The man soothed the horse with a rub on his muzzle. His answer was slow and deceptively casual. “The name’s Clint, Ma’am. And I’ve ridden horses while more busted up than this. Now, if you’d let go of those reins?”
“No.” There was no way in hell she was doing that. “You’ll have to take the wagon.”
“Ride in a wagon?” Clint’s lazy gaze flickered with what she would have sworn was horror. He didn’t slacken his grip on the reins. His mouth set in a determined line that reminded Mara distinctly of Cougar. “I don’t think so.”
“You’re the only hope I’ve got.” A quick glance showed the pitchfork too far away to grab easily. More’s the pity.
“And I won’t be letting you down. Cougar’s my cousin, our mothers were sisters. There’s no way I’d let anything happen to him.”
Relief slid through her. “Good. Then we can stop arguing.”
“Not if you’re still thinking I’m going to take the wagon.”
“If you ride that horse with your leg all busted up just to prove how tough you are and then fall off, there’ll be nobody left to notify Doc that I need him. Desperately.”
As if she’d been speaking gibberish, Clint swung up onto his horse, awkwardly angling his splinted leg over the saddle. Leaning down, he flicked her cheek with his finger before prying the reins from her hands.
“Try not to worry, Mrs. McKinnely. I’ve been riding horses since before I could walk.”
When Mara opened her mouth on another protest, Clint shook his head before letting his grin slide, showing his seriousness. “It’s better I don’t take the wagon. Not only can I travel faster on horseback, but if something should happen to me, you’re going to need that wagon to move Cougar.”
There really was no refuting that logic, but Mara had plenty of arguments set to try. Before she could trot one out, Clint kicked his horse into a gallop. She watched as he cleared the corral, dust kicking up in his wake. He was right about one thing. He could ride.
Chapter Eleven
Pain woke Cougar. The bed shook and his chest was on fire. He struggled to his side, grunting with the effort, to spot Mara hunched against his bed holding her knees, her body jerking as if she were sobbing. “What’s wrong?”
Mara jerked around. “You’re awake!”
“Yeah.” He felt like something the cat had dragged in. Mara didn’t look much better than he felt. Her skin was bleached white by the bright light filtering through the lace curtains, and her lips were nearly colorless. Her cheeks were dry. He propped himself higher up on his elbow. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m not.” There might not be tears on her cheeks but he couldn’t shake the feeling she’d been crying.
Pushing up off the floor, she got to her feet. Her movements were stiff and heavy.
“Then let me try again.” Dammit! She looked worse than when he’d left her. His voice, raspy with disuse, got harsher as he rephrased, “What’s wrong?”
She threw him a look that questioned his intelligence.
“You’ve been sick.”
“And that had you crying?”
“I never cry.”
“Okay. So what had you not crying?”
“I’m just tired.” She grabbed up the flowered pitcher on the bedside table. “You must be thirsty.”
He was, but he was more interested in why she was worn to a nub. Cougar frowned. The fog was beginning to clear from his brain. He remembered feeling poorly, running into the bear, crawling onto his horse and struggling into the house. He did not remember fetching Mara.
“How long have I been out of it?” he asked as she poured him a drink of water.
She handed him the cup. “Three days.”
Three days? No wonder he felt as weak as a baby. He drank the water down. The tepid liquid poured like honey down his raw throat.
“Do you want more?” she asked.
“Thanks.” He studied her face as she poured the next cup. The dark smudges beneath her eyes. The messy, careless braid that barely contained her hair. “You’ve been taking care of me?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Doc and Dorothy didn’t help out?”
There was a long pause as she put the pitcher carefully on the bed stand. “They couldn’t.”
He took the glass she handed him. His hand shook. Water sloshed in the glass. He took a breath and leaned back a bit to steady his grip. His side immediately protested. Damn. He wasn’t used to being this weak.
“Must be a bad fever if it got Dorothy away from me.”
“Very bad. People are sick everywhere.”
The way she said that, her back to him, ramrod straight, gave him pause. There was one person who had been here when he left that he hoped like hell hadn’t been here when Mara arrived. He just wasn’t sure how to bring the subject up. He closed his eyes against the strain of keeping himself propped up. He opened them, took a drink of water and asked, “How bad is bad?”
“Doc said three people have died.”
“Who?”
“Elijah Ware’s wife and baby, and one drifter.”
“Damn. Elijah must be in hell.”
“He’s not taking it well.”
That, he imagined, was an understatement. Elijah had doted on his new family. He drained the last of the water. Mara held her hand out for the glass. He gave it to her. Their fingers brushed as she took it. Even half-dead, aching with the strain of holding this position, his cock perked up. It didn’t help his control that her voice was a touch breathless as she asked, “Are you hungry?”
“No.”
That luscious lip of hers slipped between her teeth as she grabbed up a cloth and dipped it into the basin. She wasn’t happy with his lack of appetite. He wasn’t happy with how tired she looked. It didn’t look like either of them was going to get happy anytime soon. He touched the bandages on his ribs and looked around the room. His makings were nowhere in sight. Mara, however, still stood by the bed, her body half-turned from him as she fussed near the basin.
She stood there, wetting and wringing out the rag. There was more on her mind than filling his stomach.
“Something on your mind, Angel?”
She jumped, flashed him a startled look and then, as bland as all get out, said, “No.”
He’d never seen a more obvious lie. He had a sneaking suspicion that Nidia had not left when he’d ordered her to. He hitched himself up. His hair fell forward. He tossed it back over his shoulder, frustration eating at him. He was going to have to attack this suspicion head-on. He looked around again for his makings. He could use a cigarette while doing it. He didn’t see his pouch anywhere. Obviously, a smoke wasn’t going to happen either. He sighed to himself and accepted the reality. His luck was still running bad.
“Was anyone here when you got here, Mara?”
Her lips thinned to a flat line. Her grip tightened on the cloth, but her tone was purely conversational. “Your housekeeper.”
“And?”
She cut him another quick glance. “And what?”
“What are you not telling me about Nidia?”
“What makes you think there’s something to tell?”
“I know Nidia. And when last I saw you, you were melting in my arms, not bristling like a porcupine facing down a pack of dogs.”
She dropped the cloth and faced him. Her hands fisted in her skirt. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t need an excuse, just an answer.”
“You assume there’s something to tell.”
“If there wasn’t, you wouldn’t be standing so stiff a breeze would snap you in two.”
“It could be that I’m just nervous.”
“Of what?”
“That you could be misinterpreting why I’m here.”
She said that in the prissiest tone he’d ever heard from her. Her chin inched a notch higher when she said it, telling him better than words that here was a subject she cared about.<
br />
“You aren’t here because you want our marriage?”
Her jaw dropped before she snapped her mouth closed. She struggled with herself, the cloth in her hands, and what she intended to say before finally settling on, “I’m not sure.”
“About what?”
Again one of those strange looks. “About whether this can work.”
“Doesn’t have much choice but to work.” Using the tall bedpost as a lever, Cougar pulled himself to an upright position. “We’re married and your coming here put paid to the deal.”
“I have a choice.”
He pulled a pillow behind his spine and slowly leaned back against it. “We’re married and staying that way.”
It felt good to say it.
Apparently, it didn’t sound as good to Mara. She tossed the rag she’d been mutilating into the bowl on the bedside table.
She folded her arms across her chest. “I can get an annulment.”
That little bombshell dropped with a clunk on Cougar’s ego. Mara could tell from his startled blink, and the way he stopped breathing. It was quite satisfying to get in the last word for a change. Never mind that she really hadn’t decided to apply for the annulment. She had the upper hand for the moment and she intended to keep it.
Cougar’s dark gold eyes narrowed. He suddenly looked as dangerous as his namesake. She should be afraid. Instead, a shiver of pure excitement snaked down her spine as he said in a carefully modulated drawl, “I assume you’ve checked this out with an attorney?”
“Brad took care of that for me.”
His frown got deeper. Her shiver came harder, and she realized that she actually liked tempting the wildness in him.
“How long has Brad been taking care of legal matters for you?”
Mara clasped her hands in front of her and threw up her chin. She had absolutely no reason to feel guilty. “Since he offered to marry me if things don’t work out with us.”
The round of cursing that came from Cougar as he attempted to surge to his feet, made her reconsider. Maybe it was a bit reprehensible to consider a marriage proposal from one man while still married to another. Hurrying forward, Mara helped Cougar to settle back down on the bed. She paid no attention to the way he threw off her hands. She couldn’t ignore, however, the fingers that clamped on her chin like a vise and yanked her face to within an inch of his.
Or his deep growl of “You’re mine.”
Only a fool would deny that possession at this particular moment, and Mara prided herself on her level-headedness, so she had no idea why the words popped out of her mouth.
“You don’t own me.”
“You’re my wife. I own every hair on that pretty head.”
She stepped out of his reach. “You own nothing I don’t give you.”
“Then come here and give it to me.”
“No.”
He threw the sheet off his legs. “If you make me come after you, I’ll make you scream.”
Some of her confidence leaked away as she stared at his bare legs with their thick muscles and light dusting of hair. His cock lay against his thigh, intimidating even at rest. The wide shaft thickened and stretched beneath her gaze. The mushroom-shaped head bobbed up and then dipped down as it engorged, the shaft slightly curving as if the bulbous head were too heavy for it to support. She didn’t know how he ever expected to fit inside her. She couldn’t take her eyes off his manhood as she reminded him, “You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
He snaked his hand out and grabbed her arm. “So I did.”
Cougar pulled until Mara was knee-to-knee with him. He kept one hand on the bedpost to maintain his balance. Her eyes were big when they met his. Full of questions and that defiance he so perversely loved. He shifted his hand to her wrists. His finger snared in the lace of the wide cuff of her dress. There was a small popping tear and Mara gasped in horror. “You tore my dress!”
He shrugged. He’d buy her a hundred more. “Just a little.”
He didn’t let go despite her efforts to see.
“It’s new!” she cried as she twisted her arm. “Brad just bought it for me.”
Something cold, hard and alien settled in the pit of Cougar’s stomach. “What the hell do you mean, Brad bought you a dress?”
Mara flinched when he pinned her hand at his hip, bringing her face to within inches of his.
“Well, he saw the one Dorothy gave me wouldn’t stay on, so apparently, he felt it was his Christian duty to provide one for me.”
“Christian duty my ass,” Cougar snapped. “No man,” he bit out carefully, “buys clothing for a woman not his own, unless he intends something dishonorable.”
“I hate to burst your bubble,” Mara tossed her braid back over her shoulder, matching his glare with one of her own, “but the Reverend has already made his honorable intentions clear to Doc, Dorothy, and me.”
Her defiance, as always, presented him with the dual temptation of squashing it or encouraging it. He asked almost politely, “Doc and Dorothy know about this?”
“Of course!”
Cougar’s right eyebrow rose skeptically. “And they didn’t have anything to say?”
He slid his grip up her arm, over her elbow and kept on going. Mara’s throat worked as she attempted to answer. She definitely hadn’t developed immunity since they’d been apart.
“We all agreed that something would have to be done about you first.”
He just bet they had. He opened his hand and rounded the curve of her shoulder. “And what did you decide to do about me?”
Mara swallowed as his hand curled around the back of her neck. He lightened his touch. She was so damned delicate, he’d have to be careful with her in and out of bed.
“Doc thought we should wait until you graced us with your presence, and Dorothy thought I shouldn’t settle for marriage without the fire.”
Cougar played with her hair, sliding the soft strands through his fingers, creating little sensual shivers down her spine from the resulting tugs. Shivers he felt in the tips of his fingers. Shivers that went straight to his cock, which pulsed in eager response. “And what did you decide?”
Mara shifted beneath Cougar’s touch. She couldn’t think straight when he touched her. Where logic screamed “run”, instinct coaxed ‘stay’. And somehow, she had to find a way to live between the two extremes. She looked at him. At his long, wild mane of hair falling over his heavily muscled shoulders, and his dark gold eyes burning with a primitive need to possess. Lord help her, taking risks wasn’t easy.
She tugged tentatively at the wrist, attached to the hand, attached to the fingers that were sending shivers down her spine. The only response she received was a barely perceptible shake of Cougar’s head. She bit her lip and then blurted out the outrageous truth. “I wanted to try the fire.”
Pulling slowly on her neck, Cougar drew her lips within kissing distance. “Wise choice.”
Before he pressed his mouth against hers, she asked, “Why?”
“Because I would have killed him if he’d touched you,” he growled with flat sincerity. Her gasp was lost as his lips settled over hers in a hard, hot, possessive kiss that seemed to reach through all her defenses until it touched her soul. She drew back. Cougar’s hand dropped from her hair to rest atop hers on the covers. The urge to possess faded from his gaze and was replaced by deep satisfaction. She leapt up from the bed as if distance could undo what had occurred.
“Suppose you tell the Reverend to go to Hell,” Cougar said, dropping back against the headboard, looking darkly dangerous and in complete control.
“I most certainly will not. Especially after he went to all the trouble of getting me this dress.”
“And especially after the way you encouraged him?” Cougar prompted perceptively.
“I did not encourage him!”
“That must be why you’re ducking my gaze.”
“Well, maybe I didn’t discourage as hard as I should have.” She’d been just a little t
oo flattered for a moment that another good-looking man had expressed an interest in her after twenty-three years of not a one giving her a second glance.
Cougar leaned back on the bed, feeling the pain and weariness pull him back into the pillows. He felt like someone had dragged him through a knothole backwards. Stretching out his arm, he tucked a bright swathe of Mara’s hair behind her ear. A glance ripe with resentment was his reward. He chuckled, and promptly wished he hadn’t, when brilliant streaks of pain flashed through his torso. “If you want to engage in verbal warfare, Angel,” he pointed out lazily, “you’re going to have to drop the delightful habit of answering with immediate and total honesty. It gives your opponent easy access to all your weaknesses.”
Bracing her hands on the back of the chair, Mara grimaced with disgust. “I know, I come up with the wittiest retorts but the minute I open my mouth, some perverse spirit replaces them with the unvarnished truth.”
“I like it.”
“You wouldn’t be saying that if you were the one cursed with an honest nature.” She arched her back and rolled her shoulders.
“Probably not.” He noticed the stiff way she moved. “Come here.”
Her response was to take two steps back.
“That wasn’t a request.”
Mara’s head snapped up. The retort that leapt to her lips prodded his sense of humor. The smile he was trying to hide must have shown on his face because she bit back the retort and came to his side, obviously not willing to give him the satisfaction of a predictable response.
“Why do you have to be so provoking?” she asked.
He motioned for her to turn around and sit beside him. “Just my nature, I suspect. Scoot up here a bit.”
Mara shook her head as she complied. Cougar braced his hands on her shoulders and lightly began massaging the tight muscles. Mara groaned as Cougar went to work. He immediately lightened his touch. He ran his thumbs up the muscles on either side of her spine, keeping the pressure steady and light as he worked the knots he could feel bunched under the skin.
Promises Keep (The Promise Series) Page 17