Rexanne Becnel (33 page)

Half the morning was gone. She wouldn’t have expected Tanner to allow her so much time alone.

It was probably guilt that kept him away, she decided before she could attribute any softer emotion to him. She scrambled to her knees, shook off her damp chemise as best she could, then snatched up the comb and brush. The coffee was cold by the time she had most of the knots out of her hair. But then she’d had so much cold coffee on this journey west that it almost didn’t matter anymore. She drank it quickly, then braided her hair over one shoulder. Finally, her wet skirt and blouse held before her like a shield, she started back toward their meager camp. Toward Tanner.

To her surprise clean clothes were laid out for her on a blanket at the campsite. Her shoes were aligned just beside the clothes, and a plate of beans, biscuits, and jerky was perched on a flat stone. But all other signs of the camp had already been obliterated. Even the firepit had been swept away and sprinkled with dirt and dried weeds. A little way beyond her, Mac and Tulip grazed, fully loaded for travel. But where was Tanner?

He didn’t make his appearance until she was fully clothed, a coincidence that gave her the uncomfortable feeling that he’d been watching her all along. But then, so what? she decided with a belligerent jut to her chin. Let him look. Looking was the closest he’d ever get to her again.

She laced up her second worn calfskin boot, refusing even to glance at him, though she was vitally aware of his every move. He led the horses nearer, then busied himself checking their girth straps while she consumed her hasty meal.

“You can drape your wet things over Tulip’s pack.”

Abby chewed the dry biscuit, afraid she’d never be able to swallow for the lump that rose in her throat. Why must he suddenly act so conciliatory when they both knew it was all a farce?

“I want to ride Tulip today. If her leg is strong enough,” she added as an afterthought.

“It’s not.”

Abby stood up and threw the remainder of her biscuit on the ground. “Then I’ll walk.”

Finally they were looking at each other, standing ten feet apart, Abby glaring, Tanner frowning.

“You can’t walk, Abby. We need to move fast today. In case someone else is following us.”

She shook her head, buying time until she was sure her voice would remain steady. Both fury and utter despair battled within her, neither of which she wished to reveal to him. “If you think someone’s following us, why have we lingered here so long?”

She took small satisfaction that his jaw clenched and his gaze flickered momentarily away from hers. But it quickly returned. “We shouldn’t have delayed this long,” he muttered. “I just thought you … that you might need a little extra time.”

“Oh?” She lifted her chin even higher. “And when did
you
suddenly become so thoughtful?”

With a gesture she’d come to recognize, he removed his hat and whacked it against his thigh, raising a cloud of dust. “Look, Abby. I know you’re mad. And you have every right to be. I know last night was a mistake. But if you’re afraid to ride with me because of that—”

He broke off when she whirled away from him. She hadn’t meant to react so strongly. But having him confirm his feelings was simply too much.

“I’m a fast walker,” she choked out, clinging to their initial subject.

He didn’t respond, and for a moment there was only the prairie quiet, wind and insects and the distant bark of a fox. Then he exhaled slowly. “You ride with me,” he bit out as though he dreaded it too.

He took her wet clothes and draped them over Tulip’s pack. Then he led the horses toward Abby. “Don’t fight me on this,” he warned.

Abby swallowed hard, then responded with a reluctant nod. In a moment his strong hands were on her waist, then he lifted her so that she could straddle Mac’s wide back. Their eyes met briefly, just a furtive glance. Yet it fanned to life what had become her two greatest fears: that she could succumb to him again on the flimsiest of pretexts and, perversely, that he would never give her the chance to.

They rode until sunset with only one stop in the early afternoon. At first Abby held herself stiffly erect, trying to minimize the contact between their bodies. It was of course a hopelessly doomed task. His thighs snugged up around her derriere and upper legs. His knees
bumped into the back of her legs.

She held his chest and arms at bay a little better. But every time Mac changed direction, every time they went up a low hill or down an incline, her back moved up against his chest, and his arms necessarily slid along hers.

But he didn’t show by either word or action that he was the least bit perturbed by their enforced proximity, while she … she was dying from it. Still, when he pulled Mac to a halt beside the confluence of two muddy rivulets, he pushed himself away from her and slid down Mac’s rump as if he’d been counting down the seconds to do so. He didn’t even linger to help her down, though Abby was relieved at that. She was fully capable of dismounting on her own. It was facing him—meeting his piercing blue gaze—that she wasn’t certain she could handle.

She swung her leg over the patient Mac’s back, then held on for dear life once her feet hit the ground. She was a fast walker but an inexperienced rider. With her inner thighs burning from the unfamiliar friction and her muscles stretched in new ways, her legs were almost too weak to sustain her.

Or was it a different friction and a different sort of stretching that affected her so?

Abby pressed her lips together, stilling their sudden trembling. And she had thought Martha a hussy. Here
she
was, utterly fallen from grace, and yet still unsure whether she loved or hated the man responsible.

She pushed herself away from Mac and squared her shoulders. What was she doing, feeling sorry for herself all the time? She’d never been this way before.

She’d never lost both her parents—and her heart—before either, a forlorn little voice reminded her.

And yet she was a grown woman, not like those little children who’d lost both parents to cholera. Now,
they
had reason to feel sorry for themselves.

She retucked the front of her blouse into her waistband, then smoothed the flyaway tendrils of hair back from her brow. She was headed to Chicago with a man who saw her as no more than a bounty to be reaped—in more ways than one, it appeared. Now that he’d won the physical pursuit, however, he seemed to be regretting it, for it was bound to make their forced proximity extremely uncomfortable. The most she could do was hurry their trip along and be rid of him as soon as possible. It would be horrible while it lasted, but eventually it would end.

As for what she would find in Chicago, she would simply face that when she got there.

When Tanner returned from his heated walk—anything to distance himself from the torture of Abby’s too-accessible presence all day—he found that she had started a fire, unpacked the cooking utensils, and unsaddled Mac. Her sleeves were unrolled and she had an apron on.

“Fetch water,” she ordered him without even bothering to glance at him. “While I start dinner, you can tend the horses.”

When he only stood there, puzzled and staring, she sent him a fulminating glare. “How many days till we get to Chicago?”

“A couple of weeks,” Tanner answered automatically. A couple of long, torturous weeks of being with her every minute of the day and night.

“A couple of weeks,” she repeated as if the thought was too daunting to comprehend. She picked up a length of willow wood and placed it in the fire. “Well, the sooner we get started each day, the sooner we’ll get there.”

It was a fact neither of them knew whether to celebrate or mourn.

O
NCE BEFORE—A LIFETIME
ago, it seemed—Abby had remarked on the routine of life on the trail. The numbing sameness. The one saving grace of that sameness had been that it had freed her imagination to soar. The dullness of her own daily tasks had allowed Tillie’s adventures to unfold with many a twist and turn. Abby’s little mouse had met prairie dogs and rattlesnakes, survived a buffalo stampede and ridden one wild and stormy night in an Indian brave’s arrow sheath. Poor Snitch had been worn ragged keeping up with the irresponsible Tillie.

Now, however, Tillie had changed. Though Abby tried by day to imagine her furry heroine in all sorts of exciting situations—a flood, a wounded rabbit friend, a snowstorm in the Rocky Mountains—it wasn’t working. Riding in front of Tanner all day, her mind imagined all sorts of things, but none of it pertained in the least to mice.

At night, across the fire from him but studiously ignoring him, Abby’s mind was invariably blank. She had nothing whatsoever to write down in her paper tablet about her mouse characters.

It still confused her that Tanner would even have thought to pack her notes and paper and pencils. In fact he’d packed a surprisingly complete array of belongings for her. Personal items. Precious items.

She bent back to her tablet now, frowning at the empty page in a vain attempt to drive Tanner and his inexplicable behavior from her mind.

Snitch. She would work on Snitch. What did Snitch want from life anyway? What were his goals and his most secret longings?

He wanted Tillie to love him of course.

Abby sighed and looked up at the horizon where the last streaks of a vivid red and gold sunset faded into the cool gray-violet of night. He wanted Tillie to love him yet he did nothing to profess his own love.

Well, did
he
love her?

Would he follow her to the ends of the earth, rescuing her whenever it proved necessary, reining in her unfettered enthusiasm for life when it threatened to turn dangerous? Of course he loved her. He just didn’t know how to say the words.

So, when would Tillie ever figure it out on her own?

Sooner than Tanner ever would.

As ever, Abby’s thoughts turned back toward Tanner and she practically groaned in denial. She didn’t love him. She couldn’t possibly.

The point of her pencil gave with a snap and the pencil tore a jagged hole in the paper.

“Need a knife to sharpen that?”

Abby peered uneasily over at him. Could he tell what she’d been thinking? Did he know just how thoroughly he’d managed to get to her?

“No,” she muttered. Then after a moment’s hesitation, “Well, yes.”

Instead of just tossing her the bone-handled knife he wore in a sheath on the opposite leg from his handgun, Tanner stepped past the fire and squatted on his heels beside her. If he noticed that she leaned a little away from him when he reached for the pencil, he didn’t indicate it. Instead, with a few deft strokes he whittled the pencil to a fine point, then handed it back to her.

But he didn’t move away. He only stared at the scarred page of her tablet as if waiting to see what she might create.

“I can’t write with you watching me,” she snapped, hoping her irritated tone did not betray the extreme attack of nerves his nearness had generated. They’d been in even closer proximity all day on horseback of course. For three days now. But that was a necessity, more or less. This was different.

“You writing another story about your little mouse?” he asked as if she hadn’t spoken.

“I’m trying to,” she replied with excessive hauteur.

He didn’t respond, and for what seemed an endless time they just sat there, side by side, not speaking, though Abby felt as if his body was speaking directly—and clearly—to hers. Was he doing this on purpose?

“Look, Abby,” he finally began, a note of strain evident in his low tones. “I’m sorry about … before.”

“Before?” she asked, her mind accountably slow to comprehend. “You mean about making me go back to the States?”

He cleared his throat. “I mean about the other night.”

Her face turned a hot and vivid shade of scarlet. She slammed the tablet closed. Before she could get her feet under her to rise and get away from him, however, he caught her by the arm.

“Hear me out, Abby.”

If anything worse than this could happen to her, Abby could not imagine what it could be. She was trapped face-to-face with the man she was falling in love with and he was apologizing to her for ever having touched her. It was utterly humiliating and she didn’t want to hear any more.

And she
wasn’t
in love with him!

“I’m sorry about it, too,” she muttered, trying frantically to free her arm from his hold. But he didn’t relent.

“It wasn’t what I intended to happen.”

“Me either,” she answered, though it hardly sounded like the dismissive reply she’d hoped for. She lifted her tormented eyes to meet his serious gaze. Even in the waning light his eyes were a shade of blue she’d never be able to forget. “We don’t have to talk about it,” she finished in a whisper.

“You’re wrong about that. What if you, well, wind up in the family way?”

It was the very last thing she’d expected him to say and somehow it made things even worse than they were. “The family way?” she repeated like a dumb child who simply did not understand. Only she feared she understood all too well. If she were pregnant, how would he ever explain this to her grandfather? If she were pregnant, would he still get his reward?

Tanner frowned. “I take full responsibility of course. I should never have let … things get so out of control.”

Abby couldn’t bear to hear another word. With a sharp cry she tore her arm from his hold, then scrambled to her feet. She was unmindful of her pencils or tablets or that her skirt caught and then tore on a spiky stalk of soapweed.

“You can just … just go to hell, Tanner McKnight!” she shouted as she backed away from him. “Just go straight to hell!”

“Dammit, I’m trying to apologize, Abby.” He stood up and started slowly toward her. “I didn’t set out to … seduce you.”

“Oh, no?” She grabbed at the chance to blame it all on him. It made it easier than acknowledging her own role in this mess.

He stopped three paces away and just stared at her. The fire gilded his left side in red and gold. The other side lay in darkness. He seemed taller than ever, and more dangerous, too. With his expression lost in the contrast she had nothing to go on but her own confused emotions—her yearning for him and her terror that he’d been using her all along.