Texas Tiger

chapter 22





"Mama Sukey tells me Ben's been courting. Is it serious?"

Daniel hobbled up behind the other couple and spoke as if they were gossiping at a house party. Georgina tried to pull her wrapper tighter, but the pair in front of them didn't notice her dishabille.

"It's serious. He's cleaning up the old overseer's house for her. She's a quadroon from down New Orleans way, pretty as Ben is ugly."

"Why doesn't he move into the big house? Seems to me that would impress her a whole lot more."

Daniel's hand strayed to brush proprietarily along Georgina's hip as she walked. She gave him a quick glance, but his attention seemed to be solely on the conversation as they ambled toward the farmhouse ahead.

Both Tyler and Evie laughed, but Tyler was the one who replied. "You're a newlywed, you figure that one out. The big house is bursting at the seams with my relatives, Evie's relations, and Ben's. Even the terrible duo came in for the summer, and Kyle and Carmen came up with them to see Natchez. You never saw so many people in one place in your life."

Georgina watched as Evie sent a concerned glance over her shoulder at Daniel as if expecting some reaction from him at the mention of these names. Daniel only smiled and pulled her a little closer. Evie turned around, satisfied, but Georgina smelled a rat.

"Who are the terrible duo and Kyle and Carmen?" she asked innocently.

"Evie's cousins," Daniel replied.

"Daniel's partners in crime," Evie answered at the same time.

"The banes of my life," Tyler intoned when the other two laughed. "Evie took in her cousins when they were orphaned. I thought I would get rid of them as they got older; instead, the numbers seem to be growing. When Carmen married Kyle, I thought we were rid of at least one, but instead we have the two of them popping up all the time. And now they have a kid of their own to drag around. Evie's father is ostensibly supposed to be the kid's guardian, but I spend more time prying him out of taverns than he spends looking after them."

"He can't see well enough to paint anymore. He has to do something," Evie responded defensively. "And he doesn't drink. He just talks. You're exaggerating, Tyler Monteigne."

"Exaggerating is Daniel's job." Tyler glanced over his shoulder at them. "I read that book you sent Evie, Danny Boy. I don't ever want to hear you say another word about my fast-talking again. Just because you put it down on paper instead of saying it out loud don't make us any different. And I'm going to get even, just see if I don't."

Daniel grinned. "I call it the way I see it. You're just mad because I let Pecos get the best of you."

"A damned riverboat gambler he made me." Tyler turned his complaint to Georgina. "Now tell me, do I look a riverboat gambler to you?"

Now that he mentioned it, Georgina thought the answer ought to be yes, but she wasn't feeling any too certain of herself at the moment. She turned a helpless look to Daniel. "What are we talking about?"

Evie started laughing and caught Tyler's arm, turning him back around. "He hasn't told her, you fool. Now we're in for it."

"Haven't told me what?" Georgina was quite certain the effects of the drug hadn't worn off. She would wake up in the morning and discover that this had all been a dream. She couldn't really be walking down a railroad track in the middle of the night in her chemise and a wrapper, discussing riverboat gamblers and quadroons and multiple cousins with two people too beautiful to be real. She wouldn't even think about those minutes with Daniel on top of her and his mouth on hers. There were words for dreams like that.

Daniel bounced a pebble off the coat Tyler had thrown over his shoulder. "You never have learned when to keep your damned mouth shut, Monteigne. Next time I'll have Pecos put a bullet through it."

"Daniel!" Exasperated, Georgina smacked his hand off her hip and stood out of his grasp. "You said you were Pecos. Have you taken leave of your mind?"

Tyler and Evie were hurrying away, laughing. Daniel shoved his hands in his pockets and glared at her. "I'd like to get some rest this night, if that's all right with you. Do I have to explain everything right now?"

"I figure you've got a lifetime of explaining to do, but I just want to hear about this Pecos right now. Are you or are you not Pecos Martin?"

"Pecos Martin is a figment of imagination. I got called that because I was always reading books about him, and when I was a kid, I thought Tyler was the real Pecos. The name stuck to me instead."

Georgina waited. He hadn't explained everything, she could tell by the way he stood and shifted from foot to foot.

He grabbed her arm and marched down the track after the others. The farmhouse was almost directly ahead.

"When I got laid up with a broken leg, I decided to write my own Pecos Martin book. I sent it to the address in the front of the books, and they bought it. I've been turning out one or two a year ever since. It won't make me rich, but they're selling well and I earn a few extra dollars, more than the newspaper will bring in for a long time."

Georgina looked up at him, eyes wide. "You write books?"

"Pecos Martin books," he corrected, as if that made a difference.

"Any kind of books. Real books. You take what other people dream and talk about and put it into real words where people all over the world can see them and dream about them and maybe do something about them. You're a writer!"

Her words were little short of hero worship, and Daniel glanced down at her in surprise. "Of course I'm a writer. That's what I do on the newspaper."

"But those are facts. You don't make those up. But you make up the Pecos Martin books, don't you? You take pictures and people out of your mind and paint them on paper like an artist paints on canvas. I've never met anyone who can do that. I mean, I met Oscar Wilde once, but that doesn't count. That was just shaking his hand. This is different. Why didn't you tell me?"

Daniel shook his head in incredulity, but a note of pride crept into his voice. "Because it's not important. The newspaper is what's important. Newspapers can make a difference in people's lives."

"Pecos Martin made a difference in your life, didn't he?" Georgina pointed out. "He showed you what a hero should be, and you came after me just as he would have, I bet. Somebody else would have just stayed home and moaned and complained and not done anything."

Daniel didn't need to be reminded of that. He'd done some damned foolish things in his life in the name of heroism. It wasn't anything he liked to brag about. Seeing Tyler and Evie disappear inside the barn without any eruption of noise from within, he pulled Georgina after them.

"Words are meaningless without action," he said obliquely.

They felt their way through the darkness of the barn. A horse nickered somewhere in the rear. A cat prowled around their ankles and finding them useless, disappeared through a hole in a stall door. There didn't seem to be much other life in here. Tyler and Evie found an empty stall and disappeared, and Daniel decided that was the wisest thing to do for the moment. There wasn't any use in raising the household at this ungodly hour, not in their present states. Much better to wait until morning.

Finding a horse blanket, he opened the nearest stall and gestured for Georgina to enter. She looked at him dubiously, but he didn't leave her much choice. Throwing the blanket on a pile of hay, he pulled the door closed behind them.

"I'm not sleepy," she whispered in muffled tones behind him.

"I don't doubt that, but I'm dead on my feet. Give me a few hours, and we'll find our way out of here when it's light."

When she continued to hesitate, Daniel sat down and began pulling off his boots. He doubted that Georgina Meredith Hanover had ever been inside a barn in her life and had certainly never slept in one. He was bringing her down to new lows, but fate was giving them little choice in the matter. When she continued to hover, he impatiently pulled her down beside him.

"Just lie here and close your eyes. We'll be fine."

She lay stiffly on her back, arms crossed over her chest. That was probably the best possible course to take, but the crazy emotions wheeling through him at this moment wouldn't settle for reasonable. Daniel reached over and pulled her into his arms.

"That's better," he murmured. He was asleep in an instant.

Georgina lay awake a long time after. She had a lot to think about, and the man beside her was a major part of those thoughts. That, in itself, was terrifying. That she wanted his hand to stray again to places she had just discovered ached was even more terrifying.

* * *

"Mama!" The screech shattered the rafters, sending cascades of chaff from the loft. "Mama! There's thieves in the barn!" The last words drifted from a little less than the close range of the first, indicating the warning siren was running toward the house.

Having finally drifted into a light sleep, Georgina nearly jumped from her skin at the first screech. The second screech sent Daniel rolling on top of her, burying his face in the cascade of hair she hadn't taken time to braid. She caught her breath at this unexpected closeness.

"Tell me that was a nightmare and it's not dawn yet," he muttered into her shoulder.

"That was a nightmare and it's not dawn yet," she replied obligingly, only to be rewarded by a finger tickling her ribs. "Ouch, Daniel, stop that!"

"Obviously, the two lovebirds are awake." The sleepy male voice came from the other side of the stall. "Let's send them in to make explanations. We're too old for this."

"You're too old, you mean," his feminine counterpart replied. "I'm only a little older than Daniel."

"And if you keep it up, you'll be younger than he is any day now," Tyler replied grudgingly.

Daniel's chest heaved with laughter, and Georgina wound her arms around him and surrendered to the silliness. She had never known the luxury of this kind of closeness before. She had never had brothers or sisters or friends close enough to giggle and play with. She thought she might just get used to the experience.

But reality was an unpleasantness that kept intruding. From outside came running footsteps and a shout of more authority than the earlier childish screech, "I've got a rifle. Get yourselves out here with your hands up!"

"Oh, no, please don't!" Daniel moaned with helpless laughter as he rolled off Georgina and held his sides. "I can't put Pecos in a barn with a woman! He'd purely die of embarrassment and probably melt into shame. Tyler, get out there and hold off the posse!"

Evie's giggles were as helpless as Daniel's from the other side of the wall. A boot gave the stall partition a solid kick, but a moment later, a golden head appeared above the door. Georgina watched in utter astonishment as a golden-brown eye glanced down at them with amusement, winked, then disappeared behind a broad-brimmed hat that sat on his head like some kind of halo.

Georgina collapsed in laughter at Daniel's side. "He's not real, is he? I thought I just dreamed him. Nobody really looks like that, do they?"

Daniel held her against his side and patted her shoulder. "Of course not. I dreamed him up for you. Shall I make him disappear?"

"You do, and I'll rip your head off, Daniel Mulloney!" Evie sang from the other side.

That sent them both into paroxysms of laughter until Evie stormed around the corner and flung her satchel in their direction.

"You'd better find your wife some clothes real quick, little brother. We'll have a hard enough time explaining this without explaining why she's running around in her undergarments."

Georgina covered her mouth and choked on her laughter as the magnificent rose-and-feather hat marched past and out the door. From outside, the sound of Tyler's smooth Southern drawl placating the terrified farm woman carried through the open barn door, soon joined by Evie's cheerful feminine tones. The poor woman didn't have a chance.

Daniel was rummaging through Evie's things without concern, pulling out anything that looked mildly useful. Georgina looked down on her partially open wrapper and gasped at the amount of skin revealed. Hastily turning her back, she berated him, "Why didn't you tell me I was half undressed! Whatever must they think of me?"

"That you were kidnapped and carried off without any clothing," Daniel replied prosaically, throwing his findings over her shoulder. "We all know what women look like, so it's not as if we're seeing anything we haven't seen before."

"You haven't seen me before!"

"There's that I suppose, but it's not from lack of trying."

The devil of it was, she could almost hear the grin in his reply. They were getting to know each other much too well. Irritated, Georgina informed him, "You'll have to leave. I can't put these on while you're sitting there."

"You won't be able to put them on unless I sit here. Evie has Tyler and probably ten dozen other people to help her put those getups on. You'll tie yourself in knots trying to do it yourself."

He spoke the truth, Georgina realized as she examined the exquisite walking dress he'd thrown to her. It buttoned down the back in a million tiny jet buttons, tied in a dozen places between skirt and bodice and petticoat and required another half dozen tapes in the bustle and lining. It would take her all day to do it herself.

Carefully tying her chemise closed at the top, she reached for the petticoat to pull over her drawers. She was quite certain she and Evie weren't the same size, but under the circumstances, she had little choice in the matter.

Daniel quite efficiently tied off the petticoat tapes for her, and Georgina threw him a quick look over her shoulder. "You've done this before."

He reddened slightly. "Upon occasion."

Sniffing delicately, she struggled into the shaped corset. "I suppose you consort with low women."

"Well, high women don't take it kindly if I consort without marriage." Daniel caught the corset strings and pulled them tight.

Georgina gasped as her breasts were pushed upward to preposterous proportions. Evie wasn't exactly built the same as she was. She felt Daniel gazing over her shoulder with interest, and she hastily covered her bosom with her hand. "The gown, please, Daniel."

He chuckled and dropped the violet silk over her head. "You're made for a man's hands, Miss Merry. When are you going to let me show you?"

"When birds fly backward," she informed him stiffly. But she knew her resolve was faltering as she felt those hands efficiently fastening the buttons at her back. Daniel's closeness was doing extraordinary things to her insides. Just the thought of his fingers on her bosom made her mind whirl. Such ideas had never entered her head before.

And the sad part was that she really didn't have a choice any longer. Daniel was her husband, and if she gave herself to him, he would have to support her. And she would have to give herself to him if she wanted to live.

Even if the drugging incident hadn't effectively severed her relationship with her parents, it had become perfectly clear from her father's conversations with her mother that she would no longer be able to rely on Hanover Industries for support. They were bankrupt.