River to Cross, A (4 page)

“Yesterday afternoon. I watched you through field glasses.” As he bent and shortened the stirrups for her legs, she caught a quick flash of white teeth in the dark face.

“You can’t cook either,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I have the distinct feeling you’ve been spying on me.”

He nodded. “For the last two days, Duchess. Be glad we caught up with you so soon.” He swung up on the horse next to hers, his face serious. His gaze held hers. “We rode hard to get here. If they’re taking you where I think they are, you’d be there tomorrow, and you wouldn’t like it.”

“Is that why you came in tonight?”

“It’s one of the reasons we’re going out now, instead of waiting for daylight. The other reason is because we were afraid they’d kill you.”

He reached over and covered her hand holding the reins. His hands were half again the size of hers. When she started to ease her hand away, he tightened his fingers around hers. “These mountains are high with dangerous drop-offs. I’ll lead you down. Gus, you go ahead, nice and slow. Fred, you follow us with the pack mule.”

He made a small clicking sound with his teeth and started down the mountainside.

For an hour they moved downhill quietly, following a path on the far side of the clearing to avoid Major Chavez on his return.

They wound down a trail bordered by high, dark cliffs on one side, a forty-foot fall of empty air on the other. He let his horse choose the way, the hoofbeats muffled by layers of pine needles and spongy moss.

Night pressed in, a breathing, silent blackness. For the first time since she was a little girl, she felt afraid of the dark. She tried to force the fear away, but it lay like ice in the pit of her stomach. She could see nothing, not even the man alongside her.

The sky was black.

The trail was black.

Where did one end, the other begin?

“How can the horses see where they’re going?” To her dismay, her voice wobbled.

“To a horse, it’s dusk, not dark,” he said. “Trust him. They see better at night than we do.”

When her horse grunted and blew his lips, Jake took his hand away and patted the animal’s neck, soothing him. “He’s a Mexican horse and knows he’s got an inexperienced rider on his back. That makes him nervous. He’s young and he’s smart, just doesn’t have enough self-confidence yet.”

“And I suppose your horse is different?”

He glanced over at her. “Banjo—that’s his name—has so much confidence, he tries to tell
me
what to do.”

She shrugged. Why not? A bossy horse for a bossy Ranger.

When he reached a black-gloved hand over and covered hers again, she let out a quiet sigh of relief. She definitely felt safer with him guiding the reins. She looked over at the big dark shape on the horse beside hers and wondered again why she wasn’t afraid of him.

Sunrise in the Sierra Madre and the eastern horizon glowed like a line of red-hot coals. In the valley below, pinks and corals streaked the purple sky. Sitting on a hillside, Jake leaned back against a tree and crossed his arms behind his head, drinking in the beauty. This was his favorite part of the day. When he was a boy, he and his mother used to go outside and watch the sunrise. She always said God wrote the gospel not only in the Bible but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars. They used to read the Bible together and discuss it.

He still missed her. Not a day went by he didn’t think of her.

God rest her soul.

She’d been gone five years, taken by influenza while he was fighting Apaches in Arizona. He’d wanted so much to get back to her before she died, but he was too far away.

For years she’d been the shield between him and his stepfather, squeezing herself between the two of them and bumping them apart with her hip. It used to be her son she protected from her husband’s raging temper, but at fourteen, Jake was filling out. Summers, he worked a full day roping and breaking horses for a nearby rancher. At fifteen he was taller and stronger than his father, and he was still growing.

Her warning changed to “Jake, don’t hurt him” the day she came out and found Jake had her husband pinned against the side of the house. One of Jake’s eyes was bruised and swollen shut, and blood trickled from his mouth. His fist was balled.

He’d never yet hit his father back, but those days might be over. Jake unclenched his fist at her words and walked away. As he did, his stepfather grabbed up a piece of wood and hit him across the back. Jake knew then he’d have to leave. If he stayed, he was afraid he’d kill the man. His mother would lose a husband and then have to watch her only son hanged for murder.

He loved her too much for that.

Jake was gone the next morning. And so was her Bible.

Gus urged his horse off the trail, to a spring bubbling around a pile of rocks. As his horse drank, Gus looked back at Jake. “We’re almost out of the mountains. Where do you want to stop?”

“This will do fine,” Jake said. “We need to wash this stuff off and change clothes. Can’t chance running into someone else. It’ll be commented on.”

He swung off his horse, led him to the spring to drink, and handed the reins to Gus. “Let’s all of us get cleaned up. You and Fred take care of the horses, fill the canteens, get us ready to go. I’ll get the duchess into some other clothes so she looks like a man, and then let’s get out of here fast. The sun’s coming up. It’ll be daylight soon. I know Mexicans, and I won’t feel safe until this place is miles behind us.”

Elizabeth stiffened. “But I thought we
were
safe now.”

“Far from it. When the major returns and finds his men dead and you gone, we’ll be the objects of one big Ranger manhunt.”

“How would they know Rangers did it?” she asked.

He shrugged. “If you were Texas, who else would you send?”

She thought about that a minute. “There isn’t anyone, I guess.”

In the half-light of dawn, she resembled her photograph: small face and nose, perfect mouth. What was going through her mind? he wondered. She was no bigger than a minute, but she wasn’t cowed. Her hands were folded, clasped in front of her like a nun, giving her an almost serene appearance. But that, he suspected, was for his benefit. Dead-white, the knuckles on her fingers gave her away. She was proud, and if she was afraid, she was hiding it. He’d always liked a woman with a little spunk. She had that all right. She also had—he searched for the word—
class
.

Ruthie’s little voice echoed in his mind.
Boo-ful
. Indeed she was. Beautiful and intelligent, both qualities he prized in a woman.

Elizabeth turned in the saddle, as if undecided how to swing her leg over.

“Let’s get you down from there.” Jake hid a smile. “There is no ladylike way to get off a horse wearing a dress. So lift your right knee over the saddle horn as if you were sitting sidesaddle, then slide down the horse. I’ll catch you.”

Facing him, she got her leg over the pommel, turned in the saddle, and reached for him.

As she did, an early ray of sun filtered through the branches overhead and highlighted her hands. A flake of sunlight caught itself in the plain gold wedding band and glittered a thousand sparks into his eyes.

His breath caught.

She’s married
.

Briefly he closed his eyes and wondered how he’d missed it, why he hadn’t noticed the ring before. Usually it was the first thing he looked for. He hadn’t looked that night because it had been too dark to see.

Her husband, whoever he was, had lucked out because one thing Jake Nelson didn’t do was fool around with another man’s wife or girlfriend. He’d been down that road before.

A muscle ticked in his cheek.

And now, ten years later, fate was giving him a chance to even the score.

No thanks.

She was married, and married women were off-limits.

When her arms went around his neck, Jake closed his hands around a small, soft waist and pulled her against him.

In that instant, all his good intentions about keeping his hands off married women rose and scattered like a flock of pigeons.

Shaken by how quickly the thought jumped into his mind, he ordered it back.

He heard a quick, sharp intake of breath as he slid her down the length of him. Her startled gaze shot up and locked with his. The pulse throbbing at the base of her throat was tripping like a baby bird’s.

His arms, his chest, his legs tingled everywhere she’d touched him. He eased his breath out slowly, aware of his own racing pulse. Somewhere off in the back of his mind, a small alarm bell pinged, reminding him.

She’s married
.

As soon as her feet touched ground, he dropped his arms and stepped back.

Puzzled by his reaction to her, he went to his horse and dug into the saddlebag for the package of clothes the quartermaster at Fort Bliss had put together for her. He handed the package to her and jerked his head at an overgrown creosote bush a few feet away. He wrinkled his nose. Its pungent tar smell hung heavy in the air, but it was tall and bushy and its waxy green leaves would give her the privacy she needed.

“You can change behind that hedge over there.” With an effort, he managed to keep his voice steady, not allowing the shakiness he felt to slip into it.

Fred and Gus were already cleaning themselves up. He turned his back on her and strode over to the pack mule and pulled out a towel and a big piece of soap. He squirmed inside, guessing what he must look like with his face streaked with grease and soot. And he stank so bad of gunpowder and sweat he could smell himself.

He shrugged. So what?

Over the icy little spring he managed to get most of the grease and soot off his face and hands. He sank down, leaned against a tree, and cocked a leg up. For nearly five minutes he knifed the mud from his boots, telling himself it wasn’t good for the leather. But he couldn’t explain combing his hair and running a razor over his face. What had happened with her back there was a warning to jerk his emotions in line.

He looked back at the creosote bush and rolled his shoulders, forcing them to loosen up. His mind turned.

Something didn’t add up, something he couldn’t put his finger on. Married or not, she’d felt the same jolt of attraction that had shot through him. He hadn’t imagined it, and he hadn’t imagined her reaction, either. She’d been as rattled by it as he was.

But he also saw caution in her eyes. Perhaps even a tinge of fear. If she was attracted to him, she didn’t want to be. He sucked in a slow breath.

Feeling’s mutual, honey. I don’t want to be attracted to you, either.

Eyes closed, he forced himself to relax. He drew a couple of deep breaths and focused on those places within himself he needed to change and concentrated. One place demanded immediate attention—a little itchy spot in his mind that Elizabeth had dug herself into and interrupted his thoughts.

A few minutes later, he was quiet inside and felt himself back in control. He’d locked her into a little box in the back of his mind.

“Captain,” she called, “my fingers hurt. They don’t work right. I managed to undo only three buttons in all this time.”