And now he flinched from her touch.
Don’t be foolish, she told herself as she watched him sleep for a few moments longer. He doesn’t remember anything. He thinks you’re a skinny boy. No wonder he didn’t want you petting him. And then, How can he be so blasted blind as not to see past these clothes?
As she went to the small campfire to check on the soup, she couldn’t help wondering if Ty would have responded differently if he had known she was a girl.
Her intense desire that he see her as a woman caught her on the raw. She knew she was becoming too attached to the stranger whom chance had dropped into her life. As soon as Ty was healed he would leave with as little warning as he had come, going off to pursue his own dreams. He was just one more man hungry for gold or for the glory of being the person to tame the spirit horse known as Lucifer.
And he was too damned thickheaded to see past the skinny boy to the lonely woman.
Lonely?
her hand froze in the act of stirring the soup. She had been alone for years but had never thought of herself as lonely. The horses had been her companions, the wind her music, the land her mentor, and her father’s books had opened a hundred worlds of the mind to her. If she found herself yearning for another human voice, she had gone into Sweetwater or Hat Rock or Indian Springs. Each time she went into any of the outposts of civilization, she had left after only a few hours, driven out by the greedy eyes of the men who watched her pay for her purchases with tiny pieces of raw gold—men who, unlike Ty, had sometimes seen past Janna’s boyish appearance.
Gloomily she studied the soup as it bubbled and announced its readiness in the blended fragrances of meat, herbs, and vegetables. She poured some soup into her steep-sided tin plate and waited until it cooled somewhat. When she was sure the soup wouldn’t burn Ty’s mouth, she picked up her spoon and went to the overhang.
He was still asleep, yet there was an indefinable change in his body that told her he was healing even as she watched. He was much stronger than her consumptive father had been. Though Ty’s bruises were spectacular, they were already smaller than they had been a few days before. The flesh covering his ribs was no longer swollen. Nor was his head where a club had struck.
Thick muscles and an even thicker skull, she told herself sarcastically.
As though he knew he was being watched, Ty opened his eyes. Their jeweled green clarity both reassured and disturbed Janna. She was glad that he was no longer dazed by fever, yet being the focus of those eyes was a bit unnerving. He might have been just one more gold- and horse-hungry man, but he had the strength, intelligence, and determination to succeed where other men never got past the point of daydreaming.
“Are you still hungry?” she asked, her voice low and husky.
“Did you cook up poor old Zebra for me?”
The slow smile that followed his words made Janna’s nerve endings shimmer. Even covered with beard stubble and lying flat on his back, Ty was one of the most handsome men she had ever seen.
“No,” she said, smiling in return. “Zebra was too big for my pot.” With unconscious grace, Janna sank to her knees next to Ty, balancing the tin plate in her hands without spilling a drop. “A few weeks back I traded a packet of dried herbs, three letters, and a reading of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for thirty pounds of jerked beef.”
He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
She laughed softly. “I’ll tell you while I feed you soup. Can you sit up?”
Cautiously, then with greater assurance, he sat up. He started to say that he could feed himself before he realized that he was light-headed. He propped his back against the gently sloping stone cliff that was both wall and, eventually, ceiling to the natural shelter. The blanket covering him slid from his shoulders, down his chest, and finally rumpled across his lap.
Her pulse gave an odd little skip at the sight of the dark, masculine patterns of hair curling out from beneath his bandages and down his muscular body. The temptation to trace those patterns with her fingertips was almost overwhelming.
Don’t be a goose, she told herself firmly. I’ve been washing, feeding and caring for Ty like a baby for four days. I’ve seen him wearing nothing but sunlight and soapy water, so why on earth am I getting all foolish and shivery now?
Because he’s awake now, that’s why.
Ty looked down at his own body, wondering why he was being stared at. What he saw made him wince. Spreading out from beneath his rib bandage were bruises every color of the rainbow, but the predominant hues were black and blue with garish flourishes of green.
“I’m a sight, aren’t I?” he asked wryly. “Looks worse than it feels, though. Whatever medicine you’ve been using works real well.”
She closed her eyes for an instant, then looked only at the plate of soup in her hands. The surface of the liquid was disturbed by delicate rings, the result of the almost invisible trembling of her hands while she had looked at him.
“Don’t go all pale on me now, boy. You must have seen worse than me.”
Boy.
And thank God for it, she reminded herself instantly. I have no more sense than a handful of sand when he looks at me and smiles that slow, devil-take-it smile.
But, God, I do wish he knew I was a woman!
She took a deep, secret breath and brought her scattering emotions under control.
“Ready?” she asked, dipping the spoon into the soup.
“I was born ready.”
She put the spoon into his mouth, felt the gentle resistance of lips and tongue cleaning the spoon, and nearly dropped the plate of soup. He didn’t notice, for the taste of the soup had surprised him.
“That’s good.”
“You needn’t sound so shocked,” she muttered.
“After that horse piss you’ve been feeding me, I didn’t know what to expect.”
“That was medicine. This is food.”
“Food’s the best medicine save one for what ails a man.”
“Oh? What’s the best?”
Ty smiled slowly. “When you’re a man you won’t have to ask.”
The spoon clicked rather forcefully against his teeth.
“Sorry,” Janna said with transparent insincerity.
“Don’t look so surly, boy. I felt the same way you did when I was your age. You’ll grow into manhood with time.”
“How old do you think I am?”
“Oh...thirteen?”
“Don’t try to be kind,” she said between her teeth.
“Hell, boy, you look closer to twelve with those soft cheeks and fine bones, and you know it. But that will begin to change about the time your voice cracks. It just takes time.”
Janna knew that there would never be enough time in the whole world for her to grow into a man, but she had just enough common sense and self-control to keep that revealing bit of truth to herself. With steady motions she shoveled soup into Ty’s mouth.
“You trying to drown me?” he asked, taking the soup from her. “I’ll feed myself, thanks.” He crunched through a pale root of some kind, started to ask what it was, then decided not to. The first thing a man on the trail learned was that if it tastes good, don’t ask what it is. Just be grateful and eat fast. “What’s this about herbs and Shakespeare and letters?” he asked between mouthfuls of soup.
“My father and I used to divide up a play and read parts to each other. It helped to pass the time on the trail. I still have a trunk of his books,” she said, helplessly watching the tip of Ty’s tongue lick up stray drops of broth. “When I need supplies, I’ll go to the Lazy A or the Circle G and write letters for the cowhands. Most of them can’t read anything but brands, so I’ll also read whatever letters they’ve saved up until someone like me happens by.”
Ty looked at the thick, dark lashes, crystalline eyes and delicately structured face of the youth who was much too pretty for the man’s comfort. “Where did you go to school?” he asked roughly.
“On the front seat of a buckboard. Pap
a had a university degree and a case of wanderlust.”
“What about your mother?”
“She died when I was three. Papa told me her body just wasn’t up to the demands of her spirit.”
The spoon hesitated on the way to Ty’s mouth. He pinned Janna with an intense glance. “When did your Daddy die?”
She paused for an instant, thinking quickly. If she told Ty her father had died five years before, he would ask how a kid under ten had survived on his own. If she told Ty that she was nineteen, he would realize that the only way a nineteen-year-old boy could lack a deep voice and a beard shadow and muscles was if said boy was a girl wearing men’s clothing. She wanted Ty to figure that out for himself—the hard way.
“Papa died a few seasons back,” she said casually. “You lose track of time living alone.”
“You’ve lived alone since then?” he asked, startled. “The whole time?”
She nodded.
“Don’t you have any kin?”
“No.”
“Wouldn’t any of the townspeople let you trade room and board for work?”
“I don’t like towns.”
“Surely one of the ranches would take you on as a cook’s helper or fence rider. Hell, if you can tame a mustang, there isn’t a ranch anywhere that wouldn’t take you on as a mustanger,” Ty added, disturbed at the thought of an orphaned child wandering homeless over the land. “You could make a decent living catching and breaking horses for the rough string.”
“I don’t catch mustangs,” she said flatly. “Too many of them refuse to eat once they’re caught. I’ve seen them starve to death looking over a corral fence with glazed eyes.”
“Most mustangs accept men.”
Janna simply shook her head. “I won’t take a mustang’s freedom. I’ve gentled a few ranch-bred horses for women’s mounts or for kids, but that’s all.”
“Sometimes a man has to do things he doesn’t want to in order to survive,” Ty said, his eyes narrowed against painful memories.
“I’ve been lucky so far,” she said quietly. “More soup?”
Slowly, as though called back from a distance, he focused on Janna. “Thanks, I’d like that,” he said, handing over the plate. “While I eat, would you mind reading to me?”
“Not at all. Anything in particular you want to hear?”
“Do you have Romeo and Juliet?”
“Yes.”
“Then read to me about a woman more beautiful than the dawn.” He closed his eyes and smiled. “A well-bred lady of silk, softer than a summer breeze, with pale hair and skin whiter than magnolias, and delicate hands that have never done anything more harsh than coax Chopin from a huge grand piano...”
“What’s her name?” Janna asked tightly.
“Who?”
“The silk lady you’re describing.”
“Silver MacKenzie, my brother’s wife.” Ty’s eyes opened, clear and hard. “But there are other women like her in England. I’m going to get one.”
Abruptly Janna came to her feet. She returned a few minutes later with a heavy book tucked under her left arm and carrying a bowl of soup with her right hand. She gave Ty the soup, opened the worn book to Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II, and began to read:
“‘But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East, and Juliet is the sun...’”
Chapter Seven
That day set the pattern for the next two weeks. When Janna thought Ty had been pushing himself too hard in his efforts to regain full strength, she would bring out the Bible or the Shakespearean plays or the poetry of Dante, Milton, or Pope, and she would read aloud. Ty saw through what she was doing, but didn’t object. He had too much fun teasing “the boy” over the real meaning of the words in The Song of Solomon or Pope’s The Rape of the Lock.
“Read that verse to me again,” he said, smiling. “You ran over it so fast I missed most of the words.”
She tilted her head down to the worn pages of the Bible and muttered, “‘Vanity of vanities...all is vanity.’”
“That’s Ecclesiastes,” Ty drawled. “You were reading The Song of Solomon and a woman was talking about her sweetheart. ‘My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens...’ Now what do you suppose that really means, boy?”
“He was hungry,” she said succinctly.
“Ah, but for what?” Ty asked, stretching. “When you know the answer, you’ll be a man no matter what your size or age.”
She looked at his long, muscular arms and the smooth give-and-take of his skin over his chest and torso and vowed again that she would go into Sweetwater first thing tomorrow and get Ty some clothes. She wasn’t going to be able to look at him running around in a breechcloth much longer without reaching out and stroking her hands over all that tempting masculine hide.
The thought of his shocked expression if she gave in to temptation restored her humor. It would be worth almost anything to see him shocked. Until that time came, she would have to be satisfied with watching his unease when she leaned too close or casually brushed against him, making him uncomfortable because of “the boy’s” closeness.
When Ty saw Janna’s full lips curve into a slow, almost hidden smile, he felt a jolt of something uncomfortably close to desire lance through him.
That boy is too damned feminine for my self-respect, much less for my peace of mind. I think I’d better take another long soak in that hot pool in the head of the valley.
Doubt that it will take the starch out of me, though. I haven’t been this hungry since I was fourteen. Damnation, but I need a woman.
Disgusted with himself, he came to his feet in a muscular rush.
Janna was so surprised by the abrupt movement that she dropped the book she was holding. A sheet of paper that had been held safely between the pages fluttered out. He scooped it up before she could. He looked at the paper and let out a low whistle of admiration.
“Now there is a real lady,” he said, gazing at the drawing of a woman in long, formal dress and elaborately coiffed hair. “Elegance like that is damned rare. Where did you get this?”
“Papa drew it when Mother was alive.”
“This is your mother?”
Janna nodded.
“I see where you get your fine bones and...”
Ty’s voice died. There was no point in telling the kid that his mouth would have done credit to a courtesan and his eyes were too big and too expressive to belong to a child of any age. So he kept his mind on the drawing and off the fey creature whose skin and hair smelled like a meadow drenched in sunshine and warmth.
“Your daddy was a lucky man,” Ty said after looking at the drawing for a long time. “This is a woman to dream on. All silk and sweet softness. After I catch Lucifer and build my own horse herd, I’m going to Europe and court a fine lady just like this. I’ll marry her and bring her home, and we’ll raise strong sons and silky daughters.”
“Silk doesn’t last long on the frontier,” Janna said stiffly.
He laughed. “That’s why I’m going to build my fortune first. I’d never ask a true lady to live in a dirt-floored shack and ruin her soft hands on scrub brushes and the like.”
Janna looked at her hands. While not rough, they weren’t exactly silky, either. “Soft isn’t everything.”
He shook his head, seeing only his dream. “It is in a woman. I’ll have my silken lady or I’ll have none at all for longer than it takes to pleasure myself.”
The words sliced into her like knives, wounding her. The pain she felt shocked her, and the rage, and the sense of…betrayal.
“What makes you think that a silken woman would have a man like you?” Janna asked coolly.
Ty smiled to himself. “Women kind of take to me, especially when I’m cleaned up a bit.”
“Huh,” she sniffed. “I don’t think there’s enough cleaning time between now and Christmas to make any fancy woman look at you twice.”
; Before he could say anything, Zebra whinnied in alarm. Even as he turned toward the sound, Ty yanked Janna to the ground and pulled out the hunting knife he wore at his waist. An instant later his big body half covered hers, pinning her against the earth.
“Don’t move,” he breathed against her ear, his voice a mere thread of sound.
She nodded slightly and felt his weight shift as he rolled aside. There was a flash of tanned skin in the tall grass, a suggestion of movement in the streamside willows, and then nothing more. Ty had vanished.
A shiver went over Janna as she realized how very quick he was now that he was well, and how powerful. She thought of wiggling backward until she was in better cover, then discarded the idea. He would expect her to be where he had left her—and he would attack anything that moved anywhere else. That thought was enough to rivet her in place.
The willows slid soundlessly past his nearly naked body as he eased through the streamside thickets. The creek was no more than a few feet wide and still slightly warm from its birth in a hot springs back at the head of the small valley, a place where black lava and red rock and lush greenery entwined in a steamy Eden whose water contained a sulfurous whiff of hell.
Nothing moved in the willows around him, nor was there any sound of birds. The silence was a warning in itself. Normally small birds darted and sang in the valley, enjoying the rare presence of water in a dry land. If the wildlife was quiet, it meant that an intruder was nearby.
Fifty yards away, belly-deep in grass, Zebra snorted. The sound was followed by a drumroll of hooves as the mare fled. The mustang’s flight told Ty that the intruder was either a cougar or a man. Nothing else would have sent the horse racing away in fear. Without disturbing the thick screen of willow branches, he looked out into the valley. Zebra was standing seventy yards away with every muscle quivering, poised for flight. Her head was high and her black ears were pricked forward. She was looking at something that was well downstream from Ty.
Elizabeth Lowell Page 5