Brave the Wild Wind

Chapter 5

“YOU should have seen him, Jeb,” Jessie was saying as she unsaddled Blackstar. She had just returned and had been talking nonstop since her arrival, ten minutes before. “He was so proud and arrogant, so utterly Indian, if you know what I mean.”

Jeb crooked a single brow at her. “And you weren’t scared, him bein‘ a Sioux?”

“Well a little, especially when he made it known he... wanted me.”

“Did he?” Jeb said. “Well, you sure don’t look any the worse for his havin‘ you.”

“Because he didn’t,” Jessie said simply. “I refused, and he respected my wishes.”

“Is that right?”

“You don’t believe me?” she demanded. “The fact is he couldn’t very well attack me after I had fed him. They do have a very rigid sense of honor, you know. Or is it that you doubt that he wanted me at all? Some men find me attractive, Jeb Hart, even dressed like this.”

“Now, don’t get riled, gal.”

She wasn’t. “Well, anyway,” she went on, “he was gone before I got up the next morning. I even thought I might have dreamed it all.”

“You sure you didn’t?”

She gave him a withering look. “Yes, I’m sure. The grass was still matted where he’d slept, and he left this behind.” She brought out the blue feather she’d been keeping in her pocket.

“Why’d he leave that, do you think?”

Jessie shrugged. She didn’t know. “But I think I’ll keep it.” She grinned. “To remind me of a handsome man who desired me.”

Jeb grunted. “You’re gettin‘ to be a naughty gal, Jessie Blair. I never heard the like, all this talk of desire, and you just eighteen.”

“That’s because you think of me as a boy, Jeb, just like you always have. But lots of girls are married before they’re my age, so I reckon I’m long overdue to be talking about romance.”

“Well, just don’t let Rachel hear you goin‘ on,” he mumbled. “She’s worried herself sick over you this last week.”

At mention of her mother, Jessie’s whole appearance changed.

“She’s been pesterin‘ the hell out of the rest of us with her worryin’. She even sent that fellow out lookin‘ for you the night you left.”

“She did what?” Jessie stormed. “How dare she—?”

“Now hold on. He didn’t find you, did he? And the fact is, he ain’t back yet.”

Jessie let it sink in. She grinned. Then she laughed. “Really? That’s wonderful! So he got lost after all.”

Jeb watched her for a moment before he asked, “You don’t think too kindly of him, do you?”

“How would you feel if some stranger started messing in your affairs?”

“Is that what he’s done?”

“Not yet,” she said tersely. “But I heard Rachel asking him to, and I heard him agree. So if he never comes back, that suits me just fine.”

Chase came back five days later. He was bone-weary, saddle-sore, filthy, and not looking forward to telling Rachel he’d failed her. More than two hundred miserable, dusty miles just to get to that damned reservation, and for what? The agent there had never heard of Jessica Blair. Nor had the Indians who spoke English been able to tell him anything at all. He spent a day covering the area, asking questions, but he was sure no one knew anything.

Jeb was in the tack room at the front of the stable when Chase led Goldenrod in. Chase stared at him, all the weariness and anger of the last week and a half boiling to the surface. But if Jeb had learned anything in sixty years, it was how to talk his way around a mean polecat.

“Well, now, you made good time, didn’t you, young feller?” Jeb commented congenially.

“Did I?” Chase replied harshly. “Aren’t you a little surprised by it?”

“Don’t know that I am.”

“Really? Being a gambler, I think I can safely bet every cent I have that you didn’t expect me back here at all.”

Jeb grinned. “Now, wouldn’t that be easy pickin’s, but plumb ornery of me to take you up on that bet. Fact is, I figured you’d be back just about this time—and in one piece, too, it bein‘ safe enough the way you went. Ain’t had no trouble along that route in a good many years.”

“That’s beside the point,” Chase said coldly. “Going to the Shoshone reservation was a waste of time, and I figure you knew it would be.”

“Well, shoot, I could’ve told you—”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You didn’t ask,” Jeb replied with a shrug. “It ain’t my fault you and the lady figured Jessie’s Indians were Shoshone. Mister, I was doin‘ you a favor keepin’ my mouth shut, bein‘ as how Rachel was so set on you ridin’ outta here. You wouldn’t have cared to go the way the little gal went. No white man goes that way if he’s got any sense.”

“What way? Just where the hell did she go? And don’t tell me any more nonsense about Indians!”

“I don’t see what you’re so riled about,” Jeb grumbled. “I probably saved your life, and this is the thanks I get!”

“Damn you, old man!” Chase exploded. “If you weren’t already close to your grave, I’d sure as hell put you there. Now I want some straight answers, not—”

“Leave him alone!”

Chase whirled around to face that angry voice and was stunned to see the girl who had sent him off in the wrong direction when he’d approached this ranch the first time. “You again! What are you doing here, kid?” When she didn’t answer, he asked Jeb, “Who is she?”

Jeb tried to suppress his amusement, but he couldn’t quite manage it. He knew sparks were going to fly, and there was little doubt who would get burned. It would serve the feller right, he thought.

“Why, she’s the gal you been lookin‘ for,” Jeb answered innocently.

Chase turned back to the girl, anger overcoming all sense. “Sonofabitch!” he swore furiously. “I ought to tan your hide!”

Jessie stepped back, her hand automatically going to the gun on her hip. “I wouldn’t try it, mister,” she told him in a cold, calm voice. “I wouldn’t even think about it if I were you.”

Chase eyed her warily. He hadn’t noticed the gun before, seeing only that delicate oval face, a face that for some annoying reason had come to his mind often over the past week and a half. The time he’d wasted looking for her, this girl, not Rachel’s faceless daughter but this little hoyden in boy’s clothes. Christ, he wanted to get his hands on her!

Chase continued to boil, but he managed to get his anger under the surface. “Would you really shoot me, kid?” he asked.

“You better believe she would,” Jeb volunteered from behind him.

Chase softened his expression and repeated in his most beguiling voice, “Would you, Jessica?”

Jessie didn’t know what to make of this about-face, but she wasn’t mollified. Part of her anger was a defense, for she had lied to this man and they both knew it. But most of her anger was because he had no business shouting at Jeb.

“Just stay away from me, and you won’t have to find out.”

“Then I guess I’ll keep my distance,” he conceded, leaning back against the wall. “But you will agree you and I are due for some straight talk?”

“No,” she answered flatly. “I don’t owe you any talk, but what I got to say you better pay attention to. Don’t you ever badger Jeb again. He works for me, and he doesn’t have to answer your questions. He doesn’t have to give you the time of day if he doesn’t want to. You don’t work here, so you got no business interrupting his work. Is all that clear to you, mister?”

“Perfectly,” Chase replied, undaunted. “And since you’re the one with the answers, why don’t you tell me why you lied to me.”

Jessie glared at him. “Because I don’t want you here!” she snapped. “And that’s all you need to know.”

She turned on her heel and started out of the stable, but Chase stopped her with the ominous cocking of his gun and the icy warning, “Just hold it right there, shortfry.”

She was not more than a foot away from him, and she turned around to look at him in disbelief. She stared for a moment at the gun he was aiming at her, and then her expression changed to contempt. “You wouldn’t,” she stated flatly. “How would you explain shooting me to your precious Rachel?”

With that she passed on through the stable doors. Chase angrily put his gun away. Jeb’s scratchy chuckling only made him angrier. In fact, he couldn’t remember when a female had ever made him so mad, and he wasn’t going to put up with it.

He went after Jessie, catching up with her halfway between the stable and the house. Too late she heard him coming up behind her, and before she could react, he had jerked her to a stop, getting to her gun before she could and throwing it across the yard.

“We’ll talk,” Chase said brusquely.

“The hell we will!” Jessie shouted each word just a little louder than the last. Before she had finished, she was swinging a fist at him.

Chase caught her wrist and jerked it up behind her back, then went for the other one and did the same, leaving her feet kicking at him. “You were only half-right back there,” he told her sharply. “It’s not that I wouldn’t dare shoot you, kid. It’s that I wouldn’t want to. But I’m not opposed to giving you a richly deserved spanking if you don’t settle down.”

Jessie stopped all resistance instantly and relaxed against him. Chase held her like that, waiting for her to calm down a bit. As he waited, he became acutely aware of her body. Confusion set in. How old had Rachel said her daughter was? Eighteen! She was full grown, even if she didn’t act it and her clothes hid the fact. Soft, full breasts were pressed against his chest. No wonder he was beginning to respond to the closeness.

Chase swore softly and set Jessie away from him, holding her wrists in front of her. He looked her over, seeing the alluring curves he had missed before, the way her pants fit like a second skin, the way her shirt strained against her breasts.

“Are you ready to behave now?”

Jessie’s head was lowered, and she seemed subdued. “You’re hurting me,” she said.

He relaxed his hold. The second he did she jerked loose and started running for the house. When he caught up with her, she had reached the porch steps. This time he was fed up. Jessie screamed when he sat down on the steps and pulled her across his lap. She squirmed with all her might, trying to face him, yet he kept pushing her down. She kept screaming.

Rachel heard the yelling, and when she rushed to the porch and saw, she was shocked. “Stop it, Chase!”

With his hands full of a hissing, spitting wildcat, Chase couldn’t turn to look at her. He said angrily, “She deserves it, Rachel!”

“That’s not the way to handle Jessica, Chase.” She came around to face him. “Now let her up.”

Chase stared hard at her, and slowly some rationality returned. “You’re right. It’s not my place to discipline your kid, no matter how much she needs it.”

He let Jessie go, and the moment her feet were planted firmly in front of him, she hauled off and socked him on the nose. He was so surprised that she was able to run past him and into the house before he could react. He growled and got up to go after her.

Rachel caught his arm. “Let her go, Chase.”

“Did you see what that little bitch did to me?” he shouted furiously.

“Yes, and it was no more than you deserved,” Rachel told him sharply. Then she said in a calmer tone, “She’s a young woman, Chase. You can’t manhandle her like you did.”

“Young woman, hell! She’s a spoiled brat.” He felt his nose, and his hand came away smeared with blood. “Is it broken?”

“Let me see.” Rachel felt around the edges and along the ridge and shook her head. “I don’t think so, but you’re bleeding pretty badly. Come inside, and I’ll take care of it.”

Chase stepped through the door, but he did so warily, as if he expected Jessie to be waiting to clobber him again. Rachel saw him looking around and said, “The door to her room is open, so she has probably taken off out the back.”

“If you mean Jessie,” Billy Ewing volunteered, coming up the hall, “she just left on Blackstar.”

“She’s probably going off to sulk,” Chase said.

“Jessie?” Billy scoffed. “Nah, she’s got work to do. She said so, when I asked where she was going. What happened to you?”

“Never mind!”

“Boy!” Billy cried as he turned around and went back down the hall the way he had come. “You never get a straight answer out of grownups.”

Rachel smiled after her son. He was so different from her first child. Having the love of two parents made such a difference. Billy was so good-natured, not at all like Jessica. It was all such a shame.

“You can’t get straight answers out of willful little chits, either,” Chase grumbled.

“What?”

“Did your daughter happen to tell you where she went? When did she get back?”

“Five days ago,” Rachel replied. “And no, she wouldn’t tell me where she’d been. I tried to talk to her, but she accused me of only pretending to be worried, of putting on an act. She said it was none of my business and I’d had no right sending you after her. I really think she was most angry about that, that you went after her.”

“I’m beginning to think your Jessica is perpetually angry. You want to know why she took off that night? It’s because I was here.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“She didn’t have to,” Chase replied. “She happens to be the kid I told you about, the one who sent me off in the wrong direction that day, lying to me. That’s why she left, I’m sure. She didn’t have the guts to face me after she saw I’d made it here after all.”

“But, Chase, you said that girl was with a man, that they were—”

“I know what I said. But that was Jessica, one and the same.” And then he added spitefully, whether he believed it or not, “I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where she was that whole week, with a man somewhere.”

“You’re going too far, Chase Summers,” Rachel said defensively.

“Okay, but what are you going to do about her? You are her guardian, Rachel. Her father left her in your care. Are you just going to let her run wild?”

“What am I supposed to do when she won’t talk to me? She doesn’t believe I care about her. How do I reach her when she hates me?”

“I’ll tell you what I would do.”

“I’ve seen what you would do,” she said sternly. “And that’s not the answer. There has to be some other way.”

“You ought to just find her a husband and get her off your hands. Let someone else worry about her.”

Rachel didn’t answer, but she looked at him thoughtfully. An idea began to take shape in her mind, an idea Jessica wouldn’t have liked at all.