Through the material of her skirt, he could see her working the worry stone. He was tired. He was hungry and her being around kept his beast on edge. If he hoped to keep her in the dark about what he was, he needed balance.
“Are you hungry?”
She looked around again. He could see the “no” on her lips. She was a fastidious woman. No doubt she thought anything cooked here wouldn’t be safe to eat, but she was also a sensible woman and that common sense showed in the next second when she nodded her head.
“Yes.”
“Good answer.”
She raised her brows at him.
“You can’t escape without your strength.”
She blinked. His admiration for her grew as she met his challenge head on.
“I will escape, you know.”
“I bet you will.” And it couldn’t happen soon enough for him. He stood and brushed the dirt from the knees of his torn, filthy pants. Her eyes followed the movement. He saw her flinch. She really did have a thing against dirt, even when dirt was the normal result of activity. He would like to know why. He wanted to know everything about her. He knew precious little, but there had been rumors about something in her childhood. A bad time that no one spoke of, just hinted at. She would tell him about it before he let her go.
“I’ll get you something to eat.”
She sat up. “Thank you.”
He headed for the opening.
“I’ll start a fire if you’ve got a sulfur.”
That pulled him up short as he realized how far he’d slipped from civilized. He didn’t have a sulfur. He didn’t have many of the normal conveniences that made life comfortable. He could present her with a dead carcass but he couldn’t provide her with the heat to cook it. Shit. A foreign feeling tightened his muscles.
“I’ll take care of it when I get back.”
She glared at him, clearly offended. She always got offended when she thought someone thought her incapable.
“I can build a fire without burning your house down.”
He was sure she could if she had the proper tools. “I’ll handle it.”
It took a while to recognize the emotion that flowed over him. Shame. He was ashamed.
“I’m cold.”
He turned around and stared at her, the humiliation lashing at him. He was sure there was a time when he would have carried sulfurs, would have lived in a house. Would have had something to put around her. But that was gone, stolen from him. He closed his fingers into a fist.
“Use a pelt.”
She flinched at the anger in his voice and his shame grew. He hadn’t meant to snap, but the truth was, he didn’t have anything to offer her. A blanket, a coat. Nothing.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“How?”
“I said I’ll take care of it.” His claws extended. The beast unfurled, sensing her discomfort, demanding he alleviate it. As if he needed anything else pointing out his shortcomings.
“When you get back,” she finished for him, her chin coming up.
“Yes.” Somehow.
She stood, then bent, grabbed up a pelt, giving it a firm shake before holding it out in front of her for inspection. “Then be sure you come back.”
The pelt was old and none too clean. He wanted to snatch the pelt out of her hands. She deserved better. He refrained. Sometimes a man had to bow to common sense and the woman needed the pelt to survive. “I’ll be back.”
She stood there, hair tangled around her face, a smudge on her cheek, her clothes torn and filthy, yet still looking regal and composed. He admired that.
“When?” she asked.
When I get here, he wanted to snap, but he didn’t. She was alone and scared and even he could recognize she needed the reassurance. He looked up and pointed. “See that big pine by that boulder?”
She followed his gaze. “Yes.”
“When the sun gets straight above that, start looking for me.”
She frowned. “Start?”
Keeping his lips tight over his teeth to hide the canines that always appeared when he was upset, he answered, “Yes.”
He made it ten feet down the ledge before he heard his name called, a note of uncertainty coloring the syllables.
He turned, his beast growling. She was standing with the pelt around her shoulders. “What?”
“You’ll come back?”
“I already promised I would.”
She shifted. He bet she was rubbing the shine off that worry stone. “Are your promises worth anything?”
She must be really agitated to lower her pride to ask again. And scared. Isaiah put his hand on his knife hilt. It fit solidly in his palm. At least he had this answer.
“The ones I make to you are.”
Her head tilted to the side. No doubt she was tucking the information away in that active brain of hers like a squirrel hoarding nuts for a winter’s day.
“Why?”
He turned on his heel. He wasn’t going there. “Because I said so.”
6
SHE WATCHED HIM GO WITH A SENSE OF ANGER GROWING inside. Who was he to judge her? She looked around at the crude shelter set amid the rock and dirt above the tree line. He didn’t even live in a house. As if chastising her lack of gratitude for her rescue, the wind blew up, biting into her skin. Oh God, what she wouldn’t give for the coat she’d lost earlier. As dirty as it was, it was cleaner than this.
She wrapped the pelt around her shoulders, moaning under her breath as her muscles cramped even tighter, pulling her into the hunch of an old woman. The pelt smelled. She wrinkled her nose and loosened her grip. The wind gusted again. She tightened her grip again, despite her disgust, realizing as she did that she was getting better. A few years ago she would have chosen to freeze rather than have the dirt touch her. The little victory bolstered her faltering confidence. She was winning the war.
She looked around again. The only twigs in sight were the ones woven together to form the top of the lean-to. Considering the lean-to was likely to be her shelter for the night, she needed another option. Which meant climbing down the mountain or else. She eyed the lean-to again. She’d had a bit of education during her captivity with the Indians. She knew how to build a lean-to efficiently. This one was not efficiently built. Almost as if the builder didn’t fear the elements. Which was absurd. Everyone knew how bad mountain weather could get.
She tried to straighten. Pain shot down her back and through her thighs. She took a breath and then another, controlling the reaction as she clenched the pelt in her hands. It took her a minute, but she succeeded. By the time Mr. High-and-Mighty Isaiah came back, she’d have a fire started. Some of her education might be controversial, but what her cousins had taught her was good. They’d taught her how to be prepared.
Looking around cautiously to make sure Isaiah hadn’t returned, she lifted her dress. The last thing she needed was Isaiah getting ideas about her as a bed partner. She’d never been anyone’s bed partner and had no intention of starting now. She’s seen how the Indians treated the women captives as conveniences to be used. Even when those women developed feelings for the men, the men never saw them as anything more than vessels for their sexual release. When she’d come back to the white world, her eyes opened, she’d realized that white men didn’t treat women any better. Even her own cousins had women in town they visited but to whom they’d never introduced her. And those women were replaced often. Her cousins never talked of them and never, in her presence, referred to them with disrespect, but it didn’t change the reality that they viewed them as disposable. Disposable was almost as bad as invisible. She had no intention of being either ever again.
Anchoring the folds of her dress over her wrist, she slipped her fingers through the slit in the side of her pantaloons and found the small, thin bag of emergency supplies her cousins had said she’d always need. For years she’d never needed them. For years she’d told them it was an unnecessary precaution. They were going to gloat annoyingly when she confe
ssed she’d found them useful.
She felt between the spirals of twine for snares, pushed aside the fish hooks wrapped in leather, until she felt the flint and stone. She shook her head as she pulled them out. Cole would be the worst with the I-told-you-so’s. He was annoying when proven right. Not that he said much. He didn’t have to. He had a way of smiling slightly that made his point so much stronger than words. She hated that smile as much as she loved him. Right now she’d kill to see that smile again. Rubbing her fingers over the two objects, she closed her eyes and focused on what she’d been taught about starting a fire.
Starting a fire with flint was tedious, but as her cousins had pointed out, sulphurs were unpredictable, and if you were alone in the woods and needed fire to keep warm, to cook food, or make a signal, you needed something that could withstand the elements. Flint fit that bill.
She carried it with her always. Along with her worry stone, her emergency pack was her constant companion. As always, being prepared left her feeling stronger, more confident. There might be a lot of things that she couldn’t do, but she could light a fire, set a snare, and fish for dinner. She smiled. She could survive. She just needed to remain calm and think. She opened her eyes, her focus restored.
It was wet outside. There was no dry grass to be found, but inside the lean-to were a few pine needles, some leaves and twigs kept dry by the meager shelter. It could be enough. Keeping the pelt around her shoulders with one hand, she gathered her supplies before fluffing the pine needles into a pile and adding a few stray bits of dry grass she could scrounge out of the ground. Sitting on her heels, she surveyed the dismal results. She only had enough for one attempt. Maybe Isaiah was a drinking man. Alcohol would ensure the fire lit and burned hot.
There wasn’t any sign of a bottle in the interior. There wasn’t actually much of anything, but as she glanced around, she realized as sparse as the interior was, there was a certain order to it. The entrance was open and unobstructed. The bed was perpendicular to the back wall on the left side. The furs were evenly layered. Even now, they were only slightly disturbed from her lying on them. There was a small box wrapped in oilcloth to the left and center. It was too small to hold a bottle. Anything placed in it was of a nature that needed to be kept dry. The location would help ensure it. Isaiah was clearly a man who planned and liked order. It was a comforting thing to realize about her rescuer.
Bracing herself for the chill, Adelaide let the pelt slide off her shoulders. She struck the flint against the tinder. Nothing happened. She tried again. This time she got a small spark but nothing caught. She needed something better. The box wrapped in the oilcloth called to her, drew her like a magnet. Gunpowder was flammable but it had to be kept dry. She couldn’t think of anything else a man like Isaiah would have wrapped in oilcloth, as if he valued it.
She inched over to the box, reaching for it, feeling as if she was violating a trust, which was stupid because there was no trust between her and Isaiah. He’d saved her, but he’d also kidnapped her for his own reasons, which negated the saving part—to a point, her sense of fairness insisted on adding. He wasn’t brutal like her first kidnappers. He was actually nice in an unsocial, awkward sort of way.
She caught herself before she could make another excuse for the man. The absurdity of it made her shake her head. Isaiah’s kidnapping of her made him an enemy. As soon as Cole found her, and she had no doubt her cousin would find her, Isaiah would be dead so there was no sense getting attached to him. There was no one meaner that Cole when it came to a fight. He was good with his fists, better with a knife, and excellent with a gun.
An image of Bob lying on the ground with his throat ripped out flashed through her mind. She closed her eyes against the gory imaging. She knew Isaiah had been the one to do the ripping. She had no doubt that Blade was capable of doing the same thing.
She didn’t know who these men were, but she believed them when they said they were Reapers who had declared themselves protectors of the valley. Some said it was because there was an old debt that needed to be repaid. Some said it was because they were spirits come back to haunt those who’d done wrong, but Isaiah wasn’t a spirit and neither was Blade. They were men with haunted eyes, lethal ways, and traditions she didn’t understand. And they might just be a threat to her cousin should he decide to take revenge. Another thing to consider.
She picked up the box. It was lighter than she’d expected. Keeping an eye out for Isaiah, she unwrapped it. She didn’t know what to expect when she took the covering off. Maybe she’d been secretly hoping for some revelation of his past. A diary. A book. Information about the Reapers. But nothing that exciting jumped out at her when she lifted the lid. Inside was an oilcloth package. She picked it up and unwrapped it. It was the gunpowder she was expecting. When she started to close the box lid, she noticed another package on the bottom. She’d missed it because it was wrapped in the same oilcloth. She put the gunpowder to the side and picked up the package. This one was flat. Not a box. She hesitated a moment, holding it in her hand, considering whether she had a right to look at it. She needed the gunpowder. She could justify opening the box for that, but going further? That was an invasion of Isaiah’s privacy.
She rubbed her fingers together as her conscience stepped up, front and center. A conscience could be an unwieldy thing. Digging into her pocket, she touched her worry stone. As always, the initial coolness focused her attention. As the heat from her skin seeped into the stone, so did her unease. There was no reason for her to hesitate. Cole would want to know everything he could about Isaiah. It was her duty to find out. Decision made, she quickly unwrapped the package. It was a tintype of a woman. She was young, attractive in the austere way people always were in pictures. Adelaide doubted that she’d remember her if she passed the woman on the street. But she was important to Isaiah. That made her intriguing. Was it his mother? She looked too young to be his mother, but then it was hard to tell in tintypes. Maybe a sister. Adelaide rubbed her worry stone again, guilt coming stronger. Whoever she was, she mattered.
She rewrapped the tintype and put it back exactly as she’d found it. Picking up the powder, she put a little bit in a piece of paper, folded it up, and took it back outside under the edge of the lean-to, in far enough that it wouldn’t get wet but far enough out to catch a draft. There was nothing worse than being in a smoke-filled hole.
Unwanted images flashed in her mind. Tepees set up on the plains, bitter cold, smoke-filled. The screams because she’d done it wrong, the laughter afterward. Life had been a disaster during her captivity. She had never felt more incompetent than she had as a prisoner, more helpless. Everything had been lost. Nothing had been right. There’d been no order. No direction. No matter how she’d tried, she could never do anything right. She’d been the butt of every joke.
When her cousins had rescued her, the first thing she’d done was cry. The second was to vow that her life would never be chaos again. When she’d gotten home, she’d set that vow into action. Piece by piece she’d rebuilt her life with one rule holding it all together—everything would be in order. And nothing would ever take her by surprise again.
Looking around her current situation, she sighed. Until two nights ago she’d kept that vow. She tugged the pelt up over her shoulders again, the musty smell a mockery of all her brave plans. She smothered the echoes of long-gone laughter. But just because her plan had faltered once didn’t mean it had to continue to falter. She could take command of this situation the same way she’d taken charge of her life when she was fourteen. One detail at a time. One step at a time. And the first item on the agenda was still getting the fire started.
She briskly set about building the fire, sprinkling the gunpowder on a pile of leaves before arranging twigs on top. The days when she was a victim were long gone. She struck the flint on the sulphur. It took two tries before she got the angle and the pressure right but then, with a flash, the gunpowder caught and the leaves started to smoke. She leaned forward and
blew very gently, encouraging the flame. Her patience was rewarded as it always was. Leaning back, she fed a small twig to the hungry flame, watching it grow, adding more and more until she had a good base. A sense of satisfaction grew right along with the flames.
She’d learned the benefit of order and control. She glanced around the campsite again. What little was there was in its place. Maybe Isaiah had learned some lessons from life, too. She tucked that information away along with the details about the mystery woman. When it came to Isaiah, she was going to need all the weapons she could get because he was tenacious and smart, and for whatever reason, he’d decided he wasn’t going to let her go.
Her fire sputtered and hissed. She needed more wood. Sighing, she pulled her skirt up and knotted it at her hip. Which meant she was going to have to hike down to the tree line and get some if she wanted to prove anything to anyone. Pulling some smaller sticks from the roof, she placed them on the fire to hold it until she got back. And then headed down the mountain.
HE wasn’t going to let her go. Isaiah chased down the rabbit, caught it by its ears, and mercifully killed it before draining the blood and tying it to the string along with the other two he’d caught. It would be enough.
As he searched for sticks that would serve as suitable spits, he told himself it wasn’t a matter of wanting so much as it was a matter of couldn’t. He’d vowed to protect her. He’d failed in that vow once. He wouldn’t again. Until this threat against her was as dead as the rabbits, he was going to stick to her side like glue.
To the right were some saplings that would do as spits. He cut them off and stripped them quickly. At least he could offer her food. A glance at the sky confirmed what he’d estimated. He’d been gone about an hour. Not that long, but long enough that an impatient woman could get twitchy. For all she feigned differently, Adelaide did not have that much patience. He sprinted up the hill, smelling the wood smoke before he reached the home site. He slowed and circled the area, taking stock of the surroundings. There were no other scents except wood smoke and Adelaide. The wood scent was strong. Adelaide’s scent was not. How the hell had she built a fire? And where the hell was she that her scent was so weak? He checked the lean-to, noted the disturbance of the box, the bed, a couple areas on the roof where she’d rearranged the sticks. At least he knew where she got the wood for the fire. He probably should be grateful she hadn’t dismantled the whole thing while looking for fuel.
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