"Let me up," she moaned. "I've got to get up."
"She can have her arms out," Tyler said to Zac, "but she has to stay in bed."
"You can talk to me," Daisy said, practically shouting at him. "They're my arms."
"You're not in your right mind," Zac said. "You wouldn't know what to do with them."
"I could punch you in the face."
"See, I said you weren't in your right mind. Why should you want to hit me after I slept with you last night?"
Chapter Two
"You did what?" Daisy's voice was weak from shock.
"Tyler slept with you, too."
Daisy prayed the darkness would descend and swallow her again, but she remained agonizingly alert. She had heard every word and misunderstood none.
"I was afraid you might freeze to death," Tyler explained.
Daisy experienced a wave of relief that was dizzying, but at the moment she wasn't sure a nice quiet death wouldn't have been preferable to the madness that seemed to surround her. She knew her head wasn't working right, but surely a bullet wound couldn't account for all of this.
"Help me get my arms free," she said to Zac. Maybe if she could sit up, she wouldn't feel so overwhelmed.
"You got to promise not to get up. Tyler gets real ugly when people don't do what he wants."
"I just want to prop myself up a little so I can see. I feel helpless lying here trussed up like a mummy."
"Help her up," Tyler said.
Daisy didn't know why Tyler should be acting like he was God, but a perfectly divine aroma had begun to drift into her part of the cabin. Her stomach started to rumble and saliva filled her mouth. She was starved.
Zac tugged at the blankets, but they wouldn't come loose. "Roll over. I can't get to the end."
"If I could roll over, I wouldn't need you," she replied, her mind still on the smell of the stew.
Zac acted as though he had never taken care of anyone in his entire life, but he finally managed to unwrap the blankets enough for Daisy to free her arms. She pulled herself up against the wall until she could sit up. Her head ached cruelly, but she was determined. She felt too much at a disadvantage lying flat on her back.
Tyler handed her a cup of coffee. It was hot, black, and loaded with sugar and dried milk. She nearly choked on it. Without saying a word, Tyler took the cup from her hands, diluted it with some hot water, and handed it back. He was treating her like a baby, but she swallowed her pride and accepted the coffee. It warmed her insides. Even with the blanket, she was aware of the cold.
"How long do you mean to keep me here?" she asked.
"Keep you here!" Zac echoed. "We haul you I don't know how many miles up a mountain through the worst blizzard I've ever seen, I get a bullet in my side that was supposed to go in your head, and you want to know how long we're going to keep you here. You can go right now for all I care."
Daisy decided she'd better rephrased her question. Bearded bigfoot at the stove wasn't going to talk, and Adonis seemed ready to take umbrage at half the things she said. She didn't think they would hurt her, but they were strangers. Despite being six feet tall, a cruel twist of fate she had suffered from her whole life, both men were even taller.
"How long do you think it will be before I'm able to travel," she said. "My father will be worried sick."
"I don't know," Zac said. He sounded slightly mollified. "You were out about twenty-four hours. You can't expect to be jauntering over a mountain in five minutes."
"But my father--"
"Your father will just have to worry," Tyler told her. "You're not well enough to travel."
He turned back. Clearly he had said all he intended to say. That infuriated Daisy. He was just like her father, passing out orders, expecting her to obey them without question. Well, she had to take it from her father, but not from him. A wave of dizziness washed over her, robbing her of the little strength she had. She'd tell him later, when she felt up to it.
She was sorry he had to be the one to find her. She was even more sorry he had had to carry her across a mountain and put her in his bed, but it wasn't her fault. There were dozens of people in Albuquerque he could have left her with. Anyone could have told him her best friend was Adora Cochrane, daughter of the richest man in Albuquerque. They'd have been happy to take care of her. They would have notified her father at once so he wouldn't worry.
"Where did you get shot?" she asked Zac.
"In the side."
"Is it bad?"
"It's bad enough."
She held out her cup. "Do you feel you can get me some more coffee?"
"I guess I could." Zac made a face when he got to his feet. He made an elaborate production of limping across the room and returning with her coffee. Daisy told herself he might not be shamming, but she couldn't quite believe it. It was impossible to tell how much was due to real pain, how much was for her benefit. She decided Zac liked to be appreciated.
"Let me see your wound," Daisy said when Zac handed her the coffee. "I'm very good at taking care of cuts."
Zac recoiled. "No female is getting her hands on me."
"I just want to help. After all, you said it was my fault you got hurt."
"Time to eat," Tyler announced. "Zac, you come get your own. You," he said, clearly indicating Daisy, "stay where you are. I'll feed you."
Daisy threw back the blankets that had been covering her. "I feel much better now. I--"
"Stay where you are!"
The command pinned her to the bed as effectively as if he had used a hammer and nails. Daisy felt almost literally frozen in place. She couldn't help but draw back when he pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed.
"You don't have to shout," she said.
"I didn't shout."
"Yes, you did." He hadn't, but it felt like it.
"You don't have to crawl into the corner. I'm not in the habit of violating girls."
"I'm not a girl," Daisy retorted, regaining some of her spunk. "I'm a woman. I turned twenty several months ago."
"It's the freckles that misled you," Zac observed, helpfully. "They make her look like a gamin even if she is as tall as a giraffe."
Daisy decided it was a good thing Zac was so handsome. Otherwise, someone would probably have throttled him years ago. She hated her freckles. Her mother had tried everything she could to get rid of them. All she succeeded in doing was make Daisy even more sensitive.
"How long do I have to stay in bed?" she asked.
"Maybe you can get up for a little while tomorrow," Tyler said.
Daisy swallowed the contents of the spoon Tyler held out to her. She felt foolish being fed, but she was hungry, and the food was delicious.
"Can't I even feed myself?"
"No."
"I promise not to dribble or drool." Okay, so it wasn't very funny, but he didn't have to look at her like she was a school girl who had misbehaved. Didn't the man ever smile? He looked like he'd taken something for constipation that hadn't worked.
He leaned closer, and she had to brace herself to keep from backing away. She felt uncomfortable being this close. She didn't fully trust him, and she resented his constantly telling her what to do. Besides, she hated his beard. It made him look like some kind of animal.
She expected him to smell. Every mountain man she'd never met smelled worse than a refuse pile, but Tyler didn't. All she could smell was the wonderful aroma coming from the bowl in his hands. She noticed his hands. He had very big hands. He also had immaculately clean fingernails. He was, in fact, very well groomed. His clothes didn't look new, but they were clean.
Why would a man who lived by himself go to so much trouble to keep clean and neat?
A man who could cook anything that smelled as good as this stew would be unusual enough to do anything. She opened her mouth to accept the next bite. It was still too hot to really savor, but it was the best food she'd ever tasted.
"What is that?" she asked as soon as she had swallowed.
"Venison. I was looking to kill another deer when we found you."
It didn't taste like venison. It tasted much better.
"Wait until you taste the rest of his cooking," Zac said, his own stew now completely swallowed. "It's gruesome to watch. He dumps all kinds of stuff into the pot, but it tastes great."
Daisy accepted another spoonful. She didn't know about the seasonings, but it was good.
"You'll have to tell me how you do it," she said.
"Tyler never tells anybody about his recipes," Zac said. "Most of the time he won't allow anybody around him when he's cooking."
"I hate having people in the kitchen, too," Daisy said. "It destroys my concentration."
"It doesn't bother Tyler's concentration," Zac informed her. "He just doesn't like people. He's been trying to get rid of me ever since I got here."
"Eat more and talk less," Tyler said.
Zac did, but Daisy decided it was because he was hungry, not because he was intimidated by Tyler.
She ate in silence. She spent most of the time trying to figure out these two brothers, if they were brothers. As far as she could see, all they had in common was height. Zac was more personable, but it was Tyler who aroused her curiosity. She wondered if he really did hate people. A lot of mountain men did.
She noticed he didn't look at her. She had just started to speculate on the reason why when she remembered Zac had said half her hair was gone, the rest matted with blood. Her hand went to her head. Her fingertips encountered the thick bandage. She felt mortified. He probably didn't look at her because he couldn't stand the sight. Just the thought of what she must look like killed her appetite, but Tyler kept spooning the rich stew into her mouth.
She was miserable. She'd never been a beauty. Her freckles and her size had ruined any hopes of that, but she'd always been attractive. She hated looking ugly in front of this man. He obviously begrudged the effort it had taken to save her and take care of her. She'd never see a woman with singed hair, but the picture her imagination conjured up was pretty grim. She probably looked worse than a half-drowned buffalo calf.
Daisy consoled herself with the knowledge she didn't find him attractive either. He had nice eyes and a noble forehead, but the beard ruined everything.
"Do you have a mirror?"
"You don't need one."
"I want to see what I look like."
He didn't answer, just fed her more stew. She tried again.
"I need to change my bandage. It's too tight."
"I'll do it."
"I can. I feel much better now."
"No."
He got up. She was so stunned at his point-blank refusal she almost failed to notice he was taking away the delicious stew. "I'm still hungry," she said.
"You've had enough."
Daisy could hardly believe her ears. Nobody had ever refused her food or told her she had had enough to eat.
"You only gave me a small bowl. I'm practically starved."
"You haven't eaten in more than twenty-four hours. You shouldn't eat too much at once."
"I should think I'm the best judge of when I've eaten too much."
He didn't turn back. He wasn't even going to discuss it with her. Obviously her opinion didn't matter. He was worse than her father. At least he'd never tried to starve her. She wanted to yell at this man, to give him a piece of her mind.
But even as Daisy opened her mouth, it struck her that while Tyler did expect her to do exactly what he wanted, he was taking care of her. He didn't expect her to do any work. He wouldn't let her when she tried. She'd never met a man who didn't expect a woman to do everything for him. He even took care of Zac.
This was new to Daisy. She'd have to think about it, but the hot food had made her feel tired and sleepy. The thought of a nap was very inviting. She was very quickly losing the energy to do anything but let Tyler do what he was going to do anyway.
"What time is it?"
"About five in the afternoon," Tyler said. He poured some clear liquid from a little bottle into a pan of warm water. He reached for some long strips of cloth. "Lie very still," he said as he sat back down next to her. "This may hurt a little."
"What did you put in the water?" Daisy asked.
"Disinfectant."
Tyler held her head off the pillow as he unwound the bandage. Zac practically stuck his face in hers to get a look at her wound. "It doesn't look too bad to me," he observed. "It looked a whole lot worse yesterday."
It did hurt. Whatever he used as a disinfectant had a painful sting, but he seemed to be trying to be gentle. She wondered if he had ever been around a woman for more than five minutes. He certainly acted like a man unfamiliar with their ways.
She wondered if he cared to learn.
"Is it going to leave a scar?"
"Yes."
"A bad one?"
"You can cover it with your hair."
In two or three years when it grows back! She could imagine herself with half her hair singed to the scalp, the other part of her head covered with a huge, red scar. She almost burst into tears. She'd probably scare little children. No man would want to talk to her, much less marry her.
"I want to go home," she said, weighed down by all the calamities that seemed to be descending on her. Things would somehow be better if she could just get home, away from Adonis and his perfection, from Big Feet and his absolute certainty he knew what was right for her. She wasn't strong enough to stand up to them. At least not now.
"You can't go anywhere," Tyler informed her "You're so weak you'd fall out of the saddle."
"Tyler had to ride with his arms around you all the way up the mountain or you'd be in some ravine right now," Zac told her.
"He had his arms round me?"
"How else was he supposed to keep you in the saddle? Tie you to the pommel?"
Daisy felt the color rise in her cheeks. She didn't know why, but knowing she had ridden in Tyler's arms, their bodies in prolonged intimate contact, caused her more embarrassment than Zac's remark about sleeping with her. That had shocked her, but she didn't quite believe it. This stunned her because it was the most obvious explanation of how they brought her to the cabin. She closed her eyes. She couldn't bear to look Tyler in the face.
"Somebody ought to sew your mouth shut," Tyler said to Zac.
"I don't understand--"
"Just get me that tin of ointment."
Daisy kept her eyes closed. She listened to Zac's halting footsteps as he crossed the room and came back.
The ointment was cool and soothing. It didn't smell very good, but she didn't care. She just hoped Tyler would finish quickly. She wanted to turn to the wall and never look him in the face again.
She didn't know why she should care what this man thought of her. He was taciturn to the point of being rude. He acted like taking care of her was a duty his conscience wouldn't let him shirk. The sooner she left the better for both of them.
"Keep still. I need to rebandage your head."
Daisy opened her eyes and glared at him. "What are you going to do if I don't? Tie me to the bed?"
"If I have to."
Daisy decided he meant it. She sat still while he began to wind the fresh strips of cloth around her head. He kept on doing it until she felt certain she must look like a mummy.
"That's probably too thick, but I wanted to make sure it was thick enough to protect the wound," he said. "I'm not good at this. I don't get hurt much."
"He never gets hurt at all," Zac remarked, a slightly peevish tone to his voice. "I've been shot, fallen down a mountain, and barely escaped a rock slide getting here. He's never had so much as a skinned knuckle."
"Then why does he have a bandage on his hand?"
"He got it--"
"I got it when the killer came after you the second time," Tyler said.
Just when she was able to get angry at him, he made her feel guilty. "I'm sorry. I'll lie as still as a mouse."
"If you think mice are still, you ought
to see this little critter that lives in the woodpile," Zac said. "He--"
"I don't think Miss Singleton wants to hear about mice," Tyler said. "Hike up that shirt so I can get a look at your side."
Blocking Zac's facile chatter and Tyler's gruff responses from her mind, Daisy wiggled down in the bed until she lay flat. Imagining what she looked like with yards of bandage wrapped around her head made her want to crawl under the covers and stay there. Besides her head hurt, her body felt like it weighed a ton, and she was tired and sleepy. She was also worried about her father and depressed about her hair. On top of that, she was obviously going to have to spend several days locked up in this cabin with Bearded Bigfeet and his court jester. She thought she might go crazy.
The sound of the wind as it whistled through the trees, around the corner of the cabin and under the eves told her she couldn't possibly leave. But surely the snow would melt quickly. It hardly ever snowed in the Rio Grande valley, even in the Sandia Mountains. When it did, it didn't stay long.
But one glance at the ice-encrusted windows told her that whatever it usually did, it was snowing hard outside with no signs of letting up.
Daisy closed her eyes. She was too tired to fight sleep anymore. She wanted to escape. Maybe this was all a bad dream. Maybe she'd wake up and find herself in her own bed in her own home, bearded bigfoot just a nightmare.
But even as she slipped into the welcoming arms of sleep, she couldn't help wondering what he looked like behind that awful beard.
* * * * *
"You think she's playing possum?" Zac asked.
"She's asleep," Tyler replied, "even if she doesn't snore like you."
"I don't snore."
"Not when you're awake." Tyler put disinfectant on Zac's side. The boy winced.
"Take it easy. I'm not one of your damned mules."
"Daisy didn't complain, and her wound is worse than yours."
"Some brother you are, making me out to be a worse than a girl."
Tyler turned his gaze toward the bed where Daisy slept. "Woman," he corrected. No girl could have aroused feelings of such intense physical desire in him. Not even freckles and a bandage could make him forget the softness of the body he held close to him all the way up the mountain. Even now the mere thought of it caused his body to harden.
Daisy Page 2