Horror and dismay drenched her. Surely Charles wouldn’t feel that way about her. She understood the emotional trauma he’d undergone as a child. Of course she did. But those feelings had been instilled in him by his father. Perhaps they weren’t really his own, not completely, anyway. All of this really had nothing to do with her. Charles loved her. He adored her. Love would change him, she was sure of it. Why, then, was her heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her ears?
Without speaking another word, she turned her back on Buck, again, shutting him out. Damn him. If he hadn’t shown up in her life, none of this would be happening. He confused her. He always had. It was all his fault. All of it. Until now, she’d been confident of every decision she’d ever made. That he could so effortlessly turn her life into absolute mayhem made her madder than hell.
Early the next morning, Molly was awakened by the sound of distant thunder. The air smelled different, too. Buck’s mount whinnied and shuddered, as if expressing his elation at the coming rain. Molly sat up and looked around her. A small fire had been made, and coffee cooked over it. Buck rested against his saddle, working on the rabbit hide.
He glanced up, then stood and stuffed the hide into his saddlebag. “You’d better appreciate the dryness now. Things are going to change.”
She was still angry with him. Every time he came into her life, it became complicated, chaotic and confusing. She was through letting him tell her what to do. From now on, she’d disagree with everything he said, no matter how much sense it made. “I’ve never minded a little rain,” she said with a casual air as she stretched the kinks from her back.
Chuckling, he handed her a biscuit and jam sandwich. “We’re not going to get just ‘a little rain.’ ”
She took the biscuit and tried to eat it slowly. She had a feeling they were running out of food. “Still,” she said around a mouthful, “I’ll be grateful when it rains. I’m getting tired of all this dust.”
He threw sand over the fire, then rolled up the bedroll. “We’ve got to get out of this arroyo and back up onto the plain.”
She felt a twinge of disappointment. “Well, I feel safe here. You can go wherever you want. I’m walking down here.”
He laughed again. “It’s a riverbed, Molly.”
She immediately realized the implications, but still didn’t want to admit she was wrong. “So, it’s a riverbed. Obviously,” she added sarcastically, “there’s no river.”
He looked at her over the top of the saddle, which he’d just tightened on Thunder’s back. “There will be.”
“I find it hard to believe a little rain could fill up a gully this big.”
“Are you willing to find out?”
She gave her shoulders a haughty shake. “Well, maybe not. But if I really wanted to, I would.” Feeling vindicated, she hurried through her meager breakfast, then went behind a scraggle of mesquite to relieve herself.
Later, as they rode on, the wind came up from the north, soft with the promise of rain. By late afternoon, deep, gray clouds had gathered overhead and everything, including the earth, seemed to shiver with anticipation.
Buck nudged her, pointing toward a grove of cotton-wood. “We’ll stop there for the night. It’s too hard for Thunder to go on in the dark.”
During the night, they were awakened by the wind as it sputtered through the trees. Suddenly, an intricately woven web of lightning lit up the plains, outlining the flatness of the horizon. Molly glanced at Buck, who was merely a black and white silhouette sketched against the night sky. For a brief instant, she could see him as clearly as if it were noon, then, just as quickly, everything was enveloped in darkness. The thunder followed, shaking the ground, roaring over them like a stampede of cattle.
Buck stood and went to his mount, soothing him with his touch as he tied down the picket pin. Molly sat, shivering and hugging her knees, and watched the natural turbulence crash and boom over them. Even though she was still angry, she was grateful when Buck came and sat down beside her.
Large raindrops battered them, few and far between at first, then faster as the wind pushed the line of the storm past them, leaving in its noisy wake only the rain.
Buck unrolled a large poncho and put it over them. It hung to the ground, like a huge parasol without the ribs. They sat, silent, huddled together against the rain.
Though she would never admit it, Molly felt safer with Buck than with any other man she knew. Even Charles. Maybe, at this point, especially Charles. No. She forced the thought away. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t have felt safe with Charles, it was just that Buck was so capable. He knew exactly what to do to survive. And Charles was no fool; he’d sent Buck because he knew that Buck would get the job done. What Charles couldn’t know, was the mixture of elation and frustration Molly had felt when she discovered it was Buck, and not Charles who had come for her.
She nudged Buck with her shoulder, and he automatically put his arm around her, pulling her close against his side. It wasn’t that she really wanted his arm around her; it was because she was cold, and maybe a little bit afraid. The steady hissing of the rain continued relentlessly. A feeling of warmth, so strong that it made her hurt, swelled within her. Uttering a ragged sigh, she turned her head and pressed her face against his chest. She could hear the strong thump of his heart against her ear, and she breathed in, capturing his scent.
She didn’t know how she could love him and hate him at the same time. But she began to realize that’s what her feelings had always been: equal measures of love and hate. Never had she felt neutral toward him. Not even now, when she should have no feelings for him at all, except indebtedness and obligation for saving her life.
She must have dozed. When she woke up, she was alone under the poncho. Pushing it aside, she looked out from beneath it and found Buck holding his hat, allowing Thunder to drink from it. Rain plastered his hair to his head. The hard muscles of his back were visible beneath his wet shirt.
An ache, deep inside where she hadn’t had any feeling before, began to form. She wanted so much for things to be different between them. She had a feeling that if she made any unladylike advances, he’d reject them anyway. He always had. He’d rejected her advances from the first time she’d made them, over six years before. It would be stupid to try again. She wasn’t so dense that she hadn’t learned her lesson. And his kisses, she rationalized, had been merely punishment. Hadn’t he pushed her away each time, ordering her to get out of his sight?
“Think you’re going to stay under there all day?”
The rain splattered against the poncho, but she was already wet. Tossing it off, she stood, raised her face toward the rain and swung in a circle. Mud squished up between her toes. She’d always loved the rain. That hadn’t changed either.
He handed her a biscuit. “That’s breakfast. Now, come on. I’ll walk Thunder for a while.” He helped her get into the saddle.
“I feel kind of guilty,” she said, glancing down at her bare feet. “If I had my boots, I wouldn’t have to ride.”
“Don’t worry about it.” His answer was terse as he took Thunder’s reins and walked him carefully over the muddy ground.
They traveled in silence. Molly’s thoughts were filled with her stupidity, and her inability to finally put all of Buck’s rejections and even those she invented into proper perspective. The only sound was the wet, monotonous sound of rain, sheeting down upon them in drenching waves. The earth beneath them became thick, a sucking clay that hampered every step they took. They moved away from the riverbank, for it was slippery, offering a fast route into the bed of the river.
Buck stopped, halting Thunder with his hand. “Listen.”
Molly turned, trying to hear something other than the sound of the rain. “What? What do you hear?” She sat quietly, suddenly hearing a thundering roar somewhere behind her. He lifted her off the horse and put her on the ground. “I want you to see this,” he said, picketing Thunder by a wet clump of m
esquite.
He glanced at her feet. “Can you walk a few steps?”
Nodding, she stepped gingerly through the muck. As they neared the arroyo bank, the noisy rumble became so loud, she almost put her hands over her ears.
Then she saw it. Her breath caught in her throat, and she gasped out loud. The very riverbed where, just the morning before, they’d slept and ate, was suddenly a deluge of frothing, foamy rust-colored water. It pitched and tossed from side to side, relentless to destroy whatever lay in its path.
Thunder snorted and whinnied behind them. They both turned in time to see a rabbit scuttle out from beneath the mesquite bush, having obviously startled the horse.
Buck touched her arm. “I’ll be right back. Don’t get any closer.”
Mesmerized by the raging flood, Molly found herself drawn to it. It eddied and rolled, carrying with it sticks, twigs and even entire uprooted mesquite bushes and large branches from fallen trees. Without thinking, she stepped closer, standing on the rise of the riverbank. The ooze crept between her toes, and she wiggled them, loving the mushy feeling. For a silly, inane moment, she was reminded of her childhood when they’d played, naked and barefoot, in the rain.
Suddenly, the earth beneath her caved in, and she lost her balance, skidding down the other side of the sodden, muddy riverbank. She screamed Buck’s name, the sound high and piercing in her ears as she plunged toward the angry water. The back of her riding skirt caught on something, slowing her fall. With her good arm, she flailed around, touching the object that gripped her skirt. It was a root. She grabbed it, throwing herself up against the muddy wall, digging her feet into the embankment, holding on for dear life.
Through the mud that coated the hair covering her eyes, she looked up at Buck, who was on his stomach, reaching toward her. “Hang on, Molly. Hang on.”
“Dammit,” she shouted between gasps. Her fingers burned, and she felt herself slipping. “Hurry up! I c-can’t hold it!” She shoved the toes of one foot into the muddy embankment, bent her knee and flattened the other foot against the wall, trying to relieve some of the pressure on her arm. The next chance she had, she looked up again. Buck was gone. He’ll be back. Don’t panic, fool. He’ll be back.
What seemed like a lifetime later, Buck returned above her with a rope. There was a noose on the end of it. “Here,” he shouted into the sounds of the raging river. “Can you get it?”
Still gripping the root, she slowly raised her other arm, allowing the loop to fall over her head and under the arm. The pain in her wrist pounded as she tried to move the rope into place. She pulled herself up as far as she could and felt the rope tighten around one upper arm and beneath the other.
Finally, Buck pulled her up. She tried to help by walking her feet up the slippery, slimy sides of the riverbank. Then he hauled her onto the muddy, sloping side beyond the river. She lay there, her heart pounding, wrist throbbing, feet and the hand that had held the root burning. Her cheek was pressed into the mud as she tried to catch her breath.
He hunkered down beside her. “Are you all right?” At her weary nod, he added, “I told you not to move, didn’t I?”
“Sorry,” she mumbled into the mud.
He took her good arm and helped her stand. “God,” he said, giving her a miserable look. “You’re a mess.”
She glanced down at herself. Mud. Reddish brown mud from head to foot. But she was alive, and again, Buck had saved her hide. How many times would it take before he’d tire of it? As she trudged through the muck, her skirt so heavy it hung to her ankles, she realized she didn’t ever want to find out.
The rain slacked off and the sky loomed brighter, offering patches of blue in the distance. She didn’t want to dwell on her misery, but it was hard not to think about it. Never in all her born days did she ever imagine herself being captured by a band of ragtag renegades, stripped of her clothes, staked to the ground like a buffalo hide, and treated like an animal. Then, to be rescued, not once but twice by a man to whom she didn’t want to owe anything, much less her life … Lord, that was the stuff dime novels were made of. If she got out of this alive, maybe she’d write one of her own. After all, Hurricane Nell and Bess the Trapper had nothing on her.
Eleven
Toward evening, they came across a pool of fresh water. There were many, dotted here and there over the plains, short-lived remnants of the rainstorm. They wouldn’t last long. By the next day, most would have evaporated. Buck suggested they stop so they both could clean up.
While he left her to look for something with which to build a fire, she stripped and lay her muddy skirt out to dry. After rinsing out her underwear, she washed her hair, using a small chip of soap Buck had produced from his saddlebags. With only one good hand, nothing was going to get very clean, but anything was an improvement.
It wasn’t possible to wring the water from her underwear; her wrist still throbbed and she had no strength in it. She still had no power to grip in those fingers. She was twisting and pressing the moisture from her torn drawers against her thigh with her good hand when she heard Buck come up behind her. Though he could only see her back, she felt herself flush.
“Having a little trouble?”
Her elbows automatically came together to cover the sides of her breasts as she glanced at him over her shoulder. He had his shirt off and shoved it toward her. He’d obviously found a similar pond, because his hair was wet and his face and torso clean of mud and dust. “Here, put this on.”
She let her gaze fall briefly to the hard ridges of his stomach and the hair circling his navel before she grabbed the shirt and slid into it. Taking a deep, dizzying breath, she managed to thank him.
“I … I can’t seem to wring the water from my things. My wrist still hurts too much.”
He pulled her camisole and drawers from the pool and twisted them repeatedly until they were just damp. After shaking them out, he laid them on the ground near the fire.
His shirt was big and long, and it hung to her knees, despite the fact that he’d ripped a strip off the tail to use on her wrist. It was anything but clean, but she found strange comfort in wearing it. She slipped the buttons through the buttonholes with difficulty. “I guess I could put on my underwear, anyway. At least they’re cleaner than they were.”
Shaking his head, he answered, “That’s foolish. They’ll be dry by morning.”
He turned and squatted over the fire, her gaze following. As he nursed the small flame that tried desperately to peter out into a puff of damp smoke, she studied him. Muscles bunched over the wide expanse of his back. Hair, black as pitch yet wavy from the moist air curled to his shoulders. His jeans hung low as he hunkered near the fire, dropping into a V at the small of his back. His skin was lighter there. The mystery of what lay beyond gave her the shivers.
Drawing in another deep breath, she crossed to his saddlebags and rummaged around for her brush. Finding it, she sat down on the rubber-coated blanket and started pulling the tangles from her wet hair.
He joined her and examined her feet. “They must be sore.” His hands were gentle as they moved over the cuts and scrapes she’d received during her struggle at the river. Suddenly, he lifted her leg and gazed at the back of her knee. Another shiver of pleasure sped through her.
“What are you doing?”
Looking up at her, he gave her a small smile. “Just thought I’d check to see if those three little moles still lived back there.”
She laughed in spite of herself. “You make them sound alive.” She gave him a curious look. “How did you know I had moles back there?”
His lazy grin spread. “You and Martha used to cavort in the rain, remember?”
“I remember,” she answered, briefly looking away as she remembered how casually they’d sported their nudity as girls.
He tweaked her toe, and she wrinkled her nose at him, then peered at the sole of one foot. “I don’t think my poor feet will ever be the same again.”
/>
He didn’t respond, but reached over and dragged his saddlebags toward them. “These might help,” he said, pulling out something from the bag closest to him and handing it to her.
Puzzled, she took the article from him and unfolded it. She let out a ragged gasp as two rabbit skin moccasins fell into her lap. Gazing up at him, she said on a breath, “You did this for me?”
Appearing embarrassed, he nodded, then went back to tending the fire.
She slipped her feet into the slippers and gave up a luxurious sigh. So soft … so warm. Tears threatened behind her eyes, and she blinked, hoping to hold them back. That he’d gone to the trouble to make them for her bewildered her. It was a gesture she couldn’t comprehend, coming from him.
“They’re wonderful, Buck. Thank you.”
The fire swelled from his ministration. “It’s nothing. Don’t read anything into it.”
There was a resurgence of her anger. “Oh, heaven forbid that I might read something into it. Don’t worry, I surely won’t think you did it because you cared a diddly-damn for me.”
She saw his shoulders shake suspiciously. “You’d better not be laughing at me, Buck Randall.”
He turned, his face a bland mask, but the laughter still glimmering in his eyes. “Heaven forbid that I would ever laugh at you, Molly Lindquist.”
It was a truce, of sorts. She relaxed and tried to wrap her broken wrist. Then he was there, quietly and seriously doing it for her.
“Then there was the time you and Martha were playing on the roof of that old pig shed,” Buck said with a shake of his head. “I was slopping the hogs. One minute you two were there, the next Martha was skidding down the side of the roof and you were gone.”
Molly tried not to laugh. “Through the roof. Lord, I remember how scared I was.”
“The next thing I knew, that old sow came squealing and snorting out of the shed with you hanging onto her back for dear life.”
Forbidden Moon--The Moon Trilogy--Book Three Page 16
