Winter Fire (15 page)

Case looked at the worn, hard-used shovel that was tied behind her saddle.

“Well, it beats digging graves,” he said.

He dismounted and pulled the shotgun sling over his head. Then he tied the reins around Cricket's neck, took the rifle out of its sheath, and turned toward Sarah.

“After you,” he invited.

“Planning on starting a war?” she asked, dismounting.

“I'd hate to disappoint any Culpepper who came around looking for a ration of lead.”

His tone was dry but there was nothing amusing about the look in his eyes. He had looked like that when he came back to the cabin after the raiders attacked.

Without a word Sarah hobbled Shaker, grabbed her own shotgun and shovel, and set off toward the ruins at a brisk pace. As she took each step, she tried not to remember how frightening it had been to wait with Conner inside the cabin and not know if Case was alive, dead, or dying alone in the cold darkness.

Twice she had headed for the door. The first time, Con
ner had stopped her simply by putting his hand on her arm. The second time he had been forced to wrestle her to the floor and sit on her to keep her inside the cabin.

Her brother might have found the minutes that followed entertaining, but she still felt both furious and chilled when she thought of Case lying helpless in the dark, perhaps dying when she could have saved his life.

Shovel and shotgun over her shoulder, she scrambled up the slope. Thanks to Ute, her moccasins were new. Unfortunately, the sharp rocks would soon wear through the deer hide.

Just before she went up the last, steep slope of the rubble mound that led to the ruins, she stopped to catch her breath.

“Give me the shovel,” Case said.

“You shouldn't be carrying—” she began as she turned toward him.

Her protest ended. He wasn't winded at all.

She handed over the heavy shovel, keeping only the shotgun for herself.

Without the shovel, the rest of the scramble to the ruins was a lot easier for her. If the long-handled shovel or his recently wounded leg bothered Case, it didn't show in his speed. He was right behind her when she came up over the lip of the debris slope and onto the flat area where the ruins were.

With speculative gray eyes, she looked over the ragged walls and piles of fallen stone.

“Where do you want me to dig?” he asked.

“First let's just look around. We might get lucky.”

“Mounds of silver shining in the sun?”

“More like rotten hide bags of bullion and coins tarnished by a few centuries of neglect,” she retorted.

She turned on her heel and walked toward the first ragged room.

“Stay away from the walls,” he said.

“I've done this before.”

“Just stay clear of the walls. Looks like a sneeze would bring them down.”

Her mouth flattened, but the memory of how easy it had been for her younger brother to restrain her was still vivid.

Irritating, bullying creatures
, she thought.
Why can't they just let a woman get on with her work? Why do they have to keep interfering?

Pointedly she kept well away from the walls while she looked into and around each ruined room.

Once Case was certain that Sarah was going to be sensible about exploring the ruins, he divided his attention between watching her and watching for raiders.

Watching her was much more interesting. She had a female way of moving that made him think of how good her breasts had felt against his leg when she changed his bandage. The thought of enjoying that sensation again, without his wound and her clothes to distract him, had a predictable effect on the fit of his pants.

Damn
, he thought.
I better keep her mad at me. It's easy enough to do. She's so damned independent
.

But what he really wanted to do was kiss her curving, female body until she melted and ran like honey on his tongue.

Think about something else
, he told himself.

It was hard, even when she was out of sight.

By the time Sarah scrambled out from behind the last wall of the ruins, her jacket was unbuttoned, her hat was pushed back on her head, and her doeskin shirt was unlaced to let air run over her hot skin.

Beneath the loose laces, Case was sure he could see the velvet shadow between her breasts. He wanted nothing more than to bury his face in that sweet, warm flesh.

“Well?” he asked roughly.

“No silver.”

“I figured that out. Any sign that someone has been here since the Indians left?”

“There are a few places that show recent fires,” she said. “But Ute and Conner hunt game in this canyon, and Hal surely searched here…”

She shrugged as her voice faded.

“Show me where to dig,” Case said.

“You shouldn't do that. Your leg is hardly healed.”

“My leg stood up just fine to the last shovel work I did,” he said evenly.

She grimaced. She had lost that argument, too. He had taken his turn burying raiders right along with Ute and Conner.

“Fine,” she said tightly. “Dig down to China for all I care.”

“I doubt the padres hid the silver that deep. They believed they would find hell long before they found new heathens to save.”

A smile tugged at her mouth. Determined not to let him see it, she turned away.

“I'll show you where to dig,” she muttered.

The digging went more slowly than the original search had. The ground was either packed hard or heaped up with rubble from the walls, or both.

Soon Case discarded his hat and jacket. Then he unbuttoned his black wool shirt to the waist, started to pull out the tails, and stopped. He looked toward Sarah.

“Go ahead,” she said. “I won't faint.”

What she didn't say was that she had seen him without anything at all, even a bandage. She didn't have to say it.

The knowledge quivered in the air between them like a bell recently struck.

He took off his shirt, hung it over a dead piñon branch, and picked up the shovel again. He wore nothing but a wedge of curly black hair that narrowed as it approached his belt buckle.

Sarah knew what was beneath that, too.

Her breath shortened and she looked hastily away. Her
stomach gave an odd little lurch as a tingling sensation rippled through her body.

What's wrong with me?
she thought frantically.
It's not like I'm some wide-eyed girl to get all flustered at the sight of a man's bare chest
.

But widow or not, she was unsettled by his half-naked body. She was also too fascinated to look away for long.

He filled her eyes.

His deceptively easy movements were a combination of strength and grace that reminded her of an eagle circling overhead, utterly at home within his strength in ways that she could only envy.

Someday Conner will be like that
, she thought.
Strong, quick, supple
.

Fully grown
.

Fully male
.

The thought brought both pain and pleasure to her. Pain because Conner was growing up too quickly. Pleasure because he was growing up so well.

But no man can be as beautiful as Case
, she thought.
Not to me. Case is…special
.

That thought was even more unsettling to her than the idea of her younger brother teetering on the brink of manhood.

“Nothing here but more rubble,” Case said.

“Try over there.”

The husky note in her voice brought his head up sharply. She was looking off down the canyon, checking on the horses.

“Don't worry,” he said. “Cricket won't wander even though he isn't hobbled.”

She nodded without looking back toward him. Then she raised her hot cheeks to the breeze. She wasn't aware that the motion lifted her breasts against her shirt.

Case stared at the gentle, unmistakably female curves pressed against the clinging doeskin. His blood surged and
his body leaped with an urgency that he was becoming used to.

That didn't mean he liked it. He didn't.

If he had felt that way about women in general, it would have been one thing.

But only Sarah had this instant effect on his body.

With a soundless curse, he walked fifteen feet along the wall and began digging again.

More rubble.

He kept digging, grateful for the physical work. It helped to take the edge off his prowling, relentless sexual hunger for the young widow who watched him with shadowed, mist-gray eyes.

The blade of the shovel hit something that was neither stone nor dirt. Ignoring the ache in his thigh, he knelt and began pulling away rectangular blocks of rubble that were about the size of adobe bricks. Shards of pottery appeared. He looked at each one, then set it aside.

“What is it?” Sarah asked eagerly.

“Don't know yet.”

She hurried over and stood near him as he dug.

“Stay back,” he said. “I don't want you near the wall.”

“You're near it.”

“That's different.”

She didn't bother to argue with such an illogical creature. She simply stayed where she was and watched.

Yet instead of keeping her eyes on where he was digging, she was distracted by the flex and play of his body as he worked over the stubborn rubble. Like swift water flowing over boulders, he had both power and elegance. The sleek texture of his skin had an allure that made her palms itch to smooth down his back.

Her hand was halfway to his shoulder when she realized what she was doing. She snatched back her fingers as though they had been burned.

What am I thinking of?
she asked herself.
I've never wanted to pet a man in my life
.

Except Case.

She didn't know why he drew her so strongly. She knew only that he did. There was something deep inside him that called to her as surely as the flight of a wild hawk.

Just as she called to him in turn, no matter how he tried to ignore it.

I hate wanting you. It means not as much of me died as I'd hoped
.

She couldn't help wondering if the ability to love was one of the things that the war hadn't quite been able to kill in him.

The thought was like the man himself—unnerving and alluring at the same time.

Pushing away more rubble, Case reached carefully into the shoulder-deep hole.

“Got it,” he said triumphantly.

“Silver?”

He didn't answer.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Keep your shirt on.”

“Why? You didn't.”

His head snapped up. He saw immediately that she wasn't looking at his hands. Instead, she was looking at him the way a kid looked at a half-unwrapped Christmas present.

At that instant, he wanted nothing more than to do a little unwrapping himself.

Don't be more stupid than God made you
, he told himself savagely.
You seduce her and next thing you know she'll be building dreams of hearth and home and kids around you
.

Kids
.

A chill rippled through Case, freezing him.

Sarah had been hard used by life as it was. He didn't
want to hurt her any more. But if he gave in to the raw hunger coursing through him, sooner or later he would hurt her as surely as the sun rose in the east.

He simply didn't have what she needed. All he had was a hunger that was dangerous to both of them.

Maybe she's right
, he thought.
Maybe I should take half of the silver and run
.

Maybe I should just run, period
.

Yet even before the idea was fully formed, he rejected it with a finality that went all the way to his soul.

It was bad enough to have to keep his hands in his pockets around the most desirable female he had ever met.

Giving up the land, too, was unthinkable.

“Watch it!” Sarah said.

Hoping to stop one side of the hole from collapsing, she threw herself on her knees and made a wall of her hands. In the process, she thumped solidly into Case. He took her sudden weight without giving way an inch.

Some of the hole collapsed despite her efforts.

“Sorry,” she said. “I thought you were going to be buried up to your armpits.”

“Instead, we're both in up to our elbows,” he said dryly.

She looked down at her forearms, which had vanished into the loose rubble. So had his. For some reason the sight struck her as so ridiculous that she laughed out loud.

The unexpected sound heightened his senses almost painfully, as though he had just seen a particularly beautiful dawn.

He turned toward Sarah, who was still leaning against him to keep from tumbling headfirst into the hole he had been digging. Only a few inches away from him, silver-gray eyes looked back at him, gleaming with amusement over life in general and the present situation in particular.

How can she still laugh?
he asked silently.
She saw her family die. Her husband died. She's poor as a wooden
plate. Raiders are all around, just waiting to get their hands on her
.

And she laughs!

“Are you all right?” she asked, breathless from laughter.

“Of course I am.”

“For a moment you looked like you were in pain.”

“For a moment you acted like you were crazy,” he retorted. “Laughing like a song dog.”

“We look silly buried up to our elbows like kids in a sandbox.”

He couldn't bear the dancing humor in her eyes. He glanced down at her mouth.

Her lips were parted with the laughter that still quivered through her.

The next thing Case knew he was so close to Sarah that he could feel the warmth of her breath on his lips.

I shouldn't do this
, he thought.

But he did it anyway.

Her laughter died when she felt the sudden heat of his breath against her lips. Then his mouth was over hers, enveloping her in a kiss. Instinctively she stiffened, expecting to be overwhelmed by his much greater strength.