“I don’t know,” said Trace, “but we can’t be too careful. I saw no sign of anyone, but…”
“We’re trapped up here!” Mae realized, in genuine terror at the thought.
“No, we’re not,” he replied. “There are a dozen ways down here, and a couple of ways up, too. See those crags?” He pointed up to where ragged outcroppings ascended from rocky steps to what seemed to be another level. “There’s a cave up there. Tomorrow I’ll figure out which way White Eagle went.”
“You can’t mean to follow them.” Mae was incredulous.
“You got a better idea? I have to get back to the Lazy C before they drive those horses to market, and I can’t until you’re safe, Mae. Once Comstock disposes of that herd, I’ve got no way to prove he’s rustling.” He led both of their horses and the burro behind the rocks, and began to unsaddle and stake Duchess.
Mae dismounted. “You’re not going to hobble them?” she asked.
“No,” he answered. “If we need to make a fast getaway, we don’t want to be fumbling with hobbles, and I can’t leave them bridles-down. We don’t want to have to go looking if we need them in a hurry.”
“Take me back,” Mae pleaded, laying a hand on his rock-hard arm despite her resolve to avoid physical contact. His taut, cordlike muscles rippled beneath her fingers, and her breath caught in a soft gasp she hoped he didn’t hear.
“Y-you just said it yourself—there’s no time for all this,” she said after a moment. “Trace, I have to go back and get that deed. I can get you onto the Lazy C. Just take me back. I can help you get all the proof you need, and also the deed to Foxtail. I have to. You’re wasting time dragging me all over the place. If we work together—”
“No, I told you! I’m not going to put you through something like that. There’ll be gunplay before this is done. Comstock isn’t one to give up anything without a fight. Are you trying to get me killed? If I have to worry about you getting in the way, that’s exactly what’s going to happen, guaranteed.” He studied her for a moment. Those eyes—those quicksilver eyes bored into her so steadily that she couldn’t meet them.
“Is there some other reason you want to go back?” he asked. “Makes no sense that you keep running from there and now you want to go back.”
“Of course not,” she protested, though she flushed. “I’m trying to help you!”
“You haven’t told me everything,” Trace asserted.
“That much I know for certain. What are you holding out?”
She was keeping the whole truth from Trace, to be honest, but this was definitely not the time to satisfy his curiosity. Actually, she was hoping she’d never have to tell. Not to this volatile man of honor.
After fighting waves of heat all day long, she suddenly shivered with a chill. She rubbed her arms briskly, hoping he’d forget his question.
“You cold?” He frowned, stripping a bedroll and blankets from the burro.
“Where are the dwellings?” she murmured, scanning the vacant mesa. “Once I get inside—”
“There are none,” he interrupted. “They take their dwellings apart and pack them on their backs when they migrate. They haven’t been gone long—two or maybe three days. We will catch up.”
“How do you know that?” she wondered.
“Their tracks are still fresh. We’re lucky we didn’t get snow down here, like they probably did up in the mountains. Late spring squalls can be ripsnorters.” He shrugged. “We’ll know where they went soon enough.”
“We’re wasting time chasing these Indians,” Mae cried, fighting dizziness. “You won’t take the time to see me south to the railroad, but you’ve got plenty of time to waste tracking this…this White Eagle? Why didn’t you let me go? I was nearly away. Why did you have to stop me?”
“You were riding my horse, or have you forgotten that?”
“Oh!” she said in disgust. “You and that animal! He’s only a horse. One would think that I kidnapped
your child, your flesh and blood. I was riding for my life, for my hon—never mind. It doesn’t matter.”
“ ‘Only a horse’? All this from a horse breeder’s granddaughter,” Trace teased. “I’d be willing to bet my six-shooter your grandpappy would understand my upset at having Diablo stolen.”
Mae heaved a depressed sigh. “My granddad and you could certainly spend hours talking horses.”
“I wish you could have been there to see what I went through to get him,” Trace mused. “I wish you could have seen how I stalked him for two years, was humiliated by him time and time again until I finally separated him from his herd and tricked him into a blind canyon, one on one. Yeah, he’s like my flesh and blood all right. Our blood mingled on that day I broke him, so you might say we’ve been blood brothers ever since.”
Mae fought the shudder of another chill, but she barely noticed, so caught up was she in his eyes. He seemed so
alive
as he spoke of Diablo. She wondered if they would flash with the same passion because of her.
“Why didn’t you take one of Comstock’s damn horses?” Trace asked.
“I told you why,” Mae sobbed. “I couldn’t bear to see him mistreated.” She couldn’t bring herself to tell him how cruelly Jared Comstock had abused Diablo, though she knew he had a pretty good idea. “And because…”
“Because what?” he prompted, his passion palpable, the cords in his neck standing out in bold relief.
“Because we’re alike,” she murmured. “We both needed our freedom.”
That tied his tongue, she thought. For a longer
moment he stood staring down at her, his eyes dark, gleaming pinpoints beneath the ledge of his sunbleached brows. He was so close. His body heat warmed her, riding the sexual stream that linked them. It was beyond bearing. She couldn’t trust herself to his closeness, yet she was helpless, rooted to the spot. If he hadn’t broken the spell, she would have fallen into his arms.
“Follow me,” he said hoarsely. Slinging a canteen and blanket rolls over his shoulder, he led her toward the outcropping of overhanging rocks he’d pointed out.
“You can’t mean to go way up there?” she cried, digging in her heels. She wasn’t sure she could make the climb.
“We can’t stay down here. There’s no shelter.”
“You’re serious.”
“Go ahead of me. Feel your way. I’ll be right behind you. You won’t fall. The rock is cut out like steps. The Indians did that so that they could get to the cave and post a lookout easier.”
Mae balked again, incredulous. “You expect me to sleep in a…a cave up there? With you?”
“Yes,” he replied, nudging her forward. “We can’t light a fire down here and risk the chance of being spotted. That loco husband of yours is fool enough to track you no matter what time of day, so who knows where he’s at?”
She snapped, “I told you not to call him my husband.”
Trace ignored that. “It’s only fair to warn you that White Eagle and his band make it a practice of sharing this mesa with animals. They pay for the privilege by
offering the furry devils a few morsels now and then. If they come looking and don’t find anything else…”
“All right, all right, you’ve made your point,” Mae conceded.
The upper level rose to a height of fifty feet above the mesa floor, but as Trace promised it was a fairly easy climb, even in the dark. Mae only slipped once, but quick hands shot out and grabbed her almost before she lost her balance and steadied her against him for longer than she thought necessary. There was great strength in him, but no roughness. No man had ever held her from behind in that way, and her heart leapt with the strange sensations such an intimacy set loose. His hot breath on her neck sent waves of icy fire coursing through her veins and prickled her scalp with gooseflesh. These things alone threatened her balance more than any slippery, frost-glazed stair of rock.
Once she stood on solid ground at the top, he let her go and strode to the cave where he disappeared into the blackness within. It was only for a moment to drop the blankets, but her heart hammered in her breast, thundered in her ears until he appeared again.
“You’re shivering. Go in out of the wind,” he commanded. Until that moment, she wasn’t even aware that the wind had risen.
“It’s dark in there,” she lamented, taking a cautious step toward the entrance.
Trace laughed. It was a deep, throaty, baritone rumble that resonated through her entire body. “It’s a cave,” he said. “Caves are supposed to be dark.”
“Wh-where are you going?” she murmured, feeling weak and scared.
“Not far, to gather some scrub for our beds—unless you want to sleep on hard red rock?”
Mae approached the mouth of the cave with caution. She looked up. The sky was clear, and the stars winked down innocently, shedding more light than she would have thought possible. How was it that she’d never noticed such things in Kentucky? What was it about the West that revealed Mother Nature’s true intent? The vastness, perhaps, uncluttered by man’s mundane distractions. Or perhaps it was something infinitely more: was she seeing it all through this man’s unjaded eyes?
The entrance of the cave loomed before her, a different, more ominous shade of black than the velvety heavens overhead. But the sound of Trace rustling in the brush and snapping twigs from nearby was a comfort; he had kept his word and not gone far in his pursuit of scrub. Squaring her shoulders, she stepped inside. Though damp, it was slightly warmer out of the wind, and she’d almost begun to relax when a strange whirring stopped her in her tracks. It was coming from deep within the cavern. She had never heard the like: a buzzing, clacking whoosh. It grew louder, amplified by the cave. Mae took a step back, and then another as the wind picked up.
Wind, inside the cave? It couldn’t be, but it was. No, not wind, a sudden rush of stagnant air displaced by the flapping of wings—hundreds of wings,
thousands
of wings! And then she saw them: a swarm of bats soaring past, over, and around her. Their wings grazed her hair, her face, her body in their haste to flee the cave.
Some of them struck her and dropped at her feet, stunned, causing her to stumble and slide on the damp
rocks. Mae screamed. Fending them off with her arms raised to protect her face, she reeled out on the rocky ledge, surrounded by a veritable cloud of the flying creatures. They carried her along as they soared over the edge of the precipice in a flapping, shrieking stream, a frenzied river toward the plateau. Blood trickled into her eye from a wound on her forehead where one of the bats had grazed her with his talons.
She had no sense of direction, only that she must escape her attackers. The last sound she heard before she fell over the edge of the cliff was Trace shouting her name.
T
race
dropped the dead scrub in his arms and dove through the swarm of bats toward Mae. Her name spilled from his throat in a voice he scarcely recognized, mingling with her bloodcurdling scream, and in that one terrible, heart-stopping instant he realized what it would mean to lose her. His mind refused to accept such a possibility.
He threw himself down on the brink of the overhang and with frantic eyes scanned the darkness below. That he still heard her screams, and they were close, gave him hope, but it wasn’t until the last of the bats funneled out of the cave and past him that he saw her. She was clinging to a clump of roots and branches protruding from a crevice in the rock face.
“Mae! Listen to me,” he called, reaching down. She was close enough—just barely—but he didn’t want to frighten her with any sudden move. It was clear that she was hysterical and in pain. “Don’t be afraid,” he added. “I’m going to grip your arm. Once I’ve got you, let go of the branch and hang on to me with both hands. I’ll pull you up. I won’t let you fall.”
“I can’t!” she shrilled. “My shoulder…Owwww!”
“Mae, don’t think about the pain. You can
do
this. No! Look at me! Stay as still as you can. Those roots and branches are dead. If you put a strain on them, they’ll pull loose from the rock. Keep looking at me and do exactly as I say.”
Leaning over as far as he dared, Trace extended his arm downward and grasped her wrist. A soft cry escaped her throat as his fingers tightened in a deathlike grip, but she didn’t let go of the branch.
“I’ve got you!” he crowed. “I’ve got you, Mae. You’re safe.” She was far from it, but he had to make her believe, make her trust that enough to help him save her from a fall that would mean certain death. “Let go of the branch and grab my arm, and I can pull you up.”
“I…I’m afraid,” she whimpered.
“Damn it, you promised to do as I say. Now let that go.”
It was a long moment, but she finally responded to his command. With a desperate groan she let go of the branch and grabbed frantically on to his forearm. Once more, a pule came from her lips, and she stared up at him with terrified eyes.
“Mae, you’ve done the hard part. The rest is easy, but you’ve got to help me.”
“I’m going to fall!” she wailed, glancing down. “My shoulder…I can’t hold on.”
“You can! Don’t look down! Look up at me. That’s it. Now, Mae, there’s a small ledge a hair to your right, enough for you to get your foot on. Reach out to your right with your foot.”
She nodded and then tried to follow instructions. If
the situation hadn’t been so desperate, he might have laughed.
“Your other right, you silly goose.” He gave her a reassuring smile, one he didn’t feel. “Come on, woman. Reach.”
She half turned as she tried to seek the small ledge with her booted foot. Trace gritted his teeth. A second swing of her leg and she had it, but rocks and dirt dislodged, causing her to panic again.
“It’s no use. It’s no use!” she sobbed.
He thundered, “Do as I say!”
She gave a desperate grunt, and Mae’s bad arm jerked as her fisted fingers crawled around his arm. Finally, groping the rock with the toe of her boot, she found the solid part of the tiny shelf.
“Good girl. Now get the other foot on it, and then I can get a better grip on you.”
Her feet almost slipped off, but her back arched like a scared cat’s and she finally had a solid toehold. Seconds later, he hauled her up and over the edge, into his arms.
Trace rolled with her away from the edge. She clung to him fiercely. For a long moment he stared into her misty doe eyes to reassure himself that she was really there holding him, but that wasn’t enough; he needed more proof. He tangled his hand in her hair and took her lips with a hungry, bruising mouth. He swallowed the moan in her throat. It resonated through his body, covering him with gooseflesh, setting his loins afire.
It was a brief kiss, although volatile, a reaffirmation they were alive. Her heart was hammering against his chest. He sat and pulled her onto his lap. Brushing back
a lock of hair, he noticed the scrape on her brow and hugged her again. “You hesitated a couple times. That could be bad news in these parts. You’ve got to learn to trust me, Mae.”
“It wasn’t you!” she choked out in a sob. “It was me. I was afraid I would get you killed.”
He finally laughed. “And it didn’t bother you that you might die instead?”
The sane part of him wanted to keep her at arm’s length, to immediately take her to the railroad and see her safely on a train for Kentucky. Let that be the end of it. There was no place in his life for such a complication as she presented. She didn’t belong in the West; she came from a gentler life. The West had a way of making men hard and of aging women before their time. The West was too hot, too cold, and too damn dry out here most of the time; it took impossible adaptations to survive.
He’d survived, of course. But he was a renegade rider, and his daily work meant he could expect to be drygulched, faced off in a gunfight, back-shot, and murdered. Someday he wanted to find a place where he could set down roots, but that was still a vague dream, as much as Mae made him want more. Such a life as his was not for Mae. He had nothing to offer her. Mae needed to be back home in Kentucky as soon as possible. That part of him long dead—Trevor Guilliard—had suddenly awoken with an ache, but while he wanted this woman, wanted a life with her, there were too many problems reminding him that his dreams were farfetched. He didn’t even know if she felt the same way. And there was a husband to deal with.
Dismissing his silly hunger for what could never be, he stood, knees shaking, as he gathered Mae up and carried her back toward the cave. For an instant she seemed captivated by his eyes and was too shaken to speak, but when she realized where he was taking her, she stiffened and began thrashing in his arms.
“No! Oh, no! You’re not taking me back in there!” Her voice was shrill. “There were millions of those dreadful things. Put me down. They’ll be back!”
“Mae, those critters are halfway to Mexico by now. They’re wearing sombreros, I promise you. We scared them just as much as they scared us. They’re not coming back as long as we’re camped out inside here. Besides, I’m going to light a fire. Even if they did return, that’d keep them away.” He set her down on one of the blankets. “I’m going to get the fire started. Don’t you move a muscle, hear? I don’t care what else crawls out of this cave, you stay put!”
He gathered more brush, and a rock to heat; then he built a fire close to the entrance. Mae flatly refused to go farther in. Trace couldn’t blame her, and he certainly didn’t want a repeat of her tumbling off the cliff—he wouldn’t admit it to her, but there was no telling what else they might be sharing that cave with.
Trace didn’t realize the extent of Mae’s injuries until he saw her in the firelight. Her cheek and forehead were scratched. One cut, at her hairline, was deep and matted with blood. Her clothes were torn, her sleeves having seen the worst of things. Fortunately, there were no significant wounds on her arms. Her hands were another matter. Several cuts on her palms and fingers were fairly deep and still oozing. And there was no doubt that she’d
done damage to her wounded shoulder. She’d been favoring that arm.
He decided to start with the wound on her brow. “Take a swig,” he said, offering her his canteen. “I’ve got to go down for our packs. You need doctoring. When I get back I will fix you up and then set about making us some beans and biscuits.”
“I’m not hungry,” she replied.
“You stay by the fire and I’ll be right back.” When she didn’t respond, he said her name. She glanced up, unshed tears in her eyes, and he knelt before her, taking her hand. “I know all this has been very rough on you—a nightmare, I guess. But I promise you, Mae. Believe me: I
will
see you get back to Kentucky.”
Not looking up, she gave a brief nod. That was all.
Trace hesitated, worried about her silence. He’d seen people after a shock; many got cold and distant, and you had to take special care of them. Turning on his heel, he hurried down the rocky steps, coming back with his arms full. Dropping the packs near the fire, he rummaged around until he found his pot. He poured some water into it from his canteen, setting it on the flames. Mae needed something hot to warm her insides, and he also needed water to cleanse her wounds.
When it heated enough, he poured a small amount onto a kerchief and then knelt beside her, gently bathing her face. She accepted his ablutions without comment. That worried him. Her cheeks were bright crimson. But was that from her closeness to the fire, from the harrowing experience, or from something else? He didn’t dare speculate, not when his mind was distracted by that petal-soft skin in his hands. Rose petals.
That’s what her flesh reminded him of: velvety smooth rose petals. Roses like his mama grew.
Poor Mae. She wasn’t cut out for the harshness of this land. He could envision her in soft gowns, servants attending her. She was too fine, too gentle for the West. He needed to get her home where she belonged. She’d been through too much already.
He wet the neckerchief again and cleaned the wounds on her hands. Only one was troublesome, between her thumb and forefinger, and she winced when he touched it. He apologized just to break the silence. “I’m sorry. This one is deep, and it’s in a bad place for healing. I have to get it clean to stop infection.”
Her haunted eyes fixed on his hands, and at last she spoke. “You have a gentle touch for someone with such big hands. Like a doctor.”
He smiled, pleased. “It’s a common talent among horse men. If you’re not born with it, you sure acquire it quick. I’ll bet your granddad’s just as good.”
A faraway look came into her eyes. Her lips parted, as if she were about to speak; then they closed again and she stared absently into the fire.
“Mae, I’ve got to look at your shoulder,” he informed her. “I’ve got to see how much damage you’ve done to it. Take off that jacket and let me see to the wound. Make sure it’s held. You look flushed. I am hoping it’s not inflamed.”
Mae did as bidden, unbuttoned her jacket, the flannel shirt. He had to help her slide them both off, for she winced when she tried to lift that arm. She loosened the top of her camisole and tugged the wide strap off her
shoulder. Trace frowned. She hadn’t opened the wound, but it was swollen, red, and angry-looking.
“It needs another poultice to bring the swelling down,” he said. Pouring warm water from the coffeepot over his bandana, he bathed the wound. “My herbs are in my pack.”
Working quickly, he mixed ground herbs to pack into the wound, which would be held in place by his kerchief. He reached out to press the poultice to the shoulder, and the warmth of her opalescent skin under his fingers excited him. Glancing down, he saw the water from where he’d bathed the wound had wet the front of her camisole. The material was nearly transparent. Swallowing hard, he stared at the clearly revealed dark nipple.
The hand holding the poultice dropped, and Trace tried to remind himself he was only caring for her; he had no right to look at Mae in this manner. Tried and failed. Her nipples strained against the cloth with her every breath. Even scuffed up, tired, and shaken, Mae was still a beautiful woman. He had to get her back to Kentucky where she belonged. She didn’t belong out here, no matter how he might want her.
Though he attempted to swallow his desire, it only increased. Waves of warmth surged through his loins. Over and over he told himself the hundred reasons to keep his emotional distance from this woman, not the least of which was that his life was too damn empty now. When she went back to Kentucky…Well, he didn’t want to contemplate the bleakness of a future without her. It would destroy him.
He started to turn away, but Mae reached out,
catching his face with her hand, guiding it around until their eyes met. He shook his head.
“Trace, don’t turn from me. Please.”
His whole body clenched as he fought both the emotional and physical pain of wanting her. Touching her as a man who wanted a woman would be wrong. Worse, it would destroy him.
She leaned close and brushed her lips against his. They were soft, moving against his mouth, warm, seeking. “Please,” she whispered, and then bestowed upon him another kiss.
He was undone by her plea. Laying her back against the bedroll, he kissed her, tasting her deeply. How sweet she was, like honey. Her heady wild clover scent intoxicated him. She was another man’s wife, but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but them. Here. Now. She would go back to Kentucky and his life would once again be empty, but for this small space of time it would be filled with magic.
Every fiber of his body was suddenly obsessed with the notion of showing Mae how a man should make love to a woman, how a man should revere and pleasure her above and beyond himself. He couldn’t imagine Jared Comstock had done as much. He opened the buttons on her camisole and spread it wide, moving with caution and gentleness since at any moment he fully expected to have his face slapped. But she didn’t slap his face. Her breath caught in a strangled gasp as his lips grazed her throat, the swell of her breast, and then closed around the puckered rim of her tawny nipple.
A raw, guttural moan escaped him as that tiny bud hardened against his tongue. The sound mingled with
something similar coming from deep inside her, as she fisted her hands in his hair and held him there, arching her body against him. Caught up in the eagerness of her response, he teased first one and then the other nipple with his tongue, tugged with his lips, and nipped lightly with his teeth. She shuddered with pleasure.
Trace rolled onto his hip, tugged off his boots, and stripped naked. Mae’s gaze raked his naked body. Another gasp escaped her parted lips, and those dark eyes settled on his engorged sex. He almost laughed. It seemed almost as though she had never seen a naked, fully aroused male. How embarrassing for her husband.
Dropping down beside her, he helped unfasten her jeans. His eyes feasted upon her silky, translucent skin, the gentle curves of her body, and mound of red-gold hair curling between her thighs.