Reilly's Woman (16 page)

"I have a house in the foothills outside the city."

"Why…er…why did you pick Las Vegas?" Leah tried to sound nonchalant.

"It's centrally located for my work. I'm not far from the mines or the outlets for my work in California and Arizona."

"Do you spend much time at your home?"

"A good deal, yes."

Again, Leah tilted back her head to see his face, smiling bravely despite the tears scalding the back of her eyes. "When we get back, shall I see you?"

The pause before he answered was electric. The jade mask of his gaze revealed nothing to her searching eyes. "I imagine we'll have dinner one evening," Reilly seemed to choose his words carefully, "to celebrate our safe return."
 

It was better than nothing. Averting her gaze, she slid her hand over the naked flatness of his stomach. "I'd like that," she agreed with aching softness.

Her wrist was seized and her hand jerked away from the firmness of his flesh. The motion continued, turning her on to her back, her arms pinned above her head as Reilly hovered above her, dark anger flashing in his eyes.

"Don't do that!" he snapped harshly. "Do you think I'm made of stone?"

"I'm sorry." She knew she should be frightened by the suppressed violence in his expression, but she wasn't. "I can't help it, Reilly, I—"

"Yes, you can!" Abruptly he released her wrists and got to his feet. His expression was cold and grim as he towered above her. "You know as well as I do what's happening between us!" He turned away, savagely rubbing the back of his neck. "We've been alone out here too long. The world we lived in before the crash seems far removed from today. But we're going to get back," he added firmly. "When we do, these days we've spent together will be the time that seems unreal."

"Is that what you think?" There was a calm curiousness to Leah's voice. Having concrete instead of desert sand beneath her feet would not alter the love she felt for him.

"It's the way life is." It was a statement not issued to be debated. With a long stride, Reilly grabbed his shirt from the lean-to pole. "I'm going to check the snares."

Was he telling her something? Leah wondered as she watched him go. Was he saying not to fall in love with him because he was not in love with her? She picked up the comb from where he had tossed it and began running it through her hair, digging the teeth into her scalp to stop the chilling numbness from totally possessing her.

By early evening, Reilly hadn't left her to walk for help. He was too wise in the ways of the desert to get lost checking the snares he had set some distance from the waterhole.

As dusk settled over the sky, Leah clutched the flashlight tightly in her hand. If he wasn't back by the time the sun touched the rim of the mountain, she was going out to look for him. She added another log to the fire and glanced at the mountain.

There wasn't a whisper of a sound, yet something made her spin around. Where there had been nothing but cobweb shadows cast by the willows Reilly stood, returning to the camp with the animal silence of his ancestors.

Only when she saw him did Leah realize how numbly she had waited for him to come back. Relief weakened her knees, keeping her from racing into his arms. Relief, and the withdrawn expression in his face. His gaze studied her slowly, sliding finally to the flashlight in her hand.

"I…I was coming to look for you," she explained shakily. "I thought if you weren't back by sundown, that you had got hurt somehow."

His expression didn't alter as he slipped the pistol from his waistband and returned it to the first-aid kit. Then his swinging strides carried him to the fire.

"Where did you go?" Leah asked when he offered no explanation for his long absence.

Except for the perspiration stains on his shirt, there wasn't a mark on his leanly muscled physique. His impassivity chilled her to the bone.

"The snares were empty." He took a long drink from the canteen, avoiding her searching eyes. "I went hunting—unsuccessfully."

Leah hugged her arms about her to ward off the sudden attack of misery. "I'm not hungry." She stared into the fire.

"You're going to eat anyway," he stated firmly.

A sighing, bitter laugh escaped her throat. "Yes, I have to get my strength back, don't I?"

"Yes, you do." His gaze narrowed on her huddled form for a slashing second.

Leah looked at his carved profile, so aggressively male. His black hair had grown longer since the crash and now curled over the short collar. The shirt was opened in the front, revealing the hard bronzed chest. Muscles rippled as he recapped the canteen. The ache to touch him was a physical pain.

"Reilly—" Her voice throbbed with need.

Was it her imagination or had his face grown paler beneath his tan? A muscle twitched alongside his lean jaw, but he didn't glance at her.

"I'll refill the canteen while you decide which one of the packages you want to fix tonight." He turned away from the fire.

His movement brought Leah to her feet. "I'm not hungry now.

"Reilly, will you listen to me?" she demanded in frustration. He crouched along the pool's bank, letting the canteen float on the water. "Reilly, I'm in love with you." She thought she would have burst if she had held the admission back much longer.

Her statement brought no reaction. He didn't even blink an eye at her words. He just watched the water flowing into the canteen. Somehow Leah had to make him understand that she meant it.

"I know you think this physical attraction we feel is a—a natural result of our situation," she hurried on. "We've been a man and woman alone together for several days under intimate conditions that have put us outside the normal conventions of society. But it isn't just sexual attraction, Reilly. I'm in love with you. I'm telling you now, and whenever we do get back to civilization, I'll tell you again. Nothing is going to change the way I feel."

He capped the canteen and straightened. "We're leaving in the morning," he announced unemotionally.

Leah's head recoiled at his unexpected response. "I…I thought we were going to wait another day or two until…until—"

"—you were stronger," Reilly finished the sentence for her, not sparing a glance in her direction. "Before I got back to camp, I decided there wasn't any point in delaying longer. I think you've recovered enough to travel. If necessary, I'll carry, you out."

"Haven't—" she shook her sunstreaked hair helplessly, "haven't you heard anything I said?"

His eyes hardened on her with cynical amusement. "What do you expect me to reply to it?"

What had she expected? In white-hot humiliation, she didn't know. She hadn't thought he would suddenly admit that he might care for her, too. But his crushing indifference to her declaration of love sliced deeply with agonizing pain. The only thing that she knew was that she wanted to hurt him back.

Her hand swung in a lightning arc, her open palm striking his lean cheek with stinging force. The attacking hand was captured by punishing fingers that twisted her arm backward until Leah thought it would break. His expression had darkened with savage rage.

"You're hurting me!" she cried out, frightened by the temper she had aroused.

"Am I?" His lip curled in satisfaction.

The fingers shifted their pressure without easing the excruciating pain. The action forced Leah against him, her hips pressed against his muscled thighs while his other hand brutally wound her hair around his fingers and pulled her head back.

Leah tried to struggle, but at her first attempt Reilly twisted her arm farther, checking her protest before it started. As her lips parted to moan her pain, he ruthlessly covered them with his own, grinding them against her teeth until the taste of her own blood was on her tongue.

Tearing his fingers free of her hair, he tugged at her blouse front. Dominated by his devouring mouth and the cruel twisting of her arm, Leah was helpless. The buttons that resisted his fingers were torn off.

Although she was terrified by his assault, it was having a devastating affect on her senses. When his hand closed roughly over her breast, Leah's free hand slid inside his shirt to feel the pagan drumbeat of his heart.

Mercilessly Reilly thrust her away, his green eyes glaring at her contemptuously even as his bared chest rose and fell in disturbed breathing.

"It won't work," he taunted harshly. "I won't be tricked into raping you!"

"I—" Tears swam in her eyes. There was nothing she could say. His accusation wasn't true, not the way he meant it.

The numbed nerves in the arm Reilly had twisted screamed to life when she tried to cover her seminakedness. With one hand she tried to button her blouse, but most of the buttons were gone.

A hissing release of breath came from Reilly. "Your clothes are ruined. You'll have to wear one of my shirts." Fingers savagely raked the virile thickness of his black hair as he walked impatiently to get the shirt she had worn earlier as a robe. Avoiding direct contact with her tear-filled gaze, he tossed it to her. "I'll start dinner."

An ominous silence descended on the camp. Later, with shoulders hunched to defend her inner anguish, Leah ate the tasteless food. Her hurt anger kept her from making any attempt to break the silence. It was not the uneasy silence between two strangers, but rather it held the tense hostility of two enemies.

When the scarlet sunset gave way to the purpling night, she crawled into the stiff blanket. She didn't ask Reilly if he would be having an early night before facing tomorrow's walk. She knew without being told that she wouldn't sleep in his arms that night.

Tears washed her face as she turned her back on the fire and Reilly. Even though her pride was severely wounded, she knew nothing had changed. She still loved him as deeply as ever. Nothing would change that.

The, swan-dive of a falling star arced across the heavens. Leah watched it until the crystal brightness of a tear got in the way. She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders, but the chill was from the inside.

 

 

Chapter Nine

 

LEAH'S KNUCKLES WHITENED around the end of the lean-to pole, now a walking stick. There was a poignant tightness in her throat as she gazed for the last time at the mock oasis where she had admitted her love for Reilly.

Dawn's early light had lengthened the shadows over the pool, making it look dark and mysterious. It was almost as if the doors were closing on paradise.

The campfire was drowned and the ashes scattered. Soon the desert wind would wipe away any trace of their presence and the waterhole would again belong to the wildlife of the Great Basin.

"Let's go," Reilly said flatly, adjusting with a shrug of his shoulders the pack strapped to his back.

Forcibly turning herself away from the scene, Leah nodded in agreement. She didn't look at him—she avoided it whenever she could. The voltage in his green eyes invariably jolted her with its aloofness.

Reilly probably felt none of the sadness she did about leaving this place where, for a short time, they had been so close in body and spirit. Her family was waiting at the end of their walk, whenever that would be, but Leah knew that if she had been given a choice, she would have stayed here with Reilly. Admittedly, it was a romantic fantasy that was neither logical nor practical.

But she loved him. Oh, God, how she loved him, she thought dispiritedly.

As before, Reilly led the way. The pace was slower than the last time. She knew it was done to conserve her strength. There wasn't any pack on her back this time. Everything they had with them, Reilly carried.

The first few hours of walking, each one punctuated by ten-minute rest stops, Leah felt quite good, not tiring as quickly as she thought she might. Then the sun neared its zenith and the heat began prickling her back.

Reilly set up a noon camp in the middle of the desert valley along the rutted dirt road they had been following for the last several miles. Leah tumbled exhaustedly beneath the lean-to he had immediately erected, swallowed a mouthful of water and closed her eyes.

The nap helped a little. Before they started out again, Reilly inquired distantly as to how she felt. Leah shrugged aside his indifferent question with a stiff, "I'm fine."

For a while she was, but her energy dissipated sooner than it had this morning. Each step seemed to jar her teeth. The ten-minute rest stops seemed to get shorter. She could feel the encroaching weakness, but she gritted her teeth and pushed on.

Reilly stayed close beside her, never more than a few paces ahead. The freshness of his stride goaded Leah to keep walking, reminding her that she was holding him back. If she wasn't along, he would be miles farther than they were now. Bitterly she knew how determined Reilly was that they should find help. He didn't want to spend an hour more than he had to with her.

Turning an ankle on a rock, Leah stumbled and fell to her knees. His hand was under her arm to help her to her feet. She wrenched it away from his hold.

"I can make it," she insisted sharply, and pushed herself upright. Sand had bit into her palms. She rubbed it off on to her slacks.