Hell for Leather Read online

  Jeremiah was the bastard child of one of the men who worked at the mill. His mamá up and died when he was four, leaving a small frightened child behind. Hiram, the father, tried his best, but the man was just not cut out to be a parent. Sam had hired Jeremiah to do odd jobs around the mill and when he got big enough, to deliver lumber. He was still small, but he had the heart of a giant.

  “Don’t be fooled. That man is darkness come to life.” Ellen looked truly afraid as she backed away from the window. “You become someone else when you’re near him.”

  “What does that mean?” Sabrina fidgeted with the rag in her hand, certain she knew exactly what Ellen meant. Mr. Brody seemed to have some kind of magic about him that turned a boring storekeeper into a shameless hussy. Although married women occasionally stepped out with men after they became widowed, it wasn’t normal to feel such powerful urges for a man. It couldn’t be normal. Even now, when she couldn’t see him anymore, Sabrina felt a pulsing heat deep within her at just the thought of him.

  She didn’t dare mention the dreams to anyone. Each night he came to her, leaving her gasping for release when she woke in sweat-soaked sheets. Sabrina now even slept naked, which seemed to heighten the pleasure with her nocturnal lover. A heat crept across her cheeks at the memory of just how much she looked forward to closing her eyes at night.

  Ellen cocked her head. “You carry a warm pink glow around you most times. You’re kind and considerate, a good person. Then when I saw you with that man, your glow turned deep purple, almost red, and it scared me.”

  Sabrina couldn’t deny Ellen’s assessment, even if it was a bit odd. Mr. Brody did make her feel not normal and if her glow was purple, then so be it. It wasn’t as if Sabrina had asked anything to happen between her and Cade, it just did. Something about him called to the woman deep inside her, the wanton who dared to show her face only when no one else could see what she was thinking and doing.

  “It’s okay, Ellen.” Sabrina enfolded her petite sister in a hug. “Mr. Brody is just a customer. He’s made it clear he doesn’t want to be in Eustace very much. I’m sure only the direst of circumstances brought him back so soon.”

  Ellen trembled in her arms. “Death follows him like a shadow. Please, Sabrina, you mustn’t be near him anymore.”

  What could she say? Sabrina wasn’t near him very much, only in her imaginings. She didn’t want to lie to Ellen, but she could not control where her dreams took her. Ever since Ellen had nearly died, and Sabrina’s husband had, Ellen had become more than a recluse. The fact was, she almost bled to death and claimed to have seen their father while she was unconscious in Clara’s care. After she recovered, Ellen started seeing halos around people that she researched in a book and discovered they were called auras. To her, they were an indicator of a person’s inside, good or evil.

  “I don’t plan on being near him. He’s not likely to chase after an old widow like me anyway.” Sabrina forced a chuckle then released her sister from her embrace and looked into her wide blue eyes. “Cade Brody is no threat to me or you, I promise.”

  Ellen nodded, but her eyes revealed her lie. She didn’t believe a word Sabrina said.

  Chapter Four

  “Hello? Who’s out there?” a woman called from behind the door.

  Cade shifted the dead weight in his arms, sure the boy had doubled his size in the last ten feet to the house. “My name is Cade Brody, ma’am. I’ve got Jeremiah out here with a broken foot.”

  The door cracked open a few inches. “Jeremiah Carlton?”

  “I guess so. He’s a boy around sixteen years old or so.” Cade felt a twinge of embarrassment that he knew nothing about the boy in his arms other than his name and that he had an overactive imagination.

  “Yep, that’d be Jeremiah Carlton.” The door swung wide, and Cade blinked at the woman in front of him.

  Growing up in the type of house he did, Cade had seen so many different kinds of women, he’d lost track. Unlike some men, like Brett’s brother Trevor, Cade hadn’t sampled many of them. The darkness of his childhood made him keep his distance from women until his need overtook his brain. Fortunately or not, his base needs hadn’t taken over too often, but when they did, Cade gave the woman twice her rate and gentleness he was sure she’d never received from a customer.

  However, his experiences with the female sex didn’t help him as he saw Clara Weathers for the first time. She stood no taller than his elbow, a perfectly formed little person from her brown bun of hair to her tiny little hands. He’d heard of small people in circuses, but had never seen one with his own eyes, much less what he thought was a full-grown one.

  “Stop gaping, you fool, and bring the boy in. Did he faint?” She waved him in and slammed the door behind them. “This way.”

  Cade followed like an idiot, sure the expression on his face was one of dumbness with no bounds.

  “Well, did he faint?” she demanded as she opened the door to a small room containing a narrow bed covered in white sheets.

  “I, uh, yeah, he fainted just as we got here.” Cade continued his streak of stupidity by staring at Clara more.

  “Would you lay him down on the bed so I can take a look at him, please?” She scowled as Cade put the boy on the bed. “What’s the matter, you never see a woman before?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’ve seen more than my fair share of them since I grew up in a New Orleans bordello.” Well, where the hell had that come from? Jesus please us, was he losing his mind? Why would he have told her that?

  “Then you’ve seen plenty. Stop staring and help me get his trousers off so I can get a good look at his foot and leg.”

  Without a smidge of hesitation, Clara unbuttoned the boy’s shirt and took it off, quickly checking him for injuries. Cade lifted Jeremiah so she could slide the trousers off more gently than a butterfly’s wing.

  “What happened to him?” She untied the bandage and unwound it while she fired questions at Cade. “Were you there? Did you wrap his foot?”

  “He dropped some lumber on his foot. Yes, I was there and I wrapped his foot with a neckerchief.” Cade took the dirty bandage when she handed it to him.

  “You did a good job.” The boy’s foot had swollen to twice its size, looking like a grotesque parody of a human appendage. “Go out to the well and get me a bucket of the coldest water you can bring up. If there’s any icicles on the edge, put those in the water too.”

  Cade had promised himself never to take orders again from a woman. Since he’d left New Orleans, most of them treated him like a threat, and therefore with detached fear. Clara didn’t appear to be afraid of him at all, which was very odd especially considering how tiny she was.

  “Go!” Clara shooed him out of the room. “We need to get the swelling down and standing around like an idiot isn’t helping.”

  He blinked and left the room, then found himself standing at the well lowering the bucket before he even knew what he was doing. Some small bits of ice clung to the underside of the stones around the well. After hauling a bucket from the bottom, he broke the ice off and threw it in the already-frigid water.

  As he walked back to the house, he couldn’t stop himself from glancing at the back of the store. The white lace curtains in the window fluttered as if someone had been looking at him. A thump rolled through him and landed somewhere near his stomach. Was Sabrina or her odd sister watching him? He tried to hide his reaction, but damned if a shiver didn’t crawl up his spine. Cade lived in the shadows for a reason, he didn’t like to be watched or noticed.

  He carried the water to the house too fast, sloshing some on his foot. “Dammit.” He shook off his boot and walked back inside, wishing he could shake off the feeling left behind by the small movement of the curtain.

  When he made it back into the bedroom, Clara had tucked Jeremiah under the sheets with only his right leg exposed. The nearly hairless limb reminded Cade of just how young the boy was.

  “Took you long enough. Put the bucket here so I can ge
t his foot in it.” Clara pointed to the floor next to the bed, and Cade obeyed like a houseboy.

  It would’ve been funny if he wasn’t annoyed by his behavior.

  She put the boy’s long, skinny foot into the ice-cold water, and he woke up in a hurry. Jeremiah tried to lunge off the bed, but Clara held him down securely, which surprised the hell out of Cade. She was tiny enough to be half the boy’s size, yet she was apparently solid muscle.

  “Settle down, I’ve got you.” Clara touched Jeremiah’s brow. “Go tell his pappy what happened.” She didn’t even look at Cade when she ordered him around.

  “Who’s his pappy?” Cade was happy to leave the tiny woman’s domain, if only to stop jumping like a dog whenever she barked at him.

  “What are you, the village idiot? Just find Sam and tell him Hiram’s boy’s been hurt.” Clara dismissed him and Cade let her.

  He left the house feeling as if he’d been through a twister and survived to tell about it. Meeting Clara the healer had been an experience, that was for sure.

  Sabrina grew more concerned about Ellen as the minutes ticked by. She walked around the store peering out the windows, muttering to herself and shooting glances at Sabrina.

  It was a little creepy, truth be told.

  “Ellen, what are you doing?” Sabrina gave up trying to pretend she was still dusting.

  “Watching him to make sure he doesn’t come over to the store. I just saw him in the backyard at Clara’s with a bucket.” Ellen let the curtain drop. “He’s just so dark, Brina.”

  The childhood nickname melted Sabrina’s annoyance with her little sister. Ellen might be odd, but their sisterly love ran deep, and she’d always be in Sabrina’s heart. The business five years ago with Eric was buried with him. She’d forgiven both of them for what had happened. They’d already been punished enough.

  “Don’t worry, Ellen. He’s no threat to me.” A lie, of course, because he already threatened her sleep, but something deep inside her knew there was much more between them than that. “I’m going to go check on Jeremiah.”

  Sabrina almost ran out of the store, sucking in a breath of fresh air. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to see Cade or not, but she did know she had to get out. Ellen was in one of her moods, this one worse than many others, and sometimes Sabrina just had to escape.

  She looked down the street toward the mill and saw a man in a wagon with a horse tied to the back riding toward the mill. Cade. A sigh burst from her throat at the sight, whether it be from relief or longing, she wasn’t willing to think about it. Instead, she walked over to Clara’s house and turned her gaze from the sight of the man who had found his way into her mind.

  When Cade climbed down from the wagon at the mill, a big burly man with a reddish face and angry eyes ran from the mill, straight toward him, with fists raised.

  The last thing Cade wanted was to show the townspeople just how skilled he was, but he had no choice. With a quick step and one right hook, the stranger hit the cold dirt with a thud.

  “I don’t have any quarrel with you, mister.” Cade stepped back, hands raised. “But a man’s got a right to defend himself.”

  Another man arrived, this one dressed in nicer clothes, more than likely the owner of the lumbermill, Sam Fuller. “What the hell are you doing?” Sure enough, right behind him came the little imp who’d pestered him a week ago, Melissa, with her kinky hair and wild ways.

  “Daddy, that’s Mr. Brody. I saw the whole thing. Hiram ran outside with murder on his mind and so Mr. Brody had to defend himself.” She turned a worshipful gaze on Cade.

  Ah, fuck.

  “Mr. Fuller, Cade Brody.” He stuck out his right hand, which Sam promptly looked at like it was a pile of lizard shit. “I brought in Jeremiah to Clara Weathers with a broken foot. She sent me to tell Hiram his boy had been hurt. I ain’t got a quarrel with this man, but he tried to pound me into the ground.”

  Cade’s stomach jumped around like a pack of frogs. In between the flying turnip, the boy getting hurt, the tiny woman ordering him around, the giant trying to make him tiny and now the lumbermill owner and his apparently infatuated daughter, the day could not possibly get any worse.

  Then Frenchie, that stinky mountain man, appeared behind Fuller with a grin on his furry face. Cade wanted to pound the little son of a bitch.

  Sam frowned at Cade so hard, his brows met over his nose. “That’d be Hiram you just knocked into next week.”

  Well, Cade guessed the day could get worse. Next thing would be Melissa telling her daddy she wanted to marry him. A shudder snaked down his skin at the thought. He needed to get the hell out of Eustace and back to Livingston Valley where he could hide in peace.

  “Hiram came out swinging. He had to expect me to swing back.” Cade rubbed the back of his neck, trying to will away the craziness around him. His knuckles throbbed from the contact with the big man’s jaw.

  “He’s twice your size, Mr. Brody, and you don’t have a mark on you. Frenchie came running in the mill yapping about somebody hurting Jeremiah, riled up Hiram right good.” Sam looked Cade over with a healthy dose of suspicion. “Just who are you?”

  Frenchie snickered, a gleeful expression on his face. Cade reminded himself that he was a peaceful man, no matter what he’d just done to the big lumberjack or what he wanted to do to the odiferous tiny miner.

  “Daddy, did you hear what he said? Jeremiah’s got a broken foot and Clara’s fixing him up. Don’t you think we should be worried about him?” Melissa pulled at her father’s large, unmoving arm. “Let’s go make sure he’s okay.”

  Melissa’s cajoling broke the dangerous air between the men. Although Cade didn’t want to be beholden to the girl, he tipped his hat at her as he backed away. “I’ll just be taking my horse and leaving then.”

  Melissa winked, the little vixen. Cade really needed to stay away from town altogether. Perhaps he could get his ghost to come into town for supplies from now on.

  Without a backward glance at the lumbermill and the strange folks in front of it, Cade turned to ride out of Eustace.

  Sabrina had been friends with Clara since they were children. Many of the girls in Eustace refused to be near Clara as though they thought whatever kept her short was contagious. Her mother had been the midwife and had taught everything she knew to Clara. Now she took care of everyone in Eustace, even if they treated her as an outsider.

  Clara covered her hurt by being gruff with everyone. Sabrina never let the gruffness bother her and had somehow wormed her way into Clara’s tight circle of friends. It was a small circle that included Sabrina, Antonio, Melissa Fuller and Ellen.

  As she opened the door to the house, Sabrina called to her friend. “Clara, are you in the back?” The back bedroom was the unconventional examining room, where most of her patients were seen if they came to her house.

  “Yep.” Clara’s voice floated through the house.

  Sabrina made her way to the back room as fast as she could, concerned by the worry in Clara’s voice. Within seconds, she was at her friend’s side, alarmed at the waxy look of Jeremiah’s skin. His right foot was immersed in a bucket, and his gaze roamed around the room as if he didn’t know where he was.

  “Can I help?” Although she wanted to ask how Jeremiah was, Sabrina knew better than to ask inane questions of her friend.

  “Get some more well water and bathe his forehead. He’s starting to run a fever and I don’t know why.” Clara didn’t mince words.

  Sabrina made quick work of helping out, having a rag on Jeremiah’s forehead within minutes. He relaxed as soon as the cool cloth touched his skin. She glanced at Clara.

  “What happened to him?”

  “Your Mr. Brody told me lumber fell on Jeremiah’s foot so he wrapped it up tight and brought him into town. It’s swollen like a melon, but lucky for him, the bandage kept it safe while they bounced their way into town on that old wagon of Sam’s.” Clara tsked loudly. “I told him he needed to replace the wheels on that thing
months ago. I also told him Jeremiah was too small to be delivering wood on his own.”

  Sabrina had heard Clara’s litany before but once she built up a head of steam, it was best to let her blow it all off. As she continued, Sabrina glanced out the window and saw Cade slowing down in front of Clara’s. She wrestled with herself as to whether or not to go outside and talk to him since there was no reason to.

  None of it mattered though because Sabrina found herself on her feet and murmuring to Clara that she’d be right back.

  Once she stepped outside and he spotted her, Sabrina felt like an impulsive fool. The expression on his face told her everything she needed to know about Cade Brody’s feelings for her. However, someone had raised him to be a gentleman, because he pulled the horse to a stop.

  “Mr. Brody.” Sabrina clasped her hands in front of her, the palms still damp from putting the cloth on Jeremiah’s forehead.

  “Mrs. Edmonds.” He touched the brim of his black hat.

  “Clara told me what happened. I just wanted to say thank you for helping Jeremiah.” She sounded rushed and a bit out of breath.

  He stared at her hard until she started to feel uncomfortable. “I believe you mean that.”

  Sabrina frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “Not everyone in Eustace is glad to see me or thank me for helping the boy.” He flexed his hand on the saddle horn. “Especially the boy’s pa.”

  “Hiram? What did Hiram do?” She knew the man to be a bit of a blowhard, but he had no reason to be unfriendly to Cade, particularly if he’d helped Jeremiah.

  “Tried to show me how hard his fists were.” Cade’s lips pinched together.