“What in the hell is going on here?” Barker burst into the parlor. He took one look at the scene on the floor and shut his eyes. He’d rather have faced five armed, drunken cowboys than a pair of scratching women. “Break it up,” he ordered as the two of them tumbled across the floor. “Somebody’s going to get hurt here.” He shook his head and sighed. “Most likely me.”
He stepped into the melee just as Jake strode through the parlor doors.
“Let’s pull them apart,” Barker said heavily.
“Take your pick.” But Jake was already hauling
Sarah up off the floor. She kicked out, her breath hissing as she tried to struggle away.
“Pull in your claws, Duchess.” He clamped an arm around her waist as Barker restrained Carlotta. “Get her out of here.” Carlotta shoved away from Barker and stood, her dress ripped at both shoulders, her hair in wild tufts. “I want that bitch out of here and in jail. She came in here and started breaking up my place.”
“Now, that don’t seem quite logical,” Barker mused. “Miss Sarah, you want to tell me what you’re doing in a place like this?”
“Business.” She tossed her hair out of her eyes.
“Personal business.”
“Well, looks to me like you’ve finished with your business here. Why don’t you go on along home now?”
Sarah drew on her dignity like a cape over her torn dress. “Thank you, Sheriff.” She cast one last look at Carlotta. “I am quite finished here.” She glided toward the door to the secret admiration of Carlotta’s girls.
“Just one damn minute.” Jake took her arm the second she stepped outside. She had time now for embarrassment when she noted the size of the crowd she’d drawn.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said stiffly, “I must get home.” She reached up to tidy her tousled hair. “My hat.”
“I think I saw what was left of it back in there.”
Jake ran his tongue over his teeth as he looked at her. She had a bruise beginning under her eye. It would make up to be a pretty good shiner by the end of the day. Her fashionable gray dress was ripped down one arm, and her hair looked as though she’d been through a windstorm. Thoughtfully, he tucked his hands in his pockets. Carlotta had looked a hell of a lot worse. “Duchess, a man wouldn’t know it to look at you, but you’re a real firebrand.”
Grimly she brushed at her rumpled skirts. “I can see that amuses you.”
“I have to say it does.” He smiled, and her teeth snapped together. “I guess I’m flattered, but you didn’t have to get yourself in a catfight over me.” Her mouth dropped open. The man looked positively delighted. She was scratched and bruised and aching and humiliated, and he looked as though his grin might just split his face. Over him? she thought, and made herself return the smile.
“So you think I fought with Carlotta over you, because I was jealous?”
“Can’t think of another reason.”
“Oh, I’ll give you a reason.” She brought her fist up and caught him neatly on the jaw. He was holding a hand to his face and staring after her when Barker strolled out.
“She’s got what you might call a mean right hook.” In the street, people howled and snickered as Sarah climbed into the wagon and drove off. “Son,” Barker said with a hand on Jake’s shoulder, “you’re the fastest hand I ever saw with those Colts of yours. You play a fine game of poker, and you hold your whiskey like a man. But you got a hell of a lot to learn about women.”
“Apparently,” Jake murmured. He walked across to O’Riley’s and untied his horse.
Sarah seethed as she raced the wagon toward home. She’d made a spectacle of herself. She’d engaged in a crude, despicable sparring match with a woman with no morals. She’d brought half the town out into the street to stare and snicker at her. And then, to top it all off, she’d had to endure Jake Redman’s grinning face.
She’d shown him. Sarah tossed her head up and spurred the horses on. Her hand might possibly be broken, but she’d shown him. The colossal conceit of the man, to believe that she would stoop to such a level out of petty jealousy.
She wished she’d torn Carlotta’s brass-colored hair out by its black roots.
Not over him, she reminded herself. At least not very much over him.
She heard the rider coming up fast and looked over her shoulder. With a quick gasp of alarm, she cracked the reins. She would not speak to him now. Jake Redman could go to the devil, as far as she was concerned.
And he could take his grin with him.
But her sturdy workhorses were no match for his mustang. Nor was her driving skill a match for his riding. Even as she cursed him, he came.up beside her. She had a flash, clear as a bell, of how he’d looked when he’d raced beside the stagecoach, firing over his shoulder. He looked just as untamed and dangerous now.
“Stop that damn thing.”
Chin up, she cracked the reins again.
One of these days somebody was going to teach her to listen, Jake thought. It might just be today. He judged the timing and rhythm, then leaped from his horse into the wagon. Surefooted, he stepped over onto the seat, and though she fought him furiously he pulled the horses in.
“What the hell’s got into you, woman?” He scrambled for a hold as she shoved him aside and tried to jump out.
“Take your hands off me. I won’t be handled this way.”
“Handling you is a sight more work than I care for.” He snatched his hand out of range before she could bite him. “Haven’t you had enough scratching for one day? Sit down before you hurt yourself.” “You want the blasted wagon, take it. I won’t ride with you.”
“You’ll ride with me, all right.” Out of patience, he twisted her into his lap and silenced her. She squirmed and pushed and held herself as rigid as iron.
Then she melted. He felt the give, slow, easy, inevitable. In her. In himself. As her lips parted for his, he forgot about keeping her quiet and just took what he kept trying to tell himself he couldn’t have.
“You pack a punch, Duchess.” He drew her away to rub a hand over his chin. “In a lot of ways. You want to tell me what that was for?”
She pulled away, furious that she’d gone soft with just one kiss. “For assuming that I was jealous and would fight over any worthless man.”
“So now I’m worthless. Well, that may be, but you seem to like having me around.”
She did her best to straighten what was left of her dress. “Perhaps I do.”
He needed to know it more than he’d imagined.
Jake took her chin in his hand and turned her to face him. “You change your mind?”
Again she softened, this time because she saw the doubt in his eyes. “No, I haven’t changed my mind.” She drew a long breath. “Even though you didn’t come back and you’ve been to the Silver Star to see Carlotta.”
“You sure do hear things. Can’t imagine what you’d know if you lived closer to town. Stay in the wagon.” He recognized the look in her eye by now.
“Stay in the wagon, Sarah, until I get my horse tied on. I’ll just catch you again if you run.”
“I won’t run.” She brought her chin up again and stared straight ahead. When he’d joined her again, she continued her silence. Jake clucked to the horses and started off.
“I like to know why a woman’s mad at me. Why don’t you tell me how you know I’ve been to Carotta’s?”
“Alice told me.”
“Alice Johnson?”
“That’s right. Your friend Carlotta nearly beat her to death.”
He brought the horses up short. “What?”
Her fury bounded back and poured over him. “You heard what I said. She beat that poor girl as cruelly as anyone can be beaten. Eh’ helped Alice get out of town. Then she walked the rest of the way to my place.”
“Is she going to be all right?”
“With time and care.”
“And you’re going to give it to her?”
“Yes.” Her eyes dared him. “Do you have any objections?”