WARRIOR

by Elizabeth Lowell

  "Nevada?"

  He made a rough, questioning sound.

  "What's your last name?"

  "Blackthorn."

  "Blackthorn," Eden murmured, savoring the name as though it were a snowflake freshly fallen onto her tongue. "What do you do when you're not rescuing maidens or falling down mountains, Nevada Blackthorn?"

  "I'm segundo on the Rocking M when Tennessee is there. When he isn't, I'm ramrod."

  "Segundo? Tennessee? Ramrod? Are we speaking the same language?"

  The corner of Nevada's mouth lifted slightly. "A ramrod is a ranch foreman. A segundo is the ramrod's right-hand man. Tennessee is my brother."

  "Is the Rocking M your family ranch?"

  "After a fashion. We're the bastard line. The legitimate folks are the MacKenzies. Tennessee bought into the ranch when Luke MacKenzie's father was trying to drink himself to death. I own a chunk of the Devil's Peak area. Cash and Mariah gave it to me for a wedding gift."

  For a few moments Eden was too stunned to breathe. "You're married?" she asked faintly.

  "It was Cash and Mariah's wedding, not mine."

  "They gave you a present on their wedding day," Eden said carefully.

  Nevada nodded.

  "Why?"

  "It's a long story."

  "I'm very patient."

  "Could have fooled me."

  "I doubt that much fools you," she said matter-of-factly.

  Nevada thought of the instant he had seen Eden coming toward him in a smoky bar and his whole body had reached out to her with a primitive need that had shocked him. But he would have been a fool to talk about that, and Nevada Blackthorn was no fool.

  "Mariah is Luke's sister," Nevada said. "She had a map to a gold mine that had come down through the family. The map wasn't much use because it was all blurred. I passed the map along to some people who are real good at making documents give up their secrets. When the map came back, I gave it to her. She found the mine, Cash found her, and they got married. They gave me a chunk of the mine as a wedding present."

  The hint of a drawl in Nevada's voice told Eden that she was being teased. She didn't mind. She liked the thought that she could arouse that much playfulness in Nevada.

  "Why do I feel you left something out?" she asked.

  "Such as?"

  "Such as how a segundo knows the kind of people who can make crummy old documents sit up and sing."

  "I wasn't always a segundo."

  Eden hesitated. The drawl was definitely gone from Nevada's voice. Even as she told herself she had no right to pry, she heard herself asking a question.

  "What were you before you were a segundo?"

  "What the Blackthorn men have been for hundreds of years – a warrior."

  Vivid images from the fight in West Fork flashed before Eden's eyes, followed by other images. Nevada lying half-buried in a rock slide with a rifle in his hand. Nevada checking the rifle's firing mechanism with a few swift motions before he even tried to stand up. Nevada's bleak eyes and unsmiling mouth.

  Warrior.

  It explained a lot. Too much.

  The vivid joy in life that Eden had experienced moments before drained away, leaving sadness in its place. Her arms tightened protectively around Nevada's powerful body as though she could somehow keep whatever might hurt him at bay. When she realized what she was doing, she didn't know whether to laugh or to weep at her own idiocy. Nevada needed protecting about as much as a bolt of lightning did.

  But unlike lightning, Nevada could bleed and cry. And he had. She knew it as surely as she knew that she was alive.

  Breathing Nevada's name, Eden moved her face slowly against the cool suede texture of his shearling jacket, wiping away the tears that fell when she thought of what Nevada must have endured in the years before he went to work for the Rocking M. The knowledge of his pain reached her as nothing had since the death of her little sister during Alaska's long, frigid night.

  Nevada felt the surprising strength of Eden's arms holding him, heard his name breathed like a prayer into the swirling storm, sensed the aching depth of Eden's emotions. Without stopping to ask why, Nevada brought one of her gloved hands to his cheek and rubbed slowly. With a ragged sigh she relaxed against him.

  For several minutes there was no sound but the tiny whispering of snowflakes over the land, the creak of cold leather, and the muffled hoof beats of the two horses as Nevada held them to Baby's clear trail. When Nevada saw the outline of the cabin rising from the swirling veils of snow, he removed Eden's arms from around him.

  "Time to let go, Eden. You're home."

  Reluctantly Eden released Nevada. He swung his right leg over the front of the saddle, grabbed the saddle horn in his right hand and slid to the ground. Braced by his grip on the saddle horn, Nevada tentatively put weight on his left foot. There was pain, but he had expected it. What mattered was that the foot and ankle took his weight without giving way.

  Nevada reached up, lifted Eden off the horse and lowered her to the icy ground.

  "Legs still working?" he asked, holding on to her just in case.

  Eden felt the hard length of Nevada pressed against her body and wondered if she would be able to breathe, much less stand. She nodded her head.

  "Good. Go in and get a fire going while I take care of the horses."

  "Your foot—"

  "Go in and get warm," Nevada interrupted. "You'd just be in my way."

  Eden would have argued, but Nevada had already turned around and begun loosening the cinch on Target's saddle. As she watched, he removed the heavy saddle easily and set it aside. There was a hesitation when he walked that reminded her of Baby – injured, but hardly disabled.

  Besides, Nevada was right. She didn't know what to do with the horses.

  Without a word Eden removed her backpack and jacket, shook snow from them and went into the cabin. Baby followed her in and went immediately to the coldest, draftiest spot in the cabin's single room. His thick fur had been grown for a Yukon winter. Until he shed some of his undercoat, a fire was redundant.

  It took only a moment for Eden to stir the banked coals to life. That was one of the first things her parents had taught her about living in cold country – no matter how long or how short the absence was supposed to be, always leave the hearth in a state of instant readiness for the next fire. No more than a single match should be needed to bring light and warmth into a cabin.

  Eden exchanged her snow boots for fleece-lined moccasins before she went to the ice chest to look for a quick meal. After sorting through the snow she had used to chill the contents of the ice chest, she found a package of chicken. Fresh vegetables were in a cardboard carton. She selected a handful, took the knife from her belt sheath and went to work.

  By the time Nevada came in the front door carrying a pair of hiking boots in his hands, the cabin was warm from the fire and fragrant with the smell of chicken and dried herbs simmering together on a tall trivet over the fire. Eden looked up as Nevada took off her knit ski cap and rubbed his fingers through his short, black hair. He shrugged out of his thick shearling jacket, hung it on a nail next to hers, and walked unevenly toward the fire. Moments later he had removed his single cowboy boot and his socks and was toasting his bare feet by the flames. Bruises shadowed his left foot, which was also reddened from cold.

  Eden set aside the vegetables she had been chopping and knelt next to Nevada's legs. She took his left foot between her hands and went over it with her fingertips, searching for swellings, cold spots that could be frostbite, or any other injury.

  Silently Nevada's breath came in and stayed that way. Her fingers felt like gentle flames caressing his cold skin. Not by so much as a sideways look did she reveal that she knew what her touch was doing to him. The thought that Eden might be as innocent as she was alluring disturbed Nevada more deeply than her warm fingers.

  "I told you I'm fine," he said. His voice was rough, irritable, for his body was reacting to Eden's touch once again.

>   "Your idea of fine and mine are different." Eden pressed her fingertips around a swelling. "Hurt?"

  "No."

  She examined his toes critically. Other than being cold, they showed no damage. She let go of his foot. Before he could prevent it, she had pressed her hand against his forehead. His temperature brought a frown to her face. She put her other hand against her own forehead for comparison.

  "You're running a fever," she said.

  Nevada grunted. He had been running a fever for the past hour or more. Tennessee had been right. He should have stayed out of the mountains. But he hadn't been able to. Since the fight in West Fork, Nevada had been too restless to stick around the Rocking M's tame winter pastures.

  "Are you planning on riding out into the storm as soon as your feet warm up?" Eden asked evenly, removing her hand from Nevada's forehead. "Or are you going to be sensible and wait out the storm here?"

  A pale green glance fixed on Eden with searching intensity. The warning Nevada had spoken to her once before hung in the air between them: Stay away from me, Eden. I want you more than all the men in that bar put together.

  "Aren't you nervous about being alone with me in a cabin at the end of the world?" Nevada asked softly.

  "No."

  "You damned well should be."

  "Why?"

  Nevada said something rude under his breath.

  "I know you want me," Eden said simply. "I also know you won't rape me. And not because of Baby. The way you fight, you probably could take care of a pack of wolves. But if I said no, you wouldn't so much as touch me. Even if I said yes…" She shrugged.

  "You have more faith in me than I do."

  Eden's smile was as beautiful as it was sad. "Yes, I know."

  She stood up and went back to chopping vegetables.

  Broodingly Nevada looked around the cabin. Once it had been a base camp for hunters who were less interested in fine decorator touches than in solid shelter from storms. In the far corner of the room, next to Baby, there was a small potbellied stove. A section of chimney pipe was missing. Obviously Eden had decided it would be easier to stay warm near the big fieldstone hearth than to fix the stove's broken chimney.

  Narrowed green eyes inventoried the contents of the room in a sweeping glance that missed nothing. Bedroll and mattress laid out, clothes either hung on nails or put neatly into the rough-hewn dresser, kitchen implements stacked on overturned cartons, camp chairs, a small can of oil set near the kitchen pump, a bucket of water to prime the pump, a kerosene lantern as well as a battery model; it was apparent that Eden was at home in the Spartan shelter.

  Eden walked across the room, pushed a thick, faded curtain aside, and looked out. Snow was coming down thick and hard. Saying nothing, she let herself out of the cabin's only door and closed it behind her. Instantly Baby came to his feet and went to stand by the door. A minute later the door opened again. Eden came in, dragging Nevada's packsacks behind. She kicked the door shut.

  Without the awkwardness of wearing only one cowboy boot to hamper him, Nevada moved with startling speed and only the slightest limp. He took her hands from the canvas packsacks.

  "Put your bed near the hearth," Eden said. "The cabin gets cold by dawn."

  "Next time let me get my own gear. These sacks are too heavy for you."

  Eden gave him a look out of hazel eyes that were almost molten gold with reflected flames. "You've been hurt and you're running a fever," she said with careful patience. "That makes us about even in the strength department."

  "Bull," Nevada said succinctly.

  With no visible effort he lifted both sacks, walked across the room and dumped the sacks to one side of the hearth. Eden stared. She knew how heavy those bags were. She'd had a hard time simply dragging them into the cabin.

  "Okay, I was wrong," she said, throwing up her hands. "You can jump tall buildings in a single bound and catch bullets in your bare hands."

  "Bare teeth," Nevada said without looking up.

  "What?"

  "You catch bullets with your teeth."

  "You may," she retorted, "but I'm not that stupid."

  "The hell you aren't." Nevada lifted his head and pinned her with a cougar's pale green glance. "You're alone in the middle of a snowstorm with a man who gets hard every time you lick your lips. And you trust me. That, lady, is damned stupid."

  ~ 5 ~

  Sensing that something was wrong, Eden awoke with a start. In the silent spaces between gusts of wind, she heard a man speaking in broken phrases, fragmented names, snatches of language that had no rational meaning. But they made sense emotionally. Someone was hurt, trapped, dying….

  And it was happening over and over again.

  Nevada.

  Quickly Eden sat up and looked across the hearth to the place where Nevada had set up his bedroll and mattress. The room was so dark that she could see only an outline, a darker black that indicated Nevada was still there. The cold in the room was the penetrating chill of a winter that would not release the land into spring's life-giving embrace.

  Without leaving her sleeping bag, Eden stirred the fire into life and added fuel. Flames surged up, bringing light and heat into the room. A swift glance told Eden that Nevada was only half-covered, restless, caught in the grip of fever or nightmare or both.

  Eden unzipped her sleeping bag and slid out. Her double-layer, silk-and-wool ski underwear turned aside the worst of the chill, but the floor was icy on her bare feet. Silently she knelt next to Nevada, watching the contours of his face emerge from the darkness as flames licked over the wood.

  A combination of stark shadows, black beard, shifting orange flames and physical tension drew Nevada's features into lines as harsh as they were compelling to Eden's senses. His torso was lean, muscular, highlighted by tire and midnight swirls of hair. He wore no shirt, nothing to keep the cold at bay.

  Eden knelt at Nevada's side. As she had earlier in the day, she put her hand on his forehead to gauge his temperature.

  The world exploded.

  Within the space of two seconds Eden was jerked over Nevada's body, thrown on her back and stretched helplessly beneath his far greater weight while a hot steel band closed around her throat. In the wavering light Nevada's eyes were those of a trapped cougar, luminous with fire, bottomless with shadow, inhuman.

  "Nevada…" Eden whispered, all she could say, for the room was spinning away.

  Instantly the pressure vanished. Eden felt the harsh shudder that went through Nevada's body before he rolled aside, releasing her from his weight. She shivered with the cold of the cabin floor biting into her flesh, and with another, deeper cold, the winter chill that lay at the center of Nevada's soul.

  "Next time you want to wake me up, just call my name. Whatever you do, don't touch me. Ever."

  Nevada's voice was as remote as his eyes had been.

  "That's the problem, isn't it?" Eden asked after a moment, her voice husky.

  "What?"

  "Touching. You haven't had enough of it. Not the caring kind, the warm kind, the gentle kind."

  "Warmth is rare and temporary. Cruelty and pain aren't. A survivor hones his reflexes accordingly. I'm a survivor, Eden. Don't ever forget it. If you catch me off guard I could hurt you badly and never even mean to."

  Eden closed her eyes and shivered against the icy cold. Suddenly she felt herself lifted again. She made a startled sound and stiffened.

  "It's all right," Nevada said calmly. "I'm wide-awake now. Turn your face toward the fire."

  The difference in temperature between the floor and Nevada's bed was disorienting. Eden let out a broken sigh of relief at the warmth and turned her face toward the dancing flames. When she felt Nevada's hand at her throat once more, she gave him a startled look. Nevada didn't notice. He was carefully peeling down the mock-turtleneck collar of her top. Gently his hand slid up beneath her chin, urging her to turn more fully toward the fire.

  As Eden turned, a necklace of fine gold chain spilled from th
e scarlet fabric into Nevada's hand, drawn by the fragile weight of the ring she wore as a pendant. The shimmer of metal caught his eye. He looked more closely and saw that the ring was made of fine strands of smoothly braided gold. When he realized that the ring was too small to be worn by anyone but a very young child, he tipped his palm and let the gold slide away.

  Firelight revealed no marks on the creamy surface of Eden's throat. With devastating gentleness Nevada's fingertips traced the taut tendons and satin skin. The startled intake of her breath followed by the visible, rapid surge of her pulse made Nevada's body tighten in a wild, sweeping rush that was becoming familiar to him around Eden.

  Even as Nevada told himself he should be grateful that Eden's response to him came from fear rather than desire, he knew he wasn't grateful. He wanted nothing so much as to soothe with his tongue the tender flesh he had savaged, and then go on to find even warmer, more tender flesh and know its sweetness, as well.

  But even if he were fool enough to start something he wasn't going to finish, Eden wouldn't be fool enough to want him. She finally understood what he was: a warrior, not a knight in shining armor.

  Eden trembled again.

  "Don't worry. I won't hurt you now," Nevada said.

  The subdued rasp in his voice was like a hidden caress, making Eden ache to know more of his touch.

  "I know," she whispered.

  "Do you? You're trembling."

  "I'm not used to … this."

  "Take my word for it," Nevada said sardonically, "nearly being strangled isn't the sort of thing you get used to." His fingertips probed lightly at her soft skin. "Tender?"

  Eden shook her head.

  "Does it hurt when you talk?" he asked.

  "No."

  "Are you sure?"

  She nodded.

  "I don't believe you."

  "But it's true," Eden said. "You didn't hurt me."

  The throaty intimacy of her voice made Nevada burn. Very carefully he lifted his hand from Eden's warmth. He sat up in a tangle of sleeping bag and blankets, bringing her upright with him. The easy way he handled her weight served to underline his strength and her vulnerability – a vulnerability she stubbornly refused to acknowledge.