by Carol Finch
“Did you kill it?”
“I’m not sure. It fell in the pool. I’m not fishing it out.”
She noticed he was staring politely over her head, trying to ignore the fact that she was dripping wet and naked behind the calico gown she clutched to her chest.
“Would you mind tossing down my satchels,” she requested. “I’d like to put on clean clothes.”
“Fetch them yourself while I deal with the snake.”
Eva gnashed her teeth and slipped on her shoes. She sidestepped uphill to retrieve her carpetbags while Raven jogged over to break off a tree branch. Like a bounding mountain lion, he descended the boulders on the opposite side of the springs.
Meanwhile, Eva pulled on her breeches and shirt. No need dressing like a proper lady if she had to trek along death-defying ledges and battle snakes, and bears and only God knew what else she’d encounter during this misadventure.
Once dressed, Eva scurried downhill to watch Raven use the long branch to scoop the snake from the bottom of the pool. He uplifted the motionless creature to survey the two gunshot wounds.
“Not bad,” he praised as he set aside the snake.
“Thank you. It was my first time. It’s perfect practice for the sidewinder named Gordon Carter.”
“I told you not to get your hopes up about blasting him to kingdom come because he might be dead already.”
She shrugged. “Perhaps, but I want to check the obscure mining camps. That’s where I’d go if I wanted to hide out.”
He stared somberly at her. “You really aren’t going to give up on this crusade, are you?”
“Whatever made you think I would? A misstep on a narrow ledge? A few flying bullets that came out of nowhere? A snake in my makeshift bathtub?” She shook her wet head. “No, J.D., This manhunt is for all the misfortunate women who have been conned by silver-tongued shysters who got away scot-free.”
“You included? Is this about the one you didn’t avenge because you were embarrassed and ashamed? Or is Gordon really your runaway fiancé who took your money and your horse and now you’re out for your own revenge?”
Leave it to Raven to ask the straightforward questions. Well, considering the ordeals they had endured together today it made him her most trusted companion to date. She had spent more quality time with him—learning his moods and seeing his depth of character—than she had with her dandified suitors. She’d cursed him, cried on his shoulder and kissed him until she was dizzy and light-headed. She’d run the gamut of emotions and he’d been there through thick and thicker to watch her. She owed him the truth, mortifying though it was.
“I made the same foolish mistake Lydia did when I was nineteen,” she confided. “I believed the charming phrases, the flattery and the gushing words of affection. The lying cheat named Felix Winslow used me to make the acquaintance of a friend, then he married her because he claimed she was younger and more easily controlled. He needed her backing to expand his floundering jewelry shop.
“The embarrassing ordeal wasn’t as financially costly for me as it was for Lydia. I didn’t have to risk public humiliation by consulting the local detective agency to reclaim stolen money. That’s why I came to you for this.”
“So this man betrayed you and you swore not to trust another one as long as you lived,” he guessed accurately.
When she nodded her head, he shrugged his massive shoulders. “Can’t say that I blame you. I swore to hate all whites forever after the two bloody massacres that claimed my family. But being half white, I realized I had to be more specific with my distaste because I had white man’s blood flowing through my veins, too.”
“So you’re saying I should be selective in which men I hate,” she said, paraphrasing.
He smiled. “I suppose there are good men in the world, just as there are a few good whites.”
“But too few and too far between,” she contended as she strode to the edge of the pool.
“My sentiments exactly.” Raven unbuttoned his shirt and dropped his holster. “My turn at the spring. Your choice. You can watch or gather wood for a campfire. The matches are in my saddlebag.”
She watched him discard his shirt. Her curious gaze flooded over his bare chest. For certain, he and Eva were becoming entirely too familiar with each other, Raven mused. He’d seen too much of her enticing body this afternoon and the tantalizing memory played hell with his self-control. He also knew how it felt to hold her in his arms and how she tasted on his lips.
His thoughts evaporated when she reached out to trail her forefinger from one male nipple to the other, then traced the wedge of hair that dipped into the waistband of his breeches. Raven tried to swallow but his throat closed up. He tried to drag in a breath of air but his lungs refused to function.
Only his heart worked; it pounded like a herd of stampeding buffalo.
Then she lifted her gaze to his face and focused on his mouth. Hell! Say something before things get too far out of hand—or in hand, as the case might be—he ordered himself.
“You aren’t going to kiss me again, are you?” he asked, his voice nowhere near as steady as he’d hoped.
Damn it, need was hammering at him and he had to force himself not to reach for her, for fear that he couldn’t stop touching her until he was buried deep inside her. Which was precisely what he wanted, even though he had enough sense to know that would be a disastrous mistake for both of them—for at least a dozen sensible reasons.
She might be curious about the possibility of passion between them right now, but she would never forgive him if he took advantage of the emotional whirlwind she’d endured the past twenty-four hours.
“I already told you that trying to seduce me isn’t going to convince me to take your case,” he reminded her bluntly.
The comment served its purpose. She jerked her hand from his chest and stopped staring at him with curious speculation. Her dark eyes flashed in annoyance as she lifted her chin.
“Sometimes, when I think I’m beginning to like you, you ruin it by aggravating the hell out of me, Jo-Dan!”
He knew why she was calling him Jo-Dan. And sure enough, it aggravated the hell out of him.
“Are dignified ladies allowed to curse?” he taunted as he unstrapped the sheathed dagger wrapped around his thigh, then dropped it beside his discarded holster.
“I never professed to being proper or dignified,” she growled before she lurched around. “I live by my own rules and I thumb my nose at the restrictions men place on women. Never doubt that.”
“Really? Glad you brought that to my attention. I never would have noticed…. Hey!”
He ducked when she hurled a rock at him. It missed his head with only an inch to spare.
“Keep your eyes peeled,” she warned, glaring at him. “Someone around here might be tempted to sneak up and drown you. Want to guess who?”
He chuckled after she stalked off then he dropped his breeches. Eva was feisty, daring, gorgeous—and he cursed himself up one side and down the other for liking her, faults and all.
To cool the lust that was becoming ever present when he was with her, he dropped into the spring. He didn’t realize he was so tense until he began to relax. Being on guard to protect himself from an unidentified assassin and from his growing attachment to Eva was wearing him out.
Raven decided he was in desperate need of a buffer. When they reached his cabin, Hoodoo would be there to talk Eva’s leg off and to distract him. Thank the powers that be for Hoodoo Lemoyne, Raven mused as he sank into the pool and told himself to forget how temping Eva looked naked.
Nothing was going to happen between them, he promised himself resolutely. But that didn’t prevent the lusty side of his brain from conjuring up a fantasy that left him hard and aching. Raven sighed in exasperation as he came up for air. He wondered if anything short of dying was going to erase the thought of Eva’s sassy temperament and her luscious body from his mind.
He seriously doubted it.
Chapter Seven
&
nbsp; After Eva gathered firewood, she dug into Raven’s saddlebag to locate the matches. Her hand folded around a necklace and she pulled it out to have a closer look. The Cheyenne side of Raven’s persona, she mused as she surveyed the intricate jewelry. She could easily picture him wearing the bead-and-bone necklace…and nothing else.
She glanced over her shoulder to make certain he hadn’t arrived to see her snooping in his saddlebags. She found three bench warrants for men who had robbed miners in Purgatory Gulch—one of the isolated camps in an area to the west known as Devil’s Triangle. A place where she suspected Gordon might be lying low—if he wasn’t dead already.
There were also two new black shirts, like the ones Raven favored, and a brown plaid one that didn’t suit Raven. There was a pair of breeches, a breechcloth…Eva studied it curiously, wondering how Raven would look wearing it with his bead-and-bone necklace.
“Looking for something in particular?”
Eva practically leaped out of her skin when Raven’s voice tumbled over her. She hadn’t heard him coming. However, in her defense, who did? The man moved with the silent grace of a panther.
Despite the profuse blush pulsating on her cheeks, she painstakingly replaced the items in his saddlebag. “I didn’t have the opportunity to study the contents of the other bag. Is there anything in there I shouldn’t see? If so, I want to see it.”
He spread his arms wide. “I have nothing to hide. Can you say the same, Evangeline Whoever-you-are?”
The comment struck her conscience like a barb. She hadn’t been honest about who she was. But she didn’t want his attitude toward her to change because she liked the teasing camaraderie between them. Matching wits and challenging J. D. Raven was more fun than she’d had with a man in a very long time. If ever.
“Eva?” he prodded, scrutinizing her all too closely.
She held up his breechcloth and grinned. “I’d pay good money to see you wear this.”
“In your dreams,” he said and chuckled.
“Probably,” she said under her breath.
“Come again?”
“Nothing.” She surged to her feet with matches in hand. “I’ll start the fire.”
“You already did,” he murmured as she walked away.
Coming from J. D. Raven that was most likely the closest thing to a compliment that a woman would ever get, so Eva took it as one.
“What is that?” Eva questioned, pointing at the grilled meat on a stick.
“A delicacy. Taste it,” he encouraged, handing it to her.
“Not until you tell me what I’m eating.”
He sank down cross-legged to munch on the meat. “Seems fitting to me that you should take a bite out of the snake that nearly bit you.”
Her eyes widened and she wrinkled her nose distastefully. “You must be kidding.”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “The other meat is rabbit if you’re too squeamish to try snake.”
To his surprise, she rose to the taunt and took a bite of snake. She chewed, swallowed and said, “Not bad, but I think I’d prefer fried Raven.”
“Cute,” he said between bites.
“How far to your cabin?”
“A good hour if we set a swift pace.”
“Any more towering ledges to tackle before we get there?”
“No, a few steep, rock-strewn cliffs to scale, but nothing an experienced climber like you can’t handle while wearing your breeches.” He was silent for a moment then he added, “About Hoodoo Lemoyne…”
“What about him?”
“He was maimed by a grizzly bear five years ago and I let him stay with me until he recuperated. He never left. Sort of stuck around, like you today.”
She smiled at his teasing remark and munched on her meal.
“William Lemoyne came west from Louisiana after fighting for the South in the war,” Raven explained. “He lost his family’s land to carpetbaggers and his fair-weather fiancée to a man who acquired wealth and property by preying on misfortunate Southerners. He came here to hunt and trap. In the early years my father took him under his wing to teach him the trade, then Hoodoo struck off on his own.”
“How bad were his injuries?” she asked attentively.
“Bad enough to alter his lifestyle,” Raven replied. “I was gathering wild horses in the mountain meadows to add to my herd when I heard his call for help. William managed to get off a shot but that only enraged the bear that attacked him. By the time I got to William, he’d lost part of his left ear and the skin on the side of his face. He mangled his knee badly enough that he still walks with a limp.”
Eva looked around uneasily. She had encountered a snake and a two-legged predator who tried to separate her from her head already. She definitely needed to brush up on her survival skills if there were bears in her future.
“While I was helping Will get away, the bear shredded my shirt and left the claw marks on my back,” Raven continued. “Now, Will has a gimpy leg and disfigured facial features that make him self-conscious. I can’t get him to venture to trading posts or to town these days. So, if you’re going to stare at him in fanatical fascination do it when he isn’t looking.”
“You bought him the breeches and a shirt,” she commented. “That’s very sweet of you, Raven.”
Raven snorted. “I’ve been called many things. Sweet isn’t even on the list. But yeah, I thought a store-bought shirt and breeches might be a treat since he makes his own clothes. Plus, he makes my moccasins and deerskin garments.”
She smiled playfully. “Now I understand why you said you don’t need a wife. You have a valet who tends to your needs.”
“Not all of them,” he said pointedly.
She remembered his earlier comment about how she was trying to seduce him to gain his cooperation. “Right,” she said, smirking. “But you prefer a woman who wants no strings and no favors. Not someone manipulative and deceptive like me.”
He shrugged noncommittally and kept eating.
Eva had hoped he would retract that hurtful remark he’d made after she’d kissed him. But not J. D. Raven. He didn’t give an inch. Which was probably why she liked and admired him so much—in an exasperating and infuriating kind of way.
Raven rose agilely to his feet then kicked dirt on the fire. “We should get moving.”
Eva stared longingly toward the spring, wishing for another relaxing bath to ease her strained muscles.
“Sorry,” he said, accurately reading her expression. “There is another spring near my cabin that will serve you just as well.”
“I prefer that the next spring is on the path to the mining camps I plan to search.”
“Wild-goose chase,” he declared as he gathered his gear. “Do yourself a favor and go home. I think that Gordon character is at the bottom of a ravine and you’re tramping around here for nothing.”
“Then why didn’t we find any of his belongings with Lydia’s horse?” she questioned.
“They were likely stolen,” Raven speculated. “For all we know he was robbed and shoved off the cliff by the man who is gunning for me. Men disappear mysteriously and all too often in this lawless part of the state. I’m as close to a peace officer as most folks get in the areas around mining camps. Men literally get away with murder in that neck of the woods. I don’t want you to be the next victim.”
Doubt and uncertainty began to intrude in her mind but she refused to abort her mission just because she faced difficulty. She wanted Gordon to become an example to other calculating men who preyed on naive women. If he were still alive and kicking, she would track him down and see justice served.
Raven halted in the trees lining the mountain meadow to survey the herd of a dozen sturdy mountain horses he’d rounded up the past few years. He’d worked with them to ensure they were green-broken but they were a far cry from a seasoned mount like Buck that he’d lost during his last assignment.
“They are beautiful,” Eva murmured as she came to stand beside him.
H
e looked down to see the pastel shades of sunset framing the exquisite features of her face and dancing like colorful flames in her silky hair. She was beautiful, he mused, admiring her while she was unaware. She was much too refined-looking and too civilized to associate with a social outcast like him, but no one said he couldn’t appreciate her until they parted company.
“Which one do you plan to train for yourself?” she asked interestedly.
He pointed out the skewbald pony with patches of brown and white and a brown mane and tail. “The horse reminds me of the one I had when I was a child. The soldiers slaughtered the paint pony, along with a hundred others during the Sand Creek Massacre.”
“I’m sorry,” she commiserated. “Losing a horse like Buck or Hodge isn’t easy.” She glanced sideways at him. “Which one will you allow me to purchase? Since I’m headed to the mining camps I prefer not to walk.”
Raven studied the determined glint in her dark eyes and noted the unyielding tilt of her chin. She had that come-hell-or-high-water-or-both look that he admired and disliked at once. She aggravated him. She aroused him. She impressed him.
Hell, no wonder he had trouble dealing with Eva. She touched off so many conflicting emotions he didn’t know which one to battle first.
When he didn’t respond immediately she gestured to the herd grazing in the meadow. “I’d like to ride that blood-red bay with the black mane and tail.”
Raven shook his head. “No, that horse is the very devil.”
“According you, so am I,” she reminded him. “We should get along grandly.”
“That red devil gelding is too much horse for a woman,” Raven insisted.
“We shall see about that later. Right now I want to meet Hoodoo Lemoyne.”
Shoulders thrust back, a satchel in each hand, she strode toward the cabin. Raven smiled begrudgingly. Eva Whoever-she-was was a strong-willed, independent-minded, persistent woman. His smile faded when his thoughts stalled on the fact that she still refused to divulge her last name.
That bothered the hell out of him.
Was she really Mrs. Gordon Carter, who was out for blood and revenge? Or was she the woman scorned who lost her pride, her money and her horse?
