****
From the view he had across the corral to the back of the house, Thad decided that Mack must have taken Kim under his wing. Damn. That was all he needed. If both of those damn-blasted women turned their charms on Mack, he’d be a goner for sure. One was enough. He hadn’t seen Mack act so giddy since...well, since the one that left him high and dry about four years ago. Broke his heart, until she’d showed up almost a year later with one hell of a surprise—Mack’s infant son, who he was now raising alone.
He could see already that he was going to have to remind Mack of that one hard-and-fast rule. The women were hands off. And he was going to have to watch that Jillie. She had an eye for Mack if he ever saw one.
Hands off. He’d do well to remind himself of that. The thing was, if he ever laid hands on Kim Martin, it would probably be to strangle her, even though he could be sorely tempted to do a lot more than that. Even if Kim Martin was trouble, she was obviously a desirable woman—and one he wouldn’t allow himself to break his code of ethics for.
He had a business to run, money to make. And romance was not on the agenda. But had the circumstances surrounding their meeting been different, he might welcome getting to know the gutsy blonde just a little bit better....
Turning, he finished tightening the cinch on his horse and gave her a pat on her rump. He checked the saddle bags for the necessary provisions for the day: lunch and a canteen, sunscreen and binoculars, and a rain slicker. Then slowly, he turned back to the scene to his left. Mack had spread two large canvas manties out over the ground, showing Kim how to place the boxes of food in the proper places to balance the loads. As Thad walked up the row of mules already packed and ready to go, he checked the load of each to make sure they were secure, but kept a precarious eye on Kim as he drew closer.
The denim jeans she wore did little for her figure, but as she bent over helping Mack reposition a box of meat, he found himself staring at her from underneath his dipped hat. She had tucked the old shirt she wore—one somebody left behind a few years back—deep into the too big jeans and had managed to cinch in the waist, showing off her hour-glass figure. As she moved across the manty, picking up and placing items, Thad felt a slow warmth begin in his abdomen. The heat of desire. Recognizable, but unwelcome—and an all too unfamiliar feeling. Quickly, he turned away, back to the mule carrying their personal equipment. He rechecked the cinch of the decker and shook away the slow, easy warmth that wanted to penetrate his vulnerability. He wouldn’t let it.
But then slowly, he let his gaze again drift back to her. Mack was gone, leaving her to finish the packing.
As he worked his way to the last of the mules and horses, he found himself at the edge of the manty Kim was packing. He watched; she feigned ignorance to his presence, until at last, when she reached for a box of baked goods to set on top of the load, he snaked his hand out and grabbed her wrist.
****
Kim snickered to herself as she felt Thad’s presence grow closer. She’d felt the shivers crawling up her back as she sensed his gaze on her from afar, but she’d be damned if she’d let him know that.
When his hand reached out to encircle her wrist, it was expected, but startling at the same time. Her thoughts were full of him, but she’d had no idea he was so close, until his skin touched hers and her senses jumped at his closeness.
Her gaze bolted upward as she crouched over the packed items and his fingers tightened around her wrist. Their eyes met. Thad slowly crouched across from her, keeping the connection as he lowered his body to the ground. When she looked at him, she saw a dark and brooding man, a handsome man, but one who would be so much more attractive, if he’d only let the granite exterior melt away once in a while. His cool eyes still held hers. Several long seconds passed before he spoke.
He released her hand, pulling back as if he’d been stung.
“Find everything you need?” he queried gruffly.
With her gaze matching his, Kim lifted her chin a bit and cocked her head to one side. “Yes.”
“Good.” Placing his hands on his knees, he rose, towering above her. Kim simply kept her position and let her gaze lift upward to play over his face. “I want to be on the trail in ten minutes. Make sure you’re ready.”
“I’ll be ready.” She broke the connection between them and rose, glancing off toward the pack string. Nearby, Jillie worked with her horse, and Mack and the wranglers checked over the packs.
“I want to apologize for my...for yelling at you earlier.”
His words brought her gaze back to his face. She shook her head, surprised at his apology. “No. I was out of line. I should be the one to apologize.” She was sorry. It wasn’t her style to make scenes, usually.
He stared into her face. To say Kim was uncomfortable with the intensity of his gaze would be have been an understatement. It was difficult to read his expression. A shiver crept over her. “Perhaps we both were out of line,” she added.
“Perhaps.”
A horse nickered not far away and Kim rotated toward the sound. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Thad turn and walk toward the others.
She turned back to her work, absent-mindedly finishing placing the objects to be mantied, waiting for Mack to come back to tie them for her and get them on Jethro; not thinking about what she was doing. She was really thinking about the heat that still radiated from her wrist, where Thad’s fingers had left their brand seconds earlier. Finally, when she couldn’t stand it any longer, she let her gaze slide back to the thin-hipped cowboy who had wrecked havoc over the last eighteen hours of her life. She watched as he swung his body up, over, and into the saddle of the buckskin at the front of the pack. All at once she realized she’d been holding her breath for quite some time. When a last she let it out in one quick whoosh, all the other sensations she’d been holding in were let loose with it.
Her body gave in to one quick tremor.
“Damn.”
She stepped away from the manties toward the kitchen, fighting off the urge to pace back and forth nervously. “Damn, damn, damn,” she muttered. “I will not let my body respond to that man. I will not!” Her near silent pleadings were heard by no one save herself. “I won’t. I won’t. I won’t. I will not be suckered in by the smell of old leather and saddle soap. I won’t!”
But she knew as she looked up to catch one more glimpse of Thad astride his horse that it was going to be one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do. For around him, her body just seemed to respond. There was no thinking about it.
The next twelve days were going to be pure hell. And not the kind of hell that she’d originally thought.
Chapter Five
Two hours later found Kim in the center of the string, plodding along on an old gray mare named Sunshine who was at least twenty years old and moved like she was seventy. Thad led the string up a slow incline into the mountains. Several pack mules, she and Jillie, Tim and Aaron, and the couple she’d not put names to yet, along with the two wranglers named Ben and Luke were interspersed throughout the middle. Mack brought up the rear. As Kim glanced around her at the battered chaps, hats, and boots the men wore while sitting tall in their saddles, she let herself be drawn into a fantasy of the wild, wild west. She fashioned herself Miss Kitty and another cowboy entered her daydream in the form of Matt Dillon. When he strode closer to her on his horse so she could see his face, Matt Dillon turned into none other than Thad Winchester.
Shaking away a chill that crept over her spine, Kim let her gaze rest only on the reality of her situation. She was riding a stupid horse up the side of a huge mountain!
So far they had encountered the remnants of a beautiful sunrise, a misty fog that lifted as the sun rose over the
San Juan Mountains
, and a host of dewy, spectacular wildflowers as they headed into the Weminuche Wilderness.
They spoke only in whispers and Kim, for one, welcomed the peace that surrounded her. It was as though they were entering the wilderness with a reverence to its pristine beauty. A calm fell over her. If she needed anything, right now, she guessed she needed this. Although she would have never admitted it to anyone, especially Jillie, she admitted it to herself. After the hectic past twenty-four hours, she needed peaceful bliss and a calm scenario surrounding her to bring her back into focus.
She never would have thought it, but she was enjoying this immensely.
Finally, she relaxed in her saddle. Her old gray nag wasn’t going to go anywhere in a hurry, but the pack string as a whole wasn’t in a hurry. She wondered if this was their normal clip, or if Thad was deliberately slowing things down for her, thinking she couldn’t handle a faster pace. Not that he would extend her any kindness. That would be the last thing she’d expect from the mighty Thaddeas Winchester.
She didn’t care. Enjoying the peaceful panoramic view around her was all she cared about for the moment.
Her gaze drifted to the head of the string and landed on Thad. She was far enough away that she couldn’t see anything but the rigid line of his back as he sat in the saddle and the shadow his cowboy hat threw over his shoulders. Every once in a while, when he turned to check the string of mules behind him, she caught a brief glimpse of his profile.
She had to wonder about the man. He was obviously dedicated to his ranch, his business, but did he have a life outside of that? And what was it about her that clearly irritated him?
“Whoa!”
The shout went up somewhere from behind. Momentarily lost in her daydream, Kim started as the male voice pierced the quiet. Quickly jerking on the horse’s reins, she managed to stop Sunshine before she rear-ended the mule in front of her. Then Kim noticed Mack riding up beside her.
“Kim! Didn’t you see the gear trailing out of the manty in front of you?”
“What?”
“The gear. Half of the gear is hanging out on that mule up there—the other half is strewn across the last fifty feet or so of the trail. You’ve got to watch for stuff like that.”
“What?” Kim repeated. She looked two mules up. The mule in front of Jethro had indeed lost half of one of his manties, and now, the load unbalanced, the decker was sliding to the right. The mule didn’t seem to like it very much. With a soft curse, Mack rode ahead and dismounted.
“What do you want me to do?” she called out. Glancing toward the front of the string, she noticed Thad had dismounted and was walking briskly toward them. Tim and Aaron, placed between her and Thad, were turning in their saddles to see what was the matter. Jillie, three animals behind her, had already dismounted and was at her side. The horses seemed antsy.
Kim slid from her saddle. She guessed if they’d had to stop somewhere for an emergency, this was as good a place as any. At least the terrain was fairly flat and wide. There was a grassy area on both sides. In front of the string about a quarter mile up, a narrow trail lead steeply up the side of the mountain.
Having had to untie the manty from the right side of the mule, Thad and Mack laid it on the ground. The other, on the left, was spread out before them and they were busy repositioning the remaining items to be repacked. Thad lifted his gaze to the women, then stood. Hands on his hips, he eyed Kim and spoke gruffly. “On a pack trip we have to keep our eyes open, ladies. This isn’t a Sunday picnic. We’ve all got to pull our weight. Lucky for you,” he said, pinning Kim with disgust, “Mack noticed the manty before we’d started up that narrow trail. We would have lost everything.”
“Jillie noticed it before I did, Thad,” Mack added while he stomped over to snare a duffel bag laying ten feet to their rear.
Well, bully for Jillie.
Kim shot her a look.
Thad didn’t shift his gaze. “Good! Well at least one of you is adept at something.”
“All right, that’s it!” Kim stepped closer. She’d kept her silence way too long. “How do you know whether I’m adept at anything? You’ve known me less than a day. All you want to do is sit up there on your high-and-mighty throne and toss orders out to the peons. I, for one, am not a peon.”
“That’s obvious.”
Hands on hips, she narrowed her gaze at him. “So what’s that supposed to mean?”
He inched closer and glared down into her face. “It means that you’re out of your league here. You can’t handle a horse and you’re not pulling your weight. Obviously, you’re not used to getting your fingers dirty. And I’m not sure if I’ve got enough liability insurance to cover any disaster we might encounter because of you. That’s what I mean.”
“You certainly had no hesitation about assigning me the cook’s duties.”
“I have every hesitation, Miss Martin. But I also have this little rule. I never back down on my word. I’m simply expecting to have to pick up the pieces once your finished.”
Kim stared him down, then huffed out a thick breath. “Look, Mr. Winchester, I don’t know who you think I am or why you think I’m going to cause you problems, but I assure you, that I won’t. I made a mistake. It won’t happen again. I’m a fast learner.”
It was all Kim could do to reign in her temper. The nerve of the man. Get her fingers dirty? After a deep breath and a moment longer of glaring into the depths of his ebony eyes, she bent over and picked up a parcel at her feet and thrust it at him.
“I really don’t like you, you know that?”