Mountain Wild
Mountain Wild
Stacey Kayne
In bed with the cowboy!Fourteen years ago a terrified young Maggie Grace fled into the wilderness of the Wyoming mountains, where she has lived alone ever since. Until she finds cowboy Garret Daines, lying unconscious in a blizzard.Snowbound in Maggie’s cabin, sharing the only bed with this beautiful wild woman, brings Garret’s body – and guarded heart – pulsing back to life. Garret is the only man ever to show Maggie any kindness, and the walls around her heart begin to crumble.But, no matter the bond they forge to overcome the threat against them, she won’t let herself be easily tamed…
Praise forStacey Kayne:
MUSTANG WILD
‘Fast-paced and well written,
MUSTANG WILD was a delight to devour…
Highly romantic, with just the right touch of humour,
MUSTANG WILD is one for the keeper shelf.
Stacey Kayne has penned a treasure…’
—Cataromance
‘This strong debut is a tale of one woman’s struggle to
overcome a father’s deceit before she can find peace,
forgiveness and passion with the man meant for her.
Each character carries his or her own weight, adding
depth and humour to this honestly written story.’
—RT Book Reviews
MAVERICK WILD
‘Excitement, mystery and delight fill the pages of
MAVERICK WILD, Stacey Kayne’s latest historical
treasure. Kayne can weave a story that will capture
you and not let go. She has demonstrated herself to be
a talented force in the world of western romance.’
—Cataromance
‘Kayne carries off a warm-hearted Americana
western with…feisty characters, a loving family
atmosphere, small-town troubles and the
gritty reality of life in the Wild West.’
—RT Book Reviews
“Don’t go,” he whispered against her ear, the vibrations rekindling the wild tingles in all the places he’d touched. He leaned in, touching his lips to hers in the lightest caress. His arm tightened over her ribs.
Damnation!
She shoved his arm away and scrambled for the end of the bed. She stumbled over the trunk and fell to the cold floor. She sprang up, tugging her wool nightshirt closed as she bumped against her table, wobbling the lit oil lamp. Light shifted over shadows and the naked man sprawled in her bed.
She inched toward the stove, grabbed up her now dry clothes, then backed toward the door. How long had she slept?
The heated swirls he’d conjured rose up, stealing her breath.
He’d kissed her, in ways she’d never imagined a man would kiss a woman. Her teeth clamped down on her trembling lower lip. The memory of his mouth on her breast, his tongue moving against hers, added to the violent stir of her pulse. His touch had been tender, his kisses…overwhelming.
Stacey Kayne has always been a daydreamer. If the comments on her elementary school report cards are any indication, it’s a craft she mastered early on. Having a passion for history and a flair for storytelling, she strives to weave fact and fiction into a wild ride that can capture the heart. Stacey lives on a ranch near the Sierra Nevada with her high school sweetheart turned husband of eighteen years and their two sons. Visit her website at www.staceykayne.com.
Recent novels by the same author:
MUSTANG WILD
MAVERICK WILD
Mountain Wild
Stacey Kayne
MILLS & BOON®
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/)
Dedicated to my critique partners,
Sheila Raye,who’s always there for emergency brainstorming,
Marlene Urso,for her speed-of-light proofreading,
and Carla Capshaw,whose insight is always an inspiration!
Special Thanks to:
My husband—Happy 20th Anniversary!
Tanner and Ethan for always being there
to help their mom out.
My mom and mom-in-law
for their never-ending support.
My pals at Writers at Play.
Lucy, my fabulous editor,
for her faith and understanding.
My readers—I hope you enjoy this final addition
to my WILD series!
Prologue
Southwest Wyoming Territory—1875
“There’s nowhere to run, Margaret Grace. I’m going to find you.”
He was too close. Desperate to escape her brother’s rage, Maggie’s fingers dug into the dirt as she struggled through the thick brush. Thorns scraped across her cheeks, snagging her braids, ripping at her dress.
“Thirteen is a bit too old for hide-and-seek,” Nathan called out, his taunting voice sounding merely a foot away.
Maggie froze. She tried to control her jagged breaths and the tears burning for release. Her face and belly throbbed from his heavy fists crashing down on her. Their daddy hadn’t been dead a full hour, and her brother had lost his mind. He’d exploded from the house in a rage, their father’s will in his hand.
He’d gone after her like a man deranged.
A twig snapped behind her. Maggie held her breath as his shadow moved over the dense scrub, blocking out bits of sunlight breaking through the twisted branches as he walked past. The crunch of his footsteps faded deeper into the woods. Her heart thundered as she waited. She had to make it back to the ranch before him.
She scrambled from the bush, biting back a scream as thorns ripped at her skin. Shaking, she hurried back down the hillside. Through a maze of tall timber she could see her home below and those who’d gathered in the yard—stable hands, housekeepers, the nanny who’d raised her.
Why didn’t they come for her? She had screamed for help. All of them had looked on with horrified expressions, shrinking away as Nathan struck her again and again, forcing her to run for the woods to get away from him.
“There you are.”
Maggie swung around. Fear gripped her chest, stealing her breath as her older brother towered over her. A wedge of black hair covered one eye. The other sparked with anger. Their father’s will was still crushed in his grasp, her blood marring the pages.
Until today, no one had ever struck her. At twenty-two, Nathan was now her legal guardian.
“Look at you, Margaret Grace.” He shook his head as though he weren’t the one responsible for her tattered state. “What would your daddy think of his precious little girl crawling through the dirt in her fancy pink clothes?”
A smile curved his lips, and tears blurred Maggie’s vision. He’d never liked her, but she never guessed her brother harbored such hatred. “What have I ever done to you?” she cried.
“You were born. My life was perfect before you came along. You killed my mother and have been nothing but a drain on my inheritance. And now I’m supposed to waste what’s left of my money on some finishing school and a dowry so you can be pawned off on some aristocratic fool?”
“I don’t have to go. I won’t go!”
“It’s in the will!” he shouted, waving the crumpled pages. “His lawyer has a copy. I’m his only son, the rightful heir! All this talks about is preparations made for you, Margaret Grace!” He swung his fist.
Pain exploded through her cheek. A scream ripped from her lungs as she hit the ground. She curled up, defending herself as best she could.
When the next blow didn’t come, she opened her eyes and saw a pair of Indian boots just inches from her nose. Her gaze traveled up a giant wearing a thick fur coat. A full beard covered most of his face, but didn’t hide three long scars twisting through his cheek.
Maggie gasped and scrambled back until she bumped into something. Fingers twisting into her hair, popping strands at the root, reminding her she faced a greater threat—her own brother.
“Who are you?” Nathan demanded.
The beastly man stared at her a moment before he glanced at her brother. “Trapper.”
“You’re trespassing on my property.”
“I come to trade.”
The trapper looked directly at her. Maggie shivered, his vacant brown eyes increasing her fear. She was scraped, bruised and bloody, one of her braids had unraveled, yet he stared as though her brother held a dog by a leash.
“You want her?” Nathan asked, laughter in his voice.
The trapper’s shoulder shifted and a bound clump of fur landed on the ground beside her. “Give you six beaver pelts. Fair trade.”
Maggie gasped in horror. She couldn’t be sold! “Nathan.” She tried to stand, shaking her head despite the pain in her scalp. Her brother wrenched his hold. Pain pierced her scalp, forcing her back onto her knees with a sharp cry.
“You live around here?” he asked.
“No,” the trapper answered, his gaze fixed on her. “I follow the rivers.”
“You can’t sell me!” she shouted. “I’m your sister!”
He released her hair. Pain exploded across her back as he kicked her into the dirt. “Take her.”
Long, grimy fingers reached for her. Maggie screamed as she was hoisted up and tossed over the giant’s shoulder.
“No! Nathan!”
She kicked and screamed as the trapper carried her deeper into the woods. Her thrashing didn’t slow his strides. He broke from the trees and ran across a wide clearing. Reaching the other side, he stopped and swung her forward, pinning her against the rough bark of a tree.
Fear choked her. Her breaths came in short gasps.
“Hush your mouth, lest you want to die,” he said in a harsh whisper.
She stared at the jagged scars rippling across his cheek and into his thick beard.
“I seen lots of death, little miss. That man has killin’ in his eyes.”
He lowered her to the ground and steadied her. “You want to live?”
Tears burned hot against her cheeks as she nodded.
“Then you bes’ move fast and keep quiet. He may not be finished with us yet.”
Her mind reeled as he tucked her against his side, his gaze scanning the ground he’d just covered.
He was afraid. Afraid her brother would come after them.
“Goddamn cowards on that ranch,” he murmured. “Even wolves defend their young. Goes to show why I don’t trust my back to no one.”
Maggie gazed up at his tawny, withered face and the matted brown hair poking out from beneath his battered hat. He smelled bad and was old, but not so old that his hair had grayed like her daddy’s.
“I done my good deeds in this life,” he muttered, taking a step back. Fisted hands twice the size of her brother’s slammed onto his hips. His angry dark eyes narrowed.
Maggie stumbled back, beyond his reach.
“I got a mule a half mile from here. We’re headed north. You can go my way or find your own way. It ain’t my worry.”
Find her own way? “I—I’m only thirteen.”
“Only two ages in this world that matter. Either you old enough to survive or you ain’t.” He held his hand out to her.
Maggie stared at his large, filthy palm then glanced at her own scraped hands. Twigs and leaves clung to dirty pink satin and the frazzled black hair draped over her shoulders. She was suddenly aware of the ache in her swollen lips, the burning in her eyes.
Her daddy was dead. Her brother had tried to kill her.
“You old enough, Margaret Grace?”
Only Nathan called her by her first and middle name.
“My name is Maggie,” she said, taking the trapper’s hand.
“I’m Ira.”
Low murmurs carried across the meadow, drawing his gaze. Ira’s fingers tightened over hers, tugging her after him.
“Run, Maggie.”
Chapter One
Central Wyoming Territory—Fall, 1889
She moved with the caution of a doe caught grazing in an open meadow. Her dirt-stained fingers quickly secured a rope behind her saddle, binding her supplies as she discreetly watched the men filing out of the newly constructed town hall.
Following a roomful of grumbling cattlemen out onto the boardwalk, Garret Daines spotted the woman they called Mad Mag the moment he stepped into the crisp evening air. Her mangy bearskin coat and battered brown hat was hard to miss in the fading light of an otherwise deserted street. Murmurs of recognition and surprise rumbled through the crowd of men.
Garret had seen the mountain recluse in a town only one other time in the eight years he’d lived in these Wyoming hills, some years back in a settlement further north. The bushel of tangled black hair beneath her hat suggested she could still benefit from a lesson or two in hygiene. Known for having a temperament on the far side of crazy, Mad Mag tended to avoid folks altogether. She obviously hadn’t expected all the cattlemen within fifty miles to spill out onto the streets of Bitterroot Springs at five o’clock in the evening. He glanced around at the men watching her with an equal measure of curiosity and caution.
“What’s the plan?” Duce asked, clapping a hand on Garret’s shoulder as he stepped beside him.
Garret glanced over at his business partner, the man’s wide grin striking him as a pure wonder. The past two hours of heated debates and near brawls, two of which had included Garret, left an ache in his shoulders, the frustration winding inside him still burning for release. In the fourteen years he’d been riding with Duce the wiry cowpuncher had never known a sour mood.
He doesn’t handle the account books, he silently retorted. Duce had signed on as his partner in name only, refusing to take a cut or responsibility for a business he hadn’t funded. At the age of forty-two, Duce still lived for Saturday nights and blowing his paycheck on weekend benders. In the past six years of running his cattle ranch, Garret had come to envy Duce’s carefree attitude and figured the past few winters had closed the wide gap in their ages.
Garret felt old. Nothing like a failed marriage and Old Man Winter cramming his boot up your behind to age a man.
He glanced out at a pink-streaked sky. “Sun’s about down. Might as well spend the night.”
Duce gave a nod. He raked his fingers through his bushy red hair glowing bright beneath a streetlamp then tugged on his hat. “Think I’ll head over to the Gilded Lady. Winter snow will be piling up soon and my girls are bound to miss me. Care to come along?”
“Not in the mood.” He shook his head, a weary sigh breaking from his chest. “I feel like I’ve just been ambushed by seven cattle barons.”
Duce chuckled.
Garret didn’t share his humor. To secure his place in the stockyards come spring he’d signed over a small fortune to the wealthy bandits of the newly appointed Cattlemen’s Association. They’d seemed rather disappointed in his ability to meet their demands. He wasn’t about to be pushed off his land. He’d faired better than many of his colleagues, men who’d lost all their stock in the freeze a couple of winters back, a blizzard that had damn near wiped out the cattle trade across the state. Now the railroad and invading cattle barons circled like vultures, ready to pick off the smaller ranches struggling to make ends meet.
“I’ll settle for a pint of whiskey and passing out in a hotel room.”
“You can do that over at the Gilded Lady,” Duce persisted. “What you need is a night in the saddle with some wild women. Ain’t no reason for you not to.” He moved closer as they stepped into the street. “Amanda’s not coming back, you know?”
Garret rolled his shoulders against the surge of anger and resentment tightening his muscles. “I sure as hell hope not.” Staring at that outrageous cattlemen contract reminded him of the divorce papers he’d finally signed last spring—cutting his marital ties to a woman he’d not seen in nearly three years. A wife walking out on a marriage left a man with no small amount of humiliation. He didn’t see the need to announce his divorce.
Life sure hadn’t gone the way he’d planned. Having acquired his ranch at the age of sixteen and marrying at nineteen, he truly thought he’d be settled in with his own family by now, not contemplating a night at a brothel. Damned if he could figure out what he’d done wrong. One thing he did know: he was through chasing women. If he was to have another wife, she’d have to run him to ground first.
“You can slug me for saying so,” said Duce, “but you’re lucky to be rid of that one. All that pretty was wasted on a woman who don’t do nothin’ but sniffle and pout ’cause you’re too busy to sit and stare at her all damn day.”
The truth didn’t keep Garret’s chest from burning at the thought of Amanda Billings standing on his sister’s front porch bound and bustled in the fanciest gear he’d ever seen. The daughter of a Southern banker, she was a true belle, her soft-spoken voice never reaching much above a whisper, her long, lithe body and graceful movements mesmerizing. The fact that she’d looked twice at his weather-beaten hide had lit his fire, and he’d sure as hell lit hers.
Passion hadn’t been enough to hold her. After eight months of marriage Amanda had her fill of him and Wyoming winters—a winter like nothing he’d ever seen. He wasn’t new to tragedy or hardship. Raised on cattle trails by his older sister, he’d survived raids, floods, droughts and damn near being washed out of a Colorado Canyon—none of it had prepared him for watching his livelihood go to hell in a frozen handcart.
Murmurs buzzed from the men around him as Mad Mag guided her horse along the main strip. The top of her hat was barely visible beyond the large bay she led by the reins. A fine horse, its golden coat gleaming in the low light. His gaze stopped on the Morgan brand singed into the animal’s haunch—the brand of his sister’s ranch. He glanced again at the horse’s golden coat, black socks, the burst of white on the horse’s dark frock—Star.
“Is that Star?” he said to Duce as they stopped beside their own mounts.
“Yep,” he answered, not bothering to shift his gaze toward the woman and her horse. “Chance sold his mare to the trapper, Ira Danvers just before you bought your ranch and we moved onto the Lazy J.”
That was six years back and he and Chance Morgan hadn’t been on good speaking terms, Chance having stolen his girl right out from under his nose. Still, he found it hard to believe Chance would sell his prized mare to someone like Ira Danvers. Garret had never actually met the mountain man, but had heard he was far less sociable than his woman.
“How can filth like that own a Morgan horse?”
Garret glanced back at the newest member of the Cattlemen’s Association standing on the landing of the town hall, his expression filled with disgust. Strafford, the newly elected mayor of Bitterroot Springs, gripped the sides of his shiny blue jacket and stepped onto the walk, his group of ranch hands moving with him like a clutch of chickens scurrying after a peacock.
“Folks call her Mad Mag,” said one of his men. “Ain’t ever seen her in town before.”
“Mad Mag?” Strafford’s gaze narrowed. He stepped off the boardwalk into the dusty road. “You there? Come back here.”
The woman increased her strides and urged the mare to move faster.
“Uh…Boss?” his man called after him. “I wouldn’t—”
“Hey!” Strafford shouted. “I’m talking to you!”
“He’s barkin’ up the wrong tree with that one,” Duce murmured.
Mad Mag turned into the alley beside the mercantile. Strafford hurried after her.
“Someone might ought to fetch the sheriff,” suggested one of the men.
“Who wants to bet Mayor Strafford just got a new mare?”
The large group erupted with laughter.
Anger snapped at Garret’s nerves. He’d disliked the overdressed rancher the moment he’d met the man. Nathan Strafford had moved into these hills with the greasy finesse of a snake-oil salesman, forcing out the smaller ranchers while pouring his money into this town. He’d funded a new school and the first courthouse in Bitterroot Springs, which had gotten him elected as the new town mayor.
Garret started across the road, damned if he’d stand by while that arrogant jackass took advantage of some poor deranged woman.
“Garret?”
Leaving Duce to chase after him, he rounded the building. Mag was near the far end of the alley, Strafford closing in on her.
“We got new laws in this town,” Strafford announced, his long arm reaching for her. He grabbed a fistful of fur.
Mag spun to face him, the rifle in her hands forcing him to take a backward step. “Back off,” she growled.
Strafford’s six-plus frame towered over the small woman. “What business do you have in my town?” he demanded. “Aside from reeking up the streets and stealing our horses?”
The woman’s cold, throaty laughter echoed through the hallow shadows of the narrow alley. “Oh, that’s rich. You calling me a thief.”
Strafford leaned closer to her. “Mag—?”
The butt of her rifle connected with Strafford’s gut, ending his words in a hard cough. He doubled over. She swung again, her rifle cracking against his skull, sending him staggering back. Another swift blow to the brow, and Strafford hit the ground like a fallen timber.
Damn. Her reputation wasn’t just rumors. She stood over Strafford, the barrel of her rifle pressed to his chest. She trembled. Jagged puffs of breath lifted the tangled black hair covering most of her face. Her finger flexed over the trigger.
If she shot Strafford, provoked or not, she’d hang before sundown.
“He’s not worth it,” Garret whispered, slowly moving in beside her while keeping an eye on that rifle.
Rage shaking her, Maggie couldn’t think of a single reason why she shouldn’t put a hole through Nathan’s black heart. He had no right to touch her—no right to be in this part of Wyoming!
His town? Her gaze raked over his fancy suit. Bile burned in her throat. Did this town know the vile measures he used to acquire his wealth? It was past time for Nathan to be stomped back down to the devil.
She startled at a light pressure on her shoulder. Her gaze snapped to the long fingers touching her fur coat. She glanced up at wide shoulders creating a clear line on the pink horizon.
“Careful,” he said. “Sheriff’s coming.”
Pale blond hair glowed white against the sunset, instantly identifying the man beside her.
Garret Daines. Recognition broke across her senses like a crack of lightning, shattering her tattered nerves. She’d spotted Daines and his cow dog often enough in the hills around her mountain, but never so close. He appeared rather like the Vikings she’d learned about during her studies as a young girl, his pale hair wavering in the cool breeze, the span of his chest blocking out the world. A colorful sky outlined his profile, defining the sharp lines and intriguing contours of his face.
“Ma’am, you’d better git.” The hand on her shoulder urged her aside, jarring her from a mental stupor. Not that he noticed. His hard gaze never strayed from the murmur of voices growing louder by the second. He glanced to his right and his friend moved in beside him, completely blocking her from view of the approaching mob.
“What’s going on?” a man shouted.
“What happened to Mayor Strafford?” called another.
“Not much that I could see,” said Daines. “Ol’ Strafford didn’t mind his footing. Tripped over his own boots and bumped his head.”
Maggie stared up at Daines’s broad shoulders, staggered by his outright lie, his offer of protection. Seizing the opportunity, she grabbed Star by the reins and stepped around the corner of the building. She wouldn’t be back to this town.
Garret glanced over his shoulder as the crowd descended on Strafford, and was relieved to find the woman had fled. He looked at Duce and nodded in the direction she’d gone. They prudently made a swift exit. Garret scanned the surrounding hills and tall grasses spotted by patches of trees and scrub. Mad Mag was nowhere in sight.
“You got some kind of death wish I should know about?” asked Duce.
“Why would you think—?”
“You’re lucky that woman didn’t fill you full of buckshot. Or didn’t you see the way she laid out Strafford?”
“She had a rifle, not a shotgun. And he likely frightened her, grabbing her the way he did.”
“Frightened her? That’s it,” Duce said, shoving him across the road. “We’re headed to the whorehouse before you end up dead or courting a mountain shrew.”
Garret laughed, and didn’t argue. Watching that woman knock Strafford down a few notches had lightened his mood.
Finally a bit of justice in this world.
Chapter Two
A soft swirl of snowflakes cold against her face, Maggie tugged her hood low and tightened her hold on the rope of her sled as she increased her stride through the soft powder. Her body ached to hunker down in her warm bed.
Two more miles.
The crunch of her snowshoes pressing through the soft ground echoed across the silent countryside. Dark clouds loomed to the north, telling her this was only a small reprieve in the blizzard. The late-winter storm had come on strong and without much warning the prior evening. Maggie barely had time to skin and dress the big buck she’d shot before having to bury her kill in the snow and seek shelter. Huddling in a dank alcove near the river had been no way to pass a frigid February night.
Despite the inconvenience, her hunt had been worthwhile. The frozen deer meat on her sled would last her the rest of winter, and then some.
A streamer of sunlight pierced the thick gray sky and glistened against an embankment of fresh snow up ahead. The silver sparkle captured her attention. As she drew closer she noted the metallic gleam was a spur. A spur attached to the vague outline of a boot buried beneath the snow.
Maggie slowed her stride. Her breath hit the cold air in a puff of white as her gaze moved across the long, lumpy mound.
Some fool cowpoke had gotten himself caught in the storm. He’d likely ventured up here looking for strays. High country weather was nothing like the lowlands. Lying on his side, the bulk of him was covered by a foot of snow.
The storm hadn’t been that bad—nothing like the freeze two winters back. The deadly cold had caught beast and man in its clutches for miles around, reaching deep into the plains. The stench of death had lasted long into the spring. Any cowboy worth his salt would have learned from such disaster, and sought shelter or at least dug himself in to wait out the blizzard.
She shook her head and pressed on. As Ira used to say, she’d leave it to God to have sympathy for the men too stupid to save themselves. The world could get by without another cowpoke. Hundreds littered the lowlands around her mountain, whooping and hollering at their herds of cattle. At the rate things were going, she’d soon be crowded out of her mountain home just as the Indians had been forced from theirs.
A whimper broke across the winter silence. The snow-covered mound shifted.
Maggie hitched her shoulder, slinging her rifle forward, into her hands. Caution prickled at her skin as she watched the long shape rise up near the center.
A dog stood and gave a vigorous shake. She recognized the mutt’s shaggy black fur and four white paws. Boots. The sound of Garret Daines calling after his dog was as familiar to her as a meadowlark’s song.
Oh, no. Maggie’s breath stalled as she cautiously approached the figure partially buried beneath a blanket of white. Something inside her softened at the sight of pale hair and familiar features.
Why did it have to be Daines?
She crouched beside him. He had the pallor of a dead man. Blood matted his pale hair. A dark bruise protruded on his forehead—suspiciously shaped like the blunt end of a rifle.
Someone had knocked him out.
She glanced around the clearing. Undisturbed snow coated the ground, blanketing wide-spaced shrubs and trees. Any tracks had long since been snowed over.
How long has he been here?
She brushed away some of the packed powder and noted the slight movement of his chest. Relief swamped her. Biting the fingertip of her glove, she pulled the lined leather from her hand. She slid her fingers along his stubble-coated jaw. The man didn’t so much as flinch. His skin was cold, but still soft. She didn’t see any blackening signs of frostbite. His dog had likely kept him from freezing, but his shallow breathing didn’t make even a slight mist in the frigid air.
He wouldn’t live long if he didn’t get out of the cold.
She reached for his coat and his dog barked, the sharp sound echoing through the winter silence. His master’s eyelids fluttered, but didn’t open.
She glanced at the dog prancing nervously beside her. The dog had distinctly different colored eyes. One deep green, the other pale blue.
Peculiar.
“Come’ere, Boots,” she said, holding out her bare hand.
The dog’s damp nose bumped against her palm.
“You stay friendly,” she said, scratching behind its ear, “and we’ll see about waking up your master.”
She fisted the front of Daines’s thick jacket and tugged him up, out of the snow. “Daines!” she shouted, giving him a shake. “Wake up, Daines!”
Pale lashes lifted. Glazed green eyes stared up at her.
“Ma’am?”
For being half-frozen, his vision was keener than most. Not too many folks looked at her long enough to determine her gender. “You’ve got to get up,” she said.
“Cattle…Duce…” His lids drooped.
“You don’t get out of this cold, you’re gonna lose more than cattle,” she said, certain she was talking to herself.
His head tipped back and Maggie fell forward, his dead weight dragging her down with him. She landed flat on top of him. Her bare hand plunged into the bite of ice-cold snow.
“Damn it, Daines,” she shouted, pushing off him. “Wake up!”
He blinked, but didn’t move another muscle.
He’d already been exposed to the cold for too long, addling what she knew to be an otherwise sharp mind. Ira had fallen into an icy river once and had emerged from the frigid water dumber than a rock and helpless as a babe.
Maggie sat back on her heels and knocked the snow from the cuff of her white fur coat. The cold breeze snaked inside her sleeve, sending a chill across her warm skin. She quickly pulled on her glove. Her gut burned as the true extent of his situation sunk in. He wasn’t going to make it.
He was too far from his ranch, at least six miles. The last thing she wanted was to take this Viking cowboy inside her home. There wasn’t a soul alive who knew the location of her cabin. She lived up in the dense wild country for a reason—she didn’t want to be bothered. The one time she’d had unexpected company she spent a whole spring and summer relocating.
The fact that her visitors had been relatives of Garret Daines didn’t ease her reluctance to help him. By her account, his relation to Chance and Cora Morgan made him more of a threat. Morgan and his wife knew too many of her secrets already and she knew too well how a helpful hand could turn to a threat in the blink of an eye.
Don’t trust your back to no one. Ira’s mantra was embedded in her mind.
Thanks to her run-in with Nathan a few months ago, wanted posters now hung in surrounding settlements featuring a poorly drawn sketch of a mountain shrew, announcing a five-hundred-dollar reward for the capture of Mad Mag.
Why should she put herself in further danger by helping a man she barely knew?
“M-m-ma’am?” His unfocused green eyes blinked up at her. “Are y-y-a…all right?”
Was she all right? She wasn’t the one lying half-frozen in the snow.
The blatant concern in his expression prodded at her usually silent conscience. Garret Daines seemed to have more charm than sense. Despite his intimidating size, he had a kindness to him that had struck her right off the first time she’d spied him in the low country. With his unusual pale hair and a deep laughter that could carry for miles, he was always easy to spot. Her Viking protector hadn’t been smiling a few months back—a vision that had been plaguing her dreams ever since. His gaze had been hard and focused as he had stood between her and the riled citizens of Bitterroot Springs.
He’d defended her. Her. Mad Mag, the local lunatic.
I can’t just leave him here to freeze. Unlike those who’d betrayed her, Garret Daines wasn’t a man who’d stand by while harm befell another. He’d do as Ira had done, taking on a burden he didn’t want to save the life of a stranger. She’d also been small enough for a grown man to toss over his shoulder and cart off into the woods. She couldn’t carry Garret Daines five feet, much less up this mountain through the snow. She had to get him up.
“Help me, Garret,” she said in her best damsel voice. “It’s so cold. I need to get home. Can you help me?”
He nodded, muscles bunching beneath his thick coat. He tried to push up, and groaned, his stiff body rebelling against the movement. She gripped his arms and helped to tug him up. Snow clung to his thick coat and buffalo-hide chaps—clothes that should have kept him warm. His hat lay crumpled in the top of the outline of his fallen form. She noted the creases pressed into his left cheek. His dog and his hat had protected those handsome features from hours of exposure. But the icy weather had taken a toll on his mind. He stared blankly at the ground before him.
He swayed, his eyelids drooping.
She reached for him, her arms sliding into his open coat. His shirt crinkled like a sheet of ice.
Alarm squeezed her chest. His clothes had gotten wet.
The rain from yesterday, before the heavy snowstorm had set in. No wonder his coat and woolly chaps weren’t holding heat—they were likely keeping him as chilled as an icebox.
“Come on, Garret,” she urged, trying to guide him toward her sled. “Stay with me.”
His expression contorted with pain. His boots barely moved in the deep powder. With a rumbling groan, he fell from her grasp and landed face-first into the snow.
Boots yapped at him and nudged his tangled hair with his nose.
“It’s no use, dog. We’ll have to get him on the sled.”
Working quickly, she pushed her supplies and the frozen meat wrapped in deerskin aside and rolled Garret onto the wooden slats. After shoving her supplies beneath his legs to keep his boots from dragging on the ground, she bound a strip of rope across his middle, pinning his arms against his sides. Finished, she fetched his hat, shook off the snow and tugged the dark felt over his white hair.
She glanced at his dog standing up to its chest in snow. She’d seen the cow dog jump onto the back of Garret’s horse more than once while roaming through the lower hills, settling in a spot behind the saddle as though curling up on a porch rug—one of the oddest sights she’d ever witnessed.
“Come on, Boots,” she said, patting his master’s coat.
That was all it took. The hound curled up on Garret’s chest and laid its head on his white paws, his two-toned eyes watching her as she grabbed the sled rope and slipped it over her shoulder. Using all of her weight, her leg muscles burned as she began to haul her heavy load toward home. She’d be drenched in sweat before she reached her cabin, creating a nice layer of ice between her skin and her clothes. Risking her life for a stranger only to catch her death with pneumonia.
She glanced back.
Bound and unmoving, Garret looked like a big prize buck strapped to her sled. The ache in her gut intensified.
“You better not die.”
By the time she spotted the gap in the stone leading to a secluded meadow, every muscle in her body burned despite the increasing chill in her skin. A freezing wind whipped at her back as snow swirled around her in a flurry of white. She clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering. She hadn’t slowed to check on her cargo, but kept her focus on the mountainside rising beyond the trees.
She always missed her horse over winter, never so much as the past two hours. But she had no way to house and feed Star once the long freeze set in, forcing Maggie to leave her with the man who’d given her the mare. Chance Morgan’s generosity didn’t keep her from resenting having to depend on his services. Life had been so much simpler when she could keep to the rivers, bartering with only the Sioux and other trappers. Ira had warned her. It was past time to move on.
Barely visible through a thick forest, she spotted her cabin front built into the stone alcove. Home. Relief dragged a groan from deep within her chest.
She dragged the sled through the tight maze of trees then stopped before the snowed-in door topped by a stone overhang. After releasing the bindings on her snowshoes she cleared away the snowdrift then lifted the lock. Her cabin door squeaked open. The small dark space inside was no warmer than the brisk cold blowing through the trees. She hurried to the stove against the stone wall and reached for the matches.
Within moments flames licked over dry wood, illuminating the darkness. She’d expected to come home cold and had left her cabin prepared. She lit the lamp sitting atop her storage shelves beside her stove then moved her full teakettle to the warmest spot on the range top.
Movement beside her made her jump. Boots gave a vigorous shake, spattering a fine spray of melting snow across her cabin floor. She followed a trail of dirty paw-prints across the polished wood. Irritation burned through her.
You brought them here, she silently berated. You’ll have to deal with the messes. She turned and took a small throw from the foot of her bed. She tossed the thin blanket into the corner beyond the stove.
“Lay down,” she said, pointing to the rumpled fabric.
The dog went right to the corner and curled up.
Easy enough. She glanced through the open door at the lump of leather and man bound to her sled. Snowflakes swirled down from a storm-darkened sky.
Dread pooled in her belly and seemed to settle like a lead weight in her deerskin boots. She forced herself to move toward him. Despite her anxiety, she hoped she hadn’t endured that exhausting climb for two-hundred-plus pounds of dead cowboy. She stepped back out into the whipping wind and a shiver moved through her, the biting cold a prelude to the storm rolling in with the dark sky. She released the rope and brushed the fresh snow from Garret’s face. His eyelids fluttered, but didn’t quite open.
“Couldn’t just come home with deer meat,” she lamented, pulling her supplies and the bound venison from beneath his legs. His boots dropped over her threshold. She tossed her gear inside then carried the meat bound in fresh deer hide to the cold box buried beneath a foot of snow just outside her cabin. She dug up the lid and dropped in the whole hide-bound parcel. Salting and stewing would have to wait.
She pushed the sled up to the narrow door frame and climbed over Garret’s legs to get into the cabin. Gripping one of his boots just above the spurs, she pulled off the stiff leather. After placing his boots beneath her table she gripped him by the ankles and noticed a hole in the heel of each thick wool stocking. Either the man wasn’t married or his wife wasn’t worth the food to keep her fed.
“No gentle way to get this done,” she said, firming her hold.
Using all her strength, she hauled him inside. His head bounced against the hardwood floor, the sickening thud making her cringe. No time to worry about his bruised skull, she hurried past him to shut out the chilling wind and bar the door. Tossing her gloves onto the table against the front wall, she quickly shrugged off her fur coat and hung it from a hook beside the door. Cold stagnant air seeped through her clothes, but her heavy coat would get in the way of tending her guest.
Low moans sounded behind her as Garret began to rouse. He filled the space between her bed and the stove, leaving little room to walk around him. His eyes clenched tight, his face contorting with pain. She imagined the meager warmth of the stove was starting to penetrate his cold skin. She’d been on the verge of frostbite more than once. Flesh coming back to life felt like needles searing through bone.
She knelt next to him and pulled the leather gloves from his hands.
Greenish-blue eyes glazed with pain blinked up at her.
“Hurting is good,” she said, lifting one of his hands into the lantern light. “Means you’re not froze through.” She caressed each of his fingers, testing for frozen patches of skin. She didn’t feel anything but long, strong fingers and hard-earned calluses.
“You’ll get to keep your hide.” She pushed back the sides of his sheepskin coat and started working the buttons on his shirt. Ice melted beneath her fingers, saturating his two wool shirts by the time she had them unbuttoned. She pulled the thick layers back, his skin cold and damp beneath her palms as she tried to work the fabric over his shoulders.
“We won’t get these off with you lying down.” She eased back and tugged at his arm. “Garret, I need you to sit up.”
His expression contorted with pain. His big body didn’t budge.
“You think this hurts?” she said, moving over him, patting his pale stubble-coated cheeks, forcing him to focus on her. “Wait till the shivers set in. We need to get you out of these wet clothes before your muscles start to spasm.” She tugged on his arms. “Come on, cowboy, give me some help!”
He curled forward, groaning as she gripped his shoulders, pulling him the rest of the way up.
In a burst of movement, he shrugged off her hold. Wild, angry eyes stared deep into hers. He slurred words she couldn’t make out. Judging by his fierce scowl and harsh gaze, he was swearing at her.
Fighting her own fatigue, Maggie sat back on her heels and tried to assess his state of mind. She was in no shape for a bear fight. His narrowed eyes began to drift shut. His head tilted toward the cast-iron stove.
Maggie lunged onto him. Her knees banged against the floor as she straddled his lap. “Garret!” She gripped his shoulders and struggled to hold him upright.
His dog barked, likely startled by her quick movement. Her arms ached in her attempt to hold Garret steady. His chest pressed against hers like a block of ice.
Boots kept barking at her back, the sharp sound echoing across the high stone ceiling. She looked over her shoulder and glared at the mutt. “I skin bigger beasts than you. Lay down.”
Boots pranced for a moment then went back to the blanket, lying down with a whimper. The weight in her arms eased, muscles firming beneath her hold. Maggie looked back at Garret and found him staring at her. His face so close, she could see each tiny fleck of blue and gold in his green eyes. Her skin prickled, the rush of sensation awakening what felt like a field of butterflies in her belly, and suddenly she was startled by their closeness.
What the hell was she thinking to bring him here?
She eased back. Even with his complexion as pale as his shaggy white hair, he was a handsome specimen of a man, the finest she’d ever seen.
“We’ll get you warmed up,” she said. “Then you can get the hell off my mountain. All right?”
His eyes narrowed, as though he struggled to comprehend her words. She had to get him bundled in some warm, dry blankets.
She peeled his jacket and shirts from his arms. His thick muscles began to bunch and quiver. He remained silent as she removed his gunbelt and worked the buckle on his chaps. She tugged open his trousers and glanced up at his vacant stare. She smoothed his hair away from his face. His tremors increased as her hands cupped his stubbly cheeks, forcing him to meet her gaze.
“Garret, you have to stand up.”
He gave a slight nod and she eased back. His quivering muscles flexed in an attempt to do as she asked. The pain in his expression made her chest ache. Halfway up she wrapped her arms around his cold chest, giving him added support as he straightened his legs. His wet chaps and trousers fell to the floor in a heap. She slid her arms down to his bare waist, guiding him forward, helping him step out of the tangled clothing.
Trembling beside her, Garret stared down at his naked form then glanced at her, a look of sheer confusion on his face.
“This is no great thrill for me,” she said, and nearly laughed at the outright lie. Garret Daines in the buff, his muscles flexed and quivering, was a sight to behold. Long, lean, chiseled to perfection.
A startling stir of new sensation shimmered inside her. Maggie forced her gaze up to the startling view of his bare chest.
Good gracious. Heat flushed across her skin, and suddenly her damp clothes weren’t quite so chilling. She reached past him to pull back the quilts and buffalo hide covering her bed. Unnerved by her body’s reaction, she knocked him onto the feather-stuffed mattress and began pulling blankets over all that shivering brawn.
His gruff voice sounded in a slur of words. He growled with frustration and grabbed her hand.
Maggie froze, startled by his strong grip. His eyes burned with questions.
“It’s the cold,” she said, pulling her fingers from his grasp and tucking his hand back beneath the covers. “Addles the mind for a time. You’ve just got to warm up.”
As though she’d given the answer he needed, a sigh broke from his chest. His eyes drifted shut—which was how she preferred them, she decided. Unease swept through her at the thought of a fully conscious Garret Daines standing in her small cabin.
Oh Lord. She hadn’t thought that far ahead…and tried not to think of it now. Wasn’t anything she could do—he was here, shivering in her bed. The wood frame creaked with his violent tremors.
She stepped back. All she could do now was keep the fire stoked. His body needed to hold heat. She pulled her coat back on and grabbed her gloves from the table. She’d have to make sure the stovepipe atop the hillside hadn’t snowed over before she fetched an armload of wood.
By the time she returned to the cabin, her teakettle was steaming and she was trembling nearly as much as the man curled up in her bed. She shut the door against a fierce wind, the storm having fully arrived. She fed the fire another log then took a cup from the shelves beside her stove and opened her tea canister.
Exhausted, she dropped onto the only chair beside her narrow table with her tea and two shortbread cookies. Her shivers reminded her that her clothes were still damp. Taking a sip of tea to wash down the cookies, she told herself she needed to string a line to dry Garret’s clothes and start some stew. Her supply of meat needed to be thawed, cut and salted. She took another deep drink, the warm liquid soothing her chill. Completely worn-out, her mind and body balked at the idea of going back out into that storm to bring in the venison.
She watched Garret shiver in her bed and his dog sleeping soundly beside the stove as she drank the last of her tea. Suddenly she could barely keep her eyes open. Her tea no longer warming her hands and her belly, the chill crept back into her skin. Her own clothes needed to dry out, and she needed warming. All her blankets were wrapped around Garret. Lying on his side, he left just enough room for her to squeeze in beside him. A couple hours to warm up and regain her strength and she’d be ready to dry his gear and start a stew.
She lit the small lamp at the center of her table then dropped to her knees before her trunk at the end of her bed. Stacks of brightly embroidered shirts and dishcloths filled three quarters of the space—a winter’s worth of work. She didn’t have use for such colorful garb. Since Ira’s death, she bartered the fancy stitched dishcloths and clothing instead of animal pelts. She pulled out her flannel nightshirt and dropped the lid. Changing into the dry garment she hung her damp clothes over the chair and placed it before the stove. She’d be needing her clothes long before Garret would have use for his.
The fire stoked, her clothes drying, she stood beside the bed in her thick wool socks and nightshirt. She held her belt and sheathed blade, but was hesitant to crowd in beside Garret. Didn’t matter that she’d watched him in the lower hills more often than she should have in the past few years or that he seemed a fine man. She’d once been foolish enough to trust those who’d been ready to watch her die at her brother’s hands.
Ain’t enough of you to fight off man or beast. Ira’s gritty voice sounded in her mind. Don’t bed down without a weapon at hand.
If she didn’t get some sleep she’d be dead on her feet by the time Garret awoke. Not smart. His slow, jagged breaths assured her he was in a deep sleep just this side of death.
She went to the foot of the bed, stepped onto her trunk and eased into the sliver of space. She draped her belt over the bedpost and angled her knife so it would be within easy reach. She burrowed beneath the heavy blankets, lifting Garret’s arm to make room. The chill of his skin stole her breath as she settled beside him. Even so, her tired muscles rejoiced at the feel of the mattress beneath her.
Garret moaned. His big body shifted, his arms closing around her.
Maggie braced her hands against his cold chest. “Garret?” she whispered, forcing her voice past her constricted throat.
Several minutes passed. His eyes remained closed. The pressure of his hold didn’t change despite the tremors of his body. His heart thumped slow and steady beneath her palm.
The man’s practically an icicle, she reasoned. Instinc-tively he was trying to get warm.
She relaxed against his hold and tried to scoot into a more comfortable position. With every shift, her bare legs brushed against the coarse hair of his masculine body. She’d never lain with a naked man. The few times she’d snuggled up with Ira for warmth they’d been fully clothed and she’d been too cold to be bothered by Ira’s stench. Cleanliness wasn’t Ira’s way. He frequently grumbled about her sweet-scented soaps attracting bear. But he respected her way, making sure she had lye to make soap and seeking out a hot spring when she needed a long soak. She could use one now. So could Garret.
She yawned again, drawing in the musky scent of Garret’s skin. The hair on his chest tickled her cheek. Garret Daines didn’t smell bad, she noted. Her hand slid over his side to the smooth skin of his back as she settled against him. Despite his cold presence, a pleasing warmth spread through her as she gave in to sheer exhaustion.
Chapter Three
She spoke to him through the darkness. Her soothing touch pulled him from the cold depths of a nightmare. Heat suffused across his body as images of delicate ivory features and piercing blue eyes flickered through his mind.
Garret knocked a weight from his shoulders then shifted against the warmth pressing against him. His hand slid over a distinctly feminine form. A bare leg, a smooth hip curving into a narrow waist. He snuggled closer. Silky hair brushed his face. Her fresh, floral scent swirled across his senses as a soft, satiny breast filled his palm.
His body stirred, increasing the heat radiating beneath his skin. Her sensual moan dragged him toward consciousness. He wanted to open his eyes, to see her before she slipped back into the darkness. He blinked, letting in a flicker of light, then forced his heavy lids to open.
She was there, in the soft glow, sleeping against his chest just the way he’d always imagined a woman should sleep with her man. Relaxed against him, her head on his shoulder, her silky black hair fanned over his arm. His other hand was tucked inside her shirt. The bunched gray wool revealed a trim belly and the deep curve of her hip. It had been far too long since he’d had a woman in his bed.
I must be dead…or dreaming.
Looking at her pretty face, he didn’t much care which. She was a vision to be marveled, cherished. He leaned in, touching his lips to hers in the lightest caress. His thumb bushed over the firm peak of her breast and her breathing deepened. He dusted light kisses across her cheek and down her slender neck as his hand explored the smooth silk of her abdomen.
She moaned, the husky sound increasing the heavy beat of his pulse. He pressed a kiss to the hollow of her throat as the satin fullness of her breast filled his palm once more.
Her breath broke, her back arched.
Starving to taste what she offered, he nudged at the fabric with his mouth. A button gave way, revealing the soft, supple swell of her breast and beaded pink crown.
Garret gave up on trying to breathe. His lips closed over her and he simply tasted. She stretched and shifted beneath him, twisting against his caressing mouth like a gentle flame. His body warmed to a fevered pitch as he drew his dream lover from sleep in the sweetest way he’d ever imagined.
“Oh! What are…!” Her fingers drove into his hair and tugged.
Groaning with regret, he released her. Despite her hold on his hair, he brushed his lips over the glistening peak once more before easing up. Wide blue eyes stared at him.
Blue as sapphires, just as he knew they would be.
“Garret?”
A tingle of surprise rippled through him. Of course she’d know his name.
“You are…so beautiful.” He brushed his mouth over her parted lips. She tensed against him and gripped his shoulders.
“Gar—”
His name became a muffled cry as he deepened the kiss. He wasn’t ready to give up this dream. His fingertips lightly skimmed her breast, her waist, her thigh.
A pleasing groan was lost inside his mouth. Her tight hold on his shoulders became an arousing embrace as she shuddered against him. Her fingers slid over his back as she returned his fiery kiss. Triumph roared through him. The rush of passion and the pounding of his pulse forced him to release her mouth. He dragged for breath as he trailed kisses across her throat.
“You’re perfect.” He wanted her; he wanted to know her name.
An intense pain throbbed through his mind, blurring his vision. He gathered his dream lover close, his body aching for her. “Stay,” he said, but her delicate features began to fade. Darkness closed in around him, pulling her out of reach.
Trapped beneath Garret’s unmoving weight, Maggie’s eyes burned with unshed tears as she fought for breath. Her mind spun in a tangle of overwhelming sensation and utter confusion. One moment she’d been dreaming of floating in a hot spring, the soothing heat of the water rippling over her sensitive skin—in the next moment Garret Daines had his lips on her, creating a kind of heat she’d never felt before.
She was sure she’d opened her mouth to tell him to stop, but had only managed a strangled moan as he had flooded her body with sensations she’d never experienced in her life.
“Don’t go,” he whispered against her ear, the vibrations rekindling the wild tingles in all the places he’d touched. His arm tightened over her ribs.
Suddenly she was frightfully aware of her exposed damp skin, the warmth of his thigh wedged between hers, the very male portion of him pressed firmly against her hip.
Damnation!
She shoved his arm away and scrambled for the end of the bed. She stumbled over the trunk and fell to the cold floor. She sprang up, tugging her wool nightshirt closed as she bumped against her table, wobbling the lit oil lamp. Light shifted over shadows and the naked man sprawled in her bed.
She inched toward the stove, grabbed her now dry clothes then backed toward the door. How long had she slept?
Too long, she reminded herself, still trembling from Garret’s touch. She wasn’t about to look away from the man before her to search for signs of daylight seeping around the door. She shoved her feet into her warm buckskin pants and jerked them up. The shift of fabric against her damp flesh made her shudder. What had he done to her? She tugged on her buckskin tunic over the wool shirt. Her shaky fingers cinched the ties.
Ira had warned her about the violent intentions of randy men. He claimed she was his woman to those they encountered to keep her safe from such advances, but she hadn’t always traveled with Ira. She’d been chased more than once by men with such intentions to hold her down and hurt her—they’d never caught her.
Keeping her gaze on Garret, she slid her foot into a tall moccasin. She should have left him in the snow! Shot him, and then left him in the snow!
After lacing both boots she stuffed the bottom of her shirt into her pants. His coloring had returned. The light hair on his legs stood out against the darker skin beneath. Her gaze trailed across his bare backside.
The heated swirls he’d conjured rose up, stealing her breath.
She strapped her arms around her trembling middle and realized her belt and knife were missing.
Her gaze landed on her belt hanging from the bedpost.
Why hadn’t she reached for her blade?
Boots stood up in the corner and stretched. The black shaggy dog trotted toward her and bumped her leg. Keeping her gaze on Garret, she reached down to pat the dog’s head.
“What’s the matter with him?” she whispered. How could he still be sleeping when her pulse hammered erratically from the things he’d done to her?
He hadn’t actually hurt her. He’d kissed her, in ways she’d never imagined a man would kiss a woman. Her teeth clamped down on her trembling lower lip. The memory of his mouth on her breast, his tongue moving against hers added to the violent stir of her pulse. His touch had been tender, his kisses…overwhelming. She recalled the time Morgan and his bride had invaded her old cabin some years back. She hadn’t meant to watch them; she’d been mesmerized by their gentle embraces and tender kisses as Morgan had convinced Cora to marry him.
No wonder they seemed to enjoy themselves. Kissing Garret so intimately…She drew a deep, ragged breath and had to wonder if a man would have courted her with such tenderness, had she been allowed to grow into the proper lady her father always believed she’d become.
Bitter sentiment squelched the thought.
She wasn’t some gentile lady full of ignorant fanciful notions. She didn’t entertain suitors. At twenty-seven she was well into spinsterhood and had put such notions behind her. Garret Daines had no call to touch her in such a manner!
He continued to lie there, his back rising slightly with his deep, even breaths. Could a man put his mouth on her one moment and be unconscious the next?
She moved toward the bed. His dog stayed beside her.
“Garret?”
He didn’t stir. Her stomach dipped at the sight of his sleeping face and flushed lips. Far too handsome. She stepped closer. Heat radiated off his body. She touched his shoulder. His skin fairly scalded her hand. He moaned at her touch.
He’s raging with fever.
“Garret?”
When he didn’t respond, she reached over him, grabbed her belt and quickly strapped it around her waist. She picked up one of the blankets he’d knocked to the floor and draped it over the firm slope of his bare backside. Fever or not, her sensibilities could only handle so much.
“Thaw him out to cool him off,” she muttered on her way to the door. Outside she was stunned to discover nighttime encroaching on a stormy gray sky. She’d slept nearly the whole day.
A short while later she was packing snow into the embroidered hand towels she’d intended to sell. Garret moaned in his sleep as she placed them over his superheated body but didn’t fully rouse. The snow melted quickly against his shoulders and the back of his neck. As she swabbed his flushed skin with the cool cloth a troubling thought increased the unease welling inside her.
He’d been out of his mind with fever, and she’d nearly succumbed to his hallucinations. He’d called her beautiful and she’d lost her mind right along with him.
Thank goodness he’d passed out. She could just imagine his reaction when he awoke to discover it was Mad Mag he’d been kissing in that bed.
Her hands paused on his back, the thought of facing his scorn twisting her stomach into a painful knot. She hadn’t just allowed him to kiss her, she’d reveled in the bursts of pleasing sensation, the shocking intimacy of his deep kiss.
Shame washed through her. Good God. What would he think of her?
Same as everyone else, she supposed. Tears stung her eyes, a reaction that stunned her.
This time she’d finally earned the moniker Mad Mag.
Chapter Four
Garret woke to the aroma of stewed meat and the telltale bubbling of something simmering on the stove. He blinked several times, and still he stared up at a high stone ceiling. His gaze swept over rock walls, a black stove to his right…none of it the slightest bit familiar.
His stomach growled, the tantalizing scent drawing his gaze back to the bubbling kettle. Licking his dry lips he glanced at the wood front of what appeared to be someone’s home. A lamp to his right and another beyond the foot of the bed created soft circles of light, brightening the dank surroundings.
Where the hell am I?
He pushed up onto his elbows and had to stifle a groan. His body ached as though he hadn’t moved in ages. Pain pulsed through his skull, radiating from the left side. He reached up and touched a tender spot above his forehead and discovered a small lump and what felt like a gash beneath his hair. The movement wafted him with a clean, sweet scent. He paused and sniffed his arm.
“Wildflowers?”
Sapphire eyes and black hair against delicate ivory skin surfaced in his mind.
The woman. She’d stayed nearby, stroking his skin, encouraging him to drink.
Rest, Garret. You have a fever.
The soft, husky voice tantalized his memory with the alluring scent of her skin, her silky softness beneath his lips.
“A dream,” he muttered. The only safe place to love a woman.
He pushed the wool blanket aside and froze, surprise prickling through him. He wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing. His gaze skated around the room, searching every shadowed corner. He was alone. In the corner beside the stove was a rumpled blanket and tooth-scrapped bone. Wherever his caretaker had gone, she’d taken his dog. Why was he here? If he was sick, why wasn’t he in his own bed? And yet…he didn’t recall getting sick. For all he knew some woman had knocked him from his saddle and dragged him to her bed.
Her delicate feminine features surfaced in his mind.
A man could suffer a worse fate.
Another glance around the rough rock walls snuffed that thought. He doubted the delicate creature of his dreams would live in such desolate surroundings. Had he dreamed up her pretty face to match the soothing voice and gentle hands that had been caring for him?
He shifted his feet to the floor with silent caution. His bare toes touched down on a cold, smooth surface.
Polished wood? He glanced again at the tidy space, noting the canisters, boxes and stacked dishes lined up all nicelike on the wide-set shelves, the stack of blankets folded at the foot of the bed. He’d known a couple of miners who’d carved out similar dwellings—but he’d never known any miner to be quite so tidy. Every breath drew in a clean floral scent and the mouthwatering aroma of stew.
How the hell had he gotten here? He closed his eyes, trying to remember. Last he could recall he’d been riding range…he’d ridden home at noon and—Duce. He’d been looking for Duce. His business partner hadn’t made it in for the noontime meal. The way the countryside had been strewn with violence and mishaps lately, too many ranchers turning up dead and a storm rolling in…
Chills prickled his skin as he recalled the cold, whipping rain washing out horse tracks he’d followed into the hills—old panic clenched his chest.
He hadn’t found Duce.
Garret shot to his feet, pulling the blanket around his waist as he stood. The quick movement made him lightheaded and wafted him with the scent of spring flowers, reminding him that whoever lived here had done more than simply tend his fever. He’d been bathed.
He moved toward the door, each step a slow stretch of tense muscles. The way his head and body ached, he could have been struck by lightning. Maybe Duce had found him and brought him to this place.
Spotting his boots tucked beneath the small table beside the rickety door, he pulled them out and stepped into the tall leather shafts. His clothes were nowhere in sight. Surely he’d been fully dressed when he’d arrived. He scanned three large barrels stacked on top of the other in the far corner and a large chest at the foot of the bed. He was tempted to search their contents for his britches. A pinch in his bladder urged him to search out a privy first. After he relieved himself, he’d find whoever had taken his clothes and his dog and demand some answers.
He pulled open the door and had to shield his face from a flurry of snowflakes. Cold wind buffeted against his bare chest, sending an instant chill shivering across his skin. He stared gap-jawed at the snow piled some three feet high on either side of the door, a path having been recently shoveled.
“What the hell?”
Through the haze of swirling flakes tall timbers reached toward a gray sky. White-topped mountain peaks rose up from all sides.
He was in the high country. He wouldn’t have ridden into these snow-packed mountains.
A familiar bark echoed over the rush of wind and Garret stepped into the brisk cold. “Boots!”
Snow burst from the embankment up ahead as his dog bounded onto the shoveled path. Garret grinned, relieved to see his shaggy friend.
“Hey, boy,” he said, reaching down to pat his furry head while keeping his gaze on movement near the end of the path. He narrowed his eyes, trying to peer through the falling snow as the stranger drew near. The small form slowly emerged through the flurry of flakes, a white hooded coat blending with the winter landscape. He couldn’t make out more than a faint outline and a shotgun clutched in the left hand.
Caution tensed his muscles as the stranger drew close.
Mad Mag was the first thought to his mind, until she looked up. The deep blue eyes and delicate, feminine features lurking beneath that hood stole his breath.
She’s real. The passionate woman from his dream.
“You should be inside.”
Her voice was low, husky, and flooded his mind with the sounds of breathy moans, the image of her rose-tipped breast straining toward his mouth.
“Move.”
Her harsh tone and stern gaze jarred him from the tantalizing vision. He stepped back, allowing her to rush him through the doorway. She quickly shut out the wind and wisps of snow.
“Go lay down.” She pointed toward the far wall, her stern tone commanding as she stared him right in the eyes.
Maybe this bitty thing had clubbed him over the head and dragged him to her bed. Shock rippled through him…along with an undeniable stir of attraction.
Boots brushed his leg on his way to the corner, and Garret realized she was talking to his dog, not him. He scrubbed a hand over his stubble-coated jaw. He obviously wasn’t working with a full deck. His brain struggled to take hold of the notion that his dream lover stood before him. He stared at her, his mind lost somewhere between reality and a really good dream.
She propped her gun beside the door and glanced briefly at the floor. Her supple pink lips pressed to a firm line as her gaze moved over puddles of melting snow. He’d left the door wide-open.
“Sorry about that.”
Sharp blue eyes narrowed, her expression bordering on lethal. Not quite the passionate woman from his memory—his dreams, he silently amended. He eased back toward the warmth of the stove, his instincts warning him not to crowd the little filly. Her soft, delicate features were a clear contradiction to the hard blue eyes watching him with calculating caution.
She stayed beside the door, her posture stiff, defensive. The hand hovering near her waist made him wonder if she wore a gun beneath her coat. She pushed her hood back, revealing silky black braids tucked behind her ears. In his mind her hair was loose, fanned out across his arm, his chest—
“How do you feel?” she asked, her smooth voice washing over him like a sensual caress.
Uncomfortably aroused. He shifted his hold on the blanket and had to remind himself he didn’t know this woman. Other than the alluring images in his mind, he’d never seen her before.
“Alive, I suppose,” he answered. At the moment he wasn’t certain of anything else. His dreams blended with reality, distracting him from the questions he should be asking. Like why he’d awakened in the high country, where were his clothes and…had he actually bedded this woman? Best to start with something simple.
“Where am I?”
“About eight miles north of your ranch.”
Eight miles? Most of them straight up by the looks of the mountainous terrain he’d glimpsed outside.
She shrugged off her heavy fur. Garret wasn’t sure what he expected to see beneath the long coat, but the vibrant red flowers stitched across the shoulders of her white shirt took him by surprise. The garment hung to mid-thigh, cinched at her narrow waist by a beaded belt. She wasn’t wearing a gun. A leather sheath secured a long bowie knife at her hip.
Tiny but fierce, he thought, noting how her gaze didn’t stray from him as she hung her coat beside the door. Buckskin britches encased her slender legs, the bottoms tucked into her tall Indian-style boots. He only knew of one mountain woman to frequent these ranges, had been close enough to the old woman called Mad Mag to catch her stench, to see the filth on her hands as she had held a rifle to a man’s chest. The wide white cuffs of this woman’s shirt were etched with red thread and hid her hands, revealing just enough of her fingers to see her clean, short fingernails. She smelled as fresh as a spring rain.
“You were caught in the storm,” she said, drawing his gaze back to her young, pretty face.
He remembered a rainstorm, and the cold…waking to a beautiful woman sleeping in his arms. His gaze slid to the bed, a sense of dread tightening his gut.
“Do I have you to thank?” he asked. “Or was it your husband who brought me here?” A husband would be good. He needed some reassurance that the visions in his mind were just that—visions.
“You can thank your dog. If not for him, you likely would have froze before I found you.”
“You found me?”
Her posture stiffened. “That’s right.”
“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but…I don’t recall your name or riding up to this…” His gaze slid over the stone walls. “Cabin.”
“I’m not surprised. You were froze out of your mind when I found you. That was the day before yesterday. Once your chill wore off a fever set in.”
He had the vague memory of a cool, damp cloth stroking his skin, her smooth, husky voice encouraging him to drink. Incapacitated for nearly three days, it wasn’t a wonder he was starving and his bladder about to burst.
His shock wearing off, he was hit by the renewed urge to step outside.
“You’ve been sick,” she said. “You should lie down.”
“What I need are my clothes.” And an outhouse. At this point, his clothes would be a waste of time—he had to go now. He took a step forward.
The woman’s hand went for her blade. The glint in her eyes told him she wouldn’t hesitate to fillet him.
“Easy, honey,” he said, raising his hand, the other gripping the blanket at his hip. “I’m just headin’ for the door. No reason to get jumpy.”
“You can’t leave,” she said, her hand still on the hilt of her long knife.
“I need to step outside for a spell.”
Her stance widened as though she thought she could stop him. “It’s still storming.”
“Lady, I’ve got to take a leak,” he all but shouted, the pressure becoming downright painful.
“Oh.” Her eyes widened, understanding easing her tense expression. God bless her, a pink flush flared into her cheeks. “There’s a chamber pot under the bed.” She rushed past him.
Garret watched her kneel beside the bed and figured she must be out of her pretty little mind. It was bad enough he stood before this woman in nothing but his boots and a blanket. He’d damn well risk the frostbite.
“You can—” A burst of cold air hit Maggie’s face as she sat back. Her guest slammed the door shut behind him.
“Of all the fool notions!”
His dog scampered after him and barked at the closed door.
“He’s going to freeze,” she spat. And this time she was not going to tend to his warming! Boots bumped against her leg as she stood, his tail wagging wildly. He was obviously happy at seeing his master up and around. Maggie reached down to pet him and noticed her hands were shaking.
He’s awake.
She didn’t know why Garret’s size had come as such a shock—but it had. Tending him while unconscious hadn’t prepared her for looking up at those flexing muscles, his eyes clear and alert. The way he’d stared at her…
He remembers.
If her cheeks blazed any hotter they’d catch fire. She pressed her hands to her flushed skin. Hellfire. She was actually blushing. The fact that he’d flustered her so increased her worry. He’d taken one step toward her, his eyes dark and turbulent, and she’d damn near drawn her knife against him.
A natural reflex, she reasoned. For someone who lives in the wild. She’d spent most her life hunting, skinning and shooting at anything that came at her baring teeth, whether it be beast or man. And there’d been plenty of both.
She’d suffered her share of scratches, bite marks and bullet wounds. Even so, she ventured that most folks, sane folks, didn’t greet a request for an outhouse with a knife wound.
Biting out a swear word she grabbed one of the blankets at the end of her bed and dropped it onto the wet floor. It had been too many years since she’d been so close to anyone. She’d never had cause to be cordial with any man since Ira. She wasn’t sure she remembered how. After so much effort to keep Garret alive, she’d sure hate to harm his handsome hide.
I ought to bar the door while I have the chance.
Instead she draped the damp cloth over her chair and hurried to the stack of barrels she’d turned into tall cupboards. Opening the hinged side of the center barrel she took out Garret’s clean shirts and trousers. She pulled his coat from the bottom barrel.
He’ll rest up and be gone by tomorrow.
Her stomach flopping something awful, she tossed the stack of clothes onto the trunk and pressed a hand to her belly. The sight of black braids lying over bright red blossoms made her groan as the heat in her face intensified. She felt foolish wearing the ornate nightdress she’d hemmed, her hair woven into the only style she’d ever done on her own. No respectable townswoman wore braids at the age of twenty-seven, but Maggie didn’t own any hairpins and wouldn’t know what to do with them even if she had. She’d done the best she could to appear feminine, normal.
She hadn’t convinced him. His expression had creased with confusion as his gaze soaked up her attire.
“I don’t give two shakes what he thinks of me,” she muttered as she hung his coat beside hers and went to the stove. So long as he doesn’t think I’m Mad Mag. With Nathan hunting her and wanted posters boasting a reward for her capture, she couldn’t risk anyone knowing where she lived.
She glanced warily at the door. Boots stood vigil, whining as the wood creaked against a gust of wind. Hopefully he hadn’t gotten too close a look at her that day in town.
She dragged in a shaky breath and lifted the lid off her stewpot. Thick brown gravy bubbled around tender meat and potatoes. Her appetite soured at the memory of Nathan grabbing her in that alleyway. Her surprise had paled to his. He’d been shocked to see his little sister alive and well—a shock that had given way to undeniable fear. She’d relished the fear and had spent the weeks before the first heavy snow checking out his new place. Had she caught him alone she would have finished what he started in Bitterroot. But Nathan was a coward. He didn’t take a step out his door without being surrounded by his hired guns.
Before winter had set in she’d taken care to give Nathan the welcome he deserved. There wasn’t a holding pen on his ranch that could stay latched. Rattlers had become a common inhabitant of his outhouse. She’d spent quite a few nights bedded down in the tall grasses around his place, gazing at the night stars as she listened to her brother’s yelps and shouts echoing across the plains. Her brother hadn’t changed a lick in fourteen years—he was still a thief and a liar. And folks still turned a blind eye to his treachery. His band of cattle thieves spent more time skimming off neighbors stock than tending their own. She’d followed along on a few of their late-night roundups, watching intently as they gathered and moved nice tight herds, tucking the longhorns into canyons and valleys on Circle S land. It sure didn’t take much to spook a herd of cattle. She grinned, recalling just how high-pitched a man’s scream could hit.
She’d move on, just as soon as she settled her business with Nathan.
A burst of cold air announced Garret’s return.
“Damnation! That is a cold wind.” He slammed the door shut as a gust lifted the edge of his blanket, giving her a glimpse of his rounded backside.
Nothing I haven’t already seen, she lamented, which didn’t do a damn thing to settle the sudden stir of her pulse.
Boots pawed at him, demanding his attention, and nearly stripped him of the blanket he struggled to keep around his waist. “Easy, boy.” He knelt down, briskly rubbing his hands over the dog’s thick coat. “Glad to see you, too, but we don’t want to offend the lady.”
Lady? A pleasing stir moved through Maggie at the unexpected title. She watched the bunch and flex of muscles beneath his bronze, knowing full well there wasn’t anything offensive about Garret’s body.
“Worried about me, were ya?”
The dog hadn’t been the only one to fret over him. After all her toil and trouble, he’d traipsed off into the storm!
“Sick as you’ve been, you shouldn’t have risked the chill,” she said. “I would have given you some privacy.”
He straightened and shoved a hand through his tousled hair, giving her a clear view of his green eyes. The curiosity she saw in those gentle depths stirred a tingling surge of sensation she’d first felt when she’d awakened in his arms.
“No sense in you getting a chill, as well,” he said, taking a slow step toward her.
“I’m not the one who’s been abed the past two days,” she said, her tone sounding hateful to her own ears.
Be civil, she silently berated. She’d been schooled in good manners and proper etiquette, though she couldn’t clearly recall a single lesson. Her life before Ira was nothing but a distant dream.
“Your clothes are on the chest behind you,” she managed to say in a mild tone. “I hung your coat by the door. Your chaps are stored outside.”
He glanced at the stack of clothes and then looked back at her. “I’m much obliged.”
She would be, too, once he buttoned that chest into a shirt. Not that it would matter much. She’d memorized all the contours of his muscular form as she’d tended his fever, soothing him when he thrashed around, murmuring names in his sleep. Some she recognized, most she didn’t.
“Come here, Boots,” she said, patting her thigh. She rubbed the mutt behind his ear then pointed to his blanket. “Go chew on your bone.”
He stood beside her, watching his pet curl up in the corner. His lips curved into a grin as he met her gaze. The unexpected smile caused an equally unexpected surge of sensation low in her belly.
“I hope Boots hasn’t been any trouble for you.”
“Get dressed.”
His grin widened. “Yes, ma’am.”
She waited until he moved around the bed before she turned back to the stove. She watched the play of shadow cast on the floor as she took two bowls from her shelf and began serving stew.
“I sure appreciate you taking care of him,” he said, followed by the sound of his boots thumping to the floor as he pulled them off. “He’s been with me a long time.”
The care he showed for his pet was something that had always intrigued her. She couldn’t recall a time she’d spied Garret in the hills without his dog along.
“He hasn’t been any trouble.”
She could feel his gaze upon her, could tell he was watching her by the stillness of his shadow.
“Glad one of us hasn’t.” Fabric snapped as he shook his trousers out.
She set the steaming bowls aside as his shadow swayed, his hand reaching toward his head. She turned as he slumped forward and reached for the foot of the bed.
“Garret.” She was beside him in a flash.
“I’m all right,” he said, easing down to sit on the trunk.
Maggie curled her fingers into her palms, fighting her urge to soothe him. His complexion had paled. Wearing only his trousers, his shirt clutched in his hand, he rested his elbows on his thighs and blinked as though clearing his vision.
“You shouldn’t have gone out into the cold,” she scolded.
He glanced up, his gaze dark, burning with frustration.
Maggie took a step back, beyond his reach.
“Why in hell am I so weak?”
“You nearly froze to death. You’ve been abed for two days.”
His green eyes scanned her from head to toe and back again. “This may sound rude, but…should I know you?”
“I don’t see why you should,” she said, relief easing her stalled breath. “You were hardly conscious when I found you.”
“You seem to know me…and my dog.”
“I’m sure most folks around these parts are familiar with you and your cattle ranch, Mr. Daines.”
He shrugged on his shirt, his gaze never wavering from hers. “I thought I knew most folks around these parts. And I sure—” He paused, turning his face toward the collar. He sniffed loudly, his eyes widening as he met her gaze. “You washed my clothes?”
“They were already wet.” She wasn’t about to put dirty clothes in her cupboards. “I figured adding some soap couldn’t hurt.”
A slow grin eased his tense expression. He stood and stuffed his shirttails into his waistband. “I smell like a field of flowers.”
“It’s the only soap I have,” she said, realizing now that a man may not care to smell like wildflowers.
“I suppose it’s better than carrying the stench of sweat and horsehide.”
While tending his fever, it made sense to add some soap to that water, as well. Hopefully she’d rinsed him enough since then that he hadn’t noticed.
He sat on the side of the bed and Maggie felt some relief. He wasn’t quite so intimidating when he wasn’t towering over her. Perhaps she could tie him to a chair until he was strong enough to leave.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered, staring at his mended sock.
Maggie silently cursed the heat in her cheeks. “They were in a sorry shape.”
“You’re more than a thorough nursemaid. I’m indebted to you, Mrs…?”
“Didn’t take much to mend them.”
He stared at her a moment, his narrowing gaze telling her he hadn’t missed her failure to give her name. “I was also wearing a gun,” he said.
“You’ll get your holster back when you leave.”
“I didn’t see any other structures outside. Where are you keeping my horse?”
“There was no horse.”
“No horse?” He surged up. Maggie forced herself to hold her ground, not that she could have backed any closer to the stove.
“I found you and your dog buried in the snow about two miles from here.”
“Buried?”
“Covered by a foot of fresh powder. I nearly walked right past you. If your dog hadn’t stood up, I would have. You’d been hit in the head and had been on the ground for a long while.”
He touched the spot on his head that had been caked with blood when she’d found him.
“Perhaps you should sit down, Mr. Daines. You were suffering from the cold when I brought you here. You had a high fever all of yesterday and most of today. You’d slept so long I was starting to worry the cold or the fever had damaged your brain.”
“It must have. I don’t remember riding into these moun-tains. And I can assure you I am not prone to falling from my saddle.”
“I didn’t assume that you were. Looked to me like someone struck you with a rifle. By the time I found you any other tracks had been long-since snowed over.”
He’d been attacked? Garret tried to jar his memory. Shouldn’t he remember something like being knocked from his saddle? Had he been ambushed? The last he could recall was watching Duce’s tracks fade in the heavy rain.
“I was looking for my partner,” he said. “I followed Duce’s tracks into the hills. What little snow had been on the ground was washed out by the rain.”
“That’s why you nearly froze to death. It didn’t rain long before snow set in, just before sundown. I found you about an hour past dawn. Have you been feuding with anyone?”
“Only half the state,” he said, shoving his hands into his hair. “The cattle trade has been more akin to pirating as of late.”
“Desperation and greed tend to have that effect on men.”
The chill in her husky voice drew his gaze. Why was it her face that filled his mind instead of his attackers?
She nodded toward the front wall. “Go sit at the table.”
She sure didn’t have any trouble passing out orders. His first memory after the storm was her, those blue eyes ablaze with passion, her sweet body arched beneath him as she’d awakened to his touch, his kisses…
“Mr. Daines?”
He blinked, and realized she stood before him with a bowl in her hands, his stern nursemaid, not the lover from his dream. The hearty aroma penetrated his dazed mind, initiating a growl in his empty belly.
“The table,” she repeated.
She obviously didn’t trust him to not end up on his face, staying at his side until he sat in the chair. She plunked the bowl of stew down in front of him and his mouth watered at the sight of steaming chunks of meat in dark gravy. Despite his hunger, he waited for his hostess to join him. Realizing he sat on the only chair, he grabbed the trunk from the foot of the bed and slid it forward.
She stayed by the stove, her bowl in hand, her sweet face pinched in a frown. He gathered she hadn’t planned on joining him at the table. Her steps seemed to drag as she approached him. She nudged the trunk to the far side of the table then hesitantly took her seat.
“I swear I don’t bite,” he said, forcing a smile.
“I don’t usually have company.”
“I don’t usually get lost in snowstorms. I am sorry for putting you out.”
“I’m just glad I didn’t have to bury you in the frozen ground.” With that, she took a bite.
He didn’t wait for further invitation. He heaped a big bite into his mouth and nearly groaned as venison melted against his tongue, the flavorful gravy nothing short of heaven. He emptied the small bowl in a few hearty bites and would have thumbed out the remaining gravy had the bowl not been snatched away from him.
“I’ll get you some more.”
“I don’t want to leave you hungry,” he said, while hoping that big pot was filled to the brim.
“I have plenty,” she said, refilling his bowl. “Luckily I brought more than a frozen cowboy home from my hunt.”
“Thank you,” he said, unable to pull his gaze away from her graceful movements as she sat across from him. Had some sorry excuse of a man left her up here to fend for herself under such harsh conditions? Catching his gaze, she paused before taking another bite. Her tense expression suggested she’d rather be dining alone.
“You were out hunting in that storm?” he asked.
“That deer meat didn’t jump into my stewpot on its own.”
Garret grinned. The flat line of her lips didn’t so much as twitch.
“I don’t imagine it did. Guess you caught more than you bargained for.”
“I did indeed.”
“You must have been at the end of your food stores to be hunting in this storm?”
Her jaw tightened.
“I’m stocked up just fine,” his nameless savior insisted.
He wasn’t new to stubborn women. Wasn’t a woman born more stubborn than his older sister—or so he’d thought.
“A tracking snow can be real useful. It was—before the storm hit. You were the one so far from home.”
If he’d ended up here, what had happened to Duce?
“My business partner didn’t ride in at noon. Duce wouldn’t have stayed out in that weather unless he was having trouble or had found trouble.”
“I’d been hunting in those lower ranges the whole day. I didn’t come across anyone or hear any other gunshots.”
He hoped Duce had made it back to the ranch. “How long have you lived up here?”
“A while.”
Boots pounced up beside her, his front paws landing in her lap. “I already fed you,” she said, her lips hinting at a smile.
“Sorry about that.”
“I’m used to it by now.” She scratched at his ears, turning his cow dog to a limp pile of fur.
“You’ve spoiled him. Boots usually has better manners.”
“You’ve been far more trouble than he has.”
God save him, her smiling eyes sent a whisper of sensation across his skin as images flooded his mind. Unnerved by the rush of desire, he swept his gaze over the small space.
Simple, clean, the nicest cave he’d ever seen. Small and dank, yet livable—for a miner. So where the hell was he?
“More?” she asked, reaching for his bowl.
The first two servings had taken the edge off his hunger, but he could easily put away another. “Only if you’re sure you can spare it.”
She pushed his dog aside and went to the stove. His gaze followed her dainty form, trailing down the part of her braids to her slender, kissable neck.
He pinched his eyes shut. If he’d actually made advances on her in her sleep, she’d be tossing him out on his ear, not serving him stew. And yet…he could practically feel her arms around his neck as she had kissed him into unconsciousness. He looked up as she stepped beside him, her eyes full of caution as she slid the bowl and mugs onto the table—she sure as hell didn’t like being near him.
“You’ve saved my life,” he said. “And I still don’t know your name.”
“I couldn’t rightly leave you in the snow.” She turned away and he caught her by the wrist.
“That’s the second time you’ve avoided telling me your name. Who are you and where is your husband?”
“If you value that hand,” she said, the chill in her tone raising the hair on the back of his neck, “move it.”
Garret had lived with temperamental females long enough to know when his hide was in danger. This wasn’t a woman who took kindly to being backed into a corner—or grabbed by the wrist. She didn’t move to pull away but the cold clarity in her eyes told him her other hand was already gripping the hilt of her blade. A sudden move on his part would have painful results.
Biting back a swear word, he opened his fingers.
“My apologies.”
She took a step back, glowering at him as she rubbed her wrist. He knew he hadn’t used enough pressure to bruise her soft skin.
“Well?” he persisted. “Why isn’t your husband here? You are married, aren’t you?”
“I don’t see how my life history would be beneficial to you, Mr. Daines.”
“Considering I’ve been lying naked in your bed for the past few days,” he said bluntly, “asking your marital status seems a fair question.”
She crossed her arms, her pointed little chin raising a few notches. “Are you suggesting I should have left you in the snow for the sake of propriety?”
Her crisp speech carried a hint of formality that reminded him of Amanda’s. This woman’s sharp gaze and graceful mannerisms belayed her odd attire. She’d been properly schooled. Must have been a sweet-talking sonuvagun who’d convinced her to come all the way out here.
“No, ma’am,” he said. “I’m grateful for your help. But your husband may not appreciate—”
“I don’t have a husband, so you can relax.”
Relax? With the thoughts that were filtering through his mind. Not likely. Why the hell didn’t she have a husband? “You live way up here alone?”
“You should be focusing on getting your strength back. You’ll be leaving as soon as the weather allows.”
Her hostility and evasiveness gnawed at him. He was obviously making her nervous. Hell, he was making himself nervous!
“I know for certain I wasn’t near any homestead when the storm hit,” he said, hoping a less invasive question would get him some answers. “At least none that I’m aware of. I’ve lived in this area for nearly nine years.”
“Do you really think you’re on a homestead?”
She wasn’t buying any of it.
“No, ma’am. More of a miner’s claim, I suppose.”
Her single arched eyebrow wasn’t a denial or a confirmation. The sheer challenge in her gaze caused a discomforting stir in his britches. He was starting to think he had a thing for sassy women. Sassy, stern and pretty beyond measure.
Her cheeks flushed to a soft pink before she hooded those blue eyes with thick lashes.
And passionate, his mind added. She’d been hesitant at first but had quickly turned to sweet fire in his arms.
Garret dropped his spoon, the provocative images in his mind driving him to the brink of insanity.
“Did I bed you?”
Her gaze snapped up, pinning him with those vibrant blue eyes.
Well hell, that hadn’t been the smooth delivery he’d hoped for.
Chapter Five
“No, you didn’t!”
Garret heaved a sigh of relief and shoved his hands through his hair. Oh, thank God.
Her angry glare cut his relief short.
“I didn’t mean to insult you. I’m a little…out of sorts.”
“I dragged your sorry hide two miles through the snow,” she raged, her crossed arms locked tight over her chest. “I was tired!”
Garret’s breath stalled, the tremble in her voice confirming his fear—he hadn’t been dreaming.
“Had I known you’d awaken with such intensions, I can assure you I’d have left you in the—”
“I’m sorry,” he said, lunging to his feet. “Honest to God, I wouldn’t have—”
“Sit! Down!”
He obeyed the command only because he recognized her fear. Beneath the anger in her gaze, he saw panic.
“I took advantage,” he said quickly. “I wasn’t in my right mind.”
“Neither was I.”
The stain of embarrassment on her cheeks stabbed at his conscience. He hadn’t given her a chance to refuse him, having coaxed her body into passion while she slept. “It was all my fault,” he said. “You were sound asleep. Your body was on my side before you even woke up and I—”
“Enough!” she shouted, her fingers clamping over the hilt of her blade. Garret carefully regarded the hostility in her posture poised to strike.
“I swear I’d never force myself on you.” Holy hell. He wasn’t rightly sure what he’d done before he’d passed out. He knew what he’d wanted to do.
“Oh God,” he groaned, horrified at the thought of shaming the woman who’d saved his life. “Did I hurt you?”
The concern in his soft tone caught Maggie off guard.
Did he hurt her? She’d never felt anything so exquisite in all her life. “Ma’am? If I—”
“You kissed me,” she said. “And then you blacked out with fever.”
“That’s all?”
That’s all? “That was enough!”
“I was afraid…the thought of forcing you—”
“You didn’t,” she clipped. Remembering just how willingly she’d responded to his kisses increased the fire beneath her cheeks. The sheer relief in his expression doubled her embarrassment. His eyes no longer clouded by fever, the thought of such intimacy with someone like her likely repulsed him. Alarmed by the moisture burning her eyes, Maggie turned toward the stove.
“I was disrespectful.”
Startled by the voice directly behind her, Maggie spun around. He stood a foot away, his fingers tucked into his pant pockets, his expression nothing short of miserable.
“I am truly sorry.”
The ache in her chest intensified. “Okay,” she said, hardly able to breathe the word.
“It ain’t a wonder you’ve looked on the verge of skinning me. I’d be gunning for any man who’d treated my sister in such a way. Honest to God, I thought you were a dream. I couldn’t imagine why else I’d be in bed beside such a…”
Maggie steeled herself for the insult. Hag? Shrew? She’d heard them all, whispers of townsfolk when she’d venture into a settlement.
“Beautiful woman. I figured I must be dead or dreaming.”
Surprise rippled through her. Was he mocking her?
He took a step back, caution darkening his gaze—the effect she was used to having on folks—and Maggie realized she was glaring at him.
“Did you really drag me two miles through the snow?”
She wanted to rage at him to keep backing up, to sit down and shut up until he cleared out…but she couldn’t. His solemn gaze choked her anger and put an ache in her belly. He felt bad—she didn’t know why that should soften her rage, figuring he ought to feel real bad and then some for all he’d put her through. It had been sheer hell, having her hands all over him while fighting the memory of his sweet words and even sweeter mouth.
“I had a sled,” she told him, his silent guilt wearing on her nerves. “Not that it made the climb an easy one.”
“Thank you.”
His gaze held hers as an unfamiliar surge twisted through her, feelings she couldn’t identify.
“Guess I can’t blame you for not wanting to share your name after the way I shamed you. Don’t blame you a bit for reactin’ so hostile. I’ll admit, for a moment there, I thought you might be the woman they call Mad Mag. I swear, I—”
“Grace.” She blurted out her middle name, the first that came to mind.
“I beg your pardon?”
Realizing she’d shouted the name at him, she dragged in a calming breath. “My name is Grace.”
His stormy eyes warmed as his lips curved into a grin.
Sweet mercy.
“You look like a Grace.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That it’s a pretty name.”
She blinked against a sudden burning in her eyes. She had to get out of here. She couldn’t breathe with him standing so close. “You still have food on the table.”
He gave a nod and turned away from her. “I have a niece named Grace. She and her sister are six years old and cute as buttons.”
The moment his butt touched down on the chair she made a dash for her coat and shrugged into the heavy fur as she reached for the door.
“Where are you—?”
“Wood box,” she said, stepping into a burst of cold wind. “Boots!”
Garret watched his dog dash outside. She slammed the door before he could offer another word, much less any assistance.
His elbows hit the table as a hard breath broke from his lungs. He rubbed a hand over his face and the four days’ worth of growth on his chin. He must look like a polar bear. He’d clearly displayed all the manners of one.
Maybe Duce was right and he needed to find himself a steady girl at the Gilded Lady. He’d given it a shot, but after having his own woman in his own bed, weekend romps just didn’t appeal to him. A hell of an inconvenience for a man with no wife. The thought of seeking out any of the single young ladies in town left him cold and irritable. He flat didn’t trust those inviting smiles and batting lashes.
Instead of carousing or courtship, he’d assaulted a decent woman who’d saved his life.
What a fine mess.
He ate the last of his stew wondering all the while what had happened to Grace for her to end up alone in this cave. Done up as it was, the stone enclosure was still a cave in the heart of wild country. And she shouldn’t be out there in that wind!
He stood, his sore muscles complaining as he collected the empty dishes on the table. It would take another day before he’d be of any use. A full stomach didn’t do anything but sap the last of his strength. Not that she’d welcome his help.
Damn it.
Spotting her shotgun still propped inside the door, he knew he was lucky she hadn’t reached for her gun and loaded him full of buckshot after the liberties he’d taken. Would have served him right.
He stepped up to a washstand wedged between her pantry and the empty wood box. Finding a jar of dishrags, he took one and wiped out the bowls then set them in the basin. He lifted the kettle from the stove and scalded the tin with the hot water. Grace returned as he was stacking the dishes in her pantry. Didn’t take but a glance at her wide blue eyes to gauge her wariness.
Boots trotted in before her, his wet paws tracking prints across the floor she’d already mopped up once today.
She kicked the door closed behind them and stood there, her arms loaded down with wood.
“I’ll wipe up the floor,” he said, turning to find another rag.
“No.”
The single words stopped him.
“You should lie down.”
He figured that was her way of telling him to get the hell away from her. Tiny thing that she was, he didn’t doubt his size made her nervous. He backed toward the bed. His dog seemed to know the routine, having lain back down in his corner without prompting.
She didn’t take a step forward until Garret eased onto the mattress. She dropped the firewood into the box beside her stove, her gaze moving over the sink basin and the dishes he’d rinsed and put away. She fetched the drying sheet from the back of her chair and dropped it on the damp floor. Her foot dragged the cloth across the puddles as she watched him.
“If I can help with anything—”
“You can help by resting.”
“Two days abed should have been enough,” he said, hating that he felt so damn useless.
“You were sick.”
Red rimmed her eyes. He imagined she hadn’t slept much in the past three days.
“Doesn’t look like you’ve had much sleep at all.”
“I’ll sleep just fine once you’re gone.”
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Stacey Kayne
In bed with the cowboy!Fourteen years ago a terrified young Maggie Grace fled into the wilderness of the Wyoming mountains, where she has lived alone ever since. Until she finds cowboy Garret Daines, lying unconscious in a blizzard.Snowbound in Maggie’s cabin, sharing the only bed with this beautiful wild woman, brings Garret’s body – and guarded heart – pulsing back to life. Garret is the only man ever to show Maggie any kindness, and the walls around her heart begin to crumble.But, no matter the bond they forge to overcome the threat against them, she won’t let herself be easily tamed…
Praise forStacey Kayne:
MUSTANG WILD
‘Fast-paced and well written,
MUSTANG WILD was a delight to devour…
Highly romantic, with just the right touch of humour,
MUSTANG WILD is one for the keeper shelf.
Stacey Kayne has penned a treasure…’
—Cataromance
‘This strong debut is a tale of one woman’s struggle to
overcome a father’s deceit before she can find peace,
forgiveness and passion with the man meant for her.
Each character carries his or her own weight, adding
depth and humour to this honestly written story.’
—RT Book Reviews
MAVERICK WILD
‘Excitement, mystery and delight fill the pages of
MAVERICK WILD, Stacey Kayne’s latest historical
treasure. Kayne can weave a story that will capture
you and not let go. She has demonstrated herself to be
a talented force in the world of western romance.’
—Cataromance
‘Kayne carries off a warm-hearted Americana
western with…feisty characters, a loving family
atmosphere, small-town troubles and the
gritty reality of life in the Wild West.’
—RT Book Reviews
“Don’t go,” he whispered against her ear, the vibrations rekindling the wild tingles in all the places he’d touched. He leaned in, touching his lips to hers in the lightest caress. His arm tightened over her ribs.
Damnation!
She shoved his arm away and scrambled for the end of the bed. She stumbled over the trunk and fell to the cold floor. She sprang up, tugging her wool nightshirt closed as she bumped against her table, wobbling the lit oil lamp. Light shifted over shadows and the naked man sprawled in her bed.
She inched toward the stove, grabbed up her now dry clothes, then backed toward the door. How long had she slept?
The heated swirls he’d conjured rose up, stealing her breath.
He’d kissed her, in ways she’d never imagined a man would kiss a woman. Her teeth clamped down on her trembling lower lip. The memory of his mouth on her breast, his tongue moving against hers, added to the violent stir of her pulse. His touch had been tender, his kisses…overwhelming.
Stacey Kayne has always been a daydreamer. If the comments on her elementary school report cards are any indication, it’s a craft she mastered early on. Having a passion for history and a flair for storytelling, she strives to weave fact and fiction into a wild ride that can capture the heart. Stacey lives on a ranch near the Sierra Nevada with her high school sweetheart turned husband of eighteen years and their two sons. Visit her website at www.staceykayne.com.
Recent novels by the same author:
MUSTANG WILD
MAVERICK WILD
Mountain Wild
Stacey Kayne
MILLS & BOON®
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk/)
Dedicated to my critique partners,
Sheila Raye,who’s always there for emergency brainstorming,
Marlene Urso,for her speed-of-light proofreading,
and Carla Capshaw,whose insight is always an inspiration!
Special Thanks to:
My husband—Happy 20th Anniversary!
Tanner and Ethan for always being there
to help their mom out.
My mom and mom-in-law
for their never-ending support.
My pals at Writers at Play.
Lucy, my fabulous editor,
for her faith and understanding.
My readers—I hope you enjoy this final addition
to my WILD series!
Prologue
Southwest Wyoming Territory—1875
“There’s nowhere to run, Margaret Grace. I’m going to find you.”
He was too close. Desperate to escape her brother’s rage, Maggie’s fingers dug into the dirt as she struggled through the thick brush. Thorns scraped across her cheeks, snagging her braids, ripping at her dress.
“Thirteen is a bit too old for hide-and-seek,” Nathan called out, his taunting voice sounding merely a foot away.
Maggie froze. She tried to control her jagged breaths and the tears burning for release. Her face and belly throbbed from his heavy fists crashing down on her. Their daddy hadn’t been dead a full hour, and her brother had lost his mind. He’d exploded from the house in a rage, their father’s will in his hand.
He’d gone after her like a man deranged.
A twig snapped behind her. Maggie held her breath as his shadow moved over the dense scrub, blocking out bits of sunlight breaking through the twisted branches as he walked past. The crunch of his footsteps faded deeper into the woods. Her heart thundered as she waited. She had to make it back to the ranch before him.
She scrambled from the bush, biting back a scream as thorns ripped at her skin. Shaking, she hurried back down the hillside. Through a maze of tall timber she could see her home below and those who’d gathered in the yard—stable hands, housekeepers, the nanny who’d raised her.
Why didn’t they come for her? She had screamed for help. All of them had looked on with horrified expressions, shrinking away as Nathan struck her again and again, forcing her to run for the woods to get away from him.
“There you are.”
Maggie swung around. Fear gripped her chest, stealing her breath as her older brother towered over her. A wedge of black hair covered one eye. The other sparked with anger. Their father’s will was still crushed in his grasp, her blood marring the pages.
Until today, no one had ever struck her. At twenty-two, Nathan was now her legal guardian.
“Look at you, Margaret Grace.” He shook his head as though he weren’t the one responsible for her tattered state. “What would your daddy think of his precious little girl crawling through the dirt in her fancy pink clothes?”
A smile curved his lips, and tears blurred Maggie’s vision. He’d never liked her, but she never guessed her brother harbored such hatred. “What have I ever done to you?” she cried.
“You were born. My life was perfect before you came along. You killed my mother and have been nothing but a drain on my inheritance. And now I’m supposed to waste what’s left of my money on some finishing school and a dowry so you can be pawned off on some aristocratic fool?”
“I don’t have to go. I won’t go!”
“It’s in the will!” he shouted, waving the crumpled pages. “His lawyer has a copy. I’m his only son, the rightful heir! All this talks about is preparations made for you, Margaret Grace!” He swung his fist.
Pain exploded through her cheek. A scream ripped from her lungs as she hit the ground. She curled up, defending herself as best she could.
When the next blow didn’t come, she opened her eyes and saw a pair of Indian boots just inches from her nose. Her gaze traveled up a giant wearing a thick fur coat. A full beard covered most of his face, but didn’t hide three long scars twisting through his cheek.
Maggie gasped and scrambled back until she bumped into something. Fingers twisting into her hair, popping strands at the root, reminding her she faced a greater threat—her own brother.
“Who are you?” Nathan demanded.
The beastly man stared at her a moment before he glanced at her brother. “Trapper.”
“You’re trespassing on my property.”
“I come to trade.”
The trapper looked directly at her. Maggie shivered, his vacant brown eyes increasing her fear. She was scraped, bruised and bloody, one of her braids had unraveled, yet he stared as though her brother held a dog by a leash.
“You want her?” Nathan asked, laughter in his voice.
The trapper’s shoulder shifted and a bound clump of fur landed on the ground beside her. “Give you six beaver pelts. Fair trade.”
Maggie gasped in horror. She couldn’t be sold! “Nathan.” She tried to stand, shaking her head despite the pain in her scalp. Her brother wrenched his hold. Pain pierced her scalp, forcing her back onto her knees with a sharp cry.
“You live around here?” he asked.
“No,” the trapper answered, his gaze fixed on her. “I follow the rivers.”
“You can’t sell me!” she shouted. “I’m your sister!”
He released her hair. Pain exploded across her back as he kicked her into the dirt. “Take her.”
Long, grimy fingers reached for her. Maggie screamed as she was hoisted up and tossed over the giant’s shoulder.
“No! Nathan!”
She kicked and screamed as the trapper carried her deeper into the woods. Her thrashing didn’t slow his strides. He broke from the trees and ran across a wide clearing. Reaching the other side, he stopped and swung her forward, pinning her against the rough bark of a tree.
Fear choked her. Her breaths came in short gasps.
“Hush your mouth, lest you want to die,” he said in a harsh whisper.
She stared at the jagged scars rippling across his cheek and into his thick beard.
“I seen lots of death, little miss. That man has killin’ in his eyes.”
He lowered her to the ground and steadied her. “You want to live?”
Tears burned hot against her cheeks as she nodded.
“Then you bes’ move fast and keep quiet. He may not be finished with us yet.”
Her mind reeled as he tucked her against his side, his gaze scanning the ground he’d just covered.
He was afraid. Afraid her brother would come after them.
“Goddamn cowards on that ranch,” he murmured. “Even wolves defend their young. Goes to show why I don’t trust my back to no one.”
Maggie gazed up at his tawny, withered face and the matted brown hair poking out from beneath his battered hat. He smelled bad and was old, but not so old that his hair had grayed like her daddy’s.
“I done my good deeds in this life,” he muttered, taking a step back. Fisted hands twice the size of her brother’s slammed onto his hips. His angry dark eyes narrowed.
Maggie stumbled back, beyond his reach.
“I got a mule a half mile from here. We’re headed north. You can go my way or find your own way. It ain’t my worry.”
Find her own way? “I—I’m only thirteen.”
“Only two ages in this world that matter. Either you old enough to survive or you ain’t.” He held his hand out to her.
Maggie stared at his large, filthy palm then glanced at her own scraped hands. Twigs and leaves clung to dirty pink satin and the frazzled black hair draped over her shoulders. She was suddenly aware of the ache in her swollen lips, the burning in her eyes.
Her daddy was dead. Her brother had tried to kill her.
“You old enough, Margaret Grace?”
Only Nathan called her by her first and middle name.
“My name is Maggie,” she said, taking the trapper’s hand.
“I’m Ira.”
Low murmurs carried across the meadow, drawing his gaze. Ira’s fingers tightened over hers, tugging her after him.
“Run, Maggie.”
Chapter One
Central Wyoming Territory—Fall, 1889
She moved with the caution of a doe caught grazing in an open meadow. Her dirt-stained fingers quickly secured a rope behind her saddle, binding her supplies as she discreetly watched the men filing out of the newly constructed town hall.
Following a roomful of grumbling cattlemen out onto the boardwalk, Garret Daines spotted the woman they called Mad Mag the moment he stepped into the crisp evening air. Her mangy bearskin coat and battered brown hat was hard to miss in the fading light of an otherwise deserted street. Murmurs of recognition and surprise rumbled through the crowd of men.
Garret had seen the mountain recluse in a town only one other time in the eight years he’d lived in these Wyoming hills, some years back in a settlement further north. The bushel of tangled black hair beneath her hat suggested she could still benefit from a lesson or two in hygiene. Known for having a temperament on the far side of crazy, Mad Mag tended to avoid folks altogether. She obviously hadn’t expected all the cattlemen within fifty miles to spill out onto the streets of Bitterroot Springs at five o’clock in the evening. He glanced around at the men watching her with an equal measure of curiosity and caution.
“What’s the plan?” Duce asked, clapping a hand on Garret’s shoulder as he stepped beside him.
Garret glanced over at his business partner, the man’s wide grin striking him as a pure wonder. The past two hours of heated debates and near brawls, two of which had included Garret, left an ache in his shoulders, the frustration winding inside him still burning for release. In the fourteen years he’d been riding with Duce the wiry cowpuncher had never known a sour mood.
He doesn’t handle the account books, he silently retorted. Duce had signed on as his partner in name only, refusing to take a cut or responsibility for a business he hadn’t funded. At the age of forty-two, Duce still lived for Saturday nights and blowing his paycheck on weekend benders. In the past six years of running his cattle ranch, Garret had come to envy Duce’s carefree attitude and figured the past few winters had closed the wide gap in their ages.
Garret felt old. Nothing like a failed marriage and Old Man Winter cramming his boot up your behind to age a man.
He glanced out at a pink-streaked sky. “Sun’s about down. Might as well spend the night.”
Duce gave a nod. He raked his fingers through his bushy red hair glowing bright beneath a streetlamp then tugged on his hat. “Think I’ll head over to the Gilded Lady. Winter snow will be piling up soon and my girls are bound to miss me. Care to come along?”
“Not in the mood.” He shook his head, a weary sigh breaking from his chest. “I feel like I’ve just been ambushed by seven cattle barons.”
Duce chuckled.
Garret didn’t share his humor. To secure his place in the stockyards come spring he’d signed over a small fortune to the wealthy bandits of the newly appointed Cattlemen’s Association. They’d seemed rather disappointed in his ability to meet their demands. He wasn’t about to be pushed off his land. He’d faired better than many of his colleagues, men who’d lost all their stock in the freeze a couple of winters back, a blizzard that had damn near wiped out the cattle trade across the state. Now the railroad and invading cattle barons circled like vultures, ready to pick off the smaller ranches struggling to make ends meet.
“I’ll settle for a pint of whiskey and passing out in a hotel room.”
“You can do that over at the Gilded Lady,” Duce persisted. “What you need is a night in the saddle with some wild women. Ain’t no reason for you not to.” He moved closer as they stepped into the street. “Amanda’s not coming back, you know?”
Garret rolled his shoulders against the surge of anger and resentment tightening his muscles. “I sure as hell hope not.” Staring at that outrageous cattlemen contract reminded him of the divorce papers he’d finally signed last spring—cutting his marital ties to a woman he’d not seen in nearly three years. A wife walking out on a marriage left a man with no small amount of humiliation. He didn’t see the need to announce his divorce.
Life sure hadn’t gone the way he’d planned. Having acquired his ranch at the age of sixteen and marrying at nineteen, he truly thought he’d be settled in with his own family by now, not contemplating a night at a brothel. Damned if he could figure out what he’d done wrong. One thing he did know: he was through chasing women. If he was to have another wife, she’d have to run him to ground first.
“You can slug me for saying so,” said Duce, “but you’re lucky to be rid of that one. All that pretty was wasted on a woman who don’t do nothin’ but sniffle and pout ’cause you’re too busy to sit and stare at her all damn day.”
The truth didn’t keep Garret’s chest from burning at the thought of Amanda Billings standing on his sister’s front porch bound and bustled in the fanciest gear he’d ever seen. The daughter of a Southern banker, she was a true belle, her soft-spoken voice never reaching much above a whisper, her long, lithe body and graceful movements mesmerizing. The fact that she’d looked twice at his weather-beaten hide had lit his fire, and he’d sure as hell lit hers.
Passion hadn’t been enough to hold her. After eight months of marriage Amanda had her fill of him and Wyoming winters—a winter like nothing he’d ever seen. He wasn’t new to tragedy or hardship. Raised on cattle trails by his older sister, he’d survived raids, floods, droughts and damn near being washed out of a Colorado Canyon—none of it had prepared him for watching his livelihood go to hell in a frozen handcart.
Murmurs buzzed from the men around him as Mad Mag guided her horse along the main strip. The top of her hat was barely visible beyond the large bay she led by the reins. A fine horse, its golden coat gleaming in the low light. His gaze stopped on the Morgan brand singed into the animal’s haunch—the brand of his sister’s ranch. He glanced again at the horse’s golden coat, black socks, the burst of white on the horse’s dark frock—Star.
“Is that Star?” he said to Duce as they stopped beside their own mounts.
“Yep,” he answered, not bothering to shift his gaze toward the woman and her horse. “Chance sold his mare to the trapper, Ira Danvers just before you bought your ranch and we moved onto the Lazy J.”
That was six years back and he and Chance Morgan hadn’t been on good speaking terms, Chance having stolen his girl right out from under his nose. Still, he found it hard to believe Chance would sell his prized mare to someone like Ira Danvers. Garret had never actually met the mountain man, but had heard he was far less sociable than his woman.
“How can filth like that own a Morgan horse?”
Garret glanced back at the newest member of the Cattlemen’s Association standing on the landing of the town hall, his expression filled with disgust. Strafford, the newly elected mayor of Bitterroot Springs, gripped the sides of his shiny blue jacket and stepped onto the walk, his group of ranch hands moving with him like a clutch of chickens scurrying after a peacock.
“Folks call her Mad Mag,” said one of his men. “Ain’t ever seen her in town before.”
“Mad Mag?” Strafford’s gaze narrowed. He stepped off the boardwalk into the dusty road. “You there? Come back here.”
The woman increased her strides and urged the mare to move faster.
“Uh…Boss?” his man called after him. “I wouldn’t—”
“Hey!” Strafford shouted. “I’m talking to you!”
“He’s barkin’ up the wrong tree with that one,” Duce murmured.
Mad Mag turned into the alley beside the mercantile. Strafford hurried after her.
“Someone might ought to fetch the sheriff,” suggested one of the men.
“Who wants to bet Mayor Strafford just got a new mare?”
The large group erupted with laughter.
Anger snapped at Garret’s nerves. He’d disliked the overdressed rancher the moment he’d met the man. Nathan Strafford had moved into these hills with the greasy finesse of a snake-oil salesman, forcing out the smaller ranchers while pouring his money into this town. He’d funded a new school and the first courthouse in Bitterroot Springs, which had gotten him elected as the new town mayor.
Garret started across the road, damned if he’d stand by while that arrogant jackass took advantage of some poor deranged woman.
“Garret?”
Leaving Duce to chase after him, he rounded the building. Mag was near the far end of the alley, Strafford closing in on her.
“We got new laws in this town,” Strafford announced, his long arm reaching for her. He grabbed a fistful of fur.
Mag spun to face him, the rifle in her hands forcing him to take a backward step. “Back off,” she growled.
Strafford’s six-plus frame towered over the small woman. “What business do you have in my town?” he demanded. “Aside from reeking up the streets and stealing our horses?”
The woman’s cold, throaty laughter echoed through the hallow shadows of the narrow alley. “Oh, that’s rich. You calling me a thief.”
Strafford leaned closer to her. “Mag—?”
The butt of her rifle connected with Strafford’s gut, ending his words in a hard cough. He doubled over. She swung again, her rifle cracking against his skull, sending him staggering back. Another swift blow to the brow, and Strafford hit the ground like a fallen timber.
Damn. Her reputation wasn’t just rumors. She stood over Strafford, the barrel of her rifle pressed to his chest. She trembled. Jagged puffs of breath lifted the tangled black hair covering most of her face. Her finger flexed over the trigger.
If she shot Strafford, provoked or not, she’d hang before sundown.
“He’s not worth it,” Garret whispered, slowly moving in beside her while keeping an eye on that rifle.
Rage shaking her, Maggie couldn’t think of a single reason why she shouldn’t put a hole through Nathan’s black heart. He had no right to touch her—no right to be in this part of Wyoming!
His town? Her gaze raked over his fancy suit. Bile burned in her throat. Did this town know the vile measures he used to acquire his wealth? It was past time for Nathan to be stomped back down to the devil.
She startled at a light pressure on her shoulder. Her gaze snapped to the long fingers touching her fur coat. She glanced up at wide shoulders creating a clear line on the pink horizon.
“Careful,” he said. “Sheriff’s coming.”
Pale blond hair glowed white against the sunset, instantly identifying the man beside her.
Garret Daines. Recognition broke across her senses like a crack of lightning, shattering her tattered nerves. She’d spotted Daines and his cow dog often enough in the hills around her mountain, but never so close. He appeared rather like the Vikings she’d learned about during her studies as a young girl, his pale hair wavering in the cool breeze, the span of his chest blocking out the world. A colorful sky outlined his profile, defining the sharp lines and intriguing contours of his face.
“Ma’am, you’d better git.” The hand on her shoulder urged her aside, jarring her from a mental stupor. Not that he noticed. His hard gaze never strayed from the murmur of voices growing louder by the second. He glanced to his right and his friend moved in beside him, completely blocking her from view of the approaching mob.
“What’s going on?” a man shouted.
“What happened to Mayor Strafford?” called another.
“Not much that I could see,” said Daines. “Ol’ Strafford didn’t mind his footing. Tripped over his own boots and bumped his head.”
Maggie stared up at Daines’s broad shoulders, staggered by his outright lie, his offer of protection. Seizing the opportunity, she grabbed Star by the reins and stepped around the corner of the building. She wouldn’t be back to this town.
Garret glanced over his shoulder as the crowd descended on Strafford, and was relieved to find the woman had fled. He looked at Duce and nodded in the direction she’d gone. They prudently made a swift exit. Garret scanned the surrounding hills and tall grasses spotted by patches of trees and scrub. Mad Mag was nowhere in sight.
“You got some kind of death wish I should know about?” asked Duce.
“Why would you think—?”
“You’re lucky that woman didn’t fill you full of buckshot. Or didn’t you see the way she laid out Strafford?”
“She had a rifle, not a shotgun. And he likely frightened her, grabbing her the way he did.”
“Frightened her? That’s it,” Duce said, shoving him across the road. “We’re headed to the whorehouse before you end up dead or courting a mountain shrew.”
Garret laughed, and didn’t argue. Watching that woman knock Strafford down a few notches had lightened his mood.
Finally a bit of justice in this world.
Chapter Two
A soft swirl of snowflakes cold against her face, Maggie tugged her hood low and tightened her hold on the rope of her sled as she increased her stride through the soft powder. Her body ached to hunker down in her warm bed.
Two more miles.
The crunch of her snowshoes pressing through the soft ground echoed across the silent countryside. Dark clouds loomed to the north, telling her this was only a small reprieve in the blizzard. The late-winter storm had come on strong and without much warning the prior evening. Maggie barely had time to skin and dress the big buck she’d shot before having to bury her kill in the snow and seek shelter. Huddling in a dank alcove near the river had been no way to pass a frigid February night.
Despite the inconvenience, her hunt had been worthwhile. The frozen deer meat on her sled would last her the rest of winter, and then some.
A streamer of sunlight pierced the thick gray sky and glistened against an embankment of fresh snow up ahead. The silver sparkle captured her attention. As she drew closer she noted the metallic gleam was a spur. A spur attached to the vague outline of a boot buried beneath the snow.
Maggie slowed her stride. Her breath hit the cold air in a puff of white as her gaze moved across the long, lumpy mound.
Some fool cowpoke had gotten himself caught in the storm. He’d likely ventured up here looking for strays. High country weather was nothing like the lowlands. Lying on his side, the bulk of him was covered by a foot of snow.
The storm hadn’t been that bad—nothing like the freeze two winters back. The deadly cold had caught beast and man in its clutches for miles around, reaching deep into the plains. The stench of death had lasted long into the spring. Any cowboy worth his salt would have learned from such disaster, and sought shelter or at least dug himself in to wait out the blizzard.
She shook her head and pressed on. As Ira used to say, she’d leave it to God to have sympathy for the men too stupid to save themselves. The world could get by without another cowpoke. Hundreds littered the lowlands around her mountain, whooping and hollering at their herds of cattle. At the rate things were going, she’d soon be crowded out of her mountain home just as the Indians had been forced from theirs.
A whimper broke across the winter silence. The snow-covered mound shifted.
Maggie hitched her shoulder, slinging her rifle forward, into her hands. Caution prickled at her skin as she watched the long shape rise up near the center.
A dog stood and gave a vigorous shake. She recognized the mutt’s shaggy black fur and four white paws. Boots. The sound of Garret Daines calling after his dog was as familiar to her as a meadowlark’s song.
Oh, no. Maggie’s breath stalled as she cautiously approached the figure partially buried beneath a blanket of white. Something inside her softened at the sight of pale hair and familiar features.
Why did it have to be Daines?
She crouched beside him. He had the pallor of a dead man. Blood matted his pale hair. A dark bruise protruded on his forehead—suspiciously shaped like the blunt end of a rifle.
Someone had knocked him out.
She glanced around the clearing. Undisturbed snow coated the ground, blanketing wide-spaced shrubs and trees. Any tracks had long since been snowed over.
How long has he been here?
She brushed away some of the packed powder and noted the slight movement of his chest. Relief swamped her. Biting the fingertip of her glove, she pulled the lined leather from her hand. She slid her fingers along his stubble-coated jaw. The man didn’t so much as flinch. His skin was cold, but still soft. She didn’t see any blackening signs of frostbite. His dog had likely kept him from freezing, but his shallow breathing didn’t make even a slight mist in the frigid air.
He wouldn’t live long if he didn’t get out of the cold.
She reached for his coat and his dog barked, the sharp sound echoing through the winter silence. His master’s eyelids fluttered, but didn’t open.
She glanced at the dog prancing nervously beside her. The dog had distinctly different colored eyes. One deep green, the other pale blue.
Peculiar.
“Come’ere, Boots,” she said, holding out her bare hand.
The dog’s damp nose bumped against her palm.
“You stay friendly,” she said, scratching behind its ear, “and we’ll see about waking up your master.”
She fisted the front of Daines’s thick jacket and tugged him up, out of the snow. “Daines!” she shouted, giving him a shake. “Wake up, Daines!”
Pale lashes lifted. Glazed green eyes stared up at her.
“Ma’am?”
For being half-frozen, his vision was keener than most. Not too many folks looked at her long enough to determine her gender. “You’ve got to get up,” she said.
“Cattle…Duce…” His lids drooped.
“You don’t get out of this cold, you’re gonna lose more than cattle,” she said, certain she was talking to herself.
His head tipped back and Maggie fell forward, his dead weight dragging her down with him. She landed flat on top of him. Her bare hand plunged into the bite of ice-cold snow.
“Damn it, Daines,” she shouted, pushing off him. “Wake up!”
He blinked, but didn’t move another muscle.
He’d already been exposed to the cold for too long, addling what she knew to be an otherwise sharp mind. Ira had fallen into an icy river once and had emerged from the frigid water dumber than a rock and helpless as a babe.
Maggie sat back on her heels and knocked the snow from the cuff of her white fur coat. The cold breeze snaked inside her sleeve, sending a chill across her warm skin. She quickly pulled on her glove. Her gut burned as the true extent of his situation sunk in. He wasn’t going to make it.
He was too far from his ranch, at least six miles. The last thing she wanted was to take this Viking cowboy inside her home. There wasn’t a soul alive who knew the location of her cabin. She lived up in the dense wild country for a reason—she didn’t want to be bothered. The one time she’d had unexpected company she spent a whole spring and summer relocating.
The fact that her visitors had been relatives of Garret Daines didn’t ease her reluctance to help him. By her account, his relation to Chance and Cora Morgan made him more of a threat. Morgan and his wife knew too many of her secrets already and she knew too well how a helpful hand could turn to a threat in the blink of an eye.
Don’t trust your back to no one. Ira’s mantra was embedded in her mind.
Thanks to her run-in with Nathan a few months ago, wanted posters now hung in surrounding settlements featuring a poorly drawn sketch of a mountain shrew, announcing a five-hundred-dollar reward for the capture of Mad Mag.
Why should she put herself in further danger by helping a man she barely knew?
“M-m-ma’am?” His unfocused green eyes blinked up at her. “Are y-y-a…all right?”
Was she all right? She wasn’t the one lying half-frozen in the snow.
The blatant concern in his expression prodded at her usually silent conscience. Garret Daines seemed to have more charm than sense. Despite his intimidating size, he had a kindness to him that had struck her right off the first time she’d spied him in the low country. With his unusual pale hair and a deep laughter that could carry for miles, he was always easy to spot. Her Viking protector hadn’t been smiling a few months back—a vision that had been plaguing her dreams ever since. His gaze had been hard and focused as he had stood between her and the riled citizens of Bitterroot Springs.
He’d defended her. Her. Mad Mag, the local lunatic.
I can’t just leave him here to freeze. Unlike those who’d betrayed her, Garret Daines wasn’t a man who’d stand by while harm befell another. He’d do as Ira had done, taking on a burden he didn’t want to save the life of a stranger. She’d also been small enough for a grown man to toss over his shoulder and cart off into the woods. She couldn’t carry Garret Daines five feet, much less up this mountain through the snow. She had to get him up.
“Help me, Garret,” she said in her best damsel voice. “It’s so cold. I need to get home. Can you help me?”
He nodded, muscles bunching beneath his thick coat. He tried to push up, and groaned, his stiff body rebelling against the movement. She gripped his arms and helped to tug him up. Snow clung to his thick coat and buffalo-hide chaps—clothes that should have kept him warm. His hat lay crumpled in the top of the outline of his fallen form. She noted the creases pressed into his left cheek. His dog and his hat had protected those handsome features from hours of exposure. But the icy weather had taken a toll on his mind. He stared blankly at the ground before him.
He swayed, his eyelids drooping.
She reached for him, her arms sliding into his open coat. His shirt crinkled like a sheet of ice.
Alarm squeezed her chest. His clothes had gotten wet.
The rain from yesterday, before the heavy snowstorm had set in. No wonder his coat and woolly chaps weren’t holding heat—they were likely keeping him as chilled as an icebox.
“Come on, Garret,” she urged, trying to guide him toward her sled. “Stay with me.”
His expression contorted with pain. His boots barely moved in the deep powder. With a rumbling groan, he fell from her grasp and landed face-first into the snow.
Boots yapped at him and nudged his tangled hair with his nose.
“It’s no use, dog. We’ll have to get him on the sled.”
Working quickly, she pushed her supplies and the frozen meat wrapped in deerskin aside and rolled Garret onto the wooden slats. After shoving her supplies beneath his legs to keep his boots from dragging on the ground, she bound a strip of rope across his middle, pinning his arms against his sides. Finished, she fetched his hat, shook off the snow and tugged the dark felt over his white hair.
She glanced at his dog standing up to its chest in snow. She’d seen the cow dog jump onto the back of Garret’s horse more than once while roaming through the lower hills, settling in a spot behind the saddle as though curling up on a porch rug—one of the oddest sights she’d ever witnessed.
“Come on, Boots,” she said, patting his master’s coat.
That was all it took. The hound curled up on Garret’s chest and laid its head on his white paws, his two-toned eyes watching her as she grabbed the sled rope and slipped it over her shoulder. Using all of her weight, her leg muscles burned as she began to haul her heavy load toward home. She’d be drenched in sweat before she reached her cabin, creating a nice layer of ice between her skin and her clothes. Risking her life for a stranger only to catch her death with pneumonia.
She glanced back.
Bound and unmoving, Garret looked like a big prize buck strapped to her sled. The ache in her gut intensified.
“You better not die.”
By the time she spotted the gap in the stone leading to a secluded meadow, every muscle in her body burned despite the increasing chill in her skin. A freezing wind whipped at her back as snow swirled around her in a flurry of white. She clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering. She hadn’t slowed to check on her cargo, but kept her focus on the mountainside rising beyond the trees.
She always missed her horse over winter, never so much as the past two hours. But she had no way to house and feed Star once the long freeze set in, forcing Maggie to leave her with the man who’d given her the mare. Chance Morgan’s generosity didn’t keep her from resenting having to depend on his services. Life had been so much simpler when she could keep to the rivers, bartering with only the Sioux and other trappers. Ira had warned her. It was past time to move on.
Barely visible through a thick forest, she spotted her cabin front built into the stone alcove. Home. Relief dragged a groan from deep within her chest.
She dragged the sled through the tight maze of trees then stopped before the snowed-in door topped by a stone overhang. After releasing the bindings on her snowshoes she cleared away the snowdrift then lifted the lock. Her cabin door squeaked open. The small dark space inside was no warmer than the brisk cold blowing through the trees. She hurried to the stove against the stone wall and reached for the matches.
Within moments flames licked over dry wood, illuminating the darkness. She’d expected to come home cold and had left her cabin prepared. She lit the lamp sitting atop her storage shelves beside her stove then moved her full teakettle to the warmest spot on the range top.
Movement beside her made her jump. Boots gave a vigorous shake, spattering a fine spray of melting snow across her cabin floor. She followed a trail of dirty paw-prints across the polished wood. Irritation burned through her.
You brought them here, she silently berated. You’ll have to deal with the messes. She turned and took a small throw from the foot of her bed. She tossed the thin blanket into the corner beyond the stove.
“Lay down,” she said, pointing to the rumpled fabric.
The dog went right to the corner and curled up.
Easy enough. She glanced through the open door at the lump of leather and man bound to her sled. Snowflakes swirled down from a storm-darkened sky.
Dread pooled in her belly and seemed to settle like a lead weight in her deerskin boots. She forced herself to move toward him. Despite her anxiety, she hoped she hadn’t endured that exhausting climb for two-hundred-plus pounds of dead cowboy. She stepped back out into the whipping wind and a shiver moved through her, the biting cold a prelude to the storm rolling in with the dark sky. She released the rope and brushed the fresh snow from Garret’s face. His eyelids fluttered, but didn’t quite open.
“Couldn’t just come home with deer meat,” she lamented, pulling her supplies and the bound venison from beneath his legs. His boots dropped over her threshold. She tossed her gear inside then carried the meat bound in fresh deer hide to the cold box buried beneath a foot of snow just outside her cabin. She dug up the lid and dropped in the whole hide-bound parcel. Salting and stewing would have to wait.
She pushed the sled up to the narrow door frame and climbed over Garret’s legs to get into the cabin. Gripping one of his boots just above the spurs, she pulled off the stiff leather. After placing his boots beneath her table she gripped him by the ankles and noticed a hole in the heel of each thick wool stocking. Either the man wasn’t married or his wife wasn’t worth the food to keep her fed.
“No gentle way to get this done,” she said, firming her hold.
Using all her strength, she hauled him inside. His head bounced against the hardwood floor, the sickening thud making her cringe. No time to worry about his bruised skull, she hurried past him to shut out the chilling wind and bar the door. Tossing her gloves onto the table against the front wall, she quickly shrugged off her fur coat and hung it from a hook beside the door. Cold stagnant air seeped through her clothes, but her heavy coat would get in the way of tending her guest.
Low moans sounded behind her as Garret began to rouse. He filled the space between her bed and the stove, leaving little room to walk around him. His eyes clenched tight, his face contorting with pain. She imagined the meager warmth of the stove was starting to penetrate his cold skin. She’d been on the verge of frostbite more than once. Flesh coming back to life felt like needles searing through bone.
She knelt next to him and pulled the leather gloves from his hands.
Greenish-blue eyes glazed with pain blinked up at her.
“Hurting is good,” she said, lifting one of his hands into the lantern light. “Means you’re not froze through.” She caressed each of his fingers, testing for frozen patches of skin. She didn’t feel anything but long, strong fingers and hard-earned calluses.
“You’ll get to keep your hide.” She pushed back the sides of his sheepskin coat and started working the buttons on his shirt. Ice melted beneath her fingers, saturating his two wool shirts by the time she had them unbuttoned. She pulled the thick layers back, his skin cold and damp beneath her palms as she tried to work the fabric over his shoulders.
“We won’t get these off with you lying down.” She eased back and tugged at his arm. “Garret, I need you to sit up.”
His expression contorted with pain. His big body didn’t budge.
“You think this hurts?” she said, moving over him, patting his pale stubble-coated cheeks, forcing him to focus on her. “Wait till the shivers set in. We need to get you out of these wet clothes before your muscles start to spasm.” She tugged on his arms. “Come on, cowboy, give me some help!”
He curled forward, groaning as she gripped his shoulders, pulling him the rest of the way up.
In a burst of movement, he shrugged off her hold. Wild, angry eyes stared deep into hers. He slurred words she couldn’t make out. Judging by his fierce scowl and harsh gaze, he was swearing at her.
Fighting her own fatigue, Maggie sat back on her heels and tried to assess his state of mind. She was in no shape for a bear fight. His narrowed eyes began to drift shut. His head tilted toward the cast-iron stove.
Maggie lunged onto him. Her knees banged against the floor as she straddled his lap. “Garret!” She gripped his shoulders and struggled to hold him upright.
His dog barked, likely startled by her quick movement. Her arms ached in her attempt to hold Garret steady. His chest pressed against hers like a block of ice.
Boots kept barking at her back, the sharp sound echoing across the high stone ceiling. She looked over her shoulder and glared at the mutt. “I skin bigger beasts than you. Lay down.”
Boots pranced for a moment then went back to the blanket, lying down with a whimper. The weight in her arms eased, muscles firming beneath her hold. Maggie looked back at Garret and found him staring at her. His face so close, she could see each tiny fleck of blue and gold in his green eyes. Her skin prickled, the rush of sensation awakening what felt like a field of butterflies in her belly, and suddenly she was startled by their closeness.
What the hell was she thinking to bring him here?
She eased back. Even with his complexion as pale as his shaggy white hair, he was a handsome specimen of a man, the finest she’d ever seen.
“We’ll get you warmed up,” she said. “Then you can get the hell off my mountain. All right?”
His eyes narrowed, as though he struggled to comprehend her words. She had to get him bundled in some warm, dry blankets.
She peeled his jacket and shirts from his arms. His thick muscles began to bunch and quiver. He remained silent as she removed his gunbelt and worked the buckle on his chaps. She tugged open his trousers and glanced up at his vacant stare. She smoothed his hair away from his face. His tremors increased as her hands cupped his stubbly cheeks, forcing him to meet her gaze.
“Garret, you have to stand up.”
He gave a slight nod and she eased back. His quivering muscles flexed in an attempt to do as she asked. The pain in his expression made her chest ache. Halfway up she wrapped her arms around his cold chest, giving him added support as he straightened his legs. His wet chaps and trousers fell to the floor in a heap. She slid her arms down to his bare waist, guiding him forward, helping him step out of the tangled clothing.
Trembling beside her, Garret stared down at his naked form then glanced at her, a look of sheer confusion on his face.
“This is no great thrill for me,” she said, and nearly laughed at the outright lie. Garret Daines in the buff, his muscles flexed and quivering, was a sight to behold. Long, lean, chiseled to perfection.
A startling stir of new sensation shimmered inside her. Maggie forced her gaze up to the startling view of his bare chest.
Good gracious. Heat flushed across her skin, and suddenly her damp clothes weren’t quite so chilling. She reached past him to pull back the quilts and buffalo hide covering her bed. Unnerved by her body’s reaction, she knocked him onto the feather-stuffed mattress and began pulling blankets over all that shivering brawn.
His gruff voice sounded in a slur of words. He growled with frustration and grabbed her hand.
Maggie froze, startled by his strong grip. His eyes burned with questions.
“It’s the cold,” she said, pulling her fingers from his grasp and tucking his hand back beneath the covers. “Addles the mind for a time. You’ve just got to warm up.”
As though she’d given the answer he needed, a sigh broke from his chest. His eyes drifted shut—which was how she preferred them, she decided. Unease swept through her at the thought of a fully conscious Garret Daines standing in her small cabin.
Oh Lord. She hadn’t thought that far ahead…and tried not to think of it now. Wasn’t anything she could do—he was here, shivering in her bed. The wood frame creaked with his violent tremors.
She stepped back. All she could do now was keep the fire stoked. His body needed to hold heat. She pulled her coat back on and grabbed her gloves from the table. She’d have to make sure the stovepipe atop the hillside hadn’t snowed over before she fetched an armload of wood.
By the time she returned to the cabin, her teakettle was steaming and she was trembling nearly as much as the man curled up in her bed. She shut the door against a fierce wind, the storm having fully arrived. She fed the fire another log then took a cup from the shelves beside her stove and opened her tea canister.
Exhausted, she dropped onto the only chair beside her narrow table with her tea and two shortbread cookies. Her shivers reminded her that her clothes were still damp. Taking a sip of tea to wash down the cookies, she told herself she needed to string a line to dry Garret’s clothes and start some stew. Her supply of meat needed to be thawed, cut and salted. She took another deep drink, the warm liquid soothing her chill. Completely worn-out, her mind and body balked at the idea of going back out into that storm to bring in the venison.
She watched Garret shiver in her bed and his dog sleeping soundly beside the stove as she drank the last of her tea. Suddenly she could barely keep her eyes open. Her tea no longer warming her hands and her belly, the chill crept back into her skin. Her own clothes needed to dry out, and she needed warming. All her blankets were wrapped around Garret. Lying on his side, he left just enough room for her to squeeze in beside him. A couple hours to warm up and regain her strength and she’d be ready to dry his gear and start a stew.
She lit the small lamp at the center of her table then dropped to her knees before her trunk at the end of her bed. Stacks of brightly embroidered shirts and dishcloths filled three quarters of the space—a winter’s worth of work. She didn’t have use for such colorful garb. Since Ira’s death, she bartered the fancy stitched dishcloths and clothing instead of animal pelts. She pulled out her flannel nightshirt and dropped the lid. Changing into the dry garment she hung her damp clothes over the chair and placed it before the stove. She’d be needing her clothes long before Garret would have use for his.
The fire stoked, her clothes drying, she stood beside the bed in her thick wool socks and nightshirt. She held her belt and sheathed blade, but was hesitant to crowd in beside Garret. Didn’t matter that she’d watched him in the lower hills more often than she should have in the past few years or that he seemed a fine man. She’d once been foolish enough to trust those who’d been ready to watch her die at her brother’s hands.
Ain’t enough of you to fight off man or beast. Ira’s gritty voice sounded in her mind. Don’t bed down without a weapon at hand.
If she didn’t get some sleep she’d be dead on her feet by the time Garret awoke. Not smart. His slow, jagged breaths assured her he was in a deep sleep just this side of death.
She went to the foot of the bed, stepped onto her trunk and eased into the sliver of space. She draped her belt over the bedpost and angled her knife so it would be within easy reach. She burrowed beneath the heavy blankets, lifting Garret’s arm to make room. The chill of his skin stole her breath as she settled beside him. Even so, her tired muscles rejoiced at the feel of the mattress beneath her.
Garret moaned. His big body shifted, his arms closing around her.
Maggie braced her hands against his cold chest. “Garret?” she whispered, forcing her voice past her constricted throat.
Several minutes passed. His eyes remained closed. The pressure of his hold didn’t change despite the tremors of his body. His heart thumped slow and steady beneath her palm.
The man’s practically an icicle, she reasoned. Instinc-tively he was trying to get warm.
She relaxed against his hold and tried to scoot into a more comfortable position. With every shift, her bare legs brushed against the coarse hair of his masculine body. She’d never lain with a naked man. The few times she’d snuggled up with Ira for warmth they’d been fully clothed and she’d been too cold to be bothered by Ira’s stench. Cleanliness wasn’t Ira’s way. He frequently grumbled about her sweet-scented soaps attracting bear. But he respected her way, making sure she had lye to make soap and seeking out a hot spring when she needed a long soak. She could use one now. So could Garret.
She yawned again, drawing in the musky scent of Garret’s skin. The hair on his chest tickled her cheek. Garret Daines didn’t smell bad, she noted. Her hand slid over his side to the smooth skin of his back as she settled against him. Despite his cold presence, a pleasing warmth spread through her as she gave in to sheer exhaustion.
Chapter Three
She spoke to him through the darkness. Her soothing touch pulled him from the cold depths of a nightmare. Heat suffused across his body as images of delicate ivory features and piercing blue eyes flickered through his mind.
Garret knocked a weight from his shoulders then shifted against the warmth pressing against him. His hand slid over a distinctly feminine form. A bare leg, a smooth hip curving into a narrow waist. He snuggled closer. Silky hair brushed his face. Her fresh, floral scent swirled across his senses as a soft, satiny breast filled his palm.
His body stirred, increasing the heat radiating beneath his skin. Her sensual moan dragged him toward consciousness. He wanted to open his eyes, to see her before she slipped back into the darkness. He blinked, letting in a flicker of light, then forced his heavy lids to open.
She was there, in the soft glow, sleeping against his chest just the way he’d always imagined a woman should sleep with her man. Relaxed against him, her head on his shoulder, her silky black hair fanned over his arm. His other hand was tucked inside her shirt. The bunched gray wool revealed a trim belly and the deep curve of her hip. It had been far too long since he’d had a woman in his bed.
I must be dead…or dreaming.
Looking at her pretty face, he didn’t much care which. She was a vision to be marveled, cherished. He leaned in, touching his lips to hers in the lightest caress. His thumb bushed over the firm peak of her breast and her breathing deepened. He dusted light kisses across her cheek and down her slender neck as his hand explored the smooth silk of her abdomen.
She moaned, the husky sound increasing the heavy beat of his pulse. He pressed a kiss to the hollow of her throat as the satin fullness of her breast filled his palm once more.
Her breath broke, her back arched.
Starving to taste what she offered, he nudged at the fabric with his mouth. A button gave way, revealing the soft, supple swell of her breast and beaded pink crown.
Garret gave up on trying to breathe. His lips closed over her and he simply tasted. She stretched and shifted beneath him, twisting against his caressing mouth like a gentle flame. His body warmed to a fevered pitch as he drew his dream lover from sleep in the sweetest way he’d ever imagined.
“Oh! What are…!” Her fingers drove into his hair and tugged.
Groaning with regret, he released her. Despite her hold on his hair, he brushed his lips over the glistening peak once more before easing up. Wide blue eyes stared at him.
Blue as sapphires, just as he knew they would be.
“Garret?”
A tingle of surprise rippled through him. Of course she’d know his name.
“You are…so beautiful.” He brushed his mouth over her parted lips. She tensed against him and gripped his shoulders.
“Gar—”
His name became a muffled cry as he deepened the kiss. He wasn’t ready to give up this dream. His fingertips lightly skimmed her breast, her waist, her thigh.
A pleasing groan was lost inside his mouth. Her tight hold on his shoulders became an arousing embrace as she shuddered against him. Her fingers slid over his back as she returned his fiery kiss. Triumph roared through him. The rush of passion and the pounding of his pulse forced him to release her mouth. He dragged for breath as he trailed kisses across her throat.
“You’re perfect.” He wanted her; he wanted to know her name.
An intense pain throbbed through his mind, blurring his vision. He gathered his dream lover close, his body aching for her. “Stay,” he said, but her delicate features began to fade. Darkness closed in around him, pulling her out of reach.
Trapped beneath Garret’s unmoving weight, Maggie’s eyes burned with unshed tears as she fought for breath. Her mind spun in a tangle of overwhelming sensation and utter confusion. One moment she’d been dreaming of floating in a hot spring, the soothing heat of the water rippling over her sensitive skin—in the next moment Garret Daines had his lips on her, creating a kind of heat she’d never felt before.
She was sure she’d opened her mouth to tell him to stop, but had only managed a strangled moan as he had flooded her body with sensations she’d never experienced in her life.
“Don’t go,” he whispered against her ear, the vibrations rekindling the wild tingles in all the places he’d touched. His arm tightened over her ribs.
Suddenly she was frightfully aware of her exposed damp skin, the warmth of his thigh wedged between hers, the very male portion of him pressed firmly against her hip.
Damnation!
She shoved his arm away and scrambled for the end of the bed. She stumbled over the trunk and fell to the cold floor. She sprang up, tugging her wool nightshirt closed as she bumped against her table, wobbling the lit oil lamp. Light shifted over shadows and the naked man sprawled in her bed.
She inched toward the stove, grabbed her now dry clothes then backed toward the door. How long had she slept?
Too long, she reminded herself, still trembling from Garret’s touch. She wasn’t about to look away from the man before her to search for signs of daylight seeping around the door. She shoved her feet into her warm buckskin pants and jerked them up. The shift of fabric against her damp flesh made her shudder. What had he done to her? She tugged on her buckskin tunic over the wool shirt. Her shaky fingers cinched the ties.
Ira had warned her about the violent intentions of randy men. He claimed she was his woman to those they encountered to keep her safe from such advances, but she hadn’t always traveled with Ira. She’d been chased more than once by men with such intentions to hold her down and hurt her—they’d never caught her.
Keeping her gaze on Garret, she slid her foot into a tall moccasin. She should have left him in the snow! Shot him, and then left him in the snow!
After lacing both boots she stuffed the bottom of her shirt into her pants. His coloring had returned. The light hair on his legs stood out against the darker skin beneath. Her gaze trailed across his bare backside.
The heated swirls he’d conjured rose up, stealing her breath.
She strapped her arms around her trembling middle and realized her belt and knife were missing.
Her gaze landed on her belt hanging from the bedpost.
Why hadn’t she reached for her blade?
Boots stood up in the corner and stretched. The black shaggy dog trotted toward her and bumped her leg. Keeping her gaze on Garret, she reached down to pat the dog’s head.
“What’s the matter with him?” she whispered. How could he still be sleeping when her pulse hammered erratically from the things he’d done to her?
He hadn’t actually hurt her. He’d kissed her, in ways she’d never imagined a man would kiss a woman. Her teeth clamped down on her trembling lower lip. The memory of his mouth on her breast, his tongue moving against hers added to the violent stir of her pulse. His touch had been tender, his kisses…overwhelming. She recalled the time Morgan and his bride had invaded her old cabin some years back. She hadn’t meant to watch them; she’d been mesmerized by their gentle embraces and tender kisses as Morgan had convinced Cora to marry him.
No wonder they seemed to enjoy themselves. Kissing Garret so intimately…She drew a deep, ragged breath and had to wonder if a man would have courted her with such tenderness, had she been allowed to grow into the proper lady her father always believed she’d become.
Bitter sentiment squelched the thought.
She wasn’t some gentile lady full of ignorant fanciful notions. She didn’t entertain suitors. At twenty-seven she was well into spinsterhood and had put such notions behind her. Garret Daines had no call to touch her in such a manner!
He continued to lie there, his back rising slightly with his deep, even breaths. Could a man put his mouth on her one moment and be unconscious the next?
She moved toward the bed. His dog stayed beside her.
“Garret?”
He didn’t stir. Her stomach dipped at the sight of his sleeping face and flushed lips. Far too handsome. She stepped closer. Heat radiated off his body. She touched his shoulder. His skin fairly scalded her hand. He moaned at her touch.
He’s raging with fever.
“Garret?”
When he didn’t respond, she reached over him, grabbed her belt and quickly strapped it around her waist. She picked up one of the blankets he’d knocked to the floor and draped it over the firm slope of his bare backside. Fever or not, her sensibilities could only handle so much.
“Thaw him out to cool him off,” she muttered on her way to the door. Outside she was stunned to discover nighttime encroaching on a stormy gray sky. She’d slept nearly the whole day.
A short while later she was packing snow into the embroidered hand towels she’d intended to sell. Garret moaned in his sleep as she placed them over his superheated body but didn’t fully rouse. The snow melted quickly against his shoulders and the back of his neck. As she swabbed his flushed skin with the cool cloth a troubling thought increased the unease welling inside her.
He’d been out of his mind with fever, and she’d nearly succumbed to his hallucinations. He’d called her beautiful and she’d lost her mind right along with him.
Thank goodness he’d passed out. She could just imagine his reaction when he awoke to discover it was Mad Mag he’d been kissing in that bed.
Her hands paused on his back, the thought of facing his scorn twisting her stomach into a painful knot. She hadn’t just allowed him to kiss her, she’d reveled in the bursts of pleasing sensation, the shocking intimacy of his deep kiss.
Shame washed through her. Good God. What would he think of her?
Same as everyone else, she supposed. Tears stung her eyes, a reaction that stunned her.
This time she’d finally earned the moniker Mad Mag.
Chapter Four
Garret woke to the aroma of stewed meat and the telltale bubbling of something simmering on the stove. He blinked several times, and still he stared up at a high stone ceiling. His gaze swept over rock walls, a black stove to his right…none of it the slightest bit familiar.
His stomach growled, the tantalizing scent drawing his gaze back to the bubbling kettle. Licking his dry lips he glanced at the wood front of what appeared to be someone’s home. A lamp to his right and another beyond the foot of the bed created soft circles of light, brightening the dank surroundings.
Where the hell am I?
He pushed up onto his elbows and had to stifle a groan. His body ached as though he hadn’t moved in ages. Pain pulsed through his skull, radiating from the left side. He reached up and touched a tender spot above his forehead and discovered a small lump and what felt like a gash beneath his hair. The movement wafted him with a clean, sweet scent. He paused and sniffed his arm.
“Wildflowers?”
Sapphire eyes and black hair against delicate ivory skin surfaced in his mind.
The woman. She’d stayed nearby, stroking his skin, encouraging him to drink.
Rest, Garret. You have a fever.
The soft, husky voice tantalized his memory with the alluring scent of her skin, her silky softness beneath his lips.
“A dream,” he muttered. The only safe place to love a woman.
He pushed the wool blanket aside and froze, surprise prickling through him. He wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing. His gaze skated around the room, searching every shadowed corner. He was alone. In the corner beside the stove was a rumpled blanket and tooth-scrapped bone. Wherever his caretaker had gone, she’d taken his dog. Why was he here? If he was sick, why wasn’t he in his own bed? And yet…he didn’t recall getting sick. For all he knew some woman had knocked him from his saddle and dragged him to her bed.
Her delicate feminine features surfaced in his mind.
A man could suffer a worse fate.
Another glance around the rough rock walls snuffed that thought. He doubted the delicate creature of his dreams would live in such desolate surroundings. Had he dreamed up her pretty face to match the soothing voice and gentle hands that had been caring for him?
He shifted his feet to the floor with silent caution. His bare toes touched down on a cold, smooth surface.
Polished wood? He glanced again at the tidy space, noting the canisters, boxes and stacked dishes lined up all nicelike on the wide-set shelves, the stack of blankets folded at the foot of the bed. He’d known a couple of miners who’d carved out similar dwellings—but he’d never known any miner to be quite so tidy. Every breath drew in a clean floral scent and the mouthwatering aroma of stew.
How the hell had he gotten here? He closed his eyes, trying to remember. Last he could recall he’d been riding range…he’d ridden home at noon and—Duce. He’d been looking for Duce. His business partner hadn’t made it in for the noontime meal. The way the countryside had been strewn with violence and mishaps lately, too many ranchers turning up dead and a storm rolling in…
Chills prickled his skin as he recalled the cold, whipping rain washing out horse tracks he’d followed into the hills—old panic clenched his chest.
He hadn’t found Duce.
Garret shot to his feet, pulling the blanket around his waist as he stood. The quick movement made him lightheaded and wafted him with the scent of spring flowers, reminding him that whoever lived here had done more than simply tend his fever. He’d been bathed.
He moved toward the door, each step a slow stretch of tense muscles. The way his head and body ached, he could have been struck by lightning. Maybe Duce had found him and brought him to this place.
Spotting his boots tucked beneath the small table beside the rickety door, he pulled them out and stepped into the tall leather shafts. His clothes were nowhere in sight. Surely he’d been fully dressed when he’d arrived. He scanned three large barrels stacked on top of the other in the far corner and a large chest at the foot of the bed. He was tempted to search their contents for his britches. A pinch in his bladder urged him to search out a privy first. After he relieved himself, he’d find whoever had taken his clothes and his dog and demand some answers.
He pulled open the door and had to shield his face from a flurry of snowflakes. Cold wind buffeted against his bare chest, sending an instant chill shivering across his skin. He stared gap-jawed at the snow piled some three feet high on either side of the door, a path having been recently shoveled.
“What the hell?”
Through the haze of swirling flakes tall timbers reached toward a gray sky. White-topped mountain peaks rose up from all sides.
He was in the high country. He wouldn’t have ridden into these snow-packed mountains.
A familiar bark echoed over the rush of wind and Garret stepped into the brisk cold. “Boots!”
Snow burst from the embankment up ahead as his dog bounded onto the shoveled path. Garret grinned, relieved to see his shaggy friend.
“Hey, boy,” he said, reaching down to pat his furry head while keeping his gaze on movement near the end of the path. He narrowed his eyes, trying to peer through the falling snow as the stranger drew near. The small form slowly emerged through the flurry of flakes, a white hooded coat blending with the winter landscape. He couldn’t make out more than a faint outline and a shotgun clutched in the left hand.
Caution tensed his muscles as the stranger drew close.
Mad Mag was the first thought to his mind, until she looked up. The deep blue eyes and delicate, feminine features lurking beneath that hood stole his breath.
She’s real. The passionate woman from his dream.
“You should be inside.”
Her voice was low, husky, and flooded his mind with the sounds of breathy moans, the image of her rose-tipped breast straining toward his mouth.
“Move.”
Her harsh tone and stern gaze jarred him from the tantalizing vision. He stepped back, allowing her to rush him through the doorway. She quickly shut out the wind and wisps of snow.
“Go lay down.” She pointed toward the far wall, her stern tone commanding as she stared him right in the eyes.
Maybe this bitty thing had clubbed him over the head and dragged him to her bed. Shock rippled through him…along with an undeniable stir of attraction.
Boots brushed his leg on his way to the corner, and Garret realized she was talking to his dog, not him. He scrubbed a hand over his stubble-coated jaw. He obviously wasn’t working with a full deck. His brain struggled to take hold of the notion that his dream lover stood before him. He stared at her, his mind lost somewhere between reality and a really good dream.
She propped her gun beside the door and glanced briefly at the floor. Her supple pink lips pressed to a firm line as her gaze moved over puddles of melting snow. He’d left the door wide-open.
“Sorry about that.”
Sharp blue eyes narrowed, her expression bordering on lethal. Not quite the passionate woman from his memory—his dreams, he silently amended. He eased back toward the warmth of the stove, his instincts warning him not to crowd the little filly. Her soft, delicate features were a clear contradiction to the hard blue eyes watching him with calculating caution.
She stayed beside the door, her posture stiff, defensive. The hand hovering near her waist made him wonder if she wore a gun beneath her coat. She pushed her hood back, revealing silky black braids tucked behind her ears. In his mind her hair was loose, fanned out across his arm, his chest—
“How do you feel?” she asked, her smooth voice washing over him like a sensual caress.
Uncomfortably aroused. He shifted his hold on the blanket and had to remind himself he didn’t know this woman. Other than the alluring images in his mind, he’d never seen her before.
“Alive, I suppose,” he answered. At the moment he wasn’t certain of anything else. His dreams blended with reality, distracting him from the questions he should be asking. Like why he’d awakened in the high country, where were his clothes and…had he actually bedded this woman? Best to start with something simple.
“Where am I?”
“About eight miles north of your ranch.”
Eight miles? Most of them straight up by the looks of the mountainous terrain he’d glimpsed outside.
She shrugged off her heavy fur. Garret wasn’t sure what he expected to see beneath the long coat, but the vibrant red flowers stitched across the shoulders of her white shirt took him by surprise. The garment hung to mid-thigh, cinched at her narrow waist by a beaded belt. She wasn’t wearing a gun. A leather sheath secured a long bowie knife at her hip.
Tiny but fierce, he thought, noting how her gaze didn’t stray from him as she hung her coat beside the door. Buckskin britches encased her slender legs, the bottoms tucked into her tall Indian-style boots. He only knew of one mountain woman to frequent these ranges, had been close enough to the old woman called Mad Mag to catch her stench, to see the filth on her hands as she had held a rifle to a man’s chest. The wide white cuffs of this woman’s shirt were etched with red thread and hid her hands, revealing just enough of her fingers to see her clean, short fingernails. She smelled as fresh as a spring rain.
“You were caught in the storm,” she said, drawing his gaze back to her young, pretty face.
He remembered a rainstorm, and the cold…waking to a beautiful woman sleeping in his arms. His gaze slid to the bed, a sense of dread tightening his gut.
“Do I have you to thank?” he asked. “Or was it your husband who brought me here?” A husband would be good. He needed some reassurance that the visions in his mind were just that—visions.
“You can thank your dog. If not for him, you likely would have froze before I found you.”
“You found me?”
Her posture stiffened. “That’s right.”
“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but…I don’t recall your name or riding up to this…” His gaze slid over the stone walls. “Cabin.”
“I’m not surprised. You were froze out of your mind when I found you. That was the day before yesterday. Once your chill wore off a fever set in.”
He had the vague memory of a cool, damp cloth stroking his skin, her smooth, husky voice encouraging him to drink. Incapacitated for nearly three days, it wasn’t a wonder he was starving and his bladder about to burst.
His shock wearing off, he was hit by the renewed urge to step outside.
“You’ve been sick,” she said. “You should lie down.”
“What I need are my clothes.” And an outhouse. At this point, his clothes would be a waste of time—he had to go now. He took a step forward.
The woman’s hand went for her blade. The glint in her eyes told him she wouldn’t hesitate to fillet him.
“Easy, honey,” he said, raising his hand, the other gripping the blanket at his hip. “I’m just headin’ for the door. No reason to get jumpy.”
“You can’t leave,” she said, her hand still on the hilt of her long knife.
“I need to step outside for a spell.”
Her stance widened as though she thought she could stop him. “It’s still storming.”
“Lady, I’ve got to take a leak,” he all but shouted, the pressure becoming downright painful.
“Oh.” Her eyes widened, understanding easing her tense expression. God bless her, a pink flush flared into her cheeks. “There’s a chamber pot under the bed.” She rushed past him.
Garret watched her kneel beside the bed and figured she must be out of her pretty little mind. It was bad enough he stood before this woman in nothing but his boots and a blanket. He’d damn well risk the frostbite.
“You can—” A burst of cold air hit Maggie’s face as she sat back. Her guest slammed the door shut behind him.
“Of all the fool notions!”
His dog scampered after him and barked at the closed door.
“He’s going to freeze,” she spat. And this time she was not going to tend to his warming! Boots bumped against her leg as she stood, his tail wagging wildly. He was obviously happy at seeing his master up and around. Maggie reached down to pet him and noticed her hands were shaking.
He’s awake.
She didn’t know why Garret’s size had come as such a shock—but it had. Tending him while unconscious hadn’t prepared her for looking up at those flexing muscles, his eyes clear and alert. The way he’d stared at her…
He remembers.
If her cheeks blazed any hotter they’d catch fire. She pressed her hands to her flushed skin. Hellfire. She was actually blushing. The fact that he’d flustered her so increased her worry. He’d taken one step toward her, his eyes dark and turbulent, and she’d damn near drawn her knife against him.
A natural reflex, she reasoned. For someone who lives in the wild. She’d spent most her life hunting, skinning and shooting at anything that came at her baring teeth, whether it be beast or man. And there’d been plenty of both.
She’d suffered her share of scratches, bite marks and bullet wounds. Even so, she ventured that most folks, sane folks, didn’t greet a request for an outhouse with a knife wound.
Biting out a swear word she grabbed one of the blankets at the end of her bed and dropped it onto the wet floor. It had been too many years since she’d been so close to anyone. She’d never had cause to be cordial with any man since Ira. She wasn’t sure she remembered how. After so much effort to keep Garret alive, she’d sure hate to harm his handsome hide.
I ought to bar the door while I have the chance.
Instead she draped the damp cloth over her chair and hurried to the stack of barrels she’d turned into tall cupboards. Opening the hinged side of the center barrel she took out Garret’s clean shirts and trousers. She pulled his coat from the bottom barrel.
He’ll rest up and be gone by tomorrow.
Her stomach flopping something awful, she tossed the stack of clothes onto the trunk and pressed a hand to her belly. The sight of black braids lying over bright red blossoms made her groan as the heat in her face intensified. She felt foolish wearing the ornate nightdress she’d hemmed, her hair woven into the only style she’d ever done on her own. No respectable townswoman wore braids at the age of twenty-seven, but Maggie didn’t own any hairpins and wouldn’t know what to do with them even if she had. She’d done the best she could to appear feminine, normal.
She hadn’t convinced him. His expression had creased with confusion as his gaze soaked up her attire.
“I don’t give two shakes what he thinks of me,” she muttered as she hung his coat beside hers and went to the stove. So long as he doesn’t think I’m Mad Mag. With Nathan hunting her and wanted posters boasting a reward for her capture, she couldn’t risk anyone knowing where she lived.
She glanced warily at the door. Boots stood vigil, whining as the wood creaked against a gust of wind. Hopefully he hadn’t gotten too close a look at her that day in town.
She dragged in a shaky breath and lifted the lid off her stewpot. Thick brown gravy bubbled around tender meat and potatoes. Her appetite soured at the memory of Nathan grabbing her in that alleyway. Her surprise had paled to his. He’d been shocked to see his little sister alive and well—a shock that had given way to undeniable fear. She’d relished the fear and had spent the weeks before the first heavy snow checking out his new place. Had she caught him alone she would have finished what he started in Bitterroot. But Nathan was a coward. He didn’t take a step out his door without being surrounded by his hired guns.
Before winter had set in she’d taken care to give Nathan the welcome he deserved. There wasn’t a holding pen on his ranch that could stay latched. Rattlers had become a common inhabitant of his outhouse. She’d spent quite a few nights bedded down in the tall grasses around his place, gazing at the night stars as she listened to her brother’s yelps and shouts echoing across the plains. Her brother hadn’t changed a lick in fourteen years—he was still a thief and a liar. And folks still turned a blind eye to his treachery. His band of cattle thieves spent more time skimming off neighbors stock than tending their own. She’d followed along on a few of their late-night roundups, watching intently as they gathered and moved nice tight herds, tucking the longhorns into canyons and valleys on Circle S land. It sure didn’t take much to spook a herd of cattle. She grinned, recalling just how high-pitched a man’s scream could hit.
She’d move on, just as soon as she settled her business with Nathan.
A burst of cold air announced Garret’s return.
“Damnation! That is a cold wind.” He slammed the door shut as a gust lifted the edge of his blanket, giving her a glimpse of his rounded backside.
Nothing I haven’t already seen, she lamented, which didn’t do a damn thing to settle the sudden stir of her pulse.
Boots pawed at him, demanding his attention, and nearly stripped him of the blanket he struggled to keep around his waist. “Easy, boy.” He knelt down, briskly rubbing his hands over the dog’s thick coat. “Glad to see you, too, but we don’t want to offend the lady.”
Lady? A pleasing stir moved through Maggie at the unexpected title. She watched the bunch and flex of muscles beneath his bronze, knowing full well there wasn’t anything offensive about Garret’s body.
“Worried about me, were ya?”
The dog hadn’t been the only one to fret over him. After all her toil and trouble, he’d traipsed off into the storm!
“Sick as you’ve been, you shouldn’t have risked the chill,” she said. “I would have given you some privacy.”
He straightened and shoved a hand through his tousled hair, giving her a clear view of his green eyes. The curiosity she saw in those gentle depths stirred a tingling surge of sensation she’d first felt when she’d awakened in his arms.
“No sense in you getting a chill, as well,” he said, taking a slow step toward her.
“I’m not the one who’s been abed the past two days,” she said, her tone sounding hateful to her own ears.
Be civil, she silently berated. She’d been schooled in good manners and proper etiquette, though she couldn’t clearly recall a single lesson. Her life before Ira was nothing but a distant dream.
“Your clothes are on the chest behind you,” she managed to say in a mild tone. “I hung your coat by the door. Your chaps are stored outside.”
He glanced at the stack of clothes and then looked back at her. “I’m much obliged.”
She would be, too, once he buttoned that chest into a shirt. Not that it would matter much. She’d memorized all the contours of his muscular form as she’d tended his fever, soothing him when he thrashed around, murmuring names in his sleep. Some she recognized, most she didn’t.
“Come here, Boots,” she said, patting her thigh. She rubbed the mutt behind his ear then pointed to his blanket. “Go chew on your bone.”
He stood beside her, watching his pet curl up in the corner. His lips curved into a grin as he met her gaze. The unexpected smile caused an equally unexpected surge of sensation low in her belly.
“I hope Boots hasn’t been any trouble for you.”
“Get dressed.”
His grin widened. “Yes, ma’am.”
She waited until he moved around the bed before she turned back to the stove. She watched the play of shadow cast on the floor as she took two bowls from her shelf and began serving stew.
“I sure appreciate you taking care of him,” he said, followed by the sound of his boots thumping to the floor as he pulled them off. “He’s been with me a long time.”
The care he showed for his pet was something that had always intrigued her. She couldn’t recall a time she’d spied Garret in the hills without his dog along.
“He hasn’t been any trouble.”
She could feel his gaze upon her, could tell he was watching her by the stillness of his shadow.
“Glad one of us hasn’t.” Fabric snapped as he shook his trousers out.
She set the steaming bowls aside as his shadow swayed, his hand reaching toward his head. She turned as he slumped forward and reached for the foot of the bed.
“Garret.” She was beside him in a flash.
“I’m all right,” he said, easing down to sit on the trunk.
Maggie curled her fingers into her palms, fighting her urge to soothe him. His complexion had paled. Wearing only his trousers, his shirt clutched in his hand, he rested his elbows on his thighs and blinked as though clearing his vision.
“You shouldn’t have gone out into the cold,” she scolded.
He glanced up, his gaze dark, burning with frustration.
Maggie took a step back, beyond his reach.
“Why in hell am I so weak?”
“You nearly froze to death. You’ve been abed for two days.”
His green eyes scanned her from head to toe and back again. “This may sound rude, but…should I know you?”
“I don’t see why you should,” she said, relief easing her stalled breath. “You were hardly conscious when I found you.”
“You seem to know me…and my dog.”
“I’m sure most folks around these parts are familiar with you and your cattle ranch, Mr. Daines.”
He shrugged on his shirt, his gaze never wavering from hers. “I thought I knew most folks around these parts. And I sure—” He paused, turning his face toward the collar. He sniffed loudly, his eyes widening as he met her gaze. “You washed my clothes?”
“They were already wet.” She wasn’t about to put dirty clothes in her cupboards. “I figured adding some soap couldn’t hurt.”
A slow grin eased his tense expression. He stood and stuffed his shirttails into his waistband. “I smell like a field of flowers.”
“It’s the only soap I have,” she said, realizing now that a man may not care to smell like wildflowers.
“I suppose it’s better than carrying the stench of sweat and horsehide.”
While tending his fever, it made sense to add some soap to that water, as well. Hopefully she’d rinsed him enough since then that he hadn’t noticed.
He sat on the side of the bed and Maggie felt some relief. He wasn’t quite so intimidating when he wasn’t towering over her. Perhaps she could tie him to a chair until he was strong enough to leave.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered, staring at his mended sock.
Maggie silently cursed the heat in her cheeks. “They were in a sorry shape.”
“You’re more than a thorough nursemaid. I’m indebted to you, Mrs…?”
“Didn’t take much to mend them.”
He stared at her a moment, his narrowing gaze telling her he hadn’t missed her failure to give her name. “I was also wearing a gun,” he said.
“You’ll get your holster back when you leave.”
“I didn’t see any other structures outside. Where are you keeping my horse?”
“There was no horse.”
“No horse?” He surged up. Maggie forced herself to hold her ground, not that she could have backed any closer to the stove.
“I found you and your dog buried in the snow about two miles from here.”
“Buried?”
“Covered by a foot of fresh powder. I nearly walked right past you. If your dog hadn’t stood up, I would have. You’d been hit in the head and had been on the ground for a long while.”
He touched the spot on his head that had been caked with blood when she’d found him.
“Perhaps you should sit down, Mr. Daines. You were suffering from the cold when I brought you here. You had a high fever all of yesterday and most of today. You’d slept so long I was starting to worry the cold or the fever had damaged your brain.”
“It must have. I don’t remember riding into these moun-tains. And I can assure you I am not prone to falling from my saddle.”
“I didn’t assume that you were. Looked to me like someone struck you with a rifle. By the time I found you any other tracks had been long-since snowed over.”
He’d been attacked? Garret tried to jar his memory. Shouldn’t he remember something like being knocked from his saddle? Had he been ambushed? The last he could recall was watching Duce’s tracks fade in the heavy rain.
“I was looking for my partner,” he said. “I followed Duce’s tracks into the hills. What little snow had been on the ground was washed out by the rain.”
“That’s why you nearly froze to death. It didn’t rain long before snow set in, just before sundown. I found you about an hour past dawn. Have you been feuding with anyone?”
“Only half the state,” he said, shoving his hands into his hair. “The cattle trade has been more akin to pirating as of late.”
“Desperation and greed tend to have that effect on men.”
The chill in her husky voice drew his gaze. Why was it her face that filled his mind instead of his attackers?
She nodded toward the front wall. “Go sit at the table.”
She sure didn’t have any trouble passing out orders. His first memory after the storm was her, those blue eyes ablaze with passion, her sweet body arched beneath him as she’d awakened to his touch, his kisses…
“Mr. Daines?”
He blinked, and realized she stood before him with a bowl in her hands, his stern nursemaid, not the lover from his dream. The hearty aroma penetrated his dazed mind, initiating a growl in his empty belly.
“The table,” she repeated.
She obviously didn’t trust him to not end up on his face, staying at his side until he sat in the chair. She plunked the bowl of stew down in front of him and his mouth watered at the sight of steaming chunks of meat in dark gravy. Despite his hunger, he waited for his hostess to join him. Realizing he sat on the only chair, he grabbed the trunk from the foot of the bed and slid it forward.
She stayed by the stove, her bowl in hand, her sweet face pinched in a frown. He gathered she hadn’t planned on joining him at the table. Her steps seemed to drag as she approached him. She nudged the trunk to the far side of the table then hesitantly took her seat.
“I swear I don’t bite,” he said, forcing a smile.
“I don’t usually have company.”
“I don’t usually get lost in snowstorms. I am sorry for putting you out.”
“I’m just glad I didn’t have to bury you in the frozen ground.” With that, she took a bite.
He didn’t wait for further invitation. He heaped a big bite into his mouth and nearly groaned as venison melted against his tongue, the flavorful gravy nothing short of heaven. He emptied the small bowl in a few hearty bites and would have thumbed out the remaining gravy had the bowl not been snatched away from him.
“I’ll get you some more.”
“I don’t want to leave you hungry,” he said, while hoping that big pot was filled to the brim.
“I have plenty,” she said, refilling his bowl. “Luckily I brought more than a frozen cowboy home from my hunt.”
“Thank you,” he said, unable to pull his gaze away from her graceful movements as she sat across from him. Had some sorry excuse of a man left her up here to fend for herself under such harsh conditions? Catching his gaze, she paused before taking another bite. Her tense expression suggested she’d rather be dining alone.
“You were out hunting in that storm?” he asked.
“That deer meat didn’t jump into my stewpot on its own.”
Garret grinned. The flat line of her lips didn’t so much as twitch.
“I don’t imagine it did. Guess you caught more than you bargained for.”
“I did indeed.”
“You must have been at the end of your food stores to be hunting in this storm?”
Her jaw tightened.
“I’m stocked up just fine,” his nameless savior insisted.
He wasn’t new to stubborn women. Wasn’t a woman born more stubborn than his older sister—or so he’d thought.
“A tracking snow can be real useful. It was—before the storm hit. You were the one so far from home.”
If he’d ended up here, what had happened to Duce?
“My business partner didn’t ride in at noon. Duce wouldn’t have stayed out in that weather unless he was having trouble or had found trouble.”
“I’d been hunting in those lower ranges the whole day. I didn’t come across anyone or hear any other gunshots.”
He hoped Duce had made it back to the ranch. “How long have you lived up here?”
“A while.”
Boots pounced up beside her, his front paws landing in her lap. “I already fed you,” she said, her lips hinting at a smile.
“Sorry about that.”
“I’m used to it by now.” She scratched at his ears, turning his cow dog to a limp pile of fur.
“You’ve spoiled him. Boots usually has better manners.”
“You’ve been far more trouble than he has.”
God save him, her smiling eyes sent a whisper of sensation across his skin as images flooded his mind. Unnerved by the rush of desire, he swept his gaze over the small space.
Simple, clean, the nicest cave he’d ever seen. Small and dank, yet livable—for a miner. So where the hell was he?
“More?” she asked, reaching for his bowl.
The first two servings had taken the edge off his hunger, but he could easily put away another. “Only if you’re sure you can spare it.”
She pushed his dog aside and went to the stove. His gaze followed her dainty form, trailing down the part of her braids to her slender, kissable neck.
He pinched his eyes shut. If he’d actually made advances on her in her sleep, she’d be tossing him out on his ear, not serving him stew. And yet…he could practically feel her arms around his neck as she had kissed him into unconsciousness. He looked up as she stepped beside him, her eyes full of caution as she slid the bowl and mugs onto the table—she sure as hell didn’t like being near him.
“You’ve saved my life,” he said. “And I still don’t know your name.”
“I couldn’t rightly leave you in the snow.” She turned away and he caught her by the wrist.
“That’s the second time you’ve avoided telling me your name. Who are you and where is your husband?”
“If you value that hand,” she said, the chill in her tone raising the hair on the back of his neck, “move it.”
Garret had lived with temperamental females long enough to know when his hide was in danger. This wasn’t a woman who took kindly to being backed into a corner—or grabbed by the wrist. She didn’t move to pull away but the cold clarity in her eyes told him her other hand was already gripping the hilt of her blade. A sudden move on his part would have painful results.
Biting back a swear word, he opened his fingers.
“My apologies.”
She took a step back, glowering at him as she rubbed her wrist. He knew he hadn’t used enough pressure to bruise her soft skin.
“Well?” he persisted. “Why isn’t your husband here? You are married, aren’t you?”
“I don’t see how my life history would be beneficial to you, Mr. Daines.”
“Considering I’ve been lying naked in your bed for the past few days,” he said bluntly, “asking your marital status seems a fair question.”
She crossed her arms, her pointed little chin raising a few notches. “Are you suggesting I should have left you in the snow for the sake of propriety?”
Her crisp speech carried a hint of formality that reminded him of Amanda’s. This woman’s sharp gaze and graceful mannerisms belayed her odd attire. She’d been properly schooled. Must have been a sweet-talking sonuvagun who’d convinced her to come all the way out here.
“No, ma’am,” he said. “I’m grateful for your help. But your husband may not appreciate—”
“I don’t have a husband, so you can relax.”
Relax? With the thoughts that were filtering through his mind. Not likely. Why the hell didn’t she have a husband? “You live way up here alone?”
“You should be focusing on getting your strength back. You’ll be leaving as soon as the weather allows.”
Her hostility and evasiveness gnawed at him. He was obviously making her nervous. Hell, he was making himself nervous!
“I know for certain I wasn’t near any homestead when the storm hit,” he said, hoping a less invasive question would get him some answers. “At least none that I’m aware of. I’ve lived in this area for nearly nine years.”
“Do you really think you’re on a homestead?”
She wasn’t buying any of it.
“No, ma’am. More of a miner’s claim, I suppose.”
Her single arched eyebrow wasn’t a denial or a confirmation. The sheer challenge in her gaze caused a discomforting stir in his britches. He was starting to think he had a thing for sassy women. Sassy, stern and pretty beyond measure.
Her cheeks flushed to a soft pink before she hooded those blue eyes with thick lashes.
And passionate, his mind added. She’d been hesitant at first but had quickly turned to sweet fire in his arms.
Garret dropped his spoon, the provocative images in his mind driving him to the brink of insanity.
“Did I bed you?”
Her gaze snapped up, pinning him with those vibrant blue eyes.
Well hell, that hadn’t been the smooth delivery he’d hoped for.
Chapter Five
“No, you didn’t!”
Garret heaved a sigh of relief and shoved his hands through his hair. Oh, thank God.
Her angry glare cut his relief short.
“I didn’t mean to insult you. I’m a little…out of sorts.”
“I dragged your sorry hide two miles through the snow,” she raged, her crossed arms locked tight over her chest. “I was tired!”
Garret’s breath stalled, the tremble in her voice confirming his fear—he hadn’t been dreaming.
“Had I known you’d awaken with such intensions, I can assure you I’d have left you in the—”
“I’m sorry,” he said, lunging to his feet. “Honest to God, I wouldn’t have—”
“Sit! Down!”
He obeyed the command only because he recognized her fear. Beneath the anger in her gaze, he saw panic.
“I took advantage,” he said quickly. “I wasn’t in my right mind.”
“Neither was I.”
The stain of embarrassment on her cheeks stabbed at his conscience. He hadn’t given her a chance to refuse him, having coaxed her body into passion while she slept. “It was all my fault,” he said. “You were sound asleep. Your body was on my side before you even woke up and I—”
“Enough!” she shouted, her fingers clamping over the hilt of her blade. Garret carefully regarded the hostility in her posture poised to strike.
“I swear I’d never force myself on you.” Holy hell. He wasn’t rightly sure what he’d done before he’d passed out. He knew what he’d wanted to do.
“Oh God,” he groaned, horrified at the thought of shaming the woman who’d saved his life. “Did I hurt you?”
The concern in his soft tone caught Maggie off guard.
Did he hurt her? She’d never felt anything so exquisite in all her life. “Ma’am? If I—”
“You kissed me,” she said. “And then you blacked out with fever.”
“That’s all?”
That’s all? “That was enough!”
“I was afraid…the thought of forcing you—”
“You didn’t,” she clipped. Remembering just how willingly she’d responded to his kisses increased the fire beneath her cheeks. The sheer relief in his expression doubled her embarrassment. His eyes no longer clouded by fever, the thought of such intimacy with someone like her likely repulsed him. Alarmed by the moisture burning her eyes, Maggie turned toward the stove.
“I was disrespectful.”
Startled by the voice directly behind her, Maggie spun around. He stood a foot away, his fingers tucked into his pant pockets, his expression nothing short of miserable.
“I am truly sorry.”
The ache in her chest intensified. “Okay,” she said, hardly able to breathe the word.
“It ain’t a wonder you’ve looked on the verge of skinning me. I’d be gunning for any man who’d treated my sister in such a way. Honest to God, I thought you were a dream. I couldn’t imagine why else I’d be in bed beside such a…”
Maggie steeled herself for the insult. Hag? Shrew? She’d heard them all, whispers of townsfolk when she’d venture into a settlement.
“Beautiful woman. I figured I must be dead or dreaming.”
Surprise rippled through her. Was he mocking her?
He took a step back, caution darkening his gaze—the effect she was used to having on folks—and Maggie realized she was glaring at him.
“Did you really drag me two miles through the snow?”
She wanted to rage at him to keep backing up, to sit down and shut up until he cleared out…but she couldn’t. His solemn gaze choked her anger and put an ache in her belly. He felt bad—she didn’t know why that should soften her rage, figuring he ought to feel real bad and then some for all he’d put her through. It had been sheer hell, having her hands all over him while fighting the memory of his sweet words and even sweeter mouth.
“I had a sled,” she told him, his silent guilt wearing on her nerves. “Not that it made the climb an easy one.”
“Thank you.”
His gaze held hers as an unfamiliar surge twisted through her, feelings she couldn’t identify.
“Guess I can’t blame you for not wanting to share your name after the way I shamed you. Don’t blame you a bit for reactin’ so hostile. I’ll admit, for a moment there, I thought you might be the woman they call Mad Mag. I swear, I—”
“Grace.” She blurted out her middle name, the first that came to mind.
“I beg your pardon?”
Realizing she’d shouted the name at him, she dragged in a calming breath. “My name is Grace.”
His stormy eyes warmed as his lips curved into a grin.
Sweet mercy.
“You look like a Grace.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That it’s a pretty name.”
She blinked against a sudden burning in her eyes. She had to get out of here. She couldn’t breathe with him standing so close. “You still have food on the table.”
He gave a nod and turned away from her. “I have a niece named Grace. She and her sister are six years old and cute as buttons.”
The moment his butt touched down on the chair she made a dash for her coat and shrugged into the heavy fur as she reached for the door.
“Where are you—?”
“Wood box,” she said, stepping into a burst of cold wind. “Boots!”
Garret watched his dog dash outside. She slammed the door before he could offer another word, much less any assistance.
His elbows hit the table as a hard breath broke from his lungs. He rubbed a hand over his face and the four days’ worth of growth on his chin. He must look like a polar bear. He’d clearly displayed all the manners of one.
Maybe Duce was right and he needed to find himself a steady girl at the Gilded Lady. He’d given it a shot, but after having his own woman in his own bed, weekend romps just didn’t appeal to him. A hell of an inconvenience for a man with no wife. The thought of seeking out any of the single young ladies in town left him cold and irritable. He flat didn’t trust those inviting smiles and batting lashes.
Instead of carousing or courtship, he’d assaulted a decent woman who’d saved his life.
What a fine mess.
He ate the last of his stew wondering all the while what had happened to Grace for her to end up alone in this cave. Done up as it was, the stone enclosure was still a cave in the heart of wild country. And she shouldn’t be out there in that wind!
He stood, his sore muscles complaining as he collected the empty dishes on the table. It would take another day before he’d be of any use. A full stomach didn’t do anything but sap the last of his strength. Not that she’d welcome his help.
Damn it.
Spotting her shotgun still propped inside the door, he knew he was lucky she hadn’t reached for her gun and loaded him full of buckshot after the liberties he’d taken. Would have served him right.
He stepped up to a washstand wedged between her pantry and the empty wood box. Finding a jar of dishrags, he took one and wiped out the bowls then set them in the basin. He lifted the kettle from the stove and scalded the tin with the hot water. Grace returned as he was stacking the dishes in her pantry. Didn’t take but a glance at her wide blue eyes to gauge her wariness.
Boots trotted in before her, his wet paws tracking prints across the floor she’d already mopped up once today.
She kicked the door closed behind them and stood there, her arms loaded down with wood.
“I’ll wipe up the floor,” he said, turning to find another rag.
“No.”
The single words stopped him.
“You should lie down.”
He figured that was her way of telling him to get the hell away from her. Tiny thing that she was, he didn’t doubt his size made her nervous. He backed toward the bed. His dog seemed to know the routine, having lain back down in his corner without prompting.
She didn’t take a step forward until Garret eased onto the mattress. She dropped the firewood into the box beside her stove, her gaze moving over the sink basin and the dishes he’d rinsed and put away. She fetched the drying sheet from the back of her chair and dropped it on the damp floor. Her foot dragged the cloth across the puddles as she watched him.
“If I can help with anything—”
“You can help by resting.”
“Two days abed should have been enough,” he said, hating that he felt so damn useless.
“You were sick.”
Red rimmed her eyes. He imagined she hadn’t slept much in the past three days.
“Doesn’t look like you’ve had much sleep at all.”
“I’ll sleep just fine once you’re gone.”
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Stacey Kayne
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: In bed with the cowboy!Fourteen years ago a terrified young Maggie Grace fled into the wilderness of the Wyoming mountains, where she has lived alone ever since. Until she finds cowboy Garret Daines, lying unconscious in a blizzard.Snowbound in Maggie’s cabin, sharing the only bed with this beautiful wild woman, brings Garret’s body – and guarded heart – pulsing back to life. Garret is the only man ever to show Maggie any kindness, and the walls around her heart begin to crumble.But, no matter the bond they forge to overcome the threat against them, she won’t let herself be easily tamed…