Trail of Kisses (12 page)

Cade took the gun with his free hand and
looked it over. “Why not?”

“
Because that thing nearly killed
you.”

Lynne gasped. “Get rid of it, Cade. Put it
down right here.”

“
It’s brand new,” he
said.

“
Yeah, well, brand new or not,”
Pete nodded toward it, “someone messed with the firing mechanism. I
took the bullets out, and if I were you, I’d keep them out. That
thing is likely to go off without warning.”

“
What do you mean?” Lynne asked.
Her effort to sound indignant came off as anxious.

“
It’s been fixed so that it’ll
fire at the slightest touch of the trigger. Even a stiff breeze
would—”

“—
set off a bullet that would
spook a horse,” Cade finished. His frown darkened. It might also
fire a bullet when it was innocently pointed in the wrong
direction. As in, at someone. At Lynne.

They were silent the rest of the way back to
the wagon train. Word of what had happened had spread up and down
the line in spite of the fact that they hadn’t stopped. Families
stared at them as Cade and Lynne caught up to where Ben had managed
to keep their wagon going while standing up on the buckboard to
watch what was going on. When he saw that no one was seriously
hurt, he sat down with a grunt and focused on driving.

With Dr. Meyers’ help, Cade managed to hop
onto the back of the wagon. He detested the idea of riding like a
woman or an invalid, but his ankle argued that for the time being,
he
was
an invalid. What surprised him was Lynne tying Clover
up, then hopping into the back of the wagon with him.

“
I thought you refused to ride in
the wagon,” he said. He wanted to tease her, but the aches of being
dragged by a speeding horse dampened his humor.

“
I’ll make an exception today,”
she said. “Dr. Meyers has his own concerns to go back to, don’t
you, doctor?”

Dr. Meyers, who had been walking behind the
wagon to make sure Cade was all right, said, “There are a few
fevers that need looking out for. If you have some water or even
alcohol, you might want to clean off those scrapes,” he told Cade.
“They look fine for the most part, but the one on your calf could
use some attention, and so could the one on your arm.”

“
I’ll take care of it,” Lynne
said. “Thank you, doctor.”

Dr. Meyers touched his hat to her then moved
on. Lynne rolled to her knees and climbed deeper into the wagon.
Cade twisted from where his legs were dangling off the back to
watch her sort through boxes looking for bandages.

“
Come back here, out of the sun,”
she ordered him.

“
What, are you a trail boss now?”
he asked, but did as she said.

“
Now you can roll up your pant leg
without worrying about dust from the trail getting in your wound.”
She found a packet of bandages and a bottle of liquor and squatted
beside him, her face all business.

“
It’s just a scratch,” he
insisted. “My leg isn’t in any danger of falling off, you
know.”

“
I’ll be the judge of
that.”

He held his tongue as a dozen jokes came to
him. His leg really wasn’t that bad. He’d have to thank the tailor
who made his pants for using sturdy material. His calf was sore and
red, but the skin was only broken in a few spots and not deep.
Lynne dabbed spirits from the bottle on his cuts.

“
Ow! You’re not using my good
whiskey to clean cuts, are you?” he said to hide his
pain.

“
I have yet to be convinced that
any whiskey is good whiskey,” she answered. “Especially after
seeing the way the miners on this journey behave after drinking it.
Let me see your arm.”

“
I’ve seen worse,” he said,
attempting to roll up his sleeve. “I’ve had worse, though not
often.”

Rolling up his sleeve was more trouble than it
was worth, so he took his chances and shrugged out of his vest and
pulled his shirt off entirely. Lynne couldn’t hide the flush that
came to her face or the way her pretty eyes got wider at the sight,
not even in the shade of the wagon.

“
If I didn’t know any better,”
Cade grinned, “I would say that you like what you’re looking
at.”

Whatever spell had her enthralled broke. Lynne
huffed out a breath. “You certainly are full of yourself.” She
poured more of his whiskey over the bandage and set to work dabbing
at the scrape on his arm.

Cade winced. “Isn’t there something better you
could use to clean that?”

Lynne shook her head. “You heard him, Dr.
Meyers said to use alcohol.”

“
Or water.”

She didn’t answer him. The throbbing in his
scrapes and in the rest of his bruised body was slowly becoming
more than just an irritation.

“
I think you like me,” he said,
hoping to get a reaction from her that would distract him from the
pain.

It worked. “Of course I like you. My uncle
hired you.”

“
No, I think you
like
me.”
He worked himself up to a smile when what he really wanted to do
was grimace. “I think that’s why you like staring at me the way you
do.”

“
I do
not
stare at you,”
she insisted. She finished with his arm and examined his
side.

“
You’re staring at me right
now.”

“
I’m treating your
wounds.”

“
Yep, and I just bet you’re
thinking about how handsome I am while you’re at it.”

She paused and rocked back on her heels, back
braced against a pile of crates. It didn’t take her far away from
him. Come to think of it, the wagon bed was closed and cramped. And
heating up, in spite of Lynne’s frown.

“
Any man can be handsome,” she
said at last. “So what if you are? You’re also ridiculous and
cowardly.”

“
Cowardly?” He balked.

“
I’m sure you’re about to say
something about how you think whoever is supposedly out to kill me
tampered with your gun too, that maybe they’re trying to kill you
now.”

“
How is that cowardly?

“
In fact, the answer is probably
just that you bought a faulty gun back at the fort.”

“
I—” He blinked as he considered
her words. He’d been too sore to think about that yet, but she had
a point. A bad point. If her would-be assassin was trying to take
him out too, it could be a problem.

“
If you ever head back to Ft.
Kearny,” she went on, studying the scrapes on his calf, “I think
you should ask for your money back. They shouldn’t go selling
faulty guns. It’s dangerous.”

Cade’s lips parted to say something, but he
held back. Lynne was afraid. She’d guessed at the truth but was
trying to fight it, hiding her fears with prickles. She was a lot
smarter about the predicament she was in than she wanted to let on,
maybe even to herself.

“
Honey, it’s going to be all
right,” he said in as soothing a voice as he could
manage.

It had the opposite effect. Lynne’s eyes
flared wide in indignation.

“
How dare you call me ‘honey’ like
I’m some saloon girl?” she snapped. “I don’t need you to tell me
things will be all right. I know they will. I’m going to make sure
they are.”

All right, maybe sweet words weren’t the way
to go with Lynne Tremaine when she was afraid.

“
I forgot,” he said. “You’re
brave. Nothing frightens you.”

“
Exactly,” she said, throwing the
bandage at him. He still held the bottle, though, and for a moment
Cade thought she would take a swig from it to prove her point.
Instead she reached for the cork on top of the boxes and stopped
the bottle, then put it away.

“
Any man can be handsome,” she
went on, plucking the whiskey-soaked bandage from his hands and
tying it around the worst of the scrapes on his calf. “It takes a
special man to be brave.”

His lips wobbled from a grimace to a smile.
“So you think I’m handsome, then?”

She tied off the bandage with a jerk. Cade
cried out before he could stop himself.

“
Did I say I thought you were
handsome?” she said.

“
You
were
staring at me,”
he growled and straightened his leg. The throbbing was worse after
her efforts to heal him.

Lynne sniffed and rocked back on her haunches.
“You are handsome,” she admitted, chin tipped up. “I think you know
that.”

Cade shrugged, grin growing. He adjusted to
sit more comfortably with his back against the stack of boxes in
the wagon.

“
I have yet to determine if you’re
brave,” Lynne finished.

Cade barked a laugh. “Still? After all we’ve
been through?” Through his pain, he winked at her.

“
Still,” she answered, firm as
ever.

She pushed herself to stand, although she had
to remain hunched over as she searched through the crates. In short
order, she found a pillow and a folded blanket.

“
Here.” She handed the pillow to
him. “Sit on this. It’ll make you more comfortable.”

“
And let you take the blanket?” he
teased.

She sighed and switched hands, holding out the
blanket to him. “There. I’ll sit on the pillow.”

He laughed. “Well if I’d known all it would
take to get you to ride in the wagon was for me to be dragged by a
horse, I would have fired a gun over Arrow’s head a lot
sooner.”

Lynne growled in frustration. “Ridiculous
man,” she said as she threw the pillow on the wagon bed and turned
to put the blanket away.

A moment later she shrieked at the top of her
lungs and backpedaled.

“
Spider! Spider!
Spider!”

She knocked Cade’s injured ankle and tumbled.
Cade stifled a shout as he reached out to catch her. She plopped
across his lap, skirts flying every which way, hair slipping loose
from the twist at the back of her head. Cade squeezed her tight as
her chest rose and fell in panic.

“
Brave, huh?”

She was still for half a second, then writhed
and struggled to get away. She was at the wrong angle to do it,
though, and Cade held her firmly.

“
Ow, ow, stop poking me,” he
laughed in spite of the sharp pain her knees and elbows
caused.

“
Let me go, then,” she
demanded.

“
Not on your life. It’s my job to
protect you from outlaws and assassins and vicious
spiders.”

She stopped struggling and twisted so that she
could glare at him. “I’m not afraid of spiders.”

“
Oh no?”

“
No. So you can let me go now.”
She pressed her hands against his bare chest to push
away.

His heart sped up when the tension in her arms
softened and her hands splayed wider across his chest. Her eyes
lingered where her hands were, her mouth falling open, lips soft.
Her touch was enough to make him forget every bit of pain he was
in. Her hands belonged on him, belonged right where they were and
lower. She must have known it too, because she smoothed her palms
across the plain of his chest, teasing his nipples hard with the
tips of her fingers.

He circled his arms further around her,
tugging her close. Her mouth was too inviting to resist. He covered
it with his own, tasting her with passion and possession. She
wasn’t the sort to faint or recoil from him. She might slap
him—that would be Lynne, all right—but she didn’t. Instead she
leaned into him, running her hands up his chest to his shoulders,
along his neck to hold the sides of his face as she let him kiss
her. More than let him, she met his searching tongue with a moan
that had him hard in an instant. He nipped at her bottom lip with
his teeth and shivered when she gasped.

He had dipped close for another soul-stealing
kiss when she pulled away. “It was just a spider,” she whispered,
breathless.

He cradled the back of her head and kissed her
again.

“
If that’s what I get for a
spider, what would you do if we crossed paths with a
bear?”

“
I—” She breathed the word against
his mouth, lips touching his for the briefest moment before she
wrenched herself away. “I should make sure they found Arrow,” she
said.

She cleared her throat as she stood and rolled
away from him. Her cheeks were bright pink and her chest strained
against her blouse as she caught her breath. She reached up to pat
her hair, but it was beyond a simple fix. She was the most
beautiful thing Cade had ever seen, just as she was.

“
You stay here and guard the
wagon,” she said in a hurry and scooted to the back, ready to hop
down. “I’ll… I’ll find Arrow.”

As soon as she slipped off the back of the
wagon, Cade let out a breath and sank to lie on his back in the
jostling wagon bed. He laughed even though it hurt. She was wrong
about one thing, though. He
was
brave. Only a brave man
would be thinking the thoughts he had about Lynne
Tremaine.