After Sundown

by Shelly Thacker

  She frowned at him. “Thanks for the geography lesson.” She took off her moccasins and started to rub her feet, then stopped, inhaling a sharp breath as feeling started to return to them swiftly and painfully.

  “Keep at it. You’d better get the blood flowing.” Lucas walked over to her.

  “It hurts.”

  “Good. That means maybe you don’t have frostbite. And maybe you won’t have to have them amputated.”

  She glared up at him. “Must you always be so—”

  “Truthful?”

  “Blunt.” She started rubbing the soles of her feet again, cautiously, gingerly.

  Lucas knelt in front of her and brushed her hands out of the way. “Not like that.”

  He took one of her feet in both his hands and started massaging.

  “Ouch... ooh... ow... that... hurts,” she protested. But he didn’t release her, no matter how she tried to wriggle out of his grasp.

  And after a few moments, it didn’t hurt so much. In fact, the powerful strokes of his fingers along her cramped muscles started to feel rather... pleasant.

  Warm and tingly and... oh, yes, right there. The cold and pain faded, rapidly replaced by a flush of heat as Lucas’s callused hands moved over her arch, and sole, and heel, and rubbed every toe, and stroked the surprisingly sensitive curve of her ankle bone.

  She bit her lip by the time he shifted to her other foot, and not because of the pain in her muscles.

  When he finally finished and released her, she drew her legs under her, feeling a bit breathless. For the first time all day, she was warm. “Th-thank you.” After a moment she added, “Marshal.”

  “Next time you find yourself in a snowstorm,” he admonished, looking up at her with a weary sigh, “keep your shoes on.” He straightened and crossed to his saddlebags.

  “Next time you find my shoes lying in the snow,” she muttered, trying to gather her scattered senses, “pick them up and bring them with you.”

  He dug a tin cup and some other items out of his saddlebags, then returned to the stove, where the bucket of snow had become water. After unwrapping the bandage from his head, he started tending to his own injury.

  Annie stood up, experimentally taking a few steps, relieved to discover that her feet and legs felt much better. The dirt floor, however, was cold, almost frozen. The potbellied stove might be good for melting snow—and maybe for roasting squirrels—but it didn’t provide enough heat to make this place very comfortable. She could still see her breath.

  “So we don’t have a horse,” she said again, “and we don’t have much food—”

  “We’ve got water. And the supplies in my saddlebags. And firewood. We’ll get some rest, try to find the horse in the morning.”

  A plan. He had a plan. Annie felt a bit relieved. “And what if we can’t find the horse?”

  He didn’t answer.

  She turned toward him. Saw a muscle flexing in his lean, beard-darkened jaw.

  And felt like she’d swallowed a chunk of ice, felt it settle in the pit of her stomach. She understood what he was trying not to tell her.

  Without a horse, they were trapped here. Stranded in the middle of nowhere. And if the snows kept up like they had...

  They wouldn’t last long on coffee and squirrels.

  “I-I may not know anything about survival in the wilderness,” she said, her voice wavering, “but it sounds like... like we could...”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment.

  His voice was quiet. “We’re not going to die out here.”

  “You hesitated.”

  He looked over at her, his gaze meeting and holding hers. “We are not going to die out here,” he said firmly. “If we can’t find the horse, we’ll wait for the weather to clear and walk out.”

  That plan was not as reassuring as his first plan. Not nearly. Annie shivered, realizing that for once, Lucas didn’t seem quite as self-assured and fearless as he always did.

  And for the first time, she missed that maddening, confident quality he always had.

  She sank down onto one of the chairs in the corner. He finished cleaning the bullet wound in his temple, dabbing at it with his bandana.

  “You’re bleeding again,” she whispered.

  He just nodded. And folded the bandana into a pad and tied it in place with the strip of cloth from her petticoat. Then he went over to the bed, pulling it across the dirt floor, closer to the stove. He picked up his coat and their icy blankets, and hung them on the foot of the iron bedstead to dry.

  Then he started unbuttoning his shirt. “You probably should get out of those damp clothes.”

  He said it casually, as if it were a simple and sensible idea, not shocking at all. And suddenly Annie realized what else being stranded here meant.

  It meant spending the night alone with him. Several nights.

  With no bars between them.

  He hung up his shirt on the bed. Annie remained right where she was. In the corner. Fully clothed in her freezing, clinging dress and undergarments. Watching him.

  The muscles of his back and arms flexed in the lamplight as he unrolled the mattress, spreading the coverlet out across it. Along with the quilt. There weren’t any pillows. He sat on the bed and took off his boots. Then he lay down and stretched out on his back with a muffled groan.

  “What are you doing?” She still hadn’t moved.

  “Going to sleep,” he said as if it should be obvious, sliding beneath the quilt and rolling on his side.

  Annie frowned. So he intended to take the bed and all the covers? But then, she thought grudgingly, he needed them more than she did, since he was the one who’d been shot.

  She started looking around, trying to think of where she was going to sleep. The moth-eaten animal pelts hanging on the walls didn’t hold much appeal as blankets. And the freezing cold floor wasn’t much of a choice. Especially since there were mice—or some such—running around in here.

  “Are you coming to bed or not?”

  Her stomach flipped at his grumbled question. She turned her head and stared at him blankly, her heart beating too hard. “You mean I... we... we’re both going to...” Heat flooded her cheeks. “I-I don’t think that’s a good idea, Marshal.”

  “Antoinette,” he said with exaggerated patience and a bleary-eyed stare, “I started out my morning getting shot. I spent all last night riding. I spent the better part of an hour hiking down this mountain on foot. And I haven’t eaten much of anything since breakfast yesterday. Now, it’s real flattering that you think I might be capable of something more than sleep right now.” The hard line of his mouth curved downward. “But I’m not.”

  Annie lowered her lashes, realizing he was right. Of course he was. A bit too brusque and pointed, but right. Lucas might be tough enough to chew nails and spit tacks, but even he had his limits.

  The man might be a hero, but he was also human.

  “All I want is sleep,” he continued, “and I’d just as soon not freeze to death while I’m doing it. This is no time to get all shy and squeamish. If we’re not going to die out here together, then we have to survive, together.”

  Practical, logical. As always. And it was true: The question of whether or not they should share a bed was somewhat less important than other questions at the moment. Like whether they could stave off the cold and stay alive.

  “Would you...” she said haltingly. “Would you...”

  “What?” he snapped.

  “Turn down the lantern.”

  He muttered a curse, but complied with her request, leaning over the side of the bed to turn the lantern down, all the way.

  As darkness enveloped the small, dank, drafty cabin, Annie stood up and unbuttoned her dress, shivering as she let it fall to her ankles, followed by her ruined, tattered petticoat. But she decided to leave on her camisole and pantalettes. They were chilly and damp. But essential.

  Grateful for the darkness, she walked over to the bed, reminding herself that sh
e and Lucas had trusted each other with their lives today. She would just have to trust him to keep his hands to himself tonight.

  The mattress was stuffed with cotton, and it felt lumpy, and the woven coverlet was stiff and scratchy against her skin, and the bed creaked. But the quilt felt soft and warm as Lucas held it open and covered her with it.

  She curled up on her side, with her back to him. The bed wasn’t very wide, wasn’t really meant for two people. She thought he might make some effort to keep distance between them.

  But he didn’t. In fact, he looped an arm around her waist and drew her close to him. She tensed. “Marshal—”

  “Need to conserve heat.” He settled in beside her, his hard, muscled body going slack. “Go to sleep, Antoinette. You’re perfectly... safe... promise...”

  He seemed to barely have enough strength left to finish mumbling those few words. His arm around her relaxed.

  But Annie didn’t sleep. Couldn’t. She just lay there, staring into the darkness. Listening to the wind battering the small cabin, howling through the stovepipe. And for some ridiculous reason, tears began sliding down her cheeks.

  After all she had been through yesterday and today, why she should cry now, she couldn’t figure out. She shut her eyes, tried to keep quiet. Didn’t want to bother Lucas when he needed rest so badly.

  But he must’ve heard her.

  Because after a minute, she felt his fingertips on her cheek, his thumb brushing her tears away.

  “Don’t,” he said quietly.

  Annie buried her face in the coverlet. Why did men always say that when a woman cried? Don’t. Like it would solve anything. Like she could just turn her emotions on and off. She was afraid. He might not understand or care, but she was afraid.

  “Shhh, we’ll be all right,” he said. “I’ll keep you safe.”

  Annie opened her eyes, his words warming her as much as his touch. He did understand. Without her having to explain what she felt, he understood.

  And he did care.

  I’ll keep you safe. Nobody had ever said that to her, not in her whole life.

  His arm settled around her waist again, and he drew her close, and even though he didn’t say any more, her tears stopped. Despite all the danger they were facing, she felt... protected.

  Maybe because Lucas was the kind of man who really could keep a woman safe, who would always chase the dark things of the world away. Strong and unyielding, full of courage and fire and determination. And moments of unexpected gentleness.

  The kind of man most girls grew up dreaming about.

  But Annie knew better than to believe in dreams. Life had taught her too many times that they didn’t come true. Not for women like her.

  So as she closed her eyes, and tried to rest, she also tried very hard to remember that she didn’t want or need a man’s comfort or caring, or his strong arms around her. Didn’t need this at all, she thought as she began to drift to sleep.

  Didn’t... need... Lucas.

  Chapter 12

  Lucas remained still as he opened his eyes just a bit, his head hurting as if some persistent railroad worker were pounding a spike into him. He lay on his back beneath the quilt, blinking in the lamplight, realizing two things at once. First, he was alone in the bed.

  Second, he could smell hot bean soup. And coffee and some kind of frybread. His stomach growled at the warm, mingling aromas. When he recovered from his surprise enough to lift his head—cautiously, wincing—and look around, he discovered that Annie had been up for some time.

  Apparently she had been busy while he was still asleep: She had not only brought in more wood for the fire, which was crackling in the stove, and made a meal, she had straightened the place up a bit, cleaned away some of the dust, arranged all the chairs neatly around the table in the corner, made everything tidy.

  At the moment, she sat at the table with her back to him, wearing her plain brown dress, the food spread out around her: iron frypan, a metal coffeepot, the tin cup and plate from his saddlebag. Across from her sat another cup and plate she must have found somewhere in the dugout.

  She had set two places. Had made him breakfast.

  Lucas rested his head back against the mattress, regarding her in silent surprise for a moment. He never would have guessed that she might know how to cook—never mind be able to make something out of the few ingredients they had on hand. It only drove home what he’d been brooding about—or rather, trying not to brood about—since he’d opened that letter from the Denver orphanage.

  Though he’d spent weeks hunting this woman down and almost a month in her company, the truth was he knew damn little about her.

  Lucas sat up, groaning softly at the pain in his temple, and she turned toward him.

  “Good morning,” she said, a bit hesitantly. “How are you feeling?”

  He considered that question for a moment, gingerly probing his bandaged temple. His head still ached, and his throat was parched with thirst, but the dizziness was gone. “Better.” A good night’s sleep had been exactly what he’d needed. “What time is it?”

  “Almost midday, I think.”

  Lucas rubbed his eyes. A good night and half a day’s sleep. He moved to sit on the edge of the bed and looked up.

  Their gazes met and held for a moment, until she glanced away, a hint of dusky color in her cheeks.

  He grabbed his shirt from the bedpost, studying her by the lantern’s glow. She had tamed her curls into a long, thick braid that hung down the back of her chair, the end tied with a strip of cloth from her petticoat—a match for the one still knotted around his head. She looked sweet, almost shy, sitting there so quietly, the light giving her dark eyes that languid look beneath the fringe of her lashes...

  Lucas pulled his shirt on and started buttoning it.

  He’d kept his promise last night. She had been completely safe beside him. Unharmed.

  Untouched.

  He’d been left with nothing but vague, dreamlike memories of her soft, rounded shape curled against him beneath the quilt. And her body shifting during the night, snuggling closer to his warmth. And her leg resting against his, her skin warm even through the heavy denim of his trousers.

  Last night, he’d meant what he’d said—he hadn’t been capable of anything more than sleep.

  But apparently he was feeling better.

  Because just the hazy memory of her lying beside him, almost naked, was enough to heat his blood and stir a taut feeling low in his belly.

  He grabbed his boots, tugged them on, and stood up.

  “I was going to wait,” she said, gesturing to the food on the table, her empty plate, “but I was starving, and I didn’t want to wake you—”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He went outside to heed the call of nature, and to take a few deep breaths of the frigid air, trying to chill the fire from his veins before he allowed himself near her.

  When he came back inside, a blast of snow and wind and sun blew in with him as he shut the door.

  “It hasn’t stopped snowing.” She sounded worried.

  “No.” He walked to the bucket of water that sat on the stove, poured some into a dented basin, and carried it to the corner, where there was a fragment of mirror nailed to the wall. He grimaced at his bearded, bloodstained face. When he unwrapped the bandage from around his forehead, he saw that at least the crease in his temple had stopped bleeding.

  After tending the wound and washing up, he walked over to the table, took a seat across from her, and dug into the food hungrily.

  “Good,” he said when he paused long enough between mouthfuls to speak. He tried the coffee and nodded appreciatively. “Damned good.”

  “Thanks.” She sat watching him, her voice quiet. “Luc—Marshal... about the bounty hunter, I wondered...” She hesitated, shifted on her chair. “I never asked about Travis,” she said finally. “Is he all right?”

  “When I left town,” Lucas said around a mouthful of frybread, “Holt seemed to think he
would be fine.”

  “I’m glad.” She was silent for a moment. “You thought I had escaped, didn’t you? You thought I was the one who’d hurt him.”

  He lifted the cup of coffee and took a long swallow before he replied. “All the evidence pointed to that at the time,” he admitted.

  “All the evidence,” she echoed softly. “Why did you risk your life to save me?”

  He studied the rim of his cup. “It’s my duty to look after anyone who’s in my custody. You’re my—”

  “Prisoner,” she finished for him, nodding. She picked up her empty dishes and stood, carrying them over to the bucket of water on the stove. “I understand.”

  Lucas set the coffee down and stared at the tabletop. She didn’t understand a thing. She couldn’t begin to understand why he had done what he’d done.

  Damn it, he didn’t understand any of this: why she stirred his senses like no other female he’d ever set eyes on. Why she had possessed his every thought for weeks.

  How could he feel this way about any woman? Let alone her?

  She had been his brother’s mistress.

  Had taken James’s life.

  And Lucas was so obsessed with her, he had almost died for her. Had killed for her without remorse.

  The more he tried to resist her, the more he ached to take her in his arms and kiss her again, to learn the taste of her, to feel her body respond to his. He wanted that with an urgency unlike any he’d known before. Need was the only word he could call it.

  He needed her. More than he needed shelter from the storm or food or even air. For reasons he couldn’t understand. Reasons all tangled up with her soft curves and her gentle heart and those unexpected flashes of steel and tenacity he kept noticing.

  None of it made any kind of logical sense.

  And she stood there with her back to him, silent, taking longer than necessary to wash one cup and one plate. And she thought she understood him.

  With a frustrated curse, he pushed back from the table and paced over to the door, to the bed, to the stone wall at the back of the small dugout. He found himself eye-to-eye with a wolf trophy on display, its pelt stretched out and nailed up by the paws.