Renegade Bride (13 page)

He glanced at the plate in his hands, then picked up his tin cup of coffee. Standing, he bent backward to stretch his spine. "We'd better get some rest. We have another long day tomorrow. I'll take these things down to the river and give you some privacy."

The soreness that had seeped into Mariah's body since she'd sat down advised her not to argue. Pride compelled her to prove she could hold up her end of the bargain.

"I can wash them in the bucket of water you drew from the river." Leaning one hand heavily on the rock behind her, she forced herself up. She swayed slightly because she'd stood too fast and she bit back a groan at the cramping of the stiff muscles in her legs.

"I don't think you're up to it tonight," he said, eyeing her suspiciously.

"Of course I am," she denied, relieving him of the dishes in his hand. But even as she walked toward the bucket, the muscles of her right leg contorted in pain. She faltered mid-step and bit her lip, praying it would pass. The torment only grew worse. The dishes fell heedlessly from her fingers and she dropped to the ground, clutching the cramping leg.

Devereaux was instantly at her side. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Cramp—" she groaned through clenched teeth. But she rocked back and forth, clutching her knee to her chest. Her foot curled inward at an awkward angle as the muscle pulled against itself.

"Where?" he demanded. "Show me where."

She couldn't show him. She could only clutch the offending limb as if it were on fire. She squeezed her eyes shut against the vise-like pain.

She gasped as Devereaux grabbed her foot, ripped the laces out of her ankle-high black boot and tore it off. "Oh, don't, please," she moaned, "it... it hurts—"

He cursed and drew her leg to him. His hands curled around her foot and pushed it from its awkward position back toward her shin, stretching the cramped muscle and massaging the tightness out. Again Mariah squeezed her eyes shut, giving in to the sickening pain.

Creed leaned forward over her leg, massaging it in long deep strokes that dug into her tender flesh.

His thumbs slid intimately over the smoothness of her stockinged leg—the taut curve of her calf, the slender perfection of her ankle—and as the tension left her, it gathered in him. Low and hard, like a blow to the gut, stirring a painful, startling ache farther down.

But it was more than lust he felt tugging at his loins. Much more than simple damned lust, he told himself. To lay his hands on her was like looking into the sun too long or pressing his palm to a hot iron and lacking the will to move away.

Le bon Dieu.
He shouldn't have touched her. He knew it was a mistake, but he could do nothing else, could he? She was in pain. Well, now, so was he.

Oh, hell, he thought. Hell, hell, hell.

Mariah dared to look up at him as slowly, painfully, the agony receded. The firelight gleamed off his long, dark hair where it fell in a curtain across his face. She watched the lean but powerful muscles of his shoulders bunch and strain beneath his deerskin shirt.

He was a man of great violence and great gentleness. So unlike the other men she'd known. Different, so different from Seth.

He had a healing touch, she thought. Strong, gentle, knowing. More than that, it was almost... electric. The unmistakable current passed from his hands to her, prickling her skin, filling her with an emotion she couldn't name. She pressed the knuckles of one hand suddenly to her mouth.

Heaven help her, she thought, fighting back the wave of attraction that curled within her as he caressed her with his thumbs in deep, sensuous strokes. Her skin heated with a flush of guilt at the blatantly carnal thought that had just flitted through her mind. Her heartbeat quickened and she barely suppressed the cry that hovered at the base of her throat.

His hands stilled on her leg. He lifted his head and looked at her as if he'd heard her thought.

"Mr. Devereaux—" she whispered. "I—"

He glanced up, meeting her gaze with those fathomless eyes shot through with firelight. They betrayed—for the briefest of seconds—a hunger she wished she hadn't seen, a hunger she was afraid was in her eyes as well.

He kept her leg balanced between his two hands. "Better?" he asked, his voice low and even.

Dragging her gaze from his, she winced and nodded. "Much. I... thank you. I'm... I'm sorry."

He released her, his expression turning to a scowl. "You should have told me."

She stared at him, confused, dizzy with fatigue, wondering if he was actually reprimanding her for having a cramp. "Told you what?"

"That you were too exhausted to go on today. That I was pushing you too hard."

"I never said—" His pained expression trapped the lie in her throat. She dropped her hands into her lap. "I didn't want to slow you down."

"Le Diable."
With a harsh, irritated sigh he turned partially away. "You did well today. Better than I expected you to. Even so, you
are
slowing me down, but I've no wish to kill you, for God's sake." Then, as if to soften his words, he raised one dark eyebrow and shrugged. "Seth would tack my hide to his storefront if I did."

She laughed. "I'm glad to know at least you've some stake in the matter."

He didn't smile, but held her gaze intently. "It's not just your leg, is it? You can barely move."

Denying it, she sat up straighter, but couldn't help wincing at the soreness of her bottom. "I've stiffened from sitting. I'll be fine with some sleep." She drew her leg in, covering it modestly with her skirts.

"We have a lot of ground to cover tomorrow. Will you be able to ride?"

"Of course," she answered, but the thought of settling her bruised knees and bottom on that torture rack of a saddle again nearly brought on another cramp. "I'll walk if I have to."

He stared at her for a moment, then stood and reached down with one hand. She hesitated only an instant before taking it, clasping her fingers around his.

When he'd hauled her to her feet, he gestured toward her bedroll. "Go to bed before you fall down again, Miss Parsons. Get some rest. Tomorrow will come sooner than you want it to." He gathered up the fallen dishes and cups, then headed toward the rushing sound of the nearby river.

"Mister Devereaux?"

He stopped and turned, his expression hidden by shadows, but she heard him sigh. "Now that I have manhandled your lovely ankle,
ma petite,"
he said, "perhaps you could do me the favor of calling me by my Christian name. It's Creed. Just Creed."

"All right. Creed," she answered, testing it out on her tongue. "I—thank you."

He might have inclined his head in reply there in the shadows, she couldn't be sure. But he turned and disappeared into the darkness without reply.

Stumbling to the bedroll he'd spread out for her, she dropped down in a loose-limbed sprawl, too tired to remove her other boot or fight with the over-tight strings on her corset. Besides, it was too cold to undress. She tugged two heavy blankets over her and lay staring sightlessly at the stars scattered across the inky half-dome above, wrestling with what had just happened between them.

A bounty hunter! Gad! She was having impure thoughts about a bounty hunter! More despicable than that, he was Seth's friend. She groaned and pulled the blanket up around her face between her fists. What did that make her? A wanton? A strumpet? Yes, all those things, but worse was the truth she couldn't deny. No man, not even Seth, had ever stirred that kind of feelings in her before—the kind that made her heart race and plunge, made her whole body heat as if it were too close to a fire, or made her long for things she didn't even understand.

She closed her eyes, watching the flames flicker behind her eyelids, feeling the crisp night air on her face. She forced her thoughts to Seth, dear Seth and his boyish, open face. He waited for her, sick—perhaps—
Dear God—
dying. Then she remembered her father's strong surgeon's hand reaching for her chubby young one, sheltering, protecting her; and her Grandmother Lottie's constant reminders that life was full of the unexpected and that she should follow the road that truly made her happy.

That's why she'd come to Montana. She'd come to make a home with Seth. He would make her truly happy, wouldn't he? Until this moment, she'd always been sure of that. As sure as she could be.

But as she drifted off to sleep, it was Creed Devereaux she dreamed of, lonely, running with the wolves that bayed in the distance; silver moonlight streaking his mane of hair, he ran among the creatures of the night, seeking his mate.

Chapter 7

The aroma of strong coffee woke him. Or maybe it was the soft groan.

Disoriented, Creed squinted an eye open and shoved his blanket down past his nose. The sky was still pink with dawn. His breath formed a white cloud in the cold morning air, then drifted up into the low pine bough overhead. The fire crackled nearby and a pot of steaming coffee dangled from his collapsible black iron tripod. Creed blinked and raised his head.

"Oooh-h," came the sound again.

Mariah.

His gaze found her. Wrapped in a heavy shawl, she edged up slowly—very slowly—from a kneeling position near her tapestry valise. She rested her hands on her thighs for a moment, massaging the stiffness he knew was there. Straightening, she raised her arms and pulled the pins from her mussed hair. One at a time, she plucked them out until her magnificent auburn mane fell loose and cascaded over her shoulders and breasts.

His lips parted. He'd never seen it down before, but even his imagination hadn't done it justice. Like molten fire, it shimmered in the sunlight, here gold, there burnished, earthy red. The curls went halfway down her back and she ran her fingers through them to get out the worst of the snarls.

His gaze followed her shuffling movements across the camp to the leather bucket. "Ohh-hh," she moaned again as she stooped and broke the layer of ice in the bucket with one end of her hairbrush. She pulled a hanky from her sleeve and dipped it into the water. She wrung it out delicately and ran the cloth over her face and hands. Shivering with a sigh, she wiped her face on the edge of her shawl, then turned in his direction again.

Creed sank back to his bedroll, feigning sleep, but cracked an eye open to watch her. She limped back to stand near the fire, running the brush through her hair in long, sweeping strokes. His gaze roamed over her face; her pert nose, reddened from yesterday's long ride in the sun; her full, wide lips; her slender hands, following the path of the boar's bristle down her hair.

He swallowed, unable to look away. There was something intimate—erotic, in fact—about watching a woman brush her hair. He remembered the first time Desiree Lupone had let him brush her brassy red hair, having caught the look in his eye as he watched her do it. It had become part of their ritual after that when he visited her, a silent gift she gave him, knowing how he enjoyed it.

But Desiree's hair didn't hold a candle to Mariah's. His fingers itched to touch, get lost in the silky, cinnamon waves.

He blinked again. A fragment of a dream came back to him, but it remained on the edge of his memory. Only the telling tightening of his loins warned him that it hadn't been an altogether honorable fantasy. He buried his nose deeper in the blanket.

Had he finally sunk so low that all that was left to him were fantasies about other men's women? Seth's woman.

Damnation.

Four years. Four long years alone and what had he to show for it? Three men dead and how many more brought to justice? Men who meant nothing to him but a promise of money. A mercenary was what he'd become.

A bounty hunter.
He said the words to himself with her loathsome inflection. And all for what? The meager satisfaction of seeing Étienne LaRousse's unseeing eyes roll back in his head? His stomach twisted at the memory. No, he had planned to make him suffer longer. Much longer.

But even that couldn't have undone his father's murder, nor made up for the dearth in Creed's life for the past four years. Seth had urged him to let go of the past, get a life for himself with a woman.

He looked at Mariah.
Doesn't it ever get lonely?
she'd asked. Was he so transparent? Sometimes he was so lonely an ache formed like a fist in his chest. Women like Desiree had slaked his physical urges, but it was a hollow satisfaction, not the kind that soothed the emptiness. He never allowed himself to dwell on it. He would always find one more man to track, one more bounty to keep him in food until he found his real quarry.