by Jill Gregory
And then the darkness hugged her tighter, and Brett lifted her up and she let herself be carried into the soft sweet cottony thick blackness.
Chapter 9
“Easy.”
Annabel opened her eyes and through a sheen of moonlight saw Roy Steele hunkered down beside her. He was watching her, his expression unreadable in the dimness.
“What ... happened?” she whispered, confused, trying to remember the chain of events leading up to this moment. And then a shudder ran through her as she suddenly recalled the fight on the ledge, the gunshots, Moss pointing the derringer at her ...
“They’re dead. It’s all over. Take it easy.”
Steele’s calm cool voice pierced through the ugly memories and she focused on his face. “You shot Moss ... before he could ...”
“Yep.”
“What happened to them ...”
“Dead and buried,” he said curtly. “No need for you to think about those hombres again.”
She tried to sit up, but sharp pain twinged through her shoulder and she gasped at the intensity of it. “I’ve been shot,” she exclaimed in surprise.
“Yep. That son of a bitch nailed you right before I plugged him.”
Steele ruthlessly eased her back to the ground. She was lying on a bedroll in the clearing, a wool blanket tucked across her shoulders, protecting her from the evening chill. Thoughtful, Annabel decided, closing her eyes. As the mountain breeze fanned her cheek, she was grateful for the blanket’s fuzzy warmth.
“Is it serious?” she asked suddenly, forcing her eyes open despite her weariness.
“Only a scratch. The bullet just nicked you. You’ll live.”
He didn’t sound as if he cared particularly one way or another, but he had obviously bandaged it for her and brought her back here to the clearing. He’d covered her with his blanket, and let her sleep in his bedroll. Hmmm. Mr. Steele, she thought, I think I’m beginning to see right through you.
Annabel regarded his grim countenance for a moment in silence. “How can I thank you? You’ve saved my life today several times over ...”
“Don’t thank me too quickly. I’m not finished with you, yet, Miss Brannigan. Not by a long shot.”
The clearing was dark, but for the fragile amber glow of a small campfire. They were alone here in the shadow of the Mogollons, camped on a tiny clearing beneath the towering pine-forested rim, yet she was not afraid—either of the treacherous black canyons and ravines all around, of the animals rustling through the darkness beyond the fire—or of him.
“I suppose you’re going to shout at me,” she sighed.
“Shout at you?” he growled. “Is that all you think I’m going to do?” He leaned closer, his eyes flaring with anger. The menacing twist had returned to his lips. “After I warned you not to follow me? I told you I’d make you sorry if I ever caught you trailing me again ... and now ... what’s wrong?”
Annabel closed her eyes quickly then opened then, giving her head a tiny shake. “Nothing. It hurts, that’s all.”
He swore under his breath, then his lips tightened. “Serves you right. If you’d stayed in Eagle Gulch you’d be safe and sound and—”
“I am safe and sound, Mr. Steele,” Annabel interrupted him, speaking quietly. Her eyes met his in the firelight. “I’m with you.”
He made an incoherent sound, stood up, and wheeled away from her. Annabel watched his broad, rigid back as he paused beside the rock where Curtis had kept her under guard.
“Mr. Steele,” she whispered after a moment.
He turned back and stared at her, lying in his bedroll, only a blanket and her camisole covering the smooth naked skin, with tiny wisps of bright coppery hair curling rebelliously about her cheeks and forehead, finally coming undone from those relentless pins of hers. He wondered what she would look like with her hair all loose and flowing, and why she always wore it so tightly bound.
“Mr. Steele,” she repeated, her voice so soft it made something ache deep inside him.
“What?” he demanded, covering the effect she was having on him with the curtness of his tone.
“Is there anything to eat?” Annabel gave him a bemused smile. “It seems that I’m starving. And thirsty. Maybe it’s strange to be hungry after being shot, but I haven’t eaten much all day. I was too busy trying to keep up with you ... er, maybe we’d best not talk about that.”
“We are going to talk about it. Right now.”
Annabel watched him stride back toward her. His face was shadowed by firelight, yet she could see the tension in it. And the anger. But she wasn’t afraid of him any longer. At least, not in the way she had been. Though a little apprehensive quiver did go through her as he crouched beside her again and peered down at her, she wasn’t afraid he would hurt her. It was a different kind of fear, something to do with the spreading warmth inside her, the odd rapid beating of her heart—but she didn’t allow herself to explore the strangeness of this any further ...
“Tell me the truth, Miss Brannigan.”
“Annabel.”
“Miss Brannigan,” he repeated deliberately. His voice was even and controlled. “You were following me.”
He was so close she could see the long black lashes of his glinting eyes, see the rhythmic rise and fall of his broad chest beneath his black silk shirt. She found herself staring at his hard, sensual mouth. “Admit it, Miss Brannigan. Now.”
Well, there was no point in denying the obvious. She nodded.
“Yes, Mr. Steele, I was following you.”
“Against my direct orders.”
“Yes.”
“Because you’re looking for Brett McCallum.”
Her mouth fell open. “How ... how did you ...”
He captured her chin in his hand and held her head still, forcing her to stare directly into his eyes. He was studying her face carefully. “Just answer the question.”
“Ye-es.” Annabel was flabbergasted. And stunned by the heat of his touch. She couldn’t escape those brutally appraising eyes, couldn’t seem to move a single muscle. All she could do was wait for him to go on, wondering all the while how much he knew and how he’d learned it. But he didn’t speak—he only stared at her piercingly, as if trying to read the very depths of her mind. She had time to study him in turn, to note the weariness that stamped his rough, handsome face, something she hadn’t noted earlier. She was beginning to understand something important about Roy Steele. Whatever he might be, he was no cold-blooded killer. But why he was after Brett remained a mystery to her.
Ask him. Just ask him.
She swallowed. “Mr. Steele, why are you searching for Brett McCallum?”
“I’m asking the questions, Miss Brannigan.”
“So am I,” she pointed out.
For the first time since she’d met him, he actually smiled at her. A real smile, not that coldly mocking grimace she’d seen before. He let go of her and rocked back on his heels.
“You are the damnest woman,” he muttered, half to himself.
It wasn’t exactly flattery. She’d heard many more flowery comments than that from the three suitors who’d asked for her hand in marriage, but coming from Roy Steele, it almost sounded like poetry.
Suddenly, he reached down beneath her shoulders and lifted her so that she was gathered close against him. He was so strong, she realized, he could probably snap her in two, but his arms merely glided around her back, supporting her. She winced when the movement, careful as he did it, gave a slight jolt to her shoulder, but then she was swiftly settled in the hardness of his arms, still wrapped in the blanket, a strangely safe, comfortable feeling enveloping her. He smelled nicely of pine and sage. She was unable to ignore either the sheer male warmth or the solid muscular strength of him. She felt like a cradled doll. It was a dizzying, totally new sensation. His face was only inches from hers, and in the moonlight she could discern the rough stubble of a day’s growth of beard along his jaw and chin, and the taut lines around his eyes, which onl
y seemed to add to his rugged handsomeness.
Had she ever seen a more compellingly attractive man? She doubted it. Even Brett, kind, sweet, laughing Brett with his straight brown hair and boyishly appealing features, his effortless charm and air of dashing gaiety, had never had quite such a powerful effect on her. She wondered what it would feel like to stroke Roy Steele’s thick coal-black hair or to trace a fingertip along the harsh planes and angles of his face. She found herself gazing in fascination once more at his sarcastically curled, sensual mouth, then her glance flitted upward to meet the keen blackness of those hawklike eyes. She’d never before looked into such mesmerizing, glinting eyes.
A shiver coursed through her, but not from the cold.
She felt warm—no. Hot. Almost as strangely hot and tingly as she’d felt when she’d been shot.
“Miss Brannigan,” he said very low, his voice growling over the hiss of twigs in the campfire, “if you want to eat supper tonight—or any night in the future—you’ll answer my questions. All of them. Because I’m giving you nothing—no food, no coffee, no answers, until you’ve explained yourself to me. Got that?”
“It’s rather more than clear,” she murmured back, peeping up at him without resentment.
“So start talking. I want to hear exactly why you’re looking for Brett McCallum—the truth. And I want to hear it now.”
There was really nothing to do but comply. Annabel’s brain raced to concoct exactly what she would say, but it was difficult to think when he was close to her like this, when the warm male scent of him enveloped her and tantalized her senses, when they were so alone here in this rock-walled clearing that she could almost imagine there was no one else alive in the whole world—only the two of them stranded in these vast, dark, dangerous Mogollons, locked together at the crown of the most ruggedly beautiful and awesome spot on earth.
But she did her best.
She reached the swift conclusion that she would tell him the truth—or at least, the almost truth.
“I’m Brett’s fiancée,” she said quickly, aware of how still he had gone, how his eyes watched her with a deep black intensity made all the more menacing because his muscles all tightened reflexively at the same moment.
“I’m very worried about him ... and that’s why I’m trying to find him. He ran away, and we heard ... his father and I ... that a man named Red Cobb is out to kill him and I must find him first and bring him safely home.” She moistened her lips. “Your turn.”
Her words had had no visible effect on him except one. His eyes became hard glinting obsidians, devoid of all warmth and feeling. Annabel felt a rush of fear at the utter coldness of them. Maybe she’d been wrong in thinking this man was not as harsh as he appeared, maybe he would strangle her right now without another word ...
“Ross McCallum sent you to find his son?”
There was so much cold fury in his words that she felt her heart start to hammer. “Not ... exactly. He ... doesn’t know ... he’s ill and I ... came on my own.”
He released her and rocked back on his heels, that cool deadliness seemingly stamped in stone upon his granite features.
“Ill?”
“His heart is not strong.”
If possible, his expression turned even icier. “Go on.”
“Brett means more to me than anyone else in the world. I’ve known him nearly all my life—we grew up together. The only family I’ve ever had is gone—my mother died when I was a child and my aunt passed on three years ago ... and now I’m afraid of losing Brett too.” The words rushed out of her all on their own, caught in the floodtide of her suddenly unlocked emotions. “I’ve nothing to lose, Mr. Steele, in hunting for him. He’s all I want ... all I’ve ever wanted, really, and I must find him and see if he ...”
She broke off in consternation. She’d been about to say “see if he could ever love me,” but she swallowed the words back and said instead: “and see if he can explain what has made him run off like this. We were planning to be married, but something terrible must have happened to make him leave ...”
Steele shook his head in amazement and pulled her close once again. “What in hell ever made you think you could find him?”
Annabel bristled. “Let me remind you that I’m very close to finding him, Mr. Steele.” Her eyes flashed. “As close as you are.”
“You’re lucky, lady. Damn lucky.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it.”
“You might have died out here in these canyons. Hell, you would have died—and worse—before those varmints I shot got through with you. If I hadn’t come back ...”
“But you did, Mr. Steele.” Annabel’s voice was soft over the hissing fire. She shifted slightly in his arms, inadvertently brushing her breasts against his chest. She felt the quick inhale of his breath. So, Mr. Gunfighter No-Feelings Steele, you’re not as immune to human emotion as you pretend to be. The knowledge gave her confidence and made her smile at him as she lay within the circle of his arms. “Now it’s my turn to ask a question,” she said firmly. “I’ve already figured out that your showing up here was no accident—you lost me on purpose in the Mogollons, and then you came back for me just as purposefully. Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“You thought I wouldn’t get out from under the rim alive, and you didn’t want my death on your conscience.”
“I’m a gunfighter, Miss Brannigan,” he told her dryly, his mouth twisting into a sneer. “I don’t have a conscience.”
But Annabel was no longer fooled. “You’re lying, Mr. Steele. I think there is much more to you than you care to let on to the world. I think you have a conscience and a soul and a sense of honor. And ...”
He released her and set her back on the bedroll with one swift motion that sent a tiny shock of pain throbbing through her shoulder. He gave no sign of noticing her sudden wince. “You’re loco, lady.” In one fluid movement, he was standing, pushing his hat back on his head. “Completely loco. Now stay put and I’ll fix you some grub.”
He stalked away and grabbed up a coffeepot and tin cup. Annabel closed her eyes, trying not to think about the ache in her shoulder. She concentrated instead on pondering how she’d handled Steele’s questions.
All in all, not bad, she decided. She couldn’t help but feel satisfied with the story she’d told. It was close enough to the truth to be entirely believable. And, she thought, far better that he should think she was Brett’s fiancée than an inept private investigator. And he would think she was inept if he knew the truth—because up until now she hadn’t managed to be discreet—not discreet enough, anyway. But she was going to get better at this, she promised herself—it just might take a little time and practice.
What disturbed her was that Steele still hadn’t told her anything about why he was searching for Brett. But he would, Annabel vowed to herself. Before this night was over, she would know exactly what kind of a problem she was dealing with.
Moments later, Steele presented her with a ration of beef jerky, some hardtack biscuits, and a cup of steaming black coffee.
“I’m sure it’s not what you’re used to back in good old St. Louis but it’ll have to do,” he told her as he helped her to sit up. But this time, as he did so, the blanket slipped down, leaving her all but naked from the waist up, her creamy breasts nearly exposed except for the wispy lace of her camisole.
Steele’s gaze slid automatically and intently to the lush ivory mounds peeking over the thin lace even as Annabel yanked the blanket up and over her shoulder with her good hand. But she had not missed the disconcertingly intense gleam in Steele’s eyes. Flushing, she began to realize for the first time how he must have had to tear her blouse in order to bandage the wound.
I do hope Brett appreciates everything I’ve gone through to find him, she thought suddenly. Gritting her teeth, she reminded herself that sacrificing her dignity was a small price to pay to save Brett from Red Cobb—and possibly from Roy Steele, too.
“There’s a
nother shirtwaist in my carpetbag,” she managed to say in a calm tone, as she awkwardly used her good hand to hold the blanket in place. “Would you please get it for me?”
He grunted something she couldn’t quite make out. All of the sudden he was incoherent, she thought in exasperation. But he did walk toward Sunrise, who was grazing along with his horse and those belonging to Curtis, Moss, and Willy. When Steele returned she saw thankfully that he had the bulging carpetbag in tow.
Rummaging through the bag, he accidentally pulled out a pair of silk drawers instead of the shirtwaist. Annabel gasped in chagrin as the firelight illuminated them. “You ... you ... put those back!” she sputtered.
Steele grinned. It transformed his face, lightening all the taut lines that gave him such a harsh aspect, making him look suddenly like a mischievous little boy.
“Take it easy, Miss Brannigan. Reckon I’ve seen a pair of ladies drawers before,” he commented drily.
“Well, you haven’t seen mine—and ... and you won’t ever see them again, so ... so ... you just put them back!”
To Annabel’s relief he did stuff the drawers back inside, but the infuriating grin stayed on his face. A moment later, he yanked out the fresh white shirtwaist, and along with it tumbled Aunt Gertie’s diary.
“What’s this?”
“Never you mind. May I have the shirtwaist please?”
But a mood of devilment seemed to have come upon him now and he withheld both items from her grasp, holding them just beyond her reach, studying the bound leather book and the lace-collared shirtwaist with equal interest.
“Sure. After I see what this is ... a diary? Yours?”
“No. Now give me that!” Reaching forward to grab it from him, Annabel’s felt a fresh wave of pain from her wound as the bandage tore loose. She grabbed it instinctively just as blood oozed out between her fingers.
“What are you doing?” Steele demanded furiously. He instantly dropped the shirtwaist and the diary down beside the plate of food and grabbed Annabel before she could sink back in pain. “Why can’t you just sit still?” he fumed, “Now I’m going to have to bandage it again, and it might hurt, but you deserve it.”