In those instances, however, whoever came knocking at her door was playing with fire. This time, she'd been the one taunting the flame.
Never in her wildest thoughts had she imagined she would rip at him with such uncanny accuracy. Nor would she ever have dreamed that such an attack would bring him to the point of murder.
Her hand lowered to her throat. Where she'd envisioned blood, perhaps a permanent reminder of the lesson "don't play with fire," Daggert hadn't left so much as a mark. That he hadn't branded her didn't address his fury, but rather a measure of the icy control she'd glimpsed several times in the short while she'd spent following him in his search for Enrique.
But he'd demanded she never speak of his son. Not a nameless someone he'd been hired to find, not a stranger—his son.
Leeza closed her eyes. She let her body be warmed by the heat within the boulder, the sun beating down on the arroyo, and her own embarrassment.
She didn't want to even think about what losing a child would do to a man's psyche, to his heart. If she was right in her analysis of his dramatic response, James Daggert had once searched for his own missing son and either had not found him or had not managed to find him alive. Either case must bring the worst possible pain to a parent. It explained so much about the unusual tracker.
"Oh, I'm so very sorry," she said aloud, and her voice seemed to echo in the narrow dry riverbed.
But Daggert wasn't there to hear her, and she wasn't apologizing for anything she'd done, but offering the absent man her heartfelt sympathy.
She'd lost her parents, a grief she still felt with every passing day. He'd lost his son. His child.
She forced herself from the boulder and stood, albeit shakily. The world hadn't slipped on its very axis, as she felt it should have. The sun still beat straight down on the narrow, boulder-strewn arroyo, and the sand beneath her feet remained hot and slippery. The sky was still blue and the yellow chamisa bushes still smelled like skunks.
Daggert's horse, Stone, pulled at some threads of grass on the bank about thirty feet away and whispered something to Belle. The mare nickered back.
Everything seemed normal, yet nothing was. Nor could it ever be again.
Enrique was missing. Had been for hours upon hours. Leeza knew she had lost him by pushing him too hard. And she was literally shaking in her boots, not wholly from guilt, not entirely from remorse, and not even in horror at Daggert's furious response. She shook in a stunned reaction to his kiss.
A kiss.
"Just a kiss," she said aloud.
Belle whickered.
"Okay, so it seemed like a lot more than a kiss."
Stone gave a grunt.
"All right, a whole lot more than a kiss."
Neither horse answered vocally, but Stone shook his head, his reddish-brown mane dancing in the air.
Leeza cautiously approached Belle and withdrew a notebook from her saddlebag, then her cell phone from the pommel, which Westerners aptly called a saddle horn.
Retreating to a different boulder, she penned her confusion in the notebook, jotting down her fears, her wishes about the next twenty-four hours. Never once did she mention her gigging James Daggert. Nor did she describe the kiss.
And she didn't fill the rest of the notebook with her response to that kiss, as she could have.
Some things were better left unsaid.
When James Daggert hadn't returned an hour later, Leeza broke down and tried some of the beef jerky from the pouch he'd discarded earlier. It still burned her tongue and made her stomach roil, but she knew the man was right about needing to keep up her strength, and she wasn't about to dig in his saddlebags in search of something else to eat. If words could set off his fury, what might violating his privacy do? She was tempted, but didn't want to bring on a confrontation.
After eating the vile jerky, she tried calling the ranch on her cell phone again. She couldn't even reach an operator. All she heard was a scratchy message telling her she was out of range in an undefined area.
What else was new?
She tidied up the site and, more as an apology than from any real sense of the saddle being uncomfortable, fumbled with the buckles and straps to lower the stirrups two full notches. She led Belle to the side of the boulder where Daggert had kissed her so thoroughly.
"I'm going to mount now," she announced grimly. "You move so much as a step away and I'll send you to a knackery when we get back to the ranch."
The horse rolled her eyes.
"Believe me, they'll probably love rendering you. And if they don't, I will."
Belle grunted but remained placid.
With the stirrups lowered, and by climbing up on the boulder, Leeza was able to get astride Belle without Daggert's helping hands. It wasn't that she didn't want to touch the man; it was that she wanted to do precisely that. And have him do the same to her. And more.
And she wanted to tell him she was sorry for goading him.
What she didn't want to do, much as she ached to know the story, was to ask him about his son. That would have to come from him, if and when he ever decided to forgive her or to confide in her.
But she wasn't about to be the supplicant. She would never beg for absolution. At least, the Leeza Nelson who used to live inside her body as recently as three days before would never have begged. This Leeza now, the one who had left everything she knew behind to follow a stranger into the mountains on a search for a lonely little boy—she might just have a few pleas tucked away.
She only had to wait astride her horse for a few minutes before James Daggert came back into view.
Her heart leaped at the sight of him and she felt every inch a fool. The man was just a man, and rude, at that. So he'd kissed her. What did that mean in the grand scheme of things?
Nothing.
Everything.
"Nothing," she muttered aloud.
Daggert checked his stride and his tawny eyes traveled from her head to her feet.
Leeza thought his gaze would move up again in that age-old macho affirmation and condemnation some men could manage with a single, melting look.
But James Daggert's gaze locked on her lowered stirrups.
His eyes shifted away before meeting hers. The passion still lingered on his face, as did some anger, but she couldn't tell if the latter was directed at her or at himself.
He didn't provide an explanation for his hour-long absence. He merely swung a leg over Stone's back and settled into the saddle. Without a word, he urged the horse forward. And without a backward glance, he headed away from the narrow escarpment he'd chosen for their lunch break.
Leeza followed, angry at his dismissal of her, but not trying to get him to speak now. She wouldn't have known what to say to him, and would have bitten her tongue off before attempting an apology to his rigid back.
Watching his broad shoulders up ahead, Leeza wondered what motivated the man. She suspected she now understood at least some of the demons that tormented him, but what kept him so focused on tracking? She'd seen people with lesser trouble crumble and abandon their professions, dreams and desires. Even having lost his son, Daggert kept pursuing the misplaced children of the world. Why? How could he, when doing so had to bring back every memory, every torment each time he mounted a search?
* * *
Though he hated to halt for a second night, afraid the boy's chances decreased with every delay, Daggert had to rein in Stone and whistle for Sancho when the shadows lengthened and the sun dipped low on the western horizon.
Now that they were higher into the foothills, darkness would come swiftly and bring with it the first taste of winter. September in New Mexico always felt tumultuous—one day hotter than hell, the next producing a surprise snowfall. Nights could dip below freezing and sunny days could burn the leaves off trees before they even turned to gold.
But weather wasn't the worst he feared could befall the little runaway. Being out-of-doors and alone wasn't bad, not really bad. There were far more terrible
horrors out here in these mountains.
When Daggert had left the woman earlier, shock at his own actions sending him on a long, soul-searching walk, he'd found tracks belonging to Enrique's horse—that telltale bent horseshoe nail. Though he'd searched, he hadn't found tracks of another horse, one not shod by the Milagro farrier.
While this filled him with relief, he hadn't been able to shake the neck-tickling sensation that someone else was out in these mountains watching every move the boy made, and Daggert literally ached to keep going.
It's someone Donny knew.
Someone he knew. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker…
But they had to stop for the night. If he was tired—and God knew he was—the woman had to be worn to her very bones.
Daggert glanced back at Leeza Nelson. She'd already halted her horse and was working at dismounting.
She hadn't said a single thing to him all afternoon. Guilt stabbed him.
The lady's muscles weren't cooperating with her efforts to get off her horse, and she seemed scarcely aware of her surroundings. If he hadn't known how sore she must be, he might have found the scene vaguely humorous.
But he did know, and he also knew just how enormous an apology he owed her.
He moved Stone back to flank Belle.
"Here," he said. "Hand me her reins."
Though she looked at him without understanding, she did as he asked.
"Shake free of your stirrups. That's right. Roll your feet at the ankle. Good. Now, put your arms around my neck and hold on."
She hesitated.
"Trust me," he said.
To her credit, she didn't slant one of her patented "Oh, right," looks at him. But she didn't move either, except to sway a bit.
He sighed. "It's okay," he said. "I know I haven't given you any reason to, but trust me. Come on, Leeza."
He held out his free hand.
She looked at it as if he might strike her with it.
She might as well have stabbed him with his own knife. "Leeza. Trust me. Please. Put your arms around me. I wouldn't let you fall."
He suspected his use of her name compelled her to lift her arms. He felt the warmth of her sun-gilded shirt and her struggle not to place any weight against him.
He reached for her waist and felt her stiffen, leaning away from him. "Trust me."
"I'm so confused," she said, and he knew it was true. He also suspected that trust didn't come easily to Leeza Nelson, though why he felt so certain about this, he couldn't have said. It was simply a fact, like her beauty.
Her body leaned into his, and Daggert could feel how she ached with wanting even if he wasn't certain it wasn't his own desire projecting on to her.
"Hold on tight," he said, but he should have warned himself to hold on. A part of him, alive for the first time in several years, needed to be very careful.
"One, two, three." In one sure move, he hoisted her out of her saddle and on to his lap, where he sat astride Stone.
As she had the evening before, Leeza startled him by limply nestling against him, her exhaustion stripping her of all defenses. Remembering her statements in the firelight, he was sure she'd be surprised to learn that vulnerability was an incredibly alluring quality in a human, especially in one as strong and lovely as Leeza Nelson.
He wrapped his arms around her.
"I'm so sorry," she said.
Thinking she was apologizing for her physical weakness, he said, "It's okay."
"I'm not sorry about this," she said, and raised one of her tired hands to the base of his neck. As she had from the very first moment he saw her, she surprised him. He would never have expected this powerful woman to admit to any physical frailty, to concede to exhaustion.
As her fingers curled into his hair, he felt a spear of true desire drive through him.
"I'm not, either," he said honestly.
"I'm sorry for what I said to you earlier."
He waited for her to say more. She didn't, and he wondered at that. In the first place, she owed him no apology. In the second, most people attempted to mount a defense of their actions, their words. I didn't want to hurt you, but…or I'm sorry, but you made me so… Leeza Nelson felt she owed him an apology, but not an explanation.
Hers was a straightforward acknowledgment of fault or guilt, with no groundwork laid for self-exculpation. And all the while her fingertips lay quiescent at the base of his neck, as if they felt the very pulse of him beating, throbbing.
As the silence stretched, with him trying to form words of apology himself, Stone stomped a foot as if prodding him along. How did one go about saying he was sorry for having held her at knifepoint?
Finally, Daggert said, "What I did was damnable." Like her, he wouldn't give an explanation, but he owed her more than a handful of words. Much more. "I—"
"I'm not sorry about the kiss," she interrupted, her cheek pressed against his chest.
Fierce desire stabbed at him.
He closed his eyes. "Me, either," he admitted.
"Will we do it again, do you think?"
His eyes flew open and he felt he was seeing a wholly new landscape. A brighter one. A sharper one. He smiled. "Lady, you can take it to the bank."
She chuckled.
The feel of her weak laughter against him was both an erotic sensation and one so strangely intimate that he felt arousal shifting to something more complex and disturbing.
If Stone hadn't stomped his foot again, Daggert might have sat there all night, holding her against him, his senses filled with the scent of her hair, the texture of silk against his lips.
"Hang on," he said, and clasped her to him, hiking her up. He swung his leg over Stone's neck, holding Belle's reins with one hand and Leeza's waist with the other. He shook his foot free of the stirrup and gently dropped the two of them to the ground.
Leeza slid down his body, leaning against him as she regained her land legs. Her silken wisps of hair tickled his chin and her hands clung to his shoulders. Without looking at him, she said, "I would never have admitted this, but I owe you one. The stirrups felt better lowered."
Daggert couldn't help it. He laughed aloud.
Stone sidled a couple of steps away from them, apparently as startled by the unfamiliar sound as his rider.
Daggert looked down at Leeza and found her studying him with an unreadable expression on her lovely face.
"What?" he couldn't help asking.
"You should laugh more often."
"Because?"
"Because it takes my breath away when you do," she said, efficiently stealing his.
Knowing it was wrong, but unable to resist the temptation of her parted lips, Daggert slowly lowered his mouth to hers. The universe seemed to shrink to this one point of connection, her lips drawing him closer, her tongue teasing his. She tasted of possibility, and kissing her was like discovering that hope and promise could still exist somewhere.
Chapter 5
Leeza felt his kiss to the very depths of her soul. She didn't understand this man, didn't understand what was happening to her, but she knew she didn't want this new awareness of emotions to stop.
When he pulled away from her, looking at her for a moment with such raw need that it made her knees seem to turn to liquid, she'd wanted to cling to him, to pull him back to her.
Instead, she let him go. In her lifetime of dealing with people, she'd never encountered anyone she couldn't read, couldn't understand. James Daggert was the very first.
And this terrified her in a way she couldn't name.
The fear she felt about him had nothing whatsoever in common with the fear she felt for little Enrique. For the boy, she worried about rattlesnakes, bears, mountain lions or even starvation.
About Daggert, she feared a tearing asunder of her very orderly universe.
Leeza had accepted the currycomb from Daggert and was working the dust free from Belle's rough coat. "That's ridiculous," she told Belle as she brushed the mare down. Leeza had e
xpected the task to be wearying, but instead, it relaxed her own taxed body.
Belle made a whinnying sound, but her muscles began to lose their rigidity.
Leeza felt a moment of pride that she'd managed to accomplish such a relatively simple job.
By the time she'd finished brushing her horse, Daggert had concluded his own therapeutic session with Stone and was already setting up their night's camp.
Without a word, Leeza started gathering wood and rocks for their fire. With a single appraising look, Daggert left her to the task and began to fashion long hackamores—hand-crocheted rope ties that looped around the horses' heads and noses without slipping between their teeth—in lieu of the bridles they'd worn for two full days.
Leeza listened as he talked to the horses as if they were long-time friends. His words were inconsequential, the meaning nominal, but the low, gentle voice acted on her as powerfully as it did on the horses, making her muscles unknot, her shoulders lose tension and pain. She'd heard of horse whisperers, but never that they had such an effect on people.
Daggert loosely tethered the beasts to a low branch on a much larger scrub oak than he'd found the night before. "Eat this good grass," he told them. "Then you can have some oats for dessert."
Both horses bent their heads to the tall, plentiful mountain grass as if completely understanding him.
Though as thoroughly exhausted as she had been the night before, Leeza didn't succumb to tears, finding it much easier—and safer—to busy herself with the small tasks of heating water for the pouches of food Daggert housed in his saddlebags, and hopefully demonstrating she wasn't a total loss as a tracker's assistant.
She'd seen the distrust in his eyes that first day. And every minute after that. And she'd seen the wanting in them there, too. But desire was cheap and she craved far more than that.
She needed his help to find Enrique, but she wanted his respect.
It had been a long time since she'd felt the need to prove herself, to have to work for esteem. She reined supreme in her world, her position hard won and carefully preserved. Out in this wilderness, with worry and fear nibbling at her every second, ineptitude a stumbling block, and an unfamiliar sense of connection with this unusual man scattering her normally acute mind into utter chaos, she found she needed him to want her on this mission with him.
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