“After I tend to your shoulder.” She found the bandages and the whiskey and settled beside him. “Lean forward.”
She stripped off his bloody shirt while he clenched his jaw. She peered at him. “Do you want some whiskey?”
“No. Save it for...just save it.”
“There doesn’t seem to be very much blood,” she said.
“Bullet must have gone clean through.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Like a son of a— Yeah, it hurts.”
She twisted her hands together. “What should I do now?”
“Pour the whiskey over it.”
She uncorked the flask, clamped her teeth together and dribbled the contents over his bloody shoulder while he hissed in his breath and swore.
“Such language!” she remarked when his fist released her shirt-sleeve.
Brand closed his eyes while she rustled around the camp getting out mugs for the coffee. “Any whiskey left?”
“Yes. But save some for me, please.”
For her! Lord save them, the trail to Oregon was corrupting his Southern belle. He heard the coffee dribble out of the pot and, still keeping his eyes closed, he reached for a mug. It was hot and strong and so full of grounds he ended up chewing most of the first mouthful, but he didn’t say a word, just gulped down swallow after swallow while she unfolded his pocketknife and did her best to saw off rounds of jerky.
“Open your mouth,” she ordered. She laid a piece of the salty-tasting dried meat on his tongue. He chewed it up and swallowed it down. His shoulder throbbed like a son of a gun, but he tried not to think about it. Instead, he closed his eyes and thought about Suzannah while she fed him sips of coffee and more jerky as if she’d done it all her life.
“You know something, Suzannah?”
“I know a great many things, Brand. I was very well educated when I was a girl. Papa had acres of books. What would you like to know?”
“Nothing that’s in any book,” he growled. “I wanted to say that, fancy education or not, you are one extraordinary woman.”
“Oh, I do hope so. I do want to make John a good wife.”
He snapped his lids open. “Hand me the whiskey.”
But three slugs of the liquor didn’t take away the sour taste of John’s name on her lips. He listened to her pouring coffee for herself and slicing off more rounds of jerky and wondered why the whiskey wasn’t working.
“How do you know you really want to marry this man?” he heard himself say. “You’ve only known him for two days.”
“I just know. John was so dashing and so personable, and attentive and, well, flattering...with such fine manners. I just know.”
For some reason her words made him mad. “That’s what it takes to get a girl like you, huh? Fancy manners and flattery?”
Her mouth dropped open.
“I have—” He sucked in a breath. “I had a younger sister. She fell in love with some damn flashy army officer who was just toying with her. He left her at the altar, and—” he swallowed over the rock in his throat “—she, uh, she drowned herself.”
Her face changed. “Oh, Brand, what a terrible thing.”
“Yeah, well, I guess that’s why I believe in long engagements. Gives a couple of lovers time to get to know each other.”
She was silent for a long minute. “You think I am foolish, do you not?”
“I think... Doesn’t matter what I think.”
“Yes, it does. Tell me.”
He began playing with his pocketknife, turning it over and over in his hand and rubbing his thumb over the smooth handle.
“Seems to me like a man and a woman have two choices. They can fall into bed with each other and damn the consequences. Or they can do what men and women do to spend time together—takin’ walks by the river and dancin’ with each other and goin’ on picnics and all those things. Then they can—”
“Fall into bed with each other,” she supplied.
His laugh stuttered into the quiet.
“It is the same in the end, is it not?” Her voice told him he should drop the subject, but something inside him wouldn’t let it go.
“Might not be the same, no. Might be that if she looked hard enough at a man she’d see something in him that should warn her off.”
“And you wish your sister had done just that.”
Brand looked past her hunched shoulder into the soft darkness. “Yeah. If she had, she’d be alive today. If I ever meet up with the bastard who destroyed her, I’m going to kill him.”
She hesitated. “What good will that do?”
“It’d get him off the face of the earth, for one thing. And it might make me feel better about my sister.”
Suzannah said nothing. After a while she refilled his coffee and then her own and sat sipping it slowly. He watched her slim, delicate fingers cradle the tin mug. An army wife? He didn’t think so. Even an officer’s wife, like the colonel’s lady, Violet McLeod got pretty well ground down between sandstorms and Indian skirmishes and God knew what else out here in the West.
“There’s precious little to compensate a gently reared woman at an army post,” he said carefully.
“There is her husband,” Suzannah insisted. “There is always the love of her husband.”
What the hell, her mind was made up. She didn’t want to see the danger staring her in the face. And anyway, what difference did it make if she wanted to throw her life away out in Oregon? But it ate at him just the same.
Something he said must have whanged into her because she sat looking down at him for a long time, her eyes troubled. Slowly he reached up and touched her shoulder, spread his fingers against her warmth and drew her down to him.
His lips grazed her forehead, moved to her cheek and then hovered a scant inch from her mouth.
“Suzannah,” he murmured. “Don’t do it, Suzannah. Don’t marry him.”
Chapter Ten
If she lived to be a hundred, Suzannah would never understand her feelings at this moment. Brand slipped his hand behind her neck and tugged her down until his mouth met hers. His lips were warm and firm and gentle with restraint, but she could feel his wanting. She tasted salt and coffee and hunger, such a deep hunger that her breath stopped.
He made a sound in his throat and wound his fingers into her hair. Colors danced under her closed eyelids, like starbursts, and she felt his heartbeat grow ragged. What is happening?
“Brand...”
“Don’t talk,” he whispered against her lips. He kissed her again, and then again, each time inviting. Enticing. This is glorious. Unbelievable.
Surely she was dreaming! His hand cradled her head and his mouth...his mouth was so insistent, so delicious on hers. Was this how a man and a woman felt when...when...?
She pulled away but hung mere inches from his mouth, listening to their breathing. His heart beat against her palm and she wondered if he could feel hers fluttering against his chest.
“I’m not sorry I did that,” he said at last.
I am not sorry, either, she sang inside. Not sorry at all.
With a wry smile he let his hand fall to his side. “Must be dreamin’,” he breathed.
Dreaming, yes, that was it. She had to be dreaming.
“No more whiskey for either one of us,” she managed. Then she realized she had not had a single, solitary drop of liquor. Nevertheless, she still felt intoxicated.
And now she understood what the Indians meant by “strong medicine.”
* * *
Brand woke near dawn to find Suzannah snuggled close to him, her head tucked between his chin and his good shoulder, her small hands folded under her chin. His heartbeat thundered against his ribs and he fought to keep his arm by his side and not wrap it around her sleeping form.
He sure wasn’t thinking clearly when it came to this woman. She made him feel more off balance than he could ever remember, and sure as God made green grass and peach trees, he didn’t need this complicating his life.
But he drifted off to sleep smelling her hair and remembering the feel of her mouth under his.
In the morning he eased his aching body away from her and packed up everything one-handed, trying to keep his eyes off her sleeping form. He managed to make coffee before she woke up, and when she finally did open her eyes he busied himself with saddling both horses.
She didn’t say a word while she downed her mug of coffee. Wouldn’t look at him, either. Guess he’d overstepped last night. Sure would like to overstep again, but they had about six days of riding ahead of them, and at the end he’d have to hand her over to another man. Smart thing would be to keep his hands off her.
She braided up her hair like she always did, settled her hat on her head and pulled it so low he couldn’t see much of her face. Then she walked to her mare, stuck her foot in the stirrup and pulled herself up into the saddle. She sat waiting while he slung both saddlebags on their mounts and kicked dirt over the fire.
He moved out in the lead and tried not to think about another week on the trail with her. Looked like it’d be a long, long day today. Quiet, too.
That lasted until the sun told him it was around ten o’clock and, even though they’d ridden side by side for the past three hours, she still hadn’t said a word. It was hell trying to figure out a woman, especially this woman. She was delicate and tough, and both smart and dumb; her head was stuck so deep in the sand over this John of hers she’d be ninety before she wised up.
Each time they stopped to rest and water the horses, Brand kept a sharp eye out for a telltale puff of dust behind them. None showed, and he’d seen no sign of another living soul. His shoulder ached, and the longer he rode the stiffer it got. He tried to work his arm back and forth every hour or so and prayed it would heal clean. Last thing she’d need was a guide with a fever and a bum arm.
By late afternoon Suzannah still hadn’t spoken a single word, and he couldn’t stand it any longer. He pulled air into his lungs and twisted to look at her.
“Sure wish you’d say something.”
“Very well.” Her voice reminded him of his mother’s primroses, all neat and proper with nary a petal out of place. “Do you think we are still being followed?” she asked.
“Nope. I gulled them into turning south, heading for Texas. Forgot to tell you last night.”
“How did you accomplish that?”
“Told ’em a bunch of lies.”
“How many were there?”
“Lies? Or men?”
She sniffed. “Men, of course.”
“Three.”
They rode across a valley and up into some green foothills, following a good-size stream. Dusk started to fall.
Brand unsheathed his rifle. “I’m going hunting. Try to get a rabbit or a grouse. Keep riding and stay on the trail.”
She said nothing, and he loped away into the trees. An hour later he caught up to her, a fat rabbit hanging off his saddle horn.
“I did not hear a gunshot,” she remarked.
“Used a snare. A shot might be heard.”
He picked a campsite sheltered by larch trees where the creek they’d been following widened. Suzannah dismounted, stretched her aching back muscles and studied the stream. She was hot and tired and sticky with perspiration.
“I’m going to take a bath.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Why not? I cannot stop thinking about how good that cool water would feel, and I could wash my hair and rinse out my shirt and—”
“No.”
“Brand, be reasonable. No one is following us—you said so yourself.”
He tramped up and down beside the stream and finally turned to face her. “I want you where I can see you.”
“That,” she replied, “would be highly improper.”
“Maybe so, but it’s also highly safe. Take it or leave it.”
“What will you be doing?”
“Setting up camp. Tending the horses. Dressing out that rabbit for supper. I don’t want you too far out of sight.”
She considered his words, then fixed her gaze on him and considered the man who spoke them. He wasn’t exactly honorable; after all, he’d kissed her twice without asking permission. But he was honest, and she trusted him.
“Very well,” she agreed at last. She dug a bar of soap wrapped in tinfoil out of her saddlebag and unfolded a clean shirt. Green this time. She was sick of the red plaid and it was beginning to get dirty again. And anyway, if she washed it out and put it back on wet, he would look at her in that same hot way he’d done before. She surmised, somewhat shocked, that a wet shirt plastered to her skin must reveal her nipples.
She found a spot where the creek bank gradually shelved off into the water and was screened by a leafy bush. She turned to see where Brand was.
She could just see the top of his head as he moved around camp, and he was not looking at her. She unbuttoned her shirt and shrugged it off, then realized she had no towel. Well, she would simply have to air-dry.
Submerging her body in the rippling water felt heavenly, even if it was ice-cold! She lolled and rubbed the soap over her skin and lolled some more before she rinsed off the bubbles. Then she unwound her braid and washed her hair. She soused the red plaid shirt up and down in the creek, tossed it over a bush, and waved her arms in the air to dry her skin.
A delicious, stomach-rumbling smell drifted from the camp. Meat! Thank heavens, supper would be not jerky but rabbit. She moved her arms faster.
* * *
Working slowly with only one hand, Brand spitted the cut-up rabbit pieces, arranged them over the coals and stood up. A flash of something pale caught his attention and he narrowed his eyes. Jehoshaphat, it was Suzannah. Naked. Her arms outstretched, her face tipped up toward the disappearing sun. Her back was to him.
His mouth went dry. She was so beautiful it made his throat ache. She was one hundred percent female perfection from the flare of her hips to her knobby spine to her slim shoulders. All perfection. Her hair was loose and maybe damp the way it clung to her neck and upper back in little straggly curls.
Turn away, Wyler. Turn around.
He closed his eyes. He couldn’t turn around.
When he opened them she was buttoning up a green shirt and shaking the wet hair out of her eyes. He groaned out loud. Five days to go. Five days of trying not to look at her, smell her. Touch her. Four days of riding side by side during the day and sleeping next to her all night.
And he was plumb out of whiskey.
When she returned to camp he made a decision. “Watch the rabbit, will you? I’m goin’ for a swim.”
“It’s too shallow to swim,” she said at his back.
He didn’t answer, just walked straight into the cold water and lay down in the creek. Even the icy water didn’t cool him off.
He stood up, took off his clothes and lay back down.
“Do you want my bar of soap?” she called.
“No.”
“It’s scented with lavender.”
“Keep it. And stay away from the creek.”
When he finally dragged himself back to camp, his boots were squishy and the wet garments he’d wrestled back on dripped water wherever he stood. With a silent curse he dug out a clean shirt and headed back to the creek, washed out his dirty shirt and socks and his drawers, and tossed them over the bush next to Suzannah’s red shirt. By the time he returned to camp his nerves were steadier.
Suzannah gave the spitted rabbit another quarter turn and set the coffeepot close to the fire. She’d watched Brand make coffee, and now she knew how to finish off the brew by dumping in a cup of cold water before pouring it. For some reason knowing how to do this buoyed her spirits. Every army wife must know such things, she supposed. Now she was one step closer to being just that, an army wife.
Brand tramped back into camp, his dark hair looking damp and unruly and his jeans soaking wet.
“Did you bathe?”
“Not exactly,” he said
dryly.
She gazed up at him. “Well, what, exactly?”
That made him laugh. The sound sent a shiver up the back of her neck. She liked this man. Even if he lacked the manners to ask permission before kissing her, she liked him.
John had asked permission, but, well, it wasn’t the same. Oh, bother! Properly raised women were not supposed to enjoy such intimacies.
But you enjoyed it with Brand, Suzannah. Admit it. You enjoyed it so much it frightened you. You even wanted more.
Hush up! She could not allow herself to think such wayward thoughts. Instead she busied herself rummaging in his saddlebag for the tin plates and the spoon they shared for supper.
Brand squatted next to her at the fire pit and poked a finger at the rabbit. “It’s done. You hungry?”
He needn’t have asked. She wolfed down two nicely browned pieces and when she looked longingly at a third, he chuckled. “For someone as slim as, um, slim as you are, you sure have a good appetite.”
“Riding all day makes me hungry, I guess.”
“Got berries for dessert,” he remarked.
Her eyebrows went up. “Berries?”
“Wild blackberries. Picked ’em while you were...picked ’em earlier.” He’d picked them to occupy his mind and keep his hands busy while she was splashing in the creek. Females didn’t realize what the sound of a woman taking a bath did to a man.
Chapter Eleven
Brand popped a handful of fat, juicy berries into his mouth and grinned at Suzannah. “You ever pick blackberries when you were a kid?”
“No, I never have. We, um, had servants who gathered our food for us.”
“You ever wonder whether you might have missed a lot, growing up so protected?”
“No, I never wondered that before,” she said, her tone thoughtful. “Now I am wondering why I didn’t.”
“Ever sneak cookies? Climb trees? Run away from home?”
Suzannah wished he wouldn’t look at her that way, his gray eyes wide and unbelieving. “No, I never did any of those things. Did you?”
He crammed another palm full of blackberries into his mouth. She ate hers carefully, one by one, and licked her fingers. In a way she envied his gusto.
Dreaming of a Western Christmas: His Christmas BelleThe Cowboy of Christmas PastSnowbound with the Cowboy Page 6
