Comanche Magic

  Chase had no intention of twitching so much as a muscle. As she stepped around him, he turned an eye to her bare feet and the fetching glimpse of ankle her uplifted skirt provided. She had slender little toes with delicate nails that put him in mind of translucent flower petals. A fanned network of fragile, delineated bones graced the top of each foot. He raised his gaze to her face.

  Her eyes met his, and for an instant, Chase felt as if he had once again been sandwiched between two logs. Talk about pretty, this young woman gave a whole new definition to the word. It wasn't so much that her face was perfect. What struck Chase was how sweet and innocent she looked, the kind who made a man want to fight mountain lions for her and win. He forgot all about his ribs.

  Not wishing to startle her, he tempered his voice and said, "I hope you'll come again, Franny. Maybe next time you'll stop by the house afterward and have some of Ma's lemonade. It's the best in Wolf's Landing."

  For a moment, she froze there and stared at him, for all the world as if she couldn't credit her ears. Then her face flushed crimson again. Without a word, she swept on by and disappeared into the trees, never looking back.

  "That wasn't very nice," Indigo said in a quavery voice. "How could you, Chase? I didn't think you had it in you to be so mean."

  Chase's bemused smile disappeared and he turned to regard his sister, who stood near the water, hands on her hips, her tawny head tipped angrily to one side. Chase didn't mind being accused of orneriness when he had it coming, which he admitted was most of the time, but he felt this reprimand was uncalled for.

  "It was mean to invite her for lemonade?"

  "You know very well she'd never impose on Ma. Not to say Ma wouldn't welcome her, and our father, too. But Franny's too sweet to put them on the spot that way. You know how all the holier-than-thou people in this town are. Tongues'd buzz for a week if a woman of Franny's occupation was to call on anybody."

  Chase digested that. "Did I miss something?" He glanced around to make sure Hunter was still preoccu­pied with catching water dogs. "The way you talk, you'd think she was the local whore."

  Indigo's eyes went wide. "Surely you can think of a politer word than that, and it isn't funny, you acting as if you don't know. I swear, working with those rough-talking loggers has ruined you for respectable company."

  A vision of Franny's sweet face swept through Chase's head. With those gigantic, innocent eyes of hers, she couldn't be a—No, it was impossible. Chase didn't claim to be a connoisseur of women, but after living in logging camps for so many years, he sure as hell recognized a fancy skirt when he saw one.

  "Indigo, are you trying to tell me Franny's a whore?"

  She made a frustrated sound. "Don't call her that, I said. What she is is my best friend, and I won't have you saying mean things about her. If you've got to call her something, call her an unfortunate."

  Chase didn't give a shit what Indigo called it; a whore was a whore. An image flashed in his head of the flamboyant, curly-headed blond with the garishly painted face who worked over at the saloon. Out of respect for his parents, Chase had never frequented the upstairs rooms of the Lucky Nugget during his brief visits home, so he hadn't paid close attention to the soiled dove who worked there, but now that he thought on it, he recollected that the woman harkened to the name of Franny. He narrowed an eye. "That girl is the prosti—" He broke off and swallowed. "That's the unfortunate who works over at the Lucky Nugget?"

  "Sort of."

  "Sort of? " Chase stared at his sister. This was one of her jokes. Leave it to Indigo to try pulling his leg. "What d'ya mean, sort of?"

  She wrinkled her nose, clearly impatient with his limited male intelligence. "She isn't exactly there when customers come calling." She shrugged a slender shoulder. "It's difficult to explain. Just don't be ornery to her. Promise me, Chase?"

  A sort of whore who wasn't exactly there when her customers came calling? Chase could see that this made perfect sense to Indigo, but damn it to hell if he understood what she was talking about.

  "It isn't her fault she's in this pickle," Indigo went on. "There but for the grace of God goes every other woman in this town. You men haven't given us females a lot of options when it comes to earning our bread. Franny truly is an unfortunate."

  Chase could see that Indigo was dead serious. He shot a glance up the bank at the spot where Franny, the angel, had disappeared. Then he looked back at his sis­ter, still unable to believe what he was hearing.

  Franny, the blushing, green-eyed angel, was a pros­titute?

  2

  Three hours later, Chase rocked back on one of his sister's kitchen chairs, a mug of coffee held to his lips. Across from him, Jake Rand, his brother-in-law, sat with Amelia Rose on his knee, feeding her a horrible- looking mess of meat, gravy, and mashed spuds, all mixed together. Amelia Rose kept rolling out her tongue and gagging, her huge brown eyes swimming with tears.

  "Honey, you've got to eat," Jake informed his daugh­ter in a cajoling tone. "One more bite for your pa?"

  Amelia Rose skimmed the gook off her tongue with her teeth and let it plop in her lap. She blinked and shuddered. Jake sighed and tried to wipe the mess off her pretty little dress.

  "That's the sorriest looking excuse for a supper I've ever seen," Chase commented. "No wonder she won't eat it."

  Jake arched a black eyebrow, his brown eyes alight with laughter. "The voice of experience?"

  "I don't have to be a papa to have common sense. Why muck her dinner all together like that? It makes me gag just looking at it."

  Indigo turned from the sink. With a mischievous glint in her eye, she scooped her daughter off of Jake's lap and handed her to Chase. "Show us how it's done, Uncle Chase. If you get her to eat, I'll bake you an apple pie every day for a week."

  His manner challenging, Jake shoved the baby's bowl across the table. Chase surveyed the unappetizing mix­ture, then studied his niece. He loved apple pie too much to pass. Biting back a grin, he grabbed the honey jar from off the table and dribbled a generous stream over the top of Amelia Rose's food. The little girl's brown eyes lit up with interest.

  "That's cheating," Indigo cried, her cheeks flushing a pretty pink. "I swear, Chase Kelly, you're impossible. Now you've ruined her supper, and I'll have to grind more venison."

  Chase gave Amelia Rose a large bite. The child chewed, blinked, swallowed and opened her mouth for another spoonful. Chase flashed his sister a sultry look. "Tell me I don't know how to work my way around females. Make the offer sweet enough, and they go for it every time."

  Indigo rolled her large blue eyes. "You're rotten clear through."

  Jake chuckled. "Whatever works. If she doesn't eat, she'll be as skinny as her ma." As Indigo walked past, he gave her well-rounded bottom a pinch through the seat of her buckskin pants. "Not that I'm complaining."

  His tawny-haired wife flashed him a warning glance and returned to washing dishes. Chase continued to shovel honey-laced gook into his niece's mouth. "Roll out the pie dough, half-pint. I've won this bet."

  Indigo shook her head. "She's got a sweet tooth, and no mistake. Trust you to encourage her. And don't call me half-pint. You know how I hate it. Hunter repeats everything he hears."

  "Since Hunter's already back outside playing, I reck­on I can call you whatever I want." At Indigo's indig­nant glare, Chase laughed, winced when the movement pained his ribs, and then resumed the chore of shovel­ing spoonfuls of Amelia Rose's dinner into her mouth. After a moment, he sobered and glanced up. "Speaking of name-calling, that reminds me. What did you mean earlier today when you said Fanny was only sort of a prosti— sort of an unfortunate?"

  Indigo turned from the dish board. "Franny, not Fanny, and I can't make it much plainer. She just sort of is, but not really."

  Chase slid a questioning glance to Jake, who shrugged and shot a look toward the ceiling—a look that said, plainer than words, that there was no figuring Indigo sometimes. Chase agreed. His sister was odd-turned. Of course, folks had
once said the same of him. He reck­oned it'd be a trick for either of them not to be a little different, raised as they were by a Comanche father and a staunch Catholic mother.

  Jake pushed up from the table. "Reckon I'll go split tomorrow's cookstove wood. Want to come, Chase?"

  "I'll be right along." Chase scraped Amelia Rose's bowl clean and put the last spoonful in her mouth. The baby dimpled a cheek at him. Taking care to protect his ribs, he leaned over to put her down. "I'll be expecting my pie tomorrow evening, half-pint," he said to his sister as he stood.

  Indigo raised a delicately drawn eyebrow. "You aren't going to hold me to that, are you? Not when you cheated."

  Chase winked. "You didn't say I couldn't use honey."

  Chase followed Jake outside and leaned against the woodpile to watch while his brother-in-law deftly wielded the ax. He wished his ribs were healed enough for him to help, but that would take a couple of more weeks. Frustrated at feeling useless, he searched for something to talk about. Since it was a subject he couldn't seem to let rest, he decided to resurrect the conversation they'd begun in the kitchen.

  "Doesn't it worry you, Jake, having your kids sub­jected to a whore's influence?"

  "I'm surprised at you, Chase. I thought your father taught you better than to judge others by the world's measuring stick."

  Chase scuffed the sole of his boot in the dirt. Over the last few years, his father's teachings had become a sore point with him. Trying to walk in Hunter Wolf's footsteps was a surefire way for a man to get his teeth kicked down his throat. "I'm not judging her."

  "Sure sounds that way to me."

  "Call me cautious. I've never met a whore yet who didn't have her eye out for an easy dollar. It's no secret in Wolf's Landing that you come from a wealthy fami­ly, Jake, and Indigo wears her heart on her sleeve, always has and always will."

  "It's not such a bad way for Indigo to be," Jake replied on the tail of a grunt. "I kind of like her that way."

  "How are you going to feel when there's no bacon on the table because she gave all your money to the local whore? I'm telling you, watch out. What else could attract a gal like Fanny to someone like my sis­ter? Indigo's sweet, but exciting, she definitely isn't."

  Jake chuckled. "I find her exciting. Guess it's all in the eye of the beholder, hm? And that gal's name is Franny, not Fanny. Tells me where your mind's at."

  "Where else? For the right price, that cute little fanny of hers is any man's playground."

  Jake's jaw flexed, and he hesitated in his swing, putting more weight behind the ax when he finally cleaved the wood. "Keep your voice down. Hunter's playing just over yonder."

  Chase glanced that way and lowered his pitch. "I just don't think you understand how serious a situation this could become. Indigo would give her last pair of moccasins away to anyone with a sad story to tell. Trust me to know."

  "Because you're so much alike? Or should I say used to be?"

  "People change."

  Jake paused to study Chase for a moment then shook his head. "You've changed so much, though. I'm not sure I even know you any more."

  "Of course you know me. I've just grown up, that's all. Happens to the best of us."

  "Let me stay a kid at heart forever then."

  That stung. Chase folded his arms and smiled, pre­tending he didn't care. But the truth was, he was get­ting pretty damned tired of everybody in his family finding fault with him. "My line of work gives a man a few rough edges. That doesn't mean I'm not the same person underneath."

  Upending a length of log, Jake took a moment to bal­ance it. "It's not your rough edges I'm concerned about, Chase, but how you look at things nowadays. Talk about people with sad stories, something tells me you've got one of your own to tell. Care to share it with me?"

  Chase laughed at that and threw up his hands. "Jesus, Jake, would you listen to yourself? I'm not exactly alone in my opinion of prostitutes."

  "Nope. You're definitely not alone, more's the pity. I just wonder what happened to make you take such a harsh stand. Sounds like bitterness talking to me. You been trying to rescue whores, Chase?"

  "Not since I learned better."

  "Got burned, did you?"

  "You might say that."

  "Well, don't let one worm ruin your taste for apples. Indigo claims Franny's a sweet gal, and I have to take her word on that. You know as well as I do that she has a way of seeing straight to the heart of a person."

  "Whores aren't sweet, Jake. They have to be hard as nails to survive."

  "Not Franny. According to Indigo, she escapes into dream images while she works. In the morning, she wakes up the same shy Franny, unaffected by what passed the night before."

  "That must be some trick," Chase said with a snort.

  "It's the only thing that makes sense." His brother- in-law raised an eyebrow. "You've met Franny. If you have another explanation for her being so shy and reserved, I'm all ears."

  "She's a damned fine actress, that's what. No woman in her line of work could be that shy. I'm warn­ing you, be leery. The girl's after something. She just hasn't laid her cards on the table yet."

  "She and Indigo have been friends for years. Kind of slow on the take, isn't she?"

  "Famous last words, and mark mine. You'll live to regret not heeding what I say."

  "It'll be my regret. At risk of making you mad, Chase, who Indigo and my kids associate with is my concern, not yours."

  "She's my sister. I guess I have a right to be con­cerned."

  "I guess I have to give you that. She is your sister, and I know you love her." Balancing the ax on his shoulder, lake met Chase's gaze. "I'm too fond of you to risk our friendship by forbidding you to interfere," he said softly. "But before you say or do anything you might regret, do me one favor and think twice. If for no other reason than you'll be leaving soon. You can't expect to drop in on us once or twice a year for a couple of days and make major changes in the way we go about things or the way we think. Franny is important to Indigo. If you say or do any­thing to damage their friendship, it'll break her heart."

  "I don't want to see her hurt. That's the whole point." Chase sighed and shook his head. "I'll try to stay out of it, okay?" he finally relented. "But I won't make any promises. Just the thought of my sister chumming around with a prostitute makes my hackles raise. I feel just that strongly about it."

  "I can see that you do," Jake mused softly.

  Later that evening, stars as brilliant as diamonds pep­pered the indigo sky. At the north end of town, Chase sat on the front porch of his parents' house and tried to concentrate on the milk-faced glow of the moon rather than the two upper story windows of the Lucky Nugget, Wolf's Landing's only saloon. One of the windows was faintly illuminated by the glow of a lantern, the other as dark as death. Chase figured the lightless glass probably looked out from May Belle's quarters. Rumor had it that she was retired now and lived on her savings and a percentage of Franny's income. The older woman was most likely asleep by now while Franny worked in the adjacent room with the lighted window.

  Franny. He couldn't get those startled green eyes of hers out of his mind. They had haunted him all after­noon and evening. Now here it was bedtime, and what was he doing? Staring at her window, wondering what in hell she was doing right now.

  As if he didn't know. Though he took care not to flaunt his living habits in front of his parents and sister, seven years of living in logging camps had seen him in more than one house of ill repute. Redheads, blonds, brunettes, all garishly painted. After a time, they became blurred in a man's mind. An unmarried logger led a harsh, lonely existence, and poker, whiskey, and women offered the only respites.

  There had been a time when Chase couldn't have imagined thinking the way he did now. But no one stayed innocent and idealistic forever. Except, maybe, for his father. Hunter Wolf was different than most men, though, purer of heart and noble to his bones. He had set an example that Chase had found impossible to emulate once he left Wolf's Lan
ding.

  "Do it unto others before they get a chance to do it to you," was the golden rule he lived by now. The real world beyond these mountains demanded that of a man if he meant to survive.

  Chase doubted he could ever make his father under­stand that, or, for that matter, his mother. To them, there was right and wrong with no gray in between. Chase knew they were disappointed in him.

  Hell, if he was brutally honest, he guessed he was even a little disappointed himself. An inexplicable sad­ness washed through him. Foolishness. A man had to grow up and walk his own way. It was being home again, he supposed, not for a quick visit as had been his habit these last few years, but for days on end. It had left him with too much time to think, too much time to remember how things used to be.

  Things had seemed so clearly defined during his boyhood. Back then, he had believed his father had all the answers. Chase gazed at the illuminated upstairs window of the Lucky Nugget and was transported back through the years to the first time he had visited a whorehouse over in Jacksonville. Ten minutes for five dollars. He couldn't remember much about the woman, only that her name had been Clare, and that she was fat and stank. No small wonder, the latter.

  He'd gone calling at the brothel with five friends and had been fourth in line.

  To this day, Chase could remember how expectant he had felt standing in that dingy, dirty hallway, await­ing his turn. At that age—sixteen, if he remembered right—he had been all crotch and no brains, with one driving force in his life, to do it. All his friends had come out grinning and whooping, saying manly things like "what a honeypot that was," which led him to believe he was about to have the most exhilarating experience of his life. When he had finally gained the chamber of delight, the only thing that saved his fragile male pride was that he had been so worked up before entering that he hadn't lost his prowess quite as quick­ly as he had his enthusiasm.

  As if the night's deeds had been wired back to Wolf's Landing, his father and the fathers of his friends somehow knew what their sons had been up to in Jacksonville. Each boy had received a lecture, Chase included. Only Chase's father, unlike the others, didn't talk about disease and discretion and such. Chase's lec­ture had consisted of one unforgettable sentence: