He was lifting her like a piece of baggage into the coach.
“Up you go, sonny.”
The cowboy lofted Andy like a feather, before the child could even squeak. He followed then, and the roomy coach seemed suddenly small. Libby’s breath was failing her again, so she fussed with her gloves and her skirt before settling back with a sigh.
Shula’s head poked in the door. “Well, this won’t do at all, Mr. Jones.”
“Ma’am?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to move. I can’t ride backward. It makes me deathly ill. Tell him, Libby.”
Libby didn’t say a word. She was listening to the blood boiling in Shadrach Jones’s veins. Or was it her own? There was a brief moment of hard-bitten silence then, after which they all got up and exchanged seats.
Halfway to Paradise, Shad found himself praying—something he hadn’t done since he’d lived under the roof of his adoptive father, the Reverend Jones. Dear Lord, deliver me. From redheads who couldn’t ride backwards, couldn’t tolerate heat or dust or apparently silence. From the mute little boy who was stabbing him with his eyes whenever he thought Shad wasn’t looking. From the prim and quiet Miss Libby directly across from him.
He would have ridden on top with Eb, but he thought he could catch a few much needed winks inside the coach. Every time he drifted off, though, he’d jerk awake to another complaint from Miss Shula, to the boy’s gaze slicing away, to his boot heels hooked in Miss Libby’s dove-colored skirt.
When Eb pulled the horses up at the twenty-mile relay station, Shad opened the door and shot outside. Lord, it felt good to stretch. To breathe air that wasn’t scented with a perfume that reminded him of sodden leaves. To get away from them. All of them. Her.
He couldn’t stop thinking of the way she’d felt in his arms, of the way her stunned little mouth melted under his. As if she’d never been kissed before. As if he’d been the first. Which made no sense at all, considering the kid.
Shad scraped off his hat and slapped it against his leg. The hell with her. The hell with them all. “You got that lunch basket stowed up there, Eb?” he called to the driver.
“Right here.” Eb tossed the heavy basket down. “Don’t look like I’ll be breaking any records today, does it, what with the Captain’s daughters lollygagging so?” The old man clambered down to stand beside Shad. “Been so long since I’ve been around women, I’d pretty near forgotten just how dawdling they can be.” The old man shrugged then sauntered toward the men who were unhitching the horses from the coach.
“That wouldn’t be a lunch basket, would it, Mr. Jones?” Her voice came from just behind him. A soft, musical tone in contrast to her sister’s strident dramatics. Shad turned slowly and lowered his gaze to Miss Libby’s upturned face.
About to give her one more “yes, ma’am,” he suddenly changed his mind. “Hungry?” he asked.
Her eyes widened in surprise, as if he had asked her for her measurements instead. “No,” she said. “Not really. But I imagine Andy is. The poor child’s hardly eaten a thing in the last two days.”
“Andy. I expect that’s short for Andrew.”
Again she blinked. Anybody’d think he was mouthing indecent proposals, the way she kept being taken aback. All he’d done was ask a friendly question.
Her prim little mouth quirked into an unexpected grin. “Actually, Mr. Jones, it’s short for…”
Libby’s next words were drowned out by Shula’s screams as she came running, her lilac skirt rucked up about her knees. She pushed Libby aside in order to yank open the door of the coach and, without ceremony or dignity, hauled herself inside.
“Snakes,” she screeched. “If there’s anything I hate worse than spiders, it’s snakes.”
“Where’s Andy?” Libby asked frantically.
Shula aimed her chin out the coach window toward a nearby mesquite bush. “Back there.” She shivered. “I told the child to run. Especially when I heard that horrible rattle.”
Libby gasped and pulled up her skirt, ready to run.
Shad grabbed a handful of bustle and dove-gray dress. “Stay here,” he growled, tacking on an oath for emphasis before he strode to where the boy was standing. Still as a statue. Staring.
The snake was about as big as they came—seven feet of coiled muscle with a death rattle at one end and just plain death at the other. Death for a boy who didn’t weigh much more than a fifty-pound sack of grain.
“Don’t move, kid.” Shad’s voice was low and calm, unlike his mind, which was scrambling over options. Ordinarily he would have drawn his gun and put a bullet right between the rattler’s eyes. But he couldn’t trust the kid to stay still a second longer. He looked about ready to bolt right now.
Shad’s eyes swept the ground. He needed a pitchfork or a sturdy limb, but there was nothing within reach. Nothing but one of his own limbs. Well, hell. It had to be him or the kid. If he was lucky, the fangs would catch him on the boot. If he wasn’t…
Libby rounded the corner of the mesquite bush. The stillness of the scene was chilling. Andy like a tiny statue. Jones like a massive oak. The gray diamond-patterned snake rattling ominously and poised to strike.
“Do something.” She wasn’t sure if she had screeched the words or merely felt them searing across her brain, but a second later there was a flash of denim, a sweep of arms lifting Andy up and out of harm’s way as the snake snapped from its coil, struck, then went slithering away.
Libby struggled to release the breath she’d been holding. Andy was safe. She was safe. The big cowboy had her planted on his hip, holding her against him with one big, bronze hand splayed across her chest. But by the time that pose fully registered on Libby, it was already too late. Andy had already begun screaming in Jones’s arms—kicking, hitting, scratching, fighting for her very life. No longer afraid of the snake, the little girl was terrified of her rescuer.
“She’s asleep now,” Libby whispered inside the dim interior of the coach. They had pulled the side curtains down in the hope of calming the hysterical little girl. Finally, over Libby’s strong objections, Shula had poured a liberal dose of laudanum down Andy’s throat.
“I told you that would do the trick,” Shula said with a little cluck of her tongue.
Libby edged away from the sleeping child now, inching back one of the canvas side curtains to peer outside. “Where do you suppose everybody went?”
“Probably in the shade,” Shula said, lifting her damp hair from her neck, “trying to stay cool in all this heat.” She flicked her gaze toward Andy, then lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Not to mention trying to get away from all the crying and fussing.”
“She was terrified, Shula. Andy thought—”
“I know what she thought,” Shula snapped, “but it doesn’t make any sense. First she’s making up stories about seeing her father in the hotel. Then she’s convinced
