But forbidding or not, a bath sounded like heaven. Except that— “Where will you be?”
He snorted. “Davey and I will go outside.”
Perrie fought a blush. No one but Simon had ever seen her naked. She wasn’t sure she ever wanted to be seen by a man again. But this man, so overpowering, so…male… He made her very conscious that she was female.
“I’m sorry. I sound ungracious. Thank you for going to so much trouble.”
He shrugged. “Not that much.”
She shook her head. “That’s not how I remember it. Everything takes more work up here.” Whatever the chasm between them, however badly he wanted her gone, she owed him this much, at least. More.
He had already turned to leave when she spoke up again. “Mitch…” He didn’t turn back, but he stopped. “I want to thank you for everything you’ve done. Taking care of me…” She felt her face flame again as it dawned on her that he must have seen her naked. Someone had changed her sweat-soaked clothing and put her in the clothes that had been in her backpack. It couldn’t have been Davey.
Resolutely, she pressed on. “You’ve taken care of Davey, and I don’t think—you don’t have children, do you?”
He turned halfway, and she thought she saw fleeting amusement as he shook his head. “Not hardly.”
“So much could have happened to him if I’d fallen ill and we’d been here alone…” Her throat tightened. Dire possibilities squeezed the breath out of her. Swallowing heavily, she shoved the terrifying prospects away, lifting her gaze to him once again. “I owe you more than I can ever repay.”
She swear that faint color stained his cheeks.
“Anyone would have done the same.”
“No—no, they wouldn’t have.” This stranger had been kinder to her in these few days than her husband had been in their entire marriage.
Mitch watched her with careful eyes for a long moment. His voice turned gruff. “The water’s going to get cold. Can you make it in there by yourself?”
Perrie wasn’t sure, but she nodded, anyway.
He glanced down at her son. “Well then, come on, Davey. Let’s go outside.”
“Don’t worry, Mom. Mitch will take care of us.” Her son followed him out with not even a glance back at her, already chattering away happily. “Can we watch for another eagle, Mitch?”
She’d never realized how hungry he was for a father.
Perrie watched them leave, the blond-haired owner of her heart and the dark giant who watched over them both.
He didn’t want them here—at least, not her. Yet he took better care of both of them than the man who’d said sacred vows with her, who had fathered her son.
There had to be some way out of this coil. She would find it, somehow. For now, her bath awaited.
Mitch stayed on the porch until he heard the water splash against the sides of the old washtub and could be sure she’d made it all the way from the bedroom.
She couldn’t drown—the tub wasn’t that big. But she could have passed out along the way. She was far from recovered.
They wouldn’t venture far, just in case. And he would try very hard not to think of ivory skin glistening with droplets of water. Of the slow track of moisture gliding down her slender spine toward gently-rounded hips. Or of soap bubbles clinging to other silken curves.
Mitch tried to reconcile the soft, tender creature who loved her child so much with the woman who would refuse all contact with her only other living kin. Cy hadn’t spoken of her much, but he’d told Mitch about Perrie’s mother, about all the lovers. That Perrie had no idea who her father was.
She had reason to be wary of him, sure. He’d seen the fear in her eyes. He was a stranger and as far from her Boston existence as anyone could be.
But she’d known Cy all her life, had spent big chunks of it here in this place. She had to know how much she meant to the old man, yet in his darkest hour, she’d turned her back on him as though he meant nothing to her.
It had looked like real grief in her eyes when she spoke of Cy. She’d seemed genuinely shocked that he was dead. Either she was the finest actress he’d ever seen, or something was very wrong.
“Mitch?” Davey ran back to him, breathless. “Come see! I found a squirrel.”
“If you’re this noisy, he’ll be long gone.” But Mitch rose to follow the child, enjoying his excitement. The fresh eyes Davey cast on the world never ceased to amaze him. He was too fearless by half, but no more so than Mitch himself had been as a child. Yet within the fearless boy was an old man, a child aged before his time.
Perrie was hiding something. Maybe this boy knew what it was, but Mitch wouldn’t stoop to that. Instead of daydreaming about glistening wet curves, Mitch should start asking the owner of those curves some hard questions.
Perrie jerked awake from the nightmare, heart beating a fandango. She rubbed a slow circle on her chest and breathed deeply, staring into the darkness, listening. When she heard Davey’s even breathing from the cot nearby, she relaxed a little, but she knew sleep would be elusive.
She wasn’t sure where Mitch was now; caught up in the bedtime ritual with Davey, she’d lost track of where she’d heard him last. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t stay in the darkness one second longer.
She tightened the belt of her robe and slipped through the door into the main room, headed for the firelight’s glow.
A few steps into the room, she stopped dead in her tracks. Stretched out on the floor in front of the dying fire, Mitch lay sound asleep.
Perrie approached with slow, careful steps. She’d never seen him like this, hard features softened in slumber.
He looked younger, less careworn. The fierce eagle eyes closed, his frame still conveyed power and strength, but the man before her seemed almost…vulnerable.
She’d never met anyone so alone. Her grandfather had spent much of his life in these mountains by himself, his solitude punctuated by stints as a hunting and fishing guide. Grandpa had been alone, but never lonely. Solitude was very much a part of who he was, intertwined almost at a cellular level with his sense of humor, his love of the wilderness, his blue eyes.
Something about Mitch was different. It was almost as if solitude were not a choice but a defense.
He didn’t know what his brother looked like. What was his story? Where was his family? Had he known gentleness in his life or only sorrow?
Sorrow. That was it. Beneath the power, beneath the fierce determination, the harsh strength, Perrie sensed a deep well of sorrow in this man. Why? What had happened? What had he suffered that made him so fiercely protective of his shell, so rigidly controlled?
But Davey breached those high walls. Something in the boy touched the man and mined the goodness his manner hid.
He wasn’t accustomed to children and his methods might not be found in any parenting book, but he had been good to a child thrust upon him by circumstance. Had taken care of a child not his own, had not punished the child for the mother’s believed sins.
He did not want her here, could not wait for her to leave. But he had still granted her more kindness in a few days than she had had from Simon in years.
Perrie’s mind whirled, trying to sort out the best path. This cabin had been her lodestone, her guiding star for so long that she’d never considered what to do next, where she might go.
Perhaps if she were another woman, more suited to passion, it might be possible for her to seduce him. He already cared for Davey; if he found passion with her, would he want them to stay?
But she wasn’t that woman, and she had sold herself once. Never again. Never mind that she hadn’t known she was selling her soul until it was too late—she would never erase the loathing she felt for a girl so confused and weak-minded that she had not seen Simon for who he was. Blinded by the fairytale she wanted her life to become, the little secretary wooed by the heir apparent had been caught up in a whirlwind of illusion.
She knew now that her allure for Simon had been th
at she was so malleable. So stupid and needy and eager to become the woman he wanted. She would never erase the shame of being that girl who never saw the trap coming until it was too late. Who kept believing it was her fault and things might change if only she could do everything right.
That girl was dead. The woman who replaced her had been forged in the fires of hate.
She would die before she let Simon take her child. He might have the deck stacked with his family’s connections and wealth, but somehow she would elude him. Somehow, she would win.
You can’t prove anything, Perrie. And who would believe you over me? Don’t even try—not unless you want to lose the boy forever. With effort, she shoved Simon’s words away. She had to think, not panic.
She had little money left, and her strength was not yet returned. For a time longer, she had to tiptoe through the days and pray that Mitch would not make them leave. She did not know enough about him to tell him her story yet.
Perrie rubbed her arms against the chill. Tending the dying fire would wake him.
She spotted an old quilt folded on top of a chest. Tiptoeing quietly, she retrieved it and moved to Mitch’s side.
Holding her breath, she covered the sleeping man.
I promise I won’t involve you any more than I must, to save my son.
He shifted slightly. Before he could awaken and ask her questions she could not afford to answer, Perrie rose. Making her way back into the waiting darkness, she prayed she would find her own answer soon.
Chapter Four
In that half-world between sleep and waking, Mitch wondered what was different. Unlike his usual snap to attention, something held him in a softer, sweeter place—a place he had not been in all the years passed since that one fateful rainy night.
For just one moment, he could almost hear laughter, almost feel the warm glow of belonging. His eyelids heavy, he cast his thoughts toward the elusive tendrils of the place that had once been home. He rolled over to his side and pulled the quilt—
Quilt. Mitch awoke and frowned. He was lying in front of the dying fire in Cy’s cabin. With a quilt spread over him.
For one traitorous second, Mitch remembered being tucked into bed as a child, remembered the sense of safety and order, of being wrapped in the arms of love. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, hoping to sleep again and recapture just one more fleeting moment.
But sleep had fled and with it, illusion. He hadn’t been a child for many years, and he had lost all right to love through his own failings. He had killed the woman who had loved him from birth, and he had been banished—and even that wasn’t payment enough. What he had done to destroy his family could not be put right.
So he lived alone.
And he would live alone again, once they were gone, the boy who reminded him so much of Boone…and the fragile woman who had covered him with a quilt.
They could not leave soon enough. He was ready, more than ready, to knit silence around him once more. He had talked more in the last two days than in the last two years. He could not need, could not let himself want more than he had. The peace he had reached had required years to build and in a matter of days, the boy and his mother had breached his walls. Where quiet stillness had reigned, now too much lay tumbled like a fallen house of blocks.
Mitch shoved to his feet, throwing the quilt aside with a muttered curse. He strode to the window and scowled, seeing that it was still full darkness outside.
Pacing the floor like a caged beast, he wanted nothing more than to walk away, to seek the stillness of the forest, to lose himself in the call of a bird, the rustle beneath the branches. To think of nothing more than the tracks on the ground before him, to become not a man but simply a thread in the fabric of nature. Nature had no expectations to betray. Mother Earth simply was. You learned her many faces, and you stayed alert to stay alive. In the keen pitch of attention she required, the world of people, of pain and loss, could not compete. Could not torment.
But even as he craved that immersion, Davey’s little face rose before him, blue eyes alight with the magic of seeing the forest through new and innocent eyes. For one sweet second, Mitch imagined that the boy was his, imagined guiding the child to manhood. Swiftly, like an assassin, longing pierced, needle-sharp.
Mitch abruptly turned from the window and faced the door of the room where they slept, the golden-haired, faithless mother and her child. No matter what he wanted, no matter how much he longed to walk away, he would not. She was too weak yet, the boy too small, this place too remote and wild.
As soon as she was stronger, he would know why Perrie was here and when she would leave. When he could be alone again.
But for now, he would watch over them both.
From a distance.
Mitch picked up the quilt and folded it, trying to shake off the image of delicate hands touching him while he slept.
“Mom, what about the new story?”
Perrie lay back against the sofa cushions, wondering about Mitch. He’d been gone most of the day, and now they’d finished supper and he hadn’t appeared yet.
“Mom? Did you hear me?”
She pulled her gaze from the doorway and took Davey’s chin in her hand. “I’m barely started on it.”
“That’s okay. Sometimes you take a long time.”
He was right about that. Sometimes the stories required weeks, even longer. She’d had little time or energy since before they left to begin a new one. Truth be told, she wasn’t ready now. But Davey had accepted so much change in his life; this she would not deny him.
She’d always spun stories for herself as a child, then for Davey. It was a pleasure they shared, a gift she could give him. Even through the years after she’d discovered the nightmare of marriage to Simon, she’d been able to hold onto the refuge of her stories. She’d known it would be the final defeat if she let Simon kill that part of her, so she’d held on for dear life. The stories and Davey had been the only color in the prison she’d entered the day she married the man she’d thought was her prince.
“This one might take a while,” she said. “Ermengilda’s a complicated girl.”
Davey giggled. “What a dumb name!”
Perrie lifted her chin playfully. “She can’t help the name she was given. She’s a princess, even if she looks like a trout.”
“A trout? Like the one I caught?”
“This is a very special fish, much too clever to be caught.”
“Mitch could do it. I know he could.”
Perrie frowned slightly. He shouldn’t get attached.
Davey laughed, blue eyes shining. “A girl fish named Ermen—”
“Ermengilda.”
“I can call her Ermie.”
“Oh no, you can’t, young man. She’s a princess, and a princess would never have a nickname like Ermie.”
“I’m glad I’m not a princess. Davey’s a better name, anyway.”
She grabbed him around the waist with one hand, tickling his ribs with the other. “Not for a princess.”
His knees buckled under him. But gamely, he reached for her ribs.
She was ticklish, too.
For as long as she could summon the strength, they played, each seeking to avoid the other’s fingers but grasping for tender places. Much too quickly, Perrie had to cry uncle.
“Okay, okay, you win.” Falling back against the pillows, she felt her head spin.
Davey rose above her, towheaded hair sticking out all over the place, sweaty curls around his scalp. Leaping to his feet, he danced around, arms lifted in victory. “Yay, I win! I’m the champion!”
“Watch it, Buster. Losers don’t like telling stories to winners who gloat.”
He turned a much-too-wise smile on her. “You like telling me stories.”
Reaching up to pull him close, she cradled him against her body, already conscious of how much he was growing…how soon he’d be too big to want this. “You know me too well.”
Outside the cabin, Mitch sto
od in the shadows, watching the two golden heads together through the window. He had heard their laughter from across the clearing, and it had called him like a siren. He would listen to this story and see what he might learn about this woman who had so many different faces.
Perrie snuggled Davey’s bony shoulders closer, smoothing his tousled blond hair. Their tussle had released that boy scent—a little sweet, a little sharp, a little of sweaty socks—the smell that seemed to be Davey’s alone.
She began the story.
“Ermengilda Trout was sure she was a princess. Of course, there were no mirrors in the river so she couldn’t be certain that her hair was long and flowing or her eyes like sparkling jewels. Henry Sunfish told her she was just an ugly old girl, but her mother smiled and said her scales shone beautifully in the sun.
“Bernie the Catfish, never very talkative, simply said, ‘Nothin’ wrong with dreamin’, child.’
“Ermengilda knew they were all wrong. She was a princess, and someday she would show them. Her prince would come and rescue her. He’d see past her scales and tail and bugging eyes, see inside her to the heart that beat strong and brave and true.
“One day she and Henry were playing. She looked up through water bright with sunlight. Up past teasing dragonflies. Up and straight into the face of what must surely be the Prince of the Pretty People.
“‘Pretty?’ Henry snorted. ‘He has no tail, you dumb old girl. He’s got stupid stringy black things sprouting from his head. His scales have no color. And his eyes—’ Here Henry shuddered. ‘They’re—eck—blue.’”
“Hey!” Davey complained, sitting up slightly. “My eyes are blue.”
“Shh,” Perrie urged. “Listen to what she says.”
“Okay,” he subsided, snuggling back down, his eyes growing heavy once more.
“Like mine, thought Ermengilda. Like my princess eyes. Maybe he’s the one. The one who’ll see me as I am.
Texas Heroes: Volume 1 Page 22
