Elizabeth Lowell (15 page)

Janna was no different.

*    *    *

Janna bit her lip and tugged her hat lower over her auburn hair, concealing any telltale flash of color. The sun’s heat had strengthened to the point that cold was no longer a problem for her. Her canteen took care of her thirst. Her stomach, however, was unhappy. It reminded her ceaselessly that it was past time for breakfast and lunch, not to mention that she hadn’t had so much as a snack after her midnight walk in the rain.

Yet hunger wasn’t her biggest problem. Ty was.

Barely a half mile away, he sat on stone outcropping that gave him a commanding view of the countryside. A rugged piñon that grew in the crevices gave concealment to his body. If Janna hadn’t caught a glimpse of movement when he had climbed up to his present position, she would never have spotted him in time to go to ground.

Now she was trapped. She had to move across bare rock in order to get to the sole path up Black Plateau’s steep eastern side. The instant she broke cover he would be on her like a hungry coyote on a rabbit.

Why didn
’
t you just ride Zebra up onto the plateau
?
she silently demanded of Ty.
Why did you turn her loose? She could lead you to Lucifer as fast as I could, so why are you staked out over there looking for me instead of for that stallion?

Nothing answered her silent questions. She shifted her weight carefully, rubbing her hip where a loose rock had been digging into tender flesh. With an impatient sound she turned her head just enough to look across the distance separating her from Ty.

He was still there.

Ordinarily Janna would simply have settled deeper into cover and outwaited her hunter. She had done it many times before, when Cascabel’s men had come across her tracks and given chase. Always her patience had proven to be greater than that of her pursuers.

But no longer. Her patience was evaporating even more quickly than rain puddles beneath the hot sun. Every minute she stayed in hiding was one minute closer to Lucifer for Joe Troon. The thought was agony to Janna, especially when she knew that she wasn’t in any real danger from Ty. Even if he caught her, he wouldn’t beat or rape or torture her. In fact, she couldn’t think of anything painful he would be likely to do to her, except to remind her of how far she was from his ideal of a silken lady.

The thought deepened the unhappy downward curve of her mouth. Beyond being certain that she didn’t stand out against the rugged landscape, she had never thought much about her appearance one way or another. Now she did. Seeing Ty in his new clothes with his cheeks smooth shaven had driven home to her just how handsome he was, and by how great a margin she missed being the fragile silken lady who could attract and hold him.

Janna looked across the wild land at Ty and admitted to herself how much she wanted to be his dream. And at the same time she knew how impossible it was for her to be that dream.

If she had been the silken lady of his desire, she would have died at the same lonely water hole her father had, for there had been no one to depend on but herself. If she hadn’t died there, she would certainly have starved, because she would not have been able to catch and kill her own food. Instead of feeling wretched because she was self-sufficient, she should be thanking God for her ability to adjust to the harsh demands of surviving in the wild land.

Do I really want to be all soft and useless just so I can attract Ty?
she asked herself scornfully.

Yes.

The prompt, honest reply didn’t improve her humor. She glared out across the ground separating Ty from herself.

If I
’
d been all simpering and soft in the head, Cascabel would have tracked Ty down and killed him. But did
he
ever think of that? No. He just mooned over a will-o
’
-the-wisp that would probably faint combing tangles out of
her own
hair
.

She glared at Ty.
Move, dammit! I
’
ve got better things to do even if you don
’
t.

He remained in place.

Another half hour crawled by, marked by no more motion than that of the shadows responding to the slow arc of the sun across the empty sky. Ravens called across empty ravines. Rabbits nibbled on brush. Lizards whisked across hot rock, towing the racing black shape of their shadows behind. A hawk circled overhead, sending its keening cry to the earth like a thrown lance.

Janna felt like calling out in return, venting her growing frustration.

Another sound came—a rifle shot rather than the call of a hawk. The sound was distant and wasn’t repeated.

Three things occurred to her simultaneously. The first was that no white man was crazy enough to call down the attention of Cascabel’ s renegades by shooting at game. The second was that Joe Troon had taken a shot at Lucifer. The third was that Ty would be looking in the direction of the shot rather than at the open space between her and the route up the east side of Black Plateau.

No sooner had the thought occurred than she acted. She popped out of the crevice where she had hidden and began running swiftly.

Ty had heard the sound of the rifle shot at the same instant Janna did. Like her, he had thought of several things simultaneously while he strained to hear other shots and heard only the wind. But he didn’t look in the direction of the shot. He knew that whatever had happened or was happening over there was too far away for him to affect. His attention never wavered from the broken land between himself and the plateau.

He spotted Janna instantly.

He had spent the past few hours memorizing the possible approaches to the vague trail he had spotted up onto Black Plateau, so he didn’t even hesitate to choose his own route. He came to his feet and hit top speed within a few strides, running hard and fast and clean, covering ground with a devouring speed, closing in on her with a diagonal course.

She caught the motion from the corner of her eye, recognized him and redoubled her own efforts to reach the plateau trail. It was as though she were standing still. She had seen him run once before, but he had been injured then, reeling from the effects of running Cascabel’s gauntlet.

Ty wasn’t injured now. He ran with the speed of a wolf, closing the space between himself and his prey with every leaping stride.

One instant Janna was in full flight—the next instant she was brought down on the hard earth. Only it wasn’t the ground she fell upon, it was Ty, who had turned as he grabbed her so that it would be his body that took the impact of the unforgiving land.

Even so, she was knocked breathless. By the time she could react, it was too late. She was flat on her back, pinned to the hot earth by the weight of Ty’s big body. He caught her wrists and held them above her head, imprisoned in his hands.

“Don’t you think it’s time that you and I had a little chat?” he drawled.

“Let go of me!”

“Promise you won’t run?”

She twisted abruptly, trying to throw him off. He simply settled a bit more heavily onto her body.

“I’m bigger than you are, if you hadn’t noticed,” he said. “A little thing like you doesn’t have a chance against a man of any size, much less one as big as I am.”

Janna started calling Ty the same names her father had used when the wagon mule wouldn’t move. “You misbegotten whelp of a cross-eyed cow and the stupidest stud son of a bitch that God ever—”

A big hand clamped over her mouth, cutting off the flow of her invective.

“Didn’t anybody ever tell you a girl shouldn’t use such language?”

The muffled sounds from beneath his hand told him that she wasn’t listening to him. She flailed against his shoulder and chin with the hand he had freed in order to cover her mouth. He lifted that hand and grabbed her wrist again.

“Bastard son of a one-legged whore and a wall-eyed, flea-brained—”

Abruptly his hard mouth covered hers. Her lips were open, her breath hot, the taste of her as fresh as rain. He shuddered heavily and thrust his tongue deep into her mouth again and again, wanting to devour her.

The fierceness of his mouth and the wild penetration of his tongue shocked her into complete stillness. She trembled helplessly, overpowered by his strength and by her awareness of his body moving over hers, rubbing urgently, as though he were trying to push her into the ground.

She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, and still the contact went on and on, his big body crushing hers, showing her how futile it was to fight him. She tried to speak and found she couldn’t even do that. Twisting, writhing, she tried to fight him but he was too big, his body was everywhere.

She was as helpless as a mouse caught in the talons of a hawk.

When Ty finally tore his mouth away and stared down at Janna, he was breathing in deep, ragged bursts and her pupils were wide, dark, enormous, magnified by tears.

“Don’t you ever run from me again,” he said, his voice hoarse and his eyes almost black from the dilation of his pupils.

She felt the violent shudder that shook his body, felt the quick force of his breaths against the tears on her cheeks, felt the savage power of his clenched muscles. She should have been terrified, yet at some deep, wordless level she knew that he wouldn’t truly hurt her. Even so, she trembled, not understanding the feelings that were coursing through her body—and through his.

“You can let me g-go,” she said shakily. “I w-won’t run.”

For the space of several breaths there was only silence and the wild glitter of Ty’s eyes. Abruptly he let go of her and rolled aside into a sitting position, drawing his legs up to his body as though he were in pain.

“Christ,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’m sorry, little one. I’ve never forced myself on a woman in my life.”

She let out one long, ragged breath and then another. “It’s all right.”

“Like hell it is,” he snarled. He turned his head and looked at her with eyes as hard as stone. “You don’t belong out here, Janna Wayland. You’re a walking temptation to every man who sees you all alone and unprotected. I’m going to take you to the fort and that’s final.”

“If you do that, Joe Troon will kill Lucifer, assuming he hasn’t already. That could have been the rifle shot we heard.”

Ty said something savage beneath his breath, then added, “You don’t understand.”

“No, it’s you who doesn’t understand,” Janna said quickly. “At the fort or in any town or at one of the ranches, I’m a girl without kin, fit only for washing clothes or dishes or feeding men or...well, you know.” She shook her head fiercely. “I don’t want that. Out here I’m free of their sly looks and pawing hands. The only man out here is you, and you don’t think of me that way.”

“I don’t? What the hell do you think just happened?” Ty demanded, hardly able to believe his ears.

“I made you mad and you got even.” She shrugged. “So what? I’ve taken a lot worse from men and survived.”

Ty started to ask what Janna meant, then realized that he didn’t want to know. He had heard his sister’s broken cries when she relived in nightmare the time of her captivity at the hands of white raiders. The thought of Janna being brutalized like that was unendurable. She was so fierce in her desire for freedom, so terrifyingly fragile beneath the heavy clothes that muffled her.

“God,” he groaned, putting his head in his hands, hating himself. “Janna...little one...I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“But you didn’t.” She looked at him anxiously when he didn’t respond. She put her hand on his wrist where the shirt ended and his warm flesh began. “Ty? Honest. You scared me a little and confused me a lot, but you didn’t hurt me at all. And I’ve changed my mind. I’ll help you get Lucifer before Joe Troon does.”

For a long moment Ty stared at the hand resting on his wrist. The fingers were long and delicate, gently browned by the sun, the nails beautifully formed and pink with health, the skin supple and warm. He wanted to pick up that feminine hand and kiss the hollow of her palm, lick the sensitive skin between her fingers, bite gently at the pad of flesh at the base of her thumb until her breath broke and her hand curled around his touch like a sleeping flower...

“Stop looking at me like that,” she said, snatching her fingers back. “I know my hand isn’t lily-white and soft and stinking of perfume, but it’s a good hand all the same. It helped to save your stupid masculine hide, remember?”

Ty opened his mouth to tell Janna that she had misunderstood, that he had been thinking how alluring her hand was rather than the opposite. At the last instant common sense held his tongue in check. She refused to leave the country, and he couldn’t leave until he had Lucifer. He needed her help with the stallion and she needed him to guard her back, but he was so woman hungry that he barely trusted himself to keep his hands off her.

Keeping her irritated with him would go a long way toward maintaining a safe distance between them. Knowing what her experience with men must have been like, he simply couldn’t have lived with himself if she thought he was demanding sex in return for safety or anything else he could give her.

“And I’ve been trying to thank you for saving my hide by saving yours in return,” he drawled, “but to hell with it. You want to run around here risking your scrawny little self, you go right ahead. Me? I’m just thanking God that He made you so damned unappealing to men. Any other woman and I’d be tempted to find out what was beneath all the rough clothes. But you? You’re like a baby quail, all eyes and mouth and frizzled features. With you I’m as safe from the temptations of the flesh as any monk in a monastery.”

“Why, you—”

His hand shot out, covering her mouth and cutting off her words.

“You should be down on your knees thanking God that I feel that way,” Ty said savagely. “If I ever put my hands on you, it wouldn’t be violins and roses. I’m too woman hungry to stop short of taking what I need. And that’s all it would be. Taking. No promises, no soft words, no wedding vows, nothing but male hunger and a handy female.”