as he was. Stronger, maybe.

Maybe neither of their pasts mattered. Maybe he’d been a damn fool the whole time.

He dressed in clean clothes, then folded the clothes he’d washed in the stream and set them in the pail to carry back to Jess’s place. He walked the same trail he’d taken out, stopping to mark the trees where he’d set the snares so he could tell Jess where to find them, in case she sent him packing tonight.

The women were laughing in the kitchen when he got back. He stopped five feet shy of the back doorway and listened for a moment, fascinated by the sound. It was carefree. Teasing. And he couldn’t believe his goal had been to give Jess the opposite of that. To punish her and make her weep. Surely she must have done enough weeping for a lifetime.

Caleb set the pail close to the stairs and took his wet clothes to hang on the line. Hammering from behind the barn drew him in that direction and he found Bill there, the big man trying to hold a plank steady as he nailed it in.

“Give you a hand?” Caleb asked.

Bill nodded as if he’d already known Caleb was there. “This damn cow’s as stubborn as the mule. The grass in here isn’t good enough, I guess, because she sure wants it from somewhere else.”

Caleb grabbed the plank and looked around at the evidence of multiple repairs to the paddock. “Maybe there’s a bull around somewhere, catching her interest.”

Bill shrugged. “She never goes far. Just far enough to cause trouble.” They worked on reinf