Blue Dalton

by Tara Janzen

  He was traveling alone now, having convinced Bowles he could move faster without five other men crashing around behind him. And that’s the way he liked it, especially this time. Blue Dalton hadn’t gone down into the depths of a glacial lake on a whim. The lake was dark, isolated in a high bowl of the Never Summer Range, and colder than a January wind screaming through North Park. It was a wonder she hadn’t died in the water.

  But if there was one thing he was beginning to realize about Blue Dalton, it was that she was damn hard to kill, or even get close to. A strange part of him was actually anticipating getting a look at her, this Amazon of the mountains. A not so strange part of him was predictably excited about getting a look at what she’d found at the bottom of the lake—for he had no doubts she’d found something. Why else had the old coot been hot on her trail, if not to steal Abel Dalton’s stolen-treasure hoard? He’d had two days to worry all the pieces into place, and they all added up to the fortune he and half the male population of North Park had spent years looking for. Except all the others were looking for the wrong thing, fooled by Dalton’s dying gasp of finding the sky beneath the earth. They were looking for the gold of the sun when they should have been looking for the silver moon and pieces of the summer sky.

  A slow smile spread across his face despite the cold sinking through his jacket and shirt and into his bones. Walker shifted his backpack again and struck out into the woods. He’d find her all right, her and his father’s treasure.

  Close to dark he lowered his expectations to finding a place to camp for the night. Under other circumstances he’d have headed home. Blue Dalton had commenced trespassing on his property late in the afternoon, leading him to within two miles of his cabin.

  He should have caught up with her by now, he thought with no small measure of disgust. He’d never live it down if he’d lost her trail.

  Wiping his hand across his mouth, he peered into the dripping forest ahead of him, then glanced over his shoulder. If he had lost her trail, he’d done it within the last mile. Her dog had left scat sign, and Blue had missed covering it up—her first mistake. She must be about ready to drop, he thought.

  And if you were going to drop, where would you do it? He slowly turned on his heels, scanning the landscape. Below him about twenty yards away a wet slope of granite pushed out of the mountainside, beckoning to him and any other rain-soaked soul.

  Without moving another step he knew he’d found her. He pulled his rifle out of his pack and over his shoulder. She was armed and had her dog. He wasn’t taking any chances, but neither was he going to sit back and follow her home. There was no dream of glory in the decision, just the cold facts. If she was as worn down as he figured, and if she was hurt, she was in no shape to be out in the elements, and neither was he. Spring rains had a tendency to turn into spring snows in the Rockies.

  At ten yards he slipped out of his pack, knowing the dripping trees covered the slight sound. Still, he approached the rock carefully. He didn’t want to get shot, and he didn’t want to have to shoot her. She’d come too far to lose her life to him.

  Sodden pine needles cushioned his silent steps, one after the other. A glimpse of her jerry-rigged lean-to brought satisfaction but no smile to his face. One edge of her gray slicker had come loose from its mooring and was flapping in the breeze. A small hand and a white paw were pushed out of the bottom of the lean-to; both were covered with mud and soaking wet.

  Walker stopped, holding himself still, and stared at the hand. An uneasy sensation skittered across his nerve endings. The hand was too small, about half the size of his, and that couldn’t be right. That couldn’t be Blue Dalton’s hand.

  Keeping to the high side of the slope, he moved around the rock, his finger on the trigger of his rifle. As the underside of the boulder came into view, he moved farther back.

  “Stop where you stand,” a low voice hissed out of the shadows, followed by a menacingly soft growl. Walker froze.

  The wrong end of a rifle swung into view, the stock cradled next to her waist, her bandaged hand cradled under the stock and the other nested around the trigger with one finger precisely in place. Neither she nor the dog had moved, and they were both looking dead center at him, two pairs of dark-brown eyes, one set holding his steady gaze, the other pair angled more toward his throat. Walker swallowed, a reflexive action he couldn’t stop but the only one he allowed.

  “Drop the rifle,” she ordered.

  “No.” He slowly moved his head from side to side.

  “The dog will get you if I don’t,” she warned, and Walker noted the barest tremble in her voice and the trouble she was having holding the rifle steady. He shot a quick glance at the dog. The animal looked mean, real mean, but he also looked half dead. Walker remembered the club they’d found outside the cabin, the one matted with bloody white hair. He also remembered the gash on the shot man’s left leg. Walker had tangled with a dog once. He didn’t care to repeat the experience.

  “I—I’m not here to hurt you,” he said, forcing a halting measure of fear into his voice and taking a cautious step to her weak side, figuring it would take more strength than she could muster to keep the rifle angled in his direction.

  “Pr-prove it. Drop the gun.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Can’t?” Her rifle wavered, the barrel dropping toward the ground. It was taking everything she had to keep it out of the dirt. The girl was done for.

  “Too scared.” It was a small lie, but one he hoped would increase her confidence enough to make her careless.

  Her unladylike reply told him he hadn’t fooled her for a second. He decided on another plan and slowly swung the aim of his rifle from her chest to the dog’s.

  “The dog goes first, Blue,” he said softly, committing himself.

  He never knew what tipped him off, but when she fired, he was already on the move, throwing himself out of the line of fire. Exhaustion and the recoil of her rifle did the rest, throwing her shot far off the mark.

  Scrambling and swearing, he lunged for the lean-to, grabbing her leg and jerking her out into the open before the dog could sink his teeth into his arm. He swung her in front of him for protection and ripped the rifle out of her hand.

  “Are you crazy?” he yelled, his heart beating fast and furiously in his chest. “Call your dog off!”

  The dog stood a foot away, too damn close for Walker’s peace of mind. He could smell the animal’s breath, see the mile of teeth circling its jaws, hear the snap and growl coming from deep in its throat. Then he noticed the dog was only using three legs. The fourth paw was held off the ground and a pinkish smear of blood covered the leg from top to bottom.

  “Call off your dog,” he told her again, but no one heard him. He glanced down at the woman in his arms and swore under his breath. She’d passed out cold. He was holding her so tightly, he hadn’t even noticed her lack of resistance. Maybe he’d squeezed the breath out of her, or maybe she was playing possum.

  He lightened his grip and tried not to think about the dog standing there, waiting for an opportunity to tear his throat out.

  “Dammit.” She wasn’t playing possum. Her head lolled forward. Her legs were buckled beneath her, skinny little legs. Her arms hung limply at her sides, skinny little arms. She was a bag of bones. He doubted if she weighed a hundred pounds, and she was already soaking wet. Water streamed down the back of her neck and soaked the flannel of her shirt, unhindered by any feminine length of hair. She’d cut it short. A wide swath of the dirty-blond strands hung over her ear and hid her face. “Dammit,” he repeated.

  He scooted back, and the dog growled, a low rumbling, never-ending sound.

  “I’m not going to hurt her, boy.” Walker tried his most soothing tone. “Trust me. I’m not going to hurt her.”

  The growling increased in volume. The dog was no fool. Walker swore silently. If he’d been the dog, he wouldn’t have believed him either.

  “Okay, boy. This is what we’re going to do. I�
��m going to take Blue with me. Blue, see?” He gave Blue a little shake. She moaned, and the dog stopped growling and pricked up his ears. “That’s right, boy. Blue is going with me.” He pushed back another foot. The dog followed with a hopping limp. “Now you can do whatever you want . . . except try and stop me. You can come with us, or you can stay here and guard the camp. Doesn’t matter to me either way.”

  When he had five feet between them, Walker slowly rose to his feet, dragging Blue with him with his arm around her waist. She slumped down until his arm was under both of hers. The dog followed another step. That’s what Walker liked about German Shepherds: They were smart.

  Moving carefully and slowly, Walker swung her over his shoulder and bent down to pick up the two rifles. He eyed her pack wistfully, but knew he didn’t have a choice. He’d have to shoot the dog to get to it, and he’d have to leave Blue on the mountain in order to carry it home. Nope, he didn’t have a choice.

  “We’re going now, boy,” he said to the dog. “You’re welcome to come, like I said. But I’ve got to get Blue home.” He walked backward two more steps and bent down and snagged his hat. He released the rifles for a moment to jam the hat on his head, then he picked the guns up again. He looked at the backpack one more time, cussed softly, and straightened up.

  “Okay, this is it. We’re leaving, not going far, about two miles south, that’s all,” he said, hefting Blue to a more comfortable position. He sidestepped around the dog, not quite trusting the animal enough to turn his back on him.

  But after a couple of minutes of edging sideways through the trees and almost tripping twice, he had to take a chance. He didn’t make a production number out of it. He just turned his back and took a step, then another, and another.

  Daylight deserted him a mile from home. The dog never did.

  Two

  Walker put another log on the fire and collapsed back into his chair, splaying his legs in utter exhaustion. Every muscle and bone in his body ached. His neck might never be right again. Blue Dalton’s limp body had gotten heavier and heavier with every quarter mile. By the time he’d dragged himself up his porch steps, she’d weighed a ton.

  But she sure didn’t look like much stretched out on his couch, dampening the faded plaid with her wet, slender form. He’d taken her boots off, and three layers of socks later realized why he’d thought he was tracking a much larger woman. How she’d ever kept ahead of him for two days wearing boots a size too big was beyond him. He didn’t want to think how he’d feel about himself when he went back in the morning to get their packs, for he already knew whose was the heaviest—hers, laden with the treasure.

  How in the hell had she kept ahead of him? The thought crossed his mind for the hundredth time as he stared at her. He shook his head and reached for his coffee. The telephone was next to the cup, but he ignored it the same way he’d been ignoring it for the last hour. The fire lit into some sap and flared up with a crackle and a pop. The dog jerked awake.

  “Go back to sleep, boy,” Walker said. “It’s just the fire.”

  The dog looked over at him, then settled back down on the rug in the far corner of the cabin. Walker listened to his soft groans and hoped they didn’t mean anything. The dog needed doctoring—Blue did too—but he was too cautious to touch the one and too sensible to touch the other. The drying blood-stained rag wrapped around Blue’s hand would have to remain until she woke up, a moment he was awaiting with both anticipation and a strange sense of unease. He didn’t know what to make of her. From the tips of her toes to the crop of golden hair, she wasn’t what he’d expected to find.

  He lifted the mug to his mouth, sipped slowly, and tried not to stare at her so hard—a fruitless endeavor. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She didn’t look like an Amazon, the type of woman who could shoot a man, or a treasure hunter. She looked like a skinny kid, kind of a pretty, skinny kid. And without her rifle pointed at him she looked incredibly vulnerable.

  His gaze roamed from her small, dirty feet, up the length of her legs to where her jeans were bunched around her waist with a big belt, to the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Her thick blond hair, parted far to one side, had fallen back from her face, revealing a small nose and feathery wings of black lashes resting on darkly tanned cheeks. What held his gaze, though, was her mouth and the diminutive beauty mark above her upper lip. Her mouth did something to him he didn’t want to admit. Her lower lip was full, teasing even in repose, tempting his imagination to wander in ridiculous, dangerous directions.

  He snorted in self-recrimination, leaned forward, and flipped the blanket over her feet. She’s Blue Dalton, he silently reminded himself, adding the warning of—Don’t forget it.

  She stirred restlessly at his slight touch, murmuring as she kicked the blanket off. Heaving a deep sigh, he settled back into his chair. What was he going to do with her now that he’d finally caught her, he wondered. He didn’t really need her. He had the backpack, or at least he knew where it was.

  Call Bowles and have him take her off your hands. She’s his problem. The voice of reason spoke calmly in his mind.

  Right, he thought.

  Then why does she feel like your problem? The voice of reason stumbled into an undeniable truth. She did feel like his problem, a personal problem, and it bothered him that he couldn’t figure out why.

  He crossed his legs at the ankles and slid farther down into his overstuffed chair. Lord, he was tired—his glance strayed up to her face—and she was exhausted, hurt . . . and pretty, very pretty. The unwelcome admission furrowed his brow, but didn’t slow his imagination. There wasn’t a single part of her he didn’t think would fit in the palm of his hand: not the delicate curve of her cheek, not the breadth of her shoulder, not the fullness of the small breasts apparent under her shirt.

  “Call Bowles,” he muttered, sitting back up, determined to finish the job they were paying him plenty to do. He picked up the phone, dialed the number, and put the receiver next to his ear. The phone rang once, twice.

  Blue mumbled in her sleep, finishing with a short gasp as she grabbed her waist.

  “Hello?” Bowles answered.

  Walker dropped the receiver back in its cradle and in two strides was kneeling by the couch. His gaze raced down her body and back up, looking for anything he might have missed, but he still didn’t touch her. After the direction his mind had chosen to wander in, he didn’t trust himself to touch her, and that bothered him in a dozen other ways he didn’t want to explore.

  “Abel,” she whispered, her mouth parting softly. Her hand tightened on her waist, bunching cloth and something else in her fingers. Walker followed the movement. His eyes narrowed and a curious smile curved a corner of his mouth.

  “Ah, Blue,” he murmured, the smile broadening into a full-fledged grin.

  With more caution than sense he lowered his hand next to hers and gently pulled her shirt out of her jeans, inch by inch, his anticipation building. All the time he’d been worrying about leaving her pack behind, she’d had the good’s right on her. Damn. He should have checked her out from top to—

  The thought fell apart when her undershirt came out with the blue flannel, exposing a triangle of silky skin above her belt. Walker stopped pulling, the smile slowly fading from his face. Firelight danced through the shadows created by the raised cotton cloth, adding mystery to the unexpected view of Blue Dalton. She stretched; the overlarge jeans slipped lower on her hips, revealing a satiny curve of waist, and Walker let out a slow, measured breath.

  This is crazy, he told himself even as he felt the subtle change in his body, a tightening he had no business feeling. He’d seen bare skin before, more than he cared to remember most of the time, and it was just her stomach, for crying out loud . . . just an enticing glimpse of the no-man’s-land between forbidden territories. The fanciful thought caused his gaze to roam up to her breasts and down again to the softly worn jeans covering her hips, her thighs, her calves.

  Walker shook off the mo
ment of sexual awareness. However fascinating the stuff below her undershirt, there was something equally fascinating between the white cotton and the blue flannel.

  An edge of leather came into view, a rolled packet grasped by her hand through her shirt. He pondered the dilemma for a moment, glancing up at her face. She was asleep all right. He eased his fingers under her shirt and slipped the packet away from her. His smile broadened into a grin when the packet came free into his hands. It was small, too small to hold everything he had dreamed about, but it was a start.

  Excited, he turned on the balls of his feet and sat down with his back resting against the couch. He held the packet for a long moment, relishing the final success, the final justice. He’d been pretty bereft of successes this year, and justice always seemed to be in the eye of the beholder. This time they’d both fallen into his hand. The initials burned into the leather proved his father’s story of betrayal. L. L., for Lacey’s Lode. There had been only one Lacey of renown in North Park, Lacey Evans, she of the gentle touch who’d dried every tear he’d ever shed except the last ones he’d cried for losing her. The pain had gone years before, but the memories and the riches two men had promised her remained.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, he unknotted the leather laces, letting each one slide into his lap as it came undone. He straightened his legs to unroll the packet down his thighs—and that’s how she caught him, fingers poised above the flaps covering the treasure, mesmerized by what he had yet to see.

  Walker felt the cool, sharp edge slide down his neck, touching but not cutting, not yet. He saw the knife blade glint with yellow light from the fire.

  “Tie it back up.” Her voice was raspy and weak. The knife pressed against his skin was neither.

  “I should have frisked you,” he said calmly, realizing the limits of her strength even if she didn’t. He just hoped she had enough sense to keep the knife from slipping accidentally.

  “Seems you already did all the frisking I’m gonna allow.” The blade slid farther down his neck and pointed at the packet spread across his legs. “Tie it up and hand it over.”