“By the grace of God,” he drawled.
“Well, then.”
He clucked to the team and got them going, then turned them around to head back up out of the dry creekbed he’d called an arroyo.
“Well, then, what?”
“I. Can. Take. Care. Of. Myself,” she said, through gritted teeth.
Her heart was pounding so hard she thought she could hear it.
“Of course you can,” he said, “within reason. But not even gritty, no-obligations Callie Sloane from Kentucky can magically create a roof over her head tonight.”
No roof meant no shelter from the sun tomorrow, when she rested from working on her house. No roof meant no protection if it hailed. No roof meant nothing at all between her and another cyclone sweeping out of the southwestern sky.
The team came up out of the arroyo and headed out in the direction of their claims. Callie glanced at Nick. The western sunlight turned his skin to copper and threw his handsome bones into sharp relief. The only flaw in his entire perfect face was a small, slightly bleeding cut on one cheekbone.
It struck her heart. The hail had cut him while he protected her. She wanted to touch the wound, to fix it, to kiss it away. She wanted that so fiercely, it scared her even more than the thought of depending on him.
Turning away, she dragged in a long, ragged breath. She had to think. She had to get away from him and think.
“I have some ointment,” she muttered, scrambling up to go find it. “The hail cut your cheek.”
“Forget it,” he called, but she hurried into the back of the lurching wagon anyway.
In a moment she was back with the small jar.
“That storm was unbelievably precise,” she said, “I just realized it took the cover and left everything else. Even the oilcloth is still over the grain.”
He raised his eyebrow and gave her a look.
“We were on top of the oilcloth, if you recall.”
He held her gaze while she felt her face grow hot. Yes, dear goodness, they had been on top of the oilcloth, clinging to each other with a passion. Truly a passion.
“Let me doctor that wound,” she said, and her voice came out only a little bit shaky.
He turned to glance at the team quickly as if he, too, sensed the danger in that look.
“It doesn’t need medicine.”
“You sound like my six-year-old brother Jasper,” she said a bit more steadily. “He’s afraid every medicine will sting and burn.”
He tried to ignore her but she waited. Finally, he shook the lines at the team and sped them up a little.
“All right. I’ll prove I’m braver than a six-year-old.”
Callie took the top off the jar, dipped her finger in the ointment, and reached up to him, willing her hand not to shake. The wagon lurched, Nickajack swayed toward her, and her finger pressed against his cheekbone harder than she’d intended.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
His piercing gray eyes met hers.
“You can’t hurt me,” he said.
At that instant, she believed him. He looked as hard as this land he loved.
“Did you leave anything at your camp?”
This was the time to make him take her home. If she stayed at his place even one night, she’d be wanting to stay all the time. Just the words your camp sounded lonely.
“My plow.”
“It’ll keep.”
“It might not,” she made herself say. “Somebody might steal it.”
“There’s an old one in my barn. You can borrow it if yours disappears.”
Why hadn’t she told him she’d left something that she urgently needed? But what would that be?
She wrapped her arms around herself to try to stop the shivering caused by the wind hitting her wet clothes. Maybe fear was making her shake.
Her thigh lay perilously close to his, its long saddle muscles obvious under the worn, wet fabric of his tight jeans. She ripped her gaze away from it and stared straight ahead at the pricked ears of her team.
“Listen here to me, Nick,” she said, clenching her jaw to stop the chattering of her teeth. “I cannot go to your place to stay. Not even for one night. I will not. I’m already obligated to you way past my capacity to repay.”
It hit him wrong and made him furious—somehow she knew that without even looking at him. She knew, too, suddenly, that she’d said it for that purpose,
“No, Callie, you listen to me,” he growled, anger vibrating in his low voice. “Think about your own sermons you’ve preached to me: sometimes you have to help your neighbors and accept help from them.”
“I don’t need help.”
She felt the disgust in the look he gave her.
“No. Of course not.”
Callie turned on him.
“I’m not going to owe you any more than I already do!”
His face flushed darker.
“I have never seen anyone so terrified of the slightest obligation,” he said, biting off every word with a vengeance. “Do you trust me that little? What are you afraid of, anyhow?”
You. Of my feelings for you.
“I told you. My father …”
“You told me,” he snapped. “Does that mean that you expect I’ll find a way to throw you out of your home the way he did?”
“No!”
“How could I? Your land will be registered in your name.”
“I know that! But anytime a person owes debts, it puts his or her possessions in jeopardy.”
He gave a bitter bark of a laugh.
“Oh, sure. I’m keeping a tally of every bit of help I give you and I plan to demand an acre of your land for each favor.”
It did sound ridiculous, but she didn’t care. This was what she’d wanted. Now they didn’t feel close anymore. Now they had a wall of anger between them, and she intended to keep it there.
“Look,” she said harshly, “just take me home.”
“I should,” he said. “Maybe the next hailstorm could knock some sense into your stubborn, hard head.”
“I insist that you do.”
“I’ll regret that I didn’t.”
“Then take me home.”
“Not until you have shelter.”
“You are not responsible for me! How many times do I have to tell you?”
“I took you out of town and into the storm,” he snapped. “I am responsible for the loss of your wagon top.”
“I forgive you.”
He turned on her, his gray eyes blazing.
“Look here, Callie, do you think I want you at my place, in my house? Do you think I want to sleep in the barn? What I want is to be alone with my horses without another human being in a hundred miles … and that includes you.”
A sudden knot rose in her throat. How could it hurt so much for him to say that to her? But it did.
They sat there on the seat in silence and drove across the fresh-washed land for mile after mile, with the creaking of the wagon and the jingling of the harness the only human sounds. The wind sighed and moaned against the rocks, and up ahead, birds Callie couldn’t name called to each other. And all she wanted was to lay down and cry.
Why did she care if Nickajack didn’t want her in his house? She didn’t want to be there. Why did she feel this awful attraction to him?
But it wasn’t attraction—it was only lust. Even now she could taste his lips on hers; even now she wanted to move closer so her thigh would be touching his. That proved it was only lust, because she would never be attracted to an ill-tempered man who didn’t want her around.
She got up and went back to take Granny’s quilt from her trunk. The storm had lowered the temperature twenty degrees at least, and wind kept making her shiver.
“I’ll take you home right after morning chores,” he said abruptly, when she returned to the seat wrapped in the quilt. “I’ll leave you my buckboard until you can get a wagon cover.”
“That’ll
be next week on registration day,” she said, just as curtly. “In the meantime, I doubt it’ll rain. I’ll take the wagon.”
“I’ll see to it that your supplies dry out,” he went on, as if she hadn’t spoken a word, “and I’ll bring them to you when you have a roof.”
“If you’re worried that I’ll be so contented at your house that I’ll never leave,” she sniped, “set your mind at ease. I’m just as anxious to be rid of you as you are of me.”
“Good.”
Finally, when dusk was just beginning to fall, they reached the mouth of his canyon and drove up into it, following the curves of the creek, now filled with rushing water. The air smelled fresh as spring, washed clean of its dust, and it smelled soft, like a summer twilight. Yet there was nothing soft about this land or the man who lived here.
The canyon still called out to her spirit. Distant as it was from her mountains, it somehow felt a little bit like home with its walls folding closer around them the farther they drove.
They had been quiet too long, she realized. The air between them felt almost peaceful.
“You know you’re kidnapping me,” she said haughtily, as he drove into the yard of the weathered cabin.
“You know you’re provoking me past all endurance,” he snapped. “You’re the most ungrateful roofless person I’ve ever met.”
“I won’t be roofless for long.”
“It’ll take at least three walls to hold one up,” he said dryly, and whoaed the team.
“I’ll have three walls before registration day,” she said. “You needn’t worry about me.”
A rude snort was his only answer. He dropped the lines, jumped down to the ground, and came to help her climb over the wheel, Granny’s quilt thrown over her shoulder. She tried to keep her distance, tried to ignore the brief touch of his hand at her back, but the hot print of it went right through her clothes to her skin, before he pulled it away as if she were the one burning him.
The surge of desire rose in her again and briefly she pictured herself scrambling back up to the seat and driving away before he knew what she meant to do. If she had a grain of good sense, she would.
“Go on in and stir up the fire,” he said, his deep voice so close she didn’t dare turn her head. “Get a dry shirt from the cupboard. I’ll see to the team.”
She would stay here tonight for the baby’s sake. After all, her feet squished in her shoes and her underthings were still soaked beneath her half-dry outer garments. She couldn’t afford to get sick from wearing wet clothes for too long, now that the air was so much cooler. It would take more than an hour to drive back to her place, start a fire from scratch, and build it up big enough to do her any good.
When she started toward the house she dared a glance at him. He was staring at two horses in a pen beside the canyon wall and seemed to have forgotten she was there.
“You were lucky,” she said, “they don’t seem to be hurt.”
He answered with an irritable grunt and turned to lead the team to the barn lot. Callie climbed the steps to the porch, her legs a little unsteady. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, she realized suddenly. No wonder she felt weak.
She crossed the plank porch, pushed open the door, and closed it behind her to keep out the wind. Instantly, the house folded its arms around her, and she drew in a long, shuddery breath.
Her nostrils filled with the homey scents of woodfire and cedar, every pore in her skin opened to this space closed off from the wind. For the first time since leaving the train, she stood under the roof of a house.
Coals glowed deep inside the fireplace which took up most of one wall. The wide hearth held wood stacked at one end of it, next to an iron stove that sat in the corner.
She stood still for a moment, letting the quiet move over her, listening to the wind blow around the corners of the cabin. Then she spread the damp quilt over a rocking chair and went to build up the fire. Her wet shift stuck to her skin as she knelt and reached for the poker. As soon as she had the fire going, she’d run to the wagon for a change of her own clothes.
The thought stayed her hand in the air. She had no dry clothes! Her few extra garments were in a carpetbag, which was so full, it stood open to the sky. Everything in it was bound to be soaked, since the quilt had gotten damp in the trunk.
Her books! Oh, dear goodness, her books might be ruined—although the carpetbag had been wedged in on top of that box. She stood up, intending to run out to see to her things, but then she turned back to the fire. That would be the fastest way to get some things dry tonight.
As she stirred up the coals, she had a terrible realization. This was the very first time since the storm that she’d given serious thought to her possessions. They were all she owned in the entire world, all of them entirely necessary to her survival, yet Nick had filled her mind and driven them out.
Dear Lord above, she should never have agreed to stay here, not even for one night.
Desperately, she looked around her, searching for distraction, but everything she saw spoke of Nick. He was neat and orderly in his house, as in his barn, and everything in the room was either useful or beautiful or both.
She found kindling in a basket near the stack of wood and concentrated on making some flames flare up and grow. Stretching out her hands to the fire, she soaked in the warmth, ignoring her growling stomach, for she was shivering in earnest, now that she’d thrown aside the quilt.
She’d have to get dry and warm, or shake herself to death. The baby was the one she’d better be thinking about, instead of her arrogant, bossy host. As soon as the fire had caught and would keep on burning, she would do as he’d said and find one of his shirts to wear. He was so big, it would cover her completely.
The blaze settled into a steady crackling, so Callie turned to cross this main room. Her gaze clung to the oil lamp and the writing supplies laid out on the small oak table that stood against the wall. It was the paper and pen that called to her.
What she would give to sit down there and pour out on paper all the wild emotions of this day. Maybe if she could see them set down in black and white, if she could read them, she could make sense of them.
Near the table was a slat-backed rocker. That was something she’d need after the baby came—something she’d forgotten until now. She was walking through luxury here, compared to the way she’d been living.
She shivered again and resumed her search for the shirt, but at the door of Nick’s bedroom, she stopped short.
He had spread the coverlet straight on his bed before he’d headed for town. A tall, beautifully plain cupboard in the corner that must hold his clothes glowed reddish brown in the twilight streaming in at the double windows. A matching chest had nothing on its gleaming surface except one large eagle feather and a woven basket.
Callie made herself go straight to the cupboard, although she wanted to look at and touch every beautiful object. He was such a private person that she felt like an invader, but he had told her to do this. Otherwise, she’d be naked when he came in.
The thought made her blush. It also brought to mind a picture of what he might look like without any clothes at all, and to her chagrin, a strong surge of desire began to heat her skin from the inside. All the feelings of the kiss came back, and more.
She opened the double doors on the top half of the cupboard, grabbed a shirt off one of the two low, carefully folded stacks she found there, took a towel from the shelf below, and hurried back into the main room. In the corner she’d glimpsed stairs going up to a loft, so she’d change there in case Nick came in. She ran up the narrow stairs.
Hastily, standing in the darkest corner, she stripped, toweled the dampness from her skin with the big, rough towel, and pulled Nick’s shirt over her head. It fell to her knees, so she was decently covered, yet she was scandalously bare beneath, for she couldn’t stand the thought of putting on her damp pantaloons again. Fortunately, this was a heavy shirt he couldn’t see through.
Feeling infinitel
y better just to be dry, she gathered her wet clothes and held them at arm’s length as she went back down the stairs. The table with the inkwell and papers was straight below her; in the late-afternoon light she could see that the top page was a letter. It began, Cousin, I hope this finds you well.
Oh, how she would love a letter from one of her cousins right now! Better yet, if she could receive even the shortest note from Mama …
Then the black scrawl leapt up at her from the white page again and she forgot about herself.
I take pen in hand to warn you that any return of yours to the Nation would be as much as your life is worth. Also, watch your back where you are.
The words life and watch your back had been darkly underlined twice. Slowly, Callie descended, her feet feeling for each next step, her eyes paralyzed moving on to the next paragraph.
There is talk that maybe you’re at your old home in the Strip and some have sworn to hunt you there. They are naming you child-killer and traitor, even putting a price on your head. Few say aloud anymore that Goingsnake is a Raven. Instead, they say that you deliberately put the boys between those bullets and yourself.
Abruptly, the message was signed, Fox.
She reached the wide plank floor and ran to the desk, hoping that she had read wrong. Lifting the glass chimney from the lamp, using one of the lucifers lying beside it, she lit it quickly and picked up the page.
Dear God, protect him. Protect him.
Nick couldn’t die, like Vance. She couldn’t bear it.
Nick stood at the front door, not wanting to enter. No, wanting too much to enter.
If seeing the glow of light through the window had made him have visions of Callie moving around in his house, tending the fire, lighting the lamps, waiting for him, the actual sight of her would pull at him like the Shifter to a mare. It had been all he could do not to take her right there in the wagon in the middle of a driving storm.
It was time he got hold of himself. He had lived alone for a long, long time, he didn’t need anyone else—especially not a woman. Particularly not a woman in love with her dead husband. They could be friends as well as neighbors, but nothing more. He must remember that.
The Renegades: Nick Page 14
