Tucker’s Claim Read online

  He’d sat and listened, breathed her scent, and as he looked around her cozy kitchen later, the longing had hit him with the force of a blow. Had things been different—his mother white or his father Indian—his blood wouldn’t have been mixed and he could have had a home in either the white world or Indian, but as it was, he didn’t fit anywhere except Hell’s Eight. He certainly didn’t fit here, but he’d wanted to. For the first time since his family and town had been wiped out by a Mexican raid when he was sixteen, he’d wanted to fit somewhere other than Hell’s Eight. And when Sally Mae’s hand had settled on his bare arm in an offer of pure comfort, for that brief moment in time, he’d wanted to fit here.

  In the months since that night, the need kept creeping back. Didn’t matter how much he told himself Sally Mae was a good woman. Not the kind a man trifled with, he couldn’t shake the belief that she was meant for him. For however long he could tickle her fancy. Since that moment she’d touched him, he’d been biding his time. He was good at that. It made him a good Texas Ranger. A good horse trainer. He eyed the gentle thrust of Sally’s breasts beneath her demure lace collar. A damn good lover.

  The music resumed a lively beat. Sally’s toe kept time. He bet she danced with the same inherent grace underlined with an innate sexuality, as she did everything. She was the only woman he knew who could make stitching a wound a sexy event. A smile tugged on the corner of her wide mouth. Probably too wide for beauty, but Tucker liked the generous way she smiled. It reflected the generosity of her spirit. He liked the way her nose wasn’t some small bit of nonsense, too. Straight and narrow it complemented the strength in the rest of her features.

  Truth was, a moment spent studying Sally’s face revealed a lot about the woman’s personality. Including how stubborn she was. Just look at the set of her chin. More than one person had tried to get her to move back east after her husband had been shot, but she’d refused politely. When pressed, she’d just ended all argument with a simple statement that she wouldn’t be run out of her home. And when the suggestions had started that she needed to remarry, she’d been just as blunt. Her husband had been a good man. She’d mourn him properly.

  The town had backed down. Which had been pure foolishness, in Tucker’s opinion. Texas wasn’t a place for a woman who believed God lived in everyone and turning the other cheek beat a beating when dealing with a threat. Tucker would have put her ass on the next train east, bound and gagged if he’d had to. Sally Mae was too fine for life alone out here. Green to the difficulties she faced, green to the reality that she’d have to marry again. Green to the danger she faced from him. Hell, she’d even pointed out that with a Texas Ranger living in her barn, how much of a threat could there be? Completely missing the connotation people might put on that. Completely missing how right they’d be to speculate on his interest. He did want her and he intended to have her.

  On a sensual sigh, she smiled and settled further against the porch wall. Alone in the dark, apart from the town, the way she always was, even though she tended to the townspeople with an evenhandedness a preacher couldn’t fault, taking care of good and bad alike, losing all caution under a sense of dedication. Lately, even more so. As if driven to prove something only she understood. Which was another reason he was still here and not out following the latest lead on what had happened to Ari, Caine’s wife’s sister, why he’d turned down Sam and his new fiancée’s invitation to make his home off Hell’s Eight at their comfortable ranch. He grimaced. He was a glutton for punishment, that was for sure, but someone had to watch over the widow when her common sense took a hike. Like last week when she’d taken in Lyle Hartsmith after he’d been knifed in a bar fight.

  Lyle Hartsmith was a real no account, an outlaw with no morals and no allegiance, and if there was any justice in the world, the wound would have killed him, but there was no convincing Sally Mae of that. In her eyes, the prairie rat was one of God’s creatures and entitled to care. And that was the end of it. So Tucker was here cooling his heels, keeping an eye on things, making sure she didn’t take on more than she could handle, feeding a hunger that could go nowhere while he paid back a debt she wouldn’t acknowledge he owed. He shook his head. Who the hell had said that with age comes wisdom? He was thirty-one, and from all recent signs, getting dumber by the day.

  The fiddler dropped into a slow, popular tune and Sally’s smile changed, becoming sad and just a little bit lost in the memories the song evoked. No doubt, of her dead husband. Tucker wanted to resent the man for having Sally for his wife, but he couldn’t. Jonah had been a good man who’d deserved better than he’d received. And he’d been stolen from Sally the same way Tucker’s life had been stolen from him when he’d been sixteen—in a hail of bullets and with no warning. He knew the sense of shock left by that kind of murder, the feeling that there was nothing left to hold on to. His parents might not have been the best, but they’d been better than the nothing that had remained when the Mexican soldiers had finished annihilating his small town.

  A thinning of Sally Mae’s lower lip told him she was biting it. To hold back sobs? Hell, the night was too beautiful for tears. Especially Sally Mae’s. He stepped out of the shadows, drawn by her sorrow and the need to alleviate it. Drawn by his lust and his hunter’s instincts. Drawn by the desire to make this moment in her life better than the memory that consumed her. It took only three steps to get to the bottom of the stairs. He held out his hand, looked up and asked, “May I have this dance?”

  There was a slight start to reveal her surprise, but Sally Mae didn’t move away from the wall, and she didn’t open her eyes, but her smile changed. Softened. She really was in a mood tonight.

  “That would be scandalous.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “So was taking a notorious outlaw into your house, but I didn’t see you balk at that.”

  Her right eye cracked open. “In that, I didn’t have a choice.”

  His instincts perked. His blood thickened with the slow course of desire. “And now you do.”

  He didn’t expect her to take his hand, and she didn’t, but her other lid opened and the gaze with which she weighed him was as keen as anyone’s, even Caine’s. And Caine had a wicked ability to take a person’s measure. It’s what made him the natural leader of the Hell’s Eight.

  “I find I am at a fork in the road of my life, Ranger McCade.”

  His heart beat faster and his senses sharpened. “Forks can be good.”

  She closed her eyes again and took a slow breath. The way a person did when they were thinking. “True, but only if one can discern the difference between an opening and temptation.”

  She had him there. “An opening?”

  “An opportunity provided by God to grow.”

  “And without this opening you can’t dance with me?”

  With her eyes closed and the moonlight catching on her hair, she looked like an angel he’d seen in a book he’d stolen as a child.

  Her eyes opened and he changed his mind. No angel looked that earthy.

  “It means I must decide the source of thy temptation for me.”

  “As in good or bad?”

  “Yes.”

  Placing his foot on the bottom step, he grazed his finger over her knee. The practical wool of her skirt did nothing to dim the impact on his senses. “Then I vote for bad.”

  Her lids flickered and her lip slipped between her teeth. “Why?”

  He smiled, holding her gaze, his pulse kicking up. She wasn’t fighting him. “Because I can make being bad…very, very good.”

  Her breath caught. Exhaling, she confessed, “Such is what I suspect, which simply makes my decision that much harder.”

  The flush on her cheeks destroyed the last of his good intentions. Sliding his fingers to the back of her knee, he curved his palm over the point. “Want me to make it easy for you?”

  Sally’s expression shifted. An element he didn’t recognize enriched the speculation as she ran her gaze over him. The glance, rich in
feminine knowledge, burned along his desire, as it traveled from the top of his hat to the toes of his boots, neither of which were courting clean. “Would thee be willing?”

  The lack of disapproval in her summation only goaded his anger with the message it sent. He’d been here often enough to recognize the signs. She wasn’t looking for proper from him, just a few illicit moments in bed that she could hug as her sexy little secret on cold winter nights. He dropped his hand and stepped back. “Is your bed getting so cold that you’re lowering yourself to invite a savage into it?”

  She blinked and slid off the rail. It was easy to read the emotions chasing across her expression this time. Horror. Affront. Anger. And then pity. “Thee do not think much of thyself.”

  That wasn’t true. He thought a lot of himself, he just didn’t think much of how other people saw him. “Thinking on changing me?”

  With a cock of her head, she acknowledged his displeasure, then she shrugged. “I’ve been thinking on many things.”

  “Like what?” He didn’t trust that too-calm way in which she observed him.

  “Like the fact that thee are a good man, as well as being a very big temptation.”

  He might be a temptation, but he wasn’t good. And she damn well knew it. “Have you been drinking?”

  “I don’t believe in drink.”

  She didn’t drink, she didn’t dance and she didn’t believe in violence. “What do you believe in?”

  She didn’t answer right away, just studied him with her big gray eyes to the point that he was beginning to feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. And then in that regal way she always moved, which spoke of confidence and commanded respect, she descended the steps. When she reached the bottom one, it was natural to hold out his hand, natural that she place hers in it, natural that he continue to hold it as she took that last step that brought her directly before him. Her fingers curled around his. Her hand was cool and dry. She wasn’t nervous about dancing with him. “I believe in choice.”

  And this close it was easy to determine why. There was a touch of alcohol on her breath. Someone had spiked the punch. Sally Mae probably wasn’t in command of all her faculties. A decent man would have escorted her back inside to the dance. But he wasn’t a decent man. He was Tucker McCade, known more for his brawling skills than his scruples. In short, he was no better than he had to be.

  “Then I’m glad you’re choosing me.”

  Her head cocked to the side as he pulled her in. “Thee are lying.”

  Yes, he was. What with Sam just having left with Bella, Tucker was more conscious than ever of what would never be his. A woman to love him for what he was. The way Bella loved Sam. The way Desi loved Caine. But tonight, he was in the mood to pretend that it could be, and with Sally Mae. He drew their linked hands up and to the right, guiding her into his arms. The top of her head tucked under his chin as if it belonged there. “Do you care?” he asked against the silk of her hair.

  “Not tonight.”

  “Good.”

  “Thee are holding me too closely.”

  She might be protesting, but he noticed she wasn’t stepping away.

  Would thee be willing?

  He was more than willing to give her anything she wanted for whatever reason. A man like him wasn’t one for passing up golden opportunities.

  “Your husband let you lead when you danced?”

  She shook her head. “No, he was like thee. He liked to be in charge.”

  At least she had one thing right. He was a man who led. “Then you won’t have trouble following me.”

  Her head tipped back. Her eyes were very dark in the shadow of his hold, mysterious with an emotion he couldn’t decipher. “No, I don’t think I will.”

  The soft huskiness underlying the statement increased the fire that just being near her ignited. “Good.”

  He led her into the first steps of the three-count dance. She followed easily. Her free hand slid up his chest to settle on his shoulder and her head snuggled against him. She was as graceful a dancer as she was in everything else, following him easily under the stars. And he came to a decision. This kind of pretending could be good. “I guess you dance after all.”

  “What made thee think I didn’t?”

  He smiled at the softness of her tone, as if she, too, didn’t want to break the quiet of the moment. “You seem awfully religious.”

  “Being a Quaker does not mean I abandon joy.”

  Her hips brushed his as he led her through a turn. His cock jerked as if her fingers had closed around it. Damn, she made him ache like a green boy.

  “Glad to hear it.”

  Chuckling, she squeezed his hand. “I imagine thee are.”

  He wanted to close his eyes, as she had, and wallow in the moment, take the pretense to another level. Take advantage of her inebriation. It would be so easy. She was making it easy, but he remembered the gentleness of her touch on his arm when she’d tended him, the softness she gave him so easily, and knew he wouldn’t do it. Sally’s reputation was a very fragile thing. Nurses weren’t held in high regard, often being considered little better than prostitutes. Being seen dancing with him would cost her everything. He’d give her this moment, but he’d make sure it didn’t come back to haunt her.

  Sally’s fingers shifted on his shoulder, moving across, following the line of muscle, testing his strength. His hands did a little testing of their own. The right opened across the small of her back, easily spanning the distance from side to side. She was a very slenderly built woman, to the point that it was hard to believe a body this delicate could house such a backbone of steel.

  Her hands slid back up over his biceps to curve over his shoulders.

  “Thee are a very strong man.”

  It came out more of a sigh.

  “You are a very beautiful woman.”

  As she shook her head, the citrus scent of her shampoo teased his senses. “I’m not, but it is very nice of thee to say so.”

  He debated arguing the point, but there were better ways than words to convince a woman of her beauty, and he’d much rather spend his time indulging them. He led her through another turn, pulling her against him so the press of her hips to the hardness of his cock was more than a brush. More of a lure. Fire raced up his backbone as Sally sighed and relaxed against him, prolonging the moment.

  “Thee are also very light on thy feet.”

  “It comes in handy in my profession.”

  She stiffened. She’d never made any secret that she hated what he did. He had never made it any secret that her dislike didn’t change anything. “Thee will not speak of such things tonight.”

  “You think that will make them go away?”

  “No, but if we do not speak of them for tonight, they cannot exist.”

  “Interesting way to look at things.”

  “There is no knowing the future, so I have decided there’s value in enjoying the now.”

  The theory coincided with his own. Except for their opposing views on the necessity for violence, he and Sally were often on the same side of an argument. Testing her, he led her through some intricate steps. She had no trouble following them. If she could follow those steps, she was aware enough to make a decision, and if Sally was ready to take a lover, he wanted to be first in line. He finished in a series of turns, pulling her tightly against him, forcing her with pressure in the small of her back to arch away, until she braced her hands against his chest and looked up at him.

  “And now is tonight?”

  Her lips parted, and he could see the hint of her teeth, the flick of her tongue. Lust shot deep.

  “Yes.”

  He spun them one last time, before leaning in. “Then let me help you with the enjoying.”

  2

  Kissing Sally was as natural as breathing. Tucker bent and she lifted, participating in the discovery as if she were as hungry for the taste of him as he was for her, her lips already parted when they met his. Soft, demanding with fem
inine hope. She didn’t have to worry. He wouldn’t let her down in bed. Supporting her with his hand in the small of her back, he arched her closer, not immediately taking advantage of her parted lips, savoring the anticipation, raising it with light nips and easy busses. Grunting as the fire gathered deep inside, built, flashed outward in a near crippling release of pleasure.

  “Ah, damn, pretty thing, I knew you’d be like this.”

  Her fingers dug into his shoulder, gripping tightly as the shock went through her. No shy miss here, just an open, honest woman very sure of what she wanted, which was good because he’d never been so vividly aware of a woman, the press of her nipples against his chest, the soft graze of her hips, the sweet relaxation of her body against his…Never been so vividly aware of his own senses through a kiss to the point that he could feel his blood surging through his veins, feel her breath whispering over his skin as she relaxed against him with the soft sigh of surrender he’d been imagining for the past six months. Her lips were soft, her muscles taut as she rose up on tiptoe, stoking the fire between them. She pulled back. He allowed it, barely.

  There was a touch of wonder in her expression. “Thee kiss like an angel.”

  He caught the words in his mouth, holding them, irrationally making more of them than was wise before letting them go and falling into the game, the seduction. Brushing a few strands of hair away from her temple, he smiled as if he weren’t so aroused that he was in danger of simply lifting her, unbuttoning his pants, finding the wet heat of her through the slit in her pantaloons and thrusting deep. “You should see what my devil can do.”