Chapter Nine
Sam managed not to think about Jason Morgan and his tortured eyes for three days. That wasn't including the mornings when she awakened alone in her bed just a bit warmer, achy, than normal. It didn't include the whisper of a dream just at the edge of her consciousness of a pair of hands, slightly rough and calloused, moving across her skin.
Then she would leave the comfort of her covers and prepare for the day without giving the dangerous man another thought. Only to repeat the process all over again.
It wasn't as if her days weren't busy. Working at the hotel and helping Dusty out in the resturaunt then ending the night over at the saloon had her falling into bed at night exhausted. Each night she would tell herself she wouldn't think of him again. Not his eyes. Not his handsome face. Nor his body. Each morning would greet her with failure.
Her time at Le Desirez must have corrupted her somehow.
"I don't think you can slice those onions any thinner, Sam."
Blinking free of her thoughts, Sam glanced down at the pile of onions she had been cutting for the gravy for the roast that Dusty was preparing for lunch. "Well, damn." She set the knife down on the chopping block with a grunt of disgust. "It's mush. Why didn't you say something?"
"It's fine," Dusty lifted a few slices, and though rather thin she was right they were salvageable. "Besides, you've been drifting off to la-la land for days now. I figured when you were ready to talk about it you would."
She hadn't told Dusty or Zander about Jason knowing the truth of their orgins. If she had, they might ask questions and due to the circumstances of that night didn't feel it was right to tell them. It was disloyal, they were her family and deserved to know if there was a threat to their happiness. Yet for some reason she trusted that Jason wouldn't say anything. Besides, he had more things to think about than her and her secrets. The man probably hadn't given her a second thought since he walked away from her. She was the one in the throes of obession.
When she looked down again, she noted everything in front of her was missing. "What? Where?"
"Oh, you were off daydreaming again," Dusty's calm voice came from over by the stove where she stirred a cast iron skillet and the scent of cooking onions began to fill the air. "Dare I hope you were thinking of Lucky?"
"No," Sam grimaced at the very thought. Never had Lucky tied her into these many knots. "I told you, I don't think of Lucky that way."
A tawny eyebrow shot up at those words, while a smirk curved Dusty's lips, "So you were thinking about someone that way. Care to share?"
"That's not what I meant," she stuttered.
"Please, you're blushing and Sam McCall doesn't blush. Was it the guy who was teasing you the other night while you were playing. What was his name," a slim finger tapped briefly against Dusty's lip. "Doc Drake," she recalled with a smile. "Attractive, a little on the lanky side but he had a nice face."
"Dusty," Sam admonished barely restraining a giggle, "What would my brother say if he could hear you?"
"Your brother doesn't listen to women gossiping. Those are his words not mine. Besides, I have eyes. I can see. So was it him?"
"Not that I was thinking of anyone that way," Sam hedged, walking over to the sink to wash the smell off her hands. "But no, not him."
"Well we've been here for a few years now and the only man in Redemption you thought to give a chance was Lucky and that didn't pan out. Doc is the only new arrival to town that I know of who showed an interest in getting to know you so if it's not him then," at each word her voice seemed to trail off, the spoon in her hand forgotten as her mouth opened in shock.
"Now Dusty-"
"It's Jason!" She announced as if having won a contest. "You've been making cow eyes about Jason."
"That's not true."
"It is so true," Dusty snorted with glee. "Now that is one fine man you've been thinking on, so you don't have to feel bad. I'm sure more than one woman has had a few impure thoughts about the prodigal Morgan son since his return."
"I am not having impure thoughts." Hating the turn of conversation, Sam busied herself with snapping green beans into a large bowl.
"If not, then you should." Dusty chuckled huskily. At her glare, her sister in law merely rolled her eyes, "Oh please. He is an available man. You are a single woman. And they are just thoughts, Sam. It's not like you closed yourself in a room together and acted on those impure thoughts."
Dusty paused, a frown creasing her brow, "You haven't have you?"
"Of course not! Do you think I'd risk all we've made here for a fling with Jason Morgan?"
"Is he worth it?"
"I barely know the man." She grunted with a particularly brutal twist on the innocent vegetable in her fingers.
"But you're not denying the impure thoughts either."
"Dusty," she released a heavy sigh, lowering her head. Guilt, for not warning her family, for thinking so on a man who didn't want her, it was all weighing too heavily on her shoulders.
"Hey," the blonde turned the fire off the skillet and wiped her hands on the towel tucked into the apron on her waist. A few seconds later, Sam was enveloped in a hug that she hadn't known until that moment just how much she needed. "I was just teasing, I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it."
"I know. It's just this has me so confused and I don't know what to do about it."
"I take it this is how you wanted to feel for Lucky?"
"Yes and no. Jason doesn't want me, Dusty. I think his heart is still too torn up about his fiancee's death to be interested in another woman." She said nothing about the woman who gave birth to Jason's son. They both knew that a man could lay with a woman and not feel anything more than passing lust. Given Wyatt's age, not much time could have passed beyond Robin's death before he met Wyatt's mother. Grief and sex often went hand and hand.
"It's been more than ten years Sam. Whether he knows it or not, some of that hurt has healed. Time does that despite our wishes. Perhaps he just needs a little nudge in the right direction."
"I don't want to nudge a man to want me," she muttered. It was demeaning.
Dusty's snort told her feelings about that. "Every man needs a nudge in some way or another."
"And have you forgotten the rumors that he's a gunslinger?"
"I wonder if his hands are as fast as they claim." Sam leaned back eyes wide with shock at her sister in law's implication. "You can't tell me you haven't thought about the benefits a woman could have."
The blush that spread heat across her face and down her neck clearly stated that she had thought about it. "Shame on you."
"Please. It's a smart woman who considers those things before marrying. Can you imagine being tied for the rest of your life to a man with absolutely no talent-"
Shoving away from her sister, she grabbed a dish bucket and towel from the side bar, "Not listening," preparing to enter the dining area and clean tables. "Not listening!"
"I wonder if his tongue-"
"AAAAHHHH! Not listening!"
xxOOxx
"You're certainly a difficult man to track down."
Dark eyes filled with hatred and death looked up from the camp fire he was stirring, "Only a man with a death wish would approach me." Slowly he unfolded from his squat to take in the hardened man who had managed to sneak up on him. Or a man with a reputation as deadly as his own, Manny Ruiz thoughtfully amended.
"Well," he shrugged, a smirk twisting against his lips, "Death comes to us all."
"And some beg for it when they meet me."
"I have done many things in my life. Many of them would have me hung. Begging is not one of them."
A sliver of light from his fire bounced off something silver and Manny noted the gleam of knives held in a loose grip. Hands that could throw a knife in darkness with complete accuracy, imbedding a blade in a man's chest or skull before a shot was ever fired. A sight he had witnessed first hand.
"So what can I do for you Drake?"
Doc Drake walked from the shadows wearing his Indian heritage in that moment than most had ever seen. Leather breeches, bleached and softened from time, clung to his legs, moccasins making each of his steps silent as any true predator. The leather tunic hung loose from his frame, probably more for warmth than anything else.
"Conversation. For starters."
Agreeing to nothing, Manny went back over to his bags, removing the coffee he had stored there so he could make a pot. Drake watched him in silence, when Manny sat to wait for the water from his canteen to heat, the man finally spoke.
"I'm here on behalf of Morgan."
"And what would a dead bastard have need to speak to me?" The implication was there. He knew that Morgan was involved in his hermanita's murder and he was on his way to find the man who had killed her. It hadn't taken much persuation from the puta in town to spill what she knew. If she was lucky in a few days those bruises on her face would heal just fine.
"I hear Matos is short some brothers these days." Drake leaned against the largest rock among the cropping he had decided to make his camp around for the night.
Eyes stared in consideration for a moment. Manny Ruiz might not be the smartest man, and he might be a killer but he wasn't stupid. "So you say."
"I also hear that Javier had taken a liking to a certain "little flower" and was claiming that he would have her or no one would."
The puta had lied to him, he growled inwardly. No one lied to him and lived to tell another day. "And why should I believe this?"
"Because Morgan and Corinthos were friends." And all of their reputation knew that Jason Morgan didn't have friends. "I am sorry for your loss Manny. Lily was a kind woman. Pure. She deserves to be avenged."
"And this is why you're here?" grunted past the rage and pain in his chest.
"Morgan is going after Matos and asked for a hand. I'm obliging. Asked for your hand as well. Interested?"
Jason Morgan spent years hunting down the men who had killed his fiancee in a bank robbery. When he set out to kill a man, it was a certainty the man would soon be making the rounds with the undertaker. They were on different sides of the law, just barely, but Morgan knew the taste of vengence and death well.
"I'm in."