Wildflower
Raine Cantrell
Copyright
Diversion Books
A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.
443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1004
New York, NY 10016
www.DiversionBooks.com
Copyright © 1989 by Theresa DiBenedetto
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
For more information, email [email protected].
First Diversion Books edition October 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62681-151-5
Also by Raine Cantrell
The Homecoming
Silver Mist
Western Winds
Calico
Desert Sunrise
Tarnished Hearts
Darling Annie
Whisper My Name
To Michael, for sharing dreams that are the songs of love.
Chapter One
At the sound of a door dosing softly, hazel eyes, their irises deeply flecked and ringed with black, opened. Staring directly overhead at the wide, chinked logs, the man made an effort to remember where he was. But even that small attempt made his head ache, unbearably so, and he closed his eyes again. He gritted his teeth; there was a foul taste in his mouth.
Where the hell was he? A spattering of visions filtered into his thoughts, but he could make no sense of them. His fingers curled against the strange softness of the quilt covering him, the move bringing with it the scent of pine and cedar. His mother had always stored their blankets and quilts in her large wooden chest with branches of pine and chips of cedar. Was he home? Where was home? Squeezing his eyes shut tighter, he tried to remember.
Faded images came to him again, sudden tension flowing like a dark, dangerous current. The hunters were coming closer. They weren’t stalking game. They were stalking him…
He heard them moving through the brush, some leading their horses while the others rode slowly, circling around him. He was exhausted from their chase.
Bellying his way into a small hollow, he cursed the fates that had left him without a gun, horse, or even a knife to protect himself. His throat was raw from thirst. He found himself longing to cry out for a drink, but no sound escaped his lips. How much longer would they keep searching for him?
The snap of brush against saddle leather made his hand close over a rock. It was better than no weapon at all. He had to make some effort to protect himself. If they found him, they would kill him. Sweat dampened his body. Gripping the rock, he found himself too weak to wipe the sweat from his brow. He waited with shallow breaths for them to come for him.
He didn’t have long to wait. One of the hunters rose suddenly from the rock-strewn brush. Mouth grinning, eyes narrowed, he leveled his gun.
The image blurred. The man called out in his fevered sleep, heard himself, heard the thickness and fear in his own voice yet couldn’t stop it. His head throbbed from forcing these buried pictures to the surface. He was filled with regret. Why, he didn’t know. Pain thrashed his body and he gave himself over to it, sinking into blackness once again.
“I’m sorry. So sorry this happened to you.” Jenny Latham crooned softly to the man in the bed as she would to her son. Bathing the man’s fevered body, tears blurred her eyes. And once again he turned his head, as if seeking to be closer to her comfort. She was only too eager to offer it as atonement, not only for now, for him, but to appease her own demons.
She turned to the man beside her. “Ben, he’s still not resting easy. You may know more about healing folks, but—”
“But he’s one tough son and he’ll pull through, Jenny,” the old man said gruffly, setting a small kettle on the edge of the fireplace. “Let this spicebush tea cool and make sure he drinks all of it.”
Jenny merely nodded, turning back to the man in her bed. She tried to draw courage from Ben’s words. The old trapper, more father than friend these last eighteen years, knew a mountain man’s ways of healing along with those he had picked up from the Indians over the years. His large hands were gentle as he helped her change the man’s bandages. The wounds were repacked with thick, heated pine tar and Ben seemed pleased by the signs of healing. He straightened slowly, glancing at Jenny, frowning at the look of exhaustion that marred her delicate features.
“I’ll sit with him awhile, Jen. You’ve been cooped up all week with him. I keep tellin’ you this is a tough hombre. Take more’n this to kill him off.”
“I can’t leave him. He’s so helpless like this, Ben.”
‘Then I’ll take the boy huntin’. Ain’t neither of us doin’ a lick of good sittin’ ‘round here. ‘Sides, Robby said you left your rifle up on the ridge. I’ll get it.”
“No.” Jenny heard the edge in her voice but refused to look at Ben. “I never want to see it again.”
Ben grabbed her arm, spinning her around to face him. “You traded two good mares for those new repeatin’ rifles. You think losin’ ‘em is gonna make up—”
“Stop it, Ben.” She pulled free of his hold, feeling the ache in her bones from the long sleepless hours.
“Don’t you see what you’re doin’ to yourself and the boy?” he demanded impatiently, running his hand through the thick shock of gray hair on his head. “The man’s a saddle tramp, Jen, jus’ like the bastard you married—”
“I said no more!”
Ben stared hard at the dark-haired woman. “Girl, I love you and that boy of yours like my own. Maybe I’m jus’ tryin’ to save you from where I see you headin’, and maybe I’m jus’ an old coot too set in his ways to think anythin’ good can come of his bein’ here. Watch what you’re doin’ to yourself. That’s all I’m sayin’.”
“You’ve said enough,” she returned softly, hearing the truth even as she wanted to deny it. Guilt drove her. Guilt that Ben claimed she shouldn’t be feeling. It was there. Always there. But Ben didn’t deserve her anger. “I’m twenty-five years old now, not sixteen. I can hold my own this time,” she stated with quiet conviction.
“Maybe so, but this here jasper wouldn’t be ridin’ up this high with winter so close less’n he was lookin’ for a place to hole up.”
“Doesn’t matter, Ben. He’s in no shape to harm us.”
“Maybe he ain’t now, but what’s gonna happen later, Jen?” Ben didn’t wait for Jenny to answer, he knew she wouldn’t. With a last searching glance at her, he left the cabin.
Jenny made one more attempt to give the man some of the cooled spicebush tea to keep the fever at bay, but he wouldn’t take it. Then, longing to sleep away the day herself, Jenny pushed aside her exhaustion and set about straightening the cabin. Morning sunlight flooded the one room when she opened the wooden shutters, for the sun was already high on the rim of the Colorado mountain she called home.
While moving to heat water in the large iron kettle suspended over the fire, her gaze slid over the man’s scuffed boots. They had seen saddle time with him and plenty of it. Aside from a well-tended horse, rifle, and gun, his shabby clothes, worn boots, and a fancy new belt buckle were the sum of the man’s possessions. Perhaps Ben was right to worry why the man had been riding this high up in the mountains with winter hovering.
“Who the hell are you?”
Startled, Jenny froze before the fire. She didn’t answer the hoarse whispered question, but asked one of her own: “Thirsty?”
The man barely nodded, wincing when he tried to move. Jenny c
ame to his side. “Don’t, please be still,” she cautioned, leaning close. “You’ve been sick with a fever and … and you were shot.” Scanning his rough-hewn face, she had the answer to another question: his eyes were hazel, shot with flecks of amber, but far too wary as they watched her slowly straighten.
“Who are you?” he asked again. His look was puzzled, his eyes dark and guarded.
“Jenny Latham. And this,” she gestured abruptly, “is my cabin. Now,” she ordered briskly, afraid of what else he would ask, “save all your questions until after you have something to drink and eat.”
He watched her quick, efficient moves. An ache still throbbed behind his eyes, but he was driven with curiosity. Tall and slender, Jenny had an almost boyish look with her loose faded shirt and worn pants. She hunkered down with her back toward him, stirring something in a pot over the fire. The pants stretched tight over her hips, and he found himself thinking she was delicately boned but sleek enough to stir the heat in his loins. Her long straight brown hair caught the sun’s slanting rays and it shimmered with light when she moved, the ends brushing the rough, planked flooring. Teased by the rich aroma of coffee wafting temptingly on a breeze from the open door and windows, he inhaled deeply.
Then pain wiped out everything else. Slowly he raised his left hand to touch the bandage wrapped around his right shoulder. She said he had been shot. By who? And why? Did he know her? Was she his woman? No. He rejected that, not knowing exactly why but feeling the truth settle deep inside him. His woman wouldn’t need to tell him her name. Her body would be no secret to him either.
Her smile was hesitant as she once again leaned over him, wiping his face with a damp cloth. Jenny was struck by the thought of his face conveying a sense of darkness. It was not just the deeply bronzed skin, but the burnished copper stubble of hair growing over his lower face. Setting the cloth aside, she slid one arm around his bare shoulders, her hands surprisingly strong, lifting him before she offered a cup of water.
Her gaze skimmed the scars on his chest; they were jagged and purpled with age. Ben had pointed them out to her, supporting his claim that the man had lived not only a hard life but one death had brushed many times. Jenny felt she owed the man the chance to go on living his life however he chose to do it.
Compassion warred with guilt inside her when the man reached out for the cup with a betraying tremble. She held it against his lips, lips that seemed thin beneath the full brush of his mustache. Furrows of pain etched his forehead, making her long to soothe them away. He was awake and aware, forcing her to acknowledge him as a man in a way she hadn’t thought of during this past week. A warm blush tinted her face as he lifted his head, the long curled hair on the back of his neck brushing her forearms and making her conscious of his intense scrutiny. She decided he didn’t have a handsome face. Not like Jonas. But her mind skittered away from making any comparison.
She tilted the cup, making it easier for him to swallow, and noted the shape of his square, firm jaw, the high cheekbones, and chiseled nose. His brows were thick arches; his lashes full and short. Squint lines splayed out from the comers of his eyes, telling her of days spent riding and staring up at the sun.
As he finished the last of the cold well water, Jenny wondered how much his hard features reflected something of the inner man. Everything about him spoke of the land’s harsh toll on a person’s life, a toll she herself had paid many times over. Yet, like herself, she judged his age in years to be young.
“Want more?” she asked softly, easing his head back.
He shook his head, noting the dark blue of her eyes that shyly slid over him. Night sky blue, he thought, fixing her age at no more than twenty. What the hell was she doing taking care of him? She stood poised, gazing down at him, and he found himself staring at the small indentation in her full lower lip. Had he tasted her kiss? He moistened his chapped lips with the tip of his tongue as if trying to pick up a lingering hint of such a kiss, but knew it wasn’t there as she moved away from his side.
His restless gaze roved over the inside of the cabin. His bed was in one comer, a chest against the wall, a crock filled with wildflowers its only ornament. Jenny worked between a small builtin cupboard and the smooth planked table with four roughly made wood chairs that sat to one side of the stone fireplace. A blanket was strung on a rope across from him and seemed out of place. Something about his being here struck him as being wrong, as though he were more intruder than stranger, but the reason eluded him.
She came to his side again, claiming his complete attention. A rolled quilt was eased beneath his pillow. He couldn’t stifle the groan that escaped when she slipped her warm hands under his shoulders to lift him higher. The feel of her callused palms surprised him as did the sudden throbbing of his left leg. He cursed softly but vividly at his own weakness.
Jenny’s apology came swiftly even as she bit back the chastising words for his swearing. Worriedly she asked how badly he hurt.
“Like hell and then some,” he growled from between gritted teeth. Grimacing and avoiding her eyes, he clenched his left hand into a fist. “How…” he began, expelling a deeply drawn breath, “how did it happen?”
“It was an accident,” she mumbled, grabbing one of the chairs and pushing it near the bedside. She quickly filled a bowl with gruel and poured out a cup of coffee. If his mouth was full, he couldn’t ask questions. But when she stood beside him and stared down at his frowning face, flashes of the day it all happened came clearly to mind. Was it possible he didn’t remember?
The words were out before she could stop them. “Don’t you know what happened? Can’t you remember?”
He thought of the visions that probed the edge of his memory. He couldn’t force them to clear. Slowly he shook his head. “No. I don’t even know where I am. Do I know you?”
“No,” she snapped, horrified by his admission. She struggled to soften her voice. “Can’t you remember anything of what happened? Or your name? Where you come from? We searched your saddlebags and found quite a bit of money, but nothing that would tell us who you are.”
“I see.” But he didn’t. And who the hell were the others? He pushed an unruly lock of hair from his forehead, glanced up at her face, and found her staring at him. “Start at the beginning. Where did it happen and when?”
For a moment she had to close her eyes, getting a grip on her own emotions. She had done this to him. Self-loathing swamped her. Her lashes lifted and brought to view the grim line of his mouth. Swallowing, she told him what he wanted to know.
“It was a week ago, about two miles from here in a small ravine. You … you were lying on the bank near the creek when I found you,” she whispered, hating herself for lying. No, not lying, protecting herself and Robby from any retribution this man might demand. Thoughts of the gunbelt he had worn on his right hip—and the gun that Ben said was well used to judge by the smooth, worn handle—made a shiver of dread walk up her spine. “Try eating first and then we’ll talk,” she offered, lifting the spoon to his lips.
He resented the way she avoided his gaze. That bothered him. It always had. Startled to remember that, he nevertheless obediently opened his mouth, watching the way her teeth worried her lower lip. Swallowing, he shoved her hand aside. “What in the hell is that stuff?”
“Gruel. Ben taught me to make it.” She didn’t mean to sound so defensive, but his growling tone provoked her. “I know it’s not the best tasting, but cornmeal, eggs, and green oshá root from the parsley plant are good for healing.”
“Seems like a waste of eggs to me.”
“I didn’t think you could handle more right now.” She stared at the contents of the bowl, silently agreeing with him. It was a waste of her precious eggs. She stifled the temptation to dump the bowl on his head.
“Don’t be getting the idea of feeding me the rest of it.”
“If you won’t eat, I’ll get some tea for you.”
“Tea?” he repeated softly. “What
in blazes do you think I am?”
“Sick, fevered, and mulish.” She sighed with exasperation. “You need to drink spicebush and catnip teas to keep the fever down.”
“Like hell I do,” he muttered.
“There’s no need to swear at me.” Shame flushed her cheeks. His resistance hinted at his having a temper and warned her she wasn’t about to have an easy time of it. What would he do when he found out she was the one who shot him?
Chastised, he mumbled an apology. “I’ll take that coffee and some whiskey if you have any. And who is Ben?”
“A friend, and the man who saved your life. You’ll have the coffee plain. I don’t have any whiskey.”
“Christ,” he muttered. “So this Ben saved my life,” he mused a moment later, leaning his head back against the pillow. “Ben your man?”
“No.”
The snapped answer had no offer of additional explanation. Annoyance rushed over him. “How bad was I when you found me?”
‘Two bullets were lodged—”
“Two?” he cut in, silencing her. “Sweet Almighty! Someone sure wanted me dead.”
No! she wanted to shout. It wasn’t like that at all. But the words simply wouldn’t come. He strained with the effort to sit up, making the small dark bloodstain on his shoulder bandage widen. Gently, she pushed him back, her fingers strong against his chest. Her gaze locked with his. “Don’t start moving around like that or you’ll make those wounds bleed again. You lost too much blood as it is.”
His left hand slipped beneath the quilt to touch the bandage on his left leg, and he lifted his gaze to her face, remembering the silken feel of her hair trailing across his body. Or did he? Was it another of the faded, senseless images haunting him? His breathing grew decidedly shallow, caressing her throat until she moved back and away from him.
“I have a feeling you’re a mite stubborn,” Jenny began. “Ben had to cut deep into your shoulder. You’ve barely begun mending, so try to understand that you need to give yourself time to heal.”
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