Cord wrapped both arms around her and rested his chin against her forehead, listening to their ragged breathing gradually slow and steady.
He had almost drifted into sleep when he heard the dry click of a revolver hammer.
Chapter Fourteen
Instantly Cord rolled over, covering Sage’s body with his.
“I haf you in my sights, Señor Lawson. It ees a very pleasant picture, you and the lady.”
Cord swore under his breath. “What do you want, Suarez?” His gun lay under the blanket beneath them. He might reach it by moving his left hand….
“Nada, señor. At the moment. Just to look at the lady is enough. She is muy beauti—”
Cord’s shot stopped the outlaw in midsentence, but he didn’t know if he’d hit Suarez. He breathed in the scent of hot metal and gunpowder.
If he’d killed him, there’d be more noise from the salal thicket where he was hidden. If he hadn’t killed him, the outlaw could shoot back. He folded his left arm to protect Sage’s head.
“Suarez?”
After a long silence, a muffled voice responded. “Sí, señor?”
Cord lowered the revolver. The voice was farther away, moving down the mountain out of range. The outlaw was wounded maybe, but not dead.
“Suarez?” he shouted.
“You will pay for this,” came a faint call. “And the pretty lady, too.”
Cord rolled off her. “Get to the horses,” he ordered.
“Fast.”
Sage grabbed her sun-dried garments off the tree branch, shoved her trembling legs into her riding skirt and pulled on her boots and shirt. Stuffing her undergarments into the pocket of her jacket, she raced for the mare Cord was saddling.
Without a word, he boosted her up and slapped the animal’s rump. “Head cross-country. Stay off anything that looks like a trail. I’ll be right behind you.”
She guided the horse into the trees, heard his mare pounding just behind her.
“There’s an old Indian path about a mile farther on, if I can still find it. It’s rough, but at least Suarez won’t know about it.”
“What makes you think so?” Afraid to raise her voice, she half whispered the question as Cord took the lead.
“He’s Mexican, not Indian. Superstitious about shortcuts.” He plunged deeper into the brush.
“Nobody’s been through here in a while,” he called. “Keep your head down.”
Just as his voice drifted back to her, a vine maple branch slapped at her face. The mare shied, then came to a complete halt. Sage kicked her into motion, but the going was slow.
Blackberry bushes scratched her arms, and the thick undergrowth formed an impenetrable barrier. A broken salal branch told her which way Cord had gone. She kicked the mare again. She didn’t want to lose him.
That thought struck her square in the solar plexus. Lose him! She wanted to be as close as his back pocket for the rest of her life.
Closer.
Never before had she enjoyed the fact that she merely existed. He had shown her the way, and she wanted it—him—always.
Always. The horse stumbled.
What in heaven’s name was she thinking? Cord wasn’t an “always” man. He wasn’t even a man she knew very well.
But all the same, she knew things about him.
He was a hard man, but his hands were gentle.
He was a loner and followed no man’s ethic but his own.
But he was a good man. Fair-minded and truthful.
He was footloose. A wanderer.
For that, she had no answer. A woman didn’t tie down a man like that.
Instead, a woman—if she was intelligent—learned from such a man. Enjoyed what he offered, and in the end, let him go.
She watched his strong shoulders twist clear of a jutting ponderosa pine limb, admired the ease with which he guided his horse through the tangle of salal and maples. Nothing stopped him, and he never broke step.
That was how it would be, she reasoned. At the end of their journey into the wilderness, he would ride away from her without a backward glance.
She didn’t care, she decided. If that was this man’s way, she would grasp what she could of the moments left and be the richer for it all the rest of her days. The way he made her feel inside, the wondrous sensations he aroused in her, would be enough. What was it he said? Life is short, feast while you can.
And so she would. Already her strengthened spirits soared. Her body felt swollen and drowsy with pleasure. I would follow him anywhere for another taste of that ecstasy.
As he probed deeper into the forest, Cord tried to put himself in Suarez’s boots. What would he do next? If the outlaw had taken a bullet, would he back off? Ride out of the wilderness for help?
Not unless he wanted to save his own skin more than he feared capture. Going for a doctor would tip his hand, reveal his whereabouts.
If I were in Suarez’s position, what would I want?
The answer came in a heartbeat. Revenge.
Suarez had accidentally shot a woman who had meant something to him. Cord had forced the showdown, and Suarez had gotten careless. If Cord knew anything about outlaws from his years of bringing them in hog-tied on the back of a horse, it was that they never considered themselves to be in the wrong. If somebody got killed, it was always the other man’s fault, no matter who pulled the trigger.
One reason he hated men like Antonio Suarez, men like Zack Beeler, who’d raised him and then turned into a killer, was their arrogance. Suarez and Beeler thought they were above the law.
Above the law. Cord snorted inwardly. The world would crumble into chaos if there were no law, no underlying morality to anything a man did. And if that happened, no one would be safe. Cord couldn’t abide that prospect.
The probability that Suarez would want revenge forced him to think. Unless the outlaw was badly wounded, he wouldn’t ride out of these mountains without getting even.
Cord stopped breathing. Even if he was badly wounded, maybe bleeding to death from a wound he couldn’t treat himself, Suarez would still crave revenge.
He would still come after them. Himself and Sage. Suarez would track them or lay an ambush or…God only knew what. But something. Deep in his bones Cord knew Suarez would do something.
The question was what?
And the next question was when?
By the time Cord stumbled onto the faint Indian trail he’d been seeking, it was near sundown. The overgrown, pine-needle-strewn path had been unused for years—a good sign—but the fading light made it hard to follow.
His unshaved cheek stung where a blackberry vine had slapped him; looking back, he saw that Sage hadn’t fared much better. The sleeves of her red plaid shirt showed small tears where prickly salal and huckleberry had scraped across her body.
He hated to think of anything sharp or uncomfortable touching her skin. He wished he could protect her from all of this, especially from Suarez. By nightfall she’d be hungry and saddle-sore, but they’d have to keep moving.
He hadn’t heard a sound from her for hours. The realization brought a wry smile to his cracked lips. She’d keel over before she would complain. Fall out of the saddle before she’d ask for a rest.
Jupiter, he wished he’d never dragged her into this mess.
On the other hand, how did he know she’d turn out to be so—so…hell, what was it about her? She had backbone, yes. Grit and stamina. So did a lot of people. But Sage, well, she was just…different. He’d never known a woman like her.
He squinted, peering into the thick brush. He should be focusing all his attention on getting Suarez before the outlaw got them. On earning and collecting his bounty money. Instead, he kept one eye peeled for any sign of the Mexican’s presence, and the other eye on Sage.
The situation was not good. Caring about someone on the trail with him made Cord less effective at tracking. Made him take defensive moves rather than offensive ones. Made him vulnerable.
At the t
hought, he grunted. Hell, it made them both vulnerable, and he was the one responsible for the whole shebang. If Nita hadn’t come to the cabin, Suarez wouldn’t have shot her; if she hadn’t been wounded, Cord never would have brought Sage into it.
The indistinct path slanted downward at a sharp angle. Easy for Indian hunters in deerskin moccasins, hard on horses. His mare skidded a few feet, regained her balance and shook her head. Cord loosened his hold on the reins. “Okay, girl, you’re the boss.”
Behind him he heard Sage’s horse lose its footing. “You all right?” he called.
There was a long pause, then she answered, “I think so. The horse is tired, though.”
“That’s why I suggested a mule, remember?”
“I remember.” Her voice softened. “I have learned some things since then.”
Cord grinned. Oh, boy, had she! The best part had nothing to do with horseback travel. “Yeah,” he said dryly.
“Well, I have!” she retorted. “Don’t you want to know what things?” she demanded, after another lengthy silence.
He wasn’t sure. It might be entertaining. Titillating, even, to hear her describe what he’d taught her, especially the intimate things. On the other hand, he knew the first word she uttered would have him hot and hard in a heartbeat, and they had a good ten miles to cover before they dared to stop.
“Tell me just one thing,” he called. He could handle that much. It might take a mile or two to settle down a hard-on, but at least he’d have something to think about besides where Suarez was and what he might do next.
“Well,” she began. “I know you’re not going to believe this…” She gave a soft chuckle of laughter and Cord’s throat went dry.
“Try me,” he managed to say.
“You won’t laugh?”
Laugh? Not too damn likely. Explode with need, maybe, but not amusement. “I won’t laugh. Go on, tell me.”
He tried to keep his mind on the trail in front of him, on the mare’s efforts to place her hooves in just the right spot so she wouldn’t slide. He trusted Sage was doing the same, even if she was thinking about…
“I have learned how to make biscuits with whiskey,” she announced.
“Biscuits!” The word flew out of his mouth.
“And also that wet undergarments, when dried on the back of a horse, smell like…horse.”
“Stop,” Cord ordered. He stifled the guffaws that rolled up from his belly. But his male member couldn’t care less about the topics of biscuits and horse smell. His sex hardened anyway, and laughter rolled out of him in spite of his efforts.
“What is so funny?” she asked, enunciating each syllable with a touch of frost in her voice.
“Your recent…education,” he said. And my randy male expectation of what you were going to say.
“Oh.”
Cord smiled at a Steller’s jay screeching on a branch above his head, and laid one hand over his crotch. He waited for what she’d say next.
“You thought I would mention the floaty way I felt when you touched my—”
The flesh pulsed under his fingers. Cord coughed and reined up.
This time Sage laughed, a clear, unaffected ripple of delight. “I have also learned,” she continued in a composed voice, “that men are a bit vain. They take such pride in their…well, their ‘prowess.’”
“And pleasure,” Cord interjected when he could speak.
“Oh, yes,” she acknowledged, her voice still maddeningly cool. “That, too.”
Cord sighed. Then she called his name, and he stopped breathing.
“Cord? How long before we stop? Before we can sleep?”
Her soft voice carried to his ear and from there shot straight to his groin.
The precipitous trail leveled out and eventually joined the well-traveled path Cord had followed on their way up the mountain. The meadows were greener and more lush here, with miner’s lettuce and wild rhododendron, and the warm breeze stirred the tall wheat grass into rippling waves. For the last hour the twilight had been fading into shadows, and the world was now a velvety black. He could smell water nearby, knew a spring-fed stream tumbled down the hill. They needed it.
For the last hour, as the sun sank, he had also debated what to do, whether to make camp or keep moving. His empty belly argued for food; a sixth sense argued differently. Suarez knew this trail. If he was still alive, he’d set a trap for them.
Cord brought his horse to a halt and turned back. “Sage?”
She reined in. Her face lifted, a small pale patch in the blackness. He could barely see the rest of her.
“Yes, Cord?”
“What would you think of riding double?”
“Why?”
“I want to draw Suarez off, just in case he’s following us.”
“Yes, I see. My horse or yours?”
“Mine. I’ll weight your saddlebag with rocks so the tracks will look the same.”
“Of course,” she murmured. Cord knew she was too exhausted to object or argue. Or maybe she trusted his judgment. A glow of boyish pride swelled inside him until he thought he would float out of the saddle.
He dismounted, lifted her from her horse and set her onto his mare, then emptied her saddlebag and stuffed the contents into his own. He scrounged near the trail for rocks and loaded about a hundred pounds worth into the empty leather receptacle. She didn’t weigh much more than a half-bale of hay.
He left the saddle on. He’d pay the liveryman for both the saddle and the horse when he and Sage got back to town.
Provided the ruse worked and they did get back to town.
Chapter Fifteen
Cord finished arranging the saddlebags on the mare’s back, slapped the animal’s rump and watched it amble on down the main trail. Then he carefully stepped his own horse into the creek, brushing away the hoofprints on the bank with a huckleberry branch.
Sage waited for him to mount. He splashed into the water and swung his lean body up behind her, pulled her back against his hard, warm chest. His arms came around her as he reached for the reins, and she closed her eyes.
She felt safe. Protected. Not because he had sent her horse off as a decoy, or because he’d stuffed his revolver in the inside pocket of his deerskin jacket. She knew he would keep her safe because she was beginning to know him. It would take a lifetime to understand the inner complexities of Cordell Lawson, and she pitied the woman—women—who would try. There must be myriad females in his world who would test their feminine intuition on this enigmatic mixture of hardened predator and pleasure seeker.
But she wouldn’t be one of them.
Not that she didn’t have the interest. A more intriguing man she’d never encountered in all her twenty-five years, but…well, she didn’t have the time. As the only doctor in Russell’s Landing, she would have plenty of mysteries to pursue, medical ones. There wouldn’t be enough hours in a day to plumb them all, her fellow physicians back in Philadelphia had warned. Her days and hours would be chock-full, saving lives.
But while she was out here in the wilderness with Cord, there was nothing to stop her…well, investigating another aspect of life—one she would have no chance to explore when she returned to the dedicated professional existence she’d chosen. She sighed and settled her backbone into the curve of Cord’s chest.
It felt good. He felt good. How could she have lived all these years without knowing how wonderful a man’s body felt?
Until this moment, she’d spent all her time studying things in books, learning about a human being from lectures and seminars. Even during her internship and residency, the focus had always been on other people’s bodies, other people’s feelings, never hers.
There were so many things she didn’t know, things she had never experienced or even thought about. Why, for example, did her insides feel so unsettled, so…tingly when Cord touched her? When she sat, as she did now, with her buttocks pressing against his crotch?
A thousand other questions swirled in her h
ead, teasing her curiosity to the point where she thought she would bubble over, like sarsaparilla on a hot afternoon. She squirmed against him, heard his breath hiss in, and smiled into the darkness.
The horse plodded in the center of the rushing stream, hesitating occasionally to find sure footing, then moving on with a switch of her tail. How simple to be a horse. A mare.
Sage had seen stallions cover mares in her father’s remuda and at the Ollesen brothers’ stable yard. All the mare had to do was stand there, looking unconcerned. Surely with human beings there was more involved? More mutual interest and feelings?
More…?
She would ask him. Cord’s answers were always short and to the point, often more direct than she bargained for. But now she needed that. Time was running out on this part of her education.
And the first thing she wanted to know was…
“What does a man feel when he’s with a woman?”
His frame jerked. “With a woman…how? Like we are now? Your spine rubbing against my ribs?”
“N-no. Not exactly.”
“Well, what, exactly?” She could hear his breath rasp in and out.
Sage shut her eyes and blurted out the words. “Like this morning, when we were…close to each other. Naked.”
Another jerk, and then he chuckled. She felt it all the way to her belly.
“Oh, that kind of ‘exactly.’ What does that feel like?”
“Yes,” she murmured. She could scarcely believe she—Sage Martin West—had asked such a question. In polite society, a proper lady would faint dead away at the very thought! Or try to.
“It feels,” Cord began, his voice hoarse, “like a big empty space opening up in your gut. Like falling over the edge of a cliff.”
“Just from…touching a woman?”
“Yeah,” he said quietly.
“Does it—the feeling—get better, or worse?”
“Yeah,” he said again. “You sure you want to pursue this conversation?”
“Oh, yes, I am sure. There are things I want very much to know. Things I can’t ask my father or Uncle John. Things I can only ask you.”
“Why me?” he said near her ear.
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