Louisa Rawlings (6 page)

“Don’t move!” An urgent whisper broke the morning stillness.

She looked up. There on the path was a man, half-dressed. His feet were bare, and his gallused corduroy trousers were pulled on over a woolen undervest. That was all he wore. In his hands he held a large pad and pencil. He hadn’t even looked at her, not even when she stopped; now she followed his gaze to see that he was concentrating on a white-tailed doe some ten yards off the path and to her left. The man seemed to be drawing, his head bent over his sketch pad, a shock of black hair falling across his forehead. At his hissed command, the deer had stopped feeding on the leaves of a small bush and looked up, startled; then, sensing no menace, it had resumed its breakfast.

Marcy felt a slight breeze ruffle her loose curls; the deer was upwind, and far too busy to be spooked by her if she was quiet. Moving carefully, she continued on up the path.

“I said, don’t move!” he whispered, still without looking at her. His pencil moved furiously on the paper.

She ignored him. City slicker, she thought. The deer would need more than her quiet progress to frighten it off. Besides, she was curious to see his drawing. She covered the last of the distance between them, and stood near his left shoulder. He was very tall; she had to raise herself on tiptoe, and still she couldn’t see his sketch.

He continued to be absorbed in his drawing. “You’re a stubborn hayseed, aren’t you?” he said softly.

It had been said good-naturedly, but the word stung. “And you’re a dad-blamed fool for coming out here without your boots,” she hissed. “If the red ants are biting, you’ll be scratching for a week.
Greenhorn
!” she added with malice.

He chuckled under his breath, his eyes still on the doe. “And a bit of a shrew, too, are you?”

She gasped in outrage and turned to march up the hill.

His voice cut like a knife, sharp and unexpectedly menacing. “If you move again before I’m through, I’ll knock you down!”

She froze in her tracks, seeing the sudden tenseness in the square shoulders, the set of his jaw in profile.

As quickly as the anger had come over him, it passed. He relaxed and resumed his drawing. “I saw her from my window,” he whispered, jerking his chin in the direction of the doe. “I didn’t want to stop to dress.”

She was still smarting from his high-handedness. “I’m surprised you bothered to put on your britches!” she said with sarcasm.

For the first time, he lifted his head and looked at her. His eyes were icy blue and clear, with a piercing intensity that took her breath away. They traveled over her in an unhurried appraisal, peeling away her clothing in a manner that left no doubt as to his thoughts. Then he grinned, and the eyes twinkled. “You’re lucky I
did
put on my britches!” He waited to see the blush color her cheeks, then returned to his work.

She didn’t know whether to be flattered or angry. No one had ever looked at her like that before, not even Zeb with his hungry yearning. “You’re a fancy artist?” she asked in an offhanded way, then cursed silently to herself, dismayed to hear the quaver in her voice. She thought, Danged if I want him to know how his eyes turned me to jelly!

“A fancy artist?” He laughed softly. “Well, I try to be.”

“Does it pay well?” She was surprised at her own boldness.

“Not very,” he answered dryly, “but I…damn!” He swore as the doe, disturbed at last by their voices, lifted its head, sniffed once, and bounded away. “Oh, well…” He closed his pad and put the pencil in his pocket. “I guess I got enough.” He grinned at her again, the self-assurance of his smile pricking her like a cocklebur under her collar.

“Can I move now?” she asked coldly, remembering his threat.

He laughed. “Did I ruffle your feathers?”

She pursed her lips primly. “You had no call to talk to me like that.”

His face was suddenly serious, though she wasn’t at all sure he wasn’t laughing at her. “You’re right. No call at all. I’m sorry.” His eyes twinkled with a devilish gleam. “Of course, if I hadn’t been busy sketching, I might’ve found a better way to keep you from moving. And it surely would have pleased you more.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, then gasped and blushed as the realization hit her. He would have held her in his arms—that’s what he meant! Pleased her, indeed! She began to sputter in anger. “Why you…snaggle-toothed wolf! You swell-headed, puff-britched, conceited son of a…” She was too angry to continue.

He leered wickedly. “Damned if I can’t think of a way to still your shrewish tongue! And close that pretty little mouth of yours!”

She blushed even more furiously. She was half tempted to rear back and slap him as hard as she could, but he towered over her, and she wasn’t at all sure how he’d retaliate. Besides, his eyes were on her lips now, and he’d stepped closer. She gulped. His face was beautiful under its shock of black hair. Strong and beautiful. And his eyes were pale blue and mesmerizing, seeming to bore into her, to the very depths of her, until she felt wondrously, frighteningly naked before him.

Her heart began to pound beneath the coarse flannel of her shirt. It made her shiver to have him so near.

Retreat seemed the wisest course. “Oh-h-h!” she cried, and turned on her heel and stormed back down the path to the lake.

Behind her he roared with laughter. “You’d better run, girl. Next time I see you, I intend to take my kiss!”

Chapter Two

“Tom Sabattis, don’t you dare laugh!” Marcy stifled her own urge to giggle and shot a warning look at the young guide.

“If she don’t beat all, Marce,” said Tom under his breath. “She looks like she’s come straight out of one of them fancy catalogs, without even stopping to get dust on her boots!”

Marcy nodded in agreement as a tall and buxom woman emerged from the wooded path and advanced across the small spit of sand to where the guides waited beside the mound of supplies and stacked rifles. To Marcy’s way of thinking, she looked sturdy enough to stare down a bear. She was encased in the very latest mountain gear, or at least what the city folks took to be the right way of dressing for “roughing it.” A knee-high walking dress over Turkish drawers fastened tightly at the ankles; thick balmoral boots with rubbers for added protection; a pair of buckskin gloves with chamois armlets sewn on at the wrists and buttoned snugly at the elbows (to keep out the black flies, thought Marcy); and a large felt hat with a net of fine Swiss mull poised on the edge of its broad brim, in case the mosquitoes should start to bite. A pair of funny little glasses was pinched onto the tip of her nose, forcing her to peer out of them with her head tilted far back, like a turtle sniffing the air.

“She’ll see fine going
up
mountains,” whispered Tom. “I just don’t want to be in front of her when she’s coming down! And I sure wouldn’t want to be Amos!” He looked with sympathy at Amos Robinson, one of the guides, struggling along behind the woman and sweating under the load of a bulging carpetbag, several blankets, a waterproof coat, and two fur hats.

Marcy nearly choked, swallowing her laughter.

She thought, That must be Mrs. Marshall. The lady with the squeaking corsets. I hope she’s not still wearing them. With all that gear, and corsets besides, she’d most likely swamp the boat!

“Lewis.
Lewis
!” said Mrs. Marshall in a shrill voice that reminded Marcy of the quavering of a loon. “Did you remember to pack the special envelopes for the leaf specimens?”

“Yes, my love.” Dr. Marshall was a gentle-looking man half a head shorter than his wife. His forehead was lined with years, but his cheeks and nose were pink and round and cherubic. On his head he wore a floppy straw skimmer studded with fishing flies.

“And a spare flannel undersuit for yourself? You know how important a ‘change’ is in the wild.”

Dr. Marshall blushed and tugged at the collar of his shirt. “Yes, my love.”

Marcy ignored Tom’s snicker beside her and concentrated on the men who had followed the Marshalls down to the beach. Uncle Jack had said there were five men in the party—and Mrs. Marshall, of course; not counting Dr. Marshall, that left four prospects for marriage. It seemed a bit cold-blooded to take stock of them like boots in a dry goods store, but she was nothing if not stubborn, once she’d made up her mind to something. And she’d made up her mind to find a husband this summer. Before she became an old maid. Before it was too late to leave the mountains.

She discounted the first man almost at once. He seemed dry and old—forty at the least. And there was an uppishness in the way he carried his head, looking toward the assembled guides and boats, that she didn’t much take to. As a last resort, she thought.

The next man was decidedly good-looking. His straight brown hair had been allowed to grow into long side whiskers in front of his ears, which gave a dashing appearance to his square-jawed face. Like the pictures of buccaneers that Marcy had seen in one of her father’s books. His eyes, casually but thoroughly assessing her where she stood with the rest of the guides, were certainly a buccaneer’s eyes, on the lookout for plunder. Dangerous, she thought, but a distinct possibility. Over one shoulder he carried a tripod and several odd-looking instruments. Marcy remembered that Uncle Jack had said one of the men was planning to measure and survey some of the territory.

She was disappointed in the next man who appeared. He was younger than the first two—much closer to her own age—and he was handsome, with pale yellow hair and fine features. But he seemed to be everything she most disliked about the city folk who came to her mountains. He picked his way carefully down the path, frowning as he kicked aside a small rock that stood in his way; and when a stray branch caught at his well-tailored frock coat, he brushed away the offending twig as though it had clutched at him intentionally. His jaunty top hat, sprigged with a turkey feather in a deliberate attempt to appear “country,” didn’t look substantial enough to withstand the first rainfall. Marcy knew tourists like that. They pretended to love the wilderness, and treated their stay in the mountains as an adventure, but they did nothing except complain and wish that the country could be more like the city.

She sighed. He
might
be rich; he was certainly soft and spoiled.

The last man, his soft felt hat tilted rakishly over one eye, bounded onto the beach laughing and knocked his comrade’s top hat onto the sand. He laughed again, stooped to retrieve the hat, brushed the sand from the fine plush, and returned it to its owner. Then he looked around the clearing, his blue eyes widening at sight of Marcy.

“Well, well,” he said softly.

She felt her knees go weak. Her fancy artist. She smiled tentatively, not sure whether she was glad or not to see him again. Then he grinned—a crooked, funny smile—and her heart began to thump madly at the thought of spending two whole months in the wilderness with him.

She thought, He’ll see me blush. And turned away in embarrassment, moving to where Old Jack was checking the straps on a valise.

“That tall one looks a good prospect,” she said quietly, trying to sound offhand and indifferent.

Old Jack straightened, quickly appraised the man, then turned back to her in disgust. “That one? Huh! You might’s well stay in Long Lake and marry Zeb Cary. You wind up in the big city with
that
one, and you’ll be boiling rats from the cellar for his dinner!”

“Oh, bosh, Uncle Jack, what do you know?” But it was so, of course. After the first shock of seeing him again, she had begun to notice his clothes. His hat was battered and old-looking, and his heavy boots were dappled with paint. His shoulders were broad and manly under the billowing shirt he wore, which only added to her dismay. For the shirt itself had begun to fray at the cuffs, and the scarf tied so casually under the soft, turned-down collar was no more than a simple cotton neckerchief. She wondered if he even owned a second shirt. He was carrying his coat slung over one shoulder, and both the coat and his snug-fitting waistcoat had obviously seen better days.

I don’t care! she thought defiantly, then remembered what Uncle Jack had said about the Petersons, beaten down by the poverty of the city.

She thought, I can’t afford even to consider him. And if I stay in the mountains, I’ll die. She sighed unhappily and forced herself to look again at the other three men. Dressed in new, fancy clothes. And not a one of them with a wedding band. That was a good beginning, at least.

The blond man replaced his top hat and grimaced at the artist. “Do you intend to ruin my hat before our jaunt begins, Drew, old fellow?”

Marcy thought, Drew. What a nice name.

“Begging your pardon, Mr…” Old Jack stepped forward to the top-hatted man and tugged politely at the brim of his own flat-crowned felt.

“Collins, my good fellow. Edward Collins.”

“Well, then, Mr. Collins. If you reckon on keeping that hat in a stiff breeze, you’d best tie a string to it and hook it on your lapel. A tall hat don’t usually last long in the wilderness. You oughtn’t to have brung it.”

Collins looked faintly annoyed. “Do you hear that, Drew? My first morning in this backward territory, and already I’m being lectured by a yokel.”

Drew’s blue eyes were like ice. “Don’t be a prig, Ed,” he said quietly. “I told you not to wear your good clothes.”

“If the rest of this summer is like the past two days, my clothes will be old in no time!” Collins rubbed his rump in dismay. “Ten hours in that coach from North Creek! And those roads…ye gods!”