The Touch of Fire

by Linda Howard

  “I can’t either. When the war started, I found out I was much better at something else.”

  “What was that?”

  “Fighting,” he said simply. “I was a damn good soldier.”

  Yes, he would be. “You said you were in the cavalry?”

  “In the First Virginia, with Jeb Stuart, for a while. Until ’63.”

  “What happened then?”

  “I joined the Rangers.”

  The word puzzled her for a moment, for the only context she could put it in was the Texas Rangers, and of course that wouldn’t be right. She had heard the word “rangers” bandied about during the war, but it had been over for six years and she couldn’t bring the memory into focus. “What rangers?”

  “Mosby’s Rangers.”

  Shock reverberated through her. Mosby! His reputation had been legendary, and the gossip about him had been frightening. Even as absorbed as she had been in medical school, she had heard about Mosby and his devil rangers. They hadn’t fought like normal soldiers; they had been masters at deceit, at hit-and-run fighting that had made it almost impossible to capture them. She hadn’t been able to picture Rafe as a staid lawyer, but it was so terribly easy to see him as a guerrilla fighter.

  “What did you do after the war?”

  He shrugged. “Drifted. My father and brother had both died during the war, and I didn’t have any other family.” He shut out the surge of bitterness and concentrated instead on the erotic thrill of Annie’s hand as he brushed her fingertips back and forth over his nipples in lazy caresses. His nipples were so tight and throbbing that he could barely stand it. She had never touched him intimately, and he closed his eyes as he imagined her hand closing around his shaft. God! He’d probably go mad with frustration.

  “If you could, would you go back?”

  He thought about it. Back East it was just too civilized, and he’d lived too long observing no rules except his own, grown too used to the vast expanses around him. He had reverted to the wild, and had no desire to be tamed again. “No,” he finally said. “There’s nothing for me there. What about you? Do you miss the big cities?”

  “Not exactly. I miss the convenience of a regular town, but being able to practice medicine is really what’s important to me, and I couldn’t do it back East.”

  The temptation was killing him. He said, “There’s something else you couldn’t do back East.”

  She looked intrigued. “Oh? What?”

  “This.” He moved her hand under the blanket and folded her fingers around his manhood. A wild electricity shot through him, the pang so strong that he drew in his breath with a sharp hiss and his entire body tensed.

  Annie had gone very still. He could barely feel her breathing.

  She was both shocked and enthralled. The thick length surged in her hand; to her delight, she could feel it actually increasing in size. After she got over her shock, she realized that it felt marvelous, so hot and strong and pulsing with independent life, so hard under the smooth skin. She explored the thick bulbous tip, then trailed her fingers downward to his loose, heavy testicles. She cupped them, enjoying the soft, cool feel of them in her palm. They tightened almost immediately, drawing up toward his body. Her fascination made her forget that she should be shocked.

  Rafe arched on the blanket, his blood pounding through his veins. He could barely think. He should have resisted temptation, he should have known that the hot thrill of her touch would be unbearable on his genitals. His vision clouded with a dark mist as his climax surged ever closer to eruption. With a harsh sound he jerked away from her. “Stop!”

  The violence of his desire caught her by surprise, then the knowledge of her own feminine power flooded through her. She looked up at him, a very female smile touching her lips. She smoothed her hands up his torso, and he quivered like a stallion. “Make love to me,” she invited in a soft murmur, and that was all the invitation he needed. He shot up from the blankets and was mounting her all in one motion. Annie lifted her hips for his possessive inward thrust, accepting him with a wince at the discomfort but a great inner joy at the pleasure she knew she was giving him. He pumped deep inside her and shuddered as his seed emptied with a great rush that left him lying limply atop her.

  Desperately he sucked air into his heaving lungs. God, it had to ease up soon or he was going to kill himself making love to her. He’d thought that the intensity of it would fade to manageable levels, but so far it hadn’t. Every time the desire had been just as urgent, riding him hard.

  The danger was that he would let his lust for her cloud his thinking. Hell, he’d already done that. He should have returned her to Silver Mesa and gotten as far away from the place as he could, but instead he had deliberately delayed until they were snowed in. He’d planned her seduction well, but in the feeding of his sexual hunger he had himself been seduced. He couldn’t think beyond the next few days, secluded with her in this warm, dark cabin, greedily taking all of her special heat for himself.

  The days passed in a sensual blur. Sometimes it seemed to Annie that they spent more time naked than clothed; even during the day they were often entwined on the blankets, having just made love or about to make love again. Day and night blended for her, and sometimes when she woke from a doze she wasn’t certain which it was. She became so accustomed to his penetration that it felt more normal than being apart from him.

  When she thought of the future she was terrified, so she blocked it out. There was only now, these dark, sensual days together. On the day she watched him ride away from her—on that day, she promised herself, she would start thinking of the future again, of the long, endless trickle of time without him.

  For now she let herself be submerged by the physical. She’d never dreamed lovemaking could be so intense, so intoxicating. He made love to her in all the ways a man could use a woman, guiding her to pleasures undreamed of, completing his stamp of possession. The voluptuousness of it enthralled her, and her sexual self-confidence bloomed.

  It was a shock to get up on the eighth day of the snow to the sound of dripping water and realize the snow was melting. She had become so accustomed to the bitter cold that when the temperature surged above freezing it felt almost balmy, and indeed the first unmistakable signs of spring began to appear while snow still covered the ground. Over the next several days the little creek swelled with runoff, and Rafe took the horses to the small hidden meadow to let them work out their fidgets from being cooped up for so long and to paw the snow aside to find the tender green shoots of new grass.

  She knew they would soon have to leave, indeed could already have left, though the melting snow did make travel hazardous. She sensed that Rafe was using it as an excuse, but she didn’t mind. Every minute she could spend with him was infinitely precious because there were so few of them left.

  He had taken the horses to graze one morning and she was using the opportunity to heat water for washing. He had given her his spare pistol as a precaution while he was gone, even though he was only a few minutes away, and she kept it in her skirt pocket on her trips back and forth to the creek. The weapon was heavy and dragged at her skirt, irritating her, but common sense kept her from leaving it at the cabin. Bears were emerging from their winter dens, hungry and irritable; Rafe had said a bear wasn’t likely to bother her, but she wasn’t about to take any chances. She might not be able to hit what she shot at, but at least the sound would bring Rafe at a run.

  On her second trip back from the creek she was watching where she stepped, for the melting snow had left the ground muddy and slippery. A horse whickered and she looked up, startled, at the strange man sitting his horse in front of the cabin. The bucket of water slipped from her hand as panic shot through her.

  “I beg your pardon, ma’am,” the man said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She couldn’t think of anything to say. Her mind had gone blank, her lips were numb.

  He eased back into his saddle. “I saw your smoke,” he offered. “Di
dn’t know anybody had settled in up here, and thought it might be a camp.”

  Who was he? Just a drifter, or someone who would be a threat to Rafe? He didn’t seem to be threatening, in fact was being careful not to make any moves that she could call aggressive, but the shock of an intruder on their private world had her reeling. Where was Rafe? Oh God, don’t let him come back now!

  “I don’t mean you no harm,” the man said. His eyes were calm, his voice almost gentle. “Is your man around?”

  She didn’t know what to say. If she said yes, then he would know she wasn’t alone. If she said no, who knew what he would do? Annie had treated too many wounds over the years to automatically believe in the goodness of her fellow man. Some of her fellow men had no goodness in them at all. But he wasn’t likely to believe she was living up here in the mountains by herself anyway, so finally she nodded.

  “Reckon I could speak with him? If you’d just point me in his direction, I’ll stop botherin’ you and let you go on about your work.”

  Another quandary; did she dare let him approach Rafe without warning? Rafe was likely to shoot first and ask questions later, which could result in an innocent man’s death, but on the other hand if this man wasn’t so innocent she could be risking Rafe’s life. Her mind sped. “He’ll be back shortly,” she finally said, the first words she had spoken. “Would you like to have a cup of coffee while you wait?”

  The stranger smiled. “Yes ma’am, I surely would.” He stepped down from his horse and waited for her to approach. She picked up the empty bucket and carefully held it so it hid her sagging pocket. If she could just get the man inside, then Rafe would see his horse and know to be cautious, and with the pistol hidden in her pocket she could make certain Rafe wasn’t in any danger.

  The man left his rifle in its scabbard on the saddle, but she noticed that he wore a big pistol strapped low on his hip, the holster tied around his thigh just as Rafe wore his. That wasn’t uncommon, but it did make her even more wary. He had a slight limp, but didn’t seem to be in any pain or hampered by it very much.

  She led the way into the cabin and set the bucket down by the fireplace, then poured the man a cup of their breakfast coffee. He removed his flat-brimmed black hat and thanked her in a polite voice for the coffee.

  The window coverings were open, letting the sunlight in along with the brisk fresh air, and he looked around interestedly as he sipped the coffee. His gaze lingered on the rough-framed pine-needle bed that took up most of the left side of the cabin and Annie felt her face heat, but he didn’t say anything. He took in the neatness of the mean little cabin, the total lack of furniture, the two saddles on the floor, and drew his own conclusions.

  “Guess you were lucky to find the cabin when you did,” he said. “Before the snow came.”

  He thought they were travelers who had been stranded by the snow. Relief flooded through her but before she could agree with him his gaze lit on her big black medical bag and his eyebrows drew together in a puzzled frown. Her bag! Annie gave it an agonized glance. It didn’t look like anything but what it was; doctors all over the country carried similar ones. It wasn’t the usual piece of luggage for either homesteaders or travelers.

  “You must be that doctor,” he said slowly. “The one from Silver Mesa who’s been missing for a couple of weeks. I’d never heard tell of no female doctor before, but I guess they weren’t lying.”

  Annie wanted to tell him that it was her husband who was the doctor; it was the most logical thing to say, and the most believable, but she had always been a horrible liar and now she couldn’t manage it at all. Her mouth was too dry, and her heart was thundering in her chest.

  He looked at her, and her white face and wide, panicked eyes would have made him suspicious even if he hadn’t already been. He looked back at the saddles, stared hard at them, and suddenly the big revolver was in his hand and pointed straight at her.

  “That’s McCay’s rig,” he snapped. The friendly tone was gone; his voice was heavy and menacing now. “I must have hit him worse than I thought if he needed a doctor. Where is he?”

  She couldn’t send him up to the meadow. “H-hunting,” she stammered.

  “On horseback? Or on foot?”

  “O-on foot. The horses are g-grazing.” Her voice wavered out of control. The barrel of the pistol was huge and black, unwavering.

  “When’s he due back? C’mon, lady, don’t make me hurt you! When’s he gonna be back?”

  “I don’t know!” She wet her lips. “When he gets something, I suppose.”

  “How long has he been gone?”

  She panicked again, because she had no idea what to say. “An h-hour?” she said, making it a question. “I don’t know. I’ve been heating water to wash clothes and I haven’t been paying attention—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he interrupted impatiently. “All right. I haven’t heard any shots.”

  “He—he has some traps out, too. If there’s anything in one of them he wouldn’t have to shoot anything.”

  The man looked around, his sharp gaze roaming over the cabin and looking out the open door at his horse tethered in plain sight. He jerked his head toward the door. “Outside, lady. I’ve got to get my horse put up. If he shows up while we’re out there, I’d advise you to hit the ground, because lead’s gonna be flyin’. And don’t try to scream or nothin’ to warn him. I don’t want to hurt you, but I aim to get McCay any way I can. Ten thousand’s a lot of money.”

  Ten thousand; dear God. No wonder he was on the run. For that kind of money, every bounty hunter in the country must be looking for him.

  The man kept the pistol trained on her as she walked woodenly to the empty horse shed, where he put his horse in one of the stalls. This was the bounty hunter who had been chasing Rafe, the one who had shot him, but she couldn’t remember what Rafe had said his name was. Her mind felt frozen with fear, unable to think or plan. In all her bleak imaginings of the future, she had never dreamed she would see Rafe gunned down in front of her. It was a nightmare too horrible to contemplate, yet it was going to happen unless she could think of something to stop it. All she could do, however, was try to hold her skirt in such a way as to disguise the weight of the pistol in her pocket.

  The pistol was her only chance, but she didn’t know how to seize the opportunity; she had no delusions about being able to draw it, cock the hammer, and actually hit what she fired at, especially since the man was watching her so closely. She would have to do it when his attention was elsewhere, and that meant when Rafe was approaching. She wouldn’t have to actually hit him; just firing the gun would splinter his attention and warn Rafe, so Rafe would have a chance. She didn’t dare think about what chance she would have.

  The man directed her back into the cabin, and Annie stood rigidly beside the fireplace with her back to the wall.

  He let down both of the window coverings, preventing Rafe from seeing inside the cabin should he approach from the side. Rafe would have to come in the door, and he would be perfectly outlined against the brilliant light reflected off the melting snow. He would be blinded, unable to see into the dimness of the cabin, while the bounty hunter waiting for him would have a perfect shot. Rafe wouldn’t have a chance.

  Unless he noticed that the window coverings were down; he would wonder about that, knowing how Annie disliked sitting in the dark cabin. And he might notice the hoofprints out front. Rafe was as wary and alert as a wild animal, never taking chances. She thought he would notice those things. But what could he do? Come in firing blindly? The smartest thing would be for him to silently retreat to the horses and get away while he could. She closed her eyes and began praying that he would do that, for if she could just believe he was alive and safe somewhere she’d be able to bear never seeing him again. What she couldn’t bear was to see him killed.

  “What’s your name?” she asked shakily.

  The man gave her a hard look. “Trahern. Not that it matters. You just stand there where he can see you w
hen he comes in.”

  She was the goat to bait the tiger into the trap. Trahern was standing to the left, lost in the shadows. Her eyes had adjusted and she could see him just fine, but Rafe wouldn’t see him at all.

  She started to say something else but Trahern motioned her into silence. She stood frozen with fear, her eyes huge and despairing, her gaze fixed on the open door as they listened for Rafe’s approach. Minutes ticked by, and her locked knees began to shake. The trembling traveled upward until she was quaking as if she had palsy. The silence made her want to scream.

  One second there was nothing there, and the next she could see him. She was too petrified even to scream a warning, but none was needed. Rafe held a finger to his lips. He was just barely in her field of vision through the open door, some thirty feet away from the cabin. Annie felt pinned to the wall and totally exposed by the stream of light coming through the doorway. She sensed Trahern watching her, so she couldn’t even roll her eyes in his direction. Her heart was pounding so hard it was jarring the material of her blouse, and her hands felt both sweaty and icecold. Her lungs felt restricted and it hurt to breathe.

  Then Rafe was gone again, vanishing from her sight as if he’d been a ghost.

  Her hand was hidden in the folds of her skirt. She began inching it toward her pocket, and her wet hand closed over the huge butt of the pistol. She put her thumb on the hammer to test how difficult it would be to cock it; to her horror, she couldn’t budge it. She would need both hands just to cock the damn thing! An odd rage seared through her. Damn Rafe! Why hadn’t he given her a weapon she could handle?

  She rolled her head against the wall and looked at Trahern. He must have sensed something; his attention was riveted on the doorway.

  Trahern thumbed back the hammer of his gun, the small click rasping on her nerves like an explosion.

  She could see Rafe again, sliding silently toward the open door. His own pistol was in his hand, ready to fire, but the advantage of surprise wouldn’t be enough. Trahern would be able to see him perfectly, while he would have to guess at Trahern’s location.