Pete (The Cowboys) (33 page)

But even as that thought went through one part of her head, a contradictory thought emerged from another. Pete wasn’t going to kill her because Pete wasn’t a murderer. It went against logic and the evidence as she saw it, but she absolutely could not believe Pete—what did he say his last name was? Jernigan?—could kill anyone.

That argument had gone through her head all day. Time and time again she’d gone over all the reasons why Pete had to be lying. Over and over she’d proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that Pete was the worst villain unhanged. And every time, her heart had refused to accept it. She hoped it was her heart. She’d hate to think her brain was that stupid.

But if he was the killer, why hadn’t he tried to get away as quickly as possible? He didn’t need to bring her along. He didn’t need to go deep into the mountains. He could have been in Colorado by now, well beyond Mason’s reach. Instead he was taking care of the horses and getting ready to cook her supper. The only way any of this made sense was that Pete was telling the truth, that all the evidence pointed in the wrong direction.

But that was more than Anne’s rational brain could accept. Maybe she couldn’t believe he was a killer, but she couldn’t believe he was innocent either. She realized that was a stupid way to think, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t know what to believe anymore.

He’d given her a gun. She could shoot him, grab a horse, and follow the creek back. Someone would find her.

She tried to get to her feet and failed. She couldn’t even stand up. She certainly couldn’t steal a horse and run away. She turned on her hands and knees and crawled over to a tree. Bracing her hands against the trunk—the rough bark hurt as it dug into her soft palms—she pulled one leg up until it was beneath her. Using all her strength, she pulled the other under her. The pain was terrible. She thought she would scream. She waited without moving until the abused muscles began to relax. Then she waited a little longer. She knew the next part would be the hardest, the most painful. She heard Pete enter the trees. She was determined to be standing when he reached her. Taking a big breath and gritting her teeth, Anne forced herself to stand up.

At first she thought she couldn’t do it. Her muscles simply wouldn’t respond. She willed them to lift her, but nothing happened. Then, gradually, they lifted her inch by inch toward a standing position. If the pain had been awful before, it was excruciating now. But Pete was coming closer. She was determined to be on her feet. With one last superhuman effort, she made it upright.

She was standing.

“I told you not to move,” Pete said. He raced to catch her before she fell. “You shouldn’t have done this. You could have hurt yourself.”

Hurt didn’t begin to cover the situation. Half kill herself was a lot closer. Pete settled her back down on the blanket.

“Now lie down. I’m going to massage your muscles to get some of the kinks out.”

“I had to stand up,” Anne said. She couldn’t explain why she couldn’t lie there waiting for him to come back and take care of her. She had to do something for herself. It hadn’t been much and it had been futile, but she’d done it. She didn’t expect him to understand, but it seemed he did.

“Stubborn. It’s a good sign in a woman. Not a comfortable one, mind you, but good.”

Anne decided she didn’t understand Pete at all. He continued to act as if they were married, continued to treat her much the same way he had before she told him she hoped Mason or his men would shoot him. Why didn’t he get mad at her? Any normal person would. Instead, he was kneeling on the blanket preparing to massage the stiffness out of her muscles.

“Turn over on your stomach.”

She couldn’t move. She was mortified that he had to turn her like a baby in its bed. He raised her skirt above her knee. The cold air on her skin was both a shock and a relief at once. Maybe if she got cold enough, she’d be too numb to feel the pain.

“This may hurt a little at first,” he said. “But once I get the knots out, you’ll feel a lot better.”

With his thumbs and the side of his hand, he pressed and spread the muscles in her right calf. It did hurt. Her calves felt as if he was cutting them open with knives.

“I used to have to rub Sean’s muscles,” Pete said while he continued working. “He was my partner when we first started looking for gold. A huge fella with muscles like an ox, but he was determined to find all the gold he needed in one year. He’d work too hard and end up so sore he could hardly move. Once it took me nearly an hour before he could relax enough to sleep.”

Anne couldn’t imagine any man putting himself through this kind of torture every day. “He must have been crazy.”

“No, just determined to get back to Texas as soon as possible. He loved ranching and hated mining.” Pete switched to her other calf. The pain was just as bad. “Then he met Pearl, and he nearly got himself killed.”

“Who are Sean and Pearl?” she asked, glad to be distracted from the pain, “Somebody else you made up along with Jake and Isabelle?”

“I told you, Jake and Isabelle adopted eleven of us.”

“Nobody adopts that many children.” He had to be lying. The story was too wonderful to be the truth.

“Sean was a lot older than me when I came to the orphanage. He was big and clumsy, and I was little and mean. Once we combined his muscles and my sharp tongue, everybody left us alone. After Jake and Isabelle adopted us, we didn’t have to do that anymore. Isabelle didn’t like fighting. Besides, once she beat it into our heads that she considered us a real family and we’d better do the same, things went pretty well.”

He had one hand on each calf now, massaging the last of the tension away. She liked the feel of his hands on her body. Their warm strength was comforting. Despite the awkwardness of her position, she had almost relaxed when he moved to her right thigh and the cycle of pain started all over again.

“Why isn’t this Sean with you now?” She didn’t believe his fairy tale, but she’d listen to anything as long as it took her mind off the pain.

“He fell in love with Pearl. They got married and went back to live in Jake’s valley in Texas.”

“You said he nearly got killed.” He couldn’t stop talking now. It was all she could do not to moan aloud.

“Pearl was mixed up with some gambler who was determined to get Sean’s gold. Only he made the mistake of kidnaping Pearl’s daughter. Sean didn’t stop until he got his money and Pearl’s daughter back.”

Anne was thankful the story made no sense. The effort to untangle it was all that enabled her to lie still when Pete started on her left thigh. She didn’t know why anybody would ever want to ride a horse.

“Why aren’t your muscles hurting you?” she asked, jealous that Pete seemed to be absolutely fine after spending all day in the saddle.

“I’m used to it. Besides, I know how to ride. Don’t worry. I’ll teach you.” Their gazes met, and he stopped abruptly. “I guess I won’t, but it’s not hard. Sean learned to ride when he was still so uncoordinated he could hardly walk. I ought to warn you—this is going to hurt.”

“What?” If he didn’t think what he’d done already had hurt, then what he was about to do now would probably kill her.

“I’m going to massage your buttocks. You’ve got chafed skin as well as sore muscles.”

“Maybe you ought to wait until tomorrow.”

“It’s better to do it now. At least you’ll be able to sleep.”

“How can I sleep in the middle of the woods?”

The man was actually cruel enough to laugh.

“You’ll be surprised how easy it will be.”

“If I see one pair of eyes staring at me out of the dark, I swear I’ll scream.”

Then she did. Well, not exactly scream, but moan. How could hands that had made such magic only two nights before cause such agony? “Tell me some more about Sean.”

“What?”

“Anything! Have you seen him since he got married?” She didn’t care about Sean, only half believed he was real, but she’d listen to anything to make the pain more bearable.

“Several times since. Last time, Pearl had just had their third son. All three look just like Sean. I told him it was a shame he didn’t have a bunch of girls. Pearl is a beautiful woman. Jake said he’d just as soon not turn the valley into an armed camp with Sean trying to keep out all the young men trying to court his daughters. Isabelle told both of them not to be fools, that daughters had a way of marrying the men they wanted despite the well-meaning but misguided efforts of their male relatives.”

Pete had moved to her other buttock. “It sounds like Jake and Isabelle fight all the time,” she said, barely able to get the words out.

“No, they’re too much in love. You’d think they wouldn’t have anything in common—Isabelle was raised fancy by a rich aunt in Savannah, Georgia, and Jake came up on a poor dirt ranch in Texas—but Isabelle’s as tough as old leather. None of us boys could ever get around her, and I promise we tried.”

“She sounds like a bully.”

“I guess she is in a way, but she bullies us because she loves us. Jake adores her. There’s not one of us boys that wouldn’t hunt down and kill any man who laid a hand on her.”

Anne couldn’t conceive of how a woman could win such devotion. In her experience women were treated almost as possessions, often not very valuable ones at that. Pete had to be making this whole story up. Nobody like Isabelle could exist, not even if she came from Savannah. But it was a nice story. It would be even nicer if something like that could happen to her.

It did. That’s exactly how Pete treated you.

He’d rescued her from her uncle, showered her with gifts, told her she was beautiful and intelligent and desirable. Now he was risking his own safety to protect her from danger.

He had turned her into an Isabelle, and she hadn’t even realized it.

And now he was turning her into a ball of molten desire.

The pain had receded. Only now did she have any spare thoughts to realize that Pete had pulled her skirt and her petticoat up to her waist. Only her drawers remained between his hands and the bare skin of her bottom. He continued to massage slowly as he talked about his family in Texas. But she heard very little of what he said. She became more and more acutely aware of his hands on her body, of the feelings that were growing in her belly and threatening to spread through the rest of her.

She fought them off with all her might. She couldn’t possibly allow herself to be seduced by his touch, not even if her body was a willing—nay, eager—participant. This was a man who’d killed, cheated, lied, done enough evil to warrant being sentenced to hang. She had to remember that. There was a good side to him. She could no longer deny that. Nor could she deny that the good side was so attractive, it made her want to forget the bad things. But that wasn’t possible. No decent person could do that.

Her body, however, seemed to have no qualms. It liked what Pete was doing and wanted more.

“That’s enough,” she said. “I feel much better now.” She pushed his hands away and began to readjust her petticoat and skirt.

“Are you sure? I don’t mind.”

That was the trouble. She wouldn’t mind it, either. “I’m certain. I’m cold and tired. I want to eat and go to sleep.”

“It won’t take me long to fix something to eat.”

“You fix the coffee. I’ll fix the food.” She wasn’t going to lie there and let him do everything. She couldn’t accept that kind of treatment when she meant to see him hang for killing Peter.

“You’re still too sore to stand up.”

“I’ll manage.” She struggled to her feet. She wasn’t steady, but she felt much better. “Now tell me how I’m supposed to start a fire in a snowstorm.”

Pete laughed. “Sit back down. I’ve done this a thousand times.”

“Then you don’t need to learn. I do. Show me.”

“I never knew you were this stubborn. I thought you were a shy, biddable young woman.”

She used to be. Then Pete came into her life, and nothing had been the same since.

“We all have to grow up,” she said. “I guess it was my time.”

“Okay. The first thing you have to do is find something dry. You can almost always find dry twigs except in the worst rain. Look under fallen trees or piles of leaves. Sometimes you can strip the bark from a dead branch and find wood dry enough to burn.”

He explained everything he did in detail. He showed her how to start the fire and keep it small so it wouldn’t burn up all their wood or create so much smoke that someone could discover their position. He also explained the kinds of food that were easiest to prepare outdoors with no equipment. They all resembled soup or stew.

“Occasionally I’ve cooked a rabbit or a sage hen,” Pete said, “but it takes a long time to cook fresh game.”

They had all evening, but they didn’t have any fresh game. She cooked a stew made with beef jerky and dried vegetables. She’d never realized how difficult it was to cook without a kitchen. Next time Cookie wanted something from the ranch pantry, she’d give it to him without argument. She appreciated his talents a lot more now.

The snow had continued to fall. By the time they had finished eating and cleaned up, the snow was so heavy, clumps fell through the trees from time to time. The temperature kept dropping until Anne’s hands felt too numb to hold the spoon. The hot food did little to keep her body warm. She thought wistfully of her soft bed and the thick quilts that kept her warm on even the coldest nights. They hadn’t had time to take blankets and warm clothes. Carrying a resisting female off into the night didn’t leave arms free to carry blankets and heavy coats. If they hadn’t sent the food on the horses with Ray, they wouldn’t have had anything to eat.