Sagebrush Bride (17 page)

Still clutching at his shirt, Elizabeth tilted her
face up suddenly to look at him with watery eyes. She didn’t know what to say
to that. “I wasn’t strangling my horse!” But even as she said it, she wasn’t
certain it was the truth. Her fingers still ached from holding the reins. “Good
lord! Jo was right!” she snapped. “You are an insensitive oaf!”

Cutter’s brows lifted. “That so?” he asked
dispassionately, but he reached out to wipe her damp cheek with his thumb.

At once, Elizabeth recoiled from his touch.
Catching his hand, she turned it toward her to see what had chafed the
sensitive skin beneath her eye. Confusion first, then horror, accosted her as
she examined his severely scarred fingers.

His brows collided violently as he snatched his
hand out of her grip. “Don’t ask,” he warned, before she could.

Elizabeth only stared at him.

A peculiar look stole into his eyes, shuttering
his emotions. “It ain’t none of your damned business!” he told her.
“Chrissakes, you want something to worry over, worry over your specs.” Reaching
out, he scooped them up, and without preamble, dropped them into her hand.
“They’re broke.”

“Oh noooo!” Elizabeth swiped at the wetness on her
face with the tips of her fingers. “Nooooo!” she moaned. “Do you realize how
long I’ve had these?” she cried in panic. Forgetting everything else for the
moment, including her chagrin, she squinted while she inspected them anxiously.

Eyeing her skeptically as she labored over the
frames, Cutter shrugged, giving her a wry twist of his lips. “No,” he said,
“but reckon I could take a wild guess and come damned close.”

Desperately Elizabeth tried to straighten the wire
framework, but try as she might, they wouldn’t be forced. “They were my
father’s before me,” she explained as she worked.

“No kidding?”

Elizabeth gave him a sharp glance—her
mistake, because once she looked into his deep, dark eyes, she couldn’t look
away. She felt snared. Lord, he was handsome. Too handsome for words. Those
lips of his... those eyes... Heaven help her, every time she looked at him, he
grew more striking. No man had a right to look that way. Had she hoped for one
moment that he would look at her with anything more than pity? Her heart
plummeted into her stomach. Her shoulders slumped. She hadn’t realized the
pressure she was putting on her spectacles until one slender arm came off into
her hand. “No!” she cried. “Oh, no... What am I supposed to do now?”

Cutter snatched them from her. “Frankly, I didn’t
think you needed ‘em all that much,” he told her.

Elizabeth’s brow creased with worry as her gaze
reverted to the specs in his hand, and Cutter felt a sudden inexplicable urge
to smooth her distress away. But recalling the look of revulsion she’d given
him when she’d discovered his fingers, he refrained from touching her again.
“Seems to me you see well enough without them,” he said curtly.

“Up close I see as well as you,” she conceded,
watching his efforts with growing concern. “But not distances... and I can’t
read long without getting a headache.”

Elizabeth gasped.

It was as though she suddenly became aware of the
impropriety of their position, because she immediately detached herself from
him. The fact that she couldn’t seem to get away fast enough burned Cutter’s
gut.

He shoved the spectacles back into her hand, meeting
her gaze. “I can’t do a blamed thing with them.”

She was sitting on her knees, her skirt caught
beneath her, hands on her thighs, her expression ashen. For the longest instant
their gazes held. She wet her lips nervously, her pink little tongue darting
out to moisten her bottom lip, and desire clawed at Cutter from the inside out.
Despite his anger.

“You sure you’re not hurt?” he asked.

Elizabeth nodded quickly.

“Good.”

Her brows drew together at his tone. “You don’t
have to sound so displeased over the fact.”

“Son of a bitch!” Cutter shouted suddenly,
throwing his hands up. “What the hell do you want me to say?”

Elizabeth flinched at his tone, but didn’t back
down. “And you don’t have to curse at me, either!” she shot back, her voice
rising.

“Damn me, if you ain’t as contrary as that
cow-eyed Cayuse of yours!”

“Well! Then why do you wanna help me if you hate
me so much?” she wanted to know.

“I’ve been asking myself that same question!”
Cutter told her. “Over and over! Hell, I dunno! Maybe I was lame brained enough
to think you’d appreciate it. Maybe I did it for Jo! She seems to care for you
so friggin’ much I thought you cared right back! Reckon I was wrong.”

“No!” Elizabeth retorted. “No!” And then composing
herself, she said more calmly, her expression pained, “You weren’t wrong. I do
care about Jo. She’s my best friend.” A little softer now. “The closest one
I’ve ever had.”

A thick silence fell between them. As they stared
at each other, something passed between them, a connection neither understood,
much less felt at ease with.

Elizabeth was the first to break eye contact.
Nervously, catching her lower lip between her teeth, she glanced down at her
trembling knees, then back up again to see that Cutter was still watching her
intently. His expression was thoughtful, as though he were questioning her
somehow, or himself, and didn’t like the answers he found.

Well, she didn’t care if he didn’t like her, she
told herself. She didn’t like him either! Unsure what to say in that moment,
she only knew that she couldn’t take his cutting looks and cantankerous
disposition any longer. “For Jo’s sake,” she began sourly, “do you think... do
you think that perhaps we could call a truce? At least until St. Louis?”
Puzzling as it was, she wanted the other Cutter back—the man he’d seemed
to be when she’d first met him. “You’ll be rid of me then,” she appealed when
his eyes narrowed slightly.

As she reminded him of the fact that she planned
to hire someone else once they reached their destination, Cutter’s jaw tensed,
but he nodded slightly in response. Rid of her? He doubted he ever would be,
but yeah, he could, and needed to, for the sake of the journey, call a truce.

“All right,” he agreed, his voice hoarse. “Truce
it is. But you’re gonna have to carry your weight, Doc, and you can’t be
fighting me at every turn. When I tell you to do something, you do it. Trust me
to know what’s right. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

It was an uneasy truce at best, Elizabeth realized
by the following day. Little enough had been said between them as they’d set up
camp that first night. Yet that had more than suited her at the time. There had
been far too much on her mind for idle chatter.

And despite his charge that she was to carry her
own weight, Cutter took care of every last detail, from hunting down a meal to
setting up the bedrolls, making her do nothing but sit like a ninny on her
backside. She was certain that he’d done so as a consideration to her, because
of her fall. But his manner had been brusque the entire evening, never inviting
conversation, even had she considered it. She did not, however, and had thought
little of it until now.

By late afternoon she began to suspect that Cutter
was regretting their arrangement, and she felt like sending his brooding self
to blazes for making her feel so guilty. This had certainly not been her idea!
It had, in fact, been his. And now that he had managed to convince her that it
was the best solution, she wasn’t about to let him off so easily. How dare he
even consider it, anyway? She was not, she assured herself, about to feel
guilty!

As of yet, there had been few words spoken between
them. And then only out of necessity. Such as when she’d asked to stop so that
she could relieve herself—another thing she’d not anticipated. She
doubted she’d ever get used to having to share that embarrassing detail with
another human being, much less a man—less Cutter McKenzie!

True, she was a doctor, and such things were
supposed to be familiar to her, but for some reason, even the thought of Cutter
knowing of that very private... act discomfited her. Especially since he seemed
to be particularly amused by it. What he should find so entertaining, Elizabeth
was sure she didn’t know.

In his defense, he had, upon several occasions,
asked after her comfort, and she took heart in that. And then her lips twisted
as she recalled the first time he’d inquired. In spite of her sore bottom,
she’d promptly assured him that she was just fine, but the crimson stains on
her cheeks had given her away. Noting them, Cutter had smiled his very first
smile of the; day, and then had offered his hat... saying with false gravity
that the sun was burning her skin even as he watched. The rat! Certainly he was
no gentleman for pointing out her blushing, that much was certain.

But then he’d never claimed to be, had he?

Grudgingly she’d accepted his offer, gritting her
teeth as she snatched the confounded hat out of his grasp. The only other time
she tried to encourage conversation, he practically bit her head off. She
merely asked him why his horse only had half a right ear.

“Someone’s idea of a practical joke,” he snarled.

Elizabeth’s face contorted. “Well, I certainly
don’t think that’s very funny,” she assured him.

The look Cutter gave her in answer chilled her to
the bone.

“Neither did I,” Cutter replied. “But I don’t
reckon the man’s laughing any longer.”

Jack Colyer had been one of the most vocal against
him. They’d worked together driving cattle for near two years. As one of the
older boys, Colyer had made certain Cutter ended up with the worst jobs, the
worst supplies, the last of the grub. Hell, he’d actually caught the man
bragging over cutting off his horse’s ear. Without a word, Cutter had walked
into the circle of men, some of whom were twice his age and bigger to boot, but
he’d been too angry to be afraid. No one had moved. He could still feel the
silence crawl down his back as they’d watched him move purposely toward Colyer.

His blade had sliced the air so quickly that
Colyer had had no idea what had happened until he’d seen the evidence in Cutter’s
hand. “Ear for an ear,” Cutter had whispered. And then he’d smiled, feeling a
satisfaction he never should have felt over such a violent act. Yet he’d felt
it all the same.

No one had ever crossed him again.

But neither had they accepted him.

“Why would he do such a thing to an innocent
horse?” Elizabeth wanted to know, bringing him back from the ugly past.

The look he turned on her was condemning. “Same
reason you seem to be so averse to my company,” he told her. “He hated
half-breeds.”

“I don’t hate half-breeds!” Elizabeth protested.

Cutter shrugged. She might not hate them, but she
obviously didn’t like them much either. And yet the passion in her tone told
him she was telling the truth, though he couldn’t quite let her off the hook
just yet. “Reckon he just wasn’t satisfied with my reaction to his insults,” he
disclosed. “He just went a little too far in trying to provoke me, is all.”

“What did you do to him?” Her tone was wary.

One brow lifted as he turned to look at her. There
was a long moment of silence. “Scalped him maybe?” he said without emotion.

Elizabeth repressed a shudder. Against her will,
she felt a rush of sympathy for the man riding at her side. He seemed so hard,
but no one could be so hard that hate wouldn’t touch him. She wondered how he’d
felt to be persecuted for his race all his life, and then felt another prick of
guilt for calling him names. She’d behaved no better than the man who’d cut off
his horse’s ear.

Still, he had provoked her.

She turned to him, and found him watching her
intently.

“You don’t want to know,” he said enigmatically,
deterring her question.

... don’t
reckon the man’s laughing any longer.

Elizabeth swallowed. “I suppose not,” she
relented, shuddering over his cryptic remark. Shaking off her morbid thoughts,
she resolved to keep to herself the rest of the day.

As they rode on, the lay of the land changed very
little, and she found herself growing weary of the monotony.

And the silence.

And the heat.

Her shirt was growing damp at her back, and tiny
rivulets tickled her flesh beneath her breasts, making her feel impossibly
sticky. Surreptitiously plucking her blouse away from her bosom, she silently
cursed the unusually warm weather.

What was more, in spite of the shade Cutter’s hat
provided, her face was beginning to feel perpetually warm, and she suspected
her cheeks and nose were becoming burnt. Instinctively she examined the
sensitive bridge of her nose, thinking that on the bright side, she no longer
had spectacles to fret over. And then she felt bereft suddenly as she reflected
on that loss. Somehow it seemed as though her father had been wrenched away
from her all over again... and she didn’t really understand that at all. They
had been mere wire and glass, after all. She sighed, a wealth of emotion
betrayed by the dismal sound, and it earned her a discerning glance from
Cutter.