Sagebrush Bride (5 page)

Brows uplifted, he motioned for her to sit. She
gave him a doubtful look, then did, reluctantly, moving her hand to the edge of
the desk as though she were prepared to shove its weight at him the instant he
made a wrong move. A move she obviously expected him to make any moment.

He raised his glass to his lips, holding her gaze
as he tipped another swallow. “You have no cause to be frightened of me, Doc.”

“Frightened?”

That wasn’t quite the word for what she was
feeling just now.

Taking great pains to at least seem composed,
Elizabeth took a deep, calming breath, then reached out for her
tumbler—not to drink, of course, but to occupy her hands because they
were quaking traitorously.

“I don’t bite,” he assured with an odd glitter to
his eyes. “Not usually anyway... and not too hard, when I do.”

Elizabeth blinked.

Why did she
think those words held a double meaning?

Mercy, she was feeling warm again, though not from
embarrassment. Truth to tell, she was feeling quite unusual. Long minutes
passed without a word uttered between them.

The rat wouldn’t even take pity on her and look
away! she thought testily. Most men would have been properly chastised and
would have looked the other way. Well, she was made of sterner stuff, he would
soon see!

Years of watching her father deal with people gave
her an advantage. She tried for a slightly bored tone, along with a
long-suffering sigh. “Perhaps you’d like to explain sometime this century, Mr.
McKenzie? How is it you think you can help?”

His answering grin unnerved her, and she promptly
lifted the glass she held in her hands to her lips. Without thinking, she
gulped deeply of the firewater, all the while eyeing Cutter over the rim. It
burned viciously, choking her, the shock nearly heaving her out of the chair.
Holding her throat in desperation, she coughed and sputtered.

In no time, Cutter was at the desk, reaching out
to pat her gently upon the back. “Takes a bit of getting used to,” he
reassured, his tone a little strangled. “Next sip should be a mite easier.”

He sounded as though he were laughing at her, but
Elizabeth didn’t dare look at him to see if it was so. Clearing her throat
inelegantly, she nodded and peered down through her lashes at the glass that
seemed suddenly bonded with her hands.

Cutter’s hand remained upon her back, rubbing
soothingly. Unreasonably, Elizabeth didn’t even think to protest that intimacy.
It seemed perfectly natural. In fact, as the warmth of his palm lent her silent
sympathy, she had to fight the urge to jump into his arms and cry her pain
away.

“Better?”

Elizabeth nodded jerkily. “Fine,” she replied,
much too quickly, glancing up.

“Never thought otherwise,” he assured with a wink.

Elizabeth could swear he was fondling her hair.

Or was he?

It was hard to tell, but it felt as though he’d
left off the comforting to run his fingers along the length of her braid. And
then suddenly the sensation stopped. She glanced up to gauge his thoughts, but
his expression was shuttered.

How was it that he seemed so completely unaffected
by their proximity, while she, on the other hand, had never felt so agitated?
What was wrong with her that she would stare at him so brazenly?

“Tell me something, Doc.”

That voice. So deep. So masculine. It sent another
quiver down her spine. He was so close she could smell the warm leather he
wore. And his buckskin britches were so snug over his thighs that she found she
couldn’t tear her gaze away from the muscular delineations.

Merciful heaven, in that hypnotic moment she
thought she might do or say anything he asked. She nodded, not even realizing
that she had.

“What did you have on Brady to send him scrambling
for cover like an old henpecked rooster?”

Elizabeth’s mouth curved unconsciously, trembling
with the need to smile. And then, as she recalled Brady’s alarmed expression,
she couldn’t control her sudden burst of nervous hysterics. It was as though
her emotions had gone haywire. She giggled until on the verge of tears, then
looked up at him abashedly, knowing he probably thought her demented after
witnessing such an abrupt change in mood.

“I suppose you’d like to know what it is that’s so
blessed funny?”

Her throaty laughter shook through Cutter. It was
genuine and uninhibited, but sounded much too earthy to be innocent, and it
gave him an immediate physical reaction. “Reckon I might,” he allowed.

Elizabeth shook her head and again lifted her
glass, sipping from it almost absently, and clearing her throat when it
threatened to send her into another coughing fit.

“Well,” she said, “Brady’s one of those who likes
to drink a bit too much.”

Cutter shifted uncomfortably. For her sake, he
hoped she wouldn’t get a yen to ogle his leg again. He didn’t think he’d be
able to hide the effect she had on him. Just remembering the way her eyes had
flared slightly in innocent surprise and her pupils had dilated as she’d gawked
at him was enough to make him permanently rooty, and the evidence was
conspicuous.

She took another sip, clearing her throat
daintily, and this time it was Cutter who felt discomfited.

Her lips were her best feature, he decided. Full
and pouty, just beggin’ to be kissed. “... always having accidents,” he heard
her say. He shook his head to clear it of his lusty thoughts.

“One night,” she continued, “he came in after
catching his thumb in his gun hammer—don’t ask me how he managed that!
Anyhow, he and his buddies had been shooting at tins, and he came sauntering
in, chock-full of brag and fight, and told my father to ‘just stitch it up.’
But Papa didn’t want to do it without giving him whiskey first—Mr. Brady
doesn’t seem to like pain very much,” she explained quickly. “So when my father
left the room to look for a jug, Mr. Brady took an immediate liking to one of
his shiny new surgical knives.” She glanced up to see whether he was paying
attention.

Her expression softening suddenly, she gave a
little half-hearted chuckle. “Papa and I watched from the doorway as Mr. Brady
wrestled with his imaginary bear. You should have seen him, Mr. McKenzie!”

“Wish I had,” he said evenly, trying to ignore his
growing discomfort as well as he could.

“Believe it or not, I thought he might manage to
lose that scuffle, too,” she said softly, distantly.

Despite the fact that she was still looking at
him, Cutter had the notion she was somewhere else entirely.

He couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering down and
assessing her figure through the bulk of her clothes. She was probably much too
skinny, he told himself... not even a handful.

He raised his brows, his nostrils flaring as he
cleared away the sudden tightness from his throat. “So how’d you happen to know
it was a bear he was wrestling?”

The way Cutter saw it, his best bet was to keep
Elizabeth talking... keep them both preoccupied. Jo would likely take a shotgun
to his ass if she found him rutting after her one and only friend—when
the girl was chin-deep in her misery, at that.

Come to think of it, he doubted if either of them
would appreciate it all that much.

She shook her head faintly, as though to escape
the memory. “Well, because he was talking to the silly thing, is how. He
stabbed ’n’ wrestled with nothing but thin air, and then he reared back to gut
it and stabbed himself in the—” She glanced up at him suddenly, her brows
furrowing.

“Where?” Cutter demanded, inhaling deeply. It was
the wrong thing to do, because he caught her scent in that breath. The sweetest
feminine scent. His blood heated, surging like molten lava through his veins.

“His er... his... lower posterior,” Elizabeth
whispered.

It took a moment for him to register what she’d
said, but when it finally came, his roar of laughter was genuine, warm and
rich, much as her father’s had been. It set Elizabeth immediately at ease.

“I can see it now,” he said, still chuckling as he
poured Elizabeth another brimming glassful.

She stared at the glass numbly, thought briefly to
protest, but didn’t. She was feeling rather nice suddenly, cozy even. She
exhaled languidly, and something seemed to uncoil deep within her.

Maybe Cutter was right, she thought. Maybe it
would help to forget for just a little while.

“Did you know my father?” Elizabeth asked on a
whim. She was proud of her father. He’d been caring and loving—and never
once had he blamed her after her mother and sister had abandoned them...
despite the fact that she often blamed herself. Maybe if she’d been a little
more help? A better daughter? More accommodating? More like Katherine.

He nodded soberly. “’Bout a year ago—real
fine man, Lizbeth.”

Something about the way Cutter said her name made
her sigh with pleasure.

“He was,” she agreed. “I miss him.”

She would miss her sister, as well, though she hadn’t
seen Katherine in so many years that it wouldn’t be the same. The last she
remembered hearing from Katherine was when their mother had died of lung fever
four years past. Enclosed along with that letter had been a small photo of her
daughter Katie at five months: a plump little thing with no hair. Elizabeth had
cherished that photo.

Four years? she thought, blinking.

Had it been so long?

That would mean it had been seven since her mother
had run off with Katherine to St. Louis.

So very long ago... yet that miserable day was as
clear in Elizabeth’s memory as though it were yesterday.

Finding the hastily scrawled message her mother
had composed on the back of one of her father’s notes had been the single most
painful moment of her life. Even the words were indelibly etched in the annals
of her mind.
With every fiber of my
being, I loathe this infernal place. I can’t—I just can’t suffer it any
longer. Forgive me, Angus.
Not a word about her. Not forgive me, Elizabeth.
Not farewell. Not anything at all.

Being the elder of the two, and interested in
medicine as she was, Elizabeth had been with her father at the time, helping
him deliver a baby. For that reason, and because she’d understood how very much
her mother had despised the wilderness and feared the Indians, Elizabeth had
never entirely blamed her for leaving without her—especially since her
mother had been only the first of so many to abandon Sioux Falls. By ’62, most
of the remaining populace had fled in fear of the raids.

She and her father had been close, so she wouldn’t
have wanted to leave anyway. It still, it hurt to know that her mother had been
so desperate to desert them that she would slip away without bothering even to
say goodbye. Her father had never been the same afterward.

“Where were you?”

“Hmmm?” She opened her eyes, unaware that she had
closed them, and looked into Cutter’s deep, dark eyes. They were fascinating,
the way they seemed to descend forever. But she thought she detected a flicker
of pity in his gaze, and a knot formed in her throat.

“When I came through... I don’t recall making your
acquaintance.”

“Oh... well...” She swallowed convulsively,
clearing her throat of its odd thickness. “No one ever sheems... seems to. But
I wash here,” she assured him. Blinking suddenly, she shook her head in
distress over her slurring speech. “Jus—just—like—always,”
she enunciated slowly. “Ap—p—renticin’ with my father.”

She seemed to deflate before his eyes. Folding her
arms in front of her, she laid her chin down on top of them, and her eyes took
on a faraway look as she spoke again. “I think hish... his heart wash weak... ”
Her words trailed off as she closed her eyes.

Cutter thought she might have passed out, but for
the hiccup that revived her. “I—I think... don’t really know...
just—wish—I—could’ve helped more.” Her head lolled to one
side.

She sat there, looking so fragile, so helpless,
that Cutter again felt the incredible urge to draw her into his arms and hold
her, protect her from the cold, hard world.

“Lizbeth,” he whispered, reaching out to finger an
errant lock of her hair.

It felt like silk.

Had she looked up in that moment, he feared she
would have seen the naked desire smoldering in his eyes.

“You’re adorable.”

Were her ears playing tricks on her?

Elizabeth thought they might be, because her eyes
certainly were.

Cautiously she opened one eye to find that the
room was, in fact, spinning.

With a sad smile, she gazed into her empty glass
and reached to grab the neck of the bottle. She tried to lift it, but found she
didn’t have the strength.

Warmth touched her fingers.

When she glanced up again, it was to find Cutter’s
hand fitted neatly over her own. Inexplicably that discovery sent a delightful
quiver coursing through her. Even knowing she should, she couldn’t bring herself
to remove it from beneath his grasp. Her body felt suddenly so blissfully
heavy.

“I reckon you’ve had more’n enough,’ he murmured
thickly. When she didn’t respond, only sat, staring at his hand with something
akin to bafflement, he asked, “Don’t you? The idea was to calm you—your
nerves were as taut as an Indian’s bow—not get you all boozed up.” His
thumb lazily caressed the area between her first finger and thumb, sending a
delicious chill down her spine.

Closing her eyes, Elizabeth savored the sweet lethargy
that closed over her body. She considered telling him that it was much too
late, that she suspected she might already be a bit boozed up, but was feeling
too dozy to bother. Her hand slid from beneath his, down the cool, smooth
bottle onto the table.

As Cutter watched her, the thought occurred to him
that she was much too innocent for her own good. Whoever she hired to play
husband for her would take advantage of that fact. Didn’t she understand the dangers
she’d be facing? If not from the ruthless land itself, then from those who
fought so fiercely to claim it. It wasn’t enough that the States had only just
ended a bitter war between brothers, but the white and red man both continued
to struggle fiercely for control of land. He was sure Elizabeth had no inkling
how risky the trek would be without adding the likes of Dick Brady to her
troubles.