by Nan Ryan
When he suggested they stop to eat and rest, Marietta nodded. And immediately began to scheme. He had been up all night; he had to sleep sometime. Nobody could stay awake forever. She would, after they’d had lunch, suggest that he take a much-needed nap. And then, while he slept, she would escape.
Cole chose an ideal place to stop. A lush meadow in the rugged foothills of the great western mountains where soaring snowcapped peaks rose to meet clear blue sky. Dark-green forest covered the slopes and a clear rushing stream spilled down from the rocky summits. Summer grass rippled in the slight breeze and tall verdant pines sweetened the air and provided ample shade.
“This a fine place to rest?” Cole asked, swinging down off the black.
Marietta shrugged slender shoulders. “It’s all right, I suppose.”
Cole shook his head. She was without doubt the most disagreeable woman he had ever had the displeasure of meeting.
When the horses were unsaddled and left to graze, Cole took off his gun belt, placed it safely out of her reach. He took food from his saddlebags and began to prepare their meal. When he handed the tin plate to Marietta, she looked at it and frowned.
“What is this?” she asked, making a face.
“Jerked beef. Beans. Crackers.”
“And you actually believe that I would eat this?”
“Do or don’t,” he said and leveled a forkful of beans into his mouth.
“I cannot eat this food,” she said and set her plate down.
“Cannot or will not?” he asked.
“Very well, I will not. And you can’t make me.”
“Why, I wouldn’t dream of trying to make you,” he said. “When you get hungry enough, you’ll eat.”
Cole finished his plate of food and reached for hers. “May I?” he asked, and not waiting for an answer, hungrily devoured everything on her plate. Marietta scowled at him.
The meal finished, Cole sighed and patted his full belly. He drew a slightly crushed cigar out of his breast pocket and lit up. He blew a perfect smoke ring and said, “I need a nap, how about you?”
“What do you think?” she replied hatefully.
“Why don’t you roll out the blankets so we can lie down.”
“Do it yourself” was her sharp reply and one that he would hear many times in the coming days.
For now, Cole didn’t argue. He leisurely finished his cigar, unrolled the blankets and spread them beneath a fragrant pine. Marietta’s lips fell open with alarm when he casually unbuckled his belt. She tensed when he unbuttoned the top button of his dark twill trousers.
Her eyes round, she screeched, “Are you taking off your pants?”
Cole grinned. “I will if you will.”
“Don’t you dare!”
“Aw, relax, Marietta. I ate too much and I’m just getting comfortable for my nap.” He lay down on the blankets, patted the space beside him. “Coming?”
Her lips now compressed into a thin line, Marietta rose to her feet. She knew that the only way to get him to go to sleep was to lie down beside him and pretend that she was sleeping. So, distasteful as it was to get near him, she walked over to the blankets, sank to her knees and lay on her side, facing away from him.
She braced herself, fully expecting his intrusive arm to come around her. When it didn’t, she was greatly relieved. She relaxed and soon found, to her dismay, that she was very, very sleepy.
She could hardly hold her eyes open, but she forced herself to stay awake. This was her chance to get away and she meant to take it. Marietta waited impatiently. Finally, when she could tell by Cole’s deep, slow breathing that he was sleeping, she made her move.
Then yelped in horror when his hand shot out and firmly gripped the waistband of her trousers, yanking her back. “Going somewhere?” he asked.
“Get your hand out of my pants!” she hotly ordered, trying desperately to pull free.
“If I do, will you behave yourself?”
“Turn me loose, damn you.”
Cole released her trousers, but slipped an arm around her. “Hush now,” he said. “Be good and I will too.”
“You don’t know the meaning of the word,” she huffed.
But when he took his arm away, she gave in to exhaustion. She was sleepy, so very sleepy. Soon she was asleep.
So was he.
Cole awakened before Marietta.
Turning his head, he saw that she was still sleeping. He rolled up into a sitting position, ran his hands through his hair and rubbed his eyes and face. Then raised his knees and draped his forearms atop them. He looked down at Marietta and lost his breath.
Her flaming-red hair was in total disarray. Wayward locks had escaped the restraining comb and curled appealingly around her beautiful face. Her large, emerald eyes were closed, the long dark lashes resting in twin crescents on her pale-apricot cheeks. Relaxed in slumber, her mouth was curved and generous and voluptuous.
Her tall, slender body was sheer perfection. Full, round breasts pressing against the white fabric of her shirt. A waist so small his hands could easily span it. Flaring hips and flat stomach appealingly delineated in the chamois trousers.
His gaze guiltily lowered to touch the front arch of her pelvis where her long legs met. He stared, narrow-eyed, at her pubis region, becomingly contoured in the snug pants. Heat swiftly enveloped him.
Cole looked away, silently cursing her.
She was that irresistible combination of childlike innocence and provocative guile. She was all that was desirable in a woman. No wonder she made Maltese drool and give her anything she wanted.
Thank God he himself wasn’t some lonely middle-aged man or green boy that she could turn inside out.
Fourteen
“Let’s stop here.”
“No. Too early. The sun’s still high. We’ll stop in a couple of hours.”
Marietta drew rein. “I said I want to stop!”
“We’re not stopping,” Cole replied, continuing to ride on.
“My back aches,” Marietta called after him.
“So you mentioned,” he said. “At least a dozen times in the past hour.”
Marietta sighed irritably, but put the piebald mare back in motion. When she drew alongside, she glared at Cole and said, “You are mean and spiteful, Cole Heflin, and I hate you.”
“Baby, I don’t care,” Cole said and meant it.
Cole exhaled heavily. He couldn’t believe it had been only four days since he had spirited the fiery Marietta out of Central City. It seemed more like a lifetime.
In that short period of time he had learned that the red-haired opera singer had the hottest temper of any woman he had ever known. Everything he did or said set her off. If she had thrown one fit, she had thrown a dozen.
She was a pushy, pampered beauty who had never slept outdoors on the hard ground. Or cooked over a campfire. Or bathed in a cold mountain stream. Nor, since she had blossomed into a stunningly beautiful woman, had she been in the company of anyone who hadn’t immediately catered to her.
She tried to add him to that coddling number, but he wasn’t buying it. Cole catered to no one. It annoyed the hell out of him that she would expect him to humor and indulge her as if she was royalty and he her faithful servant.
When he refused to toe the line, she heatedly threatened him, promising to do him great bodily harm the minute she got the chance.
Cole was not concerned.
She was not the first woman who had sworn she hated him and had threatened to kill him. He well remembered a brunette beauty who had, years ago, nearly made good on her promise. He couldn’t recall the lovely lady’s name or what the fierce argument had been about. All he remembered was that after a long night of wild, raunchy lovemaking, the dark-haired, dark-eyed spitfire had come at him with a knife in a Fort Worth hotel room. He had been forced to grab his clothes and flee—buck naked—out a second-story window.
Marietta was headstrong and stubborn, but he could handle the spoiled opera singer. He w
as just as stubborn and headstrong as she was.
She was used to ordering people around. Took it as her due to be promptly and cheerfully obeyed. Naturally she attempted to boss Cole around.
Big mistake.
Cole Heflin allowed no one to boss him around. Especially not a whining, bothersome woman.
This red-haired, green-eyed Marietta was vain, spoiled, egotistical, selfish, beautiful and would, he firmly believed, benefit from a dose of long-overdue discipline. More than once when she had pushed him as far as she could, he found himself wishing that she was—just for a minute—a man so that he could throw a couple of well-aimed punches at her smug face.
But he never let on that she had even faintly upset him, never allowed her to suspect that she could anger him. He never raised his hand or his voice to her. Never paid one bit of attention to her numerous explosions.
Never rose to the bait.
Cole’s total and consistent indifference made the hot-tempered Marietta all the angrier. She could not understand how he could be so consistently stoic and unresponsive. No matter what she did or said, he was unmoved.
Unreachable.
But strangely enough, while his constant coldness frustrated her, it also fascinated her. She was both puzzled and provoked by his unfailingly impassive manner. To her astonishment and chagrin, Marietta found herself mysteriously attracted to this inflexible, cocksure, infuriating, ruggedly handsome Texan.
And she wondered why on earth the attraction was not mutual.
Marietta was fully aware of her feminine charms and was so accustomed to having men fawn over her that Cole’s I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude surprised and intrigued her. She found herself trying to get his attention, to make him respond to her as a woman. After all, she had yet to meet a man she couldn’t enchant.
Cole Heflin was different from any man she’d ever known.
But surely he was not that different. This darkly handsome Texan was definitely all male, so she could undoubtedly captivate him if she set her mind to it.
And when she did, when he had totally succumbed to her allure, she could then easily persuade him to let her go. It was quite simple really. She would just treat him the way she treated Maltese and all her past admirers. Tickle him under the chin and flutter her eyelashes and make him think—if he were fortunate—she might possibly favor him with a kiss or two.
And when he was in her thrall, he would see things her way. She would convince him that she was a star on the rise and the stage was where she belonged. Her career in opera meant everything to her. The production at the Tivoli could not go on without her.
Marietta mulled over her plan as the two of them rode knee to knee under the broiling June sun. She set aside her discomfort. Momentarily forgot that her shirt was wet with perspiration and sticking to her back. Or that her throat was dust dry and that she had a nagging headache.
She had been using the wrong approach entirely. She would, she decided, set out on the crusade to get Cole’s attention. The right kind of attention. She would stop cursing and screaming. Stop complaining and giving in to fits of anger. Take great care to be pleasant and good company. She would be totally sweet and agreeable.
Starting now.
For the rest of the afternoon Marietta went out of her way to make her riding companion like her. She smiled at Cole often, frequently turning on that dazzling, dimpling smile that made most men go weak in the knees. She teased and flattered and flirted with him. She did everything she could think of to make him respond to her the way other men always had.
Nothing happened.
She might have been a man for all he cared. She was exasperated that he had not behaved as any other red-blooded man would. Hadn’t shown any sign of weakness whatsoever. Hadn’t melted with desire when she had played the coquette for his benefit.
Disappointed, Marietta promptly changed her tactics.
She felt that if she could get a rise out of him, make him react in a volatile manner, she would be assured that he actually was attracted to her and just didn’t want her to know it.
Marietta flashed a look of pure hatred in Cole’s direction. She decided she’d pick a fight with him. She insulted him, called him names, accused him of being a coward. She belittled him. She cursed him. She did everything she could think of to make him angry.
It didn’t work.
As coolly as if he were saying good-morning, Cole finally turned in the saddle, fixed her with those startling sky blue eyes, and unemotionally said, “Behave yourself, Marietta.”
That was it.
That’s all the response she got.
By now Marietta was so angry and frustrated she began to cry. But her anguished tears didn’t move her impervious companion. Not one whit. Cole never even noticed she was crying. Or if he did, he didn’t care.
Marietta sniffed back her tears, incredulous. She found it absolutely impossible to believe that she could not charm Cole Heflin.
One of the men Marietta had greatly charmed, Taylor Maltese, was frantic with worry. He had not left Marietta’s private quarters since her disappearance, had hardly eaten or slept. When he did wearily doze for a few minutes at a time, he lay on her bed, clutching one of her shoes to his chest.
Maltese realized that the longer Marietta was gone, the less chance there was of finding her. And even if she should be found, what shape would she be in? What might her cruel abductor have done to her by now? The thought of some vile, depraved man laying hands on his beloved sickened Maltese.
His aching heart leaped with joy and hope when, four days after Marietta had been taken, he looked out the front window to see the posse of men riding up Eureka Street at a gallop.
But his hopes were quickly dashed when big Con Burnett, shamefaced, admitted that he, his brother and the other riders had called off the hunt and come home empty-handed. Angry that the bumbling Burnett brothers had allowed Marietta to be kidnapped, Maltese was furious with the gigantic man filling the doorway.
“I told you not to come back without Marietta!” Maltese thundered. “Damn you to hell! Where is she? Where is my darling?”
“We rode for three days and nights and couldn’t find any sign of her,” said Conlin Burnett. “No one has seen her. She’s disappeared without a trace. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? You’re sorry!” Maltese reached out, grabbed the taller man by the collar and said, “I’ll make you sorry if you don’t get right back in the saddle and go after her, you hear me!”
“It’s no use, Maltese. No telling where they are by now.”
“You’re fired, both of you!” Maltese said, a vein standing out on his forehead. He released his hold on Conlin. “Get out of Central City! Get out of Colorado!”
“Yes, sir,” said a meek Con Burnett. He started to leave, turned back and said, “Lightnin’, he didn’t come back. He’s still out there hunting for Marietta. Maybe he will find her.”
“Get out of my sight!”
Fifteen
Cole pulled up on the reins. He leaned forward in his stirrups as his horse fidgeted and tossed his head. Cole rolled his tired shoulders and looked around.
It was past time to stop and make camp, but he saw no signs of water. He exhaled wearily and mulled over the situation. He didn’t feel like riding any farther and he knew Marietta was exhausted.
They had watered the horses and filled the canteens at the last rest stop. The horses could make it until tomorrow and so could they.
“We’ll stop here,” he announced, turned his head and looked at Marietta.
Marietta shrugged, but gave no reply.
Cole said, “There’s no water here, no brook or stream of any kind.”
Again she shrugged, then immediately brightened, smiled and said, “Doesn’t matter. Let’s stop. It’s a lovely place and we’re both tired.”
“Good enough,” Cole said, but his eyes narrowed and his eyebrows knitted. She was suddenly too agreeable to suit him. Something was up. She intended to pull som
ething. God knew what.
Marietta’s mind was racing. She had, for the past hour, been wondering how she could snare Cole Heflin. How best to spin her web of feminine enticement around him. How could she tease and tempt him until he was fully under her spell?
Now he had innocently handed her the answer. She knew just how she was going to make him an obedient soldier in her army of admirers. Marietta was nothing if not resourceful. If the unresponsive Cole Heflin assumed she was finished with him, he was sadly mistaken.
Marietta dismounted and looked around. She was pleased with this high, hidden mountain paradise. It was perfect. Soft green grass. Tall sheltering pines and leafy conifers. An incredible view of the wide valley far below.
And, best of all, no high-country tarn or splashing waterfall or babbling brook. No water of any kind. Only the two canteens they had filled three hours ago. Plenty for her plan.
“Goodness,” she said, and when she had drawn Cole’s attention, she casually unbuttoned the top two buttons of her shirt. She pulled the collar apart, revealing her pale, dewy throat. “I’m sooo hot. Sticky hot all over.”
“You’ll cool off as soon as the sun goes down,” he replied.
But you won’t, she silently promised.
Cole turned away, went about unsaddling the mounts and making camp. When the horses were contentedly grazing, he began gathering firewood. To his amazement, Marietta offered to help.
Marietta could hardly wait for supper to be over. Determined to be sweet and agreeable, she ate the unappetizing food Cole handed her without complaint.
Her change in temperament made Cole nervous. He looked at her suspiciously. He would have to keep a constant eye on her.
The meal finished, Marietta cheerfully wiped the plates clean. Then she stretched, sighed dramatically and said, “Lord, I need a nice, refreshing bath.”
Cole shook his head. “No bath tonight.”