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Guilt squirmed in his conscience for hightailing on by like that. It couldn’t be noble to leave a lady stranded so far from town in her underwear, not with one hell of a storm ready to strike the earth like a hammer.
He glanced back to see her clutching the odd white bundle that she had been chasing. Setting his sights on Wage again, he noted the outlaw was still a good distance in the lead, but losing some ground to Ace.
One fat, chilly raindrop smacked him on the cheek. It wouldn’t be long until this whole area turned into a mud puddle. He could likely reach Wage before that happened. With Ace in his stride, the other horse might as well be walking.
The bit of worn lace that he had yanked from his hair slapped his thumb.
He sighed hard. Heat skimmed his lips. He sat up slow and leaned back in the saddle. Understanding the unspoken command, the horse slowed to an impatient trot.
“Hold up, boy.”
Zane watched Wage disappear over the next hill. His whole body and soul itched to be on the run after the outlaw. With a sour lump in his gut, he turned to look once more at the stranded woman.
Damned if she didn’t look like an abandoned angel with her petticoat flapping and fluttering. Blue bows on her underwear caught the wind and looked like a passel of butterflies whirling wild. Through it all, she clung tight to that squirming … animal? … in her arms.
Zane tied the ribbon in his hair then turned Ace’s head about.
Missy’s mouth hung open in disbelief. It was surely an unbecoming gesture that her mother would reprimand her for if she could see it.
Suzie would swoon in pure delight, though, when Missy wrote home, describing the vision bearing down upon her with his black coat tails flapping like the wings of some great dreaded bird.
The hooves of his huge horse pummeled the ground. Clumps of sod, ripped from the soil, flew about. The earth trembled, bringing her hero closer.
He slowed his animal to a trot. She watched the man’s mouth move. He might have spoken a colorful word. Indeed, he appeared to have uttered a whole string of them. If only she could have heard over Muff’s snarling and snapping.
The coat settled over his thighs when he stopped in front of her. The horse’s dark hooves danced and pawed as though it longed to keep running. She managed to snap her mouth shut, but her eyes popped wide open.
In her whole sheltered eastern life she’d never seen a man like this. The West rode wild in his smoky brown eyes. Black eyebrows slashed across his forehead like fired bullets. This was a man of adventure!
He slid from his horse in a smooth, muscular leap. The tails of his coat rippled and snapped in the wind. Missy’s heart felt like a moth battering at a lantern.
Was it her imagination that the blustery gust had ridden in with him? That it whooshed about her as cold and delightfully fearsome as he was?
“Are you all right, miss? Did he harm you?” His words sounded cordial but his jaw pulsed with tension. Stepping closer, the man’s worn boots stomped down the rippling grass.
For all that the sight of him made her heart quake, his deep voice, slow and sweet as summer honey, made her insides turn to mush … hot mush. She ought to be shivering in her undergarments like a proper blushing virgin instead of breaking out in a mystifying sweat.
Still, it wasn’t until she tipped her head back to peer at his beard-shadowed face, until her gaze locked on lips framed by a dusky slash of mustache, that she felt the need to swoon.
Even she, who considered swooning silly, thought it might be an appropriate course of action at this very point in time. Unfortunately, she hadn’t seen a fainting couch since she’d sneaked away from her mother’s parlor.
“Ma’am?” His hand, muscular and calloused, and unlike any gentleman’s hand she’d ever seen, reached for her elbow.
She must have swayed, even without a couch at hand. Mother would be pleased at that anyway.
“You’re quite fascinat—” Muff growled, he snapped. Oh, gracious, she’d lost all sense of propriety. She pinched her fingers over Muff’s muzzle. “Yes—I’m fine … well, not exactly fine.”
“Apparently.”
His lips pressed together, looking as tight as her corset strings. His eyes darted over her inadequate attire. A flash of mischief turned his somber brown gaze to hot cocoa. Missy settled Muff squarely over her bosom.
“You’ve got to catch that man!” She nodded toward the horizon. “He’s stolen Mr. Goodwin’s horse and an article of great importance to me.”
Eyes so briefly warmed with humor turned cold. “He’ll pay for accosting you, ma’am. I’ll see to it.”
He glanced west, glowering as though pursuing the cad with his eyes. A strand of ebony hair whipped loose from a ribbon at his nape and blew across his lips. He shoved it under the brim of his hat.
“There’s nothing I’d like better than to run him down.” He looked at her. The anger flaring across his face faded to polite concern. “But there’s one hell of a storm ready to dump on us. There’s no time to fret over the garment he stole from you. You’ll be dressed quicker if I take you home.”
Perhaps she should weep and moan at her state of undress. She supposed that’s what a well-brought-up young lady ought to do in this situation. Although, truth be told, she had never known anyone who had gotten into such a fix.
Not a fix, Missy reminded herself, an adventure!
“It was the cow that took my dress, not the man.” Missy shot a frown at the darkening prairie. “The man took something of much more value.”
As if by reflex, he touched the gun slung in his holster. What a sight the weapon was, riding alongside his hip, so big and ferocious-looking.
“You don’t have to say it out loud, miss, but if the outlaw has harmed you … if he’s taken … liberties, just nod your head and he’ll be dead by morning.”
Outlaw? Dead by morning? Missy struggled to remember those exact words. When she got her journal back, with the inspired first chapter, she’d want to share every one of them with Suzie.
“Oh, gracious! My … my virtue is doing quite well.” Why on earth were her breasts suddenly prickled with an odd tingle?
His flaring eyebrows lifted, creasing his forehead in confused lines. The expression made him look almost sweet, in a big, bold, black sort of way.
“This whole thing was Muff’s fault, actually, for getting muddy. I don’t suppose it was his fault that I slipped in the water, but then I don’t think you can blame a silly cow for anything.”
Like a lightning flash, his mouth twitched up then jerked just as swiftly to a stern line.
“I’m purely sorry for your misadventure, ma’am. I can’t say I understand it, but I’d better get you back to where you came from before pure hell breaks out of the sky.”
“I came from the hotel in Green Island, but, naturally, I can’t go back until well after dark.” She tugged Muff in tightly but he was a poor substitute for her missing dress. “It wouldn’t be seemly.”
“Seemly or not, I don’t plan to stay out here and get washed away.”
Clearly, the man did not understand her predicament. Mother would perish, Edwin would have heart failure if they got word that Missy had come parading down a public thoroughfare in her soaking underwear … sharing a saddle with a man!
“You are free as a feather to go, Mr …?”
“Zane Coldridge.”
What a bold and wonderful name. Her own sounded weak by comparison.
“My name is Missy Devlin.” She spoke the name with force but Missy still sounded like a pampered, eastern name. “It was kind of you to stop, Mr. Coldridge, but I’m obliged to stay here until well after dark.”
He whistled to his horse. It trotted up behind him and nudged his arm. He reached his hand out to her. “Let’s go.”
She backed up a pace, just out of reach.
“Go along, please, Mr. Coldridge. I’d take it as a kindness if you’d leave me now.”
“Leaving a woman to drown in the rain doesn’t sound like any sort of kindness I ever heard of.”
“Oh, it would be! Being a man, you wouldn’t know what becomes of a ladies’ undergarments when they get wet. I can assure you, I can’t be seen in town that way.”
“Ha!” His bark of a laugh nearly unbalanced her. He bent over, bracing his wide hands on his knees.
Muff wiggled to be free. She twisted her fingers in his fur to keep him still. The last thing she needed was to have to defend Mr. Coldridge’s boots against attack.
“Hush, Muff, be still!”
At long last her hero straightened up. He shrugged out of his coat and handed it to her.
She put it on, shifting Muff from one arm to the other. The lingering warmth of Zane Coldridge’s body wrapped around her.
“Let’s go,” he repeated and held out his hand once again.
The sleeve of his coat flopped over her fingertips by several inches. She lifted her arm and let the fabric slide over her bare skin. It left a tingle, just as though the cloth might have been the man stroking her flesh.
“Thank you,” she murmured and placed her pale hand in his rough palm.
How on earth would she find enough delicious words to describe Zane Coldridge to Suzie?
Chapter Two
The stream had already washed over its boundaries when the first splat of rain hit Zane square in the back.
The icy slap promised to be only the beginning of a miserable night. Somewhere, not too far off, the squall had to be pumping misery from the sky like no storm he’d ever run afoul of before.
He’d been caught out in the elements many times, even seen the Missouri overflow its banks, but he’d never known gullies swell to the size of rivers before the first drop hit the earth.
He’d sure never had to take on the care of a delicate eastern woman and her … whatever that thing squirming in her lap was.
“What is that critter?” he asked, seeking a distraction from the icy trickle racing down his back.
“Surely you’ve seen a dog before, Mr. Coldridge.” She turned about and glanced up at him. Even in the gathering dusk, with the storm clouds pressing out the last bit of light from the day, he caught the teasing blue sparkle in her eyes.
“I’ve seen dogs.” A full dozen raindrops driven by a frigid wind bit through his shirt. He tried not to shiver since there wasn’t enough space for two people and a questionable animal to ride in the saddle with any extra movement. “I’ve also seen rats. That’s a rat.”
“Did you hear that, Muff?” She tucked the animal inside his borrowed coat and held the front closed with fingers that looked like blue porcelain in the cold. “If you’d behaved like a proper Maltese and not gotten all muddy and prickly, our hero would have recognized you as a dog right off.”
Hero? He’d grunt out a laugh at that title if there had been room in the cramped saddle. Zane had been called dirty. He’d heard low down a few times. He’d felt the curses of mothers and sweethearts follow him for days, even weeks, after he’d collected a fee for a loved one.
“I’m a bounty hunter, ma’am.” He’d better set the record straight before the woman got any fancy ideas about him. “Money-hungry cuss is what I’ve been called more often than not.”
He waited to feel her posture stiffen against his belly. Maybe the gentle lady would even slip off Ace’s back and choose to walk rather than share the space with him.
She turned as best she could to peer at his face. Raindrops hit her skin and dotted it with liquid freckles. Her mouth formed the same perfectly amazed circle that he had seen when he had galloped on by her earlier.
He leaned backward in the saddle, ready to dismount and walk the rest of the way to Green Island.
“Truly? A genuine bounty hunter?” Unbelievably, she broke into a grin that might have shot the clouds out of the sky. “You must have been chasing that awful man, earlier … Oh, mercy, was he an in-the-flesh outlaw?”
“Yes, ma’am, he was.”
“A treacherous outlaw has stolen our belongings,” she murmured down the neckline of the coat to the dog resting, warm and cozy, inside.
She wiped at the water gathering on her face and slicked back her hair. The silky-looking tresses had turned from sunshine to dark gold with the dampness.
“What was his crime? Murder? Kidnapping? Forgery?” Her eyes snapped. They sparkled in apparent delight. “He was a horse thief, I’ll bet!”
“He’s a horse thief now, but he’s wanted for bank robbery.”
“I was in mortal battle with a genuine bank robber? Did you hear that, Muff? Isn’t it marvelous?”
A shot rang out from a buried corner of Zane’s memory. He heard the blast of shattering glass and the ting of it falling on a hard pine floor. He felt Missy Devlin’s gasp when his arm clamped about her ribs.
Thunder, he realized with sudden relief. The boom and crash had only been thunder.
“There’s not a thing marvelous about that bank robber, Miss Devlin. He’d have hurt you in a second and felt no remorse for it.”
“Surely not!” She frowned, putting a pretty crease between her eyes. “He looked like a gentleman. Why, I’d nearly recovered my horse when Muff interfered.”
“Maybe where you come from, he’d have hopped right down and handed you the reins, but this is the West. Gentlemen and ladies last about ten minutes out here.” It was the truth. This hothouse flower sitting so sweetly in front of him would wither in no time. “If we don’t drown before we reach Green Island, I’d suggest you take the first train back to where you came from.”
As if to confirm his prediction of drowning, the sky opened up like a horse trough being dumped from the sky. Rain so cold that it stopped just short of being snow made puddles the size of ponds all over the low-lying area.
There was nothing for it but to get to higher ground and hope to make it to Green Island before the storm cut the town off.
Even though the great American West was a good bit wetter than Missy had expected, she had no intention of catching a train home. Just because monstrous torrents of water poured down upon her head and washed over her body in an icy bath was no cause for retreat.
She did feel a bit guilty that the horse had some difficulty plucking its hooves from the muck with each step. The weight of two humans must have made each cold squish in the mud a trial for the beast. Still, she had come to tell the tale of the West for Suzie and a storm would not prevent her from doing it.
Her hero, Zane Coldridge, let out an occasional curse, watching the water flood the gullies and low areas of the land. The tops of the distant hills looked like floating islands.
“Come on, Ace,” Zane Coldridge muttered. “Green Island is just over the next hill.”
That would be a relief! It wasn’t a bit prissy to be longing for the shelter of her hotel room. It wasn’t weak-spirited to wish for the comfort of dry clothing. Surely even the man behind her wished for the same. Perhaps they could share a dinner by a cozy fire. He could tell her all of his adventures while they listened to the patter of rain on the windows.
Missy peered through the water dripping off the brim of the hat that Mr. Coldridge had long since removed from his own head and placed on hers. The tall steeple of the Congregational Church made a white slash through the low-hung clouds in the distance.
“Look!” She raised her arm and wagged her finger at the welcome sight. “There’s Green Island.”
Against her back, Zane Coldridge’s chest rose and crashed. He uttered the most colorful word she had ever heard.
“Wait here a minute, darlin’.”
With a leap, he washed off the horse. He took long mud-sucking strides up to the high point of the ridge. He looked out to where the steeple vanished then appeared again through the rain.
He made to snatch his hat from his head and toss it down in apparent frustration. Naturally, he grabbed wet air since the hat at this moment dripped in a limp heap from her head.
“What’s wrong?” she called over the slap of water on mud.
He walked back, slipping then catching his step on the slick downward slope.
“Green Island’s surrounded by water.” She hoped to hear him call her darlin’ again, but he only frowned and wiped his sleeve across his forehead. “Looks like we’ll be spending the night here.”
“Here … where?” She craned her neck right and left but didn’t see a shelter.
He pointed to the top of the hill and picked up the horse’s reins. “The higher up we are, the better.”
“But the hotel is so close by. Surely we can get to it.”
“The town’s cut off.” Zane Coldridge patted the horse’s neck to encourage him up the slope. “It will be full dark soon and cold as a witch’s … heart. We’d better settle in before things get any worse.”
What they were going to settle in to was beyond her imagination. A few bare trees dotted the hill. Not much in the way of shelter there.
It might take some imagination to make this into a lovely tale for Suzie. It would be best to leave out the part about spending the night with a handsome stranger. If her missive ever fell into the wrong hands, well … there would be no end to the scandal. Her most mortifying exploit to date would pale by comparison.
When they reached the top of the hill, Zane helped her down from the horse then went about the task of untying something from behind the saddle.
Luckily, Muff slept soundly under the coat. She hated to think of the mucky consequences of letting him loose to take care of his needs.
“Mr. Coldridge, would you like your coat back now?” She hated to give it up but her hero looked as frigid as a block of ice. If she wasn’t mistaken, his boldly framed shoulders had begun to shiver.
He gave her a slow, silent shake of his head. Rain pelted his hair. The ribbon securing it at the back of his neck sagged like one of cook’s overdone noodles.
It was hard to tell through the deepening gloom, but she thought he flashed her an angry glare just before he spread out a tarp on the ground.
“Lay down.” He pointed to the middle of the canvas.
The man must be addled by the cold. What possible good could lying out in the rain do? Still, he hadn’t taken his coat back, or even his hat, so it was only right to go along with him for the moment.
She knelt on the canvas then lay down with one arm curled around Muff and the other straight and stiff at her side. With her knees locked, the toes of her shoes pointed up to the clouds.
“Like this?”
“That’ll do,” he mumbled then sat down beside her.
He yanked the tarp this way and that until he lay prone beside her with the canvas tucked and folded in such a way that it kept out the rain.
What an amazing shelter! Even though water soaked her clothing the warmth of two people protected from the pelting fury outside gradually took some of the bite out of the chill. It wasn’t warm, as the shivering body beside her attested to, but it was sanctuary from the elements.
What a shame she wouldn’t be able to write about how she’d spent the night, as close as pearls on a strand to Zane Coldridge.
The fainting couch would be worn out if mother ever knew.
Missy Devlin’s breath beat warm puffs of air against his neck. That was the only inch of Zane’s body not taken with shivers. Even though the rain no longer touched him under the canvas wrap, the icy water had done its damage. It might be some time before a pair of bodies, not entwined, would generate any warmth.
“Tell me about your bounty-hunting adventures, Mr. Coldridge.” The lady’s voice shivered, but it might have been from foolish excitement as much as chill. Apparently, the woman had some pretty, eastern notion of the West that had nothing to do with real life.
“Haven’t got any adventure, miss. I make a living, and an ugly one at that.”
“Surely your brain must be packed with tales of peril and risk.” Rain pounded on the canvas but not so loudly that it drowned her voice. “Ugly or not, they must be thrilling.”
“Somehow, Miss Devlin, I don’t see life as a pack of thrilling stories. Just living, some good and some bad.”
“Oh, but that’s not true!”
He felt her wiggle onto her side. The plump swell of her breast pressed against his arm and warmed it like a hot cushion. The sultry simmer had to be pure imagination since no part of this miserable night was anything close to hot.
“Life is all made up of stories, some wonderful and some not, but it’s all adventure in one way or another.”
“Fancy notions from a proper eastern lady.”
“Wouldn’t mother be pleased if that were true?” she mumbled under her breath.
In the dark, he felt her hand brush across his shirt, light and hesitant. Plainly, Missy Devlin fell short of pleasing her mother.
“You’re about to shake to pieces, Mr. Coldridge.”
It wasn’t the manliest of behavior, but still true. He was a shaking mess. With a different kind of woman he’d know how to get warmed up. Mother’s opinion or not, this was a respectable young lady and the most he could do was dream of the warmth her plush little body might provide.
She touched him, her palm over his heart, and his imagination sparked to full-blown life. The scent of warm, womanly skin seeped through the soaked coat that wrapped her up in a tempting package.
A gust of wind howled along the ground and snapped the canvas over their heads, but by some mercy, it held.
“You’re not your mother’s perfect angel, then?” he asked, trying to get the blamed image of a bare hot woman out of his mind.
“On occasion, I fall a bit short.”
Was that an icy finger poking under the space between the buttons of his shirt? Not a single finger, but all four and a thumb!
“Suzie, my twin, and I weren’t always the socially graceful young ladies that mother longed for … She loved us like the dickens but—I think that if we wrap our arms around each other we might borrow one another’s warmth.”
Zane fought the urge to tear out of the canvas when she nuzzled her cheek against his neck then snuggled in as close as a wanton woman. His breath left him in a rush when her fingers tiptoed across his wet shirt and curled about his ribs.
“Suzie and I warmed up this way on many a winter’s night.”
How innocent could a woman be to believe that his reaction was anything close to what her sister’s had been?
“There, that’s better already, don’t you think?”
A grunt was the best answer he could give until he caught his breath.
“How on earth did your mother ever let you out of the house?”
“Oh, she didn’t let me out. I ran away in the dead of night.”
Missy Devlin sighed and her thumb tripped across the pocket of his shirt. Heat flushed through his chest.
“It’s a wonder she didn’t tie you to the bedpost.”
“If mother had tied me to the post, Suzie would have let me loose. Now, my brother Edwin would have tied us both … Here, put your arms around me just like this.”
To illustrate, she squeezed him closer. If he were a stronger man with a lick of sense, he’d go stand in the rain where the only dangers were the sidelong wind and the creeping flood, but her warmth had already begun to ease the shakiness out of his bones, so he turned to face her.
He tucked his chin on top of her hair and smelled damp roses. He laid his arm across her waist then pressed his palm to the middle of her back, drawing her in.
Since he wanted to put his mouth to use in a way that didn’t involve tasting the floral-scented warmth that blushed from her cheeks he asked, “Why did you run away from home, Miss Devlin?”
“To write the great American dime novel.”
He felt her smile tickle his neck. He wished he could see it, foolish as the reason for the smile was.
“You ought to have stayed home. All those stories are made up. Pure scandalous trash is all they are.”
“I’m sure that’s not true, Mr. Coldridge!” Her body squirmed in apparent protest. “Why, in one day Muff and I have been assaulted by a bank robber and rescued by a bounty hunter. I’ve had my dress eaten and my manuscript stolen. If that is not adventure, I can’t tell you what is.”