B000XUBEHA EBOK (14 page)

He leaned over her, so close that she felt the heat rolling off his body, inhaled the strong male scent of him. “I’ve been roaming the plains for years. It’s faster and easier for me to set up camp. Besides,” he added, speaking through clenched teeth, “I like taking care of you.”

The shape of his mouth always surprised her. His lips could go thin and tight with strangers or when he was irritated, but the lines were sharp and firmly defined. An exciting mouth with no softness or yield.

But she didn’t believe what those lips were saying. No man took a shine to waiting on a woman unless courtship or illness were involved, and neither situation applied here.

She lifted up on tiptoe until she was almost nose to nose with him. “I intend to do my share of the work on this journey. Now that’s how it’s going to be or you can take me home right now.”

“Damn it.” Stepping away from her, he swept off his hat and slapped it against his thigh. “All right,” he said finally, turning to her. “Can you lay a campfire? Can you cook over an open fire?”

“I can learn.” She lifted her chin.

“Do you know how to pack a mule? Are you strong enough to saddle the horses?”

“Have you changed your mind about us going to Atlanta?”

“What?”

“Is that why you’re so obstinate and strange out here? You hope I’ll suggest that we go back?”

To give him credit, he stared as if she’d lost her mind. “Are you saying you want to go back?”

“No, damn it.” She stamped her foot in frustration, something she hadn’t done since she was a young belle. “I’m just trying to figure you out!”

Needing to do something, she kneeled beside the water hole and dipped water into a bucket, then pushed her stockings and drawers inside, along with a sliver of soap. Then it occurred to her that she was washing unmentionables in front of a man.

“Why did you follow me here? Isn’t there something you should be doing back at the campsite?”

He studied the bucket, then turned aside. “You never know what might be hiding a few yards from camp. I doubt you’ll get hurt, but accidents happen.”

The only thing that truly worried her were snakes, and she made a point of making plenty of noise when she needed a moment of privacy. “There’s nothing here except you and me.”

“Possibly. Nevertheless, I’ll wait.”

For heaven’s sake. Rushing the job, she washed her things, wrung them, threw out the water, then silently marched back the way she’d come. If he hadn’t been standing over her, she would have had a wash herself.

“Are you coming with me while I hang these things on the bushes to dry?” Her expression warned against it.

“You go ahead. I need to rebuild the fire.”

“Good.”

When she returned, he was leaning against the trunk of the elm, cradling a cup of coffee between his hands, his hat tilted back on his head. If the tension hadn’t quivered between them, the sight of him would have taken her breath away. He was tall and lean and powerfully built. Smooth cheeked and tan. A dangerous man with cool eyes and pistols on his hips. And they were alone in the middle of nowhere.

Della drew a long, slow breath and poured herself a cup of coffee that she didn’t want. The sun was lower in the sky, but it would be at least an hour and a half before it would be dark enough to go to bed.

“At your farm, we ate and worked and slept by your routines. I didn’t request that you change anything to accommodate me. Out here, I ask you to respect my routines.”

“Is it so hard to understand that I want to do my share of the work? Isn’t that why you fixed my barn roof and mended the fences? Because you couldn’t accept shelter and board without giving something back?”

“It’s not the same thing. Out here, a man has to be alert for every sound, for everything that doesn’t feel right.”

She threw out her hands, spilling half of her coffee. “Cameron, there isn’t another living person within thirty miles!”

“You’re wrong about that.”

She wished he’d take off the blue lenses so she could see his eyes. In fairness, maybe he found her blue lenses irritating, too.

“What I’m saying,” he continued, “is that a routine doesn’t require any thought. When the routine is disturbed, thoughts aren’t as focused.”

Finally his resistance made a little bit of sense. “Traveling with me is a change in your routine,” she said after a minute. “Are you less focused?”

“We’re going to find out.”

Della tossed out the rest of her coffee and gave her skirts an impatient twitch. “What do you think is going to happen?”

“The important things for you to remember are to stay out of the way, and that you are in no danger.” As he spoke, he removed his gun belt, which astonished her. He ate and probably slept wearing his gun belt. But he was removing it now?

“What do you keep looking at?” she said, waving toward the range. She was exasperated enough to almost regret the journey. “There’s nothing out there!”

And he must know it, too, because he dropped his gun belt at the base of the elm and rolled up his sleeves.

Skirts billowing, she strode toward the fire, frustrated by his small mysteries. If he thought being mysterious was appealing then he had . . .

A growling scream shattered the silence. Della spun and froze as a creature leapt out of the sandy soil on all fours, dirt and twigs streaming off his body. A shocked second elapsed before she recognized the creature was a man.

His hair was wild and bushy, coated with sand. Soiled buckskins were part of what made her think he was some kind of animal. In fact, what she was looking at was worse than an animal. As he sprang to his feet, Della saw a tomahawk in one hand and a knife flashing in the other.

Screaming, she dropped to her knees, unable to breathe and certain that she was about to be killed, until she remembered Cameron. But he didn’t fire as she expected. Oh God. He’d removed his gun belt. The one time he needed his pistols, they weren’t within reach.

Shaking with fear, she watched Cameron charge toward the crazy man, armed with nothing but his bare hands. Lord, Lord. Why had he taken off his guns, now of all times?

There wasn’t time to think. The two men came together in a clash of shouts and blows. Della didn’t see how it was possible that Cameron could survive the knife and the tomahawk, and she covered her eyes. But when she dared to look again, Cameron wasn’t dead as she’d half expected. The two rolled on the ground in a billow of dust.

What was she thinking of, to sit there and do nothing? Pushing to her feet, she frantically looked around and then remembered Cameron’s guns. But the men were fighting between her and the gun belt. Lifting her skirts, she edged around them, unable to see through the dust well enough to judge if Cameron was holding his own. Then she spotted the tomahawk, the blade deep in the ground, well away from where they were fighting. Thank God. But there was still the knife.

When she reached the gun belt she was gasping and shaking and swore at the difficulty of jerking a pistol out of the holster. Immediately she suspected she couldn’t hold it steadily enough to hit anything.

And what if she shot Cameron? Blinking hard, she peered through the dust and tried to identify which man was on top. The attempt proved futile as they kept rolling around, their positions changing. Swallowing, she adjusted the pistol in her hand and tried to decide what to do. She would let them roll up near her, then lower the pistol next to the wild man’s head and pull the trigger. That would work.

But the men were on their feet again, flailing at each other, feet and fists flying. Della tried to follow the wild man with the barrel of the pistol, but the dust made her eyes water. On the positive side, she no longer saw his knife, they were fighting with bloodied fists.

“Good Lord. That’s a woman!”

Through swirls of dust, she returned the wild man’s surprised stare. His fist had halted in midair on a path toward Cameron’s face.

There wouldn’t be a better chance. She pointed the shaking pistol at him and pulled the trigger.

She would have shot him square in the chest if Cameron hadn’t knocked her hand aside. The bullet chunked into the trunk of the elm.

“For the love of God, Della! I told you not to interfere.”

Dust whirled around them, as thick as morning mist. But she spotted blood on his lip and chin. Blood seeped through a slash on his shoulder.

Blood ran freely from the wild man’s nose. One eye was swelling rapidly. Blood leaked from a cut on his thigh.

“Give me the gun. What were you thinking of?”

“I was trying to save your life, you ungrateful bastard.” She looked back and forth between them, her heart still pounding, her nostrils pinched by the stink of gunpowder and dust. “What’s going on here?”

“This is Luke Apple. Luke, this is Mrs. Ward.”

“I’m pleased to meet you.” He wiped his bloodied knuckles across his buckskins before he narrowed his eyes on Cameron. “Another minute and I would have killed you.”

“Like hell. But I figure this round is finished. Agreed?”

Mr. Apple inspected Della with frank interest. “Considering there’s a lady present . . . agreed. There’ll be another time.”

“I’d be obliged if you’d fetch our doctoring kit,”Cameron said to Della. “It should be in one of Rebecca’s saddlebags.” He examined the blood seeping from Luke Apple’s thigh. “Tell me where your horse is tied, and I’ll go get him.”

Now Della noticed that Luke Apple was not a young man. What she’d mistaken for dust in his hair was gray, and his sun-darkened face was seamed with lines. His hands and wrists reminded her of gnarled branches.

“I’m not moving until I know what this was all about.” The whole thing was bewildering. A minute ago, they’d been trying like hell to kill each other. Then abruptly they’d agreed to stop fighting, and now it appeared they knew each other well enough to be friendly in spite of trying to kill each other.

Luke Apple lowered himself to the ground beneath the elm and touched his swelling eye. “James Cameron killed my wife’s nephew. I’ve sworn to kill him back. It was the only way to keep peace in the family.”

Cameron pressed his lip, then inspected his bloody fingers. “His wife’s nephew burned the home and barn of a Kansas farmer. When I shot him, he’d just raped the farmer’s thirteen-year-old daughter.”

“My God.” Della’s eyes widened on the old man.

“I’m not saying the bastard didn’t deserve what he got. But he was family. And a man can’t let a family killing go with a never-mind. There has to be retribution.”

“When did this happen?”

“Seven years ago?” Cameron asked Mr. Apple.

“Mighta been eight.”

“You’ve been trying to kill Cameron for eight years?”

“Lord, if she don’t sound just like Green Feather.” He considered Della out of his one good eye. The other was nearly swollen shut. “These things take time. You can’t rush revenge.”

They both looked at her as if they didn’t expect a woman to understand. And she didn’t.

“How many times have you tried to kill him?” she asked the old man.

“I don’t know. Once or twice a year.” He looked up at Cameron. “You don’t move as fast as you used to, and this is the third year in a row that I caught you without your guns. You’re getting careless. Next time I’ll get you.”

“Next time I’ll bury you and ride away without a backward glance. You aren’t as good as you used to be. I knew you were here.”

Disgusted with both of them, Della went looking for the doctoring kit. Cameron’s saddlebags were neatly packed, which she expected, but she took her time locating and then checking the kit. Figuring things out.

She couldn’t guess how Cameron had known that Luke Apple was in the vicinity, but he had. And while Mr. Apple might—or might not—have seriously intended to kill Cameron, Cameron had removed his gun belt. She thought about that. And when she returned to the men, she wasn’t as grim-lipped.

Cameron had stripped off his shirt and helped the old man out of his buckskin trousers.

“Green Feather will flay me alive when she sees these pants cut up.”

“How is she?”

“Fat and mean and crazy. Just like always, God love her.”

Cameron grinned. “Tell her I send my regards.”

“Like hell I will.” He glanced up at Della. “Do you intend to douse these wounds with whisky?”

“That’s my plan, since I didn’t see anything else in the kit.” A quick look told her that both had long slashes, but the major wounds didn’t appear deep enough to require stitches. Good. Even the thought of stitching skin made her feel queasy. “I brought the bottle of whisky from your saddlebags,” she said to Cameron.

“Where’s your hospitality, James Cameron?” Luke demanded. He jerked his head toward the bottle in Della’s hand. “If you were bleeding at my place, I’d offer you a drink.”

Cameron started to get up, but Della waived him down. She poured herself a cup of whisky first and took a long, fiery swallow. An armadillo was easier to understand than a man. Men simply did not live in the same world that women did.

She washed their wounds, doused the cuts with whisky, applied ground charcoal to draw out poisons, and bandaged them.