The Bounty
Page 5
“A spitting preacher tried to get rid of your demons?”
“Something like that.”
He thought he heard a chuckle, but the darkness absorbed the sound too quickly.
“I had a preacher once tried to convince my mama that I was a demon.”
Tyler’s eyebrows shot toward his hair. He had to bite his tongue not to laugh. “And your crimes against the church?”
“You’ll laugh.”
“No, I won’t.”
Silence met his assurance. “Really, I won’t laugh.”
“If you do laugh, I have permission to punch you in your spittle-covered nose.”
“Agreed.”
“I wasn’t wearing a corset or a dress—always wore britches—so he was convinced I was a demon in disguise. He said demons can’t wear lace. It chafes their scales.”
Tyler laughed, then swerved just in time to avoid a small white fist sailing at him. He grabbed her arms and halted her attack.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“You said I could punch you in the nose if you laughed.”
“Well that was before you said demons can’t wear lace because it chafes their scales.”
“Lace does chafe. Damn sissy stuff. I hated it and I refused to wear it. Still don’t, goddammit!”
He bit his tongue and tasted blood, but he didn’t laugh again.
“So does that mean you’re a demon after all?”
“Very funny. You must keep your prisoners in stitches all the time.”
“Yup, but they’re not laughing with them. They’re bleeding from them.”
Tyler immediately regretted his words. He had been enjoying their banter. Too much. She didn’t speak another word.
Tyler decided it was time to stop after putting sufficient distance behind them, and far too many tracks for those fools to follow. He spotted another clump of trees on the horizon.
“Mount up, Malloy. Almost bedtime.”
Nicky hauled herself up in the saddle with a grunt. She didn’t stay on the horse for long. Tyler saw her start to slide out of the saddle and caught her about the waist.
“Won’t be that easy to escape.”
He pulled her limp form onto his saddle. When she nestled in front of him with a sigh, he realized the monumental error he had just made. It was like having a little piece of heaven sitting in his lap. Now why was he not surprised her sweet behind was so goddamn soft? Good thing it was only for a few minutes, or she was sure to feel more than his pistol poking her in the back.
He held the reins with one hand, while the other settled on her waist. Seemingly without thought, he rocked against her and shuddered at the sensation as his cock decided to rise to the occasion. Dammit! He had to stop himself. Now. He wasn’t about to fuck an unconscious woman. Even an outlaw.
When they reached the trees, he dismounted quickly, then pulled her down with a plop. She was like a life-sized rag doll. He didn’t want to put his hands on her any more than necessary.
“Come on, Malloy, stand up,” he growled.
Nicky stood, albeit shakily, biting her lip as she watched Tyler open her bedroll. He grabbed her arm and led her to it like a small child.
“Sleep.”
As he watched, she dropped like a sack of potatoes. Her hat popped off and rolled a few feet away. She was asleep in the blink of an eye. Tyler had to tear his gaze away from her finely rounded bottom, to forget how it felt to be pressed up against it so intimately. To forget how badly he wanted to pull down those jeans and plunge into her.
As he tried to will away the terrific hard-on in his pants, he briefly scouted the area, but neither heard nor saw any pursuit. Hopefully they had confused the hell out of those two idiots, and had seen the last of them.
Now if only he could stop wanting to get into his prisoner’s pants.
———
Nicky couldn’t get back to sleep. She woke up as suddenly as she had fallen asleep, and now her mind was racing. Although she had washed the mud off her face and hands, her clothes were stiff with it. And she was chained to this bounty hunter, had to sleep next to him. It didn’t matter that she was on her own bedroll; he was so close she could hear his even breathing, and if she turned her head, they would be nose to nose. Close enough to kiss. She sighed, gazing up at the moon. It was almost full and bright as a new coin.
She couldn’t believe all the effort she’d made to cover her tracks was wasted. This man had found her, and a nice fat reward waited for him, she was certain of that. She had disguised herself so well for years, survived on her own, learned to shoot like a damn gunslinger, and here she was chained to a bounty hunter. A man that made her remember what it was to be a woman, to want, to desire, to lust. A disturbingly handsome bounty hunter with hair as black as soot, and eyes the color of a Wyoming winter sky.
Wyoming.
Unbidden images of Logan’s final moments came into her mind. Oh no, here it comes. Her throat closed with emotion. She missed him, she missed her parents, her other brothers, and even missed Wyoming. Now she found out they thought she was a thief and a murderer. She choked on the feelings, hidden for so long as she had struggled to hide, to survive. Rage, fear, hopelessness, and most of all, grief. Now her family would see her swing from a tree. And Logan’s death would never be avenged.
Silent tears coursed down her cheeks.
Oh Logan, I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. It should have been me who died.
This was definitely not the time to become a crybaby. She stifled a hiccup as the tears slowed. She needed to think about how to escape from this bounty hunter, not weep about how she would die if she didn’t.
Chapter Five
The sun peeked over the horizon the next morning, painting the sky a soft shade of pink. Tyler was awake with the dawn. As his eyes focused on the sky, he was disconcerted to find it was the same shade of pink as his prisoner’s lips. He was even further disconcerted to find that Nicky was snuggled up against him, with one leg slung over his. In sleep, those pink lips were slightly parted, her long lashes closed in repose, and her face was smudged with dirt. In something akin to horror, he realized that another part of his anatomy was waking with a vengeance. Hard, long, and hungry.
Nicky’s hair was splayed out beneath her head. How did she ever control those locks? It really did look like it was made of silk, and was probably softer. She truly was a beautiful woman. He refused to torture himself and think of what she would look like wearing a dress. She was enough to look at in jeans and a baggy shirt. He squashed the urge to smile. It was replaced by the stronger urge to kiss those sunrise-pink lips, and run his hands through her curls. He berated himself for desiring this strange woman…this outlaw. Disgusted at his body’s weakness, he pushed at Nicky’s shoulder to wake her up. She slept on.
Tyler leaned over her face and took a deep breath.
“Wake up, woman!” he shouted with a certain perverse satisfaction.
Nicky awoke with a start and sat up so quickly she knocked her head soundly into Tyler’s jaw.
“Ouch!” She rubbed her forehead.
Tyler hid his pain by rising to his knees, pushing her leg off his. “You sleep like the dead.”
Nicky regarded her captor with an icy stare. “I’ll soon be dead if you take me to Wyoming.”
Tyler ignored her comment. As he stood, he pulled her up with him, the shackles clanging noisily. She looked sleep rumpled and still goddamned desirable. He groaned inwardly at this continuing lust. No more wasting time, he’d push her as hard as he could to get to Wyoming.
———
Tyler knew, he just damned well knew, he should have followed his instincts and told her no. But she pestered, and pestered, and pestered until he thought he’d lose his mind. He briefly wondered how magpies tasted after they were roasted over a spit. She wanted to take a bath and change her clothes.
“The mud is itchy. I really have to get clean,” she whined.
So he relented, and took her t
o the creek on the other side of the trees.
“You aren’t going to keep me chained now, are you? You’re going to have my clothes…where can I go?”
Tyler finally gave in to her demands, and unlocked the shackles only after she’d taken off her jeans, and her shirt hung by one sleeve. He averted his eyes from her half-dressed body. The fact that she was wearing men’s long underwear did nothing to detract from her innate sensuality. God, how he wanted this woman.
As she washed up in the creek, she asked him if she could wash the mud off her clothes, too. Without thinking, no, perhaps he was thinking of nothing but her taking a bath, he tossed her muddy clothes to her. As he stared off into the distance, he realized the splashing had stopped. And Miss Nicole Malloy was hightailing it across the prairie wearing a wet pair of men’s long underwear. And dammit to hell, she ran like the wind.
Tyler cursed heartily as he ran to the horses to give pursuit to his wayward prisoner. He untied the reins from the tree, then hauled himself up into the saddle. Leaving her mare behind, he took off after Nicky.
———
I did it. Best bounty hunter, my ass.
The rocks that were hidden in the tall grass were starting to cut the bottoms of her feet, but she kept going. She was running flat out and putting quite a distance between herself and the bounty hunter. Now if only she could find a farmhouse with some nice people that would believe her story of being kidnapped.
The sound of rapid hoofbeats threw her into a panic. She began running haphazardly, trying to keep out of his direct line of fire. Her foot slipped into a gopher hole and she tried to use her arms to regain her balance and stop her downward fall. She ended up sprawled face first in the dirt. Her nose took the brunt of the fall.
———
Tyler wanted to laugh when he saw her fall. Some escape. As he dismounted by her prone body, he grew concerned that she was truly hurt. He gently rolled her over. Nicky stared up at the sky with her eyebrows slammed together and blood running from her nose.
“Son of a bitch. Why can’t I ever be graceful enough to be a woman?”
“Maybe when you start acting like one,” Tyler said, realizing her pride was more hurt than her body. Damn, the woman had grit. He pulled a bandanna from his back pocket, and pressed it to her nose. “Here, hold this.”
He scooped her up into his arms, then flung her stomach first over his horse. After he mounted, he turned the horse around and headed back toward the creek.
“You know, you’re not supposed to treat an injured woman like this,” came her muffled, somewhat nasal shout.
“You’re not a woman to me, you’re an outlaw. You’re lucky you only hurt your little freckled nose. In a second, my Winchester was going to stop you.”
Tyler tried not to look at her behind, but his eyes seemed to have a mind of their own. The wet material hugged her derriere, outlining the sweet curves. God Almighty, it is perfect. His musings were cut short when he saw the soles of her feet—they looked to be painted crimson.
“Dammit, woman, why can’t you just do what I tell you to do?”
“What did I do now?”
As they arrived back at the makeshift camp, Tyler dismounted and pulled her shivering body from the horse. Dropping her on her bedroll, he threw his blanket around her shoulders, then grabbed his nearby saddlebag and started rummaging around for salve.
“What are you doing?” she asked around the bandanna.
“Looking for something to clean up your feet.” He washed the blood off her feet with water from his canteen, then put salve on the cuts. Taking one of his shirts from the saddlebag, he cut strips of bandages for her feet, and bound them after the bleeding had slowed to a trickle.
When he glanced up, she was staring at him with a confused look in her eyes. Her nose had stopped bleeding, and dried blood had crusted on her cheeks. He took the bandanna from her and rinsed it out, then bathed her face, mindful of her sore nose.
“You’re probably gonna have a helluva shiner,” he said as he finished his ministrations.
“Why did you do that?”
“I didn’t want to have to haul a corpse four hundred miles when those cuts turn gangrene. You’re enough trouble alive.”
If she’d had the courage to question him on why he offered that particular lie, he couldn’t have answered. He just didn’t know.
Chapter Six
Over the next several days, Nicky took it upon herself to study Tyler Calhoun, to gather all the information she could about the tight-lipped bounty hunter. Something she could use to escape, a weakness, anything. Trying to keep her plans unknown, she studied him when she thought he wasn’t looking. As they rode side by side across the plains each day, he never seemed to be interested in her at all, which gave her the opportunity to complete her surreptitious study.
She decided that he truly was as extremely handsome as she had originally thought. He had a broad chest and shoulders, narrow waist and hips, and thick black hair which all fit together in one nice package. His jaw was set in a hard line, his chin was covered with light stubble only hours after he shaved, his nose was straight and fine, his thick mustache rode a pair of lips that were just the right size for kissing.
She had to stop thinking about kissing him. It was a one time occurrence—never to repeat itself. If she kept telling herself that, she might believe it.
It was his eyes that truly haunted her. She’d never seen eyes quite that shade of blue before. They suddenly flicked over to hers. He had caught her looking at him. Chagrined by her actions as well as her pitiful, susceptible heart, she pasted on an innocent expression.
“You’ve been staring at me for two days. Something you need, Nicole?”
She didn’t trust that soft tone for anything.
“Yes.” She scrambled for a reason. “Since this is going to be a long journey, I thought we could at least talk. The silence is making me jumpy.”
He shook his head, then turned his gaze forward again. Nicky squeezed her lips together in determination. Now he’d pissed her off by dismissing her. She would make him talk.
“How long have you been a bounty hunter?”
The silence was only broken by the sound of the horses’ hooves clopping on the hard-packed dirt and the jangle of the chain that bound them together.
“Have you caught many men?”
Still nothing. He obviously underestimated a woman that grew up with six older brothers. She could be a pest’s pest when she wanted to. Time to get dirty.
“Was Hermano the first time you’d been captured? How embarrassing.”
Clip-clop went the horses’ hooves.
“Where are you from? Texas? Sounds like it. You went all the way from Texas to Wyoming for this job? Owen must have waved a lot of money under your nose.”
His hands tightened on the reins, and she smiled at his growing impatience.
“Wife? Children? Friends? Enemies? Favorite things to do?”
Tyler finally turned his head toward her. His eyes glittered like chips of blue ice, cold and hard.
“You’re worth six thousand dollars to me…alive, anyway. That’s all you need to know. What makes you ask all these questions about me?” His tone certainly did not match the look on his face.
Her heart dropped along with her stomach. They were dragging behind the horse now.
Six thousand dollars. That’s a damned fortune. Who in their right mind would turn that down to capture an outlaw?
“Ah, well, ah…y-you seem to know, um, to know everything there is to know about me…” she stammered.
His gaze raked up and down her body. Those ice blue eyes found hers. His expression hadn’t changed. “No, not everything,” he said as he turned away from her again.
“You know more than most men,” she retorted.
His gaze snapped back to hers. The coldness had intensified in his eyes. Thankfully, the sun burst through the clouds at that moment and the brim of his hat shaded most of his face.
Nice piece of calico?
Now she was getting angry. She was no whore, dammit. And one kiss didn’t change that fact. She yanked on the chain that bound her to his saddle. Tyler grabbed the chain tightly with one hand.
“What I have or have not done with men is none of your damned business, Calhoun. Why are you being so all-fired nasty to me?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
“All I wanted to do was pass the time. You wouldn’t talk so…I made you talk. I win.”
He snorted. “Bull, Malloy. Now shut up and keep riding.”
His voice was firm as he kneed his horse to a faster pace.
“I still win. Can we stop for dinner?”
He didn’t answer her.
“I will throw myself from my horse and drag you down with me,” she said sweetly but with a touch of ice. “If you don’t stop and let me rest.”
Calhoun turned to look at her. She saw a flash of something—irritation?—cross his features, then he was his cool self again.
“As long as you’ll stop your blathering, magpie,” he said through his clenched teeth.
So, too much talking bothered him? She wasn’t normally a chatterbox, but being talkative could be an easy weapon to wield against her captor. Oh, joy! She mentally rubbed her hands together at the newfound information.
“Thank you, Calhoun,” she cooed with a bright smile.
Tyler snorted at her thanks. He stopped the horses at a small pond, and dismounted in one fluid motion. After unlocking the shackles from the saddle horn, he reached up to lift her down.
Nicky’s arm bumped the brim of her hat, knocking it off and letting her curls loose in a small explosion of hair. They tumbled down, brushing Tyler’s face.
Nicky caught her breath at the desire she saw flame in Tyler’s eyes. His hands felt like branding irons on her sides. Ever so slowly, her feet touched the ground. Her breathing quickened as they stood between the horses, his hands still on her waist.