by Jillian Hart
Only one? She could think of a thousand problems right here, right now. Being unable to speak was one of them. Being unable to move was another.
“We can’t get to the horses because it’s too close to a few hired guns. We can’t risk going in to get your horses, but I was hoping you would sneak up to the fence line with me. Maybe bring along some grain. Would the geldings come up if they saw you?”
“Ah…are they…safe?”
“They’ve lost weight, but they’re all right. Does that mean you’ll help?”
She nodded, looking up at him with those wide, jeweled eyes. He saw only sweetness and innocence and a sparkling, tempered joy. “I would be so grateful to have them again. But does that mean there’s some danger? If you steal them back, isn’t that still horse stealing?”
“I’ll keep you safe, pretty lady.” The hollow in his chest ached in the worst way, and he felt savage with the need to safeguard her. Those raw feelings were a worse danger to his life than facing a couple of horse thieves. “When you look at it, we aren’t really doing anything wrong. Two wrong deeds make a right one. Is that tea ready yet?”
She nodded, skirting away from him, and the hollow in his chest dug deeper. There was no denying some things. A smart man would have sent someone else. He should have sent Liam, the remote, sensible brother. He would have been the perfect man for the job.
But Joshua couldn’t stand the notion of Liam knocking on her door. Of Liam making her shine from the inside out with that rare light when he’d rescued her horses. No, he couldn’t stand that notion at all.
The truth was, he wanted to be here, knowing beyond a doubt he was already falling. Already making a wrong choice. But it didn’t stop him from thanking her for a bracing, steaming cup of tea. Or for noticing how the lamplight caressed the creamy curve of her face.
And being jealous of that light.
It was an arduous ride. Claire silently thanked Joshua for insisting she dig a pair of Ham’s trousers from the remaining crates in the barn. Riding astride the mare was difficult enough when she wasn’t used to it. But in a skirt, she would have been as frozen as the unforgiving earth.
They climbed in elevation, the wind’s frigid daggers slicing ever more deeply. With the thick snowfall, she was reminded of the afternoon when Ham was buried, when she’d become lost in the blizzard. When Joshua Gable had appeared out of the storm like an avenging hero come to rescue her.
He was still that avenging hero. He perched soundlessly at her side on his dark horse, as if part of the shadows, and yet substantial where the night was not. Conquering even as he forged ahead. The path narrowed and he easily led the way through the silent trees and thick branches. Moving without sound, leaving little evidence of his presence. He seemed confident as he halted to draw his rifle from its holster and the revolver from his hip belt.
“It’s just ahead. We’ll dismount and walk from here.” He swung down without touching the saddle or the reins. His sleek well-trained gelding stood patiently. “It’s steep. Will you be all right?”
A man like Joshua was probably used to a different kind of female. Although she’d never seen his family home, she did know Betsy. Betsy’s modest house in town held beautiful furnishings, the nicest Claire had ever seen other than in the furniture store’s display window.
Everyone knew the Gables were not a poor family. They had money and the largest spread in this corner of Montana Territory. He probably courted genteel ladies who were raised gently, whose hands were not rough from harsh lye soap.
“I’m a country girl” was her only answer as she dismounted. She sank into the snow up past her knees.
“Silence from here on out.” With the rifle propped in the crook of his arm, he unstrapped a pair of snowshoes from behind his saddle. “Here, strap these on. Do you know how to use ’em?”
He sounded so doubtful she managed only to nod. She reached to take them, but she was only reaching for air. He knelt down before her, a great figure flecked with snow, and gently lifted her right foot.
What a good man. Her whole being stilled as he patiently knocked the clumped snow from her leg and shoe, fitted the flat paddle beneath her boots and tied the leather bindings snug. Like a rock skipping over a pond, the ringed ripples radiated outward and through her soul.
A tide of affection and admiration and awe that she could not stop. Any more than a pond’s current could be halted. Inevitably, she felt a wave of tenderness splash against her heart. Her eyes ached. Her entire chest panged with a sweet pain.
I cannot come to love him. Agony tore through her. She did not love him. She refused to love him. And yet, how could she hold back the truth? How could anyone not love this man of might and goodness?
When he finished with her other shoe, he straightened, rising to his full height, seeming as noble and great as the ancient cedars around them, as majestic as the mountains shrouded in the opalescent clouds.
“It’s pretty deep. Take my hand.”
Her palm settled against his. A perfect fit.
What she ought to tell him was that she didn’t need any help. She was strong. She was able. She’d managed for most of her life doing ranch and barn work in deep snow. And yet, if she told him that, then perhaps he’d remove his hand.
Perhaps he’d move away instead of keeping her close to his side, his free hand settling on the small of her back as he helped her over tough spots in the ever-steepening trail. If she pushed him away, then he’d withdraw his tenderness. He was simply helping a woman. That he treated his sister with the same regard, she was sure of it; he wasn’t interested in her romantically.
She knew there was no possibility of him coming courting. So what did it hurt to allow this moment of closeness?
Nothing. Or at least that’s what she told herself. The strong shield of his chest protected her from the bite of the wind. He kept her balanced when the snow beneath her gave way. He held her close as if she were the only thing in the whole world that mattered to him. His attention, his protection, his concern. He was simply being a gentleman, doing nothing more for her than he probably did for the women in his family.
But to her, it meant everything. Never had anyone ever treated her with real care. It would be so simple to lean against his chest, close her eyes and hope his arms would hold her sheltered there forever. To listen to his heartbeat and hear an echo of it in her own.
You read too many dime novels, Claire. Love—and men—weren’t like that. But she didn’t care. He held an icy cedar branch to keep it from slapping her in the face.
Her pulse was racing, her hope an eager curl of a sprout trying to grow up out of the frozen earth—it could not survive. She knew that. And still she held tightly to Joshua’s hand, and it was as if his blood rushed through her veins.
I want him so much. Her heart broke with it the same moment his hand left hers. She’d been so focused inward she hadn’t realized they were at the crest of the slope. He moved away and she felt a yank in her very essence, as if more than a wish tethered her heart to his. And it was no thin thread but a tie more substantial and helpless. It’s only a wish you’re feeling, Claire. This isn’t real.
Even if she wanted it to be. Which she didn’t, right?
To her amazement the ground shadows moved. There, stretched out in the dense darkness beneath the lowest branches emerged a shade of a man. Barely visible, as was the rifle he held as he came up on his elbows to whisper with Joshua. Liam. She recognized the harsh, unforgiving cut of his iron face, the same profile as Joshua’s. The two men disappeared before her eyes, blending into the shadows, a part of the darkness.
Then Joshua’s low baritone, a tone lower than the night wind, spoke near her ear. “Come stretch out on your stomach and see.”
“On the snow?”
“Trust me.” His grip settled on her elbow, drawing her down, drawing her forward, and she was surprised when she knelt onto not snow but something else. A tarp? No, an oiled tarp, she judged by the slight rustli
ng. She was careful not to knock askew her snowshoes.
Trust him? She should never trust any man, especially not one that made common sense fly right out of her head. And yet, all she could do was feel as he stayed at her side. They shuffled beneath the heavy thick boughs of the old cedars until the rise of the earth gave way to night sky and the faint purple-black glow of snow everywhere falling. From the inky roll of the sky to the upraised arms of a mountainside of trees to the small valley tucked below.
“They got a lookout down there in the cabin.” Joshua’s words brushed her temple. “In case of predators.”
Her vision had become accustomed to the dark and she could make out lines of the snow-covered soddy where a single stovepipe rose up to puff smoke. And a window, reflecting the night snow, gleamed darkly. She shivered, knowing an armed man was behind those panes of glass. “Where are the horses?”
“Jordan’s lured them up just under the ridge,” Liam answered, his low voice like steel. “He’s got the rails loose and ready, and James is covering the cabin. He’ll give us a sign.”
Joshua stretched out prone beside her, his bulk pressing against her entire side. Although he was absorbed in studying the valley below and conferring with his brother, the memory of their closeness lingered within her. Her blood tingled in her veins.
When she should have felt half-frozen, she felt alive and invigorated. And why? The way he’d held her, the way her soul had seemed to sigh, had been a moment in time. Not real. Not lasting.
Joshua cupped his hands over his mouth and lifted his face to the downfall. He sent the eerie call of a coyote into the night. His shoulder pressed into hers, or did she imagine the increase of pressure? Thousands of snowflakes tapped on the outstretched cedar branches and on the earth, on the cabin below where the windowpanes remained midnight-black.
Time passed as neither man beside her moved. The snow made a sort of peaceful music in the night; the patter and fall of melody and harmony and finally an answering call wailed through the night.
“James’s signal,” Joshua explained as he slid his rifle to the crest of the hill and sited the cabin below. “Jordan’s at the fence. Can you crawl up there, do you see him?”
She squinted into the darkness where the cedar grove crowded through the fence lines and filed downhill. Although she knew the youngest Gable brother was there, she couldn’t distinguish him in the darkness. She trusted Joshua to nudge her in the right direction. In the inky darkness she could just make out the steady reassurance of his gaze. She could feel what he did not say. Feel the words of reassurance. Trust me. She did, heaven help her. Don’t think about the men down there in that cabin with their guns. Or how angry horse thieves would be to discover they were victims of the same crime they favored. She knew Joshua and his brothers could handle the repercussions. She ignored the sting of snow crumbling inside the lining of her boots as she inched through the darkness.
The lattice of limbs, needles and snow framed a wedge of the valley below and she saw them. The small herd of horses huddled together for warmth in the lee of the grove. Thor! That had to be his wide dark back, standing as he always did with his hind leg cocked, taking the brunt of the winter’s wind for his smaller brother. Loki’s haunches looked bony.
“We can get ’em to come closer. Watch.” Jordan’s words were followed by the rustle of a burlap sack and the sweet molasses scent of expensive grain lifted into the air.
The wind did the work, wafting the aroma of the sweet food to the horses. Thor’s nose came up and his nostrils flared. The snow glossed on his coat, making it seem as if he were both fiction and fantasy as the silver-mantled creature appeared to fly up the hill.
Beside her, Jordan hefted apart the rails. He must have sawed through them early and bound them with wire, she guessed, for the sturdy wood gave way silently. “They’ll come to your voice?”
“Yes.” With the knowledge that the Gable brothers were keeping careful watch, their guns loaded and ready, she leaned through the icy cedar limbs and whispered her horses’ names.
Chapter Fourteen
Why did Claire’s every move affect him like water over rapids? Joshua’s focus didn’t stray from the possible danger of Logan’s gang noticing they were down two horses. The rifle he held was steady and sure, and he had no problem taking the horses.
What he hated was that she was exposed, as hidden as she was in the thicket. He couldn’t hear her voice, but he could feel the music of her words, the low timbre of expectation as she let the wind snatch away her whisper. They waited as the big gelding forged past the grain Jordan had flung into the corral.
An owl’s who? who? sifted upward from the rim of the fence line below. James’s call. There was movement in the cabin. Joshua’s senses went on alert. The rifle he held cocked and aimed on the void eyes of the windows did not waver. His vision, well adjusted to the night, sought out any shift of shadow within the soddy. James had been watching since sundown. Rick Hamilton had been hunkered down to a nap in the back for a good hour.
Maybe the horses’ movements had alerted him, or maybe they’d just gotten damned lucky and the cuss was up to take a leak. Since it was too cold to tromp outside to use the outhouse, Joshua was betting they were safe.
But with Claire here, he wasn’t taking any chances. He bellied up a little farther on the ridge so he had first shot if there was trouble.
Sure enough, the horses came to her just like he figured. The big one first, snuffling past the grain to approach his mistress. Jordan snapped a lead on the gelding’s halter, pulled him aside with a snap of branches and the raining down of snow from the limbs. Joshua’s attention was focused solely on the cabin. That snap of wood was muffled, but enough that if Rick wanted to investigate, Joshua would be ready.
It was a hell of a disappointment that no one challenged them. Joshua would have derived a hell of a lot of satisfaction to have a good reason to shoot that bastard. Although he’d had no further trouble directly with either of the Hamilton brothers, that didn’t mean there would be peace between them. Or between them and Claire. Especially since they thought he had killed Ham.
“Got ’em.” Liam’s terse tone held a surprising note of amusement. “It may be best if you ride home with the widow.”
Did Liam expect him to jump at the chance? Already his brothers had the wrong idea. It wasn’t like him not to argue about it. He wanted to say this wasn’t the time or place to set Liam straight, but the truth was that he’d be lying. He wasn’t about to trust anyone to accompany Claire home.
Not only did he not trust his brothers—and yet who else did he trust more?—but a glaze of red streaked across his eyes as he thought of any man—even his brothers—alone with his woman.
That’s how he thought of her as she came into his arms. He didn’t know how it happened, he was simply crawling down from the crest and straightening to his full height in the shadows and there she was, a welcome woman’s press of heat and fragrance against his side, her arms snaking around his ribs and squeezing tight.
“Oh, thank you! Thank you so much.”
She pulled her muffler down, exposing her creamy skin to the harsh cold and her mouth discovered his, inexorably, the way the snow found the earth, the way the wind encountered the air. And there was no frigid night or danger just down the ridge as the world, and his brothers along with it, faded away into the night.
There was only Claire in his arms, only the spiced heat of her velvety kiss, only the thrill of his pulse cannoning through his veins. Common sense fled right along with it, leaving only feeling.
He had absolute certainty that he would do anything for this woman. Anything. Die for her. Kill to protect her. Sacrifice everything for her happiness. Pure feeling—not one thing was rational about that—but it was as certain and steadfast as the mountains he stood on.
As long as she didn’t know how he felt, maybe that would save him. Or so a man could hope. It was with a ripping sensation that she broke away from his side,
and he had to look down to make sure everything was the same. That he was the same. He felt the tug like a rope noosed around his innermost heart, drawing tighter with each step she took.
He stood on the deputy sheriff’s land, one of three law officers in the whole of Bluebonnet County, so this was no safe plan. But Joshua didn’t feel a lick of fear as he moved away. No, he refused to be afraid of men like Logan and the Hamilton brothers. Determined, calm, he caught the lead ropes Jordan had supplied and instructed Claire to start moving.
Careful but quick, because there was no telling, despite Liam’s and James’s sharp eagle eyes, that they wouldn’t be surprised in these dense woods by the Hamilton band. In these obscure lands horses weren’t the only rustled animals.
Now he knew why Ham had taken to terrorizing the sheep on the grassland Joshua leased from the government. Because the swatch of land lay between Ham’s southernmost property line, Logan’s high-country spread and the livestock trail that wound south to Great Falls and the auction. A route few folks would ever use. And the western edge of the Gable family land—the original homestead Gran had claimed with her husband—nestled close to that trail, the old road south through the rugged Bear Paw Range. And that meant…
He didn’t know what that meant. His thoughts stopped like a runaway train derailing and crashed into a thousand pieces. His mind no longer worked.
He could long stare at the silhouette Claire made in the thicket below, where the saddle horses waited patiently. He was suddenly beside her, although he couldn’t remember stealthing down the trail and kneeling down to offer her his upturned palms.
With the way her muffler hid her face, he didn’t see her smile, but he felt the beauty of it shiver through him like a dream.
You are in so much trouble, man. There was no denying it as his heart stalled when she placed her boot on his gloves. Within the span of a blink, she was in the saddle and reaching for the Clydesdales’ leads.
“I’ll handle it.” If there was trouble, he reasoned, there was no way she could hold them.
