by Pam Crooks
“They the best you can do?” he asked.
She ignored his frown and tugged them on, one after the other. The thin, supple leather conformed to the shape of her fingers, and once in place, she pulled the chinchilla-trimmed edges over her coat sleeves.
“They’re all I have,” she said.
She refused to apologize. How was she to know she’d be whisked off a train and thrown into numbing cold? She’d fallen in love with the gloves in Paris last year. They were the epitome of high-fashion and matched the chinchilla muff she’d left behind in Minneapolis, since she fled the city so quickly and hadn’t thought to bring it. The muff would’ve been far warmer. So would her thick woolen mittens, lying neatly in her dresser drawer back in her bedroom at this very moment.
She blinked against a rush of disappointment. Of pathetic and unadulterated longing.
Well, what did it matter? Mikolas was right. The kid leather would fare poorly against the Montana weather, but they were better than nothing.
“You got a hat?” he asked next.
She held out her arms, palms up, and glared at him. What did he think she had? A whole ‘nother trunk of clothing hidden under her coat? And now that he’d asked, her ears began to burn. A breeze she hadn’t realized blew stirred against her hair, chilling her all the more.
“Does it look like I have a hat?” she retorted.
She’d left that behind, too, thanks to him. On the train. Margaret would likely have found it by now, and would the woman even appreciate a more fashionable piece of millinery? A French creation of velvet and chinchilla and black ostrich tips?
“Wear this, then. You’re going to need it.” He tugged at the scarf wound around his neck. “It’s long, so tie it around your head first.”
He held out the scarf, knitted of thick black wool. Another time, she would have refused his offer. A warmer time. And under these deplorable circumstances, she should have.
But she didn’t.
She couldn’t.
Knowing her weakness and hating it, she took the muffler and laid the wool over her head and around her neck, as he’d done, then tucked the ends inside her coat’s collar.
Immediate comfort soaked into her. Blissful warmth. His body heat and scent, too. Leather and tobacco. All of them together... and not unpleasing.
Disturbing and ridiculously confusing more.
His dark head moved in a quick nod of satisfaction.
“All right,” he said, still holding the reins. “Let’s go.”
She refused to meet his gaze. Refused to let him know how grateful she was that he’d shared his scarf when he could just have easily kept it for himself and let her freeze.
She turned and climbed into the saddle, freeing her foot from the stirrup so he could swing up behind her.
He settled in. Once again, his big body shielded hers from the cold. He spurred the palomino into an easy canter, and Allethaire set her sights on what lay ahead, taking a small measure of assurance that, if nothing else, whatever happened when they reached their destination, Mikolas wasn’t going to hurt her along the way.
Chapter Five
The edges of a piece of paper tacked to the cabin’s front door fluttered in the wind. Even before reading the note, Mick had a pretty good idea what it said.
Snow had begun to fall. Just a scattering of flakes, not enough to cover the ground, but soon, they’d thicken and heap. He had plenty to do until that happened. Because once it did, they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Things had taken a turn, for sure. That turn wasn’t necessarily a good one, but then, that depended on Allethaire. He didn’t know what he was going to do with her while they rode out the storm together, just the two of them cooped up in the cabin. For hours on end.
He suppressed a sigh. Who knew when he rolled out from beneath his blankets before dawn that his morning would end up like this?
Allethaire Gibson, back in his life.
Yeah, things had taken a turn, but at least, some of the fight had gone out of her. She hadn’t spoken during their ride, and neither had he. Safer that way. Easier, too.
But it didn’t mean his thoughts hadn’t gone all haywire over her in the meantime. Her body in front of his, mostly, while they shared his horse. Might be he’d gone too long without a woman, but she felt good sitting so close, letting him learn her shape, soak in her warmth. In that, the cold worked in his favor.
She looked small, huddled in her coat like she was. But she looked more relaxed, too. Like she trusted him to get her where they needed to go. Or maybe she’d just accepted the fact that with things being the way they were, he had to. Mick conceded she brought out a protective streak in him as wide as the Montana sky. And that got him to wondering how this whole thing was going to end.
He figured whichever way it happened, she had more at stake than he did. She stood to lose the most. Which meant she fired up a need in him to keep her from getting hurt, as best as he could.
“Where is everyone?” Allethaire asked.
His thoughts scattered with the stark reminder of how he’d been sitting here, ruminating in front of the cabin like a preoccupied idiot, with neither of them getting any warmer in the falling snow.
“Looks like they headed out.”
The place was deserted, all right. The corral, too, and no light shown through the cabin’s window. But thin wisps of smoke curled from the chimney, impetus for Mick to dismount.
“But you said--”
“I know what I said.”
That some of the outfit would be waiting for him, and he headed toward that piece of paper, the reason why they weren’t.
But in mid-stride, only a few feet from the door, a thought occurred to him, and his heart jumped to his throat. He swore. And swung back around toward his horse.
Allethaire’s eyes widened in surprise. “What’s the matter?”
She could have high-tailed it out of here the minute Mick’s boots hit the ground. She could have tore off without him, leaving him stranded, with no means of going after her.
But she didn’t.
She hadn’t moved.
Hell, the idea had never even occurred to her.
A gully-washer of relief poured through him, weakening his knees. Leaving him feeling stupid for thinking she would.
“Nothing. I just--” He cleared his throat. “Nothing.”
Before he made even more of a fool of himself, he pivoted toward the door and ripped the paper off its nail.
Headed back to the ranch. See you there.
Jack and Crew
Jack Hollister, one of the cowboys on the WCC, would know to leave with the rest of the fencing crew before the snow hit. He’d know, too, that Mick would’ve done the same thing and would be headed home, soon after his arrival at camp.
But he wouldn’t know about Allethaire.
Might be he’d put two and two together once the news reached the ranch, but that could take a few days, depending on the snow’s severity. And who knew where things would stand by then?
“What does it say?”
Allethaire’s tone held a mix of curiosity and impatience. He turned back to her.
“The outfit took off for home,” he said. “They didn’t want to get snowed in out here.”
She went still, absorbing the news. “But we will be.”
“Yep.” He strode toward her.
“Just the two of us?”
He heard her horror. “You got it figured right.” He halted in front of her and clasped his mount’s bridle. Firmly. “Get down.”
“If we keep riding, we could make it to the ranch, too.”
“The hell we could.”
She had no concept of the distance. Snowflakes had already begun to gather on the top of her head, sprinkling his black scarf with flecks of white. Her cheeks and nose had turned rosy, her eyes bright, and he knew she had to be as cold as he was. Colder, most likely, since he, at least, wore a full set of fleece-lined underwear beneath his cl
othes.
“There’s coffee inside, Allethaire.” He gentled his voice to coax her. “Won’t take me long to build up the fire, either.”
Her teeth worried her lower lip, but finally she nodded and slipped her foot into the stirrup to dismount. Yet her soft groan warned him of the stiffness that gripped her limbs, her inability to move as easily as she thought, and his arms lifted to catch her when she all but fell out of the saddle.
He stumbled back a step beneath her weight, but his embrace held her fast against him. For a moment, she didn’t move. Didn’t make a sound. As if she needed some time, just a little time, to absorb his warmth.
Her face pressed into his coat. She stood with her shoulders hunched and her arms folded together. She shivered.
“I’m sorry.” Her words sounded breathless. Oddly intimate. “I’m... purely... frozen.”
The admission cut through him. He blamed himself but staying on the train hadn’t been an option for either of them.
“Let’s get you into the cabin,” he said.
He eased her away and would’ve kept his arm around her shoulders, just to make sure she didn’t fall, but she took an awkward step back.
“Mikolas, if you so much as--I swear I’ll--”
“You want to stand out here and keep threatening me, Allethaire?” Impatience sharpened his tone. “Fine. I’ll stand out here, too, for as long as it takes for you to get it through that stubborn head of yours that I’m not going to hurt you.”
Her chin kicked up.
“Because if I was going to, I would’ve done it by now,” he continued before she could snap back a response. “And I sure wouldn’t have brought you all the way out here to hurt you, because it’s going to snow, and I could’ve gotten myself home a hell of a lot faster if I just would’ve hurt you sooner and gotten it over with.”
Her mouth opened.
Then closed.
She sniffed and swung away from him in a huff, swirling her skirt hems. She strode toward the cabin. At the door, she waited with her shoulders and back stiff until Mick decided she intended to cooperate. Finally, he strode to the cabin, too, reached around her and opened the door.
She went inside, not looking to see if he followed. Which he did and firmly latched the door behind them, shutting out the wind and cold and affording them blessed respite.
Silence hovered in the small quarters. Jack and the rest of the fencing crew had left the place stocked and clean. WCC rules, and something Mick and Trey strictly enforced as a courtesy for the next group of cowboys riding in.
Times like these, for Allethaire’s sake, Mick was glad for the courtesy. His glance found the fireplace; the fire had been banked, but not long ago, and embers still glowed hot. With plenty of wood stacked and ready to burn, he removed his gloves and made quick work of building the fire up again. Soon, flames roared in the block.
He straightened and found Allethaire watching him.
“You’re all but unaffected by this, aren’t you?” she asked.
“By what?”
Strangely, he heard no accusation in her tone. Instead, fatigue. Puzzlement. Curiosity, too.
“This.” Her glance touched on the window, their surroundings, both inside and out. “Everything here.”
“The cold? This camp?” He moved closer.
“Yes.”
The snow had melted on his scarf, still wrapped around her head. The droplets glistened in the firelight.
“You forgot I was born a sheepherder’s son,” he said. Though Sutton Wells had fathered him, Mick would always consider Gabirel Vasco, the man who had loved him and raised him, as his true father. “I grew up herding sheep all year ‘round. I’m used to the cold.”
She made a little sound, clucking her tongue against her teeth. “And I don’t think I shall ever be warm again.”
If she intended her complaint to invoke his sympathy, well, hell, it worked.
She hadn’t moved since she came into the cabin. She kept her arms crossed against her chest, holding in what little of her body’s heat she could catch. Mick knew what it felt like to be so cold, muscles refused to move and skin hurt.
He dared to reach out and rub her arms, from her shoulders down to her elbows and back up again.
“Mikolas, don’t,” she said.
He expected her resistance, and his grasp tightened to keep her from twisting away. “You need to get the blood moving. You’ll feel better when it does.”
“I’ll be fine in a minute.”
Yet, despite her protests, she remained still, keeping her gaze pinned to his coat. Might be she was thinking of how he’d never touched her like this. Freely. Not once and certainly not when they’d been with Woodrow Baldwin.
Her gaze lifted to meet his. He sensed her unease, but she didn’t act on it. In the golden firelight, her eyes shown a shadowy blue beneath lashes long and elegant. With her skin rosy, her cheekbones high and delicately curved, her mouth full and tremulous... she was a beautiful woman, all right.
A thousand nights, he’d thought of her. Worried over what he’d done to her. If she could ever forgive him, and why would she?
It was too much to hope for, her forgiveness. He didn’t deserve any of it, but God knew that didn’t stop him from wanting her. And that want was barreling through him like a locomotive, gathering steam the longer he stood here, touching her. Filling his head with ideas of ways to warm her faster and more pleasurable than the way he was doing it now.
He swallowed down an oath and pulled his hands off her. He had to get out of the cabin, or he’d do something he’d regret later.
“I have chores to do outside,” he muttered. “I’d best do them before the snow gets heavier.”
And with that, he left.
Allethaire’s startled gaze stayed on the closed door. She wasn’t sure what had just happened between them, but there was one thing of which she was certain.
Something had.
The air sizzled with a strange little charge when Mikolas stood so close in front of her, rubbing his hands along her arms. The way he looked down at her, as if he could see into her very soul, those black eyes of his somber and brooding...
Of their own accord, her feet took her toward the window. She searched through the pane and found him, stringing rope between the cabin and a small barn.
That was how she remembered him most. Brooding.
But he was different now, she mused, watching him work. Stronger. More confident. No longer hurt and angry for what Sutton Wells had done. For most of his life, Mikolas had been denied his heritage and the Wells side of his family, but he’d seemed to put all that behind him now. Thanks to Trey and the Wells Cattle Company, his life had taken a new direction.
But Allethaire couldn’t forget he was still an outlaw. An ex-convict. He was still capable of kidnapping. Hadn’t he done that very thing just this morning, at the Manitoba?
Nor could she forget how defenseless she was against him out here in this godforsaken country. With the two of them inside this tiny cabin, no one knowing of their whereabouts, and the night stretching out ahead of them--
She would have to remain on her guard at all times and not turn her back on him for a single instant. Who knew what he would do when he caught her unawares?
An apprehensive tremble went through her, wrought further from an overwhelming sense of confusion and uncertainty. Should she be afraid of Mikolas Vasco?
Or could she trust him?
And what about the troubles she’d left behind in Minneapolis? Or the money that had mysteriously ended up in her trunk? How did Reggie know the envelope would be there? Where had he fled with his gang? Would she ever see him--or the money--again?
Her head pounded with the questions that had no answers, and a familiar craving welled in her blood. A need to forget. To feel nothing.
Allethaire turned from the window with a gallant resolve to ignore the bottle of brandy in her purse. A brown and white speckled cowhide covered the floor in front
of the fireplace. She knelt and removed her gloves, then held her hands toward the flames, enduring the tingly sensation of cold giving way to the heat. It wasn’t long before she warmed enough to take off the black scarf and then her coat.
With the thawing of her bones, she began to feel human again. Wind whistled through the rafters, and she noted how the day had darkened, how snowflakes swirled and thickened. She noted, too, how for the first time since her journey west, she was someplace warm and protected from the elements.
In a twisted sort of way, she had Mikolas to thank for it, she supposed. But being here only delayed the purpose of her trip--meeting with her father to explain the circumstances of her failure with the library project.
Her pulse pounded with dread at the prospect. He’d be furious. Appalled and scandalized. But mostly, he’d be disappointed in his only child, who could no more succeed at an endeavor she attempted than he could not succeed in one he did.
Paris Gibson was just that way. Born with the golden touch. Capable of vision and foresight and endowed with the courage to pursue his dreams, for his own good and that of the rest of the world.
Allethaire was none of those things, it seemed. Not that she hadn’t tried. And despite her attempts at working hard to be just like him, she’d failed.
Miserably.
Blinking fast and furious, she turned toward her coat and rummaged within its folds for her purse, her movements growing quick and desperate until she found what she was looking for. She flung off the cap with one hand, lifted the bottle to her lips with the other, and took a starved swallow of the brandy, then closed her eyes with a faint grimace while the liquor streamed down her throat and into her belly.
She relished the fire. The taste. The way the pain of her thoughts faded, little by little. Numbing her blood. So much so that she gulped another swallow. And then another. Shuddering through them without a care to her weakness, her insufferable addiction...
A slow, jagged sigh of satisfaction escaped her. Her eyes opened, and the bottle sagged down to her lap. She stared into the flames with her brain cured of its torment and emptied of conscious thought... until the sensation of swirling cold jarred her senses.
