“Small talk is overrated, anyway.” She puffed her cheeks and got back to work. To her surprise, once she’d figure out the first tent, the second one went up in half the time. She’d broken her second fingernail in the process and decided it was time to pull out a nail file and sand them all down. Normal primping would have to take a back seat starting today. She was just setting up the camp stove when Stoney appeared with an armload of wood.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said when he caught sight of the tents standing side by side.
Melanie smiled brightly. “I wanted to.”
“Thank you for the effort but it was a waste of your time. It’s just going to be taken down again.”
She glared at him, trying to suppress her shock. Still, indignation spilled to the forefront. “I don’t know what you expected out of me this trip, but your fee as a guide doesn’t include any sexual-”
He rolled his eyes and grinned. “Keep your pants on, Sunshine. I have no intentions of crawling into your tent to take advantage of you. Despite what you may think, I’m not a man who takes what isn’t offered. As long as you zip that tent tight, you’ll be safe.”
Slightly embarrassed by her jump to the conclusion that he was trying to seduce her, she asked, “Where will you sleep?”
He looked up at the sky. Dark shadows cast colorful fingers across the land, but the sky was already a dark smoky blue. “It’s going to be a clear night. I can’t see wasting it by sleeping in a tent. I’ll sleep under the stars by the campfire.”
She hesitated. “Aren’t you afraid?”
“Of what?”
“You know, of...snakes?” She made a face, the unbidden feeling of her skin crawling making her shudder. “And things slithering into your sleeping bag?”
His lips tilted ever so slightly to show her he did something more than just scowl. Her heart pounded against her ribcage, and she thought it would tumble out of her chest. When he wasn’t angry or distant with her, she actually had a hard time thinking of Stoney as the man she hired for a purpose. He was a man, pure and simple. She just wished every time he shined his cowboy, happy go lucky smile, she didn’t have the urge to fall right into his strong arms.
She’d never thought of herself as the kind of woman who’d be attracted to a cowboy. She liked her men clean, for one thing. And though today was much an improvement over the last few days, she’d seen firsthand that nothing about a cowboy was clean for very long. They worked hard, and she suspected they played hard. Maybe that’s why so many of them up and joined the rodeo like it was a circus.
His dark eyes suddenly changed. They were dark, primitive, telling her more than she suspected he’d like her to know. She’d seen this expression in him before. First on the day she’d arrived at the ranch and then again at the stable after the first time they’d taken the horses out for a ride. She’d thought he was about to kiss her then. And she was surprised at her own reaction now. The thought of Stoney kissing her sent a blaze of fire spitting through her. If he touched her, she didn’t know what she’d do.
His breathing was shallow. They weren’t close enough to touch, but the hot current that flowed between them was incredible. And then it change abruptly, and the lines on his face deepened. His expression changed as if he’d lifted a mask.
“We’d better get supper ready. We’ll start out early in the morning.”
It didn’t take long to prepare supper. Except for the occasional instructions Stoney gave her, they talked little. They talked even less when dinner was complete.
“Since you did most of the cooking, I’ll do the dishes,” she said, lifting herself from ground. She bent over to retrieve his empty plate and their eyes met. She felt as if she were a yo-yo. One minute, he was talking to her as pleasant as can be, the next he was barking out simple orders as if he were angry. And then he would look at her this way, like she was the earth and the sky and everything in between. Her breath caught in her throat for a moment before she managed to compose herself.
He cleared his throat. “It’s getting cold. I’ll get the fire good and hot.”
Stoney had the small fire burning bright when she got back from the river. She packed away the last of the dishes and utensils, and hesitated. Her whole body ached from their long day, and good sense should have told her to just say goodnight and turn in. But she joined him by the fire instead.
“Do you mind?” she said, waiting for a reply before lowering herself to the ground.
He silently extended his hand toward a spot next to the flames. But there was something in his expression that told her he’d prefer to be alone.
Deciding the warmth of the fire won out over Stoney’s mood swing, she plopped herself on the ground opposite him. It didn’t take long for her to feel the fire’s heat against her cold cheeks.
“Feels good,” she said in an effort to make small talk.
He pitched a broken twig to the burning embers. He seemed mesmerized by the crackle and the colorful blaze. The sound of wolves calling to each other in the distance startled her. They both looked out into the black night in the same direction.
Stoney turned back to her. “Don’t worry. With the fire going, they shouldn’t come close to camp. The horses will let us know before anything else if an animal is lurking about.”
She drew in a pensive breath, still looking into ominous shadows the fire made past the rocks. She was going to have to get used to this. Out here there were grizzly bear and cougar. In Africa, there’d be lions and tigers. This is what she’d come here for.
She closed her eyes, hugging her knees to her chest and listened. “Sounds almost musical, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
Moments passed by as they listened to the night sounds with silence between them. Melanie was relieved that the tension seemed to have faded. Stoney was the one to break the silence.
“What you said about your family wanting you to marry for a business deal. It being tradition and all. Was that true or were you joking?”
Melanie felt a dull ache in the pit of her stomach. “I wish I were. They’ve always wanted me to have what they have.”
He shook his head. “Don’t your parents love each other?”
How could he understand? Melanie thought. There was so much love that flowed in the Buxton house. She’d felt it as soon as she arrived. “I guess they have a kind of love for each other now. They’re sort of comfortable with who they are. Mom has her friends and the country club and her charities. Dad has his associates and...I don’t know. I guess they’re happy enough with what they have. It was a given they’d get married. Everyone thought they would. I doubt they’d ever considered anything else.”
“I don’t get it.”
Sadly, neither did Melanie. She always wanted to believe her parents had the kind of love that passed the test of time. But the only thing that ever shook their marriage was Melanie and her diabetes. That was the only time she heard them fight and even then, it was in the wee hours of the morning when they thought she was asleep.
She’d hear her father saying that Melanie wasn’t normal, that she was special. They’d used her beauty as a way to offset her medical imperfection, calling her special. It wasn’t the kind of special she wanted to be. It was the kind that made her feel she was defective.
Instead, they called her beautiful and paraded her around like she was a trophy, like her mother was to her father. Except Melanie didn’t want that kind of life. She didn’t want to be loved because she was beautiful. She wanted to feel beautiful because she was loved.
Melanie understood early on the seriousness of her illness. She knew what she had to do to stay healthy and was religious with her treatment. But unlike her mother and father, Melanie didn’t believe that it was all she was. She wasn’t just a diabetic. She wasn’t just beautiful. She had a lot more to offer and life had a lot more to offer her than they were willing to acknowledge.
“How come you didn’t saddle down some rich guy to take you
on this little excursion?” he asked, tossing a piece of kindling into the fire. It took a second, then the dry wood burst into flame with the embers.
He gave her a lingering sidelong glance that made her suck in a small breath. With the flickers of light painting shadows on his chiseled features, Stoney was incredibly sexy. He looked just like one of those cowboys in an old western movie. The one who always rides in his black stallion in the heat of battle to rescue the damsel in distress. Melanie was far from a damsel in distress and she let him know it.
“I don’t have a rich guy,” she said, emphasizing the word rich just enough to let him know how irritated it made her that he kept bringing up the difference in their social status.
She didn’t know why, but she thought she’d seen a flicker of something cross his features. As if the thought that there wasn’t a man in her life was somehow a relief to him. Lord knows there had been ample opportunity for her to meet eligible wealthy men. Her mother had done a pretty good job picking and choosing the right men to introduce her to at each and every social function she was forced to attend.
But none of them held any interest for Melanie. The kind of life that the men she’d known were after, the kind of life her parents hoped and prayed she’d eventually embrace, was too superficial. Her mother said she was cursed to be born a Gemini. Too much adventure would get her into trouble, she’d always warned. But it was better than being locked in a world with fake smiles and no love. No real love.
“And I don’t need a man to take care of me,” she insisted.
He grinned wryly. She immediately knew what he was thinking. And he wasted no time bringing that fact to light.
“Then I guess I can head home tomorrow because you won’t need me.”
“Not so fast, cowboy. I’ve got too much riding on this.”
“Care to tell me about it?”
“All I need from you is a notarized letter stating I’ve spent the last thirty days in your company in the Wyoming wilderness. The rest really is of no importance.”
“Except to you.”
“Exactly.”
Stoney reclined back in his bedroll and clasped his hands behind his head as he looked up at the billions of stars dotting the black sky.
“Fine,” he said tersely. She noted the slightly biting tone to his voice.
“Good, because I really feel-”
He lifted his head off the ground an inch and turned to her. “Morning will be here before you know it. It’s time we turned in.”
Melanie felt a hot flow of emotion wash over her. He was blowing her off! “Fine,” she parroted.
She was about to stalk off toward her tent when her eyes captured the glow of a shiny metal barrel sticking out from underneath Stoney’s sleeping bag.
“You have a gun,” she said harshly.
His hand moved to the gun, unearthing it from its hiding place beneath the bedroll. “It’s just a precaution.”
“For what?”
“As long as we’re careful, we won’t have any problems. We’re trespassing in the backyard of many animals who may not like our being here. You of all people should understand that. I don’t plan on firing the gun unless we’re in danger.”
She sucked in a deep breath. The mountains seemed so peaceful, so serene. For a brief moment, she’d forgotten that they weren’t alone. After all, this was the reason why she’d come to Wyoming. Although the desire to work in the field had always been there, Melanie realized there was quite a lot she didn’t know.
His mouth twisted into a sarcastic smirk. “What did you expect?”
“I just didn’t realize you’d brought a shotgun. That’s all.”
“You have a problem with guns?”
“No.” She started to turn, but angled back. “When they’re used for the right purpose, that is.”
He scowled, his features growing hard and his mouth tightening. “I assure you. I don’t abuse my privilege to use this gun on anything other than what is absolutely necessary.”
She nodded, still feeling a little shaky with the concept of a gun being in tow on this journey. But she let it go. She loved animals. The thought of hunting for game for sport had never sat well with her. She felt only a twinge of guilt in thinking that was the reason Stoney had brought the gun. But Stoney was right. It was necessary in the wilderness as a precaution. She only prayed there’d be no cause for Stoney to ever use that gun in her presence.
She crawled into her tent and zipped the hatch closed behind her, remembering at once that she hadn’t checked her sugar level for the evening. In the quiet of the night, Stoney was sure to hear the beeping of her blood monitor calculating her blood sugar, but she’d have to make some excuse for the noise.
She reached into her duffel and pulled out the small flashlight, hanging it on the strap above her so that it would shine a constant beam on her duffel bag. She pulled out her equipment, blood machine, test strips, an insulin vial and syringe, and proceeded with the twice daily ritual that had become second nature to her.
It didn’t take much for sleep to claim her once she finally climbed into her sleeping bag. Every muscle in her body screamed in protest as her limbs tightened. Though the sleeping bag was warm, with a thick fleece lining, it took a while for the warmth to seep into her bones.
She chose to sleep in her clothes, something she’d never done before. As a result, she awoke sometime during the night with her wool sweater twisted around her chest and the waistband of her jeans digging into her side. As she stripped off her bra, the jeans, and her socks while still zipped in an awkward position in the sleeping bag, she heard the sound of the horses nickering and grunting, and immediately recalled what Stoney had said about the horse sounding a call when animals drew closer to camp.
She welcomed the morning, although it didn’t come as quickly as Melanie would have hoped. With the promise of the sunrise just peaking over the east of the mountain range, she knew she wouldn't last another minute held up in her tent.
She quickly grabbed a pair of clean underwear, a new pair of jeans and a white long sleeve cotton jersey, wishing they’d had the opportunity to find one of those hot springs Gerald Hammond had boasted about the day she’d been in his shop. She let the longing for a hot bath slide in return for a dip in the pond. Melanie vaguely recalled seeing a small cove tucked in the seclusion of a stand of pine trees. Since she had every intention of keeping herself as clean as she could despite her lack of pamperings, she decided that was as good a place as any to take her first cold bath.
As she climbed out of the tent, donning nothing but the nightshirt she’d finally pulled on in the middle of the night, she saw the coals from the campfire were still smoking. Beside the campfire, Stoney was asleep in his sleeping bag, his cowboy boots propped at the foot of his bedroll. On top of them was the red chamois shirt Stoney had worn the previous day.
Her stomach tightened, and she felt the familiar stir of desire coil inside her as she thought of Stoney’s bare chest. His face was tossed to one side and held the peacefulness of a child. She fought the incredible urge to reach out and stroke her fingers along the side of his cheek. He’d shaven yesterday, but now his face was shadowed with his day old beard and had Melanie wondering if he’d bother to shave at all this month. What did he look like in a beard? What secrets did a man like Stoney hide behind such a mask?
No more secrets than her own, she decided. And it wasn’t for her to think about anyway. She had her own goals to realize, and she wasn’t going to do that if she spent the entire month yearning for Stoney Buxton, no matter how much he made her heart stop with his drop-dead smile.
She eased herself away from him slowly, trying not to disturb his sleep. He stirred and rolled over on his side, revealing the strength of his bare shoulders.
The small cove was only about one hundred yards past the point where the horses were picketed. Even if Stoney woke up, she was sure to have some privacy.
She grabbed the basin and a bar of glycerin soap
that was gentle on the environment and headed toward the cove. The morning dew clung to the ground and sent a chill racing through her with each step. Although it was June, the morning was rather chilly, and Melanie was almost having second thoughts about taking her dunk until she reached the cove and saw how inviting the water looked.
She took a good look around through the stand of pines, searching for any sign of animals. This time of morning, when the air was still cool, was a good time for moose, elk and bear to come to the water hole for filling. She said a silent prayer she wouldn’t get caught with her pants down and took a dive off a large boulder that dipped off into a deep spot.
With the raging fire she felt inside after seeing Stoney, she was going to need this cold bath. If this didn’t work, she was going to need to find a deep snow bank.
#
Chapter Six
The next two days were spent trailing deeper into the wilderness of the Wind River Mountain Range. Deeper away from civilization. Deeper into isolation.
She’d spent so much time looking at the back of Stoney’s head that she swore she’d counted each dark course hair that poked out beneath his hat. She knew the tantalizing way his body shifted to and fro in the saddle and how his muscled arms flexed as he maneuvered his mount. He’d look back only briefly, giving Melanie a curt smile when she’d catch him looking at her. The rest of the time, he seemed lost in his own world with her staring from the outside looking in.
She’d long since abandoned small talk and decided that, for all his assets, Stoney Buxton was a man of few words. But the way his gaze bore into her with such depth at those odd moments when their eyes would lock had her wondering just what he was thinking. She found it incredibly intriguing.
And she found it pathetically annoying. She would never have considered herself a chatterbox, but an occasional acknowledgment that there was someone else riding with him would be appreciated. Maybe he was just one of those mountain men who felt at one with his environment, free to lose himself in his thoughts. Melanie found herself imagining a lot about Stoney and what made him tick as the clip clop of horse hooves smacked the ground, hypnotizing her.
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