by Mary McBride
“You still look a little pale, bright eyes. You sure you’re ready to ride?”
Her gaze flicked anxiously toward the bank. Maybe Gideon had bound and gagged the people inside, she thought. Maybe that’s why there were no shouts or shots. She remembered how he had tied her to the door of the train. But she had gotten loose, hadn’t she? And so could the bank personnel.
“I think we should get out of here. Fast.” Clutching her purchases to her bosom with one hand and hiking up her skirt with the other, Honey began sprinting toward their horses. “Gideon,” she called frantically over her shoulder, “Come on. Don’t just stand there grinning like the village idiot. Dammit! Aren’t you the least bit worried about getting caught?”
He shook his head and began walking toward the horses. “Seems to me you’re doing enough worrying for the both of us.”
After Honey had stuffed her parcels into the saddlebag, she jammed her foot in the stirrup and pulled herself up. Beside her, Gideon leisurely swung up on his horse. He just sat there then, looking at her, a little smile twitching the corners of his mouth.
Panic clutched at her insides as Honey imagined the people in the bank struggling with knotted ropes, and those knots beginning to loosen just as hers had, then the ropes slithering away.
“Gideon Summerfield,” she snapped, “it’s no wonder you got caught five years ago. You must be the world’s stupidest bank robber. You don’t rob a place and then just hang around outside it all day.”
He settled his hat more firmly on his head. “Is that right?” Though the brim shaded him, his widening grin fairly lit up his face. “Some of the finer points of this business always did escape me.”
Honey snorted. “Well, if you’re going to do something, you ought to at least try to do it properly.” Saying that, she punched her heels into the mare’s sides and set the surprised animal off at a furious pace.
* * *
Gideon had ridden behind Honey for three hours, watching her, wondering about her. Something had gotten under her skin back in Golden. She had run out of that dry goods store like the devil himself was on her tail, and then she had refused to talk about it. In fact she had hardly spoken at all as they had made their way south through the shrub-dotted hills.
When they finally stopped at an abandoned mine, the little bank teller gazed at the rugged terrain and proclaimed soberly, “This looks like as good a place as any to hole up.”
“Hole up?” Gideon laughed out loud as he stretched his saddle-weary muscles. “Who do you think you are, Ed? Belle Starr?”
She merely glared at him before announcing she was going to take advantage of the last hour of sunlight to wash up in the nearby creek.
“Don’t get your clothes all wet,” he cautioned her. “I don’t have time to play nursemaid if you take a chill.”
After she had flounced off toward the creek, Gideon gathered enough deadwood to get a decent fire started, unsaddled the horses and then lingered at the mouth of the mine, wondering if she’d had enough time to take care of her private needs. He wouldn’t mind a bath himself, he thought. Lord, he hated being dirty. Once this was all over with he was going to spend the rest of his life chin deep in hot, soapy water.
Of course, the rest of his life wasn’t scheduled to begin till he located Dwight Samuel, or was located by him. That blessed event should have taken place by now. He’d put out the word in Santa Fe and Cerrillos both. Today in Golden he’d made his identity known in the saloon. It wasn’t as if nobody knew him. Hell, half the tavern’s clientele today had started whispering right away while the other half had plunked down their drinks and skedaddled.
He was doing his damnedest to stick to the banker’s plan, but Gideon had thought from the beginning that it was too cautious. These safe, silent robberies were like taking peppermints from kids, and they didn’t seem to be stirring up much interest. God knew they hadn’t brought his marauding cousin out of the woodwork yet.
A sudden, blood-chilling scream sliced through Gideon’s thoughts. His mind emptied of everything but Edwina Cassidy’s safety as he ran toward the creek.
She screamed again, but this time at him as he half ran, half slid down the steep, rock-strewn wall of the gully.
“Don’t you dare come any closer,” she shrieked from the middle of the shallow creek. “You just stop right there. Turn around. Close your eyes.”
The second he had realized she wasn’t in mortal danger, Gideon had halted by the trunk of the cottonwood, where her clothes were folded in a neat pile. All of her clothes. Every damn stitch. The little bank teller was naked as a newborn babe out there in the ankle-deep water. Except for the long wet strands of hair that streamed over her breasts, she was all pale smooth skin and luscious, lustrous curves.
“Turn around,” she yelled at him now.
He did, leaning back against the rough tree trunk, crossing his arms over his chest. His heart was pounding and he didn’t know if it was from his sprint from the mine, or the sleek sight of her nude body, or a combination of both. He could hardly breathe for the tightness in his throat and the quickening in his groin. “Hell, woman. Why’d you scream if you didn’t want me to come running?”
“I wasn’t screaming for you, Gideon. I was screaming at the damn snake.”
“What snake?”
“The one that was crawling into my clothes. It’s still in there, I think. I didn’t see it crawl out.”
Gideon glanced down at the pile of linen and lace near his foot. “What kind of snake?”
“How the hell do I know what kind it was? It was a snake. A snake is a snake.”
He poked the toe of his boot into the cloth and watched as a harmless garter snake streaked away toward a clump of scrub. Poor creature was scared to death of them, he thought. Then Gideon felt a slow smile work its way across his mouth and a mischievous glint begin to sparkle in his eyes. It wasn’t every day a man was gifted with a naked beauty who was afraid to get into her clothes. And this particular beauty—this overeager bank teller turned Belle Starr—deserved a little twitting for scaring him half to death with her scream.
“He’s still all coiled up in there,” he called to her over his shoulder.
“Well, get him out!”
“Scared to. Don’t have much acquaintance with these western vipers.” He bit down on a grin, then added, “Critter might be poisonous.”
“Can’t you get a stick or something?”
He waited a moment before replying, looking skyward as he said, “I don’t see any around here. Leastways, not any that’re long enough to do the job.”
“Do something,” she hissed. “Anything.”
Again, Gideon let a minute tick off before replying. “I guess if you can’t get in your own clothes, you could make do with my shirt.”
She sighed with a certain amount of disgust. “That will have to do, I suppose, at least as a temporary measure. You can just toss it out here.”
Gideon shifted lazily, side to side, scratching his back against the tree. “Nope.”
“What do you mean `nope’?”
“I mean if you want the shirt off my back so bad, Ed, you’ll just have to come up here and get it.” He could almost hear the water around her beginning to boil.
“I’m not walking up there buck naked,” she screeched.
He didn’t answer.
“I said I’m not walking up there without a stitch of clothes on,” she called.
“Fine. That snake’ll probably decide to crawl out once it gets dark.” He twisted his head, slanting her a grin.
“Don’t look at me,” she snapped, moving her arms to cover herself as much as possible.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asked.
“What?”
“I’ve already seen just about all there is of you, bright eyes. Who do you think got you out of your wet clothes a few nights ago?”
She sniffed. “You’re no gentleman to remind me of that.”
“Never claimed
to be one.”
That was true, Honey thought. And she knew plenty of so-called gentlemen who would be standing on the edge of the creek right now ogling her if they were in Gideon Summerfield’s boots. Without a doubt, the outlaw was being horrid to her, but the fact remained that the whole time he was aggravating her he was keeping his eyes averted. For the most part.
And he had, after all, undressed her that night in Cerrillos. The thought brought a lick of flame to the pit of her stomach. Had he stared at her? she wondered now. Had he touched her? Surely she would have known if he had touched her. She couldn’t imagine that she wouldn’t have been aware of those hands on her even in her sleep. Lord knew when she was awake, his touch sent her bloodstream swirling like a wild river.
The thought crossed Honey’s mind that perhaps he had looked at her that night and had found her so unappealing without her clothes that there wasn’t the least inclination now to peek. Not that she wanted him to, but... Well, she was a woman, wasn’t she? She had all the right womanly parts. And he was a man. He ought to want to look, oughtn’t he?
All she could see of him was one long leg, a crook of elbow and a wedge of husky shoulder. He was leaning against the cottonwood—casual, unconcerned, uninterested. Damn you, Gideon Summerfield, she thought. What’s wrong with me that you’d rather stare off into the sunset than look at me?
“All right,” she called as she took a kick at the water. “You win. Take your shirt off. I’m coming to get it.”
Chapter Eight
Damnation! Gideon heard her stomping toward him through the shallow water. He’d only been teasing her, for Lord’s sake. He had never intended for her to take his ultimatum...well...seriously.
“Now wait just a blasted minute,” he shouted.
“I’m freezing, and I’m not waiting one more blasted second. I hope you’ve got your shirt unbuttoned, mister.”
Already his skin prickled with sweat. He couldn’t just take off and run, he thought, although that was what he wanted to do—just hightail it away from her tempting flesh and tantalizing curves. Then, not knowing what else to do, Gideon stepped out from behind the tree trunk and turned to confront the oncoming rampage of naked female. He was ready to yell at her, but when he opened his mouth there were no words. She was the finest, the sleekest, the most damned beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. His knees felt like butter left out in the noonday sun.
Honey halted in midstride, seeing the look on his face, the way his eyes seemed to drink her in, to swallow her whole. No one had ever looked at her that way before. It wasn’t admiration. Not even praise. What she saw was a hunger so real, so elemental, so raw that it made her heart stop still.
A moment earlier the outlaw’s apparent indifference had irked her. Now his obvious desire quickened something inside Honey, and his gray eyes drew her like a magnet. She had halted, transfixed beneath his metallic gaze, and now it pulled her forward.
He didn’t move as she came to him, water whisking at her ankles, then dry leaves whispering beneath her bare feet. He didn’t speak when she stopped mere inches away. Then his hand reached out—shaking—to cover the flare of her hip. It remained there a moment, motionless, before moving slowly upward, his palm just grazing her skin.
Gideon’s gaze lowered as his hand rose, then both—warm hand, molten gaze—touched her breast. His thumb brushed over her nipple, which came alive to his touch.
“Ah, God,” he breathed raggedly.
Honey closed her eyes, feeling the heat that rushed through her body. Her heart had plummeted at the first touch of his hand on her hip, and now it beat crazily in her stomach.
He kissed her then, claimed her mouth with a fierce need as he pulled her against him. His hands, suddenly hard and insistent, clutched at her bottom while his lean hips ground against her. His belt buckles were hot against her naked flesh, his whiskers rough against her face.
When he lowered his head and laid claim to her breast with the same ferocity, Honey felt a surge of liquid warmth, so sweet, so sudden and surprising, it brought a small cry of pleasure from her lips.
Gideon sagged to his knees then, slowly, as if they would no longer support him, and he pressed his face into the slight give of Honey’s belly as her fingers threaded through his hair.
He was shaking like a fifteen-year-old boy, Gideon thought. On his knees. Not sure if he was going to cry or pray. He only knew one thing for certain. He was dangerously close to losing control, and if he looked at this woman again, if he touched her, or—God forbid—if she said anything remotely close to yes right now, he was going to explode like a piece of field artillery that hadn’t been used in years. She was too innocent to know how quickly, how savagely this little game of hers could get out of hand. She didn’t have a clue what she was doing to him or how desperately he wanted her or how damn hard he was fighting for control.
With his eyes nearly closed, he heaved himself to his feet. “Get dressed,” he said gruffly.
“What?” Honey’s mental fog cleared just enough to remind her why she was naked in the first place. “But the snake...”
Gideon snatched her clothes from the ground and thrust them into her arms, but she dropped them immediately and took a panicky step away.
He raked his fingers through his hair. “There’s no goddamn snake, Ed. It’s gone. Now get the hell dressed.”
Muttering a succession of curses, he picked up the dress again and flung it at her. “I’m trying,” he said hoarsely, hands clamped in fists at his sides, “to treat you like a lady.” He turned from her and stalked away.
* * *
After she was dressed, Honey stumbled up the rocky hill toward the mine entrance. Halfway up, she collapsed in a rumpled heap of damp linen, muttering, cursing Gideon Summerfield up one side and down the other. Cursing herself, too. Mad as she was at Gideon, she was even more angry with herself.
What had possessed her? She had walked buck naked into a man’s arms as casually as if she had been wearing her finest satin ball gown and had just accepted a waltz. She had behaved like a bold, brazen tart. Worse. Brazen tarts at least wore little skimpy dresses or feathers in discreet places. She had been wearing creek water—period.
She’d lost her temper and then she’d just plain lost her senses. When Gideon had looked at her with that ravenous, wolflike expression, her mind had emptied of everything. Everything except him. Good Lord! She’d been attracted to men before but nobody had ever turned her brain to mush and the rest of her to a quivering bowl of pudding.
A fool! That was what she had been. A senseless and brazen fool. And Gideon was a man, so of course he had responded to her enticement. But, as a gentleman, he had admirably restrained himself and refused to take advantage of her foolishness.
Honey bunched up her skirt in her fists, and clambered to her feet. She wished she could just turn and walk in the other direction—walk away and never have to face him again. What must he be thinking now? After all the terrible things she had said to him—all the awful names she had called him, from varmint to unprincipled brute—he had behaved like a gentleman and had treated her like a lady even when she had acted little better than a witless tart.
Maybe her father was right, she thought disgustedly. Maybe she was irresponsible to the core and never to be trusted with anything more than ribbons and baubles. Maybe she didn’t have the inherent good sense she always had claimed. Nobody with a grain of sense at all would have done what she had just done.
“You’re damn lucky he didn’t take you right then and there,” she muttered aloud. But somewhere down deep inside, Honey didn’t feel lucky at all.
When she reached the crest of the hill and saw Gideon sitting in front of the mine, swigging from a whiskey bottle, Honey castigated herself anew. First she’d tempted him to the brink of gentlemanly endurance. Now she’d driven him to drink! She wanted to sit right down and cry. But instead she forced herself to continue toward the mine.
Gideon rested the bottle on h
is thigh as he watched her coming, her bedraggled skirt swinging with her stride, the sunset giving her long hair a russet sheen and touching her face with a rose-colored glow.
He wondered if his fingers were still shaking like leaves in a stiff north wind. He was clutching the whiskey bottle so hard now he couldn’t tell. Thank God, he thought, he’d bought it this morning in Golden. It hadn’t been his intention when buying it, but now he planned to get so damn drunk he couldn’t even see the little bank teller, much less respond to her. Anything so he wouldn’t continue the torment he was going through right now. They’d have supper and then they’d sleep, or she would sleep and he’d drink himself into a safe stupor, and then tomorrow he’d take her into the closest town and...
She strode right up to where he was sitting, so close her skirt brushed over his boot. “I’d rather not even discuss what happened down there by the creek,” she said briskly. “It’s over, and it’s not going to happen again, so there’s no use flogging a dead horse.”
Gideon’s brain had been floundering, trying to come up with a way to explain, if not excuse, his coarse behavior and to tell her he was sorry. He was grateful now that he didn’t have to look like an even worse fool, tripping over his tongue. If she didn’t want to discuss it, that was just fine with him. “Right,” he said flatly. “Let’s just have some grub and get some sleep.”
He reached into her saddlebag for the parcels she had bought earlier that day. A good meal would be a good distraction, he was thinking as he opened the brown paper of one of the packages.
“Shortbread?” He looked up.
She shrugged.
Gideon tore the paper off another package. “Strawberry jam? You bought tea cakes and jelly for our supper?”
“Coffee, too,” she said brightly. “Open the other package.”
He did, then stared up at her incredulously. “Did you ask them to grind it, or was the grinder broken?”
“Well, I...”
Now he wasn’t even going to get a decent meal to take his mind off her firm, sweet breasts. Lord Almighty! How much could a man take? “Didn’t your mama teach you a damn thing about homemaking?” he shouted. “Or didn’t you bother to listen?”
