The Renegades: Nick (11 page)

She turned to him, a little bit embarrassed,
but the look she gave him was bold as brass.

“That’s very broad-minded of you,” she said, and then added, “and it’s true, as I found during my marriage.”

He nodded.

“Few women would admit to that for fear of not being considered a lady.”

“I say what I think. It makes me feel better.” Then she frowned and added, “Whether it changes anything or not.”

“I’m for anything that makes for feeling better.”

“No, you’re not. You rarely say what you think.”

That made him laugh out loud.

“How do you know what I think?”

She smiled up at him.

“I can read it in your eyes,” she said, with such authority that it made him laugh again.

The wind gave a sudden gust so strong that it blew away the sound and made them turn to look at the cloud. It was huge, growing blacker by the second, and rushing toward them, taking over the whole sky. Callie’s skin turned to chalk.

“Callie, would you go back there and close the canvas? I’d hate for those sacks of grain to get wet.”

He tried to keep the tension out of his voice but near-panic surged through him. How could he have been so utterly foolish, so stupid,
as to flirt and fool around and forget to watch the storm? Was he going to get them both killed?

She leapt up and started into the wagon.

“I can’t close it,” she said. “The flap’s gone. But I have an oilskin I bought in Arkansas City.”

“Hang on—we’ll have to run for it!” he yelled and slapped the lines down on the backs of the team, who were only waiting for a chance to bolt.

With the wagon swaying and rocking, they raced across the prairie, heading for an arroyo he knew that was deeper than most. After that first, distant rumble of thunder the storm had been quiet, but now lightning cracked the sky and thunder shook the earth. Joe and Judy ran as if they had wings on their heels.

Nick glanced back over his shoulder. Sure enough, the wall cloud had begun to drop long tendrils toward the ground, reaching fingers that tried to touch the earth, wanted to grab anything in their path.

They stood out like evil monsters against the narrow strip of daylight that ran along the edge of the earth. Then, as he watched, it, too, vanished.

The day turned as black as the Shifter, who was having no trouble keeping up. The stallion could outrun even this fast pair on his worst day and over any terrain, and Nick
wanted him cut loose. Anything could happen, and the horse had sense enough to take care of himself.

He had no hope of doing that now, though, and no chance of making Callie hear him over the rattling, creaking wagon and the pounding hooves. All he could do was get them into the cut in the earth that was the only shelter for miles, before the dancing devils grabbed them up to fandango with the wind.

Oh, God, he didn’t want Callie to die. If she did it would be on his head, for he had brought her out here just in time for the storm.

The sudden rain hit like a wall of ice water and blinded him completely. His finger froze on the lines and his arms felt like lead, and he guided the wild team through sheer will in a direction he knew only by instinct.

Finally, a jagged strike of lightning lit the sky and he saw they were almost upon the arroyo. He pulled them at an angle to the right, and they surged down an old trail into the bottom of the dry creek bed. If the rain kept up like this it wouldn’t be dry for long, but they’d get out of it as soon as the cyclones had passed overhead.

He drove up the creek a little farther, urged the team in closer to the bank, both for protection and to have it slow and then stop their wild race, then dived over the back of the seat
and underneath the canvas cover as the storm came upon them with a roar.

“Callie!”

A terrible shaft of lightning cracked with a sound like the end of the world, and he saw her bent over the grain sacks trying to tuck the oilskin in. The blackness rushed behind the lightning, ready to devour them.

The cyclone was upon them, like a train bearing down on somebody trapped on the tracks. The dancing devil sucked every drop of air from his lungs.

He threw himself half the length of the wagon onto Callie and locked his hands behind his head, digging his elbows into the grain sacks on each side of her. Lying over her, praying for breath and for the cyclone to pass.

But it was just arriving. A shrill whistling tortured his ears, the whole atmosphere lifted, the wagon surged upward, and for an endless time he couldn’t think of anything except the incredible force pulling them off the face of Mother Earth.

Just when he knew they were goners, the vehicle dropped back, rocking onto its wheels. With a last whooshing roar, the air came back into his lungs and hailstones began to beat against his back.

Unbelievably, Callie was breathing beneath him.

He sucked in all the air he could hold and
shouted through the noises of hail and rain, “
Shapeshifter!
”

The answering whinny made him sag with relief.

Ice lashed at his skin, the wind-driven rain poured through his clothes to chill his bones, but Callie’s warm shape wouldn’t let him freeze.

Callie—warm and soft and alive beneath him.

He laid his cheek against hers and wrapped her in his arms.

T
he canvas wagon cover was gone, Nick realized dimly. It was the only explanation for the icy rain slashing at them and the wind stinging their skins. His mind struggled to think what to do next, but Callie was in his arms, turning to throw her arms around his neck. She clung endearingly, as if he were her only hope.

He cupped her head in his hands, her hair like wet silk under his palms, and tried to shield her as best he could. Faraway lightning showed him her face—her eyes wide and looking to him, her lips slightly parted. With a choked cry, he kissed her.

He drank in the hot honey of her mouth, let
it flow into his blood and trickle through his veins as if it were life itself, let it stream right straight into his heart without even a memory of the wall he’d built there. The dancing devil storm had left him on the earth, but this new Callie cyclone lifted him right up into the maelstrom.

All he knew was that his lungs lost all air and she gave it back to him. His mind lost all thought but she gave him his body, which had been half-dead for so long. She gave him all he needed—this sweetness and this trust, this heat from her soft arms against his neck, this closeness of his hands melded to her and his tongue entwined with hers. He would never need more than Callie’s kiss.

Yet he did need to hold the soft breasts now glued against his chest by the rain. He deepened the kiss and dragged his hands desperately over the shape of her—molded her delicate jaw and long, graceful neck, slick with rain, explored the hollows of her collarbone and the curves of her shoulders, until his palms cradled her breasts and his thumbs found their tips, thrusting up to him through the thin cloth that barred his way.

He left her lips and began a hot trail of kisses down her throat to one of the hard buds that tortured him. Then he took it into his mouth and held her trembling against him
while he suckled it. Vaguely, he heard her gasp.

“Nickajack!”

She thrust her fingers into his hair and held him to her so he wouldn’t stop.

Her whole body was trembling, her heart galloping in rhythm with his. Her scent made him dizzy with desire; her hand stroked the back of his neck while she arched up to him.

It made him crazy with wanting her. He reached up under her rumpled, sodden skirts and stroked her silken thigh.

She stiffened and he let go of her breast. She grasped his face in her small hands and pulled it back up to hers.

“No,” she gasped, “no … Nick, we have to stop … we must stop …”

He lowered his mouth and dragged his parted lips across hers and she answered with a sharp, quick thrust of her tongue that captured his in its sweet trap. They fell to kissing again as if they’d been born only for that purpose, for such a precious long heartbeat that his head went thick with pounding desire. Suddenly, with a cry that chilled him, she tore her mouth away.

Her breath was ragged, but her words rang clear.

“I can’t. I can’t do such a thing with you, Nick. I will never love anyone but Vance.”

Even that awful declaration couldn’t take
the sweetness out of the way she said, “You, Nick.” Her voice was like the silver sound of a bell in the quiet of the night.

“Why not?” he blurted, amazing himself again by speaking his feelings aloud. “You said Vance is dead, Callie.”

She winced.

“He is,” she said hesitantly, “and I’m just as guilty as he was, but I’m alive … so I have to make our homestead dream come true.”

“Guilty of what?”

Again she hesitated.

“Of loving each other. Of … being with … of marrying someone on the other side of the feud.”

“From what you said, the two of you had nothing to do with starting that feud. You don’t even know what it was about.”

“I know. But I shouldn’t have ever met him in the woods in secret that very first time he asked me to. I caused him to lose his life.”

“I don’t agree with that.”

“It’s true! He wouldn’t’ve been working so hard, wouldn’t even have needed any money if he’d been with some other girl and planning to stay in the mountains.”

“That was his decision, Callie.”

“Mine, too,” she said stubbornly. “I have to keep his memory alive.”

Quick, hard anger at that hopeless line of reasoning surged through Nick. He bit his lip
to keep from arguing with her. This was her business and none of his.

“The storm’s gone,” he said, and started to move away from her.

“Thanks to you,” she said.

He laughed, he actually laughed, as he tried to rack his breathing back to normal.

“I didn’t make it go away,” he said.

“No, but you saved us from going with it,” she said.

“Couldn’t save your wagon cover, though.”

The calm way he spoke, the cool, unhurried moves he made while untangling himself and getting to his feet, amazed him as much as the pain when she’d spoken of Vance. He was losing his sanity just because they’d had a narrow escape.

Well, he’d lived through many a brush with disaster and never gone
loco
before. His lonesome body was just making his imagination run wild because he hadn’t held a woman for so long. It was disappointment he felt. Frustration. Thwarted physical desire. That was all.

Nick stood and reached down to help her to her feet, and Callie felt a whole new heat race through her. His mouth had already melted her bones; now the touch of his hard, strong hand turned her knees to jelly.

But he let her go as soon as she stood steady, and acted as if nothing had happened but the storm.

Finally, the last thing he’d said soaked into her addled brain.

“My wagon cover!”

She looked up into the lightening sky, into the growing patches of sunlight that showed between the curved ribs that usually held the cover. The reality hit her in the pit of the stomach.

“My shelter! This wagon’s all the shelter I have. What if another storm comes?”

All the starch began to drain out of her spine. Dear Lord, she couldn’t survive out in the open—and certainly not with this baby inside her.

The sun came out full strength right then, seemingly determined to show her the light. She’d already seen it. How could she hope to be self-sufficient now?

Nick went to the tailgate and jumped down. Even that small separation made her feel bereft, which made her furious with herself. She was
not
going to depend on him!

“My cabin’s plenty big enough for two,” he said, and went to hug the neck of his big black horse.

Fear sliced through her like a hot knife.

How could she ever push him away from her again? She’d used up all her fortitude, all her character … all her moral courage when she’d stopped him just now. Never, in her whole life, had she wanted anyone as much as
she’d wanted him. Just imagining making love with him had set her on fire.

She certainly couldn’t share his cabin with him and hold onto her virtue or her independence.

Then Judy gave a high, impassioned squeal and Joe roared back at her. Callie climbed toward the front of the wagon as Nick ran to the team, too.

Judy had managed to get one leg over onto Joe’s side, astraddle of the shaft, and was kicking sideways at him even while she lurched back and forth, struggling to bring her leg back under her.

“Even a cyclone can’t scare them into good behavior,” Callie said, climbing down over the wheel. “When I’m a rich schoolteacher, I’m going to buy a real team. A good team. A well-trained team.”

“Right now, I’d say trade them for a team of monkeys if monkeys could pull this wagon.” Nick motioned for her to stand at Joe’s head while he got Judy straightened out.

He did it so smoothly Callie hardly saw it happen. Of course, maybe she hardly saw it because she was looking at him, instead of what he was doing. The rain had plastered his thin shirt to his flexing muscles, and with sunshine spilling across the prairie and the darkness vanishing with the storm to the east,
every powerful inch of him was highlighted just for her eyes.

She shouldn’t be wanting him like this; shouldn’t be wishing for another kiss, another touch, another time with his mouth on her breast …

Fury with her faithless self washed through her.

Dear Lord, she was carrying Vance’s baby! What would it think about having such a disgraceful, shameless mother?

And how dishonest that was toward Nick, who had saved her life and the baby’s, he had staked her claim for her, and now was making her stubborn beasts behave. She could never repay him.

He straightened up and walked all the way around Judy, then Joe, checking every bit of the harness, running his hands down their legs and lifting their feet to look for damage from the storm. She had never seen a man move the way he did, with such a fluid power. She could watch him all day long.

Many, many women must have loved him. Had he ever loved any of them in return?

Maybe her kisses didn’t touch his heart at all. Maybe he cared nothing about her as a person.

Her little voice of truth contradicted that at once. Hadn’t he shielded her from the pounding
hail? Hadn’t he offered to share his shelter with her?

There was the thought that made her heart flee. She couldn’t do that. She must not.

“They’ll do,” Nick decreed, coming around to help her back up into the wagon. “We’d better get moving.”

“I need to go to my place.”

But I want to go to yours
.

The sun was full out now, lower in the sky but not near setting, and it bathed the prairie in a yellow glow. The wet grass smelled sweet and peaceful. For the first time since she’d come into the Strip, the daytime wind felt cool. It’d be a true comfort even to be on the same claim, in the same place with another human being, to enjoy this night. Her whole body and mind felt sore from fighting the loneliness.

“Why yours?” he said. “You can’t stay there.”

He jumped into the back of the wagon and stepped around and over her wet belongings to reach the seat,

“Yes, I can. I’ll tie my oilskin between two trees for a roof until I get my soddy done.”

But oh, how horrid it was to even think of it. She’d blistered her hands and made every muscle in her body sore for the dubious reward of half a wall on one side only. It would take her weeks to get all four walls high
enough to hold a roof. Then how would she make that roof?

A terrible tiredness took her. At home, there had always been a dozen pairs of hands to help her. Now every one of her kin was a thousand miles away.

She reached for the lines, tried to take them from Nick’s hard, strong fingers. But there was as much chance of that happening as of her sprouting wings to fly.

And just touching those warm hands that had brought her such pleasure made her weak to the core with desperate desire.

Panic sprang to life in her belly but she didn’t dare acknowledge it.

“I can take care of myself,” she snapped. “I can
drive
this team. I got to town, didn’t I?”

“By the grace of God,” he drawled.

“Well, then.”

He clucked to the team and got them going, then turned them around to head back up out of the dry creekbed he’d called an arroyo.

“Well, then, what?”

“I. Can. Take. Care. Of. Myself,” she said, through gritted teeth.

Her heart was pounding so hard she thought she could hear it.

“Of course you can,” he said, “within reason. But not even gritty, no-obligations Callie Sloane from Kentucky can magically create a roof over her head tonight.”

No roof meant no shelter from the sun tomorrow, when she rested from working on her house. No roof meant no protection if it hailed. No roof meant nothing at all between her and another cyclone sweeping out of the southwestern sky.

The team came up out of the arroyo and headed out in the direction of their claims. Callie glanced at Nick. The western sunlight turned his skin to copper and threw his handsome bones into sharp relief. The only flaw in his entire perfect face was a small, slightly bleeding cut on one cheekbone.

It struck her heart. The hail had cut him while he protected her. She wanted to touch the wound, to fix it, to kiss it away. She wanted that so fiercely, it scared her even more than the thought of depending on him.

Turning away, she dragged in a long, ragged breath. She had to think. She had to get away from him and think.

“I have some ointment,” she muttered, scrambling up to go find it. “The hail cut your cheek.”

“Forget it,” he called, but she hurried into the back of the lurching wagon anyway.

In a moment she was back with the small jar.

“That storm was unbelievably precise,” she said, “I just realized it took the cover and left
everything else. Even the oilcloth is still over the grain.”

He raised his eyebrow and gave her a look.

“We were on top of the oilcloth, if you recall.”

He held her gaze while she felt her face grow hot. Yes, dear goodness, they had been on top of the oilcloth, clinging to each other with a passion. Truly a passion.

“Let me doctor that wound,” she said, and her voice came out only a little bit shaky.

He turned to glance at the team quickly as if he, too, sensed the danger in that look.

“It doesn’t need medicine.”

“You sound like my six-year-old brother Jasper,” she said a bit more steadily. “He’s afraid every medicine will sting and burn.”

He tried to ignore her but she waited. Finally, he shook the lines at the team and sped them up a little.

“All right. I’ll prove I’m braver than a six-year-old.”

Callie took the top off the jar, dipped her finger in the ointment, and reached up to him, willing her hand not to shake. The wagon lurched, Nickajack swayed toward her, and her finger pressed against his cheekbone harder than she’d intended.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

His piercing gray eyes met hers.

“You can’t hurt me,” he said.

At that instant, she believed him. He looked as hard as this land he loved.

“Did you leave anything at your camp?”

This was the time to make him take her home. If she stayed at his place even one night, she’d be wanting to stay all the time. Just the words
your camp
sounded lonely.