Silver Nights With You (Love in the Sierras Book 1) (7 page)

"Thank you, again, for bringing me here," she said to break the silence.

"Oh, it is my pleasure." He grinned down at her. "You are a woman any man would be blessed to be seen with. Not even all of the silver in these hills compares to your beauty."

Her smile was wide enough to hurt her cheeks. "Then, my little display back there hasn't upset your opinion of me?"

He tipped her chin with a finger, smiling down at her, and she knew she was on the verge of being kissed. She'd played this role before and knew what to do. She batted her eyes shyly and waited, but his smile only widened until he released her chin.

“You are an amazing woman,” he declared, devouring her lips with his eyes.

A tinkling of feminine laughter danced on the air, drawing Lila's attention to the red brick building down the alley. Several half-naked women lounged on a second floor balcony, while others leaned over the rail, calling out and spilling their cleavage for the men below. Lila gasped and quickly averted her eyes as David shielded her from the sight with his body. The hot flush in her cheeks deepened when she saw him peer over his shoulder for a longer look. Indignation flooded her at the idea of a brothel being so close to the main street. Why wasn’t it tucked shamefully away?

“Listen, Lila,” he said, distracted. “I hope you’ll forgive me, but I remembered something I must tend to immediately. You don't mind returning to the boarding house on your own, do you?”

"On my own?" She felt her smile slacken and her eyes go wide. "But…"

"Remember what I told you about this place? You needn't fear any scandal."

"Yes, but how will I find my way?"

"Just stay on the road. It'll take you right to Ellie's. It's only a mile on. Please take my horse. I would feel better knowing you are safe on a trustworthy mount. I can walk the distance back later this afternoon.”

She frowned, wanting to protest but hesitant to upset him. Of course he had business to tend. She hadn't even thought of his affairs when she'd practically ordered him to take her into town. Who was she to demand that he abandon his errands again to take her back? He didn't see anything ungentlemanly about resigning her to travel alone because he was surrounded by independent women in this place. The last thing she wanted was to appear unequal. She swallowed past her complaints and smiled.

“Thank you for the use of your horse,” she said. “You’ve been kind and generous and heroic. I apologize for interrupting your plans. I can find my way back on my own."

He thanked her as he helped her into the saddle. She smiled again, feeling a rush of disappointment to be leaving his side. He reached out and grabbed her left hand, bringing the knuckles to brush across his lips. The hairs of his mustache tickled her skin, and she tamped down a giggle. Steering the horse down the road, she was so immersed in her own giddiness that she didn’t even think to look back. The familiar bliss of courtship moved through her, stirring a youthful fancy she'd not felt since her mother's sickness. Were it not for her surroundings she might almost believe that the past months were a nightmare.

Hot air accompanied the sounds of industry as she followed the winding road up and down hills. The afternoon sun ignited her long brown hair, and she could feel it like a warm blanket lying against her back. A few riders passed her with a friendly nod or tip of the hat. A wagon filled with sacks of flour crept up the hill toward the general store. Sparrows and crows chattered with each other and flapped away and back to play among the thick, twisted limbs of the cottonwoods.

She arrived at the boarding house and tied the horse to a rail in front of it. The place was silent and empty. Ellie and Sadie were busy in the garden and told her that the other occupants had disappeared into the mines. She wandered through the empty dining room and entered the parlor, heading straight for the bookcase. As she scanned the rows of leather bound books she breathed in the dusty scents of laid and wove paper. An embossed spine showed the title of a book she'd been longing to read, and she pulled the latest volume of Charles Dickens from the shelf.

The settee was padded and comfortable, and she would have welcomed a day reading indoors were it not for the folded newspaper resting atop the small table in front of her. The libelous article called out to her with large, bold script, and she felt her face begin to glower. She shifted in her seat to avoid staring at it, but it was no use. Her eyes drifted to it again and again, stoking her anger and inviting her guilt-ridden encounter with the journalist. If her mother had seen her behavior…

She blew out a deep breath and shot to her feet, returning the book to its shelf as a wave of heartache crashed down on her, and she pinched her trembling lips together. These moments of gut-wrenching grief were growing further apart as time passed, but when they came, they delivered with such potency that she believed her heart would collapse in her chest. The room suddenly seemed too quiet, the walls too near, and she made her way back out the front door until she collapsed against David's horse in a fit of tears.

Spent, she stared down at the wheel-rutted road and wondered about her valise, if it was still out there somewhere. If the bandits returned for it she was sure they would have left it. It held nothing of any monetary value. Hope ignited inside of her as she pictured her bag and the photograph unmolested by the road. She imagined holding it in her hands, taking in the vision of her mother. If there was any chance at all she could retrieve the portrait, this was the time to take advantage. They were leaving in the morning, never to return.

David's horse whickered, as if in agreement with her silent scheming, and she studied him as she considered the actions and consequences. David may be angry if she used his horse to go in search of her bag, but as long as she didn’t do anything reckless, like travel near the mines, she should be back before he had a chance to discover she was missing. The canteen hung from the saddle horn, and she found it full of water. A good horse, water, and a pistol in her boot. What more did she need? Resolute, she climbed up into the saddle and rode out of Gold Hill.

The water was beginning to warm from the midday heat, and it slid thickly down her throat when she took a drink. There was not a strip of shade to be found. She wiped the sweat from her forehead as she drank again. The horse's mouth worked back and forth while its tongue lapped dryly over the metal bit, filling the air with a grinding noise. She almost dismounted to share her water with the animal but then spied a copse of grassy brush and cottonwoods just beyond a shallow hill in the distance near the rising walls of a tiny canyon. The thick patch of growth told her there had to be a water source nearby. Rather than deplete her own supply, she left the road and took the horse for a drink.

A small spring wove through the dark roots, dribbling out of the canyon to pool near the base of the thickest tree trunk. The horse sniffed its way toward a trickle and drank heartily. She leaned forward to stroke his neck and felt her body fall swiftly from the saddle when he jolted and jumped sideways.

Her shoulders hit the ground but her backside went straight into a tumbleweed of thick thorns. Needle-sharp barbs poked through her skirts to snag her flesh with their hook-ends. The horse stood a few paces away, and she shot him a scathing look as she propped herself up on her elbows with a painful grunt.

“Now, what was that for?” she asked the animal.

The stinging in her backside began to throb. She rolled onto her side to relieve the pressure and came face-to-face with a coiled snake whose head hovered above the spiral of its body. She gasped and held the breath long enough to make her lungs burn. Slowly, she began scooting away as she exhaled shakily through her nose. The snake's tail rose up from the middle of its bundled body, and she went still. It shook back and forth, slowly at first, then quicker and quicker until it sounded like the rattle of a jar of salt crystals. The horse bolted and was soon out of sight.

Lila felt a strong sense of danger. If the horse wouldn’t even stay put, she knew she was in trouble. The head of the snake danced back and forth in a hypnotic rhythm, its forked tongue darting out to taste the air. Her heart hammered her chest as she thought of her options. What would happen to her if she was bitten?

Inch by terrifying inch, she backed up, scooting further into the tumbleweed. The thorns bit into her skin, but she didn’t make a sound. To her relief, the snake did not pursue. She sat up as much as she could with the bush fastened to the back of her skirts, and retreated even further. Once she felt out of range of its strike, she picked up a stone and threw it to frighten the snake away. Its head reared up even higher and the frantic rattling of its tail sped up. Suddenly, she remembered she had the pistol stuffed down in her boot.

Morgan heard the clattering hooves before he saw the horse race riderless out of the canyon. If the unmistakable grey coloring and black dappling of the haunches weren’t enough to identify whose horse it was, the glint of silver buckled saddle bags bouncing to and fro told him it was David’s. And it was running like the hounds of hell were after it.

He dug in his spurs and ran across the distance to cut him off. The horse was too fast to get ahead of, so he reined his mount right up beside. Powdery dust blasted around them. The unsteady bump of each horse jumping to dodge bits of brush made for a difficult reach, but Morgan’s hand closed tightly around the leather rein and pulled both horses sharply to the right and into a wide u-turn.

When they came to a panting halt, he took a moment to appraise the animal, looking for blood or any signs of damage that would reveal why it was without its rider. He saw nothing at first glance, but before he could dismount for a closer look the crack of a gunshot split the air, echoing off the nearby canyon walls. He dropped the rein of David’s horse, and it sped away as Morgan raced toward the canyon.

If Lila hadn’t been frightened out of her wits she might have laughed at how awful her aim was. The snake was a mere two arm’s lengths from her, and she had missed it twice with her gun. As soon as the dust settled, it inched forward in a threatening scrawl and was now close enough to strike.

She raised the fist-sized pistol once more and squinted for sharper aim. Her finger curled around the trigger. Her teeth bit into her bottom lip. The snake seemed to sense that she had finally locked onto her target as it began to bob and weave aggressively, forcing her to adjust and readjust the angle of her arm. She cocked the pistol and applied the slightest bit of pressure against the trigger. A large, male hand reached around her from behind and pulled the gun from her clutches. His face was right beside hers, and she gasped as she made eye contact with Morgan.

“What are you doing?” she cried, and the snake rose with a hiss. Morgan reached up to cover her mouth, but the serpent was already lashing out toward them, its white fangs seeking their flesh with beads of deadly poison. He tightened his arms around her and threw himself onto his back, taking her with him into a roll.

Lila shrieked only once while they tumbled. When they finally stopped she was on top of him, her back to his front. She closed her eyes while she caught her breath. His arms were still wrapped around her, his chest heaving beneath her. Neither said anything or made the slightest movement. When she finally spoke, her voice was low.

“Is the snake gone?”

She felt his head shift beneath her. “I can’t see. Your hair is in my face.”

She lifted her head at the sound of his muffled voice. His arms pinned hers to her sides. "If you release me, I can move and you can go make sure that the snake is gone.”

“I would…but you see…we’re sort of stuck together at the moment.”

The stinging thorns relit her flesh, and she realized that his skin was likely embedded as well after their log roll. The bush was smashed in between them. Her head dropped back against his shoulder as she groaned. “Well, how do you propose we do this?”

“We could roll to our right sides, and I could work the thorns free. It'll take some time. The last thing you want to do with these thorns is…”

The snake's rattle returned with a shrieking vengeance. Lila yelped and tore away from Morgan, ripping the bush away from his flesh as she went. 

“
That
,” he grunted in pain.

“There it is!” she pointed frantically. Morgan was gingerly pulling into a sitting position while she dug her fingertips into his shoulder blades urging him to stand up faster while she used him as a shield. “There! You see?”

He struggled to his feet. Lila huddled behind him, clutching onto his arms for protection yet straining to look around him. It was shivering its warning rattle as it shimmied slowly away from them. She felt his body relax, and she gripped his arms tighter.

“Kill it!” she called. “Kill it before it gets away!”

“I’m not going to kill it,” he answered calmly. “It’s going away. It’s no threat to you anymore.”

She stayed behind him, grasping his arms until the serpent was out of sight and she could feel her first easy swallow. Only then did she relax into his back, leaning into him to rest her head between his shoulder blades. When she realized the intimacy of their position, she took a hasty step back. He turned to face her, and she looked down at the weapon he still held in his hand.

“Why did you take my gun?” she asked.

He handed it back to her. “Because you were only provoking the snake with it.”

“I was going to shoot it,” she said as she stuffed the gun back into her boot, showing him a shapely calf clad in black stockings.

“Were you?” He scrunched his face in disbelief, glancing up from her calf to her face. “And the first two shots were for what? Intimidation?” He laughed. “David was wrong about you. You don’t shoot like a man.”

She huffed as her hands flew to her hips. “It was moving.”

He laughed harder, and she turned her face away indignantly.

“Where is David anyway?”

“He’s in Virginia City. He escorted me there this morning.”

“And you ran off with his horse?”

At that her face snapped back to his. “Absolutely not! He told me to take his horse as he had to stay in town.”

“He didn’t take you back to Gold Hill?”

“He didn’t need to,” she answered. “I am quite capable of looking after myself.” 

His eyebrow spiked mockingly high, and her stare defied him to disagree with her. He smiled out of the corner of his mouth, bent over to retrieve his hat and smacked the dust off of it. As he resettled it back onto his head, he spoke.

“Well, then, I’ll leave you to it. The last I saw, your horse was running that way.” He tilted his head west. “He should probably be in the Sierras now.”

“That’s fine.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ll just walk back to town.”

“Suit yourself,” he shrugged. “And in case you run into any more of those rattlesnakes, be advised that their bite is fatal almost every time.”

He turned away and began walking toward his horse. She allowed him only ten steps before fear and reason overruled her embarrassment. She called out to him, all trace of haughtiness and bravado gone from her voice.

“Morgan,” she said, resigned, and he faced her again. “You’re not
really
going to leave me out here are you?”

He chuckled and sent her a closed-lipped grin. “No. I’m not.”

“Good,” she smiled, relieved. “Because then I would have to think ill of you, and I really don’t want to do that.”

“There is one problem, however,” he said.

“What?”

“You can’t ride my horse with that bush on your behind.”

She peered back over her shoulder and looked at the thorny bustle attached to her backside. After a brave breath, she reached down to grab hold of a few of the thicker twigs. As she eased the bundle away from her skirt, a bolt of pain shot down her leg, and she let go with a shriek.

“Ripping it out will be painful," he said. "It’s best if you remove one thorn at a time.”

Only then did she notice the tears in his pants and the splotches of blood staining them, and her hands flew up to cover her mouth. She was horrified and shook her head in apology.

“I did that,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right. You were afraid. Turn around.”

“Are you going to rip mine out as well?”

He frowned at the insinuation. “Turn around.”