McKettrick: An Outlaw's Christmas Part 6

The grin held. "I ruined your other cloak, didn't I?" Sawyer asked. "The least I can do is replace it, so you don't freeze to death this winter."

"I'll manage," Piper insisted.

He concentrated on consuming his supper after that, even had a second helping of ham, but his gaze found her every few moments, and each time he looked at her, she saw a twinkle in his eyes.

At last he tired, gathered up his plate and silverware, and looked around for a place to put them.

"I'll take those," Piper said, and did. Since there wasn't a sink in the schoolhouse, she'd wash them later in a basin she reserved for the purpose. By then, she was thinking about the bath she'd take in the cloakroom, once Sawyer had retired to his bed.

Presently, he said good-night and left her alone.

Piper immediately put water on the stove to heat, then hurried outside, to the shed, where she kept the washtub she meant to use.

The snow seemed to be melting, but by the time she returned to the schoolhouse, the hem of her dress was soaked and she was shivering with cold.

It would only be slightly warmer in the cloakroom, she knew, than it was outside, but there was nothing for it. She'd worn these same clothes all of yesterday, then slept in them, and then worn them all day today. Now, she felt grimy.

She set the washtub in the cloakroom, filled it bucket by bucket, a process that took a very long time. Sneaking into her bedroom, relieved to see that Sawyer was sleeping peacefully, she collected a flannel nightgown, a washcloth, soap and a towel.

Inside the cloakroom, with a kerosene lantern to light her way, Piper moved the food box in front of the door, just in case, and quickly stripped off her clothes.

Goose b.u.mps sprang up on her bare flesh, and her teeth chattered, but she was resolute. She would bathe, even if it was agony, because being dirty was far worse.

The lantern flickered-there was a breeze coming up through the cracks between the planks in the floor-and the bathwater, having taken so long to prepare, was lukewarm when she stepped into it.

Piper scrubbed diligently, dried off with the towel, and donned the flannel nightgown.

The prospect of sleeping on the floor again loomed before her and, as she moved the food box aside, took up the lantern and fled the cloakroom with her discarded day garments wadded up under one elbow, she wondered just how much one small, well-meaning and wholly decent person was meant to endure for the sake of propriety. Especially when that particular horse was already out of the barn, so to speak.

She stopped suddenly when she realized Sawyer was seated at her desk again, wearing half a shirt, since he hadn't been able to put his injured arm through the appropriate sleeve.

He looked up from the book he was reading and smiled. "I wondered if you were shut up in there," he said, with a nod toward the gaping door of the cloakroom. "Even considered coming to your rescue."

"I thought you were asleep," Piper said, still shivering even though-or perhaps because-she was wearing her warmest nightgown.

Sawyer's blue-green gaze moved over her like a caress, came back to her face. "Yes," he agreed. "I suppose you did think that. As it happens, though, I woke up and that was that. So I came out here, expecting to find you asleep on the floor, since you're probably too stubborn to use that bed even after all the trouble Clay went to to bring it here."

Piper shifted yesterday's clothes, petticoat, bloomers and camisole included, from her side to her front, like a rumpled shield. "Don't look at me," she said.

He chuckled, averted his eyes. "That's a tall order," he replied, "but whatever else I am, I'm a gentleman, so I'll comply with your request."

"Good," Piper said, not moving.

Sawyer seemed to be reading again, but Piper didn't trust appearances. Nor was she convinced that he was a gentleman.

"Go ahead and take the bedroom," he said. "I'll sleep out here."

CHAPTER 5.

"Don't be silly," Piper immediately countered, still clutching her clothes against her bosom. Her nightgown was warm enough, but her bare feet felt icy against the planks, where she seemed to be rooted. "You're in no condition to sleep on a hard floor."

Sawyer, remaining at her desk with a book open in front of him, smiled and carefully kept his gaze averted. Or so she hoped-desperately.

"Neither are you, I'll wager," he said dryly. "Anyhow, I saw a mouse run through here a few minutes ago. Bold little critter, too-scampered right through the middle of the room."

Piper shuddered, and not just from the cold. She had a horror of things that crawled, slithered or scurried, though she'd kept that information to herself in case any of the rambunctious boys in her cla.s.s got ideas about scaring Teacher with a garter snake or any other objectionable creature.

"What kind of name is Piper, anyhow?" Sawyer asked, turning the pages of the book so rapidly that he couldn't possibly be reading from them.

"What kind of name is Sawyer?" she countered, edging toward the stove. If she'd stayed put, she was convinced the soles of her feet would attach themselves to the icy floor. And where, at this precise moment, was that mouse he'd mentioned seeing?

He chuckled. "I'm named after a great-uncle on my mother's side of the family," he confessed. His lashes were long, she noticed, the same shade of toasty gold as his hair. "My folks-Kade and Mandy McKettrick-had three girls before me, so I reckon they were prepared to call me Mary Ellen."

In spite of herself, Piper laughed. She was warmer now, standing so near the stove, but no less embarra.s.sed to be wearing nothing but a nightgown. Oddly, the sensation was not completely unpleasant. "You have three sisters?"

Sawyer nodded. "How about you? Do you have sisters or brothers?"

"I'm an only child," Piper said. And an orphan, added a voice in her mind. "Dara Rose and I were raised together, though, so we're as close as sisters."

"That's good," Sawyer responded. He cleared his throat. "Aren't you cold?" he asked.

Piper was cold, though the proximity of the stove helped a little. Suddenly, no matter what the shameful implications, she realized she couldn't bear the idea of sleeping on the floor again. "Do you promise to conduct yourself like a gentleman if I agree to spend the night in the spare bed?" she asked, horrified to hear herself uttering such a thing.

Sawyer lifted his good arm, palm out, as if swearing an oath in a court of law. "You have my word," he said.

Piper started for the bedroom doorway, giving him as wide a berth as she could in such a small, cramped s.p.a.ce. "Wait until I say it's all right before you come in," she said.

Suppressing a grin, he nodded his agreement.

And Piper dashed past him, into the room that had been hers and hers alone, until night before last. Using sheets and blankets provided by Dara Rose, along with the bed itself and the lovely supper she and Sawyer had shared that evening, Piper quickly made up a cozy nest. Then, driven by the continuing cold and the shock of her own brazen boldness, she scrambled under the covers and lay there shivering until she'd adjusted to the chill of the sheets.

"I'm-ready," she sang out, after a long time.

She saw the light from the lanterns, the one she'd used in the cloakroom and the one Sawyer had been reading by, blink out. He appeared in the doorway, a shadow etched against the darkness, and Piper's heart began to pound so that she dared not speak, lest her voice tremble and betray the nervous excitement she felt.

Sawyer moved through the room, with only a slant of moonlight to see by, and, with an effort Piper could hear from beneath her blankets, took off his clothes. She heard the springs creak as he sat down on the other bed.

"Good night, Miss St. James," he said, with a smile in his voice. "And sleep well."

Piper didn't answer. She was hoping he'd think she was already asleep.

Closing her eyes, she pretended as hard as she could.

LYING THERE IN the darkness, Sawyer cupped his right hand behind his head and smiled up at the ceiling, recalling the delicious look of surprise on Piper St. James's very pretty face a little while before, when she came bursting out of the cloakroom in her nightdress and found him reading at her desk. Her mouth had been blue with cold at the time, and he'd wanted to wrap her up in a blanket-or better yet, his arms-to warm her.

Given her schoolmarm-skittishness, he reckoned that would have been about the worst thing he could do, but knowing that didn't stop him from imagining the way she'd fit against him, curvy and soft against his own hard lines and angles.

The sensual image tightened his groin painfully, a reaction he wasn't going to be able to do a d.a.m.n thing about and therefore had better ignore as best he could. Sawyer set his back teeth, so great was the effort it took to change the course of his thoughts. Altering the path of a river probably would have been easier, he soon concluded.

He willed himself to relax, one muscle group at a time, starting with the part of his anatomy in the most need of quieting, and when he'd finished, still taut and achy in too many places, he resorted to counting in his head, by odd numbers. After a while, as the imagined digits mounted to astronomical totals, he found he could breathe normally again. Some people prayed, and some people counted sheep, but Sawyer always took refuge in arithmetic.

He closed his eyes, hoping to sleep.

It was no use, though. He was too aware of Piper, lying close by, in her spinsterish nightgown, with her glowing, just-bathed skin, and her dark hair clinging to her cheeks and forehead in moist tendrils. The scent of her was like perfume, faintly flowery, subtle.

"Mr. McKettrick?" Her voice was tentative. Soft. "Are you awake?"

He smiled again, having suspected she was playing possum. She'd called him by his given name once or twice that day, but now that they were both bedded down in the same room, "Mr. McKettrick" probably seemed a more prudent way to address him. "I'm awake," he confirmed.

He heard her draw in a breath. "I was just wondering if-well, if you think the man who shot you might come back?"

Bless her prim little heart, she was scared.

"Not likely," Sawyer said.

"Why not?"

"Because he probably thinks he's already killed me. Anyway, Blue River is small and a stranger would stand out."

"That didn't stop him before," she reasoned. "He just rode right up and shot you, bold as you please."

Sawyer grinned harder. His shoulder hurt, and he was lying a few feet from a woman he wanted and couldn't have, but he was enjoying this exchange. Maybe, he speculated, Miss Piper St. James was scared enough to leave her bed and share his.

"Yep," he said. "That's what happened."

"Suppose he didn't leave Blue River at all? Because of the storm, I mean. He could be holed up around here somewhere, couldn't he? Just waiting for his chance to strike again?"

"Maybe," Sawyer allowed, relishing her concern. If it hadn't meant Piper and her charges could be caught in the crossfire, he might have welcomed such a confrontation, since he'd be able to return the favor and put a bullet in the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, thereby evening the score. "It's not likely, though."

"What makes you so sure?"

"I've had some experience with these things," he replied.

"That isn't much comfort," Piper said. "Are you saying that you've been shot before?"

He had to chuckle. "No," he said. "I was referring to the nature of my work, that's all."

"What kind of awork' involves getting shot?"

Sawyer said nothing.

"Are you an outlaw, Mr. McKettrick?" Piper persisted.

"Would you believe me if I said I wasn't?"

She made a m.u.f.fled sound, like a scream of anger, held captive in her throat. It made him smile again. "I think you owe me an answer," she said, after a few moments.

"You do, do you?" he teased.

"Are you an outlaw?"

He thought it over. He'd killed a man once, though he'd been defending Henry Vandenburg, his former employer, at the time. Vandenburg's attacker, one of those wild-eyed anarchist types, had shoved his way through a crowd, in a busy railway station, and thrust the business end of a gun barrel into the boss's ample belly. Sawyer had stepped in, there was a struggle, and the pistol went off. The would-be killer bled out on the floor before the munic.i.p.al police arrived in their paddy wagons.

"No," he answered, feigning offense at the question. "Would Clay have asked me to serve as town marshal if I were?"

"Possibly," she replied, after some thought. "You're his cousin, and the two of you grew up together. It might be that he's just giving you the benefit of the doubt by a.s.suming that you are still the person he knew as a boy."

"Could be," Sawyer said, amused. She hadn't been this talkative before, and he wondered if that meant anything. Then he decided she felt safer speaking her mind because they were under cover of darkness, and she couldn't see him, or he her.

In a way, it reminded him of the old days on the Triple M, when he and Clay used to spend the night at their grandparents' house sometimes. The room they'd shared had two beds in it, and the dark of a country night had been like a curtain between them, making it possible to tell each other things they'd have choked on in the daylight.

"That," Piper said, "is a most unsatisfactory answer."

"Clay trusts me because I've never given him any reason not to," Sawyer said, relenting. Now that he wasn't in Vandenburg's employ any longer, he figured he didn't have to be so secretive, but he still wasn't inclined to spill his whole history. "I'm not an outlaw," he added.

"Then what are you? Only outlaws carry guns."

"Clay carries one. Is he an outlaw?"

"Well, no," Piper admitted. "But he's the marshal."

There was a silence.

He waited.

"Are you a lawman?" she asked.

"Not exactly," Sawyer replied. He wondered if she'd warmed up yet, and if she was still scared-in need of a little manly protection. Being n.o.body's fool, he didn't ask. "How did you become acquainted with a lady of the evening?" he inquired instead, recalling that morning's visit from Bess Turner.

Piper sounded impatient. "You heard what she said-her daughter, Ginny-Sue, is one of my pupils. And if you're anot exactly' a lawman, what are you?"

"I was paid to protect a man and his family," Sawyer said. "And that's all you need to know." He barely paused before giving her a dose of her own medicine by barging right into her private business. "Generally, respectable women don't befriend people like Ginny-Sue's mother, no matter what the circ.u.mstances."

Her tone was huffy. "Maybe I'm not a respectable woman. Did you ever think of that?"

Sawyer laughed. "Oh, you're respectable, all right. You wouldn't be so worried about my seeing you in a nightgown, not to mention our sharing a bedroom, if you weren't."

Piper was quiet for so long that Sawyer began to think she'd fallen asleep. Finally, though, she spoke again, and there was a note of gentle sorrow in her voice. "Bess loves her child, just like anybody else, and besides, however misguided she might be, she's a human being. I see no earthly reason to shun her."

Something thickened in Sawyer's throat, which was odd. He wasn't usually sentimental, especially not over prost.i.tutes like Bess Turner, but something about Piper's offhand compa.s.sion touched him in a deep place, and caused a shift in the way he thought of her.