eight o’clock sharp the stagecoach to Gillette Springs rattled up to the Smoke River Hotel and clattered to a stop in a cloud of dust. The driver climbed down and clomped up the steps and through the doorway, emerging a few moments later with a lady’s travel trunk over one shoulder. He lashed it on top, then ostentatiously tramped around to lean in the window.
“That all, miss?”
With a nod, he climbed back up into the driver’s seat and cracked the whip. “Giddap,” he yelled, and the contraption, empty of passengers, rattled off down the street.
From the second floor window of the hotel, Hawk stood next to Caroline MacFarlane, watching the dust dissipate in the morning air. He’d stopped the stage driver outside town and explained the ruse he planned; he knew Caroline didn’t agree with his idea. Agree, his father’s suspenders! Getting her to even look at the boy’s duds he’d bought had taken a stern lecture in his best military give-’em-hell voice and a flood of tears and pleading from Señora Sobrano. Miss MacFarlane was fighting him every step of the way.
“I’m going on over to the livery stable to bring the horses,” he announced.
“Horses! Excuse me, Mr. Rivera, but I expected, well, another conveyance to transport us. Surely you cannot expect us to ride horses to Gillette Springs?”
“I do. You do ride, don’t you, miss?”
“Well of course I ride,” she retorted. “Every well-bred lady in Boston learns how to ride. What a ridiculous question.”
“Señora Sobrano?”
Fernanda’s smooth olive-skinned face lit up. “Si,” she said with obvious relish. “I ride since I was a girl in Mexico.”
“Then get dressed, both of you. Meet me at the back kitchen door in twenty minutes. Whoever’s tracking you expects you to be on that stage. So, you won’t be on the stage.”
Caroline glowered at him as if he was the devil himself wearing spurs and a badge. She was a helluva lot more attractive without the scowl. He wondered how the even-tempered Fernanda Sobrano had hooked up with her? More than that, how did the older woman put up with this spoiled Boston beauty?
Hawk left them to get ready and went to get the horses. He saddled Red, his black gelding, then picked out two gentle mares for the women and had them saddled, as well.
But when he arrived at the back kitchen door, he got a shock.
Señora Sobrano had turned herself into a reasonable approximation of a somewhat-overweight adolescent boy in jeans and shirt and a pair of store-bought boots. But Caroline MacFarlane wouldn’t fool a blind man. Her jeans curved enticingly over a nicely rounded bottom, the blue-striped shirt outlined her breasts in no uncertain terms and curly tendrils of dark hair peeked from under the small black Stetson he’d picked out for her.
Hawk groaned aloud.
“What is the matter, Mr. Rivera?” Boston lady’s voice was crisp enough to fry bacon and those blue eyes of hers snapped with anger. Goddamn but she was one beautiful hunk of female when she was mad.
“Nothing,” he muttered. “Let’s mount up.” He laced his fingers together for Fernanda, then boosted Caroline up with a splayed hand on her behind.
Big mistake. The bottom part of her anatomy was warm and soft and so female it made his groin swell. God, he didn’t need this.
Once mounted, she sat the gray mare so stiff and straight she looked like a ramrod had been shoved up inside her shirt. He tried not to look at her breasts.
“Thought you said you knew how to ride.”
“I do know how to ride, but not like this. I ride sidesaddle.”
Hawk groaned again. It figured. Not only that, she looked too elegant. Too starched, somehow.
“Get down,” he ordered.
Her eyes widened. “Why should I? I just got up here.”
“You don’t look right. You’re too...clean.”
She dismounted so fast he caught his breath, then stalked up to him and propped her hands on her hips. “Too what?” she demanded. “Ladies are supposed to be ‘clean.’”
He didn’t answer, just scooped up a double handful of dirt and stepped in close. “Don’t scream.”
He emptied his hands over her shoulders and rubbed the dust in all over her shirt and jeans. Mistake number two. He tried not to register what his fingers were feeling. She hit at him, so he caught her wrist and pinned it while he finished the job.
“Well!” she said when he released her and stepped back out of range. “Now that I look completely disreputable, are you satisfied?”
“Not yet.” He snatched off her new-looking hat and crumpled it in both hands, then dropped it onto the ground and stomped his boot on the crown.
When he straightened, Fernanda handed over her hat, as well. He noted she was trying not to laugh. Caroline, however, was looking daggers at him. No sense of humor, he guessed
She struggled up into the saddle by herself this time and Hawk felt a tiny dart of admiration for her resilience. Most women would burst into tears if a man smeared dirt all over them.
He caught his breath as a wayward thought struck home. Maybe Caroline MacFarlane wasn’t like most women.
Well, hell. He mounted and lifted the reins. “Walk the horses single file. Señora Sobrano, you bring up the rear.”
“Si, Señor Hawk.” The smile in her voice told him something he hadn’t thought of before. Fernanda Sobrano might be Caroline’s valued companion, but she didn’t put up with the lady’s airs. Or her temper. All at once, the trek to Gillette Springs looked almost enjoyable. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about getting bushwhacked. Nobody would expect them to ride the forty miles to Gillette Springs when a stagecoach was available.
They headed south. He hadn’t gone five steps before Miss High and Mighty’s voice rose in accusation. “Sheriff, we are headed in the wrong direction. Gillette Springs is north of Smoke River, is it not?”
“It is. We’re taking a roundabout route, just in case anybody’s watching.”
That shut her up. He especially liked Fernanda’s half-suppressed snort of laughter.
He led them south for a mile, then circled back onto the old river road and eventually headed north on a little-used trail he’d found on an afternoon spent fishing.
The women were quiet for the first couple of hours, and when they stopped to water the horses at a spring, Hawk studied them. Fernanda grinned at him, dismounted and scooped water up in her cupped hands. Caroline tried it but soon gave up.
Hawk thrust his canteen at her. “Here.”
She took it without a murmur, tipped the metal container to her lips and gulped three big swallows. “Tastes awful, like metal,” she complained.
“It is metal. It’s my old army canteen.”
