Come Spring (17 page)

He had no right to touch her. No right at all.

But he wanted to.

Lord, how he wanted to. Finally admitting it to himself didn’t make matters any easier.

Buck stood up and paced over to the fire. Trying not to disturb her, he silently added another split log to the blaze. When the task was complete, he turned around and leaned one arm against the mantel and continued to contemplate the woman in his bed.

Her skin was flawless, her cheeks made pink by cold and wind. Thick crescents of honey blond lashes lay against her golden cheeks, and even in sleep, her lips pouted, ripe and tempting. He wondered if it were a sin to take advantage of the chance to study her while she was so vulnerably unaware. He knew for sure that if she were awake, Annika Storm would be mad as hell at him for staring.

But she was still sleeping, after all, and a man ought to be able to do what he wanted to in his own house—within reason.

He let his gaze roam over her face again, then down the satin length of her neck to the securely buttoned collar of the chocolate wool traveling suit she wore atop her nightclothes. Buck bit back a smile when he thought of all the layers she had on, then quickly frowned when he remembered the way she had set herself alight by standing too close to the fire. He wondered if she really was as helpless as she seemed. If he were to get her back to her brother in Busted Heel unharmed, he would have to look out for her every minute.

One of her hands rested open on the pillow beside her. Her fingers were long, much like her limbs. Again he noted her beautiful hands, smooth and unmarred by drudgery. He thought of his mother’s and sisters’ hands and how they were rough and lined long before they should have been from the use of harsh lye soap and demanding chores. He wondered if Annika Storm had ever had a blister in her life.

With a shake of his head, Buck remembered the quirk of fate that had brought Annika to him and then thought of Alice Soams. Wherever she was now, she was far better off than she would have been married to him. Now that he saw Annika against the backdrop of his life, he knew it would be too much to ask someone he loved to give up civilization and live in such isolation. It wasn’t any more fair to demand it of a virtual stranger.

His gaze drifted to Baby and his heart constricted with the bleak realization that he had no choice but to give her up. There was no way he could continue to raise her as his own, not while he had to be free to leave the cabin for hours—if not days—while he checked on his traps and did the dressing and skinning that was required before he could start home. She was too precious to him to endanger her by taking her out any longer. She was too old to carry everywhere, too curious to keep entertained while he worked, still too young to leave alone.

There was nothing he could do but give Baby up, at least until she was full grown.

As he watched Annika roll to her side, he knew she could never be the wife he needed, but he wondered if she still might not be the answer to his dilemma.

A
NNIKA
rubbed her eyes and stretched, then abruptly pulled herself to a sitting position when she found Buck Scott towering over her at the side of the bed.

Though they offered scant protection, she clutched the wolf pelts to her and tried to assume an expression of command. “What do you want?”

“I’m going out.”

The thought struck her that he was arrestingly handsome without his beard. His jawline was strong and even, his lips full but far too stern. There were lines about his eyes, creases she figured were carved by the sun rather than smiling overmuch, but they did not detract from his good looks. Without the beard he looked much younger, more vulnerable, but still as strong and commanding. He had tied his hair back with a rawhide thong, and she could see now that it was not a pure gold color, but bleached nearly white in places by the elements. Instead of his heavy hooded jacket he was wearing an ankle-length buffalo hide coat. She doubted that she could even lift it. A rifle rested casually against his shoulder, while his long knife was strapped to his thigh.

She swung her feet over the edge of the bed and pushed the pelts away. Baby was sound asleep beside her. “What do you mean you’re going out? I thought we were snowed in?”

He sighed, as if explaining were a chore. “The pass is closed. We’re snowed in in the valley, not the cabin. I just spent the past half hour digging out around the door. The storm’s nearly spent—it’s just snowing lightly now—so I thought I’d go have a look-see and find out how bad it really is out there.”

“And what am I supposed to do?”

“Stay with Baby.”

Groggy with sleep, she followed him to the door. He already wore a heavy fur hat on his head, tied tight beneath his chin. His face was curiously pale where the beard had been, his cheeks tanned from long exposure to the sun and reddened by the cold. Annika was tempted to lay her warm palms against them, but immediately thought better of it.

She took a step back. “I’m not a nursemaid, Mr. Scott.”

“I’m sure you’re not.” He looked as if he wanted to say more.

“Well?”

“I don’t exactly know what you’re good for, ma’am, but I think if you try hard enough, you can watch over a three-year-old for a few minutes’ time.”

With that he opened the door, stepped outside, and then closed it in her face.

Speechless, Annika stared at the wooden planks of the door, wishing he would step back inside so that she could give him a piece of her mind.

The wind had indeed stopped and the snow that had sneaked in through the cracks was beginning to melt, turning the floor to mud in various spots about the room. In the silence that pervaded the cabin, Annika realized that for the first time in three days she was no longer in the company of her captor. Immediately she readied herself for escape.

She glanced over at the sleeping child, grabbed her satchel from the floor, then looked for her opera cape and found it hanging on a peg near the door beneath his buckskin jacket. Pulling both of them off the hook, she donned the cape, then Buck’s long coat and found herself nearly too bundled in clothing to move. It took but a few seconds to locate the gloves in her satchel and work the cold, stiff leather over her fingers, but once she had accomplished that, she was ready to leave.

Carefully, quietly, she pulled open the door. Snow swirled in on a current of cold air as she stepped outside. The world was blinding white; the only other color she was immediately aware of was the deep forest green of the undersides of the pine boughs.

The door was nearly closed behind her when she heard the child inside cry out, “Ankah? Me go too!”

It was a mistake to go back in.

Baby scrambled off the bed and rushed across the room toward her. Annika stepped back inside and shut out the cold. She set her satchel down and frowned at Baby. “You can’t go, Baby. You have to wait for Buck.”

“No.”

“Yes. He said you have to wait here. He’ll be right back. Do you want him to be sad if you aren’t here?”

“Ankah go with Buck?”

“No. I’m going home now. You have to stay here and wait for Buck. Can you do that?” She watched the child’s eyes widen as the little girl looked around the deserted cabin. “You won’t get into any trouble, will you?”

Baby began to pout. “Me go too.”

“No. You have to stay here.”

“Me go with Buck.”

Annika crossed her arms. She tapped her foot against the frozen floor. The log in the fireplace popped; sparks fell amid the ashes. She glanced down at the charred hem of her skirt.

Then she looked at Baby again.

What if the child strayed too close to the fire? What if she tried to imitate Buck and put on another log? What if she fell headlong into the fireplace?

Annika looked around. The cabin that provided shelter and a home for the child was as dangerous as a pit of vipers. There were knives on the cook bench that Baby could easily reach by standing on a chair. A heavy Dutch oven or kettle might topple down on her. She could climb on a chair and fall off, or worse yet, open one of the many tins or jars of foodstuffs and eat something that might make her deathly ill.

Annika closed her eyes and counted to ten. There had to be a way she could escape without endangering the child, for as much as she hated Buck Scott, there was no way on earth she would wish any harm to come to his niece. Suddenly she remembered the way the old hunter, Ted, had tied the baby to the chair. In seconds Annika had crossed the room and plundered the chest at the foot of Buck’s bed. She found a worn petticoat of muslin so thin she could nearly see clear through it. Annika tore a long, wide strip while Baby stood and watched with her thumb in her mouth.

Ready at last, Annika grabbed Baby’s hand and pulled her across the room, lifted her onto a straight-backed chair, and then quickly tied the muslin binding around the child before she could begin to struggle for freedom.

“Now,” Annika said as she stood, hands on hips and surveying her handiwork, “you just sit tight until Buck comes back. He said a few minutes.” She silently prayed he meant it.

Alligator tears began to roll down Baby’s cheeks.

“I have to go,” Annika began. “Don’t you see? Your uncle might be lying. Maybe I can get out of here on foot. Why, who knows? I might walk to the top of the first ridge and find that we’re right next to a town.” She hunkered down in front of the child and wiped the tears away. “You’ll be fine. You’re a big girl.”

When she stood again, Annika crossed the room and found the wooden doll amid the bedclothes. She carried it back to Baby and put it in her arms. “Here. You take care of your baby and don’t cry.”

With that, she refused to look at the forlorn little girl again and headed for the door. She stepped outside and blinked against the intense light. As she closed the door behind her, she wished she could shut out the pitiful sound of Baby’s sobs as easily.

She saw the deep snowshoe tracks that led away from the cabin and decided to try to go in the opposite direction. One step off the small patch of snow Buck had managed to shovel away from the door and she was knee deep in powder. Within seconds her boots and stockings were soaked, so too were her skirts and petticoats. Annika felt as if she were trying to walk through thick glue, and although it was still cold and snowflakes were drifting down from the slightly swaying trees around her, she was perspiring from her effort.

If it was hard going trying to lift her feet and legs out of the drifts far enough to take a step, it was nearly impossible to carry her satchel. She thought of leaving it behind, then remembered her buttons and the silver-backed comb and brush and knew that she had to keep the mementos no matter what the effort cost. The silver dresser set had been a gift from Richard. And the buttons, well, the buttons had survived Buck Scott on the trail. She would keep them just to spite him.

Baby was crying louder now—her wails drifted easily through the cabin door. Moved by feelings of guilt, Annika glanced back at the cabin and lost her footing. Falling headfirst into the snow, she struggled to push herself up and out of the deep, cold stuff without success. Finally, she was able to roll over. Forced to admit she was now soaking wet from head to toe, she brushed off as much of the fine powder as she could and then pulled her satchel out after her.

Suddenly two things were all too apparent: she would get nowhere without a pair of snowshoes like Buck’s, and he had not lied about the amount of snow that had fallen during the night. Annika knew that there was no hope of climbing out of the valley if she could not even manage to make her way out of the yard.

With a heavy heart and even heavier steps, she extricated herself from the snow and carefully picked her way back the few feet she had come until she reached the cleared path and finally the front door. Angry at herself for failing, at the snow for falling, and at the child inside for her incessant howling, Annika jerked the door open and stalked back inside. She slammed the door, startled Baby into silence, and began to strip off the wet coat, cape, and then her wool suit jacket and skirt.

She pulled the barrel stools before the fire and spread the clothing over them. In her nightgown and the flannel nightshirt Buck had given her, she marched back to where Baby sat sniffling and inhaling ragged, sobbing breaths. She untied the mournful child, hefted her to her hip, and then one-handedly picked up her satchel and slammed it on the table. Annika found the tin of buttons, set it on the table, pulled up a chair, and with Baby on her lap proceeded to calm the little girl by showing her the precious cache inside the tin.

A
N
hour later, the door opened without warning and Buck Scott stepped over the threshold and closed the door with a bang. Defiantly, Annika met his stony glare. He didn’t have to say a word. She knew that he knew she had tried to leave when he took in all the clothes drying before the fire. His gaze swung back to hers. His cheeks were red from the cold, his lips nearly blue. They were pursed in a taut line. His gloved hands were tightly clinging to a cord slung over one shoulder. His rifle rested on the other. His long, wicked knife rode in the beaded sheath on his thigh.

She held her silence. So did he.

For a long while he merely stood there and stared at her while she continued to hold Baby on her lap. The child scooped buttons by the handfuls and let them sift through her fingers. Baby pushed them into a pile, then spread them out again, all the while ignoring the adults engaged in a silent war of wills.

Finally, Buck moved. He took one step toward the table and halted. Annika could tell just by looking at him that his temper was leashed on a very tenuous thread.

“I thought I told you to stay with Baby.” He ground the words out.

“And I told you I’m no nursemaid.”

His scathing glance raked over her and the child. Without words he labeled her a liar. “Looks like you do well enough.”

“You can’t keep me here against my will.”

“I’m not, but you can’t leave this valley until the snow melts, so you might as well face it. And as long as you’re here, you’d better do as I say.”