by Debra Cowan
He mounted, touched his forefinger to his hat brim and slowly walked Devil out of the copse. He couldn’t resist sneaking a sideways look at her; she was watching him, her hands propped on her hips and a perplexed look on her face.
Ellie tried not to watch him. His long, lean body moved so gracefully with the horse that she had to admire him. He reached the edge of the campsite, but instead of continuing on to the road, the tall man drew rein and turned his horse back. His face under the worn black hat was shadowed, but when he stepped his mount toward her, for the first time she could see his eyes under the brim.
They were the oddest color, a sort of gray-green, like ferns. But the expression in them was not soft, like ferns; instead he looked at her with a flinty hardness that made her throat close. An inexplicable tingle went all the way up her spine to the back of her neck.
The man was dangerous, and it wasn’t just those steady, unblinking eyes that told her that. His dark hair covered his ears and straggled halfway down his stubbled jaw. The careless, loose-boned way he moved hinted at a coiled strength in his thighs and broad shoulders. His mouth slashed across his chin as if a knife had carved it, and his long, straight nose pointed down at her. He was alert and observant. He reminded her of a predatory hawk.
Ellie moved a step back, but he kept coming. When he was so close she could hear his breathing, he slid one hand into the front pocket of his laced-up canvas shirt, then tossed her the pearl-handled pocketknife she’d returned to him after last night’s supper.
“You’ll need this come suppertime.”
She managed to snag it before it hit the ground, and when she looked up he was already moving off.
“Wait! Your knife—how will I return it?”
“You won’t.” His voice was raspy, as if he didn’t use it much. She guessed he was a solitary man, a lone wolf.
“I could mail it to you,” she called after him.
He shook his head. “Don’t have an address, Miss Stevenson. You keep it. I might be back this way again sometime.” The black gelding moved off into the sunlight.
“Thank you, Mr. Johnson,” she called.
He raised one hand, then vanished through the cottonwoods.
Ellie slipped the knife into her skirt pocket, carefully grasped the horse’s harness, then backed the horse up as she’d seen him do. She lifted the traces into place, surprising herself at how straightforward the maneuver was. She finished hitching up the horse and felt considerably uplifted. Why, she was even getting halfway competent! A satisfied smile tugged at her lips.
All at once she remembered why she was out here in the wilderness. The parents of her students must be worried sick about them. For a moment a prickle of fear poked a hole in her confidence, but she knew she must keep going. She wasn’t half as frightened as she’d been yesterday when she’d started out.
“Children, wake up! It’s time to load up the wagon and drive on to Gillette Springs.”
Matt kept his horse headed parallel to the road, waiting to see if Miss Blue and the wagon made it out of the trees. Sure enough, there she came bursting out of the woodsy camp like a bat out of— Didn’t she know how to slow the horse down?
She didn’t, he realized. First she yanked on the reins, then she flapped them across the mare’s back. Poor damn horse had no clue what she wanted. He studied her attempts until he couldn’t stand what she was putting that animal through.
Spurring hard, he rode back and drew alongside the wagon, then leaned sideways and grabbed the harness. As the mare slowed, he could hear her yelling at him.
“Just what do you think you are doing?” She halfheartedly flapped the reins one final time before the gray jolted to a stop.
Matt eyed her. She was downright beautiful with her cheeks flushed and her blue eyes snapping. Unexpectedly his heart gave a funny lurch. By God, even if she couldn’t drive a horse and wagon more than half a yard, she was one helluva woman.
“All right, Miss Stevenson, you’ve earned yourself a lesson in horse-and-wagon smarts. Get down,” he ordered. He dismounted and lifted her down from the wagon bench. He liked the feel of her waist under his fingers—soft skin and warm flesh. She wore no corset, which sure surprised him. He’d expect a woman as starchy as she was, a schoolteacher from Boston, to be trussed up and laced tighter than an Indian drum.
But she wasn’t laced up at all, and his hands were enjoying that fact. Sure felt good to touch a woman. Been so long he’d almost forgotten. For a moment he couldn’t seem to loosen his fingers and let go of her.
Up close, he could smell her skin and her hair. Something spicy, like lilacs. Again his heart kicked.
Abruptly he released his hold, climbed up onto the wagon bench and patted the seat. She scrambled up beside him, and when she’d primly settled her skirts so no petticoats showed, he lifted the leather reins and placed them in her hands.
“A horse is smart, Miss Stevenson. You ask it to do something and he’ll try his damn—er, darnedest. But your directions have to be two things—clear and consistent. You want a Nervous Nellie, just keep on mixing up your signals.”
Ellie stared at her hands, then at him. She did want to learn how to control the horse, but sure as God made green apple trees, Mr. Johnson was the most unlikely of teachers. Sitting beside him so close her skirt brushed against his jeans-clad thigh, the warmth of his body permeated all the way to her bottom. She’d never been this close to a man before. Especially not a man who smelled of horse and smoke and sweat and whose green eyes sent goose bumps down her arms. She was sure she would not remember a thing he was saying.
“Lift the lines up,” he instructed. She obeyed.
“Mr. Johnson, I am sure you have more important things to do this morning.”
“Yeah, I do,” he said evenly. “Now, give the reins a little flick, like this.” He covered one of her hands with his and demonstrated. A shocking rush of heat pooled in her belly. “Oh!”
“Somethin’ wrong?”
“It’s n-nothing. Um…it looks like it’s going to be hot today, doesn’t it?”
His dark eyebrows drew down until they almost met above his nose. “What?” He glanced up at the sunlight filtering through the tree branches.
“Yeah, probably be hotter than Hades. You’ve got a long way to go, miss. You’ll want to be on your way pretty quick. Might rig up one of your blankets to make a bit of shade for the wagon.”
She spoke without looking at him. “Are you traveling in the same direction?”
“Nope. I’m ridin’ west, to those cliffs back there.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
“Oh.”
Abruptly he turned toward her. “You got a hat to shade your face?”
“No. I— We left in such a hurry—”
He blew out a long breath, yanked the hat off his head, and ran his hand through his dark hair. “Well, lady. Better find one. Otherwise you’re going to fry your nose.”
“But— Oh, dear. I don’t know much about traveling unless it’s in a railway car.”
“From Boston,” he observed drily. “Real taxing, I’d guess.”
“Would you…I mean, could you not accompany us?”
Shading his eyes, he squinted through the branches at the ridge to the west. “Shoulda thought of that before, maybe.”
“Yes, but you see, I had no choice.”
“Seems to me like some idiot sent you off in one helluva hurry.”
“He had no choice either,” Ellie said stiffly. “The town was under attack by Indians.”
She’d had enough of this long-haired, short-spoken, smoky-sweaty-smelling, ungentlemanly man. Was he simply going to abandon them?
He leaned over, laid both reins in her hands and shoved his long legs off the wagon bench. “Good luck, Miss Stevenson. Remember what I said about the hat.”
He remounted his black gelding, tipped his battered Stetson and cantered away through the trees.
Ellie bit her tongue to keep her angry words inside
. Wretch! How could chasing something be more important than protecting five helpless children and a woman alone? Chivalry was certainly dead and buried west of the Mississippi!
Her sleepy students tossed their folded-up blankets into the wagon bed, clambered aboard and waited for her to drive on.
Shade, he’d said. And a hat.
“Miss Stevenson, d’you think my dad is okay? Since Momma died, he’s all alone out at the ranch, and…” Teddy MacAllister’s voice petered out.
“I am quite sure your father would join the people in town, Teddy. He will be safe there.” She needed to be firm and reassuring enough that the other children wouldn’t start wondering the same thing.
Now, to create some shade. Ellie climbed down from the bench, selected a pink-and-white quilt and, with Mr. Johnson’s pocketknife, poked a hole in each corner. Then she punched one of her hairpins through each opening and stuffed the curved end into the crack in the weathered side-rail. A dry three-pronged branch pushed up into the quilt’s center made a crude tent of sorts over the wagon bed.
But, gracious! When she pulled herself back up onto the bench she felt the unpinned bun at her neck loosen and tumble down to her shoulders. There was nothing to do but plait it into a thick braid. While she twisted the strands of hair she pondered the problem of protecting her nose.
Perhaps she could drape one of the blankets over her head and shoulders? But the sun was already scorching. It would be suffocatingly hot under such a heavy wrap.
She lifted the reins, flapped them gently as Mr. Johnson had demonstrated, and the horse moved forward a few steps. At least she had learned to make the animal start and stop; she could figure out something to fashion for a hat as they traveled.
Carefully she maneuvered the mare through a wide opening between two large pine trees and rattled out onto the heat-shimmery road. Far across the plain she spied a lone rider on a dark horse, heading toward the ridge to the west.
What a maddening man! And he was unsettling as well, in ways she didn’t want to think about.
“Miss Stevenson?” came a small voice from under the quilttent she’d fashioned. “What about my baby sister? She’s only six months old, will the Indians capture her?”
Ellie drew in a calming breath and counted to ten so her voice wouldn’t shake. “Edith, I am quite sure your baby sister, and your mother and father, are safe at Mr. Ness’s mercantile.”
Liar! She wasn’t sure of any such thing, but she would die before she would admit it to the children. She wasn’t sure how she would do what she had to do today—get them to Gillette Springs. She wasn’t sure what to do when she got there.
Worst of all, she wasn’t sure why she kept thinking about Matt Johnson’s unnerving green eyes.
Pressing her lips tightly together, she turned the mare onto the road in the opposite direction from the rider on the dark horse.
Chapter Four
Matt started up the slope to the top of the ridge, then drew rein and scanned the road behind him. Yep, there she was, rolling along as if she knew what she was doing. Funny-looking drape over the wagon bed. He narrowed his eyes at the small heads visible under the makeshift tent, then studied Miss Blue.
She hadn’t protected her face from the broiling sun as he had advised her, but at least she’d made that tentlike cover so the children wouldn’t fry. She was a sensible woman at heart, even if she was from Boston.
He turned back to the trail leading up the mountain slope and shot a final glance back to the road. Aw, hell, she was going to burn those pretty cream-and-rose cheeks into a shriveled mask.
Why should you care?
He didn’t care, exactly. She was obviously a misfit out here in the West, but he did admire that she had an education and could teach school. Reminded him of his mother. Most of the kids in Coleman County had learned their ABCs from Verlina Johnson.
He urged Devil on up the rise, but he couldn’t get Miss Blue out of his mind. Spunky woman, taking care of five kids without enough smarts to bring along a pocketknife. Maybe she was a mite crazy, as well. After a day in the direct sun, she’d have a walloping headache.
The trail got steeper, and when he reached the top of the ridge he pulled up. For the next hour he rode in widening circles, trying to pick up Royce’s trail. Tracks were maybe fifteen hours old and hard to see, but when he found an upturned rock beside a crushed patch of bunchgrass, he reined in and smiled. For here on it would just be a matter of time.
He followed the faint trail Royce had left until it abruptly veered north. He pulled Devil up short.
North? Wasn’t that where Miss Blue was headed, north to Gillette Springs? Dammit, that meant the man he was tracking was on a collision course with that pretty schoolteacher from Boston. He spurred Devil hard. He couldn’t let that murdering bastard Royce get anywhere near Miss Blue and her students.
The burning sun overhead was blinding. Ellie kept her eyes narrowed against the merciless glare, feeling the parched skin of her cheeks and her nose begin to sear. The back of her neck felt like one of her mother’s boiled lobsters and her hands—oh, Lord. The palms were still white, but the backs were sunburned and painful. Perspiration gathered between her breasts. In another hour she’d smell as sweaty as Mr. Johnson.
She clenched her fists tightly around the leather reins. She disliked that man! He bullied her just as Mama had. But at the moment, she’d give anything to see him again.
Squinting ahead, she saw something that sent her stomach hurtling straight to her toes. A line of brown dust streaked at an angle toward the road before her, drawing closer and closer to a point a mile or so away where the two paths would cross. Every bone in her body wanted to turn around and head in the opposite direction. She hauled on the reins.
Five outraged voices screeched, jolted awake by the rattling wagon. The children climbed out from under the makeshift tent and sat blinking against the harsh sunlight.
Ellie shielded her eyes and waited. When the dust thinned out some, she caught her breath. A tall man on a black horse was moving toward her.
Inside her sweat-damp shirtwaist her heart hammered against her rib cage. What now?
Matt positioned his horse dead center in the road and waited for Miss Blue to slow the wagon to a stop. Then he stepped Devil forward and tipped his hat. “Good morning, again, Miss Stevenson.” He nodded at the five curious faces lined up along the side rail, then returned his gaze to the young woman staring at him from the bench.
“Good morning.” She sounded hot and tired and cross.
“Good thinking to rig up a quilt for a tent,” he remarked casually. “None of the kids look sunburned.”
“Thank you,” she said stiffly. “God gave us brains. Surely one should use them.”
Uh-oh. She was beginning to sound not only hot and tired but preachy, as well. “Should have used yours a bit more, miss. Your nose looks like a fire-grilled sausage.”
“Oh!” Frowning, Ellie covered it with one hand. Heat rose under her fingers. Her skin! Her skin would be ruined. Mama would lecture…
No, she would not! Mama, mercifully, was in Boston. Instead she had Mr. Johnson shaking his finger at her.
“Climb down,” he ordered.
“What for?”
He pressed his lips together. “You want to save your nose or not?”
She was off the bench in a flash, looking as though she was about to spit nails.
Matt dismounted. “Got any water?”
“Of course we have water,” she snapped. “I saved all the tinned-food cans and filled them before we left.”
“Get some.”
Her hands—sunburned, he noted—again propped themselves on her shapely hips. “Yes, sir!” She saluted smartly, did a perfect military about-face and stomped to the wagonbed. “Teddy, give me your can of water, please.”
The MacAllister boy grinned and handed over a peach can half-full of water. Miss Blue ignored the pop-eyed faces of her students and pivoted toward Matt.
“Water,” she muttered.
Matt lifted the can out of her hands, walked three paces off the road, kicked together a small pile of dirt and dumped the water on it.
She sent him an outraged look. “Why did you do that? Water is precious!”
“Come over here.”
She took a single step and stopped. “What for?”
Matt knelt to stir the slurry with his forefinger. “Full of questions, aren’t you? Come on over here.” He sounded more brusque than he had intended, but she picked up her pace and in the next instant she stood beside him. A scent rose from her petticoats—soap and some kind of flowery smell. Bath powder? The thought of dusting anything over her naked body made him grow hard.
Dammit. Good thing he was kneeling.
“Bend down,” he ordered. “And don’t ask what for, just do it.”
“Well!” she huffed. But she bent at the knees, dropped to the ground and settled back on her heels. “Now what?” Her tone was chilly, to say the least.
With one hand Matt grabbed the back of her neck and ducked her head toward him. With the other he slathered a handful of the mud he’d made across her forehead and cheeks.
She let out a screech. He’d known she’d do that, and before she could leap away he grabbed her hands and smeared more mud over the already sun-reddened backs and up one arm as far as her elbow.
“Should have kept your sleeves rolled down, Miss Stevenson.”
“It was too hot! I also unbuttoned my—” She clamped her jaw shut.
Matt jerked his attention to the front of her blue shirtwaist. Sure enough, a line of undone buttons marched down her chest, revealing flushed bare skin all the way to where her breasts began to swell. Whoa, Nellie! If he had his druthers, he’d smear some of this mud all the way down to her nipples!
Slowly.
