Stormwalker

by Dallas Schulze

  "It wasn't necessary for you to do anything, but thank you."

  They faced each other across the narrow expanse of buckling linoleum like warriors across a battlefield. Sara knew she was not just imagining the wary look in his eyes. Whatever his problem was, right now she didn't have the energy to struggle with it. Sleep had been elusive this last week, but she had the feeling that tonight she was going to sleep like a log. Knowing that something was being done to find Cullen lifted a huge weight from her shoulders.

  "If you don't mind, I think I'll go to bed now. I really appreciate you letting me stay here. I wasn't looking forward to the drive back to civilization to find a motel."

  "No problem. It gets cold this time of year, but there are plenty of blankets on the bed."

  "Thank you." She stood next to the sink for a moment longer, reluctant to approach the door where he stood. As if sensing her thoughts he stepped out of the doorway, and Sara gave him a strained smile and moved forward.

  With her attention on her host, she missed seeing the raised ridge of linoleum. The toe of her boot caught on it and she gave a startled gasp as she stumbled and pitched forward, hands flung out to break the inevitable fall.

  An iron-hard bar caught her across the middle and she was spun upright and slammed into a hard wall of muscle. Her fingers closed on the soft fabric of a denim shirt and for a moment she could only stare dazedly at the solid blue barrier in front of her.

  The first two buttons of his shirt were undone and she could see a light mat of dark curly hair against the warm coppery skin of his chest. Her quick breathing drew in a heated masculine scent that owed nothing to cologne. Just soap and man.

  Reluctantly, she lifted her eyes to his face, almost afraid of what she would see. She wondered why she'd never realized that a fire could blaze green. His hands had come to rest on her hips, his long fingers on the swell of her buttocks, and now his fingers tightened, pulling her closer into the cradle of his thighs, pressing her breasts firmly against his chest.

  Sara stopped breathing, her eyes never leaving the heated green of his. He was going to kiss her. She should move back, say something light to break the tension. She shouldn't just stand here, her fingers still locked on his shirt. His eyes shifted to her mouth and she forgot how to breathe. His head dipped slightly. Did she strain toward him?

  As quickly as it had begun, it ended. His head came up, leaving her mouth feeling bereft. His hands slid away from her hips, and she wondered if she imagined the reluctance in the movement. She blinked and looked away from the brilliant depths of his eyes. It took a conscious effort for her to make her fingers release their grip on his shirt and her feet move.

  She backed one step away and the heel of her boot caught on the same ridge that had been her downfall moments ago. Cody's hand flashed out and caught her elbow, steadying her. Even that small contact sent tingling waves of awareness up her arm.

  She laughed shakily. "I guess I'm more tired than I thought."

  His eyes followed her solemnly, their expression unreadable. "I'll have to fix that section of the floor."

  She rubbed her hands up and down her thighs. "Well, I'll get to bed now. I'll watch where I walk a little more carefully."

  He nodded. "Goodnight."

  She could feel his eyes on her back until she turned the corner of the wide doorway, and even then she could still feel his presence. In the small bedroom he had given her, with the door safely shut behind her, Sara let her breath out in a long whoosh.

  She was going to have to watch herself. She was vulnerable right now and Cody Wolf would be dynamite at the best of times. She undressed and tugged on a flannel nightshirt before crawling under the pile of covers and switching off the lamp.

  She was immediately aware of silence. Not just quiet, but absolute stillness. No traffic noises, none of the vague rumble that seemed to be a constant companion even in the suburbs. Just quiet. A soft sound broke the stillness, reminding her that she was not alone. She stirred restlessly, remembering that moment when she had been pressed against the length of him.

  The planes and angles of his face were vivid beneath her closed eyelids. If she drew a deep breath, she could almost imagine that his scent filled her nostrils. Her eyes widened onto pitch darkness. There were no city lights to ease the heavy blanket of night. A door snicked quietly shut somewhere nearby, and Sara was suddenly intensely aware of being all alone with a man she knew nothing about. She searched for some fear in the thought, but it wasn't there.

  She felt as safe with Cody as she did with David. David! She had called him before leaving Denver this morning to tell him where she was going, and that was the last time she'd thought about him. He certainly hadn't been on her mind when she'd been practically glued to Cody Wolf earlier.

  She owed David so much. He'd helped her start her career; he'd eased her through those first terrifying months of trying to hold everything together for Cullen, trying to make a home for the boy. She loved David. She hadn't given him a formal acceptance of his proposal yet, but they both knew that she was going to marry him. Of course she was going to marry him. But, then, why had she hesitated to commit herself to him and why did one touch from Cody Wolf set off fireworks she'd never felt with David?

  David. She had to stop thinking about her enigmatic host and start thinking about her almost-fiance. She tried to summon David's features, but they immediately wavered and blurred, to be replaced by a harder, more angular face with emerald eyes that looked as if they could see into her soul. Her head moved restlessly against the pillow, banishing the image and forcing David's more gentle features into focus. But they wavered, brown eyes shifting to green.

  With a little sound that was almost a sob, Sara abandoned the effort. It was just that she was tired. Naturally Cody's features would be more clear. After all, right now he was very important to her. He was her means of finding Cullen. That was why his image kept overriding David's. It had nothing to do with the fact that when he touched her, her senses seemed to catch fire.

  Cody turned restlessly, part of him fighting the urge to sleep. Sleeping meant dreaming and he wasn't sure he wanted to dream tonight. He had the feeling that Sara Grant was going to play all too prominent a role in his dreams. Her presence in his home made the old house feel alive in a way it hadn't been since his mother's death almost twenty years ago.

  He sat up in bed, resting his elbows on his knees and staring across the dark room. He had a sudden urge for the cigarettes he had given up twelve years ago, and his mouth twisted in a half smile. He'd known her less than twenty-four hours and she was already giving him a nicotine fit. But it didn't feel like twenty-four hours.

  Looking into those ever-changing eyes, he'd had the feeling he'd known her forever. That she'd been part of him since time began. That was a foolish idea, of course. It was just that he'd been shut away in these mountains for too many months with no one but Dancer to talk to.

  Maybe after he'd found the wreck and the boy, dead or alive, he'd take a weekend and drive to Laramie or Cheyenne and get himself dead drunk, find a willing woman and give the locals a chance to shake their heads over Indians who couldn't hold their liquor.

  He slid back down under the covers, resolved to sleep dreamlessly and banish thoughts of a fragile woman with a will of iron and eyes as changeable as a mountain sunset.

  ❧

  "We'll leave this afternoon." Cody ran his fingers through his hair, casually tousling the already-shaggy style. "I've got to drive over to the Williams's place and ask their oldest boy to keep an eye on my place. Then I'll pack the horses with everything I'm likely to need. We should be ready to leave by early afternoon. Won't get very far before dark, but it'll be a start."

  Sara sipped her coffee. "How do you plan to go about finding the crash? Search and rescue didn't have much luck. And why horses? Wouldn't it be better to rent a chopper or a plane or something?"

  "If you wanted a high-tech search you came to the wrong place. Didn't Larkin tell yo
u that I have to beat a tom-tom and dance around a fire to find the crash sites?"

  There was a wealth of bitterness in his words, and Sara blinked uncertainly. "Well, actually, John didn't tell me much of anything. But I don't care what you do as long as you find Cullen."

  Cody turned away from her to pour a cup of coffee, shaken by his reaction to her perfectly natural question. He'd thought the old wounds were long healed, but something about her seemed to bring all the bitterness rushing to the surface. He turned back, forcing his mouth into a tight smile.

  "Larkin and I did not get along too well," he offered by way of both explanation and apology. "I'm using horses because that's the way I work. If the wreck could be found from the air, you wouldn't have come tome."

  "Fair enough," Sara agreed easily, forgetting that he had answered only a part of her question. "While you make the arrangements, I'll sort out the things I'll need. Do you have some kind of a pack I can put stuff in?"

  "A pack for what?" he asked blankly, afraid he already knew the answer.

  "Clothes, mostly. I brought plenty of jeans and I think I've got enough sweaters. I don't know if my coat is—"

  "Wait a minute." He waited until she looked at him, her brows raised in question. "You're not going with me. You can stay here, but you'd probably be more comfortable staying in a motel somewhere. You can leave word with Bob Williams of where you'll be and I'll contact you as soon as I get back."

  "That's very considerate of you but I'd planned on going along."

  His tone matched hers for reasonability. "You'll have to change plans. I'm not taking you with me."

  "I can understand why you'd have some doubts, but I—"

  "I don't have any doubts at all," he interrupted, letting her hear the steel in his voice. "You're not going."

  She stopped trying to argue reasonably.

  "I'm going with you."

  "Like hell you are!"

  "Like hell I'm not!" Sara's chin set stubbornly and her eyes didn't waver from the angry green of his.

  "I'm not taking you with me!"

  "I'm going, whether you like it or not!"

  Cody slammed his coffee cup down on the counter and took two angry strides forward, resting his palms on the edge of the table and leaning toward her menacingly. Sara lifted her chin and met him glare for glare.

  "I am not taking a woman who doesn't know one end of a horse from another on a mountain trip of unknown duration."

  "Cullen is my family. I'm going with you to find him. And, as a matter of fact, I do know which end of a horse is which, and I know which end I'd label you."

  He jerked upright, his brows coming down in menacing black hooks over eyes that burned with irritation. "All right, lady. You're welcome to come along if you can prove to me that you're not going to be a liability. This is no jaunt in the park, and I'm damned if I'll risk my neck looking for your nephew and trying to look after a damned model who's afraid to break a fingernail at the same time."

  Sara stood, wishing she didn't have to look up so far to meet his eyes. "You can be damned all you like. I'm going with you. If I thought I was going to be a liability, I wouldn't go. I can ride and I've done a fair amount of camping. I don't expect hot and cold running water and maid service on the side of a mountain and I am not afraid of breaking a fingernail. If I can't keep up, you can feel free to leave me, and I'll find my own way home."

  "You'll pull your own weight from start to finish," he warned.

  "I wouldn't have it any other way."

  He glared at her in frustration a moment longer and then muttered something unprintable under his breath before spinning away. He picked up his mug and downed the last of his coffee. From the way his hand wrapped around the thick porcelain, she had the feeling that he was wishing it was her neck. But if he was inclined to violence, he restrained the urge.

  He picked up his hat from the counter and jammed it on his head. "I'll be back in two hours. Have your things sorted and ready to pack."

  Sara resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at his back as he left. It was probably a good thing he wasn't wearing the traditional cowboy boots. The heels would have gouged holes in the floor. Even in soft moccasins he managed to stomp.

  Cody put the truck into gear and reversed into a gravel-spinning turn before slamming the transmission into forward and heading up the hill. She was the most irritatingly stubborn woman he had ever run across. He couldn't remember the last time he'd let someone get him so angry, and she'd done it effortlessly.

  He was half-tempted to tell her to take her money, her nephew and her pigheadedness and get off his ranch. But he'd had the dream again last night, more vivid, more detailed. And when he awoke, he found he shared her conviction that the boy was alive. The other times there had been only death in the dreams, but this time he sensed something more.

  No, no matter how angry she made him and no matter how badly he wanted her out of his life, he couldn't back out now. For better or worse, he had to see this thing through to the finish.

  Chapter 4

  "I don't see why you have to go through my clothing." Sara's voice was nothing short of belligerent and Cody had to grit his teeth to resist the urge to grab her and shake her. The only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that, in her shoes, he wouldn't like the idea of a stranger handling his personal belongings.

  "I'm not going to go through your things. I have to pack them. No, you can't do it yourself." He cut off the protest he could see forming. "You may have done some camping, but I sincerely doubt that you've had any experience packing a horse for a trip into the mountains. The load has to be carefully balanced or it's hard on the animals."

  He paused to let that sink in and then added one final statement. "My animals—I pack them."

  Sara swallowed and nodded without meeting his eyes. She didn't know why she'd argued anyway. What did it matter who packed the stuff? It was only clothing. But the thought of those long, tanned fingers among the delicate satins and lace of her underwear brought a strange tightness to her chest.

  "You're right, of course. Everything is stacked on my bed. Shall I bring it down to the corral?"

  Gracious in defeat, Cody thought savagely. With each new facet that he saw in Sara Grant, she seemed more and more dangerous.

  "No. I'll come back up for it when I'm ready."

  What had sent him off this time? Sara winced as the screen door slammed shut behind him. She'd backed down, hadn't she? Wasn't that what he'd wanted? She turned away from the door without an answer. All that really mattered here was finding Cullen. Everything else was secondary. If Cody Wolf wanted to snap and snarl from here to the Continental Divide, it didn't matter to her.

  She went into the bedroom to look over the neat stacks of clothing once more, trying to make sure that she had everything she was likely to need. Her only concern was that her coat might not be heavy enough, but it would have to do. She could always layer a sweater or two under it.

  She crossed the room and leaned against the wall next to the window, looking up at the mountains that loomed over the valley. The valley floor was filled with sunshine and the temperature barely required long sleeves, but it would be much colder up there. She hugged herself unconsciously, trying not to think of just how cold it might be.

  A floorboard creaked behind her and she spun around. Cody stood in the doorway. Sara stared at him for a silent moment, trying to conceal the shiver that ran up her spine when her eyes met the brilliance of his. He stepped into the room, and it was as if the air had acquired an electric charge.

  If he felt the same awareness that was stealing her breath away, he gave no sign of it. His eyes skimmed over her impassively as he crossed the room to stand next to the bed. He was only a few feet away. If she stretched out her arm, she could almost touch him. Sara's fingers clenched into fists against her sides. She didn't want to touch him. She refused to want to touch him.

  His hand came up and she held her breath. Was he going to reach out?
She was alone with him, miles from another human being. She would be helpless to stop him if he chose to use his strength against her.

  But the emotion that quickened her pulse wasn't fear. She trusted this lean stranger. She was trusting him with her life and Cullen's. No, she wasn't afraid. But she wasn't quite ready to put a name to what she did feel.

  His fingers closed around a leather strap that crossed his shoulder, and Sara only then realized that he was carrying a pair of worn leather saddlebags. He tossed them on the bed next to her neat stacks of clothing.

  "You can use these to pack some of your things in." If he felt that he was compromising, not a hint of it showed in his husky voice. "Just be sure to balance the load as much as possible... and let me pack anything bulky on the packhorses."

  It took a moment for Sara to realize what he was saying. He was offering her privacy, as much as was possible. Her smile was a bit shaky around the edges and her eyes were a little too bright as she thanked him.

  "Thank you. I really appreciate this. Is there anything I can do to help?"

  Cody's eyes skimmed over the delicate contours of her face and, for a moment, Sara thought she saw a softening. But it must have been her imagination.

  "The only thing you could do to help would be to agree to stay here, and I don't think you're going to do that."

  Sara's spine stiffened. "I'm coming with you."

  "So you've said. Pack up the saddlebags and be down at the corral in an hour. I'll introduce you to your horse and you can saddle her."

  "Fine." She all but spit the word at him. Her fingers itched to strike him. He was the most obnoxious, nasty, irritating man she'd ever met.

  As if he could read her thoughts, she raised one black brow in a silently sardonic comment before he turned and left the room, his moccasins silent on the scuffed floors. Sara watched him go, mentally calling him every name she could think of. She had no choice but to tolerate him. If it meant finding Cullen, she'd put up with Lucifer himself, but she didn't have to like it. The electricity that seemed to course between them was obviously pure dislike.