Reilly's Woman (12 page)

"Hello." The grooves around his mouth deepened with the familiar smile that crinkled his eyes.

"Hello," Leah returned, feeling self-conscious without knowing why.

"Are you hungry?" He poured the liquid from the pan into one of the small bowls.

"A little," she admitted, and tried to shift into a sitting position, only to discover she was weaker than she had realized.

"Lie down. I'll feed you," he said, lithely rising to walk over to her.

"That's squaw's work, isn't it?" An impish smile curved her lips.

The line of his mouth crooked in response. "It is, but an Indian is sometimes forced into the role when his woman is crazy with fever."

Her heart lurched at the term "his woman." He couldn't have meant her to take it literally since he had only been responding in jest to her lighthearted question. Yet it certainly was a heartstopping thought.

Setting the bowl on the ground nearby, Reilly took his backpack, cushioned it with his shirt, and put it beneath her head for a pillow. Cross-legged, he sat beside her and picked up the bowl.

"How many 'moons' have I been out?" Leah asked after swallowing a spoonful of broth put to her lips.

"Three nights." Another spoonful was held to her mouth.

"That long?" she breathed in surprise.

"Try eating without talking," he suggested with amusement, "It will be much faster."

When half the bowl was gone, Leah couldn't manage any more and Reilly set it aside, not forcing her to eat more than she wanted.

"How does your arm feel?" His dark head was tilted to one side, his gaze intently studying her.

Tentatively she moved her left arm, testing it carefully. It was sore, but without that aching throb. She smiled with relief.

"Much better," she nodded.

"You'd better let me have a look at it," he said. "I don't trust your opinion any more." The roguish glint in his eyes removed the sting from his comment.

Without any protest, Leah began unbuttoning her blouse. She was on the third button before she realized she wasn't wearing a bra. Red stained her cheeks a crimson hue as she darted a covert look at Reilly.

"Do you remember that when you were delirious with fever I undressed you to bathe you in the pool?" A black eyebrow arched briefly with question.

Her fingers fumbled with the buttons, neither undoing them nor buttoning them back up. "Yes, I remember." She averted her gaze.

"Your shoulders were chafed from the backpack, so I didn't put your bra back on," he explained.

"I see," she murmured, staring at her fingers clutching the blouse front.

His thumb and forefinger captured her chin and lifted her head to meet the gentle amusement dancing in his eyes. "So did I. Everything there was to see." Her flush deepened, as did his voice with mockery. "It's pointless to turn prudish now, don't you think?"

Leah's answer was to unbutton her blouse the rest of the way, heat flaming through her veins. While Reilly eased her left arm out of the sleeve, she discreetly shielded her breast with her hand. The blood pounded in her ear.

If he found her action amusing, he made no outward sign. Expertly and impersonally, he examined the wound and rebandaged it, helping her back into the blouse.

"This time I think it will heal," he announced, turning away while she rebuttoned the front. "I could wring your neck for not telling me it was bothering you."

"I thought it was healing," Leah defended self-consciously.

"From now on, let me be the judge." He picked up the bowl and rolled to his feet in one fluid moment, reminding her again of his animal grace. "You'd better get some more rest."

"I've been sleeping for days as it is. I think I should get up before I become permanently bedridden," she stated, fighting the waves of weakness as she tried to sit up.

"There's time enough to try your legs tonight, but you rest this afternoon," Reilly insisted.

She lacked the strength to get up on her own. She had to lie back down. Despite the hours of sleep she had had, she was soon dozing off again.

A purple dusk had settled overhead when she awoke, casting its violet color on the smooth water of the dammed pool. Chunks of meat sizzled on a spit above a low camp fire. Again Reilly's sixth sense alerted him to Leah's wide-awake state.

"The food is about ready," he stated. "Do you want to sit by the fire?"

"Yes," she answered emphatically.

When he had lifted her to her feet, Leah's long legs felt like quivering sticks of jelly beneath her. She wavered unsteadily toward the fire. She doubted she could have made it even that short distance if it hadn't been for the support of his steady hand at her waist.

Shakily, she sat cross-legged in front of the firs, realizing the full extent of her weakness. Even her hand trembled when she took the bowl of greens Reilly offered her.

"What is this?" she asked.

"I found some rushes growing on the far side of the pool," he answered, spooning the rest into his bowl. "They may be a bit stringy, but they're edible and nourishing."

Actually Leah thought the dish was quite tasty—different and stringy as Reilly had warned, but otherwise good. But it was the tender white quail meat, roasted to perfection on the spit, that really aroused her appetite. She felt positively stuffed as she finished the last piece and licked her fingers in satisfaction.

"That was delicious," she sighed.

"You liked it?" A sideways glance moved briefly over her face.

"Mmmm, did I ever!" Leah pressed a hand against her full stomach. "How did you manage to catch the quail? Did you set a snare?" Unless she had slept very soundly, she hadn't heard any gunshot.

"Quail?" A crooked grin lifted one corner of his mouth.

"That's what it was, wasn't it?" She eyed him curiously.

"No," Reilly drawled the word. "I don't mean to ruin your meal, but it was rattlesnake."

Closing her eyes, Leah quickly swallowed a lump that had suddenly risen in her throat, then took a couple of shaky, calming breaths. Slowly the color returned to her face as the brief nausea passed.

"Is the meal still delicious?" He had been watching her changing expression with wicked laughter in his eyes.

"Maybe not quite as good as it was when I thought I was eating quail," Leah admitted.

Reilly smiled, lighting a cigarette and handing it to her, then lighting one for himself. Their cigarette smoke mingled with the wispy trail from the fire. Although the shock of actually eating snake had worn off, Leah wanted to divert the conversation from food.

"Do you know that in all the time we've been stranded, you've hardly told me anything about yourself? I've rattled on about my parents and Lonnie and my vagabond childhood, but I know very little about you, except that you design turquoise jewelry."

There were a lot of other things she had observed about him, his calmness in a crisis, his knowledge of the desert, but no actual facts about his life.

"What would you like to know, for instance?" he asked dryly, yet not refusing to divulge personal information about himself.

"I don't know." In truth, Leah wanted to know everything, but she tried to sound lighthearted and nonchalant. "For instance, how did someone who's part Indian get a name like Reilly Smith?"

"You were expecting something more like John Black Feather," Reilly chuckled, exhaling a gauzy cloud of smoke.

"Something like that," she laughed easily at his jesting reply.

"My mother was a half-breed. It's from her that I received my Indian ancestry. The name is from my father, who was Irish." At the questioning arch of Leah's eyebrow, Reilly smiled and nodded. "Yes, although his surname was Smith, he was strictly Irish."

"How?"

"It was common practice years ago for men with questionable pasts to change their names. That's what my father's father did. My father never knew what his real name was, but the family rumor said that my grandfather had killed a man in a bar-room fight back East. No one ever proved whether it was fact or fantasy. One fact is known and that is that he married an Irish lass named Maureen O'Reilly, who was my grandmother. My father left off the 'O' when he named me."

"Are your parents alive?"

"No. My father was killed in a car accident shortly after I was born. And my mother wasn't able to keep me with her, so I was raised by her parents on a reservation. She died when I was eight." Reilly studied the tip of his cigarette for a few silent seconds, then glanced at Leah and smiled almost absently. "Anything else you want to know?"

Leah stared into the fire. Remembering Grady's comment that Reilly was a loner, she was surprised that he had already told her so much about his past. But his last question had invited her to ask more and, she definitely wanted to know more.

"What was it like growing up on a reservation?"

"Simple." Knowing that reply was insufficient, he continued, "I went to school with other Indian children, took care of my grandparents' sheep, and helped with other chores. Their home was in an isolated area of semi-desert land. My grandfather made turquoise jewelry as a hobby and a way to supplement their meager income. Whenever I had my work done, he would let me help." A corner of his mouth lifted wryly in memory. "My help was mostly cobbing."

"What's that?" she frowned.

"Separating the turquoise from the host rock with a pair of pliers or a hammer and lead block," Reilly explained. "My grandfather got most of his ore from an abandoned mine in the hills that had been commercially worked out years ago."

"But that's how you got interested in jewelry?"

"Yes." He flicked the cigarette butt into the fire, then looked away to study the first timid stars in the night sky. "In many respects I grew up thinking like an Indian with some of the old customs and traditions, yet I always knew I was mostly white. I never really belonged." When he paused, Leah didn't fill the silence, but waited. "I've never decided whether it was the Indian quarter of my blood desiring freedom that prompted me to leave the reservation or the materialistic white part of me that gave me driving ambition and the desire for a different life."

"You can't divide yourself," Leah murmured. "You're the end product of both worlds, whole and complete."

In her mind, she added more. He was a strong and complete man, creative and intelligent, resourceful and proud. Sewing all those qualities together was a strain of unshakable confidence in himself that gave him an inner peace.

"We're becoming too philosophical," he told her firmly. "I think it's time we went to bed. I'll move it closer to the fire."

While he retrieved the blanket a few feet away, Leah stared at the fire only inches from her knees. "Why do you always make such a small fire? Wouldn't it be warmer if it was larger?"

Reilly spread the blanket beside the fire within arm's reach of the woodpile so the fire could easily be fed during the night.

"The white man makes a large fire, then has to sleep several feet away because it's too hot. The Indian makes a small fire and lies down beside it." He held out his hand to help her to her feet, the flickering reflection of the fire dancing in his eyes.

 

 

Chapter Seven

 

THE SERENITY OF the pool was soothing, clear and cool without a ripple to disturb its smoothness. The small water willows curved above it to admire their reflection on its surface. A faint breeze stirred the rushes at the far end while water giggled over the dammed side of the pool to follow the course of the narrow silver stream.

Leaning against a slim tree trunk, Leah plucked at a blade of grass. She was not as weak as she had been yesterday, but her strength was quickly sapped.

A string rested in a curved line on the water, the unravelled threads from one of Reilly's shirts that he had plaited together. The string was attached to one of the lean-to poles and a pin from the first-aid kit was fashioned into a hook on the other end.

A faint, questioning smile touched the edges of her mouth. "Do you really think there are any fish in the pond?"

"No." Reilly darted her a sideways look, the grooves around his mouth deepened. "But it's an excellent excuse to sit and think."

"Think about what?"

"Things." He shrugged with one shoulder.

"What things?" Leah prompted.

The line of his mouth straightened, leading her to believe that his thoughts were serious ones. He didn't answer immediately.

"This is a good place." His alert gaze swept the area. "There's plenty of water, and firewood too from that deadfall over there."

"And it's peacefully beautiful," Leah added to his practical assessment. "We were lucky to find it."

"Against the earth tones of the desert, a patch of green stands out for miles. And where there's green, there's water," he replied." I noticed it when we were almost at the bottom of the mountain."

Turning her gaze to the mountains that ringed them on three sides, Leah tried to locate the saddle-backed ridge on which their plane had crashed. Each mountain and ridge bore a likeness to another and she couldn't find it.