Authors: Barbara Ankrum
"Hot spring."
"Really?" She'd certainly heard of the geological phenomenon, but had never seen one. "Where? Can we see it?"
He threw her the sort of patient look one gives a gawky tourist, then grinned in spite of himself. "You really want to? From the smell, it's close by."
She nodded enthusiastically and followed him on foot through the rough brush toward the odor. In less than two hundred yards, they found it. Steam scuttled across the surface of the small rock pool of sulphury, crystalline water. At the heart of the spring, a slippery-looking mound of minerals coated the rocks. He hung back while Mariah walked toward the water.
"Be careful," he warned. "Some of these get very hot."
Dipping her fingers into the edge of the pool, her eyes slid shut. "Oh-hh... heaven. Is it... usable?"
"Drinkable, you mean? I suppose, but I'd rather use it for baths." Creed laughed, seeing the plotting wheels spin in her head. "Don't get too used to it. We haven't got time for one."
Mariah's lips drew into an exasperated pout. "Are you sure? Look at me. I'm filthy." She plucked at the grimy buckskin shirt. "These clothes of yours could probably walk the rest of the way to Virginia City with no help from me." She plucked a dandelion from the pool's edge and blew it playfully into the air. "I don't know how you can even stand to be near me anymore."
Creed would have laughed if he'd found any humor in her comment. His expression was carefully blank, but his body went hard, watching her. The afternoon sun lit her from behind, catching the drifting fluff in the air around her like a crown of sliver. His gaze fell to the artless way the shirt clung to the contours of her breasts as she lifted her arms to catch the seedlings and he found himself contemplating what it would feel like to pull her into the vaporous water with him and wrestle her clothes off.
Hell.
It wasn't a hot soak he needed, but a dip in a frigid mountain stream.
"Oh, Creed! Look!" She was pointing to a rocky ledge thirty feet up where a Bighorn ewe and her lamb balanced on a precarious notch of rock staring down curiously at Mariah. The lamb was newborn, perhaps not more than two weeks old, yet had the agile footing of its mother. Farther up, several males glared down regally from atop the cliff. They sent a shower of rocks down on the female, sending her and the young one scrambling to another vantage point.
Mariah's cheeks were flushed with excitement and her smile broad as the morning sky as she walked back to the horse. "Weren't they wonderful?"
The sheer joy in her expression sent a bolt of heat through him. How long had it been since he'd looked at a newborn lamb and ewe with such unabashed pleasure? He remembered once such sights had struck him that way. When had he become so jaded that he'd forgotten these things? His heart thudded irreverently at the womanly sway of her hips when she walked.
"I've never seen horns like that," she commented as she gathered up Petunia's reins, sublimely oblivious to his attention. "Are there many of those sheep out here?"
"Thousands," he answered, mounting Buck as an excuse to tear his eyes from her. "You should see the males in the fall if you think that was something."
"Tell me," she demanded, swinging up on Petunia. "It must be wonderful."
He yanked the brim of his hat down over his eyes. "You can hear it from miles away. It's like the sound of rifle shots echoing down the canyon walls, only it can go on and on for hours. The males butt horns over and over, crashing against each other with a force you'd think would knock them senseless."
"How very odd. What are they fighting over?"
Creed's gaze lingered on hers for a moment before he answered. "A female, of course. It's mating season." He clucked to his horse and started off in time to miss the color that rose to her cheeks.
It wasn't what he'd said, but how he'd said it that had made Mariah blush. She kicked her horse and caught up with him. "How barbaric. And what do the female sheep do while all this 'head-bashing' is going on?"
"Run like hell,
cherie.
But they can't run far enough. The male rams are merciless. They will chase a ewe 'til she can barely stand." A wicked grin caught the edge of Creed's mouth. "He won't give up until he has her."
"Hmm-m, poor ewes," she murmured feelingly.
"You think so? It's all part of the dance of life,
ma petite."
"Well, I'm not a sheep, of course, but it all seems rather unromantic. A woman likes to be wooed."
"Ah, but of course." He looked at her thoughtfully. "Did Seth woo you?"
Petunia stumbled over a rock, nicely covering the jolt his sudden question sent through her. "Seth?" A frown creased her brow as she considered it. "Well... come to think of it, not exactly, no. Not in the standard woo-ing-sort-of-way, at least. We knew each other for years. We grew up together, though he was a few years older than I. I've known him all my life. I suppose he never felt that he had to... woo me. What was between us just... was."
A grunt of skepticism rumbled from deep in his chest.
"But," she amended quickly, "that doesn't mean I didn't love him just the same. I did." Mortification crept up her cheeks. "I—I mean, I
do."
Her gaze flicked to Creed.
"So," he asked, staring straight ahead, apparently altogether missing her slip of the tongue, "you've always been in love with him then?"
With a smile of relief, she answered, "I don't suppose what I felt at twelve could be considered true love. I had a schoolgirl crush on him to be sure. Why, there wasn't a girl in the county who didn't have eyes for him. He was considered quite a catch before he left for the Territory. In fact, I was sure he'd be married by the time I grew up." Mariah's gaze scanned a blossoming hedge of blackberries as they passed it. "Of course, he wasn't.
"I was fifteen when my father passed on, leaving only my grandmother and me. Seth..." she sighed, "was like a knight in shining armor riding to my rescue. He saw me through it all, the funeral, the arrangements, moving me into my grandmother's house. And afterward, we started to see more of each other."
Creed sent her a sidelong glance. "But he didn't court you?"
Something in his tone irritated her and she tightened her grip on the reins. "Court me? No... we always seemed to get along. I helped him at his father's store, we'd go for walks, picnics... if that's what you mean. It was... well, easy to be together. Comfortable. Like an old slipper, you know?" She almost groaned aloud. That wasn't the analogy she had intended at all. It had just—
"Ah, so old slippers are romantic to a fifteen-year-old girl, eh?" Creed asked with more than a hint of sarcasm. "What about a young
femme
of twenty?"
Her cheeks grew hot. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded."
"No? How did you mean it then?"
Her eyes widened. "Are you... questioning my feelings for Seth?"
"Are you?" he returned evenly, sliding his gaze to her.
She took several breaths. He'd hit too dangerously close to the mark about her fears concerning her fiancé, but she wasn't about to admit it. "I thought you were his friend."
"I am." He kept his stare aimed at the glaring patch of snow on the mountaintop to the west but his jaw was set in a firm line.
"Really? You're not acting like—" A cold thought struck her. "You're not trying to tell me he's... he's found someone else, are you?"
Creed laughed sardonically. "No,
mon petit moineau.
Even if he had, it wouldn't be my place to say."
Anger muted her sense of relief. "Then why—?"
"You were only fifteen when he left you."
"Sixteen!"
"Ah,
mais oui,
almost an old crone—" He bent at the waist in a mocking bow. "I concede the distinction."
Mariah jerked her horse to a stop. "Just what are you implying, Mr. Devereaux? That I was too young to know my own mind?"
"Perhaps too young to know what grown men and women need from each other."
"Need?
Are you speaking of—" she gulped, hardly able to bring herself to say the word, "—carnality? Because if you are—"
He grabbed Petunia's reins and pulled her closer to him. "I'm talking about the fire that consumes two people and forges a bond between them, not some comfortable old shoe to take on and off at whim."
"And you're so worldly! What makes you such an expert on love? How would you even know what it feels like? I'll bet you've never let a woman get close enough to love you," she said, dancing dangerously close to the flame she saw igniting in his eyes. "You keep yourself walled off from the world like a well-guarded palace secret, perfectly content to spend your life chasing after shadows and men who mean nothing to you—"
Creed's rugged features grew stony and he pulled up close to her so their horses were head to tail—until his knee was crushed warningly against hers. "Watch yourself, Mariah."
"—and for
what?"
she ranted on, ignoring him. "For
what,
Creed? So you can die young one day on a lonely mountain with no one to care? A senseless hero?" She jerked back on the reins to escape his closeness, but Creed nudged Buck with his knees so the gelding followed Petunia's movements step for step.
"Stop that!" Lashing out with her arm, she tried to shove him back, but he grabbed her wrist and held it away from him.
Her pulse throbbed in her ears and she glared at him, trying to yank her hand away. "I have news for you, Mr. Devereaux! Even if my love for Seth
is
as comfortable as an old slipper, it's more than
you're
ever likely to have with a woman. What Seth and I have together... is special and there's nothing you can say or do to diminish tha—"
His mouth crushed down on hers with the lightning speed of a rattler's attack, smothering her words and sending shock waves through her. His hand wound around the back of her neck and he pulled her halfway over to his saddle, throwing her completely off balance. She made a useless noise of protest against his lips, but he only used the opportunity to invade her mouth more fully.
He plundered her like a miner seeking out treasure, exploring and ravaging the sensitive cavity. Her traitorous body responded with a tremor that started as a vibration in her throat and swelled to a crescendo all the way to her toes.
He'd kissed her before, she thought wildly, that time by the river. But this wasn't a kiss. It was a hungry, calculated assault on her senses that sent flames shooting down her limbs, effectively robbing her of breath, strength, and all coherent thought. His mouth slashed over hers, first one way then the other.
"Kiss me back, Mariah," he demanded. She gasped for breath, but found herself sharing his. A lady should be revolted by his brutish actions, she thought desperately, but she found herself a willing victim in his arms.
Creed's eyes were river-dark with passion, aflame with something even more dangerous.
"I—I don't—"
His mouth claimed hers again before she could refuse him, demanding a response. Resistance bled away and she clung insensibly to the front of his shirt and the whipcord strength of his arms. From deep in his chest came a low, primal sound of possession, while the violent pounding of his heart beat a heavy rhythm against her fingertips. Their bodies fit together like two halves of a whole. Somewhere, in the deepest recesses of her soul, a long ago memory stirred, tumbled, revived.
Her tongue mated with his, dancing across the smooth surface of his teeth, then back again. The dark stubble on his face rasped against her sensitive skin, but she hardly noticed. His fingers wound tightly in the skein of hair at the back of her neck, drawing her closer still.
His free hand slid down to cover one breast, kneading it roughly and causing her nipple to bud like a new flower. Mariah arched mindlessly up to meet him, caught in the whirlwind of sensation. She didn't think to stop him when his hand strayed from her breast to follow the curve of her waist down her hip. He cupped her bottom and pulled her closer, pressing her intimately across his iron-like thigh.
Disturbed by the movement, Petunia stamped a foot and took a step away from Buck, breaking the spell between her and Creed. His arms tightened protectively around her and he slid her fully onto his lap. A growl rumbled in his chest as he tore his mouth from hers.
To her everlasting disgrace, she followed his retreat like a hungry bird wanting more, but he stayed just a heartbeat out of reach. His breath was ragged as hers, and his blue-green eyes were edged with flame as they searched her face.
"You see,
ma petite?"
he whispered, "The flame does not much resemble the comfortable old slipper, does it?"
A hot flush crept up Mariah's neck. His question required no reply. The answer was plain enough in the wanton way she'd responded.
She stared at him, gathering her wits, aghast at what she'd just done. No simple rationalization, no half-baked justification could explain nor excuse what had happened between them. What they'd done was wrong. Horribly, terribly wrong. They'd betrayed Seth.
They'd betrayed themselves.
Pressing her fingers hard against her swollen lips to keep from sobbing out loud, she tried to sit up. His arms detained her.
"Mariah—"