Winter Fire

by Elizabeth Lowell

  The packhorses had their ears laid back. The dead weight of metal was the hardest kind of load to carry.

  Cold settled over the land like a second kind of silence. Veils of snow drifted and vanished, revealing the land one second and concealing it the next. Gradually the snow stopped. The moon rose clean and bright enough to throw shadows. The tracks of the horses stood out starkly against the glittering white land.

  There was no sign of raiders at the mouth of the canyon.

  Sarah sighed and began to relax. As the excitement of finding treasure slowly faded, her elation became a bittersweet kind of acceptance.

  Conner’s future was assured.

  Her half of Lost River ranch belonged to Case Maxwell.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind about taking half the silver instead of half the ranch?” she asked after a while. “The silver is worth a lot more.”

  “Not to me.”

  She didn’t ask again.

  In silence Sarah rode back toward the home that was no longer hers. Her eyes roved the land, memorizing its stark beauty, engraving it on her mind.

  Soon memories would be all that was left to her of the ranch she loved.

  21

  Run! The flood is coming and he’s drunk and mean and looking for you!

  Faster, Conner! You’re too big now for me to carry you!

  Sarah awoke in a heart-pounding rush. Cold sweat chilled her skin.

  Oh God, Hal will catch me this time for sure.

  Frantically she looked around.

  Though she was outside, no floodwater frothed around her. There were no walls, no doors, nothing to keep her from fleeing her husband.

  She took a broken breath and tried to orient herself.

  No moon dimmed the wild, cascading glory of the stars overhead. Snow lay silver upon the land. What wasn’t covered by snow was a strangely luminous ebony as deep as night itself.

  Abruptly she remembered where she was, and why. At Hunter’s suggestion—order, actually—she had decided not to sleep inside the cabin as was her custom. After it was too dark for any spy to see her, she had taken her bedroll outside.

  A steep canyon wall was at her back. Brush flanked her. Horses were hobbled randomly throughout the area. Their senses would pick up intruders long before human ones would.

  And Case was sleeping somewhere nearby, invisible in the darkness, guarding her and the Spanish treasure.

  Sarah took another breath, a deeper one. The air was cold and sweet and free.

  Just a nightmare, she kept telling herself. Nothing to get in a lather about.

  Hal is dead.

  Conner is safe.

  I’m safe.

  Yet even as the thoughts came, anxiety shivered through her, a fear that no reassurances could touch. She hadn’t felt this way since she had realized that her parents were dead, her brothers and sisters were dead, and she was responsible for Conner’s sheer survival.

  The silver means that Conner never will want for food, and neither will I.

  I never will have to marry or turn to whoring simply to survive.

  So why do I feel so frightened?

  Then she remembered that the price of Spanish treasure had been very high—Lost River ranch.

  I’ve lived through worse losses.

  I’ll live through this.

  Somehow.

  “Sarah?”

  Case’s voice was so low that it carried no farther than a few feet.

  “I’m awake,” she said softly. “Is something wrong?”

  He condensed out of the night beside her.

  “That’s what I was going to ask you,” he said. “You were thrashing around like a fish on a hook.”

  His shoulders blocked out a wide patch of stars. The makeshift poncho he wore swirled around his knees like night itself.

  She took a quick, ragged breath. The air was still cold and clean, but now it smelled of leather, wool, and man.

  “Just a bad dream,” she said.

  “The flood or your husband?”

  “Both, I think. I don’t remember much except the fear.”

  Though Sarah’s words were matter-of-fact, her voice still trembled with echoes of terror.

  Saying nothing, Case sat on the foot of her bedroll. Gently he lifted her into his lap, wrapped a blanket from her bedroll around her, and held her against his chest.

  “Sometimes it takes a while for the nightmares to fade,” he said.

  Giving up Lost River ranch, like the death of her family, wouldn’t fade. But she didn’t refuse the comfort he offered. She gave a jerky sigh and leaned against him.

  Silence and the soft whispering of their mingled breath filtered through the night.

  “Look around you,” he murmured after a time. “The land is as beautiful as a meadowlark’s song.”

  She didn’t have to look. The land filled her eyes, her heart, her soul.

  “The snow will melt tomorrow,” she said quietly. “But until then, everything will be like a Christmas angel, all sparkling with light.”

  His breathing hesitated, then continued evenly despite the memories running like razors through his heart.

  “Did your family have an angel at the top of their Christmas tree?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Of all the decorations, it was my favorite.”

  “Emily loved the angel best, too.”

  The echoes of pain in his voice made Sarah ache. Saying nothing, she shifted until she could put her arms around him. His arms tightened around her in return.

  Snow shimmered like the wings of angels, white and glistening, feathery veils of innocence that both softened and emphasized the stark beauty of the land.

  How can I leave this? she thought.

  Breath squeezed raggedly from her lungs.

  “Still afraid?” Case asked quietly.

  “I know the difference between nightmare and night” was all she said.

  He pulled her closer and tucked her head beneath his chin. With each breath he inhaled the clean scent of her hair.

  Tenderness and desire fought within him.

  Both won.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked after a time.

  “Land and silver and Conner.”

  “He was so excited he was dancing in place.”

  “Until I started talking about sending him back East to school,” Sarah said.

  “Conner was thinking of spending that silver on good cattle and digging wells and such.”

  “He can do that after he has a university education. If he still wants to.”

  Case opened his mouth to point out that Conner’s future was her brother’s decision, not hers.

  Yet in the end he said nothing.

  “Hunter wasn’t very excited about the silver,” she said.

  “It means trouble.”

  “We were poor and had trouble. Now we’re rich and have trouble. I’d rather have the silver as well as the misery.”

  Again, Case held his tongue.

  Then he thought better of it. If Sarah understood just how great the risk had become after the Spanish treasure was found, maybe she would grab Conner and get the hell out while the rest of them took care of the Culpeppers.

  “We were followed once we left that side canyon,” Case said flatly.

  “We’ve been followed before.”

  “We were carrying firewood then.”

  “So?”

  “We come out of that canyon with no firewood in sight, yet our animals all cut deeper tracks than they did on the way into the canyon.”

  Sarah stiffened.

  “Ab Culpepper is a good tracker,” he said. “So are most of his kin. They know you were hunting for Spanish treasure.”

  “And now they know we’ve found it,” she finished bleakly.

  “That’s what I would think, if I had been the one watching and tracking.”

  “Nobody knows where the silver is hidden now but the two of us,” she said fiercely.


  “You wouldn’t last long once Ab started questioning you. Neither would I. He’s a man of rare cruelty.”

  “Then you’ll just have to keep me out of his hands until I get that silver to a bank.”

  “I have a better idea. Take Conner, four bars of silver, and six horses. Run without stopping for Santa Fe. Ute will go with you as a guard. You can come back once the raiders are taken care of.”

  “Conner won’t go,” she said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m not a complete fool. I want my brother out of here in one piece. But he won’t leave. When I told him I wouldn’t give him any silver if he stayed, he just shrugged.”

  “Damnation,” Case said through his teeth.

  “Amen.”

  She sighed jerkily.

  It’s all coming apart, all my plans for the future. Why did Conner have to grow up so stubborn?

  Starlight glittered across snow like frozen tears.

  Sarah closed her eyes, shutting out everything but the comfort of Case’s body so solid against hers and his arms strong around her. A shiver that was both sadness and pleasure went through her.

  “Don’t think about the nightmare,” he said softly.

  “I wasn’t.”

  “You trembled.”

  “I was thinking about how fine it would be just to stay here in the night with you and let the rest of it slide away, all of it, all the bad memories and the fear…”

  His eyes closed. The longing in her voice was echoed in his own heartbeat, his own soul.

  “Just live here and now?” he asked.

  “Yes. Like a good dream, the kind you wake up from smiling instead of sweating.”

  “Like a dream,” he said. “Nothing before and nothing after. Just a sweet dream…”

  His lips whispered softly over her hairline, her eyebrows, her cheekbones, the corner of her mouth.

  “Case?” she whispered.

  “Just a dream,” he said. “That’s all. Just a dream.”

  The tip of his tongue traced her upper lip, then her lower one, leaving a delicate fire in its wake. Her breath caught and her heart turned over at the tender caress.

  Then she remembered his blunt warning.

  Don’t tease me into making you pregnant. I would hate both of us for it.

  The leather poke that Lola had given Sarah was back in the cabin. She knew if she went to get it, Case would withdraw again behind his carefully built walls.

  Only now, this instant, was he vulnerable.

  Like her.

  It doesn’t matter, she thought. I’ll be gone from Lost River ranch before either one of us knows if I’m pregnant.

  And maybe, just maybe, I can get so far inside those walls of his that he can’t shut me out ever again.

  She didn’t really believe it, but she hoped…

  Her teeth nipped his lower lip. The startled breath he took was the opening she wanted. Her tongue slid into his mouth and began exploring.

  Without knowing it, she shivered and made a throaty sound of pleasure when she tasted him.

  “I love your taste,” she whispered. “I love the way your teeth feel so slick and hard and your tongue is all velvet and warm.”

  Case made a low sound. His arms tightened until he held Sarah in a powerful, warm vise.

  “You shouldn’t say things like that,” he whispered.

  “Why?”

  “You’ll make me lose my head.”

  “Just for a while. Just a dream. That’s all,” she whispered. “A dream.”

  Before he could pull away, she shifted in his lap, trying to get even closer to him. As she moved, her hip rubbed over his aroused flesh.

  He was full, hard, ready.

  She made another low sound and moved again, frankly caressing him, knowing at some deeply feminine level that this was the way to reach past his barriers, if only for a time.

  Just a dream.

  He tried to speak. All that came out was a throttled groan when her mouth slanted over his. The taste of her as she met and matched his hungry tongue, the feel of her moving in his lap, and the ragged catch in her breathing told him that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

  The knowledge was like raw whiskey in his brain, stripping away his control. He fought against himself even as his tongue stabbed into Sarah’s mouth again and again, seeking her as deeply as she was seeking him.

  Yet no matter how fully their mouths joined, it wasn’t enough. He needed more, much more. He needed all of her.

  Her name was a husky question on his lips.

  Her answer was a hungry movement of her body that inflamed him.

  Case stopped fighting against what he needed more than the blood in his veins. Beneath the blanket he had wrapped around her, his hands sought and found the feminine weight of her breasts.

  He stroked her urgently, but it was skin he hungered for, not clothing. Quickly he unbuttoned her flannel shirt and undid the ties of her chemise.

  His fingers were cool from the night. Sarah gasped when they plucked at her nipples. When he hesitated, she put her hands over his and held them to her breasts.

  “Don’t stop,” she whispered.

  “My hands are cold.”

  “Cold?” she laughed raggedly. “They’re fire. Pure, wonderful fire. I want them all over me. But most of all, I want to have you inside me again.”

  He made a deep, broken sound and pushed her back onto the bedroll. Together they fought their way through clothing until she felt him opening her naked thighs.

  The scent of her arousal pushed him over the edge. He caressed her once, deeply, and felt liquid fire spill over his hand. He tried to say her name but couldn’t. She had taken his breath.

  Long legs wrapped around his hips. He yanked at his pants until they were open, then barely managed to throttle a groan when her hips lifted to him, touching him with fire.

  He rubbed against her slick heat. She shivered with pleasure and returned the caress, sliding over his hungry flesh. He guided himself to her, testing her readiness. As he stretched her, more of her intimate heat spilled over him.

  It was like setting fire to a torch.

  His body corded. He sank into her as far as he could go. He drank the startled, sensual cry she made before it went any further than her lips. His hips moved, then moved again, driving him faster, harder, deeper into her sultry, clinging center.

  Sarah’s legs tightened and her hips moved in return, urging him, arousing him until he knew nothing but the sensation of her living fire surrounding him. He wanted to slow down, to regain his self-control, but he could no more do that than he could resist the satin heat of her passion in the first place.

  Her nails sank into his thighs as she twisted up to meet him. The night came apart around him in a series of deep, wrenching pulses that left him shaken and light-headed, fighting for breath.

  Uncertainly Sarah held Case, stroked him, gently kissed his forehead and eyelids and lips.

  After a long time he lifted his head and looked down at her with glittering eyes.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked.

  “I thought I was hurting you,” she said unhappily. “You sounded like you were dying. Did I—did I disgust you again?”

  “Disgust me? What are you talking about? You’ve never disgusted me.”

  “Not even the first time we did this?”

  “You couldn’t disgust me if you tried,” he said flatly.

  She let out a long breath of relief.

  “But I’m disgusted with myself,” he said roughly. “I’ve never lost control like that. I’m sorry.”

  He gathered himself to get off her.

  Her legs locked around his hips.

  “You said I didn’t disgust you,” she whispered.

  Case caught Sarah’s face between his hard hands.

  “You don’t disgust me,” he said distinctly. “You excite me as no other woman has, ever.”

  “Then why are you going away?
”

  “Because I’m crushing you.”

  Smiling, she rocked her hips against him. The hot, delicious sensations that went through her at each movement made her want to hold him even closer, deeper.

  “You’re not crushing me,” she murmured. “You’re keeping me warm from the inside out. That’s a handy thing on a cold winter night. Would you like a job as my blanket?”

  He made an odd sound and lowered his face next to hers on the bedroll.

  “Case? Are you all right?”

  “No. You make me want to…”

  His voice unraveled. He couldn’t explain the complex emotions seething just beneath his control.

  “…to laugh,” he said finally. “I don’t want to laugh, to feel, to love. Never again. I can’t.”

  Sarah was glad that the night concealed what his words did to her; pain and denial, anger and a savage kind of grief.

  And above all, acceptance.

  She understood what drove Case away from her, and why. She could not fault him for his choices.

  She loved him.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered fiercely. “Laugh or cry or do nothing at all. This is just a dream, remember? Dreams don’t count.”

  As she spoke, her hips moved with a sensuous need that was unmistakable to Case.

  She still wanted him.

  A hot shudder racked him from head to heels. His heartbeat doubled. Blood raced through him and gathered in a storm, transforming him. His whole body tightened against her. He filled her until she overflowed.

  “Oh, my,” she whispered dreamily. “That feels wonderful.”

  Her hips moved in counterpart to her words, stroking Case and pleasuring both of them.

  “Sarah.”

  “Mmm?”

  “You’re burning me alive,” he said roughly.

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “Ask me again in a few minutes.”

  “What?”

  His answer was a kiss that filled her mouth as thoroughly as he was filling her body. He didn’t stop until she was breathless and twisting against him hungrily, seeking the ecstasy she sensed just beyond her reach.

  Only then did he roll away from her. Hastily he began stripping off the clothes he had merely unfastened before.