"We'll tell you. Silas says we got to. So you just stay setting there."
"Sitting," Jon corrected. "A hen sets. People sit. Or a better way to put it would be for me to stay seated."
"Whatever," Caitlyn said, the vagueness in her voice giving Jon pause.
Usually Caitlyn eagerly accepted any correction of her grammar, rarely making the same mistake again. She did, however, still like to use 'ain't' from time to time. What the hell had she and Silas been discussing that had put that worried look on her face?
Jon soon found out, and his growing anger overrode any pretense of treating Caitlyn as anything but the foolish woman her actions had proven her to be in his mind.
"You mean to tell me that you rode out of here the other day alone — strictly against our orders?" he roared. "And you never told us there might have been someone following you?"
Before Caitlyn could defend herself, he continued, "And you knew this morning that someone had been snooping around this cabin and you never told me? Goddamn it, Caitlyn...."
"Goddamn it, Jon, shut up!" Silas snapped. "This is just why Cat didn't say nothin' to you. Maybe if you'd act like you had as many brains above your belt as you seem to have below it, Cat wouldn't be a'feared to talk to you!"
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Jon snarled as he surged to his feet, wobbling precariously until he got the crutch under his arm.
Silas refused to back down from Jon, who was at least a foot taller and fifty pounds heavier, let alone being half his age.
"You think on it, boyo!" he ground out between clenched teeth. "I'm sure a man smart's you think yourself to be can figure it out!"
Caitlyn giggled, then quickly clapped a hand over her mouth and widened her eyes in feigned innocence when Jon glared at her.
She dropped her hand, and batted her eyelashes once. "I think I smell the rabbit burning." Spinning on her heels, she hurried toward the fire.
****
Chapter 12
Well, what do you know about that?
Lingering in bed the next morning, Caitlyn stretched, then clasped her hands behind her head and stared at her small window. It was still pitch black outside, but she really should be up and about. It took a while for the sun to climb over the mountain tops this time of year, but it was probably already at least five o'clock.
But she'd much rather lay here and contemplate whether she had correctly reasoned out the meaning of Silas's words yesterday evening. She'd planned on thinking about it when she went to bed, but she'd nodded off too quickly. Rested now, with her mind fresh, she could muse on it to her heart's content.
Jon was attracted to her, at least in one way. 'Course that way was what she had absolutely no intentions of allowing. Mick had been honest enough with her whenever he tried to answer her innocent questions over the years. She knew danged well what rut meant when talking about the deer. Without that pull between the does and bucks, he had explained, the species would die out. And she had reasoned out on her own that something sort of like that must happen with the other animals.
The problem was, though the baby fawns, skunks and bears each spring were cute, the mother animals spent months teaching their offspring how to survive on their own. Then they started all over again with a new batch of young'uns the next year.
Shoot, what kind of a life was that? And human babies took a heck of a lot longer than a few months to raise. They took years and years.
Suddenly Caitlyn frowned into the darkness. Where would she have been if Mick hadn't taken over her care when he found her half-starved late that summer? What if he had looked ahead over the years and decided it would have been easier to let nature take its course — leave her to survive or die on her own?
And he'd raised her with love, not just tolerance for her weaker state. Mick would have given up his life for her. Indeed, he had, when he shoved her up that tree, assuring her own safety before he turned too late to confront that grizzly.
Caitlyn shuddered, hearing again in her mind the crunch of breaking bones and Mick's screams of agony. Feeling again her own frustration and helpless love when the bear dragged Mick's lifeless body away, covered it with underbrush and nonchalantly strolled off. She knew enough about bear kills to understand that the grizzly would return later, when it was a little hungrier, to enjoy its kill.
Caitlyn blinked back a quick sheen of tears. Well, that damned bear hadn't eaten Paw. As soon as it disappeared, she had slid down and found their frightened pack horse. She'd ridden back and dug with their shovel until her arms gave out, then dug some more. She'd wrapped him in a blanket, then rolled Mick's body into the grave, and shoveled the dirt back in.
By the time she had carried enough rocks to cover the grave, her hands were cracked and bleeding. Still, she found the strength to fashion a cross. She didn't have enough courage to stay any longer — evening was falling and every crackle of brush had her heart jumping in her throat as she imagined the bear creeping back up on her.
Someone shoved the blanket covering her door back and Caitlyn's eyes flew to the opening.
"Caitlyn?" Jon whispered. "Are you all right?"
Caitlyn bit back another sob. "N...no," she croaked out, instead of the yes that should have emerged. A tentative lightening at the window showed Jon limping toward her bed, though she would have known his voice anyway.
He hobbled to her bed and hesitantly lowered himself.
"What is it, Caitlyn? I heard you sobbing."
Caitlyn stared at the window. "I didn't mean to wake you up."
"I wasn't sleeping. I haven't slept much all night."
"Oh." Caitlyn turned her head and peered at him through the dim light. "Is your knee hurting that bad? Sky Woman showed me how to make some pain liniment out of wintergreen. I could see if I got any of it left on the shelf. I had to make some once when Paw hurt his...oh... his...."
When she broke off into sobs, hands covering her face, Jon muttered a tender oath and reached for her. Pulling her into his arms, he held her against his chest, stroking her hair away from her face. She gasped out a louder, more wretched sob and flung her arms around his neck, burying her face and crying, her small shoulders shaking in a heart-breaking rhythm.
"Caitlyn." Jon held her tighter and laid his cheek on her head. "Honey, shhhh, don't cry. Ah, Caitlyn, don't. Tell me what's bothering you."
She shook her head against his neck, and Jon held her, letting her cry. Her tears trickled down his bare chest, searing a path of misery into his own soul. She had cried the day they arrived at the cabin, upset over the destruction of the furnishings, but she'd quickly controlled it. Now she sobbed as though she would never stop — couldn't stop — as though each inch of her ached with misery.
Jon cradled her, murmuring any soothing phrase that came to mind, though he knew she couldn't possibly hear even one word. He glanced at the window after a few minutes, when he realized the room was somewhat lighter. He could make out the outline of the ruffled curtains.
Ruffled curtains and an ermine skin on the wall. A fiesty, blue-eyed minx who loved to shop, and a fiercely loyal woman who risked her own safety to ride through a blizzard to rescue him and Silas. What a contradiction his little Caitlyn was.
Images of her flashed through Jon's mind as he held her. The tattered, foul-smelling ragamuffin Tall Man had dragged from the wigwam, and the concerned woman who had knelt over him in the soaked white shirt, worry on her face because he had been injured when he shot that puma. Until he spat at her and ordered her away.
Even then, she had swallowed what had to have been resentment at his mistreatment and cared for his head wound.
Caitlyn crouched low over the pinto's neck, hair flying and a herd of half-ton buffalo on the pinto's heels, because Jon had been stupid enough to ignore her wiser advice. The heart-stopping fear he had felt when he aimed the rifle at the lead buffalo.
Caitlyn facing the mother bear, when the only father she had ever known had been killed by a grizzly, yet allowing
the sow to go free because she had only been protecting her cub.
Caitlyn in the snow, white flakes highlighting her raven hair and worry on her face for him and Silas. Instead of thanking her, he had snapped at her for wearing a pair of pants to keep herself warm while she came to help them.
Caitlyn in a blue ball gown that matched those beautiful eyes, swirling in his arms around the polished dance floor of the plantation mansion, staring up at him with love on her face. Jon glanced up at the first floor railing on the staircase and saw two blue-eyes, raven-curled imps staring through the rails, wide-eyed wonder on their faces. He couldn't quite tell if they were boys or girls....
"I'm...." Caitlyn sniffed and pushed at his chest. "I'm all right now."
Jon loosened his arms, but kept them around her. She sniffed again and swiped at her nose, and he grabbed the pillow, shaking the cotton case free to hand it to her.
"Sorry," he murmured. "I'm fresh out of handkerchiefs right now."
"This'll do." Head still lowered, Caitlyn wiped her face, then blew her nose on the end of the case. Crumbling the cotton material in her fists, she turned her head toward the window.
"It's...it's getting late. I better go get you and Silas some breakfast started."
A tear-soaked tress of hair lay across her cheek, and Jon brushed it back. "Caitlyn, won't you tell me why you were crying?"
She sat quietly for several long seconds, eyes on the window and her bottom lip caught between her teeth to hold back new sobs. Finally, she took a deep breath.
"I...I haven't even went out to Paw's grave to make sure it's all right since I got back. When I rode out the other day, I'd been thinking of heading up that way. But instead I went to the other side of the mountain. Folks... folks shouldn't let the graves of the people they love go uncared for."
"I'll take you there, if you want me to."
"I'd...I'd like that." She finally tore her gaze from the window. "But you can't go. Your knee...."
"I've to the crutch Silas made. We can go today, if you want."
Caitlyn shyly nodded her head, and a final silver sparkle wobbled past her lashes and down her flushed cheek. She wiped it away with the pillow case, then glanced at Jon's chest and frowned.
"Look, I've gone and got you all wet."
"Don't worry about it, Caitlyn."
But she was already brushing at the matted tendrils of hair beneath his neck with the clean end of the pillow case. She unaffectedly rubbed the material over the damp curls, even the brown nipples on his chest. Jon clenched his jaw and closed his eyes, determined that this time he wouldn't give in to that base nature that made him want to kiss and caress her until she purred beneath him with her own awakening passion.
Or snarl at her until she scampered away from him like a frightened fawn.
How the hell could he go so fast from only wanting to comfort her to only wanting her? Obviously, he didn't affect her the same way. She just sat there, drying his chest...no, as still as a mouse.
His eyes opened, but Caitlyn's were closed. Her lips were slightly parted, tiny little gasps of air feathering between them, skittering across his chest and drying it much more effectively than the cotton case.
"Jon?"
"What, Caitlyn?" Whispered.
"I think you better leave now."
"Yeah, I think I better."
Reluctantly he dropped his arms and reached for the crutch, which had fallen on the floor. When he looked back at her, Caitlyn was staring at him, slowly shaking her head.
"I can't let these things happen, you know," she replied to his questioning look.
"What?" he repeated.
"You know. These...." She tore her gaze away and shrugged. "These feelings I have around you."
"Can you at least tell me what kind of feelings they are?"
"Reckon you know that, too. Guess they're the same sort of feelings Silas accused you of having about me last night." A turn of her head and she faced him again. "But we have to quit having them. Both of us."
When Jon didn't respond, she dropped her chin onto her chest. He reached over and tipped it back up with one finger, his blue eyes scanning the shadows in her azure depths.
"Maybe some day you'll tell me why you feel like that, too, Caitlyn, like you managed to tell me why you were crying alone in the dark this morning. In the meantime, I'll try to do what you want. But since you've been honest with me, I'll tell you this. The feelings I'm beginning to have for you go a hell of a lot farther than just wanting to make love to you."
Caitlyn tried to jerk her head aside, but Jon curled his fingers around her chin.
"I've been trying to figure them out, too. We don't have a whole lot in common, do we?"
"Guess not, what with me being raised out here and you having your fine education back east." Caitlyn managed to brush his hand aside, and tilted her chin up an inch. "'Course there's a few other things about you a woman could admire. Silas said you kept a clean camp and didn't kill anything you didn't need to eat. And times you're not snarling at me, you're sort of pleasant to be with."
"The snarling comes from fighting the urge to kiss you," Jon admitted, quirking his mouth into a wry grin when Caitlyn's hand flew up to cover her lips. "And when you're not looking down that cute little nose of yours and shaking your head at me for being a clumsy fool, you're right pleasant to be with, too, Caitlyn, honey."
Her hand crawled up over her nose, and Jon laughed aloud. "That won't do any good. I've already memorized every inch of your face."
Her hand dropped, landing clenched on her hip. "Well, unmemorize it. And quit calling me 'honey.' And quit thinking about kissing me, then you won't be snarling like a wounded puma cat all the time."
Still chuckling, Jon stood and leaned on his crutch. "Tell you what. You see what you can do about your feelings for me, and I'll do the same." When Caitlyn nodded her agreement, he turned and limped to the doorway. "But," he said over his shoulder, "I don't think you're going to have any more luck than me at putting a lid on whatever's going on between us."
He shoved the blanket aside and hobbled through the doorway, then stuck his head back. "At least, I'm beginning to hope not, Caitlyn, honey."
Caitlyn threw the pillow case at him, but without the weight of the pillow inside, it fluttered ineffectively to the floor. She glared at the white cotton with a mutinous frown on her face while she listened to Jon hobble across the cabin floor. When she heard the door close behind him, she scrambled out of bed and grabbed the pillow case, crumbling it to her chest and squeezing it viciously.
Suddenly she broke into giggles. She was wringing that case like she wanted to wring Jon's neck. She gave the case another experimental squeeze, then fell back onto the bed, giggling and winding the material in her hands.
Huh. Right pleasant to be with, was she? She might have to talk to Jon about how it appeared his speech was deteriorating out here in the mountains.
When she imagined how Jon would slip a teasing look at her out of the corner of his eye if she had the audacity to correct his grammar, she broke out into renewed laughter. It slowly stilled, and she tossed the pillow case aside to clasp her hands under her head again.
Honey. Huh. She sort of preferred sweetheart herself.
****
Chapter 13
As they rode into the small clearing where she had buried Mick on the mountainside, Caitlyn's hands tightened on the reins. But when she glanced over and met Jon's concerned gaze, she relaxed a little. His presence at her side was making this first journey to the grave site a lot easier than she had anticipated.
"Thanks for coming with me," she said quietly.
"Do you want me to ride in first and make sure everything's all right?" he asked.
"I need to see for myself. I did all I could, but if that grizzly did...come back...."
Jon reached for the pinto's bridle, and pulled her horse to a halt. "Let me do this for you, Caitlyn." A stab of displeasure stung him when Caitlyn glanced at him, ob
viously unsure how to interpret the solicitude in his voice. He supposed he couldn't blame her for that, given his usual testiness with the raven-haired minx.
"Please," he told her in a gruff voice. "I'll come back and get you as soon as I can."
"All right," Caitlyn agreed after a second. "Thanks. Thanks again, I mean."
"Where is the grave site?"
Caitlyn tilted her head a little to the right. "Just across the clearing there, behind that big maple tree. Paw always said the maple's were the prettiest in the fall."
Jon handed her his rifle. "You keep this here. And remember, there's someone prowling around. If you spot someone and think you're in danger, shoot."
As soon as she nodded, Jon nudged his horse forward and rode slowly across the clearing, keeping a wary eye out for any intruder — human or animal. Two dozen yards from the maple, he saw the huge pine Mick must have pushed Caitlyn up when the bear attacked. The dead, lower branches were broken off, but standing on another person's shoulders, Caitlyn could have reached the higher branches and climbed to safety.
She had explained what had happened to Jon while they rode, seeming to need to talk about it. Lightning had struck an old tree — he saw that one split in two over there — and the fire had burned off some of the underbrush. Blueberry plants had grown up, and each year Caitlyn gathered the berries to preserve for the winter.
The problem they had encountered — not unusual in the mountains, but always deadly — was a bear in the blueberry patch. Grizzlies ate both meat and berries, Caitlyn had explained, and neither she nor Mick had seen the bear on the far edge of the patch when they rode up. It evidently hadn't noticed them, either, what with the wind blowing down the mountain toward her and Mick.
She should have heard it, though, Caitlyn said more than once. The patch wasn't that large, and something as huge as a grizzly would darn well have made enough noise for a person taught to listen for bears around berry patches to hear.
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