Slow Fever

She turned to him suddenly, looking very alone in the moonlight, her hair flowing around her. “I embroidered the pillowcases and tea towels for my hope chest. Mom wanted that. She wanted me to have all the values that she had, stuffing that chest for the home I’d have with my husband someday. I skipped all that, leaped right out there and hurt her. She was at our Justice of the Peace wedding in Kansas City, but I knew that she wanted me to be wearing white and coming down the aisle of Freedom’s church. My hope chest is still in Mom’s house and I can’t bear to open it. Miranda left hers, too.”

“Take it easy on yourself, Kylie. Anna loved you.”

“She loved you, too. Don’t try to deny that you loved her, either.”

Michael thought of the woman he’d adored, the closest thing to a mother that he’d had while growing up. “Yes, I did love her. And that is why I’m taking you home now. She wouldn’t want you out here catching cold.”

At four o’clock in the morning, Michael swung up on his horse, Jack. The gelding stomped and tossed his head, sensing Michael’s restless mood. Michael sat on Jack for a time, studying the home he’d rebuilt for security, to protect the women he championed. A simple ranch house design, it was his first real home. Anna had helped him design the privacy elements, a woman’s bathroom, a playroom and nursery for children that could be turned into a birthing room. A kindhearted doctor in a neighboring county would take care of the women when needed, managing birth certificate legalities. Thomas White quietly supported Anna’s midwifing and both had tutored Michael to care for the women.

He hated the sound of women crying. The sounds were the first in his memory, his mother sobbing.

The night wind slid through the autumn leaves, rattling them in the starry night. In Anna’s house, Kylie could be crying. She was just as sweet and prickly to him as ever, and now she was in pieces.

A sharp order to Jack sent him racing across the field. Another order and Jack sailed over a small fence, racing into the wide Montana countryside. Bent low on the gelding’s back, Michael wanted to work off his dark mood before meeting Rosa two states away. Another restraining order hadn’t worked and Mary Ann Lucas was pregnant and needed help. Michael didn’t want his dark mood to complicate the discussion with Mary Ann’s brutal husband. He didn’t want mistakes that could ruin Mary Ann’s chances for a new life. With Rosa, Michael dealt with details, efficiently blocking the women’s past from their future.

Years ago someone like Mary Ann’s husband had taken Michael’s older sister’s life, but there had been no one to protect Lily, not even the law. He’d made a vow upon discovering Lily’s senseless violent death, that he’d protect other women like her. With each woman he rescued, he felt he gave back a little of what no one had done for Lily.

“Everyone knows that Michael Cusack is a Cull and that his service truck was parked outside your place for most of the night,” Karolina Jones stated firmly the next day in her small, tidy community library. She slammed the Date Due stamp down on a library card and filed it neatly. An anonymous donor had just supplied the library with a hefty contribution that couldn’t be traced. “If he weren’t a Cull, but a man with a good reputation hunting a wife, you’d be called up before the Women’s Council. He’d be obliged to go before them and ask to court you. They’d slap a Rules of Bride Courting handbook in his hands so fast, he wouldn’t have time to run.”

“‘Fast Hands Michael’ didn’t get that reputation for nothing. He’s been labeled a Cull by the Women’s Council since he was thirteen, already hot to trot. Every girl rode on the back of his motorcycle—except me, of course, and Miranda and yourself.”

Kylie smiled as she thought of her sister. Miranda had been elegantly nettled by Michael and his lack of interest in her as she was trying out her flirting skills. Sadie McGinnis, a member of the Women’s Council, had already called as Kylie was struggling out of bed—reminding her that Michael’s reputation was dark and that with the number of children visiting his house, he had the ability to impregnate the state of New York.

However, Michael had stopped to fix Sadie’s front door light this morning and had informed her that the yard light at Anna’s was more of a problem than he’d suspected. And, Sadie knew that though divorcées sometimes leaped into the arms of waiting male predators, Kylie—as Anna’s daughter—was far too sensible. The Women’s Council had decided to dismiss the incident. However Michael’s Cull status remained. “Scandalous, just scandalous how many women he has visiting him in that house. No telling what goes on there. There are probably leopard skin throws and black satin on round beds in every room, push buttons to close the curtains and turn on seductive music. And the way they look at him, as if he were all they had in the world, their guardian,” Sadie had said.

Kylie didn’t want to think about Michael, or the way his dark study of her had sent off clanging warning signals. “Mmm. I don’t want to talk about Michael. Are you still hunting information about LaRue and about the woman in Valentina Lake?”

“LaRue’s the only one on the 1880s Founding Mother’s Council who isn’t really portrayed well. The woman haunting Valentina Lake is supposed to be nothing more than a legend. But once I find the right document, I’ll verify that legend. They haven’t named me ‘Super Snoop’ for nothing. I like mysteries and one of them is finding the person who is donating so much to the town. He paid the well digging company to go out to old Mr. Franks’s farm and drill a new well. Several other incidents have happened, like the Williams girl, Netta, received a notice from an orthodontist that she should set up an appointment for badly needed braces. The Freedmans couldn’t pay their medical bills and their mortgage was up—suddenly the bills were cleared. Weird things—but good things—are happening, and someone with money is behind them.”

Kylie frowned, remembering the different packages her mother had found on their doorsteps. A widow on a tight budget and raising her three children, Anna had smiled softly when the packages revealed material and lace she couldn’t afford. There were other modest gifts—earrings Miranda had wanted for a prom, a graduation watch for Tanner and a golden locket and necklace for Kylie’s sixteenth birthday. A night shadow went slipping through her mind—the image had haunted her since childhood, of that shadow leaving the gifts on their back steps where they could be easily found. While Karolina may have forgotten her sleuth work from back then, pinpointing Michael’s purchases, Kylie hadn’t. “He’s still around then—the anonymous guy, the benefactor.”

“None of my leads have paid off,” Karolina said. “But I’ll nail him…. You know that all the single men are worked up since you came home. Some of the married ones, too. They’re wondering what you’ll do…. By the way, Michael left town this morning, all dressed in black and looking tough. He’s going after another one of his women friends—that’s his modus operandi, that’s the scenario. He leaves town for a few days and comes back with a woman. He sure orders a lot of things after they arrive. He just backs his rig up to the back of the post office and piles in the boxes. Sometimes it’s baby stuff. I know because I made it a point to ‘accidentally’ stop by and help him load boxes. The labels are from women’s catalog stores—so what are your plans?” Karolina asked in one of her typical fast-lane mind changes.

Kylie grinned at her friend. They’d known each other as children, and Karolina was always packed with surprises. “I’m all through the mad and crying part. Now it’s time for the reconfiguring, arranging my life and getting an income of some kind. I can’t live at Mom’s forever….”

“Why not? Anna would have liked you there, taking care of her things. You have Anna’s way of reaching people, of making them feel good and alive.”

Kylie nodded slowly. “I like helping people, making them feel better. I learned a lot with Mom and then took courses later. Some people are in the massage business to make money, and they don’t have a real feel for it. This is the place for what I want to do, here in Freedom Valley. Come over for dinner tonight. I’m aching to get my hands into that tense neck of yours. We’ll watch a movie and catch up.”

Karolina frowned and rubbed her neck beneath her prim lace collar. “It is tight. See? We need you in Freedom.”

Two days later, Karolina squinted out to the road in front of Anna’s house. She’d heard a car honk and another one return the sound, a greeting along lonely roads. Despite Kylie’s relaxing massage, Karolina couldn’t resist popping up and running to the window. She wrapped the sheet she had been lying on around her shoulders. “Quick. Get my glasses and don’t get that massage oil on them, either.”

“You’re getting all tense again. Come back and let me finish massaging you. You really need the last relaxing part,” Kylie said, handing Karolina her glasses.

“Pond scum. Womanizer. Cull,” Karolina muttered as she scooted her glasses onto her nose. “That’s Michael out there and he’s got another woman with him. The moon is bright tonight and I see two heads. See? That is exactly why the Women’s Council doesn’t want him around good marriage candidates. He can’t stick to one woman. Never has, so far as I know. He’s following his typical M.O. He’ll take her to his house. Then tomorrow morning all these packages will arrive. Let’s go see what he’s brought home this time.”

Kylie watched Karolina scurry out of the room, draped in the sheet. “Spy on Michael? I don’t think so. There are just some things that I don’t care to know.”

“I’m changing into my clothes—all black spy-stuff,” Karolina called. “I’m going whether or not you are.”

Kylie shook her head even as she jerked on her jacket. “We’re not kids anymore, you know. I got into enough trouble with you back then.”

Twenty minutes later, Karolina led down a backwoods path from the road to the knoll overlooking Michael’s redwood and brick home. She parted the brush to view his yard, and in the dying light, Michael was holding the crying woman tight against him. Karolina tugged Kylie to crouch beside her, shielded by the brush.

In the moonlight, the woman’s skin contrasted with Michael’s sun-weathered skin and Kylie frowned, fighting the slight rise of jealousy. She’d wanted to huddle against Michael just like that. “Any woman with half a brain would know better.”

“Huh?” Karolina removed her glasses to clean them with the edge of her cotton sweatshirt. “You got oil on my glasses, but my neck feels a lot better. You ought to set up shop here in Freedom. You can post an ad on the library bulletin board.”

Kylie wanted to pit herself against something—someone—and forget about Michael’s tenderness with the woman, the way he handled her gently into the house. “What was that you said about dancing down at the Silver Dollar Tavern?”

“My brother, Dakota, and the Bachelor Club usually show up there after a good-old-boy game of touch football. It’s a good place to catch up on gossip, see if anything is happening that I might need to follow up.”

“I haven’t danced for a hundred years. Or played touch football. Let’s go.”

Karolina shook her head and studied Kylie’s red sweater, jeans and boots. “I don’t know if I’m up to that much excitement. You get those guys stirred up and no telling what will happen. You’re not a stick anymore, you know.”

“Don’t you dare say a word about the weight I’ve put on, Karo.” Kylie grinned at her lifelong friend. Thoughts of Michael and his women weren’t ruining her recovery-from-divorce. She gave herself to the joy of running through the night with Karolina huffing behind her.

Three

Men may scorn a tender heart and a soothing hand but they need them just the same. I wish Kylie would stop stuffing socks in her underwear to give her curves. Her father used to say that he pitied Kylie’s true love, for the man would have to be steady as a rock and fast to move, to keep firm hold of her.

—Anna Bennett’s Journal

Four weeks later, at midnight in mid-October, Michael slowed his four-wheeler as he passed Anna’s darkened house. Kylie’s small economy truck wasn’t sitting in its usual place beneath the big tree near Anna’s driveway. Since Kylie had been back and Mary Ann had been staying with him, Kylie had been stirring up all the males in Freedom Valley. Michael didn’t like wondering about Kylie’s whereabouts or companions.

He knew she had seen him with Mary Ann, buying groceries for the undernourished woman. Kylie’s blue eyes had focused immediately on Mary Ann’s slightly bulging tummy and her accusing glare had burned Michael. She’d stiffened, turned up her nose and had hurried down the grocery aisle away from him. He’d heard that she was fast and agile at touch football, and when she danced, she sizzled with so much sensuality that men stepped back to admire the flowing fit of her jeans and her sweater. With a sense of humor and a ready laugh and compassion, Kylie was on the dating block, and the unmarried men were circling her. Noah Douglas, John Lachlan, York Meadows and the rest were salivating, getting worked up to ask Kylie for a real date. They’d take their time, making certain they wouldn’t have to handle a woman on a divorcée’s crying jag, and then they’d move in.

Michael didn’t like the tense lock of his body when he thought about another man holding Kylie as they danced. He didn’t trust his need to hold her close and safe against him. Just returned to Freedom Valley, Michael had helped transfer Mary Ann’s few possessions into Thomas White’s large home three hundred miles away. With a background in nursing, Mary Ann would assume duties in Thomas’s doctor’s offices, located in the house, and Thomas could easily look after her tenuous pregnancy.

Tanner and Gwyneth had returned from their honeymoon. Just a field away from Anna’s, their remodeled home was also dark, but Tanner’s and Gwyneth’s trucks were parked side by side, just as they would lead their lives.

Michael’s hands clenched on his steering wheel as a deer leaped across the country road in front of him. After a month of dealing with Mary Ann’s health and helping her forge a new life, Michael’s nights were sleepless and haunted by the vision of Kylie’s plastic wrapped, curved body. He could still taste her kiss—could still remember her scent, like violets, the rich earthy scent of meadows in sultry sunshine, and a disturbing, more sensual, feminine scent.

Kylie was an irritant in the life he wanted to move smoothly, without ties. He couldn’t forget her and he wanted her, an unfamiliar emotion for a man who had trained himself to desire little else but money.

His vehicle’s tires slid smoothly over the gleaming cobblestones of Freedom’s town square, the 1880s two-story buildings lining it. Long ago, drovers passed through this town, celebrating after delivering their Texas cattle to Montana ranchers. Whatever woman-hunting ideas they’d brewed with their liquor were soon doused by Freedom’s Women’s Council. Men behaved like proper suitors in Freedom and some remained as good husbands. Others, who might have shared Michael’s distaste for boundaries and rules and ties of the heart, were told to move on.

Store windows gleamed in the streetlights as he passed. The worn-smooth cobblestone road that led to the church was one he would never travel in the customary way of a bridegroom, nor was he likely to take his love before the Women’s Council in an old-fashioned surrey. To court a woman of Freedom Valley by custom meant explaining why he wanted her in his life—as his bride and his wife—in front of a tough Women’s Council. Michael couldn’t see himself performing to their demands.

Kylie’s small pickup was parked in front of the Silver Dollar Tavern. The thought that she’d be wrapped in another man’s arms hit Michael like a Mack truck. The dark sweep of anger nettled. He parked directly behind her and damned himself for wanting to see her. The slamming of his door marked an intense emotion that startled him. Michael stopped on the sidewalk, listened to the jukebox music throbbing from the Silver Dollar and sucked in the crisp, calming night air. He didn’t need excuses to go inside—he told himself he needed a break after a hard day. Stopping for a beer had nothing to do with his need to see Kylie. Inside the tavern, the slow music was loud and the floor was packed with dancers, bodies laminated together as they swayed.

One quick scan of the room and Michael found Kylie massaging Brody Thor’s back as he sat leaning over the table, head resting on it, his arms dangling loosely at his sides. Dressed in a red sweatshirt and grass-stained jeans, Kylie was standing behind Brody, the owner and only employee of a concrete business. York Meadows, Koby Austin, his brothers—Adam and Laird—sat sprawled at a cluttered table. Their stares led to Fletcher Rowley, Gabriel Deerhorn, and Dylan Spotted Horse and Karolina’s table. From the noticeable grass and mud stains on their clothing, they’d been playing touch football again.

Michael felt like touching something and it wasn’t a football; it was Kylie. He recognized the men’s contemplative, closed expressions, as they studied Kylie’s curved body, flowing with the kneading movements. A sensual symphony of curls, Kylie’s hair was propped upon her head. The drift of the tendrils along her delicate nape begged for a man’s hand to ease them aside for a kiss on the soft curve.

After the first surprising wave of tenderness, desire slammed into Michael, stunning him, as he worked his path through the dancers. Lora Simmons pressed against him, running her hand over his chest. “Dance, handsome?”

“No, thanks.” Michael moved away from Lora’s perfumed curves and low-cut, tight sweater. He moved toward Kylie’s grass-stained sweatshirt and jeans. He had the unshakable sense that the image of Kylie’s plastic wrapped body had ruined him for other women. He tensed as he heard Brody groan in relief, Kylie’s slender fingers digging into the areas along his spine. Brody’s groans were too close to another sound that Michael didn’t want men making under Kylie’s touch.

She’d been honest in her need for sex that night at Anna’s. Michael inhaled slowly and considered Kylie’s expression, one of concentration on her task, her spiraling curls bobbing gently as she worked. She was healthy and strong and earthy. It wasn’t his business if Kylie wanted to make love—or was it?

He stood beside Kylie as she worked on Brody, finding his scalp through his hair and massaging it. Michael looked slowly to the other men, one at a time, and knew that every one wanted to be the body beneath Kylie’s strong, knowledgeable fingers. He knew his friends well enough to know that they’d deliberately strain a few muscles just to replace Brody’s aching ones under Kylie’s hands. “No,” he murmured quietly and recognized the momentary challenging flash in the men’s eyes.

Just noticing Michael, Kylie straightened and her expression immediately changed from one of concentration to one of frost. “Did she let you loose tonight?” she asked in a tone that could have frozen a forest fire.

“Dance?” he countered, dismissing her question and challenging her at the same time. Michael realized then that he’d wrapped his hand around her slender wrist, holding her.

He’d promised himself long ago that he wouldn’t need anyone. And now he needed Kylie. He studied his scarred and darkly tanned fingers against her fairer skin, shocked by the knowledge that he’d wanted to claim her for his own. He slowly released her wrist and removed his black leather jacket, tossing it to Gabriel Deerhorn.

The night he’d seen her in another tavern, a nineteen-year-old girl on a dare, determined to ride that mechanical bucking bull, he’d burned with the same dark anger. It was the only mechanical bucking bull in the countryside—miles from Freedom Valley—and Kylie and her friends had dressed older, just to get into the tavern. She’d rocked upon the bull, testing herself, swaying with the movements too slow to be dangerous. She’d concentrated on her task, her body flowing sensually as she moved around and stood and sat and tested her skill. The rhythmic symphony of curves had men drooling and had sucked away Michael’s breath when he’d first seen her. When he’d managed to pull his tongue off the floor, he told would-be takers that she was his wife and the baby needed her at home. Then he’d hauled her off that bull and she’d sulked at the lecture as he delivered her and her underage girlfriends each to their doorstep. The last one to reach her home, Kylie had simmered and then lunged at him. “Little girl,” he’d said, trying to distance his need to give her a taste of what she’d been asking from him. “Take it inside and don’t worry your mother.”

It was just the same now; Michael couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Kylie had always been his.

The thought zinged through Michael, shocking him as Kylie’s blue eyes darkened. His gaze slid to her lips and then slowly down her body, marking the sudden rise and fall of her breasts. “I asked you to dance. Yes or no?”

Kylie’s chin lifted and she spoke quietly, only to him. The color of her blue eyes had changed to steel flashing up at him. “Tell me first—do you have that woman living with you now or not? And is it your baby?”

“Interested in me?” he asked, challenging her as he took her hand, laced her fingers with his and led her the few steps to the dance floor.

“I’m older and I’m wiser. I don’t want to sit on the back of your motorcycle now. And you weren’t invited here, and just how much of my life did you tell your girlfriend?”

“Put your hands on me like you did on Brody and you’ll find out more than you want to know,” he murmured. His hand sought the curved indentation of her waist and hip to draw her close. For just an instant, his fingers dug in slightly to the soft curve, claiming her.

Michael breathed unevenly, stunned by his first experience to make certain this woman was his.

“Brody’s back injury needs a good stroking treatment to relax—I’m not explaining anything to you.”

“‘Stroking?”’ Michael repeated her term darkly, unfamiliar with the emotions storming him. The word brought the image of lovemaking slapping at him.

“Soothing him. It’s a technique in Swedish massage.” Her breath caught as his arm slid around her, holding her close against him.

She recognized that whipcord strength, moving too quickly for her to resist. He’d acted like that at the infamous bucking bull incident. His thigh pressed between hers, leading into a dance step, and Kylie tensed, moving stiffly to his direction. “The Women’s Council should have changed the rules that men always lead in dancing, too.”

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