Nan Ryan (36 page)

He couldn’t do it
.

Lew knew he couldn’t take Mollie in. She had come back and he knew that their volatile relationship was forever changed. Even before her return last night he had begun to suffer great twinges of doubt about taking her to Denver. Now he knew he couldn’t do it. How could a man take a woman like her to prison? Especially one who had saved his life.

For Mollie, everything had, overnight, become simple. She loved Lew Hatton. And she intended to cherish the short time she had left with him. For her the days would be golden, precious. From morning until night she would be allowed to look on his classic profile, hear his deep, slow voice, touch him as she tenderly nursed him back to health.

Guiltily, she found herself almost wishing that he would remain weak and helpless for a time. It was so sweet and enjoyable to minister to him. To feed him and rub his aching legs and watch over him while he slept.

But in only a few short days, Lew was almost completely well. Still, life remained sweet. Unhurriedly they rode further into the giant canyon, Mollie insisting that they stop at noon, warning Lew he was not to overdo. He should rest all afternoon. Lew agreed and they made camp in a splendid expanse of grassy meadow beside a wide, clear stream. At the meadow’s edge, a deep, narrow crevice wound back inside the canyon.

“Be a good place to sleep tonight,” Lew observed, exploring the crevice, and Mollie, nodding, helped place their belongings inside the dim, concealed corridor.

After the noon meal, Mollie said, “Now you are to take a nap and no back talk. Savvy?”

He grinned boyishly. “Savvy.”

“And toss me your clothes.”

“You don’t aim to steal them, do you?”

“I aim to wash them.”

It was a gloriously beautiful day in the canyon. Clear, bright, with a touch of fall in the thin, dry air. While Lew slept, Mollie, humming happily, washed their clothes and spread them out in the sun to dry. Then she bathed and shampooed her long, tangled hair.

When Lew awakened, his fresh pants and shirt lay beside him. He yawned lazily, dressed, and went in search of Mollie. He found her seated astride a fallen pine tree. She held a long-handled brush in her hand. Her hair, obviously freshly washed, gleamed like spun gold in the brilliant Arizona sunshine. Mollie sensed his presence, turned, and smiled at him, and Lew felt his heart skip a beat.

“Sleep well?” she asked sweetly and drew the brush through her long, clean hair.

Lew didn’t answer. Staring helplessly, he came to her, stood close beside her. Softly he asked, “May I?”

“Certainly,” she replied and handed him the brush.

Gripping it tightly, Lew threw a long leg over the fallen tree trunk and straddled it directly behind her. Mesmerized, he brushed her golden hair while she told him of the summer-fat deer she had seen, about a couple of hawks that had winged lazily overhead while she had dried their laundry, and of the wildflowers she had picked in the meadow.

Lew listened, but didn’t hear a thing she said. When finally she reached up, caught the brush, turned, and said, “My hair is nicer now, isn’t it?”

“Beautiful.”

“Yours is shaggy. It needs cutting.” She smiled. “May I?”

He shrugged. “Why not?”

Mollie got out her embroidery scissors and ordered Lew to remove his freshly laundered shirt. Then she went right to work on him, snipping away, while Lew, seated astride the tree trunk, held her long-handled mirror up before his bearded face, watching skeptically.

But soon he was smiling. Then laughing. He was totally charmed by Mollie’s determination to give him a good haircut. Her incredible violet eyes were narrowed in concentration, and the tip of her tongue was caught between her even white teeth. The scent and sight of her lustrous locks made it hard to worry too much about his own hair.

When Mollie was finished and Lew saw in the mirror that despite her best effort, she had somehow gotten the hair above his left ear much shorter than the right, he pretended dismay.

Scowling darkly, he said, “Mollie, you’re the worst barber I’ve ever had.”

At his scolding, her lovely face screwed up into a frown and she said, “I’m so sorry, Lew. I never meant to—”

“Ah, honey, I was teasing you,” he said, playfully grabbing her wrist, afraid he had really hurt her feelings. Laughing good-naturedly, he said, “It’s a fine haircut. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Mollie said, shaken by his use of an endearment and wondering if he realized that he had called her
honey
.

“Tell you what,” he said, still holding her fragile wrist. “My haircut looks so good”—his hand left her wrist, went to his face—”I believe I’ll shave.”

It was Mollie’s turn to laugh. “Want me to do it for you?”

He lithely eased himself up off the log. “I think not.”

And they both laughed.

Lew, smoothly shaven, his full strength rapidly returning, caught trout for their supper. They leisurely ate the evening meal as the sun disappeared. Seated across a blazing campfire from each other, they talked companionably as they’d never talked before. Mollie, resolved not to be bothersome, asked Lew no questions, but quietly, willingly answered his, not stopping to wonder why he was asking.

She told Lew about her relationship with Professor Dixon. She revealed how the professor had taken her in and given her a home when she had none, telling everyone that she was his niece. She talked about her days as a young girl in Texas. She told of their leaving Texas after her papa was accused of killing Lew’s father, of her mother’s death on the trail, of robbing banks and trains and living in leased haciendas in Mexico.

She said truthfully, “I never thought about the robberies being wrong. My papa was the leader of the Renegades. I thought my papa hung the moon, so I figured whatever he did was all right.”

Lew found her admission touching. It was just as Cherry had told him. Mollie had adored her father and had blindly approved of anything he did.

Lew, puffing on a fresh cigar, said, “I understand. I felt much the same way about my father.”

And then he began to talk. He told Mollie of his big New Mexico
rancho
. Of his brother, Dan Nighthorse. Of the two of them living among the Apaches. Of going off to war.

Forgetting herself, Mollie asked, “That where you were badly wounded?” Lew lifted his eyes to meet hers. “I … ah … I mean … well, when you were so sick I saw the scars on your leg and I assumed that you were hurt in the war.”

Yes, he told her, he was wounded in the war, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked. He quickly changed the subject. They continued to talk easily, leaving some things unsaid, some questions unasked, as a big harvest moon rose high above them and the dry night air cooled.

At last Mollie rose, stretched, and said, “I think I’ll go to bed.”

Lew nodded, stayed where he was. She stood unmoving, looking at him from across the fire. Their eyes met and held. She smiled and slowly circled the campfire. She stopped beside him, reached out, and laid her soft fingertips on his smoothly shaven cheek. Her touch sent a quick rush of feeling through him.

Looking straight into his eyes, Mollie said, “If it matters, I’ve not been the Kid’s, nor any man’s.”

She turned and walked away.

Lew’s riveted gaze followed her as she unhurriedly walked across the moonlit meadow and disappeared in the darkness of the towering canyon walls. Slowly, he turned back to gaze into the fire. For a long, silent time he stared at the dying flames, his thoughts on the desirable, golden-haired woman who had just announced that she had been no man’s.

He couldn’t deny the rush of joy her unexpected declaration had caused. Foolish though it might be, he believed her. And hard as he tried to convince himself that it made no difference to him, it did. He felt almost lighthearted knowing that the vile animal who had raped Teresa Castillo had never laid a hand on the beautiful Mollie Rogers.

His lips curving into a smile, he recalled Cherry’s saying that she was certain Mollie had never known a man. That Mollie had allowed him to believe the opposite in order to hurt him. And it had hurt. He realized that now. If it hadn’t, then why was he so relieved?

Lew’s mood was confusing to him. He was buoyant, yet pensive. Impulsive, but reflective. But he decided, right then and there, to begin treating Mollie differently. He would show her some respect. He had always desired her, and now he wanted her more than ever. But he would protect her, even from himself. He would go inside that dark canyon crevice where she slept, lie down close beside her, and watch over her through the night.

If she were untouched, then it was her right and her decision to choose the lucky man who would be her first lover. Maybe he would take her home to Santa Fe instead of Denver. Take care of her. See to it that she once more lived as the polished young lady he had met in Maya. He would buy her pretty dresses and send her on the grand tour of Europe and perhaps have a hand in picking suitable beaus.

Lew slowly rose to his feet.

He told himself that he would be an older brother to Mollie, just as he had been to Dan Nighthorse. He would look out for her, take up for her, pick up where the professor had left off.

With those noble intentions firmly in mind, Lew yawned and unhurriedly headed to the canyon crevice. His heart stopped beating when, reaching the chosen spot inside where they were to spend the night, he found little sister was missing.

Lew rushed back outside, stopped, looked frantically around. He spotted something in the distance, in the moonlight, beside a bend in the rushing mountain stream. He crossed the grassy meadow in long quick strides, the sound of the roaring waters competing with the violent beating of his heart.

Then he saw her.

Mollie lay stretched out atop her carefully spread red-and-blue Indian blanket. His blanket, the brown one, was spread over her, covering her.

Reaching her, he said nothing. For a long, tense moment he stood above, looking down at her, his knees weak, his feelings of brotherly protectiveness rapidly vanishing.

When he could speak, he smiled at her, crouched down on his heels beside her, and gently teased, “You have my blanket.”

Mollie sighed softly, moved her arms out from under the stiff brown blanket, raised them up over her head in a powerfully provocative gesture, and smiled back at him.

“If it belongs to you,” she said, “why don’t you take it?”

“Mollie,” he murmured as his shaking hand went to the blanket’s top edge. His smoldering blue eyes holding hers, he slowly peeled the brown blanket down her slender body until it rested well below her bare feet. A slow grin came to his lips when he saw the saucy red garter just above her left knee. The grin quickly faded and he anxiously inhaled.

The garter was all Mollie wore.

Lew stayed there crouched on his heels, not
touching Mollie, shamelessly admiring the pale feminine beauty stretched out before him. The bright moonlight made her flawless skin appear to be the color and texture of fine cultured pearls. Her bare, slender body was as unblemished as her exquisitely lovely face.

She was as near to perfect as any woman God had ever created. Her throat was long and swanlike, her shoulders delicate. Her breasts, even as she lay flat, rose seductively in twin peaks of loveliness, the soft firm mounds of luminous flesh tipped with large satiny nipples that tempted him to taste.

Her stomach, so flat it was almost concave, was visibly trembling, and he vowed silently to kiss that flat, warm belly until it trembled no more. Between her pale thighs, an alluring triangle of thick golden curls shone silvery in the moonlight. A gentle canyon breeze lightly ruffled those pale angel curls and sent a shiver of ecstasy up his spine.

If Lew delighted in brazenly examining the lovely naked Mollie, Mollie just as brashly enjoyed his admiration. Feeling the heat and the pressure of his hot eyes keenly inspecting her, she stretched and sighed and knew she was pleasing him. His smoldering gaze lingered on her swelling breasts, her trembling stomach, her tensed thighs.

So intense was his heated gaze, it was as though his hands were on her, caressing, stroking, adoring. Mollie felt the blood scalding through her veins, and she marveled that such incredible heat could be generated between a man and a woman who were not even touching. Ignorant to the ways of love, Mollie was quickly learning that there was much more to lovemaking than she had suspected. They were making love now. Doing wonderfully exciting things to each other.

This wanton exhibition of her nude body and Lew’s lusty examination of it was, she happily realized, a form of lovemaking, one she found fantastically exciting. So much so she hoped that Lew wouldn’t touch her for a long time, but would continue to caress her with his burning blue eyes.

But only if that’s what he wanted too. Like a naive, naked nymphet, Mollie lay there like a willing sacrifice before her great God of Love. She relied totally on his wisdom and skill to guide her and teach her. Trusting him completely, she was certain that he would be the patient, yet fiery, lover of her girlish dreams.

And he was.