Lynna Banning Read online

  When he woke and lay sweating in the dark, he knew rationally that he was still a whole man. But inside he felt only half alive, maimed beyond repair in some indefinable way.

  Getting away by himself helped. Being alone helped him wrestle his doubts and his memories to a standstill. In the past, riding to see his friend Black Eagle had always afforded solace. Now would be no exception, especially since he’d be traveling solo. Anxious to get started, he turned the corner into the livery yard and stopped short.

  In the corral yard a white-faced Jessamyn Whittaker sat stiffly in the saddle of a dappled gray mare. Ben blinked. How in the hell…?

  Jessamyn raised her chin a notch. “Good morning, Sheriff.”

  Scowling, Ben touched his hat brim. “Miss Whittaker.” He moved to her side and spoke in a low voice.. “Just where do you think you’re going?”

  “With you, of course. To see Black Eagle.” Her green eyes bored into his.

  Ben sighed. “I’d like to talk you out of this, Jessamyn. It’s—”

  “A bargain is a bargain, Ben. You can talk all you want. I’m still going with you.”

  Mercifully, she said nothing further. Ben studied her as he waited for Gus to bring his horse. Her slim body was engulfed by the man’s sheepskin jacket she wore. The shoulders hung off her slight frame, the sleeves doubled back at her wrists. He recognized the hat—Frank Boult’s battered dark gray felt with the fancy conchas and feather band around the crown. That hat had been Frank’s only vanity. Ben wondered how Cora could bear to part with it, even for a few days.

  Tied behind her cantle, a thick bedroll and a saddlebag drooped over the mare’s broad back. The bedroll looked fat enough to have a feather pillow or two wrapped up inside.

  Ben groaned aloud. The last thing he wanted was company. And the absolutely worst company he could think of was a nosy Yankee female, a soft, citified woman like Jessamyn Whittaker, who’d need nursemaiding every mile of the way. Dammit, a woman like that made him feel… paralyzed.

  Gus brought his bay, already saddled. “That gray’s nice and gentle,” the Norwegian murmured as Ben caught the bridle.

  “Should be,” Ben breathed. “That’s Widow Boult’s mare, Lady. I broke her myself that summer Frank was laid up.”

  Gus nodded. “If someone asks, Ben, are you riding ‘south,’ like always?”

  “South,” Ben acknowledged. “Jeremiah knows where I’m really going.” He grasped the saddle horn with his left hand and swung himself up into the saddle.

  Gus grinned. “Good hunting, then.” Ben moved the horse toward the corral gate. Over his shoulder he spoke to Jessamyn. “We’ve got forty miles to cover. If you can’t keep up, better turn back.”

  Jessamyn straightened her back. Ben saw that it hurt her, but she just lifted her chin and pressed her lips together.

  “I’ll keep up.” She sawed on the reins until Lady nosed after his bay. “I’ll keep up with you, Ben Kearney, if it’s the last thing I ever do in this life.”

  Ben threw a quick glance behind him as he walked his horse out the gate Gus held open. The last thing he saw before he turned north was the ever-widening grin on the liveryman’s face.

  Jessamyn kicked the dappled mare into a faster gait, suppressing a moan of anguish as her backside bounced against the hard leather saddle. Already Ben had pulled far ahead of her, despite his apparently casual pace. She clamped her jaw tight and shut her physical discomfort out of her mind.

  Just concentrate on not losing sight of that horse ahead of you, she ordered herself. Don’t think beyond the next hour. She was a Whittaker. She could stand anything for an hour.

  Couldn’t she? Up to this moment Jessamyn had believed—or at least tried to convince the outside world— that she was invincible. Miss Leather Drawers, her school friends at Miss Bennett’s Academy had called her. She wondered what Miss Bennett would think about one of her “laces and graces” graduates jouncing off on a trip into the mountains with a man. Alone and unchaperoned.

  She choked back another moan. Miss Bennett would say she was ruined. Well, maybe just compromised. But Miss Bennett had never been to Oregon. Things were certainly different out West. Gus hadn’t raised an eyebrow when she’d asked him to saddle the mare for her and told him she was accompanying the sheriff.

  Even Cora accepted the situation in her usual matter-offact manner. “Take Frank’s winter jacket and keep wrapped up good at night.” Then she’d bustled about gathering together some food and a bedroll, tucked in a pair of her own almost new leather riding gloves, a tiny bottle of brandy “for snakebite,” and the jar of liniment.

  Dust puffed into the still air behind the gelding’s busy hooves. She could breathe in the choking stuff, or she could drop farther back. She didn’t dare fall too far behind. Ben had left the main road out of town and now headed crosscountry on a little-used trail that, to her eyes, was almost invisible.

  Pulling a blue bandanna out of her pocket with one hand, she managed to fold it in half and hold it against her mouth and nose. Even though this horse seemed extraordinarily docile compared with Dancer Jack, she didn’t dare let go of the saddle horn and the reins long enough to tie the kerchief around her face. If she slipped off, she knew she’d never get back on by herself.

  Why, she wondered suddenly, had Dancer Jack been so feisty? Was Cora’s mare just waiting for her to relax so she could toss her off onto the ground? A flood of misgiving surged through her. Was she really doing the right thing, riding off alone to some godforsaken place with a man she barely knew? Maybe she was a “goddamn crazy woman,” as the sheriff had said.

  But Papa wouldn’t think so! She just knew he wouldn’t. Ever since she’d accidentally discovered his private journal, hidden deep inside the mattress he’d slept on at the newspaper office, had read through the letters she and her mother had written to him over the years, studied the thumb-worn photographs of herself, she knew Papa had believed in her.

  Even now she often felt him close to her, as if his spirit were hovering near, whispering soundlessly in her inner ear. Papa would be proud of her, persevering in her twofold quest to find his killer and launch her newspaper with a blockbuster news story.

  Her eyes stung from the dust kicked up by Ben’s horse. She’d had enough of the hot, chokingly thick air clogging her nostrils for the past three hours. Why couldn’t she ride beside him?

  Smiling for the first time all morning, Jessamyn nudged the mare’s ribs with her boot heels, and the horse jerked forward.

  Ben heard the hoofbeats, but he didn’t alter his speed. He’d been listening to the steady clop-clop of Jessamyn’s mare behind him, wondering how long before the newspaper editor admitted she couldn’t keep up his pace and turned back to town. He was surprised she’d lasted this long, considering the dust drifting up behind the gelding. In fact, he was surprised she could sit a horse at all, even a refined mare like Lady, after what she’d been through yesterday.

  He arched an eyebrow as Jessamyn sawed clumsily on the reins and fell in beside him. He didn’t want her along, didn’t want her anywhere near him, much less riding at his elbow. But he had to hand it to her, she was tougher than her delicate looks and ladylike manner hinted. A lot tougher. If he weren’t so mad at her for managing to outmaneuver him, he’d admire her pluck.

  Jessamyn Whittaker was certainly one of a kind, annoying though she could be. Jessamyn was…different. In a way, he conceded, he rather liked her.

  On the other hand, he reminded himself as his gut tightened, she frightened him. Jessamyn was a lady—one of those women who expected things from a man. She unnerved him. She made him keenly aware that he was a man. When he was around her, he felt somehow weighed in the balance and found wanting.

  “Sheriff Kearney?” Jessamyn panted when she could talk.

  Ben tried not to react to the slight quaver in her voice. “Miss Whittaker?”

  “Could…could I ride beside you?”

  Something flopped inside Ben’s belly. Part o
f him wanted to spur his horse forward, away from her, lose himself in the mountains where he couldn’t hear that soft, throaty voice. Another part of him wanted to keep her near just so he could inhale the flowery scent of her hair, surreptitiously watch her eyes change from sea to shamrock green the way they did when she was angry.

  “Suit yourself,” he heard himself say.

  He clamped his lips together. Even turned out in men’s jeans and a toolarge shirt, she looked—and smelled—like a woman. A distinctive, unusual woman. He shut his eyes for a long moment. The pull she exerted on his senses got under his skin and stayed there. He didn’t need this—not this morning or any other morning. But it looked as if he didn’t have much of a choice. He groaned inwardly. Hell, it seemed, was now in session.

  There lay the rub. He did need it. That was why he resisted it so fiercely. He wasn’t sure he could explain this to anyone, even to Jeremiah, but he recognized the truth of his perception. It resonated within him as clearly as a reverberating church bell.

  He liked her.

  Ben gritted his teeth. All the more reason for him to keep his distance. He wasn’t about to get burned by a woman twice in his lifetime. Once, in Carolina after the war, was enough for any man.

  Chapter Eight

  Ben Kearney, Jessamyn decided, was fashioned of toughened leather with iron bolts where his joints should be. Far ahead of her, he moved easily on the dark gelding, maintaining a bone-crunching pace hour after hour with no letup.

  She had given up trying to keep pace with him. “That man,” she muttered, “rides for hours on end and never even looks rumpled!” She could hate him without much encouragement. Not once had she seen him even look back to check on her. She could topple head over boots into the river and drown for all he cared.

  But she wouldn’t. She’d stay on Cora’s mare until the sheriff called a halt. Surely he had to rest sometime? And he had to eat! She began to count the hours before lunch.

  The trail wound on through the long, gold-green valley, following the tumbling Umpqua River. Her backside bounced against the animal moving beneath her, and at every step her thigh muscles quivered in protest. The sun climbed higher, a searing magenta ball in the sky, and the pepperminty scent of Gus’s liniment rose from her heated skin.

  Abruptly, Ben turned east, away from the river, and struck out toward the hills, now a luminous yellow-green where the sunlight washed the ridge. Jessamyn followed the path of flattened grass where his horse had trod, pulling down the brim of her hat to shade her eyes. She kept her gaze riveted on his erect back as he shed his jacket, showing a sweat-soaked shirt underneath.

  He turned in the saddle, watching as she picked up the trail. He rolled up the sleeves of his navy blue shirt to his elbows, wiped his bandanna over his forehead. Aha! Ben Kearney was suffering from heat and thirst just as she was! Without thinking, she kicked the mare and surged forward. She didn’t want to miss a minute of his discomfort.

  The closer she got, the less uncomfortable the sheriff looked. His horse moved effortlessly up the path through the rock-strewn foothills while Jessamyn rocked back and forth in the saddle, trying desperately to keep up. As Gus had instructed her, she leaned forward while ascending the steep parts, tipped back on the descents to balance her weight on the horse. Never mind that Lady turned out to be surefooted and steady—she quelled a flutter in her chest every time the mare started up an incline.

  In spite of her discomfort, she smiled in satisfaction. Her first week out on the Oregon frontier, and she was sitting a horse, ready to capture the unsuspecting sheriff with her writing skills and immortalize him in print. He didn’t know it, but he was going to sell newspapers for her like hotcakes to hungry husbands.

  Ben never slackened his pace. He even drank on the move, twisting in the saddle and signaling her to do the same. The water in her canteen was lukewarm and salty. She fought back the urge to retch when she tasted it, forced herself to gulp a mouthful. Her eyes ached from the harsh glare of the sun off the rocks. For minutes on end she rode with her lids closed.

  If they didn’t stop soon, she would expire with exhaustion. She surveyed the surrounding shrubs and twisted pine trees, stunted from the hot wind, then glanced back at the valley below.

  She gripped Lady’s reins tight, fighting dizziness as she gazed down at the verdant valley floor far beneath her. Now she guessed Ben would not stop until he reached their first night’s camp. They had to get there before dark—how many hours would that be? Two? Three? She tried to judge time by the position of the sun. Good Lord, she’d been stuck on this saddle for eight hours!

  She couldn’t make it, couldn’t go on any longer. She peered ahead of him, searching for a visible break in the mountainside, a pass, an arched rock—anything that would indicate an end to the physical torture of this endless, sun-scorched day.

  Nothing.

  Just when she thought she could not stand one more jolting step, the trail made a sharp turn and slanted down into a narrow, green valley. A tiny jewel of a lake, the water a shimmering turquoise blue, spread twenty paces ahead of them. Ben raised his arm and reined his horse to a halt.

  “Thank God,” Jessamyn moaned aloud. Just a few seconds more and she could climb down off this horse and collapse. She drew up beside Ben’s gelding.

  “We’ll camp here,” he announced.

  Jessamyn let the reins go slack and leaned forward, bowing her aching head until her chin almost grazed her chest. “Thank you, God,” she murmured.

  Ben’s low, gravelly voice jarred her. “Can you dismount?”

  She stiffened. “Dismount? Why, of course I can dismount. What an inane question! The hard part is getting on a horse, not getting off.”

  Ben studied her, a speculative look in his smoky blue eyes. “Wait a minute. I’ll help you down.”

  Oh, no, he wouldn’t! She kicked her right toe free of the stirrup and tried to hoist her leg up. It refused to budge one single inch. She tried again, grimacing with the effort. No amount of willpower made a difference—her body simply refused to obey.

  Ben dismounted and moved toward her. He took one look at Jessamyn’s flushed, sweaty face, her eyes graygreen with fatigue, and a wash of guilt flooded him. He shouldn’t have pressed her so hard. After the first three hours on the old Indian trail he’d followed, he knew she wasn’t going to turn back, no matter what. Part of him resented her presence. Part of him admired her spirit.

  There was no room for a woman on a journey like this. While he knew Black Eagle as well as he knew any man, and trusted him more than some, he wasn’t so sure about the Klamath braves gathered about the venerable old chief. They’d fled to Black Eagle to escape the reservation. Any one of the young hotheads could shoot Ben in the back before he was recognized, could kidnap Jessamyn—or worse. That hair of hers alone would attract all kinds of unwanted interest.

  Jessamyn sat motionless in the saddle. He noted the exhausted droop of her shoulders as he moved toward the placid gray mare, already nibbling shoots of tender grass. The woman’s chin came up as he approached.

  “I can dismount,” she said, fierce pride in her voice. “I just can’t move my right leg.”

  Ben reached up with both hands. “Lean toward me.”

  With slow, tired motions, she wound the reins about the saddle horn and tipped sideways in his direction. He caught her about the waist, hauled her out of the saddle and set her on the ground facing him.

  The instant he loosened his grip, her legs gave way. She clutched at his arm for support. “Can’t stand up,” she muttered. “Merciful heaven, my legs have died!”

  Ben choked back a chuckle. “They’re not dead, Jessamyn. Just played out. You need to keep moving—walk around a bit. Maybe dunk ‘em in the lake. The cold water will bring them back to life.”

  Her fingers tightened on his arm. “I can’t move, much less make it to the water.” Her head dropped so low the crown of her hat brushed his chin. Mixed with the smell of horse and sweat and liniment, t
he sweet fragrance of her hair rose to his nostrils. Ben closed his eyes and drew in a long, slow breath. Goddamn, but she smelled good.

  She was trembling, her body shuddering just enough to tell him she was completely spent. She needed food and rest. And some easing of the muscle spasms in her legs. She didn’t have the strength to walk even the short distance to the lake.

  “Come on,” he said more gruffly than he intended. “Got to get you moving.” He slid one arm across the back of her red plaid shirt and hooked his thumb in the belt loop at her waist. Turning her, he urged her forward. “Walk,” he ordered.

  She clung to his left” forearm. “I—”

  “Walk!”

  “Can’t!”

  “Try, dammit!”

  “I am trying! My legs don’t w-work.” Her voice sounded close to breaking.

  “All right,” he said softly. He scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the water’s edge. The tarn glittered blue-green in the late-afternoon sun. He tossed her out into the middle.

  She screamed. In the next instant she sank, bottom-first, up to her neck. Sputtering, she thrashed upward, her arms flailing like windmill blades.

  Ben heaved a sigh of relief. At least she could move her arms. Her legs would work, too, in a few moments. The cold water was just what she needed.

  “You snake!” Jessamyn screamed. She fought her way to a wobbly upright position, water sluicing off her shoulders. In the next instant she tipped sideways and sat down again with a splash.

  “I can’t walk!” she wailed, her eyes widening in terror. “I can’t even stand up!”

  Ben hesitated, then waded into the water after her. Grasping her upper arms, he hoisted her to a standing position and gripped the wide belt around her waist to steady her. With small, deliberate steps, he half walked, half dragged her to the gravelly shore, where she struggled for footing. At last she made an unsteady turn to face him.