by Linda Broday
Surprisingly, he chuckled. "Well, you don't have to make stagecoach guard sound like dirty, egg-suckin' dog, but yeah, that's who I am. Grant Stafford's the name."
She didn't offer her name. Instead she said, "You have to let go of me, Mr. Stafford. Right now."
"I reckon you're warmed up enough I can do that." His tone grew more solemn as he added, "But before I do, I want you to know that the only reason I took such liberties was to save your life. And mine, too, I reckon. We had to get out of those wet clothes and we had to warm up as quick as we could, else we would've frozen to death."
Julia was beginning to get over the shock of everything that had happened and the situation in which she found herself. A part of her brain was working logically enough to understand what he meant. They had come out of the water soaking wet, and that was very dangerous in weather like this.
But she still needed to put some distance between them, so she slid out of his arms. He let her go. She crawled around to the other side of the fire and grabbed her dress from the sticks where it was drying. It was still damp, but it worked for her to hold it in front of her as she sat down.
She made the mistake of looking across the fire at him. He was as nude as she was. Earlier she had wondered—inappropriately, and she knew it—how he was built, and now she could see that his frame was muscular without being bulky, as if he had the lean strength of a wolf or panther. She tore her eyes away from him and said, "I insist that you put some clothes on, Mr. Stafford."
"Well, toss me the bottom half of that pair of long underwear," he suggested. "If they're not too wet, I'll put 'em on."
"Put them on anyway," she said as she picked up the underwear. "They can dry on you."
She wadded the red flannel underwear into a ball and tossed it across the cave to him. He caught it, shook them out, and pulled them on over his strong legs. Julia kept her gaze averted until he said, "All right, I'm halfway decent."
"What is this place?" she asked.
"Old Indian cave. You can see some of their drawin's up there on the wall." He pointed.
Julia looked up, and in the flickering light from the fire she saw the stick figures, the crude representations of animals, the moon and stars that previous occupants had drawn on the rock walls with charcoal and paint made from berries. She felt a surprising connection to the drawings, as if touching them would be like touching the ancient people who had inhabited this cave.
"I'd heard there are quite a few caves like this around here," Grant Stafford went on, "but this is the first one I've been in. I happened to see the tunnel when I was lookin' for a place for us to hole up. I dragged you in here to get you out of the wind, then struck a match and found that whoever used the place last left a pile of sticks and kindlin'. So I built that fire and then set about, uh, doin' what had to be done."
"Undressing me, you mean," Julia said with a slight sniff.
"Like I said, savin' our lives."
Despite the humiliation circumstances had forced upon them, she realized he was right about that, and her attitude softened slightly as she said, "Thank you. I…I can't believe we survived the stagecoach crashing like that." Something occurred to her. "Oh! What about the driver?"
Grant shook his head. "Ol' Scalphunter didn't make it. Those varmints shot him first thing. He lived long enough to warn me about the ravine, but then he died and fell off before the coach went over the cliff."
"I'm sorry," Julia said. "Was he an old friend of yours?"
"Just met him. But I knew him long enough to know he'd do to ride the river with."
Julia didn't know exactly what that meant, but she assumed it was something good. She asked, "What about those men? The ones who caused this?"
"The outlaws, you mean? They—"
He stopped short and held up a hand in a signal for her to be quiet. A second later, Julia understood why. She heard voices drifting faintly along the tunnel. Someone was out there.
And there was a good chance they weren't friendly.
****
Grant wished he still had his shotgun. It had been lost when the stagecoach wrecked. He had his Colt, which he had unloaded and set close to the fire to dry. The cartridges ought to be all right, and the revolver should be, too, by now, so he picked up the gun and thumbed the shells into it.
He saw how the woman's eyes widened at the sight of him loading the gun. She had to be scared out of her wits, although after everything she had gone through she might be getting a little numb by now. She was smart enough to know by his actions that they weren't out of danger.
His hope was that the outlaws figured he and the woman had been killed in the crash and their bodies had floated on down the Rio Hondo. But there was a chance the men would come looking for them, and that's what Grant wanted to avoid.
That was why he had pulled brush over the cave mouth after he and the woman were inside, to hide it from any searchers. He wasn't worried about the smoke from the fire. When he'd first crawled in here, he had been able to tell that there were a dozen or more little cracks and holes leading to the surface. Those would disperse the smoke so it couldn't be seen, and the strong north wind would sweep it away so it was unlikely the outlaws would smell it.
He'd had to run the risk. They wouldn't have survived without the fire.
He motioned to the woman and mouthed the words Stay here. Then he crawled along the tunnel maybe twenty feet before it opened into the side of the ravine.
He could tell from the grayish light that the sun was still up but the overcast had closed in again. The brush closed off most of the tunnel mouth, but as Grant lay there he carefully parted a couple of branches so he could peer out between them.
Two men on horseback had reined in at the edge of the river, about twenty feet away. On the other side of the stream, two more riders had stopped as well. All four men still wore dusters and bandanna masks, identifying them as members of the holdup gang.
It was cold this close to the open air, but Grant burned inside with anger at the sight of these killers. These men were responsible for the death of Scalphunter Reeves, as well as several others, and they had almost killed him and the woman, too. He wanted to lift the Colt and open fire on them.
But that would give away the hiding place and endanger the woman. Grant knew he couldn't do that. Her welfare was the most important thing to him now.
He tried to tell himself that didn't have anything to do with the fact that he had held her nude in his arms for more than an hour. He'd been trying damned hard not to think about that.
One of the men on this side of the river was trying to roll a cigarette. He was having a hard time with it, so he pulled his gloves off and stuffed them into a pocket on the duster. As he did so, Grant noticed something about the man's left hand. A large, pale, quarter-moon-shaped scar stretched across the back of it.
When he had the quirly made, he set fire to the gasper and took several puffs on it before he impatiently snapped it into the river. Then he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted across the water, "Any sign of them?"
"Nothin', boss," came the reply. "How long do you want to keep lookin' for 'em?"
"Forget it! Even if they weren't killed in the wreck, they must have drowned. We've got the express box from the coach. Let's go!"
The riders on both sides of the river turned their horses and disappeared from Grant's view. He heard the hoofbeats fading as they rode away.
He was relieved. The outlaws thought he and the woman were dead. The two of them weren't out of danger yet, but their situation looked a lot more promising now. It was late in the day, so the best thing would be to spend the night in the cave and then set out for the way station on foot in the morning.
The tunnel was too narrow for him to turn around, so he had to back out of it. When he emerged into the warm cave and sat up, he saw that the woman had gotten dressed while he was gone. She had lost her hat in the river, and her long dark hair had come loose and hung around her shoulders and down
her back. It was disheveled, of course, and so were her clothes.
Even so, Grant thought she was just about the prettiest woman he had ever seen, and the sight of her sitting there in the firelight made his heard thud with surprising force.
"Was it…the outlaws?" she asked.
"It was," he said with a nod. "They were looking for us. But they're gone now."
"Thank God. So, we can leave?"
"Not just yet. It'll be night before much longer. We'll be better off here. Tomorrow morning is soon enough to start for the way station."
"Well, if we're going to spend the night here, I insist that you put the rest of your clothes on."
"I reckon I can do that," Grant said. "On one condition."
"What's that?"
"Tell me your name."
She hesitated, then said, "It's Julia. Julia Courtland."
"See, that wasn't so hard, was it?"
He grinned and reached for his trousers.
****
They had no food, of course. As the hours crawled by, Julia tried to ignore the hunger gnawing at her. She would have mourned the loss of her clothing and all her other possessions in the wreck—everything in her carpetbag and valise had to be ruined from winding up in the river—but then she remembered that the driver, poor Mr. Reeves, had died. She and Grant had come as close as two people could to dying, only to make the narrowest of escapes.
Looking at things that way, being hungry and losing some clothes didn't seem quite so bad.
She supposed Grant was as bored and hungry as she was. After a while he asked, "Why were you bound for Flat Rock?"
"I'm going there to get married."
"Really? I don't see any engagement ring on your finger. Did you lose it in the river?"
Julia shook her head. "I don't have a ring yet. Henry will present me with one when I arrive, I suppose."
"Henry? Your fiancé?"
"That's right. You may have heard of him. Henry Everett. He's the marshal of Flat Rock."
Grant nodded and said, "Seems that I have, but I don't reckon we've ever met." He seemed to be on the verge of telling her something else, but instead he fell silent for a moment. Then: "What's this fella Henry like?"
"Oh, he's very nice, I suppose."
"'I suppose'? You're marryin' him, and you don't know for sure?"
"Well, you see, we've never actually met—"
Grant interrupted her with a laugh. "Don't tell me you're a mail order bride!"
"Absolutely not!" Julia hesitated. Her marital plans were none of his business. But something about Grant made him surprisingly easy to talk to, so she said, "My uncle arranged the marriage. He's my guardian—well, he was for a number of years, I'm old enough now that legally he isn't anymore—and Henry is the grandson of an old friend of his. We've traded photographs and of course many letters, and we know each other quite well."
"Well enough to spend the rest of your lives together?"
Julia lifted her chin and declared, "That is exactly what I intend to do."
Grant clicked his tongue and shook his head. "Well, more power to you, I guess. Me, I can't see marryin' some gal when I'd never laid eyes on her in the flesh."
The way his gaze played over her made heat spread over Julia's face and through her body. She knew very well what he had to be thinking: he had laid eyes on her in the flesh. Altogether too much flesh, at that.
But she had seen him the same way, so she supposed the situation was fair. Clearly, though, he didn't feel the same sort of embarrassment that she did. He didn't mind that she had seen all that bare, muscular flesh…
She got her mind off that by saying, "I take it, then, that you're not married?"
He laughed and shook his head. "No, ma'am. I've always been a mite too busy to think about settlin' down."
"Guarding stagecoaches, you mean?"
"That, and other things."
Again she sensed that he almost elaborated on his answer, only to change his mind.
At first glance, Grant Stafford seemed like a very uncomplicated man, but maybe he had a secret.
Exhaustion settled in on Julia, all the way down to her bones. Grant must have seen that. He said, "Why don't you try to get some sleep? I'll stay awake and keep the fire fed."
"You can't stay up all night," she protested.
"Sure I can. I've done it before."
"Well, there's no need to. Show me what has to be done, and I can take a turn. In fact, I'll do it first, because I don't trust you to wake me when it's time for me to take over."
"But you'll trust a fella you never met to marry you…and love you."
"That's different."
"Yeah, it's a lot more important. You're talkin' about the rest of your life."
"Which wouldn't have been very long if not for you, Mr. Stafford," she said quietly.
"Well…we were both mighty lucky." He picked up one of the branches from the pile and placed it in the flames. "That's all you've got to do. If the fire starts to burn down too low, just add a branch like that."
"How will I know if it's too low?"
"You'll be able to tell. It's just common sense." He grinned. "On the other hand, you're marryin' a man you never met, so that might be in short supply."
"You just won't let go of that, will you?" Julia surprised herself by laughing. "Go ahead and get some sleep. I can keep the fire going. I swear."
"All right." He stretched out on the cave floor. "I'll trust you."
For some reason, that made Julia feel good.
"But you be sure and wake me up in a few hours," he added.
****
By morning, Grant's stomach was pure-dee certain his throat had been cut. That wasn't the thing bothering him the most, however.
No, that prize went to the way he'd felt during the long hours of the night, after she woke him as promised, while he watched Julia Courtland sleep.
She'd been restless, since the floor of a cave wasn't very well suited to restful slumber. She shifted around and rolled over and tried to wedge her shoulders and hips into more comfortable positions, evidently without much success. But after a while, she had dozed off and peacefulness settled over her face. Strands of that rich, dark brown hair caressed her smooth cheek. Grant thought about how her hair had looked spread over her bare shoulders and back, and he couldn't help but visualize it spread over a pillow, in a real bed shared by the both of them, as she looked up at him and smiled and drew him down so that he could feast on her soft, warm lips…
Torment, that's what it was. Plain and simple torment.
Oddly enough, mixed in with the more elemental reaction, he'd had moments when he longed to reach over to her and stroke his fingertips lightly along her cheek. To bend down and bury his face in her hair and drink deeply of its scent. To brush his lips over her forehead as she slept and have her sigh in contentment without really waking, knowing that she was safe and secure with him.
Loco, he told himself.
Almost as loco as the idea of her marrying a man she didn't even know.
Along toward morning he built the fire up again, and knowing it would last until the sun came up, he stretched out again to catch a few more winks, this time on the same side of the fire as her. He wanted to be close to her.
When he woke up, they were closer than he'd intended. Either she'd scooted over to him or he had moved nearer to her, because they were spooning again, the way they had the day before. Except they were both fully clothed now, of course…drat the luck.
Grant's arm was around her waist. He started to lift it carefully, so as not to disturb her, but she put her arm over his and held it in place.
"You're awake?" he whispered.
"I am."
"I'm sorry about—"
"Don't be. This feels…good. It feels—"
"Right," Grant said. "It feels right."
Her reply was so quiet he could barely hear it. "Yes. It does."
He was hungry, but he would have been happy to
lie there with her as long as she was willing.
There was no telling what might have happened if somebody outside the cave hadn't shouted, "Hello! Miss Courtland! Are you anywhere around here? Miss Courtland!"
****
Julia gasped and sat bolt upright at the sound of her name. She started to leap to her feet, but Grant grabbed her arm.
"What if it's those owlhoots?" he asked in a whisper.
"How would they know my name?"
"Was there anything in your bags with your name on it?"
She hesitated. Grant was right. The outlaws could have discovered her name that way. But would they be so persistent as to come back the next day and search for the two of them again? She knew it was morning because of the sunlight coming down the tunnel.
"Miss Courtland! It's Marshal Henry Everett!"
That decided it. Grant let go of her and shrugged. Julia went over to the tunnel. Crawling out through it was awkward, but she managed. When she reached the end, she pushed the brush aside and emerged into the daylight.
"Marshal Everett!" she called. "Henry! Over here!"
The man on horseback was about twenty yards upstream. He turned his mount, and when he saw her he exclaimed, "Julia!" and kicked the horse into a gallop.
When he reined in, he swung down from the saddle practically before the horse stopped moving. He was as handsome in person as he was in his photograph. Looking relieved, he put his arms around her and kissed her.
Julia's heart thudded, but not with passion. Right now she was just thankful she could put this whole dreadful ordeal behind her. Henry was here, and he would take her to Flat Rock and marry her and everything would be all right.
Henry lifted his head and asked, "How in the world did you escape from that wreck?"
"I…I wouldn't have…if not for—"
The drawling voice came from behind her. "If not for me, Marshal."
****
Grant saw Julia in the man's arms as soon as he crawled out of the tunnel, and something inside him went taut and angry. The stranger held her with a possessiveness that rubbed Grant the wrong way. He reined in the impulse to stalk over there, yank the hombre away from her, and wallop him one.
When Grant announced his presence, the man looked over at him and frowned. "Who are you?"