Lynna Banning Read online

  Two buttons free. Then three. He heard her breath hiss inward, but he did not look up.

  Four. She exhaled in a shaky sigh that unnerved him. Heat pounded into his chest, his groin. Behind her, the stove crackled and spit as the pine pitch heated.

  One more button and she could step out of her jeans. His fingers trembling, he slipped the last metal disk through the buttonhole. The top of her white underdrawers showed where the trousers separated across her belly.

  Ben tore his gaze away from the thin material and slid the denim jeans down over her hips. Her hand came to rest on his shoulder. The chill penetrated clear through his shirt. He guided her fingers over his collar, pressed them against the warm skin of his throat.

  “Jess,” he said. His voice came out gravelly. “Step out of your denims.”

  She did not move.

  “Come on.” He reached his hand behind one knee and pushed it gently forward. “One foot at a time.”

  When her foot came up off the floor, he pulled the trouser leg free.

  She said nothing. In the quiet, all he heard was the sporadic snap of the fire and her uneven breathing. He repeated the operation, freeing the other leg. The sodden denim he pulled off was ice-cold. Tossing the jeans onto the growing pile of wet clothes, Ben rose. “I’ll get you a blanket.”

  Her dulled eyes looked up into his for an instant, then shuttered.

  Taking her by the shoulders, he turned her toward the stove. “Get warm.”

  She nodded, tried to speak, then gave up. Tears shimmered at the edges of her lids.

  Ben strode to the door and plunged out into the slashing rain. Lightning flashed overhead, followed by the crack and roll of thunder. The horses danced uneasily as he lifted off both saddles and slung the oilcloth-wrapped bedrolls and the saddlebags over one shoulder. Staggering under the weight, he reentered the cabin and dumped the gear onto the floor. Untying both bedrolls, he shook out three warm woolen blankets. He tossed one at Jessamyn’s feet.

  “Take off your underthings and wrap up in that.”

  He didn’t wait for her assent He wheeled and again made his way outside to the horses. He snugged the two animals close together under a densely branched cypress and spread one tan blanket over them both. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew a handful of grain and held it out to the tired gelding. Another handful for the mare, and he tramped back into the cabin.

  Jessamyn stood with her back to him, the blanket wrapped tightly around her shivering body. Two delicate-looking white garments graced the pile of wet clothes on the floor like frosting on a lumpy cake. A shard of heat pierced his belly, and he tore his gaze away.

  He chunked two more small logs into the flames, and with quick motions began to remove his own clothes. He dropped his jacket over the back of a rickety homebuilt chair, pulled off his boots and shed his shirt and jeans. Last, he stripped off his soaked underwear and wound a blanket around his waist, Indian fashion.

  He hadn’t realized how chilled he’d gotten until he felt the blanket’s enveloping warmth. His sluggish blood surged to life as if hot, slowly dripped honey spread over him. Savoring the sensation, he listened to the thunder roll overhead. It would be dark in an hour. He’d better see about some food.

  Jessamyn turned slowly. Keeping her backside to the warmth of the stove, she hooked a chair with one bare foot and dragged it closer. She settled herself onto it, then smiled up at Ben.

  “Isn’t this wonderful?” she said in an unsteady voice. “This little stove is almost glowing!”

  Ben chuckled. Relief at her attempt at normal conversation made his knees weak. She was safe and warm. They were alive.

  And alone.

  “I’ll get some hardtack out of my—”

  “There’s food here,” she interrupted. “Look!” She tipped her head to indicate the wall behind him.

  A crude shelf had been attached to the split cedar logs; tins of tomatoes, beans and corn crowded the entire length. His gaze followed the line of foodstuffs until it rested on a brown glass bottle with a shiny gold label tucked in one corner. Child’s Premium Whiskey.

  Ben laughed out loud. Just what two half-frozen refugees needed!

  Heartened by his discovery, he scanned the rest of the one-room shack. In the opposite corner—

  Holy God! Two oblong wooden crates sat under the single barred window. Ben swore under his breath. He’d seen such containers before.

  Rifles.

  The instant he lifted the lid a long, low whistle escaped him. Spencer repeaters. Army issue.

  His belly tensed into a hard knot. He’d found the cache of guns. He’d also uncovered the hideout for whoever was supplying the weapons to Black Eagle’s Klamath Indian braves. Maybe to the Modoc, as well.

  Goddammit all to hell. Arming both sides of warring Indian nations invited an Indian war for sure. Someone was playing one side against the other for maximum profit.

  But who? His brain turned over the possibilities.

  Someone who would kill to keep his dirty little operation a secret. Thad’s killer and the man Black Eagle was protecting might be one and the same. That was why the Klamath chief had said nothing about either the cattle rustler or the rifles—he couldn’t afford to.

  Ben raked his fingers through his damp hair, and then he smiled in satisfaction. Whoever it was, he had him now. All he had to do was bide his time and the outlaw would stumble right into his trap. Except for the storm raging outside, he couldn’t have had better luck.

  He lifted a tin of tomatoes and another of beans off the shelf, tucked the whiskey bottle under his arm.

  The only thing I ask, Lord, is that the bastard doesn’t make an appearance tonight. Tonight he had better things to do than chase an outlaw in the rain. At the moment, survival was more pressing than catching up with a rustler, or even a murderer.

  Years of caution made him pause to take stock of the situation. Had he taken adequate precautions against an ambush in case the outlaw did return tonight? He doubted he could hear an approaching horse through the noise of the storm, and even though their own mounts were hidden behind the shack, chimney smoke would signal their presence.

  On the other hand, Ben reasoned, no Indian would travel in this weather. And no white man, either—unless he was foolish or just plain crazy. And most outlaws, he knew from experience, were neither. As long as the storm kept up, they were safe for the night.

  He bolted the door, and the tension knotting his belly eased. For now, he had more basic worries. He had to make sure Jessamyn was all right. He needed to fix them both some supper and dry their clothes by the fire. He needed—

  A rush of pure pleasure welled up inside him. All he had to worry about for the next ten hours was Jessamyn and himself. Life, pared down to its bare essentials, lived second by second in small, lucid moments such as these, was simple. Beautiful.

  And alone with Jessamyn in this remote cabin for an entire night, it would be as unnerving as hell.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jessamyn let the stove’s heat soak into her bones, relishing the soothing warmth as her numbed body gradually returned to life. All her toes and the thumb and index finger of her left hand throbbed as the heat penetrated. As feeling returned, pain pounded with each heartbeat. It was a miracle she hadn’t frozen to death!

  A languorous feeling of well-being stole through her. Idly, she watched Ben open a tin of beans with his pocketknife and dump the contents into a deep-sided skillet hanging by the stove. He added a second can—stewed tomatoes, she guessed from the plopping sound they made— stirred the mixture with a fork and set the pan atop the black iron stovetop. It smelled heavenly.

  “I can help,” she offered. She tugged the blanket around her and tried to stand up. Needles of fire shot through her feet.

  “Sit,” Ben ordered. “It’ll pay to warm up slowly before you move around too much.”

  Jessamyn sank back onto the chair. Maybe he was right. The thought of taking a single step on her overse
nsitive feet made her cringe. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “My toes feel prickly. Are your feet numb, too?”

  “Some. Not as much as yours. Besides, I’ve been moving around. Keeps the blood flowing.” He began to whistle “Oh, Susanna” as he set two tin plates on the scarred kitchen table.

  Jessamyn wondered how he kept the blanket tucked so neatly about his waist. She eyed the pile of wet clothes in the center of the rough plank floor. What did he have on underneath? Was he stark naked, as she was, under the woolen wrap? Aghast at her turn of thought, she felt a wave of heat flush her face.

  Pivoting toward a crude shelf attached to the split-log wall, Ben reached for mugs and eating utensils. The muscles in his bare back rippled as he raised his arm. His skin looked smooth and warm, like brown velvet. Tanned by the sun from working without his shirt, she supposed. All at once she wanted to run her palms over it, from shoulder to waist, just to see what it would feel like. Oh, what a wanton notion! Miss Bennett would have apoplexy!

  Miss Bennett, an inner voice reminded, might not be so prune faced and disapproving if she’d ever allowed herself such a thing. Surely it was natural for a man and a woman to touch each other? Otherwise, how would the world keep itself populated? It was one of nature’s principles, was it not?

  But, she acknowledged, not a principle Miss Bennett would ever allow to be taught at her young ladies’ academy. Butterflies and birds, not human beings.

  Well, she wasn’t a butterfly or a bird. She was a creature of flesh and blood. She liked looking at Ben. Liked his broad shoulders, his lean upper torso. A little rush of pleasure settled in the pit of her stomach.

  He made a quarter turn toward her. She liked his sun-bronzed, muscled chest, his long, sinewy arms. Not even the crooked purple scar that snaked from his jaw to his taut midriff spoiled the symmetry of the man’s form.

  And his hands… An odd, sweet pain lodged below her belly. His hands were extraordinary, the fingers lean and skilled. Capable. They moved surely, swiftly, like an elegant bird of prey.

  Suddenly she shivered.

  “Still cold?”

  His voice startled her. “N-no.” Quite the opposite, in fact. Perhaps she was too close to the fire. She hitched her chair away from the glowing stove.

  Ben moved toward her on noiseless feet. Leaning down, he folded her fingers around a chipped china mug. “Whiskey,” he said. “Sip it slowly.”

  She swallowed a mouthful of the clear amber liquid and choked. Tears sprang to her eyes as the alcohol seared its way down her throat.

  “I said ‘sip.’” His voice, tinged with laughter, set her nerves on edge.

  Jessamyn coughed, gasping for breath. Finally she sputtered out a hoarse word. “Burns!”

  Ben laughed. “Damn right. That’s the point. Try another sip.” He accompanied the word with a significant look.

  Hesitant, Jessamyn stared down at the mug in her hand. It did feel good, once it got where it was going. The soft circle of warmth in her belly was comforting. She tipped the cup to her lips and let a minuscule amount dribble past her teeth.

  She sipped again, watched Ben gather up the wet garments and wring them out in the wooden sink. When he lifted her drawers and lacy camisole and shook them out with his fine, strong hands, the sweet ache in her body blossomed into fire. She wanted him to touch her, as well. All over.

  Hurriedly she averted her eyes as he hung her smallclothes up to dry. The whiskey must be addling her brain. She felt safe and warm, even oddly comfortable with this man, despite their state of undress. In fact, she realized, ever since that first night alone with Ben in Black Eagle’s guest tipi, she had felt different about him. During everything they had been through together, the unspoken bond between herself and the Douglas County sheriff had grown steadily stronger.

  When he had kissed her that day after the river crossing, something inside had blazed into white-hot awareness— knowledge of herself as a woman. Not a newspaper editor, not Old Maid Whittaker as she was known back in Boston, but a purely female creature of longing and bone-deep instincts. Later, in the Wildwood Times news office, when Ben had kissed her again, the feeling had returned tenfold. She wanted him.

  Miss Bennett, she thought with sudden clarity, you have missed the point of life! The point of life was to be involved, to feel. And feel she did. She sipped again. Ben’s steady, smoke blue eyes met hers over the rim of her mug. “Hungry?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll dish it up if you can walk to the table without—” He cleared his throat. “Without losing your blanket.”

  She rose, gathered the folds of wool about her. Clutching the mug of whiskey, she edged forward. At the battered table she sat down at the place he indicated.

  “Bean stew,” he announced, ladling half the skillet’s contents onto her tin plate. “Or, if you prefer, stewed tomatoes with beans. Either way, it’s hot and we’re hungry.”

  His quick smile dazzled her. Her heart seemed to fill with light.

  “I feel like saying grace,” she heard her voice say.

  Merciful heavens, she hadn’t spoken a blessing for fifteen years! What had come over her?

  She watched him settle his tall, blanket-clad frame onto the chair opposite her. A wellspring of joy bubbled within her at simply being alive. For that, she would give thanks.

  Ben gazed at her for a long, quiet moment. “I haven’t felt much like offering thanks since the war.”

  The rasp in his voice told Jessamyn more than his words. He was scarred—not just on the outside, but inside, as well, where healing was more difficult. Inside, he was dried-up, like a spiny thistlehead. Just as she was, she admitted. Or had been before Ben’s mouth had sought hers that day.

  Without thinking, she hitched her blanket around her shoulders. When it was secure, she reached her hands across the table to him.

  She bowed her head. “Dear Lord,” she began. “I—we thank you for…”

  Ben’s hands gripped hers, his fingers warm and strong.

  “For this food, and for this safe haven from the storm.” She wondered at the tiny catch in her voice. “And for our horses outside, and…for this whiskey.”

  Ben’s fingers clenched. After a second’s pause, he gently squeezed her hand.

  “And,” she heard herself say over the sudden thudding of her heart, “Lord, I thank you for this man; Ben Kearney, who has saved my life.”

  She raised her head to find Ben staring at her. Fear and distrust warred with a smoldering fury in his eyes. From somewhere inside her she summoned the courage to smile at him. “Let’s eat, Ben. The food will get cold.”

  She withdrew her hands from his and reached for the spoon beside her plate.

  They ate in tense silence while the stove spit and the rain drummed onto the roof. Jessamyn’s throat felt so tight she could barely swallow. It wasn’t his anger she feared; it was her joy in simply being near him.

  Ben ate slowly, moving his spoon mechanically up and down from the tin plate to his mouth. Jessamyn sipped her whiskey and watched him surreptitiously. Finally he seemed to shake himself free from whatever preoccupied him. His spoon halted halfway to his lips.

  “Did you notice those boxes in the corner?” He gestured behind him with his head.

  “No, I didn’t. Not until now. What’s in them?”

  “Rifles.” A glimmer of a smile settled across his mouth.

  “Rifles! For Black Eagle?”

  He nodded.

  “Oh, Ben, that’s what you hoped to find, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “Why…why, that’s grand!” A wave of dizzying heat washed over her. “It’s just grand, isn’t it, Ben?”

  His smile broadened. “It is.” A light danced in his eyes as he studied her. “I think there’s a connection between these guns and your father’s killer.”

  Jessamyn sucked in her breath. He continued, his voice quiet.

  “Cattle rustling is par
t of it, too, the way I figure it. That’s what got Thad in trouble in the beginning. Then, later, he must have stumbled onto the real meat of the matter—supplying guns to the Indians. Whoever’s doing it had to cover it up. Couldn’t afford too many questions. And Thad,” Ben said in his soft drawl, “always asked a lot of questions.”

  “Who is it?” Jessamyn blurted.

  Ben tipped his chair back on the two rear legs. “Whoever’s using this cabin.”

  Jessamyn watched him lift his whiskey and bring it to his lips. A thrill shot through her midsection, whether from Ben’s words about her father or the sight of his fingers caressing the china mug, she wasn’t sure.

  “Guess I should have included this bit of information when you said grace for supper,” he said with a chuckle. “Come to think of it, I’m feeling pretty damn good about how things are working out!”

  Jessamyn took another tiny taste of the whiskey remaining in her mug. “I’m feeling good, too. Warm and safe. We have lots to be happy about.”

  “Yeah? What’s so joyful about riding miles half-frozen through a summer squall?”

  Jessamyn noted he was grinning again. A satisfying sense of accomplishment swept over her. “You’re going to capture him—whoever it is, aren’t you?”

  “In time, yes. I don’t figure he’ll turn up here tonight, but he will soon. When he does, I’ll be waiting for him.”

  “And I helped, didn’t I, Ben? Not the newspaper story, I mean. I know that only made things worse for you. But finding that rifle in the first place, the one at Black Eagle’s camp. Didn’t that help?”

  “You helped,” Ben conceded. His voice sounded warm, almost gentle.

  Jessamyn gave a little squeak of joy. It felt wonderful to be part of things—important things—like catching a thief and identifying her father’s murderer. Pride puffed her chest out.

  Ben laughed softly. Rising, he drained his mug, then began gathering the dishes.

  “Let me!” Jessamyn reached for a plate, and the blanket slipped off one shoulder. She hitched it up, held it together across her body with one hand while she stacked her plate onto his.