Bonds of Matrimony (18 page)

           
His
reflection nodded.
 
“I will remain
mute.”
 
The grin was in full force
again.
 
He stood up and moved into
the aisle, waiting for her to move ahead of him.

           
“Do
that,” she ordered turning to face him and gaining a bit of satisfaction to see
him wipe the smirk off of his face immediately.
 
She took a few steps along the aisle and stopped abruptly,
turning on him.
 
“Webb?”

           
“Yes,”
he nearly laughed.

           
“I
don’t want you looking at me, either,” she snapped.
 
Without waiting for a response, she turned on her heel and
bobbled gracefully down the aisle.
 
She didn’t have to turn back to know that he was watching every step she
took.
 
She smiled coyly to herself
at having regained control of the situation.
 
Perhaps she wouldn’t give up on him yet; after all, he had
apologized.

***

           
“In
a dry season, like the summer we’re experiencing this year, wind storms can be
fierce.
 
The wind will pick up
rapidly and fling millions of tiny grains of sand at your face and arms.
 
It stings.
 
You wouldn’t think so, but it does.
 
And you don’t dare open your eyes
against that kind of assault,” Webb explained.

           
“Do
these wind storms happen very often?” Reese asked, clearly displeased with his
description.

           
“Only
every time the wind starts whipping through the county,” he laughed with a
shrug.
 
“You get used to them.”

           
The
thought of sand grains pelting her arms and face in the hot, dry Texas sun
sounded nothing short of perfect to her.
 
Chase couldn’t wait to feel the sting on her cheeks and forehead.
 
It sounded exotic and wild…and
free.
 

           
“What
are you smiling about?” Webb asked her, catching her staring out the window
with a wide grin on her face.

           
Unnerved
by the awareness that Webb had been spending considerably more time watching her
for the last 24 hours, she flushed and stammered through her explanation.
 
“Nothing.
 
It just sounds so…so…exotic,” she finally answered.
 
She was certain that he would laugh at her
for finding pleasure in something that was probably quite simple and possibly
quite painful, but he only met her eyes with a warm smile and a small nod.

           
Marcus’s
sudden clearing of his throat caused Webb to pull his eyes from Chastity’s
guiltily.
 
He turned his attention
to the darkening landscape outside instead.
 
Chase looked up to meet her brother’s eyes as he stood
looming over their table in the dining car.
 
He had decided not to join them for dinner tonight, claiming
that his sisters should dine alone with their grandmother for their last meal
before arriving in Slaughter, Texas.

           
“Don’t
be ridiculous, Marcus,” his grandmother had assured him.
 
“We’ve been dining together for the
past three years.
 
We would love
your company.”

           
Regardless,
he had declined our invitation, which Colton Webb was quick to accept.
 
Marcus glared at him as he rose and
followed the women back to the dining car.
 
It had been three years since she had seen her brother, but
the past couple of days had proven to her that in spite of the beard that he’d
recently shaved, he hadn’t changed too terribly much.
 
And Chase knew him well enough to know that he was too proud
to follow them, no matter how much he hated the idea of Colton Webb dining with
his sisters.
 

And in spite of the fact
that his cousin had held the majority of the conversation by doing imitations
of some of the more prominent English members of the ton, Chase couldn’t deny
that Webb had repeatedly sought to capture her attention.
 
She would occasionally try to sneak a
look at him, hoping to catch him grinning his slow, sexy, Texan grin; and she
would be startled to find him boldly watching her.
 
Her eyes would dart around the table, guiltily checking to
see if the other three women noticed these none-too-subtle flirtations, but all
three of them seemed oblivious.

           
“I
suddenly realized I was famished,” Marcus insisted stubbornly, sliding into the
seat beside his eldest sister.
 

           
The
rest of them had already finished dining.
 
Chase imagined that Marcus sat alone brooding over the idea of Webb
eating with his family for nearly an hour before finally giving up and coming
to find them.
 
She smiled at him
warmly and patted his hand with sympathy.
 
She knew that he was not fond of his rancher neighbor and former
employer.
 
In spite of the fact
that Marcus was raised a gentleman, he looked like he wanted to kill Webb every
time he looked at him.
  
It
must have taken great restraint to travel across the country with him like he’d
done.
 
Chase imagined that he would
be relieved to get off this train and return to his own ranch, a good distance
from Colton Webb.

           
For
a moment, she felt sorry for her older brother.
 
He would be furious if he found out about his sister’s
feelings for his nemesis.
 
She felt
a wave of guilt and kept her eyes on the empty plate in front of her while
Marcus ate his own dinner.
 
Webb
excused himself after ten horribly tense minutes.

           
“Why
do you scowl at him so angrily, Marcus?” Reese asked sweetly.

           
He
turned his scowl on her and shoved another forkful of food into his mouth.
 
“He’s a lying, thieving bastard,” he
answered in a deep, soft voice full of animosity.
 

           
A
lying, thieving bastard?
 

           
“I
assure you, Mr. Fairfax,” Elisabeth responded frankly, “he’s the legitimate
child of my aunt and her husband.
 
He is most certainly not a bastard.”

           
Marcus
sighed heavily.
 
“Thank you for
correcting me, Miss Davis,” he answered with great sarcasm.
 
“This spring, a number of my cows
disappeared.
 
Half of them were
already breeding.
 
Do you know what
that loss will mean for me this year?
 
I rely on those calves for income.”

           
“What
does that have to do with Mr. Webb?” Reese asked cautiously.
 
Clearly, she didn’t want to anger
Marcus more than he already was.

           
“I
told the sheriff that I suspected he had taken them.
 
Webb has had a hard time with one of his bulls.
 
He’s resistant against…” he left off,
suddenly uncomfortable discussing this particular aspect of cattle
ranching.
 
“He shies away from the
cows.
 
Webb’s been trying to get
rid of that bull for two years now.”

           
“So
why would he steal your cattle?” Elisabeth asked, clearly defensive of the
cousin who’d recently rescued her from an unbearable future.

           
“Because
he wants the offspring as much as I do.
 
He can get some decent money, especially from any bulls who are
born.
 
And since his cows aren’t
breeding, it would make sense that he would steal mine,” he explained slowly.

           
“Except
that my cousin wouldn’t take something that doesn’t belong to him,” Elisabeth
insisted.
 
Her chin raised an inch
in the air, practically daring Marcus to dispute her understanding of a member
of her own family.

           
Marcus
lowered his eyelids skeptically and shoved another forkful of vegetables into
his mouth.
 
He clearly wasn’t
convinced, but he didn’t seem interested in arguing with Elisabeth.
 
Instead, he slowly chewed his food,
swallowed, and then said, “You don’t need to bother defending your cousin’s
honor, Miss Davis.
 
The sheriff already
questioned him and decided that he was innocent.”
 

           
Elisabeth
nodded curtly, a polite I-told-you-so.
 

           
“So
he didn’t do it?” Reese asked.

           
“Well,
he
claims
that some of his own cattle
were stolen, as well.”

           
“Then
who stole them?” Reese persisted.
 
She was clearly very interested in this mystery.
 
In spite of the evident tension and
Marcus’s evident opinion that Webb was lying about his own cattle being stolen,
Reese demanded to know all of the details.

           
Marcus
shrugged.
 

           
Reese
sat quietly, obviously pondering something that bothered her.
 
Her fair eyebrows were drawn together
in a concerned concentration, and her small pink mouth frowned slightly.
 
Finally, she blurted out, “Could it
have been the Indians?”

           
“What?”

           
“Well
I overheard some women talking yesterday about the savages raiding homes and
stealing cattle and killing men and women and children,” she answered rapidly,
perhaps in a hurry to spit out her worries before she lost her nerve.

           
“You
needn’t worry about Indians, Reese,” Marcus answered with a small smile.
 
He seemed amused by his youngest
sister’s naïveté.
 
“We haven’t had
any conflicts with the Indians since 1879, long before I even came to Texas.
 
They were stealing horses from ranches
then, and the Texas Rangers attacked and killed a number of Comanches that
year.
 
There haven’t been any
problems since.”

           
“What
are the Texas Rangers?” Reese asked curiously.

           
Marcus
laughed and shook his head.
 
“You’re like a child with your questions, Reese,” he answered.

           
Her
eyes widened innocently when she smiled.
 
“I just want to understand,” she replied.

           
Marcus
went on to satisfy his younger sister’s curiosity with stories of the Texas
Rangers, but Chase’s own thoughts were distracted.
 
She wondered where Webb was just then, and what he was
doing.
 
She excused herself from
the table after a bit, noticing that her grandmother carefully watched her
departure.
 
She made an extra
effort to look exhausted as she moved slowly down the aisle and out of the
dining car.

           
A
“psst” stopped her half way down the aisle of the next car, and she turned to
see Colton’s grinning face.

           
“Hello,”
she answered formally, with a small smile.

           
He
patted the seat beside him.
 
“I was
hoping you would sit and talk with me for a bit.”
 
His drawl seemed pronounced, and she wondered if he knew how
sexy he sounded.

           
She
remembered their last conversation.
 
She was feeling very warm and giddy at the sight of him, but she was
supposed to be angry with him.
 
Barely civil.
 
She wanted
nothing more than to leap into his arms and cover him with kisses.
 
But she restrained herself and sat
beside him, reminding herself to avoid being too friendly.

           
“I
can’t stop thinking about the way I barked at you before,” he said
quietly.
 
He wasn’t smiling
now.
 
He looked very serious, and
very sorry.
 

           
“Let’s
forget about it,” she answered quickly.
 
At first, she had been disgusted and angry, comparing him to
Jett Stockton.
 
Having had some
time to think about it, though, she was forced to recognize that he spoke out
of frustration, not anger and hatred.
 
The last thing she wanted to do was sit alone with him, a mere single
train car away from her brother, and re-live the entire scene.