A Taste of Heaven (17 page)

She stared up into his face, and pressed her
mouth into a tight line. She could refuse, but Tyler Hollins wasn't
a man who accepted being told no. And worse, she knew he was right.
She wouldn't have much luck reaching around to her shoulders. Damn
it, she thought, borrowing one of his turns of phrase, he was
always right. Furious with both him and his arrogance, she climbed
over the seat. He ducked his head and followed, bringing the
lantern with him. He set it down and threw his hat onto a flour
sack

Looking around, he found two sturdy crates
and put one in front of the other, then took the liniment from her.
“All right, sit down here, and”—he waved a hand at her—“you
know—uncover your shoulders.” He plowed a hand through his hair.
For an instant, he looked not quite as autocratic and sure of
himself.

She felt her eyes grow as wide as saucers,
and she whirled around to face the back of the wagon. With shaking
hands she unbuttoned her blouse to her waist and untied the ribbons
on her camisole. Then she shrugged them back, gripping the edges
together, and pulled her hair around to the front to move it out of
the way.

“Come on, Libby. Sit down.”

Keeping her back to him, she reached out a
hand and felt behind her for the crate, her face burning with
embarrassment. She lowered herself to sit, cursing fate for letting
him see her hindered movements in the first place. It made her feel
very vulnerable that he was behind her, and that she was blind to
whatever he was doing.

Tyler swallowed hard at the picture presented
to him. In the lantern light, Libby's hair gleamed where it swept
over her right shoulder. The exposed nape of her neck, and the four
inches of her back revealed below it, were smooth and pale. She
looked beautiful, like an artist's model posing for a painting. He
could see the back edge of her plain camisole and was amazed at how
arousing he found it to be. Callie's outright nudity didn't kindle
that kind of fire in him.

He sat down right behind her, so close that
his knees bracketed her hips. The warm scent of her hair and skin
reached him, and he felt a sudden, intense urge to wrap an arm
around her waist and bury his mouth against her neck. He could
imagine her pressed to the length of his torso, with her bottom
between his legs, nestled against his crotch. God, maybe this
wasn't such a good idea after all. But he'd insisted upon it, in
fact, he'd practically bullied her into it, and he had to see it
through.

Uncorking the liniment bottle, he set it on
the floor. Then he pushed her sleeves a bit farther down her arms.
The instant his fingertips touched her soft, bare skin, she gasped
and jumped, and he did, too.

“It's all right, Libby, I'm just getting your
sleeves out of the way.”

“Sorry,” she said.

She was as skittish as a wild mare, and if
she'd been able to see the images in his mind, he supposed she'd
have good reason to be.

He probed gently along the muscles that
stretched from her neck to the points of her shoulders. She
flinched but said nothing. “Pretty tender, huh?”

“Yes,” Libby admitted. “I didn't expect to be
so sore.”

“It's okay, we'll take care of it.” He poured
a little into his palm, rubbed his hands together, and began
massaging her muscles. He could feel her pulling away from him.
“Take a couple of deep breaths and try to relax,” he murmured.
“This stuff doesn't smell too good, but it works.”

Libby exhaled a long sigh, and let her head
tip forward. Tyler was right—the liniment had a strong, pungent
odor, and that helped diffuse some of the tension she felt at being
partially undressed in front of him. But it also generated heat
beneath his deft, gentle touch that was infinitely soothing. He
gripped her hips between his knees, as though anchoring her in
place, and rubbed her shoulders and arms with deep strokes.

As the spasms in her muscles began to
dwindle, he pressed a little harder with his thumbs, kneading and
loosening the tightness, bringing back the blood.

Utter relaxation spread through her limbs and
she realized dimly that she was listing backward, held upright by
his knees and hands. A pleasant lethargy washed over her, crowding
out her nervousness.

“Do you do this for your horses, too?” she
asked drowsily. Her eyelids were growing heavy.

“Sure, sometimes.”

“Lucky horses,” she said, nearly
hypnotized.

He laughed softly. “Like it?”

“Hmm.” She was content to admit that he'd
been right. His ministrations were much more effective than any
awkward maneuvering she could have managed on her own.

He continued the slow, firm strokes for
several minutes. When he finally stopped, she felt a rush of greedy
disappointment. Being touched was an uncommon experience for Libby,
one that she found she liked very much. She nearly forgot that
she'd been afraid to have his hands on her, afraid of the
sensations that he would awaken. Now she felt as limp as a rag
doll.

“That should take care of it,” Tyler said
near her ear. He said it quietly, feeling his blood pounding
through him, bringing heat to his groin and his heart. With the
feel of her warm, smooth skin under his hands, it was very easy for
him to imagine what the rest of her felt like. And if he didn't
stop now, his imagination would demand satisfaction.

It took all the self-control he had to keep
from turning her around and pulling her hand away from its death
grip on her blouse. He wanted to press kisses to that tender place
behind her ear, to take her soft coral lips with his own, to feel
the weight of her breast in his hand—

Puzzled by the strained sound of his voice,
Libby turned slightly on the crate to look at him. His eyes were
smoky blue, as though a fire smoldered behind them, and he searched
her face with an intensity she'd never seen before but recognized
easily.

The clean scent of him knifed through the
harsh odor of the liniment. He sat so
close . . . she watched, captivated, as he let
his gaze touch the shadow of her cleavage and her breasts, then
travel up her throat. When he lifted his eyes to consider her
mouth, the tip of his tongue emerged to moisten his lips. He leaned
a bit closer and took her chin in his hand to hold her as he had
the filly in the corral. She could feel his breath on her cheek and
eyelashes, warm, intimate. His lips grazed the corner of her mouth,
as if in preparation for the full taking of it—

Suddenly, from just outside the thin canvas
wall, she heard spurs clanking and Rory's voice.

“I ain't seen him. Maybe he's off ridin' by
himself—he does that sometimes.”

Tyler released Libby's jaw and pulled back,
like a man awakened from sleepwalking, only to find himself doing
something improbable. He picked up the bottle of Four-H and jammed
the cork back into its neck.

“That should help,” he repeated, feeling
damned awkward and aroused at the same time. He knew she'd see the
evidence as soon as he stood, but there was no other way out of the
wagon. His only option lay in moving fast. Grabbing his hat, he
muttered, “Good night, Libby,” and jumped down from the wagon
bed.

Libby heard him stalk away into the clear
night, then rummaged in her trunk for a nightgown. Tyler had been
about to kiss her, she thought. And she'd been about to let him.
Had she learned nothing? It had been all that shoulder-massaging
business that distracted her. It had felt so good that she nearly
forgot everything—time, place, and who she was with. That wouldn't
happen again, she vowed. It couldn't.

She had only to get to Miles City, then she'd
be on the train and away from here. Away from Montana, and Tyler
Hollins.

But when she turned down the lantern and
hurried into the snug pile of quilts that made her bed, the view of
the clear night sky made her pause. Even Libby had to admit that
there was a wild beauty to this land she'd not seen until she came
to the Lodestar. Through the arched opening of the wagon canvas,
she saw stars so bright she was certain their light was enough to
see by. Out here, time and schedules took on completely different
meanings. Sunrise and sundown were the timekeepers. In fact, she
hadn't seen anyone look at a watch all day. Except Tyler Hollins,
of course.

Libby rolled to her side and pulled the
quilts up around her chin. The sound of the nightwatch singing to
the cattle floated to her on the night breeze, punctuated now and
then by the howl of a coyote.

Tonight Chicago seemed as remote as the stars
overhead. And perhaps just a bit less bright in her memory.

T
he next
couple of days passed in a blur of Dutch ovens, campfires, water
hauling, and dish washing. Libby's sleep was interwoven with the
smells of cattle and wood smoke, and the sound of distant voices
singing to the herd. She couldn't say anyone had lied to her. Both
Joe and Tyler had told her the work would be hard, and they were
right. She rose around four every morning, and washed in cold
water. The skimpy privacy of the wagon made her think of the
orphanage. But the worst part was bathing from a bucket.

Montana water was rock-hard, and no matter
what she used, even her treasured bar of French milled vanilla
soap, Libby had trouble raising a lather. Dishes, her stockings and
underwear, herself—they were washed in water that all soap turned
milky white. She thought back to Callie's discussion of her copper
bathtub with a feeling akin to jealousy.

After her bath, she hurried into her clothes
in the cold dark, then climbed out of the wagon to stir up the fire
to cook breakfast. Strangely enough, it seemed that no matter what
time she emerged from her canvas bed chamber, she always found
Tyler awake already, sipping coffee poured from the pot that stayed
on the fire all night long. He was the last one asleep and the
first one up. God, did the man never rest? she wondered. She had to
admit, though, that it was very comforting to see him there.

Following breakfast, with the herd stretched
out behind her, she would drive the chuck wagon on to the next stop
that Tyler had selected. When the fire was going, he'd ride in, ask
for a basin—which she now filled with warm water—and he'd wash and
shave.

On the fourth hushed spring noon, she stood
at the worktable rolling out a pie crust when she heard him call
her.

“Libby.”

He spoke her name so quietly, it sounded as
if he were saying it to himself, experimenting with the feel of it.
She peeked around the corner of the chuck box and saw him standing
next to the wagon. He'd taken off his shirt and slung it over a low
bush. She couldn't help but admire the long, graceful plane of his
bare back as she looked at his profile, the way it curved out
slightly at his shoulders and in at his waist, then disappeared
into low-slung jeans.

He stood perfectly still, as though he were
chiseled from stone. The only movement she detected was his
wind-ruffled chestnut hair. Shaving soap covered the lower half of
his face, a slim contrast to his own coloring that had turned
suddenly pale. His razor dangled from his hand at his side, its
shiny blade gleaming in the noon sun. He wasn't looking at her.
Instead his gaze was fixed on some object not far from his feet

“Libby, where's Rory?” His tone was the same,
calm, steady, almost inaudible. But something about it frightened
her.

“He's off looking for firewood.”

“Get the shotgun, then.”

“Sh-shotgun?”

Still he didn't look at her. “Get the damned
shotgun and come around behind me from the left side. Be quiet, and
be quick.”

Galvanized, she grabbed the weapon from the
wagon. Despite all the target practice he'd made her endure, the
smooth, cool stock felt foreign in her hands. Following his terse
instructions, she moved as swiftly and as quietly as she could,
approaching him from the left.

“Stop right there. You're close enough.”

She paused about ten feet off to his side.
Her heart had begun to thud in her chest with rapid, heavy beats.
“What—”

“Hush,” he ordered, whispering now.
“
Don't talk
.”

She only heard it at first, a strange
whirring noise. But then she saw the object of Tyler's intense
scrutiny, no more than three feet from his boot. A thick snake,
coiled among some sun-heated rocks next to the wagon wheel, poised
to strike. The end of its tail rose slightly above its sinuous
length, sounding the warning rattle.

She swallowed a gasping shriek that crept up
her throat. The aim would be awkward, and she knew she was a
terrible shot. This wasn't like firing at tin cans and old whiskey
bottles on the fence back at the ranch. When she'd missed those,
all that had been injured were her pride and Tyler's patience. In
this desperate situation, she was positive that she would hit
Tyler's foot—there just wasn't enough space between him and the
reptile. Her heart pumped harder and her hands grew damp on the
stock and barrel. Oh, God, why couldn't someone more competent have
been here to help?

“But—”

“You're close enough not to miss. Goddamn it,
don't think, just shoot!”

The hissing grew ominously louder and Libby
knew instinctively that the huge creature had issued its final
warning. In another second it would strike, sinking its fangs deep
into Tyler's leg.

With that image in her mind, her fear fell
away and a kind of angry, protective reflex came over her. She
raised the shotgun, took the best aim she could, and squeezed the
trigger. The blast of fire kicked the stock back into her shoulder,
and vented a puff of sulfurous blue smoke that momentarily clouded
her view.

The silence that followed was so complete,
not even the grass rustled in the low wind. She looked frantically
back and forth between Tyler and where she'd last seen the
rattlesnake. She couldn't tell if she'd hit it, or Tyler, or if
he'd been bitten. It happened in the blink of an eye, but she felt
as though time and events were moving as slowly as in a dream. All
the details of her surroundings stood out—the gray-white canvas,
the glint of Tyler's razor through the smoke, the bandanna sticking
out of his back pocket