WARRIOR

by Elizabeth Lowell

  "Company is coming, hmm?" After what had happened in West Fork, Eden was glad for the presence of the huge, dark wolf. "Well, don't worry. I just made a big pot of coffee. Come on in, Baby. We'll greet whoever it is together."

  Eden tried to withdraw her hand. Politely, gently, Baby's jaws tightened.

  Curiosity gave way to a fresh rush of adrenaline in Eden. A picture condensed in her mind – eyes of pale icy green, a thick black pelt of hair and beard, a face that was too hard to be called handsome and too fiercely good-looking to be called anything else.

  Stay away from me, Eden … I want you more than all the men in that bar put together.

  It was not the first time Eden had thought of the dark stranger who had come to her aid. His image condensed between her eyes and the hearth fire, the wild sky, the rugged land. He haunted her with questions that couldn't be answered.

  Who are you, Nevada? Where are you? Is it your scent on the snow-wind that is calling to my wolf?

  As soon as the hopeful thought came, Eden pushed it aside. Nevada hadn't looked back after he had walked away from her. He hadn't left any message for her the following morning. He hadn't even told her his last name.

  Eden looked into Baby's eyes and wished futilely that she could truly communicate with him. Baby had been this insistent only once before, in Alaska, when it was a silvertip grizzly sniffing around downwind rather than a lonely trapper smelling smoke and hoping for a cup of fresh coffee.

  "Are you sure it's important, Baby? Mortimer J. Martin, Ph.D., personally assured me there were no bears left in this part of the Lower Forty-eight. That's why I left my rifle with Dad."

  Baby made a soft, somehow urgent sound deep in his throat and tugged on Eden's hand. Then he released her, trotted away about twenty feet and looked over his shoulder.

  "You're sure? Compared to the Yukon there isn't enough snow to mention, but I'm really not dying for a hike in the white stuff. There's not enough snowpack for cross-country skis or snowshoes, which means—"

  Baby whined softly, pleading in the only way he could. Then he threw back his head and howled.

  The hair on the back of Eden's neck stirred in primal response. Not even for the grizzly had Baby been so insistent.

  "Baby, stay."

  Knowing without looking that the wolf would obey, Eden spun around and ran back into the cabin. She grabbed a canteen, filled it with hot coffee, banked the hearth fire, yanked on two layers of snow gear, shrugged into the backpack she always kept ready to go and ran out the front door in less than three minutes. She glanced at her watch, wondering how long she would be gone. If necessary she could live out of her backpack for several days. She would just as soon have the comforts of the cabin, however.

  "Okay, Baby. Let's go."

  The wolf didn't waste any time. He set off at a purposeful trot across the meadow through the evergreens. Eden walked swiftly behind, pacing herself so that she would neither tire quickly nor become sweaty. Sweat was one of the greatest hazards of snow country, for when a person stopped moving, sweat froze, creating a layer of ice against the skin that sapped warmth dangerously.

  Baby was careful never to get out of Eden's sight. Nor did he run with his nose to the ground as though following a trail. Gradually Eden realized that Baby was retracing his own steps – in places where snow had gathered, his tracks went in both directions.

  Eden had been following Baby for ten minutes when she saw the first hoofprints in a patch of snow. Two horses, one with a rein or a rope dragging. They were headed roughly southeast and she was headed roughly north. Baby ignored the horse sign even though Eden could see it was very fresh. The softly falling snow hadn't yet blurred the crisp edges of the tracks. She stopped, stared off through the snow and thought she saw a vague shape that could have been a horse standing in the shelter of a big evergreen.

  "Baby!"

  The wolf stopped, gave a short, sharp bark and resumed trotting.

  After only an instant of hesitation, Eden kept on following Baby. She would trust the half-wild, half-tame animal's uncanny instincts. If Baby wasn't interested in the horse it was because he had more important game in mind.

  Without turning aside even once, Baby retraced his own tracks. The forest ended at the foot of a scree slope. Automatically Eden checked the barren slope first. Even beneath the veil of falling snow, the story of what had happened was clear: at least one horse had come skidding and rolling down through the scree, starting a small rockslide in the process. Hoofprints led away from the disturbed ground. There was no sign of any horse nearby.

  Baby never hesitated. He darted over the loose debris left by the slide and sat near a massive boulder ten yards from Eden. There the slide had parted like water, leaving behind larger rocks before closing around the downhill side of the car-size boulder.

  "Baby? What—"

  Eden's breath broke, then came in harshly as she realized that something lay half-buried in the loose stone that had piled against the huge boulder.

  A man.

  His body blended with the rubble from the recent slide. Fresh snowfall was rapidly blurring all distinctions between stone and flesh. The man was motionless, yet hauntingly familiar. His bearded face was turned up to the chill softness of falling snow.

  "Nevada!"

  No motion answered Eden's cry.

  ~ 3 ~

  Eden scrambled through the loose debris and threw herself down at Nevada's side. Even as she ripped off her gloves and felt for his pulse, she saw the brassy glitter of spent shell casings scattered on top of the rocky rubble. A rifle was still gripped in Nevada's big right hand. The skin of his left wrist was cool but not chilled. He must have been conscious at some time since his fall, for he had fired the rifle repeatedly.

  "Nevada," Eden said, pitching her voice to be both reassuring and distinct. Still talking, she moved back from him so that she could shrug out of her backpack and down jacket. "Nevada, can you hear me?"

  A shudder rippled through his powerful body. His eyes opened, a cougar's eyes, trapped, dangerous. The fingers holding the rifle tightened. Eden didn't notice, for she was spreading her bright red jacket over his chest.

  "Do you hurt anywhere?" she asked.

  When Nevada's eyes focused on her, they changed. Life and light came back into them. He shook his head as though to clear it.

  "If you can do that, you didn't break your neck."

  Relief was bright in Eden's voice. Growing up on a homestead in Alaska had taught her the basics of first aid – splinting breaks, stitching up gashes, and the dangers of hypothermia, but spine injuries were beyond her skills.

  And the thought of Nevada hurt bothered Eden deeply.

  She pulled off the knitted ski hat she had worn underneath her jacket hood. A moment later she was leaning over Nevada, stretching the hat to cover Nevada's short black hair, tucking stray strands in, her face only inches from his, her breath bathing his cheeks above his beard, her soft hair touching him when she turned her head.

  "There. That will help you to stay warm."

  "Eden? What the hell are you doing out here?"

  "Ask Baby. He dragged me out of a nice warm cabin and insisted I go for a walk in the snow."

  Gently Eden lowered Nevada's head back to the ground, cushioned the rocks beneath with one of her jacket's quilted sleeves, and looked closely at Nevada's pale green eyes. Both pupils were the same size and he was studying her with an intensity that was almost tangible. Whatever else had happened in his fall, his faculties were intact.

  "Thank God," Eden said too softly for Nevada to hear.

  But he did, just as he felt the rushing warmth of the sigh she gave, as though the weight of the mountainside had just slipped from her shoulders.

  "Baby must have found you earlier, sensed something was wrong and came back to get me," Eden continued, tucking her bright jacket around Nevada's broad chest.

  Nevada blinked, scattering snowflakes that had tangled in his thick black eyelashes. "Be damned.
Thought I saw a wolf a while back, but there aren't any wolves around here, so I chalked it up to taking a header down the mountain."

  "You did that, all right. Where do you hurt?"

  "Nowhere."

  Eden looked skeptical. "Then why are you lying here?"

  "My left foot is wedged against the big boulder. When I couldn't dig myself out, I began firing my rifle three rounds at a time."

  Eden nodded. Three spaced shots were a universal come-running signal. "Baby must have heard the shots or caught your scent on the wind." She turned back to the knapsack, pulled out the canteen, and took off the top. The coffee was still hot. She put the canteen in Nevada's hands. "This will help to warm you. Drink as much as you can while I look at your foot."

  Nevada inhaled deeply. "Damn. That smells like real coffee."

  "Guaranteed strong enough to grow hair on the bottom of your feet," Eden agreed as she began pulling on her gloves.

  The corner of Nevada's mouth shifted unnoticeably beneath his beard as he lifted the canteen and drank deeply. The hot, rich liquid spread through his body like a benediction, warming everything it touched. Reluctantly he stopped drinking.

  "You want some?" he asked.

  "I'm plenty warm," Eden said. "Drink as much as you can hold."

  "That will be all of it."

  "Good."

  While Nevada finished the coffee, Eden began pushing loose rock away from his hips and legs, clearing a way to the trapped ankle. As she worked, she tried not to notice the clean, powerful lines of his body. It was impossible. He was a large, healthy male animal, and he called to her senses in ways that disconcerted her.

  Nevada licked the last drop of coffee from his mustache and watched Eden working over his legs. Her motions were sure, efficient and productive. Obviously she wasn't going to come apart in an emergency.

  He liked that as much as he liked the breasts swaying beneath her ski jersey and pullover sweater and the decidedly female curves of her hips. But admiring Eden's body was having a pronounced effect on his own, so he concentrated on her face instead, memorizing the smooth skin of her cheeks, the changing colors of her hazel eyes, the tempting sweetness of her mouth.

  Eden looked up, sensing Nevada's intense regard. He shifted his glance to the slope.

  "You see any horses on the way here?" he asked.

  "Just tracks. A big horse and a smaller one. Both are wearing winter shoes. Both are drifting south and east in front of the wind." Stones clattered and rattled, pushed by Eden's hands as she resumed digging. "I might have seen one of them under a big evergreen about five minutes up the trail, but I couldn't be sure. The smaller horse is dragging a rope or a rein. Neither of the horses is limping, although the bigger one rolled down the same slope you did. If there was any blood, it wasn't much. So relax. Your horses are better off than you are."

  "Big horse. Small horse. Winter shoes. Rope." Nevada looked at Eden's clean profile and asked neutrally, "Where did you learn how to track?"

  "Alaska."

  "Horses?" he asked skeptically.

  "Cats," Eden said, struggling to shove aside a rock that was smaller than a pony, but not much. "I studied lynx in the north woods. I came to Colorado to study cougars. After cats, tracking horses is a piece of cake."

  Nevada's eyes changed, intensity returning. Eden was going to be living in the remote area around Wildfire Canyon, tracking the cougars that had returned to the Rocking M.

  And so was he.

  "Damn," Eden said under her breath. She braced her shoulder and tried again to shift the smaller of the two boulders that had trapped Nevada's foot. "Did you try pulling your foot out of your boot?"

  "Yes. Rest before you start sweating."

  She hesitated, then nodded. He was right. She sat back on her heels and breathed deeply, trying not to let her worry show. Nevada's left foot was securely wedged between a rock that was too big for her to shift and the massive boulder that had broken the back of the landslide. Loose rubble slithered and stirred and eased downhill every time she tried to dig him out.

  "How's your head?" As Eden asked the question, her eyes were searching the slope for something to use as a lever against the smaller of the two boulders that were holding Nevada captive.

  "I'll live."

  "Dizzy? Double vision? Nausea?"

  "No. I have a hard skull."

  She smiled without looking at him, still searching for a lever. "I won't touch that line. How bad is your foot?"

  "Cold is a good anesthetic."

  "Too good. You were unconscious when I got here."

  "I would have awakened in ten minutes and fired three more rounds."

  Nevada's certainty made Eden look back at him.

  "Hypothermia—" she began.

  "It's not a problem yet," he interrupted flatly. "I've been a lot colder under a lot worse conditions and functioned just fine."

  Eden tugged off one glove, grabbed Nevada's wrist and started counting. His pulse was strong. Cold hadn't slowed his body processes yet. And the quart of hot coffee would help hold the chill of the ground at bay.

  "All right." Unconsciously Eden caressed Nevada's left wrist and his palm with her fingertips, reassured by his tangible heat and the resilience of his flesh, like Baby, Nevada fairly radiated an elemental vitality. "Where did you learn to sleep and wake yourself whenever you wanted?"

  "Afghanistan." His voice was clipped, foreclosing any other questions.

  "They have some big mountains there, and a lot of mines," Eden said absently. She looked past him to the forest, focusing on a piece of deadfall that might work as a lever. "Are you a geologist?"

  "No."

  Despite the warning in Nevada's voice, Eden was beginning to ask another question when she felt wetness on her fingertips. She looked down and saw a trickle of blood across Nevada's hand. Ignoring his brief protest, she eased off his leather glove. A jagged, partially healed cut went across the back of his hand. The scab had been broken in one place. Fresh blood oozed slowly toward his tanned wrist.

  Eden breathed Nevada's name and stroked the uninjured flesh on either side of the cut. Memories of anger and fear and the razor edges of a freshly broken beer bottle lanced through her.

  "You should have let me take care of you," she said quietly.

  "I don't need a woman to take care of me. I never have. I never will."

  This time the warning in Nevada's voice got through.

  "Really?" Eden asked casually. "Then I hope you're comfortable, cowboy. It may be a long time before a man comes along this particular piece of mountainside."

  There was a tight silence before the left corner of Nevada's mouth shifted very slightly.

  "You must be the exception that proves the rule," he said.

  "Gosh, I'm so glad you explained that to me. I was beginning to wonder if you hadn't hit your head too hard on one of those rocks."

  Suddenly Eden frowned and shifted her grip on Nevada's wrist. "Are you sure you feel all right? Your pulse is pretty fast right now."

  "My resting pulse is in the low sixties."

  "But—"

  "I'm not resting."

  "You have a point. But your pulse has increased in the past minute or two."

  "If a man were leaning over me and stroking my wrist like a lover, my pulse wouldn't have budged."

  It took a few moments for the meaning of Nevada's words to get past Eden's concern for him. A rising tide of color marked the exact instant of her understanding that she was cradling his hand between her own. Even worse, she was running her fingertips caressingly from the pulse point on his wrist to the base of his fingers and back again.

  "Sorry," Eden said, dropping Nevada's hand. She pulled on her glove again and she spoke quickly. "I'm a tactile kind of person. When I'm nervous or worried or thinking hard, I tend to stroke things. You were within reach."

  It was partly true. The rest of the truth was that there was something about Nevada Blackthorn that made Eden want to stroke him, to
learn his textures and pleasures, to make him smile, to warm him, to … heal him.

  And then set him free?

  There was no answer except Eden's silent, inner cry of pain at the thought of Nevada turning away from her again. The depth of her reaction was irrational, and she knew it. She also knew it was as deep as a night sky, and as real. Knowing that, she stopped fighting her response to Nevada. Working in the wild as much as she did had taught her to accept things that did not make sense within the narrow cultural limits of modern rationality.

  "Tactile, huh?" Nevada drawled. "Must make life interesting for the men around you."

  "The only men in my life have fur and fangs and go on all fours."

  Stones rattled as Eden went back to work clearing debris around Nevada's trapped ankle. It seemed that for every two handfuls she pushed aside, a handful more slithered down to fill the depression.

  "Can you reach my backpack?" Eden asked after a few minutes.

  Instead of answering, Nevada twisted his body, reached, and snagged the backpack. Any lingering questions Eden might have had as to Nevada's hidden injuries vanished. Except for the trapped foot, Nevada moved with supreme ease.

  "What do you need?" he asked.

  "Not me. You. This is trickier than I thought it would be. There's a survival blanket in the backpack. Turn the black side out."

  Nevada didn't argue. Though neither of them had mentioned it, both knew it would take time to free his ankle – if it could be done at all. Even with the help of hot coffee, his big body couldn't hold heat indefinitely. Lying on the cold ground was slowly sapping his living warmth.

  He opened the backpack and sorted through its contents with growing approval. Eden's fingers might be as hot and gentle as sunlight, and her breath might be as sweetly heady as wine, but she was no foolish little flower when it came to living in the wild. She had everything she might reasonably expect to need in an emergency, except a weapon.

  Speculatively Nevada looked over at Baby, who was watching him with yellow eyes that missed nothing.