"Follow those tracks, Eden. They'll tell you all you need to know about the true nature of living."
Without a word Eden signaled for Baby to heel and began following the deer tracks, knowing what she would find. The mama cougar was alive, which meant that other life must die to sustain the cat's own life. It had always been that way. It always would be. Life fed. It was the very thing that distinguished life from death.
The deer tracks ended in a turmoil of snow and muddy earth. Cougar tracks led away. The cat had been walking easily despite the limp burden of the deer clenched in its jaws and the hooved feet dragging across the snow.
"A quick, clean kill," Eden said calmly, reading the tracks. "There's nothing surprising in that. Cougars are among the most efficient predators on earth. All you have to do is watch them move and you know that they're supremely adapted for the hunt and the kill."
She waited, but Nevada said nothing. Taking a deep breath, she turned and confronted the warrior she loved.
"In moose country," she continued, "a cougar will routinely stalk and kill moose that weigh five or even eight times as much as the cat does. Sometimes the moose wins and the cougar is injured. Cats are very tough. It takes them a long time and a horrifying amount of pain before they finally die. When it comes to death, nature is much more cruel to predators than predators are to their own prey."
Nevada simply watched Eden with bleak eyes, saying nothing.
"And man is the only predator who can see into the future," Eden continued in a soft, relentless voice. "Man knows that he, too, will die. That's the crucial difference between us and cougars. Yet, even knowing that we'll die, mankind is capable of creating as well as destroying, of loving as well as hating, of true living as well as sheer animal survival. Violent death is only a part of human reality, and not even the most important part at that."
"And I suppose that love is?" he asked sardonically.
"Yes." Without realizing it, Eden raised her hand to the open collar of her jacket. She touched her throat, reassured by the familiar presence of Aurora's ring. "Love is never wasted," Eden whispered. "Never. But it can hurt like nothing else on earth."
Nevada watched Eden with narrowed eyes, wanting to argue with her, to shake her from her foolish belief in love; yet the words died unspoken, for Eden's pain was very real and not foolish at all.
Saying nothing more, Eden turned away from Nevada, lifted the binoculars, and searched the landscape until she found the place where the cougar had dragged the deer. She examined the remains of the cougar's meal with the eyes of a wildlife biologist rather than those of a woman who loved deer as well as cougars. Usually cats ate their fill, raked debris over the remains and walked off to nap nearby, returning to feed until the carcass was consumed or the remains disturbed by other predators. A careful survey with the glasses allowed Eden to pick up the cougar's tracks without coming close enough to alert the wary animal when it returned to feed.
"Baby. Heel."
The big wolf came to Eden's side instantly, eyes alert, his whole being intent upon the woman who had rescued him from an agonizing steel trap despite his own best attempts to savage the very hands that were helping him. Gently, firmly, Eden's fingers wrapped around Baby's muzzle in a command for silence. The change that went over the wolf was indescribable. It was as though he had been standing in shadow and then stepped out into the sun. Past experience told Baby that the command to be quiet meant that the object of the hunt was probably close by, and the wolf was a predator from the tip of his erect ears down to the black pads of his feet. Walking as though on springs, Baby followed Eden in a wide semicircle around the deer carcass. When he came across the fresh cat tracks, he bristled but made not one sound.
For a mile they followed the tracks. Nevada followed Eden as silently as the wolf did. The cougar's tracks led up a long, shallow rise where trees offered only sparse cover, if any at all. Where the snow had melted through, a distinct green blush covered the ground. Despite the intermittent snow squalls, spring wasn't going to be denied.
Partway up the slope it became obvious that if the cougar – or the cougar's den – was on the far side, Nevada and Eden would be spotted as soon as their heads cleared the rise. Eden didn't want to panic the cat, perhaps sending it on a search for a new den for its cubs. All she wanted to do was find the cougar's tracks and follow them to the den, where she could watch the cat from a distance so as not to disturb the animal.
Frowning, Eden tested wind direction with a wet fingertip. She tested again and shrugged. The wind was weak, but unpredictable. Thankfully, scent wasn't nearly the problem it would have been if she had been tracking wolves. Cougars depended on their eyes and ears rather than their noses.
Eden stopped, looked at the gentle slope rising ahead of her, and sighed. It would be a cold, wet and sometimes muddy crawl, but there was no help for it if she hoped to get to the top without giving away her presence. She slipped out of her backpack, but before she set it aside, Nevada went past her like a black wraith. He had removed his hat and backpack but had kept his rifle.
Crouching, taking advantage of every scrap of cover, crawling on hands and knees and finally on his stomach, Nevada went up the slope with a speed and silence that sent a shiver over Eden. He moved like a cougar – confident, soundless, graceful, and potentially deadly.
Let me tell you what the real world is like, fairy-tale girl… you walk through a narrow mountain pass in single file with five handpicked men and arrive at your destination and look around and you're alone, nothing on the back trail but blood and silence.
Nevada eased up behind the cover of a bush, slowly pulled his binoculars out of his jacket, and began quartering the slope below. The cougar's tracks continued, zigzagging across a boulder field where ancient trees had fallen like jackstraws. The tracks vanished. They didn't reappear anywhere on the new snow beyond.
Patiently Nevada scanned the boulders, looking for several big stones canted together to create a sheltered hollow, or for an uprooted tree, or for any irregularity in the land that would provide a den for a mama cougar and her cubs. Finally he spotted a collection of boulders with an opening at their base where a tree had blown down and created a small cave between the uprooted tree and the rocks. In the darkness of the hollow lay a long, tawny shadow.
Nevada focused the glasses and found himself looking at the white muzzle, wheat-colored cheeks and sleek black facial markings of an adult female cougar. There was no doubt about the cat's sex, for she was lying on her side while three spotted cubs nursed enthusiastically.
Slowly Nevada put down the glasses and looked until he spotted the den once more. He memorized landmarks, cover, approaches, and the general lie of the land with the thoroughness of a man whose life had depended on knowing just such information in the past. When he was satisfied that he could find the den again, he retreated down the slope as swiftly and silently as he had gone up it.
Eden waited for him at the bottom, a silent question in her eyes. He nodded and slid his hand up along her cheek, holding her while he bent down until he could speak directly against her ear. Although there was little chance of the cat's hearing them, Nevada knew that voices carried an astonishing distance in the snowy silence.
"She's denned up about two hundred feet beyond the far side of the rise," he said softly. "She has three cubs."
A shiver coursed through Eden's body, but it came from the touch of Nevada's hand rather than from the news about the mama cougar.
"Did she sense you?" Eden asked, her voice low and soft.
"No." Nevada lowered his hand. "She's still sleeping off her meal. I doubt that she'll be out and about before sunset. Maybe not even then."
"Do you have a clear field of view from the ridge?"
"Pretty good. It would be even better from there," he said, pointing to a spot farther along the crest, "but that's the way she went from her kill to the den. I didn't figure you wanted to leave tracks there."
"Not until she's finis
hed with the deer," Eden agreed.
Eden tried to think about possible hiding places, places to build a blind for observation, places where the cougar wouldn't be likely to find them and become alarmed; but all she could think about at that instant was how close Nevada was, and how much closer he had been seven days ago.
Motionless, Nevada watched Eden's changing hazel eyes and the delicate pressure of her teeth against her lower lip and the fiddling of her fingers over his jacket hem while she thought about other things. If she had been aware of her actions, Nevada would have been angry. But he knew she wasn't aware of what she was doing. Unfortunately, that knowledge did nothing to counter the sudden hard rush of his blood when her hand brushed against his jeans. He captured her fingers and placed them on his beard.
"If you have to pet me while you think, keep it above the waist."
Eden flushed. "I didn't mean-"
"I know," Nevada interrupted tightly. "You weren't thinking about what you were doing. But I was. I like being petted by you. I like it way too much. The ground is cold and hard and wet, but I wouldn't care, and after a few minutes you wouldn't, either. The mama cougar might get kind of curious, though. You make such wild sounds when I'm buried in you."
Eden's color deepened to scarlet.
"Don't," Nevada said in a husky voice, knowing he shouldn't speak but unable to help himself. "I like hearing you, feeling you, smelling you, tasting you. I liked it too damn much. You were a virgin, but you took all of me and shivered with pleasure…" He let breath rush out between his teeth in a hissing curse. "I came up here for cougars, not sex. So get on up that slope and watch your mama cat, fairy-tale girl. I'll circle around and reconnoiter the far side."
Nevada turned and walked off, heading away from the rise, moving with the easy, powerful stride that was as much a part of him as his pale green eyes. Eden watched him for a full minute before she took a ragged breath, turned around and went up the rise, following the tracks Nevada had made.
I came up here for cougars, not sex.
The words hurt, but he had no more meant to hurt her than she had meant for her absentminded fidgeting to arouse him.
You wouldn't have gotten sex from me, Nevada Blackthorn. You never have. You never will. What I gave you was love, not sex, and somewhere deep inside your stubborn warrior soul you know it.
Don't you?
There was no answer but the one implicit in the nickname Nevada had given to her.
Fairy-tale girl.
11
Swearing under his breath, Nevada lay beneath a sky so black no stars could be seen and listened to the thunder rumbling and churning overhead. He had eaten meals with Eden since he had returned to Wildfire Canyon, but he had slept outside the cabin – much to Baby's delight. Tonight, however, the wolf had shown the innate good sense of a wild animal; at the first cannonade of thunder, Baby had gone to scratch at the cabin door. Curling up to sleep on a few feet of comfortable snow was one thing. Sleeping beneath a barrage of hail mixed with slush was quite another. A wolf had no compunctions about grabbing whatever shelter was available.
Grimly Nevada wished that spring would just settle down and get the job done rather than teetering from snowstorm to chinook and back again, turning sky and ground into a battlefield that was spectacular when viewed from a snug shelter, and a real pain in the butt otherwise.
Quit whining, Nevada told himself as hail hammered down, breaching the uncertain shelter beneath the evergreen where he had dragged his sleeping bag when the storm first had awakened him. You've been a lot more uncomfortable and survived just fine.
Yeah, but I wasn't lying thirty feet from Eden, watching her shadow move across curtains while she took her nightly bath, watching her and imagining… too damn much.
That was hours ago. She's asleep by now. You should be, too.
Nevada rolled over, scrunched down in the sleeping bag and pulled the waterproof tarp over his head. He tried to ignore the icy fingers of slush that found every possible entrance into his sleeping bag. It was difficult. Each time he thought he had defended every bit of exposed territory, the storm discovered another opening. Sleep was impossible.
So was controlling a mind that was as unruly as the storm. Nevada found himself wondering if Eden had stood outside the cabin after dinner and watched his own shadow on the curtains while he had his turn with soap and washrag. Then he wondered if the storm made Eden nervous. If it did, maybe she would like something more interesting than a wolf to keep her hands busy.
Lightning shattered the night into a billion brilliant shards. Thunder followed like a falling mountain, flattening everything in its path. Overhead, Nevada's meager shelter tossed and moaned while evergreen branches shed hail, slush and ice water over him in endless, unpredictable streams. The tarp turned aside some of the storm, but not nearly enough.
What would you call a commando who slept in ice water when there was a warm, safe shelter nearby? Nevada asked himself tauntingly.
A bloody damned fool.
Then I guess you're a bloody damned fool, aren't you? Or are you afraid Eden will creep up on you and ravish you while you sleep?
More likely she'll cut my throat. Since I told her I didn't come up here for sex, she's done everything but climb trees to avoid touching me.
And you're grateful for that, right?
Yeah, right. I'm grateful as all hell on fire.
Nevada wished he could lie to himself convincingly, but that kind of lying wasn't a survival trait, and if Nevada was good at anything, it was surviving.
Sure you are, mocked the voice inside his head. That's why you're lying out here slowly turning into a Popsicle. Some survivor. You don't even have enough sense to come in out of the rain.
Branches bent in a gust of wind that lifted a corner of the tarp just in time to let ice water gush over the back of Nevada's undefended neck. With a savage word he shot to his feet, grabbed the tarp and the damp sleeping bag, and stalked up to the cabin.
The door opened before he could raise his fist to knock.
"There's a towel by the fire," Eden said, turning away from Nevada even as she spoke.
With eyes that reflected the leap of flames he watched her retreat. He knew she was making no effort to be sexy yet the motion of her hips beneath the clinging scarlet of her ski underwear was so feminine that it loosened his knees.
Lightning bleached the interior of the cabin in the instant before Nevada closed the door. Baby lay sleeping soundly in the coldest part of the cabin. The wolf didn't even lift his head at Nevada's entrance.
"Go back to sleep," Nevada said, watching Eden retreat.
If Eden said anything in response, it was lost in a crash of thunder. Nevada watched from the corner of his eye as she slid gracefully into the soft folds of her bedding. He peeled off his black T-shirt and grabbed the towel. The terry cloth was warm against his chilled skin. The knowledge that Eden had deliberately heated the towel by the fire in case he came in out of the storm made the brush of the cloth even more pleasurable on his skin. The thought of having Eden's sweet, warm hands on his body instead of the towel made blood rush heavily. His hands clenched on the towel as he fought his response to Eden.
Stop thinking about it.
Right. And while I'm at it, I'll stop breathing, too.
Nevada's hands went to the buttons of his cold, damp jeans. He hesitated, remembering that he had nothing on but clammy denim, then shrugged and resumed undressing. He doubted that Eden was watching him. Even if she was, she had seen him dead naked once before and hadn't fainted at the sight.
A memory exploded in Nevada with a force so great it nearly sent him to his knees – Eden warm across his thighs, touching him intimately, cherishing his hunger, tasting him, whispering of life itself.
Savagely Nevada whipped off his damp jeans, wadded them up and fired them across the cabin. The soft thump of cloth against wood couldn't conceal the sound of the sudden rush of air through Eden's lips when she saw his profile out
lined by firelight and knew beyond doubt the hunger raging in him.
"Nevada…" Her husky whisper shivered like firelight in the silence.
Slowly Nevada turned toward Eden. Fighting himself every second, losing every second, Nevada began walking over the cold wooden floor, pulled against his will one slow step at a time until at last he stood by the edge of Eden's mattress, breathing deeply, trying to stop the fine trembling of his hands. He could not. As though driven by a whip, he closed his eyes and sank to his knees. His hands became fists on the powerful, clenched muscles of his thighs.
A moment later Nevada sensed movement, heard the small sounds of cloth rubbing over cloth as the bedding shifted, and then felt Eden's breath rush warmly over his fists. Light kisses touched his hands, gentling him even as the caresses seared him to the bone. With a ragged sound of pain and pleasure he unclenched his fingers and reached for Eden.
As she came to her knees before him, he eased his fingers deeply into the fragrant silk of her hair, tipped her face up to his hungry lips and locked their mouths in a searing kiss. It wasn't enough. No matter how wild, how sweet, how deep, he couldn't get close enough to her with just a kiss. He couldn't touch her completely. He couldn't bathe in her fire.
"Eden," Nevada said hoarsely, tightening his hands in her hair. "Eden… let me…"
"Yes," she whispered, not even waiting to find out what he was asking of her.
A shudder rippled through Nevada. His eyes opened. They smoldered with reflected flames as he looked at Eden kneeling in front of him, watching him, wanting him.
"Lift your arms, fairy-tale girl," Nevada said huskily.
As Eden raised her arms, the graceful motion reminded Nevada of the shadows he had seen on the curtains as she bathed. His hands slid from her hair down to the hem of her soft ski top, and then beneath. Watching her at every instant, he slowly eased the scarlet top up her body until the cloth was at her elbows and her breasts were completely bare. Abandoning the cloth still tangled around her elbows, he stroked her upper arms and shoulders, caressing the sensitive skin of her inner arm.
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