Cherish Read online

To her frightened eyes, he seemed a yard wide at the shoulders as he moved toward her, his back slightly hunched to avoid bumping his head on the canvas roof. Relaxed at his sides, his fists looked leathery, rock-solid, and capable of concussing a full-grown bull. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he could strangle her with the grip of one hand. Suddenly the bane of her existence was Race Spencer, dressed head to toe in satanic black, his Stetson cocked at an angle over his eyes.

  Why black clothing seemed satanic on him, she hadn’t a clue. It made no sense, now that she came to think of it. Everyone in her church community wore relentless black, and none of them looked evil. Yet Race Spencer did? She decided he would probably look dangerous no matter what he wore. Those sharply carved features, his burnished skin, the blue-black glint of his hair, the raw power that seemed to emanate from every pore of his skin. There was an untamed, lethal aura about him that couldn’t be denied.

  “Howdy,” he said in that deep, silky voice she was already coming to detest.

  Rebecca didn’t return the greeting. She couldn’t have spoken if she tried. Why had he come back so soon? He’d brought her no food. He wasn’t holding a coffee cup. And there was no mistaking the purposeful glint in his brown eyes as he sat down across from her. Gauging the distance he’d left between them, a scant two feet, she knew he could be on her before she could blink.

  Extending one long leg, he drew up his other knee to rest his arm, his large, brown hand dangling. His gaze never left her. Her heart was pounding so violently it felt as if it were going to crack her ribs.

  He started to speak, then seemed to think better of it, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. After a moment, he raised his black lashes and settled his gaze on her again. Smiling slightly, he rasped his fingertips on the whiskery stubble that shadowed his jaw.

  “I must look like hell,” he said. “No wonder you don’t trust me.” As he lowered his hand, he heaved a weary sigh. “We gotta talk this out, Rebecca. I can’t leave this go, knowin’ how afraid you are.”

  Talk it out? She just wanted him to go away and leave her alone.

  He nudged the brim of his hat back, his gaze trailing slowly over her face. “I reckon the first thing I wanna do is lay all the cards out on the table. We can’t deal with this by tryin’ to talk around it.”

  She didn’t want to be dealt with, she thought frantically, especially not by him.

  “First off, I’m gonna say plain out what I think you’re afraid of, beggin’ your pardon before I start, because I reckon it’s gonna offend you. I know you’re a proper lady, and a religious one, to boot. You probably got some pretty fixed ideas about what’s fittin’ and what ain’t.” He gestured limply with his hand. “I guess you could say I’m just the opposite. Proper ain’t exactly my middle name. In short, I’m no gentleman and don’t got an inklin’ how to go about pretendin’ I am.”

  Rebecca was beginning to wonder what on earth it was that he meant to say.

  His firm mouth tipped up at one corner in a self-deprecating grin. “That bein’ the case, I’ll offer you a thought to hold on to while I’m talkin’. In my experience, an overpolite man is usually hidin’ some mighty unpolite ideas. With me, what you see is what I am, rough edges and all. I don’t keep much under my hat.”

  Oh, how she wished she could believe that.

  He swiped at his mouth with his shirt sleeve and shifted his gaze from her to a floor plank that lay between them. The expression on his face conveyed that he felt extremely hesitant and uncomfortable about what he intended to say.

  “Plain out, I think one of the things you’re scared to death of is that I’m gonna rape you,” he said, his voice turning gravelly. “I know that ain’t a word for polite company, and I’m sorry for…” He looked up, his gaze lingering on her burning cheeks. He swallowed, his larynx bobbing. “I’m sorry for usin’ it. There’s probably a highfalutin way of puttin’ it, but I ain’t got no idea what it is.”

  He went back to staring at the floor again. Rebecca pressed a hand to the base of her throat, feeling as if she might faint. This man had to be the most diabolical schemer and accomplished actor she’d ever met. But despite the warnings that whispered in her mind, she felt herself beginning to waver. He looked so sincere—as if he truly did feel ill at ease and regretted using a word that she found abhorrent.

  “I ain’t gonna straddle the fence on that issue,” he informed her gruffly. “I’ve been the bulldogger on enough brandin’ crews to know I can throw and hogtie a calf twice your size in record time. I ain’t never raped me a woman, but there ain’t a question in my mind that I got the wherewithal, especially with a little gal like you.” He flicked another glance at her before resuming his intent regard of the floor plank. “You ain’t much bigger than a minute. If I was of a mind to rape you, I could do it, lickety-split, and we both know it.”

  No question about it; she was going to faint. A breathless, light-headed feeling stole over her.

  “By me sayin’ that, please don’t think I’m plannin’ on doin’ it,” he quickly added. “Or that I’m threatenin’ you. I’m just tryin’ to clear the air. It’s one of the things you’re scared of, and without it bein’ in the open, I can’t very well deny it.”

  He settled his back against the wall and lifted his dark gaze to hers. His mouth twitched at one corner in a suppressed smile as he studied her. After a long moment, he said, “I’m scarin’ the livin’ hell right outta you, ain’t I?” The smile moved slowly over his mouth, deepening the crease in his lean cheek. “I’m sorry. Gifted at talkin’, I definitely ain’t. I wear a size twelve boot, and most of the time, I got it shoved in my mouth crosswise. So let me move on real fast to the denyin’ part. I ain’t got it in me to rape you, darlin’. Not you or anybody.” The diffused light coming through the canvas shimmered on his mobile lips. “I know you don’t believe that, but I’m gonna do my damnedest to convince you, so bear with me. All right?”

  It was Rebecca’s turn to avert her gaze. When she allowed him to look into her eyes, she got the unsettling feeling that he saw far more than she wished to reveal.

  “The other thing I think you’re scared of is that I’m gonna kill you,” he went on. “I ain’t gonna lie and say I haven’t never taken a life. I have, and if it comes down to defendin’ myself, I most likely will again. But I never took joy in it, and I never killed a woman. I’ve never even laid a hand on one, and I sure as hell don’t plan to start with you.

  “I know you don’t believe that either. But there you have it. I know I look like a mean hombre, and I reckon if I’m honest, I gotta admit to doin’ my share of wrong things. But I ain’t a murderin’, rapin’ polecat. No how, no way. And neither is my hired hands. They’d be more apt to die for you than lift a hand against you, and that’s an honest-to-God fact.”

  He shifted his shoulders and drew up his extended leg. Releasing a weary breath, he said, “Now we come to the convincin’ part. I’m gonna tell you right up front, this ain’t gonna come easy for me. It’s somethin’ I ain’t never talked about, not to anybody. But I feel like I oughta tell you. Maybe I’m dead wrong and it won’t matter a whit to you, and maybe it won’t do a thing to ease your mind. But it won’t be for lack of me tryin’.”

  He cleared his throat, sighed, and then straightened out his leg again. “You ain’t the only one to see your ma get raped. Or to watch her die. It’s been a lot of years, but I lost my mother the same way. Sort of, anyhow. The bastards didn’t slit her throat. They was just so brutal in the takin’ of her that she was tore up inside after they finished, and she bled to death.”

  Taken off-guard, Rebecca stiffened. Her gaze flew to his like bits of metal to a magnet. That was the very last thing she had expected him to say. What she read in his dark eyes caught at her heart. Pain. An awful, aching pain that seemed to reflect the hurting within herself. For several long moments, they simply stared at each other, a weighty silence hovering between them that seemed to magnify the sound of t
heir breathing. Rebecca imagined she could even hear herself sweating—a sticky, clammy sweat that was suddenly popping out all over her body. She dug her nails into the muslin of her skirt, her muscles knotted so tightly they ached.

  “I was seven,” he told her huskily. “My pa—he was an Easterner who come out this way to prospect for gold. My mother…she was a half-breed Apache. To her way of thinkin’, he married her, but to him, he traded for her with a few blankets and some trinkets, so she was just a bought thing, like a horse. Except most men treat their horses better. He drug her to his minin’ claim, gave her a tent to call home, used her for his pleasure, and worked her like a slave. When I come along, he thought no more of me than her ’cause I was a breed, and in his eyes, that meant we wasn’t quite human.”

  Rebecca closed her eyes, feeling sick. He couldn’t be lying about this. Just the tone of his voice told her that, every word he spoke coming hard and laced with heartache. That he would do this—for her, just so she wouldn’t feel afraid. Oh, God. It made her feel ashamed for not trusting him in the first place.

  “Anyhow, he wearied of prospectin’ and took us south to Santa Fe for a spell. Then he all of a sudden hightailed it back east, leavin’ us to fend for ourselves when I was six. My ma—she wasn’t much more’n a kid herself. Bein’ female and Injun, there wasn’t no decent way for her to earn us a livin’. She took to beggin’ on street corners to feed me. Most times we went hungry. When there was food, she didn’t take much for herself, and she got real frail.”

  Rebecca found herself staring at him again. He was gazing at something above her head, a distant expression in his eyes. A muscle along his jaw ticked, indicating that he was clenching his teeth.

  “Right before she died, we went through a lean spell. No food, period, for three days.” He shifted his gaze to look at her. “I don’t reckon you’ve ever been on the streets and starvin’. You get to a point that you’ll eat damned near anything. We dug through garbage in the alleys to stay alive quite a lot, but for that three days, we couldn’t find nothin’ in there to eat. She got real frantic, worryin’ about me dyin’ on her. So she stole some roses outta some rich man’s walled-off garden. She tried to sell ’em for a penny each on a street corner, me sittin’ there watchin’ and prayin’ she’d sell enough of ’em for us to buy some eats. The men who passed—they didn’t want her roses, and they wasn’t inclined to throw coin away on no Apache squaw and her brat. So they just kept walkin’, some ignorin’ her, some shovin’ her outta their way.”

  He fell silent for a moment, his gaze locked on hers.

  “Then along come two drunks from a saloon up the street.” His throat convulsed as he swallowed. His gaze wavered, and he directed it at the floor again. “They was real interested in a rose,” he said tautly. “Just not the garden type. Somehow, even bein’ so young, I knew when I saw ’em that they meant trouble.” He smiled slightly. “My ma—she used to say I was born with a real old soul. I reckon in a way she was right, ’cause I was leerious of lots of things she wasn’t, and most times it turned out I was right to be. She had a pure heart, my ma. You know what I’m sayin’?”

  He repositioned his arms on his bent knees and lifted his shoulders as if to work out a muscle cramp.

  “She didn’t have no ugliness in her, so she didn’t see ugliness in other folks.” He scratched beside his nose. “Me—I guess I got a ugly streak. I ain’t never had a problem knowin’ ugly when I see it.” He hauled in a deep breath, as though to brace himself, then slowly exhaled. “Anyhow, them fellas laughed and throwed her roses down and tromped on ’em. And then they dragged her off into the alley. I tried to stop ’em, but I was smallish from lack of grub and only seven, so they just knocked me away and—” He closed his eyes and just sat there for a moment, his face unnaturally still. “And they just went on about their business,” he said hoarsely, “havin’ themselves a real fine time.”

  The images that flashed in Rebecca’s mind made her stomach lurch and her blood run cold. The very air seemed suddenly thin, and she grabbed a little frantically for breath, feeling dizzy.

  “When they finished, they just left her lay, like as if she was a dog they’d kicked senseless. She was bleedin’. Bleedin’ real bad. I knew she was gonna die if I didn’t get help so I ran up the street, poundin’ on doors. But it was a Sunday and the shops was all closed. I wound up at the saloon, but the men in there was too busy playin’ poker to bother with a snot-nosed Injun brat, and they didn’t give a shit about some Apache squaw who was dyin’ out in the alley. So I went back to her without no help, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do but kneel there beside her and watch her life bleed outta her into the dirt.” His mouth twisted with bitterness, and his black lashes lifted to reveal eyes gone glittery with anger. “A fittin’ end for an Injun squaw. Right? Dirt to dirt. It was a full day before the law even saw to it she got carried away, and I never got told what they done with her. I figure they buried her, but I don’t know where.”

  Rebecca felt a ticklish sensation on her cheek and realized it was a tear. She said nothing. What was there to say? That she was sorry? She knew firsthand how pathetically inadequate a response that was.

  “Anyhow,” he said, running his palms over his pant legs, “I got that memory in my head, as clear as yesterday. It’s one of them things you don’t never forget, I reckon. At least, I haven’t. It’s always there at the back of my mind and visitin’ me in my nightmares. My ma…” His voice trailed away, and she saw his larynx bob again as he tried to swallow. She knew the feeling—emotion becoming a knot in your throat that made it nearly impossible to speak. “She was the only pretty thing in my world—the only good thing. After losin’ her, I was alone, without nobody who gave a care. There ain’t no worse feelin’ in the whole world, I don’t think. So I kinda know how you’re feelin’ right now, like as if you been hollowed out with a sharp knife.”

  He removed his hat and ran long, thick fingers through his black hair. As he settled the Stetson back on his head, he flashed her a crooked grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

  “I reckon you could say me seein’ that happen to my ma has given me a real strong dislike for men that ride roughshod over women, for any reason. And that’s how come I ain’t got it in me to do you any meanness.” He ran his gaze slowly over her. “You’re a real pretty little swatch of muslin, darlin’. I ain’t sayin’ that the wantin’ ain’t there when I look at you because it’d be a lie. But for me, wantin’ and doin’ don’t ride double. You got nothin’ to fear from me—or from my men. And as long as we’re around, you ain’t got a whole lot to fear from nobody else, either. If anyone lays a hand on you, it’ll be over my dead body, and I got me a knack for bein’ the fella who’s still standin’ when the smoke clears, so there ain’t much chance of that either.”

  Tears burned in Rebecca’s eyes. She tried to speak, but her chest felt as if a steel band was being tightened around it.

  He pushed slowly to his feet, a towering specter, his guns riding his hips like portents of death. Yet looking up at him now, she felt no fear. Just an aching sadness for the little boy he had once been and the man he had become. Since hearing his story, her opinion of him had altered drastically, becoming the very antithesis of what it had been earlier. No one would fabricate a tale like that, especially not a hard-edged man like Race Spencer. And if she believed that much of what he had told her, she had to believe all else as well.

  Finally finding her voice, she whispered shakily, “Thank you for telling me, Mr. Spencer.”

  He settled his hands at his lean hips, the smile on his mouth at last warming his eyes. “Can I take that to mean you feel some better?”

  “Yes. Thank you. I, um…know it wasn’t easy for you to talk about that, and I appreciate your sharing it with me.” She caught the inside of her cheek between her teeth, feeling she should say something more. Only she couldn’t think what. “Thank you,” she ended up saying again. “It means more to me than I can say.”
/>   He stood there for a moment, searching her gaze. This time, she didn’t let herself look away. No one had forced him to share something so painful with her, and in doing so, he had stripped his emotions bare. Because he had, she no longer felt inclined to try to hide hers from him.

  “It’s gonna get easier as time wears on,” he told her softly. “You probably don’t believe that right now, but I promise you, it does. I wish I could say it’ll happen quick, but the truth is, you’re probably still kinda numb and could feel a good deal worse before you feel better.”

  She nodded, knowing he was probably right.

  “It’ll hit you hard sometimes—when you ain’t expectin’ it. Like a fist in your gut, hurtin’ so bad it takes your breath. If you need to talk, I ain’t a stranger to the feelin’, so don’t hesitate.” He hauled in another deep breath, this time exhaling on a sigh of relief. “I’m glad that’s behind me,” he said with a chuckle. “Now I’m hungry. If I bring you a plate of breakfast, you reckon you could try to choke down a few bites? I don’t want you takin’ sick.”

  Rebecca was having enough trouble swallowing her own saliva, let alone food. But the concern in his expression prompted her to nod. “I’ll try,” she said faintly.

  He turned and moved to the rear of the wagon. As he swung a leg out over the tailgate, it occurred to Rebecca that it was no longer necessary or even wise to keep secrets from him. If he and his men hadn’t committed those atrocities in the arroyo yesterday, then other men had. That meant the actual killers were out there somewhere, still bent on getting their hands on the church money.

  “Mr. Spencer?”

  He paused to glance back over his shoulder, a dark eyebrow lifted in question.

  “I, um…about what happened in the arroyo. There are things I need to tell you. Things you should know.”

  “How’s about I get us each a plate, and we can talk over breakfast?”

  “All right.”

  He flashed her a slow grin. “I’ll be right back.”