The tanned hide of the buffalo robe Jesse had given Mariah was encrusted with icy snow, but the thick fur kept her relatively warm and dry. Only her fingers were numb with cold.
Creed, on the other hand, had donned a thick blanket-capote and wrapped a woolen shawl around his shoulders and head. Both were soggy and wet. He'd freeze to death before he asked her for help, Mariah decided. And it was getting worse.
"Creed!" The wind nearly swallowed her shout. "Stop!"
"We're nearly there," he called back stiffly, hunkering down closer to the gelding's neck.
She nudged her horse up beside his. "You'll freeze before we get there, you big idiot. We can share the robe. It's roomy enough for two."
He looked up, considering it. A violent shiver raced through him. "Good idea." But his hands were almost too cold to put the plan into action. Mariah dismounted and fitted her foot into his stirrup. Awkwardly, Creed pulled the sodden blanket from his shoulders and laid it across Buck's neck. He reached an icy hand down and helped her up behind him and she wrapped the fur around them both.
He let out a sigh of relief as she wound her arms around his waist and pressed herself against his back. "Thanks," he muttered, covering her hand with his icy one. "Feels better."
"Don't get any ideas," she shouted close to his ear. "I'm only doing this so you don't freeze to death and leave me here to find my way to Virginia City alone."
"How considerate of you."
"How much farther is it?"
He reached for Petunia's reins and found his fingers too numb to hold them. He passed them back to her.
She pulled them inside the robe. "I said how—"
"Not much farther."
The dampness from his capote seeped through her shirt and she shivered. "Can't you be a little more specific?"
"Sorry. This area's grown up some since I was here last. It can't be more than a half-mile or so."
Thirty minutes later, Creed pulled up his horse. The storm was worsening. Everything was white. The land, the trees, the air... his face. The howling wind erased even the familiar sound of the river, though he could just make it out ahead.
The cold air tore at his lungs with each breath. He remembered his father telling him the story about finding his old trapper friend, Abe Walker, frozen stiff in the Bear Paws, curled up in his buffalo robe, still clutching his old Hawkins rifle. He'd looked like he'd just gone to sleep. Creed's heart pumped harder, pushing the thought from his mind, denying that would be his fate.
"We're lost, aren't we?" Mariah's breath came warm against his ear.
He swallowed heavily. Damn. He was too turned around even to be certain of that. The snow blotted out every familiar landmark. He nudged Buck forward a few more steps. Visibility was ten feet and closing. They would have to find shelter soon... or die.
Chapter 14
Creed closed his eyes, willing himself to concentrate on something besides the painful numbness of his fingers and the slick of frost forming on his face. He was trying to picture a place which, out of long habit, he shunned the way a wise man did a house riddled with pestilence. To call it up intentionally, to own it, he thought, was the height of desperation. But desperate was precisely what they were.
He visualized the cabin, detail for detail, saw himself approaching it in the snow. There was the huge ponderosa pine sheltering one corner of the roomy log cabin. The small shed for stock thirty feet away.
The image flickered like a shadow, fading.
Focus, Devereaux. Concentrate!
Mariah shook him from behind. "Creed! What are you doing? Don't go to sleep for God's sake!"
"Quiet," he snapped. "I'm thinking." There above the door in a place of honor, the pair of deer antlers—his first kill-now whitened with age.
"The snow's drifting around Buck's knees! We need to keep moving!" The pitch of her voice told him she was on the edge of panic.
There—the path that led to the feeder-creek and the odd rock formation: an old man bent with the weight of a heavy pack—along the north shore.
"We're lost. You can tell me the truth, Creed."
And the ancient broken tree lying at right angles to the earth pointing directly at the cabin.
Her arms tightened around his middle and she dropped her forehead against his back.
He opened his eyes, leaving that magical place in his mind behind. "No, we're not lost. Unless the curse has failed me at last."
He turned Buck sharply right and headed through an unlikely thicket of trees that opened up onto a creek where the banks were tufted with snow. They had only followed it for five minutes before spotting the rocks, the fallen ponderosa, then the cabin tucked safely beneath a sprawling pine and a ring of younger trees.
Le bon Dieu. He felt Mariah's sigh of relief more than he heard it. Pulling to a stop at the door, he helped her down; then, with deliberate, stiff movements, he dismounted. Brushing the snow off the rough-hewn handle, he pushed open the unlocked door. It creaked in protest and he ushered Mariah inside the dark cabin.
Their steamy breath mingled in the dark room. He rubbed his hands together and blew on them until he could grip a match.
Clumsily, he touched the flame to the wick of the glass-domed coal oil lamp on the small table near the door. The glass rattled against the metal in his shaking hand as a soft yellow glow filled the room.
Her lips were tinged blue with cold and she was shivering despite the heavy robe that still enshrouded her. His face was covered with rime of white. He could feel the glacial cold heavy on his lashes and eyebrows and still numbing his cheeks. He wiped his face against his shoulder but found no relief in the stiffened fabric.
"H-how did you do that?" Mariah asked, clutching her hands to her sides.
He stared, confused. "Do what?"
She shook her head. "How did you find this place? How did you... know which way to come in all that whiteness?" She took a step closer to him, staring as if he were some creature in a side show. "How did you know?"
He dropped his gaze to the neatly stacked wood by the fireplace and started piling it on the fire grate. "It's my home, remember?"
"It didn't matter out there. You could have been ten feet away and not seen it. You would have needed divine guidance to find it."
He shrugged, rubbing his hands together.
"What curse?" she pressed.
His throat tightened. "What?"
"What curse were you talking about? You said, 'unless the curse has failed me at last'."
He ground his back teeth together. "Did I say that? I only meant my faultless sense of direction, ma petite. Now,"—a shiver poured through him—"why don't you let me get this fire going? Then I'll have to take care of the horses and you can get out of those wet things."
Mariah frowned, clutching her arms. "You're not going to tell me, are you?"
"Tell you what?" he nearly shouted in exasperation. "I got us here, didn't I? Let's just leave it at that."
"Fine." She frowned and turned away. He could deny it all he wanted, she fumed, dropping the heavy buffalo robe into one of the two pelt-lined willow chairs flanking the fireplace. There was a good deal more than sheer coincidence in the uncanny knack he had for knowing things. She was curious about it, but she'd be damned if she'd grovel at his feet for the truth.
Her clothes were wet where she had leaned against Creed. She shivered, rubbed her upper arms and looked around the cabin. It was a small but comfortable one-room structure that smelled musty from years of disuse.
Dominating one corner was a pelt-covered bed. It was built from sturdy, unpeeled lodgepole pine logs and was, she noticed with some dismay, large enough for two. Unbidden, her body heated fractionally at the sight—a reaction born as much of anticipation as fear. Preferring not to dwell on that, she turned her attention to the rest of the room.
From the thick-beamed ceiling hung several pairs of willow snowshoes, baskets, and bunches of dusty dried herbs. A bighorn ram's curly horns crowned one of the four
-paned glass windows by the door. Finely tanned pelts of beaver, black bear, and lynx covered the lime-chinked walls, adding an extra measure of insulation.
She ran her hand over the smooth surface of the scarred slab-table in the center of the room. Her fingers left a trail in the dust and stopped on an exquisite, if dusty, hand-blown blue vase at the center of the table. She picked it up, examining the fine craftsmanship. The house had once had a woman's touch, she decided, glancing at the faded blue curtains and the braided rag rugs.
Her eyes were drawn to a pegged shelf on the wall. There, beside an old steeple shelf-clock which had long since wound down, was a punched-tin frame containing a small oil portrait of a woman. A beautiful woman with Creed's black hair and unusual-colored eyes. The resemblance was extraordinary.
"Solange Devereaux." Creed's voice came from right behind her. "My mother."
Mariah whirled around guiltily and replaced the vase on the table. "Oh. I—was just... she's very beautiful."
Creed's eyes darkened as he brushed the soot from his hands. "Oui. She was. Beautiful and fragile. Just like you."
"That sounds more like an accusation than a compliment. What happened to her?"
"I told you," he said, holding her gaze, "this country's hard on women, Mariah. My mother was headstrong, and in love with my father. She thought she was up to this kind of life, too. But it killed her. Sucked the life right out of her."
Like it will you, his unspoken words rang out.
Mariah's eyes smarted at the stark pain she saw in his face and she tamped down her flare of anger. "I'm sorry, Creed."
"Don't be. It was a long time ago. I didn't tell you to get pity—"
Her mouth dropped open. "Pity?"
"—I told you for your own good." He gathered up a coil of rope hanging by the door and started tying it around his waist.
Tears of frustration stung her eyes. "Oh, really? My own good? As if it's news to me that I'm unwanted here. You've been trying to get rid of me since the moment I stepped off the boat."
He whirled on her. "And you've been trying to kill yourself since then, too."
"I have not!" she choked out. "Things have happened, yes, but unlike your mother, I'm still here, and very much alive in case you haven't noticed."
He cinched the rope's knot with a vicious tug. "Oh, I've noticed. Believe me. I'm not made of stone, Mariah. I've noticed."
Without another word, he yanked open the door, with its gust of freezing air, and slammed out. Mariah stared at the whirling snowflakes as they drifted to the floor and melted in miniature puddles. She sank down onto the bench beside the table, dropped her head on her folded arms, and gave in to the wrenching tears that had been threatening all day long.
She cried for herself and for this awful mess she'd gotten herself into. She cried for Creed and his stubborn, angry need to shut her out. And finally, she cried for Seth, whose only fault in all this was that he loved her.
That was how Creed found her when he came back from putting the stock up—hiccupping in long, gulping sobs that nearly broke his heart. He lowered the saddlebags to the floor and untied the rope that had kept him from getting lost in the whiteness. His fists, numb with cold, curled at his sides.
Damn you, Devereaux. Now look what you've done! She'd been beaten up, nearly drowned, almost murdered, and through it all, she'd held up like a trooper—never complaining or whining, never blaming him. But he'd sharpened his tongue on her and with a few well-placed thrusts he'd finally put her over the edge. It wasn't her fault that they were in this situation. It was his. He reached out to touch her shoulder.
"Mariah?"
She jumped at the contact and turned swollen eyes up to him. Then, embarrassed, she dropped her face in her hands.
"Don't... don't look at be." Her nose was clogged from crying and her m's came out sounding like b's.
His gut twisted. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry, ma petite."
She shook her head hopelessly. "It's not just you. It's—it's," she hiccupped—"everythink."
He knelt down beside her, rubbing a hand comfortingly over her back. "Everything?"
Lifting her hands palms up, she cried, "You were right. I should never have cub. I've been nothig but trouble to you—"
"No, I shouldn't have said that."
"I'b so tired I can't see straight, you hate be—"
"I don't hate you—"
"—and look at be. Look at us!" Creed ran a self-conscious hand over his stubble of beard. "In two days," she went on with a sniffle, "I'b going to see Seth—if he's alive... and if we survive this damb weather. And here I ab..."—she let loose another sob—"wearing your filthy clothes, looking like subthing subbody dragged under a wagon frub Illinois. What's he going to think?"
Creed's hand slowed on her back. He knew she was talking about more than her clothes. She was as worried as he was about what Seth would think when they rode in together. There was nothing to be done for it now.
Hell and damnation.
He went to the dresser and took out one of his mother's neatly folded linen hankies, and handed it to her. "Here. Blow."
"But..." She looked at the delicate initials, "S. D.," embroidered into the folds. "It's... it's your buther's!" A new gush of tears broke free.
"I know it's my mother's," he said, patting her shoulder awkwardly. "Just blow."
In between sobs, she did.
Dieu, he hated it when women cried. He felt so... helpless. He slipped outside the door for a moment with two buckets and came back with them full of snow. He dumped them into the cooking pot that hung over the fire, then went back for two more. When he'd filled the pot, he strung a blanket up across the room, separating the bed area from the rest.
Flipping over the old steel tub propped in the corner, he set it beside the bed and, when the water had heated, he filled it.
He dug up an old bar of tallow soap and set it with a towel and an old flannel nightrail on the bed.
When he'd finished, he took Mariah by the arm and led her to the curtained-off area. "Strip," he ordered, gaining a wide-eyed reaction from her that put an immediate, if shocked, halt to her tears.
"Wh-what?" She clutched the neckline of her shirt tightly in her fist.
"I mean, after I leave." He was only slightly irritated by her vast look of relief. "It's the best bath I can offer under the circumstances. It will... make you feel better. I'll be out here if you need anything." He started to back out of the makeshift room.
She nodded with a sniff and relaxed her death-grip on her shirt. "Creed?"
He ducked his head back in. "What?"
"Thank you."
"Yeah." Muttering, he retrieved two more buckets of snow and tossed them in the pot. He ran a hand over his face, deciding he could stand to get acquainted with a little water himself. Pouring some of the heated water back in a bucket, he stripped off his shirt and pulled his shaving things out of his saddlebags.
With one ear, he listened to the sounds of Mariah bathing. Each splash of water fed his overactive imagination and bit by bit dispelled the chill that had settled into his bones. He pictured her there, naked and wet, water rivulets coursing down the curve of her—
With an oath, he plunged his frost-bitten hands into the warm water, but even that painful distraction was little help with Mariah Parsons four feet away in the beautiful altogether.
Damn, damn, damn.
* * *
Mariah stepped hesitantly out of the tub, casting a brief look at the thin blanket separating her from Creed. He was standing only ten feet away. She could hear the splash of water, the tap of his straight razor against the washbasin as he finished his own ablutions. In her mind's eye, she pictured him with his shirt off and it shamed her to realize she wanted to do more than just fantasize about it. She had the craziest urge to touch his damp skin, feel the smooth play of muscle beneath it and the dusting of hair above.
Shivering, she dried herself quickly on the flannel blanket he'd left.
The fire had yet to take the chill out of the air. She still had her hair to wash and didn't relish the idea of turning into an icicle while she did it.
Slipping the nightrail over her head, she rolled up the sleeves and kneeled over the tub. She poured water over her head with the bucket, then started to soap up her hair.
The soap squirted out of her hand and hit the floor with a slippery thud, skidding under the curtain. "Oh, for heaven's sake." She cracked an eye open, groping for the lost bar, but the soap seeped into eyes and she slammed them shut.
"Ow, ow-ow—" she whispered, rubbing at her eyes with the cotton sleeve of her nightrail. Blindly she reached for the flannel blanket she'd left on the floor beside her, but she gasped when her hand connected with Creed's.
"Here," he said, wiping her eyes with the edge of the blanket. "Let me help you with this."
"Creed, you shouldn't be—"
But he was already massaging, the soap through her hair. "Shouldn't be what?"
It took her a few long seconds to answer. "Doing this." She braced her palms on the edge of the tub. The tips of his fingers slid over every inch of her scalp in gentle, sensuous strokes. He squeezed the soap through her hair, lifting it and massaging it over and over. Soap suds gathered at her temple and slipped down her cheek. His finger caught the rivulet and slowly scraped up the side of her face, away from her eyes.
An ache curled low inside her, a need for more of his touch. Wantonly, she leaned back into his hands and her lashes closed over her cheeks. A shiver of anticipation traveled up her spine as his fingers slid lower, to the base of her neck where he massaged away the tension of the past few days.
"Mm-mmm. Doesn't it feel good?"
His voice was husky and deep. Yes, oh yes. A sigh escaped her. "But it's not... decent."
"No." She heard the smile in his voice. "Probably not." His fingers spread sensuously through her hair again, sliding deliciously against her scalp.
She lost herself to the sensation. It felt so good to let someone help her, pamper her—to just give in to it.
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