by Ginna Gray
"Z-Zach?" She stared at him, her frost-rimmed lashes blinking owlishly.
"Yeah, it's me. Are you all right?"
First shock then abject relief flashed across her face. "You found me. You found me." She grabbed his arm as though making sure he was real, then squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her quivering lips together. "I thought … I thought I was going to die."
"Yeah, well, we both may yet if we don't get out of this storm. C'mon." He expected her to argue when he pulled the reins from her stiff fingers, but she was either too scared, too exhausted or too frozen to complain. He wrapped Bertha's reins around his gloved palm, turned in the opposite direction and led her through the blinding whiteness.
It would be dark soon. Zach knew that to attempt to descend the mountain at night in a blizzard would be suicide. In any case, the trip would take too long. Willa was half frozen and needed shelter – now. Their only hope was to find the line camp.
Seconds before spotting Willa he'd caught a glimpse of a giant tree that had been struck by lightning and split into a huge vee. He knew that the cabin was approximately ten feet due east of the dead pine. Willa had ridden right past it.
Luckily, Zach possessed an unerring sense of direction. He'd also taken the precaution of bringing another compass.
In good weather, from where they were he could have tossed a stone and hit the log structure, yet it seemed to take forever to reach it. The exhausted horses plodded through the drifts with their heads down.
The puffs of vapor from the animal's nostrils froze instantly into tiny ice crystals. The wind shrieked around them like a banshee, tearing at their clothes and stinging their exposed skin.
Zach had expected Willa to question and argue, but she remained silent, which kicked his anxiety up another notch. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that she sat hunched deep in her coat. She had her head down and the wide collar turned up to meet the brim of her Stetson, shielding her face. She didn't utter a sound until he brought the horses to a stop.
Looking up, she saw the cabin, and surprise then utter relief passed over her face. Zach couldn't hear her over the wind, but he saw her lips form the words, "Thank God."
Focused on keeping them alive, he wasted no time on conversation. He dismounted and tied the horses to the hitching rail. Willa was so cold and stiff he had to lift her out of the saddle and carry her inside. For once she didn't fight him.
He shouldered the door shut behind them, muting the howling fury of the storm. The weak, grayish glow seeping in through the lone window provided barely enough light to see, but Zach strode directly to the small table in the center of the room. Hooking the toe of his boot around a spindly leg, he pulled out a wooden chair and sat her down.
The temperature in the room was only slightly warmer than that outside. Willa hugged her arms tight and shivered.
"I'll get a fire going," Zach said tersely. He pulled a box of kitchen matches from a shelf and lit the kerosene lamp that hung from a bracket attached to the wall. Then he hunkered down in front of the pot-bellied stove, opened the small door and began pulling split logs and kindling from the wood box on the floor. He worked with quick efficiency, his jaw clenched tight against the seething emotions bubbling inside him.
The one-room cabin was a crude log structure, meant to house a cowboy through the summer months. An ancient hand pump mounted on the counter that served as a kitchen brought water into the cabin from a well, but that was the extent of the plumbing – or any other modern convenience. There was no electricity. The old pot-bellied stove did double duty as a heat source and a cook range. A white enamel chamber pot was tucked beneath the bunk built into the corner, but unless the weather was inclement most cowboys simply grabbed a roll of tissue and headed for the bushes when nature called. For those who were too fastidious – or too chicken – to bathe in the icy waters of a mountain stream, a galvanized tub hung on a nail by the stove.
When Zach had a good blaze going, he stood and dusted off his hands. "There, you should start feeling some heat soon."
"Th–thanks."
Maybe it was the brevity of her answer, or the pathetic quaver, in her voice. Or maybe it was simply the sight of her sitting there huddled in that big coat, shivering, her creamy skin reddened by the cold and ice melting on those long ebony lashes. Whatever the reason, that one shaky word snapped the last thread of Zach's patience.
For the past several hours emotions had roiled inside him like a churning cauldron, but he had kept a tight lid on those feelings and turned all his energy and focus on finding Willa. Now that lid blew off like an exploding pressure cooker.
"Thanks? Thanks!" His fist came down hard on the table, making both it and Willa jump. "That's all you have to say?"
"I…"
"What the hell did you think you were doing, driving that herd up here?"
"D-don't you dare r-raise your v-voice to m-me," she flared back, but her chattering teeth robbed the protest of its heat and spoiled the effect.
"I'd like to raise more than my voice. What I ought to do is turn you over my knee and blister your butt."
"Y-you wouldn't d-dare!"
"No, I wouldn't. But only because you're female. Believe me, if you were a man I'd flatten you."
As it was, Zach itched to grab her by her shoulders and shake her until her teeth fell out. Knowing he had to put space between them, he swung away and stomped to the window, but he was too upset to remain still and began to stride back and forth across the small cabin. His boot heels struck the puncheon floor like hammer blows.
"Dammit, woman!" he raged, flinging his arms wide. "You countermanded my orders, put your life and the lives of those men in danger, worried Pete sick and nearly cost this ranch several hundred head of cattle. And for what? Because I had the gall to ask you to take one day off and go see a doctor? Damn. What a monster I am."
"Y-you didn't a-ask—"
"Quiet!" he roared. "I don't want to hear it!"
Willa was so startled, she shrank back in the chair and goggled at him.
Zach stalked from one side of the cabin to the other like a caged lion. Every cell in his body quivered with tension. He felt as though he was suddenly to big for his skin and might burst apart at any second.
"Up until now I have been patient with you, dammit. For four months you've criticized and argued and opposed me at every turn. You resent me and my brothers – especially me, it seems. You don't want us here. You don't think we have a right to this ranch. Okay, I got that. Hell, I even understand it. But let me remind you – I didn't write that damned will," he bellowed, thumbing his chest. "I'm not the one who gave you a raw deal. That was Seamus. Not me."
"If you hadn't—"
"I said quiet!" He jerked to a halt and jabbed his finger at the end of her nose. "Not another word until I've had my say."
Her mouth went slack and her eyes widened. Whether he'd startled her into silence or she was afraid to speak, he didn't know. At that moment he didn't care.
When he was certain she would remain silent he resumed his restless pacing. "Like it or not, this is the hand we've all been dealt. You either accept that or we all lose."
"I kn-know tha—"
This time he silenced her with a look. "I'm through being patient. From now on I'm not going to tolerate any more of your guff. Or any more stunts like the one you pulled today."
Willa opened her mouth to speak, thought better of it, and snapped it shut again.
Zach stopped in the middle of the floor and pressed the heels of his hands to his temples. "Dammit, woman, you drove those cattle up here just to defy me. Of all the reckless, stupid, irresponsible…" He shook his head, at a loss.
"I–I didn't expect it to snow."
The mumbled replied enraged him even more. "Give me a break! You've lived here all your life. You know spring in the mountains can be treacherous. Why the devil did you think I wanted to wait a few more weeks?
"No. Never mind, don't bother to answer that. You w
eren't thinking at all. You saw a chance to strike out at me and took it. Consequences be damned."
Guilt flickered across her face, and he knew he'd hit the mark. Cursing roundly, he started pacing again, but when he reached the opposite wall he swung back and pinned her with an accusing glare.
"Do you have any idea how close you came to losing your life out there?" he shouted, flinging an arm out toward the window. "If I hadn't found you when I did you wouldn't have lasted another ten minutes. And believe me, it was dumb luck that I found you at all. Hell, we both could have died out there. I'd been searching for you for hours."
Willa blanched at that, and pressed her trembling lips together. "I–I know," she murmured in a subdued voice. "I was s-so scared. Oh, Lord, I haven't even thanked you yet. I'm so sorry, Zach. I'm—"
"Forget it. I don't need your thanks." Zach stopped pacing and looked into those stricken violet eyes, his chest so tight he could barely breathe.
"Hell, I can't deal with this right now," he growled, and stomped for the door. "I've gotta go see to the horses." He paused to cram his hat down tighter on his head and arrange the scarf again, then he stepped out into the teeth of the storm.
After the brief respite it seemed even colder, and Zach caught his breath at the first slap of icy wind. Visibility was no more than a couple of feet. Keeping one hand on the outside of the cabin wall at all times, he untied the horses and led them around back and into the small lean-to. It wasn't the warm barn that Bertha usually enjoyed, but both horses would be sheltered from the wind and snow, and their shared body heat in the small space would keep them warm enough to survive.
Zach worked quickly, methodically, using the chores to keep his churning emotions at bay. By the light of a battery-powered lantern, he unsaddled the animals and rubbed each one down with a wad of hay, then covered them with horse blankets he found on a shelf. After breaking the ice on top of the rain barrel located just outside the door, he dipped up a bucket of water and gave each animal a drink. He then poured grain from the sack he'd brought with him into a galvanized trough.
Finally, though, he ran out of things to do, and his emotions caught up with him. Overwhelmed him.
When he thought about what could have happened – what had almost happened – a hard shudder shook his big frame.
The adrenaline that had kept him going for the past few hours drained away in a whoosh, leaving him suddenly shaky and weak in the knees.
With an agonized groan, he leaned against the gray gelding and rested his head against the animal's back.
While the two horses munched contentedly, Zach rolled his forehead against the coarse horse blanket, shaken to the depth of his being. It hadn't been anger that had made him tear into Willa, as she no doubt believed. It had been fear at how close he had come to losing her.
Zach groaned again, but he couldn't deny the truth any longer. He would have been concerned about anyone lost in a storm and done his best to find them. However it had been more than mere concern he'd experienced while searching for Willa. It had been gut-wrenching terror that he would not find her in time, and heaven help him, the thought of that had been unbearable.
The depth of his feeling stunned and appalled him. "Damn, Mahoney, have you lost your mind?" he raged at himself. "Willa Simmons is a pain-in-the-butt, smart-mouthed little spitfire. Any man who takes her on will have his hands full. She's not even your type, for Pete's sake."
The lecture didn't do one whit of good. Somehow she had gotten under his guard and stolen his heart, something he would have sworn no woman could ever do.
Zach shook his head. That he'd allowed himself to fall for Willa Simmons, a feisty little hellion who couldn't stand the sight of him, made him feel foolish.
Of all the women in the world, why this one? Though he'd always been a bit of a loner, he'd never had any trouble attracting women. The barrel racers who followed the rodeo circuit and the groupies who hung around the shows had gone to great lengths to gain his attention. For the most part he had ignored their overtures, although that had seemed to only make them more determined.
Not that he'd lived like a monk. While traveling the circuit he'd had a few long-term relationships, mainly out of need and loneliness, and because he preferred serial monogamy to one-night stands.
He'd liked all of the women well enough. A couple he'd been genuinely fond of, but his feelings had never gone deeper than that. In his thirty-six years he'd never let a woman get that close. Until now.
Not that he was in love. Okay, so maybe his feelings for Willa went deeper and were more intense than anything he'd ever experienced before. To even imagine his life without her in it brought pain, but that didn't mean he was in love with her.
Dammit, he didn't want to be in love with any woman. That was not an emotion he trusted. From what he'd observed, it blinded you to a person's true character, often hiding their less than admirable traits until it was too late.
That had certainly been the case with his adoptive mother. After being widowed, in a love-struck haze, she had married a charismatic charmer who'd claimed to be a man of God, but who was in reality a charlatan and a criminal. And a wife abuser.
Zach had learned from her mistake.
Although … now that he thought about it, no one could say that Willa had ever bothered to hide her flaws and put her best foot forward around him.
There was no pretense or guile in the woman. With Willa, you always knew where you stood. She didn't conceal her feelings or opinions behind a polite facade or pretend to be anything but what she was – feisty, willful and defiant, often rash. A real handful. She was also loyal, hardworking, honest, kind to old folks and children, although she was learning her way with the latter and still a bit awkward. She was also friendly and loving with those she cared about. Many times, when she hadn't known he was around, he'd seen her laughing and chatting with the men or giving Pete or Maria a hug and an affectionate kiss on the cheek.
Zach's mouth twisted. Hell, it was probably her unaffected, straightforward manner that had gotten past his guard. He knew all her faults, all her weaknesses and shortcomings, and despite them – maybe even because of them – he was crazy about her.
He'd felt the attraction from the first moment he'd seen her. Desire had slammed through him like a freight train going ninety when he spotted her standing on the stairs that day he and his brothers had come to the ranch to confront Seamus, but he'd chalked that up to nothing more than lust. A basic, animal attraction. Then he'd found out who she was, and realized that she hated him and his brothers. He'd thought her animosity would cancel out the attraction, but he was wrong.
Over the past months that pull had not faded, had in fact grown stronger, though he had refused to admit it until now.
Zach supposed that adage about opposites attracting was true. He tended to be reserved and played his cards close to his chest. Willa was an open book, candid and unrestrained, and out-going around those with whom she was comfortable. He tended to think things through and plan a course of action. Willa reacted impulsively, letting her emotions guide her. Not always wisely, perhaps, and sometimes with disastrous results, but always with genuine conviction.
One thing was certain, life with Willa might be a wild ride and give a man one headache after another, but it would sure as hell never be dull.
He made a disgusted sound. Yeah, right. Dream on, Mahoney. No way in hell that's ever going to happen. The woman would as soon give you a good, swift kick in the shins as look at you. Dammit to hell! Wouldn't you know he'd fall for the one woman who hated his guts?
She'd probably laugh her head off if she knew he was out here in the freezing cold, mooning over her like some infatuated teenager. Grinding his teeth, Zach straightened and squared his shoulders. The only thing he could do was to keep his distance and hope she never guessed that he cared for her.
* * *
Chapter 8
« ^ »
Willa felt wretched.
She had be
haved badly. Again. Zach had every right to be furious with her. To hate her, even, after what she'd done. He was right; she could have cost three men their lives. As it was, she'd come darn close to losing her own.
Tears of self-loathing welled in her eyes. She put her head down on the table and groaned. What was the matter with her? When would she ever learn to use her head and stop letting her emotions control her?
If she weren't so contrary, none of this would have happened, she thought glumly.
Willa sniffed, thoroughly disgusted with herself. The truth was, from the beginning she had cast Zach in the role of villain and blamed him for everything. Partly because he was an available target and partly because that was easier than accepting Seamus's perfidy. Most of all, however, because he aroused feelings in her that she had never experienced before – hot, jittery, uncomfortable feelings that she didn't have a clue how to handle, except to strike out in anger.
She desperately needed to believe the worst of him, but she had to admit, doing so was getting harder all the time. Day by day, as she'd gotten to know him, it had became more and more obvious that Zach was not the grasping, greedy opportunist she had first assumed him to be, but a decent, intelligent, hardworking man who had a deep love for the land and ranching and the knowledge to manage both.
Yet, even knowing that, she still responded to him with prickly antagonism. It seemed to be an instinctive reflex over which she had no control.
Some of her behavior toward Zach could be traced to Lennie's door, as well. Darn him. If he hadn't planted the seed in her mind that Seamus had written his will as he had to manipulate her and Zach, maybe she wouldn't be so leery. It would be just like the domineering old devil to try to control them from the grave.
Well, it wasn't going to work. She would not – absolutely would not – allow him to do that. Which meant she didn't dare get too friendly with Zach. She couldn't risk falling for him, and Willa had a terrible suspicion if she ever let her guard down she might. Lord knew, he already stirred her emotions more than any other man ever had.