Carol Finch (9 page)

Furthermore, watching her lose her temper with him was better than being the object of her sympathy and watching her battle tears. Quinn was never going to pamper, cater to or fawn over this woman. He simply didn’t have it in him and she needed to know that.

He and Piper were going to share an arduous journey through these rugged mountains and she was going to have to toughen up because he couldn’t spend all his time wondering when she would burst into tears, when she would fall apart and tell him that she couldn’t take anymore.

She had asked for this, he reminded himself. This or
deal would test her to the limits. It was high time she figured that out and realized that he wasn’t going to mollycoddle her the way most men probably did.

“All right, Callahan,” she seethed at him, her hands fisted on her shapely hips, her full breasts heaving with indignation. “So you’ve had a difficult life and don’t give a tinker’s damn about anyone. You’re entitled, I agree. That doesn’t mean my life hasn’t been frustrating, even if I haven’t faced the kind of hardships you’ve endured.”

She glared at him good and hard and said, “But when you start treating me as if I count for nothing and my feelings are of no importance then you are too much like my father and you are standing on the last good nerve I have left today!”

Her rising voice echoed around the canyon and Quinn said, “Stop shouting before you draw unwanted attention. Those hombres over the ridge might decide to check it out. I know I would.”

She dropped to her knees in front of him, wincing slightly when she landed on her scraped leg. She had regained the color in her cheeks—due to the anger she directed at him, he expected. He didn’t flinch when she grabbed a fistful of his shirt and got right in his face to blow off steam.

“You want to know what motivates me? All you had to do was ask.” Her unique eyes glittered with fiery temper and feisty spirit. “I want independence, freedom and the chance to make my own choices,
for once
in my life. And I’m not afraid to accept the consequences.

“For your information my father, Roarke Sullivan,
the reigning king of merchants in Texas, sees me as the extension of his will. He took over full responsibility of raising my sister and me after Mamma died of pneumonia eight years ago. He is infuriatingly domineering and he decided to marry me off so he could merge our family business with his closest competition. I objected so I lit out before he could drag me into a wedding I didn’t want and find myself tied to a man I will never love.”

“Sullivan?” His eyes popped. “Holy hell! You are an heiress. Even
I
’ve heard of the Sullivans of Galveston.”

“Fabulously wealthy. The envy of society’s upper crust,” she said distastefully. “But I have no wish to marry John Almighty Foster and pose as the empty-headed trophy on his arm, the belle of the ball that he expects me to be.”

Quinn chuckled, trying to picture Piper as the dutiful, submissive wife. The image didn’t fit her assertive, spirited personality.

“For years my father has tried to browbeat me by siccing a teacher on me who was everything you met in Agatha Stewart,” she confided. “According to Miss Johnson, I could never do anything quite right. I was too willful, too headstrong, too much of a free spirit to stay in my rightful place. She tried to make me docile and subservient, because that’s what Papa thought a woman should be when she took a husband.”

Quinn swallowed down a smile, thinking that this Miss Johnson person had been given a daunting task. Taming Piper, who had more sass, spunk and determination than any woman he had ever encountered, was as useless as beating your head against a brick wall.

Altering Piper’s natural temperament would be as much of a waste of time as trying to mold him into a socially accepted gentleman.

“My father wanted a puppet he could control,” she went on bitterly. “But he didn’t get it with my older sister, because she dared to take control of her own life when she married Captain Matthew Duncan, who is now stationed at Fort Davis. Papa gave up on Penny completely. He tried even harder to make
me
into the daughter who met his high expectations and acquiesced to his decrees.”

“Roarke disowned your sister?” Quinn questioned.

She bobbed her head and finally released her stranglehold on his shirt. “Yes, he denounced her right to inherit half the Sullivan fortune. He cut her off without a cent when she eloped. Papa tried to make an example of her to teach me a lesson and ensure that history didn’t repeat itself.”

Quinn grinned. “Guess he picked the wrong woman to bend to his will, didn’t he?”

Piper nodded. “And despite what you probably think, the money I’ve saved up from teaching at Miss Johnson’s Finishing School in Houston, while having her nag me to death for the past five years, is meant to provide me with a new start as a teacher at the garrison. Half of the funds will go to Penelope. The same goes for the pouch of jewelry that belonged to our mother and to us. Share and share alike is what I have in mind.”

Quinn stared at her in amazement. This heiress, who obviously had a fortune at her disposal—if she had chosen to obey her father’s wishes—had raced off alone in
a coach, headed for the wilds of southwest Texas. “You are out of your mind, Piper. You had everything most people want.”

She scoffed at that. “I had nothing but a gold-plated prison and a warden who tried to turn me into the image of my departed mother. To Papa, she was the ideal lady and he hasn’t remarried because he couldn’t find any woman who could replace her.

“After years of being told
what
to say,
how
to say it and
when
to say it, I longed to be myself and have a life of my own.” She stared intently at him. “
That
is my motivation. That and the long-awaited reunion with my sister whom I haven’t seen in two years. I have corresponded with her each week. I have had to be clever and discreet because Papa and Miss Johnson have tried to intercept Penny’s replies. Papa wants no association between us because he has written her off and he doesn’t want her to have the slightest influence on me.”

Quinn watched her sink down cross-legged in front of him. She was still intense, her fists knotted on her knees, her back rigid.

She stared challengingly at him. “By confiding in you I have given you power over my destiny. My father can make you a very wealthy man if you contact him and accept the reward that he is undoubtedly offering. By now he has been informed that I left Houston. I predict that he has organized a posse or hired detectives to track me down.”

Quinn predicted that she was right on that count. Now he understood why she had assumed a different identity and tried to alienate herself from other passen
gers. If anyone suspected who she really was she might have been turned over to her father to collect a generous reward.

She stared defiantly at him. “So, do it, Callahan,” she dared him. “Telegraph my father the first chance you get. You can have the financial backing to open any business that meets your whim. People will kowtow to you, despite your upbringing because you will have the kind of money and power other people crave. This is your chance to see how the other half lives. After you locate the den of thieves and contact your Ranger battalion, then contact my father.

“But until then, I’m going to study you like a textbook, emulate your impressive skills and become just like you. Or die trying. No more tears. No more self-pity,” she vowed resolutely. “You’re going to look at me and see the reflection of yourself, so help me you will!”

He almost believed that because she looked so intent and driven to prove something to him. He could imagine her standing up to her father the same way, refusing to bend to his will, defying his decrees to be the woman he groomed in the image of his departed wife.

“I won’t even curse you for handing me over to my father so he can make my wedding arrangements. By then it won’t matter because you will have been my tutor and mentor during this journey. I will run as fast and far as I can again.
You
will still have the generous reward and eventually
I
will have the freedom I cherish.”

When she sank back and heaved a deep breath his attention dropped to the swells of her breasts—again. Quinn was sorry to say that no matter how hard he tried
to overlook her feminine assets he kept getting distracted, wanting things he shouldn’t have.

Piper was at the top of the list of forbidden whims.

“Now then,” she said, “if you want to know what I think or feel—which I doubt you do—on any other topic, just come right out and ask. I will tell you straight away. The same way
you
do with me. From now on, Callahan, when you’re talking to me it will be like talking to yourself. No diplomacy, no tact, just forthright conversation.”

Quinn had to battle to prevent another smile from pursing his lips. God, she was glorious. All spit and fire and challenge. “There’s just one more thing I want to know.”

Piper peered up at him, watching him bite back a grin and wondering what she might possibly have said to earn that glimmer of amusement. “What do you want to know?”

She held her ground, as she had taught herself to do while posing as an old crone, when he leaned in to crowd her space. The closer his head came to hers, the more difficult it was to breathe. She couldn’t see past this infuriating yet intriguing man. She couldn’t inhale air without drowning in his masculine scent. She couldn’t concentrate on anything except the shape of his sensuous lips and the gleam in those whiskey-colored eyes that were fanned with long sooty lashes.

“I want to know what you taste like, dragon lady,” he murmured as a teasing grin finally surfaced to encompass his ruggedly handsome face. “Are you fire or honey…or both?”

T
o Piper’s stunned amazement Quinn angled his dark head and pressed his lips to hers. The kiss was nothing like she expected from a rough-edged, hard-bitten man like him. It was a baffling contradiction that crumbled her defenses in one second flat.

Piper had no clue what paradise tasted like, but if she were guessing,
this
was it. Warm. Inviting. Promising. All those marvelous sensations that made you feel good from inside and out and gave you an indescribable sense of peace and well-being. As if you had suddenly stepped over some mystical threshold and had
arrived.

Quinn tasted like sweet, forbidden fruit. He sampled her with the same curiosity that she sampled him. They experimented with each other as their lips skimmed and darted away with the ever-changing angle of their heads—as if to savor one another from several different directions.

She leaned involuntarily into him because she felt the
need to be closer. Her palm splayed over the muscled wall of his chest, feeling his accelerated pulse matching her fast-tempoed heartbeat. She didn’t even consider recoiling when he copied her gesture by laying his hand over her heart, making intimate contact with the rise of her breast.

Unprecedented sensations flooded through her body and burned deep into her core. Was this lust? Desire? Whatever it was, it seemed to have taken on a life of its own, feeding on the unexpected pleasure and the expanding heat of his kiss.

Piper opened her lips to him because it felt like the natural thing to do. When she felt the stab of his tongue searching for hers, she heard herself moan, then emulated his technique to explore the hidden recesses of his mouth.

While she was marveling at the unanticipated tenderness she had discovered in this hard-nosed man—and wanting more—he withdrew to run his fingers through her unbound hair. Disappointed that he had deprived her of her first real experience with seductive pleasure she stared up at him,
willing
him to kiss her again…and again.

“Your hair feels like silk.” His voice rumbled like a purring cat. Which was only fair because her body was rumbling with astonishing sensations. “I figured as much.”

“Why did you kiss me like that?” she asked directly.

“Why did you let me? I gave you plenty of time to pull away if you had wanted to.”

She dodged the question, as he had dodged hers. Well, so much for forthright honesty, she mused. Some things were difficult to be honest about, for fear of being teased or rejected. But she made a pact with herself to
become more courageous and less self-conscious in the future.

“I expected hard and bruising and uninvolved,” she confided. “Did you kiss me because you
pitied
me after I told you my life story?”

The fact that the kiss he had bestowed on her
had
been gentle and left him feeling thoroughly involved disturbed him greatly. He really hadn’t wanted their kiss to be personal, just inquisitive. But at first touch something had shifted inside him. She affected him way down deep inside, beneath those callous layers that had protected him from scorn, condemnation, and feelings of unworthiness.

She made him feel vulnerable; and that made him uncomfortable. Oh certainly, Piper was no match for him in any physical arena because he had been around the block of hard knocks a hundred times. He knew how to fight, how to survive and how to convince civilized society that its low opinion of him made no difference.

But
she
got to him. She, with her vow to become like him, to match him step for step until he looked at her and saw the spitting image of the Quinn Callahan that he projected to the world.

Well, despite
her
vow, he was not going to allow her to become like him, he promised himself.

She
represented the wide-eyed innocence he had lost at age twelve.
She
was the purity that all the cleansing rituals the Kiowa and Comanche had conducted to transform him into a full-fledged Indian had not accomplished.
She
represented the hope and new beginnings that had died with each disappointing phase of life that he had undergone.

Yes, there were things he could teach Piper to survive in his world, but he wasn’t going to permit
her
to forget how to hope and dream of a better future and to pursue life on her own terms. That’s what she said she wanted, so that’s what he would give her, in exchange for the sweetest kiss that he had ever known.

As soon as he located the den of thieves, he would take her to her sister at Fort Davis. She would have the independence she craved. As for her father, he would never learn Piper’s whereabouts from Quinn. No matter how sizeable the reward or the temptation to make his life easier he would not betray her for personal gain.

“Quinn? Why are you looking at me like that?” she wanted to know.

Her question jostled him back to the present. He put on his poker face. “Like what?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “If I knew, I wouldn’t have to ask, now would I?”

The sassy comment drew another grin from him. She was an expert at drawing all sorts of reactions from him, even when he usually tried not to let an ounce of emotion slip past his guard.

“I’m wondering how you’re going to react when we bed down for the night on a single pallet. Worried, Sullivan?”

She flashed him a challenging stare. “I can handle it as well as you can. From now on, nothing gets to me, remember?”

He couldn’t guarantee that it wouldn’t get to
him
now that he had kissed her—and liked it way too much. He longed for a deep, thorough taste of her that
went on and on. He predicted that he would be fighting these cravings and engaging in a battle royal, attempting to keep his hands to himself when she lay down beside him.

Because that’s exactly what he wanted next—the
feel
of her silky skin beneath his fingertips. He wanted something more than the light brush of his hand over the swell of her breasts while he was kissing her. He wanted complete intimacy, wanted to savor the heady pleasure of being so deep inside her that it was impossible to tell where her body ended and his began.

The tantalizing prospect was enough to turn him hard and aching in a heartbeat.
Damn it, Callahan. Don’t torment yourself by thinking about that!

He watched Piper rise gracefully to her feet. She scooped up dirt to douse the campfire. After she rinsed her hands in the pool, she plunked down on the pallet. The tempting sight, and the erotic possibilities of joining her in bed, hit him with the force of a locomotive.

Considering how luscious this woman looked while fully clothed he could only begin to imagine how she would look, feel and taste if she were completely naked—beside him, beneath him and above him.

Quinn squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth against the provocative images spinning around in his head.
Real smart, Callahan. Make it hard on yourself in spades, why don’t you?

“Damn, Agatha, where are you when I really need you?” Quinn grumbled sourly.

“Pardon? What did you say?”

“Nothing,” he muttered as he watched her stretch
out on the bedroll. Another blow of pure lust hammered at him and he scowled sourly.

When she noticed his expression she said, “You need to stop grumbling and growling and be nicer to me.”

“Oh? Why’s that?” he asked tersely.

“Because you have an irascible disposition and I’m probably the only friend you have.”

Quinn felt a chuckle bubbling up from his chest. “You’ve got that right.”

When she patted the empty space beside him and grinned impishly at him, the control and self-discipline that he had spent thirty-three years nurturing and cultivating threatened to abandon him. Thankfully, inspiration struck when he saw the mutt lounging beside the pool.

“Come on, Lucky,” he called to the dog.

A protective barrier is what Quinn needed and the dog could provide it. With the taste of Piper still on his lips, the scent of her clinging to his skin and the feel of her breasts branded on his hand, he definitely needed a buffer between them tonight.

Otherwise, she was going to lose her innocence to a man who had no right to take what could never truly belong to him.

Quinn sprawled on the bedroll, closed his eyes and focused his iron-willed self-discipline on getting some much-needed shut-eye. Even with the dog snuggled up between them he had to battle nearly overwhelming temptation—repeatedly.

“Quinn, are you asleep?” she asked a half hour later.

“Yes, so don’t bother me,” he grumbled.

“I just wanted you to know that I liked the taste of you.”

He inwardly groaned, wondering if he could handle her new policy of outright honesty.

It took a long time for Quinn to fall asleep that night because his secret fantasies were buzzing around his head like bees swarming a hive.

Commander Scott Butler and his five volunteers held up their torches and peered grimly over the ledge where the stage wreck had occurred. He and the other Rangers had arrived at the stage station a few miles east, only to be informed by the driver and guard that thieves had attacked. According to the two men, the bandits had sent the coach, with its passengers closeted inside, racing along the sharp bend of the mountain road.

“There’s debris scattered everywhere,” Vance Cooper groaned. “The driver’s description of the male passenger fits Callahan. Damn it, I can’t imagine how he could have survived this crash.”

Butler couldn’t imagine, either. “The sheer drop off this cliff would be enough to kill anyone. If Cal managed to land in the swift-moving stream there’s no telling where he ended up…even if he was conscious and knew what had happened.”

“Not to mention the fact that this area is crawling with lobos and mountain cats.”

“Look over here, Commander.” Tom Pendleton directed attention to the object he noticed while scanning the area with his field glasses. “There’s something snagged on that scrub bush. It looks like a black veiled hat.” He glanced over at Butler. “Maybe it belonged to the old woman that was also on the stage.”

“Or maybe a woman in disguise. Maybe Piper Sullivan managed to elude her abductor and used the disguise to keep her identity a secret.”

“Looks like she was doomed one way or the other,” Sam Garret said dismally. “She was the only female passenger reported to have been seen at the relay stations on the stage route this week.”

Butler heaved an audible sigh. “I sure as hell am glad I don’t have to be the one bearing the bad news to Roarke Sullivan.” He glanced at Sam. “Ride back to the station with the preliminary report that Miss Sullivan might have perished in the crash. The driver on the eastbound stage can send the telegram to Galveston.”

Sam wheeled around to fetch his horse.

“We’ll find a path down to the stream to investigate. Then we’ll meet you at the stage station at Perdition Pass.”

Sam nodded, then reined his horse around to gallop away.

The remaining Rangers mounted up to locate a trail that would take them to the bottom of the gorge.

“Damn, Commander, there’s times when I really don’t wanna know what happened,” Vance Cooper grumbled. “This is one of those times, especially if what’s left of Cal is down there somewhere.”

“Nobody promised this job would be easy,” Butler said as he trotted west. “It doesn’t get much worse than giving last rites to one of our own.”

That said, the Rangers veered off the road to pick their way downhill. They found no conclusive evidence that the two passengers had perished.

No evidence that they hadn’t, either.

The men clung to that small ray of hope that Cal and the woman might have survived the disaster. But from the looks of the shattered debris on the rocky slope and stream bank, Butler decided that walking away from certain death would have been nothing short of a miracle.

Piper awakened the next morning, not surprised to note that Quinn had left her alone again. She told herself not to feel abandoned and not to panic because this was a test of her fortitude and she intended to pass with flying colors. This was the first day of her self-reliance and independence. She was going to learn to depend on no one. Just like Quinn.

She smiled faintly when she realized that he had been considerate enough to leave one of his sidearms for her protection.

A wild Texas rose lay beside the pistol.

Startled, and inordinately pleased by his thoughtful gesture, she plucked up the flower, then winced when a thorn poked into her finger. Piper chortled when it dawned on her that Quinn had left behind the perfect symbol of himself. Gentle in some ways, but protected by prickly armor.

She also suspected that Quinn thought the flower was an accurate representation of
her.

Although Piper had bathed the previous evening while Quinn was scouting the area, she decided to take advantage of the refreshing pool this morning, too. Privacy and bathing were about the only luxuries to be found out here in the untamed wilderness, she mused.

“And where have you been?” she asked Lucky when he trotted back to camp to lap up a drink of water.

Piper smiled when the pup looked up at the sound of her voice and wagged his tail. It was encouraging to know that someone around here appreciated her company.

When Piper doffed her clothes and sank into the pool Lucky took a flying leap and joined her. Chuckling, she watched the dog paddle in circles before he scrabbled up the rock ledge to shake himself off.

A few minutes later Piper emerged from the spring to dress in her breeches and blouse. While she was rolling up the pallet and gathering her belongings to secure to the back of her horse she heard the tumble of pebbles, then tensed at the sound of Lucky’s warning growl.

She glanced over her shoulder, expecting to see Quinn rounding the outcropping of rock. She gasped in alarm when two renegade Indians stopped short and stared at her in surprise. Panic-stricken, Piper dashed over to retrieve the pistol she had left near the spring. Her breath came out in a pained whoosh when one of the men launched himself at her and sent her skidding across the pebbled path. Stones gouged her knees, hips, chin and elbows as the man scrambled over her in an attempt to grab the gun before she got her hands on it.