Silver Nights With You (Love in the Sierras Book 1) (8 page)

He could already feel warm trickles of blood flowing down his legs and lower stomach, and he sent a swift prayer heavenward that the shards missed his most sacred piece of flesh. He would pour some whiskey on the cuts and check for broken pieces of thorns later. His main concern at the moment was removing the thorns from Lila without causing her pain.

She turned around as he'd asked, and he pulled his leather gloves from behind his belt. With his fingers covered, he snapped off twigs and branches that were not embedded in her and tossed the snarls aside. When there were less than a dozen thorns to extract, he sank to his knees to inspect them more closely.

“Forgive me,” he said, as he placed a hand over her left posterior cheek to brace against the workings of his right hand.

From her profile he saw her eyes go wide, and he couldn't hold back a grin. He tugged gently, turning the thorn back and forth in slight intervals until it finally withdrew and he tossed the bramble aside. As he worked on another, he concentrated more on the shape his left palm was curved around. His fingers closed slightly and pressed into the soft cheek, using the stubborn barb as an excuse to introduce his hand to her curves. His smile widened mischievously.

“Why is it that I can sense a smile on your face?” she said at that precise moment, and he nearly laughed.

“I’m not smiling at all,” he lied. “I am concentrating on not hurting you.”

“Mm hmm,” she said in a tone that told him she didn’t believe a word of it, and he chuckled softly. After a long pause, she finally spoke again. “You and your compassion. Even for a snake?”

The second thorn sprang free. It had been deep, causing her to flinch and gasp.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly.

“It’s all right,” she panted. “Carry on.”

“I only kill what needs killing,” he finally answered her. “If the snake had attacked you when I was in a position to kill it, I would have. As it was, it was easier to get you away than to kill the snake. When it let us alone I saw no reason to chase it down.” Another barb fell to the ground. “What are you doing out here anyway? I thought you’d be gone on this morning’s coach.”

“My father needed another day to rest. I…I was trying to find my way back to where the coach was attacked.”

“Why?” he asked, feeling the creases in his brow. It seemed an odd and reckless course of action for a young woman, especially one new to the area.

“I was hoping to find my bag. My father tossed it out of the coach so he could cover me. There is…something in it that I want.”

“Well, I hate to disappoint you, but if there was anything valuable in that bag, it is probably long gone by now.”

“It wouldn’t be valuable to anybody but me,” she answered.

“Is it worth risking your neck over?” he asked. “There are still two criminals unaccounted for, not to mention the many other threats of the desert.”

“It is to me,” she said quietly. He looked up at her profile as she grew solemn and pensive. Finally, she sighed and her shoulders sagged. “It was a stupid idea. I should have just stayed at the boarding house, but I was too angry to sit with a book. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Now, I owe David a horse in addition to my life.”

“Why were you angry?” He watched her face shift as he pulled another thorn free.

She told him about her interview with Samuel the night before and the morning paper. "David took me into Virginia City to confront him, but the man refused to apologize. He laughed at me, even after…" She paused and he waited for her to finish, but she didn't.

"After what?" he asked.

"After…I…demanded an apology."

She hid her face from him, and he suspected that she was leaving out a few details. He knew Samuel Clemens. Almost everything the man wrote was a fabrication, and Morgan began to wonder just how badly the reporter slandered her. He would get his hands on a newspaper as soon as he got back to Gold Hill, and he'd find out from David just what the man said to upset Lila in town. If needs be, he'd confront Samuel himself, and he was quite certain he could persuade the storyteller to apologize. Before his righteous anger could flare, her cool voice spoke again.

“David saved my life, gave up his room for me, and escorted me to town. I owed him a huge debt before. Now, with the loss of his horse, I wouldn’t be surprised if he never spoke to me again.”

Morgan heard the disappointment in her voice, and it sliced through him. He turned back to the work at hand and said nothing. Curiosity ate away at him, wondering what sort of trinket would prompt her to go in search of it. A part of him suspected it was some silly bauble, but something about the conviction in her voice made him believe it was something more meaningful than materialistic. Besides, she didn't seem like the senseless sort.

Lila couldn’t stand the silence. His hand on her body was working a warmth through her that made her uneasy. He was laboring so patiently and gently to ease her comfort, but she could feel the imprint of each of his fingers where he touched her, and her pulse pounded at the base of her throat. She wanted him to speak if only to distract her.

“What about you?” she asked. “I figured you’d be far away from here by now, seeing as how you left last night.”

“I didn’t go that far,” he answered. “I only went down into the valley.”

“The ranch you wanted is in the valley? Down by the lake?” Her surprise was evident in her voice, and she caught his smile when she glanced back at him.

“That’s right. You know the area?”

“I saw it briefly before we were attacked,” she said. “Did you get the land?”

“I did.” He tugged the last barb free and stood as he pulled his gloves off, one finger at a time. “All done."

She turned toward him but felt a strange inability to look him in the eye, knowing he had just spent the past twenty minutes with his eyes and hands all over her derriere. With the snake gone and the thorns removed there was no pressing crisis to divert her attention from the physical effects of his presence. Her blood was thrumming with the memory of his hands on her, each spot tingling.

"Did I hurt you?” he asked.

She walked away from his probing stare. “Not at all.”

He swung up into the saddle and reached down for her. She took his arm and marveled at how easily he lifted her onto the horse’s back behind him. Timidly, she wrapped her arms around his waist. They trotted back to the road, and he steered them toward town before coming to a sudden stop. Just as she was about to question him, he turned back and kicked them in the opposite direction.

“What are you doing?” she asked, leaning around to look up at him.

He sighed. “We’re going to go look for your bag.”

“Truly?” she asked, her eyes brightening like burnished gold.

“Truly.”

She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. Her arms tightened around him in a fierce hug, and she rested her cheek against the side of his shoulder.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Don’t thank me yet,” he cautioned. “If we even find the bag, it’s not likely there’ll be anything in it.”

“That's all right,” she answered with a nod. “Knowing it’s lost for good is better than always wondering.”

“Just remember you said that,” he said with a chuckle, and she smiled.

The road was empty but for darting lizards and speedy desert rats. Lila recognized the terrain, but even if she hadn’t she would have known that they were in the area when she saw the first dead body. The smell hit her and then the sound. Flies buzzed frantically around the body in so great a number that a loud hum could be heard from their distance. Morgan stayed clear of it, steering wide to the other side of the road. He urged her to look away but her eyes were fastened to it in intriguing horror. There was no identifiable face, but she noticed the wide hole in his chest and knew he was the man who had torn her bodice.

“That’s the man David killed,” she told Morgan. “He’s the one who ripped my dress.”

“Don’t look, Lila,” Morgan said softly. “You don’t want images like that following you in your sleep.”

She turned her head and closed her eyes. Her mind conjured images of the driver and the conductor, both friendly old fellows with rowdy tales and the kind of laughter that came from the gut. For weeks, she'd heard of their wives and children and grandchildren. She wondered if those families knew yet that their men would not be returning home. She hadn’t considered that the bodies might be in the desert when she left to retrieve her bag. Suddenly even more appreciative of Morgan’s presence, she didn’t think she would have had the strength or heart to carry on if she had been on her own.

“I didn’t think the bodies would be left out here to rot,” she said.

“The stage company will have sent someone for the drivers,” he answered. “I’m sure they’ll be buried properly in Virginia City if their families don’t claim them.”

She sighed in relief, knowing they were not abandoned to the desert elements. The telltale buzzing of the flies signaled the approach of another body, and it was followed again by the stench. If the drivers had been picked up, then she knew the body belonged to the man she'd shot. Against her better judgment and will, her eyes opened, and she could not peel them away. He was face down, and she saw a gaping hole in his lower back. She was sure she remembered shooting him in the chest.

“Stop,” she said, and Morgan pulled the reins back.

"What is it?"

“This is the man I shot,” she said somberly.

“Lila, don’t do this to yourself. Don't open the doorway to guilt. You shot him in self-defense."

She studied the body as Morgan spoke. His arms were stretched out in front of him but a layer of dust covered him. She looked for some sign of remembrance, some feature that would confirm that he was the one who took her bullet. All she could remember were his eyes above the bandana, and the spread of blood across his chest. She slid from the back of the horse, and Morgan jumped down after her.

“What are you doing?”

"This isn't the man I shot," she said, lifting her eyes to Morgan's. When his face showed that he didn’t understand, she pointed to the body. "Look. I shot the man in the chest, not in the back."

He turned and surveyed the body before addressing her. "I've seen your little pistol," he said with a shake of his head. "There's no way that a bullet from your gun would have inflicted this much damage. This man was shot by a shotgun. Are you sure you shot him?”

She chewed on her bottom lip as she thought back on the rush of memories. “There was a lot of shooting going on from all directions, but I saw the blood on his chest…and the pain and fear in his eyes as he went down.”

“Well, I guess that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t shot by someone else, too. There was more than one shotgun being fired that day according to David.”

“Or maybe this isn’t the man I shot,” she said. “Maybe he is someone else.”

“Who else would it be?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the stage company grabbed the wrong body?” She gasped and her voice went up a notch. “What if they have one of the robbers being shipped back to the driver's family while the real man is lying out here?”

“Calm down,” Morgan said, raising his hands. "I'm sure they grabbed the right body."

Her hands flew to her mouth at the horror she envisioned when the driver's family received his killer instead. "How can you know? We have to make sure, Morgan. If we find out now, there may still be time to correct it."

She started toward the body, and he put out a hand to stop her. "You're not going to go over there and check," he told her. "Can't you smell the rot? It'll be much worse the closer you get. If you're that determined to know it's the criminal, I will go and see."

"But you don't know what the drivers or the criminals looked like," she explained. "It should be me."

She moved around him and he called out her name much more forcefully. He had never been so sharp with her, and the tone stopped her where she stood. When their eyes met, there was sadness in his that she had not detected before.

"I knew the drivers," he said. "You stay here."

She nodded as he tugged the bandana up from where it was tucked beneath his shirt collar and pulled it over his nose. He put his gloves back on as he strode toward the body, swatting at the crowd of flies swarming his face as he drew near. She strained to see from the distance as he examined the body, lifting it carefully. She felt herself being drawn, physically, toward the sight, and when she saw Morgan's shoulders slump and his head dip, she knew it had to be because he was staring at one of the drivers.

Without a thought, she ran to him. "I knew it! I told you, Morgan…"

“Lila, no!” he shouted as she came upon the body.

Ghoulish, milky eyes peered up at her, and she sucked in a breath of rotten air. Half of his face was gone, having been devoured by scores of tiny maggots that were still crawling through every opening. His mouth was wide open, the tongue inside crisp and shriveled. As she gulped feverishly at the foul air for breath, the needle-thin legs of a spider appeared from the back of his throat and crawled out to perch on his lips. She finally let loose a piercing scream and stumbled back, tripping over a bush to land on the ground.

Frantically, she crawled away through the dirt until she felt the solid grip of Morgan’s hands lifting her up and turning her into his arms. She buried her face in his chest, shaking her head as if to clear it of the image. Her body trembled, and Morgan held her closer, smoothing a palm over her hair. The backs of her eyes stung with unshed tears.

“I shouldn’t have brought you here,” he said while he stroked her back. “I’m taking you to the boarding house.”

She wanted to protest. Some voice deep inside screamed of her mother’s portrait, but the image of the dead man’s face returned, and she shuddered once again and nodded against his chest. He led her to his horse protected in the circle of his arms and mounted before lifting her up to sit sideways across his lap. As she tucked her head beneath his chin, he turned and rode away from the gruesome sight.

The dip of the horse’s back was gentle as he cantered, and Lila felt that she had never had such a smooth ride. She was grateful as her seat was sore from the thorns. Morgan’s body was solid as he wrapped his arm around her, and she didn’t fight the urge to lean into the warmth and protection he offered. He climbed to the top of a rise and stopped when the valley came into view. They sat there, overlooking the scene in silence for several long moments before he spoke.

“My ranch is down there,” he said. “Three hundred acres of fertile land. You see there,” he pointed a finger toward the shadowy base where the glinting waters of the river could be seen through the trees. “The river snakes through the land there before flowing away from the mountain. Those giant ponderosas cover the view, but there’s an orchard of apple and peach trees and I even saw a few cherry trees. You can’t see the house this far away but it’s tucked up near the orchard, and the meadow stretches down nearly to the lake. It’s full of wildflowers right now. Beautiful. Pretty soon that field will be full of cattle to feed this growing area.”

Lila squinted to see the details he described but the distance was too great, and she knew he was speaking from his memory and not his eyesight. She watched his face fill with hope as he spoke of his future on that plot, and she smiled. He had a brightness of fulfilled longing about him, a venerated sense of purpose and optimism that made her want to be infected by it. He knew what he wanted, and he was sharing his vision with her.

From the ridge, the scene was inviting and beautiful, a beauty she never considered. Growing up in a bustling city, she had always envisioned that life as her future; parties, scandals and gossip, servants and detailed frippery. It had been so long since she’d tasted that lifestyle, though, and she owned nothing from it but memories. A clean slate if there ever was one, she thought; an empty canvas for her to paint as she wanted. For the first time since adulthood she wondered what she really desired of her future. Relaxing against Morgan, looking down on the picturesque backdrop of his dream, she felt a sense of peace deeper than any memory had produced since she left home.

“Thank you for showing me this, Morgan,” she said quietly. “I needed to see something beautiful after…” her voice wavered, and her eyes fell again.

“Life is full of beauty, Lila, the best of which is the wild kind a place like this affords. That is one thing I love about the west. Everything is grander here. The mountains are more spectacular, the colors bolder; the song of a violin is sweeter. What survives here thrives.” His eyes scanned the features of her face, traced the shine of her brown hair against his shoulder. “You will never be more beautiful than you are in this place in this time, living as God intended.”

Their eyes met. Her face was so close to his. She could feel his breath washing over her. Her arms were folded between their bodies, the flats of her palms resting against his belly. The soft press of her breasts began to heat against his chest. He was calm, but there was mastery in his gaze, like he was tunneling purposefully to a depth in her she didn’t know existed. Panic suddenly assailed her beneath the intensity of his gaze. The contact of their bodies, the racing of their heartbeats, the heaviness of his words; the heated connection between them all sent gooseflesh tingling over her. As he lowered his mouth toward hers, she suddenly turned away.

“I’m happy for you, Morgan, that you’ve got your land.”

She felt the heat of his eyes on her profile, and heard the heaviness in his swallow. “Thank you.”

They didn’t speak at all on the ride back but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable. Lila was distracted by the nervousness and physical awareness he invoked in her. She’d been grateful for his timely arrival in the canyon and every moment since, lending his strength to her, but he also set the reels of her mind in motion more than they had been in quite some time.

When they arrived at the boarding house, David and Val were sitting on the porch steps smoking cigars, looking clean, fresh and surprised to see Morgan and Lila together. They both stood and smiled a greeting, more at Lila than at Morgan. Just before they came within earshot, Lila looked up at Morgan and clutched his shirt, drawing his stare down to her.

“Please don’t say anything,” she pleaded, “about what happened out on the road or what we were doing out there.”

His vow of silence was a simple nod.

“There you are,” David said, walking toward them as Morgan slid from his saddle. David reached up to help Lila dismount, but Morgan did the exact same thing on the other side, and Lila looked from one man’s outstretched arms to the next. She didn’t want to be rude to either by refusing so she smiled sheepishly.

“Thank you both, but I can manage,” she said as she swung herself out of the saddle onto Morgan’s side. She fidgeted with her skirt as she walked around the horse. “David, I must tell you something. I feel absolutely horrible, and I will do anything necessary to remedy the situation.” She took a deep breath. “I lost your horse.”

His face twisted in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

She recounted the events of the afternoon up to the snake ordeal while Val and Morgan listened. Several expressions claimed his facial features throughout the tale. Everything from surprise to worry to disbelief washed over him with amusement finally taking hold when she gestured toward Morgan’s ripped pants. Morgan ignored the ridiculing smile David sent him and pointed where he’d last seen the runaway horse.

“Well, I’m just glad you’re all right,” he said to Lila, taking a hand and wrapping it in both of his. “You needn’t worry about Peregrine, though. He’s in the stables.”

Her brow furrowed with shock and disbelief. “What? How?”

“When I came back from Virginia City I saw him grazing near the barn. I assumed you didn’t know where to put him away so I did it for you. He must have found his way back, clever beast.”

David chuckled and Morgan raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You didn’t find it odd that the horse was here and she wasn’t?”

“Like I said, the horse was here, so I assumed she was, too.”

“And just hiding from you?”

David lifted his chin. “She could have been resting in her room or in with her father, or having a bath for all I knew. I did not presume to invade her privacy.”

“She could have been dead in the canyon! Would you have presumed to inquire after her then?”

“Calm down, Morgan,” Val interjected.

“I won’t calm down,” he shot back, his gaze fixed on David. “You sent a woman off on your horse alone, a woman who knows nothing of the area, the terrain, or its dangers. You should have been with her. What was so damned important for you to risk her safety over?”

“Morgan, please,” Lila urged with a soft, pleading voice. She placed a hand over the bulge of his bicep. “David didn’t know that I was going off on my own. As far as he knew I was going to stay at the boarding house. It was my own foolishness that led to what happened. None of this is his fault.”

No one spoke. Morgan’s glare was deadlocked on David until Lila squeezed his bicep pleadingly. When he finally looked at her, she begged with her eyes, imploring him to release the tension that was too thick for her to handle. She didn’t want anyone fighting over her own imprudence. He expelled a hot breath through his nose and acquiesced. She nodded gratefully before addressing the men.

“I’m going to go see my father, make sure he’s well-rested for the coach tomorrow. I’ll see you all for dinner, I hope?”

They nodded and smiled until Lila left them in front of the boarding house.

Morgan watched her leave, aware of the warmth still simmering in his blood. Every masculine inch of him desired her, and he had been powerless to stop himself from trying to kiss her on the hilltop. His pulse had echoed through him like a chant, urging him to lean down for a taste of her lips. She alone held the power to stop him, and she had. He looked over at the reason why. David picked his cigar up off the ground and puffed away, unaffected, smiling smugly at Morgan through a coil of smoke. Morgan felt a sinking disdain for the man's cavalier demeanor.

He scowled. “So, you’re going to let a woman shoulder the blame for you, Gardner?”

David chuckled, kicking at a pebble near his boot. “You know, Morgan, it’s actually very entertaining to see this side of you. What is it about our lovely Miss Cameron that’s got you charging around like a bull?”

“Strange you should ask that question since you seem to have taken up an interest yourself.”

David’s laugh was confident, even insolent. “I must admit that I find it endearing to have someone so completely smitten with me.”

“Smitten with you?”

“Of course!” he laughed. “The girl can’t even look at me without blushing.”

“So, that’s all she is to you? A surge to your vanity?”

“Why are you so concerned about it, Morgan? She’ll be gone in the morning and your wasted chivalry will have done nothing but chiseled a rift between you and I,” he tilted his head toward Val, “and you and your brother.”

Morgan’s eyes flitted to Val’s. They looked guarded and torn.

“There’s no rift between my brother and I,” Morgan answered, prompting David’s ceaseless laughter once again.

“All right, Morgan,” he mocked. “There’s no rift between you two, and Lila is not smitten with me. You’ve got a firm grasp of things.”

David smashed the lit end of his cigar against the bottom of his boot as he chuckled. He turned and walked away, vanishing inside the house. Morgan still stared at his sibling. Val’s eyebrows were drawn so tightly they almost touched in the center. Morgan was nearly undone by the sight. He spread his arms out wide.

“Is there a rift between us, Val?” he asked.

“What are you doing here, Morgan?” Val replied. “The grass not green enough in the valley now?”

“Val,” he choked as he shook his head, at a loss for words. His brother turned and strode away. “Valentine!” he called more forcefully but to no avail. He was ignored.