Blackwolf's Redemption

by Sandra Marton

  What kind of man would abandon a woman that way?

  Endless questions. No answers. None he could answer right now, at any rate, not with the storm almost on them and Sienna still trembling in his arms.

  He could feel the race of her heart. Feel the soft whisper of her breath against his skin. He gathered her even closer, leaned his chin on the top of her head. Her hair was soft; it smelled of rain and, very faintly, of lilacs.

  “Easy,” he said. “We’re down. You’re okay.”

  He wasn’t sure she’d heard him. Then she drew a shuddering breath.

  “I didn’t think we’d make it.”

  “Blackwolf Mountain and I have known each other a very long time.”

  She gave a little laugh. “A good thing.”

  Not really, he thought, but she had no need to know that.

  “You all right now?”

  “I’m fine.”

  She wasn’t. She was still shaking, her face devoid of color. And she was a mess.

  Her hair was a mass of curls. He’d already seen the bump on her head. She’d broken her fingernails. Her jeans were torn and so was her T-shirt. Sweat and now the steadily increasing rain had plastered them to her, outlining her body. It was delicate but as lush and feminine as a man could want.

  He could feel her belly and her thighs against his. Could feel her breasts pressed against his chest, the pebbled nipples seeming to burn against his naked flesh. The pebbling told him she was chilled. And braless. And that her breasts were gently uptilted as if in readiness for a man’s mouth.

  He shut his eyes, willing the all-too-vivid image away, deliberately replacing it with an image of her face. That was safer.

  She had a pretty face, but more than that, an intelligent one. Bottom line, she looked nothing like a thief or a flower child still caught up by the nonsense of the prior decade.

  What she looked like was a woman a man would want in his bed. Not a man like him. His secrets were too dark; the shadows that engulfed him too ugly. But, yes, some man would want a woman like this.

  He felt himself stir against her. He pulled back, hoping she hadn’t felt his erection. Goddamn it, he thought coldly. What in hell was this?

  He had, absolutely, been without a woman far too long. There was no other reason Sienna Cummings would turn him on. Besides, the facts were simple. She had invaded his land, climbed his mountain.

  All he wanted was to send her on her way.

  “Okay,” he said gruffly, dropping his arms to his sides, “let’s get mov—”

  A roar of thunder drowned him out. Lightning sizzled across the sky. White lightning. And as if someone had hit a switch, the dark clouds opened up, spewing torrential rain. Instantly, they were soaked from head to foot. His intruder gave a little shriek and raised her hands as if to shelter under them. The gesture was useless, but he couldn’t blame her. The temperature had dropped at least twenty degrees and the rain was ice cold and as sharp as needles.

  Jesse grabbed her arm. She broke free, swung in a circle.

  “What are you doing?” he yelled. It was the only way to make himself heard over the rain.

  “Looking for my people.”

  “I told you, your boyfriend abandoned you.”

  “No. That’s impossible!”

  “Listen, lady, you want to argue, argue with yourself. I’m going to head for shelter.”

  She looked at him. He wanted to laugh. The last creature he’d ever seen this wet and woebegone had been a calf that had wandered into a stream.

  “You coming with me or not?”

  She gave a dejected nod. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. The piercing sound carried over the roar of the rain and Cloud came thundering toward them. Sienna shrieked and jumped behind Jesse. That did it; the laughter he’d choked back a moment ago erupted in a snort.

  “It’s a horse,” he said. “Not a mountain lion.”

  “Don’t you have a truck?”

  She was impossible. Jesse mounted the stallion, reached down and held his out his hand.

  “You want transportation, this is it. You coming with me? Yes or no?”

  She stared up at him. Then she clasped his hand and hoisted herself onto the animal’s back. A good thing, too. The last thing he’d have wanted to do was wrestle a wet, unwilling woman onto the saddleless back of an equally wet horse.

  “Hold on.”

  Sienna blinked. Hold on? To what? There was no saddle, there was nothing but man and horse.

  “Put your arms around me. That’s it. Tighter, unless you want to make this ride hanging on to Cloud’s tail.”

  He was right. Besides, a few minutes ago, his arms had been around her. Stupid to hesitate now, she thought, and wrapped her arms around his waist.

  His skin was smooth and wet and warm. She felt the taut muscles of his belly contract under her fingers. It made her breath catch and she started to pull back, but at just that moment, he dug his heels into the animal’s flanks and the horse surged forward as if he were going to leap into the air and fly.

  Sienna gave a muffled shriek and tightened her grip on Jesse until her breasts and belly were pressed tightly against his back.

  “Good girl,” he shouted.

  Sienna rolled her eyes. Another metaphorical sexist pat on the head, but what could she do about it? And, really, what did it matter?

  If this was all happening, she’d be free of this man as soon as they reached, well, wherever they were heading. Bozeman, she hoped. Jack was probably there, waiting for her with the others, and surely he’d have some rational explanation for everything.

  If this wasn’t happening, if she was dreaming, she’d wake up.

  Those were the only two possibilities, and neither involved dealing with Jesse Blackwolf for more than just another little while.

  Those were the only two possibilities…weren’t they?

  No, she thought uneasily, they weren’t.

  What if that green lightning had struck her? What if she was in a coma? What if she were lying comatose in a hospital bed, having wildly exotic dreams or whatever you called the stuff that filled your head while your brain was on medical hiatus?

  It made sense that she might dream of a place she’d spent months and months studying. And, okay, it even made sense that she might dream of being rescued by a dark and dangerous man. Her life centered around her studies, but she was still a woman. And she was a scholar of ancient civilizations.

  She’d never been the type for romantic fantasies, but if she were…

  If she were, this man would fit the bill.

  A coma made absolute sense.

  And, actually, it was the far better choice, because otherwise, she was back to square one. How had she ended up on that ledge? Where was Jack? What was she doing, racing through a flooding canyon with a man who looked like an Indian warrior?

  Sienna jammed her eyes closed. A coma, for sure. Any minute now, she’d wake up, see that she was in a hospital room….

  “Hang on tight,” Jesse said.

  Her eyes snapped open. What looked like the ocean was dead ahead, a rushing torrent of water that they surely could not ford. But the stallion plunged into the swollen stream without hesitation.

  Could you drown in a stream you’d created in your mind?

  God, she was going crazy!

  Water coursed over her feet, her calves, her thighs. The horse couldn’t keep his footing, not in this, but he did, he did as Jesse urged him on.

  “Good boy,” he said, and Sienna laughed and laughed and she knew, she knew there was a note of hysteria in her voice, but she couldn’t help it. All she could do was clutch the man who was not real despite what he’d said, press her cheek to his strong, hard, not-real-either back, and wait for the moment this would end.

  An eternity later, the horse slowed to a walk.

  “We’re here,” Jesse said.

  Sienna sat up straight. They’d stopped moving, but the world was a blur of heavily falling rain. Go
od. She wasn’t ready to see past it. Not just yet.

  “Where?”

  He threw a long leg over the stallion’s head and dismounted. His big hands closed around her waist; he lifted her from the horse to the ground and she sent up a silent, tiny prayer of hope.

  Maybe she was coming out of the coma. Maybe she’d see the comforting white walls of a hospital room.

  Or maybe not. Maybe she was still trapped in a place that didn’t exist, and when she opened her eyes, she’d see, what? A log cabin? A tepee? A corral full of piebald ponies?

  She took a deep breath. And forced herself to look. At the torrent of rain falling from a leaden sky…

  And at all the rest.

  There was no hospital room. No tepee. No log cabin. Well, not unless you called a sprawling, magnificent structure of cypress and glass, acres of glass, a cabin. There was also a corral. A huge barn. And a side yard.

  Not a dream. Not a dream. Not a dream.

  And not a coma. It couldn’t be. She didn’t know enough about cars and trucks to have populated the side yard with a bright red car so long and low she knew it had to be foreign, a black pickup truck and what she figured was a battered Jeep.

  Each vehicle bore a license plate. Each read “Montana.” And each read—each read…

  Sienna’s heart leaped into her throat. She swung toward Jesse.

  “The date,” she whispered. “What’s the date?”

  He stared at her. Maybe he hadn’t understood her. She knew her voice sounded choked. She cleared her throat, not certain she could form the words again. But she didn’t have to.

  His eyes narrowed. “What now?” he said coldly. “Is this another part of the game?”

  “No game. Just tell me, please. What’s the date?”

  “June 22, as you well know.”

  “Not June 21? The solstice…”

  “It fell on the twenty-second this year. That only happens—”

  She could almost feel the blood draining from her head. “It only happens every four hundred years. I know that.”

  “So?”

  “So…” She licked her lips. There was only one last question to ask, but she was afraid to ask it. “So the last time it happened the year was—the year was 1975.”

  Jesse put his fists on his hips. Legs apart, eyes locked to hers, he looked less savage but twice as dangerous.

  “Was 1975? Give me a break, okay? This is 1975.”

  “Now?” Sienna said calmly. “Right now, it’s—”

  Her eyes rolled up into her head and she crumpled to the ground.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ONE second, Sienna Cummings was looking at him as if one of them was crazy.

  The next, her eyes rolled up and she fell to the ground. Or she would have, if Jesse hadn’t caught her. She was limp, her face bloodless, her lashes dark crescents against high cheekbones.

  Great, he thought, clasping her shoulders as he held her up. A trespasser who’d perfected the art of Victorian swoons.

  If she thought that was going to change anything, she was wrong.

  “Miss Cummings,” he said roughly. “Come on. Open your eyes.”

  He shook her, not altogether gently. Nothing happened, not even a flutter of those long, dark lashes. His mouth thinned. She really had fainted, right in the middle of what they’d have labeled a typhoon on the other side of the world.

  And he was stuck with her.

  The stallion nuzzled his shoulder.

  “Yeah, okay,” Jesse said grimly. He wrapped one arm around the woman, slipped the bridle from Cloud’s massive head and ran a rough hand over the animal’s neck. “Go home, boy.” The big horse trotted for the open barn door and Jesse clamped both arms around his unwelcome guest and did the same, running for the shelter of the house.

  Her head fell back; the heavy rain beat down on her upturned face and he cursed softly, cupped her head and brought her face to his shoulder.

  Thunder snarled; lightning sliced through the sky, sizzling like cold water hitting a hot griddle.

  No question, it was going to be a long day.

  He took the wide steps to the porch fast, shifted the woman’s weight to free a hand so he could throw open the massive oak door. Not that there was all that much weight to shift. She was a skinny thing. Okay. Not skinny. The rain, his check of her earlier, the way she’d fit into his arms, had made it obvious she had all the requisite soft, curving parts.

  As if that mattered a damn.

  He stepped quickly inside the oak-floored foyer, kicked the door shut behind him. The sound of the rain lessened, but the thunder growled like a wild beast seeking its prey.

  He went straight for the living room. His unwelcome guest was still out. And now she was trembling. No surprise there. The rain had soaked her to the bone. He had to warm her before hypothermia set in.

  There was a stack of newspapers on the long white sofa. He swept them to the floor and put her down on the sofa, grabbed the old patchwork quilt that hung over the sofa’s back and covered her with it.

  “Hey,” he said. “Cummings. Open your eyes.”

  She gave a low moan. Well, that was a start.

  “Come on,” he said sharply. “Look at me.”

  A faint flutter of her lashes. That was all. Damn it, he thought furiously. Why couldn’t she have climbed somebody else’s pile of rocks? Gone after some other supposedly sacred ledge? The pictographs, the legend of the Blackwolf stones, were hardly the only ones out there.

  She moaned again. Turned her head from side to side. Whispered something. He bent closer, tried to make it out. No, maybe?

  “No, what?” he said.

  She didn’t answer. She was still out. And, hell, she looked as fragile as his mother’s bone china dinnerware.

  A muscle knotted in his jaw.

  Where was the tough, don’t-screw-with-me babe who’d faced him on the ledge? He didn’t want her fragile, didn’t want her helpless. He didn’t want to be responsible for her.

  He didn’t want to be responsible for anyone, ever again.

  If only he hadn’t given in to that stupid desire to ride to the canyon and see the solstice one final time. If only he’d stayed here, right here, because what in hell did the canyon or the solstice or any of it matter? If only. If only…

  “Stop it,” he said out loud.

  A man did what he had to do. Life’s great lesson, he thought bitterly, even if you were dealing with a trespasser, a thief…

  Or a woman.

  This one, at least, would be gone by tomorrow.

  Jesse stood straight, headed quickly for the kitchen, grabbed a towel from the rack next to the sink and dried his naked arms and chest. He was chilled, too, his jeans soggy with rainwater, but first things first. Deal with the woman. Get her out of those wet clothes, dry her, get her conscious enough to drink something hot and sweet. The idea was to elevate her core temp, keep it from sliding to the danger point.

  And call the doctor.

  By the time he arrived, the woman would be okay, but the doc could check her over, just to play it safe. And he could take her back to town with him. To a motel. To the hospital. Who cared where he took her?

  He grabbed the phone, started to dial the number—and realized the thing was dead.

  “Damn it!”

  Of course the miserable hunk of plastic was dead. Heavy rain, lightning, high winds, for all he knew a grizzly rubbing its ass against one of the telephone poles was more than enough to take down the phone lines. It happened with regularity.

  Besides, what good would a call have done? The doc couldn’t make it out this far any more than he could do the trip in reverse. Trees would be down, roads buried under sheets of water. The creek that ran between the ranch and the highway would make the stream they’d crossed heading out of the canyon look like a puddle.

  There was an emergency chopper in Bozeman but it couldn’t fly in this stuff.

  “Okay,” he muttered.

  Forget the med
ical help. A man did what he had to do, he thought again, and he got started. It was a short list, but a vital one.

  He turned up the thermostat as high as it would go. The burner kicked in with a throaty roar. Start a fire in the fireplace. Fire sucked warm air out of a room, but with the Cummings woman lying where she was, she’d get the best of the heat coming up through the registers and from the hearth.

  Now he needed towels. And blankets. Tea. Honey. A kettle of boiling water.

  Keeping busy was good. He felt purposeful, less aware of the woman as an unwanted intrusion and more as a problem to deal with. He’d always been good at handling problems.

  Handling people was different.

  Linda had thrown that at him, toward the end, and he hadn’t even tried to refute it.

  He checked the woman again, then went swiftly through the house, collecting a bunch of oversized bath sheets, an armload of blankets. A fast stop in the kitchen to put the water on to boil.

  Back to Sienna Cummings.

  Already, simply from being indoors, wrapped in the quilt, heat coming up and the fire going, she looked a little better. More color in her face. Less labored breathing. She was still shivering, though. Not a good sign. He knew it could indicate that her temperature was not just low but still dropping.

  He had to warm her, and fast.

  “Miss Cummings. Can you hear me?” He squatted beside the couch, took her wrist, checked her pulse. A little thready but nothing too bad. “Come on,” he said briskly. “Open your eyes.” He leaned closer, spoke louder. “Look at me,” he ordered.

  And she did.

  Her eyes opened. Her gaze met his…and slid right on by.

  He cupped her chin, spoke her name sharply, gave that up and went for a light slap across her face.

  Still nothing. Time to move on to step two.

  “I’m going to undress you,” he told her. “Get you out of those wet clothes. Okay?”

  She murmured something he couldn’t understand. It didn’t matter. If he left her like this, wet and chilled, she’d die.

  Working quickly, he looped an arm around her shoulders. Sat her up. Her head fell forward; her face tucked itself against his throat, just as when he’d found her on the mountain. Her breath was soft and warm; the whisper of it sent a shudder of awareness through him.