“All right, then.” Dean stood and kicked the bed leg. Maggie glared. She’d gladly stake him out on an anthill, but not before she’d doused him in honey. “If I take that gag out of your mouth, will you keep quiet?”
She kept looking daggers at him.
“Yeah, yeah, I didn’t think so.”
He settled his hat down low over his eyes. He rubbed a hand across the stubble on his jaw. Unlike the clean-shaven man he’d once been, he’d gotten used to being scruffy as he rode the trails.
Finally, he stood over her. “You know, Maggie, I’m curious. Do you live your whole life the hard way?”
In response, she kicked at him. He hopped out of the way and yanked his Bowie knife out of the back of his gun belt. Her eyes went about as wide as tea saucers. Dean only shook his head. “I’m not out to kill you.” He sliced through the tether he’d run to the bed and tucked his knife away. “Not unless you try to kill me first.”
He scooped her up off the bed and tossed her over his shoulder like a calf. She was about as helpful as a calf, as well, trying to wiggle her way down his back.
“Goddamn it,” he exclaimed. He shifted his grip and gave her ass a sharp swat. For all its smallness, her posterior gave nicely under the spanking. An ass like that was worthy of much time and attention in another place and time. And from another man. “All you’ll do is land on your fool head if I let go.”
She slumped into dead weight.
He grabbed his saddlebag and tossed it over his other shoulder. As he made his way down the narrow back stairs intended for servants, he said a quick prayer of thanks her weight was so slight. Their horses were waiting outside, saddled and bright eyed. A stable boy held their reins. His jaw dropped open when he saw Maggie draped over Dean’s shoulder.
Dean propped her on her feet but kept a tight grip on her arm. He flipped a coin to the boy, who reached up and snatched it out of the air. “You didn’t see anything.”
“’Course not, sir.” The gangly kid bobbed his head in a halfhearted bow and took off at a dead run for the stables. Likely to find his nearest buddy and run his mouth off with the story.
Dean shrugged. It didn’t particularly matter. All his paperwork was in order, and he had the right to parade Maggie past the local magistrate if he so chose. He just figured it’d be easier to avoid the dramatics.
He turned back to Maggie, who’d stood quietly next to him through the short exchange. It’d be too much to hope that such actions boded well for the rest of the trip. Indeed, she was still shooting him dead with her eyes.
Grabbing his knife again, he raised an eyebrow at her. “Better keep still, wildcat. I wouldn’t want to slice you up.”
Her mouth worked behind the gag, but she didn’t try to kick him when he went to bended knee before her. The big knife sliced easily through her ankle ties. He quickly sheathed it again, and grabbed her up by the waist. After tossing her up on her own horse, he looped rawhide from the ties at her wrists to the saddle horn. He cinched them tight. If her hands turned blue, it’d be her own damn fault for fighting.
Grabbing her reins, he swung up into his own saddle. Next to him, she grunted and squealed behind the gag. She jerked her chin at the reins.
“What, these?” he asked, twitching the reins. “I promise I won’t hurt your mare’s mouth, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
She rolled her eyes and jerked her chin again, this time from the reins he held to her own hands.
“You’ve lost the last ounce of your sense if you think I’m handing them over.” He didn’t sit around waiting for her death look. Picking up his own leather leads, he clucked to the gelding who’d been his closest friend for nigh on four years.
The sooner he could get them back to Fresh Springs, the better.
Hours down the road, he led them through a grove of pines until he found a clearing. He hauled Maggie off her horse, but when the hem of her skirt caught on the stirrup, he almost lost his balance. He staggered back a step, with her plastered against him.
Her curves fit too perfectly to his body and his jaw barely brushed the crown of her head. She’d be exactly the right height to fuck standing up, while she braced her hands against a wall and angled her hips back into his thrusts.
How in the name of God did she smell good after hours on a horse? No identifiable perfume or flowery scent overwhelmed him, just the scent of warm clean female.
He led her to a fallen log. “Sit.”
She obeyed, but she didn’t look happy about it.
“Now look,” he said as he crouched down next to her. “I’m about to take the gag out of your mouth. I’m sure you must be parched.”
She nodded, her hair still loose about her shoulders. It was a dark, rich brown and in the sunlight there was an occasional glint of red he hadn’t noticed before.
“You can scream all you like, but there’s no one around for miles. All you’re going to do is dry your mouth out even more.”
Her eyes narrowed in calculation. But she must have worked the logic through, because she only nodded calmly. He slipped the knot free behind her head and offered her a canteen of water. She gulped it down greedily, a stream dribbling down her chin. He moved toward her with the bandana, but she flinched and glared at him. She wiped her mouth with her forearm.
Dean shrugged and stuck the cloth in his back pocket.
Finally, she lowered the canteen. He held out a strip of dried beef.
Her lips tilted up on one side and she waggled her fingers. “I can’t take both unless you untie me.”
He took the water from her hands and replaced it with a strip of jerky. “I’m not quite fool enough to fall for that one.”
“No? I’m shocked.” Her straight white teeth stripped off a piece of the jerky with an unsurprising viciousness.
Dean took a swig from the canteen, placing his lips against the same spot her smooth mouth had been. She hadn’t left him much, but at least it was still cool. He also had more attached to his saddlebags, of course. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s easier to catch flies with honey than vinegar?”
She chuckled as she worried at the jerky. “While I’m perfectly willing to believe you’re as nasty as a fly, by no stretch of the imagination am I trying to catch you.”
Dean tossed the last bite of his jerky over his shoulder into the woods. “This is going to be one damned long ride,” he muttered.
“It doesn’t have to be.” She turned toward him on the log. Her knees brushed his thigh. Though there were at least two layers of skirts and petticoats between them, not to mention his own wool trousers, Dean’s skin pulled tight. Since their fights didn’t hardly count, a gently bred woman had not touched him in years. His dick couldn’t help but fly to visions of the two of them intimately entwined. But his mind knew better.
She wound her fingers together in supplication. “We’re only a couple hours out. Let me go back and be with my father.” Her slender throat worked as she choked on what she tried to say next. “Please,” she finally spat.
He stood and popped the cap back in the canteen. “No.”
She turned forward and hooked her wrists over her knees. “Haven’t you ever lost someone important to you? Can’t you even try to understand?”
He went back to his horse and tucked the canteen into the saddlebag. This whole situation was fucked. Nothing had called his wife to mind as frequently as the past two days. He’d worked damned hard not to have to think of her. Doing whatever the hell he had to. Staying drunk for days. Picking fights with the biggest, baddest men around. All because thinking about Annie meant thinking about her death. And if he thought about her death too often, he’d go stark-raving mad.
“You don’t have a monopoly on loss, Maggie Bullock.” He checked his horse’s girth strap to ensure it was still tight. “And the rest of us don’t run around robbing banks any time we’re crossed.”
Her chin rose and she skewered him with a narrow-eyed look. “I did what I had to do. I wouldn’t take it back.”
On some level, Dean understood. But even tracking Curt Whitson and shooting him down in the middle of a dusty street hadn’t brought Annie and Jack back. With three shots, he’d blown a fist-sized hole in his head. And loved every second. Watching Whitson’s blood pool in the dirt had been the closest thing to pleasure he’d experienced since his world crumbled. He’d have resurrected Whitson like Lazarus, just for the pleasure of killing him again. Instead, he’d found other men to kill.
He shook free of the memories. Sometimes it seemed Annie had taken everything good of his soul with her.
“It’s time to go.”
Maggie stood abruptly and her body coiled as if she’d run. Dean was back at her side in three steps. He grabbed her arm. “Don’t even try it,” he growled.
“I wasn’t,” she said. She pushed her hair back out of her face. “I wasn’t trying anything.”
“Keep it that way.” He ought to put the gag back in. Though he’d chosen a backwater route that would keep them out of sight, there was always the chance of being noticed. Having Maggie forcefully quieted would certainly reduce it. But the cloth in her mouth would keep stealing her moisture and result in dehydration.
He led her back to her horse and dumped her in her saddle.
She kicked out at him, but it seemed a half-hearted effort, not meant to wound. This time. “Would you please stop tossing me around like so much chattel?”
He paused in drawing out the hank of twine needed to tie her up. “Excuse me?”
“I assure you I’m perfectly capable of getting on my own mount, even with my hands tied.”
“Somehow, I’ve no doubt of that.” He bound her to the saddle horn again. “This is your regular horse, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Her bottom lip pouted, looking imminently bitable. “Sandie’s been mine since she was foaled.”
“Sandie?” The damn horse was about as far from a sandy color as possible. Instead, its coat was a rich brown, almost as dark as its mistress’s hair.
“Yes.” She hesitated, her thick lashes shielding her thoughts for a moment. “Whatever happens…please see her kept safe. Please?”
He threatened to kill her and only got more fighting. But she’d beg for her horse’s safety. Dean shook his head as he grabbed up her reins and mounted his own horse.
The woman was about as plumb confusing as a gun-toting, hard-drinking preacher. So many contradictions and cross-purposes, he didn’t have a chance at figuring her out. Good thing he didn’t have any plans to do so before he dumped her at Masterson’s feet.
They rode long and hard, until Maggie was about as sore as she had ever been. She was used to long trail rides on her father’s land, but it wasn’t the same thing. For one, she’d never ridden an entire day with her hands bound to her saddle.
It made her nervous. She’d trained innumerable hours with Sandie, to the point where the mare anticipated the slightest shift of Maggie’s thighs. It wouldn’t take much to get Sandie to canter off, but then what would she do? The reins were tied to the rifle loop on Collier’s saddle. Even if Sandie was willing to risk her mouth being ripped to shreds by the bit, Maggie didn’t think they had much chance of escape. A good three hands taller than her horse, Collier’s gelding had the long legs and deep chest of a good runner.
Much like its owner.
With nothing to do but stare at the trees or brood on her captor, Maggie chose brooding.
But keeping her anger up while maintaining a proper seat on the horse when her hands were tied, was exhausting. Downright bone sapping. The inside of her thighs burned and her lower back felt like a bobcat had sunk its claws in her. Her dress wasn’t made to ride astride in, so it had drawn up indecently high around her calves, and they’d been rubbed raw on the bottom edge of the saddle.
By the time Collier led them away from the trail and into the woods to a stream, she’d just about figured her brain was too tired for any thought whatsoever.
So when he swung off his gelding and it struck Maggie what a nicely formed posterior he had, she nearly squeaked in shock. The rest of him was prime stock as well, from his solid shoulders to the narrow hips his gun belt slung over. She even liked his thick forearms, with their golden dusting of hair that edged out beneath his shirt cuffs, and the rough turn of his neck into his shoulder.
She wasn’t completely ignorant of relations between men and women, no matter how Father and Robert had tried to shield her. After all, two of her friends were married and Eloisa even had a darling baby girl. Though neither Eloisa nor Patricia would tell more than the basic details, Maggie understood lust and how it worked.
She’d just thought she had more brains than to become attracted to the man who’d abducted her.
As a result, when Collier appeared at her side to untie her hands from the saddle, she flinched.
He sighed. “I’m really not out to hurt you.” He flicked the twine free with a couple quick motions. “Not unless you try to hurt me first.”
She slid off Sandie and tried to twist the pain out of her back. It didn’t work. Collier uncinched the saddles and set them side by side, then pulled the blankets off the horses. Those he draped over a nearby branch. He plucked a flat-backed brush from a bag and wiped the salt-flecked sweat from his gelding. Maggie took that as her cue to sit a spell. She leaned back against her saddle and let the tightness slip from her spine.
He threw a disgusted look over his shoulder. “You know, you could help out a little.”
She waved her tied-together hands. “Untie me and I’d love to.” She gave him her biggest smile. “I tell you what, you untie me and I’ll even cook
and
clean up after.”
He snorted a rough approximation of a laugh and shook his head. “I slip those loose, you’ll be gone before I can even blink.”
Maggie settled into the saddle and stretched her legs. “Then, I guess I’ll just watch.”
He groomed both horses and set them to grazing at the far side of the clearing, downstream of the creek. She watched while he built a fire and put together a meal of more beef jerky and beans, then dished it into tin bowls. The beans were bland but edible and she slurped them down thankfully. Her belly had needed something warmer and more filling than the jerky and hard tack he’d been feeding her all day.
She handed back the bowl. “I can promise anything I’d cook would have been better.”
He took their tinware over to the creek and washed them out. “I’d be surprised if it didn’t. Women are usually better cooks. It’s where they need to focus their attention.” His lips relaxed into a near-smile. “Not on robbing banks.”
“Hmm.” She drew her knees up under her skirts, then wiggled her fingertips under her thighs. “The male gender would likely be befuddled by their inability to stop such a crime wave.”
Collier nodded. “Right. Because you’ve done a bang-up job eluding me.”
“Damn you, Collier.”
He moved back to the bags and tucked away their bowls, along with the small pot he’d cooked with. “You don’t much like being confronted with the truth, now do you?”
“There’s truth, and then there’s truth.”
He shook his bedroll out alongside the fire. “You mean there’s the real truth, and then there’s your version.”
“Sometimes you have to take a person’s motives into account.” Through her skirt, she poked at the sore spot on the inside of her calf and winced from the pain.
Dean froze in the process of smoothing out his bed and narrowed his eyes at her. “What was that?”
“Motives. Why a body does something.”
“No. Your leg. What’s wrong with your leg?”
She yanked her hem from her ankles to cover her toes. “Nothing.”
“Didn’t look like nothing.” He crouched down beside her and grabbed hold of her hem.
Maggie scrambled back, but the saddle she’d been leaning against got in the way. “Hey now! Stop that. I didn’t say you could touch me.”
His expression implacable, he kept after her like some sort of clockwork machinery. “And I can’t afford to have you injured. We’ve got a long way to go.”
Her heart was trying to claw its way up through her throat. “It’s nothing.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” He lifted her skirt a few inches and a muscle in front of his ear twitched. “You’ve rubbed yourself raw.”
She twitched her knees to the side and yanked her hem out of his grasp. It flittered back down to her feet. She’d never thought the first time a man got a glimpse beneath her skirts there would be such a lack of prurient interest. “It’s just a saddle sore. Not a matter of importance.”
“It will be if it gets infected. We’ve got three weeks on the trail to get through. And I’ll be goddamned if I’ll pay for a doctor for you.” He surged to his feet and took a small jar of salve from his bags. “This’ll help.”
She stuck her hands out. “I’ll do it.”
“Well enough.” He tossed the salve underhand. She managed to catch it in the air and snatch it to her chest, though it bobbled at the last second.
Unscrewing the lid was tough enough with her hands tied, but actually getting the oily salve on her skin proved near on impossible. There was no way she could hold her skirt up out of the way unless she scooped the whole thing into her lap, which would bare a lot more of her legs than made her comfortable. Especially considering how Collier was staring at her.
She fumbled at her dress, trying to hold it out of the way with her elbow. Instead, she poked herself right on the raw spot. As pain singed down to her toes, she hissed. “Goddamn it,” she muttered. “You could untie me, you know.”
“You stubborn little twit.” Collier snatched the small jar out of her hands and lifted her skirt just enough to expose the three-inch raw welt above her boot. “Hold this.”
“If I’m stubborn, you’re made out of rock.” She held her skirts, pouting the whole time.
His hands moved efficiently, dabbing on the soothing salve. Robert had always implied that if a man found a woman attractive, he’d find any excuse to touch her. But Collier’s fingers went absolutely nowhere but the wound.
Maggie was relieved. Truly she was. The melodrama of the situation would be greatly complicated by attraction on either side. Righteous anger flooded back into her, spurred on by a full belly and the stinging pain of her leg easing way under the cool balm he’d applied. He was no better than he ought to be, which meant he could be bought. “I could pay you.”
“I thought you needed all that gold to pay for your father’s treatment.” He screwed the lid back on the little crockware pot and wiped his hands on the wool encasing his solid-looking thighs. “There. Should be well enough until the morning.”
“I couldn’t exactly walk in there and say, ‘I need precisely this amount and no more,’ now could I?” She pulled her skirts back down, wishing she could leave them up and fan air over the wound. But that would be beyond indecent. Though being a hoyden seemed inevitable, considering she’d been raised mostly by her father and brother, her mother’s ghost still haunted her. Usually as a reminder of proper behavior.
“I won’t be bribed.” He went back to setting up the bedrolls.
“What could my bounty possibly be? Fifty dollars? A hundred? I’ll double it.”
He shot a wry look over his shoulder. “You don’t have a bounty.”
She sat bolt upright. “I don’t? Then why are you doing this?”
“Masterson’s offered me something more than cash payment.” He grabbed her bedroll from the stack of their belongings.
“What’s he offer—Hey now, I want my bunk on the other side of the fire.” He’d laid her blankets out alongside his.
“I don’t believe I gave you a choice.”
She harrumphed. “I can see that.” She pressed her legs together and laced her fingers over her knees. Her heart thumped hard at the thought of sleeping so near any man, especially this one. “I’m not comfortable sleeping next to you.”
“I believe we’ve established I’m not particularly concerned with your comfort.”
She rotated her wrists. The ties were starting to rub her raw. “That’s perfectly clear.”
“All right, up you go.” He loomed over her. The light was fading from the day, leaving him a ghostly gray outline.
She scrambled to her feet quickly, and shook fallen leaves off her skirt. “I’m going to have to change.”
He grabbed her saddle and laid it at the top of her blankets. “Now?”
“Does it matter? I’ll sleep better in my other clothes.”
“If I allow this, do you think you might manage to shut up for a spell?” He heaved a great, gusting sigh, as if Maggie’s mission in life was to annoy him. Perhaps it was. She rather liked the idea.
“Of course. Though I don’t know that I can promise exactly how long.”
“Fine,” he grumped.
Getting her trousers and shirt from the saddlebag with her hands tied together was awkward, but she managed. She’d be damned if she would ask him to handle her clean pantaloons. Once she scooped the bundle up in her arms, she turned back to him. “You simply must untie my hands. There’s no way around this one.”
“I know.” He slid the big knife out of its sheath. She was coming to loathe that thing. “But I’ll be within arm’s reach. Don’t get any ideas, or I’ll be forced to make the trip back to Arizona with your carcass.”
She shuddered. There was no doubt he’d do it. Despite her earlier impression of his gentlemanly manner, he seemed that cold. “I have to take care of certain business, as well. Will you at least turn your back?”
He nodded and led her into the woods a few feet. “But I better hear clothing rustling, or I’ll be getting an eyeful right quick.” The blunt edge of the knife was cool against her skin as he snicked the tip through the twine right at the knot before turning around to face their small camp.
Maggie moved as fast as possible, which meant naturally she got caught up in her bodice because she didn’t unbutton enough. “Damn and hell nation,” she muttered, through the cloth covering her face.
“That mouth is going to get you in trouble some day,” Dean said.
She fumbled at the caught button. Her fingers felt as thick as redwood trunks, for all their usefulness. “Already has, more times than I can count.”
“I’m not surprised. I also don’t hear any clothing moving.”
“Rustle,” she snapped as she finally slipped loose the button. “Rustle, rustle, rustle.” She fought free of the dress and tossed it down. “I was stuck.”
“Need help?” He stood with his feet apart, his thumbs slung in the gun belt that looped low around his narrow hips. Since he’d tossed his hat to the side after the sun dipped below the surrounding trees, his hair was exposed. Freshly shorn, judging from a white tan line at the nape of his neck. But the top was still long enough for a woman to wrap her fingers through and yank his face down to hers.
She shook her head and ignored the tender swelling of her body. She was certainly an unnatural young lady. If riding horses astride and robbing banks didn’t prove it, the naughty thoughts filling her mind certainly did.
He shifted his boots and started to twist his shoulders. “Well? I don’t hear what I need to.”
“Don’t you dare move!” She yanked her shirt on and did up the front placket in a sure-fire hurry. Her trousers came next, and then she took care of her necessaries. She refused to feel embarrassed. Absolutely refused to, as it was a luxury she simply had no time for. That she was in this position was Collier’s fault; if anyone were to feel embarrassment, it should be him.
Her cheeks burned hot anyway.
“All right.” She bundled her dress up and strode to the blankets. “Time to sleep.”
Collier was right behind her. “Hands out.”
She bit back the nasty curse on her tongue, half hoping that if she seemed to be cooperative, he’d forget about the restraints. No such luck. She presented her wrists and managed not to spew the invectives she’d like to.
But then, to add insult to injury, he ran a cord from her wrists to his gun belt.
“Oh, come on now.” She tugged at the rope. “Is this really necessary?”
“I’m about done with this. Talking to you is like talking to a brick wall.” He sat down and gave a sharp tug at the rope.
She was forced to her knees to avoid falling flat on her face. “Funny, I was about to say the same thing about you.”
He took his pistol out of its holster and slid it half under his saddle, on the far side from her, of course. Lying flat, he stretched his legs out and crossed his boots at the ankle. He shut his eyes as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
Maggie lay down as well, but turned away from him. The rope cut across her body, under her ribs. She pulled at it, but in response Collier yanked as well. She was obligated to roll onto her back. She stared up at the first glinting star that had popped out in the clear sky.