Elizabeth Lowell (16 page)

She heard every word but only cared about his admission that he was woman hungry. It gave her the weapon she needed. It appeared that her efforts at proving she was a woman had been having some effect.

She smiled rather bitterly and decided that she would make him eat every one of his cutting words about her lack of womanly allure. From that moment on she would redouble her efforts to remind him that she was a woman and he was a hungry man. She would bring him to his knees with desire...and then she would laugh in his face and walk away, leaving him as miserable and unhappy as she was now.

“Now that we understand each other,” she said tightly, “could we possibly get going so that Joe Troon doesn’t kill Lucifer before we can stop him?”

Ty told himself that the hurt and anger he saw in her eyes were better than the bigger hurt that would come if he couldn’t keep his hands off her. From what he had heard, at best she had been roughly treated by men; at worst she had been brutalized. If he took advantage of her, he would be no better than Joe Troon.

Ty told himself that, but he wasn’t sure he believed it. He would be gentle with Janna even if it killed him. Surely he would. He wasn’t an animal to take what a woman wouldn’t freely give him.

Oh, sure. I
’
m a real Southern gentleman. That
’
s why I was grinding Janna beneath me into the dirt as though I
’
d
never had a woman and never would unless I had her right there. I can
’
t trust myself with her any farther than I can throw myself uphill.

Ty looked at Janna’s gray eyes watching him with too many shadows, waiting for his answer.

“Hell of an idea,” he said curtly. “Wait here while I get my pack.”

He got up and left without a backward look.

She didn’t move. She knew that he was testing her, finding out if he could trust her. If she was going to run off at the first opportunity, better that he discover her untrustworthiness now than when it came time for her turn at night guard while he slept.

Approving his pragmatism almost as much as she approved his lithe, muscular stride, she watched until he disappeared. She waited for his return without moving one inch from her cross-legged position on the ground.

When Ty returned and saw Janna precisely where he had left her, he understood her silent message. He could trust her. He nodded approvingly and held out his hand to help her to her feet.

It was the opportunity she had been waiting for. She allowed herself to be pulled upright, then stumbled and fell against his body, letting him take her full weight. His arms closed around her automatically, supporting her.

The impact of her weight was nothing to a man of Ty’s size, but the warmth of her body wasn’t. When his arms tightened around her to keep her upright, he knew a lightning stroke of pleasure at how perfectly she fit against him. Supple, slender, smelling of piñon, she was like an armful of sunlight.

“Janna? What’s wrong?”

For a moment longer she savored the delicious warmth and strength of his body before she slowly began to take her own weight again. Even then, she held on to his muscular arms, bracing herself against his strength.

“Sorry,” she said, eyes downcast as she flexed her fingers into the swell of his biceps and very slowly released him. “I guess I’m a little...hungry.”

Ty was glad Janna wasn’t looking at him when she confessed her hunger, because she would have seen the naked statement of his own need in the tension of his face. Then he understood that he wasn’t talking about the elemental hunger of sex but the equally basic hunger of the stomach. Hers was growling audibly as she rested her cheek against his chest, leaning as though she were too tired to stand entirely by herself.

He smiled despite the desire snaking through his loins. He tapped the bridge of her nose gently with his index finger.

“Poor little baby bird,” he said sympathetically. “Come on. As soon as we get in better cover, I’ll feed you.”

His voice was a deep rumble beneath her cheek, but the indulgence in his tone was unmistakable.
Baby bird.

Her mouth drew down unhappily. Her attempt to arouse him had resulted in a brotherly pat. The temptation to bite the hard, warm chest that lay beneath her cheek almost overwhelmed her. But she sensed that would have been a serious mistake in her campaign of “accidental” seduction, so she contented herself with pushing away from the shelter offered by his arms.

“Thank you,” she said politely. “I’m fine now.”

She turned away and began walking quickly toward the rugged wall of black lava and red sandstone that formed the east face of Black Plateau. Ty stood and watched the almost concealed sway of Janna’s hips beneath the men’s clothing and prayed that she would find Lucifer and find him very soon. The more he looked at Janna, the harder it became to ignore her unconscious, utterly feminine allure.

Yet he had to ignore it. He had to forget how good it had felt to rock his hips hard against the softness beneath her clothes.

He had to...but he couldn’t.

Anger helped Janna to hold to a good pace despite her growling stomach. Without looking back to see how Ty was doing with his heavy pack, she attacked the steep, winding game trail that led to the top of Black Plateau. As she climbed, she looked for signs of anyone else using the trail.

She found no traces of man and very little of beast. There were no signs that anything had used the trail recently other than herself. There were no hoofprints in the rare patches of dirt, nor scars where hooves had slipped or scraped across stone. She had never seen signs of any hoofed animal on this path except occasional deer—and once, just once, tracks that indicated that Lucifer had skidded down over the precipitous path in order to shake off mustangers who had gotten too close.

The idea of any horse taking the trail down the plateau’s east face made Janna’s heart stop. She herself used the route only when she was afoot and wanted to go to Sweetwater by the shortest possible route. There were other, safer routes up onto the plateau. One route was on the north side, one on the south, and there were several on the western side. All of them were far easier than the eastern trail.

Climbing at a rapid rate, she worked her way up the path until it dipped into one of the many runoff ravines that channeled the plateau’s east face. Safe from observation from any angle but directly overhead, she sat on a stone seat and awaited Ty’s arrival. She didn’t wait long.

He had walked only far enough behind her to avoid the shower of pebbles disturbed by her passage.

He grunted and shucked off the heavy pack, using it as a seat while his breathing returned to normal.

“Hell of a path,” he said after a bit. “I didn’t see any sign of Zebra coming up, but she sure headed straight here like she had something in mind.”

“She did—avoiding a river of black rock about a quarter mile south of here,” Janna explained. “It’s too rough to climb over. To avoid it, you have to go several miles away from the plateau until the rock sinks into the dirt, or you have to climb partway up the east face of the plateau to go around the head of the rock river. That’s what Zebra usually does. Then she goes up onto the top by the southern route, which is easy.”

For several minutes there was silence while Ty looked out over the land from his new perspective, checking his memories against Janna’s words.

“Does the lava flow—the river of black rock—begin there?” he asked, pointing to what looked like a dusty black creek running
out from the base of the plateau.

She leaned out to look, taking the opportunity to brush against his outstretched arm.

“Yes.”

He grunted. “I can see why Zebra goes around it. A lot of jagged rock and nothing much else.”

He looked for a time longer, waiting for Janna to withdraw the tantalizing brush of her body. She didn’t. He shifted slightly, ending the intimacy, for his blood was still running hotly. Even worse, he suspected that it was going to be a permanent condition around the ragged, too-feminine waif.

“How deep are those canyons?” he asked, pointing toward the shadows that looked rather like a network of black lightning fanning out from the base of the plateau.

For a few moments she considered moving closer to her in order to brush against him again, but then she decided against it. Next time she would choose her moment better, so that retreat would be impossible. In a place as narrow as this crevice, she shouldn’t have to wait long for her opportunity.

“The canyons are deep enough that the wild horses go around them,” Janna said. “The countryside is full of ravines and washes and canyons like that. Most of them are dry, but nearly every butte and mesa has at least a tiny seep or rock tanks that hold water almost year-round. Black Plateau is different. It’s big enough to have water all year up top as well as seeps and springs at the base. That’s why there’s so much grass and game.”

Saying nothing, Ty smoothed a patch of dirt with his hand, then began drawing on the surface with his fingertip. Knowing that the plateau was Lucifer’s preferred range, Ty had spent weeks scouting the area before he had decided on the best way to capture the wild stallion. Unfortunately Ty had ended up captured by Indians before he could try out his plan. Janna, however, had spent years on and around Black Plateau. If there were anything wrong with his plan, she would spot it.

“This outline is Black Plateau,” he
said, pointing to the very rough rectangle he had drawn in the dirt. He added sides to the rectangle, showing depth as well as area. Only the western side remained untouched, suggesting the relative flatness where the plateau’s surface blended into the rumpled front of the Fire Mountains. “From what I’ve seen, the closer you get to Black Plateau from the east, the steeper and deeper the canyons, gullies, and ravines get.”

She shifted position, brushing against his thigh as she did so. When she leaned forward to look at what he had drawn, she braced her hand on his thigh.

Ty’s hand, which was drawing lines in the dirt, jerked. He said something beneath his breath and changed position until her hand was no longer resting on his thigh.

“That’s right,” she said. “The plateau’s east face rises very steeply from the flatlands.” She leaned forward again, and again braced herself on his leg, ignoring his attempts to evade her touch. “Black Plateau is really part of the Fire Mountains,” she added, drawing a series of pyramids along the plateau’s western flank to represent the mountains. “According to Indian legends, the spirits fought each other until the earth cracked and bled and everything the blood touched became fire. Long after the earth healed, the angry spirits roared and spit fire among the peaks of the Fire range, and sometimes new blood flowed over the plateau and dripped down into the desert, where it turned into black rocks. The angry spirits still live beneath the earth around here, turning water so hot that there are springs that cook food faster than a campfire.”

He tried to concentrate on her words, but the presence of her hand on his leg was burning hotter than anything in the Indian legend. He would have retreated to the side again if he could have. He couldn’t. The crevice in the plateau’s side where they had taken shelter was simply too small. He was up against a black boulder right now—and her hand had slipped around to the inside of his thigh. She was so involved in the map he had drawn that she didn’t seem to notice.

Talk about being between a rock and a hard place
…
Ty thought, disgusted because the hard place was in his own lap. He pulled off his hat and dumped it between his legs, hiding the growing evidence of his discomfort in the only way he could.

“There are two good trails up on top of the plateau on its western side,” she continued, flexing her fingers slightly as she shifted position. Now that she had discovered it, the heat and resilience of Ty’s leg fascinated her. “The first trail is here, about two miles from the southern boundary. It’s called the Long View Trail.” She leaned down and forward until her ribs brushed Ty’s leg as she marked the trail on the map he had drawn in the dirt.

His breath caught in his throat.

“That’s the easiest way up,” she said. “The Indians have used it for as long as anyone can remember. The second trail is here.” She made another mark. “The trails are about twenty miles apart as the crow flies. Walking it doubles the distance. The second route up is called Raven Creek Trail. It isn’t as easy as the Long View Trail, and it doesn’t lead immediately to water or good grazing, so Raven Creek Trail isn’t used except by Indian hunting parties.”

“Or war parties?”

She nodded. “Cascabel has his camp at the base of the plateau, where Raven Creek empties into Santos Wash. Mustang Canyon,” she added, pointing to the northern edge of the plateau, where a large notch had been cut into the stone foundations of the land, “is here. There’s good grazing all year and a trail to the top of the plateau that only deer and mustangs use, and occasional crazy mustangers.”

“And you?”

She smiled. “And me. But Zebra grew up on that trail. Sometimes I think her mama was a goat. Zebra is as sure-footed as one. Besides, most of the time I get off and walk. There’s one slick rock patch that gives me nightmares.”

He smiled thinly. “You? Nightmares? You’re too tough to be afraid of anything.”

She said nothing, though she couldn’t help remembering all the nights after her father had died when she had jumped at the smallest sound, biting off screams that would have given away her position rather than summoning the help she needed. Even years later, certain combinations of sounds and smells could set her heart to hammering hard enough to break her ribs.

“Is your keyhole canyon about here?” Ty asked, pointing to a place near the southeast corner of the plateau.

“Yes.”

Steadfastly ignoring the gentle crowding pressure of Janna’s body, Ty looked at the map and mentally began turning the plateau’s neat edges into a fringe of varying lengths, for that was closer to the truth of the landscape. The plateau’s north, east, and south edges were fringed with sheer-sided stone promontories and cliffs, as well as canyons and ravines of varying sizes and depths. The larger canyons had side canyons, which in turn
branched into finger canyons, which branched into ravines and runoff crevices.