by Jillian Hart
“They’re my horses.” She held out her hand, chin jutting upward through the sheath of the muffler. “At least give me one lead. There’s no way you can manage two, so hand it over. You’ve taken enough risks on my behalf tonight.”
“I’m not done yet.”
He tossed her one of the leads, hauling the larger gelding with him as he swung into General’s saddle. He mounted up, secured the lead and carried his rifle at the ready. He heard no sign from his brothers, so he led the way along the downward slope where snow had filled the horses’ tracks and made the surrounding trees and landscape change from when they’d arrived.
It was like a whole new world, pristine and full of promise.
He could tell by the way Claire kept turning in her saddle she wanted a good look at the horses. But he kept a fast pace, knowing his brothers watched his back for as long as they could keep him in their sight. But eventually the twisting path took them behind other hillsides so he stayed alert.
The danger of meeting one of the Hamilton’s gang on the road was high enough. If there hadn’t been so much snowfall, he would have forged a path through the forest. But as it was, they’d be off the lonely trail through private property soon—sooner enough before they were spotted.
He wasn’t going to fool himself. This was going to cause trouble with the deputy and the Hamiltons. As for Claire…this only added a new wrinkle to a real problem. How was he going to keep her safe? Especially if she was traipsing all around the county taking over Betsy’s laundry service?
And what was it with women these days and their dang-blasted independence? Next they’d be demanding the right to vote, and think of the consequences. The end of democracy, surely. He liked demure women. Quiet and reasonable and sensible. Life was never that easy, was it? Claire was quiet and demure. And she was just as stubborn and determined as any other woman he’d ever known.
He squinted through the snow on his lashes at the woman shrouded in platinum and shadows, and there went his heart again, falling, as if it had leaped right out of his chest and tumbled straight down a cliff.
What was it about her, he wondered, aside from the fact that she was strong as a willow—she bent but she didn’t break. And despite the hardships in her life, she hadn’t grown hard or cruel. Not that she was soft, either. He remembered how close she’d been to dying in a storm more deadly than this. She was no wilting bloom.
So why couldn’t he at least fall in love with a biddable woman? Was it too much to ask? Even as he thought it, he knew he would never want any other woman.
Just Claire.
As long as he could keep that fact to himself, he ought to be safe enough. But more than his emotional safety was at risk. The back of his neck began to creep and crawl and he could sense the danger like the snow tapping across his face.
“Go!” He slapped Stormy’s flank. As the mare leaped forward, Claire looked back at him with surprise in her wide eyes.
We’ve got company. Get outta here. He willed the thought toward her.
And as if she felt his words, she nodded, turning away. The last he saw of her was the storm and night stealing her away, as she leaned forward in the saddle for an all-out gallop. He was on her heels, but not fast enough. He caught the faint low tenor first, the words broken apart on the wind.
The dark haze of snow separated like a curtain and there was Reed Hamilton, riding with the deputy at his side, not five yards from the point where the main county road met the path.
Joshua turned General hard and prayed the web of storm would hide him from their sight. Since he couldn’t be sure, he circled his gelding around, backing her and the Clydesdale down the road as he held the gun steady, finger trigger-itchy.
Come this way, he silently challenged them. But the night must have hid him from their sight.
The band of men, not just two riders, but closer to half a dozen, rode with their heads bowed against the storm, and disappeared south. Maybe too drunk to notice the tracks heading out.
Joshua stayed ready and alert for a long time, long enough to be sure, before he hurried to catch up with Claire. The unseen string binding their hearts yanking him like a yo-yo until he was at her side.
When her eyes smiled at him from above her muffler, that string gave a harder jerk, a noose around his heart. Holding him captive, and he didn’t mind, as he rode at her side the rest of the way to her home. At her side, one of the nicest places he’d ever been.
And he knew why a man didn’t mind falling so much.
Overhead moonlight wrestled with the thinning clouds to twist and writhe between the veils of thinly falling snow. Claire wished she could feel her fingers enough to cross them for luck. The storm was breaking, as if the mountains were great giants ripping apart the thick mantle of clouds and tossing them down.
Snow bled and spurted, and then there was silence. All around her the black velvet sky peered through the dying clouds, stars as white as the snow blinking awake. This wild and rugged land was all hers. It wasn’t pride that filled her; it was contentment. Peace. Knowing she was finally safe. That she was in control of her destiny.
And that she would never need to live so desperately or be hurt like that again.
As the snow evaporated, it was as if the earth sighed. The moon beamed bright through the last grasping fingers of haze to polish the reverent prairie. Snow shone like a dark opal for miles in every direction, from the long wide infinity of the plains to the rim of the horizon and up the enormous slopes of the mountains, their stone faces hidden by snow and burnished with stardust.
A whisper of an updraft, more like an angel’s touch than a breeze, skipped across her like a kiss. Like a promise of good things to come.
And this man beside her? It seemed as if he were a part of those good things, too. As a friend, she decided as she led the way up the sloping hill that would take her home.
As if Joshua felt it, too, he reined his gelding a few inches closer, so that they rode side by side. His presence wasn’t stifling; his closeness was companionable. Right. As if he belonged here at her side, and not in his shadow, but as his friend.
Not that what was beating to life within her was friendly at all. Romantic and desiring, yes, but she couldn’t hold it back. Too powerful, too irrepressible, it rose like a bubble within her, expanding until it moved through her with a pop and seemed to keep right on going.
“You’ve gotta be frozen clear through.” Joshua dismounted at the top of the hill. “Hand me over the horses and I’ll put ’em up. You go in and get warm.”
“You are always this bossy, aren’t you?”
“Bossy? You stand to be corrected, pretty lady. I’m a take-charge sort of man. Nothing wrong with that.”
“Sure, if you’re the one giving the orders.”
“It’s where I prefer to be.”
His grin was a charming one. What man couldn’t be charming when he put his mind to it? Framed in starlight and the rugged background of the mountains so tall, she had to tip her head back to see their capped faces.
“Go on. Wait—let me come in with you first. Stir up the coals for you. Get a fire roaring so you can thaw out. Then I’ll see to the horses,” Joshua said.
“The trouble is, they’re my horses. This is my land.” She loved watching the confusion dawn on his rugged face. On the quirk of one brow as he tried to figure out if he’d heard her correctly.
Her willfulness was fun, it was freeing. It was endlessly right as she dismounted, quickly and competently enough that he didn’t have time to help her down. “Do you want to go into the house and warm up? I’ll be in after a while. Make yourself at home.”
“Hey, wait a minute!” He looked as if he were trying not to laugh. “Give me back the reins.”
“Nope. Or are you going to head straight home instead?” she asked over her shoulder as she lifted the looped end of the lead off the saddle horn. “Come on, guys. It’s so good to have you home.”
“You’re just gonna walk a
way and leave a poor fellow like me in the cold?”
“I offered you my hearth.”
“There is no greater gift than when a woman gives a man her hearth.”
Her laughter came like the gentle pulse of bells, silvering the beautiful sound. One he’d never heard before and his entire being turned to the sound of it, to the rise and fall of music sweeter than any he’d ever heard.
Emotion crashed through him like a flash flood, sucking him under, taking him along with the powerful current. Helpless to stop it, he accepted the inevitable like a man. The inevitable he could not hide from.
Moonlight chose that moment to find her. To guild the curve of her face and cradle the jut of her chin as she smiled. His heart was gone, forever lost to this woman who seemed unaware of how easily she’d rendered him helpless. Rendered him in love.
“If it’s my hearth you’re after, you’re welcome to it. Temporarily.” She continued on with a conversation he could no longer remember.
Frozen in place, he tried to pretend he hadn’t been dumbstruck by her. What had they been talking about? That’s right, he thought, he remembered. Heart. Hearth. “Temporarily, huh? I can’t have your hearth forever?”
“Nope. I’ve learned it’s wise for a girl to keep her own hearth. Men aren’t the most consistent creatures.”
“You’ve got that right. Not faithful or decent, either. Look at me.”
“Exactly my point.” The laughter starred her eyes, and like a bright light burning, he could not look away from the beauty of it.
From her beauty. He was a damn fool, he saw it now, for scorning his buddies who fell, every single one of them, just like this. Joshua had always thought a man could stand strong and tough and no woman could render him defenseless.
He’d never been more wrong. Kissing her hadn’t gotten her out of his blood. Steeling his will against wanting her hadn’t made a whit of difference. Keeping away from her and filling his mind with other things—ranching and family duties—hadn’t derailed this steaming longing for her. His insides twisted so hard it took his breath away.
Until now, he’d never felt. Never knew a single emotion would bring keen, physical pain. And make the world so rich in beauty. The moonlight seared his eyes, the platinum shine seemed suddenly to brighten until his eyes teared. Until every sheen and surface, every inch of ground and tree beamed as if the thousands upon thousands of stars had fallen onto the ground at her feet.
And in the center of it was her, floating as if on light, as if this magical evening had enchanted her, too.
“Look at how bony my boys are. Why wouldn’t they take care of them? I realize—” she talked while she worked “—that the Hamiltons couldn’t very well drive my horses where anyone would recognize them. Logan’s their friend, but stealing is stealing and it’s against the law. This is horrible. They couldn’t have hoped to sell them.”
He tried to clear the emotion wadded in his windpipe. Failed.
“How could they have gotten full value when the horses look like this? It makes no sense.” She sounded more than disgusted, more than angry.
“What doesn’t make sense to you?” He dismounted in the yawning mouth of the doorway.
“That there would be any excuse for this. I know, I shouldn’t be surprised. I lived with Ham. I saw how he treated his animals. I know how he treated me. He thought he was infinitely more important than anyone or anything else. And that others were only there for his benefit, his gain.” She disappeared into the tack room, leaving him alone and his chest feeling as if it had been ripped wide-open by a merciless bear.
I love her. His soul wrenched, but it was sweet agony as he walked more deeply into the barn, bringing the horses with him. Stormy and Thor greeted General and Loki with snuffles and snorts and low-throated neighs.
The moment she appeared in the aisle, the horses swung to watch her. The moonlight pried through the cracks in the high walls to crown her with brightness. Overcome, he stumbled because it seemed as if his feet couldn’t find the ground.
The air he breathed filled him with the tang of snow and stardust, the whisper of the wind clearer, like words from a loved one mumbled in the dark, secret hours after midnight. Heat pumped through his veins, not naked lust, but something stronger, greater.
He was forever changed as he bent to the task of unsaddling the horses, no longer the stoic he had always prided himself on being.
It took all his hard-earned discipline not to gawk at her as she swept close, the trousers she wore accenting the feminine curve of her hips and thighs. He needed all his willpower to force his gaze from her alluring beauty—from the beauty he wanted to touch and stroke with his hands and know by memory—and heft the saddle off General’s back.
“I’ll rub him down,” she said, shaking out a soft and sweet-smelling towel.
So close, his skin gooseflesh. His spirit swelled with longing. Love blazed within the most secret pulse of his heart. She was the blood in his veins, the air in his lungs, and the beat of his soul. He could not control it, he could not stop it, and he knew it didn’t matter that he wanted to turn his back and ride away. To stop this fast and fatal fall.
“Joshua.”
He turned, the saddle on his shoulder, his heart on his sleeve.
“You said you’re here helping me because it’s the right thing to do.” There was no mistaking the honest regard that lit her up as if from inside. “You stand pretty tall, in my view. I just wanted you to know that.”
His throat ached and he was lost over what in the hell to say. If he was going down, then there was no better way to fall.
Chapter Fifteen
Sometimes a man has to do what is right, whether it’s in his best interest or not.
Joshua’s words had stayed with her ever since he’d said them on that night, which now seemed so long ago. Everything was different from those hopeless days. And it was all because of the man who worked silently and capably at her side. Who pumped water and measured out grain and forked crisp, sweet hay into the mangers. Who took the horses from her, rubbed and cooled, and led them with a firm hand and a soothing voice.
A voice that made her want to dream.
To believe.
When she led poor nervous Loki into his corner stall next to his brother’s, the gentle giant gave a low-throated gasp, an eerily human sound. As if being bedded down in his own stall soft with thick straw and topped with a layer of hay was too good to be true.
Bones sawed against his dull coat as he ambled straight to his trough. Thor whipped his head over the top bars separating the two stalls and watched with a big brother’s contentment, as if glad—finally—all was right with their world.
“General’s restless.” Joshua stroked the fine gelding’s glossy neck. “Wolves must be nearby. Let’s get this place locked up tight before we head for the house.”
“My thoughts exactly.” That was sort of a lie—she hadn’t been thinking about wolves. She’d been thinking about him. “I’ll do the hayloft.”
This left him to check on the only other way into the small barn—the back doors. She hurried up the ladder with relief…and felt bereft. As if being away from him was a loss. She did her best to ignore that sensation as she verified that the thick wooden shutters in the loft were locked tight.
Everything was snug and safe. There was no possibility that a wolf could get in here…even if one managed to hop onto the sloping roof. Certain her boys were safe, she climbed back down the ladder and Joshua surprised her by cupping her elbows and swinging her down the last few steps to the ground. Her entire being buzzed as if she’d spontaneously burst into flame.
“If you’re worried about what the Hamiltons are gonna do when they find out these horses are back in your stable, don’t.” As if completely unaware of what he’d done to her, he loped a few steps toward the front door and then stopped when he realized she wasn’t beside him. He turned patiently, waiting. “My brothers and I intend to pay them all a visit. Remind
’em that just because the law can be bought in certain parts of this county doesn’t mean that justice won’t be served if necessary.”
She felt engulfed in a blinding fire that licked through the deepest parts of her. She swallowed hard, struggling to sound normal, to focus on what mattered.
Men were violent creatures. Read between the lines of what he’d said. While she was grateful for his protection, even the noble Joshua Gable was violent. He was made to protect, to defend his own, to fight and win. The rock-solid build of him, the way his iron muscles shaped his thick layers of winter clothing, making him seem even more undefeatable, even more formidable.
She knew the tenderness of his kiss…but she did not want to know the dark side, which showed as his eyes shone, like a warrior’s death promise.
Maybe it was better to send him away. “I can defend my own.”
“That’s why I’m here. To make sure you can and will.”
Did he have to say the one thing to disarm her? She wanted to think he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. To believe he was just as capable of violence as the Hamiltons, and in the same vein of it. And yet her heart wouldn’t let her take that step. Couldn’t. He reached out and tucked her hand in his larger one, sheltering her from the bitter winds. He kept one hand on her arm to steady her in case she slipped. But the snow cushioned her feet and the only thing in danger of falling was her heart.
Falling more in love with him.
“The wind sure is kickin’ up.” He dug his shoulder against the door frame. “Would you mind if I come in and bum a few hot potatoes from you? It’s gonna be a long, cruel ride home.”
“It’s tempting to make you suffer through it, but I guess I owe you at least a baked potato.” Stop bantering with him! She unlocked the door and led the way into the cold, still dwelling. Frigid pewter light stained the floor and dusted the furniture with a polished glow. Claire stumbled, although she could see well enough. Joshua kept having that effect on her.
