He handed her the tin cup and stiffened both arms against the floor again, leaning back to watch her as she rose.
The cup clattered into the pan on the worktable. Declan had promised to build her a dry sink, but like so many other things Declan had promised… “I ain’t got much to offer, but if you’re hungry—”
“I’m not, thank you. I am curious, though.”
“About what?”
“Why do you think you own this place?”
Crossing her arms at her waist, she turned and delivered the firmest glare she could muster. “Because we do.”
“Can you prove that?”
“I don’t have to prove nothin’.”
Again, his gaze crawled the sagging ceiling beams, the cracks in the mud mortar, the rough-wood walls and floor. “My father, brother, and I built this place—as a shelter for the hired hands, in case they needed to get out of the weather. This is Collier land, all of it, as far as you can see.”
She hiked her brows. “Can you prove that?”
The Reb rocked backward as though she’d struck him. “What?”
“You’re tryin’ to lay claim to my property. I don’t take kindly to squatters.”
A snap of his head removed the astonishment from his face. He leaned forward into his hips and wove his arms across a sinewy chest. The man was so thin she could count his ribs from where she stood, yet an essence of power, of will, flowed within him.
The blue gaze returned to her face, searching again. “I can prove my claim.”
“Then I suggest you do it. I’ll wait right here ’til you get back.”
A glance at the blankets barely longer than his legs tipped the corners of his lips. “I’m not exactly dressed for traveling.”
Maggie whirled for the bedstead before the Reb got a gander at the crimson surely rushing into her cheeks. She snatched up his clothes and threw them at his head. They landed in a jumble in his lap.
He raked the hair from his face. “Thank you. But I’m not leaving.” His eyes narrowed. “Not until I get answers.”
“My husband has the answers you want.” That should put an end to the question.
“Then I guess I’ll wait right here until he gets back.”
Maggie whisked her hands above her shoulders. “I declare, I have never seen such a stubborn man. If your family owns half of Texas, why don’t you just go home?”
“I can’t.” Chewing his lip, he pointed a frown through the window behind her.
“Of course you can. That’s what homes are for.”
“It’s not that easy. Nothing ever is, with Colliers.”
Shadows of mourning, of broken dreams and unfulfilled longing, marched through his expression. Each of them bumped a bruise that had lingered on her heart all her life.
She gave in with a sigh. “All right. But you’re stayin’ in the lean-to. I won’t have a stranger in the house.”
His gaze swung to hers. He cocked a brow. “House seems an overestimation.”
The cabin was no palace, but neither was it a dank soddy or a burned-out hovel. “I’ve seen worse.”
The brow fell back into place, then joined its mate in a downward crunch. Maggie’s skin prickled as he assessed the hair she braided because hairpins had disappeared long ago, the dress with patches on its patches, the sock-stuffed toes of boots twice as large as her feet.
At least she was clean, which was more than she could say for him.
She stomped to the door and flung open the flimsy panel. “Out.”
“Fine.” His teeth clipped the word. The blankets fell away when he wadded his clothes and pushed to his feet. He wobbled a mite, but managed to snag the boots, weapons, and saddlebags beside the door as he sauntered across the threshold.
She hugged her waist, unsure which unsettled her more: The way the slamming door shook the cabin to its very foundation…
…or the way his naked body rattled hers.
****
Ben yanked the trousers up over his hips and buttoned the placket before plopping onto the porch step and jamming his feet into his boots. He couldn’t very well traipse across swampy ground barefoot…although he’d seen Confederate infantry march through worse with nothing on their soles but blood.
He shoved the memory to the back of his mind, pulled on his shirt, and went in search of his horse. Rounding the corner of the rickety cabin put some distance between his nose and the rotting-wood stench of the bayou a hundred yards from the north wall.
Realization froze his feet in mid-step. He passed a gaze down his torso and legs. The contentious little squatter had washed his clothes. The once sky-blue trousers and now-threadbare cotton shirt still resembled refugees from a rag pile, but they no longer reeked…unlike the rest of him.
What he wouldn’t give for a bar of clove soap. At this point, though, even unadulterated lye might not remove the accumulated filth.