Kate Wingo - Western Fire 01 (14 page)

An unsettling silence fell over the room.
Somewhat surprisingly, Mercy caught a fleeting glimpse of sadness in Spencer’s amber-colored eyes. Glancing at Dewey, she saw that his head was downcast.

“I think
that it’s time for everyone to retire for the night,” she announced, hoping to dispel the air of melancholy that had unexpectedly descended upon them. From what Spencer just said, she now knew that he, too, had lost a father. A fact that made her acutely uncomfortable. She didn’t want to have anything in common with him. Particularly not that.

Her mother made a garbled sound of protest, gesturing to the
Bible with her right hand. While glad-hearted that her mother had recovered from the shock of having Ned Sykes quartered in their home, Mercy didn’t want to tax her ailing strength.

“Don’t you worry none, Mrs. Hibbert
. I’ll just pick up where I left off tomorrow evening,” Spencer assured her as he closed the leather-bound Bible and set it on the side table.

At hearing that, Temperance
Hibbert nodded, smiling affectionately at Spencer as though he was one of her own sons.

Watching the tender scene, Mercy angrily gnashed her teeth together.

Torn between informing her family that Spencer McCabe was an agent of Satan and wanting to make her mother happy, she kept silent. Her mother’s emotional well-being was of greater importance. Although the entire scene made her wonder if her mother was even aware of the fact that Spencer rode with Ned Sykes’ notorious gang.

“Prudence, would you please escort Mama
upstairs?” Mercy asked, wanting to clear the room as quickly as possible. To her surprise, Dewey also rose from his chair, solicitously taking hold of her mother’s other elbow.

Struggling to his feet, Spencer steadied himself with the length of hickory
that he’d fashioned into a cane.

“Good night, ma’am,” he said with polite deference, waiting for Temperance to be led from the room before reseating himself on the settee.

Mercy gave Gabriel a pointed glance, silently indicating that it was his bedtime, as well. Clearly reluctant, he scrambled to his feet, something akin to hero worship in his brown eyes.

“Hey, Mister McCabe
. Do you think that maybe tomorrow you could tell me some more stories about all that trout fishing and deer hunting and coon skinning and squirrel shooting you did back in Tennessee?”

Spencer smiled
indulgently, no doubt wondering how such a small boy could get so many words out in a single breath. “Sure thing. And if the weather holds, maybe we could mosey down to the stream and get in a little fishing of our own. Would you like that?”

“More than anything
!” Gabriel exclaimed, all but jumping out of his chair as he ran to the door. “See you tomorrow, Mister McCabe.”

“
Goodnight
, Gabriel,” Mercy called after the child, Gabriel’s startled expression indicating that he’d completely forgotten she was still in the room.

“He’s a good kid,” Spencer said
quietly, a fond smile on his lips as he listened to Gabriel take the stairs two at a time.

Dear God in heaven
. Is this really the same man who, two weeks ago, pistols blazing, fought his way out of a surprise ambush?

“Yes, Gabriel is a good boy. And I intend to see that he remains that way,” Mercy snapped, not accustomed to playing second fiddle to a southern renegade.

“Just what do think I’m gonna do? Turn him into a rebel bushwhacker?” Spencer taunted, having accurately read her thoughts.

Mercy kept silent, refusin
g to be drawn into an argument.

Uncomfortable with the way
that Spencer was staring at her, she picked up the Bible and returned it to its rightful place on the wooden lectern situated on the other side of the room.

How did all of this happen?
How did Spencer manage to so thoroughly ingratiate himself into her family? Prudence was moonstruck over the man, little Gabriel awestruck by him, and her mother now treated him as though he was kith and kin. And here she was, left with the bothersome chore of having to inform Spencer that he must leave their home, never to return.

“I need to speak
with you,” Mercy said abruptly, thinking it best to get the matter over and done with.

“It
just so happens that I’ve been meaning to speak to you, as well. There’s a whole lot of unsettled business between us. And it’s time that we cleared the air.” That said, Spencer patted the vacant space beside him.

Unwilling to let him think that she was at all intimidated, Mercy primly seated herself on the settee, a
lbeit as far from him as possible.

“Why don’t I go first?”

Mercy gave a consenting nod. “By all means.”

Without warning, Spencer grabbed her by the wrist, yanking her to his side of the settee. “Why did you do it, girl? Why did you set the jayhawkers on us?”

“I didn’t,” she replied stiffly, trying to free her wrist from his grasp. It was the conversation that she’d been dreading. Admittedly, she was baffled as to why the subject hadn’t come up sooner. Now she knew – Spencer had simply been biding his time.

“Well, if you didn’t send for those murdering jayhawkers, who did?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” she lied, fearful of what might befall their neighbor, Sam Guernsey, if Spencer ever learned the truth.

To her acute
unease, Spencer stared at her, his penetrating gaze unsettling to an extreme.

“You’re trembling, Mercy. Now, why is that?”

“Because you’re hurting me,” she hissed, surprised when he immediately released his hold on her. Determined to show a brave front, she refrained from rubbing her wrist. “If you’re finished interrogating me, there is something that I wish to discuss with you.”

“Guess this is where you tell me why it is
that you’ve steered clear of me all day.”

“Contrary to what you think, Mister McCabe, the world does not revolve around you. I have a household to run and
—”

“Who’s being contrary? You’re the one
who can’t bring herself to admit that you enjoyed giving me all of those sponge baths.”

Mercy’s eyes widened. “How did you . . . that is to say that
— What I mean is, I would never have given you a single bath had I known that you were awake,” she finally managed to croak.

“Don’t I know it?” One corner of
Spencer’s mouth lifted in a lazy grin as he leaned toward her. “Do you want to know what I would dream about while you were sponging down my body?”

“I most certainly do not!” she retorted, barely curbing th
e impulse to slap the smirk from his handsome face.

Ignoring her admonition,
Spencer said, “I’d lay there and dream about you bent over top of me, with your long, blond hair draping my body, wearing nothing but a little lacy—”

“You fiend! It never happened like that, and you know it!”

“I said it was a dream, didn’t I?”

Heaven help me. T
he man is insufferable.

“Now, come on, Mercy, honey
. Why don’t you just ‘fess up to the fact that you like me more than you let on.”

“I will admit to nothing other than the fact that I despise you.”

Taking her completely by surprise, Spencer placed a hand over her racing heart. “You’ve got a mighty strange way of showing it,” he murmured, a knowing smile on his lips.

Mercy scooted away from him
, the warmth of his big, masculine hand more than she could bear. If she stayed in the room much longer, she might come completely undone. And while loathe to admit to it, there
was
something utterly disarming about him. Something that incited her baser instincts. Indeed, she was trapped between wanting him and hating him. As if there were two Spencer McCabes. Each man completely different from the other. Each tugging her heart in a different direction.

Smiling, Spencer
scooted over to her side of the settee.

“
Don’t you like me even a little bit?” he husked, his deep, manly voice sending an unexpected tingle down her spine.

When
Mercy refused to answer, Spencer secured a hand around her upper arm, pulling her toward him. Instinctively, she braced her palms against his shoulders.

“Look at me, Mercy.”

“This isn’t right,” she whispered.

“Maybe so, but it sure
feels
right.” Spencer put a hand under her chin, forcing her to look at him. “What more do you want?”

The question went unanswered
as Spencer urged her into an even closer contact. Mercy knew that if she didn’t soon pull away from him, it would be too late. But rather than escape from him, she instead wrapped her arms around his neck as his mouth captured her lips.

Closing her eyes, Mercy lost herself in a kiss that was
sweetly tender and possessive, all at once.

Desperate for
a deeper contact, she opened her mouth, boldly inviting the honeyed warmth of Spencer’s tongue. Not only did Spencer accept the invitation, but he touched her breast, gently tracing the rounded contours with his fingers before pressing her breasts together with the palms of his hands. He then slowly brushed his thumbs back and forth across her nipples, causing them to instantly harden into stiff peaks.

Mercy whimpered, convulsively grabbing at
Spencer’s shirt, the pleasure he wrought more arousing than anything she’d ever experienced. Unable to control herself, she wiggled against him, her lower body seized with a throbbing heat.

Sliding his hand under her calico skirt, Spencer fondled her stocking-clad legs.
Shocked by the brazen caress, Mercy modestly clamped her legs together.

“Come on, honey. Open your pretty little legs for me.”

Spencer’s deep, husky drawl lulled her, Mercy allowing him to pry her legs apart. As his palm moved over and around her kneecap, she gasped softly. A few moments later his hand moved higher still, his fingers grazing the juncture at the top of her thighs. Afraid of what might ensue if she permitted such forbidden intimacies, she unthinkingly grabbed his wrist.

“Don’t you worry, Mercy. I won’t do anything
that you don’t want me to,” Spencer assured her, obliging her unspoken request by pulling his hand out from under her skirt. “Maybe you’d like to touch me a little. Hmm?”

“In the same place
that you just touched me?” she nervously inquired, unable to stop herself from staring at his swollen groin.

Spencer nodded
. When, a moment later, she tentatively touched his saddle-hardened thigh muscle, he groaned. Uncertain what exactly he expected her to do, Mercy inched her fingers a few inches higher. Her courage deserting her at the last, she veered away from the manly protrusion between his hips.

“Go a
head and touch it,” Spencer whispered with a pleading look in his eyes.

Mercy hesitantly complied, her hand
skimming across the length of his fully erect manhood. Untutored in the ways of love, she let womanly intuition be her guide, her fingers pressing and massaging, completely awed by the incredible difference between their two bodies. And admittedly curious to discover what this long, thick appendage of his looked like.

Muttering something unintelligible, Spencer
jutted his hips, pressing himself more firmly against the palm of her hand. Only to snatch hold of her hand in the next instant and forcefully pull it away from him.

“Did I . . . did I do
something wrong?” Mercy stammered, admittedly bewildered.

“You did it just fine,” he said
with a shaky laugh. “It’s just that we should start at the beginning. That way I can teach you right.” Without asking permission, he began to unbutton her bodice.

“What
precisely do you intend to teach me?”

Rather than answer, Spencer gently shoved his hand inside her opened bodice. Covering her breast with his palm, he fingered her nipple.

Mercy thought there was something deeply moving about the way that he rapturously stared at her breasts. Something thrilling and—

Deadly.

Gasping aloud, she pummeled her fists against his chest. Clearly surprised, Spencer pulled away from her.

“What the hell
just happened? We were getting along fine and dandy until—”

“You are the devil’s own!”
Mercy lunged off of the settee, her hands clutching at her open bodice. “And I will not let you seduce me in this vile manner.”

“Mercy, I
—”

“
Furthermore, I want you out of this house by week’s end!” she exclaimed before exiting the parlor.

Snatching her skirt in her hand, Mercy ran up the stairs,
worried that his departure might not come soon enough.

“Have you seen Mercy?”

Prudence, stirring a boiling pot of lye and grease, glanced at Spence as he entered the kitchen. “I believe that she’s out in the barn going through the seed bags. She’s hoping there’s enough corn seed left so we can. . . .” Pru’s voice trailed off as she tossed a bit of quick-lime into the pot.

Spence kept
his silence knowing that it was sometimes best to leave well enough alone. Besides, he didn’t like to think about the fact that Ned and his boys had stolen most of the Hibbert’s valuables, including the seed intended for spring planting. There were things that had transpired in the last few weeks that he felt guilty about. That was one of many.

Opening the back door,
Spence stepped onto the stoop, pausing a moment to savor the warmth of the morning sun.

As he
peered across the Hibbert farmyard, he was amazed, and not for the first time, that Mercy had managed to keep the farm running under such dire circumstances. He could only imagine the strain she’d been under simply to keep food on the table. No doubt about it, she was one resilient woman.

He just wished to hell
that she wasn’t such a firebrand. Whenever things started to get good between them, she always had to spoil it by flying off the handle. Which is exactly what happened last night.

Regardless of what Mercy thought, he’d never do anything to physically harm her. And while he may have issued a few ungentlemanly threats
on the night of the ambush, any man in his position would’ve been mad as hell when he learned that the woman he’d just been kissing had set a pack jayhawkers on him. And not your everyday, run-of-the-mill jayhawkers. No, Mercy had to go and scrounge up Luther Maddox.

Although
having spent the past week with her, Spence had a gut feeling that she didn’t know Luther Maddox from Adam. Not to mention that she would’ve had no way of knowing that eight years ago Maddox led the murderous raid that left his pa and two brothers dead. Just as she had no way of knowing that in retaliation he’d been gunning for Maddox. Mercy told him last night that she didn’t send for the jayhawkers; and he believed her. Though he had a sneaking suspicion that she knew the varmint who did.

As he approached the barn, Spence ran a hand over his unshaven cheeks, wishing he’d taken the time to spruce himself up a bit. Never much of a dandy, he was suddenly self-conscious of the fact that his shirt was frayed at the cuffs and that it’d been months since he last had a haircut.
Well, nothing to do about it now
. He needed to speak to Mercy and having a shaved face wasn’t going to make what he had to say any easier.

Standing at the open barn door,
he gave himself a few moments to soak in the sight of Mercy as she demurely sat on the straw-covered dirt floor. Busily engaged in sorting through several old seed bags, she was unaware of his presence. As always, Spence felt the familiar tug of desire that stirred his loins whenever he was near her.

Like a moth to a flame, his eyes feasted on the flaxen glory of her hair
. He recalled how it had fanned out all over the pillows and sheets that one and only morning that he’d had the pleasure of sharing her bed.

Wonder what she’d do if
I walked over there right now, pulled out those hair pins, and loosened all of that spun gold from the braided coil at the nape of her neck?

Figuring
that Mercy would probably smack his cheek and call him a ‘fiendish demon,’ or the like, Spence bit back a smile. Enraptured, he continued to watch as she methodically counted out corn seed, her delicate hands nimbly sifting through the kernels.

W
hat he wouldn’t give to have those hands touch him again. To start at his chest and slowly make their way down to his—

Damn it all to hell
and back. Look what I’ve gone and done to myself.

Wincing, Spence glanced at the unruly lump between his two gun holsters. Sure was one
helluva way to announce himself to a lady. Of course, if he was lucky, being a lady, Mercy wouldn’t notice.

As he stepped into the barn,
Spence cleared his throat to announce his approach. Startled, Mercy jumped to her feet, corn seed going every which way.

“You sure are skittish this morning.”

“Perhaps I have reason to be.” To his acute embarrassment, Mercy pointedly glanced at his hips. “Is it
really
necessary to carry so many pistols on your person?”

Spence bit back a bawdy
riposte. “It is if I want to stay alive. Besides, seeing as how I’ll be leaving in a day or so, I thought I’d get in a little hunting this morning so that you’ll have some fresh meat.”

“Hunting? But you’re not well enough to
—”

“I’m well enough,”
Spence interjected, her objection stinging his manly pride. “In case you haven’t notice, I’m finally able to hobble around without my cane.”

“I noticed. I just don’t see why Dewey can’t go in your stead.”

“He can’t because
I
do all of the hunting in the family.”

Mercy’s brow furrowed.
“What do you mean ‘he can’t’? Surely, he’s old enough to hunt game.”

“I mean that Dewey can’t kill.
Man nor beast. He just doesn’t have it in him. Not after seeing—”
Not after seeing Pa and the boys shot to death at the family table.

“Well, whatever the reason, I’m glad that he doesn’t wear a gun holster. In fact, I wish that you weren’t so overly attached to yours.”

Spence made a move to unbuckle his gun belt. “If you want me to take it off, I’d be only too happy to oblige.” He paused, lecherously waggling his eyebrows. “Of course, it means I’ll also have to take off my—”

“Really, Spencer! I have far better things to do than stand around listening to your
crude jests.”

Given the exasperated edge in
Mercy’s voice, he deduced that the lady was not amused.

“You know, Miss Mercy, I do believe that’s the first time you’ve called me by my given name.”

“Whatever are you talking about?”

“Well, so far, you’ve called me every lowdown name in the book except the one
that I go by. If my mama was still alive, I don’t know that she’d take kindly to her son being called a ‘fiendish cohort of Satan.’”

“A man is known by the company he keeps,” Mercy intoned
self-righteously.

“Sounds like you’ve appointed yourself judge, jury and executioner,”
Spence grumbled, her high-minded sanctimony rubbing him the wrong way.

“Is there a point to all
of this?”

Spence leveled
Mercy with a long, hard stare. “Without a doubt, you have got to be the most churlish woman I’ve ever come up against.” He held up a hand to forestall Mercy’s objection. “And I don’t care to hear that it’s because I brought Ned and his crew here; or because you think I’ve taken one liberty too many with you. As I recall, you had a prickly tongue on you that first day we met. Yes, indeed, Miss Mercy Hibbert. You’ve had a bee in your bonnet from the get-go. And I want to know why.”

“Sir, you are a Southerner
, and are therefore deserving of my contempt,” Mercy informed him as if she was reciting the most elementary of facts.

“Oh? How do you figure?”

“Because Southerners condone slavery; an evil institution if ever there was. I will have you know that my family journeyed here from Massachusetts to ensure that Kansas entered the Union a free state.”

“And
that’s
why you treat me like a mangy dog?”

Mercy’s
face colored with anger. “It was proslavery Southerners like you who killed my father,” she said accusingly, refusing to answer his question.

“First of all, you know full well that I had nothing to do with your daddy’s death.”
Because he intuited that her father’s brutal murder was the guiding force in Mercy’s life, Spence knew that he was treading on shaky ground by broaching it. Nevertheless, he refused to accept the blame for another man’s crime. “And, secondly, I’ve never much abided slavery. I agree with you. It’s an evil institution. Maybe the only good to come out this war will be the emancipation of the slaves.”

Given
the way that her mouth fell open, Spence figured those were the last words that Mercy ever expected him to utter.

“But I just assumed that . . . that being a Southerner you were proslavery.”

“The same way you assumed that being a Southerner meant I had two horns and a tail?”

Mercy blushed, giving him
cause to believe those were her thoughts exactly. Turning his head, Spence stared at the distant fields that were visible through the open barn door.

“The McCabes
have always worked their own land with their own hands,” he said quietly.

“
Do you mean to say that you’re a farming man?”

Spence
turned his gaze back in Mercy’s direction. “I used to be . . . a long time ago.”

What
he didn’t reveal was that because of what happened to his father and brothers, he’d become a killing man. And not a day passed that he didn’t hate himself because of it. Although the need for vengeance had always outweighed the self-loathing.

“But that’s not what I came here to talk about. I came he
re to tell you that I’m sorry,” he said forthrightly, hoping that she would accept his apology. “Somehow, without meaning to do so, I offended you last night. Believe me, Mercy. I would never have touched you if I’d known you were so unwilling.”

“But I wasn’t unwilling.
”

Spence couldn’t have been more surprised if
Mercy had just informed him that the grass was blue and the sky was green.

“Then why did you pull away from me
in such a huff?”
And why the hell did you order me to clear out by week’s end?

“I pulled away from you because . . . because you are my enemy. Yet despite that fact, I experienced pleasure at your hands.
” Mercy peered down at the floor, unable to hold Spencer’s gaze. “I admit to being innocent in the ways of love. So, quite naturally, I feared that I . . . I might succumb to your advances.”

“
Would that have been such a bad thing?”

“
I don’t know that ‘bad’ is the word that I would use. But it would have been unseemly to—”

“Unseemly! Just how old are you, girl?”

“I am twenty-two years of age,” Mercy retorted. Insulted by the way that Spencer phrased the question, she added, “Certainly I am old enough not to be called a ‘girl.’”

“Given your advanced years, how come you’re not married?”

The question took her aback. “By the time that I came of age, all of the eligible men in the county had left for the army,” she said in her defense.

Spencer shook his head and whistled. “And you expect me to believe that as pretty as you are, not a one of those ‘eligible men’ tried to make
love to you before he enlisted?”

Flustered
by his bold tongue, Mercy tried to collect her thoughts. Uncertain how to reply, she stared at Spencer. In the last few minutes, everything that she thought she knew about him had been turned on its head. Furthermore, she had reason to suspect that beneath his roguish exterior, there lurked a caring, conscientious man who held beliefs similar to her own.

As though seeing him for the very first time,
Mercy suddenly realized that not only was she emotionally drawn to Spencer McCabe, but she was physically attracted to him, as well. While she would have thought that having spent so much time in his company, she would now be immune to his charms, Spencer’s tall, broad-shouldered physique still left her weak-kneed. Indeed, his rugged good looks only accentuated a manliness that she found herself increasingly attracted to.

“Is that what you’re doing, Spencer . . . trying to make love to me?”
Uncertain what possessed her to ask so shameless a question, Mercy forced herself to hold his gaze.

“Well, it is what God intended me
n and women to do with each other.” As Spencer slowly stepped toward her, his lips curved in a warm smile. “Is that what you want me to do? Make love to you?”

Mercy stood transfixed, unable to
reply. She knew that she should be offended by his effrontery; yet inexplicably she wasn’t. Instead, her mind was flooded with memories of being held in his arms. Of being kissed and caressed.
Of wanting to deepen the connection between them
. And also of wanting him to leave. Which meant that she didn’t know what she wanted. Last night, she wanted to eradicate Spencer from her life.
And, now. . . .

“You haven’t answered my question, Mercy.”

“I’m not entirely certain that I know what it means to . . . to make love.” Embarrassed by the admission, Mercy dropped her gaze.