His hands stilled on her leg. He lifted his head and looked at her as if he'd heard her thought.
"Mr. Devereaux—" she whispered. "I—"
He glanced up, meeting her gaze with those fathomless eyes shot through with firelight. They betrayed—for the briefest of seconds—a hunger she wished she hadn't seen, a hunger she was afraid was in her eyes as well.
He kept her leg balanced between his two hands. "Better?" he asked, his voice low and even.
Dragging her gaze from his, she winced and nodded. "Much. I... thank you. I'm... I'm sorry."
He released her, his expression turning to a scowl. "You should have told me."
She stared at him, confused, dizzy with fatigue, wondering if he was actually reprimanding her for having a cramp. "Told you what?"
"That you were too exhausted to go on today. That I was pushing you too hard."
"I never said—" His pained expression trapped the lie in her throat. She dropped her hands into her lap. "I didn't want to slow you down."
"Le Diable." With a harsh, irritated sigh he turned partially away. "You did well today. Better than I expected you to. Even so, you are slowing me down, but I've no wish to kill you, for God's sake." Then, as if to soften his words, he raised one dark eyebrow and shrugged. "Seth would tack my hide to his storefront if I did."
She laughed. "I'm glad to know at least you've some stake in the matter."
He didn't smile, but held her gaze intently. "It's not just your leg, is it? You can barely move."
Denying it, she sat up straighter, but couldn't help wincing at the soreness of her bottom. "I've stiffened from sitting. I'll be fine with some sleep." She drew her leg in, covering it modestly with her skirts.
"We have a lot of ground to cover tomorrow. Will you be able to ride?"
"Of course," she answered, but the thought of settling her bruised knees and bottom on that torture rack of a saddle again nearly brought on another cramp. "I'll walk if I have to."
He stared at her for a moment, then stood and reached down with one hand. She hesitated only an instant before taking it, clasping her fingers around his.
When he'd hauled her to her feet, he gestured toward her bedroll. "Go to bed before you fall down again, Miss Parsons. Get some rest. Tomorrow will come sooner than you want it to." He gathered up the fallen dishes and cups, then headed toward the rushing sound of the nearby river.
"Mister Devereaux?"
He stopped and turned, his expression hidden by shadows, but she heard him sigh. "Now that I have manhandled your lovely ankle, ma petite," he said, "perhaps you could do me the favor of calling me by my Christian name. It's Creed. Just Creed."
"All right. Creed," she answered, testing it out on her tongue. "I—thank you."
He might have inclined his head in reply there in the shadows, she couldn't be sure. But he turned and disappeared into the darkness without reply.
Stumbling to the bedroll he'd spread out for her, she dropped down in a loose-limbed sprawl, too tired to remove her other boot or fight with the over-tight strings on her corset. Besides, it was too cold to undress. She tugged two heavy blankets over her and lay staring sightlessly at the stars scattered across the inky half-dome above, wrestling with what had just happened between them.
A bounty hunter! Gad! She was having impure thoughts about a bounty hunter! More despicable than that, he was Seth's friend. She groaned and pulled the blanket up around her face between her fists. What did that make her? A wanton? A strumpet? Yes, all those things, but worse was the truth she couldn't deny. No man, not even Seth, had ever stirred that kind of feelings in her before—the kind that made her heart race and plunge, made her whole body heat as if it were too close to a fire, or made her long for things she didn't even understand.
She closed her eyes, watching the flames flicker behind her eyelids, feeling the crisp night air on her face. She forced her thoughts to Seth, dear Seth and his boyish, open face. He waited for her, sick—perhaps—Dear God—dying. Then she remembered her father's strong surgeon's hand reaching for her chubby young one, sheltering, protecting her; and her Grandmother Lottie's constant reminders that life was full of the unexpected and that she should follow the road that truly made her happy.
That's why she'd come to Montana. She'd come to make a home with Seth. He would make her truly happy, wouldn't he? Until this moment, she'd always been sure of that. As sure as she could be.
But as she drifted off to sleep, it was Creed Devereaux she dreamed of, lonely, running with the wolves that bayed in the distance; silver moonlight streaking his mane of hair, he ran among the creatures of the night, seeking his mate.
Chapter 7
The aroma of strong coffee woke him. Or maybe it was the soft groan.
Disoriented, Creed squinted an eye open and shoved his blanket down past his nose. The sky was still pink with dawn. His breath formed a white cloud in the cold morning air, then drifted up into the low pine bough overhead. The fire crackled nearby and a pot of steaming coffee dangled from his collapsible black iron tripod. Creed blinked and raised his head.
"Oooh-h," came the sound again.
Mariah.
His gaze found her. Wrapped in a heavy shawl, she edged up slowly—very slowly—from a kneeling position near her tapestry valise. She rested her hands on her thighs for a moment, massaging the stiffness he knew was there. Straightening, she raised her arms and pulled the pins from her mussed hair. One at a time, she plucked them out until her magnificent auburn mane fell loose and cascaded over her shoulders and breasts.
His lips parted. He'd never seen it down before, but even his imagination hadn't done it justice. Like molten fire, it shimmered in the sunlight, here gold, there burnished, earthy red. The curls went halfway down her back and she ran her fingers through them to get out the worst of the snarls.
His gaze followed her shuffling movements across the camp to the leather bucket. "Ohh-hh," she moaned again as she stooped and broke the layer of ice in the bucket with one end of her hairbrush. She pulled a hanky from her sleeve and dipped it into the water. She wrung it out delicately and ran the cloth over her face and hands. Shivering with a sigh, she wiped her face on the edge of her shawl, then turned in his direction again.
Creed sank back to his bedroll, feigning sleep, but cracked an eye open to watch her. She limped back to stand near the fire, running the brush through her hair in long, sweeping strokes. His gaze roamed over her face; her pert nose, reddened from yesterday's long ride in the sun; her full, wide lips; her slender hands, following the path of the boar's bristle down her hair.
He swallowed, unable to look away. There was something intimate—erotic, in fact—about watching a woman brush her hair. He remembered the first time Desiree Lupone had let him brush her brassy red hair, having caught the look in his eye as he watched her do it. It had become part of their ritual after that when he visited her, a silent gift she gave him, knowing how he enjoyed it.
But Desiree's hair didn't hold a candle to Mariah's. His fingers itched to touch, get lost in the silky, cinnamon waves.
He blinked again. A fragment of a dream came back to him, but it remained on the edge of his memory. Only the telling tightening of his loins warned him that it hadn't been an altogether honorable fantasy. He buried his nose deeper in the blanket.
Had he finally sunk so low that all that was left to him were fantasies about other men's women? Seth's woman.
Damnation.
Four years. Four long years alone and what had he to show for it? Three men dead and how many more brought to justice? Men who meant nothing to him but a promise of money. A mercenary was what he'd become.
A bounty hunter. He said the words to himself with her loathsome inflection. And all for what? The meager satisfaction of seeing Étienne LaRousse's unseeing eyes roll back in his head? His stomach twisted at the memory. No, he had planned to make him suffer longer. Much longer.
But even that couldn't have undone his father's murder, nor made up for the dea
rth in Creed's life for the past four years. Seth had urged him to let go of the past, get a life for himself with a woman.
He looked at Mariah. Doesn't it ever get lonely? she'd asked. Was he so transparent? Sometimes he was so lonely an ache formed like a fist in his chest. Women like Desiree had slaked his physical urges, but it was a hollow satisfaction, not the kind that soothed the emptiness. He never allowed himself to dwell on it. He would always find one more man to track, one more bounty to keep him in food until he found his real quarry.
Mariah had stirred all those old feelings, feelings he'd managed to keep firmly at bay, feelings he'd just as soon were left buried along with his father.
"Good morning."
Her voice startled him out of his thoughts. He shoved the blanket aside and sat up. "Bonjour," he grumbled. "You're up early."
She tightened the shawl around her. "I couldn't sleep."
He tossed the covers completely off. "You left a warm bed back with the Lochries."
She ignored the barb and flashed a brilliant smile. "Actually, waking up to the scent of pine needles and fresh mountain air is quite invigorating."
"A noble sentiment." He pulled on his boots and got to his feet, stretching his arms over his head. Automatically, he strapped his gunbelt over his hips and tied the thong around his thigh. From the corner of his eyes, he watched Mariah edge away from her rock and push herself awkwardly to a standing position. Her attempt at grace was comical. Creed folded his arms across his chest, an irreverent smile tugging at his lips.
"A little sore, are we?"
"A little," she admitted, brushing the pine needles from the back of her gown. At his dubious grin, she added, "All right—a lot."
"It will be better once you ride a while."
She blanched. "Can we please not talk about that for a few minutes? I'd rather eat breakfast while I still have my appetite, if you don't mind. Speaking of which, I found the sack of coffee, but the only food I could find in your saddlebags was pemmican and jerky. Did I, um, miss something?"
"I don't think so," he answered with a shrug.
Her face fell. "Oh. Well, in that case," she said, holding up a small black frying pan, "do you prefer your jerky pan-fried or boiled?"
He chuckled. "I don't prefer it at all when I have a choice. This country has a bounty of food, cherie, if you know where to look for it." He walked a few yards around the perimeter of their camp before he found what he was searching for. He stopped at a clump of delicate violet flowers on tall green stalks. He pulled several up by their roots and shook the earth from their bulb-like ends.
"Voila! Camas. The Indians roast them like potatoes. Quite tasty."
Reaching beneath the branches of a sprawling pine, he pulled a yellowish flower-shaped mushroom from under the pine tree. He tossed it to her. "Chanterelle. You can cook it with some of those wild onions we found last night."
She brightened. "Wonderful. But won't it burn if I don't use any grease? I suppose lard is out of the question?"
"Try a little of the pemmican. It's made with suet."
She made a face.
"You'll see—it works." He inhaled deeply, taking in the rich aroma of the coffee. He pointed to the pot. "Is that ready?"
"I think so. I—I mean it should be." She wrapped her hand in her shawl, filled his tin cup, and handed it to him.
"Merci." From the corner of his eye, he saw her watching him. Creed cradled the cup between his hands and blew into the steaming concoction. It was strangely thick and midnight black in color. Grounds floated around the sides like tiny warning flags.
"I thought you'd take it strong." She twined her hands behind her back.
"I do." He met her eyes and flashed her a cautious smile before he brought the steaming cup to his lips and took a sip.
Nothing could have prepared him.
The foul brew exploded from his mouth in a flume. "Bleck-hh!" he gagged, spitting the rest out and wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. "Good God, woman! Are you trying to poison me?"
Crestfallen, Mariah stared at him. "Too strong?"
It was a wonder the stuff hadn't already eaten straight through the tin cup. "Too strong? Did you put the whole bag of coffee in that one pot or what?"
"Well, of course not," she answered, with a wounded look. "I only used two cups."
"Two cups? Of coffee? Alors!"
She shrunk back a little and bit her thumbnail. "I guess... that was too much?"
Wiping his mouth again, he picked a stray ground off his tongue. "Not if you're serving an entire mining camp and have a few score more gallons of water."
"Oh." Her teeth worried her lip. "I—I suppose I overestimated a bit. I'm sorry."
He sent her a disbelieving frown and splashed the remainder of his coffee onto the ground. It sank there like sludgy pudding. He reached into the leather bucket and pulled a fresh handful of water to his mouth, then rinsed and spat it out. "I thought you said you could cook," he said, half-turning to her.
"I did. I mean, I can. Well," she amended, "not coffee. You see, my grandmother and I always drank tea and when my father was alive, he always insisted on brewing his own coffee." The fragrant smoke from the fire drifted on the morning air as the silence stretched between them. "I said I was sorry."
"Never mind." He dumped the contents of the pot onto the ground. "But I'll make the coffee from now on, eh?"
Mariah frowned. "No, I can learn. You just have to show me how. I told you I'd do the cooking."
He rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "It would be easier and safer for all concerned if I just did it myself. Anyway," he grumbled, "I'm no good in the morning without a decent cup of coffee."
She laid a dramatic hand over her heart. "You don't say?"
Creed shifted uncomfortably, feeling like a heel for barking at her. But what the hell. She had nearly poisoned him. "I'm going down to the river to wash up. Do you think you can handle the breakfast?"
She arched a vexed eyebrow at him. "Surely I can manage that much." Bending down too quickly to retrieve the small black skillet, she bit back a groan. She eased herself to the ground and started cleaning the vegetables he'd collected in the bucket of water.
Creed hesitated, wondering if her boasts about her cooking abilities were altogether accurate. She must have learned to cook in order to look after her grandmother, he reasoned. He unfastened the knife at his belt and handed it to her by the deer-horn handle. "Here, you can use this."
Her warm fingers covered his for a moment as she took it. The sensation caught him off guard. The hair on the back of his neck bristled as if a cold finger of warning had stroked him there. A premonition of disaster. A band of pressure tightened around his chest and he found he couldn't take a complete breath.
Releasing her hand, the feeling vanished. Merde, he thought, stung by the sensation. He glanced around the clearing, then frowned down at her.
"What?" she asked, looking at him strangely. "Is something wrong?"
Wrong? His head spun. How could he tell her about the "feelings" he'd always had, these wisps of foreboding, muddled forays into the future? She'd think him a perfect fool. He used to believe that himself. In the past few years, however, he'd learned to trust his feelings, though he'd never risked telling anyone about them. Not even Seth. Certainly not her. It was a private curse he lived with and no one's business but his.
He glanced around the camp one more time. It was probably nothing, he reasoned. Sometimes he was wrong.
Sometimes.
"Creed?" The morning sun turned her eyes to gold as they met his. "Really, you can trust me with the knife."
He smiled half-heartedly at her confusion and mentally shook off the uneasiness. Gathering his soap and shaving things from his saddlebags, he hooked one finger around the handle of the graniteware coffeepot.
"Be quick with the breakfast. We've a lot of ground to cover today. I'll bring back some fresh water for the coffee." He hesitated again
, then headed for the river.
Mariah squinted after him until he disappeared, then shook her head. What a strange man. Her annoyance was overshadowed for a moment by her uneasiness.
There were times when he looked at her as if he were seeing something or someone else, times she thought he was about to tell her something of great importance, only to see the shutters slam down around his eyes again.
She'd half-hoped after last night things would be better between them. Obviously she'd been mistaken. It wasn't as if she'd ruined the coffee on purpose. Poison him, indeed! At least she'd made an honest attempt, hadn't she?
He obviously thought she couldn't cook either. She, who'd won blue ribbons at the county fair for her apple pie and pickled watermelon relish for two years in a row before the war began. Well, she'd show him a thing or two.
Scrubbing furiously at the dirt on the camas with her wet fingers, she made them shine, then started in on the mushrooms. Well, if he didn't like her breakfast, he could just go hungry.
She started to rise, but the burn in her legs froze her. Would she ever be able to walk again? She shuffled to the saddlebags and pulled out the pemmican. The mere thought of getting back on Petunia again made her nauseous. What had ever possessed her to think she could make this trip?
Of course, she knew the answer—Seth.
In her mind, she pictured him as he'd been the day he'd left: his beautiful gray eyes sparkling, eager for adventure; his sun-streaked brown hair falling in an appealing curl on his forehead. He'd been twenty-two then, full of so many dreams and plans...
"Have faith in me, Mariah," he'd told her, taking her in his arms that day so long ago. "I'll be so rich in a few years we can live wherever the muse takes us. San Francisco, New York, wherever you want to go. A year. Maybe two. Then I'll come back for you and we'll have a big church wedding, just the way you dreamed."
Mariah had tightened her arms around him. "I don't care about a big wedding, Seth. I don't care if we live on beans and bread our whole lives. I just want you here with me. Anything could happen out there in the Territories. I've heard terrible stories. What if I never see you again?"
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