Colorado Dawn (21 page)

“Aye. There’s naught like the call of the pipes on a misty morn.”

“I so agree.”

The dogs trotted zigzag patterns down the rutted track, drawn to every scent. Ahead at the hotel, lamplight from the upstairs rooms lit the darkness like square beacons of light leading them safely through the damp, gray mist. It was beautiful and eerie and Maddie wondered if there might ever come a day when photography equipment would be able to capture that simple contrast of light and dark.

“You’ll be giving me another chance,” Ash said, breaking into her thoughts as they neared the hotel. Not so much a suggestion, as an order. Ever the soldier, Angus Wallace was.

“Will I?”

“Ye will.” He looked down at her, that fall of hair now clinging damply to his brow. “I crossed an ocean and half this country to
find you, lass. Do ye ken how hard that was for a man who can hardly read a map and mixes up his rights and lefts?”

“And yet, here you are.”

“Aye. Because of you. So you’ll be giving me a second chance, so you will.”

Definitely an order. She said nothing, and kept her head down so he wouldn’t see her smile.

By the time they made it up the stairs to their suite, Ash was starting to sag again. His face had lost color, and a deep furrow drew his dark brows together over his narrowed eyes. Each of his steps was careful and measured and came down softly so as not to jar.

She unlocked the door and ushered him inside. While the dogs explored every nook and cranny of the sitting area, Maddie walked on to the bedroom on the left. “This should be the quietest, I think.” After snapping the drapes closed, she pulled back the counterpane on the bed. “And this bed has no foot rail, which should suit you better.”

Ash stood in the doorway, watching her.

“I remember how you hated banging your toes and not being able to stretch out.” The words awakened images that brought heat to her cheeks. She motioned to the bed. “Sit, please. I’ll help you with your boots.” When he didn’t move, she added, “Unless you’d prefer to sleep the rest of the night in them?”

He sat on the bed. Kneeling beside his knee, she began unlacing the closure that went up the outside of his right boot beside a sewn-in sheath for his long knife. She was so intent on her task she didn’t realize he had reached out until she felt something touching her hair. Surprised, she looked up.

“You have beautiful hair, lass.” Instead of meeting her gaze, he watched his fingers smooth back a lock that had slipped loose from the pins.

His hand felt big and heavy and warm against her scalp. She refrained from leaning into it like a purring cat.

“I wondered if it was as soft as I remembered.” When he let his hand fall back to the bed, it was trembling. “I’m sorry to be so
weak.” He had such a sad, weary look on his face it brought a catch to her throat.

Unable to bear it, she looked down and began loosening the laces on his left boot. “You’re not weak. And you needn’t apologize to me.”

“Guid.” She heard the smile beneath the brogue. “But I was apologizing to myself for allowing my mind to make plans my puir body canna fulfill. An unusual happenstance, so it is. Especially for a Scotsman.”

“Indeed? I’ve never heard that.” Biting back a smile, she finished unlacing and motioned for him to lift his foot. After pulling off his boots, she set them at the foot of the bed, then stood. “Shall I help with the rest of your clothing?” She tried to sound matter of fact, but her voice came out higher and thinner than usual.

“I’ll manage, love. A man can suffer only so much coddling.”

“Indeed? Then I’ll not badger you about food. Good night.” She started for the door.

“Food?”

She stopped and turned back. “I was thinking a bit of cheese or a slice of ham might settle all that alcohol I heard sloshing around, but I wouldn’t want to coddle you beyond forbearance.”

His smile made her smile. “I’ll endure it. For you, love.”

“You’re too kind.”

When she returned with a plate a few minutes later, he was sprawled on top of the bedding, one arm over his eyes, the other dangling off the mattress so that his hand rested on Tricks, who was stretched out beside the bed. He still wore his trousers and shirt, although he’d slipped off his braces and loosened the buttons at his collar. He was snoring.

Her poor wounded warrior.

Setting the plate on the bureau out of the wolfhound’s reach, she tiptoed from the room.

Eleven

H
e watched her slowly awaken, her breath catching on a deep inhale as she stretched like a cat in the sun. Leaning on one elbow beside her, he gently coaxed her onto her back and was rewarded when she arched against his stroking hand, a small sigh escaping her throat. “Morning, love.”

“Ash…?”

“No, ’tis the archbishop of Canterbury.”

Her eyes blinked open, slowly focused on his. He felt her body go still. He watched her, waiting, his palm resting over the small birthmark just below her breast. If she rejected him now, he would go into his bedroom, load his pistol, and put it to his head.

Or maybe not.

As long as there was Maddie, there was hope.

With her fingertip, she traced an old saber scar by his neck. “If you’re the archbishop, then where is your shepherd’s crook?”

“ ’Tis right here, lass.” He leaned down and kissed one corner of her mouth, then the other. Lifting his head, he grinned down at her as he trailed his fingers over her breast. “Would you like to touch it?”

Maddie laughed softly, her gaze drifting from his beautiful eyes
with that scar through one dark brow, across the bristled curve of his jaw, down his strong neck to the rounded slope of his shoulder. Tendon and muscle and bone. But put together in a way that made her heart sing. “Apparently, the pain in your head is gone.”

“Aye. ’Tis moved elsewhere.”

She tried to ignore what his hand was doing. But every caress, every stroke left shimmering heat in its wake and a trembling anticipation of where he would touch next. She moved restlessly, needing…wishing…

“Open to me, love.”

She did and then he was there, right where she wanted him to be, touching her as only he had ever done. “Ash…”

“Are your blisters healed?” he asked, kissing her brow.

“W-What?” Awash in sensation, she could hardly form a thought. “Blisters? Yes. Mostly.”
There. Yes…there…

“Then touch me, lass,” he whispered against her lips. “Now.”

It was madness.

Not at all what she wanted.

The absolutely wrong thing to do.

But almost of its own accord, one hand slid up to pull him closer while the other reached down.

Yet even as his touch set her skin on fire, and his scent filled her senses, and her body sank into shivering sensation, some small fragment of her mind still clung to reason. “If we do this,” she murmured against his throat where the pulse beat fast and hard, “it won’t change anything.”

“But ’tis a grand way to open discussion to the possibility, is it no’?” His big body jerked when she found him. “Och…sweet Mary…”

“Mary has naught to do with this, lad.” She squeezed.

He groaned.

Then there were no more words, only the rush of their bodies coming together—as if the years apart had never been and the pain they had dealt each other had never happened. It was a frantic, breathless, dizzying dance of hands and mouths and straining
bodies that gave and took until finally they were spiraling into bliss.

Over. Too soon. Too fast.

He rolled away, panting. “Jesus…lass…”

She lay as he had left her, gasping up at the ceiling, her heart beating so hard and fast she felt battered by the force of it. “Well.” She blew hair out of her eyes.
Well, indeed.

When he didn’t respond, she looked over to where he lay sprawled beside her amid the tangled bedding, the sound of his breathing filling the room. She tingled all over, her nerves still quivering beneath her skin. Watching the muscles of his broad chest flex and contract with every breath made her tingle anew.

“That was…” She paused, searching her befuddled mind for the right word.

“Magnificent?” he supplied. “Astounding?”

“Short and sweet, I was going to say. But definitely—”

“Short?” He lifted his tousled head off the pillow to stare at her. “Too short?”

She heard the worry in his voice and tried not to laugh. “But definitely,” she continued, “well worth the wait.”

“Bawdy lass.”

She smiled over at him.

The first glow of dawn highlighted the window on the other side of the bed and bathed his strong body in soft morning light, sculpting tendon and rounded muscle and tipping his dark chest hair with gold. He was so beautiful, so perfect—the warrior replete. She framed it in her mind, each shadow and hollow and sweat-slicked curve sharply defined in the lens of her artist’s eye—frozen in this moment for all time—hers forever.

I love you.

Rolling onto her side, she rested her hand over his thundering heart, wishing she could hold him there beside her forever.

“Mole where?”

She frowned, caught off guard by the change in subject, then smiled, remembering. “On your—what do you call it? Arse.”

“I dinna ken that.”

“I should hope not.”

Laughter showed in his eyes. “I’ve missed you, Maddie, so I have.” His smile faded into something raw and unfamiliar to her. “Dinna run from me again, lass. I couldna bear it.”

Tears pressed behind her eyes. Biding time until they passed, she traced a fingertip over his lips. “I didn’t run. I drifted away. And you let me.”

“I ken I was wrong. But I’ll not be doing that again. I swear it.”

In that unguarded moment, she glimpsed the brash, handsome, young man who had captured her heart six years ago. Who held it captive still.

Yet, nothing had changed.

No matter the fine words, he would leave her again. He couldn’t help it. Duty would call, and honor would not allow him to disobey, and she would be left bleeding in his wake, just as had happened before. The thought of it was an unseen weight that pressed against her heart until the pain of it stole her breath away.

Oh, Maddie. You foolish, foolish woman.

She pulled her hand away.

Oblivious, he sighed and closed his eyes. “You make me daft, lass, so you do. But I’m no’ complaining.”

Tears burned in her throat, behind her eyes. Why had she opened herself up to the same heartache that had nearly destroyed her once already? Had she learned nothing?

“Ash, what have we done?”
To ourselves. To each other.

He opened his eyes and looked at her. They were the cool green of tarnished copper, or the earliest spring grass, or a high mountain lake fed by icy peaks. Changeable. Mysterious. Compelling.

“Forgotten already, love? Must I show you again?” He said it lightly, but she heard the tension in his voice, felt it in his arms when he pulled her on top of him. Skin to skin, heart over heart, they stared into each other’s eyes—separated by only that unbridgeable gap between duty and desire.

“Puir lass.” Reaching up, he cupped her head in his big hands,
his fingers so long his thumbs reached to her temples. “I ken ye’re confused, love. As am I. But this I know, Maddie Wallace. We belong together. Apart, we’re less than we were meant to be. But together, we can be more than either of us dreamed.”

“In Scotland?” She tried to keep her voice from wobbling but failed. “I don’t need a title, Ash. I need my work.”

“You need
me
.” He said it with fierce certainty, his eyes hiding nothing from her. “You need me.” He kissed her lips, then her closed lids, blotting away the tears she could no longer hold back. “And I need you.” Brushing his lips across her cheekbone, he whispered into her ear. “Ride me and I’ll prove it.”

He took her to the heights again, his hands hot on her body, his mouth marking her like a brand. Where the first time had been a tumultuous rush of need, this was a slow, sweet reacquainting that spoke of deeper emotion. She abandoned herself to it, trembling with the joy of it, and resolving for this moment, at least, to forget the past and the pain awaiting her.

Instead, she looked down as she moved above him—watched his lips pull tight against his clenched teeth, felt the tremble in the powerful muscles beneath her thighs, and knew somewhere within his armored warrior’s heart he loved her still.

As she loved him.

But when it was over, and she lay in his arms, her body trembling and her heart drumming against his, the unspoken words hung in the air around then.

And still, nothing had changed.

The sun was barely above the jagged peaks when Maddie pushed back the covers and rose. Moving quietly so she didn’t wake Ash, she dressed and pinned up her hair, then wrote a short note and left it on the bureau by his shaving mug where she knew he would find it. Then calling the dogs waiting restlessly in the sitting room, she left her husband sprawled asleep on the rumpled bed and left the suite.

Luckily at this early hour only Yancey was in the lobby, so Maddie didn’t have to suffer any of Lucinda’s probing looks. They would come, she knew, but at this moment what she wanted—what she desperately needed—was to focus all the turmoil in her mind through the lens of her camera.

Blocking from her mind the memory of Ash as she had last seen him, she walked briskly under the dawning sky, following the dogs down the muddy track toward the livery, her imagination churning as she mentally framed images, calculated angles and perspectives.

Unlike her life now that Ash was back in it, a photograph was sharp and clearly defined. Precise. Predictable. A one-dimensional view with no surprises. If it didn’t turn out, she could throw it away and try again. There was comfort in that. A sense of control.

Life was so much messier.

She stopped, captivated by a puddle in the road where the first streaks of sunlight shining through the treetops cast bright reflections in the water and highlighted every rut in the road.

Tucking her skirts around her legs so they wouldn’t drag in the mud, she squatted to view the ruts from a ground-level viewpoint as they stretched away from her. Motion. Energy. The track leading the viewer’s eye toward the bigger, more distant vista of mountain and sky. She nodded to herself, deciding to come back and photograph this before the light changed. Rising, she let her skirts fall and continued toward the livery, anxious to get started.