Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) (10 page)

Reagan’s gaze was brimming with chilly resentment as she watched
him walk away. He was trouble, pure and simple, from the crown of his raven
head to the toes of his beaded moccasins, and Reagan wished to God at that
moment that she had never clapped eyes upon him.

Contemptible and arrogant, determined to direct the course her
life would take, he was as changeable as the wind. Seducing her one moment,
trying to intimidate her the next—he was a confounding puzzle of a man, and she
could not seem to fathom what was real and what was a lot of empty bragging
where he was concerned.

Nor did she intend to find out.

What she did intend was to bide her time and allow him to assume
the role of her protector, though that role would be blessedly brief.

A thousand miles of dangerous country stood between her and an
unwanted marriage, a marriage in which she would have no part. She watched him
gather his belongings; then, when he turned his back to saddle his mount, she
pulled a face at
him.
Let him plot and plan to his heart’s content, she thought. The
moment they reached Saint Louis she would find a way to be shed of Jackson
Broussard.

Jackson and his reluctant ward set out that same morning, right on
schedule. For more than a week they pushed Euripides, Jackson’s big-barreled
bay, as hard as they dared over the rocky foothills and through the steep,
barren valleys that lay to the east of the Shining Mountains.

Jackson was quieter now, almost distant. He rarely spoke during
the daylight hours, except to grunt in answer to one of her frequent questions,
or to issue an occasional command. Reagan couldn’t be certain what ailed him,
but she had her suspicions, and they centered around two things: his return to
Saint Louis, and his near seduction of her at the river the morning they’d
departed the mountains.

The former remained a subject of great speculation during the long
and arduous days; but it was the latter that kept her awake and tossing on her
comfortless earthen bed each night.

Though each of them had been careful to avoid mentioning the event
again, Reagan was uncomfortably aware that she was not alone in her inability
to banish the incident from her thoughts. There was something in Jackson’s
heavy-lidded eyes when he looked at her, a burning heat so intense she feared
it would reduce the mannish garments that concealed her nakedness to ash, and
which told her more poignantly than mere words could that he had not forgotten.

During the late afternoon of the ninth day, they reached the Platte
River, a braided morass of trickling rivulets that snaked their way through the
endless sea of undulating grass known as the Great Plains.

Perched on Euripides’ broad rump, Reagan clung to Jackson’s lean
middle with one arm, shading her eyes with the other hand as she stared off
into the distance.

Grass... there was nothing but grass as far as the eye could see...
miles upon miles of it, violently tossed and churned by the ceaseless prairie
wind, with only the rippling silver waters of the Platte to break the monotony.

Accustomed to the deep, dense woods and pine-shaded hollows of
her native Kentucky, Reagan found the barren land vastly unsettling. If danger
threatened in Bloodroot, there was always a hiding place handy. Here on the
prairie there were no trees, no boulders, clefts, or hollows, nothing but the
endless sea of grass stretching away to eternity.

For the most part, Jackson seemed far too intent upon pushing
himself to the limits of his endurance, and dragging Reagan with him, to notice
or be bothered by the changes in the landscape. His uncommunicative attitude
gave her ample time to dwell on the nuptials he planned for her, and just how
she could best avoid them.

For the time being, the rigors of the journey seemed to have taken
precedence over all of Jackson’s concerns, for he had not mentioned his plans
for her again, yet Reagan was not fooled. She was beginning to understand that
Jackson Broussard was dogged when it came to getting what he wanted, and
somehow she doubted that he had simply abandoned the crack-brained notion of
palming her off on some potential husband, any more than she had given up the
notion of satisfying her burning curiosity.

For nine days she’d studied him, learning to gauge his mood by his
expression, speculating on the manner of demons that drove him to the edge of
exhaustion in an effort to reach Saint Louis. As a result she knew little more
about him now than when he’d first purchased her from Luther, other than what
she’d been able to observe.

She had learned that he was frustratingly complex, an intricate,
hard-to-solve puzzle, a study in obstinacy and compassion, darkness and light.
Holding her hat with one hand against the insistent pull of the prairie wind,
Reagan silently vowed that if indeed it was the last thing she ever did, she
would come to know and understand him better.

It was her futile hope that through understanding and enlightenment
she could lay this growing fascination for her tall and mysterious
self-appointed guardian to rest.

Later that same evening Reagan sat alone by a small, smokeless
fire made of buffalo dung, halfheartedly nibbling a blackened strip of
Jackson’s seemingly endless supply of jerked meat and wishing for something
more substantial. A few feet away, Josephine lay on her belly in the buffalo
grass, placidly licking her paws. Every now and again Reagan broke off a small
piece of her supper and cautiously offered it to the cat, who took it just as
gingerly.

During the past nine days an uneasy alliance had been forged
between Reagan and the mountain lion, and Josephine’s loyalties had gradually
undergone a none-too-subtle shift. More and more she shunned Jackson’s society,
choosing instead to lie close to Reagan of an evening, perhaps aware that
eventually a portion of Reagan’s evening meal would come her way.

Tonight of all nights Reagan was especially glad for the company.
Alone on the open spaces stretching for countless miles in all directions, she
felt like a bug adrift on a vast, uncharted ocean.

The minutes ticked away, the yellow sky deepening to marigold. As
the sun sank below the horizon, the undulating green sea turned dark and
threatening. A few seconds of absolute brilliance and the colors slowly bled
away, the hush indicative of twilight slowly descending upon the land.

Watching as the moon rose huge and white above the eastern
horizon, Reagan could not suppress the involuntary shudder that ran through her
slight frame.

Jackson had gone off to scout shortly after they’d arrived at this
place, and there had been no sign of him since.

That seemed like hours ago, and Reagan was beginning to worry.

Dear Lord, where was he? Had he wandered too far and lost his way?
Run afoul of a grizzly or stepped on a rattlesnake? Was he out there somewhere
at this moment, in desperate need of assistance, wounded or dying?

Holding her breath, Reagan cocked her head to listen, hoping to
catch the sound of a footfall, the sound of a human
voice....
Yet there
was only the shrill bark of a coyote calling to its mate somewhere in the near
distance, and the low and mournful moan of the wind in the tall grass.

A wind that never ceased.

Day and night it kept up its endless wail, sweeping over the
flatlands, scouring everything in its path. It was enough to drive a body mad.

Just when Reagan thought she could stand no more, just when she
moved to cover her ears with her hands, Jackson emerged from the shadows.

His step was slow and leisurely, his every movement as carefully
measured as if it had been thought out beforehand. Reagan was mesmerized, and
watched in silence as he seated the Hawken rifle’s brass butt plate on the
ground between his moccasined feet, then, folding his hands over the octagonal
barrel, turned his ruined cheek to the light.

Reagan caught her breath. Constant exposure to the elements had
turned his skin a deeper bronze, and the scar a livid red. Strangely she was
not repelled by it. In fact, in that moment, with the wind rippling his
blue-black hair and the firelight glinting off the pistols thrust through his
belt, she thought she’d never seen such sinister beauty in a man, such lethal
grace... and she could only wonder at how he could have come by the glaring
imperfection.

“I thought perhaps you’d gotten lost,” she said after a time.

He shrugged. “I came across some Indian sign and followed it. It
took longer than I anticipated.”

Reagan felt a surge of alarm. “Indian sign?”

Jackson reached down to scratch Josephine behind the ears,
avoiding Reagan’s gaze. “It’s a day or two old, and nothing to worry about.”

“Are you sure about that?” Reagan asked. She’d been born well
after the Battle of Fallen Timbers and the subsequent Treaty of Greenville,
which had signaled the end of the Indian wars in the East. Yet, memories were
long in the hill country around Bloodroot, and Kentucky was still known as that
“Dark and Bloody Ground.”

There were few families of her acquaintance—including her own—that
had not suffered the loss of a father, brother, or son to the Shawnee war ax,
or grieved for the sisters, wives, or children carried away into captivity.

Reagan had cut her teeth on the worn wooden grip of her
grandfather Ezra’s tomahawk, and had grown to adulthood listening to the
hair-raising tales of the settlement years. Her background made her bone-deep
wary; Indians, in peace or in war, were unpredictable, and she did not relish
the thought of risking an encounter that could turn ugly in these wide-open
spaces.

Jackson gave the cat’s head a final pat and, propping the Hawken
against a rock, slowly sank down. “As certain as I can be.”

He sounded confident enough, cool and unruffled, yet Reagan
couldn’t help but notice that since leaving the rendezvous encampment he’d been
armed to the teeth, and took care to keep the rifle within easy reach. “I’d
call you on that one, but I was taught it ain’t polite to call a man a liar to
his face.”

“No, it isn’t polite,” Jackson agreed, “yet that’s never stopped
you before. What keeps you from it now? A sudden overwhelming urge to placate
me? Or perhaps you’re taking ill?”

Reagan attempted an irate sniff, and failed miserably. She did not
know when or how it had happened, but her strength, her bravado, had deserted
her, leaving her more alone, more vulnerable than she’d been in her entire
life. She’d always scorned weeping, swooning, fragile females, and was appalled
now that her eyes were pooling with irrational tears. Angry with her sudden
weakness, she hurriedly averted her face, wiping the trickle of moisture that
spilled over her lashes with the back of her hand, hoping with all of her being
that Jackson would not see.

Yet seemingly nothing escaped his sharp green gaze. “Here, what’s
this? Kaintuck?” he said uncertainly; then he broke off, and Reagan heard him
swear softly. “Thunderation. What is it? Here, why are you crying?” Reaching
out, he caught the point of her chin, turning her face toward the light. “Was
it something I said? Can it be that you were really concerned about me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Frenchman,” she said, trying to push his
hand away. But even the rejoinder sounded shaky and weak, uncertain.

As dogged as ever, Jackson beleaguered the point. “Will you tell
me what’s wrong, or shall I hazard another guess?”

Reagan’s reply was as confusing as her conflicting emotions. “Everything—and
nothing. It is this place, and this situation, the fact that the wind never
stops. I just wish to God it would stop—” Breaking off, she stifled a sob with
a hand at her mouth, then, unable to contain her roiling emotions any longer,
concealed her face in her arms and wept her heart out.

She wasn’t quite sure just why she was crying, and never really
knew in which moment Jackson lifted her up and onto his lap. She knew only that
one moment she was huddled in a miserable lump and the next she was curled on
his lap like a child, her arms wound tightly around his neck and her face
buried in the curve of his throat.

Jackson stroked her tumbled tresses and kissed her burning cheek,
her ear. “Cry if it helps,” he said in a low voice. “There’s no need to be
brave any longer, and no one to hear you but me.”

She did cry. She cried until it seemed there were no tears left
inside her, and then she sat, silent and drained, her flushed damp cheek
pressed to Jackson’s scarred one. A moment passed, and another. His expression
grave, Jackson pulled back far enough to peer down at her, to smooth the
curling tendrils back from her face. “If it were within my power, I would stop
the wind for you.”