Pain ripped through him, and his stomach ended up somewhere near his throat. He rolled to the right, releasing the she-devil and trying to find a manly way not to throw up all over himself. It had been years since anyone had gotten the drop on him and gave him a kick to the nuts. He’d forgotten just how agonizing it was.
Grady heard her scramble to her feet then brush off her clothing with sharp strokes. He wanted to toss her in the mud.
“You had no right to attack my person, sir. I am sure you will apologize for your behavior.”
“You’re fucking loco, lady,” he gasped out between pulses of pain.
A sharp intake of breath was her only response. He got to his knees, almost anyway, and pressed his forehead into the cool ground. His breath was uneven as it escaped from his mouth. One hand cupped his crotch, there’d be no more riding that night, while the other slowly pushed himself up.
“You’re out here in the middle of the night following me then you kick me in the balls, and you want an apology?” He snorted. “Not a fucking chance.”
“You have an interesting vocabulary, sir. I will thank you to stop using profanity.”
“And you talk like an uptight woman who’s spent her life in books. God help me if you’re ugly too.” He expected a reaction, but certainly not a poke in the back. “Did you just poke me?”
She ignored him. “I have no qualms about lodging a complaint with the local authorities.”
Grady gritted his teeth against the incredibly annoying woman and managed to get to his feet. “Then make sure you tell them how you kicked me and poked me.”
His vision was a bit blurry but he was able to finally get a good look at her. She was kind of short, barely brushing his shoulder, with long dark hair, pale skin, and spectacles shining in the moonlight. Damn she looked like a school marm, which really begged the question as to what she was doing. He was damn sure going to find out.
“I did no such thing. I simply extricated myself from your attack.” She folded her arms across her chest and stared.
Grady finally made it to his feet and sucked in a big breath. “How about we call it even?”
“What do you mean?” She peered at him, her brows knitted.
“You go on your way, and I’ll go on mine.” Not on a horse until at least morning, that was for sure. Damn girl had feet like rocks.
“I do not understand.”
Grady realized two things at that moment. First, since the woman had definitely been following him, it would be a good idea to keep a close eye on her. Second, she had no idea what she was doing. She had on a thin cotton dress for pity’s sake. The nights went down to near freezing in the fall. He wasn’t one to have a soft heart, but she’d likely be dead in a day or two if he didn’t at least get her to the next town before he was rid of her.
“What’s there to understand? You obviously don’t want to be around me, so be on your way.” He made a little shooing motion with his hand.
“It is late and dark. I was going to stop here at this clearing for the night.” She sounded quite sure of herself, or perhaps she was just a really good liar. Grady would put good money on her being the latter.
“What clearing?” Grady peered around, still trying to focus on where they were.
She pointed to the left up ahead of them. “That one there. I hear a source of running water, and there is a line of boulders to block the wind.”
Damned if she wasn’t right, the little vixen. It was the perfect clearing to stop for the night. He’d be a fool to continue on with throbbing balls in the pitch dark. She turned her back and retrieved her horse, leaving him standing there beneath the tree.
“Suit yourself.” Grady limped over to his horse, and by the time he made it over to the clearing, she’d already settled in and somehow unsaddled and hobbled her horse. The schoolmarm was currently building a ring of stones, presumably to make a fire.
He stepped toward her, and she stopped, looking up at him with those spectacles winking in the meager moonlight. “Are you planning on sharing my campsite?”
“I’m planning on stopping for the night and resting my balls. You kicked them clear up to my throat, woman.” He ignored her disapproving cluck and hobbled his horse. As he uncinched the strap around the saddle, he kept an eye on his strange companion.
She created a perfect circle from the rocks, placing them so tightly together no sparks could get under or over them. Then she set about gathering twigs, and he was so amused, Grady sat down to watch her. Like a little chipmunk, she used her skirt to gather as many twigs as she could find in the clearing. Then she sat down on her haunches and built a triangular shaped bundle in the middle of the ring of stones.
Grady wondered where the hell she’d learned how to make a fire. He’d never seen such a thing before. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
Again, she ignored him and continued on her task. She reached into a travel bag and pulled out what he recognized as waterproof matches. He honestly expected her to be there for at least another thirty minutes before she gave up and asked for help.
The fire flared to life, making his eyes sting at the sudden brightness.
Hell and damnation. She sure didn’t look as if she could take care of herself, but she’d just showed him that was untrue. Maybe she was much cleverer than he gave her credit for, or perhaps she was a confidence man, er, woman. Grady watched her with a new set of eyes.
There was still the matter of why she’d been following him, and why she was sitting there pretty as she pleased, making camp with a man she didn’t know, alone and unprotected. It was the strangest situation, and it didn’t sit right with him, which meant it was wrong.
“What’s your name, honey?”
This made her stop in her tracks to stare at him. “Pardon me?”
He leaned back against a rock and folded his arms, assessing the little wren. “Your name? Or is that a secret?”
“You may call me Miss, uh, Eliza.” It was the first time he’d seen her ruffled. The hunter in him assessed his prey. She was not as confident as she appeared.
“Eliza what?”
“Just Miss Eliza.” She arranged her skirt in front of her, then began feeding larger sticks from the pile beside her into the fire. It flickered merrily enough to make him want to throw sand on it. “And you, sir, what is your name?”
“Wolfe. Grady Wolfe.”
She glanced up at him, pushing her spectacles up her nose. The firelight danced across the glassy surface so he couldn’t quite see her eyes. “As in the big bad?”
Grady couldn’t help the annoyance mixed with amusement that raced through him at her wit. The woman definitely had a brain and a sharp tongue. “None other.”
“I read the Brothers Grimm once. Perhaps I am the hunter instead of the helpless girl.” She continued to the feed the fire, seemingly uncaring of the verbal game she was playing with him.
“You sure as hell don’t look like a hunter.” He watched her closely. Her reactions would tell him a lot about exactly what his short charlatan had up her sleeve. “You’re more like a helpless girl.”
“Should I be afraid you will swallow me whole then?” She rose to her feet and put her hands on her hips, looking like the damn schoolmarm again.
Grady’s gaze raked her up and down, taking in the frumpy clothes, the brown hair, the ugly shoes. He didn’t know what to make of Just Miss Eliza yet, but he would. She could count on that.
*
“I’ll be grabbing some shuteye then. Much obliged to you for, ah, building the fire.” He pulled his hat down low and blocked her out.
Eliza thought for certain he could hear her knees knocking together. She’d never thought herself a thespian, but after that performance, she was ready for Shakespeare. Her heart thumped so hard her throat vibrated from the force of it.
Various parts of her body ached from the tackle and then the fall. The man had a body harder than an oak tree. She could attest to that fact. Grady Wolfe was larger th
an life, and he scared her to pieces. Eliza had dug up courage from somewhere near her feet to pretend she was unaffected by him.
However, that was far from the truth. She trembled from head to toe, whether it was from fear, excitement, or just plain shock. Thank God she’d read the book on how to start a camp fire. It was the only thing she’d remembered as she’d stood there quaking like a little girl in front of the exceptionally tall, strong man. The closest she’d ever come to touching a man had been handing her father his clean shirt. Yet she’d been pressed against Grady Wolfe, indecently so, and it had frightened her as much as it had excited her.
She must’ve convinced him that she had been planning on stopping at the clearing. It was blind luck there had actually been a clearing and that it was a good spot to stop for the night. Eliza had been miserable enough to stop an hour earlier, so the clearing was a gift she was quite thankful for and glad it was suitable.
When a lizard darted near her foot, she bit her lip to the point of pain to keep the screech from popping out. Mr. Wolfe had apparently decided to sleep, and she didn’t want him to wake up any time soon. It would take her most of the night to recover from her first encounter with the man.
She needed to keep up appearances, to convince him she was simply a fellow traveler so he would maybe offer to travel with her. That was her master plan anyway, whether or not it would work remained to be seen. What good would she do Angeline if she gave up so easily?
She fed the fire with some larger wood, still surprised it was crackling so nicely. Books never failed her like people had.
She retrieved her blanket from the saddle and a book from her bag. Reading always relaxed her, and she certainly needed relaxing. Eliza picked her favorite, Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. It transported her to a world outside her own, and Professor von Hardwigg reminded her of Ephraim Monroe, her mentor and friend, who had taught her so much. She laid out her blanket up against a smooth rock and sat down, stifling a groan. After she managed to get her boots off, she couldn’t control the sigh that escaped. It felt so good to sit and not be bouncing up and down on a horse.
“You know if a man hears a woman sigh like that in bed, he’d know he did something right.”
Eliza squeaked before she could stop herself. It sounded so silly and childish, bringing a heat to her cheeks she could only hope he attributed to the fire.
“I hardly think that is a subject we should speak of.” Eliza nearly cringed at how prim she sounded, almost like the mothers in her ward who used to chastise her.
“Obviously, you ain’t spent a lot of time around campfires and cowboys then, have you?” He peered at her from beneath his hat. “Bedsport is what they jaw about.”
“Ah, well, it is a very good thing I am not a cowboy then. I did not mean to bother you. I wanted to read before I retired for the night.” Her mouth was drier than sand, and she wondered if she would ever feel comfortable around Mr. Wolfe.
“Are you a schoolmarm or something?”
Eliza couldn’t stop the chuckle that erupted from her throat. “A schoolmarm? No, definitely not. I am a student, not a teacher.” She had no patience to teach anyone, especially the LDS teachings she didn’t agree with.
“Who is your teacher then?” He pushed up the brim of his heat to stare at her, his dark eyes more intense than the deepest embers of the fire.
“He-he died last year though I continue learning.” She again tried to distract the man. His unceasing perusal made her want to squirm, so she looked away and loaded the fire with wood. “I will put my book away so we can both get some sleep.” She managed a weak smile and tucked the blanket around herself, turning her back on Mr. Wolfe.
His gaze was palpable, burning into her skin like the fire she’d built. It seemed like hours until her eyes finally closed in exhaustion, and her dreams were plagued with uneasy images of dark creatures and danger.
Chapter Two
‡
“You’re going to have to wake up some time, so it might as well be now.”
Eliza started awake, momentarily confused by the cold morning air, the unfamiliar surroundings, the hard ground beneath her, and the man standing over her with the biggest knife she’d ever seen.
She was instantly and completely awake, as if she’d had a bucket of cold water thrown over her. Heart pounding like a bass drum, she finally got a clear view of Grady Wolfe. He was tall and whipcord thin, with wide-set shoulders and long limbs, likely giving him a great reach, agility, and speed.
She stared at his face, each piece nothing special, but put together, they made Grady absolutely striking. He had the darkest eyes she’d ever seen, barely a distinction between the pupil and the iris. They were velvet pools of dark ice set in gaunt cheeks with at least three days worth of whiskers. A dirty hat covered waves of dark brown hair brushing his collar. His lips were set in a tight line, almost as sharp as the knife in his hand.
Grady Wolfe was positively frightening.
“Mr. Wolfe?” Eliza didn’t know how she managed to actually form the words with her stiff lips. And she had thought she had been scared last night. Obviously, she’d had no idea what being truly scared really was.
“What the hell are you doing, Just Miss Eliza?” He frowned fiercely, his eyebrows slamming together so hard she almost heard the snap.
“I do not know what you mean.” She sat up, pushing hair out of her face and trying to appear normal, whatever that meant. The last thing she should do is cower like a little mouse facing a big cat.
“You were following me; don’t deny it. I want to know why.” He fingered the tang of the blade, sending a shiver up her spine at the caress.
“I-I was not following you. I was traveling alone, and you happened to be riding ahead of me.” She didn’t even believe herself.
Apparently, he didn’t either. “You were in the alley near the saloon. I saw you. Then when I left town, you were right behind me. Don’t shovel any more shit at me.”
Although she was shaking hard enough to rattle her teeth, Eliza knew she couldn’t admit what she had been doing. Something told her giving into his bullying would be the absolute wrong thing to do.
“The fact you saw me in town does not indicate I was following you. That is ridiculous logic.” She rose to her feet, intent on holding her ground by feigning ignorance. “I was not being disingenuous about my intents.”
“Using a five-dollar word ain’t gonna change a thing, woman. You need to get your ass back on your horse and go back to town. There must be some foolish man out there looking for you.”
Eliza held back the blush by force of will. Her father didn’t care about her; he only cared whether his meal was late. No doubt he had all kinds of punishments scheduled for her, including penance on her knees for days.
“I assure you, there is no one worried about me. I am traveling in the same direction as you, a pure coincidence.” Hoping he didn’t notice the trembling in her hands, Eliza tried to pick up her saddle, but found herself on her fanny in the dirt instead. It hadn’t occurred to her that the saddle she’d lifted off the stall wall the day before would be heavier when lifted from the ground. It was simple physics, of course, and Eliza was embarrassed she hadn’t come to the conclusion earlier.
“That just proves to me you don’t belong out here, Just Miss Eliza.” He picked up her saddle as if it weighed nothing and plopped it on the horse’s back, dead center on the blanket. The man was stronger than he looked. After cinching the saddle with expert speed, he grabbed her bags then immediately dropped the larger one. “Jesus Christ, what’s in here?”
Eliza forgot to be scared for a moment when her most precious possessions were in danger. “Be careful! That contains my books.”
He poked the bag. “Books? You’re out here with coyotes and scorpions, and you got a bag of damn books? What the hell is wrong with you?”
His words should have stung, but Eliza was more annoyed than insulted. “I’ll thank you to give my boo
ks their proper respect, Mr. Wolfe. These are very precious to me.” She pulled the bag across the dusty ground, away from the toes of his boots.
“Go back to town, or I’ll tie you to a tree and leave you here.” He slid the big knife into its scabbard on his hip.
“I am heading west, Mr. Wolfe, whether or not you want me to.” She swallowed the big lump in her throat with effort.
He stalked toward her, his swagger making her want to turn tail and run. Leaning in close, he puffed out a breath, which smelled like coffee and tobacco, the heat a strangely welcome feeling in the cold morning air.
“What the hell do you want, Eliza?”
It seemed strange to have any man use her given name, much less a man like Grady Wolfe. She was used to being called Sister Hunter or Daughter, but only Angeline called her Eliza. The reminder made her courage return in equal measure to combat her fear. Then her imagination took over and saved her.
“Fine then, I will tell you the truth. I am a widow with no means to support myself.”
“You could sell the books,” he mumbled under his breath.
“My husband’s family threw me out of the house, so I took what I could carry and left.” She gestured to the bags. “The books are all I have left of Ephraim.” Her throat closed up at the truth of her words even if she was using the memory of him to tell a falsehood.
Grady stared at her in that intense manner of his. Eliza wanted to squirm, but she didn’t even reach up to wipe her eyes.
“You have no other family?”
“Some distant relations.” She was at least being somewhat honest about that since Angeline was physically distant.
“Where are these relations of yours?” He fingered the grip of the pistol hanging on his hip. Her gaze was absolutely glued to the small gesture. She doubted a man like Grady touched his gun for effect—when he touched it, it was for a purpose.
She only hoped she wasn’t that purpose.
Eliza attempted to swallow her dry spit. “West, but I am not sure where. I was hoping to find them without help.” Now that wasn’t the entire truth of course.
Ruthless Heart Page 2