Ace's Wild

Ace swore. She flinched, even as every nerve ending snapped to attention. His eyes narrowed, and as if on cue her breath caught. Darn it! Why this with this man? It was so...inconvenient.

Caden looked between the two of them and just sighed. “You know if you two spent a little less time fighting and a little bit more talking, you’d probably find out you’re on the same side of most of your discussions.”

She lifted her chin. “I highly doubt I have anything in common with Mr. Parker.”

From the tug Ace gave his hat, he wasn’t any too pleased with the observation, either. “Yeah. You’d have to shove a broomstick up my ass to get me to be that uptight.”

“Ace!” Maddie reprimanded from within the store.

Petunia just raised her brow. Did he think his crudeness would shock her? “We could probably arrange that.”

“You and what posse?”

“I imagine we could assemble a few of your disgruntled companions to make it happen.”

Ace made a sound. She couldn’t tell if he was choking on outrage or laughter. Before she could ask, Caden interrupted.

“Never seen two cats fight as much as you two do. At least not without a hell of a good reason.”

Ace was entirely too quick to say, “I’ve got a reason.”

And she was entirely too curious to know what it was. Before she could open her mouth to retort, Maddie came around the counter. “Please. We like you both.”

Caden didn’t move, but the air suddenly seemed thicker. “What my wife is trying to say, Ace, is that no one cares about your reason. As my wife’s friend, Petunia is always a welcome guest in my home.” His voice lowered just a fraction. “And always under my protection.”

Ace pulled up straight. Shoulders squared as subtle tension entered his stance. His “The hell you say” was low and threatening.

Maddie stopped dead. The catch in Petunia’s breathing became permanent. Caden wasn’t even ruffled. “You heard me.”

If Caden had spoken to her in that tone, Petunia would be running. Ace didn’t even bat an eye. Caden waved his hand. Maddie went back behind the counter.

“This is none of your business, Caden.”

“So take me to court.”

“That’s not fair, Caden,” Maddie called. “You know Judge Bracen is holding a grudge against Ace.”

“Another one of your satisfied customers?” Petunia asked with a lift of her brows.

Ace shrugged. “He’s not pleased I didn’t declare that fool’s gold of his genuine.”

“Cost him a pretty penny on that land deal.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Petunia interrupted, wanting this to end before it got more combative. She might not want to like Ace, but she did like Caden and Maddie, and Maddie was sympathetic to her cause. Caden she wasn’t so sure of. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the set of Ace’s shoulders. Along her nerve endings she felt the weight of his stare, and that breathless trembling started anew. It was definitely time to go.

“Thank you for the cinnamon roll, Maddie.” She forced herself to take a nibble. The soft pastry sat like lead in her mouth. Tension skimmed along her nerves. “It’s delicious as always.” She nodded to Caden. Ace she ignored.

He naturally couldn’t let that pass. “Not even going to say goodbye?” he asked as she turned.

Nope. Not a goodbye. Not a glance. Not anything that would feed her weakness. Lifting her skirts with her free hand, she stepped off the walk, ignoring the inner prompting that wanted to know if he watched her, if he was smiling, if there was approval in his eyes. She forced herself to continue toward home and not give him the satisfaction of looking back. It was the hardest thing she’d done in a long, long time.

* * *

ACE WATCHED PETUNIA stroll down the street in that purposeful way of hers and shook his head. Seems he’d been watching Petunia since the day she’d stepped off the stage all pale blond elegance and temptation. She wasn’t the sort of woman a man like him would approach. Buttoned-up women were notoriously boring in and out of bed, but there was a reckless side to Petunia that no amount of blue serge could conceal. One that, once fed by the fire of conviction, could take her where angels feared to tread. Like right up into Simon Laramie’s face when he’d protested her effort to feed his hungry kids. Laramie outweighed her by a hundred pounds, but she’d stood there like size didn’t matter and taken him to town. A man had to admire that much gumption. Protect it. Preserve it... Nurture it. Shit. He wanted to punch a wall. He wanted to follow her, pick her up, toss her over his shoulder, swat her on that delicately rounded ass and carry her off to his bed with her gasp still ringing in his ear. He wanted her in his arms. His bed. His home. With a silent curse, Ace cut that line of thinking short. Again.

That was the dangerous side of Petunia Wayfield. She made him want things he’d long ago given up hoping for. A wife. Family. Men like him didn’t have those things. But it didn’t mean they couldn’t protect the one who fed that faintest of hopes. About a month ago, he’d accepted Petunia was that one for him. There was something within her that drew him. Fascinated him. Enthralled him to the point that lately, all he could think about was her lying bound in his bed, that sweet pale flesh wearing his mark, her femininity sweetly displayed. His blood heated even as he ground his teeth. The woman was like a bad case of poison ivy, a constant irritation.

“Why do you tease her so?” Maddie asked when Petunia was out of earshot.

For no reason fit for Sunday discussion. “The woman has too much starch in her bloomers.”

“So you irritate her just to get a reaction,” Maddie stated, coming up beside him and shaking out her cleaning cloth.

He smiled, watching Petunia step up onto the opposite walk, for a moment catching the hint of ankle beneath her layers of skirt and petticoats. His cock, semihard, threatened to become an embarrassment. He pulled his gaze away. “She does have a short fuse.”

“It seems to me the only reason you want to take the starch out of her bloomers,” Caden remarked, taking a seat in the chair he’d just settled against the door, “is because you want to be getting in them.”

Ace snorted. “The woman’s an old maid.”

Maddie huffed and put her hands on her hips. The cloth fluttered against her side. “She’s intelligent, passionate and she cares about the same things you do. You could do worse.”

Petunia couldn’t.

“The only reason that woman’s ever been in a saloon is to try and shut it down. She probably thinks it’s hell on a good day.”

Maddie snorted. “You’re always rooting for the underdog, just like her.”

“Not that anyone notices.”

Caden stretched his legs out. “That’s because you don’t want them to notice.” Ignoring Ace’s glare, Caden caught Maddie’s hand and pulled her into his side. The ease with which she relaxed into Caden’s embrace sent another pang through Ace.

“And why is that?” Maddie asked, shoving the cloth in her apron pocket.

Ace leaned over and tugged her hair, goading Caden with the casual familiarity. “Maybe because I’m not an upstanding pillar of the community.”

Caden growled under his breath and knocked his hand away.

Maddie sighed and caught Caden’s hand in hers, all the while shaking her head at Ace. “I know you, remember?”

It was Ace’s turn to shake his head. The last thing he needed was Maddie speculating on his comings and goings and ways to put an end to them. He liked his life in town. He liked the adventure. He liked the challenge. He liked the occasional fight, and he loved the card games. It alleviated the boredom of working at the assayer’s office. The job was a useful tool for sorting out bad news coming to town, but not much else. Once in a while he did stick his nose into business that wasn’t strictly his, but unlike Petunia, he didn’t make his life’s work out of it.

“This town’s got enough do-gooders,” he told Maddie. “One more isn’t needed.”

Maddie looked at him calmly. Almost expectantly. “Petunia’s going to need help.”

“You might as well get that look out of your eye, Maddie. Whatever Petunia’s got going, it’s not my problem.”

“It will be.”

He didn’t like the knowing glance or the implication behind it. The woman saw too much. “No, it won’t.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Caden interrupted. “This latest project of hers isn’t going to go over well. There are some prominent citizens in this town who’d be mighty upset to see a couple of those children brought forward into polite society.”

“Then they shouldn’t have created them,” Ace retorted.

“I don’t think that was the plan.”

“It’s still the result. Not like you can mistake who their fathers are.”

Damn, now he was sounding just like Petunia.

“It would have been better for those children if their mother had just left town with them.”

“And leave their meal ticket?” Ace shook his head. “No way in hell. As long as those kids exist, Hester has leverage.”

“But they don’t exist. They’re not allowed out of that awful house,” Maddie added. “And that little girl, she’s almost eight now...”

Maddie’s voice broke. Caden rubbed her arm. The one thing Maddie knew all about was how a little girl growing up in a whorehouse lived on the edge of trouble. It made him burn to think about the life Maddie had been forced to live before coming to Hell’s Eight. Petunia was right about one thing. No child deserved that.

Pressing her hand briefly over Caden’s, Maddie took a step back, straightened her hair and then her skirt. Ace said nothing, letting her gather her composure, regretting it as soon as she did, because she turned those soulful green eyes on him again and declared, “You need to help Hester.”

“I do?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re wrong about her.”

Ace sighed. It didn’t really matter whether he was right or wrong about Hester. When it came to the kids, Petunia and Maddie were right. The situation was getting bad. Hester needed to take those kids and leave town. Or Dougall, their father, was going to have to claim them, but they couldn’t be left to be as they were living in the whorehouse. He thought of the little girl, pretty face, pretty hair, but still a little girl and tempting to some. Unprotected except by her mother and a couple of the nicer whores, but their ability to guard her was limited. And if it was decided she needed to earn her keep, then earn her keep she would.

“It’s a mess, and Petunia’s meddling is going to make it blow up before anything can be done.”

“She means well,” Caden interjected.

“She always means well.” Ace growled as the aggravation swelled within him. “She meant well when she decided every child at school should have a decent lunch.”

“She was right,” Maddie chimed in. “They should.”

“Except that those families that couldn’t afford it now live with the mockery of others, and Simon Laramie is gunning for her ass because the whole world now knows that he can’t feed his own kids.”

“It’s not her fault he chose to make a public spectacle of it.”

Simon was new to the area, and he wasn’t established, and the drought hadn’t helped. He wasn’t the only one feeling the pinch or the weather. But he was the most vocal about being made a public charity case.

“His pride was on the line.”

“His children were hungry,” Maddie countered.

“She could have gone about it differently.”

“Be fair, Ace,” Caden interjected. “You know Laramie is about as stiff-necked an ass as there is. He’d rather see those kids starve to death than admit he needed help.”

“Well, that little mess of Petunia’s took a bit to clear up.” And he’d been the one who’d had to do it. He rubbed the knuckles of his right hand, experiencing again that satisfying moment when it’d connected with Laramie’s mouth. Petunia might be a pain in the ass but she wasn’t—as Laramie put it—a bitch.

“But now he’s your enemy and not hers,” Maddie said as if that were the way it should be.

“Oh, he’s her enemy, too. Make no mistake about that.”

“But he’ll have to go through you to get to her.”

“Shit, Ace, you might as well call Petunia Hell’s Eight and get it over with.”

“That will never happen.”

The look Caden shot him was almost as pitying as Maddie’s. “Uh-huh.”

Their knowing expressions were almost as annoying as Petunia’s tendency to gather enemies in her wake. The longer Petunia stayed in town, the more her problems were going to become his, because Caden was right, he couldn’t leave her to whomever. She might be a pain in the ass, but in an odd way she’d become his pain in the ass. That being the case, she needed to get on that stagecoach. For both their sakes.

Down the street at the church, people were beginning to meander free of their socializing. Petunia disappeared into the schoolhouse. “Somebody’s got to rein that woman in.”

“I vote for you.”

It was his turn to say, “Uh-huh.”

“It’s not like she’s going to be around much longer,” Maddie argued. “Just as soon as she gets the money for a coach ticket, she’s moving on.”

“She’s been saving for that ticket for a long time,” Caden interjected.

Yeah, she had. And she still wasn’t gone. Mighty suspicious that. “You sure she’s planning on moving on?”

Maddie suddenly became all business, straightening her apron and smoothing her hair. “Looks like customers are heading this way. Time to get busy.”

The back of Ace’s neck tingled. Maddie was not the fussing type. Especially when it came to business. She was up to something. He looked at Caden. Caden shrugged and looked at his wife.

“Out with it, Maddie.”

She sighed and dropped the pretense. “It’s not that Petunia doesn’t plan on leaving—”

Ace got that sinking feeling in his gut. “But?”

Maddie shrugged. “But there were things that she felt needed doing here first.”

“Things?” Ace asked. “What things?” What the hell had Petunia gotten herself into now?

“You remember Penelope?”

“Clyde Peyton’s widow?”

“Yes. She broke her leg.”

“Yeah, I remember. Doc set it. Said it healed fine.”

“She couldn’t work while it was broken.”

“And?” There was always an “and” with Petunia.

“She couldn’t feed her kids because Michael Orvis wouldn’t extend her credit at the mercantile.”

Ace sighed. “Don’t tell me.”

“Petunia used her savings to pay off what she could of the bill, so Mr. Orvis would give Penny more credit.”

“So you’re saying, she’s nowhere near the price of her ticket.”

Ace didn’t know if he was relieved or annoyed.

“You could just buy it for her,” Caden pointed out.

“If I thought I could get her to take it, I would.” That was a lie. He had a lust/hate relationship with Petunia’s presence in town. More lust than hate. More want than was sensible.

“So what are we going to do?” Maddie asked.

“Why do we have to do anything?” Ace asked. “Can’t we just let her suffer the consequences of her actions, for once?”

Maddie looked horrified at the very thought. “She has no idea of the potential repercussions. She’s used to Eastern ways.” She turned to Caden. “Do something.”

“Don’t put me in this,” Caden said.

Maddie glanced down the street where her Sunday customers were meandering their way. “Please?”

Caden rocked back in the chair as she hurried back into the bakery. The bell above the door jangled a protest. “You heard the little woman.”

Ace bit down hard on his back molars, reaching for patience. “I’m tired of cleaning up Petunia’s messes. I’m not her father. I’m not her brother. I’m not her husband.”

“But you want her,” Caden said, putting it right out there.

“There’s nothing about the woman to want. She wears her hair scraped back so tight her eyebrows meet her ears. And if her corset were laced any tighter, she’d die of suffocation.”

Caden laughed and waved to the folk approaching. “You ought to be grateful for that. More wind means more words.”

“I don’t need more words from that woman.”

“Yes, you do, just sweeter ones.”

“You could dump a bucket of sugar on that woman, and she wouldn’t be sweet enough.”

Maddie fussed with the tray of buns and called out, “I think the right man could sweeten her up.”

“Eavesdropping isn’t an attractive trait,” Ace snapped at her.

“But a useful one.”

Ace shook his head at Caden. “She isn’t even ashamed of it.”

“Why should she be?” Caden asked with a fond look at his wife. “It gets her what she wants to know.”

“You should be setting a better example.”

Caden snorted. “Since when have any of us worried about what others thought?”

Since never.

Maddie stopped sorting the rolls and looked straight at him. “In that case, Ace Parker, you could stop saving her and just start courting her.”

For the first time in a long time, Ace flinched. “I’m a gambler and a brawler.”

“You’re a good man with a good heart, but you run too much.”

He didn’t need Maddie weaving rainbows around the impossible. “Let it go, Maddie.”

“Letting it go doesn’t change the truth. You want her.” She came back to the porch, licking frosting off her fingers. “She wants you. You have many things in common, including a passion for doing the right thing. The only difference between you is she’s open about it.”

“Gambling is not the right thing.”

Maddie huffed. “Gambling bores you.”

“The hell it does.”

Caden touched Maddie’s shoulder. “Let it go, Maddie mine.”

She slammed her hands on her hips and jerked her chin at Ace. “So he can continue doing what he doesn’t like doing? So he can continue to be unhappy?”

“A man’s got a right to be unhappy if he wants to be.”

“But it’s silly when everything he wants is just an arm’s reach away. He’s just too afraid to grab it.”

The hell he was. Frustration and anger prodded. Frustration because customers were gathering, and he couldn’t say what he wanted. Anger because Maddie didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. The last thing any woman needed was for him to give in to the needs that drove him. Especially a prim and proper woman like Petunia. Just the thought of touching her the way she needed had his blood heating dangerously.

On a tight “I’ll see you later,” Ace turned on his heel and strode down the street, absently nodding in response to greetings, his mind consumed with the thought of pinning Petunia’s wrists to the bed, of kissing her so deeply her thoughts became transparent, her body pliant, her will his... He clenched his hands into fists, fighting back the desire. “Fuck.”

Behind him he heard Caden say, “That was too much, Maddie.”

And from Maddie, an uncharacteristic “I’m not sure it was enough.”

CHAPTER TWO

THE SMALL ONE-ROOM schoolhouse was quiet in the minutes before the day started, but soon Petunia would walk out the sturdy wooden door and ring the bell, and the excitement would start. Twenty children from the ages of five to thirteen would push through the doorway, sit at their desks and look at her with expressions ranging from boredom to anticipation. Educating growing minds was a hard job, a taxing job and one Petunia loved. But as soon as she saved the money for her ticket, she was going to hop on the stage and continue on to San Francisco to take advantage of the newly wealthy’s desire to compete socially with East Coast established society. If she were careful, she could take that desire to “do them one better” and use it to open a school that would fund her dream to truly educate all.

Just thinking about leaving brought Ace to mind. And bringing Ace to mind just revived the familiar combination of ache and anger. Just who did that man think he was to take apart her way of life as if there was something wrong with it? He, who was in the middle of every fight, every scheme, every betting game that took place in this town.

And in the middle of every type of aid, too, the little voice of fairness inside whispered.

Damn it! Petunia erased the word she’d just misspelled on the chalkboard and started over. Just once she wanted to catch Ace doing something so wrong, so evil, that this irrational attraction she had for him would die an ignoble death. But every time she’d seen him fight, he’d been defending someone, and while she didn’t approve of gambling, he didn’t do it recklessly. He did drink more than she approved of, but when he was drunk, he never harmed anyone. He just got more quiet from what she could tell, more mysterious.

She sighed as she set the chalk down and dusted off her hands. The one thing she didn’t need was for Ace to become any more mysterious. He already had too much appeal for her.

As was her habit, she went behind her desk and set up her papers in the order of what her lesson was going to be for the day. She started simply and then worked up to the more complicated for the older students. She was going to be losing Analisa soon. Unfortunately, her mother wanted her home to help with her siblings and the work around their small farm. Analisa had a bright mind and a desire to learn. She’d asked Petunia for help, to convince her parents to let her stay in school. Unfortunately, no matter how much Petunia tried, she couldn’t convince her parents of the importance of continuing their daughter’s education. As long as Analisa could read, write and count, the adults in her life seemed satisfied.

Petunia shook her head and set her math book to the side. They just couldn’t see the brand-new world out there waiting for them and the possibilities that existed. They just wanted to stay in this little town, in this little world, in this little spot and ignore it all. She shook her head. She would never understand it.

Outside the door, she could hear the students playing in the small school yard. She always gave them this time. They seemed to have so little time to just enjoy being young.

Sighing, Petunia placed the creative writing instructional on the top of the second pile. She might only have these children’s minds for the period of time it took her to earn the money for her stage ticket. But in that time, she intended to plant the seeds of curiosity and just maybe, in one of them, that seed would grow, and they would see something of the world besides this tiny town. At least that was her hope.

From the yard came the regrettably familiar sound of a singsong chant. Frowning, she went back to the window. She wasn’t surprised to see a slight boy with shaggy hair and threadbare clothing cornered by a bigger boy. Every school yard had its victims and its bullies. And here the bully was Buster, and the victim was Terrance Winter, probably because he had the look of a child whose family didn’t care, and in a town this small, neglect was like throwing a red rag in a chicken pen. They all started pecking.

Petunia opened the heavy door in time to hear, “Fatty lip, fatty lip, Terry isn’t worth a shit.”

Gritting her teeth, she reached up and rang the bell. Hard. All sound stopped. One by one, the children trickled to line up in front of the short steps. All except Terry and his tormentor.

“Buster Hayworth,” she snapped. “Line up, please.”

A murmur rippled through the line of children. Some kids ooh’d, others giggled. Buster came reluctantly around the corner, the shock of blond hair on his forehead standing up straight as it always did, the expression on his face angelic. She’d learned on the first day when he stuck a frog in her desk drawer not to fall for the false sincerity in his big blue eyes.

“You’ll be staying after class tomorrow. I’d appreciate it if you informed your parents of that.”

“But, Miss Wayfield, I was only—”

She cut off the protest with a wave of her hand. “You were only trying to make someone else’s life miserable within my earshot, in my school. You know that’s not allowed.”