by Amelia Autin
“Sorry, boy,” Gideon said over his shoulder. “Nothing I can do about the rain.” He looked down at Rennie. “And I’m sorry I dragged you out here and got you into this mess.”
“I already told you it’s not your fault. And you didn’t drag me anywhere. I wanted to come.”
“Yeah, but—”
“But nothing,” she said firmly. “If anyone is to blame, it’s me.”
“How do you figure that?”
“I was the one who fell asleep first. If I hadn’t, you probably wouldn’t have, either. And we’d have started back long before the rain started.”
He smiled. “Okay. Let’s just agree that it’s no one’s fault, and leave it at that.”
“Sounds good to me.”
He was silent for a moment, then said, “You realize we might be stranded up here tonight.”
“What do you mean?” From her expression it was obvious that the thought hadn’t occurred to her.
“If the rain doesn’t let up shortly, it’ll be too late to start back. It’ll be dark soon, for one thing, and the trail will be slippery. I don’t want to chance it unless I have to.”
“Oh. You’re right. It wouldn’t be safe.”
“How much food is left from our picnic lunch?”
She thought about it, then said, “One sandwich, a couple of apples and three cans of pop. Oh, and I think there are a few cookies left in the bag.”
“That’s better than I hoped. We should probably eat the sandwich tonight before it goes bad, and save the rest for tomorrow morning.”
“What about the horses?”
“When and if the rain lets up, I’ll take them out and let them graze for an hour or so. They’ll be okay as long as I don’t let them eat too much grass this early in the year.”
“That’s good.” Rennie shivered a little and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. She smiled wryly at Gideon. “It’s getting colder.”
“Yep.” He stood up suddenly and walked over to a broken-down stall, where he began to pull apart the nailed slats.
She slipped to her feet and followed him, with only a slight limp. “What are you doing?”
“Getting wood for a fire.”
“Can I help?”
He threw her an amused look. “Yeah. You can go back and sit down.”
“But I want to do something to help.”
“Your hip has had enough strain for one day.”
“I’m not an invalid, you know.”
“I know it, and thanks for offering, but I can handle this.”
As she opened her mouth to argue, he picked up another board and said, “If you really want something to do, check out the forge’s hearth and see what condition it’s in. I want to build the fire there, if possible. There’ll be less chance of an accident that way.”
“Okay.”
He broke the board across his knee and tossed the pieces on the pile beside him. “And could you throw the other blanket and the bedroll over one of the stall walls? I’d like to get them dry as soon as possible.”
“Sure.”
“Oh, and Rennie?”
“What?”
“Your blanket’s slipping.”
She wildly clutched at the front of the blanket, only to find it still securely fastened. She hitched it higher and tightened the tuck, anyway, throwing him an accusing look. He laughed.
* * *
Despite the awkward circumstances, despite the discomfort of their surroundings, Rennie enjoyed being stranded on the mountain with Gideon. After they started a cozy fire with the matches he’d carried in his saddlebags, the two of them checked out the livery stable to make sure they didn’t have any unwelcome company. Eventually the rain slowed to a drizzle, then stopped altogether. But the sun had already set by then, and they agreed they were better off staying where they were for the night.
While Gideon took the horses out to graze, Rennie brought her clothes to warm by the fire. She hoped they’d dry quickly—she was already sick of wearing the blanket. The coarse wool chafed her sensitive skin, and when Gideon was near she was all too aware that she was completely naked underneath it.
So I’m attracted to him. Why shouldn’t I be? The way he looks at me reminds me that I’m definitely a woman. And he’s all man. Every beautiful inch of him.
Shame on you! Rennie’s conscience told her. It’s character that counts, not how a man looks in a pair of jeans.
Or out of them.
You haven’t seen him out of them, her conscience chided.
Only in my dreams.
Despite the cold, Rennie suddenly felt warm. All over.
To distract herself, she made a quick trip outside, around back. Gideon still hadn’t returned by the time she was finished, so Rennie dug into his saddlebags for the food she’d packed away. It didn’t look like much when she spread it out, especially for a man as big as Gideon, not when the food had to cover both dinner and breakfast. Well, she wasn’t all that hungry, anyway.
She checked her clothes. Her scrap of a bra and her cotton undies were almost dry, so she turned her back to the door and slipped them on. She flipped the rest of her things over and waited by the fire for Gideon.
She heard them coming, heard her husband’s low, coaxing tones as he and the horses squished through the mud. He led them in and stabled them, then pulled off his boots and joined her by the fire. He held his hands out to the warmth, glancing at the food she’d laid out.
“That looks good.”
“It’s all yours. I’ve already eaten,” she fibbed.
“Um-hm.” The look he gave her said he knew she’d lied.
“I’m not very hungry,” she told him. “Really.”
He didn’t say anything, merely picked up half the sandwich and held it out to her. Rennie accepted it reluctantly, and they ate their meager shares in silence.
When she was done, she wiped her hands and checked her clothes once more. They were fairly dry, so she took them into the corner and dressed quickly. It was cold away from the fire. Gideon glanced at her when she came back and sat next to him. She offered him the blanket.
“No, thanks. You keep it. It’s going to get colder before the night is over.”
“Don’t you want to let your clothes dry by the fire?”
“They’re pretty dry already. I’ll be okay.” He rose and placed another board on the fire, then sat down a little distance away from her.
Without anything better to do, Rennie watched the dancing flames, stealing glances at Gideon whenever she thought he wasn’t looking. A few times he caught her at it, and their eyes held for breathless seconds before one or the other would look away. The silence was heavy with their unspoken thoughts.
This won’t do, Gideon finally decided. His body had settled into a permanent state of semiarousal, and he knew he’d better get his mind thinking of something else before he did something he’d be sorry for.
With his eyes on the fire, he said, “You never told me how things went in Los Angeles.”
“Fine.”
“To tell you the truth, I half expected that you wouldn’t come back.” He turned toward her in time to catch a strange expression on her face.
“I gave you my word,” she said.
“Yeah, but promises don’t always mean the same thing to different people. I thought you might change your mind once you were back home. Didn’t anyone try to talk you out of it?”
“Jess did, but it didn’t make any difference. I’d already made my decision.”
He stiffened as possessiveness exploded through him unexpectedly, and his next words came out as a growl. “Who is Jess?”
Rennie caught her breath and her eyes widened, as if he’d taken her by surprise, but she said calmly, “Jess is my stepbrother. I thought I mentioned him before.”
Some of the tension left Gideon, but not all. “Yeah, you did, but never by name.”
“Who did you think he was?”
He was hard-pressed to say. The affec
tionate way she spoke Jess’s name told him she cared about the other man more than a little. But it was his own possessive reaction that bothered him the most.
Possessive? About Rennie?
It didn’t make sense. Rennie was his wife and he desired her, but she wasn’t his love, nor yet his lover. So why had he felt almost threatened, as if Jess had invaded his boundaries? And worst of all, why had his body tightened fiercely with the urge to mark Rennie as his territory, to brand her as his?
But he couldn’t tell Rennie any of those things. “I don’t know what I thought,” he said for lack of a better response.
“I love him, but I’m not in love with him,” she said, as if she knew what he’d been thinking. “Jess is the older brother I never had. My mother married his father when I was seventeen, and they died in a plane crash six months later. Jess became my guardian.”
“Are you close?” He couldn’t hold back the question, nor keep his unreasonable jealousy at bay.
She smiled a little. “I would have to say yes, but would you believe me if I said he doesn’t understand me?”
“In what way?”
“In a lot of ways. For one thing, he thinks I’m crazy to be here.”
He held her gaze. “And what do you think?”
“This is my home now, Gideon. This is where I want to be, where I belong.”
Something about the way she said it touched a chord in Gideon. He thought of the Rocking L. Home. Or rather, it would be home again for him, once his children were there.
Neither of them spoke for a while, both lost in thought. When the fire began to die down, Gideon judiciously added more of the tinder-dry wood.
“You’re good at that,” Rennie said quietly.
“What? Keeping a fire going?”
“Um-hmm. Did you camp out a lot when you were young?”
“Yeah. I did. Mostly with Caleb.”
She wrapped her arms around her knees and tilted her head to look at him. “Tell me about it.”
“That’s old history.”
“Please.”
He sprawled on one side, leaning his head on his hand. “What do you want to know?”
Her heart thudded. What do I want to know? I want to know everything about you, and not just the things everyone else knows. I want to see inside your heart, to understand how you came to be the man you are.
She stared at him, noting the fluid movement of muscle beneath his shirt as he settled his body into place beside the fire. The flames cast a warm glow over his features, and for a crazy, slow-motion moment Rennie felt as if she were falling. Her voice trembled a little as she said, “Tell me about camping with your brother.”
“I haven’t thought about that in years.” He chuckled softly as old memories, good memories, came back to him. “Caleb didn’t care for ranching, but he loved roughing it. There’s this one place—I haven’t been there in ages—where we made camp a lot. It’s nothing but a tiny meadow, really, about halfway up the mountain. It’s a rugged climb to reach it, but the view is fantastic once you get there. And there’s a stream running through one corner.”
Rennie chanced a glance at him. She had never seen that particular expression on Gideon’s face before, and at first she didn’t recognize it. Then she knew. Happiness. For the first time since she’d known him, Gideon looked happy. Happy, and at peace with himself.
“Lord, but that water was cold, even on the hottest days,” he continued. “Caleb and I used to challenge each other to see who could take it the longest.”
“Who usually won?”
He gave her a smile of pure, male machismo. “Who do you think?”
“I think it was probably a tie.”
He laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. We’d stay in that water until our lips, not to mention various other parts of our bodies, were blue. Neither of us wanted to give in.”
“What else did the two of you do?”
“I don’t know. All the usual things kids on a ranch do, I guess, on and off horses.” He breathed deeply and exhaled, a reminiscent smile softening his angled features. “When I think back on it now, as a parent myself, I shudder at the chances we took. Although I have to admit my brother was a bit more reckless than I was, it’s still a wonder one of us wasn’t killed.”
He raised his eyes from contemplation of the fire to Rennie’s face. “How about you? What was your childhood like?”
Suddenly she wanted to share as much of her past as she could with him. “Much like yours, I guess, even though I was an only child. From the time I could walk I trailed after my dad, always asking questions, always trying to help. I was probably more of a hindrance than a help at first, but my dad never made me feel that way. He was always patient and encouraging. Gram was just like him.”
He raised a questioning eyebrow, and she explained, “Gram was my grandmother on my father’s side. Everyone says I take after her.”
“In what way?”
“Just about every way, I guess. She was small, like me, and I have her coloring and her temperament. She taught me a lot, and I loved her dearly. She died when I was twelve. I still miss her.”
In the silence that followed, Gideon got up to tend the fire. This time he sat down near Rennie, close enough for his body warmth to reach her.
“What about your mother? You haven’t said much about her.”
She sighed and shifted uncomfortably, extending her legs to relieve the strain. “My mother loved me. I know that. But she wanted different things for me than I did. She hated the ranch, even though she loved my dad enough to stay there with him. But when he died, she couldn’t wait to escape. Unfortunately, she took me with her.” Rennie shivered.
“Cold?”
She looked at him. “Not really,” she admitted. “I just don’t like to think about that time in my life.”
He put a comforting arm around her, and she let him draw her close. “I guess everyone has bad times that they don’t want to remember. I know I do. Why don’t you try to get some sleep. It’s going to be a long night.”
“What about you?”
“Somebody has to tend the fire.”
“I can do it.”
“I’ll take the first watch and wake you in a few hours. How’s that?”
“Okay.” Reluctantly she slid away from his embrace and stretched out on the dirt floor, drawing the saddle blanket over her and pillowing her head on her arms. She squirmed a little, trying to get comfortable, and soon realized it was impossible. But she was exhausted, so she closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep. She was floating toward oblivion when Gideon spoke.
“Rennie?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you really have a tattoo?”
“Um-hmm.”
“Where is it?”
“I’ll never tell. Why?”
“No reason. I just wondered.”
She was smiling as sleep claimed her.
* * *
Miles away, in much different surroundings, Nicki restlessly turned over in her comfortable bed. She stared enviously through the darkness at Trina sleeping so peacefully in the twin bed next to hers, and wished she could sleep, too.
Daddy didn’t call tonight, she thought miserably. He always called whenever he couldn’t be there in person to wish them good-night. Did he forget? Maybe he just doesn’t want to remember. Maybe he’s so interested in her, that woman who thinks she can take Mama’s place, that he doesn’t care about us anymore. Well, she was a big girl, but Andrew and Trina were just little kids. They wouldn’t understand even if she could explain it to them.
Nicki swallowed hard, but the lump in her throat wouldn’t go down. And the coldness inside her congealed into a solid chunk of ice around her heart. She shivered and pulled the bedclothes tighter around her, but no amount of warmth could dispel the fear that Daddy wasn’t coming back.
Chapter 8
Rennie woke in Gideon’s arms. When she realized she was draped all over him, she rolled away, stifling a gro
an as her aching muscles protested. Gideon sleepily watched her for a moment, then rose, towering over her.
“Good morning.” He reached down and helped her to her feet.
“Morning,” she mumbled, pushing her hair out of her eyes, conscious of her dishevelment as well as a grungy taste in her mouth. Where, oh where, were her hairbrush and toothbrush when she needed them?
Gideon yawned and stretched, then ran a hand through his hair. Rennie noted ruefully that except for the stubble of his beard, no one would know he’d spent the night in a stable. Whereas she looked like something that had been dragged through a bush.
On the defensive, she said the first thing that came into her head. “Why didn’t you wake me last night?”
“I tried. You told me you were awake, then turned over and went back to sleep.”
“Oh.” Nonplussed, she said, “I’m sorry. Did you get any sleep at all?”
“I dozed for a couple of hours at the end there.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated.
“That’s okay. You obviously needed the rest more than I did.”
“How did I end up in...”
“In my arms?” he finished for her, and she nodded. “At about two this morning you started shivering, so I picked you up and carried you a little closer to the fire to get warm. I didn’t have the heart to put you back on the cold ground afterward, so I held you on my lap. Then I dozed off. How do you feel?”
“Like yesterday’s leftovers. I need a cup of coffee, a toothbrush and a bathroom, in that order.”
He laughed. “No coffee and no toothbrush, I’m afraid, but I can substitute a can of soda and an apple.” He motioned toward the open door leading outside. “And your bathroom awaits you.”
* * *
Half an hour later they started down the mountain trail. It was a soft, beautiful morning, and the sun was just rising over the far horizon. The rain had washed away the nearly ever-present layer of dust, leaving the landscape with a fresh-scrubbed look. And the air smelled early-morning wonderful.
They had no troubles on the trip, as if Mother Nature had decided they’d already suffered their share of hardships the night before. The trail was passable, though a little slick in spots. Rennie was stiff and sore at first, but it wore off eventually.
