Daisy wanted to stay as far away from the routes taken by Tyler and Zac as possible, so she decided to go around the mountain rather than straight down as she wanted. One look at snow deep enough to cover trees to their upper branches convinced her it would be impossible to go over the crest.
She headed due north, or what she thought was north. An hour later she knew she'd made a serious mistake. The snow was deeper than Daisy had anticipated. Even under the trees, it came up to the mule's belly. Where it drifted, it was too deep to allow passage. In places it was over her head.
She had hoped travel would be easier in the open, but she had never been on the eastern slopes of the Sandia Mountains. She expected them to be covered with rocks and small stunted trees like the west side.
They weren't. Tall pines, spruce, even aspens covered the mountainside. They kept the snow from drifting so badly, but the shade of their branches also kept it from melting or blowing away. The recent thaw-and-freeze cycle had formed a crust too fragile to hold her weight but strong enough to rub the mule's legs raw. Daisy was afraid if she didn't find some softer going his legs would start to bleed. If that happened, it would be impossible for the animal to continue.
She worked her way through a stand of fir only to find her path blocked by a wall of snow that towered well above her head. The mule refused to attempt to break through. She suspected his instincts told him the snow concealed some dangerous terrain such as a canyon or a ravine. After several minutes spent in a futile attempt to find a way around, Daisy turned back to look for another path. She didn't find one. As much as she hated to admit it, Tyler was right. It was impossible to reach Albuquerque until the snow melted.
She would have to go back to the cabin. She cringed at the prospect of having to face Tyler and admit what she had done, of having to acknowledge her failure. He had been remarkably patient with her. After this, he'd probably tie her to the bed. Maybe if she hurried, she could get back before he did.
But retracing her steps wasn't as easy as she had expected. Even though they had broken a path through the snow, fighting his way through the deep drifts had tired the mule. Going up the mountain was much more difficult than going down.
Daisy was miserably cold.
It was stupid to have gotten mad at Tyler. Catching her father's killers wasn't his responsibility. She had no reason to think Tyler was a gunman or that he'd ever hunted murderers. She'd just assumed he could do anything he wanted. He somehow gave her that feeling.
Maybe he wasn't good with a gun. He hadn't killed the man who came back that second time. He'd have to face three men who had twice tried to kill her and probably wouldn't hesitate to kill him. She had already endangered him and Zac by just being here. She was an ungrateful female, and if she lived long enough to get back to the cabin, she'd apologize to him.
Suddenly, for no reason she could see, the mule let out a squeal and plunged through a drift, running her into snow-covered branches, nearly knocking her into the snow. Clutching desperately for a secure hold on the mule's mane, she righted herself. Frantically, she looked around her for the cause of his wild behavior.
At first she saw nothing. Then she caught a glimpse of a tawny streak. Struggling to stay in the saddle, she craned her neck. A moment later she detected the top of a small, elegant, furry head with white and black markings. Just then the animal seemed to leap straight into the air. The mule brayed in panic and plunged into the center of a huge drift.
They were being followed by the largest cougar Daisy had ever seen. It was struggling through snow almost over its head. Daisy didn't know if it could catch them, but she did know there was nothing she could do to stop it if it did.
She had failed to bring a rifle.
* * * * *
"She's run away," Zac announced when Tyler walked into the clearing around the cabin.
"What are you talking about?" Tyler hadn't found any game, and he was irritable.
"Daisy. She's run away. She's not here. She took one of the mules."
It had started to snow again.
"Where did she go? When did she leave?"
"She went that way," Zac said, pointing to a trail through the snow. "I expect she left soon after we did."
"She'll never get through."
"I know that. You know that. Apparently she doesn't."
She was angry at him. Tyler had seen it in her eyes at breakfast, but he hadn't expected her to do anything as crazy as this. He'd told her over and over again she was too weak travel. She could easily pass out and freeze to death in the snow.
Tyler had run away once. George had found him and brought him back.
"There's a crust on the snow," Zac pointed out. "If it cuts the mule's legs enough for them to bleed, it'll attract wolves or cougars."
Tyler didn't need to be reminded. He knew wild animals could smell blood from amazing distances. Their senses would be all the more acute if they were starving. He didn't relish the idea of being stalked by a wolf pack.
He saddled the second mule. "Don't leave the cabin. It'll probably be dark before I get back."
"If you don't find her in a hurry, her trail might be drifted over," Zac said, pointing to snow falling fast enough to make it hard to see. "I don't imagine she has any idea how to get back to the cabin."
Tyler decided if Zac had been a female, he would have been named Cassandra. No one he knew could deliver so many gloomy predictions in such a short time.
"You'd better pack something to eat in case you get caught in the storm," Zac said.
"I don't have time. Besides, if we get caught, food won't do us any good."
The look of Zac's features altered subtly. He looked so much like George it was unnerving.
"If you're not back in two hours, I'm coming after you," he said.
"Stay here."
Zac looked like himself again.
"I may be selfish, spoiled, and self-centered, but there's no way I'm going to face the family and say I stayed here and let you die."
Zac's reaction surprised and pleased Tyler. The brat was full of nonsense, but there might be some good in him yet. "No point in both of us snuffing it. There's got to be somebody to tell George what happened."
"It sure as hell won't be me!"
But as Tyler mounted up and headed after Daisy, he had another cause for worry. Two miles down the mountain, along an exposed shelf where the snow was hardly more than a foot deep, he had found the trail of three horses. The big horse carrying the heavy rider was one of them.
The killers were still after Daisy.
They were going in the wrong direction and the snow now falling would make it even more difficult for them to find the cabin, but Tyler had to face the fact those men meant to find her. He couldn't go on depending on the snow to protect them. Sooner or later he was going to have to do something about them.
He wouldn't tell Daisy just yet, assuming he found her safe. He wouldn't put it past her to head out after the killers. All he had to do to get her to do something was tell her to do the opposite. He admired her determination, but worried she didn't seem to have any understanding of danger.
* * * * *
Tyler heard the cat scream a long way off. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Daisy could be around the next ridge, or she could be a mile away. It was impossible to tell. He drove his mule forward at a faster pace, but his mount had also heard the cougar, he might have caught its scent as well. It was reluctant to head toward what instinct told him was a mortal enemy.
Tyler cursed the swirling snow, which nearly blinded him and was already filling the trail left by Daisy's mule. A mule brayed somewhere ahead, and he felt a little reassured. If the animal was still on its feet and capable of fighting, Daisy would be okay until he could reach her. But when he rounded a grove of snow-covered pines, the sight ahead caused the breath to catch in his throat.
Daisy was on the ground, up to her waist in snow. She had the plunging mule's rein caught in the crook of her a
rm while she used a spruce branch in her other hand to hold off the cougar. The cat, confused by the branch as well as the sight of a human being, the one member of the animal kingdom it feared, circled warily.
Tyler drew his rifle from the scabbard and fired a bullet into the snow close to the cougar. The cat whirled and snarled.
Daisy whirled, too, her expression a mixture of fear, surprise, and relief.
Tyler put another bullet into the snow. He didn't want to kill the cougar, but he didn't want it stalking them all the way back to the cabin. The cat still seemed unwilling to abandon its prey. Tyler slammed the rifle back into its scabbard. He jammed his heels into the mule's side, and letting out a yell, he charged forward in a shower of snow.
The cat held its ground for a moment. Then favoring them with a parting snarl that showed four gleaming white five-inch fangs, the beast bounded away through the snow and was soon lost from sight.
Daisy turned to face Tyler.
Chapter Eight
Tyler had expected to be furious at her. And he was. He hadn't expected to feel so relieved he felt weak in the knees. But he did. Yet even as his body sagged with relief, he felt anger rise up in him that she could do such an incredibly foolish thing.
"What in hell did you think you were doing coming out here after I told you to stay in the cabin?" he demanded as he dismounted, rage pouring out like custard boiling out of a pot.
"I wanted to go home," she said.
"I told you I'd take you as soon as the snow melted." He took her by the shoulders and spun her around. "Does this look like melted show?" he asked, forcing her to look at the world of white that surrounded them.
Daisy shrugged out of his grip. "You got through," she said, turning back to face him. "I thought I could."
"How? Do you see any wings on that mule?"
Daisy didn't answer.
"You could have ended up dinner for that cat. Why didn't you leave the mule and climb a tree? Cougars prefer mule meat."
"I didn't know that."
"I suppose you didn't know you could have gotten lost or fallen and frozen to death, either."
She had scared him half to death. Even now, knowing she was safe, his heart beat too loud and too fast. He couldn't put into words the horror he felt when he saw Daisy fighting off the lion with a pine branch. He refused to allow himself to consider what might have happened if he'd arrived a few minutes later. It would have been a guilt he wouldn't have been able to shake for the rest of his life. She had no right to do that to him.
"I didn't risk my neck pulling you out of that fire so you could die in a snow drift. Neither do I like giving up my bed and half my cabin to have you run away the first time my back is turned."
"I'm s-sorry," Daisy stammered. "I just wanted to go home."
"So you steal my mule and head off into a blizzard." The snow was coming down harder.
"I didn't mean--"
"You may not have any consideration for your own life, but you ought to think of the mule. He hasn't done anything to you. He doesn't deserve to die."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Daisy shouted at him, her balled-up fists pressed to her temples.
"If you're so damned sorry, why did you do it?"
"To get away from you!" Daisy flung at him. Her mule took exception to her tone of voice. He half reared, pulling her backwards by the rein caught over her arm.
Tyler couldn't have been any more shocked if she'd made a snowball and hit him in the face. "To get away from me!" he repeated, incredulous.
"I appreciate your taking care of me, but I can't stand your bossing me around all the time," Daisy said, able to turn around only after she had convinced the mule she wasn't mad at him.
"My what?" Tyler decided the bullet must have given her a concussion after all.
"Your telling me what to do."
"I never tell you what to do. I--"
"Yes, you do," Daisy contradicted. "All day long. I feel like a prisoner. You tell me when to go to bed, when to get up, how long I can stay up, what to eat, how fast to eat it, and how much. You hedge me in until I could scream."
"I only did what I thought was best."
"Then you decided to take me to your brother instead of Adora's family," she said, ignoring his interruption. "He'll probably dislike me as much as Zac. Then George will show up and blame me for Zac's not going back to school."
With a defiant toss of her head, Daisy started back along the trial, her mule following behind her. Tyler had to follow if he wanted to talk to her.
"George would never do that. He's a sensible man."
"That's not the point," Daisy said over her shoulder. "I'm not a child, and I'm no longer sick." She pulled at her bandage, but it wouldn't come off.
"I never realized--" Tyler began.
"You never listen. You go around doing exactly what you want, and you're so big nobody can stop you."
Tyler was furious at how she saw what he'd done. He knew women could be blind, but he never expected Daisy to be so perversely ungrateful.
"I can make my own decisions," Daisy informed him.
"I suppose you're used to bullet wounds in your head, being snowed in by a blizzard, and being tracked by murderers," Tyler said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.
"No, but--"
"I gather it's no concern to you that the killers are still after you or that they probably mean to kill Zac and me as well."
Daisy turned back, her face drained of color. "What do you mean?"
Damn! He hadn't meant to mention the tracks, but she made him so mad he couldn't think straight.
"I found their tracks a couple of miles down the mountain," he said, trying to make it sound like he didn't attach much importance to the discovery. "They are going away from us, but it means they're still looking for you. If you had gotten down the mountain, you could have run into them."
She looked directly into his eyes. "I shouldn't have left. I shouldn't have taken your mule. I'm sorry."
"There'll be time to talk about that later," he said, his voice gruff. His temper had cooled. "Here, let me help you into the saddle."
Daisy resisted, but he mounted her on his mule anyway.
"See what I mean?"
"What?" He didn't have time to play Daisy's games.
"I didn't think you did."
"Hold on while I climb up," he said.
"I can ride by myself."
"I'm riding behind you. Your mule is exhausted." Tyler caught up the reins of her mule, then climbed up into the saddle. "I'm not taking any more chances. You've caused enough trouble for one day."
That was unfair, and he hadn't meant to say it, but he wouldn't retract a word. They were safe words. She would know he was angry. She wouldn't know it was because he had been so scared for her.
And he was angry.
He was furious she had so foolishly risked her life. He was enraged she would take his every attempt at kindness and turn it back as heartless determination to have his own way in everything. At the same time he was upset that, despite everything he'd done, she felt unwelcome in his cabin.
He didn't know whether it was more her fault or his, but it just went to show he wasn't suited to have anything to do with women. And she still hadn't forgiven him for not helping her find her father's killers. Well she'd get that one wish, at least. He would have to do something about the killers. He couldn't wait until they found her again.
* * * * *
Daisy rode in silence, her mind and body prey to conflicting emotions. Tyler rode with his arms around her, his legs on either side of her, his body practically encompassing hers. It set her body at war with her mind and heart.
She was so angry at Tyler she couldn't trust herself to speak. He had no right to treat her like a rebellious child any more than he had a right to take her to his brother against her will. It was cruel of him to accuse her of willfully endangering his and Zac's lives. How was she supposed to know the killers were still after her?
> A chill raced down her spine. She found herself wanting to draw closer to Tyler. That made her even madder. After what he'd said to her, she wanted to hate him.
But she couldn't. All she could think of were the powerful arms that held her in the saddle. She wanted to stay with him, to accept his protection. Not even her anger could block out the feeling she was safe as long as she was with him.
But she felt something more than safety. As his legs ground against her legs, as his arms and chest rubbed against her arms and back, she felt a slow fire begin to build deep in her belly. She had never felt anything like it before, but she knew immediately it had to do with Tyler's nearness. Trying to remind herself she was angry with him did nothing to stem the flow of heat that seemed to penetrate every part of her body. Intimate contact with a man was new to her. Even a simple touching would have set off fireworks in her body. His embrace had created a conflagration.
Especially in her breasts. She was acutely aware of a tingling sensation heightened by Tyler's arms rubbing against the side of her breasts. She tried to move away, but it was impossible. His arms held her tight against him. This was no simple embrace. She felt engulfed by his body. She felt assaulted. She strove to concentrate on the landscape, the rocking of the horse, his anger. It only seemed to make her more aware of his nearness
She reminded herself it wasn't a friendly embrace. It might as well be a cage. But somehow it didn't feel like that.
Zac was waiting outside the cabin when they returned. "I see you found her," he said to Tyler. "Where was she?"
Daisy knew he'd find out about the cougar sooner or later. She preferred he find out now.
"I was in a snowdrift about to be eaten by a mountain lion. It was stupid of me to try to escape, worse to take Tyler's mule."
Daisy Page 8
