Saddle Up

by Victoria Vane

  A coyote howl echoed her melancholy thoughts, breaking the silence with a long and lonesome cry. Another one answered. Was it a mating call?

  She glanced again at Keith. Although his expression was relaxed, his face seemed sharper and more angular in the flickering firelight. She didn’t know what devil made her continue to taunt him. He looked very much the warrior, the kind of man who wouldn’t hesitate to take what he wanted. Her feelings about Keith were mixed and confused. He’d made her realize just how lonely and disconnected she was. Although she was more attracted to him than she’d ever been to anyone, she suspected he was just playing with her.

  The fire popped, making her start. What was she doing here? She’d had a single purpose in coming out to the desert, but the whole situation seemed suddenly surreal, as if she’d been transported back in time. She almost wanted to laugh.

  She shivered and hugged herself tighter. She could see her breath now. Maybe it was time to scrounge for that blanket. Keith had left a flashlight beside his rifle. She took it with her and scanned the ground as she walked, just in case he was wrong about the snakes. The horses stirred and nickered at her approach, suddenly restless…or were they nervous?

  “What’s wrong, Sadie?” she asked the mare, whose ears were flicking in all directions. Their sense of hearing was acute, functioning much like radar. She shined the light into the darkness. Was something out there? She could see nothing. Her skin prickled.

  She tried to shrug off her feeling of unease as a case of the heebie-jeebies, just like she always got after watching a horror movie. Unfortunately, that last thought only reminded her of The Hills Have Eyes, a horror flick set in the desert that had given her nightmares for months.

  Perhaps it was just the coyotes’ cries that had the horses agitated? She found the blanket and clutched it around her shoulders with her free hand. She shivered again, but this time as much from nerves as cold. When she returned to the fire, Keith was sitting up, scowling at her.

  “I told you not to wander off.”

  “I didn’t wander. I only went to fetch a blanket and check on the horses. They seem jumpy.”

  “So do you,” he observed.

  “Maybe I am, a little. I think the coyotes spooked me. I’m not used to all this.” She added a dry laugh. “The closest I’ve come to experiencing wildlife in the past four years was a visit to Venice Beach.”

  “Coyotes are harmless enough,” he said. “They prey on mice and rabbits and rarely bother humans.” He rose and shouldered his rifle, reminding her all too much of Daniel Day Lewis’s Hawkeye in The Last of the Mohicans, her favorite epic romance. In that moment it was far too easy to cast herself as Cora Munro. She shook off the ludicrous thought.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “To check on the horses.”

  “But it’s not your turn yet,” she said.

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m awake.”

  She eyed the bedroll covetously, wondering if it would still be warm from his body.

  “Go ahead,” he urged with a tilt of his head.

  “But it’s technically still my watch,” she replied.

  His brows furrowed. “Are you always so stubborn?”

  “Not always,” she said.

  “Then you just like to argue with me.”

  “That’s not true!” she argued.

  Their eyes met. He cocked a brow.

  Caught in the act, she couldn’t suppress a chuckle.

  He walked off, shaking his head and mumbling something she couldn’t understand.

  * * *

  Miranda was right about the horses. They were jumpy as hell, but after scouting the area twice, Keith found nothing. Damning the moonless night, he returned to the fire, laying the rifle within close reach. True to her stubborn nature, Miranda hadn’t taken his place but sat before the fire, cocooned in the blanket. So be it. Let the little fool freeze.

  He sank back into his bedroll, turning onto his side to better see into the darkness. He watched her with a growing mix of fascination and frustration. Tall, pale, and slender, Miranda Sutton was nothing like the women he normally went for, but her earthy innocence called out to his carnal nature. His brows contracted. “What are you afraid of? Me or yourself?”

  “Neither,” she snapped. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

  He made a scoffing sound. “Liar. You’d rather freeze your ass off than share this bed with me. You make no sense, Miranda. I want you, and I believe you want me too. There’s no shame in a man and woman pleasuring each other. Making love is one of the most genuine acts of human nature.”

  “You have a silver tongue, Keith, but that’s not what it would be. Making love is what you do with someone you have feelings for. Or at the least with someone you like and respect. Anything else is just a fuck. I’m not your next fuck.”

  “Did you know that there are no vulgar words pertaining to sex in any of the native tongues?”

  “Is that true?” she asked.

  “Yes. We don’t defile the act with dirty words. In fact, we have no swearwords at all.”

  “Yet you think it’s perfectly fine to randomly hop from partner to partner and bed to bed?”

  “I didn’t say we accept promiscuity. We don’t. We call those kinds of people tepee creepers.”

  “Tepee creepers?” She laughed. “Really?”

  “Yes. Just because we view sex differently doesn’t imply that it’s meaningless. We believe just the opposite: that the joining of two bodies forges a deeper connection between their souls. There are no walls in the moment of release, Miranda.” He didn’t add that his walls always came back up following the afterglow.

  “You really believe that?” she scoffed.

  “Yes. Sometimes words are inadequate between a man and a woman. They obstruct the essential truth. Sex is honesty. Pleasure is truth.” Yet sex was really only a transitory escape from loneliness.

  “Don’t play with me,” she whispered. “I don’t like games—or being the brunt of jokes.”

  “You think I’m playing games?”

  “I think I’m convenient. If we were anyplace else, you wouldn’t look twice at me.”

  She was wrong. He had noticed her before, and she’d rebuffed him. The rejection had surprised as much as stung him.

  “That’s not true,” he said. “Maybe you don’t remember the first time we met?”

  “Yes, I remember all of it,” she answered.

  “And?” he prompted.

  “I didn’t trust you.”

  “Why not? You thought I only wanted to use you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And now?” he asked.

  She hesitated. “I don’t know. You made it obvious from the start that you didn’t want me around. I don’t understand the sudden turnabout. I’m not sure what I think.”

  “As I said before, you think too much.”

  * * *

  Miranda was freezing cold, but she was also terrified. Of him. Of the feelings he’d roused in her.

  He reached out his hand, beckoning softly. “Don’t be foolish, Miranda. Come and get warm.”

  Tamping down her trepidations, she rose and settled herself lengthwise beside him. His arm came around her, wrapping her in his blanket, and instantly cocooning her in his body heat. He pulled her closer against him and nuzzled into her hair. “I don’t understand you at all, Miranda…but I like how you smell.”

  She relaxed. “You do?”

  “Yes. I do.” He burrowed into her neck, his breath hot and his lips soft. “Very much.”

  She whispered back, “If we’re making confessions, I like how you feel.”

  “Is that so?” He rolled her onto her back so that his body lay on top of hers. His mouth stretched into a slow smile. “Is there a particular part of me you like?”

  Her face heated. If she’d had any doubt his desire was real, the proof was palpable through two layers of thick denim. “Um…maybe that didn’t come out quite right. I m
eant that you make me feel safe.”

  “Safe?” His thumb skirted softly over her lips. “Maybe you aren’t as safe as you think.” He added in a tone that made her shiver with anticipation, “I think perhaps Goldilocks is about to discover that the old woman is really a big bad wolf.”

  “You’re mixing up the stories, Keith. Goldilocks was with the three bears. Little Red Riding Hood was with the wolf.”

  “You make films your way, and let me tell the stories,” he said. “Storytelling is in my blood, after all.”

  “All right, then. Have it your way. Tell me this story about Goldilocks and the Big Bad Wolf.”

  He flashed a big, bad lupine grin. “My version begins much the same as what you have heard before, but when Goldilocks enters her grandmother’s tepee, she exclaims, ‘Huttsi, what large hands you have!’

  ‘All the better to touch you with, my child,’ the wolf replies.

  ‘Huttsi, what a big mouth you have!’

  ‘All the better to kiss you with, my dear!’

  ‘Huttsi, what a long tongue you have!’

  ‘All the better to lick every inch of you, my sweet.’”

  His eyes gleamed mischievously. Miranda suspected she knew what was coming next.

  “‘But, Huttsi, what an enormous—’”

  “Don’t say it!” She covered his mouth. His chuckle warmed both her hand and her ears.

  “Don’t you want to know how it ends?” he asked.

  “I’m not certain I do.”

  “I’ll tell you anyway. He devours her bite by delectable bite.” He flashed another very wolfish smile. “You see?” His smile disappeared. “You are never safe with a wolf.”

  His lips were soft, smooth, and so very knowing as his mouth melded with hers with slow, toe-curling deliberation. There was nothing hurried or clumsy, none of the typical hesitancy, nose bumping, or teeth clashing of a first kiss. Taking her face in his hands, he deepened the kiss by tiny degrees, increasing pressure, adding licks and nips, teasing and torturing her until his hot tongue breached her mouth. Their tongues met, sliding and tangling—both a prelude and promise of so much more. She’d never been kissed by a man who knew how to give her everything she wanted, but Keith did.

  Shutting her eyes, she recalled a night spent in another desert when she’d driven down to Baja California for a project in time-lapse videography. After hours of scouting, she’d located a small growth of thin, inconspicuous, dead-looking branches hidden among a patch of scrub—a night-blooming cereus. After setting up cameras, she’d spent the night vigilantly watching for the desert queen to unfurl for its single night of glory. When the flower finally opened, it had perfumed the air with a sweet and delicate scent. She sat watching the flower until it had wilted and withered away with the first light of dawn. Watching that bloom come to life had been one her most memorable experiences.

  Keith made her feel very much like that desert flower waiting to bloom. She yearned to be touched…to be loved…and her resistance to him was fading fast. The kiss intensified, blinding her with blissful sensation. Nothing compared to the taste of his mouth, of his musky scent, of the feel of his warm hands on her skin. It was everything she’d hoped for and more. Any lingering doubts vaporized like a puff of breath in the cold night air.

  Her hands crept up to his chest, the heat of his skin permeating through the cotton of his shirt into her fingertips. She swallowed hard. A low growl broke the quiet of the night. Miranda froze. “What was that?”

  He tensed. “What was what?”

  “That sound.”

  Another growl was echoed by bloodcurdling shrieks from the two horses. Keith was instantly on his feet and shouldering his rifle. He took off running toward the horses while Miranda fumbled in the dark for the flashlight. She arrived at the scene just as a great shadow leaped through the air. She drew in a breath to scream but, paralyzed with terror, no sound emerged. The panic-stricken horses frantically kicked, reared, and hauled back on the picket line in their urgency to flee. The line snapped. The lamp crashed to the ground, casting the scene into darkness.

  “I can’t see anything!” Keith hissed. “Shine the light out there.”

  The narrow beam of her flashlight pierced the darkness, but not enough to help.

  “Where is it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Shit!” Keith fired a shot into the air, cocked the rifle again, and fired another.

  Miranda then shone the light on the ground beneath the picket line, where puddles of blood soaked the earth, trailing into the blackness beyond. She covered her mouth in horror. “Oh my God! What was it?”

  “A mountain lion,” he answered grimly. “With the way it leapt, it couldn’t be anything else.”

  “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  “Nothing. He’s already made the kill.”

  “How do you know? How can you be certain the animal isn’t just wounded?”

  “Mountain lions never wound, Miranda. They are masters of the surgical strike. It’s almost always a clean, fast kill. At least the other two got away.”

  Miranda’s throat closed on a choked sob. “It’s all my fault! It happened on my watch.”

  “There’s nothing you could have done,” he consoled her.

  “Wh-what about us?” she asked. “What if it comes back? What if there are more of them out there?” Her hands flew to her neck at a sudden vision of a lion with fangs bared lunging at her throat.

  “There won’t be others,” Keith replied. “Mountain lions are territorial. They always hunt alone. And that one is unlikely to strike twice, but my rifle’s loaded just in case.” Looping a strong arm around her waist, he guided her into motion. “Let’s get away from here. You’ll be safer by the fire.”

  * * *

  Miranda’s teeth chattered, and her body still racked with aftershocks as they settled back under the blanket together. She was close enough to be a second skin, but he knew it wasn’t a sexual invitation. She sought only warmth and comfort, but he still couldn’t help the surge of blood to his dick. Danger, especially close encounters with death, often incited sexual desire. The danger had been real, and so was his lingering lust, but the moment for acting on it had passed.

  “Cold or frightened?” he asked, pulling her closer still.

  “Both,” she answered with a shaky laugh. “You really don’t think it’ll come back?” she whispered.

  “It won’t. It’s probably gorging itself right now.”

  She shuddered. “I didn’t need that visual. Which one did it get?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “What are we going to do out here with no horses?” she asked.

  “I have the sat phone, remember? I can call for help if need be, but we’ll probably find the horses once the sun rises. After that adventure, they’ll be as happy to go home as we’ll be.”

  In reality, Keith would be more relieved than happy to take Miranda back. Although his first priority was to keep her safe, he wouldn’t have minded more time alone with her.

  “I can’t believe this whole experience,” she said. “It’s like a weird dream. Do people really live like this? With poisonous snakes and horse-eating lions?”

  “Where I come from they do. We coexist with many predators, including wolves and grizzlies. I thought you said your grandparents have a ranch. Didn’t you ever encounter any wildlife there?”

  “It’s actually just my grandma’s now. We rode horses and played around with the cattle, but I never experienced anything like this before.”

  He chuckled. “You aren’t in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.”

  “Funny you said that. The Wizard of Oz is my favorite film. I’ve watched it thirteen times, part of which was a twenty-four-hour marathon.”

  “I don’t understand you.” He shook his head with a wry smile. “How can you watch the same film over and over when you already know what’s going to happen?”

  “Because every time I watch it I focus on a different char
acter and try to experience the events through his or her eyes. It’s all about the journey, not the destination.”

  “Which character do you best identify with?” he asked.

  “Well, usually it’s Dorothy, given that we’re both country girls and my experience in L.A. was all too much like hers in Oz, but I have to admit that tonight I’m identifying a lot more with the cowardly lion.”

  “If that’s so, I have something that might help.” He reached beneath his shirt for a leather cord that he pulled over his head.

  “What is it?” she asked, fingering the object that hung from the necklace.

  “A grizzly tooth. It was my boo-ha-gant.” He slipped it over her head. “Now it’s yours.” He smiled into her eyes. “It will give you courage, but you must keep it secret, or it’ll lose its powers.”

  “Courage? So this is really how you killed that snake? Won’t you lose your superpowers without it?”

  “No.” He stroked a finger along her collarbone above where the tooth lay nestled between her breasts. “For the record, you have yet to know my true superpowers. We were interrupted before I could demonstrate them to you.”

  Her face flushed. “You do think a lot of yourself, don’t you?”

  He brought his finger back up to her mouth to trace her lips. “Let’s just say I wouldn’t have disappointed you.”

  But disappointment reflected in her eyes. “Well, I guess we’ll never know now, will we?”

  “No,” he replied, regretfully. “We never will.” He wasn’t likely ever to see her again, but in their short time together he’d opened up more with her than he had with anyone else in years. “Are you sorry you came?” he asked.

  She exhaled a soft sigh. “No. Even with all that happened, I’m still glad I came.”

  Maybe her answer shouldn’t have surprised him, but it did. This day had put her mettle to the test, revealing a strength she probably didn’t even know she possessed. She still had so much to learn about herself. He would have enjoyed the chance to watch her journey, but it wasn’t meant to be. There was no point in dwelling on it. The opportunity was lost. Tomorrow they’d find the missing horses and part ways.