Renegade Man (10 page)

A hot rush of
feeling. Jonah’s kiss was so unlike the awkward ones we shared as
adolescents—or the sweet, searching ones Chap and I exchanged—or even the
mature, loving ones I experienced with Robert. Jonah kissing me left me ---
what?  shaken . . . and hungry for more. Like my ravenous hunger for a caramel
and chocolate Twix.  I feel driven by a need so fierce. I don’t think I can
maintain an indifferent front around Jonah in the future. It would be best all
around to keep our meetings to a minimum: don’t think I’ll offer him a ride on
my next trip into Silver City
.

Writing rapidly,
she penned her confrontation with Chap’s father under the appropriate date of
June 21, sparing as few lines as possible on the loathsome old man. She paused,
biting on her pen, and considered the very real possibility that Chap might
come back to Silver City. Jonah had; Soren had. And so had she. But Chap—would
he be willing to face his father again? She shrugged. Chap was a piece of the
past, and the past was where he belonged.

She finished
with:
Despite C.B.’s intimidating manner and veiled threats, I won’t leave
Mimbres Valley until I find my Renegade Man!

After dinner she
took her flashlight and eating utensils, along with a washcloth and bar of
soap, and walked down to the creek. The beam of her flashlight sent a
white-tailed deer leaping from the brambles, startling her, then shooting off
into the darkness. Above her, something moved in a tall pine, and her
flashlight picked out a hawk, flapping its wings derisively.

The water was
freezing, and she vowed that next time she was in town she’d check into a motel
for more than just the cursory scrubbing that the creek offered. She would have
her hair done, too. Nelda’s haircut had looked sassy, all short and curly. She
wanted something like that.

The hot springs
were ideal, but they lacked privacy. Next time she might not be so fortunate in
the man she ran into. Thinking of Buck, she shuddered.

Once she had
finished her bathing and dishwashing, she hurried back along the path. The Gila
wilderness was one of the few places in North America where the grizzly bear
still lived, and she didn’t want an introduction to one tonight. Racing clouds
crossed the moon, and her flashlight picked up a scurrying green lizard.

At last she
reached the safety of her tent, where she changed into her long johns. Night
moved in, full of sounds. Outside, the Renegade roared over its stony bed, and
the crickets and frogs took up their nocturnal communication. The high country
crackled with cold at night. Most evenings she was so exhausted that she
retired almost with the sun, because there was no point in sleeping late in the
summer. By nine in the morning the air would be boiling.

Despite her
anxiety, the night passed uneventfully, with only the hoot of a horned owl to
awaken her sometime around one in the morning.

The next day she
worked steadily. Neither C.B. nor Buck Dillard came around to bother her, and
she told herself that she had been worrying about nothing.

Downriver, she
could hear the continuous low drone of the dredger’s engine. Obviously Jonah
was still occupied in his quest for his elusive dream. The desire his kiss had
generated in her apparently hadn’t raised similar feelings in him, because he
had made no effort to seek her out again, despite their proximity. That was
fine with her. It would do no good to resurrect bittersweet memories.

Late in the
afternoon, black, angry clouds boiled over the Burro Mountains. The
thunderheads roiled across the sky, blotting out the sunlight. With work
impossible, she suppered early, washed up, changed into her long johns and
sought out her air mattress. For a while she jotted down her day’s field notes,
but then she extinguished the kerosene lantern. Over-head, thunderclaps
exploded. Raindrops rattled like buckshot against the tree leaves and the tent
canvas, then turned into a steady drizzle. She snuggled deeper into her
sleeping bag, relishing the good feeling of being protected from the fierce
storm.

Twice in
succession, noises that sounded like jets breaking the sound barrier rent the
air. She sat bolt upright. Thunder. Next to the air mattress, Magnum laid his
muzzle between his forepaws and whimpered. She scratched at the base of the
dog’s furred head. “You and I have overactive imaginations, fella. Go to
sleep.”

Then, from
outside, came the sound of something thrashing in ropes and tarp. At first she
thought the wind had risen, but the tent canvas wasn’t whipping noticeably. Then
she heard the bawling of panicked cattle, and she knew instantly what had
happened. “Magnum! Stampede!”

She scrambled to
her feet and dashed outside. Cold rain pelted her face. A bolt of lightning
filled the sky with white-hot light. Through the blur of slanting rain, she saw
six or seven shorthorns, their eyes bulging with fright. Like bumper cars, they
collided with each other as they stomped frenziedly through the grid she had so
painstakingly laid out.

“Oh, God!”

Waving her arms,
she advanced on them. Between her and a snapping Magnum, the milling cows took
to their hooves again, heading straight for her tent this time. “No!” she cried
out. “Oh, God, no!”

With a crunch
and a whoomph, the tent disappeared beneath the trampling hooves. Next the work
tent went down amid the sound of snapping aluminum poles and flapping canvas.

She buried her
face against her clenched fists and shuddered with cold and rage, disbelief and
helplessness. Her fingernails dug half-moons into her palms. When she raised
her head, the cows were charging off toward the flats.

Tears streamed
down her face, mixing with the rain. “Damn C. B. Kingsley to everlasting hell!”

A light flashed
through the darkness, blinding her. She shielded her eyes with her arm and
stared through the drizzle. The flashlight beam came closer. Soon she
recognized Jonah’s tall, rangy frame. He was shirt less, and his jeans weren’t
even snapped. “What the hell!”

“A stampede,”
she explained. Foolishly, now that it was all over, she started to sniffle.
“Kingsley stampeded a half a dozen head of cattle through here. The damned cows
destroyed everything! All the work I’ve put in, all the time and effort!”

“Six cattle do
not a stampede make, Ritz.”

“Jonah, I heard
the gunshots!” She sank to her knees in the red mud, her hands groping through
the smashed cigar boxes and soggy paper sacks that were falling apart between
her fingers. She came up with a brass button she had carefully cleaned. “Damn
him!” she sobbed.

Jonah gripped
her shoulders and hoisted her up. “There’s nothing you can do about this mess
tonight except make sure you don’t go and get sick.”

She shook off
his hands. “Leave me alone!” She turned on him, her chin jutting forward. “This
is just what you wanted! Why don’t you admit it? If I had found anything,
Tomahawk Flat would have been swamped by anthropologists and news people from
all over the world, and your dream of a paystreak would have been blown to
pieces!”

His jaw
hardened. “You haven’t changed a bit. Still bullheaded.”

Great shivers
rippled through her. She felt chilled all the way through. The flannel long
johns clung to her, and her streaming hair was plastered to her face. She
sneezed twice.

“Ahh, hell!” he
muttered. He ducked one shoulder, scooped her over it and started off across
the flat. A large hand clamped across her bottom anchored her to her unstable
perch. Each step he took jarred the breath from her diaphragm.

“Put me down,
Jonah Jones!”

He just kept
walking. She tried to wriggle away, but it was hopeless.

Magnum yipped
ineffectively at Jonah’s boot heels. “Coward!” she scolded the dog. “Attack!”

In response to
her command, Magnum sneezed, then shook the water off his coat.

“I can walk!”
she yelled at her captor.

“Barefoot? Not a
chance.”

It was the
longest quarter mile she had ever traveled. Her ribs felt fractured. A low pine
branch slapped her in the face. Her neck hurt from craning her head, but when
she lowered it, the rush of blood made her dizzy.

“Damn you, Jonah
Jones.” She doubted he heard her, but she was too breathless to curse him
again.

At last she
detected the squeaking of a door. After negotiating a step, he shifted her
slightly and edged her into his camper. She blinked against the sudden light;
then she was dumped onto a narrow bunk. She sat up quickly. “Now just a minute—”

“Get your
clothes off.”

She glared up
into his obdurate eyes. His water- spiked black lashes made the irises glitter
a pistachio green. “You may have been a member of the military, but I wasn’t
and I won’t obey your commands like some dumb private!”

“I said get your
clothes off. You do it, or I will.” She saw the unyielding set of his jaw and
knew he meant what he said. “Turn around.”

“Here.” He
tossed her a shirt from a narrow closet wedged between the two bunks. “Put that
on.”

He began
unzipping his jeans. “What are you doing?” she asked in alarm.

“The same thing
you’d better be doing. Damn it, Ritz, you’re getting the sheets wet. Now get
undressed.”

Shirt in hand,
she scurried to one corner of the cramped camper, turned to face what looked
like a pantry and began unbuttoning the top of her long johns. She peeled it
off and shrugged into a mercifully dry and warm shirt. Then she stepped out of
the bottoms. The hem of the green woolen shirt dragged around the back of her
knees.

She was still
wary about turning around. She had seen only one man nude in her life, and that
had been Robert. What had happened between her and Chap had been a hurried
thing in the dark of night. And, of course, she didn’t count Trace. “Are you
dressed yet?”

“As much as I’m
going to be tonight. Give me your long johns.”

Without looking,
she picked up the sodden mass at her feet and thrust it behind her. “Here.”

“You can stand
in the corner all night, or you can get in that bunk.”

Annoyed, she
turned to face him. What she saw literally took her breath away. Jonah wore
only black briefs. His body was gorgeous. A golden, toasty tan all over. Gilded
hair matted his long, ropy thighs and formed a broad T across his chest and
down his hard, flat stomach—and whorled even farther downward to disappear
beneath the briefs. She could feel her too-long dormant arousal blossom.

Jonah wasn’t
even looking in her direction. He had tossed her long johns atop the other
clothes piled in a corner next to a pair of mud-crusted boots. When he turned
toward her, his eyes homed in on the length of leg exposed beneath the hem of
his shirt. “This isn’t going to work,” he mumbled.

“I need a
towel.” She indicated her dripping hair. Still staring at her bare legs, he
jabbed a thumb in the direction of the mound of clothes. “There.”

“A clean towel.”

His unflinching
eyes inched up to her face. “Clean?” He straightened, his head brushing the
camper ceiling. The corners of his mouth turned down with his mustache. “You
better understand one thing now. I like chaos. I have a mortal fear of being
housebroken. So don’t start cleaning up or anything. You’re here for the night.
Only.”

“Believe me, I
don’t have the slightest desire to play housemaid. Not tonight, or ever.” She
tried to slide past without touching him, but it was impossible. Her breasts
brushed his chest. Swiftly she ducked back into the bunk and flashed a
glowering glance up at him. “A dirty towel, then, please.”

He leaned over
and retrieved a yellow towel from the pile. Her eyes fastened on his long legs.
“Stovepipe legs,” Grandpops would have called them. She took the towel with a
muttered, “Thanks.”

While he tried
to fold himself comfortably into the other bunk, which was half a foot too
short for his rangy frame, she sat there towel-drying her hair. She mused about
the grueling things that powerful body had undergone in the elite SEALs
commando force. It looked very capable of hand-to-hand combat behind enemy
lines. And equally capable of hand-to- hand encounters in the line of
seduction.

He turned his
broad back on her. She liked his back. Lean, with that sexy indentation along
the spine, banked by rippling muscles. “The light switch’s on the far wall
above the counter,” he mumbled again. “Turn it off when you finish.”

With a “Hmmmph!”
she tossed the towel back on the floor with its untidy companions—cutoff jeans,
a black tank top, a ragged washcloth and another pair of briefs, red ones. By
stretching, she was able to reach the light switch without getting up from her
bunk. Darkness closed in on the camper, and she pulled the sheet and blanket up
to her chin, then shut her eyes.

She couldn’t
sleep.

Atop the
camper’s aluminum roof, rain tapped out a steady beat. In the distance, muted
thunder rumbled. The cool air, carrying with it the fresh, earthy scents of the
rain, seeped through the open ceiling vent to make sure she stayed awake.