Authors: Barbara Ankrum
Mariah had stirred all those old feelings, feelings he'd managed to keep firmly at bay, feelings he'd just as soon were left buried along with his father.
"Good morning."
Her voice startled him out of his thoughts. He shoved the blanket aside and sat up.
"Bonjour,"
he grumbled. "You're up early."
She tightened the shawl around her. "I couldn't sleep."
He tossed the covers completely off. "You left a warm bed back with the Lochries."
She ignored the barb and flashed a brilliant smile. "Actually, waking up to the scent of pine needles and fresh mountain air is quite invigorating."
"A noble sentiment." He pulled on his boots and got to his feet, stretching his arms over his head. Automatically, he strapped his gunbelt over his hips and tied the thong around his thigh. From the corner of his eyes, he watched Mariah edge away from her rock and push herself awkwardly to a standing position. Her attempt at grace was comical. Creed folded his arms across his chest, an irreverent smile tugging at his lips.
"A little sore, are we?"
"A little," she admitted, brushing the pine needles from the back of her gown. At his dubious grin, she added, "All right—a lot."
"It will be better once you ride a while."
She blanched. "Can we please not talk about that for a few minutes? I'd rather eat breakfast while I still have my appetite, if you don't mind. Speaking of which, I found the sack of coffee, but the only food I could find in your saddlebags was pemmican and jerky. Did I, um, miss something?"
"I don't think so," he answered with a shrug.
Her face fell. "Oh. Well, in that case," she said, holding up a small black frying pan, "do you prefer your jerky pan-fried or boiled?"
He chuckled. "I don't prefer it at all when I have a choice. This country has a bounty of food,
cherie,
if you know where to look for it." He walked a few yards around the perimeter of their camp before he found what he was searching for. He stopped at a clump of delicate violet flowers on tall green stalks. He pulled several up by their roots and shook the earth from their bulb-like ends.
"Voila!
Camas. The Indians roast them like potatoes. Quite tasty."
Reaching beneath the branches of a sprawling pine, he pulled a yellowish flower-shaped mushroom from under the pine tree. He tossed it to her. "Chanterelle. You can cook it with some of those wild onions we found last night."
She brightened. "Wonderful. But won't it burn if I don't use any grease? I suppose lard is out of the question?"
"Try a little of the pemmican. It's made with suet."
She made a face.
"You'll see—it works." He inhaled deeply, taking in the rich aroma of the coffee. He pointed to the pot. "Is that ready?"
"I think so. I—I mean it should be." She wrapped her hand in her shawl, filled his tin cup, and handed it to him.
"Merci."
From the corner of his eye, he saw her watching him. Creed cradled the cup between his hands and blew into the steaming concoction. It was strangely thick and midnight black in color. Grounds floated around the sides like tiny warning flags.
"I thought you'd take it strong." She twined her hands behind her back.
"I do." He met her eyes and flashed her a cautious smile before he brought the steaming cup to his lips and took a sip.
Nothing could have prepared him.
The foul brew exploded from his mouth in a flume. "Bleck-hh!" he gagged, spitting the rest out and wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. "Good God, woman! Are you trying to poison me?"
Crestfallen, Mariah stared at him. "Too strong?"
It was a wonder the stuff hadn't already eaten straight through the tin cup. "Too
strong?
Did you put the whole bag of coffee in that one pot or what?"
"Well, of course not," she answered, with a wounded look. "I only used two cups."
"Two
cups?
Of coffee?
Alors!"
She shrunk back a little and bit her thumbnail. "I guess... that was too much?"
Wiping his mouth again, he picked a stray ground off his tongue. "Not if you're serving an entire mining camp and have a few score more gallons of water."
"Oh." Her teeth worried her lip. "I—I suppose I overestimated a bit. I'm sorry."
He sent her a disbelieving frown and splashed the remainder of his coffee onto the ground. It sank there like sludgy pudding. He reached into the leather bucket and pulled a fresh handful of water to his mouth, then rinsed and spat it out. "I thought you said you could cook," he said, half-turning to her.
"I did. I mean, I can. Well," she amended, "not coffee. You see, my grandmother and I always drank tea and when my father was alive, he always insisted on brewing his own coffee." The fragrant smoke from the fire drifted on the morning air as the silence stretched between them. "I
said
I was sorry."
"Never mind." He dumped the contents of the pot onto the ground. "But I'll make the coffee from now on, eh?"
Mariah frowned. "No, I can learn. You just have to show me how. I told you I'd do the cooking."
He rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "It would be easier and safer for all concerned if I just did it myself. Anyway," he grumbled, "I'm no good in the morning without a decent cup of coffee."
She laid a dramatic hand over her heart. "You don't say?"
Creed shifted uncomfortably, feeling like a heel for barking at her. But what the hell. She
had
nearly poisoned him. "I'm going down to the river to wash up. Do you think you can handle the breakfast?"
She arched a vexed eyebrow at him. "Surely I can manage that much." Bending down too quickly to retrieve the small black skillet, she bit back a groan. She eased herself to the ground and started cleaning the vegetables he'd collected in the bucket of water.
Creed hesitated, wondering if her boasts about her cooking abilities were altogether accurate. She must have learned to cook in order to look after her grandmother, he reasoned. He unfastened the knife at his belt and handed it to her by the deer-horn handle. "Here, you can use this."
Her warm fingers covered his for a moment as she took it. The sensation caught him off guard. The hair on the back of his neck bristled as if a cold finger of warning had stroked him there. A premonition of disaster. A band of pressure tightened around his chest and he found he couldn't take a complete breath.
Releasing her hand, the feeling vanished.
Merde,
he thought, stung by the sensation. He glanced around the clearing, then frowned down at her.
"What?" she asked, looking at him strangely. "Is something wrong?"
Wrong? His head spun. How could he tell her about the "feelings" he'd always had, these wisps of foreboding, muddled forays into the future? She'd think him a perfect fool. He used to believe that himself. In the past few years, however, he'd learned to trust his feelings, though he'd never risked telling anyone about them. Not even Seth. Certainly not her. It was a private curse he lived with and no one's business but his.
He glanced around the camp one more time. It was probably nothing, he reasoned. Sometimes he was wrong.
Sometimes.
"Creed?" The morning sun turned her eyes to gold as they met his. "Really, you can trust me with the knife."
He smiled half-heartedly at her confusion and mentally shook off the uneasiness. Gathering his soap and shaving things from his saddlebags, he hooked one finger around the handle of the graniteware coffeepot.
"Be quick with the breakfast. We've a lot of ground to cover today. I'll bring back some fresh water for the coffee." He hesitated again, then headed for the river.
Mariah squinted after him until he disappeared, then shook her head. What a strange man. Her annoyance was overshadowed for a moment by her uneasiness.
There were times when he looked at her as if he were seeing something or someone else, times she thought he was about to tell her something of great importance, only to see the shutters slam down around his eyes again.
She'd half-hoped after last night things would be better between them. Obviously she'd been mistaken. It wasn't as if she'd ruined the coffee on purpose. Poison him, indeed! At least she'd made an honest attempt, hadn't she?
He obviously thought she couldn't cook either. She, who'd won blue ribbons at the county fair for her apple pie and pickled watermelon relish for two years in a row before the war began. Well, she'd show him a thing or two.
Scrubbing furiously at the dirt on the camas with her wet fingers, she made them shine, then started in on the mushrooms. Well, if he didn't like her breakfast, he could just go hungry.
She started to rise, but the burn in her legs froze her. Would she ever be able to walk again? She shuffled to the saddlebags and pulled out the pemmican. The mere thought of getting back on Petunia again made her nauseous. What had ever possessed her to think she could make this trip?
Of course, she knew the answer—Seth.
In her mind, she pictured him as he'd been the day he'd left: his beautiful gray eyes sparkling, eager for adventure; his sun-streaked brown hair falling in an appealing curl on his forehead. He'd been twenty-two then, full of so many dreams and plans...
"Have faith in me, Mariah," he'd told her, taking her in his arms that day so long ago. "I'll be so rich in a few years we can live wherever the muse takes us. San Francisco, New York, wherever you want to go. A year. Maybe two. Then I'll come back for you and we'll have a big church wedding, just the way you dreamed."
Mariah had tightened her arms around him. "I don't care about a big wedding, Seth. I don't care if we live on beans and bread our whole lives. I just want you here with me. Anything could happen out there in the Territories. I've heard terrible stories. What if I never see you again?"
"Here now," he'd crooned, smoothing her hair out of her eyes. "Nothing will happen to me. I've always been lucky. I met you, didn't I?"
"Oh, Seth." She'd pressed her face into his shirt, taking in his scent, committing it to memory. He'd been her rock, her strength for years. How would she survive without him? She needed him—and he was going.
Two years became four. She'd grown up. Changed. Through his letters, she knew he had, too. Sometimes she worried that when they met again, they'd be strangers.
Now, she might never know. He could be dead. She cursed the lack of modern conveniences as simple as telegraphs in this godforsaken country. Back in the States, she'd taken such things for granted.
She dropped her gaze to the primitive campfire and ancient, blackened skillet. There was nothing convenient about this place. Aside from its innate beauty, it was as raw and untamed as Creed Devereaux. She forced her thoughts away from him as she sizzled the pemmican in the frying pan. The fragrance of chokecherries and frying bits of dried buffalo meat billowed on the air.
The sound of footsteps came from behind her in the dry pine needles. She stiffened her shoulders, not wanting to give Creed the satisfaction of looking. "It'll be ready in a few minutes if you're hungry."
No response. His footsteps came closer and she gritted her teeth. "You'd better get the coffee going if you're in such a hurry. It'll take a few minutes to boil."
Again, he didn't answer, but merely shuffled around behind her near the saddle bags.
She narrowed her eyes. Of all the arrogant—the least he could do was exchange a polite word! After all, enough was enough. Fuming, she dropped the stirring spoon and whirled, ready to give him a piece of her mind.
The retort died on her lips and a scream rattled up from the depths of her throat.
* * *
Creed nicked his throat with the straight razor at the shrill sound of the cry. Cursing, he dropped the razor and scrambled up the rocky bank, fighting down the icy fear that gripped him. He plunged through the low-spreading pine branches that cut across his path, blood pounding in his ears.
The branches whipped by him, catching globs of the foamy lather that half-covered his face. He stumbled and caught himself on the pine-straw-littered ground. She screamed his name again and he drew his gun.
Crashing into the smoky clearing, he skidded to a stop. Mariah was perched atop a boulder across from the fire with her fists clenched over her mouth and her knees drawn up under her chin. She was gesturing wildly at the far side of the campsite.
"Aghh-hh! Creed—help! Get it away from me!"
About five feet from her, the large thorny creature that had been standing on its hind legs sniffing curiously in her direction waddled off into the brush at Creed's unexpected appearance.
He lowered his pistol with a gasp of relief.
"A porcupine?
You nearly made me slit my throat over
a porcupine?"
"P-pa-porcupine?" she stammered, dropping her fists to her sides.
His mouth twitched.
Mariah stared at him, indignant. "Well, I fail to see what you find so humorous. It was about to
attack
me."
"Attack
you?" His attempt at a serious expression failed him utterly. A low rumble started deep in his stomach and ended in a shaking of his shoulders.