Bounty Hunter (6 page)

Ignoring all the reasons he shouldn’t, he touched her shoulder, urging her to gaze
at him. She did. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. I stayed in the stream a bit longer
than I thought.” He didn’t add that she would have been a helluva lot more embarrassed
if he hadn’t. He lifted his hand and slipped on his shirt. He quickly fastened the
buttons of the faded red cotton favorite, then held his arms out wide. “Is that better?”

“Yes. I mean, you were fine … really … fine, before.” She looked away. “I don’t know
why I’m acting like such an idiot.”

Thinking of his own feelings, he seconded the notion. Especially as he heard himself
ask, “Would you prefer I leave it off?”

Her head whipped around. “No! That is, listen, I’m starving. Why don’t we try and
catch dinner?”

He hid his smile at her too-quick response. Starving. So was he. And fish was the
farthest thing from his mind. He’d wondered earlier about her reaction to him. Not
that he’d staged this little scene to find out, but he couldn’t argue that the results
had been … stimulating. He frowned. “Yeah, dinner. Maybe that’s not a bad idea.”

She walked across the clearing, strolled almost,
then turned to face him once she was safely on the other side of the fire. “So, Eyes
of the Hawk,” she asked with a bright smile, “how do we catch them? With our bare
hands?”

“We could.”

She stared at him for a moment, apparently trying to determine if he was serious.
She went on before he could elaborate.

“Correction.
You
could. I didn’t excel in eye-hand coordination skills in school. And I have to admit
I’m not too partial to standing in freezing water while I practice, either. How about
you catch, I cook?”

He couldn’t recall having the desire to smile so often in a long while. Elizabeth
Ann—though he already found himself thinking of her as Annie—may be taken, but there
was no law that said he couldn’t enjoy her company.

“I said, we
could.
But I was planning on a more traditional approach.” He walked over to a tall larch
closer to the water’s edge and lifted two slender branches that had been leaning against
the trunk. He’d tied some fine string to the end of each one and fashioned hooks from
two pieces of wire.

He motioned her to follow him as he turned and headed up the bank a few yards. “I
found a likely spot up here,” he called over his shoulder. “Biggest catch cooks, smallest
cleans the fish.”

He hoisted himself up on a rock and baited their hooks. She caught up to him a second
later and after a brief hesitation, scooted onto the spot next to him.
She smelled like preserves. He’d detected the sweet scent earlier, by the fire, but
thought it was the jam in the basket she’d carried. His mouth watered, and he deliberately
turned his head away.

She plopped her line into the water. “You’d better hope I catch a monster, because
I’ve never cooked a fish that can still stare at me.”

Kane gave in to the urge to smile. They sat in silence for a while, each had had a
few nibbles, but no luck so far. Kane’s stomach was growling, he was tired and frustrated
with his indecision about what he was going to do with her. Just then she got another
tug, and with a yank, a fish flopped on top of the water. She turned a triumphant
smile on Kane, and suddenly he was having the time of his life.

“Careful, or you’ll pull the hook right out of him,” he cautioned.

Not listening to him, too caught up in her little drama, she alternately yanked and
pulled the rod one way then the other. Finally, on a frustrated growl she whipped
the pole back, and the fish literally flew out of the water.

It landed directly in his lap.

She gasped. “I’m sorry!”

Kane jumped and would have scrambled to his feet had Annie not instinctively dived
after the slippery trout.

“Sit still so I can get a hold on him,” she instructed as she grappled with the elusive
fish.

Kane gritted his teeth as her hands grappled with him as well. “Annie, stop.”

“If you’d just—”

He caught her wrists in a tight grip. “I’ll get the fish. It’s not as if it’s going
to do any damage.” He had pulled her against his chest, and she lay sprawled half
in his lap. He couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from her.

“I’m sorry,” she said at length. The fish slapped against his thigh with an audible
thwack, and she blushed. “I told you my eye-hand coordination stunk.”

Kane grabbed the fish, biting down hard on the urge to tell her that her hands had
been doing just fine. And as for those soft brown eyes … And those lips … He began
lowering his head to hers before he even realized his intention.

“Kane?”

“Mmm?” he whispered, more intrigued by the breathy quality of her voice as she said
his name, then what her use of it implied. He inhaled her scent as her lips parted
on a sigh. He lifted his hand to cup her head and was yanked back to reality when
the fish he’d been holding in it slipped to the rock and began flopping.

Annie tumbled from his lap as they both reached for the squirming fish.

“I got it.” Kane grunted as he twisted back to a sitting position, tightening his
grip on the fish and his still-rocketing hormones. “Nice catch,” he grumbled, then
made himself turn to look at her. She had righted herself, but her hair was sticking
out at odd angles, her cheeks were flushed, and her
brown eyes had never been so bright. He smiled. “Even if your form is original.”

Her blush deepened, but she managed to smile. “Hey, don’t knock it. At least I caught
one.”

If asked, he couldn’t have said what made him do it. The challenge in her eyes? Or
maybe it was the need to immerse some part of his body in cold water again before
he did something really stupid—such as kiss her sweet, wisecracking mouth until neither
one of them cared about marriage vows and ugly pasts.

When he realized that idea turned him on more than it bothered him, he swiftly bent
to roll up his jeans’ legs, then waded into the stream. It took considerable control
not to suck in his breath. Even in July, streams close to the Canadian border remained
frigid. He motioned for her to be quiet by placing a finger across his lips.

He turned away when she adopted a “Who me?” look then composed her face into the picture
of serious contemplation. Enjoying her company was one thing, but he hoped he had
enough brains left to realize that letting her know how much he did wasn’t going to
help either one of them when he took her back to Boise.

That thought managed to do what the cold water hadn’t, and he shut off his mind completely
and concentrated on the task at hand.

He plunged his hands into the frigid stream for the third time and finally captured
his prey. “Good thing,” he muttered under his breath as he yanked the fish up and
hooked his numbed fingers in the gills. His toes had lost all feeling about ten minutes
earlier, and he didn’t think he had a fourth try in him.

He waded ashore and tossed the fish in the bucket beside Annie.

“Wow! How’d you do that? I’ve heard of people catching fish with their bare hands,
but I’ve never actually seen it. Mrs. Wadlow would have loved you.”

“Who’s Mrs. Wadlow?”

“My first grade teacher. That woman made it her mission in life to get me to be able
to play a simple game of jacks.”

“Did she succeed?”

“I’ll put it this way; thank goodness jack skills aren’t required learning for secretarial
school.”

Kane lifted the bucket and held out his hand. She stared at it for a moment before
reaching for it.

Her hand was a lot smaller than his, and he remembered how slim her wrists had been
when he’d grabbed them. The fragility implied in that was directly at odds with the
rough calluses that briefly scraped his palm before she let go.
Why have you done this to yourself?
he wanted to ask. He resisted the urge to curl his fingers into a fist, as if he
could hold the feel of her there.

They’d gone several steps when he asked, “Is
that what you were before coming here?” At her blank look, he said, “A secretary,
I mean.”

“Oh, that. Yes, I was.”

“You plan on going back to it?”

They were close to the clearing before she answered. He wondered if she was really
undecided or simply not certain whether to trust him.

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I leave here.”

Kane knew she spoke the truth. “I guess if you’re going to the trouble to expand your
jams and preserves operation, you must be planning to stay here for a while.”

She cast a quick glance at him as they crossed the clearing to the fire, which had
burned down to glowing embers. “At least until my brother comes back from overseas.”

Kane tensed at the unexpected answer but quickly willed himself to relax. He knew
from his research that Matthew Lawson was out of the country on some sort of job for
the government, which Annie had corroborated the day before. He also knew she hadn’t
left him a note of any kind. He’d found a small safe in the back bedroom, but it had
been empty. He doubted it had been that way when Annie arrived. There had been no
activity on her personal accounts at Sam’s bank, nor on any of her three credit cards.
She hadn’t come this far north and lived for several months on jam money.

“You said you didn’t see him often. When do you expect him? The holidays?” Kane kept
the
questions casual, hoping she’d take them as typical get-to-know-you interest.

“Sooner, I hope,” she said, her tone undeniably fervent. “I really miss him.”

Before he could frame the next question, she turned to him and asked, “How about you?
You said you left Fort Hall as a teenager. Do you ever see your family?”

He should have expected the question, but he hadn’t. Maybe because she seemed so sincere.
It had been a very long time since anyone had expressed enough interest in him to
ask about his personal life. That realization didn’t disturb him half as much as discovering
he didn’t mind answering her.

“No. I have no contact with my family.”

“You never went back, did you?” Her voice was even, with no trace of pity or censure.

“Once.”

She waited for him to continue.

“My grandmother died about ten years ago. I was in my early twenties then. I went
back when I heard.”

He squatted by the fire and concentrated on filleting the fish and arranging them
on the makeshift grill.

“But you didn’t stay.”

“No. Cloud Dancer had spent many years trying to instill in me the pride of my people,
my heritage. I resented it then.”

“But you understand it better now.”

He looked up at her, locking his gaze on hers.
There was so much wisdom in those deep brown eyes. “Yes.”

She held his gaze until the snapping of the fire made him turn his attention back
to the fish. Out of the corner of his eyes, he watched her retrieve the jam and biscuits
along with the blanket she’d brought, and set about arranging them under the larches
by the water.

He breathed a small sigh of relief that she’d let the topic drop. After all, he was
there to get information out of her. Not the other way around.

Once the fish were cooking, he brushed his hands and moved to stand.

“You seem very proud of your Native American heritage,” she began.

He stilled for a moment, then continued to stretch into a standing position. “I am.”

“Why did you leave the first time? I guess it’s just that I miss my brother and can’t
understand why anyone would willingly leave such a special part of himself behind.”

He walked over to the blanket, his tall form casting a shadow over her. In a quiet,
even voice he said, “Maybe it wasn’t so special when I left.”

She held his gaze. “And now?”

He sighed. The woman was nothing if not tenacious. “And now my family is gone. There
is nothing for me there.”

She curled onto her knees and started to reach out to touch his leg, then checked
the motion. She
settled back on her heels instead. “I shouldn’t have asked. I won’t bring it up again.”

He was surprised at how disappointed he was that she hadn’t touched him. He could
almost feel her small callused hand on him, on his leg, higher …

He growled and swung around, stalking back to the fire. “The fish will be ready in
a few minutes.” He kept his back to her and needlessly poked at the embers with a
long stick.

“I’m glad you’re here, Kane Hawthorne.”

Kane hung his head and softly swore every curse he knew in the English language, then
switched to his native tongue and exhausted those too. “I wish I could say the same,
sweet Annie,” he said under his breath. “I wish to hell I could say the same.”

FOUR