Lord, he was beautiful, standing there hard-flanked and pantherish, his shirt scrunched up in his fist, his amber eyes flashing.
“Turn around,” she said.
“Geez. I should have realized you’d turn out to be a nag.”
“You are so transparent, Noble McCaneaghy,” she said. “I’m disillusioned. I’ve always thought of you as a tough, rugged man, but you’re just afraid this is gonna hurt.”
“You found me out,” Noble replied, grinning.
She pursed her lips in frustration. “I want to have a look at those cuts, make sure they haven’t turned septic. So, turn around!”
He complied, grumbling until a thought occurred to him.
“Say, does this mean you’re going to touch me?” he asked, arching a dark brow.
“Well, it’ll be a trifle difficult to attend you if I don’t touch you, won’t it?”
Nodding happily, Noble tossed his shirt to the ground and spun about. Lifting his left arm, he advanced slowly on her.
Venice took a step back. His smile grew broader. Another step brought him closer still. There was a predatory, stalking quality to his movements and in the silky, effortless slide of muscle beneath tight, smooth skin. Anxiously, she skittered backward until, with a soft whoosh, she collided against the tree behind her.
Immediately, she felt trapped, hemmed in by his size. The trunk at her back was a wall. The long arms reaching past her to brace on the lower branches on either side of her formed her prison.
His body cast a shadow over hers. He smelled of coffee, sun-heated skin, and the fascinatingly male scent that was uniquely Noble’s.
“So? Tend me, lass,” he whispered wickedly.
“Don’t use that brogue on me,” Venice said. Her voice betrayed her, breathless and anxious.
With his lips so disturbingly near her own came unbidden memories: of his mouth opening over hers, of his tongue thrust deeply into her mouth, hungrily searching hers, warm, wet . . .
She wanted to feel his lips tug on her breasts again, wanted to arch into his body and feel him lift her high against his hard length. She wanted all the intense, nerve-rich feelings he alone had awakened in her slumbering body . . . and heart.
But he was injured. The thought caused her hands to drop and made her take a tiny step backward.
She looked up, aware her breath had gone ragged. He was staring at her, his golden eyes intent.
“This might hurt,” she whispered.
“Without a doubt,” he said solemnly.
Gingerly plucking at the plaster sticking to his raw wounds, Venice bit her lip while carefully peeling them off the cuts. Noble didn’t even appear to notice; he was studying her hair, her eyes, her lips.
“Why?” he asked suddenly.
“Why what?” She scrutinized the healthy pink ridges of the jagged cut. It wasn’t oozing or gaping. He was disgustingly hearty.
“You used to like my accent, try to copy it.”
“Aye, and I grew verra good at it, if I do say so meself,” she said. “A regular daughter of the green.”
His smile faded. “Not quite.”
“I’m sorry,” she said in confusion. “I wasn’t mocking you.”
“I know. I’d almost forgotten just how far New York is from County Cork.”
She didn’t understand. She frowned, dabbing whiskey on some of the deeper gashes, her betraying fingers lingering on their task, feathering gently over the firm, resilient flesh beneath their tips. She heard him inhale sharply and swear.
She tore a fresh length of cloth from Noble’s ruined shirt.
“Venice, we have to talk.” All the sweet teasing was gone from his voice, leaving raw emotion. Reaching behind to refasten the binding around his ribs, Venice let her fingers skim over the coarse, raised welt of a dreadful scar.
Her hands dropped as though burned.
“What?” Noble asked immediately, head raised alertly, moving closer, sheltering her.
“That scar. The one on your back.”
“Yeah? I would have thought you saw it when you cleaned my cuts the other night—”
“It was dark then. I couldn’t see much of anything.”
“Oh.”
“That’s all you have to say, ‘Oh’?”
“Well,” Noble tilted his head, openly bewildered. “What about that scar?”
“It’s horrible!”
His expression grew flat, distant. “I’m sorry if it offends you,” he said stiffly.
“Offends me? You’re damn right it offends me. You were hurt!”
He smiled. “Oh.”
“‘Oh,’ again?! Where did you get it?” she demanded angrily.
“That old thing? Bayonet. In the war,” he said. “Terrible wound. Lots of blood. Just awful.” If it had been so terrible, why was he looking so smug?
“You could have been killed.” Her voice, no more than a whisper, broke.
Without a word, Noble looped his arm around her waist and pulled her gently to him. “I’m sorry I teased you.”
How could she ever have considered his embrace a prison? It was a haven. His big body was protective, comforting. Cupping her chin with long fingers, he tilted her face up toward his.
“It happened a long time ago,” he said.
As though she didn’t need to know to the very date when it had happened, didn’t need to know exactly how many days he’d lain on his—bed? Cot? Or on the bare, cold ground? How close had he been to dying?
She wanted to cry. If he’d died, who would have told her? Would she have had to hear about it from a stranger long after the fact, as she’d heard of her own mother’s death?
“Venice.”
She splayed her hand against his chest and for an instant allowed his warmth to penetrate her palm and shoot sensual heat up her arm. He was so vital, so alive.
“Venice,” he said, speaking gently. “It was eight years ago. You’re acting like it happened last night. It isn’t a big deal.”
To him, it was eight years ago. She hadn’t had the benefit of all that time to get used to the idea of his near death. She’d been robbed of that time by her father. Her father . . . Noble’s enemy.
“How many times have you come close to being killed?”
“What?”
“Can you respond to a simple query without resorting to monosyllabic grunts? I asked how many times you’ve courted death.”
“Gee, I don’t know.” His feigned innocence was ruined by his big, fat grin.
“You’re an idiot, Noble McCaneaghy, to be running around the wilderness skirting danger and flirting with death. For God’s sake, man, have you no care for yourself?” she demanded furiously. “You, you, adventurer!”
“Aye, darlin’,” he said, “just like you.”
Noble couldn’t help but bask in her concern. She looked like a pampered Siamese cat gone feral, fiercely elegant in spite of its tattered appearance.
“Yeah, well—” she allowed, her matted black hair falling over one eye. She puffed at it but it slipped right back over her brow. Noble thought it looked damned provocative.
But then, this whole day had been damned provocative. From the heated debate they’d had this morning on whether or not two cents an acre was too much to pay for that giant ice floe to the north of Canada called Alaska, to laughing with her over Grundy’s antics, to the touch of her cool fingers sliding across his overheated skin, it had all been too damned provocative.
And now she was angry at him. For getting bayoneted eight years ago.
Suddenly she clapped her hands on her hips, as though coming to a decision.
“I don’t want to lose you. I won’t be robbed of any more time. Not even by you.”
“Pardon?”
She drew nearer. He could see the rise and fall of her breasts beneath the soft, torn flannel shirt. The neckline gaped open and there was a smudge of dirt just below her collarbone. She leaned forward and the thick, cool satin of her hair swept across his chest.
He closed his eyes. She smelled like pine needles and rich, springtime earth.
Lord, how he wanted to make love to her; to bury his face against her throat and feel her arch against him. He wanted to catch her laughter in his mouth and smile against the velvety softness of her skin. He wanted to watch her, taste her, touch her . . .
But he didn’t want just one night. And he couldn’t ask for more.
“Venice,” he said, trying to do the right thing. “We’re still the same friends we were ten years ago.”
“Ten years ago?” She tilted her head as though listening to a far-off voice. ‘We were more than friends. You were my hero, Slats.”
He felt the corners of his mouth tug up at the nickname.
“A godsend.”
“Yeah,” he said sardonically. “A regular Saint George.”
“You were,” she insisted. “And such a proud lad. I remember how the other servants’ kids used to torment you for not kowtowing to them. You were the outsider. Like me. Maybe that’s why we became such good friends.”
“Maybe,” he allowed with a tender smile.
“How many times did the butler’s son and his cronies trap you in the carriage house, Noble?” she asked, remembered pity filling her dove-gray eyes. “Why did they shave your head?”
“To mark me.” At her look of bewilderment he clarified. “To remind me I was a slummer.”
“How many times did they do that?”
Noble shrugged. “Enough.”
“I used to cry when I saw your poor, raw scalp.” Venice’s voice had become harsh, angry. “Is that why you finally started shaving it yourself, Noble? To rob your tormentors of that pleasure?”
She was right, that was why he’d taken a razor to his scalp. He didn’t see her point though, so he stood silently.
“I think that made them angriest of all. That and your innate dignity, your scorn. It infuriated them. I remember once, after they’d caught you alone and your nose was bloody, I was going to tell but you made me swear not to say a word to anyone about what they’d done to you.”
Noble gave her a crooked smile. “You kept a secret fair well, lass.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “But you don’t know what my silence cost me. I should have done something. I can’t keep silent again at your request.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, it’s too late to pretend that I’m a little girl and you’re a fierce, gangly lad. And I don’t want to.”
He put his hands on her shoulders, looking down into her questioning eyes.
He’d never been able to accept less than what he wanted. And there was no way in heaven or hell he could make love to Venice and not want her to spend her life with him. He wanted that now. But it stood against all reason and all common sense.
Her father, a man she’d spent her life trying to impress, would cut her off like a gangrenous limb. Her friends would disown her. A few days ago he’d told Blaine that he couldn’t afford Venice Leiland. Well, neither could Noble McCaneaghy.
He looked up into her dove-soft eyes. She was regarding him steadily
“Come on,” she said. He saw her black pupils dilate, felt the soft beat of her breath across his mouth. She reached down. Capturing his fingers in her much smaller hand, she gave a little tug. “Time for bed.”
Chapter 18
Though it drizzled most of the next day, just before dusk, the sun broke through the clouds. Noble, however, was in no mood to admire the splendid sunset.
Instead, he’d spent the last half hour worrying about nightfall and how he was going to find the strength of will to keep away from Venice. Particularly since it had become clear that Venice did not want him to keep away. On the contrary—. unless he missed his guess and had gone completely mad—she’d been trying to seduce him all day.
“If it had kept raining, I wouldn’t have been able to find enough dry wood to feed a fire until dark,” Venice said suddenly. He wheeled around at the sound of her voice, and stepped backward, putting the campfire safely between them.
“You can always use birch or aspen bark,” he said.
“Oh, I can think of other ways to keep warm.” She flashed him a provocative smile. With a deep sense of frustration, Noble felt his ears grow hot.
It was just like every conversation they’d had since she’d pulled him to his feet last night and led him toward his tent.
Fool that he was, he’d spent every foot-dragging moment on that short journey trying to rally enough willpower to resist Venice Leiland, and then been paradoxically furious when he hadn’t needed it.
She’d seen him to the tent, ushered him in, and left. He’d had the sinking feeling she was laughing as she flipped the canvas flap down and disappeared.
Now, with each moment spent cloistered in these mountains with her, he felt something suspiciously like desperation building inside him. As he stood staring at her, all he could think to say was, “Cut it out, Venice.”
She laughed, deliciously amused. “Oh, Noble, who’d have thought you’d turn into a prude?”
“I’m not one of your overbred New York lap dogs, Venice. I don’t do tricks,” he warned her in what he hoped was a dangerous growl.
But what had worked in her bedroom at the Gold Dust wasn’t working here. She just raised both elegant brows in surprise and said, “Oh, Noble, you don’t give yourself enough credit. That trick of turning bright red is quite entertaining.”
“Spoiled brat,” he said.
“Better than a spoil sport,” she countered. “And if you spend any more time scuffing the toe of your boot in the dirt and drawling, ‘Shucks, ma’am,’ I’ll accuse you of plagiarizing one of Mr. Wild Bill Hickock’s novels.”
“Wild Bill—!” he sputtered. He snapped his mouth shut, collecting his temper before saying with as much dignity as he could muster, “I have never said ‘Aw, shucks’ in my life. And I sure as heck aren’t going to call you, ‘ma’am.’”
“Really?” She sidled from the other side of the fire, swaying to within a few feet of him. “Wanta make a bet?”
She winked. He ran.
Not literally, but from the way he stumbled back and swung his head around, looking for something, anything, to divert his attention, it may as well have been running. And they both knew it.
He stomped to the tent and began digging through his saddlebag looking for his big jackknife. Finding it, he flipped the blade open and closed, trying to decide what to do. He needed some work to vent a little physical frustration on.
He could cut some pine boughs for bedding. Better than hard ground. Yeah, a soft, fragrant bed . . .
Angrily, he shook off the seductive image. Stomping through the aspen copse to a stand of young lodgepole pines, he attacked the trees.
He worked for fifteen minutes, hacking away at blameless boughs sheathed in soft spring needles, only once peeking surreptitiously over his shoulder to see what she was doing.
Having already watered the pony, built a fire, and hung their damp overcoats near it to dry, she was wrapping the rabbit he’d managed to snare in wild leek leaves before cooking it. Her skill with camp craft was impressive. Everything about her was impressive.
He just wished she wasn’t always so . . . near. Always within arm’s reach, all the damn time. He knew she went out of her way to stand close to him. She had to know it was driving him crazy.
Why the hell couldn’t she just shout her questions from the opposite side of that damn fire? Why did she have to swing her hips to within a few yards of him, just to talk? Why did they have to talk at all?!
Didn’t she realize that keeping a safe distance between them was for her own good? Why the hell couldn’t she appreciate that he was torturing himself in his efforts to do right by her?
He stood there, his arms filled with pine boughs, staring into the trees. Suddenly, he could feel her behind him. She must be fair breathing down his neck. This, at least, had to stop. He wheeled around, preparing to turn her ears red wi
th the set-down he was about to deliver.
She was twenty feet away. Her quiet gaze rested on him.
“What?!” he demanded. God help him, he could hear the panic in his own voice.
“Nothing, I was just watching you.”
“Why?”
“I was just thinking to myself that you don’t seem the worse for wear after surviving that trip down the river. You’re very strong,” she said, taking a step closer.
He refused to step back. She came closer. Fifteen feet, ten, five. He shuffled where he stood. Her eyes brimmed with amusement.
“No, I’m not strong.”
“Oh, yes, you are. Wonderfully strong and . . . fit,” she said. “Everyone in Salvage agrees. Blaine Farley is quite in awe of you.”
It wasn’t a step back, he told himself. Not really. It was more like a sidestep. “Blaine would be in awe of a one-legged mule skinner if he thought the man had ever held a gun. He’s just a kid.”
“But you’re not. Really, Noble. You’re too modest. You have a beautiful—”
“Go to bed!”
“Excuse me?”
“I said that as soon as we’ve eaten, I’m going to bed.”
“The rabbit won’t be done for quite a while. Maybe we could just talk?” She sounded almost wistful.
“It’s been a long day. And probably more of the same to follow. I haven’t any idea how long before we find Milton, or he finds us. You can sit around here thinking about how strong your various male acquaintances are, but I’m going to . . . to chop some firewood.” Snatching up an ax, he plunged into the woods.
Venice stared after him for a full minute before finally giving way to laughter. Ever since she had begun to suspect that she, Venice Leiland—all five feet, two inches of her—could chase away big, strong Noble McCaneaghy with a few innocent— okay, not so innocent—words, she’d been unable to resist testing her theory
She sobered as she watched him disappear into the copse. She loved Noble. She’d loved him for as long as she could remember. And she might have lost him in that river.
Lord, she was tired of being left behind. Tired of being afraid to get too close. Tired of letting other people’s decisions dictate her life.
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