Nothing But Trouble (11 page)

Deciding the warmth of the fire won out over Stoney’s mood swing, she plopped herself on the ground opposite him.  It didn’t take long for her to feel the fire’s heat against her cold cheeks.

“Feels good,” she said in an effort to make small talk.

He pitched a broken twig to the burning embers.  He seemed mesmerized by the crackle and the colorful blaze.  The sound of wolves calling to each other in the distance startled her.  They both looked out into the black night in the same direction.

Stoney turned back to her.  “Don’t worry.  With the fire going, they shouldn’t come close to camp.  The horses will let us know before anything else if an animal is lurking about.”

She drew in a pensive breath, still looking into ominous shadows the fire made past the rocks.  She was going to have to get used to this.  Out here there were grizzly bear and cougar.  In Africa, there’d be lions and tigers.  This is what she’d come here for. 

She closed her eyes, hugging her knees to her chest and listened.  “Sounds almost musical, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

Moments passed by as they listened to the night sounds with silence between them.  Melanie was relieved that the tension seemed to have faded.  Stoney was the one to break the silence.

“What you said about your family wanting you to marry for a business deal.  It being tradition and all.  Was that true or were you joking?”

Melanie felt a dull ache in the pit of her stomach.  “I wish I were.  They’ve always wanted me to have what they have.”

He shook his head.  “Don’t your parents love each other?”

How could he understand? Melanie thought.  There was so much love that flowed in the Buxton house.  She’d felt it as soon as she arrived.  “I guess they have a kind of love for each other now.  They’re sort of comfortable with who they are.  Mom has her friends and the country club and her charities.  Dad has his associates and...I don’t know.  I guess they’re happy enough with what they have.  It was a given they’d get married.  Everyone thought they would.  I doubt they’d ever considered anything else.”

“I don’t get it.”

Sadly, neither did Melanie.  She always wanted to believe her parents had the kind of love that passed the test of time.  But the only thing that ever shook their marriage was Melanie and her diabetes.  That was the only time she heard them fight and even then, it was in the wee hours of the morning when they thought she was asleep.

She’d hear her father saying that Melanie wasn’t normal, that she was special.  They’d used her beauty as a way to offset her medical imperfection, calling her special.  It wasn’t the kind of special she wanted to be.  It was the kind that made her feel she was defective.

Instead, they called her beautiful and paraded her around like she was a trophy, like her mother was to her father.  Except Melanie didn’t want that kind of life.  She didn’t want to be loved because she was beautiful.  She wanted to feel beautiful because she was loved.

Melanie understood early on the seriousness of her illness.  She knew what she had to do to stay healthy and was religious with her treatment.  But unlike her mother and father, Melanie didn’t believe that it was all she was.  She wasn’t just a diabetic.  She wasn’t just beautiful.  She had a lot more to offer and life had a lot more to offer her than they were willing to acknowledge.

 “How come you didn’t saddle down some rich guy to take you on this little excursion?” he asked, tossing a piece of kindling into the fire.  It took a second, then the dry wood burst into flame with the embers.

He gave her a lingering sidelong glance that made her suck in a small breath.  With the flickers of light painting shadows on his chiseled features, Stoney was incredibly sexy.  He looked just like one of those cowboys in an old western movie.  The one who always rides in his black stallion in the heat of battle to rescue the damsel in distress.  Melanie was far from a damsel in distress and she let him know it.

“I don’t have a rich guy,” she said, emphasizing the word rich just enough to let him know how irritated it made her that he kept bringing up the difference in their social status.

She didn’t know why, but she thought she’d seen a flicker of something cross his features.  As if the thought that there wasn’t a man in her life was somehow a relief to him.  Lord knows there had been ample opportunity for her to meet eligible wealthy men.  Her mother had done a pretty good job picking and choosing the right men to introduce her to at each and every social function she was forced to attend.

But none of them held any interest for Melanie.  The kind of life that the men she’d known were after, the kind of life her parents hoped and prayed she’d eventually embrace, was too superficial.  Her mother said she was cursed to be born a Gemini.  Too much adventure would get her into trouble, she’d always warned.  But it was better than being locked in a world with fake smiles and no love.  No real love.

“And I don’t need a man to take care of me,” she insisted.

He grinned wryly.  She immediately knew what he was thinking.  And he wasted no time bringing that fact to light.

“Then I guess I can head home tomorrow because you won’t need me.”

“Not so fast, cowboy.  I’ve got too much riding on this.”

“Care to tell me about it?”

“All I need from you is a notarized letter stating I’ve spent the last thirty days in your company in the Wyoming wilderness.  The rest really is of no importance.”

“Except to you.”

“Exactly.”

Stoney reclined back in his bedroll and clasped his hands behind his head as he looked up at the billions of stars dotting the black sky.

“Fine,” he said tersely.  She noted the slightly biting tone to his voice.

“Good, because I really feel-”

He lifted his head off the ground an inch and turned to her.  “Morning will be here before you know it.  It’s time we turned in.”

Melanie felt a hot flow of emotion wash over her.  He was blowing her off!  “Fine,” she parroted. 

She was about to stalk off toward her tent when her eyes captured the glow of a shiny metal barrel sticking out from underneath Stoney’s sleeping bag. 

“You have a gun,” she said harshly.

His hand moved to the gun, unearthing it from its hiding place beneath the bedroll.  “It’s just a precaution.”

“For what?”

“As long as we’re careful, we won’t have any problems.  We’re trespassing in the backyard of many animals who may not like our being here.  You of all people should understand that.  I don’t plan on firing the gun unless we’re in danger.”

She sucked in a deep breath.  The mountains seemed so peaceful, so serene.  For a brief moment, she’d forgotten that they weren’t alone.  After all, this was the reason why she’d come to Wyoming.  Although the desire to work in the field had always been there, Melanie realized there was quite a lot she didn’t know.

His mouth twisted into a sarcastic smirk.  “What did you expect?”

“I just didn’t realize you’d brought a shotgun.  That’s all.”

“You have a problem with guns?”

“No.”  She started to turn, but angled back.  “When they’re used for the right purpose, that is.”

He scowled, his features growing hard and his mouth tightening.  “I assure you.  I don’t abuse my privilege to use this gun on anything other than what is absolutely necessary.”

She nodded, still feeling a little shaky with the concept of a gun being in tow on this journey.  But she let it go.  She loved animals.  The thought of hunting for game for sport had never sat well with her.  She felt only a twinge of guilt in thinking that was the reason Stoney had brought the gun.  But Stoney was right.  It was necessary in the wilderness as a precaution.  She only prayed there’d be no cause for Stoney to ever use that gun in her presence.

She crawled into her tent and zipped the hatch closed behind her, remembering at once that she hadn’t checked her sugar level for the evening.  In the quiet of the night, Stoney was sure to hear the beeping of her blood monitor calculating her blood sugar, but she’d have to make some excuse for the noise.

She reached into her duffel and pulled out the small flashlight, hanging it on the strap above her so that it would shine a constant beam on her duffel bag.  She pulled out her equipment, blood machine, test strips, an insulin vial and syringe, and proceeded with the twice daily ritual that had become second nature to her.

It didn’t take much for sleep to claim her once she finally climbed into her sleeping bag.  Every muscle in her body screamed in protest as her limbs tightened.  Though the sleeping bag was warm, with a thick fleece lining, it took a while for the warmth to seep into her bones. 

She chose to sleep in her clothes, something she’d never done before.  As a result, she awoke sometime during the night with her wool sweater twisted around her chest and the waistband of her jeans digging into her side.  As she stripped off her bra, the jeans, and her socks while still zipped in an awkward position in the sleeping bag, she heard the sound of the horses nickering and grunting, and immediately recalled what Stoney had said about the horse sounding a call when animals drew closer to camp. 

She welcomed the morning, although it didn’t come as quickly as Melanie would have hoped.  With the promise of the sunrise just peaking over the east of the mountain range, she knew she wouldn't last another minute held up in her tent.

She quickly grabbed a pair of clean underwear, a new pair of jeans and a white long sleeve cotton jersey, wishing they’d had the opportunity to find one of those hot springs Gerald Hammond had boasted about the day she’d been in his shop.  She let the longing for a hot bath slide in return for a dip in the pond.  Melanie vaguely recalled seeing a small cove tucked in the seclusion of a stand of pine trees.  Since she had every intention of keeping herself as clean as she could despite her lack of pamperings, she decided that was as good a place as any to take her first cold bath.

As she climbed out of the tent, donning nothing but the nightshirt she’d finally pulled on in the middle of the night, she saw the coals from the campfire were still smoking.  Beside the campfire, Stoney was asleep in his sleeping bag, his cowboy boots propped at the foot of his bedroll.  On top of them was the red chamois shirt Stoney had worn the previous day.

Her stomach tightened, and she felt the familiar stir of desire coil inside her as she thought of Stoney’s bare chest.  His face was tossed to one side and held the peacefulness of a child.  She fought the incredible urge to reach out and stroke her fingers along the side of his cheek.  He’d shaven yesterday, but now his face was shadowed with his day old beard and had Melanie wondering if he’d bother to shave at all this month.  What did he look like in a beard?  What secrets did a man like Stoney hide behind such a mask?

No more secrets than her own, she decided.  And it wasn’t for her to think about anyway.  She had her own goals to realize, and she wasn’t going to do that if she spent the entire month yearning for Stoney Buxton, no matter how much he made her heart stop with his drop-dead smile.

She eased herself away from him slowly, trying not to disturb his sleep.  He stirred and rolled over on his side, revealing the strength of his bare shoulders. 

The small cove was only about one hundred yards past the point where the horses were picketed.  Even if Stoney woke up, she was sure to have some privacy.

She grabbed the basin and a bar of glycerin soap that was gentle on the environment and headed toward the cove.  The morning dew clung to the ground and sent a chill racing through her with each step.  Although it was June, the morning was rather chilly, and Melanie was almost having second thoughts about taking her dunk until she reached the cove and saw how inviting the water looked.