The Renegades: Cole (9 page)

“I thought so,” he drawled.

She
couldn’t
see him dispassionately. She wanted to taste his mouth again,
yearned
for it with such a savage intensity that she trembled all over. It made her furious that she couldn’t either make the feeling go away or ignore it.

And
that she couldn’t repeat the command to stay away from her.

“You’re just like all the men,” she snapped. “You think one kiss from you will have a woman on her knees begging for more.”

“All the men? You’re in the habit of kissing a lot of men?”

His arrogant tone fueled her anger.

“That’s not what I said.”

“Sounded like it to me.”

“Then you must think I’m pretty loose with my favors.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Sounded like it to me!” she cried.

They both laughed in spite of their ire, but their laughter sounded more bitter than amused. Aurora took a deep breath, hoping it would calm her.

“This conversation’s going around in circles,” she said.

Cole wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. And kiss her, damn
it. How had he let her get them talking about kisses? How had he let her get him talking at all?

“I’ll put it on a straight line,” he said. “If you aren’t in the habit of kissing all the men, then what
have
you been doing with them?”

He could’ve bitten off his tongue. Where in the hell had that come from? He’d no more intended to keep on prying into her life than he’d intended to listen to her prattle again today.

She shot him a startled look, angry at first, and then haughtily defiant.

“I don’t appreciate your tone one bit,” she said. “I hired you to be my bodyguard, not my father.”

“You’ve got a known enemy hiring idiots and laying plots with your own men, trying to get you killed,” he said coldly. “And you mentioned some suitors who told you you’d never make it to the end of this trail. Seems to me I’m asking for information that affects my job as your bodyguard.”

He hadn’t meant to pursue this line of inquiry like a dog on a trail. This was as bad as when they’d barely met and he had quizzed her about her enemies although he’d had no intention of becoming her bodyguard. What was it about her that made him as loco as she was?

“Well, back East, I went to socials and lectures with several different escorts,” she said, “and I had other gentleman callers come courting as well. But then I don’t suppose
they
would have any connection with your job, do you?”

Did he detect a teasing tone in her voice? What had happened to her haughtiness?

“No, they wouldn’t,” he said, feeling a little foolish.

But flashes of fashionably dressed, dandified dudes bowing to kiss Aurora’s hand—or maybe her lips—crossed his mind. Dandies offering her a supporting arm and escorting her into her parlor. Or out of it. Aurora responding to them with that incredible, magical smile that could blind an eagle.

“Since I returned home to Colorado, I have accepted three of my bachelor neighbors as gentleman callers,” she said. “Terrence Peck, Darius Martin, and Harvey Thorne. But then, their names may not help you much, since I’m assuming you don’t know any of them.”

There definitely was amusement in her tone. Was she making fun of him? Well, she probably was. She probably was thinking that he was wanting to know all this because he was jealous. She was deluding herself that she’d hurt some feelings more delicate than his pride last night.

“Never heard of any of the three,” he said.

“Terrence is my favorite of my Colorado men,” she said thoughtfully.

Her
Colorado men.

“That doesn’t sound too good,” he said. “Sounds like you worked as a saloon girl before you started down the trail.”

“Do you want to hear this or not?” she cried, suddenly completely exasperated.

He grinned. That was the thing about her that interested him—she was so alive, every minute, so completely caught up in whatever was going on, whatever she was feeling. To her, everything mattered.

And to him, dead in spirit as he was, nothing had mattered that much for a long time, at least not since Travis was killed. He pushed the thought of his old partner away, pronto, and fastened his gaze on Aurora’s blue eyes.

“Maybe I ought not,” he said. “This may be too risqué of a tale for my young ears.”

She gave an unladylike snort that made him smile again.

“You are so delicate,” she said. “I’ll be careful what language I use.”

“Thanks.”

She rolled her eyes at him.

“Terrence Peck. He’s a true gentleman and a scholar, a writer and photographer and I could sit and listen to him recite poetry all day long. He loves animals, too. Especially Bubba.”

She shot him a significant look.

“Where is ol’ Bubba today, by the way?”

“Nate wanted him to ride on the wagon seat with him so he wouldn’t get so lonesome. He’s used to always being with Newt, since they’re twins, you know.”

“Can’t baby him too much, Aurora. Young’uns who go down the trail have to grow up in a hurry.”

She gave him a long, straight look.

“I’ll baby whomever I please,” she said.
“Sometime I’ll tell you about how fast
I
had to grow up. Now, do you want to hear about Terrence or not?”

He shrugged.

“Can’t see that I have any choice since now you’re threatening me with your whole life story.”

That time, he made her smile.

“Terrence saved my sanity this winter,” she said. “He came to see me as often as he could with the snow so deep so much of the time.”

He gave a skeptical grunt.

“How far did he have to ride?”

“Twenty miles.”

“He must not be too tough nor too serious about you if he let a little snow and twenty miles get in his way.”

She threw him an irritated look.

“Oh, he’s serious, all right.”

“Let me get this straight,” he said, wishing fruitlessly that he could jerk his mind away from this petty subject, which was none of his business anyway, no matter what he’d told her, “this poet fellow saved your sanity and hugged your big wolf-dog but you can’t abide him.”

She gave him the blankest look.

“Those were your very words that night in my hotel room,” he said, locking his eyes on hers. “One of your unacceptable choices for your life was to marry a man you can’t abide.”

“I didn’t mean
Terrence
.”

“Then
who?
”

The expression on her face made him vaguely
aware that his tone was the one he always used to intimidate outlaws and bandits and other long-riders, and he tried to add something more kindly, but he was powerless to speak another word until he heard her answer. Hell. Now she’d probably start to cry or something.

But no. She sat up as straight as if she had a poker down her back and raked him with an icy stare.

“
Who
is none of your concern. I don’t know why we’re talking about this, anyhow.”

“Neither do I,” he snapped.

However, before they’d ridden one length farther, his mouth fell open again and, nosy as an old camp cook, he had to pry. He even used a falsely careless, softer tone.

“Terrence hasn’t asked you to marry him?”

She relaxed, mollified by the change in his manner, but she didn’t reply right away. Finally, a little stiffly, she did. But it didn’t answer the question.

“Darius Martin and Harvey Thorne are the ones I referred to that night in your room,” she said. “I never did want to marry either of them, but now I cannot
abide
them because after I refused them, they each made the long ride out to my place for the specific purpose of telling me that I should stay and marry him because there’s no way on earth I’ll ever get these cattle to Texas.”

She slowed her horse more and gave Cole a long, searching look.

“Wouldn’t you think they’d have sense
enough to know that that was no way to persuade me?”

In the morning rays of the sun, her finely boned face looked as fragile as a porcelain doll’s, her tiny wrists incredibly delicate where they showed at the edges of her leather gloves. Those men
had
been talking sense to her.

“The sensible thing for you to have done would’ve been to marry one of them and drive your cattle to his place instead of halfway across the West,” he said softly.

She let go of her reins to set her fists on her hips.

“Don’t tell me you’re agreeing with them! Where’s that encouragement you’ve been handing out trying to build my confidence since your life is in my hands?”

He grinned.

“I was just giving you a hard time, Aurora. They’re a couple of selfish, overbearing bastards who would’ve broken your heart without a qualm.”

She grinned back.

“That’s better.”

“I can tell ‘em right now there’s not a doubt you’re gonna get this herd to Texas,” he said. “What I’m not too sure about is the piano.”

He’d meant that to be funny, and she started to smile, but both their thoughts immediately went to the evening before and the kiss. He could see his own memory reflected in her eyes.

It took all the strength God gave him to hold himself back and not reach for her.

“You were talkin’ sense last night, Miss Aurora,” he said. “I had damn well
better
not ever kiss you again.”

She couldn’t look away from him. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t stop hearing the nuances in his voice, even though he didn’t say another word. Hurt was in it, way down deep, and anger, and impatience and the iron hardness that edged everything he said and did.

Danger lurked in it, too.

Because it sounded as if he
would
kiss her again, when she least expected it, and that he wouldn’t stop there.

God help her, then she’d be lost.

“I didn’t intend to be mean to you last night,” she blurted, “I’m just not used to … it, that’s all.”

His eyes took on a glint of mischief.

“I thought we just established that you’re accustomed to kissing and carrying on with men scattered from the East Coast to the Rockies.”

She tried to smile.

“I’m not used to depending on somebody else is what I mean,” she said hastily.

“And you don’t want to depend on me for kisses.”

“No. Depending on you for my life is hard enough.”

Cole looked straight into her heart and right on through it to her soul.

“I hear you talkin’,” he said. “I’m an old lone wolf, myself.”

He wheeled his horse and rode on ahead.

Aurora heaved a great sigh and flopped over onto her back, pushed the covers down to her waist so she could feel the cool night air on her body as well as breathe it in. She filled her lungs with it and slowly expelled it, willing it to calm her while she listened to the night.

Everything was quiet, so quiet she could hear the occasional popping of the fire that Cookie kept burning all the time for the hot coffee which was the one constant besides biscuits and beans in the cowboys’ diet. An occasional low bawl came from the cattle, but they had bedded down fairly easily after their long day on the trail, and they lay basically quiet. Monte was singing to them—among her cowboys he had the only voice so pleasant it could soothe people as well as restless cattle—and for a short while she concentrated on the sound of his song. It almost put her to sleep.

But she couldn’t let go of her thoughts of the day; she felt so wrought up she could sit up and scream.

Gritting her teeth in frustration, she scooted down closer to the end of the wagon and propped her shoulders against the stacked boxes, stuffing her pillow into the space at the small of her back. She was tired—exhausted, actually—by the three days they’d been on the trail.
Why
couldn’t she slip off into oblivion?

Maybe she was too tired to sleep.

Or maybe she kept thinking about Cole.

All yesterday afternoon and all of today he’d
ridden somewhere near her, but it had been almost as if he weren’t there. He had become the lone wolf he’d called himself—in fact, watching him ride a little bit ahead of her, she thought of stories she’d heard about the Plains Indians who sometimes pulled a wolf pelt up over their heads to wear into battle or to disguise themselves to creep up on an enemy.

He had pulled his aloneness, his oneness, up over his head and left her to hers.

Wasn’t that what she’d wanted? What she’d told him to do?

Now that was what was driving her crazy.

She missed him terribly. They were already connected in some strange fashion—she’d been too late in sending him away.

No, it had been too late from the very beginning. Hadn’t she felt connected to him the minute she found herself in the middle of the dusty street, wrapped in his arms?

Now, every fiber of her body was urging her to move, to just
see
him. She crept to the end of the wagon, reached for the canvas flap, and pulled it aside enough to peek out.

He was there, just where he had said he would be, with his bedroll laid out on the ground across the end of her wagon. Anyone coming to get her would have to go through or over him, he was so close to the tailboard.

He slept on his side with his back to her, cocooned in the covers pulled up over his shoulders. The wash of moonlight drew all the color out of the fabric and made it look white, but
even the moon was powerless against the black of his thick, tumbled hair. There it could only add silver, like tracings of frost, to the pure blackness.

She couldn’t stop looking at him, couldn’t quit measuring the breadth of his shoulders with her eyes, and the lithe length of him, couldn’t help remembering, with all of her body and soul, their kiss.

If she were snuggled into that bedroll with him, then she could sleep. She’d be wrapped in his arms, her head cradled in the hollow of his shoulder … No, she
wouldn’t
be able to sleep, she would never sleep then. The hard muscles of his chest would be pressed against her breasts … oh, Lord, that very first touch of his had sent such a trembling thrill right through her even though she’d been shocked out of her mind when he’d snatched her from her gig, even though she’d been filled with fear that she’d be shot any minute.