He scooted back out of the cave and nodded to Savannah that it was safe to enter and then he ducked into the opening, hunching his shoulders as he moved toward the back wall of the burrow. Tugging the saddlebags which hung aggravatingly on a branch, he swore under his breath and heaved angrily on the leather strap. The branch gave way just as Savannah was starting into the hole. She entered the den to see Travis curled in a ball, food stuff and clothing hanging on his head and strewn about the floor of the cave.
She eased in beside him and snickered at his expression, which was a mixture of bewilderment and embarrassment and, of course, fury. She helped him remove the clothes and they stuffed them back into his bags while he grumbled his annoyance at the situation. While Savannah replaced the food into the other side of his saddlebag, Travis crawled to the opening of the den and stuffed the slicker outside so that it rested over the bushes that covered the entrance.
He turned back into the cave to find Savannah’s face a torrent of tears, her eyes fixed on a tiny pair of knitted baby booties. Wondering if he should rush to comfort her or to just let her alone in her sadness, he stayed where he was while he decided which would stop her crying fit sooner.
Savannah looked at his concerned face and sniffed while wiping away the tears and explained, “I lost them the first time I was here in the desert. I was so distraught at the time because they were the only reminder of my little boy. I just found them again and at first I was elated because they are so precious to me. But then, I started wondering if he would remember me when he sees me again and if he would ever love me again.”
His heart melting at her words, Travis pulled her into his arms and leaned against the back of the cave while she cried against his shoulder. He smoothed her hair as he consoled, “Nobody forgets their mother. It’s instinct, branded into our hearts forever, no matter how young we are when we are separated.”
Savannah sniffed and pulled away from him to search his face, for it seemed as if he spoke from experience.
As if reading her mind, he explained, “When I was four years old, my parents went to Europe to secure more products for their company. I was left in our big house with the nanny and servants for almost two years while they traveled. At that young age, I was devastated at losing them and I was so afraid that they would never come home again. While they were gone, I looked at my mother’s portrait every day because I was afraid that I would forget her. There were a few things that I had forgotten about her, but when they returned, those wonderful things that make a mother the one person that a child is bound to came rushing back to me the moment she took me into her arms. The love and the devotion that I had felt for her as a very young boy seemed to return ten-fold.” He took a breath to let his words soak in, then he finished, “Needless to say, I made them promise never to leave me again.”
Warmed by his story, Savannah felt a surge of admiration for this man whom she had witnessed to be cross and callous at times and then gentle and compassionate at other times. Without thinking that their closeness would cause either of them to feel passion for the other, she leaned into him and encircled him with her arms. Taking in the warmth that he infused into her body, both physically and emotionally, she closed her eyes and whispered, “Thank you.”
Travis drew in a deep sigh, taking in the fragrance of her dark, lustrous hair, the dampness from the rain mingled with the lingering lavender scent that wafted through his senses. He leaned his face close to her to lightly kiss the top of her head and then covered it with his cheek. Then he released the sigh of pure pleasure as he wrapped her in his strong arms and closed his eyes. Contented sleep overtook him almost immediately.
Outside their haven, the thunder clapped and the rain came in sheets, driven by a blustery southeasterly wind. The deserted horses presented their rumps to the wind that pummeled them with biting raindrops. The once scorched landscape became drenched and swelled with little rivers that wound around cactus plants and rocks, bent upon finding their way to the Rio Grande and then back to the sea to be sucked up again by the next congregation of clouds.
Savannah awoke with a start, her mind reeling with confusion. The quiet that surrounded her was the complete opposite of the deafening noise that had enveloped just moments ago. Or had it been hours ago? She stirred slightly and felt the warmth of Travis’ body behind her. Reluctant to leave him, she remained pinned by his powerful arms.
When he stirred, his mind, too, was jumbled with questions as he shook his head and squeezed her toward him. But, realizing that their bodies were adjoining and his own body was reacting to this close proximity, he thrust Savannah away, sending her sprawling on the dirt floor on her hands and knees.
“Damn!” he swore as he wiped a dirty hand across his face to try to wake up. “We must have fallen asleep. We’ve lost a lot of time. Now we’ll have to ride into the night to make it up.”
Savannah threw him an angry, confused look over her shoulder, and then crawled to the opening of the burrow. Shoving aside the slicker, she poked her head out and saw that the rain had stopped. As she squinted at the sun, which glistened against and incandescent blue sky, she crawled the rest of the way out and onto the damp desert floor. She moaned as she tried to stand, for her entire body ached with the stiffness and tension of sleeping in the cramped cave. She tried to stretch her tight muscles as Travis had taught her while she looked around her.
The ground was already hot but not yet dusty. A few telltale drops of rain clung to the underside of the desert plants, the only sign that rain had passed through here. To the northwest, the rumbling black clouds had all but disappeared. The sky above showed no indication that those angry thunderheads had just invaded its otherwise silent existence.
Savannah’s gaze fell upon her gray mare where she saw Travis kneeling at the Appaloosa’s side examining her foreleg. He picked it up and felt the padding inside the hoof and shook his head. As he let the foot drop he watched as the mare held it an inch above the crusty ground.
“What is it?” Savannah asked as she leaned over Travis and patted her mare’s neck. “It’s not broken is it? We won’t have to shoot her, will we?”
“Calm down,” Travis said as he rose to his feet. “It looks like there is some swelling and her foot is hot. It might be an infection. There is no way he will be able to go any further.”
Concerned, she touched his arm in alarm as she asked, “We’re not going to leave her here are we?”
“What else can we do? We certainly can’t stay here while she heals.”
“But can’t we lead her? I’ll walk if I have to but I won’t leave her,” she insisted as she squeezed Travis’ arm to emphasize her words.
“Lady, we’ve already lost three hours. Leading a lame horse will cost us days. We don’t have that much time to waste. We’re supposed to meet Tito in a little over a week.”
“Then go on without me,” she insisted, waving her hand in the air. “I’ll stay here until she heals.”
Seeing the determination in her stance and hearing it in her words, he shook his head and swore, “Dammit! I can’t…” he started then waved both hands above his head, finally conceding to her argument.
He pulled the saddle off his Palomino and stuffed it inside the burrow with a grunt of impatience.
“What are you doing?” Savannah asked as he brushed by her and began to unsaddle her Appaloosa as well.
“If we’re going to ride double, we need to get rid of as much weight as possible. Your saddle is lighter than mine. Those bags will have to stay, too,” he said, nodding toward the pile of saddlebags and her carpet bag.
“But…” she stammered, but he interrupted.
“Just take what you need. Nothing more,” he threw the saddle over the Palomino’s back and began to tighten the cinch.
Numbly, Savannah went through her belongings and stuffed what she thought was important to her into the saddlebag, leaving behind most of her clothes, including the nightgown that she was forbidden to wear. She carried
the bag to Travis, who slapped it across the horse’s rump and then left her to go through his own things.
He left his saddlebag on the ground where he had filled it and then forced the remaining bags and one of the blankets into the hole. He shot a glance at Savannah, daring her to question his actions, and then bent to retrieve his saddlebag. As he threw it across the Palomino’s neck, he glared at her again, shook his head, and then took the leather reins of her mare into his fist.
As he led the Appaloosa to stand behind his stallion, Savannah’s heart soared with elation at the idea that he had agreed to take the injured animal with them. But, as he came to her, he held the reins to her, his brown eyes told her that he had not, as she thought, given in to her female whiles, he growled at her, “If you want her to go, you take care of her. You hold on to her and if you let go of the reins and she doesn’t keep up, she stays where she stands.”
Bewildered, Savannah nodded and held the reins tightly as he stepped into the stirrup and then leaned a hand down to help her mount, his eyes never meeting hers. Grumbling under her breath at his audacious attitude, she took his hand and stuck her boot into the stirrup and as soon as her bottom hit the Palomino’s rump, she felt Travis spur Blazer into a walk. She kept a tight grip on the reins, and was glad that she had, for Dixie balked at first and almost pulled her backwards and onto the ground. Angrily, she jerked on the straps and silently urged her hobbling horse to keep up. Thankful that she was following and grateful that Travis had allowed her to bring an injured animal with them, she settled in behind him and kept her other hand attached to the back edge of the saddle.
They rode through the evening meal, stopping only long enough to issue rations of water to the horses. Their canteens had been filled that morning from the stream next to which they had camped, but they knew that the precious liquid would be drained quickly in the heat that enveloped them.
Savannah swayed with every step that the horse beneath her took, her hips and legs beginning to ache with every movement. Her hands were sore from holding on to the cantle of the saddle, for she refused to seek support from the man who rode in silence in front of her. Her shoulder sparked with a jolt of pain each time Dixie faltered against the straps that she held so tightly that her hand began to blister.
She wondered why she had talked herself into asking this man to escort her back to Mexico as she bored holes in his straight, impudent back. She had known from the start that he was audacious, fastidious, not to mention selfish and yet, she found herself drawn to him and that, by God, infuriated her even more.
But, as the gold of the sun filtered to orange before it slipped behind copious clouds to set for the night, Savannah found that her anger had slowly diffused into mere intolerance. And when Travis reached back to help her from the saddle when the moon was high overhead, their eyes met in a glowing gaze that caused her heart to clinch in her throat. Suddenly and without any warning whatsoever, she felt that tug upon her heart, that surge of what she would come to realize was affection for this irritating and admirable man.
She slipped to the ground and immediately went to check on Dixie, who lulled listlessly, her head hung low. Savannah reached to pick up the injured hoof, but Dixie shied away, her eyes wide with alarm. She watched as Travis caught the bridle and gave the reins to her while he bent to examine the foot.
“It’s still swollen,” he said as he looked up into her worried face. “This walking is not doing her any good,” he said as he removed his hat and rested it on a knee as he reared back on his boot, staring at the wounded horse. “Another day of this and she’ll be buzzard bait for sure.”
Savannah’s eyes welled up as she realized that her insistence that they bring her mare along might have hurried her horse’s demise after all. She sighed and whispered as if Dixie could understand her question, “So, you’re going to shoot her?”
A long time passed before he answered, “I think we’ll wait until daybreak. Let her rest overnight and we’ll see in the morning if she can go on.”
Relieved that Dixie had been granted another reprieve, Savannah patted the gray cheek of the mare and Dixie nudged her in return.
Travis stood up and removed the bridle and ran a gloved hand down the horse’s neck, talking in a soothing voice to her as he ran his hand down the mare’s leg and gently eased the mare’s foot up to feel the pad inside. With his teeth, he pulled off his glove and touched the tender flesh that radiated the fever from within. Nodding, he released the foot and stood up again, saying, “I don’t think there will be any need to hobble her. She won’t go far.”
He patted the mare’s neck and then left her to unsaddle the Palomino. Reaching for the rope that he used to keep the horse from wandering, he attached it to the forefeet and then left him to graze in the darkness. Then, he carried the saddle, leaving the bags for Savannah to pick up as he called over his shoulder, “We’ll be leaving early so get some sleep.”
As she picked up the bags and the one blanket, she realized that they had to share, so she looked at him with a question in her eyes. She was relieved to hear that he would lean against the saddle while she slept in the blanket. And she happily obliged his order to sleep, for as soon as she rolled into the blanket, she was dreaming.
Travis was not so lucky. He struggled against the hard ground and the uncomfortable saddle that bit into his back while seeking the sleep that his companion had already found. He tossed and turned and then gave up and stared at the stars above. He could not understand why the woman, who slept only yards away, could inundate his mind and heart so completely. As he lay there, contemplating his dilemma, a battle was roiling inside him, making him feel vulnerable and enraged at the same time.
He swore at his inability to control his emotions and his body as he punched the saddle with his palms until it settled into the dirt enough to satisfy his aching back and his infuriated mind. Then, he scrunched his shoulder into the thick, unyielding leather with a growl of indignation that neither the saddle nor the ground would give him the necessary comfort that he so craved.
Today, they had spent several hours within inches of each other and the torture that he had been forced to endure was weighing heavily on him now. Her undulating body, which she had taken such pains to keep from making contact with his, still radiated the heat that escaped through the confines of her clothes, sending sparks of yearning from the whole of his back where she almost, but barely missed touching him all the way down to the tips of his fingers where that same heat exploded into a shockwave of hunger throughout his body. And while she starved him of the passion, which grew with her every breath that tickled the tiny hairs at the nape of his neck, she was totally oblivious to the mark that her close proximity to him was making on him.
Even now, she lay snuggled in that damned blanket as if it was some other lover’s arms that enfolded her, smiling in her slumber and sighing contently. Her oblivious act sent sparks of jealousy to the pit of his very soul. She had no idea that every move she made, every breath she took, every nuance of her essence was his unfortunate undoing. Without knowing it or even realizing it, she had left him with no control, mentally or physically and she had no idea what she was putting him through every time her eyes met his, every time her lips parted, whether to protest or to passionately accept his, every time she touched him or to avert doing just that, she sent him into a whirlwind of conflicting emotions.
So, while Savannah lay enveloped in the bliss that was her dreamland, Travis twisted and turned, flipped and flopped, while he wrestled with the stiff saddle beneath him and the stiffness that permeated his entire body. The stars, which slowly drifted above him as the night droned into dawn, twinkled a taunting message to him that she was, and would remain, as distant to him as they were: untouchable, unreachable and undeniably unwilling to breach that infinite space between them.
All of his efforts to capture her fleeting heart, a heart that sped passed him like a shooting star high in the Heavens, once bright and warm with love an
d then suddenly disappearing into the frigid night sky, were for naught. To catch it would mean eternal ecstasy but to merely chase it blindly and without a cunning strategy in mind would mean unending damnation, a vast vacuum of everlasting emptiness. But what ate at him the most was deciding whether or not to even try anymore, whether she was worth it or not. His mind deemed her impossibly unworthy of his efforts while his aching heart screamed, yes, by God, she was!
Chapter Fifteen
Morning came much too soon for Travis, for when the sun had begun its breaking trek across the horizon, he still tumbled in a torrent of treacherous dreams. A certain velvety violet-eyed woman was walking away from him and he could not get her attention, no matter how loud he yelled. She never looked back as she sashayed to the gray speckled horse and climbed into the saddle. Before she spurred the mare, she looked over her shoulder and smiled a devilish smile, her eyes twinkling with the victory of his defeat. Then, she was carried away as if on a thunder cloud over the arid land and into the awaiting sky. Her raven hair swirled in wisps around her body, twirling with the force of the wind that swept her higher into the blackening clouds. Then suddenly, her face changed to fear and she reached for him, but the gale was forcing her farther away. One last look back at him as she was sucked into the distant thunderhead, her face filled with sadness and she held his gaze as tears dropped from her eyes and mingled with the rain that pelted him mercilessly.
He wanted to go to her, to bring her back and to hold her in his arms, but in an instant, she had disappeared into the darkness. He called her name but there was no answer. Only the roaring thunder returned his pleas as the clouds drifted farther and farther away. He called her name again…
“What?” Savannah asked as she bent over Travis’ thrashing body as he lay curled in a ball on the ground beside the saddle.
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