Bitter Wild

by Jennie Leigh

  “He’s still here. He wouldn’t have left his gear behind.”

  Jack nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. There’s another bag under the other cot that’s got an assortment of weapons and ammunition inside. No way in hell he’d leave that behind.”

  Casey felt the hairs along her neck stand up. He was out there somewhere and God alone knew what he was waiting for. Judging from what she knew about him, she doubted seriously he was planning to try to sneak away after nightfall. He wasn’t the kind of man who’d want to avoid a confrontation, especially if he knew there were just two of them. She glanced at Chance. After a moment, she motioned for his attention, then again lifted the sleeping bag. He took several sniffs, then met her gaze, acknowledging his understanding of what she was asking. A second later he was out the door. Casey moved to go after him, but Jack stopped her.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She met his gaze. “What you hired me to do. Jester is on this ridge somewhere and you know as well as I do that we have to find him. We’ve got a couple of hours of daylight left. After that, we’re going to be sitting ducks in this cabin. He could burn it down around us. And before you suggest it, all my reasons for not waiting him out still apply. We have to take him now.”

  Jack was trying to figure out how to tell her no when Chance let out a series of excited barks. Before Jack could react himself, Casey had shaken his hand off and darted out the front door of the cabin. Jack ran after her, cursing her stubbornness beneath his breath even as he silently prayed that she wasn’t running straight into an ambush. He was again impressed by her speed, especially considering the condition of her leg. She stayed out in front of him, even going uphill. Every breath Jack drew in his lungs was accompanied by a certainty that he’d feel a bullet tearing through him at any moment. But no bullets came. No one jumped out from behind a tree to challenge them. After a few minutes, Jack caught sight of the dog. It had stopped barking, but was moving around anxiously, its gaze shifting from Jack and Casey to something on the ground in front of it. Jack watched Casey skid to a stop, then drop down to pick something up. By the time Jack had stopped as well, he could see that it was a rope.

  His gaze followed it to the large rock it had been tied around, then backtracked to where it disappeared over the side of the cliff. Casey gave the rope a tug, then walked to the edge and leaned over. Jack heard her sharp intake of breath.

  “Jack!”

  He moved to her side and carefully leaned forward. The drop off wasn’t as bad as he’d expected, though it was far enough down to give him a momentary sense of vertigo. He saw Casey lift her hand to point. On the rocks far below he saw a large smear of something wet and red. He pulled out a pair of binoculars and took another look. No doubt about it. There was a sizeable amount of blood coating one of the large rocks. There were splatters across several nearby rocks as well. Beside him, Casey was theorizing aloud.

  “He must have tried to go down into the valley. Maybe he thought he could find a way out.”

  Jack lowered the binoculars, inexplicably uneasy with the idea that Jester had fallen to his death. The amount of blood made it unlikely that he’d gotten up and walked away from the fall, but there was no sign of his body, either.

  “There’s no body.”

  Casey shrugged. “There might be a few animals large enough to drag it off down there. The valley isn’t large enough to support bears, but there could be a couple of cats. Even if there aren’t, it’s possible he survived the fall and crawled off somewhere that’s out of our line of sight.”

  Jack still wasn’t sure. It didn’t seem possible for the chase to end like this. It seemed anticlimactic. Too easy. Casey seemed to sense his thoughts. He watched as she began to pull the rope up the side of the cliff. Within a few seconds she had it coiled neatly. She fixed him with her gaze.

  “If he somehow survived the fall, and if he isn’t already dead from his injuries, then you can be sure he won’t be coming back up that cliff without the rope. Unless he’s a professional climber, there’s no way he could do it and even a professional would be hard pressed to make that climb without at least a minimum of gear.”

  She laid the coil of rope beside the rock it was tied to. When she turned back to him, her lips spread into a smile.

  “It’s over, Jack.”

  He wanted desperately to believe her. His instincts weren’t ready to give in, however. Jack glanced around, his gaze scanning the trees and boulders that could easily hide a person. “I think we ought to check everything out, just to be sure.”

  Casey didn’t argue. She just nodded, then made a motion to Chance. He turned and trotted off. Casey watched him go before focusing once more on Jack. “Come on. We’ll go all the way to the top and work our way back to the cabin.”

  Jack followed her to the top of the hill. They took a few minutes to examine the area around the washed out bridge. Jack could barely hear himself think over the roar of the water. The drop into the pool below was easily a hundred feet and mist from the falls sprayed everything. He and Casey worked cautiously through the narrow cluster of trees that hugged the upper cliff face. They searched every boulder, every tree and found nothing. When they arrived back at the cabin they found Chance waiting for them. He was lying in the open front door, completely relaxed. That was what finally convinced Jack that Jester was dead, or at least trapped in the valley below. No way the dog would be so at ease if he sensed anyone else around. Casey walked into the cabin and leaned against the counter. Jack followed her inside, feeling every single muscle in his body as they began to groan.

  Days of hard riding and hiking and roughing it had taken their toll. He met Casey’s gaze as she chuckled.

  “It’s almost a letdown, isn’t it? All this time we’ve been anticipating some kind of ugly fight and he up and killed himself.”

  Jack couldn’t seem to keep himself from smiling in return. “Yeah, how dare he let us down like that.”

  Casey laughed, then sighed. “I’m going to sleep for a week when I get back home.”

  Jack heard the longing in her voice and thought about his own desire to return to his apartment. He was surprised a bit to realize he didn’t feel any real sense of urgency on that score. Just a few days earlier he’d been aching for his familiar haunts. Right now, though his body was tired and sore, the only ache that truly troubled him was the one urging him to pull Casey Nolan into his arms and finish what they’d started out in the woods earlier.

  Casey glanced up and caught Jack watching her. One look into his eyes and she knew what he was thinking. She felt heat flush her body. She nearly pushed away from the counter and went to him. She might have, if her stomach hadn’t chosen that precise moment to release a protracted rumble. They both broke into laughter.

  “I guess we better see what there is to eat around here.”

  Casey nodded as he came toward her. “There ought to be a few stores in the cabinets, if Jester didn’t eat them already. A ranger comes by here a few times a year to make sure the place is stocked. It’s an emergency shelter of sorts. Any locals who use it know to replace whatever they take.”

  She was babbling again, but couldn’t seem to make herself stop. She opened a cabinet and started searching through the cans. After a few moments she pulled an assortment out. “We’ve got some stew, some chili, and a can of peaches for dessert. It’s up to you which entrée you want.”

  Jack opted for the chili, then offered to go get their gear while she got the food ready. She rinsed a pair of pots in the sink, then rebuilt the fire in the wood stove that provided both a source of heat and a method of cooking for the cabin. By the time Jack returned she’d gotten the food on the stove and had cleaned up the mess Jester had left behind. She hadn’t tackled the sleeping bag, yet. The thought of handling it was making her feel vaguely nauseous. She remembered sleeping in that same bag a few years ago. It wasn’t new, but Millie had always taken such good care of her things that it still had several yea
rs left in it. It wasn’t just a sleeping bag, now, though. It had been used by a murderer, a man who’d cold-bloodedly taken the life of more than a dozen people. For Casey, that sleeping bag would always feel tainted.

  Casey took her bag of gear from Jack when he carried it into the cabin, then promptly announced that she was going to take a quick shower. At Jack’s shocked look, she explained that there was a makeshift shower beneath the water tank outside. She carried her bag out the back door, then paused to evaluate the reason behind her racing heart. The explanation was simply enough. She and Jack Hall were going to make love tonight. There was no escaping it, no pretending it wasn’t what they both wanted. They’d been building toward it from the first moment they met.

  Casey hurriedly stripped, then stepped beneath the showerhead. The water was frigid, but the numbing cold was worth braving just for the pleasure of feeling truly clean for the first time in days. Finished, Casey dried off as best she could and pulled on her clothes once more. Her hair was still dripping when she walked back into the cabin. She noticed immediately that Jack had rolled up Millie’s sleeping bag and stuffed both it and the bag of gear Jester had stolen from her aunt under the cot Jester had been using. Jack’s own gear now sat on that cot, leaving the other one for Casey. She almost wanted to cry at the unspoken thoughtfulness of his actions. He’d known she didn’t want to use the same cot Jester had used. Jack had understood how she felt without her having to say a word.

  He was stirring the food when she dropped her bag on the other cot. He glanced up at her, giving her a smile. “I think I’ll follow your lead and use that shower.”

  “I feel obliged to warn you that the water is as cold as ice.”

  Jack shrugged just before walking out the back door. “That might not be such a bad thing.”

  Casey felt her skin flush again. She sank down on her cot as her mind quickly conjured up an image of him stripping to step beneath the shower. She closed her eyes as her face flamed once more. She was hardly a naïve virgin. She and Andy had been lovers. But he’d been her first and only partner. And it had been a while since she’d even thought about a man in that way. She opened her eyes. Okay, it wasn’t like she needed to worry that she’d forgotten how. It wasn’t that kind of skill. What she did need to seriously consider, though, was how she’d feel about it all in the morning. She was no skittish neophyte, but she wasn’t exactly what anyone would consider a modern woman of the world, either. Sex had always been about feeling for her. It was an expression of emotion, not just a physical act. She knew, without needing to ask, that Jack wasn’t the same. Sex would be strictly impersonal for him. A filling of a transitory physical need. Could she go through with it, knowing that it would never mean to him what it would mean to her?

  Jack thought he’d taken a few cold showers in his time, but he found out in a hurry that cold wasn’t an adequate adjective to describe the temperature of the water in the tank overhead. Bitter, frigid, and glacial all came to mind as his body drew up beneath the onslaught. Still, it felt good to get clean. He even managed a clumsy shave with a disposable razor and tiny mirror he’d brought along but never found the time to use. He knew what he was doing. He was cleaning himself up for her. Maybe that’s what she’d done as well. There was an unspoken promise between them. They were going to pick up where they’d left off earlier. It didn’t matter how cold the water was, Jack didn’t for a moment imagine that the fire in his blood would be quenched by anything less than making love with Casey. It had been building for days and there wasn’t much that could stop it, now. Nothing but his own sense of integrity.

  From the moment he first started acknowledging the fact that he wanted Casey, he’d also had to face the fact that she wasn’t the kind of woman a man had a fling with. She was commitment and marriage and kids and happily-ever-after. She was exactly the kind of woman he’d avoided like the plague for as long as he’d had enough sense to understand that all women weren’t the same. He couldn’t give her what she wanted, what she needed. He couldn’t make her any kind of promise at all, beyond the guarantee that once they’d confirmed that Jester was dead, he’d be heading back to civilization as fast as he could go. Casey deserved better than that. Her boyfriend was probably ready and willing to marry her and give her a house full of babies. Jack had no right to confuse her by letting her think he might entertain such a domestic notion.

  Casey was trying not to pace when Jack finally came back into the cabin. He’d actually shaved. Casey jerked her gaze off him and devoted herself to opening the can of peaches. He really meant to make love to her. Her heart started a wild rhythm in her chest. Her stomach clenched and unclenched in anticipation. Okay, she wanted him. Maybe she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted any other man, including Andy. That thought brought a stab of pain to her chest, but she didn’t shy away from it. She’d loved Andy long before they were lovers. He’d given her pleasure, but she’d never felt the thrill of sexual attraction like this. She’d tried to convince herself that she wasn’t ready for an affair. But maybe an affair was exactly what she needed.

  Jack tossed his bag on the cot he’d claimed as his own. He hadn’t wanted Casey to sleep in the same space where Russell Jester had lain. He never wanted to even imagine her that close to him. Jack watched as she opened the can of peaches, then pulled a couple of metal bowls out of the cabinet. She glanced over her shoulder at him.

  “Supper’s ready.”

  He took one of the bowls from her and spooned some of the chili into it. She poured stew into her own bowl, then followed him to sit at the small table in the center of the room. She’d made coffee and had already put it on the table. Jack poured them both a cup, still not saying anything. The silence was worse than the arguing that had sparked during their first meeting. Casey forced herself to focus on eating. She finished her stew and retrieved the can of peaches from the counter while Jack got a second bowl of chili. She poured a few peaches into her bowl, then quietly ate them. She’d forgotten the simple pleasure of something sweet after dinner. That was another reason she’d always loved the woods. They reminded her to be thankful for all the comforts of home. She ate a peach slice, then another, smiling as a drop of syrup dribbled onto her chin. She lifted her finger to swipe at it, then stuck her finger in her mouth. That was precisely the moment she realized Jack wasn’t eating any longer.

  He still held his bowl and spoon, but they were both motionless. His dark gaze was locked onto her and the heat in his eyes was enough to melt solid stone. Casey froze, her finger still in her mouth. They sat there for what felt like an eternity before Jack finally shook himself out of whatever daze had taken him. His eyes jerked up to meet hers and for one breathless moment, neither of them moved. An instant later, they both moved at once.

  Contents

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jack’s chair fell to the floor as he shot to his feet. Casey’s slid backwards, but didn’t topple as his had. They met mouth to mouth a moment later and Casey knew that whatever doubts she had, she meant to ignore them. Tonight she was going to love him with every fiber of her being. She didn’t know how to do it any other way.

  Jack couldn’t get close enough to her. He’d convinced himself while he was still outside that it would be best to just go in and eat and then go to bed. He didn’t want to risk hurting Casey when he knew she’d already endured so much pain in her life. He’d been doing a decent enough job of keeping that thought in mind until she started eating those damn peaches. It wasn’t that her method of eating them was particularly seductive. It was the expression on her face as she savored each bite. It was as close to nirvana as any look he’d ever seen. When she’d sucked a drop of syrup off her finger it had felt like his entire body was sizzling with suppressed fire. He was lost, then, and knew he would be for a long time to come.

  He pushed her backwards toward her cot. Her fingers were already working at his clothes and he let her go long enough to help her. He got his flannel shirt unbuttoned and shrugged ou
t of it even as she began working at the buttons of her own shirt. He jerked his undershirt over his head, then stopped when she did the same. The bra she wore wasn’t anything special. He’d seen all kinds of lingerie in his time, some of which was obviously meant to be taken off more than it was intended to be worn. At that moment, though, the simple cotton bra she wore was a thousand times more seductive than anything in a Victoria’s Secret catalogue.

  She reached behind her and undid the clasp, hesitating only a moment before shrugging it off her shoulders. Jack had already seen her naked. He’d been doing his best not to look at the time, though, trying to preserve some scrap of her dignity while he fought to keep her from dying. Now he let his gaze roam over her. It wasn’t enough. He needed to touch her, to feel her body against his. It took them mere seconds to rid each other of their remaining clothes. That done, they met again, hands and mouths seeking each other in an almost desperate hunger. Jack wrapped his arms around her, holding as tightly as he dared. Casey clung to him as well. It seemed that they both felt an equal sense of need and maybe even insecurity.

  Jack tasted the peaches she’d been eating on her tongue. She was as sweet as the peaches though, her very essence seemed to surround and intoxicate him. He dropped his hands to cup her rear as he ground his hips against her. God, he wanted to feel her closing around him. He felt like he’d explode if he had to wait much longer. He released her mouth as she dug her fingernails into his shoulders. She leaned forward and nipped at his chin with her teeth and he shuddered. She wasn’t just letting him lead their headlong fall into passion. She was as on fire as he was. He lowered her onto the cot, stretching out beside her. He propped himself up on one hand while letting the other trail up her side to her breasts. He circled one peak with a finger and watched as it tightened in response. She moaned when he teased the hard tip with his finger. He leaned forward and tasted it with his tongue.