Mary McBride – Storming Paradise (страница 7)

The big, dusty cowboy was halfway down the hall, but still the fragrance of Paradise lingered where he had stood. Leather and lye soap and dust. Sunshine and something more. Something purely and gloriously male. Libby cleared her throat and called out to him.

“Sir. Just a moment, please.”

Hell and damnation. Shadrach Jones stopped dead in his tracks. Another couple yards of carpet and he would have been trotting down the stairs, whistling, then pushing through the hotel’s fancy front door toward freedom. And Rosa and Nona and—bless her—Carmela.

Now he shook his head slightly, then scraped off his hat again and pressed it over his heart as he turned to get a look at the lady who’d just put the capper on his escape.

This one looked every bit the lady, too. The redheaded sister who had answered his knock on the door had been as painted and powdered as any whore he’d ever seen. This one, though, had lady written on every stiff pleat, every rigid bone, and every square inch of her prim little face. Tiny, this one. Pretty, too. For a lady.

“Ma’am,” he drawled, moving toward her.

She reached out a small, pale hand. “I’m Elizabeth Kingsland.”

Even though he’d just washed up and his hands were probably cleaner than they’d been in weeks, Shad still felt compelled to run his palm along his pant leg before he took her hand. Her grip was firmer than he anticipated. Even so, her bones felt delicate and breakable as a newborn kitten in the depths of his hand. He let her go after one quick pump.

“I’m your father’s foreman, ma’am. Shadrach Jones.” He shifted his weight onto one hip and held his hat in both hands now, dragging the brim through his fingers, wishing like hell this little lady would slam the door in his face the way the other one had.

“My sister said you had mentioned supper?” She tipped her heart-shaped face up.

Well, hell. There went half his evening. He was doomed, but for Amos’s sake he figured he’d just have to smile and take it like a man. “Yes, ma’am.”

His sudden, slantways grin did the oddest, most unexpected thing to Libby’s stomach. It quivered and then drew taut, like a reticule whose strings had been pulled tight. Or perhaps it wasn’t the grin at all, she thought fleetingly. Perhaps it was as simple as hunger. Still, almost before she knew it, Libby was accepting the huge cowboy’s invitation.

“I can’t speak for my sister, Mr. Jones, but I’d be happy to accompany you. If you’d like to wait downstairs, I’ll join you in a few moments.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She closed the door on that engaging grin.

“Well? What did he say?” Shula was reclining atop the bed now, with a damp cloth covering her eyes.

Libby smiled. “’Yes, ma’am,’ mostly.”

“He didn’t happen to say what time he’ll be calling for us tomorrow, did he?” Shula whined. “I hope it’s not before ten o’clock. You know how I am in the morning.”

“He didn’t say.” Libby was gazing in the mirror now, frowning. All of a sudden her hair seemed wrong—too curly, not curly enough, just wrong somehow—and she wasn’t quite sure why that bothered her. She picked up her hat and jammed in the pins. “I’ll ask him at supper.”

Shula swiped the cloth from her eyes. “You’re not actually considering going with him, are you?”

“I’m not considering it, Shula.” Libby turned and faced her sister. “I’m doing it. One of us ought to go since the man was kind enough to ask. If you’d like to go yourself, I’ll stay here and watch over Andy.”

Shula lay back on the pillows and returned the cloth to her eyes. “I can think of a million things I’d rather do than suffer through a meal with some big, dumb ranch hand who only says ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, ma’am.’” With a little sigh, she added, “Even if he is handsomer than sin.”

“Really?” Libby shrugged as she pulled on her gloves. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Shula yawned. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me one little bit?” She flounced onto her side and scrunched a pillow beneath her cheek. “Try not to wake me when you come back, Libby. I’m sure we’ll have to be up before the damn chickens tomorrow.”

Libby didn’t know how handsome sin was, but she had to admit, seeing the tall cowboy spilling out of the dainty chair in the hotel lobby, he was a very nice looking man. All of him. From his wide shoulders to his trim waist and on down the endless length of his denim-clad legs.

His hair was dark and longer than she was accustomed to seeing on gentlemen. She thought she liked the way the raven waves brushed his collar and framed his angular face. That face wasn’t tan so much as it was bronze, and not all of that deep color had come from long hours under a hot Texas sun, she was sure. Judging from his cheekbones, the strong flare of his nose and the flint in his dark eyes, Libby assumed her father’s foreman was more Indian than Jones.

Funny, she thought as she crossed the Persian-carpeted lobby while scrutinizing the man in the chair. She felt an overwhelming sense of recognition, yet she doubted that Shadrach Jones had been at Paradise fifteen years ago. He didn’t look like the type to stay in a place fifteen minutes, let alone fifteen years. He looked wild somehow—dark and shiny as a mustang stallion she remembered from years before.

The thought brought instant color to her cheeks. Stallions, indeed, Libby admonished herself, straightening her shoulders and firming her mouth as she proceeded toward him.

When he caught sight of her, he unwound from the little chair and rose with what Libby could only define as a casual grace. The way smoke rises on a windless day. He was, she thought suddenly, handsomer than sin.

“Mr. Jones.” She extended a gloved hand.

Damnation! There she went again, putting that little paw out for him to crush. He could feel the kitten warmth even through the thin fabric of her glove. And, as before, he had intended to let go immediately when it struck him like a lightning bolt that this lady was the dark-haired, skinny little girl who’d been crying all those years ago. Elizabeth? No…Libby. Sad little Libby.

She was looking up at him now, dry-eyed, even a trifle confused. He wondered all of a sudden if he had said her name out loud.

“Miss Kingsland,” Shad said now, letting go of her hand, trying to clear his head of visions from half a lifetime ago.

“It was kind of you to ask us to supper, Mr. Jones.”

“It’s not exactly me, ma’am. Your father—”

“I realize that,” she said, cutting off what was probably going to be a pretty muddled, bush-beaten excuse anyway.

“My sister has decided not to join us, I’m afraid.”

Shad didn’t know if he was glad about that or not. Was one lady worse than two? Especially when the one was prim little Miss Libby? He shrugged slightly as he planted his hat on his head.

“Well, let’s get going then,” he drawled as he gestured toward the hotel’s front door.

It wasn’t exactly an enthusiastic invitation, Libby thought. More like a man on his way to the gallows than one preparing to dine. The man had all but admitted he was just doing his job and following her father’s orders. Still, he offered her another of those sunny Texas grins as he was waving her toward the door.

“Yes, let’s,” she said with as much brightness as she could muster, once again aware of that peculiar thread tightening in her stomach.

Libby sniffed garlic as she stepped into the foyer of the restaurant. She sniffed trouble, too, the minute she caught a glimpse of the crystal sconces and the silk-swagged windows. It was a very elegant establishment. Much too elegant for a big dusty cowboy and a woman in a wilted traveling suit.

Behind her, Shadrach Jones muttered a grim little oath as his hand pressed into the small of her back to urge her forward toward a mustachioed little man in a black cutaway coat whose expression was hovering between panic and disgust.

The maître d’ dismissed her with a quick “Bon soir, madame,” then slid his gaze to her companion. “I am sorry, monsieur, but gentlemen are not permitted to dine without the appropriate neckwear.”

There was a sudden change in the temperature of the room. It had seemed merely warm before, but now Libby noticed that it had become distinctly hot. And she realized that the source of that heat was the man standing behind her. Shadrach Jones was giving off heat like a blast furnace.

“Appropriate neckwear,” he muttered now from between clenched teeth, making the phrase sound like an oath.

“Oui, monsieur.” The little man gave his mustache a quick twist. His eyes flicked toward the door, as if inviting them to use it.

Libby would have, too, only her father’s foreman was bolted to the floor like a big, hot stove behind her.

“You mean like a tie?” he drawled now.

The little man lofted his gaze heavenward as if to seek patience and deliverance from ill-dressed, persistent fools. “Oui, monsieur,” he said with a sigh.

“Kinda like the one you’re wearing?”

The question seemed innocent enough, but Jones’s tone—much to Libby’s horror—was what a snake might use if snakes could speak. Its lethal quality seemed lost on the officious little man, however, who lifted a finely manicured hand to touch his black cravat.