by Carol Finch
Maddie sighed appreciatively as she assessed the hollowed-out basin of rock tucked beneath a jagged sandstone bluff. It resembled a gigantic bathtub. She pivoted beside him to admire the panoramic view of the lush valley below, alive with colorful wildflowers and spring grasses.
“Spectacular,” she commented as she sank down cross-legged to rest. “You could see a herd of buffalo coming from five miles away.”
Jonah stared out over the land—and remembered too much. “Yeah, if the buffalo weren’t practically extinct after the army ordered their slaughter to starve out the Comanche, Kiowa and Apache.”
Maddie could tell that this trek down memory lane was taking its toll on Jonah. Had she known what she was asking of him she never would have gone to him for assistance. Impulsively she came to her feet and walked up behind him to glide her arms around his waist, then glanced around his broad shoulder, wondering what he saw that she didn’t.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
To her surprise, he tugged her in front of him and rested his chin on the crown of her head while he stared through time and space. “It was a different way of life,” he murmured. “A peaceful coexistence with nature. Never taking from Earth Mother without giving something back. The problem was we stood in the way of white expansion. Our people paid the sacrifice so that you, and others like you, could lay claim to this land.”
“Jonah, I’m sorry,” she whispered as she rubbed her shoulder consolingly against his chest. “Fifteen years ago I was just a child in East Texas who thought her parents were being terribly unfair by uprooting her and dragging her away from the only home she’d known. I can’t even begin to imagine the violence, resentment and confusion you endured.”
“What happened to your mother?” he asked after a moment.
“She died giving birth to Chrissy. And your mother? How did she come to be with the Comanche?”
“A captive from childhood. She taught me to speak English, but she had no wish to return to her abusive father. She became Comanche, lived as a Comanche and died from complications of the bullet wound she sustained when our clan was captured and taken to the reservation.”
For the life of him Jonah couldn’t fathom why he was confiding in Maddie. Even his commander didn’t know the details of his life before he’d joined the Rangers. Jonah had kept his own counsel for half a lifetime.
And this certainly was not the time to become sentimental and talkative, he chided himself. He and Maddie were merely strangers who had crossed paths temporarily. By this time tomorrow she’d go her way and he would go his. That would be the end of it.
Clinging to that sensible thought, Jonah released her—and wondered what in the hell he’d been thinking by holding her possessively to him in the first place. That kind of physical contact was tempting and dangerous. It was as if he had needed her warmth and her gentle touch while he faced the onslaught of memories triggered by stopping at this old Comanche campsite.
She pivoted toward him, then flicked a glance at the rolled pallet on the stone ledge. He could practically see her mind churning with curiosity when her gaze returned to him.
“If you have only one bedroll, and I slept on it, then where did you sleep last night?”
He’d wondered when she would ask that question. He’d expected it earlier, but he supposed getting shot at had dominated her thoughts.
“I slept beside you, under the same quilt,” he said, expecting her to start ranting about propriety. But she surprised him by staring inquisitively at him.
“I was so exhausted last night that you could easily have taken advantage of the situation.” Those amber eyes drilled into him. “Why didn’t you?”
“Good question. Maybe because I was plumb worn-out, too.”
“Or maybe because you don’t like me and you don’t find me desirable.”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
That was not it, but he’d be damned if he’d let her know she was getting under his skin and that getting naked with her was a fantasy that was occupying too much of his thought processes.
Jonah scooped up his rifle. “You can enjoy a leisurely bath while I hunt down supper.”
“No rattlesnake steak. Tried it once. Didn’t like it.”
“You’d be surprised what you can eat when left with no choice, princess,” he assured her, more gruffly than he intended. “Believe me, I’ve had worse.”
Jonah descended the trail and vowed he was going to be his old self again when he returned. Sharing his thoughts and emotions made him feel uncomfortable and exposed. He related better to Maddie when he relied on taunts and sarcasm. If he kept this up she might come to mean too much in the short span of a few days. He planned to leave her without regret, because he had regrets aplenty already and revisiting the outer boundaries of the Comanchería was getting him stirred up.
She was getting him stirred up, too.
It was amazing how quickly he had reached the point where just staring at those clingy clothes that accentuated her curvaceous figure made him want her—badly.
He just needed a woman. Any woman would do, he tried to convince himself. He could relieve that problem at the bustling town that had sprung up beside Fort Griffin. The Flat, as the raucous community was called, was known for its saloons, dance halls and harlots. Simple sexual pleasure was what he craved.
Maddie Garret was to be cautiously avoided because she came with all sorts of complications. Hell, he couldn’t even guarantee that she wasn’t feeding him some fantastic lie.
Oh, certainly, he wanted to believe her, wanted to think that he wasn’t that bad a judge of character. But he’d heard too many nightmarish tales of men who were enticed and betrayed by a beautiful woman. Maddie, with her hypnotic golden eyes, sun-kissed hair and honeyed lips could lead him into disaster like a sea siren luring a doomed ship into the eye of a hurricane.
“Well damn,” Jonah muttered as he stalked off to hunt. He was getting allegorical and philosophical all of a sudden, wasn’t he? If this wasn’t an indication that a tempting woman could tie a man up in knots and leave him waxing poetic, he didn’t know what was.
Right there and then, Jonah promised himself that he would be back on solid mental footing by the time he returned to the campsite. He was not going to let Maddie Garret get to him worse than she already had.
As soon as he dumped her off at Fort Griffin he was as good as gone. And you could write that down in stone because he was not going to change his mind. Fort Griffin was the end of the line for him.
Chapter Four
Maddie sensed the change in Jonah the instant he returned to camp, carrying three quail that he’d cleaned for cooking, and an armload of firewood. His gaze skipped past her and he smirked when he noticed her recently washed clothes, and his, draped over bushes and outcroppings of rock. Maddie was pretty certain that Jonah felt uncomfortable about sharing a part of himself with her earlier, and had decided that wasn’t going to happen again.
“You didn’t have to do my laundry,” he said curtly.
“No, and you didn’t have to fetch my supper.” She walked over to retrieve the quail. “One good turn deserves another. Maybe next time I’ll fetch supper and you can do the laundry.”
He scoffed at that, as she figured he would. “You can hunt your own game?”
She nodded. “I am not entirely helpless.” She took pride in telling him that.
Jonah stacked the firewood, then grabbed a matchbox from his saddlebag to ignite the campfire. Then he slid his pistol from the holster and handed it to her. “Prove it,” he challenged.
Lips twitching, Maddie focused on a scraggly weed that protruded from a crack in the rock and fired away. She glanced sideways to note Jonah’s stunned reaction after she hit the weed dead center.
His narrowed gaze swung to her. “Where did you learn to do that?”
Maddie blew on the smoking barrel of the gun, then returned it to Jonah butt first. “Our ranch foreman, Carlos Perez, taught me. At my
insistence. After my father disappeared and rustling escalated, I decided I needed to be able to defend myself.” Her smile faded. “I should have encouraged Chrissy to take lessons, as well. Perhaps she could have escaped capture if she had been armed.”
Jonah handed the pistol back to her. “Take this with you while you lead the horses to the river to drink. I’ll bathe while dinner is cooking.”
Maddie grinned impishly into his expressionless face. “What’s wrong, Danhill? Afraid I’ll sneak peeks at you?”
He cast her a withering glance as he peeled off his shirt, exposing the rippling muscles that had captured her rapt attention the previous day. “Go away, Garret. And watch what the hell you’re doing down there. I scouted the area, but that doesn’t mean someone won’t sneak up on your blindside while you’re dawdling.”
Maddie tucked the pistol in the band of her breeches, then snatched up the empty canteen. Leaving Jonah to his bath, she followed the path to retrieve the horses. She smiled to herself, thinking what a refreshing change Jonah was from the other men of her acquaintance. They fawned over her, flattered her incessantly. But Maddie was no one’s fool. She knew her suitors saw her as a means to an end. They lusted after her prize property. But not Jonah. He resented the fact that she owned land that had once belonged to his people. In addition, he didn’t trust her. She had to earn his trust and prove her worth.
She had likely made him more cautious of her by assuring him that she could handle firearms. Maddie suspected he wouldn’t turn his back on her, for fear she’d shoot him. She wondered what it was going to take to convince him that she was telling him the truth.
Ah well, what did it matter? she asked herself. Jonah wasn’t going to stick around.
A rumble of thunder caught Maddie’s attention as she waited for the horses to drink their fill. She glanced southwest, noting that the bank of gray clouds she’d seen earlier was rapidly approaching. She knew spring thunderstorms could wreak havoc in this part of Texas, because she’d endured her share of sandstorms and windblown rains that transformed gullies into roaring rivers. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be perched on that cliff when lightning bolts speared from the threatening clouds.
Maddie tethered the horses on a patch of spring grass so they could graze, filled the canteen, then made the strenuous climb to the cliff. By the time she returned, Jonah had changed into the clean clothes—another black ensemble—that she’d draped over the scrub. He flicked her a glance while he was hunkered over the fire.
“Storm’s coming,” she said. “We may have wasted our time bathing because we’ll probably get drenched.”
Jonah gestured a brawny arm to the east. Frowning, she wandered around the jutting boulders, then halted in surprise when she noticed a wide-mouthed cavern tucked beneath the overhanging rock ledge. It wasn’t an enclosed space, which would have left her with that hemmed-in feeling and made her uneasy—thank goodness.
She noticed that Jonah had unrolled the pallet, and she was relieved that they could bed down without dodging lightning bolts during the night.
When she rejoined him and made an attempt at casual conversation, he wasn’t the least bit responsive. Since he didn’t seem to be in the mood for idle chatter Maddie decided to explore the foot trail that led to higher elevations.
The grumble of thunder overrode a low warning growl, and Maddie recoiled in alarm when she finally noticed a sleek mountain lion crouched on a ledge ten feet above her head. The big cat snarled and swiped the air with its paw.
Heart in her throat, her pulse pounding like hailstones, Maddie retreated several steps. She realized too late that she had only provided a better angle for the mountain lion to pounce—if that was its wont. Wild-eyed, Maddie watched the great cat gather itself, and she frantically grabbed the pistol tucked in her waistband. With a screeching snarl the tawny mountain lion lunged from its perch.
Maddie screamed her head off as the two-hundred pound beast plunged directly at her.
Jonah was on his feet the split second he heard the wild, inhuman screech and recognized it for what it was. When Maddie’s terrified shriek erupted, his heart nearly beat him to death. Fear for her safety sizzled through him as he raced up the winding path. Jonah sprinted around the outcropping of rock, then instinctively leaped sideways when a gunshot exploded. The sound echoed down the rugged peak, then died in a rumble of thunder.
Rounding the bend, Jonah braced his arm on the wall of rock and glanced up to see Maddie sprawled, half on, half off, a chair-size boulder. Panting for breath, Jonah stared at the unmoving mountain lion that lay across her knees.
“Maddie?” he called softly.
Her goggle-eyed gaze leaped from the cat to him, but she didn’t move, just sat there gasping for breath. Jonah approached her, then reached down to grab the mountain lion by the scruff of the neck and dragged it off Maddie’s legs. She was in his arms, tucking her head against his shoulder, before he could react. The pistol she had clutched in her hand swerved toward his ear, and Jonah pushed it away before the damn thing could go off accidentally and take his head with it.
“Oh, God!” Maddie wheezed, her body shuddering against his. “I thought I was a goner. All I could think about was that if I got eaten alive my sister wouldn’t stand a chance of survival unless I left everything up to you. But then I remembered that you don’t like me and you might not—”
“Shh-shh, calm down,” Jonah interrupted. “You’re okay and everything is going to be fine.” He nuzzled his cheek against her forehead and felt her shivering against him with the aftereffects of fear. “It’s over, princess. Just take a deep breath and try to relax.”
She clung to him, meshing her lush body against his overly sensitive male contours, and Jonah steeled himself against the sensations that rippled through him. Well hell, he thought. He’d vowed not to get this close to Maddie again and here he was, cuddling her protectively against him. Events beyond his control kept sabotaging his attempt to keep a physical and emotional distance. He should have set her away from him and told her to toughen up because danger was an everyday occurrence in the wilds. Instead he held her close while her seesawing breath fanned his neck and she struggled to regain her composure.
“I didn’t realize the cat was above me until it was too late,” she jabbered nervously. “The poor thing might have been trying to protect a den of young cubs, and I unintentionally intruded on its territory.”
“The poor thing?” Jonah repeated incredulously. “The poor thing nearly had you for dinner.” He glanced down to note that Maddie had shot the great cat in the neck. It was probably all that had saved her from mauling and death.
“Carlos taught me to aim for the neck,” she mumbled, following his gaze. “He said that would bring an animal down immediately. Anything less wouldn’t ensure that the beast couldn’t keep coming at you.”
“Carlos is right. It’s the only way to stop an animal in its tracks.” Jonah eased Maddie away and turned her back in the direction she’d come. “Dinner should be ready.”
“I’m not hungry,” she mumbled as she made the descent on wobbly legs.
Jonah reached out to lend support before she stumbled downhill. “You’re eating, regardless.”
Bracing shaking hands against the boulders, Maddie made her way back to camp. Even after inhaling several cathartic breaths she was still rattled by the incident.
“That was a careless mistake,” she grumbled to herself.
“You got that right. Next time pay attention to your surroundings.”
“Right. Eagle-eyed Danhill would never have made that error. But then, you probably have eyes in the back of your head.”
“I’ve seen too many men die with surprised looks on their faces, Garret. If you wanna stay alive you take nothing for granted and you keep your eyes and ears peeled.”
Thunder exploded above them, as if to punctuate his comments. Maddie instinctively shrank back and lost her footing. Her arms flailed wildly before Jonah jerked her uprig
ht and tightened his grasp on her.
“Take a couple of deep breaths and get yourself together,” he demanded.
“Tried that. Didn’t help. I noticed that bottle of whiskey in your saddlebags. Mind if I have a drink of it? I’ll replace your supply when we reach the Flat.”
“Help yourself.”
Maddie rounded the bend of the trail and made a beeline for the saddlebag. She fished out the bottle and took a swig. Fire burned her throat and left her choking for breath. Jonah whacked her between the shoulder blades, then snatched the bottle from her trembling hand.
“Take it easy with that stuff. Sip it. Don’t gulp it.”
Nodding mutely, Maddie pried the bottle from his fingertips, took a sip and then said, “How do you do it?”
His dark brows bunched over his thick-lashed eyes. “How do I do what?”
“Face outlaws and wild beasts daily without letting it get to you?” She wheezed, then helped herself to another sip.
“Practice,” he replied, then jerked the bottle from her hand once more. “You’ve had more than enough. The way you’re going at it you’ll be stumbling drunk and pitch yourself off the edge of the cliff.”
“I’m sure you’d prefer that,” she mumbled as she wilted bonelessly to the ground. “Then you’d be rid of me for good.”
It was more than obvious that Maddie wasn’t a connoisseur of liquor. The stuff went straight to her head in nothing flat. “Better eat something,” he advised as he strode over to lift the burned quail from the fire.
Reluctantly she accepted the food he extended to her.
“Hell’s going to break loose soon,” he predicted as he glanced at the threatening sky. “We’ll call it a night and get an early start in the morning. We should reach Fort Griffin by noon.”
“And then you will be rid of me,” she said between bites.
Yes, he would. In less than a day he could put Maddie Garret out of his mind and enjoy his vacation.