Early Dawn

by Catherine Anderson

  He couldn’t possibly tell Eden that. This was his dilemma, and it was up to him to deal with it, even if it meant playing a little five-fingered stud in the bushes every night, a prospect that Matthew found unappealing. What he needed was a willing woman, preferably one of ill repute, who’d be happy to accommodate him in exchange for a couple of dollars. Unfortunately, there probably wasn’t a saloon within a hundred miles, and even if there had been, he couldn’t leave Eden to fend for herself.

  Matthew chose to ride in a different pattern that day, in a zigzag this time, moving in first one direction and then another. At one point, he came across the Sebastians’ tracks. He judged them to be at least a day old and felt confident that the gang wasn’t still in the area, but seeing the sign still raised the hair on the back of his neck. He chose not to burden Eden with the discovery. She was managing to keep the pace, but he knew it was costing her dearly. They weren’t in any immediate danger, after all, and she had enough on her plate.

  By lunchtime, she looked as if she felt better, much to his relief. Then he heard her humming “Beautiful Dreamer.” At first it didn’t bother him too much, but after a while, he almost lost it and asked her to be quiet. Why that song, and only that song? Pretty soon, the tune had him grinding his teeth, the romantic lyrics drifting through his mind like a witch’s chant. He vowed to play his harmonica again that night, regaling her with every song he knew except that one so she would hum something else tomorrow.

  Feeling irritated and all-over grumpy, Matthew caught himself getting cross with her when they stopped for a break that afternoon. While he was at the creek, watering the horses, he gave himself a stern lecture. It wasn’t Eden’s fault they were in this fix, and it definitely wasn’t her fault that his body had turned traitor. Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me. He was losing his mind; that was it.

  By the time the light started to fade, Matthew’s nerve endings felt as if they’d been rubbed back and forth over a cheese grater. Every time he contemplated sleeping with Eden again, his skin went clammy. What if she felt his erection and panicked? That would put both of them in a fine pickle. He couldn’t let her sleep alone unless he gave her his jacket for extra warmth—and if he gave her his jacket, he’d be the one who stayed awake all night. Her life depended on his keeping his wits about him, and that would be nigh onto impossible if he got no rest.

  Matthew was searching for a suitable place to make camp when Eden suddenly called out for him to stop. He jerked around on the saddle, heart in his throat. As grueling as this ordeal had been for her, she’d never once asked him to stop. His first thought was that she was about to collapse, a fear that had dogged him ever since he’d rescued her.

  She dismounted, using only her right arm to suspend her weight as she swung from the saddle. Then, hugging her side, she walked a few feet from the gelding and crouched to stare at something. Matthew prayed it wasn’t the gang’s tracks she was studying. After the nightmare last night, knowing that they’d been in this area would have her trembling in her boots.

  “What is it?” he called.

  She sent him a glowing smile, her heart shining in her eyes. “Matthew, these are Shakespeare’s prints!”

  Though Matthew had never read any Shakespeare, he believed the man had been dead for over two hundred years. He dismounted and strode toward Eden, fearful that she might be delirious with a fever.

  “Eden, Shakespeare couldn’t have been out here. He’s dead. Are you okay?”

  She dimpled a cheek and shook her head. “Not that Shakespeare. I mean Ace’s stallion. Look. See that notch in the shoe? That’s Ace’s mark.”

  Matthew hunkered down to examine the track. It had definitely been made by a horse with a notched shoe. “Why on earth does Ace mark one shoe?”

  “Shakespeare is his pride and joy, a gorgeous and very expensive black stallion. If he’s ever stolen, Ace will be able to distinguish Shakespeare’s tracks from those of another horse so he can follow the thief.”

  Matthew hated to get her hopes up, only to have them dashed. “What if someone else came up with the same idea?”

  “It’s possible, I suppose, but on the other hand, we haven’t seen a single soul out here. How many riders can be in this area on a horse with a notched shoe? I think my brothers are trying to cut across our tracks and find us.”

  Matthew examined the other hoofprints and started to feel a little hopeful himself. “There were four riders and a couple of pack animals carrying heavy loads,” he said as he walked back to her. “The man riding the horse with a notched shoe is heavier than the other three.”

  “That’s Ace. He’s huge. Well, not fat or anything, but he towers over the others.” She reached up to clutch Matthew’s hand. He automatically reciprocated, wrapping his fingers around her slender ones. “It’s them. I just know it, Matthew. They’re looking for us.”

  Matthew could only hope she was right. Maybe they’d show up before bedtime and take her off his hands. He gazed off into the trees. “They’re old tracks. I’d say they came through here two days ago. God only knows where they are now.”

  Eden drew her hand from his and struggled to her feet. Though her cheeks were pink with excitement, there was still an underlying pallor that worried him. “What matters is that they’re out here. I feel so much better, knowing that.”

  When Matthew found a level place along a stream a bit later, Eden was bubbling over with enthusiasm. “Maybe we could follow their trail, Matthew, and find them instead of waiting for them to find us.”

  He considered that possibility, but decided it was too risky. The eager anticipation in her eyes made him rescind his decision not to tell her about seeing the Sebastians’ tracks that morning. “I don’t think we should do that, Eden.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the gang has been in this area. I saw some sign today. In the morning, we need to ride to hell and gone west and then do another circle.”

  “I see,” she said, her voice ringing with disappointment.

  “We can’t let our guard down. How do we know the Sebastians aren’t heading in the same direction your brothers are? Their tracks looked about a day old, your brothers’ two days old. If we try to follow them, we could run into the gang.”

  Looking crestfallen, Eden gazed off in the direction her brothers had gone, but after a moment, her resilient nature had her smiling again. “I’m still thrilled to know my brothers are somewhere close. They’ll find us soon. Won’t that be wonderful?”

  A strange, twisting ache shot through Matthew’s chest. He gazed solemnly at her lovely face, tracing the delicate slope of her dainty nose, the stubborn thrust of her small chin, the fragile angle of her cheekbones. When her brothers showed up and took her away, he would probably never see her again. He didn’t know why the thought made him feel melancholy, but it did.

  “It sure will be wonderful,” he agreed.

  And he meant it. He was one man against five ruthless killers, and he had to think of Eden’s safety. He believed he could take the Sebastians, but what if he couldn’t? She was too sweet and wonderful to put her life at risk simply because he dreaded telling her good-bye, which made no sense at all. He didn’t want another woman in his life. He had other obligations, and he wouldn’t rest easy until he fulfilled them.

  But—and suddenly it was a big but in Matthew’s mind—he had never met anyone quite like Eden Paxton, and he doubted he ever would again. She was amazing, and that wasn’t saying it by half. He’d seen her keep going when she could barely lift her feet. He’d heard her laugh when her shoulders were slumped with exhaustion. He’d also witnessed her incredible courage and dauntless determination to survive that first night, when the Sebastians had gone after her like dogs after a bone. Somehow, she’d come through that and emerged on the other side—extremely wary and skittish at first, but becoming less so with each passing day.

  She wasn’t just a lady; she was one hell of a lady.

  As a precaution, Matthew decided to k
eep the fire small that night even though he didn’t believe it was necessary. As he laid the few pieces of kindling, he cursed the whole situation, wishing he could build a roaring blaze to keep Eden warm so he wouldn’t have to sleep with her. Not that it would have worked. He’d thrown a lot of wood on the fire that first evening, and she’d still shivered and been unable to rest.

  They dined on reheated beans again, which saved Matthew the bother of scrounging up something to eat. He added water to the pot and brought the legumes to a full boil for ten minutes, a trick his mother had taught him to make sure the concoction wasn’t tainted. While it boiled, he mixed up some trail corn bread to complement the meal, but that didn’t take much time, and after they ate, it was still barely dark. He settled by the fire and drew his harmonica from his pocket, determined to get “Beautiful Dreamer” out of Eden’s brain. If she hummed that song again tomorrow, he was going to lose it.

  She studied him across the fire pit as he cupped his hands around the instrument. “Is it safe for you to play tonight, Matthew? What if the sound carries?”

  “In hilly, forested terrain like this, the sound of music and singing won’t carry that far. They’d have to be almost on top of us to hear it, and in that event, we’d be in deep trouble, regardless.”

  Matthew positioned his mouth on the instrument, but before he could push out a single note, she said, “You play beautifully, you know. I can’t believe you said you were rusty.”

  “I play now and again for Smoky and Herman,” he confessed. “The music seems to soothe them.” In truth, it soothed him as well. After days of silence, sometimes he got edgy, and the music eased that away. “I don’t know many songs, though, only a dozen or so.”

  Tonight he began with “Blue Tail Fly.” He expected Eden to sing along, and when she didn’t, he decided maybe she didn’t know the lyrics. He broke off to ask, “Why aren’t you joining in?”

  Her beautiful eyes went shadowy. “Because, to me, it’s a very sad song. I don’t think it ever should have been written.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s about a slave, glad that his master’s gone. On the surface, it’s a happy tune, but when I sing the words, it makes me think about how terrible enslavement was and how awful those poor people’s lives were.”

  Matthew knew the words to the song—had sung them a thousand times—but he’d never thought about them that way. She was right; it was a sad song. So he changed stride and broke into “The Bear Went over the Mountain.” Eden laughed and started to sing, her voice ringing softly in the twilight.

  Next, he started to play a Stephen Foster composition, “My Old Kentucky Home,” and again Eden didn’t sing. Matthew recalled the lyrics and didn’t need to be hit over the head with a hammer. His charge had a tender heart, and she refused to sing songs and enjoy herself if the lyrics were about slavery. He respected that, admired it, in fact, and once again changed course, choosing a lighthearted and safe song, “Camptown Races.” She sang out, clearly enjoying that one. He played it all the way to the end, and then he moved on to “Oh! Susanna,” which was also about a slave, but apparently didn’t offend her sensibilities.

  When the notes from his harmonica fell silent, she gazed expectantly across the fire at him. Matthew tried to think of another song he might play that she would enjoy, but he was fresh out of selections.

  “Play ‘Beautiful Dreamer,’” she suggested. “It’s one of my favorites.”

  When he met her shimmering gaze, he couldn’t deny the request. He breathed experimentally into the harmonica to get his start, and then he began to play. Eden’s gaze clung to his, and she sang the lyrics as if she meant them solely for him. He searched her rapt expression and got the awful feeling that she was flirting with him. Hello, no question about it, she was flirting, innocently and perhaps unconsciously, but her gaze clung to his as if he’d hung the moon. And it occurred to him then that perhaps in Eden’s eyes he actually had, because he’d rescued her. Maybe she thought of him as her knight in shining armor. Wasn’t that a fine how-do-you-do?

  By bedtime, Matthew felt like a treed coon with hounds snapping at his tail. As he spread the bedroll, Eden said, “You know what, Matthew? I’ve been thinking.”

  “Oh, yeah, what about?”

  “It seems to me it’d be a lot easier to share our body heat if we took off our coats and used them as extra blankets.”

  He stared up at her with mounting dismay. She wore no covering over her breasts but a wash-worn shirt, and that was what had gotten him into trouble last night. “I, um, don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why? Your heat and my heat must radiate clear through two jackets the way we’re doing it now.”

  And he wanted to keep it that way. Two layers were good, excellent, in fact. Only he couldn’t think of one plausible reason to nix her idea unless he told her the unvarnished truth. “Haven’t you been staying warm at night?”

  “Yes, but it takes me a while to get there. I’d fall asleep much more quickly if I got warm faster, and we’d both still be fully clothed.”

  Matthew seriously considered leaving camp to bang his forehead against a tree. “Wearing our coats makes sleeping together a little more proper,” he tried.

  “Who’s going to tattle on us, the squirrels?”

  Matthew could remember saying that to her. He wished now that he’d had better sense. Looking into her guileless blue eyes, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that being near her had become a problem for him. It would frighten her, and right now, he was the only person she could count on.

  “All right,” he heard himself say. “Why not?”

  It turned out that Eden was right. Without the jackets, it was much easier for them to share their body heat. In fact, her method was so much more efficient that Matthew felt on fire everywhere they touched. When he curled his arm around her to spread his hand over her midriff, her unfettered breasts lay against his wrist and thumb, so temptingly soft that he feared he’d cup one of them in his palm after he fell asleep.

  As boys, he and his brothers had christened their peckers. Matthew couldn’t remember now what his siblings had called theirs, but he’d named his Old Glory. Why, he had no idea. He only knew that Old Glory was already harder than a rock, and before the night was over, he’d be back in the creek. Pneumonia lay on his horizon.

  “Ah,” Eden murmured, “this is lovely.”

  Matthew bit down so hard on his back teeth that he nearly broke a molar.

  “I’m much warmer tonight than I’ve ever been before,” she informed him. “Let the squirrels tattle all they like.”

  He smiled in spite of himself. Bless her heart, she had no idea how perilous this was, and he was endeavoring to keep it that way by maintaining some distance between her plump posterior and his groin. She wouldn’t be quite so happy if Old Glory poked her in the butt.

  “At home, I use a hot rock to stay warm on chilly nights,” she murmured.

  He had a hot rock that he’d be happy to share with her.

  “Mama heats hers and mine in the oven and wraps them in towels.”

  Matthew wanted his hot rock wrapped in feminine wetness, and the thought almost made him come in his jeans. That damned creek was calling his name, loudly. “Eden, it’s time to go to sleep. No talking tonight, okay?”

  “Okay,” she conceded softly.

  He breathed a sigh of relief.

  “It’s just—”

  When she broke off, he unclenched his teeth again to ask, “It’s just what?”

  “I like snuggling up to you a lot better than I do a rock. You’re longer and make me feel warm from head to toe.”

  Jesus Christ. Was she trying to push him over the edge? Matthew went back to clenching his teeth, wanting her so badly that he was afraid he might start to shake. What would he do then, tell her he was sick? He was glad she’d come to trust him. He’d worked toward that. But he’d never considered how completely treacherous a beautiful, trusting female c
ould be. She wasn’t trying to seduce him. He knew that. But her lush curves were making short work of the task anyway.

  When she wiggled her butt closer to his fly, he rolled over onto his back and lifted the blanket. “I’ve gotta go see a man about a dog.”

  “Oh. Be careful out there. Away from the fire, you might stumble in the dark.”

  The only thing Matthew feared he might trip over was Old Glory. Most men wanted to be hung like a horse. Right then, he would have been happy with a pecker the size of a thimble. As he strode away, he snatched their bathing towel from the rack he had erected, hoping Eden wouldn’t notice. He had a very important meeting with snowmelt.

  This time, Matthew stayed in the icy water so long that he figured chunks of his body could be used to make ice cream in a crank machine. When he was forced to get out of the water by convulsive shuddering, he looked down at his totally out-of-control member and cursed. Old Glory was still at half-mast.

  As he dressed, he shivered like an aspen tree in a high wind. Then he went off into the bushes to play some five-fingered stud, praying to God that Father O’Flannigan, the parish priest in Crystal Falls, had lied when he’d said that such an activity made some men go stone blind.

  Chapter Nine

  Over the next three days, Matthew battled his demons while Eden was apparently conquering hers. She continued to snuggle close to him at night, no longer flinching when he put his arm around her. When he wrapped her ribs, she no longer grew pale and trembled until the task was completed. No more nightmares plagued her, either.

  Conversely, with every step Eden took back toward normalcy, Matthew’s problem worsened. It seemed to him that he spent more time in the creek at night than he did in bed. Playing five-fingered stud in the bushes eased the ache in his loins for only about an hour. Then it was back, and so was the erection. It got so bad that he almost wished Father O’Flannigan’s warning had been true. A blind man wouldn’t notice the tantalizing bounce of Eden’s breasts under a wash-worn shirt or the tempting roundness of her posterior in the borrowed blue jeans. He wouldn’t feel as if he were drowning in her beautiful blue eyes, and her radiant smile wouldn’t make him feel as if he were basking in sunshine.