Lynna Banning Page 10

  Ben released her. She opened her mouth to speak, but instead clamped her jaws shut and drilled him with eyes that flashed emerald fire. Water dripped off her hat brim, coursed in rivulets off her shirt and jeans. Her lower lip trembled. She caught it between her teeth as moisture pooled in her eyes.

  That did it. Ben spun on his heel and strode to the horses. He had no defense against a woman’s tears.

  Catching the mare’s bridle, he unsaddled the animal and picketed it with his gelding. Lifting Jessamyn’s saddlebag and bedroll from behind the cantle, he laid them at the thick base of a wind-sculpted fir tree.

  The squish-squish of wet boots at his back told him she was moving. He grinned, keeping his head down so she wouldn’t see him. The icy bath had done her stiff muscles good. Now she had to get out of those wet clothes and keep her limbs moving.

  He rummaged behind his saddle for a blanket, unrolled it and held it out to her. “You’ll need this around you.”

  “I won’t—”

  In one swift move Ben enveloped her shivering form in army-issue wool.

  “I’m n-not c-cold,” she snapped.

  “Suit yourself,” Ben replied. “But take off your wet things anyway. Toss them over that huckleberry bush near the horses. In this heat, they’ll be dry in an hour. I’ll get a fire going and fix supper.”

  “What about my boots? They’re soaked through, and so are my stockings!”

  “They’ll dry, too. Pull them off.”

  “I…I…um…can’t seem to bend over.”

  Ben laughed softly. He knew how much that remark had cost her. Just like Thad, he thought. Pride so big and shiny she’d rather die than admit she wasn’t invincible. Thad sure as hell hadn’t been invincible; the crusty old editor had died trying to prove it. But Jessamyn…

  Oh, hell. Thad’s stiff-necked daughter was tired and cold and hungry and needed her boots yanked off. Ben chuckled deep in his chest. She’d never admit it out loud, but she needed help. His help.

  For some reason, he liked that. A grin tugged at his lips, then he sobered instantly. Goddammit, he didn’t want to like it. He didn’t want to like one thing about Jessamyn Whittaker.

  “Sit down on that flat rock behind you and stick your foot out,” he ordered.

  With a groan, Jessamyn gingerly settled her bottom on the granite seat Ben indicated and tried to raise her leg. She hadn’t the strength. After her third attempt, she shook her head at him. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, and she bit her lip, hard.

  Ben dropped the handful of sticks and small branches he’d gathered for kindling and strode to her side. Turning his back to her, he dropped to one knee, grasped the slick leather boot in both hands and tugged it off. Her stocking came with it, leaving her bare foot exposed.

  He stared down at the delicate-looking appendage, the high, curved arch, five dainty toes and a slender ankle. Her feet were exquisite!

  Jessamyn moaned in relief as the boot pulled free, and the hair on Ben’s forearms prickled. He wanted to hear it again. He wondered suddenly if she would make a sound like that if he kissed her.

  He covered her icy feet with both hands, rubbed his palms slowly over the soft skin to stimulate the circulation. She murmured something, her voice drowsy, and Ben sucked in his breath. Blood pounded into his groin. He gritted his teeth in exasperation as his body throbbed to life.

  He dropped her foot as if it were a hot coal and quickly removed the other boot, taking care not to touch the white, smooth skin. Jessamyn made a low noise in her throat. On the back of her heel rose an angry red patch. Tomorrow she’d have a blister the size of a two-bit piece.

  Ben snagged her boots, fished out the wet stockings and tossed the tiny garments into her lap. “Add these to the laundry bush along with your jeans and shirt and—”

  “Yes,” she interrupted. “I will.”

  Shaken, Ben stalked toward the rock-ringed fire pit. Reaching into his pocket for a match, he squatted to arrange the tinder and get the fire going. On purpose, he kept his back to her.

  After a few moments he heard the unmistakable sound of wet clothing plopping onto the ground. He listened intently, counting the garments. Four. Two large—jeans and her shirt. And two small—her drawers and some kind of camisole, he guessed. Probably lace.

  The picture he conjured in his mind took his breath away. He groaned and tried to concentrate on the fire.

  Flames licked at the kindling. He laid on some small fir branches and dry bark, then lifted Jessamyn’s boots and stuffed dry grass into the toes, ramming it tight with a stone. He set them a short distance from the fire.

  “Move them closer,” Jessamyn’s voice called from behind the huckleberry bush.

  Ben ignored her. Closer to the fire would dry them too fast and they’d stiffen up and crack. The woman knew absolutely nothing about survival on the trail. She’d been sheltered all her life like a Boston houseplant. He shook his head. A person had to be a little bit touched to make a trip like this with as little preparation as she had. No newspaper was worth risking your skin for.

  At the thought of her skin, his breath caught. He’d bet money her thighs were chafed all the way to her…

  “Cora send any supplies with you?” he blurted to stop the direction of his thoughts.

  “She did,” Jessamyn responded.

  Ben started. Her voice was startlingly close.

  “Some coffee and bacon, I think.”

  “Anything for sore muscles or…” His voice died. He couldn’t bring himself to utter the word thighs. Best not think about any part of her body. He was painfully aware she was not five feet from him and completely naked under the tan wool blanket.

  “Gus sent over some liniment last night. In my saddlebag. I’ll get it.”

  “I’ll get it,” Ben countered. “You won’t be able to bend over for a week.”

  Jessamyn gasped. “A week! What about my newspaper? I have an issue to get out in six days! Running the press takes…” She paused, gnawing her lower lip. “Bending.”

  Ben studied the stubborn tilt to her chin. “Hire somebody.” He turned away, knelt by her saddlebag.

  “Your deputy, Jeremiah, could help me.”

  Ben reached inside the leather pouch. A silk-soft garment caressed his hand as he felt for the jar of liniment. “Jeremiah has better things to do.”

  “But he’s interested in the newspaper! Truly he is. He told me all about his schooling with you when he was young. Jeremiah’s so proud that he can read and write—he greatly admires the written word.”

  Jeremiah, Ben thought, talked too damn much.

  “Could Jeremiah help?” Jessamyn pursued.

  Good Lord, what a single-minded woman. She was Thad’s daughter, all right—bone stubborn clear through.

  A welcome anger flooded his brain, a relief after the hot tongue of desire that had flamed a few moments earlier. And the searing, dangerous flicker of vulnerability that licked at him.

  He couldn’t afford to be vulnerable. His heart was split in two, lifeless as a cracked church bell. And his soul… God almighty, his soul was black with bitterness at the Northerners who had destroyed everything he’d ever loved in life.

  He jerked upright and slapped the liniment into Jessamyn’s outstretched hand. “Rub it in good,” he growled. He grimaced at the picture that floated into his mind’s eye. He saw his own hand, fingers splayed, moving slowly back and forth on Jessamyn’s pale skin.

  Swearing under his breath, he grabbed the graniteware coffeepot and tramped off to the lake for water.

  How could he stand being around her twenty-four hours a day for the next three days? And nights, he reminded himself. She was maddening. Stubborn. Naive. Annoying.

  And—did he say stubborn? He knelt over the coffeepot, dumped in a handful of ground beans, then glanced back at her, seated on a flat, sunny rock swathed in army wool, finger-combing the tumbled mass of dark, wet hair.

  She was beautiful. She made him ache she was so bea
utiful. If only she’d keep her mouth shut.

  On second thought, he amended, let her talk! When she talked, sooner or later he got angry. When he got angry, it was easy to hate her. After all, she was a Yankee. A damned know-it-all, winner-take-all Yankee.

  Yes, let her talk.

  Jessamyn watched the sheriff settle the coffeepot on the flat rocks edging the campfire, then shake the smokeblackened pan in which four slices of Cora’s bacon sizzled. She closed her eyes and inhaled the tantalizing smell. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast—no wonder she was hungry! Her stomach grumbled in anticipation.

  She tightened her belly. She would not whine for supper like a child. However long it took, she would wait it out in refined silence.

  She averted her eyes, watched instead the mare grazing nearby, inspected her sore toes and finally forced her gaze to her clothes spread on the huckleberry bush to dry. With slow, painful motions, she rose, gathered up all the garments and stepped behind the spreading shrub to put them on. She managed to get both her stiff legs into her jeans just as Ben announced supper was ready.

  “Bacon and hardtack,” he said. “Coffee’s in the pot.”

  Jessamyn settled herself on the flat rock beside the fire and took the tin plate and bent metal fork he proffered. “Hardtack?”

  A frown creased the sheriff’s tanned forehead. “You complaining?”

  “Goodness, no! I—I’ve just never eaten hardtack before.” She eyed the square cracker on her plate. Right now she was so hungry she didn’t care what it tasted like. She poked it with her fork. When it neither bent nor broke apart, she picked it up in her fingers and took a bite.

  She chewed a long, long time before she could swallow the gummy mess. It felt like a thick layer of leather in her mouth, and it tasted like toasted newspapers. Awful. But the bacon was savory enough for a king. A starving one, anyway.

  She gobbled it down, then stretched her bare toes toward the fire and sighed with satisfaction. Deprivation enhanced simple things like food and warmth. Pleasure, she was learning out here in the wilds of the Oregon frontier, was relative.

  She stared past the sheriffs rangy form to the narrow valley just beyond his shoulder. The tall trees were still visible in the tawny light of approaching dusk.

  “Do—do Indians ever come here?”

  Balancing the tin plate on his folded legs, Ben grunted. “Sometimes.”

  “What do they do?”

  “Do?” He looked up from his supper. In the firelight his skin was bronzy gold. “Hunt. Pray. Hide out. Make love, maybe.”

  Jessamyn jerked upright. “I beg your pardon?”

  Ben leveled a steady look at her across the flickering fire. “Sometimes an Indian girl being courted will invite the brave to meet her somewhere away from the camp. This is a good spot for a tryst. They come here in the fall, before the snow.”

  “Oh. Are there any here now?”

  “Probably.”

  Jessamyn gasped. “Where? Do they know we’re here?”

  Ben scraped his plate leavings into the fire. “They do. They’ve been watching us all day.”

  “Watching us?” Her scalp prickled. Instinctively she hitched her body closer to the fire.

  Ben gave a low laugh. “Indians don’t miss much that goes on in these hills. But don’t worry—most of them know me.”

  “What about the ones who don’t?” she blurted. Oh, how she hated it when her voice shook. It was so…undignified. Miss Bennett always advised taking three deep breaths before speaking under duress.

  Miss Bennett! Jessamyn choked back an unladylike whoop of laughter. Miss Bennett would faint dead away at the sight of her pupil hunched on the ground in men’s clothes with her feet—her naked feet—in full view of a strange man, gobbling bacon with her bare hands!

  “What about the Indians who don’t know you?” she repeated.

  Ben set his plate aside and reached for the steaming coffeepot. “Unless they were babes in cradle boards when I last visited, any Indian in these parts who doesn’t recognize me has at least heard of me.”

  “What about me? They wouldn’t know me! They’ll think I’m a stranger. A man!”

  Ben chuckled. “No Indian is that nearsighted.”

  Nevertheless, she wished she had four sturdy walls and a roof about her. Or a tent! Even a thin canvas wall would shut out the specter of unidentifiable night shadows.

  She watched in silence as Ben poured himself a tin mug of coffee, then filled another and passed it to her. He gulped his in mouthfuls while she took ladylike sips. She drank in silence until she could see the grounds in the bottom of the mug.

  “Time for bed,” Ben announced.

  Bed! Jessamyn eyed him over the edge of her cup. Where would she sleep? Where would he sleep?

  Ben retrieved both bedrolls and spread his blankets out by the fire, then stretched out full-length, propping his head on his saddle. Jessamyn unrolled her bedroll on the opposite side of the fire. Pointing her feet toward the glowing coals, as Ben had done, she pulled on clean wool stockings and curled up on the makeshift pallet.

  The night air was warm and soft, scented with woodsmoke and pine. This would be a good trysting place, she acknowledged. In the ebbing light the peaceful lake shone like a blue-black sapphire.

  If she were an Indian maiden…

  A hot flush washed through her chest, and she instantly squelched the thought.

  A night bird shrilled in the tree branches. Jessamyn slid into a resting position, laying her head in the curve of her saddle. If she were an Indian maiden, alone with her chosen lover in a place as lovely as this, high above the civilized world, she would…

  She would what? What on earth was the matter with her?

  She stared up at the handful of stars glittering like jewels against the darkening sky. Never in her life had such a thought entered her mind. She closed her eyes. But then, never in her life had she experienced anything like the past twenty-four hours! Up until now, she had had a safe, protected life. Predictable. Insulated.

  Her eyelids popped open. She gazed at the campfire, the blackened graniteware coffeepot, the body of the man sprawled on his side not two feet away, watching her with thoughtful dusky blue eyes.

  This was real life. Dust and heat, hunger and sweat, unbearable pain and simple, exquisite pleasures like a cup of hot coffee on a full belly, or the look on Ben’s ordinarily stern face when he was amused. She caught her breath. Or the feel of Ben’s strong, knowing hands about her waist.

  This—and not Boston—was real. This was what she’d come out West to experience, to share with Papa. To write about.

  But dear God in heaven, now that she’d tasted a big pungent mouthful of life as it really was, she wasn’t sure she liked it!

  She muffled a groan, closed her eyes and tried to recite a prayer.

  The next thing she knew, someone was shaking her shoulder.

  “Wake up, Jessamyn. It’ll be light soon.”

  She moaned and cracked one eyelid. It couldn’t possibly be morning already. Stars still shone overhead. She shivered under the scratchy blanket, brought her knees up to her chest. Her legs were so stiff and sore she could barely move them.

  “Time to get moving,” Ben’s low, resonant voice reminded her. She snuggled deeper into her cocoon. The last thing she wanted to do was face another day like yesterday.

  A metallic clunk close to her ear brought her head out from under the blanket. On the ground beside her sat a brimming tin cup. Coffee! He must have risen early to build up the fire and make it—or maybe the brew was reheated from the night before.

  She pulled the blanket around her and sat up, reaching one hand for the steaming cup. The campfire crackled. She shifted her back toward the heat. Oh, if she could only stay in this one position for the rest of the day. Moving even one muscle of her battered body was a painful ordeal. And climbing on a horse…

  Two long, denim-clad legs planted themselves before her. “You want me to roll you up inside t
he blanket and tie you on behind your saddle?” Ben’s deep, gravelly voice carried a hint of humor.

  “It’s so early! It’s not even light yet”

  “Time’s wasting. Want to beat as much of the midday sun as possible, unless you like being fried on both sides like a sausage on a spit.”

  Sausage! Her mouth watered at the thought. “May we eat breakfast first?”

  “Nope. We’ll eat jerky and dry biscuits on the trail.” He strode off toward the gelding, grazing a few yards beyond the fire. On the way, he scooped up her boots, dumped out the rocks and grass he’d stuffed into the toes, and placed them near her. “You need help putting them on?”

  “Certainly not!” She’d manage somehow. She had experienced the oddest feeling yesterday when he’d pulled off her boots and stockings—-her breath damming in her chest, the man scent of him making her senses reel.

  She had felt off balance, as if at any moment she might be swept off a secure rock by a rambunctious river. She liked the smell of him, but the sensations it evoked puzzled her. She’d put on her own boots, thank you. Nothing could be worse than riding for hours. She had lived through yesterday; she could live through today.

  She gulped another mouthful of the coffee, gritted her teeth, tossed back the blanket, and stood up. Every muscle in her body rebelled. Her back and shoulders tightened in protest, her calves and thighs quivered with the effort. The smallest motion of either leg made her derriere feel as if a giant hand had gripped one cheek and wrenched it. She felt the pull all the way up to her rib cage.

  Tears rose in her eyes as she took her first step forward. She smothered a groan and took another step. By the time she reached her boots, she knew she was in trouble. She calculated the additional distance to the mare.

  Ben loaded the saddlebags. When his back was toward her, she bent her knee and raised her leg. Biting her lower lip, she stuffed her foot into the boot top, then stepped down hard.

  Overnight, the boots seemed to have shrunk one size. Balancing precariously on one foot, she lifted her other leg, aimed her toe into the leather hole and plunged it downward. She’d have to bend down to pull the boots up tight.