by Debra Dixon
“If I rode back here tonight, this would be the perfect place to take a bath,” she said wistfully. “Cold, but perfect.”
“You won’t be riding back here tonight. I can’t allow it.”
Niki jumped at the unexpected sound and turned her gaze to Zach. She bristled at his dictatorial tone of voice. “I wasn’t asking your permission. And I sure as hell don’t need a Wyoming politician to tell me what is and isn’t proper.”
“Well then, you sure as hell need me to tell you what’s stupid. Considering the coyote sign we’ve seen, bathing out here wouldn’t be smart. Have you been in New York so long that you’ve forgotten how bold a hungry coyote can be? Have you forgotten that we’ve had one coming into camp?”
“No. Did you think I had? We haven’t seen a coyote in three days. Besides, I can protect myself.”
“Right.”
“What does that mean? I can’t protect myself, but you can?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
Zach was angry at himself. He hadn’t meant to sound so damn macho. He only wanted to protect her, which was damned difficult to do when she didn’t trust him. All he’d wanted to do when he saw her waiting by the stream was ride back and keep her company. Now he’d started a fight without meaning to. Of course, Niki had done her best to nurse the argument along by reading more into his comments than was actually intended. She’d been spoiling for an excuse to argue since Chase drove off.
Silence settled like dust in the air, and this time there was nothing pleasant or companionable about it. Finally Niki answered him. “Why is it that you Wyoming cowboys think that sleeping with a woman gives you the right to make decisions for her? Who the hell appointed you my guardian? I’m all grown up, and I can damn well take care of myself. And sleeping with you hasn’t changed that fact.”
“Dammit, Niki. You’re putting up walls again—”
“Zach!” shouted John from a distance. “Finish the interview later. We need you up here.”
“This isn’t over, Niki,” Zach warned as he backed Dap away from the creek.
Yes, it is, thought Niki. Over because it’s crazy and doomed. You’re running for public office, for God’s sake, which means I’m not the woman for you.
Niki pointedly ignored Zach at supper. She hadn’t intended to be subtle, but then she hadn’t intended to be quite as obvious as she must have been for John Carey to lean down and whisper in her ear.
“Give the guy a break. Whatever he did can’t be that bad.”
“Excuse me?” Niki asked, but John was already gone.
Zach got up abruptly and left to take a watch. When she heard the extra-loud clank of his tin plate as he threw it into the washtub, she knew the sound was for her benefit. Fine. Let him be angry. Anger would keep him at a distance, and that’s what she needed right now. Let him stay angry until she got on the plane for New York.
Leaving the fireside socializing for her tent, Niki dragged out her computer and replaced the battery. However, changing the battery was as close to writing as she got. Her thoughts kept returning to Sleepy Creek with its clear, gentle water.
Why not?
The night was warm. Warmer than usual, anyway. Finding the spot wouldn’t be difficult. The creek wasn’t more than a ten-minute walk. No danger of getting lost. Far enough away from camp to be private.
Why not indeed? Eli would love a column about wilderness bathing. In fact, he’d insist on it.
Her mind worked quickly. If she was going to bathe, she’d have to do it before Zach got back. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Once the decision was made, she concentrated on the problem at hand. Several of the men still lounged by the fire, which meant she couldn’t carry an armful of clothes through camp without being questioned. And if she didn’t change into clean clothes, a bath wouldn’t make much sense.
The answer to her problem was deceptively simple. Niki changed into clean clothes before leaving the tent. Once she was ready, butterflies banged against her rib cage, and she had to swallow several deep breaths to settle them. Feeling like a teenager sneaking out of the house, she strolled casually through the camp and headed straight for the creek.
Zach would string her up if he caught her, but she’d be back long before his watch was over.
NINE
“What are you doing back?” Bill asked when Zach sat down in the camp circle.
“Restless, I guess,” Zach said. “Hank can handle the herd.”
“Reckon he can.”
“Where is everybody?”
“Tents mostly. You saw a couple of the lawyers checking on their horses when you rode up. Niki checked on Cay earlier. Murray’s in the chuck wagon, worrying about tomorrow’s breakfast. You may have to hire the man as permanent cook.”
“Mmm.” Zach nodded, but he wasn’t paying attention. His mind wrestled with the events of the last twenty-four hours and what to do about Niki and her obsession with the past, her objections to public life. He suddenly found himself in the unfamiliar position of wanting a wife, 2.5 kids, and lazy Sundays of lying in bed, making love to Niki. While he stared at the fire, the dogs played a quiet but physical tug-of-war over a stick. After Brass bumped into him a third time, Zach waved the dogs away.
“Go find something else to do!”
Brass nipped Snicker playfully on the shoulder before loping away. Thoughtful, Zach picked up the stick and hunkered down at the edge of the fire, lazily stirring the coals.
After ten minutes or so, Bill commented, “That ain’t soup.”
“What?”
“The fire. It ain’t soup, and if you stir it around anymore, you might as well put it out.”
Zach looked at what he’d done and frowned. Until he resolved the situation with Niki, he’d be worthless for anything else. Passing his hand over his eyes, he groaned. “I need some sleep. See you in the morning.”
“Yeah, I’m turning in myself. Tomorrow’s the last day. It’ll be a long one.”
“Last day,” Zach repeated. He walked determinedly to his tent. And enough is enough. She might not want to talk, but she was damn well going to listen. He’d fallen in love with her. He wasn’t about to let her get on a plane and fly out of his life.
By the time he threw open the flap, Zach had a terrific speech prepared. In fact, he’d delivered the opening few words before he realized the tent was empty. When the realization struck, every fiber in his body tensed in anger. He knew exactly where she was—at the stream.
He was dangerously close to losing control of his temper, which was something he hadn’t done in years. His fingers clenched, forming white-knuckled fists. Was he more angry at Niki for risking her neck or at himself for not guessing she’d sneak off to the stream the minute his back was turned? He didn’t know and decided it didn’t matter. He didn’t have time to debate the issue.
How could she have been so irresponsible?
In addition to the coyotes, the water had to be freezing. If she didn’t get mauled, she’d probably freeze to death. Grabbing a sleeping bag and a coat, he left the tent. He’d barely passed the horses when Brass and Snicker came charging from the direction of the stream. They skidded to a halt a few feet from him, obviously proud of themselves. All Zach could do was stare.
Brass had a death grip on a pair of blue jeans that could only belong to Niki, and Snicker was patiently waiting for instructions on what to do with her mouthful of lingerie.
“I did tell you to go find,” Zach said softly when he could finally speak.
As he took the bits of silk and lace from Snicker, an idea slipped into his mind, and he grinned at the dogs. “We are going to teach Ms. Devlin a lesson she won’t soon forget.”
Chilled to the bone, Niki emerged from the creek. The water swirling around her ankles looked and felt like black ice. She had stopped short of completely submerging in the water, deciding that it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out she’d been to the creek if she returned to camp with wet hair. Niki
shuddered to think of how cold she’d be with a mass of dripping hair, droplets of ice water snaking down her back, and no fire to warm her. She fingered the barrette holding the hair piled on top of her head and decided against removing it until she was dressed. If she hurried, she could get back to camp and finish a draft of the column before Zach returned.
Suddenly an owl’s hoot was abruptly severed and the strained silence that followed triggered an instant reaction in Niki.
“Spit!”
She inhaled the word as she sucked in a gasp and leaped toward the bank as if crocodiles were snapping at her heels. In the logical section of her brain, she knew she had nothing to fear, but the late-night-scary-show side of her brain was screaming, “Run for your life!”
Without bothering to look for her bra, Niki grabbed the light blue shirt that hung in the crook of a cottonwood and dragged the sleeves up her wet arms while continually looking over her shoulder for whatever lurked in the shadows. Once the oversized shirt was securely buttoned, she felt safer. All the important body parts were covered. Still, she needed underwear and jeans to get warm—and decent. Niki circled the tree looking for the rest of her clothes.
“No,” she whispered as she began to circle the tree again. “Impossible.”
Her eyes flicked desperately over the surrounding area, finally locating her boots. That’s not where I left them.
Hesitantly, she walked the few steps toward them and snatched them up from the ground. Unsure what to do, she hugged the boots to her chest and tried to calm her pounding heart. Years from now she’d laugh about this, but right now she had to get back to camp. That’s what she had to do. She had to get away from whatever stole her clothes and silenced the owl.
Lions and tigers and bears! Oh my!
Stop it, Niki! Just stop it.
But before she could settle her fears, the sound of a snapping twig shot through the silence and sent her heart straight into her throat. When she heard the rustling noises of an animal creeping closer, she froze. Several long seconds passed as she stood undecided about what to do. Part of her wanted to run, part of her wanted to climb into the nearest tree, and part of her was convinced she could wish herself invisible.
When another loud snap came from the darkness behind her, Niki bolted toward camp, her lungs practically bursting with the effort to provide enough oxygen for her cold muscles.
“Niki, wait!”
Zach?
His words halted her sudden flight so quickly, she left skid marks in the dirt. Relief surged through her, and as she caught her breath, Niki began making promises to herself about never, ever doing something as impulsive and stupid as swimming alone at night in Wyoming just to get a column and prove to herself that she didn’t care about propriety or the rules the woman in Zach’s life would have to accept.
Zach!
Niki’s head came up as she realized just what, or more precisely who, had been crawling around in the dark trying to scare her. Anger replaced relief. The boots she still clutched tightly to her chest hit the ground with a thud, and she whirled. Zach lounged against a tree about fifteen feet away, dangling her bra by one thin strap and looking very comfortable. Smug even.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, outraged. “You scared me half to death with that little stunt.”
“Then I guess that makes us even.”
Niki’s chest heaved with the effort to slow her rapidly beating heart. “Even? You frighten the life out of me, and you think that makes us even? Even for what? I didn’t deliberately set out to frighten you.”
“Oh, didn’t you?” he asked softly. “Didn’t you set out to scare me away from wicked, wild Niki Devlin?”
She felt suddenly naked and vulnerable. This … this predator in front of her was dangerous. His eyes glittered with a cold anger, and Niki felt as if he could see into her soul, as if he waited for an opportunity to seize her free will and bend it to his own. Zach’s gaze dropped to her bare feet and slid slowly up the length of her legs, stopping at the tailored edge of her shirt and following the buttons to her neck. Hunger, barely checked, barely disguised, stared at her. She took an involuntary step backward.
“No,” she finally answered, adopting a calm, reasonable tone in an effort to defuse the tension in the air. “I did not set out to frighten you. If you’d been where you belonged, you wouldn’t even have known.”
“If you’d been where you belonged, you’d still have your clothes. If you hadn’t come traipsing out here to defy me, I wouldn’t have had to come rescue you.”
Niki put her hands on her hips and glared at him, unaware of how much curving hip she revealed as she cinched the shirt around her waist. “Rescue me? Rescue me from what?”
“From your own stupidity.”
“Why, you pompous—”
“Careful, Niki,” Zach warned as he held up a cautionary finger. “You’re talking to the man who has your clothes.”
“Keep them—” She stopped and counted to ten. “I want to make one thing perfectly clear. I don’t need rescuing … from the Wyoming wilderness or my own past.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You’re not responsible for me. You’re not responsible for Chase Anderson’s behavior today or the content of his message. That’s what living in a fishbowl is like.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that.”
“No matter how hard you try, you can’t make everything okay again.” Niki’s voice pleaded for understanding. “Life is rarely one hundred percent okay, which is what I’ve been trying to tell you for six days. I’m not looking for a knight in shining armor. I’m a realist. I’m a New Yorker. I can take care of myself. New York streets are a hell of a lot more dangerous than Wyoming nights and stray coyotes.”
“If you believe that, you’re sadly mistaken.”
“Oh, am I?”
“In New York they have hospitals and ambulances on every corner. Out here you wouldn’t be so lucky.”
Niki turned her back on Zach and started toward camp, trying to shut out the painful image of the last time she’d tried to get to a hospital in Wyoming. The memory was still so fresh, she could hear the wail of the sirens and feel the sympathetic touch of the paramedic’s hand on her shoulder.
From behind her, Niki heard Zach’s soft whistle, and the dogs materialized in front of her, blocking her path. Each time Niki tried to go around Brass, he quietly adjusted to bar her way again. Finally, at another whistled signal from Zach, Brass dropped into a crouch and crept forward, forcing her backward. Moonlight lent a feral gleam to Brass’s stare that she’d never noticed before.
“Zach, this is ridiculous,” Niki announced while steadily retreating. “Brass won’t really hurt me, and you know it. So stop this game.”
“I’ll stop playing games when you do.”
Niki jumped at the closeness of his voice. Whirling, she found herself caught in his arms and pulled against his long, lean frame. Their eyes locked as she said, “Zach, I’m not playing games. I told you I didn’t belong here the first time we met.”
“No. You asked me if you looked like you belonged out here.”
“Well, do I?” Even though she asked the question, Niki wasn’t sure she wanted an answer. Yes and no would be equally devastating to her peace of mind. “My life is in New York. I like privacy. You’re going into politics. The press is going to pick your life to pieces. You’d be sleeping with the enemy, as Chase said. It goes with the territory you’ve chosen.”
“I haven’t chosen anything yet,” Zach whispered, willing her to believe in happily-ever-after.
“But you will. I heard a powerful man tell you that you could do some good. And he’s right. Everything about you is politically correct. Except me. Cutter’s Creek is full of bad memories for me. I don’t want all the strings that are attached to you. I don’t belong here. I can’t be what you want me to be.”
“What do I want you to be?” Zach asked, and undid the c
lip holding her hair, letting the sable softness slip through his fingers.
“Stronger than I am, and that’s what scares me.” She trembled beneath the passion in his eyes, knowing that she should push away from his strength, but her body and soul betrayed her. They wanted everything Zach had to offer, and damn the consequences. “You don’t play by the rules.”
His hands slid down her back and beneath her shirt to cup her rump. His palms and fingers massaged the bare flesh. “Sweet Niki, don’t you understand? There are no rules.”
His mouth closed on hers with a possessiveness that left her senses reeling. His tongue swept into her mouth, tasting, tempting, and drawing a response from her. Zach’s was a passion that could not be denied.
Her fingers clutched his shoulders as his head dipped to nuzzle her neck. His tongue painted a design on her skin, taunting her with whisper-soft caresses. He slipped a hand between them and undid the buttons of her shirt, starting at the top. When he finished the last button, he undid his pants.
Lifting her, Zach settled her against his arousal, groaning at the unbearable pleasure as she slid along his length. The night air tightened her nipples and caressed her skin. He watched the change in her body, hungrily marking the swell of her breasts and the arching of her back.
“Can there be rules for this?” he whispered as he encouraged her to wrap her legs around him and bent his head to capture, then suck an aroused nipple.
Zach turned slowly with her in his arms and allowed the tree to support her back. He made love to her, cupping the soft flesh of her buttocks in his hands. She closed her eyes against the sensual contact of his manhood stirring within her and tried once more to make him understand. “Zach, this won’t change anything.”
“Maybe not,” he answered, kissing her deeply as he shifted her weight and thrust. “But you won’t be able to forget it any more than I will.”
The night air whispered a new song against her skin as Zach’s tongue slid over her lips, first coaxing, then demanding. The night stars seemed to echo his words, and Niki was trapped in a spell of eroticism so potent, she knew he was right about never forgetting the moment. She caught her breath as his hands tightened on the tender flesh of her bottom and the intimate stroke of his hard arousal reminded her how easily she responded to him.