She was right, but he was too tired to argue. Even to concede. His body grew wearier by the moment, his arms heavier.
“I’m a good cook. Really, I am. You should let me try my hand at this dried-up piece of meat stew thingy. Believe me, back home I can make ramen noodles taste like gourmet fare. Right, Max?”
The dog didn’t lift his head, but only arched his brow as if to question her.
“Fine.” He tossed the spoon down. “You cook.”
He stretched out to rest but never fully closed his eyes. He dared not, fearing he might fall asleep. His stomach rumbled and he realized she must be as hungry as he was.
“Do you have anything else we could put in the stew?” she asked. “Salt for seasoning? Maybe more corn?”
He pondered her question a moment, uncertain. “I don’t know what is left.” It was the truth. He’d no time to restock rations. He reached across, lifted his saddle bag and set it beside her. “Check.”
Reclining again, he watched as she dug carefully through the bag, making certain she did not open the side pouch where he kept his papers.
“Cup, spoon, fork …Aha! More meat!”
“No. That is all we have left. Save it for another meal.”
She held up a small muslin pouch, then peered inside and wrinkled her nose. “Ewww. She held it away from her. I think this smells like some kind of fruit but it doesn’t look appetizing.”
Dried peaches. He had picked them up about a month ago. “It’s fruit. Probably still good. Check for mold, first.”
She continued picking through the items. “I think there must have been coffee in this tin at one time.” She shook the empty can and dropped it back in the bag. “A box of matches…hmmm…what’s this? She uncorked the top of an unlabeled flask and took a quick whiff. “Woo-hoo! I’ll bet that’s ass-kicking stuff.”
“Whiskey. For medicinal purposes.”
She snorted. “This stuff’s smells so potent I’ll bet it could grow hair.” She put the bottle back into the bag and sighed. “There’s nothing else.”
“I will try and hunt for fresh game tomorrow.”
The stew turned out bland and watery, but the bits of softened meat and corn were filling. The broth warmed him, chasing off the chill of night. He ate heartily, more than he had in days. She also ate well he noted. The peaches were sweet and rounded off the meal, although she declined.
Afterward, he got to his feet and stretched, satisfied. “Remove your clothes. You may cover yourself with the blanket.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you want me to take off my clothes?”
“I am not going to tie you again tonight while we sleep, but I am going to insure that you will not run away. Undress while I am gone.” He left her and made his way to the entrance of the cave to calm his thoughts.
The rain had ended. Strong gusts of cold night air whipped through the canyon, chilling him. Lightning flickered far off on the southern horizon and a thousand stars glittered overhead in a clear, night sky.
He leaned against the craggy wall of the red sandstone cliff beneath a massive rock overhang, and gazed out across the dark canyon in the direction of long abandoned ruins. He imagined the timeless drumbeats of the ancient ones carried on the night wind. If he listened long enough, he could almost hear their chants and songs, or see the flicker of their small campfires.
The Navajo believed the spirits of the dead, or chiindi, still inhabited the cave ruins. It was forbidden to go there, taboo to have any contact where ghosts might roam. That’s why he had hidden crates of guns and ammunition in the caves. The army knew of the Navajo’s taboo of being in or near places where others have died. They’d never think to look there.
If all went well tomorrow, he would meet up with Sonny’s band of men and retrieve the weapons. From there, they’d proceed to raid Fort Dennison and take back as much of The People’s stolen livestock as possible. Later, after he’d deposited the Brannigan woman with his aunt in Dinetah for safekeeping, he’d return to the nearest town and wire a letter to her uncle, Franklin Cole. It would be weeks before he knew if Cole took the bait. If negotiations were necessary, valuable time might be lost.
Antonio returned to the cave and found her sleeping soundly on her side, snug in the blanket, her knees drawn up like a small child’s. The tiny dog lay curled upon her dress. Her lips were parted, her dark, thick lashes flitting occasionally. In the fading firelight, the remaining red tips of her two-toned hair sparked like falling embers at twilight. He smiled to himself, remembering the first time he saw her with the purple paint stripes in her hair and the bizarre clothing—her scanty, but intriguing undergarments in particular. He had never seen anything like them before, or since.
He hadn’t noticed before but she had delicate looking ears. He started to touch her cheek, but she stirred restlessly and he drew back his hand.
She rolled onto her back and murmured something in her sleep before smiling sweetly. The dog scooted close and settled in the crook of her elbow, inadvertently drawing the blanket down to reveal one breast. Antonio tried not to stare, but it was impossible not to look. She was angelic looking, bathed in a halo of warm yellow light from the fire.
Wanting to see more of her, he hooked a finger beneath the blanket and drew it aside. Her breasts were small and firm, yet proportional to her petite frame. Her dusky areolas were set against the stark contrast of skin the color of coffee with cream. He stared at the delicate nest of dark hair at the juncture of her thighs, wondering what she would feel like. Inside.
The dog gave him a warning look.
His nightly erotic dreams of her had long ceased. Now he only held the memory of their one and only kiss. He wanted to taste her lips again, caress her breasts. Blood rushed into his groin as he imagined himself dipping to nuzzle the mounds. He imagined more, sliding down her body, parting her thighs and tasting her deeply.
Her eyes fluttered open and she stared, her eyes growing wide at the realization he was looking at her, that the blanket was askew. She made no attempt to cover herself, nor did she seem to object to his perusal.
Testing her, he brushed his thumb pad over one nipple, listened to her sharp intake of breath as the pebble blossomed beneath his touch. He watched the reflection of the flames dance in her whiskey-colored eyes as she held his gaze.
This was as far as it went. After covering her again with the blanket, he lay down next to her and the dog, his body trembling as his physical hunger warred with honor. He hugged himself tightly, not so much against the growing coldness but more out of loneliness. He grew numb, feeling almost weightless as he finally succumbed to exhaustion. Forcing himself to keep his eyes open, he watched shadows dance on the cave’s ceiling. He dared not fall asleep. But he did.
He awakened before sunrise. The fire had burned out, leaving the cave pitch black and icy. Panic seized him when he reached for the woman and found her and the dog gone. He rolled to his feet, relieved to find she hadn’t taken Dinishwo. But she had taken all the papers in his bag—his drawings! The reward poster and Elena’s note were missing as well. She couldn’t have traveled far barefoot.
He quickly loaded his gear, leaving the cave before sunrise.
The first rays of dawn slid across the shadowed face of the purple canyon, casting an eerie, pale pink light on everything it touched. He did not search long before he spotted her less than a quarter mile away. Her pale dress stuck out among the dark limestone walls. She had climbed only a few feet above the jutting rocks and had curled into a tight ball with her dog in her lap on a narrow ledge, tucked almost out of sight. She did not seem to notice he’d discovered her, that he was only a few feet below. Quietly, he climbed up.
No sooner than he reached the ledge, she jolted awake and lunged at him, puncturing his cheek—and with a fork of all things! Son of a bitch! She’d narrowly missed gouging his left eye.
The dog yapped and snarled. When she jabbed at him again, he ducked out of the way and lost his foothold. He slid down
the rocky incline several feet, scraping his palms and forearms on the way down. He clawed madly at the canyon’s wall hoping to grasp any twig, rock, or scrub brush growing out of the side. Crumbling rocks of all sizes rained down, pelting his head and shoulders. He latched onto a juniper and clung to safety, willing himself to calm his pounding heart.
The little witch had tried to kill him!
Furious, he climbed back up and hauled himself onto the crumbling ledge. She screamed and pressed back against the wall. The dog continued to snarl and show his teeth.
“No, I am not dead.” He sneered as he inched toward her on hands and knees. “I am very much alive.” He paused to wipe a smear of blood from his cheek with the back of his hand. “Scream as loud as you like. No one can hear you out here.”
He was upon her now. She cried out, thrusting the fork toward his eye again. He knocked it from her hand, sending it sailing over the ledge to clatter hundreds of feet until it was heard no more. Grabbing her by the wrist, he pulled her dangerously close to the edge and held her face over, giving her a sobering view of the vast canyon below. The dog continued to yap.
“Instant death,” he whispered in her ear.
She screamed. The dog let out a high pitched whine.
“You almost killed me!” he shouted. “Is that what you intended? Did you hope I would fall?”
“Hell yes!”
His body shuddered and it took every ounce of control within him not to strangle her. He yanked her back from the edge and forced her upright on her knees. “You stole the fork from my bag when you cooked our meal last night.”
Her defiant gaze held his. “And you stole my money you thieving bastard.”
She winced when he tightened the hold on her hair. “What have you done with my papers?”
“Go to hell.”
Antonio blotted the blood from his cheek on his sleeve and glared at her. He knew she had read Elena’s note, that she had also found the reward poster. But why had she taken his drawings? They meant nothing to her. He had worked on them for well over a year. This woman was turning out to be more trouble than she was worth.
Antonio swallowed hard, releasing his hold on her as an uneasy tension coiled and uncoiled within him. “Where is the reward poster—the note from Frank Cole?”
“It’s confetti now. I ripped them into a million bits and scattered them throughout the canyon.”
Shit! Elena’s note contained Cole’s address.
“And my drawings?” He grasped her by the shoulder and gave her a rough shake. “What have you done with them?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t mean to take them. At first I thought they might important maps. They’re not far from the cave. Why do you have all those creepy sketches of arms and hands, anyway?”
It was none of her business. Besides, she could not possibly understand his two years of research. Still, he was relieved she hadn’t disposed of valuable work. He would track back toward the cave and look for them before continuing on.
Panic seized him when he saw blood in her hair and on her cheek. Then he realized she was only smeared with his blood and not hers.
Why had she run away? He had been generous, sharing his only blanket and limited food with her. He’d even untied her last night, thinking she might rest easier. Never again would be charitable.
“You climbed up by yourself. Now, let’s see if you can get down without breaking your foolish neck.”
“Sorry. No can do. A scorpion stung my foot last night.” She stuck her foot out and wiggled her toes. “I can’t walk.”
He examined it to make certain she wasn’t lying to him and found one tiny, swollen spot. “An ant bite? You cannot walk because of an ant bite?”
She frowned. “It hurts. Look at it— all red and streaky with a giant pus pocket in the center just waiting to spew.”
Actually, it was unusually swollen.
“I’m allergic to venomous insects. Once I got stung by a wasp and had to go to the hospital. My tongue swelled up as thick as a pot roast. I couldn’t talk for two days.”
He made a mental note to pray for wasps.
With the tiny woman on his back, her dog tucked inside the front of his shirt for safekeeping and her slender arms and legs wrapped about him, Antonio descended the massive, craggy wall. Her heels dug into his thighs and he cursed, almost making a misstep. As if realizing her mistake she hitched her legs higher, only to graze his sex in the process. Angry as he was, his body responded once more to the soft, feminine form pressed against his back, her naked thighs gripping his hips—her even naked-er body beneath the thin gown. He paused, willing himself to calm the direction of his dangerous thoughts, his pounding heart. Had she touched him there on purpose?
Her warm breath tickled his ear, and he turned his face away. He had to think clearly. She shifted and her pelvic bones dug into his spine. All rational thought fled. Her leg slipped again and her heel nudged his ever-growing erection.
He groaned. “Damn it, woman, be still.”
“Well, I’m being as still as I can but there’s nothing to hold on to. My legs keep slipping off your snake hips.” She hitched herself up once more and locked her ankles at his belly. “Better?” she asked.
It wasn’t, but at least she wasn’t touching him there. She wiggled again.
“My foot itches where the bite is. Think you can you scratch it for me?”
“Will you stop climbing me like a she-cat?” he ground out through gritted teeth. “You are going to cause us both to fall.”
Once they were down, he patted her down through her clothes to make certain she wasn’t concealing more weapons. But even that failed to satisfy him. He was certain he had felt something suspiciously small and hard against his back when he carried her down. Perhaps a small knife?
“Remove your clothes,” he said, aware of the tremble of his voice.
Her eyes widened. “Why?”
“I must be certain you are not hiding another weapon.”
Her face turned crimson. “But…you just patted me down.”
He swallowed hard, struggling to remain in control at the thought of what he was about to force her to do. Still, he had to know for certain. “Just quickly do as I ask and we can be on our way.”
Eyes defiant, she lifted her chin a notch. “I will not take my clothes off again for any reason.”
“If I must forcibly search your body, Miss Brannigan, I assure you it will not be a pleasant experience.”
She swallowed hard and her breathing quickened.
“You are concealing a weapon, aren’t you?”
She shook her head no. She was lying. He sensed it, saw it in the depths of her frightened brown eyes. He moved in close. “Where is the knife?”
She blinked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He quirked a brow, watching her expression close for signs of deception. “You are not wearing pantalets. Perhaps you have stashed it in an intimate place?”
“No, I’d never!” She appeared clearly unnerved by his suggestion.
“And if I were to check a certain spot, Miss Brannigan, what would I find?”
She swallowed hard. “You wouldn’t find anything.”
“But I would.”
She backed up a step. “I’ll scream rape if you touch me.”
“Scream anything you like.”
On the silent count of five, he made his move. She did scream as his hands went beneath the gown but he wasn’t forced to take extreme measures. He first located the garter high on her thigh, retrieving a small knife tucked safely within.
Victorious, he took a step back, flicked it open, and tested his thumb to the blade’s edge. As he suspected. Sharp enough to disembowel a man. It had probably had belonged to Elena. He snapped it shut and shoved it into his vest pocket, confused. Why had she used the fork to stab him instead of the knife? And how in the hell had she managed to conceal it the past few days?
His eyes pinned hers. “Is there
another?”
She blinked. “No.”
Oddly, he did believe her, but angry as he was he enjoyed a perverse sense of satisfaction watching her squirm. “Perhaps I might check again—this time more thoroughly.”
“I promise there’s nothing else on me.”
“Then you’ll have no objection if I perform an intimate inspection of your person?”
She flattened against the wall when he took a step closer. “I swear to you I have no other weapons! What do I have to do to convince you I’m not lying?”
He sighed, shook his head. None of this made sense. Using a fork to stab him when the razor sharp knife in her garter could have ended his life and ultimately freed her. “Why didn’t you kill me when you had the chance? You could have taken the horse and the provisions and been halfway back to Albuquerque by now.”
She scoffed at that remark. “Yeah, right. Like I know how to handle that beast? And what, do you think I have a map and a compass on me? Maybe a GPS? Did you find that, too, while you were rummaging around beneath my dress, Whitehorse?”
What was this confounded woman speaking about? A G-P-S?
She rubbed her hands up and down her arms briskly as if to warm herself. “Last night I watched you sleep for the longest time. I even plotted all the ways I could do you in and all the reasons I should.”
“Why didn’t you?”
She shrugged. “I’d probably lose my way and die out here in the desert if I struck out alone.”
That wasn’t the reason. She cared for him, at least a small bit, and knew he would not hurt her. And last night she had enjoyed his touch. Then the revelation dawned on him as well. He cared for her, too, albeit in a way he did not yet understand. But he could not afford to care about her. The People’s survival depended upon his getting the reward money.
As he looked at her, he remembered the way she had felt when he touched her breast, the way she tasted when he first kissed her so many months ago. It was in that moment he realized it all began back then—the night he found her near death in the canyon.
He could no more hand her over to Cole for the reward than chop off his own arm. What then, must he do? He could not keep her with him, yet he couldn’t leave her. He did not have a good feeling about this at all.
Ride The Wild Wind (Time Travel Historical Romance) Page 13